Daniel J. Summers » Charter Member of the VRWC

After 40 hours of work in three days this week, I’m in the mood to laugh.  I got this in an e-mail the other day, and I think it’s just hilarious.  Enjoy!

I just want to thank all of you for your educational emails over the past year. Thanks to you, I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel. I can’t use the remote in a hotel room because I don’t know what the last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channels. I can’t sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one past time while driving alone is picking your nose (although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot). Eating a Little Debbie sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years. I can’t touch any woman’s purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom. Yuck!

I must send my special thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa’s novena has granted my every wish. I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers. I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains. I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won’t crawl in my back seat when I’m pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put ‘Under God’ on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer. And thanks for letting me know I can’t boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face…disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS. I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise. I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don’t support our American troops or the Salvation Army. I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan. I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can’t use anyone’s toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt. And thanks to your great advice, I can’t ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. I can no longer drive my car because I can’t buy gas from certain gas companies!

If you don’t send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s ex-mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s beautician…

Have a wonderful day….

This Sunday, April 27th, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be featuring the Martinez family from Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is the build that we saw happening, and the genesis for the idea of the Not So Extreme Makeover: Community Edition (NSX) that we took part in last month. Gerald Martinez is the pastor at Joshua’s Vineyard, an outreach church in one of the least-desired areas of Albuquerque. Through NSX, we became acquainted with him, and, while I can’t vouch for the other families that have received these, I can say that he is very deserving of the home he received. He has been working in that area for years, and when he wasn’t ministering to the people, he was trying to figure out how to get others in the community involved and engaged. This did it – it was truly an answer to prayer unfolding before our eyes.

On a personal note, our family was lining the street as Ty and Gerald walked around the corner to see another building they had built. They were talking, but who knows what will stay in or be left on the cutting room floor. We were standing just before the people in blue shirts – I can’t remember what I’m wearing, but I do know I was wearing Jameson on my head. Michelle was wearing a green shirt, and was right behind me. Our other two boys were standing in front of me. Who knows – you may see us if you watch closely!

Another exciting turn is that, according to popular local rumors, ABC has requested footage from NSX, so they may be showing some people who participated in that as well.

It will come on early this week – 6pm EDT/PDT, 7pm CDT/MDT – and it’ll run for two hours. Be sure to catch it!

Wouldn’t it be great if today was just another day? (A pay day, no less, if you get paid on the 1st and 15th like I do!) There is an alternate tax plan called the FairTax that eliminates the IRS and the millions of dollars spent complying with today’s extremely complex tax code. (Do you realize that the cost of this compliance is embedded in both the cost of things you buy, and in the wages that your employer can pay you?) Neal Boortz, one of the co-authors of The FairTax Book and FairTax – The Truth: Answering the Critics, has put chapter 13 of the latter book online, where it can be read for free. It paints a vivid contrast between our current tax system and the FairTax.

If you’re ticked about the money you had to pay, take a look at the FairTax. If you like it, tell your friendly Congress-critter so.

No, not with Teresa… (Not with Britney either…)

Hat Tip: Cassy Fiano

This past weekend during Sunday School, we briefly discussed the raid of the polygamist compound in Texas. During this discussion, one very good point was raised – those handling this situation need wisdom. Previously decided cases hold a lot of weight in the judicial realm, and while, by all accounts, what was going on at that ranch was illegal and immoral, they are claiming it is part of their religion. It is good that those people have been stopped – however, what is to stop the government from deciding that something most mainstream churches do is illegal?

That led the discussion to this story about a photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico who refused to photograph a “commitment ceremony” between two people of the same gender. There are lots of ironies in this story, and I would expect that this decision would be quickly vacated / overturned / made null. Can you really legally force someone to photograph an event that’s illegal by nature? However, if it stands, there are much more troubling questions, some of which we have already seen. In California, a Catholic-run hospital was sued for refusing to perform gender reassignment surgery, and the state has sued the US government over a provision that strips Federal funds from states that force medical practitioners to perform or refer abortions.

During the course of the discussion, I took the (somewhat unpopular) opinion that a business should have the right to refuse service to whomever the business owner wanted. (I also did that a bit strongly at one point – if you’re reading this, sorry about that.)  Someone asked “What if they say they’re not going to serve Jews?” My reply was that, if that was their stance, the word would get out, and those who found that abhorrent would also not patronize them, and they would go out of business. (And yes, I think I did actually use the word “abhorrent” in class… heh…) In further discussions with other people, including my wife, my position continued to be unpopular. I heard things like “What about people in the South not serving blacks?” and “I just think discrimination is wrong.”

I still cannot see the government requiring a private business to serve, sell, or perform any good, service, or person that the owner does not want. Why should I invest my money and time in an enterprise if the government is going to come and mandate to me how I do it? However, by the same token, I also feel that racial discrimination is bad. However, for anyone to say, unqualified, that “discrimination” is wrong simply doesn’t realize how much discrimination occurs on a day-to-day basis.

Let’s imagine I’m a photographer. I don’t like trying to get kids posed for a picture, so I create a policy of no more than one child per pose. That’s discrimination – I am discriminating against large families (though not completely – they’re just not going to get an entire family portrait from me). Maybe I don’t want to photograph some people because I feel they’re unattractive – do “Uglo-Americans” have a right to have me photograph them? Maybe I’m a really popular photographer, and I can’t be in two places at once. I’ll have to be discriminating in how I set up my schedule. There simply isn’t a scenario that convinces me that the government has an overriding interest in forcing me to photograph someone I don’t want to. The “right to photography” is nowhere in the Constitution.

Now – let’s put the brakes on that and look at the government. While I believe that a business owner has the right to discriminate pretty much however he or she feels like, I also just as strongly believe that the government should not be in the discrimination business. Equal protection under the law should be just that – equal. Firefighters should (and do) respond just as quickly to fires in desirable neighborhoods as they do to fires in undesirable neighborhoods. Everyone should (and does) have access to their legislators, and the right to vote for the ones they think will best represent them. Everyone should have access to government-run educational facilities, with the same requirements for everyone. (OK, we need to work on that last one…) The bottom line is, government should not discriminate on anything other than merit and scarcity (i.e., we can’t give everyone $1k if we don’t have it).

But, in reality, this isn’t the way it is; I alluded to it above regarding education. When the government starts trying to play identity games, “level the playing field,” or any other sort of tinkering, they invariably get it wrong. According to the NM government, this photographer “violated human rights” by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. Would the pastors of my church be guilty of the same if they refused to officiate one? In finding this photographer guilty of discrimination, the state is, in effect, discriminating against her free exercise of religion. (See? Every choice is discrimination!) This is the danger of giving the government the power to decide what’s “good” discrimination versus what’s “bad” discrimination.

The solution? From my view, I believe that there are very powerful forces at work in the economic marketplace. Eliminating “Jim Crow” laws was a good thing – they were a violation of the equal protection clause. Forcing state-run universities to integrate was a good thing – again, equal access to government resources. Forcing businesses to cater to those to whom they do not wish to cater? That’s bad. Sure, I believe that businesses shouldn’t discriminate based on race – but is it the government’s place to tell them they can’t? Some people think that discrimination based on gender is wrong; in fact, a few years back, there was a big kerfuffle over Augusta National not allowing women to become members. How many of those people would advocate my joining Curves? It’s all perspective, and because one person’s perspective may be different than another’s, the government should stay out of it.

To me, this is a heart thing. Sure, you can pass a law and make people comply, but all you’ve done is made people upset by forcing them to do something that they didn’t want to do. I believe in giving people enough rope so that they can hang themselves (figuratively speaking, of course) – if someone wants to open a racially-discriminatory business, that’s their own stupidity in eliminating a big chunk of their potential customer base. If someone wants to open the “No Purple Pants Club” and refuse to admit anyone wearing purple pants – well, it’s their money and time they’re pouring into the business. And, if someone wants to refuse to provide their goods and services to those they find morally reprehensible, more power to ‘em.

In each of these cases, one of two things will happen. One, they may flourish as a business, which will prove there was a market for their goods and services, even without the people they excluded. Two, they will fail, and learn via the “school of hard knocks” that they shouldn’t restrict their pool of potential customers. Either way, the business owner gets out of his business exactly what he put into it, and I really don’t have a problem with that.

Thomas Sowell hits another home run…

Most of the problems of this country are not nearly as bad as the “solutions” — especially the solutions that politicians come up with during election years.

Here’s another…

One way to reduce illegal immigration might be to translate some of our far left publications into Spanish and give everyone in Mexico subscriptions. After they read how terrible this country is, many may want to stay away.

Do go read the rest of it.

Well, the big push for the Not So Extreme Makeover: Community Edition is complete. While one of our homes still needs some work, the every-day “work, work, work” has been finished. It was a wild two months – the only thing “not so” extreme was the amount of work that went into some of the homes. However, with our extreme efforts following God’s leading, we saw extreme results – physical needs cared for, relationships formed, and a ministry that will live on for years and years.

Now, I’m looking at this blog. “Fred Thompson for President” – heh… Seems it’s gotten a little bit out of date. I notice part 1 of a 3-part “2007 Year in Review” series – this won’t be finished. There is the conspicuous absence of a Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday post and a Sanctity of Human Life post – these will probably go undone as well. Feel free to browse the archives and remember what I’ve said in previous years – I still feel that way. (Of course, with Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright out there, we may still have a race-based post before the year is out.)

The blog is now running WordPress 2.5, so it’s up to the latest and greatest version. Coming very shortly is a huge “Plagiarism Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery” post, which will catch up with all the interesting stuff we missed over the past several weeks. I’ll also get around to replacing Fred’s button with one more timely at some point.