|
nChrist
|
 |
« on: June 05, 2015, 06:52:10 PM » |
|
________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 6-3-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________
Daily Digest
Jun. 3, 2015
THE FOUNDATION
“In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.” —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31, 1788
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Congress Cuts the Line on NSA Data Collection1
The Senate passed the USA Freedom Act Tuesday without amendment, and Barack Obama signed it, curbing the NSA’s mass collection of every American’s phone records. While it’s a victory for privacy advocates, work remains in ensuring that the U.S. government respects the Fourth Amendment. Instead of scraping up records on every call in the U.S., the act dictates that private phone companies will keep the records and the government can request the information. The Senate’s 67-32 vote split the Republican Party between its leadership and the more libertarian-leaning lawmakers. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell complained, “There are a number of us who feel very strongly that this is a significant weakening of the tools that were put in place in the wake of 9/11 to protect the country.” But Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the author of the Patriot Act, said some of those “tools” (i.e., mass data collection) were never meant to be given. Notably, Sen. Rand Paul, perhaps the most prominent advocate for NSA reform, voted against the USA Freedom Act, saying it didn’t go far enough. With Sen. Ron Wyden, Paul proposed nine amendments2 that would have required the government to offer greater justification before it spied on a citizen. For over a decade, the country has been in a constant state of war, allowing an erosion of Fourth Amendment rights because it feared a “lone-wolf terrorist” attack or another 9/11. But a state of fear is not a mark of a free people.
The TSA Is Groping for Relevancy3
In a recent internal investigation into the TSA’s airport screening process, “red teams” working for the Department of Homeland Security were able to sneak bombs and other weapons through the TSA’s line 95% of the time. In other words, of the 70 times DHS tested the system, the TSA caught only three attempts. For an agency with “security” as its middle name, that’s a dismal and dangerous track record. In a statement4, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson tried to downplay the findings. “The numbers in these reports never look good out of context,” he said, “but they are a critical element in the continual evolution of our aviation security. … The Inspector General’s preliminary test results are classified, and it is not appropriate or prudent to publicly describe these results.” But the findings were serious enough for Johnson to order a special briefing on the report. Then the axe fell swiftly, as the acting head of the TSA was reassigned Monday5. Acting Deputy Director Mark Hatfield Jr. will take over. As Reason’s J.D. Tuccille notes6, the vulnerabilities in TSA’s security net have been “revealed, complained about, and baked in for years.” The Heritage Foundation’s David Inserra argues7 that perhaps it’s time for the TSA to step aside and let private security firms do the job cheaper, friendlier and better. Clearly, bureaucrats groping grandma didn’t make us more secure.
Warren Won’t Run, Nobody Hardest Hit8
Say it ain’t so! Time magazine reports9 on the demise of the movement to draft Elizabeth Warren to run for president: “Six months after launching ‘Run Warren Run,’ a quixotic campaign to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 presidential race, the two progressive organizations behind it will call it quits and focus more broadly on a populist agenda in the 2016 presidential race, according to a spokesman.” Warren has long been the great “Native American” hope for leftists who can’t stomach Hillary Clinton, but she’s been pretty consistent in saying she won’t run. Ironically, Warren is more powerful in the Senate and among Democrats in general because of her decision not to run. Had she challenged Hillary and failed, she would’ve quickly been relegated to backbencher status. But now she can benefit from the unquenched thirst of her acolytes. And she didn’t even have to build that10.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Et Tu, Bruce?11
By Nate Jackson
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” This isn’t a treatise on faith, but, for Christians, those words are where any discussions of gender and marriage begin. For those who don’t share our faith, we’d simply point to the Declaration of Independence, in which the Founders acknowledged that Liberty comes from our Creator. And family is the third pillar of Liberty12.
But Bruce Jenner didn’t start with objective truth. He started with Bruce Jenner.
Before the aptly named Vanity Fair’s upcoming cover story13 on the former Olympic Decathlon champion’s transition from Bruce to Caitlyn, Jenner described his view of how God created him: “God’s looking down, making little Bruce. … He says, ‘Okay, what are we gonna do with this one? Make him a smart kid, very determined.’ … And then when he’s just finishing he says, ‘Let’s wait a second.’ God looks down and chuckles a little bit and says, ‘Hey, let’s give him the soul of a female.’”
Jenner insists he’s only coming to terms with who God really made him to be: “If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, ‘You just blew your entire life. You never dealt with yourself,’ and I don’t want that to happen.”
God’s Word actually has a lot to say about the subject, and the voices in Bruce’s head are completely at odds with all of it.
So how does 21st century American pop culture respond to his very public and self-congratulatory — yet still physically incomplete — sexual transition?
Mostly with fawning accolades. Media stories erupted everywhere, giving deference to Bruce’s chosen gender instead of his God-given biological one. His Wikipedia entry has been altered to reflect that “she” won Olympic medals — 40 years before this transition. ESPN will award him the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the July ESPYs. Even Barack Obama found time between rounds of golf to tweet, “It takes courage to share your story.” Jenner quickly set a Twitter record for reaching one million followers — beating Obama’s record.
And, hey, he’s a Republican!
In short, our world includes an ever-increasing population of broken people who celebrate brokenness, while attacking the broken people (like us) who say there’s a better way and a higher truth14.
Which prompts the question: What’s courageous about basking in the glory of the media spotlight?
Based on Jenner’s revelations, he is clearly a troubled soul. Compassion, prayer and treatment are appropriate responses. But affirmation? Few things could be less compassionate or helpful.
The comparisons to other mental illnesses and destructive behaviors are numerous and illustrative, albeit imprecise.
RedState’s Erick Erickson focused on behavior, arguing15, “If an alcoholic told you that his authentic self was to drink, you would not encourage that. If a person told you his authentic self was to be attracted to small boys, you would not encourage that. If a person told you that his authentic self was to mutilate his body, you would not encourage that.”
Columnist Ben Shapiro recounted a personal story regarding the mental illness aspect, writing16, “My grandfather was deeply mentally ill. He spent nearly a year in a psychiatric institution after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder; he heard the radio talking to him. He became suicidal. He spent years battling the condition, until he was prescribed lithium. For the next several decades, the medication brought his mental illness under control. Nothing would have been crueler to my grandfather than had society told him that his delusions were correct — that the radio was, in fact, talking to him; that the curtains were indeed threatening him; that he was normal, and that it was the stereotypes of the world inducing his paranoia. … It’s cruel to allow a mentally ill person to exploit himself in public, but the political left is happy to do so in order to perpetuate the pseudo-scientific nonsense that a man can magically turn into a woman.”
Also, Canada’s National Post had a story this week about people who become disabled by choice17, cutting off limbs they don’t want. These supposed “transabled” people are mentally ill.
These comparisons illustrate a painful truth: Leftists don’t care about Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner; they care about an agenda to remake our culture without good or bad, right or wrong, up or down — and most certainly without God. To them, Jenner is merely a tool who normalizes aberration. Leftists are tired of feeling guilty, so, instead of turning to their Creator, they glory in their brokenness. Dysfunction becomes virtue. |
