All the Difference in the World

April 22, 2018 Leave a comment

If anyone had a reason to be politically correct it was the deported and exiled Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. But, confronted not with a raging Twitter feed or a riotous SJW protest but with life or death choices, they acted in full confidence in who they were.

They were the chosen people of God. They knew what they were about even when their names were changed to Babylonian names. Chosen once again out of the Jewish exiles because of their unique qualities, these four were to become advisors to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. It was during the start of their three-year training that Daniel balked at eating the royal food.

The food may have been offered to idols. Eating the food may have gone against their ritual purity. Most likely, saying no to the food after being given Babylonian names would have been a political statement: “We will not let you redefine us as Babylonians”.

 But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.  Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.”  So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. – Daniel chapter one

 

You know the story. Though it would have been politically correct to eat the King’s food, Daniel and the others knew that if you drink the King’s wine, you sing the King’s songs. They instead chose to be faithful to God even in this small matter. So, God gave them greater things to be faithful in. One of those greater things was a smelting furnace.

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. …the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do:  As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.  Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.” …you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

But…there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, Your Majesty. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel chapter three

 

Though bowing to the image would have been politically correct, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would have nothing to do with worshiping anything other than the one true God. So, because of the decree, they were thrown into a seven-times stoked blazing furnace. This furnace is likely the oven where metals were refined to make idols like the “image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.” But that kind of heat is nothing to the Creator of the Big Bang, especially with regard to his faithful ones. In the heat of the moment, the true God was revealed:

Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Daniel chapter three

 

 

In Daniel chapter six we read that Daniel, a newly appointed satrap (basically, an overseer of a district) was the focus of the other satrap’s and their social justice jealousy. The satraps didn’t like it that Daniel had qualities and favor they didn’t possess. So, they devised a devilish edict formulated to depose Daniel from King Darius’ good pleasure: “the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next thirty days, except to you, Your Majesty, shall be thrown into the lions’ den.”

You know the story. Being thrown into the lion’s den is something Daniel’s Creator God could also handle. The Lord God shut the lions’ mouths and the mouths of the ends-justifying-the-means SJWs.

By now you should be able to glimpse that the book of Daniel provides us with, among its telescoped history, its dreams and interpretations, an understanding of how God’s people are to live in this world and under its rulers. God’s chosen appear different, peculiar, to those onlookers standing outside the furnace and outside our place of prayer and outside the lion’s den. The reason the world does not know them is that it does not know the One True God.

 

 

In the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church (chapter 6), Paul pleads with the readers to see what he and others have suffered to bring them the good news of Jesus Christ. He lists the adversities they encountered. He tells them that the hardships and their Christian character throughout are confirmed “by speaking the truth, by God’s power”.

The Corinthians Christians certainly may have presumed that because Paul and the others faced so many adversities and challenges, that they could off in their messaging. Paul wanted them to know that their messaging, though it kicked against the goads of the Roman empire (“Jesus is Lord”) and popular opinion (“food for the stomach, the stomach for food”), was not an attempt at politically correct virtue signaling. The message cost him and others dearly. The grace of his Lord cost him the cross. At the beginning of chapter six Paul appeals to the Corinthians saying, “when you accept God’s grace, don’t let it go to waste! Paul was not talking about cheap grace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would later sum up cheap grace:

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

 

 

Unlike many church leaders today, Paul, Apostle and pastor, made sure his message and his character were one and the same. Otherwise, the Gospel would be compromised. Again, Corinthians six:

We put no obstacles in anybody’s way, so that nobody will say abusive things about our ministry. …

We have been wide open in our speaking to you, my dear Corinthians! Our heart has been open wide! There are no restrictions at our end…

Don’t be drawn into partnerships with unbelievers. What kind of sharing can there be, after all, between justice and lawlessness? What kind of partnership can there be between light and darkness? What kind of harmony can the Messiah have with Beliar? What has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What kind of agreement can there be between God’s temple and idols? We are the temple of the living God, you see, just as God said:

I will live among them and walk about them;

I will be their God, and they will be my people.

So come out from the midst of them,

And separate yourselves, says the Lord:

No unclean thing must you touch.

Then I will receive you gladly,

And I will be to you as a father,

And you will be to me as sons and daughters,

Says the Lord, the Almighty.

 

 

So, my beloved people, with promises like these, let’s make ourselves clean from everything that defiles us, outside and inside, and let’s become completely holy in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 6: 1-7-1)

 

Reading this passage, do you think that Paul was talking about how the church should become acculturated to better evangelize? Do you think Paul was talking about the church assimilating the Post-modern New Age Epicurean culture surrounding it?  Do you think Paul was talking here was about being inclusive? About diversity? About unleashing one’s feelings as the criteria for love?

The words Paul wrote to the Corinthian church came from the narrative God gave to his people long ago – to be a people unto himself. This is the same narrative that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah understood and honored. In the passage Paul references the prophet Isaiah. His language is priestly temple language. Holiness is to be narrative of God’s people. Holiness separates them from an ego-centric life full of earthly desires to be a nation for God. Holiness is an upward and outward movement of the soul towards the Father, whereas narcissism, promoted in the world since the beginning of our time, is just the opposite, focusing the soul inward and downward towards the baser elements.

The Apostle Peter wrote in the same fashion (2:9-10):

But you are a “chosen race; a royal priesthood”; a holy nation; a people for God’s possession. Your purpose is to announce the virtuous deeds of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light. Once you were “no people; now you are “god’s people.” Once you had not received mercy; now you have received mercy.

 

 

 

There are several abhorrent notions going around in churches that rubber stamp Jesus on their narratives: all religions seek the same God and are equal in that respect; Jesus talked about loving your neighbor, so advocating for a social gospel akin to Marxism is acceptable to God; Jesus talked about loving your neighbor and not judging so you must love sinners and accept their values; America is a Christian nation; our priority as Christians is to make a just and fair world; illegal immigration is an acceptable form of lawlessness; homosexuality is just another version of human sexuality. Sex/gender are not binary; prayer doesn’t feed the thousands, Progressivism’s social gospel does; prayer is a nice sentiment but action and advocacy move mountains; democracy is the best and desired form of government for everyone; revealed values trump revealed truth, as values are based one’s sincere feelings.

That is the short list.

 

As a teenager I read Dr. Luke’s historical account The Acts of the Apostles. As I read, I encountered a living and vibrant church whose members were not politically motivated and who demanded nothing of the Roman empire other than for it to honor its laws and to maintain order. The church was the church and the state was the state. The early church was not democratic. Leaders were Godly men. Prayer, prayer, prayer, reading Scripture, prayer, the words of the Apostles, preparing for the return of the Lord, and, prayer, was the culture for the early church.

The early church did not push for Constantinianism. The church knew that governments were in place, by God’s will, to provide order. They prayed for those in authority. They had their own political reality.

The early Christians only political motivation, their only ideology came down to a personal statement: “Jesus is Lord”. Everything and everyone fell underneath his jurisdiction, since all things were created for Jesus and for his good pleasure. The early Kingdom Christians also anticipated and prepared in holiness for the Lord’s return to fully establish his kingdom on earth. Today’s Christians anxiously await the election of their candidate to establish their kingdom of values.

As the world asked, “What is truth?” the early Christians put on Christ and became Truth incarnate. The church became a community of Truth. The embodied Truth suffered persecution and martyrdom just as their Lord told them they would. The world looked on and saw that the early Christians were turning the world upside down. They were making all the difference in the world. Today’s Christians are letting the world turn them upside down and that is making all the difference in the world, too.

 

 

 

As I finished writing this post, I heard the Lord say to me, “Write these words: ‘I am with you and will never forsake you.’”

 

~~~

Here are two church position statements I came across this past week. I endorse their message.

Adapted from American Anglican Council’s “A Place to Stand”

FOR TRUE INCLUSIVITY

In grateful response to Christ Jesus, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, we will extend the welcome of the Church to every person, regardless of race, sex, social or economic status, sexual orientation, or past behavior. We will oppose prejudice in ourselves and others and renounce any false notion of inclusivity that denies that all are sinners who need to repent. (emphasis mine)

 

 

FOR HUMAN SEXUALITY

Sexuality is inherent in God’s creation of every human person in his image as male and female. All Christians are called to chastity: Husbands and wives by exclusive sexual fidelity to one another and single persons by abstinence from sexual intercourse. God intends and enables all people to live within these boundaries through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

~~~

Here are some interesting links I came across this past week:

 

 

Wheaton Offers Scholarship Named for Former Professor Who Said Muslims, Christians Worship Same God

Filed under Christianity, Culture, Current events 2018 Tagged with , , , , , , ,

My Party Was Gone

November 6, 2016 Leave a comment

 

The wise fear the Lord and shun evil, but a fool is hotheaded and yet feels secure. -Proverbs 14:16

 

As a fiscal and social and small government conservative who was once a Republican and never a Democrat I consider myself, a voting citizen, to be a Christian Libertarian. As such, I desire freedom for myself and for others to make educated tradeoffs rather than to be coerced by top down government provisos telling me what I must do with my wealth, my health, etc. Self-government is my way of life within in the constraint of the rule of law and within my own Christian-Holy Spirit directed- convictions. The truth is, I am free in Christ no matter who is in power. And, my vote is a prayer:

“…May your kingdom come,

May your will be done

As in heaven, so on earth…”

As a Conservative, I consider our Constitution and the rule of law to be foundational to a well-functioning society. Agreed upon laws derived out of the desire for the common good – decency, justice, order, etc. -should be imposed upon our society.  Yet, I do not support laws (and proposed laws and regulations) which are onerous and that are used to subjugate me to the will, of say, Progressives who advocate for what they consider true and just within their relativist and irrational worldview. Case in point: I am being told by President Obama, his science advisor John Holdren and Attorney General Loretta Lynch that manmade climate change is true and it will destroy the planet and therefore I must believe it is true because they are in a position of power and I must submit to their demands on my intellect and wealth, etc. or be denounced as a “denier” by the state with punishment to be determined.

 

Now, when I hear about Millennials wanting “Democratic Socialism” I am shocked at their lack of knowledge about history and of socialism’s dehumanizing swath of destruction through the last century. I am also shocked that anyone would give up their freedom for hand-to-mouth dependence economics. It’s as if your participation in laziness deserves a trophy.

 

Currently there are two candidates who are morally and ethically unfit for the office of President.  One of the candidates could easily be impeached once in office for seditious acts and crimes against this country. The other candidate is so obnoxious and bigoted and jejune that he makes a mockery of American values. Both candidates are self-serving and power-seeking. Hillary Clinton is a member of the Ruling Class and Trump is a wannabe member of the Ruling Class. (Ruling Class defined >here.)

After eight years of the worst presidency in the history of the United States and its administration’s destructive “Fundamental Transformation” of America, feckless and divisive Obama has left the U.S. worse off racially, economically, politically, and on and on, then when he entered office.  Consider just one of the transmissible malignancies spread by Obama’s Frankenstein monster, “Fundamental Transformation”:  the national debt has doubled.  What did you get for that huge increase in your children’s and grandchildren’s debt burden? Someone got the money that half the nation worked so hard for. Little wonder that voters are angry – there has been no return on their “investment”, only look-down-their nose snark from Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren: “you didn’t build that.”

 

It must be said: we need someone in the office of president who will not demean, deface or destroy America with their pettiness, their lawlessness and their desire for power.

 

My party is gone. My candidate is gone. I voted for Ted Cruz in the primaries.  This Tuesday I will write in Evan McMullin for President and Mindy Finn for Vice President. There is much to commend both Evan and Mindy. Evan knows foreign policy inside out. He is unabashedly a conservative. Please read the link to see their qualifications. Evan and Mindy can be written in on the ballot in most states.

As mentioned above, I am free in Christ no matter what because…the gospel – “Jesus is Lord” – means that whatever happens will be subject to his lordship. I have my vocation to get on with…

“All authority in heaven and earth, “Jesus said, “has been given to me! So, you must go and make all nations into disciples. Baptize them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Teach them to observe everything I have commanded you. And look: I am with you, every single day, to the end of the age.” – Matthew’s gospel 28 v. 18-20

 

~~~

One “BIGLY” Reason I Am Voting for @EvanMcMullin

Democrats/Progressives are virtue signalers bar none. They will pull the lever for the Democratic ticket signaling their big-hearted desire to change the world for better. They, of course, have no problem making someone else pay the price -another’s money, liberty and even religious rights – for their self-righteous blush on election day.

Filed under Current Events 2016, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Food for Trough

April 17, 2016 22 Comments

 

“The ruling class’s appetite for deference, power and perks grows.” From Angelo M. Codevilla’s America’s Ruling Class –And the Perils of Revolution

…

nancy-pelosiWho are these Ruling Class Orcs?  Who are these aggressive scavengers and opportunistic Kulakovores?  They are Ruling Class America and the minions who do their hunter-gatherer bidding.  They are the Democrats and Republicans who accrue power unto themselves; they are the political parties that refuse to elect a person of principle. They are the un-elected:  the bureaucrats, the administrative state, the regulators, the social engineers, the ones whose careers are dependent on the government.   They are the ones who have no boundaries but will set boundaries for you. They are the ones with secret servers, the ones who call themselves “saviors of the planet” and those in the confident “know”.

sebelius3They are the Progressives, the elitists, the “living Constitutionalists” and those who are a law unto themselves, the “settled science” purveyors, the “green agenda” evangelists, the followers of the Scientism cult, the denigrators of religious convictions as “irrational”, the high priests of secularization, the climate change Inquisitors,  the #SJW, #BlackLivesMatter, the LGBT, the gerrymandering, the feminists, the abortionists, the eminent domain Dishonest Johns, the Democratic Socialists, the diviners of what is best for you, the Barbara Boxers, the union bosses, the public school educators, the “It takes a village” people, those offended by “Merry Christmas”, the ones who come between you and your children, the ones who tell your kids what to eat in school, the establishmentarians, the deniers of viewpoints other than their own, the ones who say “Are you kidding?” when questioned about a Constitutional basis for their enacted laws, those who  deem “this is for your own good”, those of the Unconstrained Vision, the initiators of unintended consequences, the federal workers, the EPA and DE, the Lois Lerners, the Commissar State, the Saurons, the Sarumans…all those bent over and feeding from the government trough.mccarthy

Elizabeth.Warren

 

 

Agitate the masses

 

What is in said trough? Kulaks. Heaps of Kulaks.

“They called us kulaks because we had a house with a galvanized iron roof and four horses, three cows, and a fine orchard by the house.  The first thing in the orchard was a spreading apricot tree, and there would be heaps of apricots on it every year.”  From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s short story Apricot Jam

 

Kulaks? We have property. Some of us have mansions but most have enough to call home.  We marry, have children, raise children, have grandchildren and bury (and not discard) loved ones. We are Pro-life even knowing that life is hard.  We push and prod ourselves and our charges to excel, succeed, to grow out of adolescence into maturity. We pray and prepare. We worship our God and we rejoice with others when a sheep is found. We sweat, blister and toil. We provide and protect. We shoot bows and arrows and guns but not at each other. We take off our hats when we see our nation’s flag in a parade. We tear up when America the Beautiful is sung.  We thank veterans for their service. We appreciate. We have dignity and values that were not handed down to us from government. We base our decisions on right and wrong and not on what our friends let us get away with saying.

Many of us believe that there are God-given laws and precepts that define our responsibilities and our freedoms. We sing “Amazing Grace” not for money or show but because we know sinning first hand and will admit it in a song and on our knees. Many of us are in the Kingdom of God and some of us are in the Fellowship of the Ring seeking to overthrow the world view of this age. We give thanks. Gratitude defines us. Whining is abhorred by us. We help out neighbor. We utterly detest government’s intrusion into our lives. Aspirations and love move us, not government mandates. We kulaks are the country class.

 

“Describing America’s country class is problematic because it is so heterogeneous. It has no privileged podiums, and speaks with many voices, often inharmonious. It shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards inept and haughty. It defines itself practically in terms of reflexive reaction against the rulers’ defining ideas and proclivities — e.g., ever higher taxes and expanding government, subsidizing political favorites, social engineering, approval of abortion, etc. Many want to restore a way of life largely superseded. Demographically, the country class is the other side of the ruling class’s coin: its most distinguishing characteristics are marriage, children, and religious practice. While the country class, like the ruling class, includes the professionally accomplished and the mediocre, geniuses and dolts, it is different because of its non-orientation to government and its members’ yearning to rule themselves rather than be ruled by others…

Nothing has set the country class apart, defined it, made it conscious of itself, given it whatever coherence it has, so much as the ruling class’s insistence that people other than themselves are intellectually and hence otherwise humanly inferior. Persons who were brought up to believe themselves as worthy as anyone, who manage their own lives to their own satisfaction, naturally resent politicians of both parties who say that the issues of modern life are too complex for any but themselves. Most are insulted by the ruling class’s dismissal of opposition as mere “anger and frustration” — an imputation of stupidity — while others just scoff at the claim that the ruling class’s bureaucratic language demonstrates superior intelligence. A few ask the fundamental question: Since when and by what right does intelligence trump human equality? Moreover, if the politicians are so smart, why have they made life worse?” (emphasis added) From Angelo M. Codevilla’s America’s Ruling Class –And the Perils of Revolution.  Read it and weep, kulaks.

…

kulak family

“As long as anyone can remember, our family lived in the village of Lebyazhy Usad in Kursk Province. But then they put an end to the way we thought to live. They called us kulaks because we had a house with a galvanized iron roof and four horses, three cows, and a fine orchard by the house.  The first thing in the orchard was a spreading apricot tree, and there would be heaps of apricots on it every year.” …Before they deported us as kulaks, they tried to make us tell them where we had hidden our goods.  Otherwise, they said, we’ll chop down your apricot tree. And they chopped it down.” From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s short story Apricot Jamkulaks_news

 

…

 

Here’s government overreaching to binge on you.  Chomp, chomp, chomp…

High School Demands End to Off-Campus Christian Lunch Group

Six million perish

#FeeltheBern

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Guess Who Came to Dine on You? Part Two

April 11, 2016 Leave a comment

The Ruling Class Cannibals!

Who are these Kulakovores?  They are Ruling Class America and the minions who do their hunter-gatherer bidding.  They are the Democrats and Republicans who accrue power unto themselves.  They are the un-elected:  the bureaucrats, the administrative state, the regulators, the social engineers, the ones whose careers are dependent on the government.   They are the ones who have no boundaries but will set boundaries for you. They are the ones with secret servers, the ones who call themselves “saviors of the planet” and those in the “know”, Progressives, the entitled, the “living Constitutionalists”, those that are a law unto themselves, the “settled science” purveyors, the “green agenda” evangelists, followers of the Scientism cult, the #SJW, #LGBT, #BlackLivesMatter, the gerrymandering, the eminent domain Dishonest Johns, the union bosses, the public school educators, the “It takes a village” people…the Hannibal Lecturers. hannibal lector

Obama finger gun

 

 

 

 

 

 

The power-hungry…

They came for your body parts, your eminent domain:

The Ruling Class Cannibals endorse Planned Parenthood.  The slaughter of the innocents provides these Cannibals with body parts to increase their food supply. They care more about the environment.

 

Cannibalism_1571

 

Warning:  the video below is graphic.  Watch the first minute if you can’t take any more.

 

solyent green

They came for your independence, your guns:

The Ruling Class hates independence.  The Collective would rather you meekly join the others in their Solyent Green plant.

Guns, in American history, have been the last resort to thwart tyranny.  If I haven’t revealed approaching tyranny to you in these posts then you are a minion of the Ruling Class Cannibals.

Tyranny for Ruling Class Cannibals is not being able to have complete control over your flesh, not being able to cause a thrill go up your leg, not being able to throw you in a boiling pot at will.

Obama gun control extrapolated means that you are to be protected at a whim of the Ruling Class Kulakovores.  Good luck with that, dead men walking.

 

They came for your values (and for your reprogramming):

Churches refusing to perform same-sex marriages may be denied liability insurance

Baker forced to make gay wedding cakes, undergo sensitivity training, after losing lawsuit

 

And did I mention…

They came for your wealth: tax1

The Ruling Class Cannibals love to tax people to death before consuming them. But the RCC will never be taxed like their meal tickets. These headhunters have tax havens where they hide their money away from the RCC’s chopping block.

World leaders deny wrongdoing

 

They came for your sanity: reason

Scientific proofs and absolute-based reason are not benchmarks for the RCCs. Political outcomes are.

Competitive Enterprise Institute Targeted by “AGs United For Clean Power”

Climate Scientism is Made of Green Cheese

Move Over Santa and “Settled Science”, the Lord Has Come…

Climate Apocalyptic-ism & The WannaBe Oppressed

 

They came for your laws:

The Ruling Class Cannibals want to determine who lives and who gets eaten alive, whose convictions are deemed worthy and given the “dignity” thumbs up and whose convictions are deemed too morally restrictive and impertinent to an overreaching court and thus requiring a thumb down.  Progress and not permanence is of the essence to these fast foodies.

The Ruling Class Cannibals seek to replace the U.S. Constitution and the laws derived from tried and true classical Judeo/Christian/Greco/Roman thought for the International House of Pancakes law.  Such an overturning of our legal foundation would allow these flesh-eaters to season the pot by appropriating the multicultural concepts of relativism, nihilism, animism and kulakcannibalism that the rest of the blood and flesh world bring to the table. To wit, Andrew C. McCarthy’s The globalist legal agenda

[U.S. Supreme court Justice Stephen Breyer’s latest book] The Court and the World is similarly a call for judicial supremacy, this time under the guise of international “interdependence.” The courts are once again pitched as an enabling agent of democratic choice, but on a supra-national scale.

The world, though, is a very undemocratic place—though perhaps no more undemocratic than Supreme Court diktats that remove controversies like abortion and “same-sex marriage” from democratic resolution.

How to explain the difference between progressive pretensions to “activate” liberty—i.e., to vouchsafe “the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning,” as Justice Anthony Kennedy vaporously put it in imposing same-sex marriage on the nation—and progressive judging’s actual affect of curtailing our freedom to live as we choose? This inversion of democracy, it turns out, flows naturally from Breyer’s inversion of the judicial role—a philosophy of judging shared by a working majority of his Court, the bloc of five unelected jurists whose edicts control ever more of what was once democratic space.

“[O]ur American judicial system,” he contends, should “see itself as one part of a transnational or multinational judicial enterprise.” Inconveniently (but, alas, not insuperably), the only “judicial enterprise” licensed by the Constitution, from which federal judges derive their authority, is the protection of Americans from overreach by our government and the remediation of other harms inflicted by third parties in violation of laws enacted by our elected representatives.

Interpreting the law as written—an intellectual challenge that is vital to the rule of law even if not sufficiently stimulating for many a robed social engineer—is not so much an enterprise as a discipline. In our system, it is supposed to be the politically accountable branches that get to do the enterprising. Nor does the discipline of judging take on a “transnational or multinational” character merely because some small percentage of the parties implicated in legal disputes is of foreign extraction—even if, as Breyer rightly observes, modern technology has made the percentage larger by making the world smaller.

What does Breyer see as the objective of this global judicial enterprise? The advancement of “acceptance of the rule of law itself.” This “rule of law,” you’ll no doubt be shocked to learn, bears an astonishing resemblance to the rule of lawyers—in particular, the judges along with the army of equally unelected transnational progressive lawyers who urge them on.

International law is especially fertile soil for growing this empire.

…

Of course the courts are vital, but in their place. That is not the place envisioned by Justice Breyer: global maestro. American courts, however, are a core component of our government and thus the servant, not the master, of our people. They ensure our rule of law. Thus fortified, it is the United States, not a congeries of jurists and international law professors, that remains the indispensable force for good in a troubled and dangerous world.” (emphasis added)

Please read the article in its entirety The globalist legal agenda by Andrew C. McCarthy

 

They came for your land.

Ruling Class Cannibals will tell you that social justice means that what you own is not yours, it is to be taken from you – create an injustice in order to create social justice. Your delicious ends justify their means.

May I offer you a wafer-thin Kulak, sir?

May I offer you a wafer-thin Kulak, sir?

They came for you as dessert:

A wafer-thin mint for the Ruling Class Cannibals? You will be up-chucked but they’ll take you.

 

 

 

Ruling Class Cannibalism doesn’t fall far from the limb:

At Ithaca College, The Left’s Kids Devour Their Parents

 

Kulakovores are dismissive of any life force beyond themselves, as in “What difference, at this point, does it make!” hillary-what-difference-does-it-make-o

 

Filed under Consitution - rights, Culture, Current Events 2016 Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Curiouser and Curiouser

June 7, 2015 Leave a comment

From the Big Bang to the Black Rabbit Holes of Moral Relativism

Have you noticed that many of the well-coifed commentator’s these days now use the phrase, “The fact of the matter” to preface their comments? This is empiricism trying to counter relativism’s cynicism.

Modern day liberals, pundits of the ersatz, consider themselves open-minded individuals. They are proud of their openness to all things. So open-minded are they in fact that when truth is encountered it is immediately short-circuited bypassing their AND/OR gates, never residing in memory. Truth is discharged from their feel good capacitors. Truth, for them, is just one of many options. Truth is not the warm and fuzzy logic they want to be plugged into. Truth is electrifyingly absolute.

“As a rule, only very learned and clever men deny what is absolutely true. Common men have less brains, but more sense.” -William T Stance, an epitome found at the beginning of Roger Kimball’s book “The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia”.

These open-minded folk are so welcoming to come and go Change that they post a “For Rent” sign on their foreheads for all to see their obeisance to the gods Openness, Diversity and Equality.

House built on sandy soil. Erosion.

Oops, there goes another foundation!

These open-minded folk are also the ones who so voraciously attack the First Amendment as a mistake-a mistake to let people speak their minds. Go figure. But this thinking works in the Rabbit Hole known as Asinine.

Let’s take a look at only some of today’s Ass-saults on Absolutes.

It is 2015 and truth and its consequences can be hard to swallow. Truth and its consequences can be abstracted into “Am I a victim of uncontrollable influences?”

Here is a portion of Vanity Fair’s May 2015 article “Civil War at NBC News” written by Bryan Burrough about NBC’s Brian William’s deliberate lack of Total Recall scandal:

“[Deborah] Turness [head of NBC] and the other executives who had gotten involved quickly became frustrated, as they would remain for days, with William’s inability to explain himself. “He couldn’t say the words ‘I lied,’ “recalls one NBC insider.

We could not force his mouth to form the words ‘I lied’. He couldn’t explain what had happened. [He said,] ‘Did something happen to [my] head? Maybe I had a brain tumor, or something in my head? He just didn’t know. We had no clear sense what had happened. We got the best apology we could get.

And that was a problem…”

Brian Williams-post truth

Brian Williams-post truth

It is 2015 and you can Tune in, toke up, smile big: Introducing The First Church of Cannabis.

(Bill) Levin, a 59-year-old carpenter, started the church on March 26, 2015, to push the limits of Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the government from “substantially burdening” anyone’s right to exercise his or her religion. Earlier this year, the controversial bill sparked protests from gay rights groups claiming it would allow for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians citing religious beliefs. (Emphasis mine)

The First Church of Cannabis is Epicurean in all in its smoke and mirror glory. Who needs a church with the living true God when the inaccessible uncaring-what-you-do god of Epicurus will do?

 

Speaking of “gay rights” it is 2015 and most Americans greatly overestimate the percentage of the LGBT self-described “queer” population. Perhaps this is due to air deprivation-the loud sucking in of all the air from the planet by the LGBT ‘community’ in order to replace it with the exhaust of revved up Epicurean narcissism:

“PRINCETON, N.J. — The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans’ 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year.” (Emphasis mine)

Of course the LGBT ‘community’ will refute the accuracy of this poll by saying that another 30% of the population is still in the closet (waiting to be coaxed out of the closet and into a confused symbolism state-the LGBT ‘light’ of gay).

 

It is 2015 and moral relativism’s apotheosis is a “fundamental transformation” POTUS with a bully pulpit.

Barack Obama’s latest political foray into untruth is his national domestic and foreign policy of fatalism-“AGW, this is settled science”. This populist scientism qualification is severely lacking in the facts due diligence requires asserting “settled science”. Obama’s stipulation is meant to shunt away the requisite evocative questions inherent within a democratic political process. In Obama-speak “Settled science” means “Settled issue”: “I said IT and therefore it must be true since I have enough power and sycophantic cohorts to proclaim it to be true”.

 

It is 2015, June, and Pastor Saeed Abedini has been in an Iranian prison for three years while Obama negotiates his own legacy.

 

It is 2015 and where we once had two distinct naturally evolved sexes-“He created them male and female”- we now have the amorphous word “gender” bandied about. The political winds of “Diversity” are uprooting millennia of family trees-naturally evolved binary sex procreations and ‘recreating’ traditional marriage in its own image with a frenzy to will to power one’s self-‘right’-ness… but never righteousness.

 

It is 2015 and have you noticed that multiculturalism is all the rage? You don’t hear the word “multiculturalism” proclaimed in public but one can see its assault on America and its devastating effects under Obama’s lawless immigration fiat.

Multiculturalism insists that all cultures and all religions are of equal value. Multiculturalism insists that there is no difference between Judeo-Christian beliefs and those of radical Muslim imposed Sharia Law. Per Obama and the Progressives all groups must be co-opted in order to dilute your white European background vote and shore up non-Western Democrat votes for the next election. “Divide and conquer” is his conscious mantra.

Multiculturalism is passive-aggressive toward America. Multiculturalism genuflects to the god “Hyphen”.

It is 2015. Have you noticed that we are no longer Americans? We are now hyphenated groups: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanic-Americans. Many of these and other groups live a hyphenated life of one foot in and one foot out, having forsaken adopting the American settler’s values. “They are coming to America” for the handouts that only Big Brother can give and know full well that American values are ‘flexible’ according to who is in power, ergo kindled ethnocentricity melts the pot holding them.

 

It is 2015 and women now have added their maiden name to their married name-one foot and in one foot out of the marriage.

 

It is 2015 and I am reminded of Alexis de Tocqueville’s prescient warning about soft despotism. I apply it now to our 2015 morally relativistic “activist” judiciary that

“extends its arm over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”

 

It is 2015 and moral relativism’s tyrannical belief system has taken modern man captive and placed him in chains within a dark but fire lit cave.

As pushed in Epicurus’ time an individual’s sensory feelings, his inner sanctum response to the self-projecting chimeras on the cave wall, have become a socialism everyone must share to ease pain or else. To make this a personal reality each Atlas must shrug off the moral cornerstone with which one needs to plumb line truth and then replace it with the Objectivism of ‘rational and ethical’ egoism or, better, self-interest à la carte à la cave.

The modern listener is now tuned into the frequency, “The fact of the matter” and “This is settled science” to reassure his free-floating cave-wall derived angst. At the same time leaving the cave of self-pity is not an option and thereby Democracy in a cave is denied the daylight of truth.

We say, “if Barack Obama’s scientism can make us a victim of say AGW in a society of victims then the scientism proposed becomes ‘truth’ for me, a willing adherent to the new criterion-moral relativism. And victimization means I am therefore oppressed and in need of Big Brother to take my Whole World in His Hands”.

Moral relativism as a formula for life and not yet atheistic (atheism would come after Christianity began) was tossed around during the time (BC) of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. The “atomists’ of that era believed in a distant out-of-sight-out-of-touch god. They believed that one’s own sensory feelings and close kowtowing friends would better serve their introspective needs. Scientism, born during The Enlightenment, is moral relativism’s distant cousin.

Scientism is the politics of fact. Where science is about seeking truth in the form of verifiable fact, scientism is about seeking consensus about how you feel about the facts. These feelings are Epicurean sensory feelings superimposed onto verifiable fact-“How will this fact affect me”.

 

I could go on giving examples of this post’s rubric but it is Sunday and I must go to my church to remove the impurities of Moral Relativism from my mind, heart and soul. Come join me.

Curiouser and Curiouser, to be continued…

Some things to ponder:

When everything in life is valued by the same lowest common denominator as the Progressives would have it does value retain value? Are we not animals at the lowest common point? Ergo, isn’t socialism basically the exalted rights of certain animals on the Animal Farm to determine the rights of the others? See de Tocqueville quote above.

Is it OK for teachers groups to have seminars decrying white privilege while at the same time affirmative action denies other races (e.g., Asians trying to enter Harvard) equal opportunity? Is “white privilege” really Black on-demand-privilege projection?

“Justice: by any and all means necessary.” Is it OK to place Black-American ethnocentrism over every other race while demanding diversity, equality, egalitarianism and justice? Isn’t “Justice: By any and all means necessary” spoken by a Black-American District Attorney a call to lawlessness and anarchy under our country’s rule of law?

Isn’t the application of discrimination of one race over another called racism? Inequality?

It is 2015 and the erosion of moral relativism is washing away the sand foundation of society’s structure.

“What Americans call “liberalism” is the ideology of western suicide.” -James Burnham, Suicide of the West

***

It is 2015 and WordPress has informed me that it is my six-year anniversary blogging with WordPress. Inconceivable!

 

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Epicurus Wins Greek Election or Pain Must Be Shared to Be Fully Enjoyed

January 31, 2015 Leave a comment

My last two posts took you for a ride in the “Wayback Machine”. The ride, with no cost to you and minimal effort on your part, took you back to the time of Epicurus, the Greek philosopher. Then I forwarded the machine to our present time, the age of the Angry Atheists. Today’s post will take you for a ride in the “Lean Forward” Machine.

 The “Lean Forward” Machine is not like the “Wayback Machine”. Whereas the “Wayback Machine” records and regards history in its travels as an annotated time line worthy of informing present decision-making regarding morals, social concerns, spirituality, politics and economics the “Lean Forward” Machine says “phooey with all of that”:

 “Let’s go full steam ahead to the future. “We have the omniscient and omnipresent being-‘perfected’-as-we-speak-with-your-tax-dollars Government (of Titanic proportions mind you) to pilot us (in ad hoc fashion mind you) to the Elysian Fields of the Brave New World.”

 At this point you should know that the “Lean Forward” Machine is regarded by some as a religious temple. Some even call it by the sacred name of its goddess-“Progress”.

 But, before we “Lean Forward” into unreality let us take at quick look at Epicurus’ homeland today to get a reality check on effects of his philosophy:

 

Epicurus' party pic

Epicurus’ party pic

Left-Wing Syriza Party Wins Big as Greece Rejects Austerity

ATHENS — Greece’s left-wing Syriza appeared on course to trounce the ruling conservatives in Sunday’s snap election and could win the absolute majority it wants to fight international creditors’ insistence on painful austerity measures.

Tsipras’ campaign slogan “Hope is coming!” resonated with voters, weary of austerity after six years of constant crisis that has sent unemployment over 25 percent and threatened millions with poverty.

“Hope is coming!” Wait! Where have I heard that before?

 Anyway, Greece, the land of the ancient philosopher Epicurus, has rejected austerity and forsaken posterity!: “My friends, let us make Epicurean lifestyle the epicenter of things! Eat, drink and be merry with impunity! Run up the tab! The gods don’t care. Why should we?”

 There you have it my friends. Sorry to say but it appears that the ticket for the “Lean Forward” Machine return trip would cost you everything. And, if you did go, you would not see your children and grandchildren flourishing. Rather, you would not find them at all, having vanquished in the Farmworkers’ Grape Pickers Camp; having been cast into the great winepress of the wrath of Progress.

 

I’m not going with you to look for my future in the “Lean Forward” Machine. I have not lost the Spirit or my faith in God. I have the Kingdom of God here on earth to tend to whether or not my belly is full. The Kingdom of God is my vocation, my calling, my camp.

 

“Instead, make your top priority God’s kingdom and his way of life, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew’s Gospel 6, verse 33

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“I Should Have Anticipated the Optics” and Other Progressive Aphorisms

September 13, 2014 Leave a comment

“…civilization as we know it would be in jeopardy if the Republican Party recaptures control of the US Senate later this year,” a recent quote of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Here, once again, Nancy Pelosi is seeking to manage our common resource of liberty by terrorizing the populace with her Malthusian alarmist version of the tragedy of the commons.

Now compare Pelosi’s statement with Frederic Bastiat’s words below. Bastiat, a French classical liberal theorist and political economist, “asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property, and why it is dangerous and morally wrong for government to interfere with an individual’s other personal matters.” Source: Wikipedia.

“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”

Frederic Bastiat 

Let’s talk about that plunder.

In a previous post I quoted an old preacher who said “That if it is new it is not true. If it is true it is not new.” So, for our purposes today we must take a trip in the Wayback Machine and go back twenty years when you will hear Walter E. William s say “The growth of the leviathan state is undermining our moral priorities.” (emphasis mine)

Here is economist Walter E. Williams, back in 1994 (!!), talking about America’s moral decline, the government being used to steal from one another, the making of America into a nation of thieves, socialized medicine, criminalizing just about everything we do, taxation, lumping the trivial in with the barbaric and doing battle with the Hun-big government.

 

 

Next, Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, in a highly entertaining 1993 speech given at a CATO Institute dinner, claims, as Walter Williams infers, that Bill Clinton, that “agent of change” is actually a Bush-o-nomics successor writ large.

 Friedman goes on to say that current economic policy is “Starving the market that has been working and feeding the (gov’t.) market that has been failing.” And, sadly, that we as a nation are now more wealthy but less free, less secure.

He reminds us that Ronald Reagan sought low taxes, less regulations, a restraint on government spending and a stable monetary policy. Aphorisms begin here.

 

 

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies.”

Frederic Bastiat

 

 

“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”

Frederic Bastiat

 

Anticipate the optics when you vote this fall and later in 2016. And, more importantly, look behind the Kabuki theater curtain of political optics at the moral character of those who are supposedly representing us. At the very least, look at the character of those who will read a bill before signing it.

 Remember, too, as you go to vote, that if you are one of the mega-millions in the lottery of unemployed or underemployed “that you don’t have to be job-locked.” – Nancy Pelosi, Progressive aphorist, reminding us that we each of us can feed off the government because Obamacare is our salvation:

“If you like your healthcare you can keep your healthcare. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.” Aphorist-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama

Another Progressive aphorism: “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt. More bullish nonsense catapulted into Aphorism Infamy.

We had better fear Big Brother because he is more Cain than Abel.

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Identity Politics or American Like Me

July 19, 2014 2 Comments

Do black Americans want to be called African-Americans?

Why do black Americans hyphenate their identity?

What do conservative black Americans think? And, why do we talk about minorities? There are no minorities in America. There are only legal Americans.

After watching the video ask yourself why Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson and Eric Holder and Al Sharpton and the SPLC (the “Hate Watchers”) et al want to divide the country into black and white, rich and poor, big “G” Government versus John Doe and Christians? Why create class and race division and also animus towards Christians (remember “bitter clingers” comment?) among the people of the United States of America?

Take a look:

 

Al Sharpton’s Chicago Town Hall Erupts into Anti-Machine Revolt

Black Americans are rejecting Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the whole Obama-Liberal-Progresive-hate America agenda

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The People of the “White Privilege” Lie

May 17, 2014 Leave a comment

What do you want? The Truth or a Lie? 

I am a Christian parent of four children. I post this because…

The new/old Jeremiah Wright preachers of hate and exclusion want you to join them in bashing Whites, Jews, Christians, Tea Party members, Capitalism, language and… the First Amendment:

The Annual White Privilege Conference in Madison, Wisconsin 2014.

As you listen to the video below you will hear the devotees of this ‘white guilt’ cult parsing language to reprogram your mind.

 “Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly,” Thomas Sowell

 …These are the people who will teach your children in public schools.

No Christian should take part in this evil. Christians, rather, must be alerted to the evil crouching at their child’s school door.

 As you will see and hear the White Privilege Conference gives meaning to Hannah Arendt’s once used phrase “the banality of evil.” ‘Normal’ everyday people within these conference walls are invoked to participate in acts of evil against humanity, even against their own humanity and against God-given human rights, human rights not based on the melanin content of your skin.

 All parents with school children must be informed as to the evil going on right under their noses in the class room.

 Here is part 2 of a 4 part series, “White Privilege Conference 2014 Part 2 of 4: Rape Is Not Intrinsically Bad” provided by the website Progressives Today (see below).

Much of what you are hearing today began years ago on college campuses:  “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End American Debate” by Greg Lukianoff.  Buy this book and read the specifics of how this type of reprogramming of student’ minds with white guilt/white privilege propaganda could grow into a White Privilege Conference

 Here is a post offering quotes from the book:

 Closing the American Mind: Censorship

For more information on the Progressive’s “white privilege” movement, read these posts:

 Shelby Steele: Poetic truths work by moral intimidation – not reason

 Legal Insurrection (H/T for making me aware of this evil)

 Progressives Today

 The book by Shelby Steele:

“White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era”

Para-Steele: white liberals and their black enablers unleash moral relativism that is corrupting America.

 Save your children: Home School, Home School, Home School!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you want? The Truth or a Lie?

added 5-18-2014:

Group think, collectivist hive mindedness:

“When present, these antecedent conditions are hypothesized to foster the extreme consensus-seeking characteristic of groupthink. This in turn is predicted to lead to two categories of undesirable decision-making processes. The first, traditionally labeled symptoms of groupthink, include illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalization, stereotypes of outgroups, self-censorship, mindguards, and belief in the inherent morality of the group. The second, typically identified as symptoms of defective decision-making, involve the incomplete survey of alternatives and objectives, poor information search, failure to appraise the risks of the preferred solution, and selective information processing. Not surprisingly, these combined forces are predicted to result in extremely defective decision making performance by the group.”
(Marlene E. Turner & Anthony R. Pratkanis, Twenty-Five Years of Groupthink Theory and Research: Lessons from the Evaluation of a Theory, 1998, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 73, 105–115.)

 Hannah Arendt’s Warning: the Violence of Hive-Mindedness, Groupthink

 

 

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Feral Gov’t Debt Limit Explained

October 25, 2013 Leave a comment

fe·ral  (fîr l, f r -)

adj.

1.         a. Existing in a wild or untamed state.

            b. Having returned to an untamed state from domestication.

2. Of or suggestive of a wild animal; savage:

 

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