Don's Tuesday column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   1/07/2014

Right and wrong blurred; ship of fools

The Tea Party Patriots will resume weekly meetings with a demonstration of TCSD K-9 abilities at tonight’s meeting, 6 PM at the Westside Grange. Come for the dogs—stay for the camaraderie.

There are good and bad policies, laws and judgments—moral and ethical good, bad and evil. There’s certainly legal and illegal; most people try to do what’s right and avoid what’s wrong. All indisputable, right? But interpretation leaves disagreement. Does consensus or the largest numbers of advocates settle such questions?

“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson said. “Sin becomes fine.” Reject the concept of “sin” preventing entry into “the kingdom of God,” but you’ll still say some things are “wrong,” “bad” or “immoral.” With no rules, can you get away with anything? Sadly, some follow such a personal philosophy. More sadly, some mock and ridicule those who believe that immorality, bad ethics, evil actions and sin are wrong and condemnable.

I’ll get to Robertson’s comments on race but indulge my curiosity over the bible passage he paraphrased: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Phil did not equate homosexuality with bestiality, say vile things about, nor say that he hates, homosexuals—nor does he misquote Corinthians. Those stating otherwise are simply being dishonest. Anyone could read what he said and look up the passages at “biblehub.com” so there’s no excuse for simply parroting the “false witness” of Christian-hating leftists.

Since the passages are from letters that Paul wrote to Christians at Corinth, they are actually admonishments to those already converted, about what the faith demanded for their entry into God’s kingdom. They’re not intended to apply to those not devoted to living the life Christ prescribed. As Phil explained, God ultimately judges each soul righteously; Christians must accept in humility that none of us can know whom God will accept or reject.

Wrote Paul: “…you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” (Does anyone think such practices really improve society?)

Further emphasizing the admonishment, Paul went on: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Christians are no better than non-Christians unless they live by Paul’s words; non-Christians owe no devotion to Paul’s words but rather to whatever moral, legal and ethical framework they’ve chosen. Unless…but who needs eternal life, anyway?

Would you be surprised to know that Duck Commander Phil Robertson never stated, nor suggested, “that African-Americans were happier under Jim Crow laws”? That’s yet another bit of fabrication and word twisting by haters-of-white-Christian-rednecks. Here’s what he said, start to finish (per GQ interview):

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field… They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: these doggone white people’—not a word! … Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

That, dear readers, is an irrefutable statement of his personal observations and memories. I never personally observed any mistreatment of blacks, although I know there were “colored” fountains and bathrooms in the south. Objectively, I knew enough of the civil rights abuses to take trips from the North to the Deep South, and work to elect a black mayor in Gary, Indiana (a segregated Northern city). Black friends I had in grade school (who were segregated just outside Canastota, NY—the supposedly non-racist North) and high school, never told me of mistreatment. Did any white readers personally observe racist treatment of blacks? Maybe.

Children born to African-American parents in the Eisenhower 1950s were more likely to grow up in a two-parent household, to have an employed father guiding them to maturity, to avoid pregnancy, single parenthood, gangs, drugs and crime—than those born in Obama’s America. The sociological data are unequivocal. Jim Crow laws hurt the lives of black Americans in the South. Illegitimacy and dysfunctional single-parent homes currently ruin the lives of many millions of urban blacks, as well as whites and Latinos.

So, 1) the global warming ship of fools found only ice—not warming, 2) global warming ships of fools abandoned their September excursion to the NW Passage—“coldest season with the most ice … since 2000,” 3) this is among the coldest, snowiest winters ever—following one of the “Ten Coldest Years In US History” with the “lowest number of 100 degree days in 100 years,” 4) “lowest tornado total in several decades,” 5) lowest wildfires in ten years, 6) “longest period (8 years) since the Civil War Era with no major hurricane strike. Proves something, right? Go read articles at the “global warming” tab at DonPolson.blogspot.com—get informed.