I Reject The Two-Party System Because I Reject These Two Parties

The republicans used 9/11 as an excuse to get their own way -- shouting down all opposition with an argument along the lines of, "We're doing this, and if you ain't with us, you're against us, and you want more innocent people to die!"

It sure would be lame if some other political party ever exploited a national tragedy like that.

The real problem with the republicans is that they lack consistency. As far as guns are concerned, they're all about FREEDOM! and LIBERTY! But they won't hesitate to strip gays of their marriage rights, or women of their right to decide what goes down inside their own bodies.

It sure would be lame if some other political party were every bit as inconsistent in their approach to individual rights.

Speaking personally, I've had it with the republicans. I guess, logically, that means I've also had it with any other party resembling the republicans... hmm, I can only think of one example.

--Dan Colgate

Only The Ruling Class Can Be Trusted With Weapons

I think we can all agree that if we lived in a totalitarian police state with no personal rights or freedoms, where everyone was under constant scrutiny, and stepping even one inch out of line meant that a bunch of dudes in a black van showed up in the middle of the night and whisked you off to a gulag, the recent school shooting in Newtown, CT would never have happened.

The point I'm really trying to make here is that I object to the draconian notion that it's the government's responsibility to prevent crime rather than to deter it. There will always be a trade-off between freedom and safety -- that is the very essence of the social contract.

Using this shooting as an example in the argument against our right to bear arms is the same as arguing for banning alcohol in order to prevent drunk driving fatalities. (In fact, it's an even weaker argument, because drunk driving kills WAY more people every year than guns do.)

History demonstrates, however, that banning alcohol is a REALLY stupid idea, and creates a lot more problems than it solves.

But what do I know? I'm just some guy who believes that all men and women were created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

--Dan Colgate

Robert Malley sums up the Middle East on Fresh Air

NPR's Fresh Air recently aired a highly informative interview with Robert Malley, the program director for the Middle East and North Africa with the International Crisis Group, who gave an excellent overview of the current state of affiars in the Middle East.

Basically, the entire region is a mess, and the US is throughly tangled up in it.

Here's a sample:

The United States government is very close to the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is aligned with Iran, and also is helping the regime in Syria, which we are hoping to topple.

We are in the same trenches, if you will, as Saudi Arabia and Qatar in trying to support the opposition against the Syrian regime, even though they're supporting the Salafists (or some of them are supporting the Salafists) who are killing Americans elsewhere.

We're also in the same trenches as Qatar [and] as Turkey, who are backing Hamas, who is at war with Israel, who we're supporting.

You have an organization like Hezbollah, the Shiite organization in Lebanon, which is backing the regime in Syria, even though its former ally in this 'Axis of Resistance' against Israel, Hamas, is opposing the regime.

So I think the fault lines have become slightly clearer, although they're not fault lines between democrats and non-democrats, although many Syrians are rising up because they want to change the nature of the regime. The fault line is very much Sunni against Shiite, it's Persian-Iranian against Arabs.

The region has become really a smorgasbord in terms of its alliances, and there's something that seems very unnatural, and [...] something this unnatural just can't end well, becasue these alliances are not clear-cut, they don't make sense in terms of the political logic.

They are temporary alliances, they are alliances of convenience, and in the case of Syria, it has transformed what really was at the beginning an uprising similar to what we've seen elsewhere (based on social, political, economic issues) but it has hijacked it to some degree and turned it into a proxy war between Iran and its allies on the one hand, Saudi Arabia and its allies on the other, and then of course [...] there's also a cold war that's superimposed upon it, with the Russians on one side, the side of the regime, and us United States on the other side, the side of the opposition.

You can listen to the entire interview on NPR's website.

Robert Scheer on America's Political Center

Look, the fact is we have a center in this country whether we want to admit it or not. It's unfortunately not a demographic center, it's a center of money, of power, of influence, and even [ultra-conservative media mogul Rupert] Murdoch is part of that center. They don't want chaos. They want the Fed to keep operating, they want Congress to function, they want a big military, whether they call themselves democrats or republicans. We're not a banana republic. The fact is there's not so much of a difference between Romney and Obama that the people who control Chase Manhattan and everything else want chaos and rioting in the streets, so we're not an ideological nation in that way.

-- Robert Scheer on "Left, Right & Center" 2012-11-02

The Reasonable Voter's Guide to the 2012 California Propositions

2012-11-09 UPDATE: This post now includes election results -- green where our favored positions won and red where they didn't. On the whole, lots of green... although we're still a little disappointed about the sales tax hike, perpetuating the death penalty, further burdening our criminal justice system, and evicting LA County's porn business.

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Here is how you should vote on California's various propositions this year -- not according to political party affiliation, but according to what makes the most sense for us and for our state.

Remember: when in doubt, vote NO on propositions! Our elected officials should be handling all these issues themselves and taking responsibility for them, not passing the buck to us.

30 - "Raise Taxes For Schools & Stuff"
NO
Actual Result: YES

Why? California already has the highest sales tax of any state in the country. Perhaps it's true we ought to spend more on education -- but this state is already raking in $95,900,000,000 per year, and now you expect me to believe they can't properly fund schools without taxing us EVEN MORE? The solution is obviously to (a) raise tuition or (b) cut spending elsewhere, not to increase government bloat. Sacramento needs to get its act together, not ask us for more money.

31 - "More Complicated Budget Rules"
NO

Why? This one is convoluted -- some good stuff, some bad stuff, but on balance, nobody seems to know for sure. I'll trust it when I hear a coherent argument in favor.

32 - "Outlaw Democrat Funding Sources"
NO

Why? It's a blatant power grab by the republicans aimed at democrat contributors. The problem is that, in light of the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision of 2010, it's COMPLETELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL and will never hold up in court -- the only thing this will really accomplish is wasting our tax dollars on lawyers and legal battles. There ought to be a law against putting unconstitutional measures on the ballot.

33 - "More Money For Car Insurance"
NO

Why? Do you want to pay MORE for car insurance? Do you wish insurance companies made even more money? The only reason we are even voting for this is because Mercury spent a ton of money to get it on the ballot.

34 - "End The Death Penalty"
YES
Actual Result: NO

Why? The death penalty is medieval and is not an effective deterrent. Let's get rid of it!

35 - "Harsher Punishments For Human Trafficking & Stuff"
NO
Actual Result: YES

Why? This one sounds good and all, but it doesn't account for the increased costs to our already-stretched prison system. This is why the State of California is always broke, and why representative government is better than pure democracy: people vote for stuff like this because, well, who could disagree with cracking down on crime? But then it turns out there's no money to pay for it because nobody was responsible for thinking that far ahead.

36 - "Fix The Three Strikes Law"
YES

Why? This one will save us loads of money and will restore fairness and sensibility to sentencing for repeat offenders.

37 - "More Rules & Regulations For Food Labels"
NO

Why? The sentiment behind 37 is good -- shouldn't we be able to know when we're eating Franken-food? And look who's opposing it, a bunch of evil food corporations! But the fact is that this particular law just wasn't written very well. It will create tons more spurious lawsuits, further burdening our court system, and will increase government spending. Also, it allows for suit to be brought against grocery stores for allegedly selling products lacking the correct labeling. While the big chains can survive these sorts of lawsuits, smaller independently-owned grocery stores cannot.

38 - "Also Raise Taxes For Schools & Stuff"
NO

Why? If you really like the idea of paying more in taxes, you're better off voting for 30 than this one.

39 - "Close Out-Of-State Tax Loopholes"
YES

Why? California has been hemorrhaging business and jobs over the last few years because of our current tax loopholes. Let's fix that.

40 - "Approve The Latest Redistricting"
YES

Why? In a bizarre proposition twist, it one will cost us a lot more if we don't pass this one than if we do. Not even the people who oppose it oppose it anymore. I can find no good reason to vote no on this one.

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BONUS SECTION: LA COUNTY MEASURES

A - "Instead Of Electing Our Assessor, Let Him Be Appointed"
NO

Why? Do you really think LA needs more opaque, back-door political chicanery?

B - "More Unnecessary Porn Rules & Regulations"
NO
Actual Result: YES

Why? The only thing this will actually accomplish will be to drive business out of LA County. It attempts to solve problems that don't exist by inventing a whole bunch of new problems that will exist.

J - "Keep Spending Our Money On Public Transportation"
YES

Why? If there's one area LA desperately needs to keep improving on, it's public transportation.

J - "Keep Dumping Money Into MTA / Corporate Contractors"
NO

Why? We're changing our stance on this one after learning more about it. It's a complicated issue (which means you may as well vote "NO" on principle), but basically MTA hasn't been spending the money from the previous tax increase well, and all this does is further entrench the status quo.

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LINKS:

Ballotpedia -- Comprehensive, incredibly helpful site! Read the full text of the props, see who supports/opposes what (and how much they've spent), and survey media analyses.

LA Times 2012 Endorsements -- Perhaps it is somewhat leftist, but you can trust neither the Orange County Register nor any San Francisco paper to provide such moderate, sensible, non-partisan analysis.

No On Measure J

Blowing Off the Israel-Iran War Question

SCHIEFFER: What if -- what if the prime minister of Israel called you on the phone and said, "Our bombers are on the way. We're going to bomb Iran." What do you-- 

ROMNEY: Bob, let's not go into hypotheticals of that nature.

Frankly, I'm disappointed and frustrated that Bob allowed both candidates to decline this question, in my opinion the most important one in last night's debate.

As far as the republicans, democrats, and the mainstream American media are concerned, all you need to know about Israel is this: Once upon a time, the Nazis killed millions and millions of Jews. It was the most horrible thing that ever happened. As a result, there is now a Jewish state called Israel, and unless the US supports Israel as if it were part and parcel of the United States, the Holocaust will happen again. The End.

Unfortunately, that's not a complete picture, and it is my sad duty to inform you that international politics are almost never that simple. Almost 70 years have passed since the Holocaust, over three generations, and many things have happened in that time: hot wars, cold wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorist attacks, reprisals, etc.

The most important figure in Israeli politics since the '90s is Bibi Netanyahu. A hawkish saber-rattler, Natanyahu has repeatedly threatened a preemptive military strike by Israel against Iran as of late. On 29 July, he said that "all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota." He reiterated this position before the United Nations on 28 September:

For nearly a decade, the international community has tried to stop the Iranian nuclear program with diplomacy. That hasn't worked. [...] we must face the truth. Sanctions have not stopped Iran's nuclear program either. (full transcript)

Perhaps the most frightening recent incident occurred in August when the Israeli government's "shock-and-awe" strike plans were leaked to the BBC. (You probably didn't hear about it in the American news.)

It's possible that all of this posturing is a bluff -- either way, Israel wants Iran (and the rest of the world) to take such threats seriously. And yet, the American media (just like Romney, Obama, and Bob Schieffer) are willing to sweep the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran under the rug. Perhaps this is because any criticism of Israel's policies runs the risk being labeled "anti-Semitism", rendering the entire topic politically ill-advised. Of course, there have been a few exceptions -- this piece in the New York Times provides an excellent objective analysis of the situation.

...a poll conducted jointly last month by the Truman Institute at Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 77 percent of Israelis now oppose a military attack on Iran that is not approved by Washington, although 71 percent would support an attack with American consent.

It is a waste of the American peoples' time to hear presidential candidates reiterate their mutual support of our alliance with Israel. Likewise, it is pointless to remind Americans that our NATO obligations would require us to defend Israel in the event of an attack, just as Israel would likewise be required to defend the US.

What the American people deserve is an answer to the question of what our response would be if Israel were to go on the offensive and initiate a war with Iran -- whether America would consent to such an attack, and whether we would allow ourselves to be drawn into it, and ultimately take responsibility for it.

--Dan Colgate

Dear Demopublican Debate Supporters:

To Anheuser-Busch, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Sheldon S. Cohen, Esq., Crowell & Moring LLP, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), the Kovler Fund, & Southwest Airlines:

I am writing to express my disappointment in your company's decision to support the Presidential Debates.

The American people deserve a real discussion of the issues, not just partisan platitudes. Real dialogue can only occur if the debates are open to participation by ANY candidate -- not just the democrat and republican ones.

Several other advertisers (Philips, YWCA, and BBH New York) have withdrawn their support and shown that they have the courage to do the right thing and stand for real change and a better country.

Sincerely,
Dan Colgate

Consider these things

Consider this a thing -- is it a person?
Can it breathe?
Can it eat?
Can it pee, poop, and barf?
Can it look around? Can it smile?
Can it cry, can it coo, can it laugh?

Okay, now consider this thing.
Same questions --
is it a person?
Is it the same thing as the first thing?

Finally, consider this thing.
This is Cassidy Goodson, who strangled her newborn son to death.
Perhaps you don't think the first thing is a person, since it cannot do any of the things a person can do;
probably everyone can agree that the second thing is a person.

This third thing, however, is not a person.

If any of these three things deserves to die, it is this third thing.

More on the FairTax

Aside from the obvious*, let's have a little more explanation on the FairTax and why it would work better than an income tax.

DEMAND

Some Economics 101: "Demand" is a term economists use to describe the amount of some given thing people are willing to buy. The cheaper that thing is, the more people want to buy it. The more expensive the thing is, the less people want to buy it. Most people are already either explicitly or intuitively familiar with this concept.

Income tax systems are FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED because they effectively RAISE THE PRICE of jobs/work, rendering labor MORE EXPENSIVE. If there was no income tax, the price of labor would go down, quantity demanded would go up, and job creation would be encouraged rather than discouraged.

SPENDING VS. INVESTMENT

Continuing with Econ 101, there are basically two things people can do with their own money: they either spend it or they save it. Economists call this a "trade-off" between saving and spending, because more of one thing automatically translates to less of the other, and vice versa.

Unless you live in a cabin in the woods in Montana, you probably aren't going to save your money under a mattress -- there is a tendency for savings to correlate directly with INVESTMENT. Investment is a good thing. Investment promotes long-term growth. Investment makes for a favorable balance of trade, as opposed to a trade deficit. Investment means you're making interest instead of paying interest. Surplus is preferable to debt. Investment is what makes capitalism capitalism. Investment is the key to prosperity.

The problem is, spending is fun! Investment is dull. Investment is broccoli, spending is chocolate cake. Since Clinton left office, America has been on the chocolate cake diet.

Now, given that there is a trade-off between spending and investment... if the government were to tax spending (see above re: demand) spending would go down. When spending goes down (see above re: the trade-off between spending and investment) investment goes up.

BASIC NECESSITIES

But what about the things we all have to spend money on anyways, such as housing, food, clothes, medicine, etc.? The FairTax includes a monthly prebate to offset the taxes paid towards spending on these essentials. It establishes an effective base level of exemption, of money that you don't get taxed on -- what economists refer to as a "progressive" tax scheme.

CONCLUSIONS

This is why I advocate for the FairTax -- it streamlines the taxation system by using the already-existing, proven method of a sales tax. It levels the playing field by getting rid of the loopholes rich people and corporations use to avoid paying taxes. It promotes job creation, rather than discouraging it. It encourages investment. And it cuts poor people some slack by allowing for tax-free spending on basic necessities.

This is also one of the main reasons I will be voting for Gary Johnson in the upcoming presidential election.

Learn more at FairTax.org!

--Dan Colgate

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* Which is: that the current tax code is obviously broken; it unfairly burdens the middle class while letting the super-wealthy off the hook; it's tens of thousands of pages long; it wastes tons of taxpayer time and energy; and it really isn't any good for anybody, except elected officials who use it to hand out favors to special interests and the tax accountants/IRS agents whose jobs depend on it.

Income Tax R Stupit

Here's what R-money SHOULD be saying on the subject of income taxes:

"Our taxation system in this country is COMPLETELY STUPID IF NOT INSANE! It's so complicated, you need a degree AND a certification to understand it; it's got more pork in it than a 73,000-page Polish sausage; it's a colossal drain on the economy; and at the end of the day, it effectively PUNISHES (a) businesses for hiring and (b) laborers for working!

"Our taxation system is basically the equivalent of the bloated behemoth that was the Ptolemaic astronomy system in the mid-1500s -- it's so obviously wrong and broken, it's ridiculous. Hey, here's a brilliant idea: What if the EARTH revolved around the SUN?"

Learn more about the Fair Tax!

--Dan Colgate

Irreconcilable Differences

Here is a link to a piece by a Belgian person about the problem of Islam. The author makes a good point that when we in the West talk about "freedom of religion," we tend to make assumptions based on our own paradigm about how religion and basic rights work which Muslims don't share.

The way we see it in the West, some guy made some stupid movie and now all these stupid crazy terrorists are flipping out about it and they all just need to chill out and stop being so stupid.

The way these Muslims see it, our government is EVIL because it effectively promotes blasphemy (by refusing to take measures to censor it), and they therefore have a HOLY OBLIGATION FROM GOD to attack us and either kill us all or die trying.

In the West it is assumed that every person is born with his or her unalienable rights, but of course those rights only extend up to the point where they interfere with other peoples' rights.

For these militant Muslims it isn't really a question of rights so much as divine justice -- a crime against God has been committed, and God demands that his followers exact retribution from those responsible.

When does this sort of "chronic misunderstanding" become "irreconcilable differences"? I'd say about as soon as an American embassy is stormed by an armed mob and innocent people are injured and killed.

US Ambassador Chris Stevens
April 18, 1960 – September 11, 2012

--Dan Colgate

2012 Special Interest PowerScores™

Thanks to the Internet, it's now a well-known fact that money wins elections and the same sources fund both of the biggest political parties in the United States today.

As we approach November, I highly recomend perusing the numbers for yourself on OpenSecrets.org, which offers various splendid breakdowns of who and how much.

We took things a step further by running some analysis of our own. Without further ado, here are Objectable Content's Official 2012 Special Interest PowerScores™!

Power Score™	Industry	Total $ (D)	Rank (D)	Total $ (R)	Rank (R)
3	Retired	$34,522,643	1	$30,817,811	2
5	Securities & Investment	$20,354,223	4	$32,315,629	1
6	Candidate Committees*	$21,355,124	3	$22,700,740	3
10	Lawyers/Law Firms	$28,788,670	2	$6,756,603	8
10	Real Estate	$10,534,319	6	$15,433,911	4
14	Business Services	$9,747,151	7	$6,882,632	7
15	Misc Finance	$6,844,029	10	$10,026,734	5
21	Computers/Internet	$9,043,030	8	$3,715,783	13
21	Health Professionals	$6,299,333	11	$5,581,600	10
24	Misc Business	$6,280,898	12	$3,890,431	12
28	Misc Manufacturing & Distributing	$2,972,711	19	$6,525,101	9
34	Pharmaceuticals/Health Products	$2,725,515	20	$3,702,030	14
35	Retail Sales	$3,175,434	17	$2,803,487	18
36	Casinos/Gambling	$3,706,827	16	$2,763,154	20

All data comes from here and here.

The way this works is by comparing at each party's top 20 funding sources by industry and then combining their respective ranked positions across the board. I put an asterisk next to "Candidate Committees" because, although it is a major source of funding, it isn't really a special interest.

Based on these PowerScores ™, we're predicting that no matter who gets elected this year, you'll see the same pandering toward the usual suspects: old people, Wall Street, big business, construction/housing, lawyers, the bloated health care industry... but keep an eye out for tech on the up and up!

It's interesting to note that the two parties may not be as similar as they used to be -- there were a few sectors that only appear on one party's top 20 contributors list, so if you're looking for some REAL differences between these otherwise mostly policy-homogenous parties, follow these dollars:

Republican Top 20 Only	Total	Rank
Oil & Gas	$7,964,368	6
Insurance	$4,681,181	11
Automotive	$3,425,962	15
General Contractors	$3,303,560	16
Leadership PACs	$2,942,122	17
Commercial Banks	$2,777,533	19

Democrat  Top 20 Only	Total	Rank
TV/Movies/Music	$12,454,427	5
Education	$7,125,520	9
Non-Profit Institutions	$4,564,087	13
Printing & Publishing	$3,833,955	14
Lobbyists	$3,729,644	15
Civil Servants/Public Officials	$3,072,970	18

--Dan Colgate

Gov't Spending: Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics

This op-ed piece on Forbes has been making the rounds recently, featuring the following graph which "says it all":

Now, if you're the kind of person like me who sometimes thinks about numbers/math, your alarm bells should already be going off. What exactly are we looking at here -- nominal percentages, or have these been adjusted for inflation?

And the next logical thought, of course, is... even if the numbers are real, what do they mean? Only that every President in the last 30 years has spent more money than the guy before him, with some increasing the amount more than others.

Well, that makes sense -- our population has increased, our economy expanded*... if only there were some way to factor all that growth into the equation, some sort of "gross domestic product," if you will.

Luckily, the White House keeps track of all this stuff, so it isn't hard to find. Here I present my graph (based on the President's own data) that puts federal spending into context by expressing it in terms of GDP:

Source: U.S. Office of Management & Budget
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist01z2.xls

Uh-oh! Looks like Obama is the biggest spender after all, followed by Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and finally Clinton.

I humbly accept your gratitude for restoring the universe in which Reaganomics defeated the Russians by out-spending them, Clinton was a fiscal conservative, Bush II took us back to the Kissinger days, and Obama took us all the way back to FDR and Keynes.

Conservatives: If you truly consider yourselves anti-big-gov't-spending, the republicans' track record over the last three decades CLEARLY shows that you voted for the wrong guys!

Liberals: C'mon -- I expect better of you than this sort of deceptive counter-propaganda spin. But if it fools people into voting for you, I guess shame on them, right?

--Dan Colgate

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* Actually, if you take a look at this chart, you'll see that GDP tanked from 2008 - 2009 and has been climbing out of the hole ever since. Let's face it, George W handed Barack the keys to a busted-up car, and Obama would've had to reduce spending pretty drastically just to break even with his predecessor on my graph. The point I'm trying to make is it's dishonest to praise Obama for "low spending." Big spending is one of the many things democrats and republicans share in common.

Q & A: Religiolitics

QUESTION:

I'm confused as to how the Republicans have co-opted Christianity. Christ said help the poor; Republicans want to give tax breaks to the rich, put more burden on the poor and cut social programs. Christ cured the sick; Republicans vow to kill universal healthcare. Christ said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; Republicans want to deny equal rights to gays. So, an honest question to my Christian Republican friends -- what of Christ's teachings do you feel the Republican party is following/espousing?

ANSWER:

The biggest one you haven't mentioned is that Christ EXPLICITLY advocates the separation of religion and politics in Matthew 22:21.

At the time (30-ish AD) such an attitude stood out in sharp contrast to the Jewish expectation for a Messiah as a political figure (such as the allegorical Daniel or the actual Judas Maccabee), considering much of post-Alexander Jewish messianic lit was primarily concerned with the re-creation of an independent, autonomous Jewish-religious state as the best solution to oppressive Helenization policies.

While Matthew does attempt to imply the fulfillment of this expectation by tracing Joseph's lineage back to David, the synoptic authors all go out of their way to show Jesus getting effectively acquitted during his only significant interaction with the Roman state, and unlike the other great messianic heroes, Jesus not only fails to defend the Jewish religious establishment from the gentile conquerors, he attacks it constantly and ends up getting murdered by it.

All this becomes evident when you look exigetically at a passage like John 2:19, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days." More than just a prophesy of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD and/or his own resurrection, an exigetical reading reveals Jesus downplaying the importance of the Jewish theocracy as symbolized by the Temple and asserting himself as the new mediator of a personal encounter with God. (See also the bits about the Temple Veil being rent at the time of his death and the entire Epistle to the Hebrews).

Suffice it to say that "Christian" politicians, be they democrats, republicans, or otherwise, are "not true Scotsmen" because they obviously don't understand the intent of their own stated religion.

--Dan Colgate

The Bible Isn't Anti-Gay, It's Anti-Sex

I was recently exposed to a pro-gay-marriage argument along the following lines: St. Paul was anti-gay, but St. Paul said a lot of other things that we don't generally agree with anymore. Since we're already in the habit of picking and choosing from his teachings, we might as well toss out all of his anti-gay stuff along with the anti-women stuff.

Even though I may agree with the conclusion, the argument itself is crap. It's time to set the record "straight" (ha ha) about St. Paul and the Bible's stance on gayness.

Much of Paul's bad rap as a mysogynist is rooted in one particular statement from the first letter to Timothy.

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
--1 Timothy 2:11-12

Although attributed to St. Paul, most modern scholars agree that both Timothies were probably written by someone else after Paul's martyrdom (perhaps as late as the mid-2nd century). It was common practice in ancient times to attribute authorship in this way to establish alignment with a particular school of thought.

St. Paul himself was actually opposed to ALL marriage (gay, straight, or otherwise):

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.
--1 Corinthians 7:8

It is speculated that Paul was gay and that homosexuality is the "thorn in my flesh" he refers to in 2 Corinthians 12:7. Fanciful interpretations go so far as to blame homosexuality for Paul's "misogyny," although, once again, a clear distinction between his authentic writings vs. the attributed ones reveals he wasn't hardly a mysoginist at all -- see http://pmrb.net/essays/st_paul_women.html

What it really comes down to is that the Bible doesn't make much of an effort to separate homosexuality and heterosexuality. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and (later) Romans all lived in what we today would perceive as highly SEXUAL societies, in which heterosexuality and homosexuality were both widely practiced and even encouraged. In contrast, a key part of the ancient Jewish identity was that they distinguished themselves as being ANTI-SEXUAL, labeling all extra-marital sexuality as "fornication" and avoiding it like bacon.

So any argument that the Bible is pro-hetero and anti-homo just doesn't hold water. What the Bible really says is that ALL lust and fornication is a sin; that EVERYONE is guilty of that sin, and that we all deserve to suffer eternally in hell for it; but that we all have a "get out of hell free" card with our name on it (if we want it) because Christ loves us so much he was willing to suffer in our stead.

--Dan Colgate

Our Stance On Obamacare

Don't buy into the democrats' propaganda. Obamacare caters directly to corporations and special interest groups (most notably pharmaceuticals and health insurance) at the expense of the American people.

Obamacare fails to address the fundamental problem, namely that HEALTH CARE COSTS TOO MUCH AND KEEPS COSTING MORE AND MORE. This has to do with economics and the way our existing system incentivises raising costs instead of cutting them.

Take a look at your own health care/health insurance bills over the last couple years. Have they gone up or down? (Mine have definitely gone up.) And even though we're paying more, are we getting better care/coverage? (I'm not.) Do these increased costs somehow make us healthier?

The fact is we don't get nearly the same bang for our buck as they do in, say, France (which has a universal system).

"The US spends more per capita on publicly funded health care than almost any other country in the developed world. And that includes countries that provide free health care to all their citizens."
- NY Times

While some of its features may help certain people, on balance Obamacare is a step in the wrong direction. We voted for change, but instead we got a marginal tweak that further entrenches the status quo.

The system was broken before and it remains broken. The republicans and democrats have BOTH failed us. It is clear that they don't work for us; they work for themselves and the monied interests that fund their campaigns.

We, the American people, gave these corrupt parties their power. We can take it back!

--Dan Colgate

Cheating At Golf

Today's Yahoo front page links to this article (actually titled "On verge of state history, Oregon golfer loses state title to scorecard violation") with two misleading headlines: "Error leads to lost golf title" and "Heartbreaking error takes title from golfer".

Basically, it's a story about how hot-shot high-school golfer Caroline Inglis was disqualified from a state tournament for signing off on a scorecard that credited her with a par on the final hole instead of a bogey.

The actual headline is "news" in the sense that it relays true facts. The other two headlines are "spin" in the sense that Yahoo should be ashamed of itself for lack of journalistic integrity.

Where I come from, giving yourself an extra point, a point that you didn't score, whether it's in golf or any other game or sport, is considered CHEATING. It's not "heartbreaking," it's dishonest, unsportsmanlike, and disgraceful. Of course if you get caught doing it, you never own up to it -- you say "Whoops! I didn't mean to! It was a mistake!"

The thing is, rules don't (and shouldn't) impugn motive. Either you follow them or you break them. Intent doesn't enter into the equation; neither do rule violations distinguish between transgressions of commission and omission. Justice is blind.

Anyway, I for one refuse to have any pity for athletes of any age who get caught cheating and are punished accordingly.

--Dan Colgate

The Nicene Creed: A New American English Translation

Even though it's been a while since the Vatican decided to screw up all the words of the English Catholic liturgy (since the 27th of November, anno domini 2011) if you're anything like me you still haven't gotten used to the changes, and continue to say things like "And also with you" when you're supposed to say "And with your spirit," or "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you..." when you should actually say "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof..." or whatever other such poorly-translated silliness this AIDS-spreading, gay-hating, female-priest-denying Nazi pope and his ilk are trying to foist on us.

Maybe the new words aren't such a big deal for those Catholics born before Vatican II, but for us under-fifties, it's huge. At least, for me it is, because I was explicitly told I would only have to memorize all this stuff once. I look to the Church for stability and consistency -- and while there are plenty of areas in which the Church DESPERATELY needs to change (see previous paragraph) the words we English-speakers (used to) say during Mass should not be taking priority.

Supposedly the new English liturgy is a more faithful rendering of the good old Latin text that did the job for centuries (and which, if I were in charge, we never would have abandoned in the first place). Speaking as an expert* on Intercultural Relations, I can tell you that translation is by nature a tricky business. See, there's always this trade-off between literal and dynamic, and the art of rendering a truly "faithful" translation involves striking a balance between the two, because the point of a translation, after all, is to communicate the meaning of the original, and an over-literal translation defeats its own purpose by obfuscating that.

But if the Church wants to play over-literal ball, I say let's dance. I have therefore undertaken my own translation of the Credo based on the original** Latin. Feel free to mumble this version during Mass since nobody knows the new version anyway.

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THE NICENE CREED:
A NEW AMERICAN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

by Dan Colgate
Based on the Latin Liturgical Version

I believe in one God,
the almighty Father,
maker of the sky and of the earth,
of all visible things and invisible things;
and in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
born out of the Father before all centuries,
God derived from God, light derived from light, true God derived from true God,
begotten, not made, of the same stuff as God,
through whom all things were made;
who, for the sake of us humans and our preservation,
descended from the sky,
and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit
out of the virgin Mary, and was made human;
also crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
He suffered, and was entombed,
and rose again on the third day, in accordance with the Writings,
and went up into the sky, sitting on the right-hand side of the Father,
and after a while He will come with glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no ending;
And in the Holy Spirit, Lord and life-ifier***,
who goes in front of the Father and the Son,
who, along with the Father and the Son, is at the same time adored**** and co-glorified,
and who has spoken through the prophets;
and in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one baptism regarding the sending-back of sins
and await the rising-again of the dead
and the life of the coming centuries. Oh yeah.

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* In this case, "expert" might be more accurately rendered as "bachelor's degree holder".
** The Nicene Creed was originally written in Greek, but I don't speak Greek.
*** The Church translation of vivificántem is "giver of life". Not very faithful if you ask me.
**** The film Malcolm X does an excellent job of explaining the Roman sense of the word adorare, as denoting the ideal way troops should feel about their general, i.e. a mixture of love, respectful deference, and fear. In contemporary American English, "adored" doesn't quite do it justice -- e.g. "I just adore those napkin holders!" But "worshipped" isn't quite right either. Hmm...