How Do People Get Older Without Getting Smarter?

I lifted this from georgina at The Last Moderate. It's a column she received from a hippy friend. I felt like a mountain climber standing barefoot at the base of Mt. Everest. At first, I thought I could never make anything of it because it is so wrong-headed. But I guess I got my second wind and decided to tackle it. Still, it's just a superficial treatment. Dr. Robin Meyers Oklahoma University November 14, 2004 As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. "an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church" Translation: gay and lesbian. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor. Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian. OK, a fundamentalist is a person who practices the fundamentals of a religion. How can Christians who practice the fundamental teachings of Christ take over Christianity? They ARE Christianity. We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean, what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Here's a hint, Doc. if you want to know what EXACTLY constitutes a moral value, open the BIBLE! If that's too much trouble, just ask the nearest three-year-old. I find that toddlers are seldom morally conflicted because they don't tend to overthink issues. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side: When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral. Nobody started a war on false pretenses. We went into Iraq believing there were weapons of mass destruction there. We didn't find them. But what we did find was prisons filled with children, mass graves, torture rooms, rape rooms and evidence of the most brutal of human rights abuses. When you can turn a blind eye to atrocities like that to spout your peacenick rhetoric, it is YOU who are immoral. A few other adjectives also come to mind -- like cowardly, stupid, elitist and evil. But maybe you can ignore their suffering because, you know, after all, they are just brown people. When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, built the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral. The United Nations has become a toothless, corrupt, useless organization of Eurotrash and third world dictators. When Libya can be elected chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, something is terribly wrong. At least it would appear wrong to any THINKING person. When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life,and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head(you know, Sermon on the Mount -- stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral. How about the driving the money changers out of the Temple "stuff?" And as long as we're FINALLY quoting the Bible: Luke 12:51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, motherinlaw against daughterinlaw and daughterinlaw against motherinlaw.” When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers,and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral. Excuse me, but American soldiers are dying BECAUSE the lives of Iraqi civilians are as important as theirs. In fact a lot more American troops would be alive today if they'd been less cautious about pulling the trigger. Unless, of course, you are referring to TERRORISTS as civilians. When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral. This is obviously a cheap shot at President Bush's reserve service. Fine talk from a REAL Christian such as yourself. George Bush flew jet fighters. Even in peacetime, that's as dangerous a job as you can find in the military. Ummm, what did YOU do during the Vietnam War, Daddy? I was in the military during Vietnam. I never went to Vietnam. Does that mean my 24 years in the military counts for nothing? How many years did YOU serve, Doc? When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, The very reason we are in Iraq is that we are strong and the Iraqi people are weak. We are the only country in the world that has the power, the skill, the wealth and the COURAGE to defend the defenseless. I'd say we pass the test with flying colors. Red, White and Blue colors. by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral. Socialist baloney. Didn't you get a few tax cuts under Bush? I know I did and I'm far from wealthy. And I'm guessing you don't hesitate to take advantage of the tax free status of the Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City. Now to inject some truth. The top 20% of wage earners in this country pay 80% of taxes. The top 50% of wage earners pay 96.03% of taxes. And has a poor person ever offered you a job -- assuming you've ever held down a real job? Nobody gets rich by himself. He must employ people in order to make money. And those people also make money. That's called capitalism -- a system with which I'm sure you are unfamiliar -- with the emphasis on liar. When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprives so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral. To what country do terrorists belong? Are any terrorist organizations signatories to the Geneva Conventions? Have you ever READ the Geneva Conventions? Which is torture -- wearing panties on the head, or cutting off the head? Everyday actions under Sharia law such as cutting off the hands of a thief or stoning a woman to death for adultery are themselves violations of human rights. Does that mean you consider Islam to be immoral?? Of course not, because you are a minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City. Pffft. When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral. And guess which classification you'd be under. You know, there's one thing missing from this whole lunatic blood for oil theory -- the oil. So far, the only people proven to have been enriched by Saddam's oil are your Eurotrash buddies at the UN. When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children,you are doing something immoral. Pssst. Don't let this out. It's top secret. Our exit strategy is to win and to leave when the population of Iraq is safe from those OTHER invaders -- terrorists. And when's the last time you asked about the exit strategy from Kosovo? When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral. Excuuuse me? When was America ever the most loved country in the world? Not in 2004, when Abu Ghraib was the atrocity du jour. Not in 2003, when every humanitarian organization on the planet was predicting the deaths of millions of Iraqis from cholera, dysentery and other diseases caused by America's "war for oil." Not in 2002, when the "human rights" lobby filled the streets of Vancouver and London and Rome and Sydney to protest the Bushitler's plans to end the benign reign of good King Saddam. Not the weekend before 9/11 when the human rights grandees of the U.N. "anti-racism" conference met in South Africa to demand America pay reparations for the Rwandan genocide and to cheer Robert Mugabe to the rafters for calling on Britain and America to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity. Certainly not in my lifetime. The rest of the world doesn't hate us because of Iraq. They hate us because we're the most advanced, wealthiest, freest country in the history of the world. They hate us because they are socialists and communists and fascists and none of those forms of government will ever bring them up to our level. Now Doc, that's their excuse, why do YOU hate us? When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.. And are you also immoral if you use hatred of evangelicals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of liberal voters? When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. And when you toss out groundless accusations like that you are not only immoral but slanderous, silly and a big girly-man. If you have all this proof of corruption, why not hand it over to the authorities and bring those evil men to justice? Oh, maybe you don't know who to trust. Maybe ALL of the authorities are in on it. Maybe they're all out to get you. Let me revise something -- a slanderous, silly, PARANOID girly-man. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.When you claim that our God is bigger than their God,and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. Hmm, our God isn't bigger than their god? Which god would you rather follow, the god that teaches husbands to love their wives or the god who teaches men that women are property and when they disobey they should be beaten and made to sleep on the couch? Do you believe there is more than one God -- ours and theirs? Or do you believe that God is just a word, to be interpreted any goofy way a person wishes? After all you ARE a minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City. I personally don't know what you are, but you certainly aren't a Christian. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith --"compassion" -- and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral. Sorry. Looking back over what you just wrote....where's the compassion??? When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral. Even illegal aliens can see doctors in this country. What in Heaven's name are you blathering about? When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral. Hey, Doc. Take a look at my "This Day in Republican History" features. If it were left up to you Democrats, blacks would still be slaves and women still wouldn't be allowed to vote. Crack a history book. I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, (come again?) I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith.I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war -- I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong -- the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power? Make believe Christians. Would you have people carry Christian licenses? Issued by the Bureau of Liberal Christendom? This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt.The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you -- young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut.Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists. So do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: Life is precious. Every human being is precious.Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith.And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the greatest failure of faith.There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for?And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out. Time to march again, my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness. My generation finally stopped a tragic war. You can too! And common sense is the opposite of liberalism. I have a shocker for you, Doc. Your generation didn't stop a tragic war, Richard Nixon did. And it was a Democrat who dragged us into it in the first place. In fact, if you crack that history book you never seem to have studied, you will see that a Democrat was in office during every major war of the 20th century. You bad, bad, Democrat war mongers. But what happened after your generation (in your head) stopped a tragic war? Well, since the good guys didn't win (us) it got even more tragic. The commies marched in and started executing people. About 64,000 in Vietnam. They also started tossing people into labor camps and insane asylums. Religion was banned. To this day, Christians and Buddhists are being persecuted. But in your mind, they aren't real Christians, are they? Do you think all those thousands of boat people who risked their lives escaping Vietnam just wanted to go to Disneyland? And then let's move on to Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge killed at least 1.7 million people. According to you, it's immoral to ignore the suffering of others. Yet those deaths -- which your generation caused if they did indeed end that tragic war -- don't seem to unsettle you. I'm done. This is just too much work. I cut a bunch of corners and left a lot out and just gave you the Clift Notes Guide to Talking to Lunatic Liberals. This TRUE Christian is just so screwed up that it would take far more time than I'm willing to devote to address every one of his loony statements. There are only so many hours in a day. I wonder what he thinks about the immoral pro-life crowd.