Reverend Lowery decided to use his benediction, which is usually used as a way to bless all in attendance, as a bully pulpit designed to admonish whites and those opposed to homosexual marriage.  I find this use of the inauguration as a deplorable and degrading statement from the Reverend Lowery.

On both subjects I challenge the left to upbraid and castigate those who cannot see the hypocrisy in both the homosexual community for their treatment of Pastor Rick Warren and Revered Joseph E. Lowery.

However, given PEBO’s (President Elect Barak Obama) successful use of the New Media during his campaign we may be seeing a shift away from traditional television information dispersal.

With the real shrinking of the print media as well as the potential resurgence of the Fairness Doctrine (which is anything but fair) we are in a time in which we are going to have to become tech savvy a la Erick’s wonderful tech post (which I encourage everyone on RS or who visits us to read here).  If we do not marginalize the MSM we will continue to have to deal with their distractions and in some cases their subversion of our cause as in their near unfettered admiration for John McCain during the primary then blatantly contradicting (sometimes even their own organizations) themselves about him.

We either let the MSM hand us John McCain or we failed to successfully get coherent information out to the voting populace concerning truly conservative candidates.  In either case I contend we have a leadership issue for being unable to combat the MSM or being incompetent concerning the selection of a viable candidate.

But make no mistake, I believe all these faults ultimate rest with us, the roots portion of the Grass Roots in the Republican party.  We, the average conservative member of the Republican party need to forcefully and loudly communicate our views with our republican leaders, at all levels.  To not do so is to be hypocritical on a level senator Kerry, who voted for the war before he voted against it, would be proud of.

That’s my opinion, we welcome yours (tagline courtesy of Snake Davis)

We do not stop accepting ‘the lesser of evils’.  Some pain is going to be necessary to over come this death spiral of accepting moderates and those Really Interested in Nothing Overt when it comes to principals.

We do not adopt an attitude of the best defense is a good offense.  Call a spade a spade when someone lies, twists the truth, purposefully misquotes, edits interviews to be untruthful or unflattering, et al.  Those who produce Ridiculous Internet News Offerings should no longer receive ANY attention, interviews, or responses other than the figurative finger and ‘no comment’.

We don’t get rid of the idea that money is everything.  This is a liberal ideal.  We are the party of smaller government, fiscal responsibility, national defense, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  We are not the party of Really Interested in Nothing Offensive.  Principals will offend those who disagree with you.  Principals will upset those people whom you believe are doing things of an immoral or unethical nature.

We as the individual voter and root of the grass do not begin to toss out the bums who forgot how Ronald Reagan won his victories.  How the revolution of ’94 swept into Washington.  Why we are conservative.  If this past year has upset you to the point of putting your foot through your television then it’s time to get off the bench and get in the game Requesting Individuals Not Organizations help the party rather than crying about the lesser of evils we were given.

We don’t put on our khaki’s, don the pith helmet, get a guide and go hunting.  There’s a reason that big-bore rifle over the mantle is called an elephant gun.  It’s time we used it again because, in my humble opinion, there are to many rhinoceros running around under elephant skins.  Until we pose with a few hunting photos next to a carcass or two no one is going to respect us as carrying any political weight or power.  You want change in DC?  Stop bitching and start working to make some.  You want conservative candidates you can support rather than milksops and moderates?  Convince some state reps (Chip Rogers, I’m talking to you) to run for federal office and then join their campaigns (I will if you’ll run, sir).

That’s my opinion, we welcome yours (tag line from Snake Davis)

Congressional democrats blaming Bush for the decision to go to war when they voted for it

Congressional republicans touting their conservative roots and voting for the Bail Out Bill (HR1424)

Congressional democrats blaming Wallstreet for the mortgage meltdown while knowing Congressional Republicans warned eeryont it was coming.

Congress (all of them) for upbraiding the CEO’s of the automakers for flying in on their corporate jets while members of congress jet all over the country to make appearances.

Congressional democrats chiding Enron and Worldcom for ‘cooking the books’ while they do EXACTLY the same thing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack (but Franklin Raines et al get away with it while Skilling and Ebbers.are now convicted felons)

Congressional democrats fear-monger the auto industry going into bankruptcy as losing 2 million jobs while Tribune company goes into bankruptcy without losing any jobs (thus protecting the UAW’s cushy contracts, which are arguably the reason The Big Three are in the situation they’re in).

Congressional Republicans forcing their moderate candidate on the party despite conservative complaints he can’t win then blaming the failure of said moderate on those same conservatives (never mind the addition of a true conservative on the ticket is the only thing that saved the 2008 campaign from Mondalian failure)

Erick put out the call for Georgians on this one and to all who made an effort to expose this unacceptable act by a supposed republican dominated commission thanks.  The great white hunter is on the trail of several more potential trophies in Gwinnett county.

A common theme in many of the diaries on RS both before the election and since lament the unwillingness for Republicans to call a spade a spade and take the offensive against slanderous, incorrect, and in some cases out and out lies.  For those of you holding current office a good first step toward getting back in the good graces of the base would be to…

FIGHT BACK

Show some backbone when the democratic controlled congress wants to throw away $750 billion dollars of your constituents money, especially when 80%+ of them tell you too.

Find some moral outrage when the same democrats who were in control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac try to shift the blame to Wallstreet for things YOU WARNED THEM WERE COMING!

Get on the airwaves and call out the crooks who continue to guard the hen house after being caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Call for impeachment, resignation, etc PUBLICLY when the opposition makes racially charged or outrageously offensive statements about our military.

If the willing accomplices in the main stream media fail to publicize a true newsworthy story because it will hurt their cohorts on the liberal side of the isle, stop talking to them until the remember how to be reporters instead of editorialists.

When liberals misrepresent the big three bankruptcy as a ‘loss of 3 million jobs’ call them idiots who can’t do math and have no understanding of how real-world bankruptcy works.

The American people are not the idiot children the MSM wants everyone to believe they are.  Oh, sure, there is some percentage of them who think they won’t have to work anymore now that The Socialist One has been elected.  But they aren’t grounded in reality anyway, and rarely vote.  The people who think it’s important to vote will hear, but only if you SAY SOMETHING.

Get a plan.  Get organized.  If you don’t know, or don’t understand how the New Media works, ask someone who’s in it so you can take advantage of it.  But please don’t think you can tell us any more falsehoods about how this past election loss was somehow due to a failure of conservatism.  Nearly no one in Washington has been publicizing anything conservative for some time, and that needs to change starting with the RNC chair.  Please find someone who’s willing to be a street fighter to fill this spot.  We desperately need someone willing to stand up for principals again.

Conservative activists do not need a cause.  They rally around an injustice they see and work to correct it.  Once the correction is made they return focus to their lives (read jobs).

Liberal Activists must be the center of attention.  If they are not, they must find the new cause de jour so as to gain the center of attention, or they fade away thus the MSM continue to shift focus to the new cause.

Conservative activists do not require the focus be on them but rather the issue at hand.  Usually centered around someone other than themselves who is the target of inequality or some other disparity of justice.

Liberal activists do not care how the ends are reached so long as the end goal is reached.  For the liberal activist how many people are hurt, damaged, injured, or slandered is immaterial so long as the lofty goal is ultimately attained.

Conservative activists have rules, obey rules, and expect rules to be enforced both on themselves and those they see as having oppressed someone for whom they are championing.

Lastly, liberal activists can be found via a protester job bank because, for many of them, it is just that, a J O B since they do not have an actual productive place in the work force.  They’ve found their niche and fill it holding any sign given them by their supervisor and chanting whatever slogan is assigned.

Conservative activists are actually doing their championing in their spare time after they’ve put in their forty to fifty hours on the job-site, tended to their children, done some house work, and made sure their spouse has had some face time.  For the conservative, activism is more of a hobby, though some have taken it to the level of a job and thus occupy places in the New Media at various levels.

In summation, Liberals are activists because they don’t know any better.  Conservatives are activists so things will get better.

That’s our opinion, we welcome yours (tag line courtesy of Snake Davis)…

This approach is flawed for many reasons chief among them is ignoring the divine nature of biblical scripture.

The Newsweek article can be found here.

I am a Christian.  I believe the bible is the divine word of God as given to man by the Holy Spirit.  I do not believe it has hidden meanings and I do not purport to understand everything contained there in.  I do believe in right and wrong.  I believe the bible contains a clear distinction of what is acceptable to God, what Jesus approved of, and what God and Jesus find unacceptable.  This rails against foundational principals to many people but, fortunately, we live in America where I can still choose to openly have principals grounded in faith.

Albert Mohler does a wonderful job of dissecting Ms. Miller’s article here so I won’t be copying the copious quantity of notes I took while reading the article.  However, I will mention a few things that seem most egregious to me.

The scholars, priests, and clergy Ms. Miller quotes all back her view that the bible really does support gay marriage.  She quotes the Anchor Bible Dictionary as saying, ‘notes that nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women’.  The bible clearly mentions this in Roman 1:26-27 as Mr. Mohler points out.  Neil Elliott is trotted out trying to explain that Paul really meant Roman emperors and their attrocities to man, not what everyday people might do, which is supposed to be reason enough for us to ignore this behavior since we all know our public figures are not to be role models or held to any standards of conduct as the Left continually explains to us (unless they have right-leaning ideas, are from a red state, or have a capital ‘R’ after their name).

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, Walter Brueggemann, emeritus professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, Terry Davis the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Conn., the United Church of Christ, Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center in New York, all these people and organizations are trotted out by Ms. Miller to support the biblical nature of gay marriage.  Not one time does she mention any opposition view point.

The works of these people are numerous and would require much time and effort to thoroughly vet.  Suffice to say I will not name call here on any of them but I will say the quotes used from them by Ms. Miller are not complimentary in the realm of theology and gay marriage.  That is to say, she casts them all in the light of support this as a biblically acceptable sacrament, which it clearly is not for anyone with any intellectual honesty about what scripture says on the subject.

Ms. Miller makes her summation point on the third page (by Newsweek’s website) of the article.  It reads as follows, ‘So the frustrating, semantic question remains: should gay people be married in the same, sacramental sense that straight people are? I would argue that they should. If we are all God’s children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color—and no serious (or even semi-serious) person would argue that.’  No, it is not.  At least, not in a biblical sense.  Skin color is a facet of a person like hair color.  The bible does not mention a skin color as being sinful.  Sexual orientation, despite claims to the contrary, is a choice, like how long you keep your hair.  The bible specifically calls same sex conduct sinful, in many places (which Ms. Miller appears to not have read fully).  Once again, the idea of clear rights and wrongs is alien to Ms. Miller and her supporters.

Ms. Miller’s closing comment is to try and use Psalm 139 ‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ to suggest gay marriage is acceptable because, ‘Jesus does not want people to be lonely and sad’.  I agree.  I also agree Jesus would reach out to gay men and women and beckon, no plead, with them to join him.  He would beseech them to come to him, but he would require, I believe, they give up their old ways and follow a better path as outlined by his word and his Father’s word.

The bible is a book of inclusion.  Jesus was a savior of inclusion.  He wanted and wants EVERYONE to join him, but not in the harmful ways of man.  He wants us to join him in the harmonious ways of His Father and not the flawed ways of man.

The amendment, among other things, removes the 400k county resident’s ability to choose a garbage disposal service: they must now pay for service from the county selected provider.   It also increases a county resident’s ad valorem tax after July 1, 2009.  Lastly, it has a series of prohibited activities for which a violator can be charged up to $500.

I sent all of the commission members an email requesting a comment, which I promised to post unedited if they’d send it to me before 8:30 PM ET last night (12 Dec 08).  I received not one comment.  Additionally, I have a friend in Gwinnett who informed me there was a GOP party a few days ago at which several of the commission members would be in attendance.  Several were asked about the issue and all refused to discuss it.

Update: Since I drafted this diary the Atalnta Journal/Constitution has published the following article detailing a court battle Gwinnett is now in over this very topic:  http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/12/10/gwinnett_recycling_plan.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=13

Opponents have been mentioning recycling as the reason residents can be fined, but according to the wording of the amendment it is for any  violation of the prohibited activities section.

Here are some high points before we get into the particulars of the violations.

Section V A vii - Increases county resident’s taxes
Section V D i 2 - Yard waste removal costs the resident more
Section XVIII A - Enforcement by any inspector employed by Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful and deputized by the Sheriff
Section XIX A - Makes any violation, not just recyclables punishable by no more than $500

Section VII A contains the prohibited acts a residential owner can be fined for and is summed up violating anything in section V.A. Keep in mind Section XIX.A. States, “…any person who willfully violates this ordinance may be punished by a civil monetary penalty not to exceed $500.00 per violation.  Keep in mind that last part as you read through the summaries below of Section V. Also, the final part of Section XIX A. reads, “Each full day a violation continues may constitute a separate violation”.

Section V (I have paraphrased much of this for brevity)
V.A.ii. -You can only contract for garbage service with the county approved provider prior to July 1, 2009 but you may remove it by other means other than having trash service.
V.A.iii. -you Must use the county provided service after July 1, 2009.  All residents will also, ‘Source separate residential recovered materials i.e. recyclables
V.A.v. -All residents will prevent the accumulation of trash on their property or public thoroughfares bordering same
V.A.vi.1.-Before July 1, 2009 all residents shall

• put trash where they say
• Put all recycleables in the service providers recyclable cart and put that where the trash collector says
• Recyclable materials are as follows
  • Newspaper and inserts
  • Aluminum cans
  • Tin/steel cans
  • glass bottles and jars
  • plastic soda and water bottles (#1)
  • plastic milk jugs (#2)
  • plastic detergent jugs (#2)
• Place all white goods where they tell you to
• Place all yard trimmings in paper bags to be collected within 3 days of an owners request to collect them.
• You must place the trash can where they tell you no earlier than 7 PM the day before scheduled collection
• Each owner must remove the can from the designated area within 24 hours of collection
• 2.After July 1, 2009

b. I. -The list of source separated materials will be provided to residents by The Administrator and is subject to change at any time without notice at the discretion of The Administrator

With these violations in mind lets explore what might be…

If you put your trash out, then go out of town and the can isn’t removed for three days, those last two days are a violation of section V.A.vi.f., which would be considered two separate violations costing a resident up to $1000.

If several types of recyclable materials, such as two or three water bottles, a six pack of your favorite beer cans(lets face it, there’ll be drinking—heavy drinking—during an Obama administration) and a milk jug, you’ve just racked up $5000.00 of county funding from your ten violations.  Oh, and these violations will come when exactly?  Will there be a deputy riding ’shotgun’ on the garbage truck supervising each trash can as it’s emptied into the back of the trash truck who can then write the ticket on the spot (thus delaying the speedy completion of the sanitation engineers’ rounds, which is a violation of the sanitation engineer’s Hippocratic oath to let no prohibited residential recoverable materials enter into the waste stream despite sleet, snow, hail, or global warming copyright infringement)?  Perhaps they cannot afford all those extra deputized trash sheriffs and will just wait until the truck reaches the dumping facility.  Then they’ll use a Berkley researched formula for determining the address along a route by the position of the offending garbage within the truck.  This of course will only come after a quarter million dollar research grant is completed two years from now.  Or, maybe a dart will be thrown at a map and the house stuck will receive the violation.  After all, how are you going to prove the bottle(s) they produce as ‘evidence’ didn’t come from your home?

Yes, most of that is tongue in cheek, most.  The violations can easily add up in a hurry.  The consumer has no where to turn since government has stepped in and will determine what is best for it’s people.  Those who live in Gwinnett county cannot make this choice for themselves it seems.  The commission board has determined since 20,000 homes have no trash service they are going to impose their chosen solution on the other 380,000 residents of that region.  Apparently, they forgot those other 380,000 residents live there and VOTE.  Oh, did I forget to mention if you’re unhappy with this choice the email addresses and phone numbers of all the commission members is at the end of this diary.

Local politics is where you individually have a greater impact than in any other realm of politics.  Don’t just get angry, you can actually get even here.  Find out when each member is coming up for reelection.  Contact them using the email addresses and phone numbers in this post.  If they won’t listen, refuse to hear your voice, or just plain ignore you then remove them from office in favor of some other guy who suffered through this with you.  Perhaps the next person will be more respectful of his neighbors.

Oh, if you’d like to discuss it with the commission in person, they have a public hearing on December 16, 2009 at 7 PM. The address is also at the bottom of this post.

The Commission is chaired by Charles E. Bannister, chairman (Charles.Bannister@gwinnettcounty.com 770.822.7010)

With this defeat, perhaps the remaining GOP senators have learned their collective lesson from the demise of so many of their colleagues in the last election.  Only time will tell on that front.  Let us just hope the great white hunter can finally put up his rifle and retire from rhino hunting.

Noes

Kingston(R), Westmoreland(R), Price(R), Linder(R), Marshall(D), Deal(R), Broun(R), Gingrey(R)

Ayes

Bishop(D), Johnson(D), Lewis(D), Barrow(D), Scott(D)

HR7321, the auto bailout passed by the House of Representatives yesterday (which can be found here http://clipsandcomment.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/1210autobill.pdf) is fraught with problems. I won’t get into a breakdown of the individual sections here, but restrictions are placed on any auto manufacturer who accepts funds from this to focus production on environmentally friendly vehicles, while at the same time passing on ‘excess production’ of SUV’s to govenrment agencies, it appears.

“(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are—

VerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:55 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 C:\TEMP\AUTO_006.XML HOLCPC

1 (1) to immediately provide authority and facili2

ties to restore liquidity and stability to the domestic

3 automobile industry in the United States; and

4 (2) to ensure that such authority and such fa5

cilities are used in a manner that—

6 (A) results in a viable and competitive do7

mestic automobile industry that minimizes ad8

verse effects on the environment;

9 (B) enhances the ability and the capacity

10 of the domestic automobile industry to pursue

11 the timely and aggressive production of energy12

efficient advanced technology vehicles;

13 (C) preserves and promotes the jobs of

14 American workers employed directly by the do15

mestic automobile industry and in related in16

dustries;

17 (D) safeguards the ability of the domestic

18 automobile industry to provide retirement and

19 health care benefits for the industry’s retirees

20 and their dependents; and “

Further, there are absolutely no provisions to allow the automakers to renegotiate, or otherwise alter the union deals, which drove them into this position in the first place. The House passed this thing, let us hope the senate will not.

The left tells us we do not include enough diverse opinions. They tell us we are intolerant of the views of others. They tell us we must accept divergent beliefs from our own. Then, in the same breath, they tell us Christians we are not allowed to be included in the public school programs, our open displays of holiday spirit are not tolerated in public places, and they will not teach their children to accept our beliefs BECAUSE they differ from their own.

To those of you who think a nativity cannot be displayed because I’m not being tolerant of others I submit my moral outrage at your own hypocrisy. Oh, and by the way, the constitution guarantees us a freedom OF religion, not a freedom from religion. By virtue of removing all religion you are, in my opinion, by default promoting the religion of atheism (which falls on the category of religious beliefs even though it denies any deity’s existence).

Oh, Merry Christmas to all, peace and good will toward men, and happy birthday Jesus.

Now, she’s been introduced to the nation and the base. She fired up huge numbers of people to come out who, arguably, would have otherwise remained at home. I was one of these.

The failed McCain campaign had me sitting on the fence because the Republican leadership allowed the MSM to choose our candidate. The RNC is culpable as well deciding to back a moderate rather than a traditional conservative, such as Fred Thompson. Yes, you can make an argument about how Thompson ran his campaign, but that is not the point.

The point is, a campaign such as Thompson’s made me get involved. Let me say that another way so the significance has a better shot at sinking in. Before Thompson entered the campaign I had never actually gotten involved in a political figure’s efforts to win office. When Thompson entered the race, I did just that campaigning in South Carolina (I live in Georgia) where the MSM decided he had to win or he was out.

What does that have to do with Sarah Palin, Conservative ideals, and the Republican party? Simple. Sarah Palin is getting people fired up in much the same way. Many conservatives are not sitting around crying about a lost election, how horrible the country is going to be, etc due to having lost, though some are. I’ve decided to walk the walk since I’m talking the talk again. I was directed to a site, teamsarah.org, and I’ve joined. Agree with this site or don’t it’s up to you. The point is get moving somewhere, somehow.

Here is what I believe our plan of action should be for the next four years in broad general strokes…

2008-2009-Begin using the internet to research local and national candidates who support the Conservative agenda a la Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater et al.

2009-2010-Pick the House and Senate candidates you support and ACTUALLY SUPPORT them with something other than words and rhetoric. Everyone at Redstate knows what the country is going to do to itself over the course of the next two years with the Pelosi/Reid/Obama unholy alliance at the helm. If you want to actually have an impact on this, you must start now. Two months before the election is too late.

2010-2011-Pick and side with a candidate for president. Again, ACTUALLY SUPPORT that candidate. We may never really know how much impact ACORN actually had on the election, but we do know Obama collected more money under $250 per person than any other candidate in history (which in and of itself is a little suspicious, but that’s another post). Given the current state our economy is in, which arguably was a self fulfilling prophecy from the MSM (also a post for another time) along with the liberal congress ruining the banking industry, donating time might be easier than donating money.

2011-2012-Go Sarah! GO! Yes, we don’t know much about her, but we have four years to learn. We also have four years of trying to fend off the MSM and liberal attacks, which will be aimed at destroying one of the most energizing political figures the Republicans have seen since Ronnie Raygun came to town. No, I’m not suggesting Sarah Palin is Reagan returning as others have. We’ve just not seen enough substance from her yet to know if that’s real or not. Yes, what she’s said and done in her limited time on the political stage is headed in that direction, but it remains to be seen if she has the longevity to sustain it.

I submit Sarah Palin has the liberals, progressives, MSM, KOS kids, et al worried. In the coming months and days they’ll begin to ramp up their attacks to smear and discredit her more and more so we will not get energized by her. Regardless of if she’s a viable candidate or not, she gets people motivated. To steal a sports analogy, when Big Mo comes and sits down on your bench it can be a game-changer, IF you take advantage of it and use it. Palin’s effect on conservative politics is Big Mo for us. Lets take advantage of it, if for nothing else than to get people organized and staged for 2010 and 2012.

That’s my opinion, we welcome yours (tag line stolen from Snake Davis, with respect)….

I submit if someone with more ‘fire in the belly’ for conservative principals like Sarah Palin had been chosen in the beginning we wouldn’t be lamenting the direction we all fear our country will take after January 20, 2009. If you are not happy with the direction the Republican party is currently taking then I suggest we all get off our collective backsides and get involved.

I don’t mean send in cash and feel as if you’ve ‘done your part’. No. I mean select some local candidates at the state or local level and volunteer. Choose someone in from the house at the federal level and volunteer. Do it now to get your feet wet and ready before the election cycle begins. I’m currently looking at several of my Georgia political figures, such as Tom Price and Chip Rogers and I encourage others to do the same.

Conservatism has not been defeated, nor is it in decline. Moderates lost this election. Now we need to take charge and help get this party energized and moving again in a more fiscally and socially conservative direction rather than ‘reaching across the isle’.