The Desert of the Real

Especially given what it means. Believe me, I’d much rather be wrong on these things. During the Elections, I and the (much esteemed on non-political topics) Jason Engwer went round a few times on the issues of supporting yet another Bush term. This post from last November pretty much sums up his opinion:

I’m glad that George Bush, instead of Al Gore or John Kerry, is choosing Supreme Court justices. If one of those Democrats were President, we wouldn’t be getting judges nearly as conservative as John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Some Christians advocate avoiding involvement in politics, or argue for a third party, on the basis that there aren’t any significant differences between the Republicans and Democrats. Keep these Supreme Court nominations in mind during upcoming election seasons when we, once again, hear the claim that the two parties are basically the same. They do have some similarities, and there’s a lot wrong with what Bush has done in office, but he is significantly better than a Gore or a Kerry.

There have certainly been no shortage of bad choices on the part of these two men, but nothing that wasn’t already there when they were being nominated, and when we discussed them at that time. They all went ignored. Well, now there’s a new one. With Alito’s deciding vote, the Supreme court has ruled that whistleblowers are not protected by the first amendment, and may not be able to file suit when their supervisor(s) retaliate. So, now it’s just a little more difficult to expose government corruption, and a little less likely that anyone will be willing to take the risk involved in exposing it in the first place.

Yeah Jason, two big thumbs up here. I’ll be sure to keep those court nominations in mind come election day. Especially when my local, state, and federal officials use rulings like this to oppress people who might expose them. Thanks.

There is a sad story in the news in my neck of the woods. (Free Registration required.) A couple there was caught in adultery and were confronted by the Elders of the church privately. They were then confronted in the presence of a handful of others, and then before the church each time admonishing him to abandon his sin. At each step he refused, and instead said he would simply leave the church.

This church rightly has bylaws stating that you cannot simply disband membership to avoid Church discipline. They moved to contact other churches he was involved with and at least allegedly some other folks he knows including possibly his employer (I have not been able to confirm this to be true). At this point this couple filed a lawsuit, claiming that their private sins should be confidential. This of course is bad enough, that church discipline is so rare today that people believe that their sins can and should be covered up by the church.

However, it gets worse as you can see in this lovely quote from the article itself:

Mr. Tillotson said the case holds major implications for church members in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

“The typical notion of a Dallasite is that if you don’t like a church, you can just leave, and that’s that is apparently not shared by some of these churches,” he said. “And then when you say I want to get off this merry-go-round, their response is you can’t quit to avoid discipline.”

Unfortunately, it’s all too true. Our church has likewise encountered the problem of discipline in this area. Writing letters to other churches does next to no good. To the best of my knowledge only one church has ever honored a letter sent to the new church of someone who abandoned fellowship while under discipline. And now we face the possibility of a court setting a precedent of restricting the freedom of religion within our churches, and in an area that 90% of our churches don’t care about or practice. “First they came for the Biblical Churches, and I said nothing…”

I was at a friends blog who linked to Malkin’s blog as upsetting. I, like a fool, clicked the link. Oh was he ever right, though I don’t really know if he was upset for the same reason as me, or if he was even reading the same story.

This story doesn’t have a lot of her writing, just her quoting the blogs of other authoritarian fools and agreeing with them. You know, at one time, she made some sense…she was practically libertarian. I don’t know what caused her death spiral into authoritarian politics but it’s truly regrettable. There was a time where I would’ve never expected to see her quote things like this favorably:

Qwest’s refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest.

USA Today just tipped off the terrorist how to avoid detection and put the people in Qwest’s areas in danger because now it is known those areas have the least protection and should be targeted! What are these people THINKING! Someone needs to go to jail.

So, basically, Because Qwest is concerned about giving out customer data without a warrant, they should go to jail? Unbelievable.

Then there’s the little commentary she provides, like this:
The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

I will be sure to continue to do business with Verizon, in support of its willingness to cooperate with the government to prevent another September 11.

Well, she certainly should be able to do that. Unfortunately, it being a monopoly she really doesn’t have any choice in the matter if she lives in their area. Given the other quote, this is something of an inane statement, since she apparently doesn’t think anyone should have the choice to do otherwise.

...this story has been leaked as a transparent attempt to embarrass General Hayden and stop his nomination. While it will probably cause outrage on the left and among that ever more curious contrarian Senator Specter, the brouhaha over this will pass and Hayden should still be on track for confirmation.

Ah, it’s a conspiracy. I remember the days when we made fun of the left for this sort of thing. But oh well. And of course, the underlying assumption here is that Hayden would be a good choice, but we’ll come back to that in a second. I want to hit one last quote here before we expose that little mistake.

Ben Franklin’s dictum, “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security” is oft misquoted as an absolute

True, yet I hardly think that being safe and secure in your communications is not essential liberty. Being able to speak without worrying thta the government might be listening in even w/out you having done anything to give them probable cause to do so seems to me to be a line I’m not willing to cross. Nor am I even willing to try it, as the person quoted here is. He says he’s willing to revisit it later if it turns out people are being harassed. Really? Like the people being harassed under the PATRIOT act? I seem to recall that didn’t really get changed. Lets be honest, once you grant someone that kind of power, how easy do you think it’s going to be to get them to give it up? Can you name a time that the government has given up that kind of power?

Of course, the likely argument is going to be that probable cause will always be there. That’s bull. Even the quotes in this article give that to be a lie. But even if there were a whisper of support for it, General Hayden closes that door rather hard here. The transcript follows:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I’d like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use—

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually—the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That’s what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable—

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure…

GEN. HAYDEN: ... Just to be very clear—and believe me, if there’s any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it’s the Fourth.

Right. And Malkin’s cronies are worried about USA today hurting his chances? If him not even knowing the text of the fourth amendment doesn’t do it, nothing USA Today can print about him is likely to. And frankly, given that most people in this country have no idea what the fouth amendment DOES say, it’s sadly unlikely that this little doozy is going to do any damage either.

Just for reference:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Nope. Nothing about probable cause there.

Things went fairly well. Or at least they did once I found a projector. That oversight led to some elevated stress levels at the beginning though. Most of the presentations I’ll be giving could be given with or without a projector, but today had some multimedia stuff all through it that I didn’t want to leave out. Indeed, if i’d left that out my presentation would’ve been very short indeed.

However, based on what they said anyway, I guess it was helpful, even if I did move to fast. (Once I was a half-hour late getting started due to having to track it down and then still had to set it up, I was in a rush to try and get at least some of the interesting content out, and not just the introductory stuff.)

I guess we’ll know for sure next week when we find out how many people show up.

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Not that many of you have a clue what I’m talking about. Tomorrow I begin teaching a series on the Da Vinci Code. Easy enough right? I mean, refuting this book is like shooting fish in a barrel. The trouble is, there’s not a whole lot of content to go after, and our sessions are fairly long.

And, I just went through an actual presentation for the first week, thinking I had more than enough material, and I couldn’t even make it last an entire hour. This does not bode well. I am concerned about how quickly I’m going to burn through material. Plus, I burned an awful lot of time preparing for today, doing fact checking, and such.

But, tomorrow’s presentation is hitting all the low-hanging fruit, a lot of it not even theological in nature. (Like how many panes of glass are in the pyramid at the Louvre…it’s not 666 like Brown says it is.) So maybe once I hit my stride and get into the issues of his claims about theology and about history things will flow better. I pray it is so.

Anyway, if for some fool reason you’re up this late and hit this blog, pray for my class. Pray for me, that God will bless my meager presentation to the edification of those who hear it.