Coups and Civil War

September 2009, Obama had been President for less than a year, when John L. Perry wrote his piece about the military taking down the President with a "bloodless coup".

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Newsmax took down the commentary so that it would not be "misinterpreted".  According to them Perry was not advocating for a "bloodless coup", but merely describing that scenario.

Fast forward to 2013, World Net Daily writes about a rising star in the Tea Party movement, retired Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely who wants to make citizen's arrests of the President and members of Congress.  A couple of days ago in my news feed, a post by Conservative Tribune came up, SPREAD THIS: U.S. General Calls for Immediate Arrest of Barack H. Obama for ‘Treasonous Activities’.



This time Vallely says that Republicans will not arrest Obama, because they are afraid of a "black uprising".  He claims that Obama is trying to form his own police force and could enforce marshal law anytime.  He agrees with the host that the lower ranks in the military will rise up if Obama tries to shoot civilians.

The writer at Conservative Tribune interprets the general's remarks in a more extreme fashion.

Failing that, Vallely essentially recommended a military coup d’état, which is probably only justified in the most extreme circumstances.

But the general passionately believes that these are extreme circumstances because Obama is a traitor. Given that scenario, jail time for the president would be appropriate.

Moving from military coups, Allen West is warning the left that Christians may rise up and revolt in a civil war, Why the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage could lead to civil war.

I know there are folks on the liberal progressive left who frequent this website. So here is my message. The Christian church community is a lot bigger and more powerful than you think — they kept a Republican from winning the White House. And these aren’t just old white men – there’s a growing young Christian constituency. You can criticize the Christian right all you want, but surrendering one’s faith principle for political gain is not a viable proposition. And in the case of prosecution of the Christian church, there could be a rallying of churches, regardless of race, the likes of which this nation has not seen.

The SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage is not about the issue itself — it is about individual religious freedom and the imposition of the State’s will against faith. After all, it is the original reason why the Pilgrims fled England. And since there is no place for men and women of faith to retreat — they will make a stand. This ain’t first century Rome.

I just wanted to document this, in case anyone accuses me of making up the fact that there is talk on the conservative side about over throwing the government.

ICR uses a fifteen year old article against Jurassic World

ICR put out, What Would Need to Change for a Dinosaur to Evolve into a Bird?, in response to Jurassic World.  It was lacking.

"Feathers: Feathers are not at all similar to scales. Even if scales were frayed, they would not be interlocking and impervious to air as are feathers. Actually, feathers are more similar to hair follicles than scales. Could such precise design arise by mutation? In all the recent discoveries of dinosaur fossils with "feathers," the "feathers" are merely inferred. What is actually present is better described as thin filaments which originate under the skin."

Who is still advancing the idea of frayed scales evolving into feathers?

"Birds have delicate, hollow bones to lighten their weight while dinosaurs had solid bones."

Not all dinosaurs had solid bones.

"Lungs: Birds are unique among land-dwelling vertebrates in that they don't breathe in and out. The air flows continually in a one-directional loop supporting the bird's high metabolism. Reptilian respiration is entirely different, more like that in mammals."

Unidirectional breathing has been discovered in crocodiles.

"A recent "mummified" dinosaur, with soft tissue fossilized, proved to be quite like a crocodile, and not at all like a bird."

Which one? Without citing which dinosaur mummy this argument is meaningless, especially when crocodiles are proving more bird-like.

Citation at the bottom of the article

I noticed this article was written in 2000. We know in 2015 that some dinosaurs had hollow bones and another archosaur, ie crocodile, has unidirectional breathing. Especially since the discovery of unidirectional breathing in crocodiles, I have been extremely frustrated in the reluctance of creationists to update their media. Why knowingly share fifteen year old outdated incorrect info?

Times are changing...

The Texas Republican Party platform of 2010 included the following line.

Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

The 2014 platform however has no mention of "sodomy" and replaced the arrest the homosexual portion with a line about reparation therapy.

Reparative Therapy- We recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy.

 There is no scientific data promoting the efficacy of reparative therapy.  A small minority of those that identify as homosexual will identify later as heterosexual whether they attend therapy or not.  There is no reliable evidence that reparative therapy is the cause.  The vast majority of people who attend reparative therapy continue in their orientation.

It took the Texas GOP just four years to give up on arresting homosexuals.  Hopefully in four years they will either produce studies that reparative therapy works or abandon it as well.

What Robert Jeffress wants us to forget

In 2011, Robert Jeffress preached that the word "religion" in the First Amendment only applied to Christians. He has taken down both his sermon video on the subject and his blog from his Twilight Last Gleaming series.  However he did not delete his book or it's forward by Mike Huckabee.

 Given his recent Nazi comments, it is interesting that he specifically writes about Judaism by name as a faith that is not a constitutionally a  "religion" according to his interpretation.  Below are the comments that he made on Hannity.

I want to remind people that the Nazis weren't able to take the Jews to the crematoriums immediately. The German people wouldn't have allowed for it. Instead, the Nazis had to change public opinion. They marginalized the Jewish people, disparaged them, and made them objects of contempt.

Basically his argument in his book rests on the idea that contextually the word "religion" would have meant only Christianity to the Founding Fathers.

Jeffress argues that Freedom of Religion only applies to Christians, because the Founding Fathers only meant Christianity by the word "religion".  I dealt somewhat with this argument in a blog I wrote in 2011, Need help convincing your friends that Islam is a religion?  I gave examples of the Founding Fathers who used "religion" to refer to the non-Christian faith of Islam.  Perhaps the most concise take down of this position was done by the American Family Association (also in 2011) to counter their spokesman, Bryan Fischer, making the same argument that Jeffress makes.  Even though the AFA has increased their opposition to their own employee both in writing and by removing him as spokesman, they have strangely deleted their epic take down.  It has however been preserved by Rightwingwatch.

Pertinent to the topic of  "marginalized the Jewish people", Jeffress specifically mentions Judaism and Islam as his two examples of non-Christian religions OK to be excluded by the state, because they are not legally "equally valid as Christianity". 

There is no mandate in the Constitution that requires the government to prohibit expressions of the Christian faith in the public square.  In fact, as I have demonstrated in several examples, the First Amendment does not even require that the government treat all faiths equally.  Although the Constitution demands that the government allow expressions of all faiths, the government can (and for more than 150 years did) show a preference for the Christian faith.  A high school principal does not have to have both a Christian and a Muslim student offer a prayer at graduation.  A city mayor is not obligated to balance a nativity scene in the town square with a Jewish menorah.  True tolerance allows for preferences by individuals.

Jeffress believes that schools should be engaged in daily leading prayer for their students.  Given this background, he specifically argues that a Muslim student does not have to be allowed to lead prayer at a graduation.  He is using Muslim and Jewish interchangeably here so my hypothetical scenario that I wrote in 2011 is not too far off what he has already said. 

Pastor Jeffress believes that the First Amendment says that a teacher can select a 6 year old Christian boy to lead his public school first grade class in prayer. However, when the boy's practicing Jewish best friend volunteers to lead the following day, the teacher can say, "I am sorry Ben you can't, because you are a Jew."

He specifically even says that a mayor would be within his rights to ban a Jewish menorah from the town square.

There is no secret that Jeffress preaches that Christians should usually vote for Christians.  In 2011, he endorse Rick Perry over Mitt Romney because Perry was "born again". Electing a Mormon was to invite the judgment of God on America.  Apparently God changed his mind when Romney won the primary. Jeffress doubled back arguing that Romney was preferable to Obama who had his "Fist in the Face of God"

Sadly this evangelical idea about not voting for Jews became tragic when a Missouri Republican Party chairman started a whisper campaign to suggest that one of the primary candidates for Governor was actually Jewish instead of Christian.

You know where Judaism not having full religious rights and not voting for Jews, does not play well? Israel.  Fischer was ultimately fired from his job as spokesman for this and other views.  (The AFA sent the Southern Poverty Law Center a list.)  Still Jeffress has never repudiated his same views. He just stopped talking about them.  How can he go around from show to show and never get asked about this portion of his book?

As mentioned, Huckabee wrote the forward.

Huckabee is running for President again.  How can he avoid questions about Jeffress' view on how Judaism should be treated under the law?