Digital Publius

A Graduate Course in Propaganda

2012-01-08T20:31:00.001-05:00

Originally posted at American Thinker blog

If you are at all a political creature and you have not read Jodi Kantor’s New York Times article “Michelle Obama and the Evolution of a First Lady” you really ought to.

Ms. Kantor’s article is easily one of the subtlest, most effective pieces of propaganda I have ever read.

The article perfectly illustrates to the savvy, why the left controls the narrative in contemporary American politics--they are so much better at it than the right. After reading this article I was compelled to click on Ms. Kantor’s highlighted by-line, as I was sure she was educated in the Ivy League and I was not wrong, Columbia quod Harvard.

Like a certain wooden horse made famous in The Aeneid, the First Lady is merely a delivery system, for the articles true intent. This was a very artfully constructed assurance to the hard left that President Obama intends to go even further to the left than his staff "allowed" in his first term. Virgil would be proud and so would the author’s highbrow instructors—this is an elegant work of agitprop worthy of Pravda.

This was written specifically for the Matt Damons, Sean Penns of the world. The hardline leftists who have been critical of President Obama for not being more forcefully liberal, not doing enough to drive a hardcore pink agenda.

I am not certain whether the Obama administration’s term in office should be identified as comedy or tragedy, but Ms. Kantor has deftly cast Michelle Obama as the play’s heroine. She is first portrayed as a type of Antigone, defiantly standing for what is right in the face of the President’s politically sensitive staff.

While the President’s inner circle, Rahm Emmanuel, Robert Gibbs and the like, would have preferred the First Lady play the more biddable roll of Ismene. The staffers wanted the First Lady to aid in encouraging the President to forgo his more leftist ambitions to advance the greater Democrat Party good.

By the end of the article Mrs. Obama is more a Cassandra who knows what is best prophetically for America. But unlike the Cassandra of old, Mrs. Obama will not be silenced; her predictions will be heard and heeded after a deftly manipulated “Change” within the administration’s power structure.

Ms. Kantor’s article really represents the acme of the sort of work the right finds mawkish, but is so very effective when spoon-fed to the easily manipulated liberals and the fence sitting, often morally ambiguous and spongy independents. You will see no such work emanating from the pens of conservative apologists or polemicists. The right doesn’t understand how really, because the right sees virtue only in success and the ideal, whereas the left can see how to spin failure into virtue.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20

These words are utterly meaningless to liberals. What this Biblical passage warns against has become the left’s specialty.

The Obama administration has been a failure no less epic than any poem by Virgil or Homer—no less tragic than any play from Thebes. Yet the left celebrates dysfunction as chronicled in Jodi Kantor’s article and turns it into a thinly veiled promise that if granted another term, centrist compromise is out the window.

The First lady has not evolved, nor has her husband, but they will be set free in a second term. There will be no more subterfuge—the belly of the horse will spring open, there will be no lesser kings like Odysseus working behind the scenes to restrain King Agamemnon.

We will see a reemerging President Obama—no longer a tragic Greek emperor, now recast an American hero, an ersatz David Farragut staring down his backward right wing enemies, defiantly shouting; “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”. This is precisely what the hardcore leftist wants and they shall have it, if the President wins a second term in November.

The right is very good at serving up red meat to stir up it’s own base. Yet the right is woefully bad at selling conservative ideas to anyone not already smart enough to know how bad the leftist agenda is for the country. And that is why the right is losing the culture war and why the country continues to decline spiritually and temporally.

If it were not so, men like Thomas Sowell or Peter Schiff would be seen and heard more. Men like Dr. Walter Williams would be a more frequent quest and we would see less of Dr. Marc Lamont Hill on Fox News.

Unfortunately the “conservatives” who have the loudest voices in America, The Bill O’Reillys, Ann Coulters, Michael Medveds… Are either more interested in advancing themselves, or too mindful of how they will be perceived, (mustn’t be considered too far to the right,) to mount a true offensive against the dark forces overtaking our culture.

This is the reason the Roves and Krauthammers fight so desperately hard to ensure a safe man like Mitt Romney secures the Republican Nomination for President. Better to appear the good presidential candidate than to actually have any real ideas to substantively change the nation for the better. Real ideas are an instant disqualifier sure to get you labeled unelectable.

The right screams anyone but Obama—but that anyone has to be just conservative enough to win and not a wit more. And we are satisfied with that? We must be, because that is all I ever hear. And that is all we ever get.

Where is the right’s Jodi Kantor?

Digital Publius

A Hitch in the Giddy-Up

2011-12-20T10:51:00.000-05:00

Last week the world saw the death of one of the most famous and militant voices against God. Christopher Hitchens died and now most assuredly knows whether he was right or wrong regarding his life’s work.   

With Hitchens’ passing came the retrospectives, like the one I read on the “Conservative” Daily Caller: “Dead at 62, Christopher Hitchens taught us how to live, and how to die”.

I find it a rather odd idea that Hitchens offered an example of life well spent--when his life was seemingly awash in bitterness against a God he claimed he didn’t believe in. Not only did he live with this bitterness, he did all he could to persuade others to adopt a similar view.   

I suppose the Daily Caller Hitchens eulogist meant to assert that it is honorable that Hitchens died defiantly--refusing to entertain the idea of God even whilst facing his own mortality, more power to him.   

The article’s main purpose was to paint this bitter man as a champion of humanity--the patron saint of Secular Humanism if you will. Focused on opposing tyranny, temporally and spiritually. Such self-righteous pursuits must seem cold comfort now.

Nevertheless the eulogy sparked a dialog as polarizing as the man himself. An Exchange I had with a couple of fellows may be useful. It certainly emphasizes the shallow nature of many who have learned from the life and death of Hitchens.   

Most of these people never run into anyone with arguments they can’t counter with anything beyond rhetoric and insults. It is my prayer that these people begin to think and in so doing, open them up to the work that the Holy Ghost wants to perform in them.   

I am grateful at these times that I am used of God to plant seeds and that He has allowed me to write my blog Digital Publius. It’s useful because I can cut and paste my own articles as I have been inspired to write on so many apologetic subjects and atheists always say the same things.   

If you are a regular reader of Digital Publius, you are familiar with some of what I say here. It is a good idea to create a file with good resources if you are prone towards sharing your faith regularly as we are all called to do.   

I jumped in after the response an atheist offered to a person who asked why the secular are so against offering creationism as an alternative theory to evolution in our public schools.   

Carl Spackler:   Because it's not scientific theory. It's a religious invention to answer a scientific theory. Can you get anyone outside of religion to accept it? The Catholic Church endorses evolution.   

Digital Publius:   In a beautiful letter to his wife Maria Christina, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Guglielmo Marconi wrote:

I know how much you love and cherish the beautiful Nature - the expression of God’s Will - where one can find the ideal eternal values: the Truth, the Beauty and the Good (and you possess the three of them). The harmonious unity of causes and laws forms the Truth; the harmonious unity of lines, colors, sounds, and ideas forms the Beauty; while the harmony of emotions and the will forms the Good, which in being the ultimate expression of the Eternal and Supreme Creator brings man to completion and drives us to seek absolute perfection.

He also stated:

The more I work with the powers of Nature, the more I feel God’s benevolence to man; the closer I am to the great truth that everything is dependent on the Eternal Creator and Sustainer [Creatore e Reggitore Eterno]; the more I feel that the so-called ‘science’ I am occupied with is nothing but an expression of the Supreme Will, which aims at bringing people closer to each other in order to help them better understand and improve themselves.

Physics Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias, in a statement to the New York Times on March 12, 1978 on the Big Bang Theory remarked:

The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.

Nobel Laureate in Physics, William Phillips in a letter to T. Dimitrov May 19th, 2002; in reply to several questions as to whether he believed in the existence of God:

I believe in God. In fact, I believe in a personal God who acts in and interacts with the creation. I believe that the observations about the orderliness of the physical universe, and the apparently exceptional fine-tuning of the conditions of the universe for the development of life suggest that an intelligent Creator is responsible. …I believe in God because of a personal faith, a faith that is consistent with what I know about science.   

Carl Spackler:   I said the same thing to my wife when it had been a really long time.

Digital Publius:   Your flippancy belies the weakness of your assumptions.   

When confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. For me that means Protestant Christianity, to which I was introduced as a child and which has withstood the tests of a lifetime. But religion is a great backyard for doing science. In the words of Psalm 19, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork." Thus scientific research is a worshipful act in that it reveals the wonders of God's creation.

-Arthur L. Schawlow, Nobel Laureate (Physics, 1981).   

Carl Spackler:   "to which I was introduced as a child..."  Religion brain washes little kids. Sunday school is like a totalitarian mind control zone. How many religions let the kids choose for themselves?   

Digital Publius:   Your question was: "Can you get anyone outside of religion to accept it?" I supplied you with several quotes from Nobel physicists. You then said:

"to which I was introduced as a child...
'Religion brain washes little kids. Sunday school is like a totalitarian mind control zone. How many religions let the kids choose for themselves?'"

This proves how little you know about Christianity--it is always about choice. You cannot be born a Christian--you are not a Christian because you went to Sunday school.

You are not a Christian until you have accepted for yourself that what you have learned is true. You cut the sentence off, Dr. Schawlow said himself that he questioned what he learned as a child when he said his faith: "...has withstood the tests of a lifetime."

The tragedy is that you don't even recognize, because of your own narrow thinking, that anyone could come to the conclusion that Christ is exactly who He said He is without being brainwashed. Carl Spackler asked:

"How many religions let the kids choose for themselves?"

A Christian parent raises his child in the admonition of the Lord--but he cannot make his child a Christian. I will not speak for other "religions" (though I have studied most of them.) But the God of the Holy Bible does not force Himself on anyone, He says:

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will eat with him, and he with me." Revelation 3:21  Digital Publius:   

You just have to have an open mind--people don't disbelieve in God because of a lack of evidence but rather despite the evidence.

I have said this before in various discussions over the years, primarily with atheists. It is impossible for man to have created God. Man does not currently, nor has he ever had, the power to create ex nihilo “out of nothing”.

Everything man has produced has a frame of reference. There could be no god concept apart from God having first revealed Himself to man.

If God revealed Himself to man it is prima facie that He did so in a particular way. It is the responsibility of man to determine the way. Creation itself is the only safe objective medium to use in determining which tradition is reliably the way God revealed Himself.

In other words, the tradition whose source makes the most accurate statements about the universe and reality is most likely the Creator of the universe. The source most adept at describing man’s nature objectively as opposed to the way man wishes to see himself is the Creator of man.

The God of the Holy Bible expresses this in what amounts to a challenge to man and all who would espouse false beliefs. It is a recurring theme in the Holy Bible:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Psalm 19:1

The Psalm goes on to describe the movement of the sun, declaring that only God could put such a thing in action.

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: “ Romans 1:19,20

The God revealed in the Holy Bible is saying examine the world and compare it to what I have revealed to you. Many of history’s greatest scientists understood this and expressed as much as I have already shown.   

Carl Spackler:   Prove it.

Digital Publius:   If there is a God, as it seems logical to assume, then as He says-there is also an adversary working against man. The Adversary, like man lacks the ability to create from nothing, but he is very good at inspiring man to do what is counter to man’s own well being.

It is that Adversary that inspires atheism and false religions and narrow-mindedly prevents students from examining all possibilities for the origins of the universe.
Carl Spackler:   Why does it seem logical to assume there is a god? It would seem illogical to believe in magic and miracles. It was illogical that Jesus rose from the grave. Illogical that he raised the dead. And why am I narrow minded for not believing in your god. Do you know how many gods you don't believe in? Thousands upon thousands. The Aztecs alone had over a thousand gods. You're also a non-believer.

Digital Publius:   This is why I don't believe that most people who subscribe to your way of thinking actually "think" or at the very least you don't thoroughly examine the arguments you face. I have already answered your last question. But I will elaborate.

If God revealed Himself to man it is again prima facie that He did so in a particular way If one takes a practical look by eliminating the idealistic, when engaged in comparative theological study, you have to determine that there are many false religions in the world, but only one that lines up with reality.

Not all faiths can be equally valid because all faiths do not equally reflect reality. Why would God tell the Hebrews the earth is round and that it hangs in space, but then tell the Hindus the earth is flat and it sits on the backs of elephants standing on turtles, or that the earth is just an illusion? Why give one group the more accurate, demonstrable truth and lie to another group?

Why tell the Muslim the sun goes down in a pool of mud and slime? If the Qur’an gets that wrong, if it is wrong on natural things, why should I believe what the Islamic god says about the supernatural. If Allah gives false reports about creation, and the tangible, how can I believe him when it comes to my soul and the intangible?   

useyourhead:   "don't disbelieve in God because of a lack of evidence but rather despite the evidence".

"It is impossible for man to have created God. Man does not currently, nor has he ever had, the power to create ex nihilo “out of nothing”. “Man can't come up with concepts?? What about all the other Gods? Beautifully said utter horseshit.   

Digital Publius:   LOL, you should be able to think further than that--If there is indeed a God and an adversary, that adversary would also inspire a plethora of false gods to distract man from the truth. It certainly seems to have worked in your case.   

useyourhead:   You true believers find Satan very useful.   

Digital Publius:   Actually, it is Satan who finds people like you useful.

Holy Scripture admonishes us:   

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: I Peter 3:15  

Christ’s death, burial and resurrection is the ultimate manifestation of God’s love towards us! We cannot allow the Christopher Hitchens of the world to turn that love into a negative.

I saw a man last week suggest that Christ sacrifice was bad because God suggests that men are sinful and need Him. Who is God to suggest that man needs a savior? (if you click the link and watch the video, read the venomous liberal anti-Christian comments below—these are the people you are aligning yourself with Black believers when you vote Democrat).

This is the mindset that is taking hold in our country.   It is also why those of us who confess a faith in Christ need to consider whom we give our votes to. Will we support politicians that uphold this sort of secular thinking? Or will we stand with the precepts of God? The Democrat party leads the assault against God in the public square.

The only confessing Christians that vote Democrat in large numbers are Black. The overwhelming majority of Democrats do not adhere to Christianity at all. They may be Buddhists, New Age or follow some kind of ill-defined “spirituality” but they reject Biblical Christianity.

Black folks overlook the Democrat’s ungodly agenda to vote for the party they think represents their temporal good. Modern Black folks place the temporal above the spiritual when it comes to politics.

Black folks will vote for the party they think helps the needy--even as that same Democrat party works to ensure that there will be less needy to help, as they convince the needy to kill their own babies in the womb. They also work to normalize lifestyles that are naturally against cultivating healthy families.

The Christopher Hitchens are all a part of abandoning God in favor of man’s morality. The left speaks of “Hope” and “Change” as they embrace the philosophies of the hopeless. We see the type of change this brings about--as we create more and more liberal secularists who think they can learn anything positive from men without hope like Hitchens.

As time goes by, we will see more and more Christians saying fleshy things like I am a social conservative, but I give my vote to the left because I am an economic liberal.   

Do you really think a party that can be so tragically wrong on the spiritual matters can at the same time be right economically? If they miss what the Holy Bible teaches about life, is it any wonder they likewise miss what God teaches fiscally? No wonder there is a “Hitch” in the Black community’s giddy-up!

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:8

Digital Publius

© Hassan Nurullah

We Are Far From Him

2011-12-01T01:47:00.000-05:00

During a discussion sparked by my article “The Party Poopers” a fellow named Dave said:   

Yeah, I know - God works in mysterious ways... and, we are all wasting time struggling over all of this, because it is all part of God's plan, and he will save America in the end... we have nothing to worry about.   

I don't think God is going to save America at all Dave. I think America abandoned God a long time ago, and if He spares us – an unrepentant America – He has to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. That an ungodly man like Barack Obama could be elected in the first place says a lot about America’s spiritual state to begin with.

America has the present culture and political climate it deserves. We are all responsible for the depraved condition of our land. We gave Satan rule. Step by step, little things like the Federal Reserve Act, which invited Luciferian style banking to control our lives.

The secularization of our culture and institutions, is being driven by people who have never stopped to wonder: ‘if the Founders intended for God to be eliminated from the public square, why did they allow Him there in the first place?’ We have politicians, judges and academics today that are convinced they understand what the Founders intended better than they did.

The United States has a date set aside once a year allegedly dedicated to offering thanks to God for the blessings He bestows on our nation, at least that was the original intent. It has devolved into a hedonistic orgy of food and football encircling a half hearted gathering of family and friends, that all too often never gives any regard whatever to God.

Someone may or may not offer a token blessing over the food, giving God a one-minute token of appreciation. But the moment the table says Amen; it’s pass the gravy and what’s the score? And God does not enter your thoughts again that evening. Unless of course you almost have a traffic accident on the way home, then His name suddenly comes to mind.

More often than not in modern America, on Thanksgiving not only are we not thinking about God’s mercy usward, we are far more likely planning our foray into the world of excess the following day. America has added ‘Black Friday” to the societal lexicon. Black Friday has become the day a person who already owns several TVs, will camp out to get another one just because it’s so darn cheap.

Hands trembling, sipping hot chocolate from disposable cups, a man guards his 10th spot in line jealously. Only to find when the doors happily open in a wee hour of the morning, the store only had eight TVs at the bargain price.

This is a bitter pill to swallow after you have risked frostbite and the threat of being trampled to death on a fool’s errand. No wonder people come armed with pepper spray and women fight over cut-rate scarves and two-dollar frying pans. After all Christmas is just around the corner and my sister would look great in that scarf!

Black Friday was not good enough, now with the rise of our digital addiction, we have added “Cyber Monday”. This is how the ill-fated Mr. Numberteninline can achieve his awaited recompense after his failed and chilly big box store vigil. He can get his TV online with a click on save to cart and voila! He even gets free shipping because he spent over two hundred dollars.

Our hero, then ponders what all those who were too groggy from Tryptophan induced food comas already knew when they slept in on Friday morning: “Why brave the cold for hours on end and crazed bread maker shoppers, when I can shop from the comfort of my home?” Mr. Numberteninline chuckles to himself and ironically thanks God for the internet...he’ll get that sixth TV earmarked for the bathroom.

On that TV, as he basks in the tub, he will be entertained by murders, adultery, children disobedient to parents, greed, envy, all sandwiched between ads for breakfast cereals and more sales leading to the upcoming Christmas season, where all can again gleefully ignore God on another holiday that is supposed to honor Him.   We sing, carry key chains and emblazon on tee shirts the words “God Bless America”, when the idea that should be flowing from our hearts and sold to the world ought to be “America Bless God”.   

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. John 14:12-15  

We are a blessing to God when we are obedient to Him--we need to bless God! It is from this position that His blessings rain down on us.

The state of American politics like our reverence for the Divine Providence the Founders so often praised and thanked, has reached a most discouraging point. The candidates we favor are defamed to a point that even if they are innocent and vindicated the damage has already been irrevocably done.   And we click our tongues and say: ‘That is why we can’t get a good person to run’. When the candidate is actually guilty, we again click our tongues and lament that we have no honorable public servants.

If as the Democrats believe, there is no place for God in the public square, from whence does our collective morality spring? Why should it matter if a man keeps his wedding vows? What purpose does marriage serve at all?

To the believer, marriage is a sacrament instituted by God, to use as a foundation for building healthy, Godly societies. It is therefore a good thing.

The secularist who bases his morality on his own personal ethos is forced to ponder whether marriage is good because it has value? Or does marriage have value because it is good? The way he answers those questions will fluctuate according to his own situational desires. This is not a stable position to build a healthy society on.   

Can marriages have virtue without faith in a Being greater than yourself that you are responsible to? A Power greater than ourselves who with finality can pronounce what is virtuous? As I have pointed out in earlier articles, virtue without faith is valueless.

Faith in man is not enough; we have history ever poised to testify to that truth. Man is inconstant and so are his values when not buttressed by a faith in God. No, the source of values must be immutable; otherwise they cannot be trusted not to change with fashion, therefore undermining societal stability.

The secular argument that a society will ultimately not change it’s morality because it will do harm to itself by doing so doesn’t quite hold up. Not when you consider for example, the humanistic leftist powers that be in Beijing thought it was good for society to slaughter tens of millions of Chinese and then they stopped. Until they start again.

This is the same sort of reasoning that spurs the Democrat party and the liberal left. The Democrats fight with the zeal of a true believer for an individuals right to determine who is and who isn’t a human being when they decide to have an abortion.

Heck, why not possibly destroy a man’s marriage for political and personal gain? What’s marriage? To the secularist it ultimately has no more value than the child killed in the womb. That’s how far many of us are from God’s blessings as defined by Him.

I have made it clear that I am a supporter of the candidacy of Herman Cain. If Mr. Cain is guilty of these latest allegations, it is my sincere hope that he confesses it and repents of his transgression. If he does so, I can do no less than what God promises He will do when we seek His forgiveness. I will forgive Herman Cain and continue to support him.

  If it is found that he is not guilty, woe be unto those who unrepentantly bear false witness against Mr. Cain. I pray they too confess and seek God’s face. But as long as we give over our nation to the passions of man rather than the dictates of a Holy God, we will continue to get the leaders we deserve. And why on earth would God want to save us?   

The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 11 and 12, in chapter 14

Digital Publius

The Party Poopers

2011-11-28T05:22:00.002-05:00

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. – Abraham Lincoln

“Let that be your last battlefield!” The concept of ‘government of, by and for the people’ is an idea that has joined the heavenly choir invisible. It has ceased to be!

I say that because with the arrival of the 24 hour news cycle – comes the accompanying manipulation, nay rather the shaping of opinion the news cycle affords those with vested interest in seeing the status quo in America be maintained at all costs. Somehow, the establishment – on both the left and the right has managed to neuter the Tea Party movement, nullifying its considerable power and ability to influence the Republican primary process.

The Republican establishment, together with the media Just before the arrival of the primary voting season, has guided the race to the point where the candidates least favored by the Tea Party have now become the Republican Party cause célèbres. All the while marginalizing the Tea Party faithful.

After much hand wringing, weeping and gnashing of teeth -- the republican establishment has finally succeeded. They have at last gotten their conservative uncle, who believes in the quaint ideas so fundamental to our once great republic, out of sight – ensconced safely in the rear of the house – where their progressive friends can’t see him.

With great gladness, the Sunday morning talking heads were able to declare in no uncertain terms that it is finally coming to a point where it is winnowed out to a two-man race between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Gleefully, able at long last to be free of having to speak of conservative ‘uncles’ Herman Cain, Rick Perry or, gasp ‘auntie’ Michelle Bachmann.

Now the republican establishment and the media can get down to the brass tacks of picking candidates for us -- unencumbered by actually discussing candidates with substantive ideas. The media can discuss freely how the upcoming election will be a struggle between the 99% and the 1%. Just the way they like it.

On his website, Mitt Romney’s “plan” has exactly 12 pages devoted to tax policy. There is much there bemoaning President Obama and the left’s ideas and some lovely charts that illustrate what the problems are, but no charts explaining the impact of his “plan”. In short, Romney’s near term goal as president will be to:

• Maintain marginal rates at current levels

His long term goals:

• Lower the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent

• Transition to a “territorial” tax system (whatever that means)

Romney pays lip service to things like eliminating death taxes and reducing, not eliminating taxes on savings and investment.   

Newt’s corporate tax plan reduces Romney’s 25% to 12.5% and suggests moving towards a simpler 15% flat tax option for individuals. But like Romney, Newt neglects to explain the real impact, in numbers, of his plan in relatable terms.   

Contrast the current frontrunner’s plans with the comprehensive clarification provided by Herman Cain when explaining the economic impact of his 999 Plan. Then ask yourself, which candidates are offering mere window dressings to hide the fact their plans will maintain the status quo as well as continuing the excessive reach and power of lobbyists?   

The constant refrain heard without end during Herman Cain’s rise in the polls was that he could not win because he lacked campaign infrastructure and funding. Never mind Newt Gingrich’s senior team quit on him back in June.

I have heard that Mr. Gingrich’s people are beginning to return now that Newt is politically a going concern. But this begs the question, or at least it ought to: If, at the beginning, Mr. Gingrich couldn’t get his staff to buy in and commit for the long haul, what does that say about his leadership?

When the money began to flow into the Cain campaign – the liberal media and the republican establishment had to switch tactics.

Suddenly there was a bevy of women accusing Mr. Cain of sexual impropriety. The media reacted with ruthless efficiency -- the accusers vowed to come together in a joint press conference so they could bolster each other and expose this loutish brute of a man.

Soon Mr. Cain acquired the services of his own well-heeled attorney and a video depicting the results of a voice stress analysis began to make the rounds in the blogosphere and appeared to reveal the dubious nature of Sharon Bialek’s testimony. Couple that with the fact that her own former fiancé came forward only to distance himself from Ms. Bialek -- it is no wonder the first Cain accusers’ joint presser with latter day accuser Karen Kraushaar was abruptly cancelled.

The other ladies never did step forward.   Meanwhile a deathly silence has befallen the Herman Cain as sexual predator meme. It didn’t help the ladies cause, or the media’s for that matter when it was discovered they both had ties to the Democrat machine. Nevertheless, Herman Cain’s character has been besmirched and, after the fact, it appears as if the shallow have little regard for the truth.

After the failure of the sexual harassment controversy, the effort to marginalize Mr. Cain began in earnest. The media worked feverishly to paint him as a fellow with inadequate experience in foreign policy. This narrative peaked with an interview Mr. Cain granted the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

During an interview for a print article, Mr. Cain paused to collect his thoughts while answering a question on Libya, not expecting that the interview being taped would be shown to the public. The Milwaukee Sentinel made the pause the story by showing a truncated clip of the interview highlighting Mr. Cain's pause. The media framed it, as a sign of confusion and a lack of foreign policy know how.   

It doesn’t matter that when you watch the full interview Mr. Cain answers the question correctly and that he was also right about his understanding of a union’s collective bargaining issue the interviewer tried to gainsay Mr. Cain on. The pause became the story, not Cain’s accurate answer to the question.

The wrongheadedness of the notion repeated ad nauseam by the so-called conservative intelligentsia that we ought to back the candidate with the “best chance of winning” as opposed to the candidate with the demonstrably better ideas for addressing our national problems is indicative of where we are as a people.

Most people prefer style over substance, the puffed up and vainglorious, ever ready with quips and professorial diatribes rather than plain talk and directness. Herman Cain’s one webpage dedicated to his 999 Plan says more than the dozens of pages on tax reform and fiscal policy found in Romney’s downloadable PDF.

I began this offering with the closing paragraph of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The beginning of the address consists of just five sentences. This most treasured of Presidential utterances harkens back to a time when “brevity [was] the soul of wit”.

If Newt followed honest Abe in a debate, Mr. Gingrich would essentially say the exact same thing Abe did -- only with an allusion to Jerome or Pliny the Elder and a stern rebuke aimed at the moderator thrown in for good measure. I’m certain Mr. Gingrich would most assuredly get a louder round of applause than Abe.

Meanwhile Mitt Romney would beat them both because he ‘looks more presidential’ despite saying even less than both of his opponents.

Where is our discernment? Where is the Tea Party? Are we really about to prove the Cain Praxis true, that:   

“Any truly conservative candidate popular with the grass roots, regardless of competency, is deemed unelectable by conservative leadership in favor of the most generic alternative.”   

All Herman Cain has done during his forty-year career is take over situations where someone else failed and turned those failures around and made them massive successes. Mr. Cain is a problem solver and isn’t that what we need to head the Executive branch?

When I think of our current ‘frontrunners’ it reminds me of Christ’s description of the heady priests of His day:   

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, Matthew 23: 1-6

Is it really only important that we field a candidate that Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer and the rest of the establishment thinks has a chance to win? Why aren’t we backing the best man available, with the best ideas, throwing our full weight behind him and fighting like our nation’s future depends on it?

Snap out of it and put the kettle on -- this Tea Party isn’t over! Or is it?

Digital Publius

Zuccotti Zombie Apocalypse

2011-11-17T09:50:00.002-05:00

They are among us! They look like you and me but be not deceived. They shamble en masse in search of places to aimlessly occupy.

As their numbers grow, they infect an area and begin to fester. Left unabated, they send up a putrid stench accompanied by a stentorian cacophony. Driven by primal urges, the zuccotti feed, copulate and defecate all in a common area giving rise to pestilence and violence.

The fevered minds of the zuccotti formulate incoherent messages giving rise to discordant paradigms which perpetuate their circumstances. All those who seek to communicate and understand these creatures, have their attempts at reason rejected. These brave souls eventually recoil–stunned–minds reeling as they are subjected to one vicious regress after another.

Unchecked, the zuccotti will infect your families, your neighbors and friends. We see their withering effect on society as members of the media and left wing political leaders who seem particularly susceptible; regularly succumb to this plague.

Unlike their un-dead zombie kin, the zuccotti cannot be stopped by delivering force to their heads--the brain is not what motivates them, the Zuccotti brain is too primitive and limited. Their faculties far too underdeveloped compared to the higher operating zombie brain, especially if the subject is infected at an early age.

Though it has been observed that when it strikes a more mature victim, brain decay is greatly accelerated until the subject reaches a mental and emotional equilibrium, matching the childlike state exhibited by younger subjects.

This brain atrophying malady strikes and spreads virulently, attacking liberal enclaves. Groups found to be more logical and objective who rely on facts with a firm grip on reality, while completely immune to the fever, are nonetheless burdened with the aftermath of a zuccotti attack.

Knowing the source of this affliction is not nature but rather nurture combined with sin-nature as conceived in the most diabolical leftist labs and think tanks in the world. These sources specialize in confusing feelings with thinking.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

We must guard our children’s minds jealously and raise them up in the admonition of the Lord lest they too slip into the mind numbing clutches of the zuccotti!

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; I Timothy 4:1.2

Ere the rise of the zuccotti.

Digital Publius

A Tale of Two Movements

2011-11-14T01:56:00.000-05:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. — Charles Dickens

Amazing how relevant the opening to Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is relative to present day America. It is indeed the best of times and the worst of times. Never has a time in our nation been so blessed with marvels and opportunities, yet so dysfunctional and discontent.

President Obama promised a "spring of hope," and led us into a darkening"winter of despair." We are right at the edge, the very precipice of national self-destruction, with subtle forces eager to offer a gentle nudge just strong enough to send us reeling into the abyss.

We are a "house divided against itself." One side with a chimerical view of America that never existed, bent on "change" that would mean returning America to an imaginary past. The other still holding to the principles that made America great — interested in reform rather than change.

One side working within the democratic system, the other undermining democracy while espousing a bizarro world version of democracy more akin to Bolshevism than American republicanism. Or perhaps the type of government French libertines' wanted when they cried out for Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

The current leftist "Occupy" movement seems more interested in disruptive invasions of private and public property. They prefer socialistic demonstrations of revolt, rather than patient change within the framework that has always insured that revolution is never necessary in a true democracy. They are like petulant children hunkered down arms akimbo, lips quivering, stubbornly refusing to come in from the rain.

The sort of child that sees coming in as an end to fun and immediate gratification instead of the shelter from misery prolonged exposure to the elements leads to. America has been such a shelter for millions of people seeking refuge from the stormy world outside her borders. Often a child cannot appreciate what has been provided for him until he has to leave it and fend for himself.

If you have a serviceable home, you don't raise it to the ground because you don't like the color of the walls in the kitchen. Socialism brings in the bulldozers — representational democracies buy paint and brushes.

This is the primary difference between the Occupy Wall Street protesters and The Tea Party. What is the Occupy crowd's endgame — how exactly is the justice they seek defined? How do they mean to reach that end?

It seems to be force, whether passive, by merely causing disruptions in peoples lives. Or violence as some amongst their ranks have suggested and implemented. But make no mistake their method of choice seems to be force.

Contrast that with the Tea Party. Tea Party rallies, no matter where they have been or who the organizers were, have always been orderly affairs. The movement forwarded a set of principles; adopted a platform based on those principles; and then found and supported candidates willing to represent those ideas.

Sometimes the candidates won and sometimes they lost, but those candidates who have been successful have had a profound effect on policy. That is how an American style democracy functions. You don't need bullets, Molotov cocktails, or drum circles — you need a plan and order.

So far what has marked the occupation protests? We have seen a lot of enthusiasm and sincerity. We have seen opportunism. There has beendeath, violence and rape. Filth and pestilence are on the rise — as areselfishness and hypocrisy, not to mention licentiousness.

What we have not seen is anyone offering solutions. We've seen no coordinated co-operations working towards anything other than keeping these neo-primitive colonies functioning.

There is nothing so far to indicate that we will see occupy supported candidates running for public office as we saw with the candidates that were a natural manifestation of the Tea Party. Not when the occupy movement's politics bear more in common with the politics of The Democratic People's Republic of Korea than it does the form of representational republicanism established by our Founders.

The Communist Manifesto ends with these words in the last paragraph:

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."

This varies wildly from:

"We the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." — Abraham Lincoln

The Tea Party follows the Lincoln model — the Constitution is good. If officials refuse to abide by the provisions the Constitution established — vote the bums out.

The Occupiers identify with the Marxist model. The reason Marxists rely on force is because they know they can never wrest power through political means because their ideas are rejected by rational thinking people not ruled by their passions.

The quandary for those of us who consider ourselves among the rational, is why do the socialists, and those who align themselves with the socialists, believe that what has failed everywhere else it has been tried, will succeed here? Socialism has never taken hold of a society without delivering with it, misery.

I take solace in the fact that old Abe's position, is affirmed by a much greater Authority:

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. Proverbs 29:2

What seems to elude the Occupiers and what the Tea Party understands and embraces — is that the wicked are just one election cycle away from their most assured overthrow. It doesn't take a month of Sunday's worth of disrupting people's lives for the people's voices to be heard.

On the first day of the protest, everyone got the message that 'occupiers' think things are out of whack. The question is: how does stinking up the place, setting fires and spreading disease fix it?

Digital Publius

© Hassan Nurullah

Justiagate: The Adept Unseen Hand

2011-10-31T07:23:00.001-04:00

Originally posted at Renew America

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12

Every great movement in history resulting in “change”, either positive or catastrophic, began with either conspiracy, or collaboration. Indeed, at the very beginning of time the serpent conspired with Eve, resulting in a catastrophe of...Biblical proportion.

The Founding Fathers collaborated with each other in securing our independence from a tyrannical king and formed the greatest nation the world has ever seen. The Founders understood that if they were going to form “a more perfect union,” they needed to work together.

It is the end result of collaboration or conspiracy that determines whether the source of either one was benevolent or sinister. Moreover, the methods employed are telling as well. Conspirators connive; they do in secret the things they know will not stand up to moral scrutiny. Anything is acceptable as long as it helps the conspirator meet the goal.

Collaborators or co-laborers, have no need to hide their work because their cause is just. In doing the right thing there is nothing to be ashamed of and a collaborator can be totally above board. A co-laborer may have to hold the cards close to the vest until the proper time to spring into action, but there is no worry that any action will be perceived as immoral.

Just as we “know the tree by the fruit” it bears, we should also be mindful that there is righteous seed and bad seed. Bad seed may produce a tree baring fruit that is pleasant to the eye, but when harvested, the yield is revealed to be bitter and unwholesome.

I began this article by quoting Ephesians 6:12, where God warns His people that the woes of the world, even from the very beginning, find their source in Satan. We’re not fighting against mere men, but rather those influenced by Satan. God even arranged this verses’ address in the Holy Bible with significance. Verse 6:12, or 6:6+6. God really wants the reader to get the point.

It is also significant that on November 5th, 2008, the day America awoke to celebrate the election of Barack Obama - in his home state of Illinois - that evening the lottery number was 666. An interesting coincidence?

I do not believe that Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. I do believe that he, and the overwhelming majority in his party, knowingly or unwittingly represent a dark force.

A good magician is adept at misdirection. An able illusionist can force the observer’s attention towards an innocuously occupied hand, while he works his trick with the unseen hand. This is how conspiracy works. The conspirator directs toward one thing, causing the deception to go unnoticed.

A good example of how this works would be the question of Barack Obama’s eligibility to hold the office of President of the United States. The connivers have kept the discussion relegated to whether or not Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii and therefore a citizen. This gave rise to the birth certificate issue.

The President and his people proved marvelously adroit at keeping America focused on whether he had a legitimate American birth certificate. First, by only releasing the short form, the President gained two years of people speculating and demanding to see the long form.

All during this time the media on both sides of the political spectrum denounced anyone who thought this was an important issue. Marginalizing the curious, calling them “Birthers.” Framing them as racists unhappy with a Black president – or just plain kooks.

It is worth noting that the calls for Mr. Obama’s birth certificate have their origin in the Democrat Party. It was Clinton operative Phillip Berg, a Philadelphia attorney, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, who first filed suit alleging Mr. Obama’s lack of eligibility.

Berg’s suit, filed against Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee, and the Federal Election Commission, sought to put a halt to Mr. Obama’s candidacy and to stop the DNC from nominating him based on eligibility. Or at least that is what they wanted America to think.

Berg's suit stated the short form birth certificate provided by the Obama camp is a forgery, and even if Obama is a natural-born citizen, he gave up his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia.

Thus, the ‘birther’ distraction was born. The issue had all but died in the public consciousness, until Donald Trump revised the story just as the Obama administration began applying pressure to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya to step down, which coincided with other dubious movements in the Arab world, prompting the so-called Arab Spring.

People were once again talking about goofy birthers while ignoring the Obama administration’s maneuvers elsewhere. At the same time, in the early stages of their campaigns, legitimate Republican candidates were having the air sucked out of them by a ridiculous feint at a candidacy by ‘The Donald.’

When it looked as if the birth certificate issue placed the President on the ropes. Suddenly the long form birth certificate appeared and Mr. Obama appeared like a Jove hurling lightning bolts from on high vanquishing his loud-mouthed, follically challenged foe.

Back in 2008, as Phillip Berg flashed the hand with the show us the real birth certificate sign, the unseen hand of the Democrat Party, prior to the nomination, made it nearly impossible for journalists interested in finding precedents for what makes a person eligible to hold the office of President.

It seems, someone with access to Justia.com, the online resource for U.S. legal information used by journalists, attorneys or anyone interested in finding case law, was being scrubbed.

Specifically references to a Supreme Court case, Minor Vs, Happersett, 88 US 162 (1875). The Minor case is the only one in US history to directly define the Constitutional guidelines for Presidential eligibility outlined in Article 2 Section 1. It is unanimous and clear. It defines a "native or natural-born citizen" as a person born in the US to parents who are citizens.

So far on Justia.com there have been some 25 Supreme Court cases that referenced Minor v. Happersett found to be mysteriously altered. 25 files intentionally corrupted leading up to the ’08 election and before the Birther phenomenon. This aided in the fog surrounding the eligibility issue.

It doesn’t matter if Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii or not, it never did--because we know for a fact that his father was not. Therefore, Barack Obama is ineligible to be President of the United States according to precedent established by unanimous Supreme Court opinion. It is the law of the land.

The action of tampering with the files on justia.com, presenting the world with information represented as unmolested and complete, was done with extreme malice and forethought! All Americans should be enraged at the manipulation. Without regard to political sensibilities this is outrageous.

Most people still haven’t heard of what is being called “Justiagate,” which speaks to the size and power of the conspiracy. Either way, when exposed to the light eventually everything comes out. What matters is how we react to the revelation.

If President Obama is in fact righteous, he would not have needed unrighteous means to obtain an office that he is not entitled to. Barack Obama says he is a Christian, but he denies the essentials of Christian faith. He has a “form of Godliness” but when he declares there are other ways to God besides Christ and he calls what God calls bad natural, he denies the power thereof. And God commands: “from such turn away.”

I do know this, generally when a conspiracy begins to come to light, whatever plan was put in motion is beyond being stopped. Mr. Obama and his party have done great damage to both our country and to the world. I fear the situation in the Middle East and Africa has been manipulated to a point where the Biblical prophecy concerning a concerted Arab and African Islamic attack on Israel is a fait accompli.

Though they join hand to hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the descendants of the righteous shall be delivered. Proverbs 11:21

Leaders like Mubarak and Gaddafi, more interested in their personal ends than those of islam, had to go. Even with a new President that cannot be undone. We need to see to our relationship to Christ Jesus personally, He is right at the door.

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12

Digital Publius

The Cain Praxis

2011-10-29T11:26:00.000-04:00

Thus far, I’ve made no attempts at maintaining any sort of unbiased approach in my comments vis-à-vis the Republican field of presidential hopefuls. I have declared myself for Herman Cain. With the possible exception of Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain in my opinion, is the smartest person vying for the nations highest office on either side of the political spectrum, by a mile!

I would like to see Herman Cain as president and Newt Gingrich as his Chief of Staff, in an advisory role, where Mr. Gingrich’s impressive breadth of political savvy could be best employed. With Congressman Marco Rubio (R-FL) installed as vice president and waiting in the wings, the right would have a secure hold on the Executive branch for some time to come.

Your opinion may vary and that’s swell. But what I find distressing is the right’s inability to learn. I am being charitable in offering that last statement because I fear the reality may be far worse than a simple conservative learning disorder–perhaps even sinister.

How else to explain the right’s propensity for self-immolation? No…wait…let’s make that the establishment right.

The grass roots right just gets their hopes crushed as the establish elephant, gorging on the peanuts they hand him, grows and grows until the grass roots are pressed and suffocated against the walls of the conservative leadership’s narrow, little minds.

This is the second presidential election cycle where this behavior can be observed. The establishment right wing leadership works hand-in-glove with the ultra-liberal left wing media machine. Their mission? Destroy the most galvanizing conservative candidates.

In the last cycle, the establishment left had their money on Hillary Clinton and the leftist grass roots panted for Barack Obama. By establishment right wing standards neither of these candidates would have made the cut. If the left had followed the right’s modus operandi, the Democrat candidate would have likely been either Joe Biden or a pre-scandal John Edwards--the leftist doppelgängers of the doddering John McCain and the affable Mitt Romney.

Why Hillary Clinton, whose experience consisted of being President Clinton’s First Lady and some eight years in the Senate qualified her to be president is God’s own mystery to those of us with a brain. Moreover, how the far less impressive three years served in the Senate by Mr. Obama made him a practical choice to hold the highest office in the land is an even greater conundrum. Yet here we are.

The left didn’t stop to quibble over who is smarter than who, or which person would actually make a good president - Democrats just wanted a win. The liberal establishment knew that the emotionally charged, reactionary leftist grass roots wanted Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama. Thus, they threw their weight behind those two choices.

Meanwhile the right spent their time convincing the right wing grass roots the candidates they were most excited about could not defeat McCain and that McCain was the only person who, in the general election, could ever hope to beat Clinton or Obama. And again, here we are.

The tragedy is that the popular candidates the establishment right and conservative media aided the left in tearing down - like Mike Huckabee - would not have been settling. Mr. Huckabee was a proven commodity and would have been infinitely more preferable to Mr. Obama.

So while the left stood behind questionable but galvanizing candidates, chanting “yes we can” with blind enthusiasm, the right discarded capable popular candidates in favor of the feckless John McCain with a refrain akin to “we could have, but we chose not to."

The establishment right told the grass roots, “Huck may be sexy, but McCain is old and we are smarter than you are.”

We are seeing the same old tableau erected again in this election cycle. Herman Cain and to a lesser extent Rick Perry offer actual solutions. Noted economic wonk, Paul Ryan on Cain’s 999 Plan: “We need more bold ideas like this because it is specific and credible,” Though Ryan declared himself, “...more of a flat-tax kind of a guy.” Which is much like the plan offered by governor Perry. Nevertheless the establishment continues to tout Mitt Romney who hasn’t added anything to the debate in the form of tangible self-originating ideas.

Herman Cain also enjoys popular support, reflected in a barrage of first place finishes in the polls. Mitt Romney in the last cycle was neither popular with the establishment nor the grass roots. This time the establishment has chosen him, but he still remains unpopular with the grass roots. The establishment continues to apply a steady oppressive resolution in it’s anointing of Romney.

In an article earlier this year, I put forward that we on the right ought not offer hit pieces on our candidates. I don’t intend for this article to be construed as a hit piece on Mitt Romney, but I find this whole process vexing.

We hear the pundits affirming the notion that the 2012 elections will be about the economy. They also rightly insist Mr. Obama’s health care plan constitutes a dire threat to the economic health and well being of our republic. They say this while promoting a candidate who the moment he begins an attack on the president’s health care debacle, the same Mr. Romney will be hoisted with his own petard. This tendency speaks to some self-destructive tendency within the right.

The establishment right never misses an opportunity to tell us how great Mr. Cain or Rick Perry are just before assuring us they cannot possibly win the nomination and they certainly can’t beat President Obama. Quick to point out the polls showing Cain beating Romney are irrelevant while maintaining the polls showing Obama beating Cain or Perry are holy writ.

Every chance Bill O’Reilly gets he assures his viewers that Cain, while capable, can’t hope to win the nomination and that Romney is inevitable. The same is heard over and over, repeated by establishment right wing voices all over the media. You didn’t see this sort of behavior marking the rise of Barack Obama on the left. Even when an article is favorable to Mr. Cain it is not without the “can’t win” addendum.

Case in point, I received via email this very morning “The awful sin of Herman Cain”, the latest article by Wesley Pruden, editor emeritus of The Washington Times. Wherein Mr. Pruden laments the unjust treatment Mr. Cain suffers from the left for having the temerity to be a Black conservative, he writes:

The toxic reaction to Herman Cain’s hearty welcome to Republican and conservative ranks, his spectacular rise in the polling of Republican voters, is a grim preview of what lies ahead. The liberals (“progressives,” as they call themselves this year) are not actually frightened by the prospect of President Cain; they recognize, given the givens, the high improbability of that happening. What irks, galls, frustrates and infuriates the east coast lib snobs is that the Republican embrace of the pizza man destroys the story line they want to reprise from 2008, that only bigots oppose President Obama.

Mr. Pruden’s description of liberal pathology is spot on, but why the need to foster the notion of the impossibility of Mr. Cain succeeding in obtaining the nomination or winning the presidency? In doing so, Mr. Pruden perpetuates those ephemeral “givens” invoked in his article.

Two years ago I coined an eponymous law describing the most popular leftist narrative fomented by the “progressives”.

The Obama Principle: Opposition to the policies of an African American president exists by virtue of him being an African American president.

I now offer a new law, which I self-indulgently proffer as an explanation of the thinking process of the modern so-called conservative intelligentsia.

The Cain Praxis: Any truly conservative candidate popular with the grass roots, regardless of competency, is deemed unelectable by conservative leadership in favor of the most generic alternative.

This is not a racial principle, it could just as easily be called the “Huckabee Barb”, Cain Praxis just sounds better--I wish it weren’t so true.

“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Mark 9:23

The American left, populated by people less likely to even believe in the God of the Holy Bible, have a firmer grasp of this Scriptural precept given us by Christ the Savior. I hope you join me in praying: "Dear Lord we do believe; help us overcome our unbelief!" In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen!

Digital Publius

Nazis, Commies and Occupiers Oh My!

2011-10-17T16:31:00.001-04:00

In the last century, the United States of America sacrificed more than 400,000 of our young men fighting against Japan and the evil of Germany’s National Socialism. America lost another 100,000 or so stopping the encroachment of Sino-Soviet style socialism in both hot and cold wars.

There is not a single political philosophy responsible for more human carnage than socialism. Leftist ideologies, whether you call it fascism, socialism or communism, are directly responsible for the slaughter of millions in just a single century. Let’s look at the tally of deaths resulting from socialist revolutions.

Nazi Germany: 6 million Jews alone another 6 million Soviet POWs, Poles, Romani (Gypsies), Disabled, Slovenes, Homosexuals...
Soviet Union: Lenin-Stalin, 29 million.
China: Under Mao Zedong, 40 million
Cambodia: Pol Pot, 1.6 million

Those are just the big boys, that count doesn’t include Tito, Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara or any of the other tin pot socialist dictator’s atrocities. Good thing that a great deal of the “revolution” was indeed not televised.

The left, particularly in academia, has worked wonders in distancing themselves from the barbarism their ideology inevitably led and continues to lead to, especially fascism. Despite the overwhelming support German and Italian fascism received from Western leftist progressives like H.G. Wells, NAACP founder W.E.B. DuBois, George Bernard Shaw, Will Rogers and Rexford Guy Tugwell, to name a few, the left has managed to somehow repaint fascism as a right wing philosophy.

The leftist progressives fell all over themselves in praise for Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Ol’ Il Duce...until the slaughter began. W.E.B. DuBois declared that the National Socialist Party (Nazis) takeover of Germany was: “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” Further Dubois wrote from Russia to the readers of his magazine ‘The Crisis”:

“I stand in astonishment and wonder at the revelation of Russia that has come to me. I may be partially deceived and half-informed. But if what I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears in Russia is Bolshevism, I am a Bolshevik.”

As DuBois later condemned Nazism’s extremes and lamented the deaths caused by the revolutions he had praised earlier, it was clear that he was indeed both deceived and ill-informed.

After a visit to Italy, Will Rogers said of Mussolini: “I’m pretty high on that bird.”

How are erstwhile political dilettantes like Rogers and DuBois any different from their contemporary progeny? Doesn’t Sean Penn’s praise of Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez sound eerily similar to Will Roger’s praise of Il Duce? Is the solidarity shown by “progressives” like President Obama and Nancy Pelosi with the neo-pinko Occupy Wall Street throng any different than DuBois declaring himself a Bolshevik?

I would have to say that the biggest difference has to be that the modern day progressive has the luxury of hindsight. History is a very useful thing to have--unless, out of either ignorance or hubris, you ignore it. And that is what we are seeing today. Some are willingly ignorant, others are simply evil.

Well the modern day Nazis and Communists have thrown their collective lots in with the Occupy Wall Street protestors. The Nazis because just like the National Socialist movement of Nazi Germany included an anti-semitic element, the same element is also present in the Occupy protests. And you don’t see the anti-semites being universally denounced or made to feel unwelcome by their fellow protestors.

The neo-nazi groups are saying since there is already anti-Jewish literature and rhetoric being preached at these rallies, they should remove the more offensive symbolism of the Nazi movement and join the Wall Street protests with watered down versions of their more inflammatory fare. Apparently this was issued by a nazi group in Westland Michigan just in time for the Detroit Occupy protest.

If socialism is such a good idea, why does it inspire so much death and destruction? You can see the modern progressives twisting history to the applause of the again, unthinking, ill-informed herd in this video.

Liberals feverishly try to draw a moral equivalency between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street crowd. But you don’t see the Nazis and the Commies issuing pleas for their followers to join the Tea Party. You can’t shout racist, anti-Semitic or anti-American rhetoric at a Tea Party gathering.

Those who do are on the other side of barricades conducting anti-Tea Party rallies. Despite liberal attempts to call the Tea Party racist, those are the facts.

"Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners" I Corinthians 15:33

The Greek word translated into the phrase “evil communications” is “homilia”, “companionship”, i.e. (by implication) intercourse:--communication. This is from the Greek word “homilos” (meaning a crowd); association together, i.e. a multitude:--company.

In other words, associating with the wrong crowd corrupts (often making a person act counter to their character by being engulfed in reactionary herd thinking) the way others perceive you and whatever message you may be trying to convey. This simple Biblical tenet is often taught to children by good parents. Be careful of the people you hang around with, because bad behavior tends to rub off.

I have seen Christians promoting these Occupy Wall Street rallies. I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Were we wrong to oppose the Nazis and the Communists for the better part of a century? Don’t you think it odd that Christians find themselves aligned with people holding anti-life political philosophies?

I am reminded of the words of my Lord in the Gospel of Matthew when His detractors tried to blame His actions on the devil:

“Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” v25

How do we cure the ills of our nation by embracing and adopting the failed and murderous philosophies of our enemies? The answer is simple: You can’t. Socialism has wrought only misery whenever and wherever it has been tried. Without regard to nomenclature, make no mistake that is what hides behind these protests. Christ continued in verse 26:

“And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?”

If you are a Christian at an occupy protest and socialists are all around you, ask yourself why the teachings of Christ are done away with in socialist nations? If capitalism is evil, why does Christ teach the principals undergirding capitalism over and over again in Scripture, likening them to His kingdom? Read Luke 19:11-27 or the parable of the “talents” Matthew 25:14-30. Or the “laborers in the vineyard” were Jesus Christ begins:

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. Matthew 20:1

You could just as easily change the word householder to capitalist or businessman: For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a capitalist... As with all things of importance taught by Christ--there is both a practical and a spiritual application. The practical in this verse is that God describes His kingdom as one which rewards industry. That’s how America used to be and should always be - a country that rewards the industrious.

I made this statement on my Facebook fan page and on Freedom Torch: “America doesn't need revolution, just a truly well informed electorate not blinded by misleading rhetoric. In the United States change comes with a vote not rioting.” You do not get socialist revolutions, like the ones being called for by far too many of the Occupy Wall Street crowd without blood.

For the Christians yoking yourselves to these “Occupy” people I ask you to remember:

“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” II Corinthians 13:5

If you believe our system is wrong, do you really think standing with Nazis, Communists and people fornicating in the streets – defecating on police cars and all sorts of reprobate behavior is the right way to go?

If our system is evil, how does Satan cast out Satan? Again; “Bad company ruins good morals.”

Digital Publius

Is Steve Jobs In Hell?

2011-10-09T11:19:00.004-04:00

I don't often post articles that I didn't write on Digital Publius, I think I have only done it some three times. This is a most worthy and important fourth and frankly I wish I had written it myself. You would be hard pressed to find a more committed Apple fan than your's truly – but the reality of what Mr. Cousar presents here is jarring and hopefully thought provoking. May it be received in the spirit it was intended.

Digital Publius

I hesitated in writing this article because it has no political content whatsoever - so posting it here on FreedomTorch.com seems a little out of place. But as I watched the news over the last two days of Steve Jobs' tragic and untimely death I couldn't help but wonder, "where is he right now?" The news stories lauded praise and not a one raised the question of where he might possibly spend eternity - which actually seems to me to be the most important question of all.

We're all used to the fact that the secular media isn't going to go into questions like that. And we know that non-Christians will always portray a good man as meeting St. Peter at the "pearly gates" and getting into heaven - thanks to their goodness. And although that's not what the Bible teaches, even many Christians seem to want to go along with that story - because it just makes everybody feel better.

What ultimately prompted me to write about this today was when I went to the Gospel Coalition website out of curiosity to see if even Christian websites were talking about his eternal destiny. If anyone was going to speak on this issue you'd think it would be a Christian website. But it wasn't to be - so I guess ironically - it will have to come from a political website! I was startled to find an article on theGospelCoalition site lauding Steve Jobs and suggesting the church could learn a few lessons from him! At the end of this article the author said that "when we see those glowing Apple logos let us take a moment to honor the greatness of our God." I was stunned by that because what we know of Steve Jobs' Buddhist and new-age spirituality is that he was fairly militant in his hostility to Christianity.

At the end of his life none of us know where Steve Jobs stood in relation to Christ, but if we go by what we did know, then the Bible says he will be spending eternity in hell. I don't report this to you with any glee or happiness whatsoever, for indeed it is the greatest tragedy of all.

I should say that I'm writing this as a Christian to Christians, so if you're not a Christian, please forgive my expression of these Christian views here. This is not meant to demean or in any way disrespect the beliefs of many of our FreedomTorch members.

As I've listened to the news reports of his great, life-improving achievements, I realized that I myself have great admiration for this man and his accomplishments - they've certainly improved my life as well. But, I couldn't help but wonder where is he now, and the words of Mark 8:36 came to mind: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?"

From a Biblical perspective, since we can't know for sure whether Jobs had a last-minute conversion, let me not pick on him personally, but use him as a metaphor for wealthy, powerful people who do die without Christ and try to picture what that experience - going from life to death - might have been like.

Try to imagine being as wealthy, powerful and influential as he was. Imagine having so much wealth that you can speak things into existence by the very power of your words. Imagine having everything you could possibly want at the snap of your fingers. Imagine being able to literally call anyone in the world on your iPhone and have them take your call. Celebrities, presidents, corporate chieftains, actors/actresses. Is there anyone who would not have taken a call from Steve Jobs? Imagine the sensation of having that kind of power and influence in the world.

You're a true Master of the Universe, you're respected, honored and adored universally. And then suddenly - you die. And you die without Christ. In an instant you've lost everything. At the moment of your death you make the most horrifying discovery that everything written in the Bible you rejected, was true. You enter into the most horrible place you've ever imagined. While people are still lauding you with praises back here on earth you have just entered a place where the screams alone are unbearable. The heat is unimaginable. People are screaming and telling you there's no escape - it's too late. And suddenly you're faced with the reality that you are going to be there FOREVER! For ETERNITY and there's no way, nothing at all, not a single possibility you can ever get out.

Imagine going from your beloved earthly reality to that Biblical reality - in an instant.

Christians don't talk about this often anymore and I'm not sure why. It's Biblical reality.

But we really need to think about it. Liberal pastors like New York City's Tim Keller says, "the primary purpose of salvation is cultural renewal - to make this world a better place." But is it really the PRIMARY purpose? What about ETERNITY and where we spend it? Is that not made more important by the sheer fact that it will go on and on forever?

While liberal pastors and theologians are busy at work thinking of ways to minimize the Biblical doctrine of hell, many more people are ending up there because they're not being taught the truth.

In Philippians 3:18-21 the Bible tells us:

"For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. Their future is eternal destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and all they think about is this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same mighty power that he will use to conquer everything, everywhere."

Liberal pastors, theologians and writers like Tim Keller, Rob Bell and yes even C.S. Lewis, tell Christians they shouldn't talk about eternal damnation and hell and fire and brimstone, because they say, it turns people off from the Gospel! But, it is an integral part of the Gospel! It's like saying "don't tell people what the Gospel says because it might turn them off from the Gospel"!

But without a clear Biblical understanding of hell, we humans have no way of understanding just how bad even the least of our sins are to God. And don't we use this same principle in our criminal justice system? Don't serious crimes get harsher punishments? A guy shoplifting an iPod might not get more than a slap on the wrist. But a guy violently raping a woman might spend life behind bars. The rapist, who has no doubt justified in his mind why what he's doing is okay, may have no other way of understanding just how bad his act is without looking at the punishment. No matter how much he justifies it in his mind, when he looks at the possibility of life in prison he has to conclude that society believes rape is a horrible crime. Same with hell. Hell tells us that God believes our sins are horrible acts of disobedience - no matter how much we've justified them to ourselves.

It's only when we look at the serious nature of the eternal punishment that we can begin to faintly come to grips with the serious depravity of our human nature. And it is only when we begin to understand the seriousness with which God considers our sins that we begin to dimly understand our need for a savior. And it is only when we begin to understand our need for a savior that we begin to understand just how wonderful the word Gospel - which means Good News - really is. For indeed, it is glorious news to learn that God has acted in human history to save us from the eternal punishment our sins have earned us.

I think it's fitting to close with the story that Jesus told in the Gospel of Luke of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The points of this story that haunt me are that hell is absolutely horrible and there is no way of ever getting out of it or getting any relief from the eternal pain and torture.

(And fittingly, I'm typing this from my Bible that resides on my iPad)

Jesus said, "There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed and who lived each day in luxury. At his door lay a diseased beggar named Lazarus. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally, the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried and his soul went to Hades. There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.

The rich man shouted, "Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in great anguish in these flames."

But Abraham said to him, "Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. Anyone who wanted to cross over to you from here is stopped at its edge, and no one there can cross over to us."

Then the rich man said, "Please Father Abraham, send him to my father's house. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them about this place of torment so they won't have to come here when they die." But Abraham said, "Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read their writings anytime they want to."
The rich man replied, "No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will turn from their sins." But Abraham said, "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even if someone rises from the dead."

Now that by bringing the Biblical doctrine of hell to you, I have thoroughly succeeded in making everyone despise this God who would send us to such a horrible punishment, I have to remind you, that's not the whole story. There's one more part. The knowledge of an eternal hell makes the words of John 3:16-18 truly wonderful. These words people have read so many times that they are sick of them. But you can only be sick of these words if you don't understand that without them you too would spend eternity in hell.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. There is no judgment or condemnation awaiting those those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been condemned for not believing in the only Son of God."

Jonathan Cousar, Founder of Freedom Torch

Meaningless Occupation

2011-10-07T09:04:00.003-04:00

In the year of our Lord 1605, a cadre of English Roman Catholics attempted the assassination of the Protestant King James the 1st along with the entire British Parliament. Led by a fellow named Robert Catesby, the plan involved the conspirators procuring the lease to an undercroft (a sort of storage vault) directly below the House of Lords. The plotters stockpiled some 36 casks of gunpowder — enough to (excuse the trope) blow James the 1st and the rest of British government to kingdom come.

At this time, the Church of Rome had adopted the philosophy; faith is not to be kept with heretics when its violation is necessary for the interests of the Church. As a Protestant nation, England was most certainly in violation of the Roman church's interest, a maxim exemplified by the failed Spanish invasion of Britain attempted in1588.

I am not trying to inflame my Roman Catholic friends and readers with this truncated lesson on the regicidal history of Great Britain. Moreover, I am also not suggesting the contemporary Roman church still adheres to such draconian ideas. What I am conveying, is simply a matter of history.

The Church of Rome at that time was most inhospitable to Protestant kings and the loss of political and fiscal influence monarchs such as these precipitated. I bring this event up because in an odd way it plays a rather incongruous role in today's American political tapestry.

The plan to murder King James was called the "Gunpowder Plot". The king, whose most egregious heresy, according to the Roman Church, was the heretical idea that an individual should be responsible for his own standing with God via understanding intimately God's precepts through a personal study of God's eternal word. Hence, the King authorizing an English translation of the Holy Bible — that could be read by the common man — in his own language, freeing him from the restraint of being at the whim of an elite few who could afford enough education to learn both Latin and Greek.

The vehement Catholic opposition to the new translation of the Bible into colloquial English and the stress of that opposition exerted on, and felt by the group of translators, prompted them to actually mention it in their notes recorded in the Authorized Version's first preface:

"So much are they afraid of the light of the scripture, that they will not trust the people with it...Sure we are that not he that hath the good gold, that is afraid to bring it to the touchstone, but he that hath the counterfeit."

All that as a frame of reference to illustrate the empty headedness of the modern-leftist-leaning American youth and how that mental vacuum accentuates the utter meaninglessness of the various so-called "occupy" protests they are taking part in. Our youth know precious little of their own nation's history. Thus, they can hardly be expected to know anything about British history.

Many of the "yahoos" taking part in these protests don the mask of a mustachioed grinning visage, representing one of western history's earliest patsies — Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes was an English born Catholic mercenary who fought with Spain in the Roman church's war against the Dutch Republic. The Dutch rebellion was driven by Rome's oppressive taxes and constant persecution of Protestants.

Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators was the fellow responsible for lighting the fuse. The plotters did not know their plan had been discovered. Fawkes was arrested guarding the gunpowder cache and through "enhanced interrogation techniques" gave up his fellow plotters.

Guy Fawkes was the tool of what the leftist youth today would consider the ultimate oppressor. But if there is one thing painfully apparent when it comes to liberals choosing their heroes, history is the only thing more meaningless to them than truth.

Guy Fawkes was adopted as the cool symbol of rebellion not because of what he stood for in reality, but because of a comic book called "V for Vendetta" written by a Brit named Alan Moore and the movie the comic subsequently inspired. For American liberal youth, cool imagery always trumps reality, as well as objective truth.

This is no different really than our youth wearing paraphernalia depicting the murderous Che Guevara while listening to iPods chock full of the rock music Che vowed he would destroy if his rebellion succeeded in the world. Though Che and Fidel executed unknown numbers of gay men in communist Cuba, American youth see no irony in representing Che while participating in a gay rights march.

How many of the protesters disrupting Wall Street do so while tweeting the goings on via an iPhone or iPad made by Apple, which is the very apex of what can be achieved by an industry unfettered by intrusive government policy. Apple is a manifestation of the very practices the Wall Street occupiers say they oppose.

I am a huge Apple fan, have been since the 80's. The recently deceased visionary head of Apple was a capitalist's capitalist. Steve Jobs provided products that have made a tremendously positive impact on the world.

However, there are not many companies responsible for more outsourcing than Apple. Nor is there a more restrictive platform in the free market than Apple's. Yet, you never see anti-corporate youth denouncing Apple or picketing outside of Apple's Cupertino headquarters for the enormous profits they themselves contributed to.

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20

Rep. John Larson, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus declared the youth occupying Wall Street have what he called the "right morals," and that we "ought to take heed" as our youth usher in an "American Fall."

If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, it is difficult to apprehend a cohesive idea of what this so called "occupation" represents — other than chaos.

The idea of "morality" has devolved into the subjective. Everything the occupiers extol represent a stark departure from what was at one time considered moral behavior, replaced only with man's ever shifting tastes, which is a very dangerous thing. Mr. Larson's new concept of morality constitutes a rejection of the principles that once worked in this nation brilliantly.

The media offers what amounts to a "Tale of Two Revolutions" featuring the inevitable comparisons of the "Occupiers" with the "Tea Party."

The Tea Party gatherings, inspired by the American colonist's rebellion against imperial taxation without representation, serve as an apt metaphor for a new protest aimed at an American government exceeding it's purpose. A type of protest based on a model that actually proved successful.

From the myriad interviews I have watched of occupiers, I have been unable to fathom any cohesive ideas or goals expected from this exercise. I have nonetheless seen a great many placards extolling the virtues of socialism/communism. If the youth are basing their protest on the actions of foreign dissident's models, it is decidedly sandy ground in which to build upon as they are models that have never proved successful.

"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness." Luke 11:34

Without a clear vision every movement is doomed to fail, quite often ending in calamities sometimes measured in human lives. The vision behind the "Wall Street Occupation" is myopic and indicative of powers behind the scenes using youthful enthusiasm fueled by a romanticized misunderstanding of events in places of true oppression, to further subversive intent aimed at harming America.

King James was a moderate when it came to Catholics in his realm. That of course all changed after the Catholic Church's repeated attempts on his life. The misguided gunpowder treason had the effect of making things bad for Catholics in England.

Unlike the Tea Party, whose goal is correction and a return to the right path that made this nation the envy of the world, the present attempt to occupy is designed to transform America into something if achieved, the yahoos involved would truly hate, which is a nation more akin to the scorched earth approach tried by Fawkes and his cohorts. If unlike their hero Fawkes, the occupiers succeed, they can kiss their much beloved Apple gear goodbye.

Digital Publius

Democrat, Thy Name is Judas

2011-09-14T18:56:00.001-04:00

To search the depths of liberal false beliefs, reveals the cause of our dire circumstance. Our course as a nation is not upright, because we did forget the Lord’s plumb line.

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

America waxes worse and worse as we stray further from this simple Biblical principle. We have placed the temporal above the spiritual and embraced man’s economy, while disregarding God’s all together. This is the essential dictum separating the greater part of those subscribing to conservative thought and the liberal mindset. The following of leftist thinking has delivered us to this sorry point in American history.

I have maintained since becoming a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, after having studied the Holy Bible and found it to be evenly derived – the very word of God. It is vexing to me that anyone could confess Christ and vote Democrat. I have personally been unable to determine how I could do so.

Between President Bill Clinton’s first and second terms I was saved. I voted for Mr. Clinton the first time, but could not support him the second. Nor has there been a candidate on the Democrat side I could rally behind in good conscience since.

Before the reactionaries begin to accuse me of being naive, let me assure you I do not see it as a cut-and-dry, Democrat bad, Republican good affair.

The Holy Bible assures us that “...all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. God also assures us He “is no respecter of persons.” That being said, the Democrats seem to

always follow the way “which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death”.

You can be sure “the ways of death” are not found when a person is seeking first the kingdom of God. They are entirely different roads. The Democrats inevitably choose the way that seems right to man.

Such as, it seems right to a man to protect a woman’s right to destroy a whole other person’s body. It is right especially if she does not want the responsibility of caring for said person once he or she leaves her body.

A child is always the ultimate victim, when a woman makes this particular choice of what to do with her body. An innocent person is not allowed to feel the sun on their face because of the actions of two people selfishly disregarding God’s good order from the start.

The marriage covenant first and then the God given gift of sex within marriage. Sex in that context is both pleasurable and life affirming.

In His kingdom, God establishes the sacrament of marriage as a relationship consisting of one man and one woman. The Democrat party finds this establishment unsuitable and works to transform it into a more tolerant sacrament, more inclusive than God’s, more reflective of this fallen world.

You may vote Democrat and agree with God’s establishments. But when you pull the lever for Barrack Obama, Harry Reid, John Conyers or a Nancy Pelosi, you are pulling the lever for the “way that seemeth right unto man” each and every time, whether you think so or not.

Many of those who vote Democrat and confess Christ (especially in the Black communities) do so with the erroneous idea that the Democrats care more for the disadvantaged, while the Republican Party represents the rich only. Liberals believe this, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The left pays lip service to helping the poor and working classes, but their actual policy perpetuates circumstances that make it difficult for the poor to extricate themselves from their condition and makes the business environment unsteady for the working class.

Ergo, cities like Detroit, Cleveland, East St. Louis, and Chicago. Somnolently continue to elect liberal officials, causing them to slide further into lack and despair. It would seem at some point logic would dictate a change in philosophy.

Nevertheless, the most depressed areas press on in a downward spiral of leftist ideology that has failed everywhere it has ever been implemented.

The left reminds me of Judas Iscariot, John 12:

1 Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anoint-ed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. 4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, 5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. 7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

This Scripture is another example of God telling us to serve Him while we can, because He first served us. Judas feigns concern for the poor, (not unlike the Democrats), because he was in control of the funds and it furthered Judas. The Democrats enjoy “having the bag” and buying votes with its contents. Carelessly the left trades the financial security of the nation for the control holding the bag affords them.

It doesn’t matter that the bag is well and truly empty. The left is content to steal (like Judas) even from future generations of Americans to maintain power today.

There will always be poor folks, and the Bible, in no uncertain terms, extols the virtue of charity. However, God measures charity individually. He did not determine that civil authority should look out for the poor. Stewardship of the resources God gives to an individual includes what portion of those resources we sow unto others.

We are to give, not grudgingly, or of necessity, but cheerfully, for this is pleasing to God. I do not know of a single person who cheerfully gives his or her taxes in modern America on a local or federal level, while receiving less and less service in return Americans give more-and-more to the government and yet, our situation keeps getting worse-and-worse, not just for the poor, but for everyone.

When Americans were mindful of the precepts of God whenever they made political decisions in times past, we had a history not free of error, but always self correcting. By and by, we saw slavery as the evil God declared it to be and we ended it, Segregation bad - we fixed it. Never has an outside force or power had to intervene. The result? A prosperous America.

It is my hope that a new era of self-correction has begun spearheaded by Anthony Weiner’s former constituents. This overwhelmingly Democratic leaning district, just under 40 percent Jewish, rejected the ultra liberal David Weprin in favor of conservative Bob Turner In the House race to fill the seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner.

David Weprin, himself an orthodox Jew, chose to side with the precepts of man over the tenets of the God of his fathers, which was demonstrated by Mr. Weprin voting in favor of the New York Assemblies decision to legalize gay marriage. The socially con-servative Jewish community finally decided to vote their conscience.

It is reported that Democrat Ed Koch supported Bob Turner in a show of solidarity with the staunch support shown Israel by conservative Republicans.

As President Obama and the Democrats weaken America’s tacit support of our ally Israel in the Middle East, at last the Jewish community is finally beginning to shake off it’s spiritual somnolence.

It was stunning to see the recent interviews conducted by Sean Hannity with NFL great Emmett Smith and broadcaster/activist Tavis Smiley. Both men so close to being smart but still clueless to the spiritually and pragmatically counterintuitive positions they support. Blind to the damage done by those positions in the communities they seek to influence.

For my Christian friends who vote Democrat, if you want real “change”; “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” Colossians 3:1,2 You’ll do much better than placing your “hope” on the wisdom of men who reject those things from above.

President Obama on occasion says he embraces the God of the Holy Bible and His statutes, but the President’s actions and the platform of his party betray him. Mr. Obama says he believes marriage is a matter of one man and one woman, but he refuses to enforce the laws protecting that definition.

If only we could get the Black community to cast off the left handed, liberal languor clouding their minds and begin to vote their spiritual convictions instead of reinforcing the failed policies of the left, which are all inspired by the king of this world.

The double-minded thinking displayed by the President’s stance on marriage, exemplifies the self-defeating spirit permeating leftist theory.

It is my prayer that the Black community learns from the New York Jewish community and begins to consider God first when voting and collectively self correct by veering to the right.

“A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.” Ecclesiastes 10:2

Digital Publius

It's Not Easy Being Green

2011-09-06T13:34:00.000-04:00

Two and a half years ago, I wrote an article laden with examples of the American liberals’ disdain for free debate and resistance against allowing competitive viewpoints being weighed in the marketplace of ideas. We saw the tally of new jobs in the month of August hit a number that had not been reached since September of 2010: zero!

Two of the last twelve months have registered zero net job growth. Let me repeat that, zero net jobs! The overwhelming majority of the rest of the year’s jobs numbers have been...underwhelming. At what point will it begin to dawn on the Democrats that their ideas are fundamentally flawed?

A major plank bolstering the President’s platform, as it pertains to job creation, has been the fanciful idea of a green economy flush with new jobs. Mr. Obama was so committed to this whimsical notion, he added a new layer to an already top heavy bureaucracy, something called a “Green Jobs Czar”. He then appointed an avowed socialist to inhabit this position, with the inane desire that said socialist should create a new green capitalism driven job engine.

A sizable chunk of the taxpayer’s ill-conceived stimulus money (billions in fact) was then ear-marked as seed cash to kick start this new green economic juggernaut. No one on the left seemed to think this odd. In fact, leftist controlled media did all it could to drown out the impassioned warnings against this verdant folly as sober-minded economists critical of the stratagem clucked there tongues in bemused disbelief.

It has been my experience in studying such things that when an idea is truly good, there is no dearth of people eager to put their own money where their mouth is, dreams of windfalls dancing through their heads. Good job-creating business ideas don’t need federal backing, they need good lawyers and security professionals to keep competitors from stealing them.

The President and his cohorts squandered the people’s money with his green initiatives, giving money to companies the administration bragged about that the business stars of ABC’s reality investment show, Shark Tank, would have laughed out of the studio. So, now we see these same green companies dropping like flies. Laying people off, in some cases, actually exporting jobs to other countries, but mostly going out of business all together.

In the case of one strong domestic business concern, Gibson Guitars, we have seen the administration literally telling the company’s CEO he should outsource jobs. Suggesting if the wood processing work being done in America by American workers was done in the countries of origin where the wood is imported from, his Department of Justice inflicted strife, would cease.

This sort of wrong-headedness is the thing really responsible for our floundering economy. The left is completely indifferent to facts and reason. The entire green idea is fueled by pseudo science and detachment from reality. The left prefers speculative fiction to hard pragmatic scientific data.

It really stems from the liberals’ propensity for worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. The media serves as the leftist religion’s high priestess, sacrificing the truth for misguided ideology, utilizing electronic priestcraft and rhetorical slight of hand to hide the dismal failures the left continue to pile up. Anything to keep from using the resources God provided for man’s use.

The creation the left worships more than any other, is man himself. The liberal truly believes man has a great deal more power than he does. Even though—as I have pointed out in earlier articles—man’s cities, towns and roads make up a scant 2 - 3 percent of the earths surface, the left is convinced that we are mucking with the planet in some irreparable manner.

What monumental insolence shown towards the One the founders saw as the true Author of our republic. Like man’s fiat money, the insubstantial medium created by governmental Ponzi schemes that we now find our nation at the mercy of, liberal insolence is backed by nothing. God gave us gold and silver, oil and land, real wealth and we rebuke it for our own idea. Then watch in wonder as we stand at the precipice of losing our status as the worlds reserve currency, which when it happens, will bring a swift end to our hubris.

As it was suggested back in the 19th century in the Cleveland, Ohio, Plain Dealer, I would prefer that miners furnish my money. As our fiat money buys us less and less, gold and silver have both not only retained their value, their buying power has increased.

The United States has been blessed with oil, coal, natural gas and other resources in abundance—the most inexpensive and efficient sources of energy available to us—and yet we choose to follow the erroneous idea that it is harmful to a planet so large we are less than fleas beneath a man’s heel in comparison. In haughty self-worship, the left does far more harm to the poor they claim to care for, than good for the planet that truly does not need their help.

“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” Job 38:1-4

As I reflect on this day we celebrate the nation’s workers, I cannot conceive of a President whose policies have been more deleterious for the American worker than those implemented by President Barack Obama and his party in the last few years. He and the leftists keep leading us towards leaning on our own understanding, in an attempt to recreate what we already have in abundance, instead of trusting in our hearts that the Lord has provided the resources we need.

I am reminded of the saying made famous by Norm Franz’ in his book “Money and Wealth in the New Millennium”: “Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves,” I would presume to add that a “green” economy is the money of fools, which brings to mind another dictum concerning fools and their money...

Digital Publius

The Problem We All Live With

2011-08-30T13:36:00.001-04:00

Because of the damage wrought in the Black community by these people’s ideas, mentality and actions, I made a short list of men for whom it would take every ounce of Christian restraint to keep me from punching in the throat on sight if we ever met.

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill

The Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

The Rev. Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr.

Dr. Cornel Ronald West

Broderick Steven "Steve" Harvey

Thomas "Tom" Joyner

Kanye Omari West

As these men prove, education and success are no measure or guarantee of wisdom. They are indeed the modern day Sambos and Quimbos, tirelessly wielding the whip for their racist liberal masters, keeping the coloreds inline on the Democrat plantation. Servile and ignorant, they look towards their masters in government to see to their needs.

They are happy to be in those nice servants quarters the masters done let them have in Compton, East St. Louis and the like. The Democrats of old forbade the education of their slaves, lest they become uppity and begin to question their station. The modern Democrats still don't want Black folks learning to read, so they resist any idea that might have the effect of improving education for urban youth.

School vouchers? “We don’t want them going to school with our children!” Charters? “What about the teacher’s unions?” The Democrats have even managed to have the more slack-jawed Black folks championing the failed urban school systems, telling their fellows “the Charter Schools really aren’t that great.”

The NAACP teamed up with the United Federation of Teachers in a lawsuit against the City of New York, alleging the charter schools took resources away from the public schools. As well they should–when you consider the charters put those resources to much better use.

President Obama, as his support begins to erode even in the Black community, in a gesture I am sure was aimed at assuring his more reactionary urban constituents that he is still “down”, hung Norman Rockwell’s painting “The Problem We All Live With” a few feet from the Oval Office.

This painting, one of Rockwell’s most famous, was inspired by the plight of Ruby Bridges. In 1960, at age 6, Ruby Bridges became the first student to be integrated into schools in New Orleans. The painting depicts a little Black girl dressed in white, escorted by a cadre of U.S. Marshals, errant tomatoes splattered behind her on a wall adorned with the word “NIGGER”.

I am sure it’s not lost on the President, but his adherents fail to see the irony in his hanging this particular painting. The left eschews a Rockwellian depiction of America in almost every way. Always quick to portray Rockwell’s conservative chronicling of American society in the last century as hopelessly idealized, they claim it has very little relation to reality.

Yet it was the conservatives who loved that romantic view of America as rendered by Rockwell that actually championed desegregation. It is forgotten that it was a Republican Dwight Eisenhower who ordered those U.S. Marshals down to Nola to escort Ruby Bridges to school! The leftist Democrats also want it forgotten that it was Ike who got the Civil Rights ball rolling to begin with.

The painting is a dramatization of what was happening in the South at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. Adding to the irony, anyone in New Orleans who was opposed to Ruby Bridges or the “Little Rock Nine” attending school with all them good White children back then and likely to throw tomatoes and write “nigger” on the wall, would have been a staunch Democrat.

Democrats still champion separate but equal education for Black folks. How else do you explain their dogged encouragement of failed educational paradigms? The fewer Black folks in good school systems the more Black folks languishing in the ghettos for the Democrats to exploit. Keep them on the plantation; let master think for them.

“Pay no mind to them uppity conservative Black people, they forgot where they belong. We know how to control our coloreds. You got to make sure they understand they can never compete with the White man, unless we help them. And we only help the ones that know their place. You know the American dream ain’t for you, boy! You know the White man ain’t never gonna treat you like an equal.”

So why bother?

That is the question ruling the lives of far too many of the American Black youth of today. They feel like there is no hope. They had hope in Barrack Obama, he seems to be repaying that hope with indifference. Maxine Waters was absolutely correct to call Mr. Obama on his failure to even pretend to address Black issues. A stopped watch and all that...

It should be acknowledged that the hardest hit segment of the President’s constituency is the Black community, yet on his recent bus tour he did not stop in a single urban area to assure that community he is working on it.

The bottom line is that Mr. Obama knows despite the utter failure of leftist policies in urban America, Black folks are going to vote for him in huge numbers just because he is Black and more importantly, a Democrat. Because Black folks would still vote for a White Democrat, if the Republican candidate is Black, we saw that played out in the 2008 elections.

So why waste a trip to inner city Chicago? It is the White vote Obama needs and he knows it. So it is much more pragmatic to have a donut in Decorah, Iowa, than a Coney Dog in Detroit, Michigan.

The “problem we all live with” today, is an unengaged Black youth. Where the Black children like Ruby Bridges of the first half of the 20th century saw education as a means to better themselves, far too many of today’s Black youth have zero confidence in the school systems they are trapped in by liberal policy’s ability to make them viable. Along with a belief that the whole world is stacked against them, because that is what their heroes keep telling them.

And the left, despite the platitudes they spout to the media, do all they can to foster that attitude amongst urban youth. “Progressive” morality has decimated the Black community. Driven by urban entertainers (themselves motivated only by money and fame), our Black youth idolize and internalize some of the most unwholesome behavior and ideas that have ever existed in America.

With our Black children raising hell in public and flash mobs robbing people based on race, Blacks are participating in the most self destructive conduct imaginable. And the left fans these flames every time they portray Black youth as victims instead of responsible beings who control their own destinies.

The only people preying on Black folks today on a regular basis are other Black folks! The naked stupidity of Black youths attacking White people is proof positive of their complete detachment from all practical reasoning. Not only is it morally wrong to attack anyone of any race, it is beastly foolish to pick a fight with someone who has numerical superiority and a great deal more resources than you.

The leftist will say the establishment and corporate America is preying on Black youth, sucking the jobs out of the city and taking them overseas. They can say this with a straight face as they grant men like G.E. CEO Jeffrrey Immelt all access passes in fraudulent quasi-governmental positions like “The President's Council On Jobs And Competitiveness.” Meanwhile, General Electric continues to be one of our greatest exporters of American jobs.

When do we wake up? Perpetual idiot Janeane Garofalo accused Presidential candidate Herman Cain of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and being a paid shill for the Tea Party, acting as a beard covering inherent racism in the conservative movement. Yet men like Herman Cain represent and offer an alternative to failure, a break from the misery plantation as cultivated by the left that the Black community now finds itself yoked to.

How long must the Black community wax worse and worse before we stop listening to the modern day Sambos and Quimbos? Some are complicit in advancing the racist liberal urban agenda – men like Sharpton, Hill and Dyson, who know for whom they are working and what impact it has on urban America, but, it got them into the big house. Others are just plain dumb, like Harvey, Joyner and Kanye West; all they know is what they have been conditioned to know, but their bully pulpits make them terribly harmful as they spread that conditioning.

Black youth create havoc, often racist in nature, film it and post it on YouTube themselves in an unenlightened celebration of folly and madness. Then racist White folks see it on YouTube, call the videos of Black bad behavior “Chimp outs” and use it as a justification for their own hatred as they spew racial invective! All this under the presidency that was supposed to heal the nation?

The left cringes at the idea of ones faith playing a factor in governing. Most who hold to a liberal perspective have little regard for the things of the Holy Bible and the Bible’s God. They maintain the belief that man can restrain man, but never wonder why their endeavors bear so little fruit. You can change laws to protect man from his fellow, but you cannot legislate the attitudes of his heart.

Frankly, the left is only interested in persuading people to vote for them in elections; they don’t really care what happens to folks in their work-a-day lives. This is the primary reason they oppose a practical Christian faith. They are OK with faith on Sunday, but don’t bring it into your political and practical life.

They know that the only way to enact real “Change” is through Christian faith, but that goes against everything they work toward. They condition their henchmen like Sharpton and Cornell West to advocate for folks placing their faith in government, rather than God and themselves through Biblical truth. Why? Because the truth has the nasty habit of making men free!

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.” Ezekiel 36:26-28

Digital Publius

Empty Gestures

2011-08-22T23:30:00.000-04:00

To what end?

If you talk to me for any length of time, eventually you will hear me ask that question. I don’t ask it to be flippant or dismissive—I just hold empty gestures in low regard. To what end? This is a question too few of us ask; we are often too swept away by our passions, our fervor and emotions to pause and reflect...To what end?

Hence, so many were willing to overlook the obvious inadequacies, questionable associations and murky background to elect a certain junior Senator from Illinois President of the United States of America.

Some who did ask the question “To what end?” regarding then Senator Obama, still made the decision to vote for him despite his political shortcomings, because he represented something for them. Perhaps it was racial pride, a historical benchmark quelling the guilt of the past, or perchance simply an ideological fellow traveler.

The question can be asked and a person may understand what they are about to do is risky and potentially disastrous, yet emotional people will regularly ignore the latent danger of their choices and “hope” for the best, if the short term emotional pay off is substantial enough to make an empty gesture at least appear grand!

After all, as illustrated by his erstwhile political rival for President and future running mate: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Joe Biden continued, "I mean, that's a storybook, man." Considering our current circumstances, Mr. Obama’s subsequent election to the highest office in the land seems more a “Grimm” fairytale.

Those most swept away in the grandeur of America’s empty gesture in electing an unprepared Barrack Obama are even now beginning to feel like they are sitting in the witch’s cauldron. The fire gets hotter and hotter and suddenly they feel duped. Unfortunately, those of us who recognized Mr. Obama for what he was, now find ourselves beside them in the soup.

We on the right are not immune; we, too, engage in our own brand of vacuous shenanigans! We, too, chase what we consider noble ideas without asking, “To what end?” The difference is, we tend to cloak our empty gestures in what the Holy Bible calls a “form of godliness.” Such a gesture is being offered now in Israel, brought to you by Glenn Beck.

“He also told them this parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” Luke 6:39

Glenn Beck, as he stood in a theater built by Herod (Herod, who in an effort to kill Christ as a child, killed all the male children in Israel below the age of 2) in the city of Caesarea, making opening remarks at his “Restoring Courage” rally in Israel, informed his audience there were “Senators and Representatives from eleven of the United States.”

Beck told his enthusiastic crowd that among them were “religious leaders from 26 of the largest congregations in the U.S. alone”. No less than “four dignitaries from the E.U.” “Six members of Parliament from the E.U.” [sic] “eleven representatives of the largest ‘Tea Party’ groups”, the latter elicited a resounding yelp and thunderous applause.

Beck continued, “We have members from the 9/12 Project, we have 1400 viewing parties all around the world tonight” Beck told the audience: “People are watching this event tonight in Pakistan and in Egypt and in Brazil, in South Africa and 80 other countries around the globe.”

Beck informed the crowd: “tonight is going to concentrate on the ‘courage to love’. Tomorrow is the ‘courage to remember’ and it all ends at the throne of God on Wednesday, the ‘courage to stand’.” But Beck never gets around to explaining to what end are they gathered in Israel to love, remember and stand?

Beck says: “We welcome you no matter what denomination or what faith you belong to tonight.” He then introduces a Rabbi to give an opening prayer, exclaiming at his ecumenical gathering, “People are not neutral here and neither is God”. Quite so, God is not neutral. Nor is He ecumenical, at least not the God revealed in the Holy Bible.

“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Ephesians 4:4-6

Not a very ecumenical statement. Man quite often, in a misguided attempt to unite all men by being all things to all people, will try to drag God along for the ride through gestures like Beck’s rally in support of Israel.

My blog, Digital Publius, is very political, but it is also very Christian. I make an effort to distinguish my political and social views from my directive to spread the Gospel of Christ. It is my intent to always honor God by submitting my will to His, allowing my faith to inform my views on politics and society.

Honestly, it is impossible to operate in a spirit of ecumenicism and maintain a commitment to God—if He is your first priority—if you stand with Israel for temporal reasons like her being our only true and strategic American ally in the Middle East; or you just don’t want your supply of Israeli couscous to dry up. I can stand with Beck on that, I like Israeli couscous as much as the next guy.

But, as I explained in my article “Sweet or Bitter”, when he ventures into the spiritual, Beck and I have to part ways. Beck declares his faith as he introduces historian David Barton: “As many of you know, if you watch or listen to me, I have chosen a path that isn’t always the most popular with Christians. I am a member of the LDS faith.”

He goes on to state David Barton loves him for who he is, demonstrating his love for Beck “in every way at all times.” “David is one of the finest examples of Christians, I think, and he has helped me put this event together so we could all be here for this historic night.” Again I ask, to what end? Why this historic night?

This was not a night about Israel and it certainly was not a night to honor God. You honor God the way He says He should be honored, first by offering Him Praise and Thanksgiving, before doing anything else. I don’t love Israel, I love God. I support Israel because God in His Word told me to. Any other reason to support Israel in the temporal sense may be expedient, but it is so because God arranged it that way.

“In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.” Amos 9;11,12

The very existence of Israel as a modern state is a testament to the sovereignty of God! Before 1948, the fact that the Holy Bible made statements like the one above, saying Israel would again be a nation after an almost two millennia long diaspora, was the number one reason people doubted the Bible was God’s Word.

Though the Romans finally succeeded in casting Israel out of their land, they were not able to destroy the Israeli Identity. It was utter madness to suggest Israel would ever rise again. Yet here we are. God declares, in the last days:

“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. ” Zechariah 12: 1-3

A “burdensome stone” is there a more accurate description of Israel as seen in the world today by her enemies? In Psalms 83:2-8, we find this prophetic portrait of Israel’s plight in our time:

“For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them...”

All those names at the end of these passages are the modern day Islamic and Arab states surrounding and arrayed against Israel today, constantly threatening and plotting to destroy her. Yet returning to Zechariah 12 verses 8-10, God promises Israel:

“In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. ”

The LORD is here saying that Christ, “me whom they have pierced” will destroy Israel’s enemies and “they” (the Jews) will finally look upon and recognize Christ for who He is. I like the great theologian Adam Clarke’s commentary on verse 10 describing the Jewish reaction to this:

“This shall produce deep and sincere repentance; they shall mourn, and be in bitterness of soul, to think that they had crucified the Lord of life and glory, and so long continued to contradict and blaspheme, since that time.”

This Christ is not the created being described by LDS ontological teachings on Christ. This is Christ the Creator as portrayed in the Holy Bible! His appearance will be a rude awakening for those who teach they themselves can become gods.

Belief in false gods or ill-formed messiahs always ends badly. Whether they be political ones calling for “hope and change”, or theological ones obscured by man’s desire to be accepting of everyone’s idea of “faith”. As I have said many times, we can all be wrong, but we cannot all be right.

This rally in Israel is unseemly, it seems more a device to drive the Glenn Beck machine helping to launch his new online network. When you read the comments of so many people on the Blaze articles depicting last night’s events, there is a cacophony of folks either praising the quality of the transmission from Israel or complaining that they can’t sign up for whatever reason.

To what end? If you are there in Israel, or zealously watching on the world wide web for any purpose other than praising the God who is that nation’s author, deliverer and sustainer, you may want to give some thought to believing what that God says.

Ironically, on the Blaze we find a link reading: “Slideshow: 19 Cool & Amazing Pictures From Night One of ‘Restoring Courage’” The photo used to illustrate this article is the one used to advertise the link. It is number 18 in the slideshow, In light of God’s injunction:

"Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD." Leviticus 19:28

The photo perfectly demonstrates how in ones zealousness to support an idea, one can lose track of the source of that idea. And in so doing, offer up yet another empty gesture!

Digital Publius

Rhetoric v. Substance

2011-08-04T17:21:00.001-04:00

“States’ Rights!” How many concepts established in our Constitution have been more controversial and situationally pliable, perhaps even ephemeral than “States Rights?” It is at once (depending on one’s perspective) both noble concept and apex of licentiousness.

In a “more perfect union”, “States’ Rights” is perhaps second only to the recognition of an individual’s “unalienable rights,” endowed by the Creator, which is greatest of the great ideas inherent in our national identity. Yet due to the “inherent” fallen nature of man, this virtuous idea has been used on occasion as a tool of oppression.

This reality begs other questions: Is it the concept of states’ rights that is flawed, or the men who twist it to grant themselves powers over other men? Should we do away with the concept all together and cede all power to the federal government, or should we endeavor to curb our baser instincts and rise to the nobility of the concept?  

In answer to the last question, the modern left would surely prefer the former. Particularly that segment on the left that derives its power from race baiting. Indeed “race” has been at the vanguard of the states’ rights question from the very beginning of our American experience.

Historically, it has been the Democrat party that has made best use of the perceived mercurial nature of the states’ rights idea. Democrats are for states’ rights when it suits them and against the idea when it encumbers their agenda.

The Democrats were for states’ rights and in full support of the Tenth Amendment when it allowed them to maintain their use of chattel slavery in the American South. But Democrats were all too eager to infringe upon the sovereignty of Northern states when it came to decisions like the Dred Scott ruling and the Fugitive Slave Act.

It was Infringements like Dred Scott and the Fugitive Slave Act that incensed the Northern states and abolitionists in particular as exemplified by Harriet Beecher Stowe penning the pivotal novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the subsequent founding of the modern Republican Party.

At the time of the American Civil War, you were a rare creature indeed if you were a member of the Republican Party and you were not also a staunch abolitionist, as this was the stated purpose of the party’s founding in 1854. The far left in America has done a very good job of expunging this fact from the American consciousness!

Liberal Democrats have been very successful at recasting the history of the Democrat Party. One of the best tactics of oppression is to convince the oppressed that the oppressor is in fact their benefactor while demonizing and recasting the true liberator.

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” II Corinthians 11:14

We see this very clearly in modern discourse as it pertains to slavery. The modern left works tirelessly to downplay the Republican Party’s roll in the abolition of slavery. Even recasting Abraham Lincoln as someone impartial to slavery, a goal most often accomplished by the use of a sentence fragment taken out of context from a letter written by President Lincoln in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it...” It is completely ignored that Mr. Lincoln in the same sentence continued:

“...and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”  

Lincoln summed up the letter: “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”

This does not suggest a person who is indifferent to slavery, but rather someone who holds out hope for the noble purpose of the Tenth Amendment and the Constitution as a whole - a person desirous to see men live up to that noble idea and cease oppressing their brothers because it is the right thing to do.

Lincoln makes clear this point in a letter written to Albert Hodges, the editor of the Frankfort Commonwealth, a Kentucky Newspaper”  : “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.”

Though Mr. Lincoln ultimately acted to end slavery by force, he never liked having to do so. President Lincoln was a staunch believer in states’ rights. He was loath to inflict the weight of the Federal government on the South. Yet he did so for a greater moral good. Lincoln sums up the Hodges letter:  

“In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.”

The Democrat party contemporaneously has all but abandoned the idea of “States’ Rights” after using it so effectively, in recent history, to strengthen the party’s despotic Jim Crow Laws.

Now that states’ rights no longer serve the Democrat Party’s ends, they have given themselves over to the idea that the Federal government should in all instances supersede States’ Rights if the citizens of those states have the temerity to oppose the left’s idea of “social justice;” if your citizenry stands for the defense of traditional marriage; enforcing the immigration laws already on the books; or are in favor of limiting the power of Federal government.  

Jesse Jackson illustrates this truth clearly in a recent speech in support of big activist government.
The Democrat party, in an effort to reshape history to reflect favorably on them, has used the Nixon era’s so-called “Southern Strategy” to mask their party’s less than stellar history on civil rights. The liberal narrative is that the racist Democrats of the Civil Rights era now infect the Republican Party.

Democrats say racist Southern politicians, infuriated by Northern Democrat support of Civil Rights legislation, jumped to the other party. This is in spite of the fact that the modern Civil Rights struggle began with Republican President Eisenhower desegregating southern schools.

Is America supposed to accept that even though the Republican Party was overwhelmingly in support of Civil Rights, racists felt comfortable, even compelled to join the Republican Party? Richard Nixon himself, the beneficiary of the so-called Southern Strategy, opposed bussing, but gave teeth to the feckless and unenforced Civil Rights Act that passed during the Lyndon Johnson Presidency.

It was the Nixon administration that forced through Congress the Philadelphia Plan long abandoned by the Johnson administration for black quota-hiring in construction in 1969. During his early time in office, President Nixon created the Office of Minority Business Enterprise (OMBE) in the Department of Commerce that earmarked funds for minority contractors.  President Nixon raised the budgets and staffs of all the leading civil rights enforcement agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) in the Department of Labor; the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and the Civil Rights division (most notably, the Voting Rights section) in the Department of Justice.

To preserve citizen’s health and safety, Mr. Nixon oversaw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1970, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 1972. Proving that all throughout our history, Democrats spout rhetoric while Republicans actually implement real “Change”.

On the campaign trail Democrat President Woodrow Wilson courted the Black vote by promising: "Should I become President of the United States they may count upon me for absolute fair dealing for everything by which I could assist in advancing their interests of the race." Upon election, Mr. Wilson set back Civil Rights by decades as he fired key black supervisors working in the government, replaced them with whites and completely segregated federal workers. He followed that action by giving the ambassadorships traditionally held by Black Americans to countries like Haiti and Santa Domingo to whites.  

Franklin Roosevelt similarly promised much to garner black votes, only to renege once elected. When the Black press excoriated Mr. Roosevelt for not being an honest broker, President Roosevelt barred the Black newspapers from being distributed to America’s Black troops serving overseas.  

With all the talk of the “Southern Strategy”, there are precious few examples of segregationists switching parties. Of the so-called “Dixiecrats”: Ross Barnett, Robert Byrd, Bull Connor, Orval Fabus, Mills Godwin ,Al Gore, Sr., James Eastland, Allen Ellender, Benjamin Travis Laney, Russell Long, Lester Maddox, John McClellan, John Rarick, Richard Russell, John Sparkman, John Stennis, Herman Talmadge and George Wallace, Only two, Mills Godwin and Strom Thurmond ever changed parties.

That these two changed parties for political expedience is absolutely true, though these two, above all the other racist segregationists like Vice President Al Gore’s Father Al, Sr., who remained Democrats until their deaths, had mitigating circumstances in their lives that may have caused them to soften on race over time.

Godwin had sought out and enjoyed the Black vote during his career and actually enjoyed the NAACP’s endorsement during his 1965 bid for the Virginia Governor’s office. Godwin also supported Lyndon Johnson’s candidacy for President thereby losing his Democrat base which despised Johnson’s Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act enjoyed support from the vast majority of Republicans yet we are to believe that racist joined the party most responsible for the Act.   

Back in 1925 Strom Thurmond had a daughter with one of his black servants. Thurmond paid for his daughter’s college education and supported her financially. In a display of liberal tactics, it is interesting to note that in Thurmond’s Wikipedia entry, he is not referred to as a “Conservative” until after it is recorded that he had become a Republican. The entry avoids calling him a conservative, while it talks about his years as a Democrat, even though this was the time he was most ardently racist.

This is a very subtle piece of propaganda which fits the leftist polemic against the Tea Party and Conservatism in general. Simply stated “To be a Conservative, is to be a racist.” That is a lie the weak-minded and unaware accept as gospel truth and is also why the left fights passionately to cultivate and maintain weak-minds.

The left has proven powerfully adept at selling the rhetorical over the substantial, so adept that the average liberal is completely uninterested in truth. None are more unaware of the realities of true racial history in America beyond the legacy of slavery than American Black folks. Even though we, more than any others, have felt its sting and should remember. Through entitlements and welfare, the Democrats have succeeded in clouding Black folks minds, to the point that we are oblivious to the true “Southern Strategy”.

The one where the Democrats, upon recognizing they could not win the Civil Rights battle with clubs, fire hoses and attack dogs, changed tactics and began rotting the country, primarily the minority communities, from within. We Black folks are now slaves to entitlements, the leftist idea of big government now our masters.

“When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.” (sic) – Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Joshua Speed

Digital Publius

Templar Redux?

2011-07-26T14:16:00.001-04:00

After reading Anders Behring Breivik's (the villain responsible for the recent massacre in Norway) so called "manifesto," Breivik and his manifesto both seem more like an extreme covert leftist trick than a document undergirding a legitimate terrorist movement. If these new "Templars" are real, their motivation is materialist and, therefore, Christian in name only.

What makes the document suspect in my eyes, is the presence of legitimate information on the destructive nature of Cultural Marxism. The document begins with Breivik admonishing his fellows to edit; add to; and freely and widely distribute his “manifesto”.

The introduction titled: “What is 'Political Correctness'?" and the following segment: “How it all began - Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism” are frankly spot on. Breivik’s abbreviated history of Marxism, both economic and cultural, is very accurate, and not a little bit frightening, as what it lays out is very obviously true if you are a clear eyed observer of cultural indicators.

It is also the sort of thing a leftist would leave in so once theses Neo-Templars begin their Manchurian Candidate like attacks on defenseless targets, like the cowardly attack on the Norwegian children’s camp, the truth in the document can later be dismissed as the musings of madmen and therefore rendered forever illegitimate arguments when engaged in debate with true cultural Marxists.

The document does not give a good reason for slaughtering children in an effort to reverse the harm done by leftist radicals who have been all too successful with their experiments in social engineering. It has all the earmarks of leftists propagating the myth that conservatives are as dangerous as radical Islam and if you can tie in Christianity through associating these evil men with the Crusades, by calling themselves ‘Templars', all the better.

That was me wearing my tinfoil headgear. Let us now address the more probable, yet equally distressing actuality of what is laid out in the manifesto.

It would not surprise me if these “Neo-Templars” are indeed a legitimate movement. But let’s be clear, this is not a Christian movement. The original Templars were founded after the first Crusade and their primary function was to protect the world’s Christian pilgrims as they visited the Holy Land after Jerusalem had been liberated from Islamic invasion.

The “manifesto” gives the origin of the Neo-Templars and talks of the movements anonymous founders even mentioning their spiritual affiliations, a number of whom adopt the dubious classifications “Christian Atheist and Christian Agnostic.

Through the manifesto we learn that:

“Choosing the path of the Justiciar Knight is to walk the path in pursuit of becoming “The Perfect Knight”. Any candidate prepared to walk this road must be willing to forfeit his materialistic ambitions and embrace voluntary poverty and martyrdom.”

Very noble sounding! And not at all dissimilar to an Islamic Jihadi pledge. The Neo-Templars forfeit their materialism to fight for European materialism. Make no mistake, God is an afterthought to these people, thrown in for the sole purpose of adding legitimacy to their claims of being modern Templars.
As Breivik rightfully points out, in his history of the original Justiciar Knights, the Templars sacrificed to “lay up treasure in Heaven” by protecting Christians from being killed by Muslims while on pilgrimage, which is exemplified by the Scripture verse:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

The Neo-Templars express the following as their guiding principles: “to protect the interests of all free, indigenous Europeans, European cultures and Christendom in general through armed struggle.” Clearly, the Neo-Templar’s first priority is protecting the material interests of Europeans, this is often the case with irreligious conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic.

If they meant anything other than the material well being of Europe, they would not have found it necessary to list protecting the cultures second and Christendom last. No true Christian ever puts Christ last in any list of motivators.

Equally explicit is that they are not truly interested in protecting the interests of “ALL” free indigenous Europeans. As displayed by Brevik’s willingness to take the lives of some 90 indigenous European people, no small number being children. In America at least, a Conservative’s primary material interest is life and it is the first of the unalienable rights mentioned in our Constitution as being endowed by God.

Nevertheless, the description of the the Neo-Templar movement goes on aping Islamic extremist rhetoric:

“The Order and Tribunal has concluded that any and all Europeans have not just a right, but a duty to resist through political and military means; cultural Marxist/multiculturalist atrocities and crimes committed against the indigenous peoples of Europe.”

You resist by launching your own atrocities? This sounds more akin to what is taught in the Qur’an:

“Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,-” Surah 4:95

In the Holy Bible there are no similar instructions calling Christians to fight. The manifesto continues:

“As such, any European Christian conservative can act as a Justiciar Knight. This includes Christian agnostics and Christian atheists. Although the
PCCTS, Knights Templar is a pan-European indigenous rights movement we give all Europeans, regardless of skin colour, the opportunity to become a Justiciar Knight as long as the individual is either a Christian, Christian agnostic or a Christian atheist.”

Statements like the last few, reveal the utter lack of a Christian spiritual component to the Neo-Templar movement. However, there is a spirit driving these ersatz Templars--it just isn’t from God. The Holy Bible defines what a Christian is and is not, any other definition is human in origin and, therefore, temporal not spiritual.

One cannot be a Christian Atheist or Christian Agnostic. Nor can one be a Christian and join an organization that sanctions the actions of Breivik.

The Apostle in Romans 3:8 categorically, absolutely denies the lawfulness of doing evil, any evil, expecting that good can result from it, anyone making such claims in their actions can expect only damnation.

“And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”

These Neo-Templars make quick shrift of their ignorance of Christianity if they truly hold to what Breivik reveals in his manifesto. When they speak of Christian Atheists and Agnostics, I can only imagine that they mean secular individuals who cannot deny the practical nature of advancing the Christian ethos in an orderly society even while denying the God who inspired that ethos. Anything else would be by any interpretation patently absurd.

As Romans chapter three continues, in verses 12-16 we find an apt portrait of those who would act as Brevik acted:

“They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways:”

If this is not a leftist plot to make conservatism and Christianity look bad, then it is likely the result of, as I mentioned in my article, “Bondage of Corruption Pt. 2: American Taliban”, a case of co-opting terms.

In that article I explain that ideas and groups like the Knights Templar can : “...manifest quite often in a twisting of terms and words. Shallow thinking coupled with what often seems disdain for the true meaning of words (or the true function of a historical group) gives rise to malformed concepts.”

Breivik and those who identify with him in co-opting the Knights Templar, in modern times, are the dangerous exemplars of a younger generation completely indifferent to the realities of what they emulate or celebrate. I am reminded of the young guys who don Guy Fawkes masks because they liked the “V for Vendetta” comic book or movie--adopting Guy Fawkes as the symbol of rebellion.

In reality, Fawkes and his confederates were tools of the Catholic Church and terrorists who plotted to kill hundreds of people (by blowing up Parliament in full session) to kill King James the I, because they opposed his making Holy Scripture available to the masses and his Protestant resistance to the papacy.

Fawkes was the ultimate manifestation of oppression and establishmentarianism.

Or leftist kids who revere Che Guevara even though he was a murderer who essentially opposed everything they love. If Che and his form of economic Marxism had prevailed, they would not have there much beloved iPods and Wii game systems.

I have received friend requests on Facebook from a great many young folks, mostly Europeans that have as their profile picture some iteration of the Crusader’s cross in the past few weeks. It is my sincere prayer that these young folks are not aligned with Breivik’s ideology. If they are I would ask them to consider this:

The Hospitallers, the Templars and all the other Crusaders did not take vows to stay at home to kill their fellows who disagreed with their ideas of what Europe ought to be, that was not their idea of fighting for their fellow Europeans rights, culture and Christendom. They didn’t dress like trusted policemen only to open fire on defenseless children. Instead, these crusaders took the fight to the attacking enemies face wearing the cross proudly!

If you want to fight and you are in a country that is actively involved in the War on Terrorism join the military and fight. If you are a veteran, re-up! If you are in a country not actively engaged, act towards getting your government involved.

And for God’s sake, leave Christ out of this sort of foolishness. He is big enough and God enough to deal with evil on His own terms. That is what real Christian faith demands. This does not mean you cannot defend yourself when attacked, or oppose evil when need be, but you have to know that God wants you to leave children at camp having innocent fun alone.

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Romans 12:19

Digital Publius

A Gentle Reminder To The Obama Voter

2011-07-19T20:31:00.002-04:00

We told you so!

How now progressives? What means that sickly pallor overwhelming your once hearty and vital visages? I miss that glazed over luster in your eyes! Where you once stood so resolutely confident in “Change” – you Hollywooders, you leftist tycoons, now you waiver. Do you now find your “Hope” kinked?

In truth, it was always so. All your "Hope and Change" hinged on flawed premises and false paradigms. What we on the right knew all along, you are just now beginning to realize, which is that ideology can oft times diverge sharply from stark reality.

President Obama is a hardcore liberal ideologue - and that’s all. Ideology is the sum of his Presidential being. That too has always been so! It was so when he was a community organizer; when he was a Senator on the national and state levels and when he campaigned for the office he now inhabits.

Why liberals felt the junior Senator from Illinois would make a competent Commander-in-Chief, administrator and statesman given a far left background completely bereft of commensurate experience remains God’s own mystery.

Yet, here we are! And while here we are seeing the sort of damage that can be done in a very short amount of time when competence is not considered whilst making enormous decisions like who will helm the ship of state. As a passenger on that proverbial ship, I find the naked sentimentality that led to your choice of a novice captain himself guided by foggy idealism, a poor substitute for accurate charts and a clear sky.

So, it is no small wonder that we now find ourselves dangerously off course in exceedingly dangerous waters.

Just shy of two years ago, I wrote an article wherein I expounded upon a narrative popular at the time, fueled by no less than an ex-president that anyone critical of President Obama’s policies was a plain dealing bigot. In lieu of this liberal fallacy becoming a tenet amongst more rabid Obama sycophants, I coined a new eponymous law.   Beside Murphy’s Law, Occam’s Razor and Asimov’s Laws of Robotics I placed:

"The Obama Principle: Opposition to the policies of an African American president exists by virtue of him being an African American president."

My eponymous law may prove to lack the staying power of its aforementioned illustrious comrades. It seems that once people actually had to live with some of the President’s policies it has become okay to question the wisdom of Mr. Obama and his half-baked machinations. The actualized ones as well as the ones he proposes.

The irrational opinions the President uses to frame his political arguments have suddenly ceased to be rallying cries and have become the subject of sharp rebuke from people you would not expect, people who were, at least on the surface, supporters of Mr. Obama.

A few years ago, early Barack Obama enthusiast and supporter Warren Buffett, with blind adulation for the fresh faced candidate from Illinois, (once it was clear that Hillary was not a fait accompli) announced:  

"I will be very happy if he is elected president.”   

Buffett’s comment prompted Leftist bloggers to fire off postings with titles like:

  “Here's Why Warren Buffett Endorsed Obama Today: McCain Failed to Get 'Lobotomy'”

By March of 2009 things had begun to appear shaky in light of the President’s economic remedies’ lack of...Clarity. The President granted an interview to 60 Minutes where he was asked:  "Your plan really for solving the banking crisis was met with very, very, very tepid response,"

Kroft said to Obama.

"A lot of people said they didn't understand it. A lot of people said it didn't have any, enough details to solve the problem. I know you're coming out with something next week on this. But these criticisms were coming from people like Warren Buffett, people who had supported you, and you had counted as being your..."

The President interrupted:

"And Warren still does support me," Obama interjected. "But I think that, understand, Warren's also a big player in the financial markets who's a major owner of Wells Fargo. And so he's got a perspective from the perspective of somebody who is part owner of a bank."

Quite so! A reality that Mr. Buffett himself was beginning to remember once the dew of Obama madness began to evaporate. Nevertheless Buffett continued his role as Starbuck to Obama’s Ahab and toed the ideological line. Buffett stated in an interview on CNBC around the same time: "I voted for Obama and I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy,"

This, even though the President had yet to offer any proof that would bolster such confidence and optimism.

Where once liberal Obama stooges immune to all semblance of reason held dogmatically to the unspoken creed that no one ought to find fault in Mr. Obama, it seems he is now becoming fair game.

Warren buffett offered a stern lesson in the idiocy of Mr. Obama’s class warfare inducing rhetoric, when he explained the economics of corporate jets and their owners Which Obama had earlier ridiculed. He completely laid open Obama’s ignorance in regards to the provisions, Mr. Obama's own stimulus plan allowed corporate assets like the much-maligned jets.  

This should come as no surprise to thinking people. As a hardcore liberal ideologue, who has not produced a thing himself, the President had nothing to do with the production of the stimulus plan-- Other than desiring of course that it be a bill that would induce more Federal spending. Thus, he fell into his default mode and attacked the rich through his ill-informed corporate jet demagoguery. He didn't know about the Corporate asset write offs in the stimulus.

The Berkshire Hathaway head honcho is not the only Obama loyalist now at least entertaining the idea the President may be well and truly insensible to economic actualities. In light of Mr. Obama’s equally careless remarks eschewing Las Vegas tourism, we find erstwhile Democrat and Obama supporter Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts veritably frothing at the mouth as he laments this Administrations mishandling of the economy, fostering a business hostile environment, paralyzing the private sector.  

Wynn passionately intoned:  “I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I'm afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States."

Wynn continued:  “And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime.”  

Even Rap Mogul Jay Z, when asked his opinion on the criticism aimed at the President recently had to admit:   “He's the president, it's fair.”  

This is the same Jay Z, who in an interview a year and a half ago said:  

“I believe the same thing about Barack that I believed at day one. What he represents is bigger than any political agenda that he can pass across the House, Senate or whatever. I think that right now he's going through a difficult period because people are putting the last eight years on his table and they're judging him by it. You can't expect a man to clean up eight years of mess in two years; it's just bad math. It's impossible.”

When one considers the latest report from the Labor Department showing unemployment at 9.2%, compared to an average unemployment rate of 5.2%, during the eight years Jay Z berated, it is “fair” indeed! The unemployment rate didn’t reach 6% until August of 2008 and it ended at 7.3%   

The unemployment rate was at 7.8% at Mr. Obama’s swearing in and it has not been that low since. Unemployment peaked at 10.1% in October of 2009 and since then has only been below 9% twice.   

Not to wax all wonkish, because that is not my normal style, but this is interesting data when you remember that President Obama rushed through the stimulus all the while assuring us that it would keep unemployment below 8% if acted upon swiftly! And so it was.

Reactionary politics and voting emotionally as exemplified by the 2008 election is never a good idea. Especially when it culminates in the election of so pig-headed an ideologue as our current President. That is why our Founders arranged our election cycles as they did, to allow a swift correction in government if emotionalism resulted in bad choices. The Founders insured America time to come to her senses.

George W. Bush was an ideologue; Bill Clinton was an ideologue as well and born of the same species as Obama. Yet, the leftist strain infecting Clinton is not nearly as virulent as that coursing through Mr. Obama’s fevered brain. Prompted by the Republican takeover of Congress, Mr. Clinton saw the writing on the wall and was wise enough to recognize the plans he put in motion were failing miserably.

President Clinton was an able enough captain to see the rocks ahead. He knew he needed to change course. Mr. Clinton cooperated with the Republicans and thanks to the leadership of Newt Gingrich and the Republican’s “Contract with America,” President Clinton was then able to take credit for a healthy economy and surplus.  

President Obama’s liberal sensibilities are completely clouding what little judgment he has left. Even though John Boehner, the current House Speaker, played an instrumental role in drafting the "Contract With America", this President has his jaw set and will not be moved.   

To all the liberal and independent people who now bemoan their tragic trust in an unproven commodity, heavy on the show, but otherwise insubstantial-you voted with your heart and not your brain.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

Let that be a lesson to you!

Digital Publius

Take These "Mental" Chains From My Heart

2011-07-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

There is a great tumult in the liberal blogosphere triggered by a pledge signed by Michele Bachmann called “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family,” the pledge makes this unsteady, perhaps even dubious statement:  

“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

It was dumb to include that statement in the pledge, even though it may well be true--it will not help the conservative cause or make the Republican party more appealing to minorities.

Not because it may be factually in error, but because even if it were found to be accurate, most people lack the discipline to alter their current behavior and attitude in order to correct our current state based on the possible reality that Black families were more stable under slavery.

Slavery is such a sore subject with Black folk that invoking it immediately closes minds to the rest of your message. The statement does not suggest that Black folk were better off under slavery, the statement begins:

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families"

This part of the statement is completely overlooked because of the reactionary nature of the race question in America. A good example of that racial default setting is exhibited by Black folk who I know to be conservative in their sentiments and politics, who nevertheless suggest since this issue came to light that David Duke and Michelle Bachmann share common ground.

Statements like the one in the “Marriage Vow”, never work! Frankly, you have to be engaged in higher order thinking to consider such beliefs in the first place. Whether true or not, most people never ponder anything this deeply.

What is lost because of this lack of depth, in liberal and unfortunately Democrat following Black folk’s thinking, is sadly, the contemporary Black community is in such a state that one would even think to make such a historical comparison in the first place!

I made a similar statement to my former Pastor and one of the Elders of my church a few years back. I made the mistake of intimating that through the American slave trade, what man meant for evil, God used for good in that literally millions of Africans would have died in false religion if they had not been brought to America as slaves where they heard the Gospel message and were saved.

Black folks were “physically” worse off in chattel slavery, but they were in an infinitely better place spiritually. Better to die a Christian in slavery than a free man in false religion. Eternity is a heck of a lot longer than the few decades we suffer through on earth.

When I made this statement you would have thought I set a bomb off in the room from their reactions. But if you are a Christian, you have to agree!

My Pastor and the Elder, placed so much value on their blackness and maintaining a misguided moral superiority based on the premise that we as American Blacks are victims and morally superior to Whites because of our victimhood, they were blinded to the victory an unknown multitude gained through this great evil.

Even in American slavery God Himself received the increase!

It is simply a matter of pride. Not the good kind of pride, but rather the kind of pride that God condemns that we are now in bondage to. We are so bound to any scrap of an idea that makes us feel good about ourselves, that we are more than willing to believe man’s wisdom over God’s revelation if it uplifts the Black race.

In that same conversation my Pastor or the Elder, I don’t remember which at this point, made some reference to life having begun in Africa. To wit I responded: “Not according to the Bible”. The Holy Bible says that human life began in the Garden of Eden, which according to description, would have likely been in modern day Iraq, a long way from the Olduvai Gorge, even if you believe the world is different topographically after the Great Flood.  

Adam and Eve in the Garden, or Homo Habilis in Tanzania? It makes us feel good as Black folk to lean towards Homo Habilis, we would rather be an extinct apeman, which man in his hubris attached the genus Homo to, as long as he is a black apeman from Africa. We came first.  

Even though the Bible states a different locale and doesn’t find it the least bit necessary to comment on Adam’s race, or Christ’s for that matter. All we know about Christ’s appearance in Scripture from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, is that unlike the Hollywood depictions of Him, He was not very good looking! We know he was Jewish. God, unlike man, places zero importance on race or any other physical attribute,

God says He:  

“...hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;” Acts 17:26

Earlier in Acts we read:  

“Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God. ¶Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Acts 10:33-35

Biblically, we are all the same to God, we are all sinners. There is no moral high ground for Black people to stand on any more than there is for Whites. The Whites imported us to America, but it was Black folks doing the exporting.  

Just as Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt by his own brothers, so too were Africans sold into America by theirs. Josephʼs slavery ended up being a blessing to his brothers and the people he came from. Not by wallowing in self pity or lamenting his predicament, but by being what God ordained him to be even in bitter bondage. And because of that attitude, Joseph was able to overcome dire circumstances and rise above them based on his character and faith in God. As a result, Joseph became second only to Pharaoh in Egypt.  

Black folks have spent so much time looking to the modern Democrat party to be a latter day Moses, holding our hands as we wander blindly through the wilderness, we have forgotten the earlier example of Joseph who was, who he was, whether he was free or in bondage.

The biggest difference is the latter day Democrat Party/Moses simulacrum, is not doing Godʼs work. The Democrats are leaning on their own understanding and leading Black folk, as well as the nation, at large, into disaster, not the Promised Land.  

All that being said, the modern conservative movement is absolutely clueless as to how it should appeal to minorities, if in fact the movement is attempting to make such an appeal.

This is primarily because conservatives have not understood the pathology at work in the minority communities.

Conservatives underestimate the level of resistance to reason the mental pathogen leftist racism has engendered in the minority mindset. Liberals have so ginned up racial identity in the Black community and animus towards conservatism, many Black folks are truly convinced, even with nothing ever changing for the better in their communities, as conditions wax worse and worse, they should still vote Democrat.  

Even though the overwhelming majority of Black folks would agree with most everything in the pledge Bachmann signed; they still give their vote to people who find those same ideas anathema!

All hope of removing the mental chains from Black folks hearts and minds which could have been accomplished if Black folks actually read the document and recognized, they shared common ground with it’s signatories, was shattered by the inclusion of the maladroit slavery analogy.  

The primary reason for this ignorance on the part of conservatives, is they actually buy into the “content of character” paradigm. But Black folks are so full of identity politics as fostered by racist liberal ideology, they are unable to see the catastrophic consequences of liberal policy in their own lives.

To the conservative this is insanity! As well it should be to any thinking person. Liberalism, however; does not exist and flourish in the mind of “thinking” people! This is why the left is so averse to any forum where their ideas are exposed to the marketplace of ideas in free exchange, especially if that market is not completely controlled by liberals.

The Bible teaches that even if certain behavior is permissible, such as having a cocktail. That permissible thing is harmful if it causes someone else to stumble. In other words, it would be imprudent to have lunch with a friend who is an alcoholic and you sit there quaffing martinis in his face knowing he has a weakness.

The idea the pledge attempted to get across with the slavery analogy may have been a good one in regards to creating a sort of jarring effect to the reader. However, that anal- ogy ultimately fails because it is a stumbling block to the segment of the population you were trying to reach.

If we as conservatives are going to win the culture war. we need to pay heed!

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Matthew 10:16  

Digital Publius

The Source of Republicanism!

2011-06-03T18:56:00.000-04:00

In my last article “The Soul of Republicanism” two items sparked controversy in the discussions the article spawned. One being some taking umbrage at my giving praise to David Barton at the end of my article.

Apparently, there is criticism aimed at Barton’s work, accusations of misrepresentation and lying. The criticism comes most often from those who hate the very idea of our nation having Christian origins.

I was unaware of these criticisms and I will investigate them for myself! I have read enough directly from the Founders themselves -- apart from Barton’s work -- to stand behind the Christian premise.

The other item was a statement I made within the text of the article:

"However, it does not follow that because we have religious freedom in America, all faiths are equally valid, or are equally useful in determining American morality or political thought."

I was asked in a thread to clarify this statement. Before I had the chance to respond, a reader did an excellent job of explaining it for me. Mark Pepin wrote:

“I'll take a stab at it and see if Hassan and I agree. It will also be added clarification for RHS: My understanding of that statement is that the founding of this nation, being dominated by Christian thought, was intended to support the morality of the Christian religion. Not all religions have morality systems that are equal to Christianity, and therefore, not all should be favored. The fact is, many of our laws come straight from the Bible, while others are derived from Biblical thought.”

I do indeed agree – Mark gave a very good explanation of my statement. I’m afraid I originally failed if my statement was not universally understood in the context Mark affirms, I thought it was clear cut. I will however go further than Mark’s clarification since the question affords me the opportunity to so.

Truth is, there is an exclusion of any other faith besides Christianity in the founding principles used in determining our system of government. (Note that I am saying “faith,” there were civil considerations. After all, the Founders did not invent republicanism).

If you assign equal validity to the world’s various faith traditions, you effectively invalidate them all. We can all be wrong, but as they all contradict each other, logically, we cannot all be right.

I have said this before in various discussions over the years, primarily with atheists. It is impossible for man to have created God. Man does not currently, nor has he ever had, the power to create ex nihilo “out of nothing”. Everything man has produced has a frame of reference. There could be no god concept apart from God having first revealed Himself to man.

If God revealed Himself to man it is prima facie that He did so in a particular way. It is the responsibility of man to determine the way. Creation itself is the only safe objective medium to use in determining which tradition is reliably the way God revealed Himself.

In other words, the tradition whose source makes the most accurate statements about the universe and reality is most likely the Creator of the universe. The source most adept at describing man’s nature objectively as opposed to the way man wishes to see himself, is the Creator of man.

The God of the Holy Bible expresses this in what amounts to a challenge to man and all who would espouse false beliefs. It is a recurring theme in the Holy Bible:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Psalm 19:1

The Psalm goes on to describe the movement of the sun, declaring that only God could put such a thing in action.

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: “ Romans 1:19,20

The God of the Holy Bible is saying examine the world and compare it to what I have revealed to you. Many of history’s greatest scientists understood this and expressed as much.

In a beautiful letter to his wife Maria Christina, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Guglielmo Marconi wrote:

“I know how much you love and cherish the beautiful Nature - the expression of God’s Will - where one can find the ideal eternal values: the Truth, the Beauty and the Good (and you possess the three of them). The harmonious unity of causes and laws forms the Truth; the harmonious unity of lines, colors, sounds, and ideas forms the Beauty; while the harmony of emotions and the will forms the Good, which in being the ultimate expression of the Eternal and Supreme Creator brings man to completion and drives us to seek absolute perfection.”

He also stated:

“The more I work with the powers of Nature, the more I feel God’s benevolence to man; the closer I am to the great truth that everything is dependent on the Eternal Creator and Sustainer [Creatore e Reggitore Eterno]; the more I feel that the so-called ‘science’ I am occupied with is nothing but an expression of the Supreme Will, which aims at bringing people closer to each other in order to help them better understand and improve themselves.”

Physics Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias, in a statement to the New York Times on March 12, 1978 on the Big Bang Theory remarked:

“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”

Nobel Laureate in Physics, William Phillips in a letter to T. Dimitrov May 19th, 2002; in reply to several questions as to whether he believed in the existence of God:

“I believe in God. In fact, I believe in a personal God who acts in and interacts with the creation. I believe that the observations about the orderliness of the physical universe, and the apparently exceptional fine-tuning of the conditions of the universe for the development of life suggest that an intelligent Creator is responsible. …I believe in God because of a personal faith, a faith that is consistent with what I know about science.”

There can only be one truth and therefore only one good source to base our society on. The Founders understood that premise back in the 18th century. If one takes a practical look by eliminating the idealistic, when engaged in comparative theological study, you have to determine that there are many false religions in the world, but only one that lines up with reality.

Not all faiths can be equally valid because all faiths do not equally reflect reality. Why would God tell the Hebrews the earth is round and that it hangs in space, but then tell the Hindus the earth is flat and it sits on the backs of elephants standing on turtles? Why give one group the more accurate, demonstrable truth and lie to another group?

Why tell the Muslim the sun sets in a pool of mud and slime? If the Qur’an gets that wrong, if it is wrong on natural things, why should I believe what the Islamic god says about the supernatural. If Allah gives false reports about creation, and the tangible, how can I believe him when it comes to my soul and the intangible?

The wanton barbarity of those who follow the Qur’an strictly and the tragic state of affairs in Islamic nations, who base their laws on the Qur’an’s brand of morality, stand as a testament to this truth, particularly as it pertains to human rights.

Plainly, if you do not think it would be pleasant to live under Sharia, which is based on the faith of Islam, then Islam is not morally equal to the faith that served as the source of American republicanism.

If you chafe at the very idea of living under a caste system like the one India employs, inspired by the Vedas. A system where people starve under the feet of a fat, well fed, and I might add tasty and nutritious “sacred cow”, working out karmic destiny, then Hinduism is simply not an equally valid source to structure a society around.

Nor is a lack of religious conviction a good starting point for government. One merely has to look at societies founded upon humanism and secularism to see that an atheistic perspective can be down right deadly on a massive scale.

The horrors of the French revolution; the tens of millions slaughtered by atheistic socialism in Soviet Russia; Communist China; and sundry other socialist Asian states. Let’s not forget, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s nightmarish excesses. Even Hitler’s Nazism like the others, was based on naturalism at it’s core and the list goes on and on.

If there is a God, as it seems logical to assume, then as He says-there is also an adversary working against man. The Adversary, like man lacks the ability to create from nothing, but he is very good at inspiring man to do what is counter to man’s own well being.

It is the Adversary that inspires atheism and false religions and, therefore, the faulty human states including the ones our Founders fled.

I could site example after example! All those lands and others are hemorrhaging people and those people are coming where? Here! Whether you accept Christianity or not; whether you find David Barton an honest broker or not. The premise of “The Soul of Republicanism” is sound and worth remembering!

Digital Publius

The Soul of Republicanism

2011-05-27T17:00:00.001-04:00

This article sprang from a discussion I had on the conservative social network, “Freedom Torch”. I felt it necessary to expound on the very idea of conservatism and the nature of the nation our Founders established for us!

So many of the Founders thought it wise to emphasize that the birth of the United States of America would not have been possible, apart from the aid of “Divine Providence”. It seemed almost like a mania.

Even the Founders, known for holding less than orthodox views of Christian faith, acknowledged the role Providence played in establishing our Republic. In an address to the Constitutional Convention Ben Franklin asked this poignant question:

“In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered… do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?”

At the same convention of 1787, James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution”, offered Isaiah 33:22 as the inspiration for our redoubted triune system of government.

“For the LORD is our judge,” the (Judicial branch)
“The LORD is our lawgiver,” the (Legislative branch)
“The LORD is our king; the (Executive branch) He will save us.”

The nature of my conversation on Freedom Torch highlighted what comes across as two camps within the conservative community. We find the secular camp: uninterested in social issues like abortion or defense of marriage. This is most often the camp Libertarians identify with, as so much (not all) of their political philosophy is derived from Ayn Rand’s Objectivism; Rand herself was an atheist. I have met a few religious Libertarians.

Not limited to Libertarians, there are also religious Republican conservatives who also argue against the prominence given to social issues. Conservatives able to compartmentalize their faith and support a candidate they think can win, even if they may not agree with that persons stance on spiritual matters like the right to life.

These are the folks that are most often likely to see the “religious right” as a detriment to the conservative movement, insisting one can’t lure Independents to our side with “all that abortion and gay marriage talk”.

Emphasizing fiscal conservatism and small government, this group vehemently opposes liberal socialistic ideas. This conservative type cares more about preserving our nation’s material standing, than conserving our entire way of life.

These conservatives speak of values and their importance, without caring from whence those values were derived. After all, the Founders fought for religious freedom, did they not? They did indeed!

However, it does not follow that because we have religious freedom in America, all faiths are equally valid, or are equally useful in determining American morality or political thought.

Again, James Madison:

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” – 1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia

If you believe any old values will do, secular values based on naturalism or values culled from the various world religions, you really don’t grasp the soul of American republicanism. You really aren’t for conserving America in every intrinsic way!

Our nation was not founded upon the sentiments of some generic ecumenical god, but rather the immutable God of the Holy Bible.

The second camp in modern conservatism is the one which recognizes this fact and has apprehended the simple idea that apart from the values that inspired the Constitution, it is unlikely any politician or citizen will make the right choices on any of the issues conservatives hold dear with any consistency.

In a letter to one John Murray, Jr. dated October 12, 1816, John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court upheld this notion when he wrote:

“ Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

That type of thinking did not occur in a vacuum! The founders of this nation had no intention of constructing a secular nation based on natural law or any nebulous concept of a God ever at the mercy of mercurial human fashion. The precepts acting as our philosophical corner stone had to be set and unchanging.

In 1777, the Continental Congress called for a day of Thanksgiving for the victory won at the battle of Saratoga:

"Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received... to offer humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot our sins out of remembrance... and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth 'in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.'"

This spirit of humility towards and reverence for the God of the Holy Bible carried on after the war as illustrated by George Washington, in a statement to all the states’ Governors in 1783:

"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection . . . that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation."

Secularists on both sides of the political aisle advance the specious notion that Holy Scripture is subjective and therefore inherently unreliable in politics. Like the Holy Bible, the Constitution is open to interpretation and the authors true intent difficult to know with objectivity. This was not the thinking of America before socialism began spreading in our country.

In “Holy Trinity Church v. U.S.” 1892, the Supreme Court stated:

"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian."

This is not “God” in a generic pan-religious sense! It is not the Buddha, Vishnu or Great Spirit! Nor is it Allah of Islam or any Winfreyian Celestine prophet, but rather the “Redeemer of mankind”!

Try as the secular left and right may to expunge them from public consciousness, the works of the overwhelming majority of our Founding Fathers, as well as the American public record are veritably toxic with statements like we find in the Holy Trinity Church v. U.S. ruling. This is so because our nation once believed truths like this:

Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God: And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: Exodus 18:19-21

I believe the majority of Americans still believe. Nonetheless, too many of us have allowed various forces to control the public's thinking. We have allowed those voices to downplay the role God should play in our everyday decision making processes.

This does not mean, as the reactionaries would assert, that the Christian church should control our public institutions. It simply means that we should think on the precepts of God when making decisions, especially political decisions effecting millions of lives in America and abroad.

What the founders knew and so many of us have forgotten, is this: If you do not base your laws and thinking upon the immutable precepts of God, as I alluded to earlier if you cannot get the basics like protecting unborn life right, how can you expect someone to be wise enough to make the proper vote on a balanced budget?

That is the reason everywhere liberalism reigns you have misery and lack. Liberals base their ideas on man’s wisdom and disregard the truth within the wisdom given us by the God of our fathers.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12

All that being said, we need to keep in house debates... In house! We need a change in the White House. I admonish those of us inhabiting the right; to not do something that I myself have been guilty off.

Do not write or speak ill of the Republican candidates opposing your favorite. It is good to be passionate about your pick. Extol your candidates virtues for the entire world to hear, but let’s not do it at the expense of another candidate.

In other words, no hit pieces on the shortcomings of the various Republican candidates that can be used against them by the left if they win the nomination. Nothing fills a liberal with glee more than being able to say, “Your own side says this or that about you”.

Let the left do the dirt digging--If a candidate has bad ideas or questionable issues on our side, it’ll eventually come out.

Digital Publius

* God bless David Barton, if I had my druthers, he would be Secretary of Education for life

Whencesoever Palestine?

2011-05-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

Show me a Palestinian and within a few generations of genealogical scrutiny, I will show you a Syrian, Jordanian, Saudi, or Turk... Within the realm of times past, the historicity of Palestine, or of a Palestinian people directly linked with those who identify themselves as such contemporaneously is untenable. It is strictly a political nomenclature.

Truth be told, ontologically speaking, there was never such a thing as a Palestinian! Palestine and Palestinians were made up out of whole cloth by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian hated the Jews. He could not abide a people who refused to denounce their God and worship him and the Roman state.

Hadrian saw Judaism as a constant source of rebellion and as such, sought to erase all evidence of the faith and all those who practiced it from Judea proper and indeed the whole world.

Hadrian built a temple to worship Jupiter on the site of the second Jewish Temple, and outlawed the Jewish tradition of circumcision mandated by God. These and many other affronts sparked a bloody Jewish uprising, which lasted three years. Despite enormous Roman loses, the rebellion was finally put down following the decisive battle of the fortress at Betar.

To emphasize Hadrian’s hatred for the seed of Abraham and the God they served. Hadrian renamed Israel Palestine after the Philistines, Israel’s ancient and most bitter enemy. The Philistines were themselves never native to Canaan, which later became Israel.

The name Philistine literally means “invader!” The people who were called Philistines by the inhabitants of Canaan were not Arab, but primarily from the Isle of Crete. Thusly, Philistines were Greeks who conquered parts of Canaan. The Philistine people and their culture was eventually destroyed by the Assyrians.

There is no Arabic meaning for the name Philistine like we would expect to find in the Qur’an if the name had any intrinsic historical connection to Arabs, Islam or Muslims prior to 1948.

Before 1948, it was the Jews themselves who were most often referred to as Palestinians, not the Arabs who existed in small bands of nomadic Bedouins. The Holy Lands were desolate before the Jewish migration back to the land of their fathers began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Under Jewish stewardship, the land began once more to bloom.

Mark Twain in "The Innocents Abroad", 1867 described Palestine in rather bleak terms during his travels through the Holy Land:

There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent (valley of Jezreel, Galilea); not for thirty miles in either direction... One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee... Nazareth is forlorn... Jericho lies a mouldering ruin... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation... untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent, mournful expanse... a desolation... We never saw a human being on the whole route... Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes... desolate and unlovely.

This was the case because the land belongs to the Seed of Abraham and no others!
The term Palestinian as it pertains to Islamic peoples is nothing more than a political construct employed by the enemies of God and Israel in the tradition of Hadrian!
Walid Shoebat, a former leader in the PLO and terrorist put it best:

As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education in the Middle East included. The fact is that today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, muslim Sherkas from Russia, muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door. My grandfather, who was a dignitary in Bethlehem, almost lost his life by Abdul Qader Al-Husseni (the leader of the Palestinian revolution) after being accused of selling land to Jews. He used to tell us that his village Beit Sahur (The Shepherds Fields) in Bethlehem County was empty before his father settled in the area with six other families. The town has now grown to 30,000 inhabitants.

Modern day Hadrians are not limited to Gaza or the Sinai Peninsula. They can just as easily be found here in the United States in places like the liberal enclave of San Francisco, with its modern day push to ban circumcision. This action seems poised to make the City by the Bay a most unwelcome place for those who keep covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!

Movements like banning circumcision now slated to appear on San Francisco ballots, confirm that latter day Hadrians are still obsessed with compelling people to reject God’s covenants and show fealty to man’s wisdom while worshiping the state!

When President Obama urged Israel to move it’s borders back to the pre-Six Day War boundaries of 1967, as he did in his latest speech on the Middle East situation, he added his name to the ledger below the likes of Hadrian. This is nothing short of open defiance and a spit in the eye of the God who gave all the land to Israel – the same God who granted the courage and power to David to defy the Philistines and dispatch Goliath their champion.

It is the same as it ever was in the Holy Land. Goliath is now the collective strength of the scion of the Arab states, they may not be natural descendants, but they are spiritually modern day Philistines, standing united against the solitary Israel. The Arab states all arrayed outside Israel’s borders, taunting them just as the Philistines of old did, shouting: “I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.”

By forwarding the idea that Israel should give away precious bargaining chips before the diplomatic battle is even joined! President Obama, in his thoughtless hubris, fortifies Goliath’s armor against the very army of God.

By telling Israel they should concede their land to godless invaders, President Obama is also by extension defying that “tender shoot which sprang up from the stump of Jesse,” The Lord Jesus Christ!
The same God who made a covenant with Abraham and delivered his descendants from bitter bondage in Egypt and into the land of Canaan--Is the same God who will return again and rule from the very ground the President would see in the hands of God’s enemies.

There is more to standing with Israel than merely sending money and military aid. We have historically stood with Israel because, as a nation, in our hearts we believed God – Not a generic god, but the true Covenant-making God of the Holy Bible! The One who said:

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:3

Our nation’s most prosperous times, the times that made us the envy of the world came arguably during our post World War II days - days directly following our aiding in the prophetic rebirth of the land of Israel.

I fear our days will grow darker and darker as we pull away full moral support from Israel. I pray President Obama gets wisdom and that he get it soon!

And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: Daniel 2:21

I know that God sets up rulers to work His sovereign will and sometimes those rulers are fools. I stand firm in the knowledge that even through a man like Obama leads our nation, by and by, God will be glorified.

Digital Publius

Bondage of Corruption Pt. 2: American Taliban

2011-04-20T21:23:00.001-04:00

In “Bondage of Corruption Pt. 1: Culture”; I state that in America today there is a “diversion away from the essence of things–the essence of what is good and what is intrinsically bad–and a preference for promoting the concept of the subjective over the reality of the objective.”

To that I add: This preference for the subjective over the objective, manifests quite often in a twisting of terms and words. Shallow thinking coupled with what often seems disdain for the true meaning of words gives rise to malformed concepts.

These semantical mutations take on a life of their own when allowed to remain unchallenged. The American Taliban is just such a term and concept.

American leftist more so than any other group in our nation specialize in this sort of thing. It is one of their primary tactics, employed to stoke the emotional furnaces of liberal reactionaries and to silence, or marginalize ideological opponents.

The Tea Party forms, standing for limited government and fiscal responsibility, with constituents representing Republicans, Democrats and Independents. They hold rallies to unite people of all walks of American life in a singular cause: Reign in an out of control American government.

The left renames them “Tea baggers” a slang term for a sexual activity and paint their fellow, Americans as uneducated racists. It doesn’t matter that many of the Tea Party movements most popular speakers and political figures are Black. The left “tars” them as brainwashed “Toms” and “sellouts”. The Democrat Party has a lot of experience with Tar. Unfortunately my people have a very short memory.

The left loves “diversity” but cannot abide diversity of thought! The only thing the liberal left fears and hates more than people putting aside what they “feel” in favor of thinking is Christianity!

They don’t necessarily hate religion, but they have a mad on for Christianity. It is more fear than anger. The left only becomes angry with Christianity when those who actually believe God stand in opposition to them. The left fears that people will actually begin to believe what God says.

If there is one movement above all others the Democrat Party and the liberal left exerts full power to marginalize it is Christianity. This is something I wish Black Christians could come to understand. The Democrats will come to your church to solicit your votes, but the truth is not in them.

Democrats do not go to churches that teach the full doctrine of Christ and they know the ones that do. Democrats go to churches that are more likely to preach social messages than theological messages.

If you go to a church where you have never heard a sermon against abortion or upholding the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. A church that seldom emphasizes sin and repentance of sin, a church that talks more about God giving you a breakthrough on your finances, than the inherent sinful nature of man, you are likely to see Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden show up.

If your church dogmatically clings to Christ being the only way to salvation, it’s not likely you will have a visitor from the Democrat party. This is why Barack Obama said:

“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

This is not a Christian statement--This is the statement of an unbeliever. It is also the way that the overwhelming majority of liberals think. Only Black Christians vote for Democrats in numbers and they do so by putting aside their faith.

Liberal Democrats hate statements like:

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

John Jay said those words–John Jay, who served as President of the Continental Congress and as the first Chief Justice of the United States. (Do you think he knew what the Constitution says about church and state.) He was also the 2nd Governor of New York who after several attempts, finally past a law to emancipate the slaves of his state in 1799. Today he would be called a right wing fanatic!

I was called a member of the American Taliban a few weeks back by a liberal friend of mine. I mention it because it underscores the point that I am trying to make. The meaning of words, the essence of things, have no meaning for liberals because they do not think. They feel! When people begin to think they cease to be liberals.

Conservatives ask what do you think about so and so? Liberals ask how do you feel about so and so? A liberal may actually ask you what you think? But once you begin to tell them, when they respond, it’s plain they really want to know how you feel.

The word Taliban is a Pashtun word borrowed from Arabic. It literally translates as students. Students is an accurate word as the movement began with students recruited from Islamic fundamentalist madrassas (schools).

When the Taliban seized political power in Afghanistan after scores of bloody massacres, they implemented a very strict, anti-modern, interpretation of sharia law in the regions it controlled. Here is a partial outline of what the Taliban outlawed:

“pork, pig, products made with human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards. Employment, education, and sports for all women, dancing, clapping during sports events, kite flying, and characterizations of living things, no matter if they were drawings, paintings, photographs, stuffed animals, or dolls.”

There’s not a whole lot on that list I don’t personally participate in. Yet I am labeled an American Taliban. This is possible because it does not matter to a liberal what the Taliban is in reality.

The first use of the term “American Taliban” appeared with the capture of John Phillip Walker Lindh during the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attack.
Lindh is one of the few people in the world for whom the appellation American Taliban actually applies.

Applying the term to Christians who hold to an orthodox Christian faith in America, including opposition to abortion, defending the Biblical definition of marriage and traditional Christian values, is a liberal attempt to marginalize Fundamental Christianity. The left wants very much to link and equate fundamental Christianity with the bloody excesses of fundamentalist Islam.

Employing the term American Taliban, betrays the liberals overall lack of depth and shallow thinking. People who use such terms know nothing about Christianity or Islam on a fundamental level. And they don’t care to!

Islam in America uses this lack of depth in liberals to further their agenda. Islamists in America know liberals are clueless as to what their faith teaches and they know liberals hate Christianity more than Islam.

Even though Islam is a conservative faith, (if you are gay try getting married in an Islamic state) opposed to the same kinds of things Christianity is opposed to, Muslims know, if they claim they are set upon, the left will not look too closely at their true agenda and pave the way for them to do what ever they want. Because it feels good to them.

Liberals believe that if they appease Muslims they will not become fundamentalists. Liberals believe that Muslims become terrorists not because the Qur’an teaches proselytizing with the sword and warfare against unbelievers, but because Muslims do not have enough social justice.

Liberals dread fundamentalist Islam and are so reticent to offend them, they dare not call them Islamic terrorists even when they blow things up and kill people--Opting instead for meaningless terms like “man caused” disasters.

Where liberals fear fundamentalist Islam, they loathe Christianity! Even though Christians don’t make a habit of strapping Composition C4 to their bodies and don’t blow people up shouting Jesus is Lord, They still insist traditional Christian values are as big a danger as Islam. This is why they are comfortable calling fundamentalist Christians American Taliban.

The word Christian is a good one! It is my prayer that more liberals come to understand what Christian truly means. The disciples of Christ were first called Christians in the Holy Bible in the Book of Acts 11:26:

“And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

Fear of Christianity is demonstrated in at least two ways pertinent to this article. There is the liberal fear that people will embrace the teachings of the Holy Bible and see that the foundation of liberal philosophy and Democrats politics are inherently contrary to not only God, but the best interests of this nation.

The second type of fear is displayed in people who say they have accepted Christ. it can on occasion be found in conservatives as well. It is a fear to unabashedly identify yourself as a Christian for fear of being rejected by people.

These are the people who don’t want faith to play a roll in political debate. People who are afraid to offend others by standing beside Christ and affirming what He affirms. They want salvation and the promises of God, but they don’t want to bear the cross themselves.

Even the simple term Christian is no longer good enough, the term has to be parsed. Religion is one of the first things I look at when I acquire a new Facebook acquaintance. I am amazed at the number of people I know are Christian who leave their religious philosophy blank. How a person identifies themselves spiritually tells a lot about them. You see pseudo Christian descriptions like:

“believer in the Great I Am” or “I am desiring to be like Christ”

(I have found this particularly true amongst academics claiming faith in Christ)
Ontologically, who is the Great I AM to you? I’ve heard Buddhists claim they desire to be like Christ! Do you desire to be like the Christ who says?:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6

and

“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” Matthew 10:32-35

Or President Obama’s Christ of the so called liberal and nebulous “Christian tradition”? The Jesus who lives only in the liberal mind, who’s followers believe you can go down a different path to reach God?

This is an important question, because the Jesus Christ who says the liberal favorite:

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31

...Is the same Jesus Christ quoted above! You can’t accept the Christ of Mark 12 without the Christ of John 14 and Matthew 10! At least not if you are a Christian. It may cost you some friends and votes if you are a politician, but the truth is the truth!

Just before the verse from Acts that calls Christ’s disciples Christians for the first time, we find out it was a dangerous time to be identifying yourself with Christ, there was serious persecution for believers then. This is to be expected, it is happening all over the globe even today.

I am a “fundamentalist”, I believe the whole Holy Bible and I make no apologies for it, though I will offer an apologetic of the Christian faith! Insufferably stupid liberal terms like Tea Bagger and “American Taliban” as rendered by ignorant, dull witted people, I dispassionately reject.

I prefer American Christian!

Digital Publius

Trump Psychosis!

2011-04-17T15:34:00.000-04:00

Psychosis is defined (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche", for mind/soul, and -ωσις "-osis", for abnormal condition) as an abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality".

Leading up to the 2008 election, we saw the rise of a first term Senator from the state of Illinois named Barack Obama. This man literally came out of nowhere, but not without a great deal of heavy and highly questionable baggage.

Barack Obama, much to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Political machine’s consternation, was able to convince the liberal grass roots throng that not only was his baggage not the least bit heavy, but that he had actually lost the claim check for his baggage completely.

Thus, the Bill Ayers’, Jeremiah Wrights’, Saul Alinskys’, along with the then-junior-senator’s overall lack of transparency, stayed packed neatly away in Obama’s leaden Samsonite, quietly circling alone on the conveyor belt of rational thought, before being placed in public scrutiny’s Lost and Found department.

Philip Berg, an attorney acting on behalf of the Clinton machine, filed a motion in federal district court on August 21, 2008, against Democratic Party presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama. The Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission chose to ignore the fact that Obama was allegedly born in Mombasa, Kenya and that the "Certification of Live Birth" posted on Obama's website, is a forgery.

Though the complaint was dismissed as frivolous, it began President Obama’s commitment to spending as much money as necessary in legal fees to keep his credentials suppressed for whatever reason he chooses to do so!

Because Berg was an activist attorney acting on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign this, in a way, makes Mrs. Clinton the De facto mother of the “Birther” movement!

Yet somehow the stigma of racism that dogs those who question Mr. Obama’s eligibility contemporaneously, somehow fails to be affixed to the Democrats and the Clinton machine responsible for getting the “birther” ball rolling.

All of this is irrelevant to Democrats because true liberal Obama supporters couldn’t possibly care less if Obama is or is not a natural born citizen, just like the left doesn’t care that Barack was the least qualified candidate in the field from either side of the political aisle.

Democrats didn’t care about Obama’s less than savory and, in many cases, un-American close associations. Nor did they care that despite our nation’s fight against socialism for the better part of the 20th century, Mr. Obama displayed socialist proclivities.

Even now, in the face of President Obama’s numerous broken promises and utter failure in dealing with the countries economic woes for some the man can do no wrong. Regardless, that the “no more cowboy diplomacy” candidate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate recently launched an attack against another country.

To Obama’s base it doesn’t matter that he explicitly contradicts his own criteria for using U.S. military force and, I might add, does so without congressional approval, the true Obama sycophants hold fast to their belief in “hope” and “change”.

Thus, we are not surprised to read statements such as:

“I simply don't care about the facts you're throwing out. What I care about is getting our country back on track...”

Even more troubling is the way this statement ends:

”…and Donald Trump is the only one that will do that. I don't care who he hired in his business. I don't care that a Democrat is his campaign advisor, I don't care who he has donated money to.”

How is such an irresponsible statement different from the unsettlingly similar statements, thoughtlessly spouted by Obama supporters, we on the right expressed contempt for over the past few years?

I spent the better part of last week engaging with people who are ardent supporters of a Donald Trump presidential candidacy with negligible success. Trump supporters seem as immune to rational argumentation as the most psychotic Obama loose bolts.

In response to an invitation to read my article “Cmon’ Folks, Let’s Get Real” and listen to Mark Levin’s blistering critique of Trump’s conservative bona fides, the afore quoted Trump acolyte wrote:

“Your article shows you hate Trump so silly for me to even respond to you any further. You'd never have anything good to say about him. That's fine.”

I may have a biased perspective when it comes to my own ability to convey ideas with the written word, but I dogmatically insist there is nothing within my article that would intimate I harbor hatred for Donald Trump-at least not to a rational individual!

The difference is that this article is not about rational individuals, it’s about people on both sides of the political aisle that are so blinded by rhetoric, they refuse to examine their political sacred cows!

I wish I could say Trump psychotics were a rare breed, but I have run into an inordinate number of them in the last week. Like their liberal Obama kindred, Trump followers refuse to acknowledge either the truth or the record of their guy.

It doesn’t matter that Trump, in his book “The America We Deserve” asserts the U.S. needs a universal healthcare plan like Canada’s. Trump writes:

“Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork,”

Does that mean, for Donald supporters, as long as Trump says he wants to overturn Obama’s socialist plan so he can promote Canada’s socialist healthcare plan, a socialist plan is okay?

Hasn’t President Obama and the liberal left made it a point to talk more about what American’s “deserve” instead of what American’s can earn on their own? Is it just me?

The leftist mainstream media has spent the last few years blaming the Tea Party for taking the establishment Republicans too far to the right. Over the past few weeks, that rhetoric was ratcheted up by Democrat Congressional leadership. Chuck Schumer made it abundantly clear the left’s agenda was to marginalize the Tea Party and conservatism as much as possible, highlighting the Tea Party’s “extreme” views!

Trump back in 1999 on “Meet the Press”, told the late Tim Russert:

“I really believe the Republicans are just too crazy, right?” he went on to say; “I mean, just what’s going on is just nuts.”

Keep in mind this was 1999, after the George W. Bush nomination was a foregone conclusion. At this point Trump split with the Republican Party faithful and spent the next eight years delivering liberal talking points.

Yet we are asked to believe Trump has now joined and identifies with the far more conservatively
orthodox and “extreme” right wing Tea Party? “ Cmon’ folks! When was Trump’s political “Road to Damascus” moment?

It seems Trump Psychotics are as willing to disregard Trump’s past as the Obama Psychotics are when breathlessly devoting themselves to their savior of all things good.

For some it doesn’t matter that Trump just a few years ago contributed to the Who’s Who of anti-Tea Party candidates. Money for Harry Reid and Anthony Weiner and the self appointed champion of the extreme view of the Tea Party, Chuck Schumer! After all Trump does say: “I’m a business man”.

Trump gave campaign funds to conservative turncoat Charlie Crist, but no money for Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio. So much for Trump’s it’s “good business” to give to both sides cock and bull story.

Beyond the “good business man” malarkey, if you’re successful and powerful and truly believe Obama and the left are wrecking the country, would you help fund the destruction?

I mean, what happens when the side you say you don’t like wins? Does it make sense to pay into a political philosophy you say is hostile to business because you’re a businessman? Does this imply Trump is putting his business ahead of the overall good of the nation, because that is the implication of his explanation! Think People!

Is Donald Trump a born again conservative? Perhaps. I haven’t seen anything beyond his rhetoric to convince me a decade worth of conservative bashing should be disregarded just because Trump has poorly advanced some eligibility arguments!

Not when there are so many longstanding and true conservative voices being drowned out who make the same statements about the economy, foreign markets and returning to American pride with far more intelligence and credibility!

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15

Shake off the psychosis! Let’s return to the rational thought that separates us from the reactionary left and their ill developed ability to discern between feeling good and the pragmatic truth of the type of leaders we should look for to steer our ship of state back to a steady and prosperous course.

Digital Publius

Cmon' Folks, Let's Get Real!

2011-04-10T18:56:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite songs of all time is “Stand”; by Sly and the Family Stone! I don’t know Sly’s politics, although Sly may be a degenerate of the highest order, in Stand he raised universal, even Biblical truths!

If I were head of the RNC, this would be the song I would play before every rally! One of “Stand’s” copious, steeped in wisdom lyrics, reads:

  “Stand,
You've been sitting much too long,
There's a permanent crease in your right and wrong”

Last week the President declared his candidacy for the 2012 election, which will be perhaps the most critical one in the 21st. Century. I believe it will set the tone for America’s moral course and philosophy for the next hundred years.

It is imperative that as Conservatives we “Stand” for what we know is “right” and in opposition of what we certainly know is “wrong”! The courts again will be a major issue. We cannot allow the left to win again. There is too much at stake! Conservatives cannot afford to have the Supreme Court loaded with youthful, liberal justices primed to serve on the bench for decades.

The left is pulling out all of the stops. This election really needs to be about morality and principles without compromise. In fact, I am beginning to hate the word, “compromise”!

Compromise may have begun life as a concept nobly, but in modern America it has since warped into acquiescence.

Acquiescence is what happens when one of the compromising parties seems consistently to be the only one making concessions. This is surely the case in American politics today.

At no time has this sad truth been more easily recognizable than in the recent battle to pass a Federal budget for the nation’s fiscal year. To begin with, Republicans asked for a drop in the bucket and even that was reduced by the Democrats to a moist smudge.  

Republicans couldn’t even manage to take a stand for the social riders they had placed in the budget. As a nation, if we’re getting basics like the right to life wrong, how on earth can we get anything else right? How long will we “Stand” for compromising on life?

The narrative during the budget debate was completely controlled by the media and the right lay down passively and took it. We who call ourselves conservatives are again allowing the media to shape our actions and thinking. Even on the grass roots level.

The amount of adjustment made to the budget was so infinitesimal, it could be claimed pyrrhic. To paraphrase the eponymous King Pyrrhus: “ ‘One more such victory would utterly undo’ the country!”

Ironically, if this woefully inadequate and largely symbolic gesture towards fiscal responsibility had not been passed, we would not have had the money to pay the troops necessary to even have (God forbid) such a victory as Pyrrhus had at Heraclea against the Romans.

The Republicans lack the confidence in the American people’s support to properly wage this battle for the nation’s soul. We are too easily distracted! The left understands this and they use it to their advantage.

This is why the left, in truth, loves the question of the President’s eligibility to hold the office. There is legitimacy in questioning Mr. Obama’s reticence in sharing his credentials and records, but, this is a marginalizing issue. It is meat for the Conservative base and it should be of concern to the whole nation, but... it is not.

We on the right claim to understand how tragically and blindly supportive the left is when it comes to President Obama. That may indeed be the case when it comes to the liberal voting base. However, it is not true of the media or the political and economic powers behind the Democrats and Mr. Obama. This group knows exactly what Obama is!

It is the powers behind the Democrats, who convinced the conservatives John McCain was the offering to be placed in sacrifice before the Obama machine in 2008. It is happening again.

We keep seeing these brand name media straw polls coming out touting Mitt Romney as the Republican frontrunner. Meanwhile, no one we know ever talks about Romney except to say; “We don’t want him.”

Every straw poll conducted on conservative grassroots sites like the ones here on Digital Publius or Freedom Torch all suggest a decidedly different narrative than the one conveyed in the mainstream media.

Polls on all the grassroots sites show conservatives desiring to back candidates that express the values and perspective that reflects their worldview... candidates who are proven conservatives. Not wishy washy politicians who follow the political climate.

This is what nags at me about the blossoming Tea Party support for Donald Trump! I have to admit I find it amusing that Trump makes so many leftist talking heads appear to squirm. Trump is saying all of the right things right now, but after a period of sober minded reflection, I am not comfortable with Trump.

In the back of my mind I keep thinking about the Donald Trump that appeared so often on “Don Imus In The Morning” reveling in Bush bashing a few years ago. The Trump who was so tragically short sighted when it came to the war in Iraq, and who was was pro-”choice”. This Donald Trump:

Contrast that video with this more recent appearance by “The Donald”!

It seems The Donald has merely transposed George W. Bush’s name with Barack H. Obama’s. The most telling thing, the thing we should be paying closest attention too, is the attitude of the media-figures Trump talks to.

If we were going strictly by the leftist talking points In the first video, it would be impossible to tell Trump from Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow or even Keith Olbermann and that was just a few years ago mind you.

Donnie Deutsch was only too eager to feed into The Donald’s all too frequent anti-Bush diatribes. This really looks no different from the way Matt Lauer and David Gregory supported Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer last week on the morning shows as they presented the DNC’s talking points and a singular unopposed perspective on the budget battle.

In the second video, we again see Trump being interviewed by Donnie Deutsch--This time we are treated to Deutsch and the rest of the panel smirking and derisively dismissing Trump as he spouts so called “birther” arguments! Arguments long since dismissed by people who have been fighting this battle since Obama came on the scene.

Fringe arguments like the President’s “Grandmother in Kenya”, long abandoned for their lack of strong evidential integrity. He is bringing up issues that have all been dealt with by the left, whether you find the answers credible should not be your bone of contention. It is a question of advancing persuasive arguments to the American people.

Anyone on the left worth their beans, who is prepared, could take Trump apart as we saw when he appeared on CNN, Suzanne Malveaux ate his lunch. The most powerful question that can be put in play when it comes to this issue is: Why is the President fighting so hard and committing so much money to suppressing his credentials? Why?

This is the question that no one ever answers. Trump has brought it up in a few interviews, but Donald never presses for an answer. He was so thoroughly handled by Malveaux that he never even asked that most pivotal question. The bottom line is this: This is not an issue you can win new votes with. It plays great with the base, but not the independents.

I refuse to believe Trump is unaware of this, or the seemingly reasonable apologetics forwarded by Obama’s supporters on the weaker “birther” arguments. Trump is too smart! Or perhaps I give him too much credit.

I do not believe that Trump is a true conservative.   I think Trump is nothing more than a complicit distraction to draw people away from the candidates we really need to support, who are true, longstanding conservatives. I don’t necessarily mean long time politicians, I mean clear, consistent and unwavering conservative voices.

Trump is a media creation--A left wing media creation! His show the “Apprentice” airs on NBC, while his network’s boss, Jeffrey Immelt is President Obama’s appointed head of the Jobs and Competitiveness Council (whatever that is) for goodness sake.

Trump’s bid for conservative support is nothing more than theater! Liberal stagecraft at it’s finest and most deceptive. Do not be fooled! “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” It seems almost like the birth certificate issue is a faint.

You let the whole “birther” issue hit a fevered pitch as advanced by perhaps the nation’s greatest “pitch” man. Make him the champion of the issue, he secures conservative support and then “boom goes the dynamite”, the President finally submits and releases the long form birth certificate, conservatives look foolish and petty and Obama wins a second term.

A far more likely scenario sees the right marginalized even further so that we are forced to nominate the common since candidate the media really wants us to choose. So, again we offer a sacrifice like the feckless and unelectable Mitt Romney instead of a true conservative. 

Sly’s song ends:

Stand
Don't you know that you are free
Well at least in your mind if you want to be
Everybody
Stand, stand, stand

Free your minds of the media’s manipulation this time around. Let’s not buy into the newly conservative Trumps or the chimerical Romneys. Let’s get real and support a conservative who has always been a conservative.

As always, I am reminded of Holy Scripture, specifically, Paul sharing the Gospel with the pagans in Athens at Mars Hill. The Holy Bible relates:

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) Acts 17:21

Let’s not be like the Athenian pagans always in pursuit of some “new thing”! The essence of conservatism is conserving those things we know are true and real! Donald Trump I am afraid is neither!

Digital Publius

How Now Mr. President?

2011-04-05T19:36:00.007-04:00

In a recent exchange on my profile page on Facebook a friend, and I mean a real life friend, someone that I have known for decades and of whom I am exceedingly fond, made a typical attack from the left when he avowed:

“We saw Bush/Cheney's open-hearted outreach at the Superdome in New Orleans. The only minority group the GOP is interested in is the Fortune 500.”

In response I countered:

“Not so my brother--Bush spent more money on entitlement programs for the poor than any President in history. Bush also sent more money in aid to Africa than any President in history.”

My friend scoffed so I provided the documented proof of what I’d asserted in regards to entitlements and Africa, which was met with the also typical leftist disregard for facts in favor of what they want to believe. As I stated in the thread: Facts are to a liberal what garlic is to Count Dracula - Something to be avoided at all costs.

The truth of the matter is that in Africa, Bush was adored because his policies saved legions of lives there. The liberal championed banning of DDT, killed millions in Africa. Bush countered that with a program that distributed Mosquito netting all over the continent, protecting people from malaria and other diseases that were wreaking havoc on the population. President, George W. Bush was also responsible for sending over an enormous amount of money to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

It is interesting to note that one of Mr. Obama’s very first acts as President, was under cover of night, Barack Obama followed the lead of Bill Clinton and signed an order lifting the Mexico City Policy originally implemented by Ronald Reagan. The policy had been reinstated by George W. Bush before being again overturned by President Obama.

The Mexico City Policy banned the use of U.S. taxpayers dollars for funding abortions abroad. The majority of those funds for “family Planning” went towards aborting African babies. Bush sent money to save the lives of the African people, Son of Kenya, Obama sends money to end African lives.

Liberals would argue that aborting children in Africa alleviates suffering and eases tensions in a strapped land that cannot afford to feed it’s people. On Digital Publius. I often quote Romans 3:8 because within that passage we find encapsulated the essence of liberal wrongheadedness:

“And not [rather], (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”

We are again facing difficult questions in the African nation of Libya where we are acting without clear mission or intent. Moreover, we also have no idea as to the true motives of those we’re aiding. Even the mainstream media has reported that many of the Libyan rebels are hardened Al Qaeda fighters who hate America. And we’re debating whether we should arm the Libyan rebels?

All this in contradistinction to the circumstances, which in 2007 President Obama himself said were necessary to engage in war:

“The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. History has shown us time and again...that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch.”

Yet, that is precisely what Obama did as president! For a person so adamantly against the prospects of a war without goals, Obama seems like “a greyhound in the slips, straining upon the start”. In no way, shape, or form could it be construed that Libya constitutes an “imminent threat” to our nation. Yet “In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove”, Mr. Obama did act, and the military action was quickly conceived and prosecuted.

Not at all like a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Notwithstanding Libya in fact having no strategic value whatsoever for America, Libya does not even play a roll in America’s energy needs, the North African nation only provides 2% of our oil. Add to that a complete lack of Congressional input, let alone approval and it is a puzzlement how this all happened so fast.

As it pertains to the humanitarian motivation for our intervention, I can’t help but remember what the President wrote in his book “The Audacity of Hope.” Obama argued if our nation got involved with Iraq in a humanitarian endeavor without a well-established plan that the American people and the world could understand and support, the United State’s efforts would not be seen as legitimate.
At that time, President Obama even questioned: “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?”

Why indeed? The question still remains even with a change in venue. Why Libya? why not Darfur or the Côte d'Ivoire? Well, in my estimation, the answer is foreign in origin: We are in a fight to aid our European friends. Bosom companions like France and Italy who procure the lion's share of Libya’s oil exports. We are not acting in Libya for our concerns, nor are we acting to help the Libyan rebels.

It seems likely; the French Connection offers a good reason why we are not acting to help the Ivory Coast as well. Not only does the Ivory Coast keep France knee deep in cocoa and swimming in coffee, recently off the small nation’s coast oil was discovered.

Adding interest for the French, in a current Ivory Coast election, the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo was defeated under questionable circumstances, prompting Gbagbo to refuse to abdicate power. Coincidentally, I am currently building a website for a local lawyer who happens to be from the Ivory Coast. I asked him what he thought of the circumstances in his homeland.

My friend declared his loyalty to Gbagbo and stated that the French backed and supplied Alassane Ouattara, (the “winner” of what my friend called the “corrupt” election for Ivory Coast President) and his supporters are murderous thugs. My friend’s words confirmed all of the reports that I’d read in international papers.

The French and the U.N. backed Ouattara, stand by while Ouattara’s forces slaughter civilians by the thousands as they attempt to force Gbabgo to step down. In fact, President Obama’s United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice has also gone on record asking Gbabgo to step down.

Meanwhile Gbabgo’s requests for a recount and an investigation into the election have been ignored.

The U.N. and the E.U. make statements suggesting they fear Gbabgo is responsible for human rights abuses. That’s good enough for the French. However, we know that Ouattara’s thugs are murdering people.

How the left can continually be wrong when it comes to Africa is beyond me. Especially when one considers this administration’s close familial ties to the continent. As it stands, the emerging facts seem to suggest that we are not acting in North Africa because of any imminent threat to our nation, which was what Senator Obama forcefully proclaimed was necessary in 2007.

Who knows what’s really going on in the Ivory Coast, or anywhere in Africa for that matter. We are not acting for any strategic reason that I can fathom, or even for what Libya has to offer. It seems that America is in Libya because the European Union wants us to be.

I am reminded of the immortal words of the Bard as King Harry warns the Bishop of Canterbury to count the consequences before inciting the realm to war.

“Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, How you awake our sleeping sword of war: We charge you, in the name of God, take heed; For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint”

How now Mr. President - Why act in Libya and not the Côte d'Ivoire?

Digital Publius

Israel, Still God's People!

2011-03-24T08:54:00.002-04:00

As happens on occasion when I aspire to write on a political subject, God has a better idea. Thus, this morning I was studying the book of Exodus, doing research for an article that I had a mind to make a companion piece to my last article “My People, My People!”.

I was pouring through the relation of the plagues as recorded in Exodus inflicted upon Egypt and the subsequent results leading to the inevitable liberation of God’s “peculiar” people.

As I read the very origin of the nation of Israel, I was struck by a passage which screamed forth from those bygone days, giving me an understanding of Israel’s nature and its still “peculiar” people today.
Specifically, I read God’s instructions to the Hebrews in regards to the marking of Passover, wherein God instructs:

Exodus 12:43-46
“¶And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: 44 But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. 45 A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. 46 In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.”

That was the set up; now here comes the bit that really struck me:

“47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. 48 And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. 49 One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.”

I must confess that, as a “born again” Christian, Israel is never far from my mind! I am always disturbed when the apple of God’s eye is impugned or attacked. Israel means so much to God and, by extension, Israel should mean a great deal to those of us who profess a faith in the God of Israel.

Last May, during an interview with Rabbi David Nesenoff for RabbiLive.com, when asked what she thought of the Israelis, Helen Thomas, the grand dame of the Presidential Press Corps, opined: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” Thomas went on to say: “Remember these people (The Palestinians) are occupied, and it’s their land.” When asked where the Israelis should go, she retorted: “They can go home, to Germany and Poland and America and everywhere else.”

Helen Thomas is wrong as to whom the land belongs. She is wrong spiritually, as well as historically. Israel’s claim to the land is unimpeachable to the unbiased student of history, a subject I will leave for a later article. The spiritual claim we will deal with in the here and now.

God is in the people-saving business and He never closes or takes a holiday! The Holy Bible makes it plain that it was not just Hebrews who left Egypt on the day of Exodus. God says there were others who were “Strangers” among the Hebrews.

When you examine Exodus 12 verses 48-49 above, God says that if the “strangers” will keep the Passover, and be circumcised, “they shall be as one that is born in the land.” God says under such circumstances the "strangers" that keep God’s covenant are covered by God and therefore God’s people.

It seems that Helen Thomas, whose Lebanese immigrant parents raised her in the Greek Orthodox faith, puts more credence in the doctrine of Lebanese Muslims than the faith she grew up in. The Bible also makes it plain to whom the land of Israel belongs:

Exodus 13:4,5
“This day came ye out in the month Abib. 5 ¶And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.”

God repeats it in verse 11:

“ ¶And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee,”

Easy to understand and right there on the surface of the text, it says that God gave the land to the Israelis. As for the Canaanites, the Hittites and all the other “ites”, Israel was God’s instrument of punishment meted out to people who were by all accounts Biblical and secular, exceedingly wicked and vile.

In Scripture, there is always a surface meaning and a deeper spiritual understanding. The spiritual understanding is far more important but often missed by people whose only ambition is to denigrate God, His people and His Word!

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2: 14

This is certainly the case in the recounting of the first Passover. As an example of how God lays out dual meanings lying below the surface, let us take a look at Exodus Chapter 12:

Exodus 12:21-23
"Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. 22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you."

The Hebrews acted in faith that the blood of a lamb would spare them from the wrath of their righteous God, and God was faithful to spare them by that blood. God used that same pattern again; He sacrificed His Son, the perfect Lamb of God on behalf of all the “Strangers” in the world. As Christians, we have faith in the blood of Christ shed for the remission of our sin.

As on the first Passover, God will see Christ’s covering and pass over us as well:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:28,29

Today, it seems God is using the ways of Exodus 12:47-49. God performs His promises down to the minutest detail. Exodus 12:46 quoted above, by itself could be the subject of at least three completely different messages. But, what sticks out as odd, is God decrying the Passover Lamb’s bones could not be broken.

In the prophetic Psalm 34 we see the message again:

“ He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken. 21 Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. 22 The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”

This is interesting when one considers the manner of Roman crucifixion to which Christ was subjected; On the cross, to hasten death, the subject's legs were broken. Yet, in the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy, not one of the Lord’s bones was broken.

“For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.” John 19:37

Helen Thomas is back in the news. It has been recently reported Helen took part in an in-depth interview for Playboy magazine. I suggest that she hearken back to her Christian roots and consider what God says about Israel before she follows the world.

The very existence of Israel as a nation in the modern world is a miracle! Israel was completely destroyed by the Romans. As an insult, the Emperor Hadrian renamed it Palestine after the Jews ancient enemy, the Philistines. The reforming of Israel, after a millennia long Jewish diaspora, is a testament to God’s power to bring to fruition what He promises.

Based on the world’s animus towards Israel, it is indeed a “burdensome stone”! Yet, the United States has always been a staunch supporter of Israel. I pray we remain so. In many ways of late, our present administration has been non-supportive of Israel. Helen Thomas, Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright, who also recently resurfaced with an anti Israeli screed, along with all others who call themselves Christians or Muslims or whatever, would do well to heed the Word of the Lord:

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3

Christ’s work on the cross fulfilled the blessing “all the families of the earth” part. However, it does not follow that the cursing part has been rescinded.

Digital Publius

My People, My People!

2011-03-18T15:58:00.009-04:00

In my last article “What Would Digital Publius Do?”, I make the simple point that if the  Holy Bible were tampered with as so many anti-Christ opponents of God’s will maintain, the people responsible for the alleged malfeasance did a poor job of it. All of the  tiresome things God put in place in His Word to restrain man from exploiting his fellow man remain intact.

Indeed, the truth of the matter is, if one seeks to use Christianity as a medium for  subjugation, you’ll find the Holy Bible a poor ally in the pursuit.  

I assert in “What Would Digital Publius Do?”:  

“No, my friends, when man seeks to usurp the Living Word of God, man does it from the  outside, by casting aspersions upon the Holy Bible and placing human wisdom above  what was revealed to man in Scripture. You don’t change God’s Word, you reject it!”

Hold on to your proverbial hats, gentles; I could not have wished for a better example  of my thesis made manifest than Lawrence O’Donnell’s recent rant against Fox News  commentators Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck! This video has to be seen to be believed!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not: but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.” Proverbs 14:6:

Lawrence O’Donnell was chosen by MSNBC to replace the equally half baked and
exceedingly unwise Keith Olbermann as purveyor of all things secular and pig ignorant.
O’Donnell joins a lineup rife with Maddows and Schultzes who have nothing but disdain
for Christianity and all that is wholesome and lovely.

That D’Donnell attempts to intimate that Beck meant to suggest the happenings in
Japan literally are a part of the end of the world ontologically, that Beck thinks we are
in the midst of Armageddon, is of course specious and purposely misleading. He is
unabashedly attacking Christians and the Christian faith.

This drives me headlong into the subject of this article and a question which is the goad
that keeps me writing Digital Publius: "My people, my people, how long will you ally yourself with the ungodly?"

I began Digital Publius in March of 2008 out of frustration and utter bewilderment as I
watched the people in my church celebrating the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama
for President of the United States. Everything that Obama stands for and stood for then
was expressly against the precepts of the God we gathered together on Sundays to
worship.

Obama is wrong on spiritual issues like gay marriage and abortion. As I illustrated in my article “Comrade God?,” from a Scriptural perspective, Obama is also wrong on social issues. Moreover, when it comes to economics, he is enamored with the same socialist paradigm that has and is failing everywhere it has ever been implemented.

The earlier Digital Publius articles were sent directly to an email list of my fellow church
members. It was my intent to spark discussion and to perhaps get people to look at
the election with the mind of Christ as believers should do with all things. This is best
accomplished by comparing what a candidate stands for with the precepts of God.

What I got was a bunch of people I really care about asking me to take them off my email list.

There is a disconnect when it comes to Black Christians and their ability to discern the
ungodly nature of the Democrat Party. Indeed, there is a disconnect between Black
people in general when it comes to recognizing the great harm that liberalism and the
secular humanist agenda advanced by the Democrat party wrought in our communities.
Christians, however, ought to know better.

The truth of the matter is the only body of people who identify themselves as Christians voting for Democrats in any numbers are Black Christians. If you are a Christian and you habitually vote for Democrats, regardless of race, you do so in spite of your faith!

Myself being a Black Christian I have the occasion to talk to other Black Christians every single day. Just last Friday I was talking to a group of ladies about the situation in Japan and one of them said:

“Well you know this is in the Bible don’t you...about the last days?”

What followed was a cacophony of "mm-hmms" and affirmations attesting to the truth  of what the speaker had just said. The irony is that every single one of them voted for  Barack Obama and every Democrat directly preceding him.

Not long after that, the subject of Fox News came up and they just as vehemently
denounced the station in favor of CNN and MSNBC! The incongruity lies in that they
agree with Glenn Beck but they never watch him and the stations they do watch are
openly hostile to what they believe at their very cores but they can’t see it.

They voted for the same guy that O’Donnell voted for. The same O’Donnell who openly
said on his show as aired by the MSNBC network that the Book they believe in is fiction
and the God they worship if they believe the Book of Revelation is a true testament of
what is to come, is a “ truly vicious God, a malicious torturer and mass murderer”.

Black folks don’t get it, despite the President’s profession of Christian faith, Christians
don’t “grapple” with issues God speaks plainly to. You either believe or you don’t! The
Holy Bible is a whole and you have to accept it wholly.

If you cannot accept the totality of God’s revelation, you are not a Christian; you are
something else entirely, and that’s okay! Be what you want, just don’t equivocate. You
cannot pick and chose the sayings of the Bible à la carte; you have to recognize that by
definition, Christians believe the Holy Bible is true. All of it!

Almost daily, I hear Black folks say, “We are in the last days!” --The last days as defined by the Holy Bible in books like Daniel, Jude and, yes, the Revelation of John, to name a few. Yet they vote for the same people who often ridicule what they believe, made manifest by President Obama’s statements lamenting the Pennsylvanians who find comfort in “clinging” to their religion.

Liberal Democrat candidates, championed by people who openly mock the Christian faith as a matter of course which was displayed by Lawrence O’Donnell’s rather tragic, nay, embarrassing appeal for more watchers. Where is the outrage professing Christians should feel towards MSNBC for employing a man who mocks the faith the overwhelming majority of Americans claim as their own.

Ask yourself what would be the repercussions if a Fox Host mocked the Qur’an and the god of Islam in like manner? The liberal left would be clamoring for the Fox Host to be pilloried for all to see at Rockefeller Plaza, his home razed to the ground, his fields salted and the hoary heads of his esteemed elders spitted upon pikes.

In that conversation Friday, I mentioned Star Parker, Herman Cain, Allen West and  Thomas Sowell. They were all unknown to the ladies I was talking with. I said that’s  because you watch CNN and MSNBC--Neither station is big on Black pundits and  politicians beyond Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. You almost never see conservative  Blacks opining on any news organization other than Fox.

Fox News consistently has more Black pundits from both sides of the political aisle. The  point is that the Black folks I talk to sound more like Fox commentators that sustain and  vote for conservative ideas than the folks you see on the other networks who support and vote for Democrats. The opinions on the right certainly jibe most often with Black  Christian beliefs, nonetheless we vote for the left.

My Bible says “A double minded man [is] unstable in all his ways.” This is certainly the case in the Black community! Our loyalty is divided between God and the world. That division is demonstrated in the way we vote and subsequently in our communities when we reject the precepts of God and elect fools of a singular, ungodly liberal perspective for decade-after-decade as our communities putrefy at an accelerated pace.

We all struggle with sin in our lives, but as Christians we are to aspire to live Godly lives and to be “salt and light” in a fallen world. No one knows what is in a man’s heart, if we vote for a politician who says one thing to get our vote, then does another thing once he has procured that vote, shame on the politician.

My question to fellow Black Christians: How is it you get behind leaders who openly support sin, and scorn the wisdom of the God of the Holy Bible?

“Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.” Proverbs 14:9:

Digital Publius

What Would Digital Publius Do?

2011-02-25T09:35:00.001-05:00

I have the occasion to engage in apologetical discussions pertaining to the Christian faith with a wide variety of anti-Christian antagonists — Muslims, witches, atheists. As a Christian apologist, one argument you are sure to come up against, no matter the persuasion of the person you are dealing with, is the reliability of the Holy Bible.

They all claim one or all of the following, without fail, that the Holy Bible:

1) is not divine in origin, but rather the work of men;

2) is open to a wide range of interpretations with no Biblical view being more able to claim preeminence above the next;

3) despite an individual’s belief in the Holy Bible’s divine or mundane source or sources, has been tampered with by unscrupulous men bent on using the text to further their own ambitions; for this reason, the Bible matters little.

For the purposes of this article, I will focus on claim number three. This particular claim has always been the most amusing to me, as it is by far the silliest and easiest to usurp. Which brings us to the title of this article – “What Would Digital Publius Do?”

In keeping with the idea of man placing his own wisdom and morality above God's I am forced to ask the question, What would I do if I were an unscrupulous man bent on using the Biblical text to further my own ambitions? What would I change in the Holy Bible to help me meet that end? Well I sure as heck would do a better job than those who came before me!

If I were a powerful person capable of effecting changes to the Bible, given my natural predilection for attractive women, I’m fairly certain I would do away with the whole one man one woman thing and all those pesky rules eschewing adultery and fornication. Just being honest here!

I certainly would make it possible for powerful men like myself to be exempt from such restrictions, if not the hoi poloi. There would have to be some revelation given so at least I could do my thing!
This is the sort of thing we do find in extra-Biblical cults and false religions. Generally when someone wants to use “religion” to grasp power, they have their own revelation of “thus sayeth the Lord”. They don’t change the Bible, they change the brand. That is how the world got the Book of Mormon, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the Qur'an to name a few!

The problem in changing the Holy Bible is that people would notice, even way back in the 4th century, the time most Bible critics point to when they make these assertions. But if you start your own brand, you’re good. You just claim that God is still in the revelation business and you are the new relay!

Liberalism, by it’s very nature, abhors rules against the things they want to champion. The leftists don’t like phrases like “Congress shall make no law...” any more than they like “Thou shalt not...” No man does, actually.

The difference is in an individuals heart to overcome our baser instincts and accept what God wants to teach man about how we should live and treat others. Let me give you an example of liberal thinking. Aldous Huxley, the Author of “Brave New World”, makes a rather revelatory statement in rationalizing his acceptance of the idea of Darwinian evolution and the meaninglessness of life as had his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley (who was known as Darwin’s bulldog):

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do…. For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom..” Aldous Huxley, “Confession of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News, vol. 3 (June 1966), p. 19. From an article by Helming, “An Interview with God.”

It’s simple really; rebellion against God can always be summed up in the context of man’s intrinsic selfish pursuit of self-gratification and expedience.

The Holy Bible contemporaneously still looks down on the sort of behavior that would aid in oppressing others for selfish reasons. It has still got a bunch of those “Thou shalt not's” Huxley and his like-minded latter day liberals and humanists find so distasteful. In fact, the Bible has a distressing habit of teaching service to others as the only true path to greatness.

“And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.” Luke 22:24-27

Yep, that’s the kind of passage from Jesus Christ that would have to go! Not good if you are all about selfish power grabs and controlling masses with liturgical opiates. Yet it is still there! How do you, as a king, put this teaching to work placing yourself above other men, even above God when Christ says, “I am here among you serving you”?

No, my friends, when man seeks to usurp the Living Word of God, man does it from the outside, by casting aspersions upon the Holy Bible and placing human wisdom above what was revealed to man in Scripture. You don’t change God’s Word, you reject it!

You conform God to your idea of what He should be outside of the framework of who God says He is in His written Word. People reject not just the Bible, but also the God of the Bible. There are scads of people, like President Obama who say they believe in God—yet you find precious few who actually believe God!

This is why President Obama can claim to be a Christian, yet the White House says that the President is “grappling” with his personal views on gay marriage as Obama orders the United States Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the very law of the land defining marriage as a state consisting of the joining of one man and one woman in holy matrimony.

Is President Obama less powerful than the kings and leaders of old? Can’t the President do something about this outdated Bible our laws are based on? Well, the Democrats and the rest of the liberal left have been doing that for decades now. The leftists have eliminated the Bible's influence in American society as much as they possibly can.

You don’t have to change the Holy Bible - just undermine it! God says He knew you in the womb. My President says that’s “above my pay grade”! God says marriage is defined as one man, one woman. My President says lets ‘grapple” with that idea!

Change the Bible? Why bother? Every time a King or President casts doubt on God’s wisdom by overturning the clear teachings of Scripture on matters of marriage and the like, does he have to literally take out a Sharpie and start redacting the Holy Bible? Of course not, especially when President Obama's own Democrat Party has put in the time and legislation to make sure that many don’t know what the Bible says to begin with — let alone feeling any accountability to the One who wrote it!

Digital Publius

Weird Politics!

2011-02-18T05:44:00.000-05:00

Irish comedian Dylan Moran does a bit about Americans where he says something to the effect of “American imperialism is insidious!” He says that America targets some war-torn poverty stricken corner of the globe that has oil or chocolate or whatever it is we want, and all the natives get mad and begin to meet.

So they gather together in some bombed-out cafe or something to foment, “What are we going to do about the Yankee, American imperialist pig dogs? They come in here, they take our stuff...” Meanwhile — while these people are talking— America very, very gradually builds a Starbucks around them! They get addicted to lattes, lose the will to fight, and then they turn into Americans.

Apart from Moran’s bit being absolutely hilarious, the one thing he has manifestly right, is that once people get a taste of what a free nation has to offer, they generally want more. That is, with the possible exception of the American extreme left. Many liberals, who have the ability to have it all by virtue of being born in the freest nation on earth, would rather deconstruct the Starbucks and see America become a giant bombed-out cafe.

With the Middle Eastern nations tumbling like so many dominoes in an exhibition of alleged democratic fervor are squaring off against oppressive oligarchies and dictators, the American left seeks to hitch a ride on the bandwagon of civil unrest — not with an eye towards preserving or defending the democratic process responsible for making our republic the envy of the world, but in decidedly un-democratic displays of sore-headed defiance.

You have leftists calling for a renewal of hard left rhetoric, even resuscitating the Weather Underground’s halcyon call for “Days of Rage!”, calling for “an end to American capitalism and imperialism.”

All this while the truly oppressed Middle Easterners — who serve as the titular inspiration for the homegrown anti-American, capitalism eschewing extreme liberals — are unable to get their stories out via the state controlled media. So, they turned to Twitter, Facebook and other web-based communication media.

Web entities like Facebook and Twitter, even foreign grown applications like Skype, indeed the very internet itself, would not exist apart from the Yankee capitalism the liberals hate. Not to mention the devices they use to access them. This fact seems to elude their mushy brains as the left uses the web with cheerful abandon to spread the word about their planned hissy fits.

It’s because they don’t think; the liberals are like toddlers who have no idea that mommy and daddy have to work to buy the juicy boxes they only take one sip out of before using the rest to make the sand red in their sandboxes. Unfortunately, these toddlers are trying to make the country red.

As the people in the Middle East rise up to have the right to put this issue or that to the vote, the Democrat Party obversely does all it can to ensure democracy doesn’t happen if it involves an issue they don’t like. Whether it’s states like California working to overturn or block passage of Defense of Marriage acts or school vouchers, state by state, they will work feverishly either not to vote or block anyone else from voting at all.

The 60’s radicals were born of a time of rebellion with heroes like James Dean and Marlon Brando representing a counter culture fueled by some of the most powerful voices in rock and roll history — causes born in the crucible of the civil rights movement and the conflicts in South East Asia. They rebelled against a society whose politicians may have danced the Lindy Hop, and most certainly danced to Boogie Woogie.

Today's politicians are often my age, as are those who foment unrest. We were born in the latter days of the Baby Boom, and the early days of Generation X. The MTV generation! So, it’s no wonder that many of my generation who enter politics are modern day rebels, viewing the world like a John Hughes film.

Case in point: The legislature in the state of Wisconsin was slated to vote on an anti-union bill Thursday, the 17th of February, aimed at ending unions' collective bargaining rights. This is a Republican sponsored bill! The Wisconsin Republicans enjoy a 19 seat majority in the 33 seat Senate, so the bill would pass with flying colors.

In Wisconsin, there can be no vote in the Senate unless there is at least one member present from the two parties. So what do the Democrats do? They pull a Ferris Bueller and take the day off!

Rather than take their medicine, the Democrats (tucked snuggly in the hip pocket of the unions) act like taciturn teenagers and disappear. In Wisconsin, they can compel a vote so the Democrat Senators not only didn’t show up, they literally left town — all 14 of them! In an effort to emulate their hero, they ended up at some resort in Illinois, Ferris’ home state.

There is not a lot of faith in democracy in the Democrat party! Real mature dude!

When things don’t go their way the Democrats would rather job the system like Ferris, which is in stark contrast to the conduct of the U.S. Congressional Republicans who defiantly stood for their principles and showed up to vote as the liberals gleefully slammed through Obamacare on a totally partisan vote.

In Hawaii, state Senator Sam Slom is the sole Republican in the 25 seat Hawaiian Senate. Every vote pretty much ends in a 24 to 1 decision, but Senator Slom shows up to cast that one vote. That is faith in the system!

The problem is, too many Democrats see Republicans as “Chet Donnelly”, Wyatt’s bully of a big brother in “Weird Science”, while seeing themselves as Breakfast Club member “John Bender” types, raging against everything and everyone, content to explain away immature, bad behavior because they had it tough. Ever on the prowl to subvert the good kids to bring them down to their level rather than rising to the level of the high acheivers.

The latter John Bender trait was indicative of the behavior displayed by some 1000 Madison Wisconsin School teachers who called in sick so they could join the protestors surrounding the state capitol to prevent the union vote. It’s all about the kids right? Well...except when they are trying to mess with my union.

Turns out that even though the students had no idea what they were protesting some of those teachers actually took students out of class to help in the protest. It seems some of these students were away from schools with teachers sans obligatory permission slips from parents. Your tax dollars at work?

Rest assured, if my kids were in that mob absent from school without my say so--it would not be pretty!

A message to the Democrat Party: in order to have democracy, you have to mix in some democracy, even when it doesn’t go your way. Otherwise, you may just want to go join the crowd the people are protesting against in Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt — they don’t want the people voting either!

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. I Corinthians 13:11

Digital Publius

Lib Reactionaries on Parade!

2011-01-10T11:46:00.000-05:00

(Sung to the tune of "Pink Elephants on Parade")

Look out! Look out!
Lib Reactionaries on parade 
Here they come! 
Hippety hoppety 
They're here and there
Lib Reactionaries ev'rywhere

Look out! Look out! 
They're walking around the bed 
On their head 
Clippety cloppety 
Arrayed in braid
Lib Reactionaries on parade
What'll I do? What'll I do?
What an unusual view!

I could stand the sight of worms 
And look at microscopic germs 
But technicolor Liberals
Is really much for me 

I am not the type to faint 
When things are odd or things are quaint 
But seeing things you know that ain't
Can certainly give you an awful fright
What a sight!

Chase 'em away! 
Chase 'em away!
I'm afraid need your aid
Lib Reactionaries on parade! 
Lib Reactionaries!
Lib Reactionaries!

Digital Publius

Bondage of Corruption Pt. 1: Culture

2010-12-31T11:41:00.002-05:00

“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Romans 8:21

The Holy Bible declares that corruption leads to bondage, while true liberty is only available to those who are freed from corruption by being counted amongst the children of God. In America, many today confuse liberty with license–that is, license in a sense of the freedom to behave as one wishes, especially in a way that results in excessive or unacceptable behavior. This behavior views corruption as freedom rather than bondage.

Nowhere is this spirit more easily observable than in our entertainment and entertainers–our storytellers, our musicians, our artists. This is made possible by a diversion away from the essence of things–the essence of what is good and what is intrinsically bad–and a preference for promoting the concept of the subjective over the reality of the objective.

It is manifestly unpleasant to hear fingernails dragged across a chalkboard. It becomes no less hideous when you make a video of this activity and play it on an endless loop, emblazoned on a hundred connected TV monitors in a museum, calling it an art installation. No matter how artfully done, it remains unpleasant.

It has been construed that pushing the boundaries of propriety–indeed, challenging the very notions of propriety, good taste, manners and common decency–somehow leads to better more legitimate art.
In spite of the general populous finding much of this sort of “art” repugnant, it is still somehow important to keep it in the public eye. Indeed, it is so important that some of the most repugnant art needs to be subsidized with public funding, as precious few in the private sector seem willing to patronize or own a portrait of the Virgin Mary smeared with fecal matter.

In essence, fecal matter is still fecal matter. It stinks. Objectively, that is. Subjectively, it is art, regardless of it being unpleasant in essence, poor in taste and potentially a health hazard if you were inclined to hang it in your home or place of business.

I used to own, with a couple of partners, a chain of three comic book stores in the 80’s and 90’s. Comic books have always been a big part of my life since I was seven years old, when my dad bought me my first comic, Captain America #117.

Recently, Spiderman, in an effort to keep his incredibly old Aunt May from dying, sold his soul to the Marvel Comics’ version of the devil. A provision in this deal, beyond the sacrifice of Peter Parker’s soul was that his marriage to Mary Jane would be wiped out of reality. So to save his aunt, he bargained his immortal soul and his marriage to the devil.

This is Spiderman, a character who in essence was one of the most incorruptible. What message does this send to the kids reading this story? It certainly devalues the idea of the immortal human soul. Does this sort of Faustian story make Spiderman better than when he was stopping Mysterio or the Green Goblin from robbing banks?

The comics I loved while growing up featured heroes who had a letter on their chest, a cape, and a magic word, who fought bad guys because they were bad and they needed their butts kicked. Now, you are hard pressed to tell the heroes from the villains–the morality is so subjective and ambivalent.
Some of the superhero movies so popular today I have enjoyed, but none of them have gotten the characters right. None of them! Hollywood is about to release a film based on the Thor comic book character. It looks like a fun film, but it is not The Mighty Thor of the comic. He may superficially look a bit like Thor but he is not Thor.

In the comics, Thor was banished from Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, because he was arrogant, selfish and without a speck of humility. To teach him the humility necessary to make Thor the hero he would become, his father, Odin, placed him in the body of a scrawny, physically lame medical doctor named Donald Blake.

As a crippled doctor, he learned the value of serving others and gained an appreciation for his prowess and the responsibilities that prowess granted him when acting as Thor. The Don Blake persona humbled him and made Thor a hero. In the film, he is just sent to earth and he is still a big strapping good looking blond guy capable of beating up a bunch of highly trained operatives. He just doesn’t have the super powers. A guy like that would still have a pretty good time here on earth. And a pretty hard time learning true humility.

Humility is no longer a virtue worth translating in a comic’s storyline today, or in film. At least, not through serving others as Don Blake did.

I watched a sci-fi film, “Splice” this week that depicts a creature made by a scientist couple, culled from the DNA of several different creatures. Upon reaching maturity, the creature has graphic sexual relations with the male scientist, and then transforms into a male creature and graphically rapes the female scientist leaving her pregnant. Thats a long way from “This Island Earth” which I loved growing up. I wouldn’t even let my son see “Splice”.

I stayed home with a cold yesterday and watched daytime TV. I saw classic episodes of “Emergency”, “I Spy”, “Kojak”, and “Quincy”–all great, all compelling episodic TV. In prime time, I watched Law and Order SVU, not a show I normally watch but it is rerun time.

They ran two episodes back to back. Both dealt with rape, and both found it necessary to have the rape victims relate their stories in uncomfortably graphic detail–detail that would not have been allowed at the time the shows I watched earlier in the day were produced.

The graphic detail didn’t make the shows more compelling than the earlier shows. It just made them more...disquieting, gratuitously so. Disturbing to a point where I decided to scratch “Law and Order SVU” off my list of shows to watch. Rape is never a pleasant subject, but the graphic nature of the testimony stuck with me far longer than the satisfaction derived from seeing the perpetrators face their just desserts.

The graphic testimony didn’t make the show better, just more salacious–especially in the first show, where they kept showing the rapist’s face as the victim told her story and he was obviously deriving pleasure from the telling.

The governor is deactivated in music, film, Television. A culture gets the art it deserves by virtue of what it allows. I don’t mean in the sense of governmental regulation, but by what the citizenry itself will accept, promote and support.

“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

Bread and circuses! As corruption rises in our culture our liberty erodes, spiritually and physically. We are being plied with more and more debauchery as is our nature to desire. Culturally, God and objective morality based on the adherence to the dictates of God are being supplanted by subjective, let-it-all-hang-out licentiousness.

At some point we need to grab a hold of the moral reins and give a collective “Whoa there!” As we become looser in our morality, more and more distracted by the bread and circuses, more and more restraints on our liberty are being hammered into place by those forwarding agendas like Cap and Trade. Most Americans didn’t even notice the FCC takeover of the internet on a three Democrats to two Republicans vote a few days ago.

Who are these people and who put them in the position to make such a decision?
At some point, we have to stop patronizing this crap, Stop going to the movies, turn the TVs off, stop downloading the music. All of it. If these industries see that we mean business by not buying anything until they eliminate the crap, the crap will continue to eat away at us and our children. It starts with me and you!

Digital Publius

The Fink Who Sat By The Door

2010-11-29T23:40:00.002-05:00

A bit past a year ago, the sycophantic/leftist media celebrated the ill-conceived bestowing of the hitherto prestigious Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama. The fledgling statesman winning the award seemed odd to everyone, save the most obsequious lickspittles chanting, “Yes we can” and “Hope” and “Change”!

It was plain to the sober minded, that the Nobel body acted with a bona fide stupidity, born of fanciful notions of a transformative new diplomatic era springing forth from Barack Obama’s bellybutton fully mature! All the naughty people and all our enemies awestruck by his native mightiness seeing the error of their ways stumbling over each other to join hands and summit, quaffing the wares of the trendiest micro brewery.

It was repeated ad nauseam by leftist punditry that Barack Obama would recover the good will America enjoyed internationally that they felt the Bush administration squandered. How the left could possibly divine the Junior Senator from Illinois possessed such power, without the evidence of past diplomatic experience, is beyond my comprehension.

It certainly seems that to this point, the only people susceptible to Obama’s siren powers are left wing ideologues! The rest of the world seems indifferent. It appears that all of those outside of the U.S. who were besotted with the idea of a less “cowboy” like approach to diplomacy don’t have the influence in their respective nations to get their own leaders to play ball.

Well, the left is right! This is a new era of American diplomacy, one where for the first time, America operates from a position of weakness. We read in Der Spiegel:

"Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them."

I could never have fathomed something like this year’s WikiLeaks disclosures. You would think the U.S. State department could have put the kibosh on this sort of thing back in March when the first group of truly damaging leaks was released. Hillary Clinton, Obama’s greatest rival for the Democratic nomination in 2008, is now running the State Department. Beginning with the Russian reset button debacle Mrs. Clinton has proven to be incompetent far beyond my expectations. If you remember - diplomacy was supposed to be Hillary’s strong suit, at least that was what she said.

Der Spiegel, the Guardian UK, and our home grown fifth column rag, The New York Times are all indicative of leftist ideology run amuck. The WikiLeaks disclosures would never have seen the light of day in a more patriotic era - at least not without someone swinging in the aftermath! By my reckoning, The Times actions constitute nothing less than treason.

As a nation America has had nationalism driven out of us--there are too many people now raised with no sense of pride in what America has been to the world and what it means to be an American. The left now controls our children’s education and the modern media have reduced America’s role in world history to that of a recalcitrant bully.

There are more people now calling themselves Americans that have utter disdain for their own nation, than at any point in our history, this did not happen by accident. We have placed more emphasis on feelings than reason and reality. You have people teaching their children it is more important to follow their hearts than their brains, when the Creator of those children says:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the above mentioned news entities are thinking with their hearts without regard for the very real people who will be effected by their wrongheaded actions. They follow a misguided dictum to an extreme like children incapable of seeing beyond the most basic ideas.

This is the same sort of heart-based decision-making that leads to nude scanning and the groping of airline travelers in our airports. Instead of using common sense to determine which people it would be wise to scrutinize more vigorously the TSA would rather subject my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill (if you could get them on a plane) to a series of indignities in the name of not offending Syrian nationals.

The TSA spends time looking for bombs so they check everyone, even 10-year-old Timmy from Goose Lake, Iowa. Israel, surrounded by enemy states and the constant threat of terrorism, utilize their brains and are more interested in finding terrorists. Whether flying in or out of Israel, it will be an Israeli checking you out and they are looking at race, ethnicity, religion, dress and behavior. The Israeli’s have zero incidents and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill do not have to worry about having their bits and pieces handled.

Do you feel the love in this new era yet? Are we safer? Cowboy diplomacy is bad, yet, in less than two years of the dawning of the new diplomatic epoch, to appease Moscow, the Obama administration gave Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe the high hat by reneging on the missile defense shield treaty promised by the previous administration.

China is regulating our actions in the Yellow Sea as the Calender gets rolled back to 1950 in Korea. Israel, initially overwhelmingly supportive of the Obama Presidency now looks at the U.S. like something less than an honest broker as the administration pushes for more and more one sided compromises with the Palestinian Authority.

With the advent of the WikiLeaks disclosures the administration proved powerless to prevent despite hollow threats from our State Department, Pakistan is now more reticent. Germany, Kenya, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia all offended. Hillary Clinton is revealed to have ordered all manner of spying on even some of our staunchest allies, not a bad thing in and of itself, but the world is now reading our diplomatic memos so now they know that we know that they know.

All this as violence is escalating in Afghanistan, Cindy Sheehan and her Code Pink cohorts nowhere in sight. Is Cindy camping outside Obama’s Illinois residence as she used to do at Bush’s Crawford ranch? If she is, the cameras aren’t there to record it like they were on a regular basis during W’s time in office. I guess covering Cindy's Code Pink shenanigans was just politics.

We are creating our own insurgency right in our schools and on our television sets and movie screens. Our children are being fed a steady diet of misinformation and revisionism and taught to value feelings over thinking. Those are not the attitudes that made America the strongest most giving and compassionate nation in the history of the world.

The left, so anti the things that make us great, faith in God, family, industry, can’t fathom that it is the old ways that keep drawing people, filled with real “hope,” to our shores not idealistic views of an America that never existed and hopefully never will. Meanwhile, the progressives squat in the shadows at the gate, opening our doors a little wider to our enemies everyday.

Digital Publius