Search the Community

Article on Gawker Article on Arkansas Times The issue is that Arkansas State Representative Justin Harris (R-West Fork) has three biological sons, and they were looking to adopt to help kids out. Sounds good on the surface...but the two girls, aged 4 and 2 in 2012 "suffered from reactive attachment disorder, a condition sometimes occurring among children with unstable backgrounds that results in severe emotional and social problems." (ArkTimes) Harris is throwing all of the blame at Arkansas' Department of Human Services (DHS) and that he and his family were 'misled' about the girls condition. DHS is calling bulls**t on his claims (quotes via ArkTimes): But of course, they pressed on and pulled strings/used connections to get the kids, despite numerous objections. But when things went sour, instead of taking blame themselves and doing the right thing, they instead turned to Jesus* for their answers: Of course, these good Southern Christians believe you can "pray the gay away", so a little bout of demonic possession and telepathy should be a walk in the park, right? No...problems persisted, and the Harrises, who also owned a daycare, decided to give the girls away to a worker from their daycare: Okay...so why did the Francises leave the employ of their daycare? Well, initially the Harrieses said it was so the husband could go to seminary school. But after allegations of the rape of the two girls the Harrises put in the Francises' care came out...the story changed: And here's the rub with all of this--the Harrises' rehoming of the girls can't be discussed by DHS, the agency that the Harrises are claiming failed them--most of the people that went on record had to do so anonymously and/or were former employees. But the evidence is overwhelming that the Harrises were rather fanatical in their beliefs, and these girls suffered because those beliefs were upheld over existing, proven, documented science and therapy guidelines on how to properly help these girls out. So, of course, people are crucifying the Harrises for their missteps, throwing DHS under the bus for their own failures, and their whackadoodle beliefs, right? So, if you have a Picard facepalm pic, this is the place where you would use it. Thankfully, and most importantly, the girls have been adopted by another family, and are doing quite well. In fact, so damn well, that their current family felt the need to speak up and call bulls**t on the Harrises' story: I guess the takeaways/questions I see are: If lay Christianity is truly more rational and compassionate than what the Harrises displayed, then why the hell are they not standing up and denouncing their bats**t crazy, insane beliefs of demonic possession and exorcisms? If they're not speaking out against their abuse and beliefs, aren't they supporting them with their silence?

http://news.yahoo.com/growing-partisanship-splitting-u-two-191000316.html I wanted to start a new thread specifically on this topic when I saw this article. In one of the other threads (I believe the one on the Tea Party vs Establishment Repubs), I noted that I thought the repubs were moving more right and the dems more left. After discussion wt Carl and Jr, I concluded that the Dems were always left (just had a few more pro-military people back in the 80s) but that the Repubs were the ones who moved to the right - thus expanding the gap. This concerns me as I know it does many others that we have entered an era of dysfunction as a national family. We've seen it under GWB and now under Obama (interesting that another poll came out showing Obama was just as unpopular as GWB is now: But that isn't the point of my post. It seems the best gov't have been in the Reagan, GHWB, Clinton years. When compromise was part of what made things work. It wasn't always smooth - we had gov't shut downs, presidential investigations, and broken promises - Read My Lips- no new Taxes - but at least we had a growing economy and respect in the world. Guys - how do we get back to it. I know I can be a 'purist' like the next guy - want the president, congress to be as close to my views as possible - but that doesn't work. It is making me think about the primaries next week in Okla. I was leaning towards one guy who would be new to Congress, but now I'm leaning a bit more moderate - just because we need Washington to work. (Hey everyone here in Okla is pretty conservative but some try to out conservative the incompetent who is already conservative. ) So my $1000 question is - How do we get back to a functioning Congress/President and create less of a divide between the 2 sides? This article & the Pew poll it reports on seems to show that both parties have moved. Several Quotes: The evidence is compelling, according to the exhaustive study, based on nationwide interviews with 10,000 adults between Jan. 23 and March 16. Today, 92 percent of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat on core issues and beliefs, while 94 percent of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican. By contrast, 20 years ago, 64 percent of Republicans were to the right of the median Democrat on a set of political values, while 70 percent of Democrats found themselves to the left of the median Republican. This profound shift reflects movement on both sides of the political divide, with more Republicans shifting farther to the right and more Democrats embracing far more liberal views. At the same time, partisan animosity has mushroomed to the point where partisans genuinely believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being,” the report states “The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10 percent to 21 percent,” the study said. “And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished. Murray added that while many Americans “in the middle of the ideological spectrum want compromise” by the two parties in Washington, those in the middle tend to be “less active and influential” than the highly motivated ideologues on the far right and far left.