Category → Government Of the People…
September 11th, A Day of Remembrance, Reflection & Resolve
September 11th, A Day of Remembrance, Reflection & Resolve
September 11, 2012
By Josh First
September 11th is an American day of national remembrance and reflection. We remember the attacks on our defenseless civilians by Muslim terrorists, who used our freedoms against us on this day.
We reflect on American heroism, an innate trait seen most graphically on Flight 93, now memorialized at the crash site in Somerset County, Pennsylvania (which I had the honor to help create, leading the first two years of real estate protection there with the National Park Service, Somerset County, the local townships, the Families of Flight 93, PBS Coals, CONSOL Energy, the Mellon Foundation, and others, not to mention the many supportive landowners).
Should the American character of inclusiveness be continued in a way that invites these kinds of attacks? An inclusiveness at any and all costs?
Based on his experience in both world wars, British leader Winston Churchill quipped after World War II that the Americans wouldn’t show up to a fight until it was almost too late to win it. Will our generation of Americans languish in our non-judgmentalism, uber-inclusiveness, and moral relativism until it is too late?
The “too late” will be when Iran obtains nuclear bombs, which is in the end-process of happening with an American and European acquiescence that is exactly how the West dealt with Hitler before 1940. Pacifists call this avoidable prelude to widespread death “peace,” but what do they call it after the bombs start going off? They call it someone else’s failure.
Many people believe that those Iranian bombs will be directed at Israel only, but Iran fears and hates America more than Israel. To Iran’s Muslim leaders and most of its citizens, America is the epicenter of everything they oppose. It’s a clash of civilizations that they intend to settle with nuclear bombs and that we currently intend to resolve through endless discussion.
America’s porous borders and inability to fight back against Islamic supremacism at home or abroad mean that at least one Iranian bomb will find its way into a large American city. The devastation and economic fallout will be unimaginable. What if two or three bombs are snuck in, and detonated? Is it “peace” to ignore these questions, and is it “warmongering” to ask them?
The oft-quoted historian George Santayana said “Those who forget history are destined to repeat it,” which in the context of September 11th means that Americans who are forgetting what happened that day, and why, will be surprised the next time we experience a huge domestic attack. The problem is that the next attack will be with a nuclear bomb, maybe several, America may not be able to recover from the damage, and we don’t have to be surprised; we can take steps to stop it from happening.
So on September 11th, the modern equivalent of remembering the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, let us not just recall the pain that we felt, but rather also resolve that it won’t happen again. Let us take the small and big steps necessary to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, the personal ones, the professional ones, and the political ones.
Follow us on the web at joshfirst.com and our Facebook page, Josh First for Senate
Dems Re-Hire God, Maybe
An international gasp awakened rank and file Democrats to the fact that Obama was leading them over a cliff, as a result of, most recently, eliminating the word “God” from the Dem platform and ditching the Jews by the side of the highway.
So this afternoon “God” was reintroduced to the briefly God-less at the DNC convention.
But it’s uncertain just how popular this action was, because if you watch the video (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/3872849) of the convention floor vote, you can hear and see that the Dems are evenly divided on both God and security for Israel.
Moreover, there’s an Arab Muslim couple that is severely disappointed, the man gesticulating wildly, jumping up and down, yelling. His face and upraised arms are now the symbol of that historic, disagreeable floor vote.
One more thing catches me eye: The mainstream media had that video all over the web two hours ago, and now you can only find it on C-SPAN. Think the mainstream media is in the pocket of the Democratic Party?
Nahhhh…the media burial of this supercharged, radioactive video is purely coincidental.
Really, it is.
And the Democratic Party believes in God, really.
Democrats Fire God
God has been fired by the Democratic Party.
The 2008 DNC platform mentioned “God-given” rights, but that has now been replaced with the phrases ‘faith’ and ‘faith-based’.
And speaking of God, support for Israel has been tossed aside. The people who first found God have also been discarded.
These are not your dad’s Democrats!
Watching BBC, PBS Anti-Republican Theme
Sitting here watching WITF, the local public TV station with my wife, as BBC reports all about Obama, failing to mention Romney at all. Obama evidently visited New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, but Romney never did.
Fact is, Obama changed his schedule last second to catch up to Romney there.
Then we move on to the Tavis Smiley Show, where musician Ry Cooder debuts his “Mutt Romney Song.”
His song is all about how Mitt Romney had a dog on his car roof in a dog cage.
Ry Cooder didn’t write a song about how Barack Hussein Obama actually ate a dog.
Tavis laughs. Calls Ry’s music “inspiring,” and asks for Ry to explain his political views.
Then we listen to Ry Cooder insult Republicans and conservatives, joking about his songs that make fun of the people he disagrees with.
Apparently, Republicans are a threat to his free speech rights. Never mind that he is on publicly-funded television taking a harshly partisan attack to his opponents, he still feels threatened.
Well, ol’ Ry ol’ buddy, I feel threatened by the mis-use of my public funds for one-sided political messages being spread by NPR, BBC, and PBS. If these outlets were balancing their reports with equal demonization of Democrats and Liberals, then it’d be fair and balanced, so to say. But it’s not. This is unfair, un-American.
And then Ry and Tavis begin complaining to one each other about how unfair it is that they get held to and accountable for their statements by people on the Internet, and how unfair it is that they have to defend themselves against critics who find their messages on the ‘Net. All while these two guys are on publicly funded television, enjoying their own monopoly on spreading a political message.
Ry is supportive of the Occupy Wall Street, radical unions, Marxist activists, and others, he’s against gun ownership, self defense, and whites, and he just can’t understand why others disagree with him. He’s truly surprised that so many people don’t share his foolish, juvenile views.
WTF, WITF?
Revealing, isn’t it…
Isn’t it revealing that Barack Hussein Obama’s birth certificate was kept under wraps for years, and his college transcripts (showing his foreign student status) are still bolted down in a Fort Knox -type location, but he is still demanding Romney’s tax documents? Oh, the irony.
Rule 15 Fight at Convention
Three Romney mailers arrived over past two months, asking me for money.
Sure, I said.
Then came the Rule 15 fight at the convention. Establishment wants us hard working conservatives to move the party ball forward, but then they strip away our influence.
Good luck, guys!
The Sandusky Disaster: Kids Lose, Penn State Loses, NCAA Loses & There’s Still No Lesson Here
The Sandusky Disaster: Kids Lose, Penn State Loses, NCAA Loses & There’s Still No Lesson Here
By Josh First
August 16, 2012
With the mish-mash medley of legal, leadership, and National Collegiate Athletic Association results spilling out of the Jerry Sandusky child rape conviction, you’d have to believe that justice has been done, lessons learned, and responsible adults have reasserted control over one of the world’s leading academic institutions, Penn State University.
Sadly, you’d be wrong; it’s just not the case.
Instead, the best opportunity in decades to talk about child molesters, sexual abuse, pedophilia, increasingly bizarre social norms, and educational institutions has been missed. Sandusky’s legacy is so painful, so gut-wrenchingly disturbing, that everyone seems to be looking the other way down the street. Scapegoats are in demand, and the PSU football program is serving handily.
After reading the related press reports and the Louis Freeh report, the only person who stands out as a leader is the one un-named Trustee who persistently dogged former PSU president Graham Spanier, demanding information and explanations along the way, even as Spanier sandbagged, obfuscated, lied, and blustered. Louis Freeh’s report is otherwise itself deficient enough to demand another analysis of the facts.
One of the Freeh Report’s biggest deficiencies is its preachy tone and clear aim to discredit Coach Joe Paterno. A real investigation dispassionately uncovers facts, leaving the inferences and judgmental conclusions to decision makers. Diverging from that mode, the now re-corrected Freeh Report uses damning language, and makes recommendations, inferences, and insinuations that aren’t supported by the evidence.
One example is how Freeh uses Paterno’s statement that he “didn’t want to interfere with their weekends” as evidence of Paterno’s supposed reluctance to address Sandusky’s brand-new crimes after Michael McQueary reported one to him at 2:00 AM. As though waiting from 3:00 AM to 9:00 AM Sunday morning is a shockingly long time to wait to tell the most senior school administrators that you’ve been told that a grown adult with the highest standing is really a child rapist. This demonstrates that Freeh either missed the irony in Paterno’s statement, or he deliberately took it out of context in an attempt to smear Paterno by making him seem reluctant to report, and more culpable for Sandusky’s actions. Either way, Sunday morning calls about a Sunday morning child rapist do ruin your weekend, and they were made nonetheless.
But the worst example is Freeh’s reliance upon two emails from former Athletic Director Tim Curley, in which Curley invokes the paraphrase “Coach wants to know” to either pry information from VP Gary Schultz and Spanier or to encourage a decision about Sandusky’s future. In those two emails, Curley represented to Spanier and Schultz that he had communicated with former Coach Joe Paterno about their collectively developing understanding of Sandusky’s crimes, and he hinted that Paterno was apprised of the facts that we all now know after all of the reporting, investigation, and trial.
The problem with drawing damning inferences about what Paterno did nor did not know from just these two opaque emails is that lots of people misrepresent what public figures say and what their bosses say, said, believe, or want. They do it especially when they know that getting that person’s actual opinion will be difficult. I have participated directly in the politics of PSU’s Old Main, both as a PSU student leader and as a professional decades later. Like all educational institutions, that administrative wing is rife with intrigue, lies, posturing, one-upsmanship, deceit, conceit, gigantic egos backed up by zero, undeservedly high salaries, and worse. For Curley to invoke Coach Paterno in the emails without actually consulting him on a personnel issue, as opposed to a recruiting issue, would be par for the course. It would actually make Curley more human.
Those two emails tell us nothing about Paterno’s knowledge of the situation, only what Curley said.
But the Freeh report relies on them almost exclusively to establish that Paterno was not only tracking the Sandusky developments, but then actively quashing any public decision or exposure about them. By mistakenly (falsely?) claiming that Paterno maintained that detailed level of involvement, the entire football program has, by extension, become smeared and then punished.
In its rush to condemn Paterno, and by extension the entire PSU football program, the NCAA has relied on Freeh report’s single most judgmental, problematic word: “Culture.” As in “A culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus [sic] community,” surprise, surprise; find me a top college football program that is any different. As in, Freeh’s inference goes, a university-wide culture of lying and cover-up; which is unsupported by the facts.
The problem with Freeh claiming that a culture of cover-up and sacrificing little boys’ bodies and souls on the altar of college football existed at Penn State is that no one outside of four senior people really knew what was going on with Sandusky. And one of those people, Paterno, not only followed protocol and notified his superiors, but also then spoke openly with a reporter and others in a way that indicates he believed he did what was required and regretted not doing more. Not to mention the 1998 police cover-up and Ray Gricar’s failure to prosecute Sandusky and then his mysterious disappearance….
Note to Louis Freeh and the NCAA folks: Three or four people do not make an entire university culture. Rather, The Culture that Joe Built was, and still is, made of millions of adults, nearly any one of whom would have gladly taken a baseball bat to Sandusky, and then notified the police that a pedophile had been discovered and justice had been administered. The great call to arms against Penn State is that, supposedly, the real culture beneath the surface is one of lies and deceit. The open horror within the PSU Alumni community at Sandusky’s crimes and at the cover-up by three leaders there belies Freeh’s insinuation and the NCAA’s grotesque penalty.
The NCAA’s rush to judgment, to be PSU’s judge, jury, and swift executioner without any due process, is clear evidence of a truly deficient culture, the same culture that Freeh decries about Spanier’s own similar leadership style.
The PSU Board of Trustees’ rush to embrace the NCAA’s ridiculous penalty is a shallow mea culpa and self-expiation through supposed self-sacrifice by a bunch of weak people who lacked the strength of character to act when they should have acted decisively, back in 1998, 2001, 2008, and 2010. Any Trustee wishing to now demonstrate his or her agreement with the NCAA’s penalty should immediately resign from the PSU board as a true sign of self-sacrifice. Current PSU president Rodney Erickson is cut from the same pathetic cloth, and he is also tainted by his long, weak-kneed proximity to Spanier: Resign immediately, Mr. Erickson. Get away from us.
And about that un-named Trustee: Whoever you are, I nominate you to be Penn State’s next president. You alone have demonstrated the strength of character and leadership that has been missing from the beginning until the end of this debacle. Please step up, whoever you are.
Follow the discussion at www.joshfirst.com and on our political page on FaceBook
Wisconsin Sikh Temple Murders: What The…?
If you have not had the opportunity to meet a Sikh, you should go out of your way to do so.
I have yet to meet a mean, unpleasant, surly, or disrespectful Sikh.
In my experience, Sikhs are like all other Indians: Universally pleasant, friendly, gracious. They work hard, contribute enormously to American culture, our economy, to family life, and small business. Sikhs are exactly the kind of immigrants Americans want, because they are both religious and tolerant of others. They have great values that are 100% congruent with traditional American values, culture, and lifestyle.
Sikhs are a net gain for America, not a threat.
And please, spare us any debate on Sikh or Hindu theology. Not one of us has a theology that someone cannot poke some holes in. Sikh theology is not mine, but it is very American in terms of its values.
My heart goes out to the poor Sikhs in Wisconsin, those who have experienced the downside of American freedom and liberty. Our Second Amendment requires citizens to be responsible, mature, and free of psychosis. It also requires other citizens to be on the lookout, so that they might defend themselves, if need be.
Sikhs are fine citizens, and I wish we had more of them here in Central Pennsylvania. Hopefully, the damaged temple in Milwaukee will be fixed, enlarged, and visited by people of all other faiths as a demonstration of solidarity with fellow good citizens.
What amazes me is that white supremacists believe they are superior, and yet they always behave in such obviously inferior ways. If you are so superior, start a business, make money, run a solid family, and pass on your values, whatever they may be, to your children. The thing is, racial and religious supremacy of all sorts is so deficient, so broken, that its practitioners almost always blow themselves up or run afoul of the law long before they can act civilized and healthily participate in a free democracy, thereby passing on their values.
Stepping Across the Barricade: I’m 47, Married, Religious, and Love My Gay Friends, Daggonit
Stepping Across the Barricade: I’m 47, Married, Religious, and Love My Gay Friends, Daggonit
By Josh First
July 31, 2012
Preface:
1) I do not hate, dislike, or otherwise work against homosexual people.
2) Since my college years I have known casually and also been close friends with many gay people, both women and men. I love my gay family members as well as a couple of my gay friends.
3) I am not gay, I am not attracted to men, but rather have always had a “thing” for older women. Now that my marriage is closing in on 20 years, I’m finally getting what I always lusted after: An older woman.
4) I have stood up for gay people, in the office during my professional career and during social situations in college, since I was in my teens.
5) If I were to see a gay person being physically attacked for the simple reason that they were gay, they could and always can count on my immediate involvement and intercession on their behalf. I’ll physically defend your right to be gay and free from harassment and assaults, and I’m a tough brawler.
6) I believe that people are born gay, that it is not a choice at least most of the time, and that God made gay people the way they are; more power to them. Someone had to fill Isaac Mizrachi’s shoes, and it sure isn’t going to be a knuckle dragger like me. I admire anyone defending our nation with a gun, gay or straight.
7) Be gay if that’s what you are. Live. Be. Enjoy the free air as much as I or any other person enjoys it. You are just as entitled to it as any other human. I don’t care if you are gay.
And…8: During the two times I have run for public office (U.S. House PA-17th District, 2010, and PA Senate – 15th District in 2012), I have taken open, strongly worded policy positions against discrimination against gay people in the work place, in the application of government benefits, and in equal protection of the laws of the land.
Given the forgoing, you would have to be a lunatic to say that I am anti-gay, bigoted against gays, or somehow an anti-gay crusader.
And yet, all these things have been said about me, and much worse, over the past week since I dared to raise a nuanced policy discussion about preventing the sexualizing of children. In sum, to recapitulate what started the ruckus, I support the Boy Scouts of America policy of not sexualizing their kids. In terms of gay people, it means that open displays of sex, discussing being gay, gay-ness, gay acts, and other human sexuality in general are all off limits, forbidden, and utterly unacceptable. Because these are, after all, children. This applies to gay, straight, and pedophile adults. Think what you want, but keep your thoughts to yourself.
My child is not going to be a battleground in this culture war issue. Homosexuality is sexuality, and sexuality of all sorts does not belong in the scouts nor around little kids. People pushing sexuality make me uncomfortable for obvious reasons, whether they are straight or gay. Sexuality is a private matter. Kids and sex don’t mix.
Sexuality is sex; it is not race, religion, etc. no matter how much culture war proponents want to say it is. That’s the problem with culture wars. Demands are made of others to suspend belief, suspend reason, suspend debate and just kowtow, or die.
Once again, to recapitulate, it is my opinion that talking about sex or sexuality with children who are not your own, especially in the Boy Scouts-type setting, is unacceptable. Adults, sex, and kids do not mix.
Unless the kids are yours and you are parenting them by describing human sexuality. Or, if you consent to having the “birds and the bees” be described for your kids at school by a professional in a public setting.
A few reasons probably account for the heaps of criticism on the position I took. First, gay people generally want to be accepted like anyone else (why wouldn’t they?), and they mistakenly believe that someone is singling them out for unfair treatment in a policy discussion like this. A second reason may emanate from straights who support gays’ right to be free from intimidation, harassment, and discrimination, and these fine folks believe, mistakenly, that any criticism of gays (even criticism that is leveled equally at both gays and straights) is automatically unfair and out of bounds. Another reason may be simple politics, as in “I will attack you and destroy you and harass you and demean you and lie about you if you say something I disagree with.”
Reading those comments, we had all three reasons at work.
What does it mean to be gay?
Well, being gay means that you are attracted to people of your same sex or gender.
Only you know how you feel about sex, unless you tell someone, or act flamboyantly in ways that convey your sexuality (or perform sex acts where others can see them). For gay men, this may mean acting effeminate, dressing in women’s clothes, or adopting modes of communication that tell other men that they are attracted to them. For straight men, conveying your sexuality usually results in charges of sexual harassment. At the very least, you’ll have been known to have ‘hit’ on someone.
The point is, unlike skin color, which is obvious to all but the blind and accounts for race and ethnicity, and religion\creed, which can be observed many different public and private ways, being gay or straight is not something that can be publicly observed under normal circumstances.
Which is one reason why I supported adding being gay or being perceived as gay to Pennsylvania’s anti-discrimination laws.
The bottom line is this: Sexuality is not race, ethnicity, religion, or creed. Human sexuality is a thing unto itself, and usually it is taboo. We have taboos against incest, sex with animals, and until recently, homosexuality. In recent times, we recognized that private sexual relations between consenting adults are their own business, and that they must be accorded the same protections as anyone else when there or out in public.
In free societies, we ensure that minorities of all sorts are free from discrimination, because discrimination undermines the promise of equal protection and opportunity for all citizens. Minorities are defined as being different than the Protestant majority formed by the Europeans who settled America. If someone tells you over the phone that they are African American, you can then later on compare them to a European American’s skin color and see the difference, and measure their minority status. Religion is often strongly correlated with race and ethnicity, and ethnicity is often strongly associated with certain names. Thus, many names (Goldberg, Rosenberg, Stein, McCloud, etc.) give a hint about the person’s place of origin, potential ethnicity, and religious affiliations, however tenuous or committed.
Gays have the misfortune of being in a category that should be protected, but which cannot be easily verified, at least without the removal of some clothing and the performance of acts that must by necessity for all citizens occur only in private among consenting adults. Verification is going to be a challenge.
There are those of us Americans who are raising our kids to be both tolerant of others, including gays, and also be religious and modest. This means they are taught that some subjects cannot be discussed in public, but that everyone is entitled to the American dream. It means that we expect others to display the same inhibitions that we exhibit, and to respect our boundaries as they expect us to extend respect to them.
However, American public life is increasingly coarsened and with it the standard for public discourse is lowered. One measure is how Hollywood continues to abuse its power of persuasion and suggestion with movies glorifying violence and sadism. Another example is the blurring of private and public lives, where innately private acts are displayed in public. This means that some people now believe that they may, nay, even must, be able to force upon you their own beliefs, practices, and thoughts. Even if they are offensive to you as much as you accord them the right to be and do what they will. They demand such respect even while simultaneously stating that you yourself believe in only stupidness and bigotry.
Which gets to the conclusion of this essay: Tolerance is a two-way street. And tolerance does not mean acceptance. No one has the right to demand that someone else adopt their way of thinking or risk being called a bigot. You cannot do it with religion, and you cannot do it with sexuality. People have a right to have comfort zones, to have beliefs. Gays have a right to be free of discrimination. And parents have the right to say that they do not want Little Johnny knowing that men are attracted to each other like Mommy and Daddy are, and all the discussion that such attraction entails. There is no easy answer to this, as one side must gain and the other must by necessity lose in such a situation. Picking sides means no further dialogue, with each side manning its barricades. Some friends have let me know which side they are on, and they exclude me from that side, which I think is both illogical and unnecessary.
I like to view myself as someone who has stepped over the barricades and extended a hand of friendship to the other side. Demanding that I drop my discomfort, or that I kowtow and say certain words to make someone else feel as though they have won, well, that just prolongs the conflict, because it’s not right. Given the preface above, I wonder how many gays will say the same for my religious belief system. Or am I the only one who needs to be tolerant?
Boy Scouts of America: Straight, Narrow, and Correct
Boy Scouts of America: Straight, Narrow, and Correct
By Josh First
July 19, 2012
The Boy Scouts of America still believes that it is wrong to sexualize children, and they get kudos for that self-evident necessity.
Today the BSA is attacked in an editorial by the Patriot News, the regional newspaper for central Pennsylvania, on this issue. By excluding men, women, and “children” who openly profess their (gay) sexual habits to little kids, the BSA is allegedly an oppressive organization, according to the staff at the Patriot News.
This issue has nothing to do with bias, oppression, or discrimination any more than sexual harassment between adults has anything to do with bias, oppression, or discrimination. Sex is sex is sex. Gay or straight, sex is sex.
And it is just plain wrong to sexualize children. It’s called pedophilia when adults do that. Adults hauling kids out into the woods to talk about sex is the beginning of pedophilia. Pedophilia is rightly criminal.
If being gay were like having non-Caucasian skin color or a different religion, there would be an issue. But being gay is just like being straight: It’s about sexual behavior. Sexual behavior is a deeply personal, private thing. The only way someone is going to know that you are gay or lesbian is if you tell them. When you tell them, you’re talking about sex.
Despite thoroughly covering the subject, the Patriot News staff haven’t learned anything from the Sandusky child-rape affair. The main lesson from that catastrophe is that adults, sex talk, and kids just do not mix. It leads to sex between adults and kids; it leads to pedophilia.
If it’s sexual harassment for adults to talk about sex with other adults who don’t want to hear it, then it’s the very definition of criminality for an adult to talk about his or her sexual interests and activities with little kids.
Especially in a remote setting. In tents. Away from parents. Away from other adults.
And how do little kids know they are gay, anyhow? Unless they have been sexualized by an adult already, little kids just don’t know what sexual behavior is yet. Recently, a little boy was kicked out of school for singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It” in front of other kids, and especially in front of little girls. If responsible adults know that sexual behavior has a place that isn’t in school or public, then why do we have adults pushing for adults to explain the mechanics of their sexual behavior to little kids in a tent in the woods?
BSA maintaining a non-sexualization policy is the right thing to do.
If advocates of gay and lesbian lifestyles want to get their message across, then they should invite others to join them in a neutral, public place to present their views. If the public shows up to hear what they have to say, then that’s their audience. If no one shows up, then that’s their audience. Or, in the alternative, they can do what my wonderful gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, and family members do: Live by example.
My neighborhood has many gay and lesbian citizens living here, and they are fantastic, exemplary citizens. Great neighbors. I trust them around my kids.
But I would not trust them, or any straight adult, who wanted to take my kids away to the woods to talk about sex. That would make me mad. I would be suspicious at least. What would be next, a physical demonstration of their beliefs? Like what Jerry Sandusky did?
The Patriot News needs to issue a recall of their opinion piece on this subject; recant their faulty logic and twisted thinking. Whatever your opinion is about people who are gay and lesbian, and I council tolerance, the place to discuss and discover one’s sexual interests is not in a BSA tent with a Scout leader or chaperone showing you the way.