Senate approves bill banning use of tax dollars to advocate for gun control

The Supreme Court disagrees with your interpretation of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, In_God. I'm inclined to believe 200+ years of Supreme Court decisions got it right, rather than you.

May 18, 2013 at 10:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Senate approves bill banning use of tax dollars to advocate for gun control

Clearly, SFFMassSt., you are unacquainted with this Supreme Court decision. This was the Heller case--the first one that ruled that the right to bear arms rests in individuals, not in well-regulated militias. This is the decision that overturned the District of Columbia restriction on individual ownership of handguns, and that has subsequently served as the basis for legal arguments against other forms of gun control. So if you think Justice Scalia is wrong, then you are negating the value of the sole Supreme Court decision that even comes near to supporting *your* idea about the right to bear arms.

Unless, of course, you think that the very existence of the Supreme Court is illegitimate, which means that you object to the Constitution as a whole. Along with the Second Amendment. So be careful about what you declare to be illegitimate, SFFMassSt., or you may just argue yourself out of all your rights.

May 18, 2013 at 10:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Senate approves bill banning use of tax dollars to advocate for gun control

According to Justice Antonin Scalia, who authored the majority opinion in the Heller decision (the one that serves as the basis for claims that the right to bear arms rests in individuals rather than in well-regulated militias):

"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons."

In other words, the Supreme Court has already ruled that gun control is in keeping with the Second Amendment. Will publicly-funded groups be forbidden to quote Justice Scalia?

May 18, 2013 at 6:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Simons' Saturday Column: How does KU rank in customer satisfaction?

If you are going to make an extended comparison between KU academics and KU athletics, Mr. Simons, keep in mind just who the students are. They aren't the fans, rooting for victorious season. They aren't "consumers." They are the players. They are the ones who have to perform well if the team KU is going to succeed. Having good coaches is important. So is having good recruiters and good facilities. But if the players don't have natural talent that they have honed through pre-university training, and they don't attend practice regularly, and they don't take full advantage of the guidance their coaches provide, and instead they expend their time on recreational activities, then they aren't going to succeed. Before the students grade KU, they need to grade themselves. If they put out only a "C" effort, then they don't have any grounds for complaining that KU didn't live up to their expectations.

May 18, 2013 at 6:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Evil deeds

Unfortunately, LarryNative, I have seen all too many people who espouse the same theological position as you do treat other people very unforgivingly, unlovingly, and disrespectfully. In fact, you yourself, sad to say, often project an unforgiving, unloving, and disrespectful attitude towards others. So it is hard to see how advocating the truth of a particular theological construct must "automatically" result in the kind of lifestyle you describe.

And, of course, many people read the Bible differently from you. They choose other passages as the definitive ones for the purpose of understanding salvation and damnation. So, for example, instead of using John 3:16-19, you can invoke Luke 10:25-28.

May 3, 2013 at 6:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Evil deeds

LarryNative, you wrote to jafs "Is asking us to love one anther and treat each other with respect such a tall order?" That choice of wording--"tall order"--really is treating his inquiry dismissively.

Also, that statement conflicts with the theology you enunciated, most recently in your posting immediately above. Your theology doesn't require people to treat each other with love and respect; it requires people to subscribe to a very specific theological conception: belief in Jesus to be the Son of God and the single source of salvation, or suffer eternal damnation. I think that jafs would have much less trouble with your theology if it held that God determined individuals' worthiness for salvation based on how they treat other people, not whether they subscribe to an arcane set of ideas about the Godhead.

You seem to think, LarryNative, that your conception of God is the only one, and people who disagree with you don't believe in God at all. But you should consider, LarryNative, that maybe they *do* believe in God, but they conceive of God and "His rules" in different terms. They embrace God, they worship God, and they anticipate being with God after they die. They love their fellow human beings and do their best to help them. Why are you so insistent, LarryNative, that these people will be going to Hell? Even if you don't mean to sound judgmental and dismissive of them, you do.

May 3, 2013 at 2:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Evil deeds

I think, LarryNative, that jafs was raising a different question: why should God set as the single factor to determine whether people can attain Heaven and avoid Hell consists of a particular set of arcane beliefs about the person of Jesus? In Mr. Burkhead's theological system, this is the case, and it doesn't bother him because he starts from the assumption that all people deserve to go to Hell. But maybe jafs doesn't start from the assumption that human beings in general deserve eternal damnation. Maybe jafs doesn't embrace the same concept of God as you, LarryNative, and Mr. Burkhead do. Maybe he sees God in your characterization as unjust and unloving: a deity who imposes "draconian punishments" on people who are merely behaving in accordance with the nature God gave them, and who grants eternal reward to people who merely happen to have stumbled upon the "correct" formulation of the nature of God himself. Many Christians (and non-Christians) dissent from this conception of God. Believe it if you like, LarryNative, but don't make jafs out to be stupid for raising the question.

May 3, 2013 at 12:25 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

U.S. Attorney General Holder tells Brownback new gun law is unconstitutional

Until the Kansas government can guarantee that guns manufactured or sold in Kansas will remain in Kansas, their claim that only intrastate commerce is involved is specious. And that would require a degree of government regulation and control far beyond anything the Federal government has ever proposed.

May 2, 2013 at 9:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Gun ‘rights’

Wrong again, Dont_Tread. There is only one mention of God in the Declaration of Independence, namely, "Nature's God." There is a reference to the "Creator" and a reference to "Divine Providence." None of those references implies a specifically **Christian** mindset. In fact, they are more in keeping with a **Deist** religious view. Nothing in the Declaration of Independence can be taken to be the establishment of the United States as a Christian nation.

Yes, some of the colonies had explicit endorsement of specific forms of Christianity as part of their foundational documents. But because those laws violated the Constitution, they had to be repealed during the first years of the Republic. So the United States (as opposed to British colonies) was **not** founded as a Christian nation.

For a third time today, Dont_Tread, you have shown yourself to be unfamiliar with basic facts of American history.

April 29, 2013 at 8:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Gun ‘rights’

The Founders did not put "In God We Trust" on our currency. It was added first, on only one coin, in 1864, in the midst of the Civil War. It was not used uniformly on currency until Congress required it in legislation in 1955. That was at the height of the Cold War, when American legislators wanted to emphasize how the US was different from the Communist and atheistic Soviet Union. In the same period, the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, which previously had no mention of any deity.

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/...

April 29, 2013 at 7:46 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )