John W. Loftus - liar

Or, what's that flushing sound? That's just the credibility of John Loftus swirling down the drain.

Who is this John Loftus? Don't let him know you were unaware of him or his mental prowess, especially if you're a Christian, might cause his personality flaws to flare up; the end result being that he'll consider you an enemy, liar etc. and therefore justify lying when dealing with you.

That sounds harsh, but that's just how the truth happens to be sometimes. John Loftus is the author of "Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains" and the main contributor at the blog Debunking Christianity. The charge of liar is due to his most recent online activity. For some time now, oh Lofty one, has been posting on TheologyWeb forums and especially in the Tekton Ministries area of the forums. He has this fixation with J.P. Holding, the founder and main author of Tekton Ministries that's been ongoing for a while now. This was expressed (once again) in a blog post by Johnny, about a week ago, wherein he had this to say.

I recently noticed another blog that apparently started up in March which is very critical of J.P. Holding, here. I personally do not like Holding, but I'm probably not going to waste my time on him, except to point out what others are saying about him. (source)

Unfortunately for John boy, J.P. Holding did a little investigating and it turns out this blog by "others" that little Johnny just happened to notice, was actually created by John Loftus, not by someone else. John John's first reply to the allegation was this (emphasis in bold mine):

Technically, I didn't lie.

Prove to me I did.

Besides, it doesn't matter that you know I started the Blog. I don't care. People will still visit there regardless, and I will continue sending people there.

You are the dishonest one

That's an interesting reply from someone who's claimed to teach lawyers how to think. One has to wonder how soon it will be before his former students are disbarred or at least desperately quibbling over what the word is means. I wonder if he would think such a response is appropriate in court?

Judge - and the verdict is, John W. Loftus you are guilty of perjury.

Johnny - Sorry your honor, but you first have to prove to me that I lied.

(TheologyWeb members know that Johny would continue with the next sentence)

Btw I'm intellectually superior to you and I have a book you should buy.

Unfortunately for Mr. Loofus, he didn't step back from that foolish reply at the beginning and instead continued to descend down a path that only further undermined his reputation. You can see this from the very long thread here. The relevance to his credibility was brought out quite clearly by one of the TheologyWeb members in this post from that thread.

John also complained that it is not right for people to dismiss his book because he deceived people this time. Of course it is right, and here is why. It is an analogous situation. We are not talking about John lying on his income taxes or his employer (and I am not insinuating he does either, just using examples that likely a lot of people do), but specifically LYING IN HIS WRITING AT HIS BLOG AGAINST CHRISTIANS AND CHRISTIANITY. That is what his book is about. His whole book posits himself as an "honest" doubter, yet he is dishonest on this VERY SAME SUBJECT - this is relevant. John stated:

In any case I feel justified in being deceptive because I was dealing with enemies, and as such I did not need to tell the whole story (and this is where I was deceptive), especially based upon my consequentialist ethics. The whole reason I did so was to expose Holding without being soiled, which I still consider a good teleological goal.

So... we know that John thinks "debunking Christianity" is also a good teleological goal. By his own admission, it is justified to LIE to achieve that end. Thus, a very good reason not to trust what he says in his book - he might consider you an enemy after all.

Layman at Christian Cadre comments on this matter as well with their post.

In my opinion, it was worse than a lie. Loftus knew he was deceiving his readers and crafted his blog post for just that purpose. The cleverness he apparently thinks he used to frame the description to give him "technical" deniability only confirms the intentional nature of the deception. When a blogger uses his own blog to deceive his readers to promote an agenda he claims distance from, he has lost credibility and the respect of his readers, assuming the audience is worthy of respect. There are many blogs out there and I am honored by those who make this one a part of their online reading. Our readers are not pawns in our personal, or even ideological, agendas. They--be they Christians or skeptics or undecided--deserve more than that. They deserve respect. Loftus has proven that he has a different view. (source)

But still, little Johnny continues his downward descent. He's now posted to his blog (the Debunking Christianity one that is), admitting that he did in fact create the other blog. I've decided I'm only going to address a few of the issues raised in his post. While I had considered addressing his justifications point by point, I think if you take the time to read what he said and his replies to comments there, you'll see how badly he's pwnd himself with the pathetic rationalizations and martyrdom attitude.

Note to John John, we don't dismiss your arguments because of your personality flaws. They fail all by themselves. In fact, I rejected some of your arguments before I knew that John Loftus of Debunking Christianity and the whining punching bag Doubting John at TheologyWeb, were one in the same, as can be seen in the last paragraph here.

He's also tried to justify this by expressing his complete disdain for Holding and therefore it's ok to lie to him as Holding himself lies all the time. We'll put aside the lack of substance to little Johnny's accusation and merely consider that someone who's claimed to teach philosophy and bragged about his debating skills apparently has no clue concerning the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy.

Furthermore, as his obsession, J.P. Holding noted:

Um, the problem here is, this would give DJ license to lie to ME. But he didn't. He lied to everyone who was reading his blogs -- whether Christians or atheists or whoever. The whole world was who he lied to, not just me

The sum total of all this is that John Loftus had little credibility on TheologyWeb to begin with, at least in the areas I've frequented, but apparently decided, while sinking his reputation even more, that a larger audience on the Internet should be clued in as well.

For that I thank him.

---

*update 06.10.07*

The link to the John W. Loftus post at Debunking Christianity, has been edited in an attempt by John W. Loftus to erase history that makes him look bad. I cover this more in a new post here.

---

Filed under: Religion -- Christianity -- Apologetics

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Technorati tags: John Loftus -- Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains -- JP Holding -- Tekton -- Christianity -- apologetics

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Cool and disturbing at the same time

Google, once again expanding its reach over all information, you might be surprised at what can be seen on the new Google Street View available at Google maps. From Drudge comes the following links:

Man outside strip club

License plate

Faces on the street

Right now, the data appears to be limited to San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami.

Best make sure you have your shades drawn, otherwise you may soon end up on the Internet for all to see, warts and all. You might want to be careful where you walk as well, as the manner in which the images are captured might catch you on your way past a shady establishment with all the implications some may draw from that. Will you be able to face anonymous Internet users who take advantage of such an occurrence and then successfully clear your name?

Is Google a company that can be trusted with so much technology and information? I wonder what the Communist Chinese government would say?

---

Previous posts:

You will be assimilated...
Hegemony
Google Instant Messaging
Google's priorities
Google alternatives
To Google or not to Google?

---

Filed under: News -- Culture

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Technorati tags: Google -- Google maps -- street view

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OTA Open Trackback 05.28.07

As the lovely Samantha Burns says:

Please use this space to trackback your best, main page articles (I just require a link to this article, as always). Also, if you have something to discuss, it is welcomed here as well.

ADVICE: Trackback main blog page articles to showcase your work (and it will help to attract readers).

Yep, I was in a plagirizing mood ;-) Nevertheless, it's a good way to draw more attention to your blog, so trackback away :-) I'll have one of these each Monday, because, well, I hate Mondays ;-p

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This Memorial Day

Thank you

Thank you for your sacrifices, the lives given in defense of freedom, in serving this country. Prayers for the families that carry on in your absence.

 

Thank you, to those who still carry the scars of the battles they've survived. Thanks and great respect to all who choose to serve and those who return to serve again, facing dangers they've survived, yet return they do, to finish their mission, to fight alongside their brothers in arms.

My prayers, respect and thanks to you all.

---

Filed under: Culture -- Misc.

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Technorati tags: Memorial Day

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Illegal immigration - Tell Congress what you think

The Bill in Congress will obviously create incredibly huge changes in our country, with much controversy over how much disaster or benefit will be the result. Yet, the original Senate intent was to vote this through in less than a week, bypassing the normal legislative process. Fortunately, public outcry forced the vote to be moved after the Memorial Day holiday and gave more time for Senators to propose amendments. For such a complicated bill, currently near 400 pages, with such far reaching consequences, this is still hardly enough time to have serious debate and for citizens (legal) to get informed and contact their Senators

In talking to friends, I've noticed that while some do not support what in fact the bill will do, they haven't bothered to contact Congress. It really isn't that difficult. While it did take me two days, I was able to get through on the Capitol Hill switchboard (202) 224-3121 and then connected to my Senators, Richard Lugar (R) and Evan Bayh (D). I was able to talk to a staffer for Lugar and left a voice mail for Even Bayh. I'm going to follow up with an email to both as well.

Unfortunately for Lugar, my taking two days to get through resulted in my finding out how he voted on several amendments, rather than my having to ask if he supported them or not. That question probably would have gotten no answer anyway, as I asked the staffer why Lugar had not supported the Coleman amendment and her response was that we don't have the latest information, we're just taking down whether or not people support the Immigration Bill. Great, there is only one good answer I could accept for that and judging from Lugar's voting record thus far on this bill, ie 100% with Senator Kennedy, the odds of that good reason being on his mind are next to nill.

Basically, the Coleman amendment encouraged local law enforcement to actually enforce Federal immigration law and work within the current process and cooperate with Federal agents in reporting immigration law violations. Why is that needed you may ask? Ever hear of sanctuary cities or local law enforcement that act in a way that create defacto sanctuary cities?

As Captain Ed said of the bill:

Coleman wants to close the loophole various cities opened in the 1996 immigration bill that allows them to ignore the illegal status of people arrested by their law enforcement agencies

[...]

It's time to end the "sanctuary city" phenomenon, especially since this compromise purports to clamp down on illegal immigration -- a claim that its details don't support very well at all. If the compromise fails, Coleman should introduce this as a free-standing bill in this session of Congress to demand that cities quit hiding criminals from the ICE.

But the Senate helped by several Republicans, decided hiding criminals from the Feds was just fine and dandy. You can see how your Senator voted here.

As to the only answer I would accept for voting against that amendment, it would be that they were putting together an amendment with more teeth. Considering the people that Lugar voted with, I have no reason to think that was their intent.

There appears to be no movement on another important and necessary amendment that Captain Ed mentions in that post.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the immigration bill to close a gaping loophole in the bill that will ensure the following individuals are either permanently barred from the United States or prohibited from getting any immigration benefit: members of terrorist-related organizations, known gang members, sex offenders, alien smugglers who use firearms and felony drunk drivers.

If you've read the immigration bill before Congress, you know that all one has to do is renounce gang affiliation and *presto* they get legality in this country. I guess our government is hoping they don't have their fingers crossed when they sign the renunciation. After all, people who've broken numerous laws, as well as, those governing our border and have been involved in violent gangs, would never ever ever think of lying on a government form. Nah, that will never happen. Fortunately, my regular readers are smarter than most Senators, and wont fall for that.

If you've heard the talking points from your Senator regarding background checks, or that the bill doesn't prevent later investigation, consider that we currently have around 600,000 illegal aliens, that have orders for deportation, that we can't find. Even more disturbing is that the current system encourages speed over thorough checks, and it's beyond foolishness to expect that to change for the better when the system becomes overloaded even more, should this bill pass into law. Debbie Schlussel has several emails here, from workers in the relevant agencies that create a very disturbing picture of what we can actually expect to happen. I'll provide just a few excerpts, read the entire post.

1) Temporary Worker Program (TWP) aliens will NOT be checked against the most basic databases--so we have no way of knowing who these aliens are (they can give whatever name they want to give and it must be accepted at face value) and whether they are terrorists or criminals. DHS officials at Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) say the TWP applicants will NOT be checked against the TECS (The Enforcement Communication System) or IBIS (InterAgency Border Inspection System) databases (IBIS is part of TECS). Therefore, it is a certainty that many Islamic terrorists and hardened criminals will have a golden ticket into America.

2) Currently, CIS officials are "encouraging" all immigration and citizenship application adjudicators to approve 10 applicants per hour. That means no more than 6 minutes per applicant is spent checking who they are, CURRENTLY. Imagine what will happen under this new Amnesty Bill when over 100,000 people per day must be processed (and their applications are being farmed out to private companies like the one that approved the 9/11 hijackers' visas, after 9/11). Yup, CIS chief Emilio T. Gonzalez--who is too busy giving himself awards along with Michael Chertoff--is forcing employees to rubber-stamp through citizenship applications.

Think that'll change when 30 million new applications (when all family members end up here) come into the mix? Think again.

The question remains though, will enough people contact their Senators, so that this pathetic bill will be stopped? Sitting back, thinking everyone else will be doing that, so you don't have to do anything would be a serious mistake. The pro-illegal/amnesty crowd is highly organized and well-funded as Michelle Malkin reports here.

The hotline is paid for by something called the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and it’s being blasted to pro-open borders groups all over the country. The hotline gives its callers access to their senators that average Joes don’t have.

Read her entire post, you'll find it quite interesting who's behind this organized effort and the various groups involved.

It's time we at least make phone calls, make our voices heard, in fact it's past time. Follow through with email if you think they're only taking down yes or no on support for the bill. Let them know you've had enough. We've been lucky to have perhaps another week on this. We need to continue making our voices heard, loud and clear.

---

Previous posts:

Illegal aliens - the current bill
Illegal aliens

Filed under: NewsPolitics

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Technorati tags: current-events -- Current Affairs -- News -- News and politics -- immigration -- immigration reform -- illiegal aliens -- Congress -- Bush

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ABC News pushes for military strike on Iran

Well, that's the practical result of their blowing our non-military covert action out of the water. You know, the whole loose lips sink ships deal.

From ABC News, who really should drop the A or add "un" as a prefix, as such actions are certainly not worthy of an actual American broadcast company.

Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran (thanks to HotAir)

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Sensitive schmensitive right? They apparently also forgot to look up the word covert in the dictionary or consider the great issues or dangers in the region and for the world. But that's ok, they got a news story. /sarcasm off

Current and former intelligence officials say the approval of the covert action means the Bush administration, for the time being, has decided not to pursue a military option against Iran.

"Vice President Cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike," said former CIA official Riedel, "but I think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides.

But when a stupid media organization scuttles the non-military option, that doesn't leave much left now does it? Apparently unABC doesn't think about any downsides for anybody, as long as they have a story that can hurt the administration in some way. Just a minor glitch that it possibly forces us into a military confrontation that we were attempting to avoid.

"I think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with the United States supporting anti-Iranian elements in the region as well as opposition groups within Iran," said Vali Nasr, adjunct senior fellow for Mideast studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"And this covert action is now being escalated by the new U.S. directive, and that can very quickly lead to Iranian retaliation and a cycle of escalation can follow," Nasr said.

Even with this directive being non-lethal and attempting to avoid the military option some still worry about escalating. We already have Iranian meddling in Iraq that's killing our troops. Why are they the only ones allowed to escalate? Have people forgot how to resist and defeat an enemy these days?

As for the unABC idiots and whoever leaked, it's pretty clear they would prefer no serious action against Iran, because that e word might come up again. So, is it that they really want Iran, with it's current regime, to have nuclear weapons? Which is it, they're that stupid, or so self-centered their blinded by their own conceits, or the near equivalent of traitors, or all of the above?

---

Filed under: Terrorism -- MSM -- Islamofascism -- NewsPolitics

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Technorati tags: ABC -- ABCNews -- Iran -- Bush -- CIA

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OTA Open Trackback 05.21.07

As the lovely Samantha Burns says:

Please use this space to trackback your best, main page articles (I just require a link to this article, as always). Also, if you have something to discuss, it is welcomed here as well.

ADVICE: Trackback main blog page articles to showcase your work (and it will help to attract readers).

Yep, I was in a plagirizing mood ;-) Nevertheless, it's a good way to draw more attention to your blog, so trackback away :-) I'll have one of these each Monday, because, well, I hate Mondays ;-p

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Illegal aliens - the current bill

Several means of viewing this 326 page document are now available. At the Truth Laid Bear, there's a link to the PDF download (20mb) and he's created an annotated version that you can view online and leave comments to the various sections. Go here for all of that.

Per N.Z. Bear:

If those who forged this "compromise" have their way, this bill will be voted on as early as Tuesday. That's a crazily short amount of time for Senators --- let alone the American public --- to review, understand, and have a voice on the substance of such a complex bill.

My hope, however, is that by presenting the bill in this form, I will help make the bill more accessible to all, and provide a central spot where commentary, criticism, and suggested improvements can be assembled. Who knows --- maybe our erstwhile leaders on Capitol Hill will take notice, and take some of our comments to heart.

There's only one way to find out, so let's get to it...

Indeed, let's get to it!

---

Filed under: NewsPolitics

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Technorati tags: current-events -- Current Affairs -- News -- News and politics -- immigration -- immigration reform -- illiegal aliens -- Congress -- Bush

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An angry anti-Christian or stupid is as stupid does

Another addition to my 4GrinsNGiggles department. I received a few compliments for my reply to an individual using the screen name "The Boy (That lives in Darkness)" when he started a thread titled "God doesn't exist". It turns out this  this angry little anti-theist also has the (ir)rational response squad on his friends list. Yes, shocking news that, I never would have expected it, but on to the fun.

His comments in bold

My reply interspersed throughout in regular font (including my typos)

---

okay listen here you hypocritically pieces of trash,

Such a pleasant start

you guys really piss me off,

Really? It was hard to tell from that first line

you bash on gays and yet your leaders rape boys,

are you sure your pissed off? It's hard to tell

you try to get into state to force us non believers to believe,

Might want to adjust your foil beannie

ill tell you why you believe god exists,

This would be more impressive with a drum roll

because you Christians cant comprehend death,

I was wrong, a drum roll wouldn't have helped

when you die there is no pearly gates,

I didnt think there were anyway

just black, nothing more, nothing less.

That's ok, I like the color black

i believe jessus was a good teacher, but a lier.

This jessus fellow remained in a reclined position while teaching?

he had good ideas but you had to build a belief structure around it.

Because believing good ideas is a bad thing?

im not saying you guys are bad, or good

How brave of you

its just that i hate you recruiters,

Seems to me you came here, no one dragged you

let me believe what i belive

That's what God does, so dont complain about the results

---

Filed under: Religion -- Christianity -- 4GrinsNGiggles

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Technorati tags: God -- Christianity -- rational response squad

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John Bolton's mustache on the BBC

I'm a bit late getting to this, but I know some of my friends and readers have not heard this interview yet. Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., target of Democrats and pussy Republicans, John Bolton speaks candidly on the BBC.

Pamela has a partial transcript and link to download the mp3 at Atlus Shrugs here.

A small excerpt, but listen to the entire interview, it's well worth the download.

BBC: So we go into a country we destroy everything that existed in that country....

BOLTON interrupts, That's just flatly wrong that's just flatly wrong.....

BBS interrupts: What part is wrong

BOLTON: That we destroyed everything in that country.What we destroyed was a Baath party dictatorship. The fact is the ministries, the ministry of agriculture and others below the political level continued their work. The instrument that we destroyed much as in the case of communist parties around the world, Nazi or fascist parties, is that we destroyed the Baath party. That is entirely good thing

I miss his presence at the U.N. We need someone like him to force change in that corrupted institution and protect the interests of this country.

In unrelated news, George Voinovich began to cry.

---

Filed under: NewsPolitics

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Technorati tags: BBC -- John Bolton -- UN -- Iraq -- Voinovich

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Illegal aliens

Illegal alien immigrant, just trying to follow the example of our Congress critters and a President who's apparently fallen off the wagon. Judging from the continuously revised text being developed in the back alleys of the U.S. Senate, their method of dealing with the matter is to merely use different words. Oh to be sure, they will spend probably 1,000 pages (currently near 400) making it look like they're doing much more than that.

But even before a final text is available to Congress, let alone the public, we have disturbing changes from the original proposal.

The Bush administration insisted on a little-noticed change in the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would enable 12 million undocumented residents to avoid paying back taxes or associated fines to the Internal Revenue Service, officials said.

An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars.

A provision requiring payment of back taxes had been in the initial version of a bill proposed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat. But the administration called for the provision to be removed due to concern that it would be too difficult to figure out which illegal immigrants owed back taxes. (source Thanks to HotAir)

Too difficult to figure out? And we're supposed to believe that our border security will be enhanced when the following is proposed:

(1) IN GENERAL —An alien who files application for Z-nonimmigrant status shall, upon submission of any evidence required under paragraphs (f) and (g) and after the Secretary has conducted appropriate background checks, to include name and fingerprint checks, that have not by the end of the next business day produced information rendering the applicant ineligible

(A) be granted probationary benefits in the form of employment authorization pending final adjudication of the alien's application;

B) may in the Secretary's discretion receive advance permission to re-enter the United States pursuant to existing regulations governing advance parole;

(C) may not be detained for immigration purposes, determined inadmissible or deportable, or removed pending final adjudication of the alien's application, unless the alient is determined to be ineligible for Z nonimmigration status; and

(D) may not be considered an unauthorized alien (as defined in Section 274A(h)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(3))) unless employment authorization under subparagraph (A) is denied.

As Mark Steyn notes at the Corner:

Is that This-background-check-will-self-destruct-in-24-hours clause for real? If the entire "undocumented" population of, say, Falls Church, Virginia wanders into the local immigration office at 4pm on Monday, the clerks have got till 5pm on Tuesday to find anything on the guys or they've got no choice but to issue the Z visa? For the agency that takes the best part of a decade to process nanny applications and which sent Mohammed Atta his visa six months after he'd died, this is, to say the least, a massive cultural change.

So it's going to be too difficult to determine who owes back taxes, but our already over burdened system will find bad guys in 24 hours? I really need an eyeroll emoticon right now or one with gritting teeth and hair pulling.

Don't be fooled by the claim that security benchmarks will have to be reached before this nonsense is triggered. The "benchmarks" have nothing to do with demonstrating actual results in reducing the number of illegal border crossings. Heck, we've only built 2 miles of the 700 mile fence passed by Congress in 2006.

Mark Steyn covers the foolishness more here:

Don't worry: It's not an "amnesty." Every politician in America is opposed to amnesty -- if not the concept, then at least the word. That's why the visa starts with the letter that's furthest away from the one "amnesty" begins with. "Z" stands for zellout . . . no, hang on, zurrender or Zapatista, or some other word way up the other end of the alphabet from "amnesty." But the point is, at a stroke there will be no more illegal immigrants. Because being illegal means you're now legal.

Be sure to read it all. It would be quite hilarious if it were not for the fact that politicians are actually serious about this.

In various past conversations, I've defended the President, to some extent, for trying to at least do something to change the current system, noting the political difficulty and complexity in doing so. Unfortunately temper tantrums, thrown at the GOP in the last Congressional election, have only delivered a Congress that seems hell bent on delivering a disaster for this country, to a President much too eager to sign, something, anything, that can be spun as a positive.

Sorry, he and the GOP lost me on this one. What's the point in voting Republican when all they do is add meaningless language to an amnesty program?

Even Captain Ed, who has counseled being realistic:

As CQ readers know, I stressed the importance of keeping an open mind about the new immigration-reform compromise. With a minority in Congress and a legalization advocate in the White House, we would be lucky to get something that included any kind of border security at all.

is having second thoughts as details emerge.

These problems amount to deal-killers, in my opinion. I'm on board conceptually, but this compromise needs a lot of work and amending in the Senate. National security requires that we find a solution as quickly as possible, but we need to peruse every single clause in this bill to make sure it matches the description given to the American public last Thursday. So far, it appears to fall short.

Be sure to follow his links to Hugh Hewitt who is examining the language of the draft very closely in multiple posts on the issue.

This will certainly have serious, negative and well deserved repercussions for the GOP at the next elections. Until then, Ace has an excellent Action Alert to make our voices heard:

Every Republican who considers this a sell-out should, within the next week (the quicker the better) change his party affiliation from "Republican" to anything else.

I would participate in this, if years ago, I had not registered as an independent. It would appear my youthful cynicism was rather prescient. Ace has details and links at his post to help people work this out as well as follow-up in more recent posts.

Here's a litmus test. I will not vote for any Presidential candidate that supports this bill. I don't care if Hillary! or any other Democrat gets in. It's obviously only a difference in some ineffective wording, inserted into bills, on matters of incredible importance to the nation.

Considering how important I view judicial nominations and getting Scalia types on the U.S. Supreme court, and include this in my calculations as to what I will tolerate on other issues, in the short term, the GOP should consider how far they've drifted (gleefully run?) from what many voters can tolerate.

If they want to destroy the chance for Republican majorities in government offices throughout the country, for many years, just push this crap legislation through.

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Filed under: NewsPolitics

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Technorati tags: current-events -- Current Affairs -- News -- News and politics -- immigration -- immigration reform -- illiegal aliens -- Congress -- Bush

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I'm soooo impressed

Christians debate Atheists on ABC this Wednesday. Pardon my *yawn* but the participants on either side are not really upper tier when it comes to defending or presenting their case.

On the Christian side we have Ray Comfort of bananarama fame and Kirk Cameron, someone who is certainly not famous for his theological work or apologetic skills. On the side of the atheism, we have Brian Sapient and his girlfriend Kelly, both hailing from the online atheist group/Internet radio program Rational Response Squad.

As for the bananarama quip, Comfort at one time argued against evolution by referring to the design of a banana (scroll down). Yes, I rolled my eyes the first time I heard about that. He has since stated it was mostly tongue in cheek but a video of him making this "argument" with the banana has gotten around the Internet, with much derision being the natural result. Good job there buddy. Hopefully He didn't waste his time bringing that up again in the debate.

Regarding the (ir)rationals, as I prefer to call them, they're not known for presenting sound scholarship (see here) or reasoned debate, to put it politely. When one states that religion is a mind f**k, or that Christians are Christarded, as The Sap has, it's no wonder that other atheists are bothered by the media choosing to highlight this group . Along with such extreme rhetoric, The Sap tends to immediately accuse Christians of being liars when we've merely made a simple mistake, even when that error was forced by the actions of The Sap or his cronies. See here for more on that.

So, who will win? Pfft, I could care less, though The Sap has apparently already claimed he and Kelly destroyed Kirk and Ray. I guess he cares that he may have won against mediocrity. It says something about his level of debate that he can only get the low lying fruit so to speak. But when serious people won't give you the time of day, what's the poor little Sap supposed to do?

Then again, it wouldn't surprise me at all if The Sap defines victory as being, "You didn't convince me in this debate!". Needless to say, such a measurement is worthless for either side, as anyone could make that claim. Or perhaps, "I had a response to everything they said!". As if the success of an argument is only determined by the mere fact of it being uttered. If it turns out that such criteria is behind his claim, being that it's against the C & C boys, it only provides more evidence of how badly the (ir)rationals represent atheism. Recently, in a myspace group, where a discussion about this upcoming debate occurred, an atheist complained that when they do get media exposure it tends to be the (ir)rationals that end up representing them. I responded "If the platypus didn't convince you God has a sense of humor, this should ;-) ".

At least one good thing may come out of this. I've noticed that several subjects make for very good idiot magnets and increase my blog traffic a bit, while also providing entertainment for my rather more sane readers. One subject has been Rosie O'Donnell and her conspiracy lunacy (exhibits 1a, 2a) and the other is when I criticize the (ir)rational response squad (round up here).

I wonder if The Sap will brag about that?

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Filed under: Religion -- Christianity -- Apologetics

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Technorati tags: rational response squad -- ray comfort -- kirk cameron -- christianity -- atheism

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