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The Giant Sucking Sound
in Washington, D.C.

Is "The Giver" On Your Horizon?

Is The Chamber of Commerce an UN Front?

Oregon State Supplies Our Vices

Earth Day, May Day And Watermelons

Are We Destined For Selective Reduction?

Robbing Peter To Pay Paul In Oregon

By Betty Freauf

July 31, 2005

NewsWithViews.com

Psychobabbler Abraham Maslow once said, "I sometimes think the world will either be saved by psychologists, in the very broadest sense, or it will not be saved at all. [1]

Then there is another psychobabbler by the name of Carl Rogers, often cited as the grandfather of the self-esteem movement, who said personal redemption would come to those who had the courage to discover their true feelings and genuine attitudes and to accept what they found.

The "human potential movement" of the 60s promised enlightenment through sensitivity training, group encounters and hallucinogenic drugs as LSD. This self-esteem, human potential/mental heath movement became a major component of the public school system in an effort to change the traditional values of children.

Rogers and Maslow were the first "salvationists" to serve as presidents of the American Psychological Association - therapists who accept tolerance of the intolerable. Today, due to hate laws, many people shy away from making meaningful moral judgments about any behavior, no matter how criminal or depraved. And once experienced defense attorneys finish parading their "psychobabble experts" before a jury and black-robed judges disallow crucial information, it becomes easier to understand why jurists often render silly verdicts.

The authors of One Nation Under Therapy say what the older moralists spoke of as irresponsible behavior due to bad character, the new champions of therapism - an array of helping professionals, journalists and educators - speak of as an ailment, dysfunction and brain disease.

The range of behavior that therapism subjects to moral censure is now sharply curtailed and in some instances has vanished altogether. The authors call it sin to syndrome and say when this happens, ethically inexcusable behavior is granted absolution and innocents suffer.

Traditional moralists believe that human beings initiate actions and shape their destinies. They deserve praise or blame for who they are and reward or punishment for what they do. Proponents of therapism, on the other hand, are uncomfortable with the notion of personal responsibility.

The list of potentially exculpating syndromes includes battered persons syndrome, Super Bowl Sunday syndrome, premenstrual stress syndrome (women prior to the 60s never thought of such things), rape trauma syndrome, steroid defense and urban survival syndrome. And waiting in the wings are the pharmaceuticals with a pill. Harvard Law School professor, Alan Dershowitz, calls all such descriptions and explanations of unlawful behavior "cop-outs", sob stories, and...evasions of responsibility. (P. 95-96)

Many protestant churches began employing psychologists on staff. Jesus was no longer needed for salvation. God does not differentiate between sins. But the sins traditionalists once condemned are now being winked at in the name of tolerance.

Being Biblical born again used to mean accepting responsibility for our sins. This required doing an about face -- a 180 degree turn and true repentance. In the case of a crime, God can forgive but society still demanded punishment and then along came the psychologists telling these criminals it was an illness that caused them to commit the crime or the alcoholic was no longer a drunk but he was sick and someone else was to blame. The directory in the mental hospitals read: 1st floor, mother's fault, 2nd floor, father's fault, 3rd floor, society's fault. There is no floor for "my fault."

A number of years ago, legislation was passed requiring insurance companies to pay for mental health and we saw more people following the money into the mental health industry. All these "sick patients" had to do was sit through many therapy sessions, enhance the bottom line of the pharmaceutical's financial statements by popping pills and they'd be cured.

Read what Father John Geoghan, the infamous Boston pedophile Catholic priest said after he'd been given a clean bill of health after treatment for pedophilia in 1981. "Thank God for modern medicine and good doctors." As he put it, "I feel like a newly ordained priest!" [2] In some religious circles, one might say he considered himself "born again" without accepting responsibility for what he did to his victims.

Two decades later he was finally convicted of his homosexual pedophilia abuse of boys and was imprisoned where he was killed in 2003 by another person who was also in protective custody for murder.

Did prison officials deliberately plan the priest's execution? Should the Department of Corrections be held responsible for his death? Or should the doctors who said he was cured be held responsible? By completely ignoring its own doctrine and not calling the police on these deviant priests, the Catholic Church, wanting to believe the psychologists that pedophilia was curable, are now being held responsible or will it wiggle out too?

It is not uncommon for criminals and other sociopaths to look for excuses not to accept blame for their actions. After all, some therapists were telling these priests that what they did was not their fault for molesting boys. They simply had an immature sexual development due to something in their early childhood.

Initially, the Catholic church, to its credit, seemed to step up to the plate and accept responsibility. But then an A-P article dated 8/7/2004 said insurance companies refused to pay any more for settlements to alleged victims of priest abuse.

Now I read an article in the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal dated 7/23/2005 that 389,000 Catholics from 124 Catholic churches in Western Oregon will be receiving letters informing them they are a part of the class of defendants in the Portland Archdiocese's bankruptcy case.

It seems suddenly the Archdiocese says in a bankruptcy case the assets belong to the members but strangely, individual parishioners will not be named and would not be held liable should they lose the argument. I'm no legal scholar but this action sounds contradictory and highly suspect.

In this case, the article states, parishioners will argue that it is they - not the Archdiocese- who own the $600 million in assets and tax-exempt property of the parishes; however, should they lose the argument, then that money is considered fair game for those who have sued the church. But if the parishioners win, that money is off-limits to the plaintiffs. The article says there are 249 claims pending against the Archdiocese by people alleging sexual abuse. They are seeking more than $400 million in damages. And, of course, that's just in Western Oregon. Many other such lawsuits have been filed in other states.

Perhaps the legal claims filed earlier this year against the Archdiocese of Portland by St. Mary's Our Lady of the Dunes in Florence, Oregon to get back funds for a building project that were frozen when the Archdiocese declared bankruptcy set this current action in motion. But that 4/28/2005 A-P article said the archdiocese legally owned the assets of 124 parishes in Western Oregon. Once again, the only winners in these battles will be the attorneys while the real losers will be the victims.

But now let me contrast the Catholic church's dilemma with what happened in the late 80s when evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, once on the executive board for American Coalition for Traditional Values, was caught in a sex scandal with a prostitute. But that was between consenting adults and while he was humiliated, he admitted later "pride" kept him from seeking help? But from whom would he seek help? The psychobabblers who vindicated Father Geoghan from his sins? But while one psychiatrist said he doubted Swaggart could be cured, these same "tolerant" doctors were turning Catholic priests lose on vulnerable children. Swaggart was seen on our TV screens repenting of what he'd done. He was later defrocked by the Assemblies of God. He paid dearly for what traditional moralists would deem an indiscretion but not a crime.

A short time later we saw Jim Bakker, at that time also on the Executive Board of the American Coalition for Tradition Values, caught in adultery and being taken away in handcuffs and shackles, a broken man, and he spent time in prison due to his fraudulent enterprises. Ironically, it was later reported that Jim Bakker confessed all his sins since childhood to a Catholic priest. [3]

In the mid 80s Bakker was named as the third most popular TV evangelist and reached nearly six million households daily and unlike Jesus and his disciples, was living an extravagant lifestyle until the bottom fell out. Hillary Clinton stood by her man but Tammi Bakker dropped hers like a hot potato and soon remarried a man who was later sentenced for bankruptcy fraud to 27 months in prison in 1996. [4]

Both evangelists paid dearly for their sins in lost revenues, marriages and reputations. On a Larry King show in July 2000, Bakker's son said he was deeply affected from the fall. Other parents wouldn't allow their children to hang out with him any more. And while some Catholics and other religionists may have been grinning secretly, many protestants were perplexed over these two men, the financial losses and embarrassment they endured by trusting them.

While there were a variety of stories about how many years Bakker would serve and the fines he would pay, he did go to prison in October 1989. He was alleged to have taken $158 million from Americans but by July 2000 Tammi and Jim were on the Larry King show with their new spouses. The Bible admonishes us in I Cor. 10:12 "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." God uses judgments to purge his Kingdom. And while forgiveness is available for those who are truly repentant but in the case of criminal behavior, legal punishment is not only appropriate but in most cases, a requirement.

In that same time frame, however, we read that FICA was broke and the U.S. taxpayer had to dig up $100 billion. Another article said that $30 million was being spent on U.S. drug problems - more money down a rat hole! In 2005 it's a meth epidemic. The taxpayers were having to pay $2 billion in bad student loans, the HUD fraud/scandal was estimated would run into the hundreds of billions and the usual stories about elected officials taking cash for "special favors" and then there was the Savings and Loan scandal and other stories abound about the corruption in our county, state and federal governments but it could get worse since the recent U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 ruling in the Kilo v. New London eminent domain case.

I Cor 3:13-15 says there is going to come a time of testing... Everyone's work will be put through the fire so that all can see whether or not it keeps its values...

Is it possible that all these church scandals have caught the eye of the world - atheist, money-hungry developers who may approach cash-strapped government leaders with offers they can't resist like turning these tax-exempt church properties into tax producing properties? Some of these older churches in many cities where membership is way down are prime real estate.

It was in June that the U. S. Supreme Court 5-4 ruling in Kelo v. New London allowed the city to turn over its power of eminent domain - its ability to take private property for public use- to the New London Development Corp., a private body, and to take the entire Fort Trumbull neighborhood for private development.

Owners of 15 homes in the stable middle-class neighborhood had refused the city's offer to buy their homes. The homeowners sued to stop this eminent domain procedure and lost in state court and now have lost in the U.S. Supreme Court. The courts completely disregarded the Fifth Amendment that was to protect us from government property confiscation. Will our churches be next? This is a tax-spending socialist's dream!

All of this tolerance nonsense seemed to accelerate when the homosexual community, small as it was at that time, began forming little groups in the early 70s and gained empathy from the media. As late as 1996, Cardinal Law from the Boston Archiocese wrote a compassionate letter to Geoghan calling pedophilia an "illness." (5) Law has since been reassigned to Rome where he sits at the right hand of the Pope.

In 1973, the Supreme Court gave us Roe -vs- Wade and now "choice" is the mantra and many in the "helping professions" sincerely believe the choices we make are outside our control and no one should judge them. Free choice has escalated to partial birth abortions which the majority of Americans abhor but the genie was allowed out of the bottle in 1973.

And then along came "no fault" divorce, which is a misnomer for the new laws did not stop at removing grounds for divorce even though the only requirement to obtain such a divorce is proof of irreconcilable differences.

Prior to this, it was far more difficult to get a divorce and those getting a divorce had to wait a year (at least in Oregon) before they could remarry. One can't help but wonder how many that got divorced realized their mistake, the emotional cost to their children and their finances and reconciled in that year's cooling off requirement. Today's divorce epidemic can be directly traced to "no fault" divorce laws which treat their marriages like pie crusts -- easily made and easily broken.

And now we've gradually strayed into the "no fault ethics" arena where anything goes. Pettifogging government officials use unconstitutional administrative rules to control the people while caterwauling lobbyists control the lickspittles we elect to office. Young people, often on antidepressants, kill for the thrill of it while pastors deceive their congregations with false gospels and gimmicks. Businessmen hire attorneys to find loop holes in the tax system and corporate CEOs cook the books. Educators smuggle teenage girls out the back door to abortion clinics without parental consent while other young women and children are being abducted and used as sex slaves and "snuffed" out when they are no longer useful and the excuses for their behavior goes on ad nauseum.

There's a crude, old joke about the drunk who calls the Salvation Army and slurs, "Do you save bad girls?" When the answer comes back in the affirmative, the drunk mutters, "Good. Save me one for Saturday night." I'm sure you've seen the bumper sticker, "Good Girls Go to Heaven; Bad Girls Go Everywhere." The tragicomic end to all of this is that at the end of the age, in this generation, there is more demand for really bad girls than for truly good men. The prophet could not have said it better when he said, "At the end of the age, good men will be harder to find." [6]

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We don't have an illness or a self-esteem problem, we have a sin problem in America and it starts at the top with our misleaders.

1, One Nation Under Therapy (c) 2005 P. 9 - Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel.
2, Ibid P. 85
3, Christian News, Sept. 12, 1988
4, Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal 3/22/1996
5, One Nation Under Therapy
6, How To Prepare For The Coming Persecution by Larry W. Poland (c) 1990 P. 73

� 2005 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved

Betty is a former Oregon Republican party activist having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many years but Betty gave up on the two-party system in 2004 and joined the Constitutional Party.

Betty is a researcher specializing in education, a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to www.NewsWithViews.com
 
E-Mail: bettyfreauf@webtv.net

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And now we've gradually strayed into the "no fault ethics" arena where anything goes. Pettifogging government officials use unconstitutional administrative rules to contol the people while caterwauling lobbyists contol the lickspittles we elect to office.