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Being Conned out of Your Senses
Being Conned out of Your Senses
by John Loeffler, Colorado Christian News
November 29, 1996
Craving anesthetic from reality, I flopped down to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy — PBS’s high-tech attempt at scientific whole language. I must admit liking the highly creative show, even though it has politically-correct glop and environmental hysteria wrapped around otherwise accurate science. Bill’s favorite expression seems to be “most scientists believe,” followed by environmental myth.
Just his use of the word “believe” should trigger red flags for any scientifically-oriented individual. After all, “science” is supposed to be a system of proving facts about the universe and “belief” involves something religious. That’s how opponents argue against teaching creationism as a viable alternative to evolution in state-run schools. Creationism is a matter of belief and evolution is sound science. So they say.
Yet here we find Bill Nye the publicly-funded science guy telling us that science is a matter of “belief.” O.K., which one is it? “Most scientists this…” and “..most scientists that.” Who cares? Most scientists once scoffed at the idea that bacteria caused disease. That didn’t stop the bacteria who happily went on killing people. The real issue is whether science has conclusively proven or disproven a hypothesis.
Much sky-is-falling environmental hysteria is based on unproven allegations about what “most scientists believe” rather than hard scientific fact. Evidence to the contrary is systematically ignored and dissenting scientists are frequently shouted down or denied funding to develop contrary evidence. Bill Nye is just symptomatic of a method of pushing agendas called “consensus.”
The public definition of consensus would seem to be a belief or course of action everyone has agreed upon. In reality, consensus involves a Hegelian dialectic developed by change agent educators who specialize in pushing agendas and minimizing opposition. You can get a peek at this process in in government publications such as guides for change agents, the Goals 2000 Community Action Toolkit, etc. Note that education change agents are told to lie if necessary. Nice that your government approves of educators lying to you, isn’t it?
Understanding the consensus process provides answers to the puzzlement people experience when something is rammed through under their noses at public meetings. It starts with an undisclosed pre-determined outcome on the part of those pushing an agenda and usually controlling the meeting. Everyone is allowed to speak so all get the warm fuzzy that their views have been heard. Non-conforming ideas are minimized and those following the “pre-determined outcome” are emphasized. When all is done, the chairperson announces that a “consensus” has been achieved and tells everyone what it is. The report is written up, taking care to eliminate dissenting views and giving the impression that everyone reached this “outcome” together. The opposition is left head-scratching and wondering where they lost control.
Consensus is used in government, science labs, especially schools to keep parents from meddling in elitist visions for education and other politically correct establishments every day. The United Nations employs it widely in treaty-making. It is designed to thwart opposition while giving the appearance of democratic process.
Just one recent example came from the United-Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC summary report was approved by attending environmental scientists, many of whom said there was no long-term global warming — which indeed much data corroborate — that current temperature fluctuations are within historical norms and that there is no concrete evidence of mankind’s activity affecting global climate — i.e. no global warming. Quite a jump from the “most scientists believe the sky is falling” heard every day.
When the report was published, numerous pages had been deliberately tampered with. All dissenting views and evidence been systematically removed giving the impression that scientists were in agreement that global warming was upon us. The dissenting scientists were furious at the blatant unscientific fraud and their protest erupted into the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. They had been “consensed” and they didn’t like it.
Now you have an idea of how the process works so you can recognize it when it happens to you. Remember that consensus has two parts to it: “Con” and “Senses.” When consensus is under way, you are being conned to take leave of your senses.
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Mythical Mantras of the New Millennium
Mythical Mantras of the New Millennium
by John Loeffler, Colorado Christian News
November 21, 1996
“More wars have been fought in the name of religion than for any other reason.” How often have you heard that little gem spewing out on talk shows or in college classrooms? It is just one of the many mantras being chanted by the newly enlightened of our age who are part of the walking stupid.
The next time someone says that, ask him or her to name three of them in this century. When they stand there with mouths open, follow it by asking them to name three wars of religion throughout history that killed a lot of people and have them tell you about how many were killed. The silence will be deafening.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, more people have been killed in the wars of socialism than at any time in history. These were wars AGAINST religion. If we tally all the dead as a result of the anti-religious policies of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot, the estimated total soars above 100 million dead; an astounding number, causing any wars of religion to pale in comparison.
Having meditated on war for a while, let’s pick a different mantra: Diversity. Let’s celebrate diversity. Oh rapturous joy. Diversity in its pop presentation is a hybrid product of I’m OK, you’re OK; all beliefs are OK and we should tolerate everything but intolerance. Diversity is being preached widely in schools nowadays as a wooooonderful thing. We’re all different and isn’t that maaaarvelous. People who don’t agree are labeled as too diverse (read intolerant) and besides diversity ultimately winds up trying to homogenize peoples and cultures and de-diversifies everything.
Most curious is the educators who chirp and thump the most about diversity are the very ones who oppose it the most bitterly. The educational establishment totally rejects the possibility of school choice and diversity. Choice would invariably provide an incredible healthy diversity in the way children learn and are taught. Think of it. All sorts of educational theories and philosophies being used to teach all sorts of different things. The best ones would survive and the poor ones would fail. Survival of the fittest so much proclaimed by evolutionists in public schools. Much rejoicing called for.
But instead, educrats treat competition and diversity like a horrible thing. The educational establishment has promoted a policy of top-down monolithic control, which has failed so far and will continue to do so. Please don’t write me a letter telling me about “local control.” Those of us watching ed-laws know that’s a sop, especially after the last round of attempts in Congress to move education to the national level.
Diversity brings us to the third mantra. Evolution is king in public schools. Mankind — oops — personkind evolved from lower species which evolved from some alien’s chewing gum stuck at the bottom of his primordial soup. The way species work is competition and survival of the fittest. Mankind — oops — personkind is a product of nature. We got where we are because of our genetic ability to compete and survive and take out other species in various niches.
But now, enter the environmentalists who promote evolution as “fact.” They tell us mankind – - oops again — is not a part of nature. Suddenly we are a cancer on the face of the Earth endangering nature of which we were once a part of now it seems we’re not. Suddenly they begin preaching all sorts of moral imperatives that they ridiculed in religious people. Competition is bad! We have to preserve other species. We can’t engage in survival of the fittest and kick genes (blue or otherwise).
When you sum it all up, the mantras of the new age are stupidity masquerading as a virtue.
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Enviro-Whackismo
Enviro-Whackismo
by John Loeffler, Colorado Christian News
“I was offended,” read the letter to me from a Boulder, Colorado listener reprimanding me for an on-air comment. I had referred to some of the loonies in the environmental movement as “enviro-whackos.” She couldn’t understand why I would refer to people who were genuinely concerned about the environment that way. An angry letter from a nice lady who was deeply concerned about Christian stewardship for the environment — someone desperately ignorant of what she had bought into.
In 1991, as the Cold War allegedly died, the globalist think tank Club of Rome announced a new unifying principle for a socialist international realignment of power: “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill…All these dangers are caused by human intervention…The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
A radical difference from Christian stewardship, isn’t it? Mankind is the enemy. This was not an isolated comment. It can be found in much literature of hard-core environmentalist and government organizations who have no use for “populution,” read people.
The outlook that humans (along with capitalism) are bad and must be eliminated where possible, was a driving philosophy behind the UNCED conference in Rio, which provided us with our latest boost towards environmental laws and regulations via United Nations treaties, whose far- reaching consequences are about to burst over our heads.
These environmental plans have been quietly in the works for a long time among the global greens and are now the substance of UN treaties which are forcing our government to take action against you. Much of these are based on flaky pop science rather than hard-core research and dissenting scientists are routinely being shouted down.
The next target is your automobile. The conversion of state inspection sites to single companies to match federal emissions requirements is not by accident. It’s part of a much larger plan to screw down emissions requirements until cars older than four years won’t pass. The EPA says we have to do this to comply with a treaty President Bush signed in 1990.
Since many people won’t be able to afford new cars, they will be forced out of them and into other forms of transportation, fulfilling a green socialist dream. Keep your eye out for confiscation of cars that don’t pass; they’re already on the horizon.
The EPA wants to impose all sorts of taxes to get you out of your car like a $0.50/gallon fuel tax. Other ideas include taxes on motorists to ensure use of public transportation, fees for using highways, etc. The list is enormous. The cost per family could easily jump $1,000 per year to implement these taxes.
Now on to the Biodiversity plans of the U.S. government. The current goal is to remove humans from 50% of the currently-occupied lands in the United States. The push for buffer zones around Yellowstone Park (no longer a U.S. park but a World Heritage Site under auspices of the U.N.) is just the tip of the planned iceberg. Entire sections of the country will be human-free. Populated islands will be connected by causeways all of which are surrounded by buffer zones with extremely limited human access and outside of those totally human-free zones.
Even though this written environmental plan is on the books, obviously the government can’t tell you that you can’t live somewhere. The mechanism to achieve this will be a combination of complex environmental regulations and financial pressures and invariably property confiscation, which will make it impossible for people to live in the designated areas. None of this is new for anyone following written government policies and U.N. treaties. It’s all in written treaties, agreements, memoranda and regulations.
Now that the global warming scare is facing mounting scientific evidence disproving it, the new spooker will be pollution. You are about to be deluged in a plethora of hoopla about pollution which will be used as a pretext for more regulations, fines and confiscations. Keep an eye out and remember we told you about it.
Over the past two decades we have been barraged by a series of environmental crises, calling for government action to avert imminent disaster. As each of these scares proved false, it was quietly forgotten and a new scare was hyped by the green establishment. In the process, millions of dollars are being squandered, property seized and lives ruined, all in the name of saving us from fictitious crises. Now we are beginning to implement the radical green agenda contained in international treaties. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
# # #
A week ago, the Supreme Court in a ruling on the case of the United States versus $405,089.23 that forfeiting a person’s property in a civil action and then prosecuting him or her with a crime in a criminal proceeding does not constitute double-jeopardy. This seriously reversed a trend in which the Supreme had begun rolling back forfeiture laws in favor of the Constitutional protections.
In effect, the fifth amendment took a horrible blow. It is also endangering the first and second.
With a long history in U.S. law, civil property forfeiture emerged in the 1980s as a weapon in the drug wars. Originally it was intended to allow seizing property of drug dealers when they couldn’t be convicted of a crime.
Civil forfeiture is still being sold to the public by the mainline media as being used primarily in the drug war. But in reality, there are now over 200 federal statutes alone in addition to dozens of state statutes which allow for the seizure of property on the mere allegation that a crime has been committed, ranging from environmental crimes to making a mis-statement on a loan application for a mortgage loan.
If you make a mis-statement of income on a federally-guaranteed loan for a home mortgage, the house can be seized in a relatively simple procedure. And what constitutes a mis- statement? Remember: no criminal conviction or proof is required.
Another example, since 1990 there have been several attempts in Congress to create a law which would allow seizing of the medical practices of physicians who fraudulently bill Medicare. Again, remember that proof of the crime is not required — only allegation and the burden of proof is on the person.
Here are the facts of forfeiture:
(1) When civil forfeiture takes place, the property, not the person is charged with the crime.
(2) The forfeiture proceeding goes through civil court. Since property does not have constitutional rights, the burden of proof rests on the property owner instead of the government. The courts are frequently ruling that an innocent owner defense — where the owner wasn’t aware the property was being used for illegal activities — is no bar to a forfeiture.
(3) In a civil forfeiture procedure there is no jury, you do not have the right to a court- appointed attorney and the outcome lies with the whim of the presiding judge.
(4) Even if a person is acquitted of the related crime in a criminal court, he or she usually does not get their property back. In 80% of the federal cases where people have property forfeited they are never even charged with a crime, much less convicted.
(5) To date, there has been $5B forfeited in this country. Money that is forfeited does not go into a general fund but rather to the law enforcement agency making the seizure. It’s an off-budget source of cash. Credible studies are showing that forfeiture is corrupting law enforcement agencies, since it acts as an incentive to legalized extortion, because forfeiture is easy to accomplish. Undercover investigations are showing that drug busts are now being made not on the basis of drugs but rather how much property and money can be seized.
(6) Informants who remain anonymous can get up to 25% of this and, by the way, the amount is not reported to the IRS as required so informants can pay taxes on it; which means states lose income tax from federal forfeitures. Either way, it’s a violation of federal law. In essence, perhaps the motto of some law enforcement agencies should be changed from “To Serve and Protect” to “To Seize and Plunder.”
(7) Abuse is rampant. Dozens of innocent people are losing property each week and the mainline media has failed to report this. Forfeiture is especially dangerous to religious freedom and freedom of speech, because “hate speech” and politically correct speech laws are inching closer and closer to public acceptance. Already the courts have rule that RICO statutes can be applied to abortion clinic protestors. RICO includes property forfeiture. Once “hate speech” laws and property forfeiture link up together, it will mean the death of freedom speech and religion. Remember, all that is needed is an accusation and a civil procedure and the property is gone and you have to spend thousands of dollars trying to get it back and you may never succeed — even if someone else used your property for something that was allegedly illegal.
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Paradigm Lost
Paradigm Lost
by John Loeffler, Colorado Christian News
It has become fashionable for people on the left to chirp “extremist” at any viewpoint on the right opposing their belief. Consider however that the great and good of today’s moderation movement are the radical leftists of thirty years ago. “Extreme right” today actually describes much of the mainstream culture three decades back when radical left flower children commenced their rabble-rousing change of society and started a love movement by calling the police “pigs”. This was the same crowd that spat on U.S. soldiers to oppose an immoral war. Since then academics — to the cheering of the media — have pounded the culture with a constant socialist, left-leaning drumbeat. Generations educated by this drumbeat began moving leftward and assumed their view to be the cultural mainstream. Now, they have discovered a whole crowd of people who didn’t move left with them — the new “radical right.” “Moderation” has become the left’s mantra of choice. What this really means is that the right should take a neutral position, allowing the great and good of the left to pursue their agendas unimpeded. Really now. Was the civil rights movement of the early 1960s a moderate movement?. Absolutely not. It was driven by people standing for a political change they believed was essential. What about the various anti-war and university protests that dotted the 1960s and 1970s? Were they moderate? Hardly.
Moderation — taking no strong position on anything — is a combination of I’m O.K., you’re O.K. psychology combined a no-such-thing-as-absolute-truth philosophy. Even Christians — who should know better — have gotten sucked up into this bizarre mode of thought and actually think it’s biblical.
Notice there are never condemnations of those who are extreme about their “moderation,” which is really a form of militant mediocrity. Since there is no such thing as absolute truth, the reasoning goes, no one should believe anything too much. Therefore all ideas have equal weight, all cultures are equally good and no one should criticize anyone else since all our ideas are wonderful — insert warm fuzzy group hug here — and peace on earth is just around the corner.
The real consequences of such pablum are staggering. The entire culture has been placed on an ocean of floating, contradictory values which are determined by pop fads of the moment rather than solid moral concepts of right and wrong. It is becoming pernicious in the judicial system where legal precedent is thrown to the dogs in favor of political activism.
Here’s moderation in action: Feminists argue strongly in favor of a woman’s right to choose? Are they in favor of a woman’s right to abort a female foetus because it’s a girl? Why that would violate the foetus’s right to be a female. A foetus then has a right to be female but doesn’t have a right to life. The very same people telling you the public has no right to tell a woman what to do with her body start telling women what to do with their bodies. Ah but that’s the fun of making up truth up as you go.
The contradictions of relative truths flooding the culture, especially the judicial system, are dangerous to future stability. There are no rules except that we have no rules except toleration of all rules except those rules that say we mustn’t tolerate something, and we can’t tolerate that; that would be intolerant. Did you follow that? Good. I didn’t either but that is the nonsense being foisted on us today by the great and good.
For a Christian, the argument should NEVER be over whether or not there is an absolute truth — the Bible tells us there is. The argument is over whether or not our ideas, views, theology and philosophies come close to that truth. This provides us with fixed moral references in an ocean of constantly changing public values.
The next time someone says to you “that’s just your truth” or “there is no such thing as absolute truth,” ask them to hand over YOUR money which is in THEIR wallet. You’ll see quickly what they really believe about absolute truth. I guarantee it — absolutely!
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Workers for the 21st Century
Workers for the 21st Century
by John Loeffler, Personal UDATE
Beyond Goals 2000:
by John Loeffler, World Affairs Editor
The battle of the decade is upon us and the majority of Christian parents are snoozing through it. The outcome will determine whether or not your children or grandchildren will be raised in the Christian faith. Such language is alarmist but for one thing: it’s true.
You are about to be barraged with a media propaganda blitz designed to push the federal government’s case for seizing control of education. You will hear buzz words like “voluntary,” “partnership,” “involvement,” “competing in the 21st Century,” and “national standards”-all designed to convey a cushy glow about the future of education. The reality is a far cry from the PR.
The Careers Act (School-to-Work) is the last major plank of a federal education plan involving Goals 2000 and Outcome-Based Education to rip control from local school boards and states. It is being conceived and executed largely by unelected officials, psychologists, and education “experts” in private organizations or foundations through “partnerships” with the Departments of Labor and Education. Although currently called “voluntary,” it is being mandated to the states by financial blackmail. “Careers” is a product of the National Center for Education and the Economy, an organization dedicated to unifying education and employment. NCEE was founded following a 1986 report entitled A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, which called for fundamental restructuring of American schools. It involves such socialist left luminaries as Marc Tucker, Ira Magazine and Hillary Clinton.
Now their plan for converting education by “restructuring” is at our door and will abolish education as we have known it, converting it into a process whereby workers are trained rather than educating human beings. It is based on the Russian system of indoctrination used so effectively for decades in the Soviet Union. Unknown to most Americans are the mid-1980s education exchange agreements between the U.S. and the Soviets. We gave them technology and they explained to us how to brainwash children.
“Work Permits” Required
A Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) will replace diplomas. According to the NCEE, the Certificate of Initial Mastery is “what everyone in the society ought to know and be able to do to be successful at work, as a citizen and as a family member.”
It will be virtually impossible for anyone in society to obtain a job without the CIM. According to NCEE, those who meet the outcome standards “will receive a Certificate of Initial Mastery, further education and good jobs.” Workers who do not possess CIMs “will be condemned to dead-end jobs that leave them in poverty even if they are working.” Those of us following this agenda know that very quickly it will become illegal to hire anyone without a CIM.
Lifelong Learning
The system also features “lifelong learning,” whereby workers already in the work force will be monitored by a computerized national databasecontain ing everyone’s (and we mean everyone’s) academic and psychological work profiles as well as their career history. This is modeled after the Communist Chinese Dangan system.
When educrats talk about CIM standards, they’re not talking about the ability to read and write, do math and know facts. The outcomes for the CIM are loaded with sociological “outcomes,” many of which follow politically correct thought and behavior guidelines. Students will be assessed on how well they are “quality producers,” “self-directed learners,” “involved citizens,” “constructive thinkers,” “effective communicators,” “understand diversity,” “deliberate on public issues,” and a host of vague, relative outcomes.
Private and home schoolers will not be exempt. The educrats are well aware of the massive hemorrhage of students from public to private education; the new system is all-or-nothing and cannot afford to let private and home schoolers jump off. These groups can expect massive legal coercion to conform to the system. Just the fact that a CIM will be required for a job will be the first major threat to begin with.
The bottom line is that the new educational system will resemble nothing of the previous one. It is being called voluntary but is being forced on states by withholding federal funds from those that don’t comply. The new standards are anything but academic but are designed to create a compliant work force in a politically correct thinking mold. Since these values will be required and will clearly often be in conflict with the Christian world-view, it is easy to see where the collisions are going to occur.
The entire education agenda consists of an interlocking set of laws, government departments and foundations. When one zooms back and views all the interactive parts as a whole, the future is nothing short of horrifying. The time to become involved is now. If you don’t, you were warned.
This article was first published in the May 97 edition of Personal UPDATE, a Publication of Koinonia House.
