Strange Fire Pentecostal Out of Bethel Redding Attacks John MacArthur - by Jeff Maples

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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Recently an interesting Youtube video surfaced featuring John MacArthur speaking about his appearance at a Conference in Latin America, in which he stated,

the people in the Hispanic world know about Jesus Christ, they know about the Bible, they know about God, they know about salvation, at least in some ways. They have Biblical terminology, because of the impact, historically, of the Roman Catholic church. But they don’t know Christ. And they don’t know the Gospel of Grace. And they don’t know the full revelation of Scripture.

As you know, adherents to strange fire theology (Pentecostals, charismatics, etc.), already dislike MacArthur, because MacArthur has thoroughly exposed their sickness for what it is–a rampant disease that spreads like cancer. (This sentence is constructed in a way that would make leftist rhetoricians proud. It's a shame that a Christian would use these techniques.

Why We Must Stand Against The Death Penalty, Even In The Case Of Racist Murderer Dylann Roof - BY IAN MILLHISER

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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Note: the following is adapted from a 2013 essay the author co-wrote with former ThinkProgress reporter Zack Beauchamp, “The Case Against The Death Penalty For Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.”

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on Tuesday that federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof. And, indeed, if anyone deserves such a consequence for his actions, it is this particular individual. Roof allegedly joined a Bible study group at an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, waited for the parishioners to close their eyes in prayer, and then opened fire upon them. Nine people died, including the church’s senior pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney. Roof later confessed to the killings. He told friends that he wanted to start a “race war.”

So Dylann Roof presents one of the strongest possible cases for the death penalty. He stands accused of a racist act of terror, and there is little doubt about his guilt. And yet, even in this case, the argument for pursuing a death sentence against Roof does not hold up.

The best argument for the death penalty is that it deters people from committing homicides in the first place, an argument that suggests we should execute far more people than just Dylann Roof. If you think the death penalty is about deterrence, then more executions means less crime. By killing the guilty, we can potentially save innocent lives. (Deterrence is not the best argument for the death penalty. Punishment is.)

The deterrence argument, however, is doubtful at best. According to Dartmouth University statistician John Lamperti, “an overwhelming majority among America’s leading criminologists [have concluded that] that capital punishment does not contribute to lower rates of homicide.” While some studies do claim a deterrent effect, these studies are based on tiny data samples that yield doubtful results. As Yale Law Professor John Donohue explains, death sentences are “applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors.” Murder rates in states without the death penalty are consistently lower than those in states that do sentence people to die. (I suspect that the death penalty might have more of a deterrent influence if the process of execution didn't result in seemingly endless legal maneuvering, delays, and appeals. If justice is not swift, it is not justice at all, and the deterrent effect lessens.)

Meanwhile, few institutions expose the hazards inherent in government-mandated punishment more nakedly than the death penalty. Capital cases are difficult and incredibly expensive for prosecutors. (This extended process is the direct result of leftist protests and lawsuits in an effort to de-legitimize the death penalty. So they have achieved the complication of the death penalty process and are now using that complication as a reason to end the death penalty. 

And why is the expense of any government process suddenly a concern for the left? They are never concerned with any other financial burdens imposed on the people.)

As a consequence, the wealthy and privileged, who have the resources to hire outstanding legal counsel, are very rarely executed. The people that are convicted, by contrast, tend to be poor and disproportionately non-white. Nor is such arbitrariness limited to the way we distinguish among defendants, as the way we dole out death sentences also gives the lie to any claim that America values all human life equally. According to one study, defendants who kill high-status white people with college degrees are six times more likely to be sentenced to die than defendants who kill black victims closer to the margins of society.

Indeed, there is simply no escaping the role that race plays in determining death sentences. To take one demonstrative statistic from an ocean of them, six percent of murders in Alabama involved black defendants and white victims, but ten times that percentage of black death row inmates were convicted of murdering whites.

The death penalty also kills innocent people. Roughly 139 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973, 61 percent of whom were people of color. At least ten innocent people that we know of have been executed — and these are only the ones that we know of. (It is unfortunate that justice fails. However, the reason innocent people are being freed is because the state-of-the-art in criminal forensics has improved so much. This means that fewer innocent people will be incarcerated and suffer the death penalty. 

But if the occasional failure of justice is a reason to discontinue a punishment, should we not send convicted criminals to jail because there's the possibility of innocence?

After all, if it's reprehensible to execute what may turn out to be an innocent man, then it must be reprehensible to send a possibly innocent man to jail. By that logic, no one should be sent to jail because of the possibility that they're innocent. Indeed, then what's the point in having a trial? Why bother to arrest them? What's the point of having a police force, if there's even the slightest possibility of the innocence of the person?)

These three realities — the impact of wealth, the disparate treatment based on race, and the risk of killing innocents — are themselves reasons why the death penalty should not exist. But are they arguments against applying it, so long as it does exist, in the most heinous of cases?

Roof isn’t just a white man, he is a white man who admits to committing a brutal hate crime. Unlike many capital defendants, Roof has outstanding counsel — one of his attorneys defended Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as well as 80 other individuals accused of homicide. And there is very little doubt that Mr. Roof is guilty.

The Charleston massacre is as horrible a crime as one can imagine, so Roof’s case raises the difficult question of whether America can limit executions to only the most heinous crimes — at least under circumstances where the defendant’s guilt isn’t in question and there’s no evidence that his trial will be conducted unfairly in any fashion. Can we limit death sentences only to people as evil as Roof appears to be?

The simplest answer to this question is that we are a nation of laws, and our most fundamental law says we cannot create a brutal, rarely applied punishment targeting just a handful of crimes. (The author inserts a novel criteria, "rarely applied." However, there is no legal principle that measures the propriety of a sentence by how often it is applied. 

Beyond that, it is the crime of murder that receives the death penalty, and there were 13,472 in 2014. That is not a particularly rare occurrence.) 

The Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishments. So as a punishment becomes more “unusual” — or, in the Supreme Court’s words, as it no longer can be squared with “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” — it stands on increasingly weaker constitutional ground. (Evolving standards of decency is but a single criteria among many.  "The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the death penalty itself is not inherently cruel, but has described it as "an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme of crimes" (gregg v. georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L. Ed. 2d 859 [1976])."

Indeed, it is likely that the death penalty is already unconstitutional under this rule. (If it were the only rule, but it isn't.

Further, the 14th Amendment grants the power to government to inflict capital punishment. "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." So in order for the author's assertion to hold water, the Constitution would have to be amended.)

The number of death sentences has been on the decline in the United States, but not principally because of legal reforms limiting the death penalty to a small number of cases: it’s a combination of full legal abolition in some jurisdictions and the spread of anti-death penalty norms among citizens and prosecutors in others. 60 percent of U.S. counties have stopped seeking the death penalty entirely as a punishment for any crime.

One study of death sentences and executions from 2004-2009 discovered that just 10 percent of counties returned a single death sentence, and only 1 percent of counties produced more than one death sentence. Just four states made up 65 percent of national new death penalty convictions. In 2011, there were an estimated 14,612 murders in the United States, but only 43 executions. In 2015, only six states performed executions, killing a total of 28 individuals. That’s down over 70 percent from 1999, when annual executions peaked at 98.

These data strongly suggests that executions no longer comport with our “evolving standards of decency.” We are increasingly uncomfortable with death sentences, and unwilling to execute people. (Perhaps, but that doesn't speak to the constitutional authority of the practice.)

But beyond the cold language of the law, there is a deeply personal reason why we should not preserve the death penalty simply for the most heinous criminals like Roof. If you think the death penalty is a just response to murder or important to provide victims’ families with closure, then trying to limit it to a small number of multiple murders makes no sense. Why does taking one life not merit death, while taking two, three, or any other arbitrary number does? Why is the pain of one victim’s family any less important to address than the pain of families whose loved one was part of a multiple murder?

There are many families that deserve the satisfaction of knowing their loved one’s murderer received society’s stiffest sanction for their crime, and it’s far from clear that the death penalty fills that need better than life without parole — indeed, it may even prolong a families’ grief. (Indeed. But that is the arbitrary nature of the leftist opposition to the death penalty. They are happy to protest and litigate to prevent a death sentence to be carried out, with little care for the hell they're putting families through as they prolong the process through endless appeals.)

Yet the moment we say one victim, or set of victims, must be avenged by death, we lose the ability to consistently limit the death penalty’s application to rare cases — and the uncertainty and arbitrariness that plagues capital sentencing generally comes flooding back. When life without parole is the harshest penalty our courts dole out, such a sentence will stamp everyone who receives it as among the very worst criminals without opening the door to an unjust and unconstitutional policy.

So the death penalty is arbitrary. It discriminates on the basis of race and income. It kills the innocent. It is unconstitutional. And it may even deepen the wounds of families already grieving from the most terrible tragedy imaginable. Even in the worst of cases, it cannot be justified.

'Gigantic' corporate tax hike likely headed to Oregon voters - by KRISTENA HANSEN

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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On the whole, the reporter does a fairly good job explaining the situation, and even has quotes from each side of the issue. But she seems to have trouble making simple statements about the tax and its effect.
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The False Profession Of Christianity By Brian Welch, Co-Founder Of The Sicko Band 'KORN' - by David J. Stewart

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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We must admit, we find this author's position inexplicable. Brian Welch, having fallen to the depths of depravity like few on the earth have ever achieved, got saved. He is quoted as saying, "I was walking one day, just doing my Rock & Roll thing making millions of bucks, you know success and everything, addicted to drugs and then the next day I had Revelation of Christ and I was like, everything changes right now!" 

He immediately kicked his drug habit, helped build some orphanages in India, and started writing and recording songs about his faith. But rather than give God glory, the author berates this man with some truly awful rhetoric.
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Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society - Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have a leftist friend who likes this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Whenever tax cuts are discussed, he trots out this seemingly clever and supposedly devastating rhetorical bomb, designed to shut down the opposition.

However, what a Supreme Court judge said more than 100 years ago hardly seems relevant, unless the Left is finding a new-found appreciation for influential historical figures. Indeed, historical figures are only useful to the degree they can be appealed to to advance the leftist agenda. Such is the case with Holmes.

"Reportedly first said by Holmes in a speech in 1904, alternately phrased as 'Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure'..." (Quote found here.)

The first thing we note is that Holmes said this in 1904, which is important because Holmes was speaking in the context of the tax system in operation at the time. The Sixteenth Amendment would not be ratified until 1913. Thus his version of "civilized society" was operating without an income tax.

Second, the statement is a Category Error.

Third, more taxes do not mean more civilization. Lowering taxes does not lessen civilization.

Fourth, civilization is not defined. If by civilization we mean the government safety net, programs for the poor, and handouts like food stamps, then it follows that the taxes that fund those programs foster civilization.

However, if civilization means a society where the family unit is flourishing, God is embraced and celebrated, our heroes are moral and upright men and women, art and music are noble and uplifting, people are prospering, communities are drawing together, and the media are filled with edifying images, then Holmes is clearly wrong.

Civilization is found in people, not in government taxation. Civilization comes out of the values, practices, and beliefs of individuals banding together in mutual interests, not imposed by bureaucrats.

Civilization is imperiled by those who want to use the force of government to facilitate their own ideas for society. they want to impose their vision on those who already possess and foster civilization. Thus it is the utopian Left who are the uncivilizers. They bring chaos and unrest by maligning the civilized. They confiscate the wealth of the civil, and redistribute it to others who did not earn it. They undo civilization by mocking the civil.

No form of taxation can be civil if it is unjust.

The Shockingly Simple Case For Treating Trans Discrimination Just Like Religious Discrimination - BY ZACK FORD

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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This article is profoundly facile. With a wave of the hand, the author pronounces the transgender debate resolved, never bothering to consider the nuances of the issue. Instead, with black-and-what moral conviction, he proclaims that religion is like gender. Or something.
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Debating the Left

Debating True Believers is too predictable. One might expect that in a give-and-take discussion of ideas that each party would engage honestly and attempt to present their cases logically and forthrightly.

However, if you were debating a typical leftist, you would be wrong.

HEY GOP: Jesus Was A Liberal And These 20 Bible Quotes Prove It - By ELISABETH PARKER

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Here's another Leftist "theologian" of no renown, having no training, experience, or religious credentials, who nevertheless feels free to ironically make judgments about Straw Men Christians.

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Trump’s values won’t make American great - By Jay Moor

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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Mr. Moor, a reliable Leftist, engages in typical Leftist misdirection.

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Letter writer confused about capitalism - By Bruce Gourley

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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Mr. Gourley is replying to a previous letter, written by Mr. Levitt. First, Mr. Levitt's letter:

Thomas Jefferson said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” This is due to liberal’s use of emotion to triumph logic, and because too many people like the idea of government largess and the redistribution of wealth, as long as there is no price to them.

Liberalism is not guided by inventiveness, energy or economic opportunity, but surrenders the freedoms of some in order to offer economic gifts to others.

Liberalism applauds the redistribution of private assets and the subordination of individual rights to group rights, without regard to the consequences. It seeks more and more: government authority to regulate private commerce; to vilify and raise taxes on productive earners; the confiscation and relocation of private property; and the provision of subsidies and expansion of entitlements. All of these are used to buy the votes of the chronically poor majority that is made and kept poor by these very policies.

The granting of rights to satisfy groups with common needs is done at the expense of society at large and steadily enhances the power of the government.

Redistribution can doubtless provide short-term relief to those on the lowest end of the economy. But no nation has ever permanently lifted its people out of poverty by redistribution.

Instead, what we need is to change the current mind-set of “what are you going to do for me” to the prior American “can-do” culture and to promote a smaller simplified government.

The past history of economic development shows that nations tend to prosper when tax rates are low, regulatory burden is determined by the rule of law, governmental debt is limited, labor markets are flexible and capital markets are dominated by private decision making, all of which are the antithesis of liberalism.
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Now for Mr. Gourley's reply:

Jack Levitt (“County needs can-do culture, less government”), in an attempt to discredit liberalism, succeeds instead in condemning capitalism. (Here's Mr. Gourley's premise. Let's see if he demonstrates it. Or even discusses it.

Oh, and by the way, we note for the record that Mr. Levitt never discusses capitalism or even uses the word. Mr. Gourley, however, seems intent on refuting a topic not under discussion.)

Whether knowingly or not, Levitt blithely dismisses the basic principles of traditional Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments, Wealth of Nations) capitalism, free markets and modern economic thought: progressive taxation (the rich paying more proportionally in taxes), living wages, government regulation of the marketplace and banks, and government-funded public education. (Mr. Gourley is fond of bringing Adam Smith into the debate. Why he does this is a mystery, because there is no requirement that his interlocutors must support Adam Smith. 

Adam Smith is and was influential. However, Smith was Scottish, not American. His ideas are not a system that must be adopted or forsaken, and our economic system is not an homage to him as if we had to follow his dictates. 

It is beyond the scope of this post to evaluate Mr. Gourley's specious claims regarding Adam Smith. Nevertheless, we can safely deem this a Red Herring.)

Traditional capitalism espouses such measures in order to resolve the centuries-old, most dangerous of economic problems: too much wealth controlled by too few people, a trigger of national economic destruction. (This is preposterous. Capitalism does no such thing. Capitalism is simply the willing, legal, mutually beneficial exchange of value between parties. Capitalism has no agenda, because it isn't an economic system, it is a description of observed natural human processes.)

Levitt, however, seemingly happy with plutocracy and the attendant third-world ratio of economic inequality now plaguing America, (This is a blatant mischaracterization of Mr. Levitt's remarks. Mr. Gourley imputes motives to Mr. Levitt that are not contained in Mr. Levitt's letter. Mr. Gourley apparently thinks that if you disagree with him, your only other choice is plutocracy. This is distressingly binary thinking, which forces Mr. Gourley's interlocutors into a false choice.)

condemns traditional capitalism’s redistributive mechanisms (There are no such mechanisms in capitalism, there are only the natural behaviors of individuals engaging in uncoerced behaviors.)

and insists that low tax rates on big corporations (You'll note that neither the word "big" nor "corporations" appear in Mr. Levitt's letter.)

and the rich (The word "rich" does not appear in Mr. Levitt's letter.)

lead to national prosperity. Obviously, he is not in Kansas. Their governor Sam Brownback has done precisely what Levitt wants, in the process utterly destroying the state’s economy and angering even many of his fellow conservatives. (A leftist fiction repeated ad nauseum all over the internet.)

Sadly, over the course of the last four or five decades, plutocrats and many politicians have succeeded by sleight of hand in (falsely) rebranding Adam Smith (Back to the Red Herring.)

as a proponent of unfettered free markets, (No conservative advocates an "unfettered free market.)

redefining plutocracy as capitalism, (Unsubstantiated assertion.)

and relabeling traditional capitalism as socialism. (We already know this to be false.)

As such, it is quite understandable that Levitt is confused about capitalism. (The confusion is Mr. Gourley's, especially since Mr. Levitt made no statements about capitalism.)

One of the most telling stories of the current political election season is that of all the presidential candidates who at some point were in the running, “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders’ economic platform is the closest to traditional capitalism. (Now that is a breathtaking assertion. The word "capitalism" doesn't even appear on Bernie's website. Bernie hates the free market, and every initiative he has proposed involves empowering government to intervene even more into the economy. This has nothing at all to do with capitalism.)

The moral of this story of confusion about capitalism: know your history and pay attention to how plutocrats and politicians define the words they use, and why!

More Than 100 Methodist Ministers Defy Church Rules, Come Out As LGBT - BY JACK JENKINS

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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(The Left is never content with letting people choose their own way of doing things. Churches especially are targets for their ire. Anything that contradicts their agenda or worldview must be made to conform. 

The Left has been at work in the UMC for decades, slowly infiltrating its leadership, for the purpose of causing the denomination to abandon its historic teachings. Little by little they effect compromise. They continue to press and harass and impugn the church, calling it all sorts of vile names, until they start to get some popular support for their cause. 

Then they press harder. Couching their objectives in innocuous language like "tolerance," "equality," and "love," they insist that the church change for them, rather than them change for the church.

If it were indeed simply an issue of them practicing their faith according to their consciences, then they would form their own denomination and do what they want to do. But that is not the objective. They are not interested in their own group, they're interested in toppling institutions, especially institutions that oppose them.

And they won't stop with achieving the objective currently being pursued, because it's not about that. It's about the total annihilation of not only traditional morality and the historic church, but of any opposition whatsoever.

You can be sure, if the UMC leaders acquiesce, this protest group will not be satisfied. They will never stop.)