SCENE:  Mitch BERG is parking on the street to go to a private event.  He’s trying to wrangle with the stupid newfangle parking meter when Avery LIBRELLE rolls around the corner on a recumbent bike. 

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Uh…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.   The “party of faith” is embracing blasphemy!

BERG:  I’m not actually Catholic, but I’m pretty sure you can’t commit “blasphemy” against a human, being that Christ was the only human who’s ever also been deific…

LIBRELLE:  Republicans clearly hate Christians!

BERG:  Right.  So do you remember this…:

(But LIBRELLE has already left)

And SCENE.

I’ve told the story – Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech affected me as a teenager, immensely.   It didn’t “make me a conservative” all by itself – but it did start me wondering.   The straitened, blighted perversion of the American Dream that Carter seemed to be inflicting on my generation grated on me -and helped start the boulder rolling downhill that led by my voting for Ronald Reagan in 1984.  

Rumors are leaking out into the broader culture – younger Americans, the long-awaiting “Gen Z”, are very different than the millennials. 

More sincere. Less cynical.  Less likely to see “Daria” as a role model.

More faithful?

Maybe. Just maybe.

From 2007 to 2019, the number of people who say they identify as “Christian” decreased from 78% to 63%. It has fluctuated between 64% and 62% since then. Pew explains that “for the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable, hovering between 60% and 64%.”

My theory: the version of life, the universe and everything that Big Left has been pushing for the past couple generations – materialist, temporal, shallow as a coat of makeup – leaves a vacuum in the human soul – and maybe, just maybe, the younger generation is rebelling against that soullessness. 

True?  Wishful thinking?  Maybe a little of both. 

An opening of truth to be pushed wider?  Absolutely.

Do pseudo-religious cults reflect the times in which they develop? Or does popular culture make the various cults the symbols of the times?

I’m sure there’s an online sociologist or philosopher, somewhere, who has thought this before – feel free to point them out – but what the heck.  It’s my blog, I’ll derive if I want to.

Think about the major cults that’ve made news over the past five or six decades:

The Manson Family formed in the Sixties – communal pseudo-hippies, living on LSD, intertwined with California popular culture – and in some ways marked the end of the Sixties.

The Peoples Temple – like an EST seminar run amok?  All about the seventies. 

Heavens Gate?  Even though it ended with a mass suicide in ’97, it flourished (after a fashion) in the eighties, for reasons that seemed to match the decade. 

The Branch Davidians?   Synonymous with the ’90s – in a decade of groups that fought the law and the law won, they were the big kahuna of them all. 

The 2000s?   My theory breaks down a little here, unless you count militant Wahhabi Islam which, conveniently for my theory, dominated American culture more than any cult in history. 

And with the war over and lost, we can go back to normal…

…well, not “normal”.  

It’s all setup for my theory that this particular cult may be perfectly set to define the 2020s, or vice versa, so far.

SCENE: The rotunda at the Minnesota State Capitol.   A press conference is underway.  Standing at the podium, in front of a “Satanic” display, are three members of the Twin Cities Church of Satan:

• Joshua Micah GUMPKE – a tall, morbidly obese 30-something man with thick, unkempt back hair,  and a black neckbeard.  His arms are covered with “sleeves” of occult-looking tattoos.  He wears a black occult-themed T-shirt, stained with cheeto dust, fresh and otherwise. 
• Eva BACHMANN-DUMPF – a morbidly obese twenty-something woman with long straight blond hair.  She is wearing a different black occult-themed t-shirt, and sports a small pentagram tattooed under her left ear. 
• Edmund POCKERT – A short, wiry man with a fringe of white hair snaking around the back of his head to meet his white beard.  He wears a visibly worn suit. 

A smattering of reporters are gathered.

POCKERT:   I’m Edmund Pockert, the legal counsel for the Twin Cities Church of Satan. 

GUMPKE AND BACHMANN-DUMPF: (awkwardly, loudly) Hail Satan!

POCKERT:  Mr. J-Talon666 and Ms. QueenOfTheDark will now answer questions.

CHANNEL 11:   Mr. and Ms. What? 

POCKERT:  Those are the names our representatives go by. 

CHANNEL 9:  So what’s going on with this display?

GUMPKE:  This display is ack-shu-ally our way of striking a blow for religious pluralism.

BACHMANN-DUMPF:  We love to notice the hypocrisy of Christians who melt down when other people exercise religious freedom. 

MPR NEWS:  When you say “melt down”…?

BACHMANN-DUMPF:  Christians always have a cow and melt down when we assert our rights. 

POCKERT:  Always. 

ALPHA NEWS:  So, how do you respond to allegations that the “church of Satan” is less about religious freedom and more about getting a juvenile rise out of mainstream Christians.

BACHMANN-DUMPF:  Well, it is their own fault.  They always have a cow and melt down and freak out go into emotional tailspin and get loud and crazy and deranged and lose their shi…

GUMPKE:  They are very predictable. 

CENTER OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT:   So a local blogger and talk host left this satirical response to your display:

(GUMPKE and BACHMANN-DUMPF stand, gobsmacked and confused, for a moment. )

GUMPKE:   (finally breaking the silence) Well, this is typical.   A Christian freaking out…

CHANNEL 4:  This doesn’t appear to be – what was your term – “freaking out”.

ALPHA NEWS:  Yeah, more like “satire” or “parody”, speaking to the notion that “Satanism” exist just to try to mock and ridicule regular Christians.

BACHMANN-DUMPF:  Is this even legal?  Can they do that?

POCKERT:  (nods silently)

GUMPKE:   It’s our view that this just contributes to the climate of hate against Satanists…

PIONEER PRESS:  But it’s just mockery – not a whole lot different than this display, itself

POCKERT:  OK, this converence is over.

(The three shuffle away from the podium).

And SCENE

Here’s your state rep, Luke Frederick, comparing people of faith to slave holders for dissenting from the left on trans ideology:

Please shock the world on election day, and send this hamster back to whatever coffee shop he was working at before he latched onto the DFL gravy train.

I may not have advanced the science of astrophysics in any meaningful way.

I’ll take the “L” there.

But I think I’ve got one thing on Steven Hawking:

Since he isn’t reiterating this theory to us in person today, it’s clear his theory is at least half-wrong.

A “plan” for a “masjid [mosque]-centered development” in Lino Lakes dropped into the chat this week.

And it’s generating the usual clouds of ire from the usual suspects.

I’ve got my suspicions. We’ll come back to that. First (with emphasis added):

Construction on the project is allegedly “expected to begin Fall of 2025.” However, the City of Lino Lakes released a statement on the project saying they have “not received a land use application for this development at this time. No review has been undertaken and no approvals have been granted.”

Should Madinah Lakes be constructed, it would be located “approximately 1.5 miles east of Lexington Ave on the south side of Main Street” in Lino Lakes, with Olson’s Market to the north and The Tavern on Main to the west.

In other words, like a lot of big real estate development proposals, it’s vapor.

In fact, very vapoeous:

Zikar Holdings, the corporation reportedly developing Madinah Lakes, is registered with the Office of the Secretary of State (OSS).

The website for Zikar Holdings states that the corporation specializes “in transforming land into sustainable and inviting spaces where families can flourish and individuals can thrive.” The corporation also says it has “a proven track record spanning over 10 years.”

However, Zikar Holdings only registered with the Secretary of State in December of 2023, and no completed projects are listed on Zikar Holdings’ website. Instead, the company promotes the pending Lino Lakes development and references future projects in Rochester and St. Cloud.

So – let’s recap:

1. Vaporware development…
2. …with an Islam-centered vibe
3. …in the north suburbs.

I’ve got suspicions.

Development Of Convenience: As we noted last week, Democrats are nervous about their polling heading to the fall election. They are particularly concerned about holding onto:

• The various suburban seats that went for Trump in 2016, that they won by paper-thin margins in 2022.
• A Muslim voter base that is not happy about President Potato trying to split the baby on Gaza, and a far left base that is using that to leverage the larger Democrat party.

If you’re Ken Martin, you have to be thinking that they can’t overturn Roe again, the Biden Administration isn’t going to cough up any positive surprises, Trump’s personality is a stranger to nobody, that if he didn’t suspend the Constitution and declare himself dictator in 2020 he’s not going to do it in 2025, and that most people outside the NPR class are keenly aware they’re not doing better than they were in 2019.

So what’s the wedge that’ll logroll gullible Democrat-susceptible voters to the polls?

Lots of “They’ll BAN ABORTION” for the white progs. And lots of “LOOK HOW MUCH THEY HATE YOU” to the Muslims.

And nothing shores up Democrat wall like trafficking in intersectional victimhood.

As Sergeant Esterhaus on HIll Street Blues used to say, be careful out there.

From the “it could be comedy, if it weren’t for what they actually mean” files: Minneapolis representative Brion Curran took some time off from driving hammered through Central Minnesota while thinking she was in the Twin Cities to tell us what’s what:

It’s tempting to respond “we know you exist, Rep. Curran. It’s just irrelevant to our actual lives, and don’t bother forcing us to see this your way”.

But about that last bit:

Under the DFL proposal that reps FInke and Curran are talking about..

…and talking, and talking…

…churches can be sued into obedience.

This is like those lawsuits against the bakers and florists and photographers, but in statute, and everywhere.

If this isn’t enough to get you to hold your nose and support even an imperfect Republican for the legislature, I’m really not sure what to tell you anymore.

SCENE: Mitch BERG, at the library checking out audiobooks, is too engrossed to notice Avery LIBRELLE has walked in.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Uggggghhhh…er, hey, Avery. What’s…

LIBRELLE: Silence! Conservatives are violating the Constitutional separation of church and state!

BERG: Right – the new Alabama law on in vitro fertilization references a majority religious view in regulating the willy-nilly fertilization of frozen embryos…

LIBRELLE: Bla bla bla. They’re citing a flying spaghetti monster in trashing civil liberties.

BERG: So – the left doesn’t refer to…God…?

LIBRELLE: Superstition! Flying Spaghetti Monsters!

BERG: …in abridging a civil liberty?

LIBRELLE: No! We are people of science!

BERG: Right.

Hawaii’s highest court ruled Wednesday that Second Amendment rights as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court do not extend to Hawaii citizens, citing the “spirit of Aloha.”

In the ruling, which was penned by Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins, the court determined that states “retain the authority to require” individuals to hold proper permits before carrying firearms in public. The decision also concluded that the Hawaii Constitution broadly “does not afford a right to carry firearms in public places for self defense,” further pointing to the “spirit of Aloha” and even quoting HBO’s TV drama “The Wire.”

LIBRELLE: Well, that’s different.

BERG: Because Hawaii…

LIBRELLE: Hawai’i.

BERG: Right – it’s indigenous and colonized?

LIBRELLE: Yes. Now – I’m off to find books for “restorative editing”.

BERG: Of course you are.

And SCENE

\\

SCENE: Mitch BERG is loading some garage junk into a truck. He doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE, whjo is walking up the alley writing down the addresses of homes without handicap parking spots.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Uh…

LIBRELLE: Christian Nationalists can’t handle freedom of religion! They’re having a cow and melting down over a Satan Club at a school!

BERG: Huh.

LIBRELLE: What do you have to say about that?

BERG: Other than “Satanism is a religion in exactly the same way as “The Onion” is, only even less funny? It exists only to mock faith. Well, to mock Christianity. It’s not a worldview. It’s a running adolescent jape.

LIBRELLE: You’re gonna crrrryyyyyyyyyyyy…

BERG: So, if a school had an “Amos and Andy” club, or a “Speedy Gonzales” club, or an “Apu” Club, or a “Boring Basketball” club, do you think Blacks, Latinos, Indian-Americans or women might take umbrage?

(But LIBRELLE is already skipping, literally, down the alley.

And SCENE>

This fellow – a Doctor of Intersectional Grievance Studies – is sure nuff gonna show his neighbors what’s what:

Where to start:

• Since Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to “be enrolled”, they were pretty much the opposite of “Undocumented”.
• He apparently thinks there’s a significant faction of “southern” Christians who believe Jesus was a European caucasian and that the Holy Land is in Alabama.
• The good Doctor of Intersectional Grievance Studies apparently missed the memo that, if you’re a Christian, Christ came to save everyone regardless of race or much of everything else.

Having spent at least eight years getting a PhD in Intersectional Grievance Studies, it’s understandable he’s not clear on the nuts and bolts of Christian theology – and, being an academic in a field built on fomenting social nastiness, that he’d post a sign and a Tweet so deeply steeped in toxic condescension.

It’s forgivable.

CORRECTION: I’m sorry, I read that wrong. Hef’s not a Doctor of Intersectional Grievance Studies, but rather a PhD in some variety of Theology. He also describes himself as a “Pastor”.

I’m gonna go out on a short, sturdy limb and guess that either he’s the “pastor” of a very sparsely-attended Episcopal parish, or that he’s more of a professor these days.

It’s come up on the blog before – I wasn’t a big Jimmy Carter fan. The consequences of Carter’s one term in office played a disproportionate role in my becoming a conservative in the first place.

He’s garnered a lot of hagiography for his philanthropic work over the past 40 years or so – and earned a few brickbats for his dingbat contributions to foreign policy. Like President, lie Ex-President.

But there’s a throwback aspect to Carter that we could use more of; the idea that political opponents weren’t entirely sub-human.

The family of his late wife Rosalynn did something I can’t imagine a lot of Democrats, and even a few Republicans, doing today:

I’ve most certainly gotten cynical over the years. I’m not alone – the funerals of Paul Wellstone and George Floyd certainly set the bar for public funerals, and set it very, very low.

I’m glad to see someone can still get over it.

I grew up Presbyterian – and remained in the church because I believe the Presbyterian Book of Workship puts less temporal BS between God and the Man who wants to study Him than any of the alternatives.

The Presbyterian Church and the people who work within it have been a huge influence on my life.

Of course, the biggest mainline group in the denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA, was swallowing the “progressive” line long almost as long as the Episcopals and Methodists. Their diversions into lefty politics and “social justice” are on record – and I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the PCUSA’s membership is on track to leave it extinct by 2050.

Given a choice between fighting and leavin, I left. I found a breakaway Presbyterian sect that focuses on faith, not progressive politics. It wasn’t easy, but I found one.

But others are fighting.

A friend of the blog emails:

Mitch,

I thought you might find this interesting. It’s an effort by orthodox Christians to retake rather than leave churches in historically progressive denominations. The following map is of congregations that are low on the progressive scale.

I came across it on a podcast.

And I’m reminded – picking up and leaving a church is like picking up and leaving a state; it works until the thing you’re getting away from decides not to stop coming after you.

SCENE: Mitch BERG is cleaning out his garden boxes. Busy hauling stalks to the truck, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE, patrolling the alley, looking for over-filled recycling bins to report to the city.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Hey, Avery…

LIBRELLE: Shut up. The GOP’s new Speaker of the House is anti-science. I have proof!

BERG: Huh. So since the Speaker’s job has nothing to do with developing theories, formulating hypotheses, designing and conducting experiments and documenting results, much less trying to figure out how the universe “really” formed, what difference does it make?

LIBRELLE: Who wants our leaders to believe fairy tales?

BERG: Let’s ignore for a moment that theology, like mathematics, logic, physics, even history, are different ways of analyzing different evidence about the universe. Let’s say that you have a brain tumor, and you need brain surgery, or you’re going to die, but quick. So you go to the world’s leading brain surgeon – the one person who can save your life. So far so good?

LIBRELLE: OK…?

BERG: That person has got to be a person of impeccable scientific credentials, right?

LIBRELLE: Of course.

BERG: So you meet that surgeon, and he explains his record – overwhelmingly successful – and his technique, his reasoning, and his plan. And everything sounds right. So far, so good?

LIBRELLE: Right…?

BERG: Then he tells you he believes the universe is 6,000 years old and was created in six days by an imnipotent God.

LIBRELLE: Oh, I’d cancel the surgery instantly!

BERG: Why?

LIBRELLE: He clearly doesn’t believe in science! But why are you wasting time with a hypothetical example?

BERG: Nothing hypothetical about it.

LIBRELLE: When I know more about science than the world’s leading brain surgeon…

BERG: Your degree was in what?

LIBRELLE: Grievance studies with a minor in Sociology!

BERG: Right. Hey, look (points down the alley) I think the Gruenbergs mixed green glass in their clear glass…

LIBRELLE: (Looks down the alley. BERG makes his escape. LIBRELLE doesn’t notice, heading down the alley and getting his…er, her…er, a smart phone camera ready to go…).

And SCENE.

“Don’t Create False Idols” is a Biblical commandment; essentially saying don’t turn God into a token object.

It is important enough to the Christian faith to rate as one of the ten standing orders for the faithful.

And, really, it’s great advice for life in general.

For example – I’m not one who creates an artificial separation between faith and science.

But if you do? If you claim to exalt reason over “blind” faith, and adulation of physical objects or people over empirical rigor?

It’s still good advice.

SCENE: One morning at MNDFL Headquarters. An array of progressive Minnesota luminaries are gathered around a table. At the head sits Lieutenant Governor Peggy FLANAGAN. To her right, Ken MARTIN, chair of the DFL. The other seats are occupied by Javier MORILLO of the SEIU, Denise SPECHT of Education MInnesota, Alida MESSINGER of Alliance for a Better MInnesota, and the senior staff of Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes, the non-profit/money-laundering operation that works with the party.

FLANAGAN: Murphy!

(Esme MURPHY enters the room): Yes, Maam?

FLANAGAN: Gimme a g*****mn Manhattan.

MURPHY: Yes, ma’am. (Murphy exits.)

FLANAGAN: OK, Ken, where’s the governor?

MARTIN (Yelling): Governor Walz?

WALZ (Enters from a closet next to the exit door). Hraaaa hraaa hraaaas hreaa One Minnesota hraaaaa hra hra hraaaaaa Best State (holds out an iPhone, takes a selfie) hraaaa hraaaa hra hra donut hraaaaaa hraaaaa…

FLANAGAN: Got it! Enough! (WALZ goes back into the closet).

FLANAGAN: We need an example of a place in the real world that is dominated by Democrats and exemplifies love and equity.

Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, a former guidance counselor at a school for monomaniacs, Inge is Head Meme-Buffer at “Minnesotans United for All Liberal Causes, raises her hand.

FLANAGAN: What?

CARROLL: Let’s have them look at Hamtramck, Michigan. It’s solid Democrat country – their Democrat congresswoman won by a sixty point margin. And the city is majority Muslim and is run by an elected Muslim city council, and they just voted…

(CARROLL squints at a site on her phone) uhhhhhhh…

On Tuesday, Hamtramck, Michigan’s city council, unanimously voted to banPride flags from being displayed on public property. Located just outside Detroit, Hamtramck is the only Muslim-majority town in the United States.

The ruling was celebrated with cheers and applause inside City Hall, where dozens of concerned residents, Muslim and Christian, had shown up to express their thoughts on the matter.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the resolution was introduced by Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Mohammed Hassan, and applies not only to Pride flags, but also those promoting any “religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation group.”

“Only, the American flag, and the nations’ flags that represent the international character of our City shall be flown,” Hassan stated, adding that it was imperative to “maintain and confirm the neutrality of the city of Hamtramck towards its residents.”

FLANAGAN: (Sits, dumbfounded)

(The closet door opens. Governor WALZ steps out, and wanders around the room like a Roomba)

WALZ: Hraa hra hraaa hra hraaaaa hraaaaa hra BestState hra hraaaa hra Fully Funded hra hra hraaaaaa hra hra hraaa hra…

And SCENE

Western “woke” social imperialism apparently has its limits:

If one exhibits “pride” but nobody can hear it, does it exist?

A friend of the blog emails:

Reading this news report at Alpha News, I am struck by this question: Why don’t conservatives make common cause with the local Muslims?

They want good educations for their children, just like Moderates, Conservatives, and Christians do.

Muslims by and large are much more puritanical about these sorts of things and very specifically do not want infidels teaching this spiritually debasing poison to their daughters.

What if Senator Wesenberg and Rep Walter Hudson were to personally approach Imams in their district and statewide for their input on this issue. The Qur’an highlights the community of faith between followers of monotheistic religions (Jews, Christians and Muslims), and refers to them collectively as Ahl al-Kitab ‘People of the Book‘, a phrase that is used frequently in the Qur’an and Prophetic hadith. 

Maybe the fastest way to do this would be for the GOP to amend the education bill with a requirement that ALL MN schools, public, private, and charter be required to have these four books available for their students; “It’s Perfectly Normal,” “Sex is a Funny Word,” “It’s So Amazing,” and “It’s Not the Stork.”. I’ll bet that would shake some peaches out of the trees.

Better yet, someone tell Erin Maye Quade or Leigh Finke to push the amendment.

I bet they’d do it.

As to making common cause with Muslims, especially ones that aren’t tied at the hip to the DFL? The time is long overdue.

Not long after the FBI put Catholic worshipers on its politically, motivated watchlist, this happened:

Not jumping to conclusions, here – because I don’t think there’s any need to jump. As we continue to wait for the “epic wave of right wing violence“ that Obama promised us, the epic wave of left-wing violence continues.

Remember last year, in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, when Kansas referred a constitutional amendment banning abortion to a popular vote…

…and it lost?

In deep-red (but for Wichita and Kansas City) Kansas?

Big Left took it as a bit of great news – “Even Red America is pro-choice!”

Smarter Americans read it this way: America is divided on abortion:

• About 15% want abortion through all forty weeks, and maybe even a little after (no, I’m not bveing hyperbolic).
• 20-odd percent want to ban abortions completely – many with exceptions in the rare cases where the mother’s life is at risk.
• The remainder support some form of abortion, with support sloping steadily downward from six to 20 weeks, and nearly vanishing after the halfway point in the pregnancy.

The DFL, dominated by that first 15%, has jammed down the most extreme interpretation of “choice” this side of California. Will the people lash back from the extremes, the way they (arguably) did in Kansas?

Well, if I have anything to do with it.

One group that should, doctrinally, be in the second 20% – or at least the most moderate parts of the larger 60% – is Catholics. Of course, we know Catholics oppose abortion, because Catholics never get divorced or eat meat on Fridays, either…

…but if there was ever a time for a hypothetical archdiocese to get serious about doctrine, one might think this would be it.

Ten Catholics in the House, and three in the Senate, voted for the “PRO Act”.

Now, at least a few Catholic bishops and priests have invoked ecclesiastical sanctions against some “pro-choice Catholics”, so it’s not without precedent.

So the question remains – is Archbishop Hebda going to do his job, or find some artful and obtuse grounds to evade it?

A friend of the blog emails regarding the “Muhammad” flap at Hamline that I wrote about last week:

It is entirely possible that Aram Wedatalla read the syllabus for the course last summer, saw that there was a warning about the image of the Prophet and signed up for the course with an eye toward kickstarting her political career by manufacturing this incident. Aram Wedatalla is after all President of the Muslim Student Association at Hamline. This is a great resume builder for someone who sees their future in the NGO/Nonprofit universe and eventually following in the footsteps of Ilhan Omar into public office. The mind positively boggles at the thought that she was “blindsided” by the picture of the prophet, Aram Wedatalla is not an Innocent.

It’s very entirely plausible.

In fact, it’s entirely possible this entire situation has resulted in no victims whatsoever.

Wedatalla may have launched her career – no mean feat for a “-studies” major at an also-ran university.

Professor Lopez Prater? She became a national cause celebre, perhaps the most famous adjunct professor in the country, and got herself a gig at a more viable school.

The U of M Art Department profs that spoke out on her behalf? They got to thread that needle between being keeping their “woke academic” card and still defending free speech (by one of their own, natch).

There were no losers!

Other than Hamline.

Parents shut down a Dearborn, Michigan school board meeting over the distribution of “woke” books:

A school-board meeting in Dearborn, Mich. was shut down earlier this week by hundreds of protesters opposing the circulation of LGBTQ books across the city’s public-school system.

Viral videos recorded by a Detroit Free Press reporter circulated on Twitter showing pandemonium breaking out at the meeting Monday night. Many of the protesters carried signs in English and Arabic: “Keep Your Dirty Books in the Closet,” “Stop Grooming Our Kids,” and “Homosexuality Big Sin,” some read.

Darn those redneck fascists with their signs in English and…

…uh, what now?

Ooof. A protected class going after a couple of protected classes. That’s gotta be awkward.

Wonder what Rashida Tlaib has to say about it?

Rep. Omar:

So, Rep. Omar – are you condemning the regime’s actions?

Because by your logic, the women of Iran are fighting against being forced to don the hijab…

…which you call “Islamophobia” when Americans say it.

Just want to be clear, here.

I’m a conservative, and a Christian.

And I cringe at some of the things said in the name of “conservative Christianity“.

Which I hasten to add, because some of the things I’ve seen from “progressive Christians“, including some friends and classmates, this past few days have had me cringing even more.

Three things, specifically:

“Christ came to earth to forgive mankind‘s sins – so if you oppose loan forgiveness, you’re not a very good Christian“.

This is not “loan forgiveness”. This is transferring the loan to people who didn’t borrow it.

Will it benefit some people? Sure, it must be nice to have $10-$20,000 in balance disappear.

But this political act has nothing to do with Christ’s grace – dying for the sins every individual commits. It’s more like rounding up randos off the streets because someone else committed a murder. 

“It’s predatory lending!”

You can make that case. But unfortunately, the “forgiveness“ will do nothing to change that. In fact, it will only accelerate the “predatory“ lending, since everyone applying for those “predatory loans“ is going to figure “the first $10,000 is going to be free, again, anyway…“.

In fact, if the administration had sat down in a room to figure out the worst possible solution to student debt, this would’ve been it.

They could’ve made universities, with their hundreds of billions of dollars of endowments, share some of the risk. They could’ve even just cut interest rates.

But no. Fighting predatory lending by making everyone else pay is like fighting street crime by dumping piles of wallets out on the street and hoping people will stop holding other people up.

“New Ministers Go Deep Into Debt – and Don’t Make Much Money”

A couple of (it’s fair to say) “liberal” clergy I know have pointed out that their denominations require a Masters in Divinity (MDiv) to be ordained – which can cost up to $200K, as much as law school or medical school – but their first jobs out of seminary pay something close to minimum wage. And it’s fair to say outside Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar and Pope Frank, nobody goes into the ministry to get rich.

But isn’t that a little odd – an academic discipline (a product and service) that pays badly, and doesn’t necessarily cater to the children of immense wealth, costing well into six figures? I mean, if “products and services for people without a lot of money to spend on them” were prone to spontaneously inflating out of reach, the McDonalds cheeseburger would be $25.

At any rate – presenting this as a gesture of Christian grace is cynical, manipulative and profoundly wrong.