Israel, Still God's People!

As happens on occasion when I aspire to write on a political subject, God has a better idea.  Thus, this morning I was studying the book of Exodus, doing research for an article that I had a mind to make a companion piece to my last article “My People, My People!”.

I was pouring through the relation of the plagues as recorded in Exodus inflicted upon Egypt and the subsequent results leading to the inevitable liberation of God’s “peculiar” people.

As I read the very origin of the nation of Israel, I was struck by a passage which screamed forth from those bygone days, giving me an understanding of Israel’s nature and its still “peculiar” people today.
Specifically, I read God’s instructions to the Hebrews in regards to the marking of Passover, wherein God instructs:

Exodus 12:43-46
“¶And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: 44  But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. 45  A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. 46  In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.”

That was the set up; now here comes the bit that really struck me:

“47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. 48  And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. 49  One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.”

I must confess that, as a “born again” Christian, Israel is never far from my mind! I am always disturbed when the apple of God’s eye is impugned or attacked. Israel means so much to God and, by extension, Israel should mean a great deal to those of us who profess a faith in the God of Israel.

Last May, during an interview with Rabbi David Nesenoff for RabbiLive.com, when asked what she thought of the Israelis, Helen Thomas, the grand dame of the Presidential Press Corps, opined: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” Thomas went on to say: “Remember these people (The Palestinians) are occupied, and it’s their land.” When asked where the Israelis should go, she retorted: “They can go home, to Germany and Poland and America and everywhere else.”

Helen Thomas is wrong as to whom the land belongs. She is wrong spiritually, as well as historically. Israel’s claim to the land is unimpeachable to the unbiased student of history, a subject I will leave for a later article. The spiritual claim we will deal with in the here and now.

God is in the people-saving business and He never closes or takes a holiday! The Holy Bible makes it plain that it was not just Hebrews who left Egypt on the day of Exodus. God says there were others who were “Strangers” among the Hebrews.

When you examine Exodus 12 verses 48-49 above, God says that if the “strangers” will keep the Passover, and be circumcised, “they shall be as one that is born in the land.” God says under such circumstances the "strangers" that keep God’s covenant are covered by God and therefore God’s people.

It seems that Helen Thomas, whose Lebanese immigrant parents raised her in the Greek Orthodox faith, puts more credence in the doctrine of Lebanese Muslims than the faith she grew up in. The Bible also makes it plain to whom the land of Israel belongs:

Exodus 13:4,5
“This day came ye out in the month Abib. 5  ¶And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.”

God repeats it in verse 11:

“ ¶And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee,”

Easy to understand and right there on the surface of the text, it says that God gave the land to the Israelis. As for the Canaanites, the Hittites and all the other “ites”, Israel was God’s instrument of punishment meted out to people who were by all accounts Biblical and secular, exceedingly wicked and vile.

In Scripture, there is always a surface meaning and a deeper spiritual understanding. The spiritual understanding is far more important but often missed by people whose only ambition is to denigrate God, His people and His Word!

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2: 14

This is certainly the case in the recounting of the first Passover. As an example of how God lays out dual meanings lying below the surface, let us take a look at Exodus Chapter 12:

Exodus 12:21-23
"Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. 22  And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. 23  For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you."

The Hebrews acted in faith that the blood of a lamb would spare them from the wrath of their righteous God, and God was faithful to spare them by that blood. God used that same pattern again; He sacrificed His Son, the perfect Lamb of God on behalf of all the “Strangers” in the world. As Christians, we have faith in the blood of Christ shed for the remission of our sin.

As on the first Passover, God will see Christ’s covering and pass over us as well:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:28,29

Today, it seems God is using the ways of Exodus 12:47-49. God performs His promises down to the minutest detail. Exodus 12:46 quoted above, by itself could be the subject of at least three completely different messages. But, what sticks out as odd, is God decrying the Passover Lamb’s bones could not be broken.

In the prophetic Psalm 34 we see the message again:

“ He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken. 21  Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. 22  The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”

This is interesting when one considers the manner of Roman crucifixion to which Christ was subjected; On the cross, to hasten death, the subject's legs were broken. Yet, in the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy, not one of the Lord’s bones was broken.

“For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.” John 19:37

Helen Thomas is back in the news. It has been recently reported Helen took part in an in-depth interview for Playboy magazine. I suggest that she hearken back to her Christian roots and consider what God says about Israel before she follows the world.

The very existence of Israel as a nation in the modern world is a miracle! Israel was completely destroyed by the Romans. As an insult, the Emperor Hadrian renamed it Palestine after the Jews ancient enemy, the Philistines. The reforming of Israel, after a millennia long Jewish diaspora, is a testament to God’s power to bring to fruition what He promises.

Based on the world’s animus towards Israel, it is indeed a “burdensome stone”! Yet, the United States has always been a staunch supporter of Israel. I pray we remain so. In many ways of late, our present administration has been non-supportive of Israel. Helen Thomas, Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright, who also recently resurfaced with an anti Israeli screed, along with all others who call themselves Christians or Muslims or whatever, would do well to heed the Word of the Lord:

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3

Christ’s work on the cross fulfilled the blessing “all the families of the earth” part. However, it does not follow that the cursing part has been rescinded.

Digital Publius

My People, My People!

In my last article “What Would Digital Publius Do?”, I make the simple point; if the 
Holy Bible were tampered with as so many anti-Christ opponents of God’s will maintain,
 the people responsible for the alleged malfeasance did a poor job of it. All of the 
tiresome things God put in place in His Word to restrain man from exploiting his fellow
man remain intact.

Indeed, the truth of the matter is, if one seeks to use Christianity as a medium for
 subjugation, you’ll find the unmolested Holy Bible a poor ally in the pursuit.



I assert in “What Would Digital Publius Do?”:



“No, my friends, when man seeks to usurp the Living Word of God, man does it from the 
outside, by casting aspersions upon the Holy Bible and placing human wisdom above
 what was revealed to man in Scripture. You don’t change God’s Word, you reject it!”

Hold on to your proverbial hats, gentles; I could not have wished for a better example
 of my thesis made manifest than Lawrence O’Donnell’s recent rant against Fox News
 commentators Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck! This video has to be seen to be believed!

“A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not: but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.” Proverbs 14:6:

Lawrence O’Donnell was chosen by MSNBC to replace the equally half baked and
exceedingly unwise Keith Olbermann as purveyor of all things secular and pig ignorant.
O’Donnell joins a lineup rife with Maddows and Schultzes who have nothing but disdain
for Christianity and everything wholesome and lovely.

That O’Donnell attempts to intimate Beck meant to suggest the happenings in
Japan literally are a part of the end of the world ontologically, suggesting Beck thinks we are
in the midst of Armageddon, is of course specious and purposely misleading. Though Beck is a Mormon, O'Donnell makes no distinctions and is unabashedly attacking Christians and the Christian faith.

This drives me headlong into the subject of this article and a question which is the goad
that keeps me writing Digital Publius: "My people, my people, how long will you ally yourself with the ungodly?"

I began Digital Publius in March of 2008 out of frustration and utter bewilderment as I
watched the people in my church celebrating the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama
for President of the United States. Everything Obama stands for and stood for then,
was expressly against the precepts of the God we gathered together on Sundays to
worship.

Obama is wrong on spiritual issues like gay marriage and abortion. As I illustrated in my article “Comrade God?,” from a Scriptural perspective, Obama is also wrong on social issues. Moreover, when it comes to economics, he is enamored with the same socialist paradigm still failing everywhere it has ever been implemented.

The earlier Digital Publius articles were sent directly to an email list of my fellow church
members. It was my intent to spark discussion and to perhaps get people to look at
the election with the mind of Christ as believers should do with all things. This is best
accomplished by comparing what a candidate stands for with the precepts of God.

What I got was a bunch of people I really care about asking me to take them off my email list.

There is a disconnect when it comes to Black Christians and their ability to discern the
ungodly nature of the Democrat Party. Indeed, there is a disconnect between Black
people in general when it comes to recognizing the great harm that liberalism and the
secular humanist agenda advanced by the Democrat party has wrought in our communities.
Christians, however, ought to know better.

The truth of the matter is the only body of people who identify themselves as Christians voting for Democrats in any numbers, are Black Christians. If you are a Christian and you habitually vote for Democrats, regardless of race, you do so in spite of your faith!

Myself being a Black Christian I have the occasion to talk to other Black Christians every single day. Just last Friday I was talking to a group of ladies about the situation in Japan and one of them said:

“Well you know this is in the Bible don’t you...about the last days?”

What followed was a cacophony of "mm-hmms" and affirmations attesting to the truth 
of what the speaker had just said. The irony is every single one of them voted for 
Barack Obama and every Democrat directly preceding him.

Not long after, the subject of Fox News came up and they just as vehemently
denounced the station in favor of CNN and MSNBC! The incongruity lies in that they
agree with Glenn Beck but they never watch him and the stations they do watch are
openly hostile to what they believe at their very cores but they can’t see it.

They voted for the same guy that O’Donnell voted for. The same O’Donnell who openly
said on his show as aired by the MSNBC network, the Book they believe in is fiction
and the God they worship if they believe the Book of Revelation is a true testament of
what is to come, is a “ truly vicious God, a malicious torturer and mass murderer”.

Black folks don’t get it, despite the President’s profession of Christian faith, Christians
don’t “grapple” with issues God speaks plainly to. You either believe or you don’t! The
Holy Bible is a whole and you have to accept it wholly.

If you cannot accept the totality of God’s revelation, you are not a Christian; you are
something else entirely, and that’s okay! Be what you want, just don’t equivocate. You
cannot pick and chose the sayings of the Bible à la carte; you have to recognize, by
definition, Christians believe the Holy Bible is true. All of it!

Almost daily, I hear Black folks say, “We are in the last days!” --The last days as defined by the Holy Bible in books like Daniel, Jude and, yes, the Revelation of John, to name a few. Yet they vote for the same people who often ridicule what they believe, made manifest by President Obama’s statements lamenting the Pennsylvanians who find comfort in “clinging” to their religion.

Liberal Democrat candidates, championed by people who openly mock the Christian faith as a matter of course which was displayed by Lawrence O’Donnell’s rather tragic, nay, embarrassing appeal for more watchers. Where is the outrage professing Christians should feel towards MSNBC for employing a man who mocks the faith the overwhelming majority of Americans claim as their own.

Ask yourself what would be the repercussions if a Fox Host mocked the Qur’an and the god of Islam in like manner? The liberal left would be clamoring for the Fox Host to be pilloried for all to see at Rockefeller Plaza, his home razed to the ground, his fields salted and the hoary heads of his esteemed elders spitted upon pikes.

In Friday's conversation, I mentioned Star Parker, Herman Cain, Allen West and 
Thomas Sowell. They were all unknown to the ladies I was talking with. I said this is because you watch CNN and MSNBC--Neither station is big on Black pundits and
 politicians beyond Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. You almost never see conservative
 Blacks opining on any news organization other than Fox.

Fox News consistently has more Black pundits from both sides of the political aisle. The
 point is; the Black folks I talk to sound more like Fox commentators sustaining and 
voting for conservative ideas than the folks you see on the other networks who support and vote for Democrats. The opinions on the right certainly jibe more often with Black
 Christian beliefs, nonetheless we vote for the left.

My Bible says “A double minded man [is] unstable in all his ways.” This is certainly the case in the Black community! Our loyalty is divided between God and the world. That division is demonstrated in the way we vote and subsequently in our communities when we reject the precepts of God and elect fools of a singular, ungodly liberal perspective for decade-after-decade as our communities putrefy at an accelerated pace.

We all struggle with sin in our lives, but as Christians we are to aspire to live Godly lives and to be “salt and light” in a fallen world. No one knows what is in a man’s heart, if we vote for a politician who says one thing to get our vote, then does another thing once he has procured that vote, shame on the politician.

My question to fellow Black Christians: How is it you get behind leaders who openly support sin, and scorn the wisdom of the God of the Holy Bible?

“Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.” Proverbs 14:9:

Digital Publius

What Would Digital Publius Do?

I have the occasion to engage in apologetical discussions pertaining to the Christian faith with a wide variety of anti-Christian antagonists — Muslims, witches, atheists. As a Christian apologist, one argument you are sure to come up against, no matter the persuasion of the person you are dealing with, is the reliability of the Holy Bible.

They all claim one or all of the following, without fail, the Holy Bible:

1) is not divine in origin, but rather the work of men;

2) is open to a wide range of interpretations with no Biblical view able to claim preeminence above the next;

3) despite an individual’s belief in the Holy Bible’s divine or mundane source or sources, it has been tampered with by unscrupulous men bent on using the text to further their own ambitions; for this reason, the Bible matters little today.

For the purposes of this article, I will focus on claim number three. This particular claim has always been the most amusing to me, as it is by far the silliest and easiest to overturn. Which brings us to the title of this article – “What Would Digital Publius Do?”

In keeping with the idea of man placing his own wisdom and morality above God's I am forced to ask the question, What would I do if I were an unscrupulous man bent on using the Biblical text to further my own ambitions? What would I change in the Holy Bible to help me meet that end? Well I sure as heck would do a better job than those who came before me!

If I were a powerful person capable of effecting changes to the Bible, given my natural predilection for attractive women, I’m fairly certain I would do away with the whole one man one woman thing and all those pesky rules eschewing adultery and fornication. Just being honest here!

I  would certainly make it possible for powerful men like myself to be exempt from such restrictions, if not the hoi poloi. There would have to be some revelation given so at least I could do my thing!

This is the sort of thing we do find in extra-Biblical cults and false religions. Generally when someone wants to use “religion” to grasp power, they have their own revelation or “thus sayeth the Lord” moment. They don’t change the Bible, they change the brand. That's how the world got the Book of Mormon, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the Qur'an to name a few!

The problem in changing the Holy Bible is people would notice, even way back in the 4th century, the time most Bible critics point to when they make these assertions. But if you start your own brand, you’re good. You just claim that God is still in the revelation business and you are the new relay!

Liberalism, by it’s very nature, abhors rules against the causes they want to champion. The leftists don’t like phrases like “Congress shall make no law...” any more than they like “Thou shalt not...” No man does really.

The difference is in an individuals heart and discipline to overcome our baser instincts and accept what God wants to teach man about how we should live and treat others. Let me give you an example of liberal thinking. Aldous Huxley, the Author of “Brave New World”, makes a rather revelatory statement when rationalizing his acceptance of the idea of Darwinian evolution and the meaninglessness of life as had his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley (who was known as Darwin’s bulldog):

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do…. For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom..” Aldous Huxley, “Confession of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News, vol. 3 (June 1966), p. 19. From an article by Helming, “An Interview with God.”

It’s simple really; rebellion against God can always be summed up as man’s intrinsic selfish pursuit of self-gratification and expedience.

The Holy Bible contemporaneously still looks down on the sort of behavior that would aid in oppressing others for selfish reasons. It has still got a bunch of those troublesome “Thou shalt not's” giving fits to Huxley and his like-minded latter day liberals and that humanists of every kind find so distasteful. In fact, the Bible has a distressing habit of teaching service to others as the only true path to greatness.

“And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.”  Luke 22:24-27

Yep, that’s the kind of passage from Jesus Christ that would have to go! Not good if you are all about selfish power grabs and controlling masses with liturgical opiates. Yet it is still there! How do you, as a king, put this teaching to work placing yourself above other men, even above God when Christ, Himself says, “I am here among you serving you”?

No, my friends, when man seeks to abrogate the Living Word of God, he does it from the outside, by casting aspersions on the Holy Bible and placing human wisdom above what was revealed to man in Scripture. You don’t change God’s Word, you reject it!

You conform God to your idea of what He should be outside of the framework of who God says He is in His written Word. People reject not just the Bible, but also the Holy God of the Holy Bible. There are scads of people, like President Obama who say they believe in God—yet you find precious few who actually believe God!

This is why President Obama can claim to be a Christian, yet the White House says the President is “grappling” with his personal views on gay marriage as Obama orders the United States Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the very law of the land defining marriage as a legal state consisting of one man and one woman in holy matrimony.

Is President Obama less powerful than the kings and leaders of old? Can’t the President do something about this outdated Bible our laws are based on? Well, the Democrats and the rest of the liberal left have been doing just that for decades now. The leftists have eliminated the Bible's influence in American society as much as they possibly can.

You don’t have to change the Holy Bible - just undermine it! God says He knew you in the womb, my President says that’s “above my pay grade”! God says marriage is defined as one man, one woman, my President says lets ‘grapple” with that idea!

Change the Bible? Why bother? Every time a King or President casts doubt on God’s wisdom by overturning the clear teachings of Scripture on matters of marriage and the like, does he have to literally take out a Sharpie and start redacting the Holy Bible? Of course not, especially when President Obama's own Democrat Party has put in the time and legislation to make sure that many don’t know what the Bible says to begin with — let alone feeling any accountability to the One who wrote it!

Digital Publius

Weird Politics!

 

Irish comedian Dylan Moran does a bit about Americans where he says something to the effect of “American imperialism is insidious!” He says that America targets some war-torn poverty stricken corner of the globe that has oil or chocolate or whatever it is we want, and all the natives get mad and begin to meet.

So they gather together in some bombed-out cafe or something to foment, “What are we going to do about the Yankee, American imperialist pig dogs? They come in here, they take our stuff...” Meanwhile — while these people are talking— America very, very gradually builds a Starbucks around them! They get addicted to lattes, lose the will to fight, and then they turn into Americans.

Apart from Moran’s bit being absolutely hilarious, the one thing he has manifestly right, is that once people get a taste of what a free nation has to offer, they generally want more. That is, with the possible exception of the American extreme left. Many liberals, who have the ability to have it all by virtue of being born in the freest nation on earth, would rather deconstruct the Starbucks and see America become a giant bombed-out cafe.

With the Middle Eastern nations tumbling like so many dominoes in an exhibition of alleged democratic fervor are squaring off against oppressive oligarchies and dictators, the American left seeks to hitch a ride on the bandwagon of civil unrest — not with an eye towards preserving or defending the democratic process responsible for making our republic the envy of the world, but in decidedly un-democratic displays of sore-headed defiance.

You have leftists calling for a renewal of hard left rhetoric, even resuscitating the Weather Underground’s halcyon call for “Days of Rage!”, calling for “an end to American capitalism and imperialism.”

All this while the truly oppressed Middle Easterners — who serve as the titular inspiration for the homegrown anti-American, capitalism eschewing extreme liberals — are unable to get their stories out via the state controlled media. So, they turned to Twitter, Facebook and other web-based communication media.

Web entities like Facebook and Twitter, even foreign grown applications like Skype, indeed the very internet itself, would not exist apart from the Yankee capitalism the liberals hate. Not to mention the devices they use to access them. This fact seems to elude their mushy brains as the left uses the web with cheerful abandon to spread the word about their planned hissy fits.

It’s because they don’t think; the liberals are like toddlers who have no idea that mommy and daddy have to work to buy the juicy boxes they only take one sip out of before using the rest to make the sand red in their sandboxes. Unfortunately, these toddlers are trying to make the country red.

As the people in the Middle East rise up to have the right to put this issue or that to the vote, the Democrat Party obversely does all it can to ensure democracy doesn’t happen if it involves an issue they don’t like. Whether it’s states like California working to overturn or block passage of Defense of Marriage acts or school vouchers, state by state, they will work feverishly either not to vote or block anyone else from voting at all.

The 60’s radicals were born of a time of rebellion with heroes like James Dean and Marlon Brando representing a counter culture fueled by some of the most powerful voices in rock and roll history — causes born in the crucible of the civil rights movement and the conflicts in South East Asia. They rebelled against a society whose politicians may have danced the Lindy Hop, and most certainly danced to Boogie Woogie.

Today's politicians are often my age, as are those who foment unrest. We were born in the latter days of the Baby Boom, and the early days of Generation X. The MTV generation! So, it’s no wonder that many of my generation who enter politics are modern day rebels, viewing the world like a John Hughes film.

Case in point: The legislature in the state of Wisconsin was slated to vote on an anti-union bill Thursday, the 17th of February, aimed at ending unions' collective bargaining rights. This is a Republican sponsored bill! The Wisconsin Republicans enjoy a 19 seat majority in the 33 seat Senate, so the bill would pass with flying colors.

In Wisconsin, there can be no vote in the Senate unless there is at least one member present from the two parties. So what do the Democrats do? They pull a Ferris Bueller and take the day off!

Rather than take their medicine, the Democrats (tucked snuggly in the hip pocket of the unions) act like taciturn teenagers and disappear. In Wisconsin, they can compel a vote so the Democrat Senators not only didn’t show up, they literally left town — all 14 of them! In an effort to emulate their hero, they ended up at some resort in Illinois, Ferris’ home state.

There is not a lot of faith in democracy in the Democrat party! Real mature dude!

When things don’t go their way the Democrats would rather job the system like Ferris, which is in stark contrast to the conduct of the U.S. Congressional Republicans who defiantly stood for their principles and showed up to vote as the liberals gleefully slammed through Obamacare on a totally partisan vote.

In Hawaii, state Senator Sam Slom is the sole Republican in the 25 seat Hawaiian Senate. Every vote pretty much ends in a 24 to 1 decision, but Senator Slom shows up to cast that one vote. That is faith in the system!

The problem is, too many Democrats see Republicans as “Chet Donnelly”, Wyatt’s bully of a big brother in “Weird Science”, while seeing themselves as Breakfast Club member “John Bender” types, raging against everything and everyone, content to explain away immature, bad behavior because they had it tough. Ever on the prowl to subvert the good kids to bring them down to their level rather than rising to the level of the high acheivers.

The latter John Bender trait was indicative of the behavior displayed by some 1000 Madison Wisconsin School teachers who called in sick so they could join the protestors surrounding the state capitol to prevent the union vote. It’s all about the kids right? Well...except when they are trying to mess with my union.

Turns out that even though the students had no idea what they were protesting some of those teachers actually took students out of class to help in the protest. It seems some of these students were away from schools with teachers sans obligatory permission slips from parents. Your tax dollars at work?

Rest assured, if my kids were in that mob absent from school without my say so--it would not be pretty!

A message to the Democrat Party: in order to have democracy, you have to mix in some democracy, even when it doesn’t go your way. Otherwise, you may just want to go join the crowd the people are protesting against in Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt — they don’t want the people voting either!

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. I Corinthians 13:11

Digital Publius

Lib Reactionaries on Parade!

                              (Sung to the tune of "Pink Elephants on Parade")

Look out! Look out!
Lib Reactionaries on parade

Here they come!

Hippety hoppety

They're here and there
Lib Reactionaries ev'rywhere

Look out! Look out!

They're walking around the bed

On their head

Clippety cloppety

Arrayed in braid
Lib Reactionaries on parade
What'll I do? What'll I do?
What an unusual view!

I could stand the sight of worms

And look at microscopic germs

But technicolor Liberals
Is really much for me


I am not the type to faint

When things are odd or things are quaint

But seeing things you know that ain't
Can certainly give you an awful fright
What a sight!

Chase 'em away!

Chase 'em away!
I'm afraid need your aid
Lib Reactionaries on parade!

Lib Reactionaries!
Lib Reactionaries!

Digital Publius

Bondage of Corruption Pt. 1: Culture

“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Romans 8:21

The Holy Bible declares that corruption leads to bondage, while true liberty is only available to those who are freed from corruption by being counted amongst the children of God. In America, many today confuse liberty with license–that is, license in a sense of the freedom to behave as one wishes, especially in a way that results in excessive or unacceptable behavior. This behavior views corruption as freedom rather than bondage.

Nowhere is this spirit more easily observable than in our entertainment and entertainers–our storytellers, our musicians, our artists. This is made possible by a diversion away from the essence of things–the essence of what is good and what is intrinsically bad–and a preference for promoting the concept of the subjective over the reality of the objective.

It is manifestly unpleasant to hear fingernails dragged across a chalkboard. It becomes no less hideous when you make a video of this activity and play it on an endless loop, emblazoned on a hundred connected TV monitors in a museum, calling it an art installation. No matter how artfully done, it remains unpleasant.

It has been construed that pushing the boundaries of propriety–indeed, challenging the very notions of propriety, good taste, manners and common decency–somehow leads to better more legitimate art.
In spite of the general populous finding much of this sort of “art” repugnant, it is still somehow important to keep it in the public eye. Indeed, it is so important that some of the most repugnant art needs to be subsidized with public funding, as precious few in the private sector seem willing to patronize or own a portrait of the Virgin Mary smeared with fecal matter.

In essence, fecal matter is still fecal matter. It stinks. Objectively, that is. Subjectively, it is art, regardless of it being unpleasant in essence, poor in taste and potentially a health hazard if you were inclined to hang it in your home or place of business.

I used to own, with a couple of partners, a chain of three comic book stores in the 80’s and 90’s. Comic books have always been a big part of my life since I was seven years old, when my dad bought me my first comic, Captain America #117.

Recently, Spiderman, in an effort to keep his incredibly old Aunt May from dying, sold his soul to the Marvel Comics’ version of the devil. A provision in this deal, beyond the sacrifice of Peter Parker’s soul was that his marriage to Mary Jane would be wiped out of reality. So to save his aunt, he bargained his immortal soul and his marriage to the devil.

This is Spiderman, a character who in essence was one of the most incorruptible. What message does this send to the kids reading this story? It certainly devalues the idea of the immortal human soul. Does this sort of Faustian story make Spiderman better than when he was stopping Mysterio or the Green Goblin from robbing banks?

The comics I loved while growing up featured heroes who had a letter on their chest, a cape, and a magic word, who fought bad guys because they were bad and they needed their butts kicked. Now, you are hard pressed to tell the heroes from the villains–the morality is so subjective and ambivalent.
Some of the superhero movies so popular today I have enjoyed, but none of them have gotten the characters right. None of them! Hollywood is about to release a film based on the Thor comic book character. It looks like a fun film, but it is not The Mighty Thor of the comic. He may superficially look a bit like Thor but he is not Thor.

In the comics, Thor was banished from Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, because he was arrogant, selfish and without a speck of humility. To teach him the humility necessary to make Thor the hero he would become, his father, Odin, placed him in the body of a scrawny, physically lame medical doctor named Donald Blake.

As a crippled doctor, he learned the value of serving others and gained an appreciation for his prowess and the responsibilities that prowess granted him when acting as Thor. The Don Blake persona humbled him and made Thor a hero. In the film, he is just sent to earth and he is still a big strapping good looking blond guy capable of beating up a bunch of highly trained operatives. He just doesn’t have the super powers. A guy like that would still have a pretty good time here on earth. And a pretty hard time learning true humility.

Humility is no longer a virtue worth translating in a comic’s storyline today, or in film. At least, not through serving others as Don Blake did.

I watched a sci-fi film, “Splice” this week that depicts a creature made by a scientist couple, culled from the DNA of several different creatures. Upon reaching maturity, the creature has graphic sexual relations with the male scientist, and then transforms into a male creature and graphically rapes the female scientist leaving her pregnant. Thats a long way from “This Island Earth” which I loved growing up. I wouldn’t even let my son see “Splice”.

I stayed home with a cold yesterday and watched daytime TV. I saw classic episodes of “Emergency”, “I Spy”, “Kojak”, and “Quincy”–all great, all compelling episodic TV. In prime time, I watched Law and Order SVU, not a show I normally watch but it is rerun time.

They ran two episodes back to back. Both dealt with rape, and both found it necessary to have the rape victims relate their stories in uncomfortably graphic detail–detail that would not have been allowed at the time the shows I watched earlier in the day were produced.

The graphic detail didn’t make the shows more compelling than the earlier shows. It just made them more...disquieting, gratuitously so. Disturbing to a point where I decided to scratch “Law and Order SVU”  off my list of shows to watch. Rape is never a pleasant subject, but the graphic nature of the testimony stuck with me far longer than the satisfaction derived from seeing the perpetrators face their just desserts.

The graphic testimony didn’t make the show better, just more salacious–especially in the first show, where they kept showing the rapist’s face as the victim told her story and he was obviously deriving pleasure from the telling.

The governor is deactivated in music, film, Television. A culture gets the art it deserves by virtue of what it allows. I don’t mean in the sense of governmental regulation, but by what the citizenry itself will accept, promote and support.

“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

Bread and circuses! As corruption rises in our culture our liberty erodes, spiritually and physically. We are being plied with more and more debauchery as is our nature to desire. Culturally, God and objective morality based on the adherence to the dictates of God are being supplanted by subjective, let-it-all-hang-out licentiousness.

At some point we need to grab a hold of the moral reins and give a collective “Whoa there!” As we become looser in our morality, more and more distracted by the bread and circuses, more and more restraints on our liberty are being hammered into place by those forwarding agendas like Cap and Trade. Most Americans didn’t even notice the FCC takeover of the internet on a three Democrats to two Republicans vote a few days ago.

Who are these people and who put them in the position to make such a decision?
At some point, we have to stop patronizing this crap, Stop going to the movies, turn the TVs off, stop downloading the music. All of it. If these industries see that we mean business by not buying anything until they eliminate the crap, the crap will continue to eat away at us and our children. It starts with me and you!

Digital Publius

The Fink Who Sat By The Door

A bit past a year ago, the sycophantic/leftist media celebrated the ill-conceived bestowing of the hitherto prestigious Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama. The fledgling statesman winning the award seemed odd to everyone, save the most obsequious lickspittles chanting, “Yes we can” and “Hope” and “Change”!

It was plain to the sober minded, that the Nobel body acted with a bona fide stupidity, born of fanciful notions of a transformative new diplomatic era springing forth from Barack Obama’s bellybutton fully mature! All the naughty people and all our enemies awestruck by his native mightiness seeing the error of their ways stumbling over each other to join hands and summit, quaffing the wares of the trendiest micro brewery.

It was repeated ad nauseam by leftist punditry that Barack Obama  would recover the good will America enjoyed internationally that they felt the Bush administration squandered. How the left could possibly divine the Junior Senator from Illinois possessed such power, without the evidence of past diplomatic experience, is beyond my comprehension.

It certainly seems that to this point, the only people susceptible to Obama’s siren powers are left wing ideologues! The rest of the world seems indifferent. It appears that all of those outside of the U.S. who were besotted with the idea of a less “cowboy” like approach to diplomacy don’t have the influence in their respective nations to get their own leaders to play ball.

Well, the left is right! This is a new era of American diplomacy, one where for the first time, America operates from a position of weakness. We read in Der Spiegel:

"Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them."

I could never have fathomed something like this year’s WikiLeaks disclosures.  You would think the U.S. State department could have put the kibosh on this sort of thing back in March when the first group of truly damaging leaks was released. Hillary Clinton, Obama’s greatest rival for the Democratic nomination in 2008, is now running the State Department. Beginning with the Russian reset button debacle Mrs. Clinton has proven to be incompetent far beyond my expectations. If you remember - diplomacy was supposed to be Hillary’s strong suit, at least that was what she said.

Der Spiegel, the Guardian UK, and our home grown fifth column rag, The New York Times are all indicative of leftist ideology run amuck. The WikiLeaks disclosures would never have seen the light of day in a more patriotic era - at least not without someone swinging in the aftermath! By my reckoning, The Times actions constitute nothing less than treason.

As a nation America has had nationalism driven out of us--there are too many people now raised  with no sense of pride in what America has been to the world and what it means to be an American. The left now controls our children’s education and the modern media have reduced America’s role in world history to that of a recalcitrant bully.

There are more people now calling themselves Americans that have utter disdain for their own nation, than at any point in our history, this did not happen by accident. We have placed more emphasis on feelings than reason and reality. You have people teaching their children it is more important to follow their hearts than their brains, when the Creator of those children says:

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

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the above mentioned news entities are thinking with their hearts without regard for the very real people who will be effected by their wrongheaded actions. They follow a misguided dictum to an extreme like children incapable of seeing beyond the most basic ideas.

This is the same sort of heart-based decision-making that leads to nude scanning and the groping of airline travelers in our airports. Instead of using common sense to determine which people it would be wise to scrutinize more vigorously the TSA would rather subject my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill (if you could get them on a plane) to a series of indignities in the name of not offending Syrian nationals.

The TSA spends time looking for bombs so they check everyone, even 10-year-old Timmy from Goose Lake, Iowa. Israel, surrounded by enemy states and the constant threat of terrorism, utilize their brains and are more interested in finding terrorists. Whether flying in or out of Israel, it will be an Israeli checking you out and they are looking at race, ethnicity, religion, dress and behavior. The Israeli’s have zero incidents and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill do not have to worry about having their bits and pieces handled.

Do you feel the love in this new era yet? Are we safer? Cowboy diplomacy is bad, yet, in less than two years of the dawning of the new diplomatic epoch, to appease Moscow, the Obama administration gave Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe the high hat by reneging on the missile defense shield treaty promised by the previous administration.

China is regulating our actions in the Yellow Sea as the Calender gets rolled back to 1950 in Korea. Israel, initially overwhelmingly supportive of the Obama Presidency now looks at the U.S. like something less than an honest broker as the administration pushes for more and more one sided compromises with the Palestinian Authority.

With the advent of the WikiLeaks disclosures the administration proved powerless to prevent despite hollow threats from our State Department, Pakistan is now more reticent. Germany, Kenya, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia all offended. Hillary Clinton is revealed to have ordered all manner of spying on even some of our staunchest allies, not a bad thing in and of itself, but the world is now reading our diplomatic memos so now they know that we know that they know.

All this as violence is escalating in Afghanistan, Cindy Sheehan and her Code Pink cohorts nowhere in sight. Is Cindy camping outside Obama’s Illinois residence as she used to do at Bush’s Crawford ranch? If she is, the cameras aren’t there to record it like they were on a regular basis during W’s time in office. I guess covering Cindy's Code Pink shenanigans was just politics.

We are creating our own insurgency right in our schools and on our television sets and movie screens. Our children are being fed a steady diet of misinformation and revisionism and taught to value feelings over thinking.  Those are not the attitudes that made America the strongest most giving and compassionate nation in the history of the world.

The left, so anti the things that make us great, faith in God, family, industry,  can’t fathom that it is the old ways that keep drawing people, filled with real “hope,” to our shores not idealistic views of an America that never existed and hopefully never will. Meanwhile, the progressives squat in the shadows at the gate, opening our doors a little wider to our enemies everyday.

Digital Publius