High Ground . . .

. . . ???


Former U.S. President George W. Bush on morality . . .

(http://www.npr.org/2017/04/13/523615019/president-george-w-bush-foreign-aid-in-u-s-national-security-and-moral-interest)
"When you have an entire generation of people being wiped out and the free world turns its back, it provides a convenient opportunity for people to spread extremism," he said. He added, "I believe in this case that it's in our national security interests as well as in our moral interest to continue funding this program."


Results of U.S. President George W. Bush's policy in Iraq . . . .

(from https://antiwar.com/casualties/)
American Deaths                                         Total                              In Combat
Since war began (3/19/03):                                 4,497                          3,529
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list) 4,351                                 3,425
Since Handover (6/29/04):                                 3,631                          2,900
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09):                   260                            128
Since Operation New Dawn:                                     66                              39
American Wounded                                       Official                        Estimated
Total Wounded:                                                 32,021                     Over 100,000

Others
Iraqi Deaths Due to U.S. Invasion                  1,455,590
Other Coalition Troops - Iraq                                  321
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan                        2,382
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan                     1,127
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq                1,487
Journalists - Iraq                                                  348
Academics Killed - Iraq                                          448
Sources: DoD, MNF, and iCasualties.org

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Freedom and the Press . . .

(from http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/paris-magazine-attack/charlie-hebdo-shooting-12-killed-muhammad-cartoons-magazine-paris-n281266)
". . . Twelve people were killed Wednesday when masked gunmen armed with AK-47s attacked the offices of a French satirical news magazine which has published cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. . . One of the magazine's editors, Gerard Biard, told France Inter radio: "I don't understand how people can attack a newspaper with heavy weapons. A newspaper is not a weapon of war." Hollande added that several other attacks had been thwarted in France "in recent weeks." "No barbaric act will ever extinguish the freedom of the press," Hollande said in a tweet. "We are a united country." . . ."


"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . 
-John Adams

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. . . The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
-Thomas Jefferson

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.  Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.
-Benjamin Franklin

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Well I'll be . . .

. . .  a monkey's uncle. . .

 . . . I guess she doesn't believe in evolution NOW. . .

(from CNN)
"Leah Libresco, who’d been a prominent atheist blogger for the religion website Patheos, announced on her blog this week that after years of debating many “smart Christians,” she has decided to become one herself, and that she has begun the process of converting to Catholicism.

Libresco, who had long blogged under the banner “Unequally Yoked: A geeky atheist picks fights with her Catholic boyfriend,” said that at the heart of her decision were questions of morality and how one finds a moral compass.

“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to,” Libresco told CNN in an interview this week, a small cross dangling from her neck. “And it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.”

According to a Patheos post she wrote on Monday, entitled “This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal,” she began to see parts of Christianity and Catholicism that fit her moral system. Though she now identifies as a Catholic, Libresco questions certain aspects of Catholicism, including the church’s positions on homosexuality, contraception and some aspects of religious liberty.

“There was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth,” Libresco wrote about Catholicism in her conversion announcement post, which has been shared over 18,000 times on Facebook. “I asked my friend what he suggests we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together.”

At the end of the post, Libresco announces that she is in a Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults class and is preparing for baptism. She will continue to blog for Patheos, but under the banner, “A geeky convert picks fights in good faith.”

According to Dan Welch, director of marketing for Patheos, Libresco’s post has received around 150,000 page views so far.

“Leah's blog has gotten steadily more popular since she arrived at Patheos, but a typical post on her blog is probably closer to the range of 5,000 page views,” Welch wrote in an email. “Even now, a few days later, her blog is probably getting 20-30 times its normal traffic.”

Libresco’s announcement has left some atheists scratching their heads.

“I think atheists were surprised that she went with Catholicism, which seems like a very specific choice,” Hemant Mehta, an atheist blogger at Patheos, told CNN. “I have a hard time believing how someone could jump from I don’t believe in God to a very specific church and a very specific God.”

Mehta says that Libresco’s conversion is a “one-off thing” and not something that signals any trend in atheism. “The trends are very clear, the conversions from Catholicism to atheism are much more likely to happen than the other way around,” he said. . . "

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