Here's to a libertarian anti-theology

Considering that I describe myself as a libertarian and freethinker, I have been a bit lax of late in promoting the libertarian view, and especially at suggesting how the two might be linked.
To me, the two things are interlinked, and the obsession of many atheists/humanists with soft left/liberal views of the world which are (in practice) paternalistic, over-reliant on welfare-statism or (at times) just plain dead in the water is a constant frustration for me. I know from new alliances I've made in the last few years it is for many others 'written out' of mainstream humanism too, which is why we've been kicking off about it.
While I was one of the first to pop my head above the parapet, sadly, introducing the concept of ‘secular methodism’ to humanist circles might have been my only contribution to this noble struggle. Meanwhile, I see Diesel Balaam, for example, plugging away in the letters pages of The Freethinker to push us secularists beyond a wishy-washy middle of the road version of liberalism and back to thinking about the real meaning of the term.
So, if I was a young schoolie my end of term report this month probably would be saying ‘must try harder’. This I undertake to do, always providing I don't have to stop joking about it too. To paraphrase Emma Goldman, 'If I can't laugh, I don't want any part in the revolution.'
For a start, as nobody in the UK except the Spiked posse is taking on the vacuous new British temperance-nazi lobby (which, in turn, causes nonsense like the island’s ‘voluntary’ alcohol sales codes) I had to turn to the US for a spot of inspiration laced with a strong slug of humour.
I found some recently in the work of Jeffrey A. Tucker (and you do have to like a bloke who writes a book called Bourbon for Breakfast: Living outside the Statist Quo).
In Repeal the Drinking Age (see http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker177.html ) Tucker lays into the ridiculous nationwide US ban on anyone under 21 consuming booze. As almost anyone who’s been to the US knows, in practice this ban is ignored, except for times when it suits authority to stop other activities. For example, any attempts at a self-sufficient youth culture where kids actually discuss and do intelligent, socially progressive stuff instead of vegging out and/or reading the Bible.
He goes on to argue that: “With the two-thirds and more of people under the age of 21 reporting that they have consumed alcohol in the last year, it should be obvious that the law is doing nothing but providing a gigantic excuse for arbitrary police-state impositions on human liberty, and also socializing young people in a habit of hypocrisy and law breaking. It’s like the old Soviet-style joke: they pretend to regulate us and we pretend to be regulated.”
Writing just after Independence Day, Tucker ends his piece by saying: “The founders would have never imagined such a thing as a national law regulating the age at which beer, wine, port, and other alcoholic beverages are consumed. If we are serious about embracing their vision of a free society, as opposed to just blathering about it, let’s start with something that is supremely practical and would have immediate effects on an entire generation: repeal the national minimum drinking age law.
You say that this is unthinkable? I say that you don’t really believe in human liberty. “
Closer to home, I’d not only agree with the above but add that the last thing on the minds of the pathetic church-led, state-sponsored Manx agencies theoretically ‘concerned’ with the ‘welfare’ of young people is encouraging any sort of social set-up in which teenagers take control of their own lives, or parents and guardians are allowed to help them do so.

Out in the sticks no-one can hear kids scream

There was more in this week’s local paper about the plans for a new redneck brainwashing centre (sorry, ‘Christian youth facility’) at a former country pub out in the sticks where no-one can hear the victims scream. You can read it at
http://www.iomtoday.co.im/south-news/Lancashire-Hotel-gets-new-lease.5216133.jp if you have a strong stomach.
I howled with laughter at comments like….

‘You can see their excitement and the relationship between them and the volunteers growing. The one that sticks in my mind is it's boys who do not have fathers, they have no male role models ... the volunteers are successful guys that can operate as role models’.

Since when is a bumpkin with a bible a ‘role model’, unless you’re planning on becoming a professional bigot when you’ve failed school?
And how about….

'There is a generation of fatherless boys. Single mums do a fantastic job but they can not be fathers. Well over 50 per cent of our volunteers are males, it's often women who do this kind of work, so it's good to see guys stepping up to the plate and putting in an effort there. It takes time to listen to their stories and want to share their stories and feed into their lives. I was able to share about God being the heavenly father who never rejects us, it's a lovely parallel.’

Oh, pass the sick bag! And if you are responsible for a young person, then do NOT let these voodoo-merchants into the same room as your loved one.
EVER!!!!!
Look, I happen to know that this ‘role model’, while involved in a ridiculous ‘mentoring’ scheme in a local high school, sent text messages to a girl in her early teens who had previously, and emphatically, rejected his ‘offers’ of ‘help’. He is an unwelcome religious parasite, and the subject of at least one complaint sent directly to the Director of Education for this and similar incidents. I saw one of the letters, and there was even talk of a petition to get him banned from any school premises.
You have to ask yourself; how does a ‘youth pastor’ (not a member of school staff so there as a guest and with no access to confidential pupil records) get hold of a mobile number not given to any except the girl’s closest friends and otherwise known only to key staff for emergencies?
The answer should have led the Director of Education to investigate staff collusion with evangelical cults, and in particular staff openly connected with the Southern Daft Cult. It didn’t, and as far as I know ‘youth pastors’ are still trolling around certain school corridors looking for fresh victims.
Another worrying thing is the way that kids from non-conventional families are targeted by such klingons as needing ‘pastoral help’, and that the Department of Education turns a blind eye to illegal activity which, to be blunt, most of us would regard as ‘grooming’. Ironically, while this is an offence under the very same Sexual Offences Act which a couple of years ago equalised the age of gay consent with the UK, it was only included in the first place to keep prominent local Christian homophobes happy.
I also happen to know that local evangelicals see it as ‘legitimate tactics’ to try and split such kids from their families because non-Christians (and even Catholics) are seen as a ‘bad influence’. I have that from an evangelical in a key government position who openly admitted it as ‘background information’ for a story when I worked for the local press.
People with a serious interest in child welfare need to ask themselves if, the way things are going, we need better protection for our kids. Not just from superstitious halfwits like Porter and his lawbreaking teacher buddies, but the Education Department’s plans for‘Multi Agency Teams’ where similar flat-earthers will be over-represented.
That you can take as a depressing certainty, so better start idiot-proofing your offspring now.

New threat to children announced

The recent announcement on the Manx government website of a ‘working group’ chaired by the Education Minister, Anne ‘parson’s pal’ Craine, to ‘develop and enhance children and young people’s facilities within the community’ (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/cso/newinitiativeonf.xml) is bad news for several reasons.
Bad news firstly because it is under Craine’s regime that evangelicals have been allowed to use schools for depraved gatherings on Sundays – for which several sources suggest they don’t even pay.
Bad news because when it says they will consult churches, in practice it is even worse. There are only three churches likely to be on this bandwagon, and none of them are places where your child would be safe.
The last time one of them ran such a project it was closed, as far as I can tell finally because nearby residents objected regularly to the police about the number of kids sitting outside, purely because it was a handy meeting place (although the church tried to claim them as ‘members’ in funding bids). However, even before that there was the matter of a cleric, finally imprisoned for offences involving an underage girl, but before that families of others were ‘advised’ against alleging that he’d known them biblically on youth club nights .
Then there was the curious affair of the vanishing sound system. Originally this was highly publicised as an example of the kind of misguided youth the project dealt with, only for investigations to stop when another suspect to emerge was a volunteer who, on closer analysis, had never quite severed past links with loyalist thugs.
The last time another of them planned such a project, back in the early 1980’s, it didn’t even open! That didn’t prevent a six-figure legacy being spent and a building meant to entice kids away from strong drink being sold to a brewery and turned into a nightclub.
Then there is the more recent planning application by Southern rednecks to turn a former country pub in the middle of nowhere into a ‘youth social centre’. I’ve speculated on that before (see Youth facility? Don't bet on it!).
It also worries me that at least two local developers have stooges on the management committees of these churches, curiously always well briefed enough to guide the churches towards likely public funds at times when the sale of property they own would secure said developers key spots for future developments.
There used to be a TV advert which asked ‘Do you know where your kids are tonight?’
I tell you bluntly, if yours are ever at a ‘youth facility’ run by these chancers you need to be very worried, for their physical safety and their sanity.

Youth facility? Don't bet on it!

A small item in this week’s Examiner has me wondering if local kids are about to get groomed by quite unsuitable adults. IOM Newspaper staff notoriously avoid investigative work which upsets the local elite, so I suspect the story only fills a hole on the page, but still curious.
The dreaded Living Hope Community Church (AKA 'the Southern Daft Cult') have a change of use planning application in for the old Lancashire House pub, a tumbledown dump out in the Santon wilderness. They want to turn it into a ‘youth social centre’, which is curious as there are only half a dozen houses within miles in either direction.
'The Lanky' was a handy watering hole halfway between Douglas and Castletown in horsedrawn days, flogged off by the brewery years ago as it hasn’t brought in drinkers for decades. It was bought by a local entrepreneur who made millions from contract services to the hospital and prison building schemes -always remarkably well informed and ahead of the contractor queue in such things.
He seemed to be on another winner, setting up a child day care centre on the main road halfway between two major centres of offshore finance activity. Despite family connections which should have brought in the richest rugrats on the island, that also failed. Again – curious.
But there’s something else – either again curious but a total coincidence or worth looking at.
A couple of miles away is Mount Murray, whose history is already rather eventful (see, for example, http://www.privy-council.org.uk/files/other/mount%20murray-final.rtf, and if you really have the time http://www.gov.im/cso/crown/mountmurray.xml and http://www.gov.im/cso/crown/mountmurrayparttwo.xml). Now Albert Gubay, the real figure behind Mount Murray, is talking of developing a casino there (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Major-holiday-development-planned-for.4793630.jp).
Of course, we already have an island casino, at the Douglas Hilton, owned by George Ferguson Lacey, who also owns the vacant Castle Mona hotel site and is therefore in a position to quickly develop another nightspot – whenever the heritage and other government grants come through judging by his previous record with other ‘heritage sites’ (Bishopscourt, The Nunnery, Rushen Abbey…).
And Ferguson Lacey is a keen sponsor of various local evangelicals, who even tells folk he once hung out with Billy Graham and Richard Nixon. Curious clash of interests considering the usual religious objection to gambling (and folk enjoying themselves in general).
Similarly, Gubay has been known to court religious interests once or twice in a career originally built on a supermarket chain which flouted the old Sunday trading laws. So take note of the statement in the iomtoday article that: ‘It would be his intention to give 20 per cent of the yearly profits from the casino to worthy causes. A committee would be appointed to decide which causes would benefit.’
I wonder. Could we be in for a bidding war involving two of the island’s most ambitious developers trying to buy off the ‘moral majority’ in the form of the island’s scuzziest religious racketeers?
Whatever happens, if local youth services cannot get basic government grants while six figure sums get thrown at fundamentalist throwbacks for ‘youth outreach’ it's a safe bet the immediate future for Manx youngsters is a bleak one.

Christ in a Cage

I see that the tightwads up at the Tourist Department are up to their usual tricks again.
There’s an ongoing problem with places for kids to go and do stuff, but, hey, let’s not splash out on proper facilities. Why not just get some godbothering throwbacks to bring over a cross between five a side footie and cage-fighting. Then we can spend the difference on a ‘fact-finding’ mission to the Bahamas or something instead.
Think I’m kidding?
Take a look at http://www.gov.im/lib/news/tourism/giantsportscaget.xml.
But it gets worse. British Youth For Christ (charity number 263446) actually manages to keep 47 biblebashing halfwits off the dole and scrounge an annual income of almost £2,670,000 with this kind of crap. It says it exists ‘to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world by promoting & encouraging the Christian evangelisation of young people & standards of behaviour which accord with the doctrines of the Christian faith’ and ‘to advance the Protestant and Evangelical tenets of the Christian faith in all parts of the world.’
What, like homophobia, burning witches and sectarian violence?
Then there’s the trustees. You can get the measure of them just by looking at their other charitable deeds.
Take Rev. David Stillman and Novi Most International (charity number 1043501), which says it is ‘a Christian charitable organisation which works with young people in Bosnia Herzegovina: to help them overcome the effects of their past, to equip them to enter their futures with hope and confidence, to empower them to become instruments of transformation in their communities.’
So a community in which Catholics and Muslims ethnically cleansed each other is going to get better because Protestant hardliners introduce a new sectarian divide?
Yeah, that’ll work!
I could go on, but why bother? I think you get the picture.
The government has been bellyaching for years about how kids are turning to drink, drugs and wall-to-wall Grand Theft Auto.
So do they put on some half-decent events, fund proper youth clubs?
No, they hand them over to the first brain-dead bunch of sectarian freaks who offer a bargain basement show alternating empty-headed US style sports entertainment with bible-readings.
Look guys. Try doing this properly.
Smack dealers will screw your kids up for about the same price, and NO smack dealer in the WORLD promises the junk they sell will give you life after death!

It's not pastoring, it's mugging

A report in a Wandsworth newspaper (see http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/wandsworthnews/3799067.Debate_over_Street_Pastors/ flagged up on the NSS site gives a taste of what could be coming here, if we don't stop it.
The Wandsworth council are paying evangelicals from the Ascension Trust £10K a year, topped up with another £5K from the police, to act as 'street pastors'. Locals are not impressed and want the money spent on proper community facilities instead.
It's not even as if they have relevant local experience - the cult started in Ghana and most of their trustees are from there. They're also so slow at filing their accounts and annual returns as a registered charity that in 2005 they were almost struck off the register. These days they're almost on time - though with an £800K income and a large chunk not spent there are still questions to be asked.
There have been some sly attempts at street pastoring over here too. Some Douglas ones were stopped dead in their tracks a few months back by a letter in the Examiner suggesting the police arrest them for aggressive begging. After all, if chasing folk with small kids and pensioners down the Prom threatening them with hellfire and eternal damnation isn't demanding money with menaces, what is?
But our Southern Baptists now even have their own bus, as well as a 'youth pastor' who pesters teenage kids in a secondary school to the point of apparently being supplied with their mobile numbers by a staff member (see previous postings for more). It beggars belief that, while our legitimate youth services have to badger small businesses for cash and materials because the education Department won't fund them, superstitious halfwits with the combined intellect of plankton can get something close to a six figure sum for the same pastor to drive around harassing kids, and even police back-up when they tell him to clear off.
Douglas Baptists and their ridiculous 'Machine' project also had a go a few years back - at least until strong local pressure closed down a 'community resource' apparently getting public funds on the basis of calling any kid who sat at a popular meeting point outside a member. Oh, and however hard they tried to dissuade the families of witnesses, that pastor getting nailed for underage sex on the premises didn't help.
Neither did using a speaker with a background in Loyalist paramilitarism, I suspect. 'Street smart' that wasn't, but also a shame the Manx police somehow forgot to check his background; they might have picked up on an appeal from Coleraine police about a mysterious fire in a family planning clinic and asked him more pertinent questions than the ones his local mates fed him at his 'drug seminar'.
There seems to be a ridiculously simple answer. If you really want to stop street crime in the Isle of Man, make sure our biblebashers stay home at nights.