Remember how France dealt with its occupation forces during WW II? Countless numbers of loyal French were a constant thorn in the German forces' side, and they were known simply as "the Resistance." You can see a good example of it in the movie, "The Great Escape," in which they shoot a carload of German officers at a sidewalk cafe, and then help an escaped American POW escape to Spain.
Today, we are seeing the Resistance reborn. In Iraq. A sovereign country that never should have been invaded. And we can expect to see those patriots continue to resist until ALL of the invading combat troops have left. We do NOT belong there, and in this "war," foisted upon the world by GW Bush, our lying Warmonger-in-Thief, we never have belonged there.Unfortunately, not all of the so-called insurgency is comprised of Resistance patriots. Since a lot of the violence is directed against civilians, and often where troops aren't even present. That violence is a manifestation of the Civil War that currently is in progress, and is unforgivable, just as all such violence always is. But this doesn't let Bush, or the USA, or its coalition nations in the invasion of Iraq off the hook. Because if it hadn't been for that illegal and tragic invasion, Iraq today would not be having a Civil War!
GW Bush needs to correct his grievous error (albeit 5 years late) and get our troops out of Iraq. NOW! That'll be good for the troops. Good for the world. Good for America (and its worldwide image). And good for Iraq! They may still be having a civil war after we leave -- but we had one of those too. We sorted it all out. And so can they. On their own!
Meanwhile, let's all be honest enough to call those patriotic Iraqis, who simply are defending their own country against occupying forces, what they really are... not "insurgents." They are "The Resistance." And whenever the news media refers to these disruptive patriots as "insurgents" instead, we need to CALL them on that!
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
CORRECT name for Iraqi "insurgents:" The Resistance
Monday, October 8, 2007
FAR Worse than Watergate! The Media didn't follow up. And the Sheeple just sat back and TOOK it!!
NARRATOR: "They are not. And that Bush operations trailer -- has moved on. Bill Redecker, ABC News, Miami."Remember that bungled break-in at Democratic HQ in the Watergate that ultimately caused a dishonest President (Nixon) to resign in disgrace?
That was nothing, compared to THIS!
And as far as I've been able to determine, the news media mentioned it only this ONE time!
Woodward and Bernstein should have had a field day with this amazingly blatant and future-altering dirty trick! Why didn't they? Or someone else high enough in the media?If the tape of this momentous event, or a transcript of it (which you are about to read now) becomes lost to historians, our posterity may NEVER learn or realize that -- THIS was the key event that made G.W. Bush's THEFT of the 2000 Election inevitable and irrevocable. This WAS the turning point! And by now, almost NO one even remembers it -- to the media's eternal shame!
I had fortuitously videotaped ABC's World News Tonight on Thanksgiving Day, 11/20/2000, while it aired live in the Central Time Zone. And immediately realized the magnitude of this story that was included in it. So I transcribed it, and put it out in the Usenet Newsgroups BEFORE the pre-recorded newscast aired on the West Coast. For those who read it right away, out there, this actually was a preview!
THE ULTIMATE DIRTY TRICK! The Bombshell that the Media Mysteriously DIDN'T Sieze Upon This is exactly as I presented the transceipt on Usenet. In this transcript, for the greatest accuracy, I have italicized the words to denote the inflections they bore when actually spoken during the event. Those italicizations are not, in any instance, an emphasis on my part.
= = = = = = = = = = = = NARRATOR (ABC's Bill Redecker): "At the time, it seemed spontaneous -- angry residents denied the right to see their votes recounted. But the reality is, it was an orchestrated Republican protest. And most were not even from here."
REPORTER: "Are you local? Are you... ?"
NARRATOR: "Her guide, a Republican public relations officer, cut that conversation short."NARRATOR: "And so it has been, all week long. A public relations effort that has not always been so public. Camped out in a motor home, in the middle of the media staging area, you would think they would want to talk about their mission."
MAN IN RV: "It's a Bush operation."
REPORTER: "It's a BUSH operation?
MAN IN RV: "Yep."
REPORTER: "What goes ON inside this trailer?"
MAN IN RV: "Oh... can't talk to you right now."(The man in the RV then abruptly closed the door in the reporter's face.)
NARRATOR: "In all, an army of 75 operatives came to Miami to shape public opinion. 'To help the media,' they said."
(A reporter walks alongside one of them, trying to interview him...)
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "And we provide a service for you for surrogates who you'll want to speak to..."
(Scene shifts to an outdoor crowd of protestors, many armed with professionally-printed signs identical to the earlier Democratic campaign signs -- except that instead of "Gore Lieberman," these read "Sore Loserman." Several of them were wearing printed signs on their backs that read, "Enough is Enough.")
NARRATOR: "But they also got involved in leading demonstrations. And were even willing to dress up in seasonal outfits to provide so-called 'protestor color,' for local news reports."(Camera shows a person dressed in a turkey costume, with another person next to him/her holding a 3' x 4' sign reading, "STUFF THE TURKEY NOT THE BALLOT BOX." Many protestors gathered around them, holding printed signs reading, "Gore. Let our MILITARY VOTE.")
NARRATOR: "In the end, it apparently made a difference. 'Intimidation,' some called it."
DAVID LEAHY, Miami-Dade Election Supervisor: "If what I had envisioned [had] worked out, and there were no objections, we'd be up there now, counting."
[[[ MY Observation: That statement by David Leahy is key! Later, he tried to backpedal on it! But fortunately, the truth was already out -- with the above stunning statement. ]]]
My comments, continued, in the post to Usenet. (Words in italics from here on are emphases on my part, just as I added emphasis to my own comments in that Usenet post, after the presentation of the transcript.):
The above is an exact transcription of the report, which I videotaped from the broadcast. Very surprisingly, since this is such an obvious subversion of the election process, ABC News has not yet put this report on its abcnews.com website -- even though this evening's other stories are detailed there. (????)
If Gore loses this election, there will be three key factors:
(1) Nader's independent run catalyzed this. Without his siphoning tens of thousands of Florida votes away from Gore, the count for Gore would have been overwhelmingly high enough to make all of this Republican dishonesty impossible. (A tragic circumstance, but a legal one. If only Nader had simply put his country first, and stayed out of the race!)
(2) The fouled-up "butterfly" ballot in Palm Beach County, and no concerted attempt to obtain a county-wide revote to correct that. (Legal, but very unfortunate.)
(3) The above DIRTY TRICK. How legal is deliberate partisan intimidation of county officials while engaged in an official ballot re-count?
What a shame for America if Bush should win, in light of this.
And if he does, we should remind him for the next 4 years that -- not only did he get in via the dinosaur of the electoral college (since he lost the popular vote) -- his thugs LITERALLY stole the election through the implementation of the above very sleazy action.
Concluding comment, on 2-9-2001 --
(And as we know now, his inauguration was the result of all of the above, and via judicial fiat on the part of the U.S. Supreme Court. Bush is not even remotely the elected President. Gore is. Bush is the appointed President. And the Court ran roughshod over the will of the people, to do that. The REPUBLICAN-appointed, partisan Justices, only, accomplished that infamous, shameful, and inexcusable deed.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The ONLY Biblical passage that "defends" a fetus considers it only to be PROPERTY. And the passage condones slavery! Ex. 21:20-25.
First off, the person being defended by those verses clearly is the woman. (There's no suggestion that her fetus be removed and evaluated for injuries, so that the appropriate penalties of "an eye for an eye" or "a tooth for a tooth" could properly be imposed upon the assailant. And verses 23-25 make it quite clear that only the woman's injuries are being considered, here.) (Emphasis in verses 22-23, above, is mine.)Let's look first at Ex. 21:22-25 ---
22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she has a miscarriage but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
And the penalty for causing a miscarriage only (covered by verse 22, clearly could be pretty much anything -- or nothing! There's nothing in there to imply that a capital offense had been committed.)
Next -- I love it whenever Anti-Choicers/RRR cultists draw upon that passage, thinking that it somehow supports their stance. Because it would be hard to come up with one that could be used as a better example of just how UNlikely it is that the Bible would to the extent of defending RPEs.
RPE -- Reproductive-Process Entity. Any entity of the four stages of the human reproductive process: gametes (sperm & ovum), zygote, embryo, and fetus. ALL four are living, potential people. More than 1,000,000,000,000,000 (that's a quadrillion) Stage One potential people are electively aborted DAILY, worldwide, by men, while the Anti-Choicers hypocritically look the other way and whistle a tune. And while they continue to seek to disrupt and wreck the lives and future opportunities of millions of women. |
Here's another reason why. Ex. 21:20-21 (NIV) ...
20 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Here we see the Bible treating:
A. An already-human being (person) as mere property.
B. The slave can be either a male or a female.
C. There is no penalty to the assailant if death doesn't occur.
D. If death does occur, the penalty is unspecified.
So let's consider this scenario: A 13-year-old girl (or it could be a boy) suddenly and inxplicably provokes the wrath of her owner, who takes a rod and violently thrashes her mercilessly to within a millimeter of her life, and leaves her lying in a senseless and unconscious bloody heap in the middle of a dusty road. She lies there in abject agony, mixed with periods of unconsciousness, for two days and nights. Then, 47 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds after the beating, she manages to struggle to her feet and stagger off, crippled and maimed, teeth broken off, arm broken, and with an eye put out. The penalty to her owner for having inflicted such horrendous, unconscionable and cruel damage? NONE!!
Or she DIES. What is her owner's penalty then? It's unspecified. For all we know, it could be 3 lashes on the back of his hand by a fellow slave owner, wielding a wet noodle.
Given all of this, any notion that the Bible would be concerned with mere RPEs becomes totally ludicrous.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Abortion Rights Worldwide -- Good Progress, but still a long way to go!
Green is excellent, and blue is good, in the world map below, which comprises part of a really neat poster that is published by The Center for Reproductive Rights. If you're as concerned for the accessablity of this vital remedy as most egalitarians are, it can be a valuable addition to your freedom-enhancer resources.
According to this source, 61% of the world's people currently live in countries where induced abortion is permitted either for a wide range of reasons or upon request, without restriction as to reason. In contrast, 26% of akk people reside in countries where abortion is generally prohibited. Think about that! This means that more than 1/4 of the world's 2 billion teenage girls and women of gestational age are subject to being forced to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term, against their will. Put another way, all those women are in danger of being subjected to a 9-month-long form of rape.The information below is included in the .pdf file above, and I urge you to read it, because it is far more detailed and complete... concisely packaged as a 2-page document. But for this blog, I think it's good to show the lists of the MOST free and the MOST repressive nations.
The FREE Nations --
Unfortunately, several of these nations (including the USA) saddle teenage girls with parental authorization or notification requirement... which leave the door wide open for potential abuse, rejection, or forced future-opportunities-disrupting gestation at the hands of repressive (RRR Cult-type) parents! In those cases, a "PA" notation follows the name of the otherwise-free country. And as free as they are, several of these nations have gestational limitations. "SA" indicates a requirement for spousal authorization.
Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina–PA, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, China, Croatia–PA, Cuba–PA, Czech Republic–PA, Dem. People's Rep. of Korea, Denmark–PA, Estonia, France, Fmr. Yugoslav Rep. of Macedonia–PA, Georgia, Germany, Greece–PA, Guyana, Hungary, Italy–PA, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro–PA, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway–PA, Portugal–PA, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia–PA, Singapore, Slovak Republic–PA, Slovenia–PA, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey–SA/PA, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United States–PA, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.
The SLAVE Nations --
Exceptions as follows, when so noted: F -- Fetal impairment. I -- Incest. R -- Rape. U -- Law is unclear. x -- Recent legislation eliminated all exceptions.
Afghanistan, Andorra, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Bangladesh, Bhutan–R/I, Brazil–R, Brunei, Darussalam, Central African Republic, Chile–x, Congo (Brazzaville), Côte d'Ivoire, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador–x, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea–Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya–PA, Madagascar, Malawi–SA, Mali-R/I, Malta, Marshall Islands–U, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico–R/F, Micronesia–U, Monaco, Myanmar, Nicaragua–x, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Palau-U, Panama–PA/R/F, Papua, New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, San Marino, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Soloman Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan–R, Suriname Syria–SA/PA, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, United, Arab, Emirates–SA/PA, Venezuela, West Bank & Gaza Strip, Yemen.
Nations that are not listed in either group, above, are the semi-slave nations. Ones that impose difficult restrictions that still end up forcing many millions of women to gestate to term against their will.
Per the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 50 million abortions are performed annually, worldwide. Only about 3% of those are provided in the USA. This means that over any given recent 20-year-long period, fully one BILLION (yes, with a "B") teenage girls and women potentially have their life options restored to pre-ill-timed pregnancy levels. Where abortion is safe and legally, we can pretty much drop that word, "potentially." Unfortunately, though, thanks to the world's still being subjected to enslavement of its female population in this regard, a huge number of those women never get to have futures. Because of those 50 million abortions performed worldwide, annually, only 20 million are legal, and the other 30 million are illegal! Those latter nations need to outgrow and reject such criminal stupidity!
Here in the USA, millions of women don't realize just how lucky they are that in 1973, a beneficent and fair-minded U.S. Supreme Court (diametrically unlike the repressive on that G.W. Bush has saddled us with, probably for decades to come) EMANCIPATED them in the greatest act of egalitarianism since Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and '65.
President G.W. Bush's greatest legacies will be the shameful ones of causing the wanton and illegal murder of over 100,000 innocent citizens in a sovereign nation that threatened no one (and he lied our way into it), getting countless tens of thousands of our own soldiers wastefully destroyed or maimed for life -- and POISONING the U.S. Supreme Court, making it the first non-egalitarian Court in more years than any American has been alive.
Freedom really is NOT free! Never has been. And now we are TRULY going to have to fight tooth and nail to retain it, and to advance it... thanks to that tragic turn of events!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
"What is a Liberal?" By JFK. (Education for Neocons!)
Speech by Sen. John F. Kennedy Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination, September 14, 1960
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo: I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world's history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children's development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union's future, and their country's future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children's time, suburb by suburb.Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day. But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn't make it so. More will be needed than goodwill missions or talking back to Soviet politicians or increasing the tempo of the arms race. More will be needed than good intentions, for we know where that paving leads. In Winston Churchill's words, "We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist."And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman for the effort to achieve an intelligent foreign policy. Our opponents would like the people to believe that in a time of danger it would be hazardous to change the administration that has brought us to this time of danger. I think it would be hazardous not to change. I think it would be hazardous to continue four more years of stagnation and indifference here at home and abroad, of starving the underpinnings of our national power, including not only our defense but our image abroad as a friend. This is an important election -- in many ways as important as any this century -- and I think that the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party here in New York, and those who believe in progress all over the United States, should be associated with us in this great effort.The reason that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson had influence abroad, and the United States in their time had it, was because they moved this country here at home, because they stood for something here in the United States, for expanding the benefits of our society to our own people, and the people around the world looked to us as a symbol of hope.I think it is our task to re-create the same atmosphere in our own time. Our national elections have often proved to be the turning point in the course of our country. I am proposing that 1960 be another turning point in the history of the great Republic.Some pundits are saying it's 1928 all over again. I say it's 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.(Emphasis, above, is mine.)
May we never forget that JFK not only went on to become a fine President, but he also was a great statesman. We have a real shortage of those, these days! Along with a serious misperception by many that liberals aren't some of the most intelligent and sensible people this nation has to offer.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Have you EVER told a LIE? (Key Talking Points!)
If you have, then guess what? You've broken one of the Ten Commandments! (Read on, no matter what your faith may be, or what you may or may not believe. This gets good!)
What about shopping? Have you ever done it on Sunday? (Or Saturday, if that happens to be your religion's sabbath?) Then, by golly, you've broken yet another Commandment!
Have you ever attended a seance? Played with Tarot Cards? A Ouija Board? Had some tea leaves read, or in any other way had dealings with a soothsayer or fortune teller? ANY of those things? Yeah? Hoo boy!! You're in BIG trouble now! The Bible says that associating one's self with attempting to divine the future, or with trying to contact the spirit world is an "abomination" to God, and engaging in any such practices carries a penalty of DEATH!SIDE NOTE: As a normal Christian (and we should never be confused with the hateful and delusional pseudo-Christians of the "Religious" Radical Right -- the RRR Cult), any proselytizing I do is of the passive (non-invasive) variety -- such as leaving sensible (non-bigoted) tracts lying around for people to either take or leave. So I won't be discussing salvation in here. Just in case you might have thought that was coming. It is very important that society comes to the full realization that normal Christians are everyone's sensible, fair-minded, pretty intelligent, ordinary, unobtrusive, work-a-day next-door neighbors. Unlike the RRR cultists, we are quiet, low-profile, and friendly people who usually have a live-and-let-live attitude with respect to the personal affairs and behaviors of other people. Very few of us ever engage in any form of busybodyism or discrimination. In America, 83% of the population professes Christianity. Only a mere 6% of those are obnoxious and bigoted RRR Cultists. The other 94% of us are normal and tolerant. We comprise about 250,000,000 of the USA's 300 million people. IF we were anything like the RRR cultists, America would be a tyrannical theocracy that would make Iran look benign by comparison. So PLEASE -- keep these two completely opposite groups of people straight in your minds, and don't blame "Christians" when you see hatefulness and bigotry. We do NOT deserve to be wrongfully painted with the RRR Cult's brush. (And one more thing... the RRR loves to make people think that Christians oppose abortion. That's a major LIE. Fully 2/3 of Americans support the right to choose, and reliable polls show that has been consistently true for over 30 years. And 5/6 of Americans are normal Christians. Do the math. Most of us are sensibly Pro- Choice! When it comes to breaking that Commandment against lying, RRR cultists are experts at it.)
The above comment needed to be said, in context with this post, and should always be kept in mind. I invite you to make copies of it to pass out and e-mail to your friends.
Whether or not the Bible is relevant to you, the reader of this, it is very relevant to the RRR cultists. Or, at least, they do a really good job of pretending that it is. Since they practice cafeteria theology with it constantly. Whenever any passage seems to support their hate-agendas toward personal liberties, they cite it to beat the band. But when a passage contradicts them, or would prove them to be a collection of hypocrites, they studiously ignore it! Just as they usually ignore soothsayers and mediums... and have no major agendas against them.
And, for example, you will never see an RRR Cult leader cite I Corinthians 5:12-13. (And thus, the mostly-ignorant lemmings of the cult are generally unaware of its very existence!) Here's what it says, in the NIV Bible.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside.
Do you have ANY idea of the very magnitude of the command issued to Christians in that passage? It literally tells the RRR Cult (and anyone else who feels so inclined) to BUTT OUT of the personal affairs of people in society, in general. It makes it crystal clear that the Bible neither authorizes nor appoints ANY person to act as an enforcer of its precepts vis-a-vis society! In short, the Bible authorizes NO Gestapo!
That is DEVASTATING to the RRR Cult. It de-legitimizes ALL of their intrusive and obnoxious agendas against personal liberties.
Here's why. Take note of the words, "Are you not to judge those inside?" That refers to the only controlling action that the Bible authorizes for Christians: CHURCH discipline. Congregations are authorized to take certain (non-torturous or lethal) measures to "correct" the "misbehaviors" and "sins" of fellow believers. But NO one else!
And there goes the very linchpin of all of the hate-agendas of the RRR Cult, right down the drain! Society needs to learn this, and to -- on that basis -- reject all of the cult's loathsome agendas against tens of millions of people in society.
Okay -- that being said, let's get back to LYING.
The RRR Cultists do that habitually. For example, they claim that abortion is sinful, and that the Bible opposes it. Wrong. Abortion is nothing but a hugely-valuable remedy, and it harms people no more than a squirrel's dining on acorns affects oak trees. And it's not even mentioned in the Bible, much less condemned. (And it could have been, if God had felt so inclined when He inspired the writers of the Bible. Since abortion was already being practiced (mostly via abortifacients) in biblical times. And already had been for at least 1,000 years before that.)
And they lie about same-sex marriage (SSM), claiming that "traditional" marriage must be "defended" against it. So we've seen a rash of so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws and state constitutional amendments passed at the cult's urgings. But in reality, there's nothing around that could possibly be more harmless than SSM. There's no way that any opposite-sex couple's marriage could be harmed in the slightest if a gay couple in their community were to be legally married. And gays don't engage in more sex because they get married, so gays' having sex can't be used as an argument against SSM. Any sexually-active person, gay or straight, will have sex whether he/she is married or not. (Those "sanctity of marriage" arguments that the RRR loves to spew are meaningless, too. Consider: How "sacred" are the millions and millions of NON-religious marriages that are performed by JPs, ship captains, judges in courthouses, etc.? And those arguments that "marriage is for producing children" doesn fly, either, as a reason for excluding gay couples from the institution. Since millions of couples are sterile, or prefer not to have kids... and yet are allowed to marry, without challenge.)
There's a LOT of ammo in this post that you can use against the RRR Cult. Not the least of which is to point out all of the hypocrisies I've revealed about them in here. They whine about gays, and seek to make the lives of millions of them miserable by subjecting them to dismissal from military service, and discriminating against them in the areas of housing and the workplace. And they oppose SSM.
Isn't that interesting? Don't we always hear the RRR cultists claiming that they are "pro-life?" Consider this: One of the key things that marriage does is to provide an extra incentive for the couple to remain monogamous and faithful to one another. Now granted, we all know that this doesn't work out that way, a large percentage of the time. But suppose that SSM were universally legal, and that tens of thousands of gay couples got married. That extra incentive to remain monogamous would work with some of them, and that means that some folks who otherwise would likely contract HIV/AIDS via casual sex -- wouldn't. So legalizing SSM clearly would save some lives. So -- the next time you talk to an RRR cultist, remind him/her of this, and then ask the person this question: "How much is ONE person's life worth? By opposing SSM, which is harmless, you are contributing to the condemnation of some people to deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. And you call yourself 'pro-life?'"
Finally, ask them why they are picking on homosexuals and their behavior when there are FAR MORE people engaging in practices that the Bible condemns at least as much. If you happen to be gay, tell them that you might listen more to them AFTER they have launched an all-out campaign (of at least the magnitude of their crusades against women and gays) against Tarot Card and Ouija Board Players, fortune-tellers, and mediums.
Take the above talking points and run with them! The RRR Cult is eminently defeatable!