Catholic smiles are just smiles; MAGA hats don't turn them into smirks

Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann tries to suppress a smile after an Indian walks up and starts beating a drum in his face.

    The drumbeat heard around the world continues to reverberate, as social media and newspaper op-ed writers remain all atwitter over images of a smiling Catholic boy wearing a MAGA hat while some Indian pounds a drum an inch from his face.
    The Smiling Nick Sandmann has been declared a racist and every possible disparaging name imaginable; national figures have urged people to beat him up and he's received a massive number of death threats. His school, Covington Catholic in Covington, Ky., has been portrayed as in incubator of racism and evil. Many commenters retracted their defamatory comments about Sandmann after receiving additional information, but others continue to vilify both him and his school.
    I happen to believe the smiling Nick Sandmann is a good kid who simply stood in one place while approached by a crazy Indian beating a drum. Video of the event clearly shows Sandman just standing there with a silly grin on his face sort of taking in the surreal situation. When attacked by the Indian he can be seen trying without success to suppress a smile.
    Others, including a number of gay writers, have written very seriously that what Sandmann was doing was not smiling, but a demonstration of what they call the Catholic-schoolboy “smirk.” Apparently Catholic schoolboys, and only Catholic schoolboys, spend all of their spare time perfecting their smirks. Said Esquire writer Dave Holmes: “We’ve seen it in our own personal histories, if we have ever been that terrifying combination of young and different in any way.”
    Holmes, who is gay, was writing about his unhappy time in a Missouri Catholic school during the early 1990s, when homosexual activity was considered a crime in that state. The Catholic church still maintains, rightly or wrongly, that homosexual activity is a sin, so I don't doubt that Holmes may have had a difficult time. But that doesn't make every smiling Catholic schoolboy an evil smirker.
    The claim has repeatedly and falsely been made that Covington Catholic School is a “segregation academy,” which is quite impossible given that it is located in a virtually all-white county. The argument of leftists making this claim is that Cincinnati whites fleeing school integration moved to various almost-all-white suburban counties. By operating or expanding their existing schools Catholics were therefore operating “segregation academies.” By that definition the local public schools in these counties would be considered “segregation academies,” too. The thought process behind this way of thinking is beyond my ken: you cannot have white flight or a segregation academy unless there is some group to flee or segregate oneself from. In almost-all-white counties there is simply no racial group to flee.
    My personal experience and common sense tell me that the Catholic schools of Northern Kentucky were not created to promote segregation or avoid integrated local schools. Most of these Catholic schools were founded in the early 1900s with a few going back to before the war. Prior to the Brown v. Board of Education decision about a third of the region's schoolchildren attended parochial schools, one of the highest rates in the nation; obviously they weren't fleeing integration since there was no integration to flee.
    The Catholic Church essentially stands alone in trying to organize its churches so that people of all races and all social classes will worship together in the same church, while most Protestant churches are segregated on the basis of both economic status and race. It's common to see multiple Protestant churches of the same denomination in small towns, each serving a different racial or socio-economic group. The Catholic Church would never allow such a thing. Civil-rights activist Lawrence Guyot described how the Catholic church integrated its schools: “The Catholic Church in 1957 or '58 made a decision that they were going to desegregate the schools. They did it this way. The announcement was we have two programs. We have excommunication and we have integration. Make your choice by Friday.”
    Catholics often do bad things. They sin. So do Protestants, Jews, Mormons, atheists, and everyone else. Those wishing to criticize any Catholic school or its students will find no shortage of ammunition, but they aren't operating segregation academies.
    And as a general rule a Catholic smile is just that; it's a smile. There are a plentitude of types of smiles: nervous smiles, happy smiles, sad smiles, conspiratorial smiles, threatening smiles, this-is-ridiculous smiles, and yes, even smirks. Smiling isn't limited to Catholics; people of all faiths smile and sometimes they may even smirk. But those who see every Catholic smile as a smirk are just paranoid.
    In the end a Catholic school is just that and nothing more, without nefarious intent by those who operate or attend them. A schoolboy who smiles is just smiling. Being Catholic didn't make Nick Sandmann's nervous smile a “smirk,” nor did wearing a MAGA hat.
   Those who have criticized Sandmann, his school, or his schoolmates have displayed a malevolence of spirit that is frightening. For these evil people I have just one thing more to say: I smirk in your general direction.

Policy debates should be about helping Americans, not declaring others un-Christian

    “It’s the Christian thing to do.”
    This was the pronouncement of a top Democrat who insisted that Hillary Clinton return refund $1.65 million that the Democratic National Committee paid for Clinton’s email list just over a year ago. Such arrangements are not uncommon, as politicians carefully guard their mailing lists as one of their most valuable assets. Barrack Obama eventually donated his email list to the DNC, but not until 2015.
    Since purchasing the mailing list the DNC has used it to raise more than $30 million for the party. So the purchase was a great deal. But the Republican party has been far outraising Democrats. While individual Democrats have been very successful in fund-raising, the RNC has far outpaced them in both fund-raising and hoarding cash. The RNC currently has about $43 million in cash on hand with no debt; the DNC has about $10 million in cash coupled with $6 million in debt.
    And so the Democrats want their money back, and one spokesman has said their demand is ordained by Jesus Christ, and should Hillary not comply with it she is a apparently a bad Christian.
    Bollocks!
    Nowhere in the Bible is there a command to give money to either the Republican or Democrat party. Choosing to abide by the terms of a mutually beneficial contract doesn’t make one a bad Christian. But the far-left has taken to declaring anything they don’t like un-Christian, so it’s not surprising that one would hear such a ridiculous statement concerning Hillary’s email list.
    The Left adopted a policy some years back of infiltrating Christian churches in an effort to hijack the Christian faith. They have been remarkably successful in tying left-wing social policy to Christianity. Thus we are told that tax cuts are un-Christian; cuts in social spending are un-Christian; failure to support an open-borders policy which will destroy our nation is un-Christian; and so forth, ad nauseam, to the point that now failure to give millions to the DNC is un-Christian.
    If tax cuts are un-Christian then leftists should be able to tell us exactly what level of taxation is Christian. If cuts in social spending are un-Christian then exactly what level of social spending is Christian? If support for immigration control is un-Christian, they why do God and Jesus suggest otherwise in the Bible? Why would Jesus advocate policies which are certain to destroy America when the Bible insists that good rulers protect their subjects?
    As a nation the people of the United States have generally shared civic values that have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible. It’s possible to support good or bad public policy without being a good or bad Christian.
    Our federal system of government is one of dual sovereignty: our first duty is to our federal government to the extent such duties are spelled out in our Constitution; our second duty is to our states (actually our first duty is to our states, but since they have ceded authority to the federal government we are bound to honor this concession). We likewise have a duty of dual moral fealty; first to God, for those things specifically spelled out in the Bible, and then to our civic polity for everything else. Most things we as Americans support or oppose have nothing to do with Christianity; they are instead arguments about civic values and how to best implement them.
    Three years ago Southern Baptists voted to condemn the Confederate flag, with no allowance made for the fact that the flag might mean different things to different people. At the same meeting the denomination elected Steve Gaines as its president. As pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church Gaines allowed an associate pastor credibly accused of pressuring his teenage son to engage in sexual activity with him for more than a year to continue in his job for more than six months after learning of the abuse. Even more appalling, the associate pastor’s job was to counsel victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
    To suggest that the display of the Confederate flag is un-Christian is heresy. Whether or not such display is right or wrong is determined by one’s personal motivation for such display. If to honor one’s ancestral parents, then such display is ordained by the Ten Commandments; if displayed out of a sense of hate for others then it is a sin.
    The decision to elect Steve Gaines as SBC president is another matter. For most his tolerance for incestuous child abuse violates both our sense of civic morality and our sense of Christian morality, not to mention the law. How can an organization that would elect such a man deem itself worthy to lecture the rest of us on what Christians should or should not do?
    Civic polity requires us to support laws and policies that operate to the benefit of our fellow citizens. Such a view is in concordance with the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. However, absent bad or evil intentions, no public policy decision is either Christian nor un-Christian.
    There is no such thing as corporate Christianity. Taxation of the wealthy to support the poor may very well be good public policy; but support for such taxation is neither Christian nor un-Christian. Only personal action taken with one’s own effort or assets allow one to meet Christ’s mandate to help the poor. Those who donate their time, energy, and money to help the poor are engaged in Christian behavior. Mere support for government spending to help the poor is not Christian at all.
    Our motivations for supporting various public policies can be Christian or un-Christian, but the policies themselves simply can’t be. To simply label a policy decision as un-Christian is to bear false witness against another, a violation of the Ten Commandments which is, in fact, un-Christian.
    As a general rule a Christian argument can be made for or against almost any public policy, which is why I think such debates should focus not on religion, but what is best for the American people and nation.

Snake-handling pastor seemed to think his only death options were snake bite or car wreck

    A snake handler by the name of Jamie Coots has died from -- drum roll please -- handling snakes.
    The Kentucky pastor, presumably Eastern Kentucky pastor, had been featured in a year-long National Geographic series on the snake-handling splinter of Pentecostalism. He had repeatedly said he would never seek medical attention for a snake bite, and was true to his word.
    I just saw a clip of him on television, and he had the following words of wisdom: "I'd rather die from a serpent bite with folks around me praying then die from a car wreck with everybody around me cussing."
    The chance of dying in a auto accident during one's lifetime is less than one-in-100 (Source: The Odds of Dying). About a third of the people who die in car wrecks have been drinking, so by not drinking and wearing a safety belt one can reduce this to perhaps one-in-150 or less.
    The chance of the average person dying from a Snake, Bee or other Venomous Bite or Sting is approximately one-in-100,000. This presumes, of course, that one doesn't play with snakes. I would guess the chance of an accidental snake-bite death for an average citizen to be one-in-500,000 or less.
    Rev. Coots decided to take two long-shot ways of dying and to treat them as if they were the only way to go out of this world. Option one, death by serpent bite with congregants praying. Option two, death by car wreck with bystanders cussing. (Do people always cuss at car wrecks?). So he essentially chose death by snake bite, basing his choice on an obviously false dichotomy.
    He had other options. He could have lived a nice, long life and died of old age. Our lives are in the hands of God, but I believe it to be His will that we strive to avoid death by all of life's longshots and instead die of old age.
    With Coots's death, America's collective IQ has gone up. Unfortunately he had already bred, so there is no eugenic effect.

Pope's call to eliminate food waste won't feed a single poor person

    Pope Francis has just declared the wasting of food equivalent to "stealing from the poor." It's a statement that reflects a poor understanding of economics.
    I remember as a child being told to eat everything on my plate and not to throw away a sandwich. "Think of all the starving children in India," we were told. Today I think children are told that it's the Africans who are starving.
    Finally we got wiser and would tell the sermonizer to "just put it in a box and mail it to them."
    Certainly there is plenty of food wasted in the United States each year. A recent study said 40 percent of American food production is "wasted," whether in the fields, on the way to and from market, in processing, or thrown away uneaten or spoiled. The study says that if we reduced food waste by 15 percent we could feed 25 million more people each year. Apparently unanswered in the study is exactly how this food is to be delivered to these people.
    Food is money. When we waste food we waste money. So we shouldn't waste food. But time is money, too. When we waste time we waste money. So sometimes we make choices and throw away food money to get time money; or manufacturers waste 10 cents worth of food to save a dollar in labor and processing costs.
    The fact is that food is cheap in relation to the cost of reducing food waste. Restaurants could cut their serving sizes and offer free seconds, which would probably help all of our waistelines. But somebody would have to cook those seconds. Somebody would have to serve those seconds. And somebody would have to clean the extra plate. It's far more efficient -- and cheaper -- to just put enough food for a hearty appetite in the first place, even it it increases food waste.
    I keep a bell pepper on hand for cooking, particularly when they are in season and low in price. Sometimes I don't need a pepper and it goes bad and into the garbage. I could just wait until I was sure I needed the pepper, hop in my car, drive to the store and get a nice, fresh, bell pepper. But what is the cost in doing this, in terms of not only time, but gas? Isn't it better and cheaper to just accept that a few bell peppers a year will have to be discarded?
    If everyone in the world stopped wasting food tomorrow the price of food might drop, thus benefiting the poor. But guess what happens next? Farmers cut back on production on their more marginal land, since the crop price would have dropped lower than the cost of production, and prices go back up again.
    I try to buy pasta on sale at 50 cents per pound. I frequently cook about four ounces more than I really need, so roughly 12.5 cents worth of pasta goes in  the garbage can. It's cheaper to cook four extra ounces than it is to measure the exact amount, marry partially used boxes, etc. And I know there will be plenty to go around. But if the pope wants the 12.5 cents of pasta that we throw out on a regular basis I'll put it in a Ziploc bag and refrigerate it until he has a chance to come pick it up. Of course, the Ziploc bag costs about six cents, so he'll need to reimburse me for that.
    Eliminating food waste will not put one ounce of extra food on the plates of the poor. If eliminating food waste would feed the starving, then when Black Oak Arkansas disbanded every poor person in the world should have gotten a guitar. They didn't.

Insulting Arabs with namecalling, pig heads on sticks unlikely to win lost souls to Jesus Christ

    Given that I consider myself a right-wing kind of guy, I generally like right-wing websites. But sometimes they can go just a little too far. Just a teeny bit.
    A friend recently posted a story on Facebook from WND entitled "Moslem mob stones Christians." It was about how a group of radical Moslems attacked some innocent Christians who were just going about their business, or so the story would have us believe.
    WND later edited its story to point out that the "Christians" weren't just having a Sunday School picnic, but were in fact hurling insults at an Arabs during Dearborn, Michigan's 17th annual International Arab Festival, and taunting them with a pig's head mounted on a stick. Dearborn is a heavily Arab city.
    I'll be the first to agree that radical Islam is a problem in this country and around the world, and often political correctness stops us from addressing it. But do these people really think they are reaching souls for Jesus Christ with their antics. Not only are they not going to convert any Moslems, but they aren't going to bring any wavering Christians back into the fold, either. In fact, all they can possibly succeed in doing is to drive decent people away from the Christian church. Who are these dreadful people?
    I'm certainly not for political correctness and I'm not willing to kowtow to the various interest groups that insist that we say just the right things in order to not hurt feelings. But I see no reason to go out on public streets and hurl insults at people either -- especially in the name of Jesus.
    I left a comment on my friend's post pointing out that the so-called "Christian" group had intentionally incited a riot. And indeed a near-riot occurred and the Dearborn did little to protect the "Christians" who started it. It's clear I was able to clear the air a little, because a little later someone else posted this:

In a world with justice, every one of those Mohammedans would have been machine-gunned in the streets, and every Dearborn cop involved in persecuting the Christians would be on his way to prison for oppression. THIS, boys and girls, is the face of Mohammedanism and "political correctness," throwing Christians to the lions. WTG Dearborn.

Sigh...

Voice of the far left Tweets out bigotry

    New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow is one of those "right-thinking" liberals who is always quick to find racism hiding behind every statement of any conservative politician.
    When Newt Gingrich points out that some poor children are never exposed to work, his statement is immediately twisted by people like Blow to suggest that Gingrich had claimed that NO poor people worked. In doing so, he demonstrated his intellectual dishonesty.
    To hear Blow tell it, there is only one person in America standing against religious and racial bigotry, and that person is Charles M. Blow. If you don't believe him, just visit the New York Times website and look at his column archive.
    Of course, there's not much explaining Blow's most recent comments (and, in fact, he has now apologized). During the most recent Republican debate, he sent out a Twitter "Tweet:" "Let me just tell you this Mitt "Muddle Mouth": I'm a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear."
    Before we get to the bigotry in Blow's Tweet, let's look at the content. Romney obviously said something about the problem presented by the increasing numbers of single parents. It is a demonstrably proven fact that no matter the income, no matter the quality of parent, all other things being equal children fare much better in a two-parent family.
    Note what Blow does. Romney brings attention to one of the most important problems that our country faces, namely the fact that children reared by single parents have a higher risk of bad outcomes than children reared by two parents. No rational person can dispute this!
    But Blow twists it. He turns Romney's comments into an attack on all single parents, including himself.
    And so we come to the bigoted Tweet, which reference Romney's "magic underwear." So-called "magic underwear" are worn by Mormons after their first visit to the temple, as a constant reminder of their covenant with God. They are properly called a "temple garment," and they are really no different from religious items worn by people of other faiths. Jewish men wear the little hats, yarmulke, for example, and have other dress codes. Sikhs wear turbans and a special undergarment. In years past, men is some Christian denominations dressed in leisure suits, although this practice seems to have waned. There are other examples, but the fact is that it just isn't that uncommon for members of various faiths to have beliefs that might strike the rest of us as a bit odd. If their "odd" practice doesn't affect me, then why should I care?
    With all of this said, I'm glad Mr. Blow let go with his reprehensible Tweet. It helps remind the rest of us of the type of people we're dealing with: uninformed, hypocritical bigots.

Birth control? Yes. Forcing Catholics to buy it? NO!

    Although I am opposed to making the Catholic Church buy contraceptives -- including those which in their minds may induce abortion -- I support birth control.
    As I mentioned in my previous post, most Catholics don't agree with their church's position. Some say as many as 98 percent of Catholic women have used artificial birth control at some point, and a majority disagree with the official church position on birth control (I suspect the 98 percent figure is high).
    The fact that most members don't agree with the church's leadership is frequently cited by those who support requiring Catholic institutions to provide free contraceptives to their employees. What a dangerous precedent!
    Is the government now going to step in every time it feels a church's leadership is out of step with its members? If so, we may soon see female priests installed while escorted by federal marshals who threaten to kill anyone who tries to uphold church law. Apparently a majority of Seventh-Day Adventists don't adhere absolutely to that faith's call for vegetarianism. Shall we now require Seventh-Day institutions to serve pork chops with the threat of jail or death to those who refuse to comply.
    It simply isn't the proper role of government to pick and choose which religious liberties to trample based on the government's determination of how strongly the rank-and-file membership agrees with a policy.
    As I said before, in addition to eroding religious liberty, I think just giving out birth control pills for free is poor economic policy. It ignores the fact that many women, through forgetfulness don't finish their cycles, and would quit buying them if using their own money. And it will encourage doctors to prescribe to most expensive brands of birth control because, after all, it's free. Far better to at least have a co-pay, with a higher co-pay for the more expensive brands.
    As a matter of policy, if the government wants insurance to provide something for free, it ought to be paid for by the government, not by forcing insurance companies or churches to pay for it. If the government wants everyone to have free contraceptives, then enact a dedicated tax and use the proceeds to buy everyone free birth control -- and count me as a supporter.
    That's far more acceptable than pointing a gun at the Catholics and ordering them under threat of jail and death if they resist, to violate the tenants of their faith.