One of my favorite exchanges in the movie Young Frankenstein begins with Gene Wilder complaining about how awful it is to be in a cemetery in the dead of night, stealing a corpse from a fresh grave. His accomplice Marty Feldman replies, "I don't know...it could be worse." "How?" "Could be raining..." mere seconds before a torrential downpour floods the grave. Given a choice between serving as an administrator with two other people on a social media forum with a little over twenty-thousand (alleged) fans of Georgia Bulldog football and trying to herd twenty-thousand cats, I'll take the cats every time. Why? Both have equally bad attitudes most of the time, but cats can only howl and hiss. If cats could write and verbalize idiotic thoughts like humans, the decision would be much tougher. Earlier this morning I began reviewing the most recent posts in this "fan" forum and couldn't help but notice the negative attitudes that pop up like mushrooms in a cow pasture after a hard rain, and like mushrooms, some were poisonous and others seemed to be hallucinating. People who demonstrate no real knowledge of the game feel compelled to express their opinions anyway. It never fails--if Georgia loses a football game, some people are going to start losing their minds, and that's okay as long as you keep it to yourself. But when you start talking crazy in front of an audience of twenty-thousand people, you're setting a really bad example and somebody will need to intervene. Barney Fife only had the only bullet for his pistol and kept it in his pocket, but I can nip it in the … [Read more...]
Jesus and Socialism
Some of the strangest experiences I've had on social media was finding myself arguing with other alleged Christians on the subject of whether or not Jesus was a socialist. Because Jesus once said we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's (meaning pay our taxes) and frequently preached about giving generously to the poor, my more liberal-minded Christian friends have interpreted those examples to mean Jesus was a socialist. For the record, both points are undeniably true. Jesus said a lot of things that would lead one to believe the accumulation of material wealth wasn't a healthy preoccupation. Jesus once told a rich man that he would only have to sacrifice all of his wealth if he wanted to follow Him, and the man couldn't do it. However, would taking all of his wealth by using the force of government have made the rich man righteous? I don't see how. Portrait of Jesus created by Akiane Kramarik More importantly, do any those examples prove that Jesus was a socialist? No, of course not. Jesus was a strong advocate for charity, not the Roman Empire, which of course was not governed by any form of socialism. Ever. Jesus preached about the human relationship between individuals and an individual's relationship with their creator, not the role of government in society. He was about as apolitical as a person can get, and that was probably due to the fact Jesus was not just any ordinary human being. He was the Messiah promised to the people of Israel, and God incarnate. But if socialism didn't even exist as a political philosophy when Jesus was alive, how … [Read more...]
Is Self-Defense Still Legal for White People?
According to eyewitness accounts, Trayvon Martin had knocked George Zimmerman to the ground and was beating him “MMA style” when Zimmerman pulled his legally owned gun and fatally shot Martin. The “Black Lives Matter” movement then used Martin’s death as their excuse to launch a well-planned and orchestrated campaign to promote socialism. If innocent black lives truly mattered to the BLM movement, when protestors chant “Say her name!” the crowd would be pleased and satisfied to hear Secoriea Turner’s name mentioned along with Breonna Taylor’s, but sadly that just isn’t true. It was George Zimmerman who became the first human in recorded history to be identified by the media as a white Hispanic man. Zimmerman was tried for murder in spite of the evidence that he’d acted in self-defense, and as filmmaker (and American Thinker contributor) Joel Gilbert revealed in his documentary The Trayvon Hoax, the prosecution even put a fraudulent witness on the stand to testify against him, but Zimmerman was acquitted by a jury of his peers following the applicable Florida law. BLM was not interested in “justice” for Trayvon Martin; they wanted vengeance. When rumor spread in Atlanta that George Zimmerman had been arrested for DUI and was currently in the Fulton County Jail, BLM protestors tried to find out Zimmerman’s location so another prisoner might kill him. Can you say, “lynch mob?” Yes, I thought you could.The unfortunate death of Trayvon Martin was only the beginning. Next we had Ferguson, with the narrative that Officer Darren Wilson murdered innocent Michael Brown, … [Read more...]
In Defense of Lunacy
Over the weekend, I had a bit of an angry meltdown after reading an NPR interview with the author of a book titled In Defense of Looting. I was briefly tempted to smash my computer into tiny bits when I realized that a major publisher had given enormous credibility to the ravings of a lunatic. Fortunately, I remembered that I can’t afford a replacement before I did any permanent damage. The first words that came to mind were, are you freaking kidding me? But then I asked myself, why are you surprised? Vicky Osterweilpromotional photoHachette Book Group Writing can be a very frustrating business. The easiest (and hardest) part is putting ink on paper, or in this modern era, type into a computer. Self-publishing services have made getting a book into print fairly easy. The biggest obstacle to success for a writer is learning how to find their ideal target audience and market their book in order to reap the fruits of their labor. To get a book deal from a major publishing house like the Hachette Book Group, the writer's only real hope is finding an agent willing to represent them. The Hachette Book Group publishes a whole slew of famous and best-selling authors such as James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Jeffrey Deaver, Malala Yousafzai, Admiral William McRaven, Newt Gingrich, and JK Rowling--some of the bigger names in the industry. Having been down this same road several times myself and once on behalf of another writer, I would imagine the agent had to like the book and Ms. Osterweil had a social media following of at … [Read more...]
Cancel culture: mass hysteria no different from medieval witch hunts
[John's Note: While I write the vast majority of the articles published here and do not solicit guest blogs (in fact, I reject most unsolicited material) but occasionally, I make an exception. This is one of those occasions. Even more rare, this is the second article by Avi Kumar published here, making history our first "repeat" guest appearance.] We remember what went on in the Middle Ages/ Medieval period in Europe, better known as the Dark ages, as we analyze history. We laugh at how ridiculous people could be: witches were burned at the stake. Lynch mobs murdered innocent people because of their skin color. Self-flagellation and mass hysteria. Yes, we look back at our forefather’s absurd antics and laugh. But then some of us (conservatives) ponder how many of these practices are not really much different from what the left does today. The same sort of mindset of those who burned witches at the stake infects the liberals who dominate our college campuses nowadays. Imagine being accused of being a witch or heretic during the Dark Ages. It meant more than being banned from attending church; you would be shunned, shamed, and perhaps even exiled from a close knit community. The Scarlet Letter is a novel that was inspired by historical behavior. However, the purity tests for today's liberals are not triggered by immoral behavior, but political correctness. In a notorious case in 1425, Hermann II, Count of Celje accused his daughter-in-law Veronika of Desenice of witchcraft. Although she was acquitted by a court, he had her intentionally drowned. The … [Read more...]
