What would you do?

By Andrew B. Adler Owner/Publisher AAdler@ atljewishtimes .com

“…a war in 2017 would likely include the firing of 15,000 rockets and missiles into Israeli cities, causing unprecedented devastation and casualties.”
^{(Jerusalem Post 1/3/2012 online edition)}

You are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. You are responsible for 7 million Israeli citizens who comprise the state of Israel. You wake up one morning, and the Israel Defense Forces’ military commander hands you a detailed report regarding what to expect during a major conflict with Hezbollah and Syria five years from today.

The report states that Israel will come under fire from 15,000 rockets and missiles, and that casual-ties will be in the thousands. That’s thousands, not hundreds – thou-sands. Simultaneously, another IDF military commander strolls over while you are finishing your first cup of coffee and hands you a report that Iran has reached nuclear launch capabilities.

If that’s not enough, an Israeli diplomat informs you that you cannot expect much help from the United States due to its newly implemented military budget and the administration’s never ending “Alice in Wonderland” belief that diplomacy is the answer.

To all the Netanyahus out there, what do you do? Well, here are your “Kobayashi  Maru” options. “Kobayahi Maru” is a term used in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” to de-scribe a no-win scenario or facing a solution that involves redefining the problem.

One, order a pre-emptive strike against both Hezbollah and Hamas, knowing that military and civilian casualties will be high, but not as high as they would be in 2017.

Two, go against Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s wishes that Israel take a lethal bullet in the name of preserving a healthy, worldwide economic climate, and order the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities at all costs.

Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.- based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?

Another way of putting “three” into perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives…Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?

You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table. With this in mind, I again ask you, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, what would you do?

If you want to fax him a kind letter of regard:

ATLJewishTimes:
Phone: 404-564-4550
Fax: 770-350-7581

Andrew B Adler
(770) 579-8825
3431 Old Wagon Rd
Marietta, GA 30062-5513

TOMAHAWKS SOLVE EVERYTHING

Religism:

Intolerance 2012

What If?: Religion

“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.”

So. Apparently, my takeaway again is, Religious Freedom for those with your identical Religious views, and legislated silence for those who believe differently than you do. Religious freedom, apparently now means State-sponsored Christianity, and legislatively-restricted practice of other non-mainstream religions. This right here is why the Founding Fathers stressed time and time again the importance of the separation of church and state. Because when you let the two mix, the politicians start to use their piety as a measure of their leader-worthiness and they start to one-up each other in their display of their religious fervor and willingness to make their brand of religion law.

As a matter of fact, let’s take a look at some of the Founding Fathers and what their religious convictions were.

• George Washington was a nominal Anglican who rarely stayed for Communion.
• John Adams was a Unitarian, which Trinitarians (Read Baptists…)  abhorred as heresy.
• Thomas Jefferson, denounced as an atheist, was actually a deist who detested organized religion and who produced an expurgated version of the New Testament with the miracles eliminated.
• Jefferson and James Madison, a nominal Episcopalian, were the architects of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.
• James Monroe was another Virginia Episcopalian.
• John Quincy Adams was another Massachusetts Unitarian.

See any Baptists in that list? then why are we pushing Baptist as the National Religion?

as for that Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.. The following is taken from Wikipedia:

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 (though it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779)^[1] by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state’s law. The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph.^[2] It supported theEstablishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and freedom of conscience.

Text of statute

An Act for establishing religious Freedom.Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,

That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;

That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;

That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,

That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,

That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;

That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;

That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;

That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;

And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.^[3]

After all, what other justification can you find for the incontrovertibly data-driven fact that virtually every single polling point that Herman Cain has lost due to his infidelity went to the only other candidate that publicly acknowledges multiple instances of infidelity? Unless of course you were to take the rather paranoid opinion that an African American cheating with a European American is not as forgivable as a candidate cheating within his race.

I’m sure I’ll write more about Newt in the days and weeks to come, but in the interim, let me leave you with a qoute from Newt in 1985 when the Wall Street Journal asked him about his shirking of responibility to serve his country in Vietnam,

“Part of the question I had to ask myself was what difference I would have made.”

So. True. as President, what difference would you make? might as well not run.

“I am not racist. I will tell you that. I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil” about a race, said Thompson, the church’s former pastor who stepped down earlier this year. “That’s what this is being portrayed as, but it is not.”

Now this is the statement made by Melvin Thompson after he offered the following proposal at his Kentucky church.

“That the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. Parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they they be used in worship services and other church functions, with the exception being funerals. All are welcome to our public worship services. This recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.” Submitted to the church business committee November 9, 2011 for their consideration by Melvin Thompson, member, Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church.

Why was this odd resolution needed? Well, apparently a regular member, and daughter of the church treasurer, had the apparently poor grace to bring her African boyfriend to join her in worship of the lord..

FILE - In this November 2010 file photo provided by Stella Harville, Stella Harville and her fiancé, Ticha Chikuni, pose for a picture in Richmond, Ky. Stella s childhood church in Pike County, Kentucky, the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, voted to ban interracial couples from becoming members at the church after the pair sang a song during a visit to the church over the summer.

Of course we can’t place all the blame on Mr. Thompson seeing as church members voted 9-6 in favor of the resolution to bar mixed-race couples from joining the congregation.