Eric Holder, Fred Phelps, Common Core

Attorney General Eric Holder, the top lawman in the United States and one of the few attorney generals threatened with impeachment, should have been impeached or, better yet, fired.

Some of his decrees have really been off the wall.

I don’t understand why we are using 1960s technologies in aircraft today. Information could be streamed live instead of relying on an old-fashioned data loop inside a static black box, which by the way is really orange.

A live stream of information could lead first responders to crash sites quicker and pinpoint coordinates with a location of plus or minus four miles, which could lead to rescue operations rather than recovery operations.

Right now, as in the case of the Malaysian Airlines disaster, we are looking for the equivalent of an old TV set on the bottom of the ocean before the batteries run out of life.

I’ve been part of two groups picketed by Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church — William Jewell College, from which I graduated, and Second Baptist Church Liberty, where I am a member and serve as a deacon (3-21, A1, “Westboro’s Fred Phelps dies at 84”). On both occasions, I walked past their ugly signs on my way to worship and tried my best to keep smiling and remain calm, even cordial.

All the while, I must admit, my heart was racing and I wanted — with that racing heart — to begin a conversation aimed at dissuading the people forming the line of pickets from the horrid cardboard messages bobbing on their sticks.

I can’t imagine how the families of our fallen soldiers have felt passing these stations of hurt in the process of laying their sons and daughters to rest.

Thinking back, how lucky I was that I could depersonalize Phelps’ word assaults and almost consider their attacks as a feather in my school’s and my church’s cap. What leaves me sad is how Phelps called young children to his purposes, requiring them to stand post outside our church.

I pray that those kids and all young hearts made angry at an adult’s whim might have a chance to grow in love, not hate.

I get Steve Paul’s attempt at satire in his March 22 column, “A few words from the man upstairs,” about a conversation between Fred Phelps and God.

However, Mr. Paul fails to understand a few things concerning a God who is holy beyond what we could ever imagine and who is not to be flippantly used for amusement by placing vulgarities such as the word “cojones” on his lips.

As a native Spanish speaker, I’m incredulous as to why Americans seem to think that this vulgarity is permissible, especially in a newspaper. In Spanish, that word is exceedingly more offensive than the English counterpart, (street language for testicles).

To further illustrate his ignorance with regard to the almighty, Mr. Paul suggests that pity is not one of the qualities God carries in his “everyday toolkit.”

You couldn’t be more wrong, Mr. Paul.

God takes great pity on the wayward and showers boundless mercy and compassion upon sinners provided they repent and abandon wickedness. Additionally, to suggest that God has a “cagey, dark colleague in the Afterlife Department” is nothing short of blasphemous.

Finally, I will admit that I’m not always an exemplary witness for the cause of Christ. But I know blasphemy when I see it.

Is atheism by itself nothing but a revealed religion?

Here are a few Webster definitions:

Religion: the service and worship of God or the supernatural.

Faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof.

Science: possession of knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding.

Atheism: disbelief in the existence of deity.

Atheist: one who denies the existence of God; one who resists all religious faith and practice; one who believes in only the rational and credible.

Because you can’t know what happens to you before you’re born or after you die, anti-theists may say that there is no proof there was a creator who holds you in slavery, that there is no reason to think the cosmos requires a creator and that the cosmos works very well without such a being.

Atheism is definitely not a religion. It isn’t a revealed religion as are the Abrahamic Christian, Jewish and Islamic religions.

Really, let’s keep it straight.

I hope for the day when religion apologists come up with more than the two or three boring arguments that they think are in their favor, of which this is one.

The problem with gun laws is not the laws. It’s that the people who commit the crimes don’t get punished severely enough.

The strict gun laws in Chicago and Washington, D.C., have not prevented those cities from having high crime rates. To slow down crime, perpetrators need to know that if they kill someone and are convicted, they will be put to death immediately.

Everyone wants to make more laws. We have plenty.

Don’t make jail so much fun.

Gun violence is always conveniently blamed on the gun. In reality, the only cause of the violence is the violent human.

He or she can commit violence using myriad objects available anywhere. Are those other objects being blamed?

I believe debating the points of Common Core is unnecessary because the whole premise is wrong.

Education is not one size fits all. More important, parents have the right to teach their children whatever they see fit without interference from smug bureaucrats.

The American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party didn’t occur because the colonists were against taxes, but because they knew the power of taxation and the monopoly it supported were the real issues behind the tea tax.

They didn’t fall for arguments that the tax was small, affordable, necessary to subsidize government spending and would bring them more tea. All of which were true.

Instead, they refused to be coerced into accepting a principle and abandoning a right to obey a government edict.

Likewise, the fight surrounding Common Core is not about school standards — it’s about Christian liberty. Common Core is the epitome of tyranny.

The possibility of college athletes unionizing is another example of the struggle for balancing the rights of the athletes within the NCAA (3-27, A1, “A coup for college athletes”).

The NCAA’s claim that these players are students first and athletes second is questionable considering academic scandals, one-and-done athletes, special admission into schools and poor graduation rates despite the provision of room, board, books, tuition and academic tutoring for athletes.

Meanwhile, institutions argue that they cannot afford to pay athletes despite unprecedented amounts of money flowing into their coffers. Coaches receive outlandish and ever-growing salaries, and facilities continue to be built in the athletic arms race, while the only people actually doing the work continue to receive relatively little. A “free” education is hardly that and worth little if you really don’t get one.

To calm the waters, perhaps the NCAA should support athletes’ rights such as the freedom to transfer without penalty, financial support so parents can attend games, tuition waivers for athletes past their eligibility, guaranteed scholarships beyond one year and small monetary stipends as well.

Or, thinking way outside the box, perhaps the NCAA could suspend academic attendance during an athlete’s sport’s season and have athletes attend class in the summer.

This story was originally published March 28, 2014 at 2:17 PM with the headline "Eric Holder, Fred Phelps, Common Core."