The Cross on the County Seal

In 1957 Los Angeles County redesigned its County Seal. The Seal was designed to reflect a broad spectrum of icons of significance in Los Angeles. Among the items included on the County Seal were the Hollywood Bowl and a very small cross to signify an old Los Angeles landmark - a cross atop a hill near the Hollywood Bowl. The cross was also an homage to the missionary origins of Los Angeles, whose original name was "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula."



For decades the seal stood as the official seal of the County of Los Angeles - used on countless pieces of stationery, business cards and buildings. That is until the ACLU, in its untiring efforts to remove any references to Christianity from the view of the public, decided to wage a battle to remove the cross from the County Seal, notwithstanding the fact that one needed a magnifying glass to see the cross on a business card.

Last year the ACLU fired off a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors saying that the tiny cross on the County Seal violated the separation of church and state and threatened a lawsuit if it wasn't removed. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is made up of five supervisors, three happen to be Democrats and two are Republicans. The Board of Supervisors, despite a huge turnout by the public protesting any change in the County Seal, caved in to the outrageous demands of the ACLU and decided to remove the cross from the seal. The vote was three to two.

One doesn't need a lot of imagination to know which members of the Board of Supervisors voted which way. The Republican members of the Board of Supervisors, Michael Antonovich and Don Knabe, voted to retain the County Seal as it was and to fight the ACLU in court. There were several public interest law groups and law firms that were willing to take the case on a pro bono basis so there would have been no cost to the County. The cost to the County for changing the seal amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The liberal members of the Board of Supervisors, Gloria Molina whose Hispanic constituents are one of the most religious groups in the county, Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, an African-American, and Zev Yaroslavsky, a Jew, all voted to remove the cross.

A compromise was proposed by a concerned group of citizens opposed to the removal of the cross, headed by David Hernandez. The proposal was to put the decision to a vote of the people. Not only would this be democracy in action, but it would give the very people who the ACLU is supposedly protecting from being confronted by the sight of the offensive cross to voice their opinion. Again, in a three to two vote, the County Board of Supervisors decided that the people could not be trusted to vote on such a weighty issue.

The ACLU and the pusillanimous liberal members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have obviously not read the First Amendment recently. The language of the First Amendment is pretty clear, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof;..."
It is clear that the First Amendment is only a restraint on the Congress of the United States preventing it from passing any laws establishing a national religion. It also restrains Congress from prohibiting the free expression of religion by citizens. Nowhere in the Constitution is there any other mention of religion - or "separation of church and state."

No reasonable person could possibly think that a small cross on a local county seal means that Congress has passed a law to establish a national religion. There is no legal justification, under the Constitution of the United States, or under any statute, ordinance or law for the removal of the cross. Nor could it possibly mean that the County of Los Angeles is establishing a 'County Religion'. To force the removal of the cross from the County Seal is the height of absurdity and the rewriting of the Constitution, as we have seen so often from liberal judges.

David Hernandez is now heading up a petition drive to put the removal of the cross before the voters of Los Angeles county on the June 6, 2006 ballot. To get a petition, or to sign a petition, or to volunteer your services, please go to http://www.savetheseal.net

The ACLU may have served a useful purpose at one time, and I suppose there are instances even now where the ACLU acts to protect individuals whose civil rights may have been abused. Nonetheless, the ACLU is the proponent of its own religion - humanistic secularism. No less fanatical then Wahhabi Muslims or Afghan Talibanis who have to destroy the icons of religions other than their own (e.g. the destruction of ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan), the ACLU is determined to do the same. Notwithstanding the fact that most Americans consider themselves religious and live a life consistent with Judeo-Christian values, the ACLU cannot tolerate any public displays of Christianity anywhere.

In my view, the ACLU is an organization which today is one of the most subversive organizations in the United States. It poses a threat to our moral and spiritual well-being. It wants to strip our spiritual heritage from this nation.

On the one hand, it protects pedophiles such as the members of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, and it opposes the Boy Scouts of America because it claims the Boy Scouts are a religious organization. In other words, it is an organization that stands as cheerleaders for pederasty while opposing those who mentor rather than rape young boys.

The ACLU was formed in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, who stated, "I am for socialism, disarmament and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

We must oppose the efforts of the ACLU to remove spirituality from America. We must oppose their efforts to remove the cross from the Los Angeles County Seal, and we must oppose their efforts to remove other symbols of our spiritual heritage throughout the land.

Edmund Burke once wrote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Let us not let evil triumph. Help David Hernandez and his volunteers to succeed in their efforts to prevent the removal of the cross from the seal. If we don't take a stand here and now, it will become more difficult to do so later.

The 'We're Smart, You're Dumb' Principle

This essay by David Gelernter in today's Los Angeles Times is so on the mark that I am posting the essay in its entirety:

The ugly truth is that Democrats habitually treat voters like children. It's the basis of their philosophy.

DAVID GELERNTER
David Gelernter is professor of computer science at Yale University and a senior fellow in Jewish thought at the Shalem Center, Jerusalem.

April 29, 2005

Who could possibly be against cutting voter fraud on election day? You'd have to be some sort of fruitcake. But when Georgia's Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue recently signed a bill to reduce voter fraud, under which voters must show a photo ID before casting their ballots, many of Georgia's black legislators stormed out in protest. They even threatened to sue. The new process is simple, easy and fairly effective, but Democrats alleged that it would reduce voting by minorities, the elderly and the poor. So black legislators had to oppose it.

For legislators to announce that getting a photo ID is too tricky for their constituents is downright amazing. Wouldn't you expect those constituents to say, "Drop dead! Stop treating us like morons!"?

After all, any 15-year-old half-wit can get a photo ID — and the governor is promising to hand them out gratis to voters who don't already have one. All you need to do is show up in the right place at the right time — which is just what you have to do in order to vote. (Unless you vote absentee, which will still be allowed under the new law.) In short: If you can vote, you can get a photo ID. So there's no reason why a single legitimate voter should be excluded.

Lots of Georgia Democrats are outraged anyway. As Michelle Malkin points out on her blog, those outraged Democrats are treating their constituents like children. But actually the episode points to a bigger, deeper, uglier truth: Democrats habitually treat Americans like children.

That's the whole basis of Democratic philosophy (I use the term loosely). We'll take care of you. Leave the thinking to us. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, minority leaders of the House and Senate, respectively, — kindly Mom and Pop to a nation of intellectually limited youngsters. (But thank goodness, they love us anyway.)

How could anyone be opposed in principle to private investment accounts within Social Security? I could understand Democrats arguing that "private accounts are a wonderful idea but the country can't afford the transition costs right now." But mostly I hear Democrats saying they're a lousy idea, and that President Bush wants to wreck Social Security — because, after all, he wants to let you keep a great big whopping 4% of your payroll taxes in a private account instead of handing over every cent to the government. How on Earth could anyone be opposed in principle to letting taxpayers manage a minuscule fraction of their own money (their own money, dammit!) if they want to? Because private accounts violate the Infantile American Principle, so dear to Democratic hearts. Little kids should turn over their cash to the Big Smart Government for safekeeping.

But of course they can't say that, so instead they say, "Bush wants to privatize Social Security" — as if government were going to wash its hands of the whole mess. The technical term that logicians use for this rhetorical gambit — applying a correct word for one part of a proposal to the proposal as a whole — is "lying."

Here's another one: How could anyone be opposed to school vouchers? Vouchers let you decide where to spend tax money to educate your children. You give the voucher to any public or private school; it's your call. But Democrats worry that (among other things) too many parents will spend their vouchers at a local Obedience School for Little Nazis or the neighborhood Witchcraft Academy. That's what they think of their fellow citizens. That's what they think of you!

Now some readers will say, hold on, be fair! Democrats only oppose vouchers because the teachers unions ordered them to. Agreed, teachers unions are a big factor in every major decision a good Democrat makes, starting with what cereal to have for breakfast. But Democrats also oppose vouchers out of honest conviction. They are honestly convinced that ordinary Americans don't have the brains to choose a school for their own kids.

Advanced Democrats are now revving up to make sure you eat your vegetables and steer clear of those nasty French fries. Why is it their business? Because Democrats are professors in disguise. Scratch a Democrat, find a professor.

It all goes back to central planning, socialism, Marxism — let the experts run the economy; free markets are too democratic and messy. Many professors believed in Marxism right up to the point where Communist China itself bailed out in disgust.

Professors see the world in terms of experts and students: "We are smart; you are dumb." That's the Infantile American Principle in a nutshell. Now go play with your toys and don't bother me.

Let's get rid of Mommy and Daddy and let the adults make their own decisions. They can do it.

Democrats Propose Elimination of Filibuster

Democrats, led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D.,Iowa)and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D.,Conn), offer a proposal to amend Senate Rules to eliminate all filibusters, not just those against judicial nominees. The sponsors of the proposal announced that "the filibuster rules are unconstitutional" and that "the filibuster is nothing short of legislative piracy."

Despite its support by senior senators you didn't hear about this proposal from the ads by Moveon.org blasting Republican Senators. You also didn't hear about it from Democratic Senators, like Sen. Lieberman who today held a press conference to criticize Republican Senators for attempting to restore Senate tradition to the judicial confirmation process.

Why? Because it was proposed in 1995.

Read Sean Rushton's article on "Filibuster Rules: Then and Now" for an interesting treatise on how, when it suits the Democrats, they are willing to change Senate Rules, but when it isn't in their best interest they will oppose any rule change. The history of the filibuster is interesting.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R.,AZ) said today that Sen. Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R.,TN)will try to negotiate with Democrats to arrive at some reasonable accommodation to permit the President's judicial nominees to have a fair up or down vote. Failing that, he will propose that the filibuster rules be changed to permit a simple majority of the Senate to be able to confirm a judicial nominee. Sen. Kyl said that it will come to a vote in the next few weeks if something can't be worked out.

Pope Benedict XVI: Whats In Two Names?

Catholicity gives some background on the new Pope and his choice of name:

It is interesting the Holy Spirit chose a man baptized Joseph, and, that he, Joseph Ratzinger, chose Benedict as his pontifical name.

Mr. and Mrs. Ratzinger, having no idea that their newborn son would one day be called to run the Catholic Church, decided to name their baby after Saint Joseph. Surely, Providence inspired their choice. Saint Joseph, among his many other titles, is known as the Terror of Demons. Beside the very reality of the meaning of that phrase (evil spiritual forces fear the intercession of Saint Joseph), this title reflects the grave responsibility Joseph took upon his shoulders to protect Our Lady and their son, Jesus. It also reflects Saint Joseph's purity, and his willingness to order his will toward whatever was best for his family. Spiritual bad guys can't abide by the light of holiness and purity, and no man born to Original Sin was holier and more pure of heart than Joseph.

Furthermore, Saint Joseph's primary title is Patron (Father) of the Universal Church. His is first place among the saints.

Saint Benedict, who lived in the sixth century, was the founder of the Benedictines (the very first religious congregation), and is also famously known for his power to intercede against the forces of spiritual evil. The Saint Benedict Medal, perhaps the most popular Catholic medal after the Miraculous Medal of the Immaculate Conception, is considered lead-pipe-lock insurance against the forces of evil for those who wear it. The medal itself, designed by Saint Benedict, contains the first letters of Latin words which make up phrases that castigate and even humiliate spiritual beings. One of our favorites among them is directed to the head bad guy himself, Lucifer: "Go bark at the moon!"

Saint Benedict is the Bruce Willis of Catholic Saints. "Yippie Kai Yay!"

Many scholars honor Saint Benedict with another title. As a result of his history-making deeds and the legacy of the founding of religious congregations, which provided the social, educational, and organizing basis for Christendom to slowly rise from the chaotic remains of the Roman Empire, Saint Benedict is also known as the Father of Western Civilization.

Saint Joseph is a holy father.
Saint Benedict is a holy father.
Joseph Ratzinger, now His Holiness Benedict XVI, is our Holy Father.

We have a man named Joseph. We have a pope named Benedict. Bad guys, on earth and under the earth, you're in for a scrap. Expect the world, the flesh, and the devil to commence their attacks upon Joseph/Benedict in short order.

Expect them to fail.

The Democratic Underground comments on the new Pope

Powerline, announcing the new Pope, notes that Confederate Yankee has found pretty much what you would expect from the Democratic Underground:

Fox News reports that the Cardinals have selected 78 year-old Joseph Ratzinger to be the new Pope -- Pope Benedict XVI. The new Pope is expected to adhere to the policies and approach of Pope John Paul II, with which he was closely associated.

UPDATE: Carpe Bonum has what looks like a nice rundown on the new Pope. Meanwhile, for those who like crazed, unreasoning hysteria, Confederate Yankee has descended into the sewers of the Democratic Underground for reactions to Pope Benedict. What he found, needless to say, isn't pretty. "It's a sad day when the best aspect of a new pope is that he's likely to die soon" is one of the less offensive entries.

If you want to get an idea of what the radical left is like, take a look at some of the quotes from the Democratic Undergound on the Confederate Yankee site. These are the same people who hope that the United States fails in Iraq.

Luxury for the Homeless

The Christian Science Monitor reports today that the Midnight Mission in downtown Los Angeles has completed and opened its new $17 million state-of-the-art facility for the homeless, which has a full-sized gymnasium, library, playroom, hair salon, education center and professional kitchen.

Is this the best way to get the homeless off the streets? Bob Erlenbusch, vice president of the board for the National Coalition for the Homeless says that what these people need is affordable housing, not a way to institutionalize their homeless status.

I wonder what the result of spending $4 Million on a kitchen facility, and $13 Million on providing low-cost housing would have done for getting the homeless off the streets? Just a question.

Keep your hands above your hips!

Do yourself a favor, read Mark Steyn's article in the Chicago Sun Times: "Bolton's just too hip for scaredy-cat Dem's"

I can understand why Barbara Boxer thinks Bolton needs "anger-management lessons."

Huh?

Not. One. Dime.

Send a copy of Captain's Quarters essay, "Not One Dime." to our Republican leadership.

Ed Morrissey says that this is an off-year. We can safely let our leaders know that they have to get some spine or they don't get our money.

Excerpts:

News flash: if we can't reverse the generations-long trend of increasing judicial activism, the act of passing legislation will eventually be rendered meaningless. The judges, as we have seen, will simply continue to legislate from the bench, ignoring Congress and the Executive and transforming us from a representative democracy to a secular mullahcracy, where lifetime appointments in black robes make all the decisions for us.

That's what the Republicans warned about when they campaigned in 2002 and 2004. Now it's time to step up and do something about it -- but despite their greater numbers and a clear signal from the electorate that rejects obstructionists (see Tom Daschle's enforced retirement), the GOP suddenly quails at the thought of taking action.

I have been a loyal member of the GOP since I cast my first vote. I have worked campaigns and championed candidates well before I ever posted anything on my blog at CQ. However, with the defection of John McCain and the lack of any real response from party leadership on the issue, I have to take a stand and demand either action or accountability -- and this is the time to do it.

Not. One. Dime. The next time Ken Mehlman sends you a request for money, that's the message he needs to get back. We ponied up in 2004, and in 2002, and in 2000. The GOP not only has not delivered, its current leadership won't even try. Frist and Rick Santorum claim they don't have the votes. Balderdash -- they don't have the leadership to get the votes. I'm not going to fund or support people who won't try to win, especially when the issue is so important.

Not. One. Dime. We're not in an election year, so this makes it easy for the Republicans to get this message to party leaders. No balls, no Blue Chips, boys. I don't mean just for the Senate, either. I mean for the entire Republican party. Feeding a fever may be good medicine, but feeding a failure only makes it last longer. Perhaps hunger will work where courage has so obviously failed.

Not. One. Dime. And when a vote does come, those Republicans who wind up supporting the minority's extortion over the majority in defiance of the Constitution will never see another dime from me -- but their opponents will, at every level of contest. Honestly, with Republicans like these in the Senate, we may as well have Democrats.

Not. One. Dime. If Bill Frist can't lead the GOP, then let's get rid of him now and find someone with the stomach for it. As long as he dithers, he'll never see a dime out of me for any election. Kay Bailey Hutchinson would have more guts and could pull the troops in line better; maybe we should give her a try as Majority Leader for a while.

It's time to send a real message to the Republicans about their priorities and their lack of leadership. This fight has been brewing for months, and it should have already been resolved by now. If they can't hack it, then we will find -- and fund -- the leaders who can.

This is an effective way to get the attention of our leadership.

But Hugh Hewitt says:

But not as effective as letting the senators on the fence know that they are crossing a line with this vote if they vote against the party --a line that means huge financial losses to the party and outright opposition to their re-election or leadership

We need leadership! Now!

Still have doubts about privatization of Social Security?

If, after reviewing the web site of the New Social Security Institute you can still have any doubts about what a boon personal accounts would be for the American worker, you have been drinking the Kool-Aid of the liberals.

Take a minute and look at the differences between the present system and what personal accounts will mean for the average American in just a few years.

Who could oppose an entirely voluntary system where everyone benefits?

Democrats, I guess.

Modern Liberalism is like a virus

Evan Sayet has it right. He likens Modern Liberalism to a disease, such as AIDS. Read his post about how it infects the body like a virus and slowly destroys it.

Great diagnosis, Dr. Sayet.

Dems to use Schiavo case as election issue

Howard Dean, DNC Chairman, said yesterday that the Democratic Party would wield the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in the elections of 2006 and 2008. He plans an ad which shows Tom DeLay with the commentary, "Do you want this guy to decide if you die or not, or is that going to be up to your loved ones?"

Excuse me, I thought that Terri's loved ones, her parents, wanted her to live.

I think it would be great for Republicans if the Dems use the Schiavo case as an election issue.

Let's see, one party is for the preservation of life, and the other for the right of a husband to kill his wife. Which party do I want to be associated with?

Boxer's "rare" opposition

Barbara Boxer, liberal Democratic Senator from California, claims her opposition to John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for the post of Ambassador to the United Nations, is rare.

Let's see, in addition to opposing the Bolton appointment to the UN, she has opposed the appointment of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State, John Bolton as Under-Secretary of State, John Ashcroft for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General, Theodore Olson for Solicitor General, Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior and Michael Leavitt for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Were there any of President Bush's significant appointments that she supported?

Rare, indeed.

Since when do you telegraph your next move?

Can someone explain to me why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made the comment that Iran has nothing to fear from Israel since Israel does not intend to attack Iran's nuclear capability?

Wouldn't the world be a lot safer if Iran was wondering what move Israel was going to make, and when?

Just a thought.

Welcome to "Bear to the Right"

This is a new blog where I, and occasional guests, will expound on the meaning of life. Comments will not appear on a regular basis as I have a life to attend to outside of blogging. Check back for futher updates.