I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11 and who have thus far gotten away with it. the vast majority of those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold-blooded murder of more than 3000 Americans are still at large, still neither located, nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized. I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more diffucult and lengthy than was predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail...
I believe that we are perfectly capanle of staying the course in the war against Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, while simultaneously taking the steps necessary to build an international coalition to join us in taking on Saddam Hussein in a timely fashion. If you're going after Jesse James, you ought to organize your posse first. Especially if you're already in the middle of a gunfight with somebody who's out after you.
— Al Gore in 2002...shortly before Bush invaded Iraq
Martin Luther King also refernced religion
I'm sure that in the Jim Crow South of the 1960's whites found it just as offensive when Martin Luther King, a minister, used Christian references to advocate for an end to Jim Crow. How dare he?!
I can see that you are working yourself up into a banning lather because I compared those who would ban me from a blog for expressing my ideas to Biblical king who would put people in a fiery furnace for expressing THEIR ideas. The principal is sound: When you try to shut people up, you're being tyrannical.
Well let me tell you something, Michael Bouldwin. Religious people LIKE to have religious principles referenced in public debate - principles like standing up for what one believes to be true. If this offends you, then EVERYTHING that religious people say will offend you and your blog will become areligious and politically irrelevant to the majority of Americans who consider themselves to be religious.
Recent studies by PEW on religion say that the public believes that Democrats are 25% more averse to religion than are Republicans. Your response to my referencing a Christian frame shows that the public's view of Democrats is not merely a perception. There IS hostility toward religious frames in the "progessive" whitosphere. The fact that I just mention the bible and you start talking about banning me proves that.
Stop looking for a reason to ban me. Why do "progressives" think that the banning practice that characterized Apartheid South Africa is appropriate at "progressive" blogs.
OJ was not guilty! There, I said it! Most of white America disagrees and most of Black America agrees. If you ban everyone who believes that OJ was not guilty, then you will ban a disproportionately large number of Black people. And if you get your panties in a bunch and ban everyone who mentions the bible, you'll ban a disproportionate number of Christians.
If it is inappropriate to mention the Bible at this website, then why don't you post a notice to that effect? Isn't it inevitable that whenever anyone references the Bible, there will be conflicting views about whether the analogy is apt or not? And so the only way to stay on the good side of the thought police is to refrain from mentioning the Bible at all, right? Or to only mention it in a way that EVERYONE APPROVES OF (which is effectively no way at all).
If you decide to ban me for mentioning the Bible in a way that you disapprove of, please exercise some transparency and send me an e-mail informing me that that is the basis for your action. Then, I can release your e-mail as an addendum to my press release: "Culture Kitchen Bans Black Man for Mentioning the Bible".
"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."
www.francislholland.blogspot.com
francislholland@yahoo.com