The atheist billboard reading “Imagine No Religion” has been taken down shortly after it was put up in Rancho Cucamonga, California. There were 90 complaints and the city demanded its removal and the General Outdoor company was more than willing to comply. Yet, the billboard on the right a few years ago seems perfectly acceptable in West Virginia. 
I am not sure why Freedom From Religion Foundation did not replace the billboard with “Imagine No Free Speech.”
The West Virginia sign appears to be nothing but a crowd pleaser in West Virginia.
This is a true lesson into deductive reasoning gone terribly wrong by the Rev. E.F. Briggs of Monongah, West Virginia. The Reverend must have been filled with God’s Love on the holidays when he wrote:
Attention: Lunatics Atheists & Their Lawyers
Anti-God is Anti-American
Anti-American is Treason
Traitors Lead to Civil War
If you simply remove the word American and replaced it with Iranian, you would have the perfect sign for Tehran. How about this alternative following the same deductive reasoning:
Attention: Fanatics Theocrats & Their Ministers
God Loves Freedom
Freedom Requires a Separation of Church and State
Separation is Opposed by Religious Fanatics
Religious Fanatics Hate God.
Or then there is the more personal
America Loves Freedom
Freedom Demands Church and State Separation
Rev. Briggs Hates Separation
Rev. Briggs Hates AmericaBriggs passed away in 2006 so he may be in a better place or, God help him, a pure free speech zone where he has to listen to opposing views for eternity.
For the world according to Briggs, click here.
New York Times:
“In Banking, Emanuel Made Money and Connections
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: December 3, 2008
“……..Mr. Emanuel, who was chosen last month to become President-elect Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, went on to make more than $18 million in just two-and-a-half years, turning many of his contacts in his substantial political Rolodex into paying clients and directing his negotiating prowess and trademark intensity to mergers and acquisitions. He also benefited from the opportune sale of Wasserstein Perella to a German bank, helping him to an unusually large payout.
The period before he was elected to a House seat from Illinois is a little-known episode of Mr. Emanuel’s biography. Former colleagues said the insight it afforded him on the financial services sector is invaluable especially now. But Mr. Emanuel built up strong ties with an industry now at the heart of the economic crisis, one that will be girding for a pitched lobbying battle next year as the incoming Democratic administration considers a potentially sweeping regulatory overhaul………”
“…..After Mr. Emanuel left banking to run for Congress, members of the securities and investment industry became his biggest backers, donating more than $1.5 million to his campaigns dating back to 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mr. Emanuel also leaned heavily upon the industry………”
These are the Chicago politicians that will bring……”change.”
waynebro (idiot boy) writes: “Half a dozen nuclear warheads detonating over their cities, laying waste to their homeland for the next century, wiping out their population and contaminating most of the survivors? Not to mention the inevitable US and UN follow up strikes?”
I guess waynebro has zero knowledge of Radical Islam and the belief of the inevitability of the Final Battle to them. They believe the sacrifice of 24 million Iranians and an entire country would be but a speck in the eye of Allah whom they believe would be guiding them to a new world ruled by Shariah Law and that the Final Battle would be glorious for Islam. Waynebro: this is not Nazi’s or a Japanese emperor we are fighting for land, culture, and possessions. These radicals believe they are fighting for their Koran, their souls, the hereafter, and eternity with Allah.
Grow up little boy.
“IF IRAN DECIDES THAT THEY CAN “TAKE THE HIT” ON A HALF DOZEN NUCLEAR HITS FROM ISRAEL WHEN IT WOULD ONLY TAKE TWO OR THREE TO COMPLETELY OBLITERATE ISRAEL; IRAN MAY VERY WELL DECIDE IT IS WORTH IT.”
Worth what? Half a dozen nuclear warheads detonating over their cities, laying waste to their homeland for the next century, wiping out their population and contaminating most of the survivors? Not to mention the inevitable US and UN follow up strikes?
For a guy who talks so tough you must really be quite the fraidy cat to think Iran wants to self destruct anytime soon. Perhaps all of you brave neconservatives should all run out and purchase steel panic cages, you know, like those ones they sold on TV right after 911 for all you brave homeland defense types? Just buy em all up. I’m sure you’ll get bulk pricing.
Then you can all bury them in the ground, climb in and pull the doors shut behind you.
We’ll call you when it’s safe to come out.
blinky:
SHOUTING is bad form. Take a typing class after you apologize to Flower Child who likely has more coherence stoned than you do stone sober–or at least I suppose you are sober!
FLOWER CHILD: YOU ARE SO NAIVE IT IS SCARY.
OUT OF A DOZEN OR MORE POSSIBILITIES I OFFER YOU JUST TWO:
IF IRAN DECIDES THAT THEY CAN “TAKE THE HIT” ON A HALF DOZEN NUCLEAR HITS FROM ISRAEL WHEN IT WOULD ONLY TAKE TWO OR THREE TO COMPLETELY OBLITERATE ISRAEL; IRAN MAY VERY WELL DECIDE IT IS WORTH IT.
IF IRAN CAN GET THE INTELLIGENCE NECESSARY FOR A FIRST HIT THAT WOULD WIPE OUT ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR BOMBS THEY VERY WELL WOULD DECIDE TO GO AHEAD AND OBLITERATE ISRAEL. IRAN NEEDS TO KNOW IF THAT IS THE CASE; IF THEY ATTACKED ISRAEL IN A MANNER THAT RENDERED IT UNABLE TO RETALIATE, IRAN HAS TO KNOW AMERICA WOULD OBLITERATE IRAN.
BUT WHAT YOU ARE MISSING IS THE POINT THAT OBAMA IS APPARENTLY SIGNALLING THAT HE HAS GIVEN UP ON TRYING TO KEEP IRAN FROM OBTAINING A NUCLEAR WEAPON. NOW WHAT THAT MEANS IS AMERICA WILL FACE A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST WHEN IRAN SPIRITS ONE OF THEIR BOMBS TO AL QUEDA AND THEN SAYS “WHO, US?” WHEN IT GOES OFF IN DOWNTOWN NEW YORK CITY.
FLOWER CHILD; NATURE HAD A WAY OF WEEDING STUPID HUMANS OUT FOR CENTURIES. NOW THAT WE HAVE SUCH GREAT MEDICINE AND TECHNOLOGY IT APPEARS OUR RACE IS BECOMING INFESTED WITH VERY STUPID PEOPLE THAT THINK IT CUTE TO HAME THEMSELVES AFTER HIPPIES.
CAN YOU IMPEACH A PRESIDENT-ELECT BEFORE HE IS SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT? I THINK OBAMA HAS A WEE OF A PROBLEM IN CHICAGO.
And that Henry, would be a “good thing”! I hope that’s exactly what happens. I sure would like to hear all the complaints, I’m guessing they’d be pretty “jarring”!
“I understand people have freedom of speech, but this is taking it too far,” she said. “It’s very jarring.”
Somebody wasn’t paying attention in Civics class. How free is speech that can’t be jarring? Moreover, what’s so jarring about Lennon’s lyric?
To barry obama above:
“Richard Fernandez has quite properly called attention to the news that Obama seems to be offering Israel an American “nuclear umbrella” against Iran. If true (and the Israeli press is not always accurate about these things), it means, as Richard says, that Obama has essentially abandoned his campaign promise to go all-out to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb. Instead of prevention, American policy would henceforth rest on deterrence.”
I doubt seriously that Israel needs the US to provide a nuclear umbrella. It’s an open secret that Israel has all the nukes it needs to do the job on Iran.
The court can also order the city to allow the billboard to be put back up, for whatever length of time it was entitled to be up.
If the city demanded the removal of the billboard on the basis of complaints over its message, and that seems to be the case, then the city has violated the First Amendment and can be sued for damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983.
December 11th, 2008 10:01 am
Obama “Accepts” Iran’s Bomb
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
Richard Fernandez has quite properly called attention to the news that Obama seems to be offering Israel an American “nuclear umbrella” against Iran. If true (and the Israeli press is not always accurate about these things), it means, as Richard says, that Obama has essentially abandoned his campaign promise to go all-out to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb. Instead of prevention, American policy would henceforth rest on deterrence.
So much for Norman Podhoretz, who has been telling us all along that Bush would never permit this development. And so much for Sy Hersh and the others seized by blind hatred for BushHitlerCheney, who have been telling us that the United States was preparing to attack Iran.
I never believed these stories, because it’s been clear for several years that this administration had fallen into the same trap as every other president for the past thirty years: believing that one could make a deal with Iran that would obviate the need for serious action. I wrote a book saying just that, and it’s been borne out.
I think the “realists” will now say “so what? So Iran gets the bomb. We lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we can live with a nuclear Iran.” Never mind that the Iranian leaders are believers in an apocalyptic ideology which embraces death, chaos and destruction. Never mind that the mullahs have promised to destroy Western civilization. Deterrence worked before, and it will work again. We’ll be hearing a lot of this sort of talk from Establishment types at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Scowcroftians.
It’s nonsense. The mullahs can’t be deterred, because they see death as a triumph. As Swift once said, you can’t reason a man out of something he wasn’t reasoned into in the first place.
The real world is full of paradoxes, of which two should seize our attention. First, those who avoid conflict in the name of peace, often make war more likely. All those who have been demanding that we “make nice” to Iran in order to prevent BushHitlerCheney from launching war against the mullahs, have it precisely backwards. Iran launched war on us thirty years ago, and the only question is whether we will win or lose. The longer we wait, the stronger and more aggressive the Iranians become. Thus, the global role of Hezbollah. Thus, the expansion of Iranian military forces into the Horn of Africa and Latin America. Thus, the nukes.
Second, I have always believed that the mullahs made a strategic error by pursuing nuclear weapons. Without the nuclear program, I can’t imagine that the West would have taken the (mostly ineffective) steps to sanction the Iranian regime. The acquisition of nukes will raise the ante. It may even convince America and some other countries that the regime in Tehran must be brought down.
That remains an option, in my mind the best option. Democratic revolution in Iran has a lot going for it, and I believe the Iranian people would support it if they saw that the United States would do the same. To date, not a single leading politician or pundit in this country has embraced this strategy, even though it succeeded against the Soviet Empire, a vastly more powerful enemy than Iran. Perhaps the nukes will concentrate their minds at long last.
gyges:
Right you are!
FFLEO,
There’s no such thing as a mild mannered atheist. It’s just piece of Communist propaganda like Sinatra’s 50th Birthday.
This is a clearly copyright infringement…!!!
‘Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too’…
Gee Jill,
I am a mild-mannered atheist compared to you. Remind me never to visit your town if I ever back-slide into my reborn again Southern Baptist religion.
Complaints? That’s it??? Onward Christian Soldiers indeed! If that billboard had been in my city I would have wrapped myself in the christmas tree, got my gun and set up a manger scene right underneath that sign. I would have thrown frankincense and myrrh at any motorist who I deemed sympathetic to that message. I would have rigged my naked baby Jesus to shoot pee at anyone who came near and murmured approval. These people are namby pamby christians. I’m with seamus, let the civil war begin!
Mespo,
I don’t know, what if we’ve been putting the emphasis in the wrong place of that famous “shouting fire in a theater” exception. Perhaps it should be placed on the shouting rather than what’s being shouted; anyone shouting in a theater would be jarring to those others in attendance.
Damn you seamus — to Rancho Cucamonga. Why can’t I reason like that?
“There were 90 complaints and the city demanded its removal….”
********
Could I have the case against the City? Pretty please?
That’s for another day, but here are the sagacious comments of one Judy Rooze as taken from the article: “Judy Rooze, administrator of First Baptist Church of Rancho Cucamonga, which is two blocks from the billboard, was relieved it was coming down. … “I understand people have freedom of speech, but this is taking it too far,” she said. “It’s very jarring.”
Oh, the tender sensibilities of these Christian soldiers. “Very Jarring”–now that’s a convincing reason to shield one from opposing viewpoints. Must be no civics classes in Rancho Cucamonga!
A bologna sandwich is better than nothing,
Nothing is better than Jesus,
So….A bologna sandwich is better than Jesus!
Let the Civil War begin!!!!!!!!!