So, I'm at the bar the other day, and by the front door I notice this box of leaflets. Penny savers, you know, the kind that have a bunch of ads for local businesses and other semi useless crap. Well, this particular one grabs my attention because the headline is written in 1" high flames: "TOLERANT... YOU WANT US TO BE TOLERANT? TOLERATE THIS!." So I think to myself, this should be good, and I grab a copy on my way out.

The article is written by the publisher and presumably the editor as well, a Mr. Robert Beierle. This fellow goes on to complain about all the "liberals" in the world who are "demanding" that he, and his fellow "legal" American citizens, tolerate Muslims and homosexuals and "whacko environmentalists" and illegal immigrants. He spends two pages ranting about the Cordoba House project, a community center being built in lower Manhattan. He accuses Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (a prominent NY Muslim cleric, who has not only spoken out against the radicalization of Islam, but also assisted the FBI in fighting it) of being a terrorist and channeling money to terrorist groups. He then goes on to call Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, a "butthole" for supporting the First Amendment rights of Muslims.

Mr. Beierle does make one good point though: we have here a group of people who follow a religion that stones homosexuals, adulterers, and heretics (literally); and is so intolerant of other religions that they've been fighting holy wars for 1400 years, yet they ask us for the tolerance to practice their religion. Now, I know that this is the type of fanaticism that Imam Rauf is trying to downplay, but it does happen. Just like Christian fanatics bomb abortion centers, and Jewish fanatics build walls and camps. So maybe we should look at what we tolerate before we start pointing fingers at what others will tolerate, hmm?

Now, this whole "Ground Zero Mosque" thing has been blown way out of proportion by the media and certain politicians who can sense their 15 minutes expiring and are stretching them as long as possible. Personally, I think that anyone who doesn't live in New York or didn't lose someone on 9/11/01 should just keep their big nose out of it, because it has absolutely no affect on your life. I could write an entire post on the rest of what I think about this situation, but a nice man over at Cracked.com (of all places) has already summed it up pretty well.

The rant then veers off on another topic: gay marriage. Mr. Beierle seems to think that the recent ruling on Proposition 8 in California is a case of a judge legislating from the bench. His argument is that the people spoke, and a judge came in and changed the law based on his personal bias. Never mind that the law itself was unconstitutional, or that it discriminated based on sexual orientation. This is clearly another case of liberals shoving their ideals down the throats of God fearing, legal, Christian American tax-paying citizens!

Look, what it comes down to is this: Mr. Beierle says he's ok with "union ceremonies" (whatever that might be), which would probably be just dandy in the eyes of most homosexuals, if those "union ceremonies" carried the same legal rights as a marriage ceremony. But they don't. What we're talking about here is a legal definition, which has nothing to do with your religious beliefs, so I'll make you a deal here: I won't start a religion based on the American legal system if you won't write laws based on your religious beliefs, ok?

There's more here, about Michele Obama, and people in uniform, and illegal immigrants... it just goes on and on. I won't bore you with the rest, but suffice to say it's a rant that would have made Goebbels proud. What I'm really getting at here is this: I hope, Mr. Robert Beierle of Creative Insight (a most ironic name), that you have enjoyed your rant. I hope that you enjoy your First Amendment rights to free speech, religion, and press; rights you would deny others because they don't share your beliefs. I may not like what you say, and I think you are ignorant and sad, but I will tolerate you saying it, because it is your right, and to deny yours would cheapen mine. I would hope that you might read this, but apparently you haven't figured out the Internet just yet. That's ok, maybe someone will print it out for you.

"Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population."

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Welcome to today's episode of Profiles in Stupidity. On our show today, a man from Parsippany, NJ who was arrested by police after asking them to search his home. What did they find? Crack vials and hypodermic needles! Parsippany police give man a ride, bust him for drugs.

That's right. This dude was wandering around on Route 46, trying to get someone to let him use their cell phone, when the cops pulled up. He explained that he was trying to call a friend to get a ride home. They offered him a ride, as he was endangering himself walking on a busy highway. When they got there, he asked them to enter the house, because the back door was open. When the police entered the house, they found "several hypodermic needles on the floor, vials containing a white powder residue and a pipe normally used for smoking crack cocaine."

Of course, they arrested the man. My question for you, dear reader, is this: who is the real moron here? Is it the man who asked police to enter his home when he knew he had needles and other paraphernalia lying around? The police officer, who didn't stop to think that maybe whomever left the door open might have also left the drugs in this man's home, that maybe the paraphernalia wasn't his? Or the reporter who couldn't be bothered to research his story and actually answer some of these pertinent questions?

Go read the article. I'll post the link again : Parsippany police give man a ride, bust him for drugs. Nowhere in there does the author mention if the suspect was on drugs, tested for drugs, or even acting strangely. Other than being out on the highway, looking for a ride home, we know nothing of the man's behavior that seems out of the ordinary. Even that is not really odd, considering the man was on foot 3 miles from home. We don't know how he got there. Did he walk? Maybe his car broke down. Did he get off the bus at the wrong stop? Or maybe he was so hopped up on crack that he walked for 3 miles before realizing it, and as he came down decided he needed a ride home. We'll never know.

I like to think the police in my community are somewhat intelligent people, that they don't just go around arresting people without cause. I mean, at the very least, it's a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out. When I see this a few days later, it really makes me think. Maybe there's something going on here. Maybe the police are just arresting people because they have nothing better to do. I try to give police officers the benefit of the doubt; after all, they're putting their lives on the line to try to protect people. But when my news source is so inaccurate, when the reporter can't even get the basic facts of a story, it makes me wonder who I can trust.

People wonder why newspapers in the US are dying. They wonder why more and more of our news comes from the internet and cable TV. I can't speak for most Americans. I think that cable and network TV news is a load of crap. These two articles are an example of a plague that is killing newspaper reporting. The more newspapers try to be like the cable TV news, to try and distill and distort the news into little sound bites, the more people will stop reading. The more people will come to blogs like this one, which is more editorial than actual news.

Oh, and then there's this.




"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."

Gertrude Stein