The Source of Republicanism!

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

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?

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

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 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 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 teaching the full doctrine of Christ and they know the ones that do. Democrats go to churches most 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 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 passed 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 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 frankly, 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 agendas and pave the way for them to do what ever they want. Because it feels good to them.

Liberals believe if they appease Muslims they will not become fundamentalists. Liberals believe 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 4 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 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 people will embrace the teachings of the Holy Bible and then see the foundation of liberal philosophy and Democrat's 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, whose 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 calling 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!

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 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!

As 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 dogging 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 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 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. Without regard for the “no more cowboy diplomacy” candidate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate recently launching an attack against another country.

To Obama’s base it doesn’t matter 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 intimating I harbor hatred for Donald Trump--at least not to a rational individual!

The difference is this article is not about rational individuals, it’s about people on both sides of the political aisle 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 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,”

For Donald supporters, Does this mean, 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, this 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 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 his explanation certainly implies so! 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 separating 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!

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?

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