This could be the comment of the week… but the expansion of rape into a crime that (a) there is no defense to (b) moves from a form of assault to one of undue pressure leaves men thinking Kafka had it easy.

Particularly since you cannot confront your accuser.

The paper is reflecting a growing discomfort among many, in both camps, at the widespread vilification – and naming – of the two alleged victimsNope. There’s a growing discomfort among many about how a man’s life is destroyed from a mere accusation of any type of alleged sexual harassment while the alleged victims normally remain anonymous. If the charges are dropped the female accusers go on their way yet the man’s life may be permanently ruined. Whether it’s a public figure like Assange or some random guy on the street. That’s the cause of the angry reaction, it had nothing to do with anyone being “deeply misogynist”.

via Feminists in Media Shocked over Assange Reaction.

As a single father who attempts to walk with G_d, I have to deal with the temptations that exist living in a town where there are many, many, young beautiful women. Most of whom are completely off limits to an academic.

And when I go to the Church I am NOT told this. In part this is because Bazza the pastor went through the divorce thing before he turned to G-d, and knows what it is like. In part it is because we are Presbyterians, and consider it joy to suffer — we don’t buy into the prosperity thing.

But I say to my Christian sisters that the Romantic fantasy you have of the perfect Christian man is as unobtainable as the vampire porn novel hero you read about. While you condemn us for looking twice.

Ah yes. What’s yours is yours. What’s mine is yours. Here’s the kicker: I know that many of you ladies don’t want to really go back to the time of your grandmothers and have your opportunities limited. You don’t want to make the kind of sacrifices in your personal lives that many women in the past had to make. Yet you want us men to live by the old codes of chivalry. You want to make us lie down in the mire, while you step on our backs to get inside the carriage that summarily rides away from us. You want to have your cake and eat it, too. Bottom line: Your neo-traditionalism is a sick joke, a pathetic double-standard.Moreover, your views on “Biblical manhood” and romantic relationships are just as unrealistic and demeaning as all the airbrushed, photoshopped images put out by Playboy. In your marriages, you expect some sort of Superman who will make all of the hard decisions for you, read your mind, and somehow arrive at the choices you would pick. He will be emotionally strong, never have any fears, doubts, uncertainties, vulnerabilities, weakness, or gasp needs. The husband you want is not human. Indeed, I wonder why so many marriages in the Evangelical community end in divorce. You ladies need to get your head out of your Christian romance novels and deal with life.

via Why Should Christian Men Marry? Confronting Anti-Male Bigotry in Churches « Faith and Society.

Life is difficult. The reality is that if you are 35 and Christian, the single men left are bitter, burnt, carrying baggage, gay or older than you and have lost a wife. My criteria (yes, I have some) Sane, will keep her word, treat my children right, and make me happy. Prepared to share dreams and work together. I’m not interested in the wedding. The valuation of romance is a heresy — initially designed to facilitate adultury (go and read your Lewis) — whose fruit is the Bridezilla.

And by your fruits, Ladies, you will be known.

When I mention religious secularization I am thinking of the tendency to take the miraculous out of religion. To turn religion into a psychology, into spirituality. This moves from the analysis of scripture and practice — humbly, carefully, prayerfully, being aware of our limitations and asking for guidance… into an academic exercise.

This not only kills the interaction that true meditation and spirituality requires, but it also breeds arrogance. For Academics, as a function of their teaching, tend to think that they have found the answers.

John 5

39″You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. 40Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 41I do not accept glory from human beings. 42But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Ministries & Programs — GAMC.

A scholar sees the expertise that he or she has gathered as a mask. For the more one knows, the more one appreciates that one is ignorant. The more one expands one’s skills, the more one is aware that there are things that you cannot do. This leads to teachers saying that they are students. This leads scholars back to the dependence on the spirit they had in their youth.

Humility is the cure for the error of arrogance, and this humility does not allow secularization to flower, let alone become a fruit. And it has become a fruit in the reformed church, in part due to the emphasis the reformed place on exegesis and preaching. The cure is continual repentence, and continual reformation. The sinful may be arrogant, but the scholar looks to God for guidance.

The commandment not to bear false witness is listed in the decalogue along with the commands not to kill, steal, or commit adultery. This is because perjury leads to another being punished for a crime they did not commit.

New York City meteorologist Heidi Jones has been suspended by WABC/Channel 7 pending an investigation after she was arrested for perpetrating the ultimate snow job — falsely claiming to cops that a man had tried to rape her while she was jogging in Central Park.Jones, who anchors the station’s weekend evening weather coverage and fills in on “Good Morning America,” was charged on Monday with filing a false report, a Class A misdemeanor. If convicted, she could face up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

via New York City Meteorologist Lied About Being Raped, Cops Say – FoxNews.com.

The penalty was being cut off from one’s people. This took many forms: shaming, shunning, expulsion and execution. We do not need, as a society to be bloody, but we need to shun those who claim false rape, particularly as the penalty is disproportionately light. Rape is a felony and would lead to incarceration. She is facing a misdemenour (she can still vote) and a fine.

If you reward behaviour in the short term, you will get more of it. If you keep on rewarding the behaviour, you will ‘over train” and you will find it hard to extinguish the behaviour.

For the last 20 to 30 years the US liberals have encouraged people to move to the USA by informal means. This means the same liberals have cheap labour for their farms. This has distorted the culture of Mexico, where now young people travel to the USA to work, rather than start businesses in their own country.

But you cannot keep on rewarding and expanding. There is a limit. and the unintended consequences of the choices people made — the dependency you created, will require harsh correction.
In addition, many states have constitutional or statute requirements for certain percentages of the budget to be spent on various categories: K-12 education, or welfare. With Obama’s Spendulus, many federal funds that are now running out came with requirements for states to massively increase permanently welfare spending, there is not much to cut.Unless … Unless …Illegals simply get deported. By States deciding to ignore a federal government and President who is a clueless and destructive idiot. Somewhere, somehow, a Governor and Legislature will decide that a President who cannot jail and punish Julian Assange can be defied internally. One cannot be weak abroad and not be also, weak at home. Deciding, as President Andrew Jackson said, to allow the Supreme Court having made their decision to enforce it.In the end, it will be all about the money

via Whiskey’s Place: The Silverado Moment.

I fear for the American Guest worker, for the economy is tanking, and they have no secure place. Societies change, and not always for the good. But… if Washington continues to be tone deaf, someone will start deporting.

This is the reasoning behind the tea party. The same three types exist in NZ, the USA, and Canada.

There are three types of people in Australia.

The first of these are the Radicals that are trying to tear down our institutions and diminish our historical values because these don’t fit with their own view of how the world should function.

The majority are those who are apathetic to the societal changes going on around them until it affects them personally. This second group is characteristic of those who typically strive for a better life for themselves and their families, free of interference.

The third are the Conservatives that seek to protect and defend the structures and values that have allowed our nation to achieve the freedom and prosperity that we enjoy today.

Conservatives are the natural representatives of the aspirations of the majority and the values and structures they protect are based on principles that are under threat from the dominant ideologies of The Radicals and an increasingly secular and opportunistic society. A society in which concepts of right and wrong have been replaced with a moral relativism; where there are no absolutes – only preferences or choices. A society where there is an excuse for everything but responsibility for nothing. A society where the wisdom of the ages is being replaced by fads and quick fixes.

That’s why we need a revolution of sorts in this country. A revolution that will restore the principles and values that have successfully guided mankind and our society since the dawn of time.

We need to restore that which is now routinely ignored in the blind pursuit of new agendas that are remarkable, not for their lack of substance, but because they are built on the economic and moral corpses of previous failure.

We need to reacquaint our citizens with the understanding that there are absolute truths that hold true in all places and at all times.

We need to make a radical departure from the growing and all-pervasive acceptance that critical and discerning moral judgment is somehow unfair and an infringement on human rights.

We need to re-establish the notion that responsibility is just as important as freedom of choice.

We need to reaffirm that the family is the most important building block in any society and that the wellbeing of children is the best investment that any society can make.

We need to recognise that our nation has a role to play in international affairs but her primary responsibility is to her citizens.

In short, we need not just any revolution, we need a conservative revolution

via Let the revolution begin (Cory Bernardi).