Gay Hush Money; Gold; Obama's Vision

NEW YORK –
Hush Money Paid to Prevent "Outing" the Minister

Truth Wins Out (TWO) today called on Colorado officials to investigate New Life Church, after the Associated Press revealed that New Life paid money to keep a male volunteer from publicly disclosing a romantic affair with the church’s former minister Ted Haggard.

“Until conservative churches stop shaming gay people and learn to accept them, we will see more tawdry scandals,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “These calamities are a direct result of the closet.” TWO

Such calamities are indeed the direct result of closets where they don't belong, unnatural in their metaphysical being, unethical in their use of the public trust in our places of worship.

The Future of Gold

On September 17, the Treasury announced the creation of the "Supplementary Financing Account" in the Federal Reserve. This is a capital reserve in the Fed financed by the Treasury selling new debt, but its excess capital is "trapped" and does not immediately reach currency in circulation. As of January 2, $259 billion is in this cash pool and $365 billion counting the Treasury's "General Account." The capital itself is money borrowed by the public, so its immediate net effect is deflationary.

With an insolvent public and no foreign demand for Treasuries, the Federal Reserve will monetize debt to finance its continued bailouts and economic stimulus. This is purely created capital pumped right into the system. This is not anything new for the Fed — for the past two decades, it has kept interest rates artificially low and created massive artificial wealth in the form of malinvestment and debt financing.

Purchasing-power destruction is much more desirable by the Fed. Its effects are "hidden" to a certain extent, as the public doesn't see any nominal losses and only feels wealth destruction in obscure price inflation. It breeds perceptions of illusionary strength rather than deflation's exaggerated weakness. The typical taxpayer will panic when his or her mutual fund goes down 20% but will probably not react to an expansion of monetary supply unless it reaches 1970s price-inflationary levels.

On December 2, COMEX spot prices for gold were 1.99% higher than December gold futures, which are for December 31 delivery. This is highly unusual and it provides strong evidence for the theory that the Fed is abandoning its support for gold shorts.

The unique nature of gold and precious metals provides its desirability in this Fed operation. Gold has little utility except as a store of value, unlike most commodities (like oil, which is consumed as quickly as it's extracted and refined), so its supply/demand schedule has unusual traits.

My predictions: gold at $2,000/oz by the end of the year and $10,000/oz by 2012 and silver at $30/oz by the end of the year and $130/oz by 2012. Naufal Sanaullah Ludwig von Mises Institute

Weisberg on Obama's "Vision"

Myrhaf rightly notes that the real meaning of Barack Obama's recent swipe at Rush Limbaugh is to attack the Man with the Golden Microphone as a surrogate for holding pro-capitalist principles.

... I think Obama's statement is about a deeper issue than any single radio personality. Rush Limbaugh is a symbol here for holding principles. Granted, Obama is overestimating the Republicans by implying they might have principles any more, but that is what he is truly attacking in his statement. [emphasis added]

He elaborates more on that last thought:
If the Republicans had free market principles, they would be fighting for separation of economy and state. Any compromise they make with Obama on a stimulus bill helps only the side that wants more big government. Freedom is not advanced by any compromise any more than a man's health is advanced if he only takes half a dose of poison instead of a full dose. [emphasis added] gus van horn

For the benefit of all my regular readers, I apologize for getting today's blog out so late. An illness in the family, one that is getting better, prevented the earlier publication. CEC

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© 2008-2009 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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Besen Outs Hypocrisy

[Note: This is a cut-and-paste from Wayne Besen.com, author of the blog Truth Wins Out, from Dec. 9, 2008, and author of the book Anything But Straight. Click on the title below to take you to the Times advertisement described in the Besen column.

[I reprint this in full, because gay marriage is not a "special privilege" separate from straight marriage. The individual sovereignty envisioned by the Founding Fathers and which is part and parcel of the Academy's metaphysical naturalist doctrine, is not served by the denial of civil rights through Constitutional amendments. Marriage is marriage, and it is not, as the hypocrites claim, for the sake of the children. It is for the sake of not having sex outside the sanctity of marriage, something devout believers take as sin--just as they take homosexuality to be sin.

[But if they really believe it is for the sake of the children, then why are gay and lesbian couples with children denied marriage? The hypocrites are causing their parents to have sex outside the sanctity of marriage, not to mention denying the children--and the spouse--the justice of the same legal protections as the hypocrites and their children receive.]

People of Faith or Fibs?

In a breathtaking display of lies and hypocrisy, a group of anti-gay culture warriors and long-time Mormon bashers placed a full page ad in the New York Times pretending to be both victims of alleged homosexual "mobs" and staunch defenders of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons).

Both claims are absurd and a cruel attempt for the victimizers to claim the mantle of the victimhood - which is a manipulative and cynical political ploy.The dishonest Times ad essentially claimed that violent mobs of gay protesters were attacking the Mormon Church and its followers in the aftermath of California voters narrowly approving Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in that state. They even launched a website

www.NoMobVeto.org. (It seems they forget that they put basic human rights up for a vote, which is essentially mob rule)

This Times ad is full of blatant lies - much like the immoral television ads attacking same-sex families during the Prop. 8 campaign. The fact is, the vast majority of the rallies across America were peaceful. Considering gay families just got stripped of their basic rights by deception and deceit, the protests were remarkably tame. If any other group had been subject to such humiliation through a multi-million dollar smear operation, there would likely have been riots in the streets - not the fake "violence" conjured in the bogus Times ad.

The anti-gay organizations and individuals who sponsored this "Big Lie" ad are trying to pull off a remarkable feat: They are both crying wolf, while being the wolf in sheep's clothing. The degree of chutzpah is remarkable and eye-popping.Consider that a few of the unctuous signers of the ad, convicted felon Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship; Rich Cizik, The National Association of Evangelicals; and William Donohue, The Catholic League are now pretending to love Mormons. In the ad they wrote:

"The violence and intimidation being directed against the LDS or 'Mormon' church and other religious organizations - and even against individual religious believers - simply because they supported Proposition 8 is an outrage that must stop."The ad ended with the following propaganda:

"Furthermore, beginning today, we commit ourselves to opposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry - against any faith, on any side of any cause, for any reason."Well, that is good news. The authors of this hypocritical ad can start by spotlighting themselves:

"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular." -- Bill Donohue, Catholic League

"Mormonism either affirms historic Christianity, or it doesn't. Since it doesn't, it can't call itself Christianity -- a fact that all the good will and public relations in Utah can't change." -- Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries [Note: Colson, you will remember, was one of Nixon's henchmen during Watergate, along with G. Gordon Liddy, who now does TV commercial for "gold."]

"While Mormons share some beliefs with Christians, they are not Christians." -- Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries

"Most evangelicals still regard Mormonism as a cult." -- Rich Cizik, National Association of Evangelicals

I really do hope this group shines a light of shame on those who promote religious bigotry - but they better be wearing very dark sun glasses when this occurs, as the glare from the light may be quite blinding. It appears that the only thing these men have in common with Mormons, or any other religion that they don't agree with, is an uncommon passion for anti-gay discrimination. To watch these hypocrites act as the great defenders of the LDS church, and religion in general, is beyond laughable.

If this were not bad enough, Pat Boone compared Proposition 8 protests to terrorist attacks on Mumbai in a column for World Net Daily titled, "Hate is hate, in India or America. Boone wrote, "Have you not seen the awful similarity between what happened in Mumbai and what's happening right now in our cities?"In his op-ed, Boone also wrote, "What troubles me so deeply, and should trouble all thinking Americans, is that there is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists." I'm not sure if Boone noticed, but it was religious extremism that was responsible for the attacks in India.

If these so-called people of faith have confidence in their beliefs, why must they resort to lying in the name of the Lord? For whatever they gain in smearing the gay community, it seems their religion loses twice as much in terms of credibility and respectability. I have no problem if these people have a cross to bear, but why must this so often be synonymous with bearing false witness?

© 2008 Wayne Besen. All rights reserved. Anything But Straight www.waynebesen.com

1. More on AIG's Takaful Insurance as Sharia-compliance Invades the U.S.

2. More on Wayne Besen's Fight

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© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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A Menagerie of Naturalist Ideas

Bigotry by the Opressed Against the Oppressed

"[T]here is something particularly galling and repugnant about people who have felt the sting of discrimination, turn around and step on another minority. What happened at the ballot box feels like a personal betrayal and the hijacking of history.

"To the Mormons who bankrolled the bigotry, religious discrimination is awful, as long as it is happening to them. For the black people who voted for Proposition 8, the civil rights movement was about emancipating black people - and no one else seems to matter. These solipsistic individuals and their prejudiced pastors appear to lack an ember of empathy and have turned freedom into a private fiefdom.

"The civil rights movement was much larger than the plight of black people, just as the fight for religious freedom is bigger than Mormons. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that all people are equal under the law and should be judged by the content of their character. Barack Obama largely embodied this universally appealing message and this is why he made history.

"There is a lot of blame to go around for the failure of Proposition 8 and the first step to healing and moving forward is honesty. Let's not pretend that the repudiation of Martin Luther King Jr's dream by African American voters did not hurt more than, say, rejection by white evangelicals. It did." Wayne Besen - Daily Commentary

The Purpose of Judges, and the Constitution

"The most fundamental question a Supreme Court justice must answer is what in fact do the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and happiness include? Only then can he determine if a certain law or government action is securing or violating those rights. But no justice asks this question anymore because none believes it objectively answerable.

"Instead, and broadly speaking, judicial conservatives ask what privileges did American society at the time of ratification grant the individual. So when modern legislators make criminal offenses out of abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and other acts said to be frowned upon centuries ago, conservative judges feel duty-bound to stand aside and do nothing. To conservatives, it’s meaningless to ask whether the right to liberty in fact includes the right to use contraception (a question 18th-century Americans may have answered incorrectly). The only question is whether society at that time meant to permit this action.

"John McCain [ ] pledged to appoint judges in this conservative mold.

"Judicial liberals reject this worship of bygone days. Instead, liberals see constitutional values evolving like a motion picture, constantly updating to reflect current social mores. So when Congress declares federal dominion over every nut, bolt, and button of American industry, liberal judges feel duty-bound to stand aside and do nothing--not because earlier Americans intended to allow such controls, but because modern Americans want them. To liberals, it’s meaningless to ask whether the right to liberty in fact includes freedom of trade and contract (a question that a majority of Americans may be answering incorrectly today). The only question is whether the “will” of today’s society favors permitting such actions.

"Barack Obama has pledged to appoint judges in this liberal mold.

"But conservatives and liberals are both wrong about rights. It cannot be true that rights come from society. The very concept of a right identifies the actions you can take without anyone’s permission. Rights are not social privileges but objective facts, identifying the freedoms we need to live our lives--whether a majority in society agree or not. This is why the Founding Fathers dedicated their new government to the protection of each individual’s already-existing rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"Thus, the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments forbid the government to deprive you of “life, liberty, or property” (except when you have violated someone else’s rights, and even here the government must follow due process, such as holding a trial). The Ninth Amendment safeguards all “rights” not listed elsewhere. These principles encompass all the innumerable actions required for your survival and happiness over a lifetime--the right to make a contract, earn a profit, build a house, make a friend, speak your mind, and so on.

"Because the Constitution is the “supreme Law of the Land,” judges are duty-bound to strike down statutes that violate rights. This is not improper “judicial activism” but the robust, constitutional power of judicial review." Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.

An 8-Year Old Murderer is Not an Adult

"An 8-year-old Arizona boy charged with murdering his father and another man appeared in court on Monday. Police say the boy confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber gun, but his defense attorneys told reporters that "there could have been improper interview techniques done." What's the "proper" way to interrogate a kid?

"With kid gloves. Based on the principle that juvenile suspects may not fully comprehend a Miranda warning, most states mandate some form of added protection for children under the age of 16. In at least 20 states, police must notify the child's guardian before questioning; and in at least 13 states, either a parent or an attorney must be present.

"Under Arizona law, the state carries the "burden of proof" in juvenile interrogation cases. That is, there's a presumption that the child's statements were made involuntarily unless a preponderance of evidence indicates otherwise. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in State v. Jimenez that in determining whether a confession was voluntary (and therefore admissible), a court should evaluate the child's age, education, background, and intelligence, plus whether the child's parents were present, whether he was in good mental and physical health during the interrogations, and whether he has a mental illness.

"There's evidence to suggest that juvenile suspects are more likely than adults to make a false confession. A 2004 study of 326 exoneration cases found that 13 percent of adults had falsely confessed, compared with 44 percent of suspects under 18 years old.

"Law-enforcement officers are often trained to conduct interrogations using the Reid Technique, which involves direct confrontation, physical gestures to appear concerned, and preventing the accused from denying the crime outright. Practitioners are encouraged to use the same methods for children as for adults. This helps explain why children are more likely to offer up false confessions." Slate.Com

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The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
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The Choir Sings the Hymn "Individual Sovereignty"

Preaching to the Choir

Today, I refer you to several sites I think have importance to metaphysical naturalism, of which the concept of individual sovereign rights is the only moral political system qua system worthy of man.

This includes capitalism as the only economic system qua system worthy--because of its unalienablility--of the sovereign rights of man; it includes the sovereign rights of individuals to marry without the dogma of religious intolerance for homosexuals overwhelming the wall of separation between church and state; and on a little bit of a different subject, but same theme, the attempt--as bungled as it was--to make the American public see the hidden agenda of the impending Obama economic spectacle, not to mention the leftist political agenda of a man who has friends most of us would shun.

Curtis Edward Clark

Nationalization Is Theft

Venezuela, Russia, and other countries that nationalize natural resources are violating private property rights.
By Thomas A. Bowden

For years, the Canadian operator of a huge Venezuelan gold project known as Las Cristinas has been seeking an environmental permit to start digging. Well, Crystallex International Corporation can stop waiting--the mine is being nationalized as part of dictator Hugo Chavez’s long-running program of socialist takeovers. “This mine will be seized and managed by a state administration” with help from the Russians, said Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz.

It’s not surprising that a brute like Chavez would want to grab the 16.9 million ounces of gold estimated to lie buried in the Las Cristinas reserve. But what’s more puzzling is why--when gold mines, oil rigs and refineries worth billions of dollars are nationalized by regimes such as Venezuela and Russia--the ousted companies can muster no moral indignation, only tight-lipped damage appraisal.

[For original with Continuation, click on the headline] Ayn Rand Institute Op-Eds

Proposition 8 and Race
[Prop 8 was on the California ballot]

Wayne Besen

I can understand why white gay people are angry. I certainly am. But, let's take a step back and look at this dispassionately. I believe our failure with the African American vote (70% voted in favor of Prop. 8) has more to do with education levels than race. In general, people with lower levels of education - of any race - do not vote for gay rights. White people are twice as likely to graduate college as black people. This accounts for the difference by race on Prop. 8.

Think of it this way. 57 percent of white people with a college education voted No on Prop. 8. Yet, 58 percent of white people with no college voted yes on 8. In other words, uneducated urban black people vote very much like uneducated rural white people.

Uneducated people - black, white and Hispanic - often derive their power from physical strength. They perceive being gay as weak and antithetical to real manhood. By voicing support for gay rights, they lose status and often fear rivals may perceive them as gay. The easiest way to gain status is dissing faggots. I see this attitude all the time in Brooklyn - in the gym and on the basketball court, where I often play. (Not the best sample, I realize this)
[For original with continuation, click on headline] Wayne Besen - Daily Commentary

The Sarah Palin - John McCain Highwater Mark

There was only one catch, and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.

Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and he would have to fly more missions.

Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them.

If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to.

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
[This was the entire posting. It seems apropos to what the McCain Campaign was all about. But if you wish to see it in its original, click on the headline] No Exit



The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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