Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
The Ministry of Truth — sounds like something out of the Bible. Except it isn’t. (Is it?)
Maybe it’s out of the Global Community in the Left Behind Series. Or maybe it’s out of 1984 and that Orwell guy. Or maybe I just made it up (though I don’t think so). Whatever the case, I thought of the Ministry of Truth (aka, the Department of Truth) today.
Check this out from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki today: Read it all
“They” may still deem you guilty of social pollution.
I was going to warn you the morning of August 26 when I first read this. I hope I’m not too late to save your bacon.
(To whom it may concern: I mean no harm with bacon nor with speaking of yours.)
The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter.The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online.
The “Truthy” database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.” Read it all
How long
til it seizes me
by the throat
?
Corridos are a big part of Mexico’s music. And the narco-corridos apparently are becoming more and more so. I remember hearing them…and being amazed that such kind of glorification was deemed acceptable. So I read this article with great interest:
A new proposal from Mexico’s ruling party could send musicians to prison for performing songs that glorify drug trafficking.
The law would bring prison sentences of up to three years for people who perform or produce songs or movies glamorizing criminals.
“Society sees drug ballads as nice, pleasant, inconsequential and harmless, but they are the opposite,” National Action Party lawmaker Oscar Martin Arce told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The ballads, known as “narcocorridos,” often describe drug trafficking and violence, and are popular among some norteno bands. After some killings, gangs pipe narcocorridos into police radio scanners, along with threatening messages.
Martin said his party’s proposal, presented before Congress on Wednesday, also takes aim at low-budget movies praising drug lords. It was unclear when lawmakers would vote on it.
“We cannot accept it as normal. We cannot exalt these people because they themselves are distributing these materials among youths to lead them into a lifestyle where the bad guy wins,” he said.
Martin said the proposal’s intention is not to limit free expression, but to stop such performances from inciting crimes.
So…just what are the limits of freedom of speech?
I wonder how far a corrido glorifying rape or racism or “homophobia” would get in the free expression market?
That’s my message to you, pastor friend, if you’re going to become political in the pulpit.
Today is Pulpit Freedom Sunday:
More than 80 pastors nationwide will be participating in the Alliance Defense Fund’s second annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday on Sept. 27. The pastors will preach sermons related to biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates or current government officials, exercising their constitutional right to free religious expression despite a problematic Internal Revenue Service rule that activists groups often use to silence churches.
Pulpit Freedom Sunday is an event associated with the ADF Pulpit Initiative, a legal effort designed to secure the First Amendment rights of pastors in the pulpit. Some of the pastors preaching Sunday will address the positions of candidates in current state governor’s races; others will address the positions of existing government officials or people who have declared themselves for office in future elections.
“Pastors have a right to speak about biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit. On the contrary, the whole point is that churches should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to talk about. The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. We need the government to get out of the pulpit.”
Let them proclaim freedom from politics in the pulpit!
I have a modest proposal. Those preachers who want the government to “get out of the pulpit” will put their pen where their mouth is by signing a public commitment to stay out of politics.
Any pastors who do not get out of politics will “get out of the pulpit.”
Did I say that is a modest proposal? Yep. And it is. Just like it’s sensible.
But is it Biblical?
(By the way, how does anybody get into a pulpit?! I mean, it’s not like it’s a closet or a telephone booth or or a bathtub or a car or even some sort of clerical garb.)