Owning a Cat is Not A Type of Slavery

This may be an old question, but I only heard it recently.  Is a person who owns a cat the same as a slave owner?  I want to answer this question for two reasons.  I did own a cat, and second, slavery is the argument that fuelled the trend to extreme Bible Literalism.

I admit that I did not pay my cat any money for working for me.  On the other hand, he did very little "work" other than scratching up the furniture and barfing in surprising places. So that is the end of the similarity of pet owning to slavery, now I will give my reasons for supporting pet ownership, even though I oppose slavery.

Ironically, if all slaves were treated as well as the average pet cat, the institution of slavery might have survived till today.  But no, slaves were not treated as well as my cat.  Sad to say, human slaves were treated much worse than cat slaves.

If my cat runs away, I don't send dogs after it to tear it to shreds, then whip it or cut its legs off when I get it back.  Also, there is no law in the land that compels me to commit such barbaric acts to my cat.  Au contraire, I would be punished for "cruelty to animals" for doing it.  And there is no passage in the bible supporting such cruelty to cats.

The problem with slavery was not so much about paying slaves proper salary. Slavery simply was an evil governmental institution that also spawned an evil religious cult.  A cult that used the literal interpretation of the bible to justify such barbarity against fellow human beings, that today we would call it institutional terrorism.  Fundamentalist religion made slave owners feel that any evil they did would be forgiven, because the Bible itself told them that slavery was performed with God's blessing. And the Bible could never be wrong.

End of argument, but I still have more to say!

Post Script:
It is unfortunate that even to this day we have people indoctrinated on this old-time religion from the Slave States/Bible Belt, putting forward the same old arguments that make no more sense today than they did before the Civil War.

It's obvious to me that we must continue to argue about slavery with extreme Bible Believers.  We cannot allow Bible Fundamentalists to sabotage the public education system by changing the topic from slavery to an argument about evolution and "Darwinism".  Let's take the fundamentalist religious controversy back to slavery, where it started, instead of letting it spread its curse of ignorance to all aspects of our society.

Picture: Kitten jammed in a tight box on a slave ship to America.

Were Humans Used in Nutritional Experiments in the1940's?

On the CBC news this morning, I heard a newscaster make some disturbing allegations.  Apparently, nutritional researchers withheld food from hungry aboriginal children in residential schools in Canada, in order to study the effects of malnutrition.

I had already heard about the previous scandal, an experiment where researchers apparently gave vitamin and mineral supplements to some, but not all aboriginal schoolchildren.  To me, that did not seem as bad as withholding food from starving children.

I am not trying to make excuses for things that were done a long time ago.  I understand there was a lot more racism back then, in fact there is still a lot today, but at least it is not as overt.  There was also a different attitude towards corporal punishment of children.  We don't have the death penalty in Canada today, but we did then.  Experiments used to be performed on human beings, not just aboriginals either.  Check out Donald Ewen Cameron on Wikipedia, doing experiments with shock therapy and drugs, resulting in death of human test subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron

So it seems the ethical aspect of human experiments has come a long way since the fifties, in that we are much more careful about obtaining "Consent" of the subjects, and when we finally do the experiments, it is done with proper procedures and documentation, ensuring that we actually get some scientific benefit from the experiment.

Here is what the "Idle No More" (an Aboriginal activist) website posted about the situation, as quoted from the Canadian Press, under the title "HUNGRY ABORIGINAL PEOPLE USED IN BUREAUCRATS' EXPERIMENTS".  This title appears also on the CBC website, and many others.

http://www.idlenomore.ca/hungry_aboriginal_people_used_in_bureaucrats_experiments

If they withheld food from half of a group of starving children do see if they would die faster than a control group that got the regular rations, then that was evil by any standard.

If they gave minerals and vitamin supplements unknowingly to half the group, to see if there were any benefits to their health or mental states, without cutting back in any way on the food they were getting already, then the bureacrats and researchers were not evil, they were simply not acting according to modern standards on human research.

From the article above:

"The first experiment began in 1942 on 300 Norway House Cree. Of that group, 125 were selected to receive vitamin supplements which were withheld from the rest.
At the time, researchers calculated the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day. Normal, healthy adults generally require at least 2,000."

According to this, all the natives in some communities were basically going hungry, not just the children in residential schools. Instead of providing more food to the communities, the researchers gave selected people vitamin supplements.  If all the natives were hungry, that brings up many other questions about how they were fed, who was responsible for feeding them, and why were they not hunting/fishing/gathering berries, or otherwise using traditional sources of food?  None of that was mentioned in the article, although it seems familiar, just from Canadian and US history, and movies.

Here is another quote:

"One school deliberately held milk rations for two years to less than half the recommended amount to get a 'baseline' reading for when the allowance was increased."

If true, it would surely be a criminal act, even by the loose standards of 1947. But, I notice it does not say the rations were "cut", only "held".  Does that mean it was already normal practice to give half the recommended amount of milk?  Why?  Who set the recommended amount in the first place?

"At another, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn't."

Sounds reasonable for 1947.

"One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted."

Did people know what vitamin B1 was in 1947?  If so how was the level depressed, by withholding food?  Was it in pill form?

"A special enriched flour that couldn't legally be sold elsewhere in Canada under food adulteration laws was used on children at another school."

This actually doesn't sound too evil, as I think we now basically use enriched flour everywhere and think nothing of it. It is your basic white  "Wonder Bread".  Of course if the illegal enriched flour had proven fatal, that would have been a bad thing.

"Many dental services were withdrawn from participating schools during that time. Gum health was an important measuring tool for scientists and they didn't want treatments on children's teeth distorting results."

If true, that is a crime, unless the treatments that were being withheld were also experimental.  In which case it's the opposite of a crime.  The actual treatments that were withheld are not specified.

"They knew from the beginning that the real problem and the cause of malnutrition was underfunding. That was established before the studies even started and when the studies were completed that was still the problem."

Studies in nutrition are not simple, because even when people have enough money and access to food, they can still be malnourished.  You need to have a healthy balanced diet, and not all people understand what a healthy diet is, or want to eat it.  You can be obese and still  suffer from nutritional deficiencies.  You cannot drink Coke and eat potato chips your whole life without serious side effects, not that I am suggesting anyone in 1947 would do that.  But you also cannot easily force people to eat a healthy diet.

Social Consequences of the Theory of Evolution

There will be gradual changes to the broader civilization as we move away from the religious ideas of biblical Creationism and toward scientific ideas of Evolution.

The Bible has a story of creation that you can believe literally, or allegorically.  Either way it has the power to influence our behaviour. To begin with, it tells us that Men are the dominant sex, and that women were an afterthought, taken from man.  Also, man was created by God in the image of God, once again giving us the idea that men are more important than women.

Another aspect of the creation story is that Man is different from all other animals. In the the story of creation, only man was made in the image of God.  All the other creatures were crafted to look different from God. We are also to understand that Man's morality comes from God, as told in the story of Adam and Eve.  Furthermore we are told that man actually has no innate morality, and is born a natural sinner who needs to obey God, or will suffer punishment.

There are a few other ramifications to this religious story.  It becomes easy to believe that God prefers men to women, and it is also a small step further to believe that one type of man is preferred over other types of men. For example, white men over black men.*   And there is also a very strong support that whoever believes in the "true" Biblical account has the support of God, and anyone of a different faith should be converted or enslaved or killed.

* Although it is not specifically stated in the Bible, white people seem to believe that God is also white.  I can't really prove that of course, but just how many movies, paintings, drawings, have to be made before it's quite clear?

Now what happens to a civilization that is based on such a story of creation, when it finds out that humans were not directly created by God?  That maybe we are not so different from the animals.  Does it mean that now we have no morals any more?  That there is no punishment for being bad?  That our culture and race have no claim to a god-given superiority over any other culture, race, or religion?  That we can't even insist that men are superior to women?

Some people, without fear of a magical all-seeing being overhead, may get a little (or a lot) crazy.  For the vast majority of people, though, I think we will gradually find out that is was not really religion that was stopping them from becoming mass murderers, it was something else built deep inside the human brain.  You can say God put it there, if you wish,or that it evolved that way if you are more scientific.

If you need some proof of this, you should look at animals more closely.  You will notice that animals are capable of kindness.  But you do have to look carefully, as animals, of course do not have exactly the same sense of morality as humans.  But nature is full of heartwarming stories of animals doing good.  And human history has enough examples of religiously motivated people doing unspeakable evil.

Can we predict what will happen to individuals and societies as these scientific ideas spread?  I suspect that we may indeed have more killings and bad behaviours, but I think it is tied more to increasing populations, and new technologies facilitating mass murder, and greater access to information.  I suspect that there is not much real difference in the amount of bad behaviour today or in the future, from what there was a thousand years ago.  No matter what desperate religious conservatives have to say on that subject.  (for example blaming Darwin and the evolution of species for the Nazi holocaust)

But as these ideas of science spread, we will probably find that there will be less religious conflict in the future.  Much more freedom of religion and free thinking.  More equality between women and men.  Less racism.  More kindness to animals, and possibly more care for the natural environment.  Fewer missionaries trying to convert people.  And not a whole lot of difference in average levels of cruelty and violence in society- because it seems more and more apparent, that good and kind behaviour never was a function of religion alone.

Examples of Twisting Jesus' Words to Support War

This is in answer to a comment on my blog, which I guess is a fair question by Greybeard.

"Turned Jesus into a warmonger?
Can you cite an example?"

I will go ahead with examples, even though I am not exactly sure where you are coming from. Do you believe Jesus is definitely Pro-war, and you are asking for an example of why anyone would need to "twist" his word, or are you a pacifist who does not believe it is possible that anyone has twisted "turn the other cheek" to mean "bomb Iran back to the stone age?"

From http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2011/01/kos-bulls-eye-vs-palins-cross-hairs-on.html

Examples of Jesus words of peace (turn the other cheek, and others) have been reinterpreted to eliminate the implied pacifism. Also passages from the Bible promoting war have been given extra significance.

Reverend Jerry Falwell writes an article "God is Pro-War"
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36859

Pat Robertson, also a TV evangelist, supported the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. Later retracted the call for assassination and "apologized" but actually in his apology said the USA should declare war on Venezuela, then killing Chavez would be legal. Robertson only apologized because he realized assassinations are illegal too late after he called for it. Here is the apology, looks to me like it's on Pat Robertson's own web page.
http://www.patrobertson.com/pressreleases/hugochavez.asp

A web page explaining away the words of Jesus (turn the other cheek, love your enemy etc.)

It is very common to say that "turn the other cheek" applies only to individuals, not the the state. You may call this an example of twisting Jesus' words, or you may truly believe that this is what Jesus meant.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/pacifism5.htm

These following examples are actually from the Bible, you can Google them on the internet to quickly find many web sites using them to support a non-pacifist Christianity.

Matt. 10:34 reads:

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword (New International Version, NIV)


And Luke 22:36 reads:

[Jesus] said to [the disciples], "But now the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag; and the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one." (New Revised Standard Version, NRSV)

Jesus made a whip and went into the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers. By this example, it is often argued that God wants us to act aggressively against enemies in this world.

Whatever your surprise may be that Christians twist the words of Jesus to support war and violence, there's plenty of examples of Christians actually going to war for the past 1600 years, and calling on God to support them while they do it. To me it is actually more surprising to find that there are still true Christian pacifists like the Quakers.

KOS Bulls Eye vs. Palin's Cross Hairs on Gabrielle Giffords

The conservatives have scored a hard counterpunch in the blame game about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. On this right wing site, you will find out that Daily Kos, a left wing website, had previously put a bulls eye on Gabrielle Giffords, long before Sarah Palin put a "Surveyor's Target" on her.

In my opinion, Sarah Palin's rhetoric was far more inflammatory than KOS, if that counts for anything. It was quite a stretch to compare the KOS article to gunplay. There was a huge difference between the Daily KOS Bullseye and Sarah Palin's. I'm going to list some of the differences here, if only for people with am interest in propaganda.

Sarah was talking of an opponent, not a friend or an ally, like KOS was.

Daily KOS never had an actual graphic of a bulls eye. It was the right wingers who faked up a bullseye graphic to make KOS look bad. Here's the original for comparison: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/25/1204/74882/511/541568

Without the picture of a bulls eye, the words bulls eye also happen to mean "the precise accomplishment of a goal or purpose". In context, it was pretty obvious that this was the intended meaning for KOS. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bull's+eye

Daily KOS didn't use gunplay related slogans like Palin did with "Don't retreat, reload".

Everybody knew those were crosshairs long before the shooting. Even though after the shooting, Sarah's camp said the crosshairs were actually a "surveyor's scope". But Sarah earlier tweeted about her crosshairs icon, calling them a "bullseye" on Nov. 4th. Is it worth mentioning the difference? See the picture: Cross hairs are see-through, and are used to aim at the target, a bulls eye cannot be seen through, and it is the target. Anyway, she should know the difference between the target and the sight. http://twitpic.com/3ofie7/full

Tea partiers often bring loaded guns to political rallies, and use the language of guns in their rhetoric all the time. Liberals are usually unarmed at political rallies. The reference to guns on Palin's web entry was obvious to all.

Gabrielle herself said long before she was shot, that there would be consequences of being in Palin's crosshairs. Gabrielle did not mention the KOS "bulls eye", either was not aware of it or apparently did not consider it to be threatening or intimidating.

On "The View", right wing supporter Elisabeth Hasselbeck called Palin's crosshairs despicable long before the shooting.
http://talkshows.about.com/b/2011/01/08/hasselbeck-called-sarah-palin-crosshairs-graphic-despicable.htm

Maybe I could find a few more comparisons, but does it make any difference. This is not a debate. It's a propaganda war, and most of the heavy artillery is on the right wing side (to use a violent military metaphor.)

The right wing Christians (who back Sarah Palin) have been able to accomplish the amazing (to me) feat of twisting Jesus's words around to make him into a warmonger. By comparison this little shooting should be easy for them to turn around until the Democrats are back on the defensive.

Picture: Which is the bulls eye, which are the cross hairs? And which are best for targeting someone? We should also remember that Jesus wants us to kill Bin Laden, not Gabrielle Giffords, which is why Canada sent it's troops to Afghanistan and not Arizona.

Is Violent Rhetoric to Blame for Arizona Shooting?

"Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action." said Gabrielle Giffords, after windows were smashed in her Arizona office a year ago.

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/15648

March 26, 2010 my.hsj.org Newspaper

Offices throughout America have been targeted by opponents of the bill. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is one of the many victims of these acts, whose office in Tucson, AZ was attacked by vandals hours after she voted in favor of the bill. The front door and a window were smashed apparently in response to her actions.

The source of the attacks can be traced back to Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, a former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia who put out a call for modern “Sons of Liberty” to break the windows of Democratic Party offices. “We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”

Here is a discussion from July 26, 2009 about right wing political violence.

A list of the recent killings of liberals.

* Gun nut who posted Glenn Beck and NRA videos on racists websites ambushes 3 cops "who wanted to take his guns away"

* Bitter Right wing extremist walks into Unitarian Church and kill two "liberals"
Leaves sucide note blaming liberals for harming America.

* Right wing extremist drives 50 miles to Arkansas State Democratic Headquarters prentends to want to volunteer...murders Chairman in his office. A man he has never met.

* Doctor who performed abortions in Kansas shot dead. Killer congratulated and defended by right wing extremist websites.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523581,00.html


We probably havent seen the last of these. The right wing spin machine is ramping up the rhetoric....... Obama wants to throw the elderly into hospice "death camps"........ He wants to take your private insurance away........ Democrats are "Communists" and "Totalitarians"......Democrats support murder of babies..

There were 188 comments in response, and I picked through some of the right wing responses to get a sense of what the right wing extremists were thinking back in July 2009.

Padcrasher's Response:
... and your point is? ... can't stand the truth - fix it! You think those are the last attacks? guess what - people are getting REAL sick and tired of the lunacy of the left and it's got to get fixed or things may get worse.

KSigMason's Response
We could get in a pissing match over the various politically motivated killings, but I don't have all that time. Both sides of the political aisle have killed and caused problems

(Cannot see original post)
ike the Democrat supporters in the inner city who steal guns and kill innocent people who just want to rest on their porches - you two faced HYPOCRITE! All this crap and I never hear you cry about THOSE innocent people who are being killed - what does your agenda REALLY care about?? Let me say it for you "MORAL VALUES" the same one which could save lives from stuff like HIV and and inner city turmoil - which your side has done NOTHING to improve!

TheBasicsAbout's response
It has been a proven fact that American Communists and American Socialists have voted for the Democrats ...


Never Left's 2nd Response
Well, liberals are arogent agents of the state, nothing more. Leftists are completely without the ability to and imagination to do what is right. Their huberous is so deep and so out of touch with reality that they believe that their leftist ideology will be accepted by us real Americans. I see a ground swell coming, not of violence as these have done, but of prudent and thoughtful action in recognition of the lefts assault on our freedom and liberty.

TheBasicsAbout's response
I hope you are right ... but just in case ... the fire arms I own are close enough so to be loaded before anyone gets past my front door.
In this day and age - people need to understand the potential extremes of their actions
and know that more and more people are sick and tired of it
when they think they have totally won - they will QUICKLY loose in a horrific manor - because it WILL hit the fan!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
All the above commentary was a couple of years ago, long before the shooting yesterday. I wanted to see if there was any change in attitudes on the same political forum, in response to the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford.

Thread started by Teabagger with this post

Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head this morning. Sarah Palin put a bullseye on her head just a few months ago.

Toby's Response
Well according to the Huffington post he posted that among his favorite books was the Communist Manefesto. So making him out to be a right wing nut wont help your cause

Toby's 2nd response
I love it when the left tries to make out a gunman as a right wing nut when theyre influenced by the likes of Karl Marx.

Crimson Mask
I'm far more scared of unhinged lefties. They are more likely to engage in violence. Take the Black Panthers as example. And does anyone think Charles Manson and his hippie cult were conservatives?

Unifier's Response
Are you really going to politicize this tragedy?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Responses then veered off into the usual "Was Hitler Right Wing or Left Wing" variety, and I stopped looking through them. I don't see much change from 2009.

I agree with many who think it's a waste of time to try and identify a deranged killer as left wing or right wing. But still, right wing rhetoric is far more extreme, and fear based, and laced with veiled references to guns, than left wing rhetoric.

Propaganda does not work by direct mind control. It works by making a large number of people fearful and angry, then directing that fear, hate and anger against one political group. Mob mentality and individual lunacy have their way. The Democrats are not using that type of rhetoric these days, although they did back in the days of the Vietnam war and conscription. The result today is that you do not have rampages against Republicans, they all appear to be against Democrats or liberals.

I would like to see the right wing rhetoric stepped down several notches. I think it would result in less senseless killing of Democrats and liberals. This softening of rhetoric would apply to both sides, even though no Republicans or conservatives seem to be targeted by gun-toting wackos.

Right wing followers still think "toning down the rhetoric" means surrender to the socialists. But Sarah Palin immediately took down her crosshairs website. This might be the best apology we will see.

Robert Semrau Found Guilty of Killing Taliban

Robert Semrau was dismissed from the Canadian Forces for killing a wounded Taliban in Afghanistan.

If you support our troops, you may call this "A mercy killing", or "putting someone out of their misery". But if you are in the army, you are taught that this is "Shooting a wounded prisoner".

Why has Robert Semrau been dismissed from the Canadian Forces? Well, the military is really clear on the issue of shooting wounded prisoners. You don't ever do it. There are reasons why, I guess. I can think of two. The first is you don't want the enemy to do the same thing. In fact even if the enemy has done this (and I'm pretty sure it happens in all wars and on all sides), you still do not want to make it a policy to kill wounded and unarmed prisoners. It's also impossible to decide if a person is mortally wounded or not.

The Mark Semrau story smells of distraction to me. Why is the military making such a big deal about something that nobody else would really care about? They are taking an event that, without this trial, would be monumentally insignificant to the average Canadian, and turning it into a nationwide debate with a pretty intense spotlight.

Some of the comments I have seen left at the National Post and MacLean's, have been outright racist, and shameful to most Canadians. Often implying that the Taliban are no better than animals and that normal rules of combat that were OK for World War 2 are somehow inapplicable now. And that our only job in Afghanistan is to murder all the Taliban.

If the military was trying to whip up anti-liberal sentiments in Canada, they have certainly accomplished it. References to "libtards" can be found on web pages discussing this story. Also people are connecting this conviction of Semrau with the Pro-Choice movement. But this was not a case of stay-at-home liberals sitting in judgment of the nice conservative soldier hero. It was an entirely military thing, with no "liberals" or "pro-abortionists" or "anti-sealhunt" tree huggers involved.

The ultimate result of this trial is minimal. Semrau gets to leave Afghanistan, leave the military, and is reprimanded. But at the same time, he is kind of admired in the military and in Canada as a whole. He does not go to jail. I cannot know what is in Robert Semrau's mind, but the final result was not too bad for him, especially if he was getting sick of serving as an advisor to an Afghan Army unit. And I can think of a lot of reasons why he might be sick of what he was doing particularly if he does not like to see wounded Taliban laying there dying slowly.

As a result of this public trial, the Canadian military boosts its reputation as "fighting by the book" and maintaining strict battlefield discipline, which is something they had a lot of unwanted trouble with in Somalia.

The "support the troops" people in Canada get something to work them into a proper rage against Libtards and enviro-weenies, whether or not they were involved in this mess.

In the end, I don't really know whose side I come down on, but it seems to me like almost everybody wins, even the dying Taliban freedom fighter/terrorist. The only ones who have lost anything in this are maybe the liberals who ironically didn't have anything to do with it, but have now got the right wing nut jobs in an even greater frenzy against them.

Executing Julian Assange from Wikileaks is Not Justice

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks has been the target of a lot of threats recently, after releasing documents that were leaked from the US military.

My understanding is that no "Top Secret" documents were leaked, probably because they were better secured than all the other "Classified" documents. My impression of these "Classified" leaks is that they are more embarrassing than damaging. For example, a U.S. diplomat's opinion that the Canadian TV show "Little Mosque on the Prairie" is anti-American propaganda. That would obviously not be classified as Top Secret, but it is embarrassing enough that you might want to "classify" the memo to keep your opinions from the Canadian public.

I have not seen much in the way of really damaging leaked information that could get CIA operatives killed, but then not all the leaks have been put on the website yet. I guess the most damaging so far might be the revelation that the US is conducting air strikes in Yemen, where the Yemeni government was publicly claiming responsibility as cover. It seems to me that this should have been classified as "Top Secret" in the first place. And maybe somebody lost their job over this misclassification issue.

There has been a lot of extreme rhetoric about Julian Assange, and the U.S. Soldier who actually leaked the documents, Pvt. Bradley Manning. Bradley is up for court martial and could spend the rest of his life in jail. It seems excessive to me, but I can understand military discipline. What I can't understand is the desire to kill the founder of Wikileaks. After all, Bradley could have given the classified documents to anyone, and in fact could have given out a hundred copies all at the same time to a hundred different organizations, including the KGB if he wanted to. So how is it going to deter anyone from accepting secret leaked documents, if you assassinate only Julian Assange? If Julian passes on the documents to other people, you would need to kill all those other people too. In fact, if you look my blog right up above, you will see I have printed information that was obtained originally through these leaks, so I would be up for assassination too. If you assassinate everybody who prints something that was a "Classified" document, you have something just like Red China.

There was a call for assassination made on CBC TV by a former Conservative government chief of staff Tom Flanagan. (A similar position to Karl Rove or Scooter Libby in the USA?)

"Speaking on CBC's Power & Politics, Flanagan, who is a former Harper chief of staff, said Assange "should be assassinated" and that U.S. President Barack Obama "should put out a contract and maybe use a drone."
Flanagan later apologized."

http://www.canada.com/Calgary+prof+suggested+WikiLeaks+founder+assassinated+punished/3924507/story.html

I know Mr. Flanagan was smiling and chuckling while he said it, and so obviously no person in his right mind would actually think he was serious. Maybe. But many people in the USA have NOT apologised for calling for assassination. So maybe only the part about wanting Assange dead was serious, maybe not the part about assassinating him. This type of thing has happened before on TV, where Pat Robertson (for example) called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, and later apologized. But he only apologized because assassination is technically illegal, and in the apology Pat suggested ways that Chavez could be killed legally.

Here is an opinion piece "Call it Treason" written by Ronald Reagan's son Michael, calling for Assange to be shot by a firing squad, and I am going to presume some kind of Gitmo-like trial would have been held first, to make it perfectly legal.

http://blog.cagle.com/2010/12/01/call-it-treason/

In his call for execution, Michael says "no question about how we should deal with people who give aid and comfort to the enemy — they’d be tried for treason and when found guilty stood up before a firing squad".

You have to say "If" not "When", in order for it to be a trial. I would also be found guilty and shot according to this sweeping statement. But my strongest objection is that this attitude is a double standard that only applies to Democrats or liberals. In other words, shoot me if you have to, but shoot any Republicans who leak documents too.

If it was a universally applied rule, then the people who leaked the identity of any CIA operative should be taken in front of a firing squad and shot. And if there was no automatic free pass given to Republicans, I guess that President George W. Bush would be facing the firing squad, as well as Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Remember the Valerie Plame affair?

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2010/11/subliminal-message-of-fair-game-valerie.html

Actually, I don't think this vicious rhetoric is really intended to deter US leaks of secret information. It is just Republican propaganda to spread more hate and fear, and to put liberals on the defensive again. Of course liberals don't fight back against this type of ultra-violent double talk, because they are too liberal. Liberals want peace and justice, not killing and war.

Justice must be the same for all, no double standards. It does not mean I am calling for everyone to get the same number of bullets in the head. I mean justice in the liberal sense, that everyone is judged by the same written law, by the same rules, and they are guilty or innocent based on the written law and the evidence, not based on whether they are white or black, or liberal or conservative.

Here is another blog I wrote on the subject of double standard laws.

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2010/11/words-about-child-soldiers-from-col.html

Here is an article by Jonah Goldberg in the Chicago Tribune calling for Assange's Death

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-10-29/news/ct-oped-1029-goldberg-20101029_1_julian-assange-wikileaks-wrong-question

Where did I hear about Jonah Goldberg before? I argued against him back in July 2009, about his crazy right wing opinion that Canada should be bombed by the USA to get us to join the war on the American side.

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2009/07/canada-us-relations-improving.html

Picture: Executing detainees legally in WW2

Why Does Religious Right Oppose Liberal Do-Gooders?

What I want to know is, why some religious extremists oppose liberals who only want to make the world a better place? Instead, most religious factions seem to have has thrown in with the Republican Party, while bleeding heart liberal do-gooders seem to have picked the Democrats. There are exceptions, but without religious support, the Republicans would not have much chance of being elected.

It should be possible for all thoughtful, caring people to just get along. After all, Christians believe in "Love your neighbour", and they do nice things for poor countries, like setting up orphanages, building schools and giving out medicines. I don't think they like war any more than other people do.

What are the basic differences in the religious extremist philosophy, and a liberal do-gooder philosophy?

A liberal do-gooder would believe that by using our intellect, we can improve the world, and not just by giving charity to individuals. For example, they believe we can eliminate poverty, sickness, racism, ignorance, crime, war, overpopulation and pollution. And they think they can achieve world wide democracy and human rights. Liberal do gooders do not worship money as their God, and are not racist or nationalists. But they still worship something, and what they worship is the idea of perfecting the world through human reason. In other words, they worship themselves.

The Christians who oppose liberal ideas are people who love God more than they love any living person. They believe God takes care of their needs in this life as well as the afterlife, and believe God performs personal miracles for them. Everything from winning a football game to getting a little extra cash for the monthly expenses. That, to me, is extremely religious. But not necessarily Republican.

One reason Christians oppose liberal do gooders might be because they have a suspicion that the liberals are insulting God's creation. Since God is smarter than us how can we improve on His creation?

Another reason Extremist Christians oppose liberals, is if liberals ever do make Earth a better place, they are undermining both the appeal of Heaven and the prediction of the second coming of Jesus. If Jesus comes soon (as he is supposed to), any work done to save the planet is a waste of effort anyway.

There is a third answer for the split between liberal do-gooders and fundamentalists. By merely thinking about how things work, liberals are going to be questioning religion. And sure enough, many liberals think that religion is partly to blame for many ills of the world!

Religious people do seem to oppose almost every attempt by liberals to make the world a better place. In most cases, these liberal works are seen as immoral. The prime example is Communism, where godless people decided to eliminate poverty and class divisions to make the world "perfect". What happened to Communism was that it became a nightmare and it ultimately was doomed. There will be the same fate for socialists and liberals, according to religious extremists.

There are other liberal initiatives, such as universal health care, which turn out to be against religion. Health care interferes with life, for example, abortion and euthanasia. Stem cell research is a sin. Even population control is a sin. The religious idea being that every life is precious to God and no mortal should interfere.

So no cooperation on getting rid of poverty, and no population control. What else are liberals doing that is opposed to fundamentalism? Apparently, eliminating ignorance and giving universal non-religious education is also sinful. Godless education resulted in the "Theory of Evolution", asserting that there is no difference between humans and chimps. Then public education teaches us that all religions are equal. Religious extremists oppose this kind of public education, although they support education if it is centred on their religious point of view. According to Christians, the sin of knowledge actually caused the original fall of man, when he bit into the fruit of the "tree of knowledge".

Now we come to the peace movement. You may think all Christians could support the liberal do gooders in the peace movement, with the many pro-peace teachings of Jesus. Well, the religious extremists are in favour of peace, but not if it involves appeasement of non-Christians. For example, they generally support Israel's claim to Palestinian land, because it is written that God promised it to them. And most peace activists call for Israel to withdraw from the illegal occupation without regard to God's intentions. It's international law (The UN) vs. God's Law. You can guess which one the do-gooders want. Religious extremists generally supported the wars in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, and in many cases referred to them as a holy war.

Another point about war, do Christians really love their enemies? Yes they do, but it is with the purpose of to converting them to Christianity. Christians can love the person while hating that person's ideas.

What else have we got to differ on? The liberal cause of global warming for example, is just another case of godless science. Assuming the scientists were already wrong on evolution, it is no big deal for the religious right to ignore them on climate change.

Homosexuality is a sin, but liberals don't believe in sin, so they are in favour of gayness. Here the split is between freedom to do what you want (liberal idealism) vs. obey God (religious ideas of evil)

Religious fundamentalists think that making the world a better place is really an insult to a God who made the world the way He intended it. The more liberals try to improve the world, it seems like the worse it gets, so we might as well accept that God alone is in charge. While liberal do-gooders want to make the world a better place, the main aim of a religious fundamentalist is is to gain as many souls for Jesus as possible before the end of times, and let God take care of making the world a better place through flood or Armageddon.

Is Abortion Like SLavery?

I was recently Googling the words slavery and abortion and came up with 2,020,000 hits. All the pages I read were comparing abortion to slavery and saying why abortion is as evil as slavery (hint: both treat a person as a non-person).

It is interesting that the religion pushing hardest against abortion, the Southern Baptist, is also the religion that justified slavery based on the teachings of the Bible. Not only justified it, but made it morally wrong to oppose slavery.

Since the same religion is involved in both supporting slavery and opposing abortion because they say it is like slavery, my guess is that even to this day, they don't "get" why slavery was wrong. Although they did issue an apology for supporting slavery in 1995,

Why is slavery not like abortion?

1. With abortions, nobody is profiting by causing the misery of others.
2. Abortion is not a form of State sponsored terrorism against one race of people.
3. No babies are being taken away from their loving mother and sold as slaves.
4. No women are being used as "breeders" to produce "goods" to be sold.
5. Abortion does not promote rape, it tries to correct the results of rape.
6. No people are kidnapped on the streets or in their homes to be sold into abortion.

Now for some speculation on the the attitudes toward abortion back in the "good" old days of the Southern Baptists. African women knew how to do abortions, because they had been doing it for thousands of years and still do it in Africa. I am speculating that it must have galled the slave owners that they could not stop or even detect most of these abortions. The only time they could punish a black woman was if she decided to let the masters know she was pregnant, and then later on didn't produce the baby. As a pregnant slave, she would qualify for a little extra food, and was given a slightly less burdensome workload. Many women told their masters they were pregnant for these advantages, and carried on the pretense as long as possible before getting the inevitable whipping.

African women, as accustomed as they were to infants dying shortly after childbirth, did not consider the fetus to be a person even when the umbilical cord was cut. They would wait a while until they were more certain it would live. This contrasts with the current religious view that the first meeting of a sperm cell and an egg constitutes a "person" with all their protections and rights. Ironically, without the despised scientists, today's religious extremists would not have a clue that a sperm even met an egg, let alone when it happened.

Slave women used their ability to perform abortions to gain some control over their lives, and this was maybe the only thing that the slaves ever successfully pulled off that the slave owners could not find any way to control through terror and violence. The slave women had created a bargaining chip, and used it with some finesse. Even to admit that the slave women were intelligent enough to get away with this scam undermined the current slave owner view that slaves were less intelligent than the white owners. So I am assuming this game was tacitly understood but never clearly stated. In 1808, the importing of any new African slaves was prohibited, this gave the slave women even more power. Which I am again going to assume they knew, even though the slave owners took great pains to prevent the slaves from learning anything. I would bet that that the slave women figured out that no new African slaves were being imported. they would know that this made their breeding work more valuable to the slave owners. If you don't think that African women understand the law of supply and demand, go shopping at a market in Sierra Leone.

Now this brings us to today, when the original slave owners religion is trying to make abortion the most important issue for American voters. You have to wonder whether it isn't a little bit of payback for their impotence in the old days. In my opinion, that is the real connection between slavery and abortion.

If the anti-abortion crowd was actually interested in saving lives, about a million infants die each year in Africa, along with 250,000 mothers in childbirth (in Sierra Leone, one mother in eight). It has been estimated that about a billion dollars a year would save 800,000 lives a year in Africa. That's equal to all the abortions in one year in the USA.