This group B4UACT.ORG is actually trying to eliminate the stigma of pedophilia - AUG 17, 2011 CONFERENCE.

rkramer@b4uact.org

American Psychiatric Association

An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act and this is never considered normal or socially acceptable behavior. Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H., Director, American Psychiatric Association’s Division of Research states, “there are no plans or processes set up that would lead to the removal of the Paraphilias from their consideration as legitimate mental disorders.”

apa@psych.org

WRITE ABOUT THIS INSANITY!

With Bloomberg’s help, the Beyond Coal campaign now hopes to “revoke the social license for burning coal in this country, just like the social license for smoking cigarettes was revoked,” said Brune. Although many progressives have criticisms of Bloomberg—in fact, Brune notes, the local Sierra Club chapter did not endorse him when he ran for a third term as mayor two years ago—Bloomberg makes a logical partner for such an effort. As mayor, he has championed high-profile initiatives to ban cigarette smoking and slash greenhouse gas emissions. “Some things a modern society can move beyond,” Brune argued. “We don’t cut down old-growth redwood trees anymore to make decking material, and we don’t need to burn coal to keep our iPhones charged.”

American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris emails:

Nearly two years ago, I was invited by The Huffington Post (HuffPo) to become a blogger on their site. I was honored. It is one of the most heavily trafficked news sites anywhere, and it reaches an influential audience. Since September 2009, I have published nearly 50 articles there, and look forward to publishing many more. This week, for the first time, I was told by HuffPo that an article submitted was "not for us." It's below. I ask you to read it and decide for yourself. Apropos, the same article was published on my Jerusalem Post blog earlier this week.

Harris's blockaded post is titled "The Hamas - Oops, Gaza - Flotilla." I'm pretty sure Power Line readers can handle Harris's post. Here it is:

We're on the verge of another "flotilla" to Gaza. Estimates of the number of ships and participants vary from day to day, tending downward, but the erstwhile organizers insist that the maritime operation will take place.

Their spokesmen have been hyperactive in drawing attention to the event. After all, without coverage, they'd be denied their oxygen. And the kind of coverage they seek - idealistic humanists and peace activists determined to aid the poor, beleaguered residents of Gaza versus stone-hearted oppressors in military uniforms determined to block them at all costs - would, needless to say, portray Israel in the worst possible light.

The International Solidarity Movement, Free Gaza Movement, U.S. Boat to Gaza, and kindred spirits want the world to believe there is a strip of land called Gaza that, left to its own devices, would create the Shangri-La of the Middle East.

All its residents want are peace, harmony, coexistence, and tranquility. Some spokesmen acknowledge that Gaza has a governing authority. A very few even mention its name, Hamas, but hasten to add that it was elected democratically, so end of story. The rest don't give it a name, as it might muddy the waters.

According to this narrative - a word particularly popular in Middle East discussions- the residents of Gaza face a neighboring oppressor, Israel, which, for diabolical reasons of its own, wants to inflict maximum harm on people whose only dream in life is to live and let live. For these spokesmen, the wealth of vocabulary in the Oxford English Dictionary fails to capture the true nature of Israel's venality.

Enter, then, the self-described, modern-day Freedom Riders. They're boarding flotilla ships, they suggest, to bring aid, relief, and attention to those trapped in Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1963.

George Orwell, where are you? You could have a field day with this story.

Actually, you anticipated it when you wrote about the Ministry of Truth in your classic book, 1984. What were the ruling party's slogans on the outside of the 1,000-foot-tall building housing the ministry? Weren't they "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength"? And didn't the ministry rewrite history at will to ensure it always served the party's interests?

The Gaza flotilla spokesmen are inverting the truth and rewriting history at will to serve their interests. And what are those interests? To prop up the Hamas regime in Gaza and delegitimize Israel.

While they are entitled to their own opinions, however misguided, they are not entitled to their own facts.

They cannot separate Hamas from the equation. Much as they might try, the central fact is that Hamas is key to understanding Gaza today.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Don't take my word for it. Check with the United States and European Union, both of which have designated Hamas as a terrorist entity.

Hamas preaches the elimination of Israel and a toxic brew of classical anti-Semitism. Again, don't believe me. Read the Hamas Charter.

While Hamas may have been elected to govern with the PA in 2006, the first and only national Palestinian elections, one election does not a democracy make. Hamas used the ballot box to gain a foothold, then employed anti-democratic means to impose its own suffocating vision on the land. Hamas violently ousted the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007 and has ruled ever since. Because Hamas cannot reform, the much heralded "unity" agreement it signed with Fatah six weeks ago is headed for an uncertain future.

Hamas celebrates violence. It joyously speaks of jihad, martyrdom, conflict, and the ultimate destruction of Israel. It has matched its fiery rhetoric with a sustained effort to import weapons, courtesy of Iran, smugglers in the Sinai, and tunnels from the Egyptian side of the border. In recent years, literally thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired from Gaza at Israel. Why?

Israel has no claim on Gaza. To the contrary, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Soldiers and settlers alike were pulled out by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, giving local residents the first chance ever in their history to govern themselves.

Indeed, with Israel's encouragement, a number of Jewish donors purchased Israeli greenhouses in Gaza and left them behind to help jump-start the local economy. The first reaction was to ransack them, when they could have been sources of flowers and vegetables for the local economy.

Israel has an interest in a stable, peaceful, and prospering Gaza, not a gun-toting, missile-firing, jihad-preaching entity. After all, you can change a lot of things in life, but not neighbors. Israel and Gaza are destined to be neighbors for a long time to come.

The Quartet - the U.S., EU, Russia, and UN - set three conditions for engagement with Hamas. The group must forswear violence, recognize Israel's right to exist, and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. To date, none of those conditions have been met. Apologists for Gaza would have you believe otherwise, but Hamas's spokesmen always undercut them. When it serves their purposes, they might briefly curtail violence to regroup and rearm, but Hamas is adamant that it will never abandon its struggle against Israel.

So, let's be clear. The flotilla participants, whether they acknowledge it or not, are handmaidens of a terrorist regime. That regime, not Israel, is responsible for the conditions in Gaza, which may not be enviable, but are a far cry from the dire picture of starvation and stunted growth painted by the hyperbolic spokesmen.

Israel has only one concern, which is to ensure that Hamas, a declared enemy of Israel, does not get additional means to threaten its neighbor. That's it, pure and simple.

As has been said, if Hamas laid down its weapons, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its weapons, there would be no Israel.

The flotilla participants claim their mission is nothing more than humanitarian, but, in reality, it serves the interests of a regime that espouses terrorism, peddles anti-Semitism, and praises the memory of Osama Bin Laden.

To portray themselves as the new wave of Freedom Riders is to trample grotesquely on the legacy of America's civil rights struggle and rewrite history. Orwell's Ministry of Truth is back.

 

CONTACT: American Jewish Committee   http://www.ajc.org/

 

 

 

-- A shared $1 million prize from the Dan David Foundation for his "profound contribution to humanity." Hansen's cut ranged from $333,000 to $500,000, Horner said, adding that the precise amount is not known because Hansen's publicly available financial disclosure form only shows the prize was "an amount in excess of $5,000."

-- The 2010 Blue Planet prize worth $550,000 from the Asahi Glass Foundation, which recognizes efforts to solve environmental issues.

-- The Sophie Prize for his "political activism," worth $100,000. The Sophie Prize is meant to "inspire people working towards a sustainable future."

-- Speaking fees totaling $48,164 from a range of mostly environmental organizations.

-- A $15,000 participation fee, waived by the W.J. Clinton Foundation for its 2009 Waterkeeper Conference.

Did you hear that people are beating up Glenn Beck right now because in early March he told people to flee to higher ground if their churches want “social justice”? A misunderstanding about his comments is spreading around, and he’s being crucified.

In response, I want to ask you: does anybody have the slightest clue what people mean when they say, “I’m for social justice”?

The correct answer is, are you kidding me?

That’s right—because the truth is, nobody really knows. 

This much we do know:

Beyond that, social justice has evolved since the 1930s into a euphemism for socialism that was used heavily by both the Nazis and the Communists.

As for everybody else, they’ve thrown the term about for the past several decades as a band-aid to cover whatever injustice people perceive. It’s their “get out of jail free” card for all instances of inequality—except for this one important detail: social justice is not free.

Under the banner of social justice have come these calls to arms:

“We’re suffocating the planet! Impose ‘cap and trade.’”
“Animals have rights, stop hunting, stop furs.”
“The trees have feelings, stop logging, stop deforestation.”
“Resources are dwindling, stop populating.”
“Death and dismemberment costs money, you must wear seatbelts.”
“The poor should have jobs, give them one.”
“The homeless should have homes, give them one.”
“The blacks deserve slavery reparations, pay them.”
“The Mexicans were here first, give the land back.”
“The Indians were here first, give the land back.”
“Pedophiles are people too, show compassion.”
“Terrorists are people too, show compassion.”
“Every human is owed affordable health care, give it to them.”
“Every worker is owed a minimum wage, give them one.”
“Wear helmets, seatbelts, mouth guards, and ID or else.”
“There’s a hole in the ozone, stop cars and hair spray.”
“The rich should pay more taxes, make them pay.”
“If you don’t go green, we’ll fine you.”
“Nobody should be allowed to fail, bail them out.”

The do or die detail that comes with a cause, any cause, is whether or not the proponents require force to have it implemented. That’s the freedom factor that Glenn Beck was talking about—does your church espouse social justice that must be enforced by coercion or law or brute force?

Dr. W. Cleon Skousen points out in “The Five Thousand Year Leap” how today’s government-enforced social justice is not the same as Biblical charity the Founders tried to preserve with our Constitution:

“In Europe, during the days of the Founders, it was very popular to proclaim that the role of government was to take from the ‘haves’ and give to the ‘have nots’ so that all might be truly ‘equal.’ However, the American Founders perceived that this proposition contained a huge fallacy.

“The Founders recognized that the people cannot delegate to their government the power to do anything except that which they have the lawful right to do themselves.

“For example, every person is entitled to protection of his life and property. Therefore it is perfectly legitimate to delegate to the government the task of setting up a police force to protect the lives and property of all the people.

“But suppose a kind-hearted man [seeking social justice] saw that one of his neighbors had two cars while another neighbor had none. What would happen if, in a spirit of benevolence, the kind man went over and took one of the cars from his prosperous neighbor and generously gave it to the neighbor in need? Obviously, he would be arrested for car theft. No matter how kind his intentions, he is guilty of flagrantly violating the natural rights of his prosperous neighbor, who is entitled to be protected in his property.

“….But suppose the kind-hearted man decided to ask the mayor and city council to force the man with two cars to give one to his pedestrian neighbor. Does that make it any more legitimate? Obviously, this makes it even worse because if the mayor and city council do it in the name of the law, the man who has lost his car has not only lost the rights to his property, but (since it is the ‘law’) he has lost all right to appeal for help in protecting his property.” (The Five Thousand Year Leap, pp. 87-88)

The Founders were experts on human nature. They knew that some people would prosper more than others in a truly free nation. Rather than force and curtail human nature to fit neatly into some Utopian scheme of social justice, they sanctified the principle of “equal rights not equal things.”

Equal rights as defined by the Founders provides these four freedoms:

• Freedom to buy
• Freedom to sell
• Freedom to try
• Freedom to fail.

Equal rights puts the burden of production on the individual, not the state. This is something lazy people passionately despise. Nevertheless, everyone has the right to be prosperous, but only at the cost of personal invention and innovation, hard and dedicated work, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

What about the lazy, the unfortunate, the accidental victims of personal catastrophe?

The Founders knew their Bible. They knew God mandated that all his children should help the poor and underprivileged. Outside of private charity—which our nation has in abundance—how can the government help without making things worse?

Their solution came in the form of “calculated” compassion (see The Five Thousand Year Leap, p. 91):

1. Do not help the needy completely. Merely help them to help themselves.
2. Give the poor the satisfaction of “earned achievement” instead of rewarding them without achievement.
3. Allow the poor to climb the “appreciation ladder”—from tents to cabins, cabins to cottages, cottages to comfortable houses.
4. Where emergency help is provided, do not prolong it to the point where it becomes habitual.
5. Strictly enforce the scale of “fixed responsibility.” The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community; finally the county, and, in a disaster or emergency, the state. Under no circumstance is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.

So, was Glenn Beck correct in his call to all thinking Americans to flee from churches and other organizations that promoted social justice with force? When such organizations align with big government’s socialist programs, and they force increased taxes, a smothering deficit, and the loss of property rights to achieve so-called social justice, it is clear that Beck is right. 

To break these numbers down to a more personal level, for every child in America under 18 when President Obama took office, their share of that debt was $84,000. Now it is $119,000 per child. By the end of 2016, it would be $196,000.

We are witnessing a massive increase in the amount of borrowing, the amount of spending, the amount of debt and the growth of government in Washington, D.C. We need to start tackling this debt, and we need to start doing it now.