Tag: Online

AFA: We Didn’t Lie And Morningstar Still Hates Christians

Buck Banks

Man, Joe Mansueto must have really rattled the Wildmons, American Family Association’s head henchmen, when he responded by e-mail to all the AFA drones who sent him an e-mail through the AFA site criticizing his company for not taking an ad from Faith Financial, as we reported earlier. See, most organizations who are slimed by the Wildmons choose to meet with them privately. Mansueto, chair and CEO of Morningside, chose to take the fight to the public.

Several hours later, the Wildmons are in full spin mode, quoting Faith Financial’s version of what happened as a way to deflect criticism:

‘Based on the fact that Morningstar takes advertisements for liberal social interest groups, it still appears to AFA that the Faith Financial ad was rejected due to it’s Christian content.’
— Tim ‘Wildman Jr.’ Wildmon

Faith Financial attempted to amplify its message of values-based investing on a national platform. To that end, it worked with a global ad agency named Come And Stay which suggested using Morningstar.com, one of the largest and most popular investor information resources in the industry. The ad agent worked with Faith Financial to craft an ad that met both the criteria of Faith Financial and Morningstar then submitted an offer/invoice (what is generally considered a contract) to CEO Stephen Bolt of Faith Financial who signed it and sent it back to be presented along with the 80 word text of the ad to Morningstar. Much to the surprise of both the ad agent and Faith Financial, the ad was rejected by Morningstar. Faith Financial Planners was told by the ad agent after he had consulted with Morningstar that ‘Unless you change the message completely and eliminate the Christian undertones…’ the ad will not be accepted.

The ad agent submitted an offer/invoice to CEO Stephen Bolt of Faith Financial who signed it and sent it back to be presented along with the 80 word text of the ad to Morningstar. From Faith Financial’s perspective, the offer/invoice was a binding agreement as is stated in the contract, but Faith Financial recognizes that Morningstar.com never accepted Faith Financial’s ad and thus, Morningstar never signed an agreement with Faith Financial.

Anybody who has ever dealt with advertising knows that signing an insertion order is a contract between the advertiser and the advertising agency, not the publisher. That’s why there’s an agency percentage — for the work and the financial risk. So, there was never a contract between FF and Morningstar — but that’s what Tim Wildmon said. So who’s lying? I’d bet on both Faith Financial and Wildmon. The above was offered by Wildmon by way of explanation.

He then accuses Morningstar of anti-Christian bias while not offering one iota of justification other than to say that because Morningstar rejected the ad, then it is de facto biased. Oh, except for this:

Based on the fact that Morningstar takes advertisements for liberal social interest groups, it still appears to AFA that the Faith Financial ad was rejected due to it’s [sic] Christian content.

I went to the Morningstar site and I had a devil of a time finding an advertisement. And here’s where you can find the advert for Faith Financial.

I went to the Faith Financial Web site and to tell you the truth it looks to me like some kind of Christian multilevel marketing pyramid scheme. Judge for yourself by going here.

I could see how Morningstar, which is one of the largest financial sites in the country that does real analysis and provides real content regarding financial matters might be put off by Faith Financial, which looks kind of questionable.

And last time I checked it is within the rights of a private business to choose to do or refuse to do business with whomever it desires. And if there are consequences to that decision, then so be it. People are free to boycott and demonstrate any business that clearly demonstrates bias, but refusing to play ball with a bunch of flaky Christian scam artists is not against the law.

Unfortunately, neither is lying — with one hand on the Bible — to people to get them to follow your misguided agenda.

Michael Medved: Six Reasons Slavery Wasn’t So Bad

Jon Ponder

In a remarkable piece of sophistry titled Six Inconvenient Truths about Slavery, right-wing movie and social critic Michael Medved lays out a clear and concise justification for the slavery of Africans in America.

What is unclear is why he felt such a justification was necessary:

1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.

Yes, Michael, slavery was excused, or at least not condemned, in the Bible, but that doesn’t make it right. Besides, who said it was a uniquely American innovation, and what difference does that make in the greater scheme of things? The fact that the Brits and the Spanish did it too is hardly an excuse.

2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales, in the history of the republic — involving only a tiny percentage of the ancestors of today’s Americans.

This is bizarre. Yes, slavery ended in the North not long after the republic was founded but slavery of Africans was present in various locales along America’s Eastern Seaboard from around 1670 until 1865.

3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.

Got that, black Americans? You’re lucky we didn’t kill you.Where’s your gratitude for that!

4. It’s not true that the U.S.became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves.

This is historical revisionism, at best. The Southern colonies were more prosperous than the north for much of our pre-revolutionary history. Charleston, S.C., was the largest city in the colonies for years. Even after the North’s ascendancy in the early Industrial Era, the majority of the vast wealth generated by the states that would comprise the Confederacy was generated by slave labor. To ignore that fact is disingenuous and not a little reprehensible.

5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition.

All it took was the deaths of 500,000 Union and Confederate soldiers, and the complete destruction of the slave economy in the South — a loss we are only just now starting to recover from in many ways.

6. There is no reason to believe that today’s African-Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.

It is impossible to game out what would have happened in Africa if so much of its population hadn’t been captured and exported into servitude, especially since the descendants of these people have proven to be enterprising, innovative, intelligent and talented.

This article is a real head-scratcher. It appears to be a preemptive argument against paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves, but if the reparations movement has made significant inroads lately, it is news to me.

On the other hand, if Medved’s piece was intended to open a new dialog on racism in America, it is clear that liberals and conservatives are as far apart as ever on this issue.