Fighting For the Culture

Sometimes it seems that surrendering to secularism and progressivism in US culture is the default answer, but it ain't inevitable by any means.

Hundreds of residents took to a high school football field Friday night to collectively bow down and pray — a massive response to atheist activists’ recent accusations that a local school district is guilty of at least two violations of the separation of church and state.

But the prayer event wasn’t the only noteworthy response to secularists’ complaints, as local resident David Hoover placed three large Christian crosses on land he owns across the street from Licking Valley High School in Newark, Ohio — 10 to 13-foot symbols intended to send a message.

As TheBlaze previously reported, a free speech debate touched off in the city after the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a secular activist group, accused the Licking Valley High School District of violating the First Amendment by allowing high school marching band members to wear T-shirts with the word “salvation” on them during a recent performance.

As the Chik-Fil-A kerfuffle of a couple of years ago showed, Christians and conservatives haven't fully surrendered to the forces of secularism and progressivism, but it takes a lot to motivate people, and the Left is nothing if not persistent.

For What It's Worth...

...the top ten most and least Bible-minded US cities:

The most Bible-minded cities:

10. Knoxville, TN
9. Jackson, MS
8. Little Rock, AR
7. Greenville/Spartanburg,/SC/Asheville, NC
6. Charlotte, NC
5. Shreveport, LA
4. Springfield, MO
3. Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
2. Birmingham, AL
1. Chattanooga, TN

And the least Bible-minded cities:

10. Portland, ME
9. Burlington, VT
8. Phoenix, AZ
7. Hartford/New Haven, CT
6. Buffalo, NY
5. Cedar Rapids, IA
4. San Francisco, CA
3. Boston, MA
2. Albany, NY
1. Providence, RI/ New Bedford, MA

You can click over to the link to read about how the study was done and what conclusions are drawn from it. In broad terms, the most Bible-minded cities tended to be small cities in the red states, and the least Bible-minded cities tended to be in large blue cities. Go figure.

Scoring Points In the Culture War

You can watch the headlines and pretty much keep score, if you want to.

When atheists get a Nativity scene taken out of an Air Force base, score one for the Left.

When a "homo-punk" is removed from his posh job as national spokesman for the Girl Scouts, score one for the Right.

And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Yet Another Reason To Go Armed

"In God We Trust, Maybe, But Not Each Other."

Something fundamental is lost when neighbor has no trust in neighbor. Every man for himself, Devil take the hindmost. It's not the American Way. It's difficult to see the US surviving as a nation if this trust isn't regained.

The Budding Protest

"Gun Companies Refuse Sales To State Governments With Strict Laws."

Right now the protest is limited to small companies. This small movement won't receive any real MSM notice unless one or more of the big names that furnishes weapons to Govco gets on board: Sig, Glock, or Smith & Wesson. It's a good start, though.

I'm thinking that the protest, though, if it does succeed, will just exacerbate the cold civil war currently underway between hippies and rednecks. It will turn several parts of the US into "no-go" areas for gun owners, a sad state of affairs indeed.

Sean at An NC Gun Blog is keeping track of the companies that are part of the protest.

Best Comeback Insult EVER!

Found at Ann Althouse's blog:

Blogger Howard said...

Fucking bullshit article. Jobs got a shitty cancer lottery ticket. He likely messed up once he got sick by going for the gorp treatment instead of surgery.

In any event, he lived a thousand more lives compared to everyone else.

Do you feel better tearing down the great man? Life is safe in the little box where rebels go galt repeating opinions from Fox -n- Friends and praying to gawd for heaven and a big mac.

1/28/13, 10:13 PM Blogger Chip Ahoy said...

Do you feel better blah blah blah crap blah blah FOX blah blah

Why no, Howard, I don't. Do you feel better painting with broad brushes slapping paint all aver the place and holding those brushes in both hands and both monkey feet?

1/28/13, 10:21 PM

Now that there is some funny shit.

A Bleak Message

Go, read.

90 Sheriffs, 2 Sheriffs' Associations

That's the total so far on law enforcement agencies that won't cooperate in a Feinstein/Obama gun confiscation.

Last week, Reason's Ed Krayewski noted that a handful of sheriffs around the country had pledged to ignore new gun regulations being pushed by President Obama. If Oath Keeper Sheriff Richard Mack is to be believed, the number of sheriffs who are now refusing to enforce new federal gun regulations is up to 90.

"Sheriffs have risen up all over our great nation to stand up against the unconstitutional gun control measures being taken," Mack wrote on the site for the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). "I applaud these public servants for their courage and conviction. I would encourage other Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers to add their voices to the growing numbers of faithful protectors of our freedom."

Guess that's why the Obama administration is purging the military of leaders who refuse to fire on US citizens.

A Righteous Response To a City's Proposed Gun Bans

"Gun Range Prohibits Police After City Considers Ban."

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- A rural Vermont firing range has told the police department in Burlington that its officers are unwelcome to train at the facility because the City Council has advanced a measure to ban semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines in the state's largest city.

The City Council's action earlier this month threatens constitutional freedoms, Robert Boivin II, board chairman of the Lamoille Valley Fish and Game Club Inc., wrote in a letter to police department, city and state leaders terminating use of the gun range by Burlington police.

The firing range is in Morrisville, about 50 miles northeast of Burlington. The city of 42,000 residents has a police force of just less than 100 officers.

The club's executive board "can no longer support the City of Burlington with such a prejudice against our club and its members, and has voted to suspend the City's use of our range for its law enforcement. This action is effective immediately," Boivin wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday. It was provided Wednesday to The Burlington Free Press.

Well done, Lamoille Valley Fish and Game Club! Wish more businesses and ranges would make anti-gun jurisdictions and politicians pay the price in such a manner.

When Slurs Trigger Assaults

Just happened in Wilmington, NC:

A Wilmington man intentionally drove his car into a restaurant late Friday night, injuring at least one patron before fleeing the scene.

Officials with New Hanover County dispatch received a call around 10:40 p.m. Friday that a dark green Honda Civic had crashed through the front of Katy’s Great Eats, 1054 S. College Road, and then fled.

Officers with the Wilmington Police Department located the car a short time later. The driver, 26-year-old Jacob Spivey, admitted he’d driven through the restaurant intentionally trying to harm a female patron who had made a disparaging remark about his political beliefs.

“That upset him,” said Lt. Mary Green with the WPD. “Spivey intentionally drove over the curb and onto the patio with the intent to seriously injure the female.”

The woman, described as being in her 40s, was transported to New Hanover Regional Medical Center with severe lacerations and broken bones. Her injuries were not life-threatening, Green said.

And I don't think you can classify a Honda Civic as an "assault vehicle."

I guess it will come to this more and more as the two competing ideologies of the US become more hostile to each other.

Derbyshire On Sectionalism

He ties it in with our current gun ownership issues:

The current brouhaha over gun control strikes me that way. Listening to the opinionators, I started to think I could do a near-simultaneous translation—a translation, I mean, from the surface chatter about constitutional rights, kid safety, self-defense, and 30-round magazines (not “clips,” for crying out loud) to the underlying ideas in the speakers’ heads. Something like:

Blue guy: “Why does anyone need a 30-round magazine? What use is that, except to commit mayhem?”

[Translation: You dumb ignorant unwashed cracker, you can’t wait to let loose on some harmless crowd of African Americans, can you? Get back to your cabin and jar of corn liquor and relatives with six fingers. You shouldn’t be playing any part in the life of the nation, with your crazy religion and your reactionary social ideas.]

Red guy: “The Second Amendment is the people’s safeguard against tyranny.”

[Translation: You think I don’t know what’ll happen to me and mine if you sissified, overeducated elite hypocrites ever get total power over us? Leave us alone, dammit!]

I’m not being loftily impartial here. I belong to one of those sections. (Take a guess.) I’m just making the point that what this is really about is good old American sectionalism—two big groups of white people who can’t stand the sight of each other. We are eternally re-fighting the Civil War.

(Yes, white people. Blacks are hors de combat here, as they mostly were in the Civil War, neither side of which liked or trusted them. Sherman would not let colored troops march armed in the Grand Parade. Some black pioneer units marched with picks and shovels, but they were regarded as comic relief by the spectators and newspapers. Nobody cares what the generality of blacks think, no more now than in 1865. This war, like that one, is an intra-white affair.)

Click the link to read the rest. I think he's spot-on in his analysis.

Grandma Tyrant

Up in New Hampshire, a state legislator - - and a Democrat, naturally - - wants to clamp down on freedoms that the citizens of the state enjoy - - simply to discourage conservatives from moving to the state.

"In the opinion of this Democrat, Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal. In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the 'freedoms' that they think they will find here. Another is to shine the bright light of publicity on who they are and why they are coming."

Totalitarianism with a geriatric face.

Can't Say I'm Looking Forward To 2013...

...because this:

I did speak to one harried clerk, briefly. They didn’t know when they’d be getting anything back in stock, from magazines to rifles to pistols. Manufacturers were running full-bore, but couldn’t come close to keeping up with market demand.It wasn’t just the AR-15s, the AK-pattern rifles, the M1As, and the FALs that were sold out. It really hit me when I realized that the World War-era M1 Garands , M1 carbines, and Enfield .303s were gone, along with every last shell. Ubiquitous Mosin-Nagants—of which every gun store always seems to have 10-20—were gone. So was their ammo. Only a dust free space marked their passing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone. This isn’t a society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war.

I wonder if this is what it felt like during the time of the Powder Alarm, and fear politicians both sides of the aisle are no more speaking the same language as most Americans as Gage was unable to think like the Colonials. There is an earnestness now on both sides, and a great chance for unintended consequences.

Happy New Year!

Doubling Down

That New York Gannett newspaper that published information about gun owners, including an interactive Google map, is at it again:

Apparently undeterred by retaliation from a pro-Second Amendment blogger, the editorial staff at Gannett’s “Journal News” is at it again.

After creating an uproar for publishing the names and addresses of gun owners in New York’s Westchester and Rockland counties, “Journal News” announced it will release and publish the names and addresses of permit holders in Putnam County, according to Reuters.

“Further names and addresses will be added as they become available to a map originally published on December 24 in the White Plains, New York-based Journal News,” the report notes.

Prediction: this will go on until some enraged gun owner shoots out windows at a journalist's house, at which point the New York state legislature will step in and try to craft a law to muzzle the newspapers, resulting in lawsuits.

Can it be any more obvious that journalists just have complete contempt for the Second Amendment at this point? If these bozos manage to gin up a civil war in the US over guns, it's only fair that they become targets themselves, isn't it? And when they lose that war, only poetic justice that they be stood against a wall and shot with the guns that they hate so much?

Read This, Please

The clash that will define the future of America is this collision between the individual and the state, between disorganized freedom and organized compassion, between a self-directed experiment in self-government and an experiment conducted by trained experts on a lab monkey population. And the defining idea of this conflict is accountability.

The rest of it is just that good. Click the link to go read it.

h/t Joan at Primordial Slack.

Patrick Buchanan: We're Already Seceding!

Pat sums up beautifully, as he usually does.

Our Pledge of Allegiance still speaks of “one nation under God, indivisible,” but that is far from the reality in the America of 2012.

The social, cultural, moral and political revolutions of the 1960s, against which Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan inveighed to win their 49-state triumphs, have now captured half of the country.

One America believes our history is a catalog of crimes against people of color, that women have an inviolable right to abortions, that condoms should be handed out to sexually active teens in schools where Darwinism should be taught as revealed truth, while Bibles, prayers and religious symbols should be permanently expelled.

The other America sees all this as unpatriotic, godless and decadent.

One America believes in equality of rights; the other demands equality of results brought about through the redistribution of income and wealth, affirmative action, racial and gender set-asides, and quotas.

One America believes in gun control; the other in gun rights.

Now that Christmas and Easter have been expunged from public schools and the public square and the popular culture has been thoroughly de-Christianized, we Americans seem to have but one holy day of obligation that brings us all together: Super Bowl Sunday.

Where one America divinizes diversity, the other seeks out our lost unity and community. Half the country pays no federal income taxes, but half depends on federal benefits.

Click the link to read the rest, as they say.

What We've Got Here...Is Failure To Communicate

And so, as a public service, I provide this handy-dandy translation service from Liberal to Conservative:

You Say: Journalist…I Hear: Propagandist

You Say: Social Justice…I Hear: Stand and Deliver

You Say: Shari’a Law…I Hear: Hang gays, stone women, marry children, own slaves

You Say: Progressive…I Hear: Socialist

You Say: Trial Lawyer…I Hear: Pirate

You Say: Racist…I Hear: Shut Up

You Say: Islamophobia…I Hear: Shut Up

Plenty more at the link. And, of course, the title reference comes from this classic movie moment:

Which Should Surprise No One

"Survey shocker: Liberal profs admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, advancement."

h/t Sipsey Street Irregulars.

Yer Topical Video of the Day

This one's self-explanatory.

"The News Media Today Is Killing Faith In God, All In the Name of Diversity"

Down in Wilmington, NC, the boycott against Chik-Fil-A appears to be backfiring.

Nobody picketed outside during the rainy morning hours, and there was no line of gay supporters ordering water and nothing else, an idea hatched on YouTube to nibble away at Chick-fil-A's daily profit.

But there were some eating biscuits in support of Cathy.

Armond Weatherly jumped into his appliance truck and verified that he supports Cathy's stance on gay marriage.

"I'm against it myself," he said.

Inside, a group of four white-haired men sat at a table, awaiting their fifth.

"We want to support Mr. Cathy and his stand on the Bible," said Bill Stines of Wilmington. "I think it's time that Christians stood up."

Dan Grimsley, seated at the same table, mostly agreed.

"It's not strictly religious to me," he said. "It's this ‘in-the-face' attitude."