A Hitch in the Giddy-Up

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

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

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

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

© Hassan Nurullah

A Tale of Two Movements

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