Almost every ordinary person believes that anyone born on Birthright Citizenship in the
U.S. Citizenship (Wikipedia)
Fourteenth Amendment (Wikipedia)
Citizenship Clause (Wikipedia)
Mexican nationality law (Wikipedia)
Arizona attacks birthright citizenship (New American)
The terrible mistake of revoking BRC (NY Daily news)
A heavy price to ending BRC (LA Times)
AZ Leg targets BRC (WSJ)
BRC fight begins in AZ (AZR)
Ending BRC wouldn’t stop illegals (Immigration Policy)
State of the Republican response (Huffington Post)
Michelle Bachmann response (NPR)
Increase the House (NYT)
Hospital visitation rules are in effect (White House)
Conviction and civility (Jim Wallis and Chuck Colson)
Brewer launches school choice site (AZR)
In his own words: radical pro-abortion President (Albert Mohler)
Obama’s statement on Roe v Wade (White House)
Consumers not warming to the new light bulbs (NBC)
Royals pitcher retires rather than taking the money (NYT)
Social Security gone by 2037 (AP)
Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.~If you really hate someone, being decent is a form of lying.
~Honesty is always better, even if it’s mean honesty.
~You should be able to express yourself any way you want to. That’s what people have fought and died to protect in this country.
~It’s less effective than being rude.
~Humor and negative emotion are extremely powerful persuasive tools.
~Negative ads get run in campaigns for a reason. Because negative emotion works.
~Some people don’t deserve respect. To offer it to them is to legitimize them.
~Some ideas don’t’ deserve respect. To treat them with it is to legitimize them.
~Incivility at root is an attempt to make our opponents look bad, when they really are bad.
~Democracy presumes the ability and willingness to hear everyone’s point of view.
~Free speech presumes that anyone can communicate any idea in any way he is able. If he stutters, we should still listen. If he swears, well, some people swear a lot.
~All this talk about being nice to one another is a distraction from the real issues which are what inspired all the rude talk in the first place.
~Sometimes it takes rudeness to penetrate a closed mind. “Gosh why does everyone hate me and treat me so badly?”
~“Be more civil” is what the Baptist leadership told MLK jr.
~Civiltarians are more interested in losing well than winning badly.
~Rudeness is a form of power, and we should use power for good purposes.
~Polite protestors don’t get air time and genial guests don’t get invited on talk shows.
~Civility is just another way of marginalizing those who aren’t skilled at the rules of etiquette.
~Elijah was not particularly polite to the prophets of Baal, nor Jesus to the moneychangers or the Pharisees.
Matthew 7:7-12
7"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8"For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
9"Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?
10"Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?
11"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
12"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Luke 11:1-13
1It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples."
2And He said to them, "When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. 3'Give us each day our daily bread. 4'And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.'"
5Then He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves;
6for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him';
7and from inside he answers and says, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.'
8"I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10"For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
11"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
12"Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? 13"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"
In 
Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.
~Other countries have passed
~Parents don’t always know best.
~Catholics don’t have church choice, and this seems to work just fine for them.
~Competition only saps the best participants to alternative schools, thereby harming the other students and the overall appearance (numbers) of the public school.
~Fragmentation of education undermines the purpose of having a common education for all people.
~Common culture comes from a common educational experience.
~More choice puts you under greater pressure to decide rather than just working to make the thing you’re stuck with better.
~Marriage is a covenant, which, after you make it you have no subsequent choices and this is the key to a good, committed marriage. What you’re proposing is more of a cohabitation arrangement with a school, which reduces your incentive to make it work and increases your incentive to just flee for a new and more seductive lover.
~There simply aren’t enough seats in alternative schools to satisfy the number of students.
~If competition is always a good thing, why don’t we have two or more militaries competing with each other?
~What will happen to the poorest, least-mobile students from the most dysfunctional families if the best students, teachers, and funding flee the public system for one they can’t get into?
~We used to have one of the best school systems in the world, despite it being almost entirely government-delivered, public schools.
~Other than blind faith in the free market, what evidence do you have that introducing the profit motive to schooling will do more to make education good instead of just making the effective selling of education more lucrative?
~How able is the average parent at telling the difference between good and bad education?
~When people choose for themselves, they choose American Idol and Jerry Springer. Shows like The West Wing get cancelled.
~Are you going to force private schools to admit troubled kids?
~If competition is always so good and accountability even better, maybe parents should have to compete for the right to keep their children?
Links:
Scholarly Literature on School Choice (Cato Institute)
The myth of competition (Humanist)
Parables of Jesus 22: Building a Tower and the King Going to War (Luke 14:25-35) 25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them,
26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
29 "Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'
31 "Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
32 "Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
33 "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
34 "Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
35 "It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
It certainly hasn’t caught on to any significant degree, but George Weigel, an extremely serious Catholic scholar, has used the term to talk about Rhetorical McCarthyism beats Islamophobia (Francis Beckwith)
Christophobe (Urban Dictionary)
Christophobia (
The rise of Christophobia (National Post)
Christophobia on campus (Christian Research Institute)
Christophobia and Culture (
Christophobia and Rhetorical McCartyhism (Blog)
Westboro cult agrees not to picket Tucson (AZR) IL raises income taxes 66% (CSM)
5 of Jared Loughner’s strange ideas (CSM)
As portrait sharpens, vitriol-blame fades (CSM)
Christian clothing company invited to Oscars (CSM)
President Obama’s speech (White House)
Obama calls for a more civil nation (WSJ)
As we mourn (NYT)
Luke 171He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!
2"It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3"Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
4"And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him."
5The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
6And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you.
7"Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down to eat'?
8"But will he not say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink'?
9"He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?
10"So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'"
As we all know, Saturday, a man went to a meet and greet style political event with Congressman Gabrielle Giffords and wound up shooting her and several others, wounding 14 and killing 6 so far. Since this has been such an important event in 
The achievement test (David Brooks)Anonymity and the dark side of the Internet (NYT Blogs)
GOP asks businesses which rules to rewrite (NYT)
Homeschooled girl ordered to public school over faith (C Post)
ADF working on homeschool girl case (ADF)
Homeschool community tops 2 million (C Post)
Transplant ends an ordeal for convicts (NYT)
Kidney donations prompts ethics debate (Wash Post)
Mocked as uncool, the minivan rises again (NYT)
An inventive foreclosure alternative (NYT)
New edition of Huck Finn loses N-word (USA Today)
That’s not Twain (NYT)
NFL’s new OT rule means extra choices (NYT)
Journal paper on ESP will outrage many (NYT)
CASC: Cops can search phone without warrant (JNF)
Gay group in, values groups out at CPAC (Wash Times)
Evangelical backlash against environmentalism (NYT Blogs)
Police defend ticket for couple in labor (Manchester News)
Fighting a ticket due to emergency (Traffic Violation Law Firms)
Why the creation-evolution debate matters (Albert Mohler)
KKK snowman gets frosty response (USA Today)
Napolitano: El Al approach won’t work here (Fox News)
Gay characters showing up on teen shows (LA Times)
Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.
Note 2: This topic is in response to a story in the Christian Post about atheists putting up a billboard to this effect in
-We’re not targeting adherents, but doubters who are hiding in their skeptical closets and need to know there’s a place for them to be honest. Why would you want people in church who don’t really believe it?
-Can you show me heaven or hell? Can you show me the people who wind up there? And can you then show me clearly that those people wound up there for the reasons you claim?
-A scam is a ploy to raise money, a fraudulent business scheme or an attempt to intentionally mislead a person usually with the goal of financial or other gain.
-What do religious leaders do, exactly, except tell nice stories and pretend to be your friend?
-Where does all that money go? What would happen if everyone stopped giving the scammers their money? What percentage of churches would go away? You’ll notice that every religion has some pretty serious pronouncements about money, right?
-Each of these systems claims to be the only way and truth, yet they all have incompatible claims about how that is done.
-If God were really real, why would He let all this nonsense about Him be proclaimed so badly and falsely?
-If you really believed what you say you believe, you wouldn’t be so easily angered by a billboard put up by people like us. Your anger and outrage only proves how insecure and uncertain you really are despite your bluster and protestations.
Parables of Jesus 21: The Fig Tree (Luke 13)
The Slave at Duty (Luke 17)
Luke 13
1Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
2And Jesus said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate?
3"I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
4"Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?
5"I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
6And He began telling this parable: "A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.
7"And he said to the vineyard-keeper, 'Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?'
8"And he answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer;
9and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.'"
Luke 17
1He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!
2"It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3"Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
4"And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him."
5The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
6And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you.
7"Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down to eat'?
8"But will he not say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink'?
9"He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?
10"So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'"
Is snooping your spouse’s email a crime? (WSJ)
Husband’s email snooping may get five years (Computer World)
MI hacking case opens US to ridicule (Politics Daily)
More details on the case (Oakland Press)
