Live Like You’re Free Fear not — things are only getting better by MATT GILLILAND

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People are, in most ways, freer than they have ever been in the history of the world.

Throughout most of history, outright chattel slavery (not just of minorities, but even within ethnic groups) has been commonplace. De facto ownership of wives existed in almost every society until a century ago. Less than a hundred years ago, it was fairly uncommon for most people to travel more than a few dozen miles from their place of birth within their lifetime. And even a decade ago in the “freest nation in the world,” it was unthinkable outside of a few progressive areas of the country for homosexual couples to hold hands in public.

Thomas Jefferson said in 1788 that “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” That has certainly been true in the United States, but simply focusing on State expansion can mask an important truth: while liberty has suffered under the weight of government, it has also expanded in other directions. Like the tendrils of a vine reaching for sunlight despite an obstruction, liberty grows outward and upward. For every corrupt cop, there’s an entrepreneur making lives better through innovation, and for every bureaucrat, a programmer works to cripple tyranny at its foundations. For every useless bill, someone is working to make it obsolete.

Governments want you to live your life in fear: fear of terrorism, crime, climate change, Ebola, ISIS, and whatever other fear is politically expedient in the next news cycle. When people concentrate on fear, they are more willing to give over their liberties to an entity that arrogantly claims to be able to keep them safe. Many who love liberty live in fear, too. Their bogeymen are government spying, gun control laws, or any number of government conspiracies. While people can have good reasons to be afraid, shaking that fear altogether can be the most liberating experience of all. Encryption is infiltrating the mainstream (to the consternation of the FBI and others), and organizations like Defense Distributed are working to completely obviate gun regulation.

If you only look at the ways governments are expanding, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the fear. What is needed is a broader perspective — one that takes into account the myriad ways in which our lives are getting better despite State intrusion. Those with this perspective are hopeful about startup cities, seasteading, and groups building censorship-resistant free markets that ignore government regulations; they understand that we are richer, healthier, and more comfortable than those who came before us. Shed the fear, and embrace hope — not a false hope, but a reasoned, pragmatic confidence based on both the concrete avenues for liberation that we see and the general trend we can observe since the rise of capitalism. We have great cause for optimism.

You have been born into a time when you can communicate with thousands of people in an instant, people who share your interests and concerns. You can leave town for the weekend and see things daily that your ancestors could not possibly have imagined. Your job is almost certainly less physically taxing than any job any of your parents, grandparents, or virtually any person who lived prior to them ever had. Statistically, you are likely to live longer and better than anyone born before you. Entrepreneurs are busy creating and popularizing some of the first tools in history that are more useful for undermining coercion than for furthering it. Freedom is expanding daily in ways our predecessors could hardly have dreamed.

You are one of the freest people in all of history. Maybe it’s time to start living like it.

ABOUT MATT GILLILAND

Matt Gilliland is the Program Coordinator for Liberty.me LIVE.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.

People I Don’t Like

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At the end of every year it is customary to offer up lists of all kinds—the best this, the worst that—and it is a brief, generally amusing exercise.

I don’t usually make lists, but lately though I have been thinking a lot about people I don’t like and at the top of the list are the monsters of the Islamic State, the Taliban, and Boko Haram, all “militant” Islamists who justify their barbaric immoral slaughters, kidnappings, and other crimes in the name of Allah. I have had a bellyful of these horrid people and am weary of hearing they are only a small part of Islam.

There are more than a billion Muslims in the world and, if the Islamists are “just” ten percent, that means there are a hundred million who are active waging their “holy war” or who support them. Among those whom I do not like are the millions of silent Muslims who do nothing to organize and speak out against them. It is true, however, that the handful that do speak out literally risk being killed. What kind of a religion is predicated on making war on all other religions?

Closer to home among the people I do not like are those who joined marches to denigrate our nation’s police corps, defaming them with charges of racism and murder. The events that followed the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, one of self-defense by a white cop against a black thug and the death in Staten Island that resulted when a long-time offender refused to be arrested, were simply an excuse by those who apparently prefer the streets to be filled with criminals whom the police are not supposed to “profile.” Well, cops make judgments about the people on their beat all the time, black, white, or otherwise. That’s their job!

I do not like people crying “racism” every time the commission of a crime goes badly for a black perpetrator are people I do not like. People in high office who use these events to exacerbate racial divisions are high on my list of those I don’t like.

Among the much discussed social issues, I am less than sympathetic for those women who enter into consensual sex and then cry “rape.” If they have been raped, they need to contact the police. I am not sympathetic to those colleges and universities who think it is their job to regulate the private sexual activities of students with all manner of “codes” that one can add to those that crimp freedom of speech and other Constitutionally-protected behavior.

At this time of year, I really don’t like those people who insist that one cannot or should not say “Merry Christmas” or that communities should not display Christmas scenes on public property. These are the same dreadful people forever declaiming against any public display of religious belief such as the kind that has for centuries opened government and legislative meetings of every description in America. The atheists among us have every right to be atheists, but they have no right to insist we deny a greater power because they refuse to do so. Even the Supreme Court has ruled against them.

While I see no practical or even moral way to deport the eleven million illegal aliens among us, that doesn’t make them any less illegal. Like a lot of others, I want to see our borders made more secure and less open to swarms of invaders—not “refugees”—that we saw occur when 75,000 children and their families who invaded the U.S. this year and who must now be absorbed at a cost that comes out of the pockets of every native-born and naturalized citizen. That must stop. For those illegals who have been born here or lived here for five years or so, they should be permitted to go to the back of the line and seek naturalization. For others, temporary work permits are a common sense option.

Anti-CapitalismA group of people I have not liked for decades are the environmentalists. The reason is very simple. They lie about everything they champion in the name of “global warming” or “climate change.” Both are hoaxes that, like most everything else the Greens protest, result from the way they debase meteorological science or their absurd claims about the use of fossil fuels. As far as Greens are concerned, anything that benefits mankind from new housing to more industry producing more jobs, and anything that requires the use of chemicals in their manufacture (that is everything!) is just a tiresome scare campaign that is promulgated to line their pockets with the millions they receive every year. I don’t like the liberal foundations that give them millions.

In America politics has always been a blood sport. It’s vigorous. It sometimes produces real leaders. It increasingly requires millions of dollars to run for high office and that has led to a high degree of control by those entities that have deep pockets. I suspect it has always been thus though not at the levels of cost that exist today. I am not a big fan of those politicians of the Far Left or the Far Right. Those in the middle and those who understand that a republic requires compromise are often seen as too willing to go along, but finding a middle way to solve problems is usually the best way.

In the last midterm elections those who showed up to vote sent a clear message to Congress and to a President who claimed he heard them as well as those who didn’t vote. Those who didn’t vote should shut their mouths because their message was surrender.

I don’t like the Obama administration that has produced six years of unrelenting failure domestically and internationally. That’s what happens when the voters put a Marxist and very likely a Muslim in office. I don’t like Barack Hussein Obama, a man many regard as the worst President this nation has ever had.

If the last two midterm elections are any indication, voters have learned their lesson—which leaves the 2016 election. Don’t listen to anyone who says they know who will run or who will win. Two years in American politics is an eternity and people vote differently in national elections than in midterms.

There are a lot of people I do like.

I like the ones who go to sporting events or concerts and share the enjoyment with everyone around them without regard to race, gender, or any other reason.

I like the ones who volunteer in their community to make it a better place in which to live and raise children.

I like the ones who put their lives on the line—police and firemen—for the rest of us.

I like those who are members of our armed forces at a time when they are being treated in a shabby fashion, but believe enough in America to defend it.

I like those in the medical professions who devote themselves to helping cure and treat the ill.

I like the legion of caregivers who look after older family members and others.

There are others I like, but this is a pretty good list, right?

© Alan Caruba, 2014

Enough With The Ferguson Pandering

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In all the media coverage of the riots in Ferguson, an annoying false premise has been allowed to stand as though it were an unquestionable truth. Talking heads on the left and right are saying while rioting is not the way, there is a need for change in America. What the heck change are they talking about?

By embracing the “need for change” premise promoted by Al Sharpton and company, the media is complicit in spreading the lie that America is racist and blacks are mistreated. For crying out loud folks, look around. Blacks are thriving in every area of the American experience. The real need for change is for blacks to stop voting for Democrats in exchange for just-enough-to-get-by handouts and endless failed big government spending programs that make problems worse; the death of the black family. That is what desperately needs to change in America.

I take offense with these snooty arrogant TV talking heads declaring my country and my fellow Americans guilty of something they are not. The talking heads are simply pandering to ignorance and beating up on my country and I do not like it. These elites are also poking a finger in the eye of the majority of Americans of all races who play by the rules to achieve their American dreams; working, playing, and crying together when necessary.

We have also heard from the media and Obama that police must deal with blacks differently. Obama said a better job must be done training law enforcement “to be sensitive to the concerns of minority communities”. Hogwash! Why isn’t standard police training sufficient for dealing with all criminals? Should extra tolerance be allowed by police when dealing with minorities? Absolutely not. The call for police special training is nothing more than liberal pandering.

I also fought to control my gag reflex every time I heard a media elite praise the Ferguson police for their great restraint during the looting and destruction of property and lives after the grand jury decision and earlier riots back in August. Such comments feed the notion that blacks have a right to be angry and behave badly because America is racist.

So as Americans watched footage of police cars burning, thugs gleefully running with stolen goodies and mayhem in the streets of Ferguson, we are told that while violence is not the way, we must understand their rage. Every opportunist thug wreaking havoc in Ferguson should be arrested. Period!

Despite all the media accusations of an over militarized Ferguson police department and despite Ferguson police walking on eggshells in an attempt not to further anger protesters and appease the MSM, black and white businesses were destroyed; apparently deemed acceptable collateral damage.

Even some conservatives contributed to the destructive pandering by subscribing to the narrative that special concessions must be made for blacks because they are still suffering the negative effects of slavery. This is absurd.

American blacks are suffering the negative effects of decades of Liberalism; liberals controlling our schools, controlling Hollywood and controlling the news media. Liberals have infected the hearts and minds of blacks, conditioning them to believe blacks are suppressed in America because of racism, while ignoring all facts, in plain sight, which prove otherwise.

If white America’s agenda is to suppress blacks, what dark room deal was struck to allow Oprah, Obama, Beyonce, Dr Ben Carson and others to breakthrough the Great White American Glass Ceiling? Is there an annual restriction on the number of blacks permitted to achieve success in America?

Interviewed on TV, a young black male said the grand jury decision proves that America is systematically racist. I thought, there you have it. Al Sharpton and company have won. From the first reports of the shooting, Shapton and the Democrats’ purpose was to exploit Brown’s death to further their narrative that America is racist and cops murder blacks with impunity.

Insidiously, Sharpton and company successfully turned Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown’s deaths into evidence of America’s injustice in the minds of many; solely for the purpose of creating fear and hate against white America. Their messaging is vote for Democrats and we will keep the handouts coming, redistribute whitey’s wealth and keep whitey off you back.

America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it. And yet, Sharpton and company are relentless in their efforts to hide this truth from black Americans, the very people they claim to champion. Why? The answer is the Left’s agenda is to transform America into a socialist nation. They need government dependent blacks voting for Democrats to make it happen. This is why Democrats, liberals and the MSM are celebrating Obama, in essence, granting amnesty to over 5 million illegals, despite them taking jobs from blacks; further exacerbating black unemployment. By embracing Obama’s lawless amnesty decree, the Democrats are throwing black Americans under the bus.

Watching the Ferguson riots on TV was deja vu all over again. For decades, Democrats have been feeding blacks the same old excrement and we are witnessing the same results; angry frustrated blacks – a majority of black kids in fatherless households, high school dropouts, high unemployment, high black on black crime, high incarcerations, high abortions and so on.

Bottom line, far too many blacks are mentally stuck, infected with victim mindsets which prevent them from pursuing their American dreams.

Shepard Smith on Fox News said the protests in Ferguson brings up the larger issue that large numbers of people (blacks) across America do not feel that the system is working for them. The unfortunate mindset of such blacks is the result of brainwashing by liberals and Democrats; pure and simple. As I stated, all of black America’s real issues stem from decades of them willfully living on the Democrat’s liberal plantation.

The American system works great! Only in America could a barefoot cotton-picking little black kid in the 1940s dare to have a dream; grow up to become one of the most powerful black men in the world, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Without Affirmative Action, Justice Thomas achieved success the old fashion way. He earned it via education, hard work and right choices.

America is great because America is good. May God continue to bless America.

The Ingrown Enemies of America

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The enemies from within America are alive and sick. Some of them recently went to nutsville in Ferguson, Mo. Because they didn’t get their wish of injustice for police officer Darrell Wilson. St. Louis prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch simply announced there would be no indictment, then the tribalistic minions spent the night increasing the local unemployment rate by burning and looting businesses that had nothing to do with the death of Michael Brown or the grand jury decision.  For more years than I care to admit, I have stated on my syndicated radio commentary The Edwards Notebook that there is a sizable number of indoctrinated U.S. born useful idiots.  Those tribal oriented brutes are fully enamored with the idea of destroying American society. They use the excuse of being angry over decisions like not indicting Officer Wilson for merely defending himself from a huge young man whom because of his less than sterling upbringing, thought he could bully store owners and a police officer.

It was most disheartening to watch the FOX News coverage late into the night.  To see, the useful idiots doing their part, in an effort to destabilize our republic turned mob rule democracy.  As the flames of private owned businesses and automobiles burned throughout that awful night, I imagined certain political leaders salivating over the idea of transforming America, must have been feeling their oats. After all, one of the gateways to national destruction, or Obama’s hope and change is through a divided or ignorant populace.  As an un-hyphenated American it was embarrassing to realize that the world was watching my fellow countrymen and women partying, looting and burning businesses because they were supposedly to be saddened over the legal decision of a grand jury.

When the low brow looters inflicted their rage upon a local Ferguson McDonald’s eatery, I wondered where those boisterous simpletons would get their dinner. Since many of that ilk subsists on the offerings of the golden arches every single day!  It was so disheartening to watch the loons on the loose burn up a local Auto Zone, brick a McDonald’s, loot the liquor store, and pilfer the food market, chard a beauty shop and much more.  To their credit, some of the protesters tried to persuade the cretins not to destroy the beauty salon. Unfortunately, their pleas fell on deaf ears and the brutes carried on their mission of mayhem which rendered the salon a pile of burned rubble.

Orchestrated protests also took place in Times Square New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Cal. And elsewhere.  I am thankful that the grand jury had the strength of character to present the truth regarding the death of Michael Brown. Unfortunately, many enemies from within are simply hell bent on fostering division and destruction within America. They are the foot soldiers in the effort to thrust Obama’s vision of fundamental change upon “We the People”.

However, I have a bit of good news.  Despite the vigorous effort of those seeking to use protests, illegal immigrants, America hating muslims and whatever else to destabilize our republic, THEY WILL FAIL!  Many of us understand that much of the unrest episodes occur thanks to opportunistic looters who care little about Michael Brown or Bozo the clown. The progressive Negro thought police and others seek to arrest the mental growth of black Americans and keep them stuck in the mental fog of bitterness and hatred for America, capitalism, freedom and true justice. Even the step father of Michael Brown angrily urged the protesters to burn the town down.

Those folks have yelped to the high heavens about the death of Michael Brown at the hand of a white police officer. But where oh where are those same carnival barkers concerning the upbringing of Michael Brown? It’s quite possible that had he been brought up with a greater emphases on right behavior, perhaps he would still be amongst the living today.  I can’t for the life of me understand why individuals like Al-windbag Sharpton or Jesse, hey where’s the camera? Jackson don’t seem to be troubled over that fact that at least 93 percent of all gunshot blast deaths of black Americans are committed by other blacks? The riots, the protests, including those at Walmart are nothing more than phony baloney happenings to help those who hate America to render as much damage as they can get away with. They have no intentions to bring about authentic solutions to problems.

Wake up America, we can do much better than this.

An open letter to Pope Francis

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Dear Brother Francis,

Please pardon my lack of formality and exalted titles you usually get, but Christ said, “call no man Father” and “all ye are brethren,” Matthew 23:8,9.

I’m a Protestant, writing to you as the probable head of a global government, to suggest the only basis for stability of government—it is the law of God which the Bible says is “perfect, converting the soul,” Psalm 19:7. If I had to repay four sheep for one that I stole (Exodus 22:1), it would convert me.

Conversion is the perfect solution to man’s prisons wrongly called correctional facilities, when they don’t usually correct anything and paroled murderers often do it again. This is why they were executed as per biblical law, “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” Exod 21:23,24.

Execution was also done for sexual impurity—fornication, rape or adultery, Deuteronomy 22:13-30.

I didn’t find where homosexual acts were to be treated this way, but God called it an abomination and He executed Sodom for flaunting it like we are doing with gay parades in the U.S. Taking this position would have a serious benefit for societies worldwide and would also reduce your church’s legal battles.

I’m also writing to express concern over your worship of Lucifer. You may not know it, but that was the angelic name of Satan before he coveted God’s position in Isaiah 14:12-14. He deceived a third of the angels, caused war in heaven and was cast down to this earth, Revelation 12:7-9. Why cast to earth?

Because if God obliterated him without an opportunity to demonstrate his claims for unrestricted freedom to do as anyone pleases), then all the other angels would have worshiped God from fear of being wiped out too. God is love and He chose to allow a demonstration in a controversy between good and evil (God and devil). And yes, Satan showed his true principles by murdering Christ on a cross and since then, filling the world with persecution, war and trouble—that’s coming to a dramatic end…

You may have been uninformed re the identity of Lucifer, and if so, you can choose to repent because the Bible says, “the times of this ignorance God winked at, but commands [us] to repent” Acts 17:30,31.

If so, in your intention to do right, you may die suddenly as John Paul I (only 30 days a pope, made the mistake of telling his intention to make changes?) but it is better to die on God’s side than the devil’s. Please think about it—forever is a long time.

We will know you are serious when you take steps to exalt the law of God as the only basis for sound governments worldwide. As you know, the world is falling apart for want of wise laws as the image in Daniel 2 shows the kingdoms of this world crumbling as God sets up His kingdom—the dominion of a King by His wise laws. May God bless your effort to bring reforms; He cannot bless what He has cursed.

With Every Good Wish,

PS: You might like to move from the Vatican. The name means “divining serpert.” See Revelation 12:8.

Absolute Truth vs. LGBTQ ‘My Truths’: Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Outrageous ‘Gay’ Claim and the Culture War

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Apple CEO Tim Cook writes that he is “proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.” Cook was repeating a gay theology falsehood, labeled as “Satan’s Talking Points” by AFTAH. Homosexual activists have worked to switched the societal stigma from people practicing the sin of homosexuality to the people opposing it. Cook is giving heavily to an HRC project to promote homosexuality in the South.

This is the season to dwell on Absolute Truth, lest we reduce “the holidays”—happy or otherwise–to mere sentimentality. Divine Truth. We profess it, but do we actually believe in it? The namesake of Christmas—Jesus Christ–is the most important Absolute Truth anyone can ever know: God becoming man, to solve man’s sin problem. [“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”—1 John 2:2]

The explosion of sexual sin in Western cultures–especially one like ours with a magnificent Christian heritage that still professes to be “under God”–is ultimately a manifestation of losing the Truth of Jesus. Let’s face it: many or even most Americans—secular or professing “Christians”–think they’re “smarter than God” when it comes to sex (and other issues), and the result is a society is awash in sin and its consequences: fornication, broken homes, divorce, abortion, widespread STDs and, yes, homosexualism and extreme gender rebellion.

All sins dishonor God, but there’s something especially deplorable and significant about the spread of homosexuality and related perversions in a civilization. Someone smart once said something to the effect that if homosexual sodomy—what Noah Webster in 1828 defined as “a crime against nature”–is OK, then nothing is wrong. The court-imposed spread of sodomy-based “marriage” is a cultural act of defiance for which America will be judged—or perhaps is already being judged–as a nation. [Read the AFTAH article, “Gay Marriage and Distant Consequences.”]

Following and obeying Jesus is the key to righteousness. I find this reality to be evident in my own life: the more I stray from the Savior, the less virtuous, the less “godly,” I become. The closer I get to Jesus through the Scriptures, the Word of God, the more righteous I become. So it is with nations.

Changing the standard of right and wrong

All people sin. But most of us lack the audacity and hubris to attempt to change the transcendent, eternal standard of Right and Wrong, even as we fall short, sometimes woefully short, of God’s righteous demands.

But the earthly “enemies” against which AFTAH contends are all about changing the Truth standard–in a desperate quest to rationalize their sin. They want to change God’s plumb line of righteousness, based on the authority of, well, their feelings. “LGBTQueer” forces–fueled by seemingly endless financial resources–work day and night to change the standard, but the standard does not change. The standard cannot change.

Why Does God Leave Muslims Deluded?

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I am a follower of Dr. William Lane Craig, a noted Christian apologist. Dr. Craig receives daily hundreds of questions from those seeking answers about their Christian faith. The most recent question received by Dr. Craig was from a man named Raef from Jordan. Raef’s question is: Why Does God Leave Muslims Deluded?

I found Dr. Craig’s reply most enlightening, particularly this paragraph:

But here the problem is worse for the Christian than for the Muslim. For the Bible affirms that God loves these people [Muslims] and wills their salvation. By contrast the Qur’an states repeatedly that Allah does not love sinners or unbelievers [Christians and Jews]. His love is given only to those who first love him. So there’s no problem if Allah simply writes such people off. Of course, I think this only serves to expose the moral deficiency of the Islamic concept of God. As a person whose love is partial, conditional, and has to be earned, Allah is not the greatest conceivable being and therefore not God. The problem is not that God would be unjust to leave people in their delusion but that He would be unloving. [Emphasis added]

Below is the full text of the inquiry from Raef and Dr. Craig’s reply:

Why Does God Leave Muslims Deluded?

Hello dr. Craig and sorry for my bad English.

I have been watching your debates and lectures and I find them very good and useful

There is a question that I thought of the classical theism (specifically Christian theism ) that has something to do with the good people who are followers of other religions , people who love god and worship him and do many good deeds for him but they die without knowing the true god ( who you believe him to be the Christian god ).

For example in my Muslim society there are people who all they know about Christianity is that it is another false religions like all non-Islamic religions and they never think in the possibility that it is the true religion because they have no reason to do so, hence they go on with Islam and with a pure heart they do whatever possible to be good Muslims so how can god leave them deluded? Don’t they deserve to not be deluded and guide their whole life on the basis of this delusion?

Sorry again for my English and thank you

Raef
Jordan

william-lane-craig

Dr. William Lane Craig.

Dr. Craig’s Answer

Your question, Raef, is one that faces every religious particularist, whether Muslim or Christian. I could just as easily have put the question to you:

In my Christian society there are people who all they know about Islam is that it is another false religions like all non-Christian religions and they never think in the possibility that it is the true religion because they have no reason to do so, hence they go on with Christianity and with a pure heart they do whatever possible to be good Christians so how can Allah leave them deluded?

Although some people have disingenuously tried to cast Islam as an inclusivistic religion, the Qur’an is quite clear that persons who believe what Christians believe about Jesus are blasphemers whose destiny is hell. So the Muslim, like the Christian, must face the difficult question of how God can overlook people who are suffering from a religious delusion.

It seems to me that there is no injustice on God’s part in leaving some people deluded, since that delusion is the result of their own sin and rejection of God’s general revelation in nature and conscience. (Read the first chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans in the Bible.) Hence, it is false to say that they “deserve to not be deluded.” On the contrary, all of us deserve condemnation, not mercy.

But here the problem is worse for the Christian than for the Muslim. For the Bible affirms that God loves these people and wills their salvation. By contrast the Qur’an states repeatedly that Allah does not love sinners or unbelievers. His love is given only to those who first love him. So there’s no problem if Allah simply writes such people off. Of course, I think this only serves to expose the moral deficiency of the Islamic concept of God. As a person whose love is partial, conditional, and has to be earned, Allah is not the greatest conceivable being and therefore not God. The problem is not that God would be unjust to leave people in their delusion but that He would be unloving.

This is a question with which I have sincerely wrestled. There is a whole section of this website devoted to my publications on this topic, and I’d commend it to you.

In a nutshell, I argue, first, that no one has been able to show a contradiction between

1. God is all-loving and all-powerful.

and

2. Some people never hear the Gospel of Christ and are lost.

Second, I argue that we can show that (1) and (2) are consistent by adding a third proposition, namely,

3. The world has an optimal balance between saved and lost, and those who never hear the Gospel and are lost would not have believed it even if they had heard it.

The idea here is that due to human freedom the balance between saved and lost in the actual world (which includes, remember, the future as well as the past and present) is as good as God can get; and He has so providentially arranged the world that anyone who would believe in the Gospel if he heard it, is born at a time and place in history at which he does hear it. So anyone who wants or even would want to be saved will be saved. So long as (3) is even possibly true, it shows that there is no inconsistency between (1) and (2).

God is not indifferent to the plight of those in Muslim societies. A person in a Muslim society who never hears an accurate presentation of the Gospel of Christ will not be judged on the basis of whether he believed in Christ, which would be manifestly unfair, but rather on the basis of his response to God’s general revelation in nature and conscience. If he responds in faith to that revelation, then he will be saved whilein Islam though not through Islam. If he does not respond and so is lost, neither would he have responded to the Gospel had he heard it. Someone who is responsive to that general revelation will be drawn by God’s fuller revelation of Himself in Christ. Perhaps he will follow Muhammad’s advice, if he can, to go to the people of the Book (Jews or Christians) and ask them to explain things to him. Perhaps God will bring to him knowledge of the Gospel through a dream or vision, as is happening in Muslim countries across the world. A person who is truly seeking God will respond to Christ when the Gospel is accurately presented.

RELATED ARTICLE: Wall Street Journal: Science is Proving God’s Existence

Trying to Use the United Nations to Destroy Israel

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The right of Israel to exist as a nation was officially recognized by the United Nations on November 29, 1947 when it adopted Resolution 181 favoring the partition of the area claimed by the Zionist movement. The resident Arabs refused to accept the land set aside for a “Palestinian” state.

The British “mandate” of the area dated from the Versailles Treaty in 1919. Previously the Balfour Declaration was issued by the British government, favoring the establishment of a Jewish national home in what was then referred to as Palestine.

In 1946 following World War Two and in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust that killed six million Jews in Europe President Truman announced his support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947 the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine had examined the issues involved and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.

The Arabs, then and now never ceased to oppose the existence of a Jewish state. To have a state of their own would require acknowledging Israel and that is why, to this day, there is no Palestinian state, nor ever was one.

AA - Israel Provincea

For a larger view click on the map.

In the wake of several Jewish revolts against the Roman Empire, Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea, Samaria and the Galilea to “Syria Palaestina” and the name of Jerusalem to “Aelia Capitolina.” The name change did nothing to eliminate Israel whose restoration remained an active dream for two millennia.

Now, having refused to come to any agreement with Israel despite years of negotiations and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza to give the Palestinians living space in addition to an area in the West Bank, the Arab League is turning to the United Nations.

In the years since the 1947 resolution the U.N. has long engaged in anti-Israel activities. As Anne Bayefsky wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “From November 24, 2014 until December 5, 2014, the UN human rights headquarters in Geneva mounted a public exhibit that was pure incitement. UN-driven anti-Semitism that takes the form of seeking to demonize, disable and ultimately destroy the Jewish state.”

“The exhibit was entitled: ‘La Nakba: Exode et Expulsion des Palestinians en 1948’ or ‘The Nakba: Exodus and Explusion of the Palestinians in 1948.’ The occasion was the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Solidarity Day marks the adoption by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947 of the resolution that approved the partitioning of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state.” It was rejected by Arab states. “Thus,” wrote Ms. Bayefsky, “the Arab war to deny Israel’s right to exist began.”

The day following the Fatah (formerly the Palestinian Liberation Organization) announcement of its intent to seek a U.N. resolution, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with a delegation from the Arab League to discuss the resolution that sets a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. Indeed, they want to declare East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and want the assurance that “refugees” could “return”. The Obama administration has been the first to break with the long tradition of good will and solidarity that has existed between the U.S. and Israel.

As Rabbi Aryah Spero noted in a December 17 CNS News commentary, “Despite the partnership between the terrorist organizations Hamas and Fatah (the new name for Arafat’s PLO) some European nations are demanding that Israel immediately accede to the Hamas/Fatah demands or they will proceed in the U.N. to declare a Palestinian State and impose on Israel conditions that will not only strip her of her capital, Jerusalem, but place Israelis in instant jeopardy from rockets launched against her from this newly declared state abutting Israel. Like Gaza before, this newest Palestinian state will become a terrorist state and a proxy of Iran.”

European anti-Semitism is steeped in centuries of enmity and it is reasserting itself again within the living memory of the Nazi Holocaust that sought to kill every Jew in Europe. U.S. pressure is a major departure from decades of support for Israel. At the same time President Obama has lifted sanctions against Iran, giving it more time to develop nuclear weapons he has been threatening sanctions against Israel if it continues to permit the construction of housing in Jerusalem.

The Arab demand that it is the heir to “Palestine” and that Jerusalem is a holy city is absurd. As Rabbi Spero notes, “Unlike the Jewish Bible that mentions Jerusalem over 700 times, the Koran never mentions Jerusalem, even once. Jerusalem is simply a location they conquered and has become, as with other places, a symbol of Islamic power and control over Judaism and Christianity.” By this thinking, the Arabs should demand the return of Spain which they had also conquered.

In sum, the Arab League, Europe, and Obama’s U.S. policy want Israel to accept terms that amount to suicide.

That is not going to happen. The months and years ahead will be no less filled with the kind of turmoil and threats that Israel has lived with since it declared its independence in 1948. A world that turns its back on Israel is asking for its own apocalyptic destruction.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

RELATED ARTICLE: Bill to Get U.S. Out of UN Introduced in New Congress

There Is But One Way

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The great Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 and died one of the major pillars of American History in 1895.  He refused to except the bonds of either physical external slavery heaped upon him by others. Mr. Douglass also did not succumb to self- inflicted slavery in his own mind. Unfortunately, far too many of our countrymen and women today have fallen prey to the slavery of self defeat and bitterness which in turn is negatively affecting our republic. Meanwhile, the United States as a whole continues to decline because many sovereign individuals are achieving far below their positive potential.  I am forever amazed at how Frederick Douglass focused upon and obtained his own freedom, long before America battled within herself to free the slaves. Douglass lived a full life as an author, statesman and abolitionist. He was arguably the greatest orator of the 19th century.

His skills as a public speaker were so refined that many of his white abolitionists became offended because although they wanted blacks to be free, they certainly didn’t think that a black man should out shine them in the arena of public oratory. Some were known to say that the excellence of Frederick Douglass as a speaker was just going a bit too far and he needed to tone it down a bit.  Many abolitionists, believed blacks to be victims who would always need help.  They way that progressive liberals view black Americans today.  Whereas, Mr. Douglass argued that blacks were just as capable as everyone else to fend for themselves.

Of course, Frederick Douglass was himself, living proof that an individual could arise from even the lowest station in life and obtain their highest God given potential.  Douglass’ mode of thinking offended others who refused to accept the concept of black men reaching the upper realm of accomplishment. That sort of reminds me of the progressives of today who think that Blacks and almost everyone else should exist under the control of others who would control us from cradle to grave. My belief is that if Frederick Douglass could ascend to the level of success he enjoyed, then today unless one is dead, totally disabled or paralyzed there is no excuse to simply exist. The only other exception to that rule is if the government throttles the economy into retraction through over regulation and high taxes, making it near impossible to create more opportunities via jobs or entrepreneurship.

I believe that a seed of greatness is placed within each of us by our loving creator. Unfortunately, there is an ambitious class of leftist thinkers who want to stunt the growth and achievement of certain people, especially black men. The founders of our republic had hoped to create a long lasting form of government of free men who would sustain and expand the concept of a society that recognized the unalienable God given rights of everyone. Not unmotivated wards of the state, who’s government drones want to tell us what doctor to see, or what we may or may not teach our children.  I personally believe that America will return to her position of greatness. If “We The People” first seek out and travel our individual path to greatness. For as my own father often said, that a nation is no greater the path taken by the people.

As we remember the importance of and celebrate patriotism, we must not forget morality. In fact, Thomas Jefferson stated, “The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society.  He, meaning God has taken care to impress it’s precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain.” We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus, and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in his discourses. Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, Americans all. With each passing day that our great, but troubled republic drifts just a bit further from the principles rooted in moral strength, courage and God’s living word.  We are witnessing a deterioration of affairs both foreign and domestic.

Yes, there is still much to be admired, love and be thankful for in being able to call America home.  But we cannot afford to allow her to remain on the present course leading away from her Biblical foundation toward utter disaster. Our freedom and right to be able to promote the Bible, Christmas, the Constitution, and traditional marriage has been disintegrating precipitously. Mainly because of our unwillingness or inability to boldly steer the United States away from the grip of those who’s only mission is to fundamentally change our worthy nation into a worthless dictatorship.

Government schools, along with the dragon media, and even major Christian denominations were handed over to those who did not have our nation’s best interest at heart.  As a result, several generations of young Americans have been indoctrinated away from the moral, intellectual and spiritual glue that holds our nation together.  So now, for the first time in our republic’s history, most government school and college graduates desire communism than liberty and capitalism.  Our seventh president Andrew Jackson, also known as old hickory said concerning the Bible, “That Book sir is the rock upon which our republic rests.”  Unfortunately today, America is sinking in a foundation of sand.

But we don’t have to settle for this.  Because as we improve, America regenerates. There is a clear and present course we can embark upon that begins with prayer.  Just as our founding fathers knew the power and purpose of prayer to almighty God. There is a process: within the God given wisdom of our founding documents, we have been granted clear and certain processes for bringing about change concerning that we perceive as wrong for our land.

We must participate:  Participating within the process for change is the ultimate key to our success. It is foolish to gripe and complain about what one considers wrong our unjust in our land and not participate in the process of changing it for the better.

No one said that the battle would be easy. But we need to persevere as we prepare to welcome in the New Year.

Concerning the fight to reignite the flame of freedom, we must be ready to engage to effort until good triumphs over the forces of evil.  The battle is not always won by the strongest, the smartest, or the most elite. But ultimately, victory comes to those who persist without wavering. I personally believe, that despite the dark clouds of progressivism engulfing America and the enemies from within acting as if they have triumphed through treason, I believe that ilk will soon be in for a rude awakening.  Or as President Ronald Reagan once said, “we win, they lose.”

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and may you have a most Happy New Year.

Ruining Christmas 2014

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As usual, those for whom laws, ethics, and good will mean nothing have come together to try to ruin Christmas for the rest of us.

Christmas means different things to different people and depends to a large degree on age. For the young it is a magical time of getting gifts. As one grows older it is a time of giving gifts and sending cards. And for the very old who have outlived many family members and friends, it is tinged with sadness. In between is an orgy of advertising using Santa Claus to sell cars and much else.

I will begin with a fulsome condemnation of those who go to court or raise a cry about the presence of Christmas displays or any religious symbol on “public land.” The Constitution does not forbid this. It forbids “the establishment of religion” which was understood to mean laws that made a particular religion a state religion such as the Church of England that exists today. The fact that some courts today do not understand this does not change the meaning or intent of the Constitution.

Christmas 2014, it must be said, is fraught with all manner of threats to our society and our nation.

sharpton-de-blasio-obamaAfter several weeks of portraying police as the problem, two of them were assassinated as payback for the deaths of a Ferguson, Missouri thug and a Staten Island petty thief. Insanely some people marched in the streets shouting that they wanted “More dead cops.” From the President and his “advisor” Al Sharpton, the Attorney General, and even the Mayor of New York, the message was that the police are the enemy.

It is progressives—Communists—who are the enemy. Welcome to the 1950s all over again.

Obama and Holder have been ginning up racial division since they took office. It casts a pall over a nation that prides itself on having a BLACK President, a BLACK Attorney General, and a legion of BLACKS who have worked hard to achieve success in public service and the private sector.

All this may strike some as strange given the outcome of the recent midterm elections in which the Republican Party won 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats, expanded its majority in the House, and now have 31 governors because the voters want real CHANGE. Will they get it? Sadly, Americans are beginning to think that there is a third party, the Government Party, composed of those in Washington, D.C. for whom our demands hold little merit while they toil to make government bigger. I hope the GOP proves me wrong in 2015.

Another sad feature of American politics these days is the fact that it is owned by two families, the Bushes and the Clintons. America is a Republic, not a monarchy. Something is terribly wrong when both parties have no one else to offer than Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, members of two political families that have been around since the 1970s. Enough is enough!

There is no question among those of us old enough to remember when America had a set of beliefs, some spiritual, some secular, that held our society together for the good of all. One of those was the belief that marriage was between a man and a woman. It has been that way for thousands of years, yet for Americans in 35 states “marriage” is now something between members of the same sex. I doubt, too, that you have read that the FDA has taken a first step to lift the ban prohibiting gay men from donating blood because of the high incidence of AIDS among them.

The same destruction of society can be found in the movement to legalize marijuana. It is a dangerous drug.

Beyond our shores, the nation has always had its enemies. They are more often than not nations who grant no freedom to their own citizens. The most recent example is North Korea and, for a variety of complicated and interrelated reasons (China!) the U.S. has been unable to respond with strength to its nuclear threats. The hacking of Sony Pictures was an act of cyber war, not “vandalism” as the President would have you believe. The threats that accompanied it made that clear.

The irony of our immigration problem is that America is still regarded with such high esteem that many want to come and live here. Some want it bad enough to sneak in. We now have several million illegal aliens living among us and both political parties do not see them has having broken the laws of our nation, but as potential new voters! That’s crazy and it’s dangerous when a President makes it known that he doesn’t think our borders must be defended. We have immigration laws for the same reason every other nation does and they must be enforced.

The hotspot in the world is the Middle East. Does anyone find it ironic that the “Prince of peace” was born in a nation, Israel, that much of the rest of the world wants to destroy? I find that depressing. The Arabs, supported by Europe and the Obama administration, are trying to get the U.N. to declare that the “Palestinians” are a state or nation. Only there has never been a Palestinian nation, a term invented by Roman Emperor Hadrian for the land 3,000 years of history records as Israel.

When you add in the butchery and slaughter of the Islamic State, you have everything you need to know about Islam; those who believe in cutting off the heads of Americans and others because they are unbelievers—infidels—need to be destroyed down to the last man. Add in al Qaeda and Boko Haram, and you have more enemies of mankind. There are over a billion Muslims and an estimated ten percent support the “holy war.” That’s a hundred million people and that’s a lot of trouble.

About the only good news is the way their dependence on oil has displayed the weakness of nations like the Russian Federation and Venezuela, among others. These nations have failed to develop a viable private sector. Cuba, dependent for years on Soviet support and then Venezuelan, both Communist, just scored a coup when President Obama granted it U.S. diplomatic recognition.

How many more Christmases will the world celebrate before we understand that Communism is a threat to mankind? There’s still too much of it in the world. It has found a home in the White House.

America has celebrated Christmas in the midst of two world wars in the last century and a score of lesser wars. We are a resilient people. We are reviving an economy that suffered a great financial crisis in 2008 thanks to bad government policies regarding mortgages and housing. The bad news is that those policies have been reinstated.

My Christmas will pass like the last 77 have. I wish it were a happier one.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

How Democrats Fundamentally Changed from the Party of JFK to the Party of BHO

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As a young man I was a JFK Democrat. He was my American idol. It was the time of Camelot and at the peak of American economic, political and military power. JFK embodied a vision of the future that has been fundamentally changed by BHO.

Allow me to point out a few examples of how Democrats have fundamentally changed from the party of JFK to the party of BHO:

  • JFK was a Catholic. He held those beliefs and spoke about his beliefs. JFK stated, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.” Today we see under BHO, the persecution of Catholics, and Christians in general, for their beliefs on marriage, abortion, religious freedom and the ability to freely practice their faith, without fear of being audited by the IRS.
  • JFK was a decorated Navy Combat Veteran. JFK Commanded PT109. He served proudly and loved the military. He created the U.S. Army Special Forces, which led to the creation of special operations forces such as the Navy SEAL program. JFK said, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” JFK supported compulsary military service and noted, “A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard-core unemployed.” BHO never served and has not served well those who do.
  • NASA and reaching for the stars. It was JFK who believed in American ingenuity and wanted to put a man on the moon. He and his policies did just that. Today under BHO we see NASA no-longer its former self. Programs have been dramatically cut, the space shuttle program ended. BHO tasked the head of NASA to focus his and the agencies efforts on “having better relations with Islam.” America is no longer dominant in space as it was under JFK. NASA is but a shadow of itself.
  • The National Rifle Association. JFK was a life member of the NRA. On March 20, 1961 JFK became a life member and in a letter to the NRA President Franklin L. Orth stated, “Through competitive matches and sports in coordination with the National Board for Promotion of Rifle Practice, the Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen.” BHO hates the NRA and all it stands for. BHO, his administration and Democrats have taken an adversarial position on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. JFK supported Second Amendment rights for Americans, saying in an April 1960 statement, “By calling attention to a well-regulated militia, the security of the nation and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding forefathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of government tyranny, which gave rise to the Second Amendment, will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains a major declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.”
  • JFK added the M16 (AR15) rifle into the U.S. military inventory. It was JFK who introduced the Armalite M16 (AR-15) rifle into the inventory of the U.S. Military. Under JFK, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance to test the M14 , the AR-15 and the AK-47 . The Army’s test report stated only the M14 was suitable for Army use, but Vance wondered about the impartiality of those conducting the tests. He ordered the Army Inspector General to investigate the testing methods used, who reported that the testers showed undue favor to the M14. McNamara ordered a halt to M14 production in January 1964. In November, the Army ordered 85,000 XM16E1s for experimental use, and the Air Force ordered another 19,000. Meanwhile the Army carried out another project, the Small Arms Weapons Systems (SAWS) , on general infantry firearm needs in the immediate future. They highly recommended the immediate adoption of the weapon, so much so that they started referring to it as the M16. Today BHO Democrats hate the M16 rifle and have banned it in states like New York. Senator Diane Feinstein has made it her mission to ban all “assault rifles” the prime example being the M16/AR15 civilian variants. A rifle JFK favored is now in disfavor with BHO Democrats.
  • Immigration policy was much different under JFK. JFK in his book “A Nation of Immigrants” wrote, “The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.” In his book JFK Kennedy outlines three main reasons why immigration to the U.S. took place: freedom from religious persecution, political oppression and economic hardship. While JFK believed in a generous, fair and flexible immigration policy he did not believe in open borders and no immigration policy.
  • On Federal taxation and balancing the budget. As JFK wrote on September 18, 1963, “A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget….As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.” BHO has raised taxes, spent like no other president and increased the federal deficit to historic levels.
  • Communism and the Free World. As JFK stated in his 1961 inaugural address, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge —- and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder….We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.” Weakness in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine is at the center of BHO’s European policy. Ignoring the threat from Russia, China, North Korea are the hallmarks of the BHO Doctrine.
  • JFK and McCarthyism. Joseph Kennedy had befriended McCarthy because he found him to be a likable fellow Irish-Catholic who had all the right ideas on the domestic communist menace. These warm feelings were quickly transferred to the entire Kennedy family. JFK liked the fact that McCarthy went after the “elites” in the State Department whom JFK regarded with contempt. Even before McCarthy made accusations against the State Department of subversion, JFK had already aligned himself with the militant anti-communists who blamed the Truman State Department for the “loss” of China. So JFK declared on the House floor in January 1949, “The responsibility for the failure of our foreign policy in the Far East rests squarely with the White House and the Department of State.” BHO embraces those who hate America and has put them in key leadership and advisory positions in his administration.
  • And finally Cuba. JFK invaded Cuba, unsuccessfully. Blockaded Cuba. Made Cuba a pariah in the Free World. That has now changed under BHO.

I could go on and discuss how JFK worked with Congress. How JFK embraced the Constitution. At his 1962 State of Union, JFK stated, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.” BHO believes it is his way or the highway.

Where are the Blue Dog Democrats? Purged from the BHO Party? As Ronald Reagan once said he did not leave the Democratic Party, rather the Democratic Party left him. So it is with many Democrats. The BHO Party has left them in the lurch.

RELATED ARTICLE: SALON: Let’s abandon the Democrats: Stop blaming Fox News and stop hoping Elizabeth Warren will save us

An Ancient Evil Revisited

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First Moloch, horrid King besmear’d with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents tears. –  Milton. Paradise Lost

Just when we thought that it couldn’t get any worse, the faithful followers of Mohammed have provided the world with yet more evidence that their religion pre-dates both Judaism and Christianity. That is to say, many of its barbarous actions pre-date the blessings of Sinai and Calvary, when God Himself stepped into history to show mankind the way out of darkness and into light.

During the seasons of Chanukah and Christmas, when Jews celebrate the miracle of oil for the temple light and Christians celebrate the coming of Light into the world, the depraved disciples of allah have brought darkness into, of all places, a childrens’ school, not that this is the first time. Muslims have been known to particularly single out defenceless children, such as in Beslan, in the North Caucasus, and school buses in Israel.

Storming the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, six warriors of Mohammed armed with machine guns and rocket launchers against children with pens and pencils, slaughtered 148 and wounded a further 121, without a single loss to themselves, barring their eternal souls. Immediately following their success the six sent a message to their fearless commanders, “We have killed all the children, now what do we do?” Modesty forbade them mentioning the courage they displayed in burning a teacher to death. Unfortunately for them, men equally armed turned up and despatched them to where they belong.

It is becoming more difficult by the day to speak of these atrocities in any normal manner. Shakespeare himself would have been lost for words, resorting to something like “a deed without a name.” Precisely, there is no name, no word.

Chief in the litany of crime, the killing of children is the most despicable, cowardly, heartless, conscienceless, and inhuman. The act is not that of an animal but that of a non-human, an infinitely lower form of creature, one that has substituted the imago Dei for the imago diabolus. Lower than the animals, he has become a devil.

We are already hearing the dangerous claptrap about these murderers being lone wolves, that they don’t represent the mainstream muslim. But we are faced with the dread reality that muslims are worshipping an ancient and capricious entity that evidently has the power to inspire its followers to commit the most repugnant of crimes. And, what is worse, we may never know just when the axe might fall on any one of us or our children. As Prime Minister Cameron sagely warned us after the Sydney atrocity, it could “just as easily happen in the UK.” Of course, he was quick to remind us that it would only be a “lone wolf” attack, not mainstream Islam, even though mainstream Islam is always silent when an atrocity is committed in its name.

Let it be said once and for all that, unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam simply lacks any inherent virtue to turn evil into good, to stanch and redirect the evil in men’s hearts into a fresh channel of true goodness. In fact, the exact opposite is true, it turns the fresh into stagnance and the stagnant into venom. Islam and all associated with it is incurable, period. And I for one don’t want to humbly wait, cap in hand, for the muslims who run the local petrol station to decide whether or not they’re going to be moderate or extremist.

But something far sinister emerges with this new evil, something that the modern mind refuses to accept.

Child sacrifice has been practiced by most ancient cultures, but significant among them all, was Carthage, a Canaanite people who sought to propitiate Baal Hammon, the Roman Saturn, otherwise known as Satan, with the blood of innocent children. Other cultures favoured the rapacious Moloch.

Why did they do this? One reason was to show devotion to their leaders, remember the radioed message to their commanders mentioned above. Another reason, it was believed that such sacrifice was the most effective in convincing the god to grant the desired answer to prayer. And Islam’s prayer is to dominate the entire globe: “It is he (Allah) who has sent his Messenger (saw) with guidance and the religion of truth (i.e. Islam), in order for it to be dominant over ALL other religions, even though the Mushrikoon (disbelievers) hate it.” 9:33. These wicked people undoubtedly take pleasure from inflicting suffering on others, but, being motivated by the entity that they worship, they are, in fact, making an offering of child sacrifice to their bloodthirsty god, and this entity is being fueled by the sacrifice.

Furthermore, whilst this attack sends human culture back 2,000+ years into the world of Carthage and beyond, it is, simultaneously, a claim on the future. They are saying, “We will kill your next generation and poison your hopes in the future, the future is ours.” We can expect it to be repeated in our own countries sooner or later, we are all being challenged to despair of the future. To despair is to turn our back on God and on goodness, to abandon hope, and that’s when a civilisation dies from within.

There we have the other prong of the attack.

The slaughtering of 148 people, 132 of them children, the youngest being 5 years old, is an attack, not only on the future of this community, but also on the future of all of us who enjoy and appreciate civilisation.

An attack on the young and innocent is a dagger pointed at the very heart and soul, firstly of the people of Peshawar, and then, of us all. The god of the koran is not satisfied with killing the body but seeks to poison the soul of the world with bitterness and despair.

But we must not despair, we must act. True, we must find courageous leaders like the inimitable Geert Wilders, soon to go on trial for speaking the truth, leaders who will stop leaping to the defense of Islam every time another atrocity is committed by that cult, but we must begin with ourselves.

Have I fallen for the lie that it matters not what name a person uses for God, or what book he regards as holy, and what prophet he reveres as inspired and worthy of imitation? The future will be decided on how western civilisation as a whole answers these questions.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of shoes lying in blood on the auditorium floor at the Army Public School, which was attacked by Taliban gunmen, in Peshawar. (REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz).

I don’t usually play the race card, but —

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The great thing about having this website is that it’s my personal blog and shared with occasional commentary from two people – my wife Angela, with whom I will celebrate 25 years on Christmas Eve, and my editor. Here you’ll find my personal thoughts, perspectives, and insights as a private free American citizen with a singular First Amendment right of free speech.

Of course there are those of the progressive socialist left persuasion, who feel individuals shouldn’t have completely free speech unless it freely agrees with their ideology.

I offer my assessments and analyses of current events, and readers are kindly welcomed to comment, but generally, the response emanating from those on the left isn’t debate — but rather abject disdain and personal assault.

But may I remind detractors of your simple choice of free will. You don’t have to visit my website if you don’t like my thoughts.

With that being said, many on the left say we need to have a conversation about racism in America. So let’s have one.

Let me start by saying it will have nothing to with how the white man has kept me down. As a matter of fact, what I have achieved could only have happened in America.

I was born and raised in the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, in the same 4th Ward neighborhood that claimed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a favored son. My own elementary school, Our Lady of Lourdes, is located at the corner of Boulevard and the historic Auburn Avenue – near Ebenezer Baptist Church and Dr. King’s familial home just around the corner.

I grew up quite proud of my American black heritage and still am. I recall days walking down Auburn Ave. past the offices of black professionals — doctors, lawyers, and such — as well as black-owned small businesses on my way to the historic Butler Street YMCA where I learned to swim, play basketball, and box. Funny thing — when Dr. King was assassinated, I don’t remember anyone rioting and setting fire to businesses in my neighborhood.

I grew up in a simple two-parent home at 651 Kennesaw Avenue NE — I tell the story of Buck and Snooks West in my book, Guardian of the Republic. As it happens, Buck and Snooks were registered Democrats, and I had a blast telling Rep. John Lewis how I remembered as a boy my folks talking about him and voting for him.

My memories of the black community growing up were centered on faith, family, education, personal responsibility, self-reliance, and for my family — service to the nation in uniform. Those ladies and gents are conservative principles and values — or as I was wrote here — classical liberal principles.

My parents stressed not just to me and my brothers, but to our larger family and relations, that you should never allow yourself to be dependent upon someone else. As Mom would say, “self-esteem comes from doing ‘esteemable’ things.” She also drilled into my head that, “a man must stand for something or else he will fall for anything.”

Sadly enough today, if you are a black American standing for conservative principles and values — which are the foundation of the black community and what were once its strength — you are a target.

It’s white liberals who find themselves abhorring the existence of any minority that rejects their progressive socialist collective ideology and seeks to “think for themselves.”

You become the “uppity negro” and are derided with such loving terms of endearment as “House Ni!@er,” “Sellout,” “Uncle Tom,” and “Oreo.” Even worse, white liberals have co-opted other blacks to join in the mob-like attacks against those of us who just — well, embody those old school values in which parents (when there were a preponderance of two-parent homes) in the black community instructed us.

Then again, it was the Great Society policies of a progressive socialist big government Democrat president from Texas named Lyndon Baines Johnson that began the decimation of the black family. It resulting in today’s out of wedlock birth rate of nearly 72 percent — all because it was believed that rewarding a woman for having a child out of wedlock with a government check — as long as she kept the man out of the home — was a good thing.

So, in my black community, the venerable and strong black man who survived slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, segregation, poll taxes, literacy tests (all from the same Democrat party) was finally killed off virtually — and literally in some cases through inner city gang violence — by Democrat policy.

And so it goes that the plantation has been restored, but this time it is a 21st century economic plantation of servitude and submission to the welfare nanny-state.

The real racism comes from the new plantation masters who have riled up the masses and mob to ensure this is not lost. And therefore, woe, despair, degradation, denigration, and derision upon those who are living up to their parents’ dream — Dr. King’s dream — and have escaped the progressive socialist inner city plantation because we fought through the “pursuit of happiness” to develop the “content of our character” and not await a government granted “guarantee of happiness” due to the “color of our skin.”

And that ladies and gents truly angers those on the left — just ask the likes of Justice Clarence Thomas, Star Parker, my fellow Atlantan Herman Cain, Condoleeza Rice, Senator Tim Scott, Rep-Elect Mia Love, Shelby Steele, Jason Riley, Harry Alford, Raffi Williams, Chloe Valdary, Harris Faulkner, Deneen Borelli,AlfonZo Rachel, Janice Rogers Brown, James Golden, Amy Holmes, Niger Innis,Kevin Jackson, Armstrong Williams, Deroy Murdock, JC Watts, Jesse Lee Peterson, Ken Blackwell, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Angela McGlowan, and Mychal Massie.

What have we all done to so anger the white progressive socialist left that we constantly draw their ire? We succeeded.

And therein lies the real racism about which the liberal media doesn’t want a conversation — black success based on fundamental American liberty and freedom enshrined in conservative principles such as individual sovereignty and free market entrepreneurship.

So someone like myself is regularly assaulted by left wing media outlets for the most insidious accusations. I remember while running for Congress in the 2010 cycle, the day my oldest daughter picked up the mail, and in it was a piece from the Florida Democrat Party which boldly displayed my social security number and my wife’s employment identification number — she is a financial broker. Why? It’s not far off from finding a burning cross in your front yard — my daughter screamed and began to cry and my wife was hysterical. And when we revealed this, the local Palm Beach Post newspaper ran a survey asking if I was making too big of a deal of this nefarious action.

Or how about a San Francisco-based far left progressive group called CREDO that showed up in the 2012 election cycle and ran a shadow campaign which included phone calls to homes stating that “did you know that Allen West beats his wife” — y’all know the typical progressive socialist attacks against black men — characterize them as violent. The truth doesn’t matter — actually the lie and deceit are the strongest tactics.

Could you imagine if a prominent black conservative owed $4 million to the IRS? Heaven knows what the liberal progressive media would say. But if you’re a progressive socialist overseer of the black community, not only do you get a national TV show, you get to visit the White House 82 times. And when was the last time a black conservative was invited into the Oval Office to sit with the “first black president?”

The real conversation about race in America needs to be about why the progressive socialist left despises black success not wedded to its ideology? Even former NBA great, Charles Barkley has come under attack for speaking his mind about certain matters on race — the real conversation that needs to be had.

What sense does it make for the black community to enslave itself to one political ideology and invest all of its political capital there? It has only led to abject disregard.

And so I conclude this essay of my thoughts — the real racism has always come from one party in America: the Democrat party. And their 21st century ” lynching” tactics and techniques are just the same but with better use of modern technology.

Unfortunately for them just as men like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington and women like Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman took a stand, a new generation of freedom-minded blacks are stepping out of the shadows — even Dr. King’s alma mater of Morehouse College now has a Republican Club. Our voices will not be silenced, regardless of the new tactics of the same old gang.

All black lives matter, not just the ones progressive socialists use “prosecutorial discretion” to care about through the policies of economic enslavement as opposed to those black conservatives embrace — economic empowerment.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

The Catholic Clash in the Big Apple: Priests for Life vs. Cardinal Dolan

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Hope all is well as we are “6” days away from the “The Most Significant Birthday Party in the World”…Yes, that little baby humbly born in a manger over 2,000 years ago changed the entire world – this one and the next one…

And, speaking of babies – let’s take a good, close look at what’s happening in the “City that never Sleeps” – New York. I said “never sleeps” – not “never sleeps around” – because with the abortion rate in the Big Apple the way it is today – somebody is doing some serious sleeping around…

Daniel Cronin, Timothy Dolan

Cardinal Timothy Dolan – Archbishop of New York.

And, because of this promiscuous lifestyle of this liberal and artistic city (which is also a leader in Gay Marriages in the U.S.) – two prominent and well-known Catholic priests have been at each other for quite some time now. Meet the bold & serious Father Frank Pavone – President of Priests for Life and known as “The most Pro-Life priest on the planet”. Meet the jovial and controversial Cardinal Timothy Dolan – Archbishop of New York and “clown prince of the USCCB”, as well as the Grand Marshall for the St. Patrick’s Day Gay Parade, to be held on March 17th, 2015.

Quite a contrast, folks. And, because of the leadership in New York City – with the Pro-Abortion Governor Andrew Cuomo and Pro-Everything Liberal, Mayor Bill Deblasio, you can just imagine how tough it is for Father Pavone to run his Priests for Life ministry in Staten Island with this background. While Father Pavone is working with Pro-Lifers in New York and trying to do away with abortion and all the other intrinsic evils that attack our church – Cardinal Dolan is hanging out with Cuomo and Deblasio, getting ready to lead the St. Patrick’s Day Gay Parade and allowing the 5 burroughs to look more like Sodom and Gomorrah. Folks, when your own archbishop of New York is just as liberal as the governor and mayor of your workplace – you’ve got your hands full and something’s gotta give…

So, take a look at the David Gibson article “Cardinal Timothy Dolan cuts ties with anti-abortion crusader Frank Pavone“, which breaks it all down for us and just see for yourself. It is a tough dilemma, as how do you punish or reprimand the most dedicated and most eccentric Pro-Life priest in our country when he truly has made such a huge difference in the Pro-Life movement in the United States? Why would his own archbishop come after him with a vengeance, question his integrity, honesty and money management, and cut him off totally and not even acknowledge his ministry any more? When a courageous priest like Father Pavone – who is doing GOD’s work to the Nth degree, in Protecting the Most Vulnerable – why would he be chastised and chased out of town when he puts his own life on the line day in and day out to save other lives?

Is this all about greed? is it about jealousy? Is it about pride? Three of the most horrific sins that confront mankind today and three of Satan’s favorite. How can two prominent, internationally known Catholic priests and leaders in their field, come to a level this low? In the end, does anybody win? Who do you think loses? You guessed it – the Innocent Unborn…

When our own Catholic leaders attack one another and lose focus on the task at hand – saving babies and saving souls – nobody wins…only the devil. This is what Satan lives for. He is the ring leader and announcer any time two Catholics step into the ring…and Satan is all about the “ring of fire” (just like the Johnny Cash classic). Whether it is a fight in New York City over personalities, money, control and power with Father Pavone & Cardinal Dolan – or a local struggle right here in our own Diocese of Palm Beach with the controversy a few years ago at Miracle House (Birthline/Lifeline vs. First Care) – nobody but the devil wins…and GOD’s creation loses…

Remember: We are all in this “Two-Gether” and it does not matter what Faith or walk of life you are from when it comes to saving babies. The goal is to save them and to do it all for His Glory.

And, fellow American citizens – until we understand that philosophy and turn from our wicked ways & humble ourselves – swallow our pride and steer away from the need for selfish motives – we will continue to work for the devil – and he will continue to cheer us on…and New York will continue to perform over 70,000 abortions per year, while our own Palm Beach County will surpass the 5,808 that were performed in 2013. That’s 5,808 innocent babies that we let down and did not come to their rescue right in our own backyard…Need I say anymore?

RELATED ARTICLE: Number of Babies Aborted in New York City in One Year Would Fill Super Bowl Stadium

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of the Religious News Service.

Mojitos in Havana?

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Free movement of people and products will help liberate Cuba by ROBERT RAMSEY:

“This entire policy shift … is based on an illusion, on a lie — the lie and illusion that more commerce, more access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people.” — Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

I don’t know as much about Cuba as Senator Rubio does.  I am sure that his hatred of the Castro regime there is justified; in their attempts to produce a perfect and harmonious society in Cuba, they have perpetrated countless crimes against humanity — and against members of his own family. Indeed, I would consider him to be an expert on the sentiments of those opposed to Castro’s regime and its policies. But he is wrong in his belief that trade of any kind will simply result in the Castro regime becoming stronger and more entrenched.

Our current policy towards Cuba is this: cut them off completely on their island, don’t let them have any imports, and wait for the Castros to die. Then, hopefully, the Cuban citizens will rise up against their communist overlords, see that we Americans have Duck Dynasty and Taco Bell, then beg for us to come set up a government for them, or something along those lines.

We’ve been doing this for decades. There is no evidence whatsoever that this policy is working. However, there are quite a few examples of anti-US countries catching the capitalist bug and mellowing their position considerably, as well as beginning to protect human rights.  The greatest example is probably Vietnam.

Life in Vietnam in the decade following the Vietnam War was, by all accounts, horrifying. It’s a classic tale of a communist regime killing hundreds of thousands of its own citizens in an attempt to make a perfect society. Millions were displaced, and innumerable others died at sea attempting to flee in makeshift rafts. By 1986, however, the original leaders of the regime had either died or been replaced by reformers who instituted a policy of Doi Moi (open door), which slowly began to introduce reforms friendly to markets. The results have been astounding.

A picture of modern Vietnam: consistent GDP growth of around 5.5 percent for the past decade (unlike many of its neighbors, whose growth bounces up and down with every year); unemployment around 2 percent; low inflation; and a rapidly growing financial sector. As of 2007, Vietnam is a member of the World Trade Organization, and entrepreneurs have become one of the most powerful forces within the country. Quality of life has increased dramatically, and all the trappings of a modern economy can be found throughout most of the country.

Relations with the United States have improved dramatically as well: the United States is its primary trading partner. Tourism has exploded: last year Vietnam saw 6.8 million visitors, and that number shows no signs of shrinking.

Civil rights have developed to a degree, and while the country is still run much as China is, with a single socialist party and the danger of being arrested if one speaks out too much, gone are the days of mass executions. Progress in this area is thus slow, but it’s steady.

There’s no guarantee the same thing will happen in Cuba, but a little capitalism goes a long way.  It won’t be long before American tourists flock to Cuba; it’s an hour’s flight from Miami and has been recognized by Americans for well over a century now as an island destination.

Fat American tourists bring fat American wallets, and whether the Castros like it or not, a thriving economy will spring up around tourism. Even if US policy liberalization stops with ending the ban on travel — even, that is, if the foolish embargo isn’t about to be lifted — change will come to Cuba. And a freer market is going to bring it.

ABOUT ROBERT RAMSEY

Robert Ramsey is the website curator at FEE. He loves cooking, writing, and hacking in his spare time.