CommentsDisplaying ChevalierdeJohnstone's 10 most recent comments.

• Here’s Everything You Need to Know About the NSA Spy Program Hearings on Capitol Hill Tuesday

  June 19, 2013 at 2:23pm

  In reply to ellietoo.

  They’re going with a smoke and mirrors defense. The NSA has a mandate to “spy” on foreign nationals, as well as U.S. citizens communicating with those. That is their job. It seems that every one of these 50 foiled plots falls under that mandate, of spying on non-U.S. citizens or citizens with whom they communicate.
  The NSA does not have a mandate to engage in warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens absent foreign involvement. Even the Bush directive concerns wiretapping While it is true that we have some “home-grown” terrorists, the simple fact is that this kind of government activity is expressly prohibited by the 4th amendment.
  Nobody with an serious intellectual knowledge is questioning the NSA in wiretapping suspected foreign terrorists in order to stop their attacks. The problem is that the NSA illegally and unconstitutionally exceeded its mandate and applied the same wiretapping to U.S. citizens who were not communicating with non-citizens. It’s not the use of the technology that is a problem, it’s the fact that they explicitly broke the law.

• Religious Leaders Lay Out the Unifying Message All Americans Can Rally Around

  June 19, 2013 at 2:09pm

  In reply to DeavonReye.

  “[I]t is at once seen that God exists. For by this word is signified that thing than which nothing greater can be conceived. But that which exists actually and mentally is greater than that which exists only mentally. Therefore, since as soon as the word “God” is understood it exists mentally, it also follows that it exists actually. Therefore the proposition “God exists” is self-evident.”
  “Further, the existence of truth is self-evident. For whoever denies the existence of truth grants that truth does not exist: and, if truth does not exist, then the proposition “Truth does not exist” is true: and if there is anything true, there must be truth. But God is truth itself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) Therefore “God exists” is self-evident.”
  …”The existence of God can be proved in five ways.”
  …”The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion.”
  …”The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause.”
  …”The third way is taken from possibility and necessity…if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist…there must exist something the existence of which is necessary.”
  …”The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things…there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being”
  …”The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world….”

• Religious Leaders Lay Out the Unifying Message All Americans Can Rally Around

  June 19, 2013 at 1:57pm

  I’m not a sola scriptura kind of person but I don’t remember God ever giving anyone any “rights” in the Bible. I do remember commandments. Lots of them. Things like “love your neighbor as yourself.” It seems rights are implied insofar as they are required to enact God’s commandments, but it seems the commandments come first.

  Gen 1:28 “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…”
  Gen 1:29 “I give you every seed-bearing plant…”

  What’s the point of the second if not to support the first?

  The problem with Christendom today is that we are far too focused on “rights” and ignore the commandments of our Lord.

• Robber Threatens to Kill Shop Owner’s Family During Stickup – He Was Later Pronounced Dead From Single Gunshot Wound

  June 19, 2013 at 1:15am

  In reply to ChevalierdeJohnstone.

  Number one, any of us would be pretty wounded or dead if instead of a backpack full of money, we got the bullet we deserved for attempting armed robbery.

• Robber Threatens to Kill Shop Owner’s Family During Stickup – He Was Later Pronounced Dead From Single Gunshot Wound

  June 19, 2013 at 1:14am

  I don’t know, not having seen all the facts, but it’s safe to say the robbery perp is a white Christian NRA member and the self-defender is a hereditary multimillionaire with an uncle in Federal elective office (Republican).

  I ain’t got nothing against the Newark police though, they’re fine in my book.

• Was Justice Roberts Intimidated Into Voting for ‘ObamaCare’? Senator Mike Lee Presents the Evidence

  June 18, 2013 at 6:49pm

  In reply to endstrong.

  I understand his decision perfectly. As would anyone who read it.
  He explains himself very clearly, and this also explains the evolution of his opinion. He disagrees with the ACA and thinks that it is a bad idea; however, he says it is not the job of the Supreme Court to save the American people from their own elected Congress.
  Roberts is against an activist judiciary – remember, this is what we said we wanted? Thus his opinion is that if the American people are such idiots that they elect a left-wing Congress and President, and then such gutless simpletons that they don’t vote the crumbs out of office when they pass such a monstrosity of a bill “that we have to pass so we know what’s in it,” then the job of SCOTUS is not to ride in on a stallion and save the American people from their own stupidity. Robert’s decision says that Obamacare is a bad law that was passed by an elected Congress and needs to be repealed by an elected Congress.
  There are a lot of positive aspects to monarchy or even dictatorship, but Roberts’ opinion is based on the fact that we don’t live in one. If our democratically-elected Congress passes a bad law, it is NOT the constitutional function of the SCOTUS to arbitrarily nullify it simply because it is a bad law. That’s OUR job, as voters – to get the bums out of office and elect people who will repeal the bad law. Otherwise our system is not a representative democracy, but an oligarchy of 9 in black robes.

• How Angry Would You Be if You and Your Family Got This Receipt from a Restaurant?

  June 18, 2013 at 6:38pm

  In reply to RANGER1965.

  I wish they had put it on the receipt on purpose and I wish more places of business would point out when customers are being idiots. The customer is not always right, sometimes the customer is a moron who takes his underage kid out for fried chicken surrounded by a bunch of people trying to get drunk and watch the game. Hurray for the server, and foo on the manager for telling the guy it was okay to bring his kid to a bar.
  This is today’s American man: act like a complete nitwit jerkwad, get called out on it, and then cry about how much your feelings are hurt.
  I want to know what the boy’s MOTHER was thinking. Did she know the father was taking their son to bar? Is the man this kind of crybaby around her as well? He’s definitely a Class A dedicated narcissistic moron.
  “Hey, this bar says I can’t take my underaged son there to get fried chicken with the other drunks. Well, I’m not going to go to some restaurant that does serve kids like a normal father, I’ll just call that bar and tell them it’s really important for me to take my underage son to the bar.”

• How Angry Would You Be if You and Your Family Got This Receipt from a Restaurant?

  June 18, 2013 at 6:28pm

  In reply to sdnw.

  Not only is this guy a bunghole for making such a big deal out of a trivial matter, but I don’t see what the big problem is with the server’s behavior. Were they impolite? Did they get the order wrong? What’s the problem?
  Oh gee golly my, there’s a line on the receipt that points out that the presence of your underage son AT A BAR might have caused your server some extra difficulty.
  Normal people, that is, not modern Americans apparently, would laugh this off or maybe re-think whether there really was no other place in town to get some fried chicken with their underage kid than WITH A BUNCH OF DRUNK PEOPLE.
  I blame the mother. What kind of woman agrees to have kid with such an obviously immature child-man? Ladies, grow the heck up and learn how to keep your legs closed when guys like this are romancing you with fried chicken at the sports bar.

• ‘I’m Losing My Sh**…!’: Fast Food Customer Goes Totally Ballistic Over Order Mix-Up While Standing at the Drive-Thru Window

  June 18, 2013 at 6:18pm

  In reply to Weiners Wiener.

  I agree as well. The mean thing to do would be to simply complain enough and up the chain enough to get the employees fired: treat them as disposable cogs in the machine. Instead this man is treating them like human beings and trying to teach them a lesson, using a display of righteous anger to point out their mistake. I would say he makes two mistakes: one, he is not making enough of an (implied) personal threat: it’s obvious he’s angry but it’s not properly focused. Two, he obviously thinks the employees should behave like responsible employed adults, whereas (regardless of age) in reality they are immature children; that’s why he is swearing at them. He’s treating them as equals, thus the threat-posturing and swearing: “How dare you ____s treat me this way!” He should be treating them as teachable inferiors: calm, polite, matter-of-fact threat: “Listen to me very carefully: learn how to do this the right way or else there will be consequences you will not like.”
  Think of it this way: we get angry when a child steals a cookie, and if we can’t control our emotions we might yell at them to show them we mean business and they are not to do that. We don’t get angry at ants when they get into the cookie jar, we just kill them. Why yell and scream at insects? Showing anger might be a social faux pas, but it emphasizes the humanness of the interaction.

• ‘Traitor’: Michele Bachmann’s Scathing Rebuke of NSA Leaker Edward Snowden

  June 18, 2013 at 6:06pm

  In reply to FISH_BONE.

  Bachmann doesn’t seem crazy to me, just incredibly stupid, if probably well-meaning. I don’t agree about Santorum: what makes you say that he’s a nut? His public persona seemed quite normal to me. I doubt as a national politician he’s really been able to retain that all-around family-man point of view that he portrays, but he came across publicly as a regular well-to-do Catholic husband and father. I can’t think of anything particularly foolish or crazy that he did or said, other than perhaps thinking that what wins elections is portraying yourself as a heart-on-your-sleeve guy. I mean I suppose that if you think Catholics are crazy then you would think Santorum is, but he’s pretty much the poster-boy for a basically conservative American Catholic.
  Then again I think the only truly sane person who has run for President in the past decade was Fred Thompson, who like any normal person with a shred of intelligence said that he didn’t really want one of the most stressful jobs in the world, but would be willing to serve if called upon by his fellow citizens and felt it his duty to volunteer. Apparently Republican primary voters think that to be eligible for President you have to say that being an assassination target and responsible for nuke codes sounds like fun, and Republicans instead called upon “Daddy’s connections, Mrs’ money, Keating bag man” McCain, a man who epitomizes everything you need to know about the majority of the Republican leadership.