The ACLU & the Bush Administration are “On the Same Side”
[Guest post by DRJ]
The ACLU and the Bush Administration are “on the same side” in a religious freedom case:
“The Justice Department is joining the American Civil Liberties Union in backing a student who lost his state-funded merit-based scholarship because he left college to serve a two-year church mission.
The department’s Civil Rights Division filed a friend-of-the-court brief Friday in U.S. District Court in Charleston on behalf of David Haws, a student at West Virginia University. Haws, a Mormon, is suing a state scholarship board, alleging it violated his First Amendment right to freely exercise his religion. His attorney argues that by denying Haws’ request for a leave of absence, the board forced him to choose between his religion and his scholarship through a state program, known as PROMISE.
The Justice Department noted that the PROMISE Board grants deferments for military and community service, and that by denying a deferral for religious purposes, the board was placing a lower value on religious deferments.”
Understatement quote of the day:
“Haws’ attorney, John Matthews of the West Virginia chapter of the ACLU, said he was surprised by the federal government’s support. “Obviously you don’t always see or think of the ACLU and the Bush administration being on the same side,” he said.”
This case may ultimately be decided on narrow grounds. For instance, it’s conceivable the Court’s holding will be limited so that it essentially applies only to missionary students. I’ve only read the press reports but I think it has the potential to end up as a legally significant case on the issue of freedom of religion.
he has a constitutional right to freely exercise his religion. i don’t know if he has a constitutional right to collect state scholarship money after a two year hiatus.
ok, so he wins the case. next up is a muslim who wants to spend two years in a saudi arabian madrasa getting radical islam from the horse’s mouth. after that is a rastafarian who wants to spend two years in jamaica making reggae music and smoking dope. if you accommodate one, you have to accommodate all. i’m not sure that i want to accommodate everybody.
assistant devil's advocate (538db1) — 8/24/2007 @ 10:30 pm“if you accommodate one, you have to accommodate all” Wasn’t that door opened with accomodation for military and community service?
tmac (0c909a) — 8/25/2007 @ 7:18 amno tmac. the nation as a whole benefits from military service. the community benefits from community service. the only people who benefit from obnoxious missionaries going door to door is the mormon church. that’s why california has a soldiers and sailors civil relief act, but it doesn’t have a mormon missionary civil relief act. they can try to spread their cult to other countries, but i have no desire to subsidize this effort.
assistant devil's advocate (af1a8e) — 8/25/2007 @ 7:24 amSo, are we to infer from this that the Mormon religion is totally inflexible? Is it the case that he is required by his religion to go NOW? If that IS the case, why didn’t he know that 2 years ago? Could he not have gone 2 years ago? I am not opposed to making some accommodations for exceptional cases, BUT I do oppose the imposition of other people’s religious beliefs on the rest of society. We permit the free exercise of religion, but we shouldn’t have to actively support it.
Nevertell (1b7e9b) — 8/25/2007 @ 9:08 amExcept for the editorial commentary on Mormonism, I agree with you, ADA. I think he’ll lose this case on the grounds of what you posted in #1.
DRJ is correct: if he does win this case, it will be on narrow grounds.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/25/2007 @ 9:45 amOf course the ACLU wants to be able to allow more illegal aleins in this nation to break our lws take our jobs and commit crimes and get protected by the sinister ACLU
krazy kagu (5e1710) — 8/25/2007 @ 10:45 amI’d say that the nation as a whole benefits from the free exercise of religion, many hawks like to say that the military exists to defend that right. I happen to agree with them.
Now, from the linked article, “The Justice Department noted that the PROMISE Board grants deferments for military and community service…”, and “Haws… returned to West Virginia this month after spending two years helping to improve conditions for Hispanic workers in Western states.”
That sounds like community service to me. Never mind their legal status, the Hispanic workers live and work in terrible conditions and are exactly the sort of people that Christian charity is meant for. I don’t care how they got here, if anyone in this country is living in squalor and working in a hellhole it diminishes it for the rest of us.
In addition to being good works, spending two years doing that during college is something very, very few non-Mormons would even consider. Just because an unpopular denomination recommended and helped arrange it doesn’t make it any less worthy.
Honestly, Mormons annoy me. There’s something sanctimonious about them, and that always puts me off. However, I have always respected them for their tradition of missionary work. As hilarious as it is to see two kids in suits on the sidewalk, barely old enough to shave and wearing nametags proclaiming them “elders” is, at least they’re out there. I’d like to see other denominations take up that torch and do more community work.
A narrow ruling would be fine, a “don’t pick on the kid because he’s a Mormon” message from the court would resolve things nicely.
Michael Llaneza (b75a1d) — 8/25/2007 @ 10:54 amMormonism is totally benign. Want proof?
Just watch HBO’s “Big Love”.
Semanticleo (4741c2) — 8/25/2007 @ 11:49 amAh, anti-mormon bigotry rears its Semanticleo head.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/25/2007 @ 11:56 amWhat are the facts here? It looks like Mr. Haws got an academic merit scholarship from the State of West Virginia under a PROMISE program. He went to the state university for two years and maintained a 4.0 GPA. He then leaves on the customary two year mission service performed by young Mormons. I can’t tell whether the PROMISE program requires that the student’s degree be completed within 4 calendar years, or requires that the period of study be continuous. The PROMISE program apparently has exceptions to whatever that calendar/continuous requirement is if the student is called away for military service or for community service.
Mr. Haws returns to West Virginia University and asks that his scholarship be reinstated. The University refuses. I’d be curious to hear what reason the University gave for the refusal, and also the justification for the rule, whatever it is.
It strikes me that if a young person wins an academic scholarship and maintains a 4.0 GPA while in University, there’s not much reason not to reinstate that scholarship after a two year interruption. Let’s posit that this PROMISE program was to pay $3,000 per year for four years.
What the heck difference does or should it make if the first $6,000 is paid out in years 2004 and 2005 with a two break for a Mormon mission, Army service, community service (say being an ACLU organizer or working for Jesse Jackson) followed by two more years on scholarship at $3,000 per in 2007 and 2008?
As for a lot of the posts above, it doesn’t take much to bring the secularist bigots out to bray, does it?
I can’t always tell the difference between Jehovah’s Witnesses at my door, the Global Warming petition signing enthusiasts at the door to my local hardware store, the two Mormon missionary boys in their black slacks, white shirts and ties pedaling along on their bicycles, and the “Impeach the Bush Cheney Gang” group of organizers I saw standing on a downtown street corner yesterday. They all believe in something. I like some more than others, but I’m not going to automatically call any of them obnoxious.
Mike Myers (2e43f5) — 8/25/2007 @ 12:22 pmdon’t pick on the kid because he’s a mormon…
there’s your fuzzy thinking right there. christians conflate any failure to accommodate them with persecution. nobody’s “picking on the kid” dude, if his two year mission is so important, let the mormon church take care of his scholarship with all the tithe money it gets. ok, so it won’t be able to buy as much real estate; as a non-mormon taxpayer, why should i care?
anti-mormon bigotry…
like mormons aren’t bigoted against unbelievers? it was only recently they opened up their priesthood to blacks. their attitude toward gays – not good. it’s perfectly meet and right to mock the way their founders carried on like rooster chickens with 20 or more wives, the way each one thinks he or she will eventually be the god of their own universe, the notion that beer and coffee are evil, et cetera. i’m guessing you wouldn’t be quite so deferential if it were a santerian priest in training for two years learning the proper knife technique for sacrificing puppies and kitties, huh?
assistant devil's advocate (dbff32) — 8/25/2007 @ 12:28 pmADA, so you are a student of the “tit for tat” school of justification of bigotry. Good, we’ll mark you down for that little bit of intellectualism.
As for voodoo animal sacrifice, I don’t care – they can clean out the animal shelters for all I care. False declarations of my nonexistant hypocrisy are just hilarious attempts by you to change the subject from your own rather ridiculous belief in stereotypes.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/25/2007 @ 12:55 pmRobin wants to apply liberal tolerance to ‘The Principle’. Go for it, baby.
Semanticleo (4741c2) — 8/25/2007 @ 1:36 pmThis issue is more likely to come up with Mormons but I don’t see it as an exclusively Mormon phenomenon. Aren’t there other religions, such as the Southern Baptists, that encourage college students to undertake mission work?
In any event, how does this really differ from the secular sabbaticals that today’s college students are encouraged to take for community service purposes?
DRJ (bfe07e) — 8/25/2007 @ 1:47 pmada
the nation as a whole benefits from military service. the community benefits from community service.
Military service we all understand; define community service THEN tell me how that differs substansively from what this kid did in his twoyear missionary work?
obnoxious missionaries going door to door is the mormon church
like mormons aren’t bigoted against unbelievers? … i’m guessing you wouldn’t be quite so deferential if it were a santerian priest in training for two years learning the proper knife technique for sacrificing puppies and kitties, huh?
christians conflate any failure to accommodate them with persecution.
Naw, no hatred/intolerance/bigotry there, eh, ada? No Christophobia, eh?
Again… tell me the SUBSTANSIVE difference between someone talking off two years to administer to the poor … one doing it under a “secular” program and one doing it under a “faith-based” program.
CLUESTICK — It’s the behavior and actions that count.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/25/2007 @ 1:48 pmSemenKKKleo is spouting its typical shite. Obviously, the Left has their list of protected classes, but I would be interested to see which groups they consider to be unprotected. Given SemenKKKleo’s writing, it would include men, whites, KKKristian god-botherers, and Mormons. Who am I missing, KKKleo?
JD (815fda) — 8/25/2007 @ 4:14 pm“their list of protected classes”
I almost choked on my granola.
JD;
I am beginning to appreciate your brand of humor.
Semanticleo (4741c2) — 8/25/2007 @ 4:52 pmSemanticleo, don’t bother denying your bigotry – it is long established.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/25/2007 @ 5:06 pmI must be losing my touch, SemenKKKleo, as I was not joking, I was dead serious. There are certain groups that are protected not only by the government, but by the Left from even being offended. You are not even allowed to disagree with their political positions without being called a racist, homophobe, sexist, misogynist, etc … However, white Christian, and now Mormon, males may be made fun of without fear of ever being labeled a hater, bigot, etc …
And, while I am thinking about it, though the Left professes to care about teh ghey, which of their candidates supports actual gay marriage, and why does the Left use teh ghey as some sort of bludgeon against those that stray from the orthodoxy, as though merely being a gay conservative makes them inherently dishonest?
JD (815fda) — 8/25/2007 @ 5:58 pm“while I am thinking about it,”
Stop it. You’re killin’ me.
Semanticleo (4741c2) — 8/25/2007 @ 7:51 pmStop it. You’re killin’ me.
That’s the most thoughtful, logical and respectful statement I’ve seen you write, Miss Semencleo.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/25/2007 @ 8:00 pmBoy Sem and ADA got a lot of hate working there.
It is a legitimate argument to say that an LDS mission should not be grounds for deferment of the Scholarship. It depends on the regulations governing the grant. I had to capitalize the interest on my student loans while I was a missionary.
However, I find the vitriol from the two of you impressive. “Those evil Mormons” How dare we not agree with your views and beliefs. It seems that diversity of belief and opinion is limited to those who agree with you.
Dr T (b1f404) — 8/25/2007 @ 8:17 pmSemanticleo’s Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be somewhat at bay tonight. What a friggin’ joy.
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/25/2007 @ 8:22 pmdarleen tells me i’m christophobic and suggests it’s behavior and actions that count. i’ll give her behavior and actions…
i’ll give her pastor wiley drake of the buena park baptist church, featured earlier today on the front page of the online l.a. times, doing something called “imprecative prayer”. imprecative prayer is where you ask god to destroy your enemies for you, and pastor drake’s designated enemies were members of a group called americans united for separation of church and state.
that’s christian love for you, incredibly powerful, in the same way rotting fish is incredibly powerful. here on the pagan side we don’t pray for anybody’s misfortune (it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good) but we still laugh heartily at christians and others who pray for our demise. nothing fails like prayer.
assistant devil's advocate (3838ec) — 8/25/2007 @ 10:32 pmI’ve enjoyed a lot of success with prayer.
ADA, may you find heaven very soon.
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/25/2007 @ 11:01 pmada
Oooooo…shiver and shake that some pastor somewhere said A PRAYER that you found offensive.
Please quote me the CA penal code he violated, hmmm? Under what statute should we haul him into court? What assault did he commit?
Or was his “offensive” pray on order of a kids doodle of a laser gun..thus subjecting him to all sorts of extra-legal consequences.
Go pickle yourself in your own bile, ada, it doesn’t impress me.
I don’t give a rats ass what someone wishes or the naughty things they say about me
it is their behavior that counts.
On the flip side, I don’t care what lofty ideals someone puffs out their chest and declares … it’s their behavior that counts
thus, it is quite telling that statistics show that conservative outgive to charity than liberals.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/25/2007 @ 11:50 pmi’ll give her pastor wiley drake
Cherrypick one and slander all?
Don’t go down that road, ADA. I’ll bury you.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 5:16 amOh, now my linked post shows up. I thought it had been rejected for too many links.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 5:56 amstatistics show that conservatives outgive to charity than liberals…
the interesting sentence construction aside, i am skeptical of this claim. are you counting george soros on the liberal side? he’s given away about a billion dollars. what about me? i support gun ownership, the death penalty, low taxes, local control of education and colorblind meritocracy. liberal or conservative?
i’ll bury you.
paul, you’re my kind of christian. none of this prissy-ass love stuff for you. at least you’re honest about what’s on your mind and what you fantasize doing to me. i would be disappointed if you ever changed.
assistant devil's advocate (068ab7) — 8/26/2007 @ 7:48 amada
i am skeptical of this claim
Here you go
and you still haven’t addressed my question:
tell me the SUBSTANSIVE difference between two people taking off two years to administer to the poor … one doing it under a “secular” program and one doing it under a “faith-based” program.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 8:29 amback at you darleen
AF (e7839e) — 8/26/2007 @ 9:47 amAF –
From your own link. The author quibbles with what the data says about moderates, not conservatives or liberals. Try to keep up.
“In 2000 [citing 2000 SCCBS data], households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more money to charity than households headed by a liberal ($1,600 to $1,227). This discrepancy is not simply an artifact of income differences; on the contrary, liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families, and conservative families gave more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich.”
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:12 amRead the whole post daley. And then of course, there’s the focus on charity itself. Giving money to the church to pay for a new roof is charity. Being told you have to drop some cash in the bucket every week for the year between the time you make a wedding reservation in a church and the actual event (all because the parents demand a catholic ceremony even though neither the future husband and wife give a shit) is considered charity. The unhappy couple are friends of mine.
Other than that, and much more importantly, teachers are predominantly liberal. What’s are the numbers for people making their livings in jobs that are not “about” making money? What about those, like teachers, whose jobs function as primarily social? Teaching is giving, but it’s not charity.
I grabbed Lindgren’s post because he seems to be the only one who actually read the book. But there are bigger problems. And Lindgren’s the one who argues that economic “redistributionists” are more likely to be racist, so he’s not against skewing arguments to suit his own ends.
The debate is silly.
Also coming from a family with personal and professional ties to the ACLU, I’m not with them on this one. They’ve been playing politics too much these days. The same with gun control. It’s annoying.
AF (e7839e) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:37 amAF
Oooo… can I play that game?
How about the police? Paramedics? Firefighters?
Members of the US Armed forces?
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:45 amAF – “What’s are the numbers for people making their livings in jobs that are not “about” making money? What about those, like teachers, whose jobs function as primarily social? Teaching is giving, but it’s not charity.”
What about politicians? Oh, I forgot, that is about making money for a lot of them and many of them have never held real jobs outside of politics to begin with and don’t understand how the real world functions.
I did read the whole article AF. I makes Darleen’s point and the one I raised earlier in the thread. In your eagerness to drop turds here, you keep linking posts that argue against your interests. The anecdotal evidence about your unhappy friends is great, but are you trying to extrapolate it into univeral experience? What a putz!
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:54 amYes, it is…just like a donation to the United Way pays for its leased offices, administrative salaries, advertising budget, new computers, etc, is considered charity.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:55 amhere’s the substantive difference you’re inquiring about, darleen:
in a secular program, the primary goal is to help the people who need it.
in a faith-based program, the primary goal is to convert those people, “you’re damned to hell, and the only way you can escape this damnation is to come to our house every sunday and embrace our own special brand of divinely-inspired lunacy.” this is why i get along with jews better than i do with christians, because judaism is for jews only, an admirable tenet i wish all the other faiths would adopt. i respect them more because they respect me more.
if you cut that mormon slack on his two-year hiatus, you have to do it for everybody. you have to do it for the muslim and the rastafarian in comment #1, the santerian in comment #11. you have to do it for the scientologist who wants to go looking for xenu, the deposed galactic dictator. you have to do it for the moonie who wants to spend two years trapped in a compound and finally get married to a korean chick he’s never seen before in a stadium with 1000 other couples. you have to do it for the follower of bhagwan shree rajneesh, slaving for a biennium so that his enlightened guru can collect more rolls-royces. and you would have to do it for me, the way i was 30-35 years ago, a surfer not at all disinclined to take two years off in a holy quest for the perfect wave, the perfect beach, the perfect bikini! once you say mormons si, surfers no, then you have a religious war on your hands. mormons versus surfers, about 100 yards offshore, i have no doubt who would win, let’s get it on!
assistant devil's advocate (d0cd59) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:57 amAF – How are things going with your broker? Has the volatility in the market impacted your ability to tithe to the ACLU, what with your family ties and all, and other pet lefty causes?
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:59 amThank you for confirming your bigotry, ada.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:59 amADA – So I take it you do not support state universities installing foot baths for Muslim students on their premises?
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:02 ambtw ada
As long as secular-based community service programs are vetted for actually doing what they say they are doing, so should faith-based…
which kinda negates your pernicious comparison of working with the poor to “looking for xenu”
:::snort::: as if there has been no scandals in secular-based “non-profits”
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:09 amada,
My ancestors were pagans and we have the word “march” because they would call on Mars as they marched off to battle. Afterwards they would ritualistically strangle their defeated enemies in the temple of Saturn. In any case, a pantheon always has room for one more God … or Three. Don’t be so down on Christianity if for no other reason than that your gods may be offended because you’re dissin’ one of their kin. 😉
nk (a6ecc6) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:12 ampaul, you’re my kind of christian. none of this prissy-ass love stuff for you.
ADA, you know what I meant.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:24 amin a secular program, the primary goal is to help the people who need it.
in a faith-based program, the primary goal is to convert those people,
Haven’t been involved in too many faith-based programs, have you?
Faith-based programs may share and spread the Word…but it falls to the individual hearing the Word to make the conversion, by free will. In Christianity, you won’t see any ‘convert or die’ ultimatums issued, like some other faith I could mention.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:29 amPaul
but ada doesn’t eschew all people of faith… he has demonstrated his “some of my best friends” bona fides by hangin with “jews” who a blessedly free of their own religion.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:30 amNK,
I was worried about you given the recent Chicagoland weather. Glad to see you back.
DRJ (bfe07e) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:31 amThanks, DRJ. We were out of power for two days. I had a generator but it’s not recommended for electronics so no DSL.
nk (a6ecc6) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:36 amthis is why i get along with jews better than i do with christians, because judaism is for jews only, an admirable tenet i wish all the other faiths would adopt.
The sheer ignorance demonstrated in that statement is breathtaking. ADA, I’d get off this thread in a hurry if I were you.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:42 ambut ada doesn’t eschew all people of faith… he has demonstrated his “some of my best friends” bona fides by hangin with “jews” who a blessedly free of their own religion.
Darleen, isn’t that a contradiction of terms? 🙂
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 11:45 amPaul
I have many friends and family members who are Jewish. Being Jewish isn’t just about religion..it’s also about ethnicity and a sense of nationhood.
There are agnostic/athiest/secular Jews … ones that not only have never been to temple, but who look aghast at unashamedly religious Jews (ie George Soros).
That doesn’t even count the “jews” like Chomsky and Tony Judt who are actively anti-Jewish.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 12:09 pmI understood that, Darleen. That’s why I put a smiley face beside my last comment.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/26/2007 @ 12:56 pm“That doesn’t even count the “jews” like Chomsky and Tony Judt who are actively anti-Jewish.”
Judt lost members of his family in the holocaust, and you pull this. You’re a shameless piece of shit aren’t you?
AF (e7839e) — 8/26/2007 @ 7:05 pmAF
Trotsky was Jewish (birth name Lev Bronstein) but refused to do anything to save Russian Jews from the infamous pogroms, prompting the Rabbi that had plead for Trotsky’s help to say “That’s the tragedy. It’s the Trotskys who make revolutions, and it’s the Bronsteins who pay the price.”
Judt lost his Moral Authority Card(tm) when he said Israel should “cease to exist” so, AF, stuff your simpering, faux outrage, schmuck.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/26/2007 @ 7:20 pmAF – Clear this up for us. You claim to be Jewish, and are objectively anti-Israel ?
JD (815fda) — 8/26/2007 @ 7:29 pmAF – Clear this up for us.
I won’t clear anything up for you, or Darleen. It’s not worth it. You assholes defend ethnic cleansing and what international law defines as genocide. Look it up.
“The old will die and the young will forget.” That was Ben-Gurion’s argument. You want me to bring in Benny Morris to defend your position? What the fuck am I supposed to say to racists?
You’re what Pat would caegorize as “scum” if he knew enough or even wanted to try to. But like most of you he’s too lazy.
It’s been a busy week and this place has managed to ignore most of it. How about that op-ed by the 7 infantrymen in the Times? Kinda heavy right? How about Maliki and Allawi? There’s a whole buncha shit out there in the wide wide world… to learn about.
AF (e7839e) — 8/26/2007 @ 9:57 pmSomeone here should try.
You don’t have to get snippy about it, AF.
If you want to comment about something else because you’ve got a whole bunch of cut and paste turds ready to drop, why not take Patterico’s suggestion and start your own blog. With all the people who respect your opinion I’m sure you’d be making tons of money off the blog ads from the traffic alone!
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/26/2007 @ 10:26 pmAh…. feel the Judanhass
Thanks for making that clear, AF. Don’t you have some boots to shine for Chomsky?
Darleen (187edc) — 8/27/2007 @ 6:35 amIt’s Juden dear, with an “e.”
AF (e7839e) — 8/27/2007 @ 7:01 amYour Christian wacko friends should have taught you that at least.
Oh my, so an early morning pre-coffee typo is making you all superior and stuff.
and it still doesn’t change your revealing charges of “racism”
Project much?
Darleen (187edc) — 8/27/2007 @ 7:15 amAF – Your teeming hordes of admirers await.
Somewhere.
Not here.
Get a clue.
Grow up.
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/27/2007 @ 7:21 amAF, I think the Israelis did a bad thing in Gaza. Things have been spiraling downward there since they emptied the place of Jews. I don’t defend it at all.
Pablo (99243e) — 8/27/2007 @ 7:53 amDarleen, you accuse people of anti-Semitism who lost family in the holocaust and who are themselves fluent in both Yiddish and Hebrew. And it wasn’t a typo, unless you and your friends have a habit of mistyping that word. see for yourself. I think we can even see where you found it.
AF (e7839e) — 8/27/2007 @ 9:36 amPablo, and daley, learn before you speak. You have the right to make fools of yourselves but that doesn’t make it a good idea.
AF, your background is not an amnesty for your opinions.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/27/2007 @ 10:05 amAnd opinions without evidence are what?
AF (e7839e) — 8/27/2007 @ 10:29 amYou accuse without argument, and you insult people who by moral rights should have the option to slap you silly. Beyond off-putting your behavior is grotesque. You don’t even have the good sense to be ashamed.
I’ve no intention, nor reason, to be ashamed of noticing your rather plainly stated bigotries.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/27/2007 @ 10:57 amAF is once again playing the absolute moral authority card to display his bigotry and prejudices.
I wonder what it must be like to start off each day with a heaping bowl of self loathing. Do you think he washes it down with lemon juice?
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/27/2007 @ 11:17 amI admit it, I’m a race traitor.
AF (e7839e) — 8/27/2007 @ 11:20 amYou got a point to make, skippy? Simply spewing your bile isn’t going to impress anyone.
Pablo (99243e) — 8/27/2007 @ 11:45 amI’m with Pablo, cupcake. You got something specific, say it.
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/27/2007 @ 11:48 amit wasn’t a typo
Do you have Carnac as an alias? And I have spelled it correctly here, too.
When I speak the word “wash” or “Washington”…I say “warsh” “Warshington”, even as I am a native Angelino and get kidded about it all the time.
Some sort of conspiracy you’d like to make out of that, AF?
You want to play Morality Card Game? How about that I’m the descendent of slaves, brought to the New World in 1697 and sold to work a plantation in Virginia? How about one branch of my family who were Russian Jews that not only endured Czarist pogroms but then escaped to America during the worst of Stalinist times?
But you know, what happened to them is history…admittedly MY family history…but history none the less. It has no bearing on my responsibility for my own behavior.
This is HERE and NOW and no sniveling Sheehanist appeal to Moral Authority(tm) is relevant. It is actually worst than irrelevant, it is crassly opportunist and a type of theft. It is the theft of what never belonged to you in the first place.
Personally, I could not care less for your motivations … whether you are selfloathing or you feel a need to prove yourself more “sophisticated” than those icky religious Jews or to show your collectivist, authoritarian friends you’re one of the “good Jews” … when you (or Judt, Chomsky, Soros, et al) hold Israel (or America) to a different standard than all other countries, when you hold that there is nothing wrong with the French being proud of France and of being French, but Zionism is eeeevvvilllll, you are engaging in anti-Semitism.
Here and now, regardless of the relatives you’ll want to wear as sash.
Darleen (187edc) — 8/27/2007 @ 2:10 pm“It is actually worst than irrelevant, it is crassly opportunist and a type of theft. It is the theft of what never belonged to you in the first place.”
Hear, hear, well said.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/27/2007 @ 2:17 pmAF,
Darleen pwn3d you.
Paul (09c70a) — 8/27/2007 @ 2:27 pmWell played Darleen!
daleyrocks (906622) — 8/27/2007 @ 2:38 pmI have a basic ideological difference with the ACLU: I support the death penalty, they do not. In spite of this — gird yourselves! — they do a lot of good work, and have a documented history of taking the cases of people who have been discriminated against because of religion. No one who studies their record should be “surprised” that they took on this case; in fact, their record in this area would probably be more impressive, but for the fact that other people in this young man’s positon think of the ACLU last when considering their legal options — the result of all the negative comments (some of them completely justified) heaped on the organization.
Independent Conservative (890b0d) — 8/27/2007 @ 6:46 pmIs the Book of Mormon what it claims to be? The LDS faith rests on two things; the first, is that the Book of Mormon is a true testament to Jesus’ visit to the Americas, and the second is that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Here we’ ll deal with the first question. See the PDF and decide.
The work and the glory (b84ba0) — 3/23/2008 @ 11:47 am