Tag: faith

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crime and punishment ideological culture

Houck Off the Hook

police raid, church, faith

A jury has acquitted anti-​abortion activist Mark Houck of ridiculous federal charges. 

Houck had admitted to pushing a pro-​abortion activist (and volunteer abortion clinic security personnel) who, charges Houck, had been verbally harassing his 12-​year-​old son. The incident occurred outside of a Philadelphia abortion clinic in October 2021.

Local police looked into the scuffle and decided that there was nothing there.

But in September 2022 — almost a year later — the Biden-​Merrick Justice Department galumphingly arrested Mr. Houck for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act as if he’d been acting to stop someone from entering the clinic.

To arrest him, the agency sent a crew of J. Edgars to raid Houck’s home, gratuitously traumatizing his family, even though he had been ready to voluntarily surrender himself.

Peter Breen, head of litigation at the Catholic Thomas More Society, a public-​interest law firm that represents Houck, said that the charges “allege that Mark Houck interfered with a so-​called volunteer abortion patient escort when in reality, Houck had a one-​off altercation with a man who harassed Houck’s minor son, approximately 100 feet from the abortion business and across the street.”

Breen believes that the case was brought “solely to intimidate people of faith and pro-​life Americans. Why in the world would you send this phalanx of officers heavily armed to this family’s home, violate the sanctity of their home, frighten their children … other than just to send a message?”

Sadly, he’s exactly right.

At least it’s over. 

For now. 

At least for Mark Houck.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
general freedom ideological culture meme nannyism national politics & policies

A Childlike Faith…

socialism, childlike faith, government, power, progressivism, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill, Common Sense, meme, illustration

SOCIALISM…

The childlike faith that a powerful, ever-growingGovernment couldn’t possibly pose a threat to freedom.

Click here for a high resolution version of the image:

socialism, childlike faith, government, power, progressivism, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill, Common Sense, meme, illustration

 

Categories
folly ideological culture

Swedish “Generosity”

religion, Sweden, Bishop, tolerance, folly, progressivism, secular, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

The headline? Gaspworthy: “World’s First Lesbian Bishop Calls for Church to Remove Crosses, To Install Muslim Prayer Space.”

Are we being punked? Onion-ized?

I checked: apparently not.

The place is the Seamen’s mission church in the eastern docks of Stockholm. The Church of Sweden’s local bishop challenged the mission’s priest with a what-​if: Suppose a Muslim came off the boats and wanted a place to pray?

Had the encounter been just a one-​off, we could shrug it off. But this is one latitudinarian cleric, and she didn’t let it go:

Calling Muslim guests to the church “angels,” the Bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer doesn’t make a priest any less a defender of the faith. Rather, to do any less would make one “stingy towards people of other faiths.”

Generosity über alles strikes again!

I’ve long wondered about radicals who infiltrate religions. If you don’t like Catholicism, join or start something else; if you find the Baptist Conventions opprobrious, check out the Methodism, Greek Orthodoxy, or … Thelema. Why horn in on someone else’s religion?

But there is a reason it’s happening in the city that gave us “Stockholm Syndrome.” The Church of Sweden’s a state institution, while Scandinavia’s real religion is secular progressivism. You need no gift of prophecy to see where that’s bound to go.

Separation of church and state just makes sense. To each religion its own. There need be no fighting for adherents, or laying down of one’s own beliefs merely to appeal to “inclusion.”

Unless or until you get the government involved.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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religion, Sweden, Bishop, tolerance, folly, progressivism, secular, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

 

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

A Matter of Trust

You don’t trust President Barack Obama?

No faith in the massive federal bureaucracy? Do you lack confidence in Congress representing your interests? How much do you trust the federal courts that handle secret requests from the Department of Justice …and then issue secret decisions based on the judge’s secret interpretation of the law?

Be advised: President Obama finds “your lack of faith disturbing.”

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch, but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process, and rule of law,” Obama told reporters in response to the public uproar to a leak of classified information suggesting that the detailed phone records of every American have been seized by the National Security Agency, “then we’re going to have some problems here.”

Agreed. Problems galore. The morning paper reads like a dystopian novel.

Are we really supposed to feel protected by a federal judge in a secret court wherein only the government is represented?

Or represented by Congress, for goodness sake?! Only a few congressmen are told, and those sworn to secrecy.

The Obama Administration incredibly calls this set-​up “an unprecedented degree of accountability and transparency.”

There are compelling national security interests, upon which our rights must be balanced, the president explains. But in our constitutional system, as I argued at Townhall​.com yesterday, there is no more compelling national interest than that the government fully obey the Fourth Amendment — and the entire document, please.

Thank you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

King’s Dream, Tea Party-Style

In the Washington Post’s Book World segment, surprise was noted how quickly Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe’s Tea Party manifesto, Give Us Liberty, fell off in sales. Why? Perhaps “Tea Party folks … already knew who they were and what they believed?”

Good guess.

But what do they believe?

Alveda King is the niece of Martin Luther King, whom she refers to as “Uncle Martin.” Fielding questions from CNN’s Larry King after she had participated in Glenn Beck’s recent Washington rally, Ms. King insisted that “It’s not so much about the man as the message.” The “issues” she emphasized were the ones that Beck, to the surprise of many, had also emphasized: Faith, hope, charity, and honor.

“My uncle said we have to live together as brothers — and I add, as sisters — or ‘perish as fools.’” If Ms. King is not out of place in Beck’s wing of the Tea Party, then what of all the noise about racism? Could widespread opposition to Obama be mainly about policy?

When Rev. Sharpton talked about “going all the way in civil rights,” Ms. King clarified something that might be useful in helping left-​leaning folks understand Tea Party folks’ attitude towards policy: “My uncle was not teaching that we needed the government to take care of us.”

His main message had something to do with liberty. And respect for all. 

Tea Party people appear to be in the main stream of modern American culture in claiming such ideas as theirs, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.