Tag Archive for: religion

End of the Democratic Party: Meet the Faces of the Socialist Democrat Party of America

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The Democratic Party is fielding candidates that show just how far they have moved away from the party of Thomas Jefferson.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence led by the University of Maryland, in a 2013 article in the Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence titled “The Emerging Red-Green Alliance: Where Political Islam Meets the Radical Left” noted:

No matter how unlikely it may seem, radical Leftists and Islamists have come closer in recent years. Drawing on substantial ideological interchange, and operating at both state and non-state levels, the two movements are building a Common Front against the United States and its allies. In this article, we use framing theory to examine the contemporary convergence of political Islam and the radical Left. Both radical Leftists and Islamists have utilized the master frame of anti-globalization/anti-capitalism and the master frame of anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism to elicit support from the widest possible range of people. The emerging Red-Green alliance presents a complex challenge that will require careful attention from U.S. and European policymakers.

Here’s a video flashback when Chris Matthews asks key leaders of the Democratic Party about the difference between a Socialist and Democrat:

Today America’s Democratic Party resembles a real red/green alliance.

The Democrats are truly the party of Karl Marx and Mohammad. The new faces of the Democratic Party are either Socialist Democrats, like Ocasio-Cortea or Islamists, like Linda Sarsour and Rep. Keith Ellison. Many have written about the coming Red/Green alliance. We are now seeing it in the form of candidates who are winning Democratic Party primaries.

Watch Ocasio-Cortex try to describe the difference between Socialism and Democratic Socialism on ABC’s The View:

The Oxford Dictionary defines Socialism and Democratic Socialism as follows:

Socialism:

A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism. (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.

Democratic Socialism:

A form of socialism pursued by democratic rather than autocratic or revolutionary means, especially by respecting a democratically elected legislature as the source of political change; (also more generally) moderate or centrist socialism.

Groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, Women’s March and Families Belong Together all demand radical changes to American policies.

The July/August 2017 issue of The Atlantic had an article titled “What’s Wrong With the Democrats?” by Franklin Foer. Foer wrote:

Leaderless and loud, the Resistance has become the motive power of the Democratic Party…  The feistiness and agitation of the moment are propelling the party to a new place.

But where? The question unnerves Democrats, because the party has no scaffolding… Resistance has given the Democrats the illusion of unity, but the reality is deeply conflicted…

To produce a governing majority, the party will need to survive an unsettling reckoning with itself. Donald Trump didn’t just prevail over the Democrats; he called into doubt their old truths. [Emphasis added]

The Democratic Party is eating its own. Watch this video about how Hispanic Democratic Socialist candidate Ocasio-Cortex won the Democrat primary in New York because she targeted her Democratic opponent was white.

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 Americans embraced.

The party of JFK is long gone. Rising from its ashes is the red/green alliance.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

The demagoguery of NY’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

We Went to Families Belong Together Protest. Here Are 6 Things We Saw.

Red-Green Axis: The Agenda to Erase America! [Video]

REPORT: ‘Red-Green Axis’ the Existential Threat to America

End of the Democratic Party: Meet the Face of the Socialist Democrat Party of America

“Girl From The Bronx” Ocasio-Cortez Called Out In Fact Check; Actually Grew Up In Wealthy Enclave – Tea Party News

Left-Wing Politicians Wage War on Plastic

RELATED VIDEO: American Media, Soviet Tactics

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is titled “Red Green Axis, Alliance, Flag A” by CaciqueCaribe.

Judicial Secularists Attack Religious Freedom

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On June 7, the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Florida dealt the latest blow to religious freedom in our country.

The case arose from a request by Cambridge Christian High School, which had earned the opportunity to compete in the 2A division playoffs finals, to use the stadium’s public announcement system in prayer prior to the beginning of the game. The team’s opponent was another Christian school equally devoted to serving God and to conducting itself in His image with every activity it undertakes.

Citing issues of potential coercion and fearing that such prayer might be offensive to others, Dr. Roger Dearing, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA), declined the request.

Of course, in so doing, Dr. Dearing dismissed the fact that the same FHSAA had approved such a request in 2012. He also dismissed the national tradition of engaging in prayer prior to the start of a football game. And most astoundingly he ignored that both teams, meaning all parties involved, wished to engage in a unified prayer as one community under Christ.

Following the denial, Cambridge Christian brought the case to the judiciary for consideration. After all, they weren’t asking for the announcer to lead everyone in prayer. They weren’t asking for the FHSAA to buy new equipment. They weren’t even asking for the game to be delayed for one moment because, in point of fact, the two teams were going to pray on the field and in front of the fans anyway.

No. The only question they were asking was, “Hey, man, can I borrow your microphone?”

Court predictably quashed religious freedom

But almost predictably, the court ruled against religious freedom citing issues of perceived endorsement of religion by government and of the infringement praying might have on the rights of others (yes, this is not a misprint).

Every time I learn of a case like this, I am baffled at the extent to which the state squashes the public’s ability to pray in an open forum merely because of government’s presence. This catastrophic road upon which the Supreme Court of the United States has placed us suppresses our right to worship and to pay reverence to God — in direct violation of the original intent First Amendment.  It ignores the spiritual aspects of human existence, and most importantly, casts aside the foundational roles of religion and religious worship in our nation’s birth.

Repeatedly, I am told that the reason for following this road is the wall of separation between church and state espoused by Thomas Jefferson in his letter written on the first day of 1802 to the members of the Danbury Baptist Church.

But there is so much that runs counter to this assertion.

First, President Jefferson’s comment was completely extrajudicial in nature.

Second, the concept of a wall of separation between church and state has been tainted by the agenda-driven nature of the Supreme Court’s 20th-century opinions. Following the 19th-century Court’s introduction of Jefferson’s wall into the legal corpus, the first two 20th-century cases invoking it did so in an effort to keep the government from interfering with state-based, religious-supporting programs.

But in 1947, the Court changed direction to one that would inhibit, rather than support, religious worship. With its McCollum decision, the court prohibited Bible verses from being recited in public schools, and later, it struck down prayer in schools as well as the observance of even a bland and neutral moment of silence.

The subsequent deterioration in the nation’s moral posture and the breakdown in the family as a central societal unit are the predictable consequences of these actions.

An alternative route ensuring freedoms

But lost in these recitations is the overt bias the Court displayed in selecting Jefferson’s wall of separation in its interpretation of the First Amendment.

Let’s consider a few similarly applicable observations made by some of the nation’s foundational greats in equally extrajudicial fashion.  George Mason, in writing the Virginia Bill of Rights, wrote, “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and. . . it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.” His proposed amendment was subsequently approved by the Virginia legislature, the same legislature Madison and Jefferson inhabited — a far greater weight of influence than one man’s personal letter.

Based on Mason’s language, would it not have been more appropriate for a 20th century court to hold that in interpreting the First Amendment we should recognize that our nation was created with the purpose of guaranteeing that all men be able to engage in Christian forbearance? If so, wouldn’t using a public microphone for spontaneously requested prayer be not only allowed, but encouraged?

Or how about using John Marshall, the most prolific justice in the history of the Supreme Court? When asked about the nexus of Christianity and the nation’s government, he wrote in a letter, just like Jefferson did, that, “The American population. . . is entirely Christian, and with us, Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange indeed, if with such a people, our institution did not presuppose Christianity.”

Consequently, wouldn’t a more appropriate truism for the Supreme Court to follow in its interpretation of the First Amendment be that the United States of America, through its foundation and its culture, presupposes Christianity?

Or consider the observation made by Justice Joseph Story, one of the early members of the Supreme Court, who extra-judicially wrote, “My own private judgment has long been (and every day’s experience more and more confirms me in it) that government cannot long exist without an alliance with religion to some extent; and that Christianity is indispensable to the true interests and solid foundations of free government.”

From this, wouldn’t a more appropriate guide for the interpretation of the First Amendment be that Christianity is indispensable to the true interests, foundations, and existence of these United States of America?

Back the need for a legislative override

If any of these guides had been adopted instead of, or perhaps in addition to, Jefferson’s wall of separation, imagine how different American jurisprudence would be as it relates to religious liberty and our freedom to worship! Sharia law would be an impossible legal threat, and the concepts of love for one’s neighbor and respect for the dignity of man would be freely taught in our schools under the direct supervision of the community’s parents.

From this analysis a few conclusions may be reached.

First, there is no inherent reason for Jefferson’s wall of separation, at least as the courts apply it today, to be the only compass in interpreting the First Amendment of the Constitution. So long as all religious views are respected, the government can peacefully cohabitate with worshipers be they Christian, Jewish, or any peace-loving faith.

Second, neither the people of this great nation nor its elected representatives selected the road our nation has traversed regarding religious liberty. Instead, it was embraced by an oligarchy of legalists unaccountable to the will of the people.

Consequently, if it is true that the Courts have interpreted the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the will of the people, then isn’t it up to We The People, as the true purveyors of the Constitution, to override an opinion of such a Court and reverse an ill-conceived opinion? We know, through their writings, that at least Jefferson and Madison would think so.

Truly, the road we are following regarding our religious freedom is nothing short of harrowing. It has diminished our sense of morality and has curtailed our abilities to teach our children that there are things bigger than themselves.

It is time for our country to navigate back to the road built upon Christian forbearance; the same road that would lead us to the shining city on the hill.

RELATED ARTICLE: 2 Cases Threaten to Shut Down Public Prayer. Why the Supreme Court May Need to Act.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.

Religious Protection Gone Wild

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The First Amendment guarantees Americans the freedom of religion in the “establishment” clause:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Words matter, so the first question that must be answered is a matter of definition. What is religion?

The dictionary defines religion as:

  1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
  2. A particular system of faith and worship.
  3. A pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes superhuman importance.

Dictionaries have been used for centuries to help codify the meaning of words in an attempt to make language useful. Without accepted specific meanings for words it is impossible to communicate through language effectively. Language is the common denominator of speech. Even biblical stories express the importance of the meaning of words as they are understood or misunderstood in any language. The most famous example is the biblical story of The Tower of Babel that begins with everyone on Earth speaking the same language and able to understand each other. Whether the scattering of people around the world was a punishment for hubris or not, the consequence was that people began speaking different languages and could no longer understand each other.

But what happens when people speaking the same language no longer understand each other because they interpret the meaning of the same words differently? That is the situation we are facing in contemporary American society today.

The second question that must be answered is a matter of interpretation. What does religion mean to you?

Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently on the subject in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists who worried about their minority status in Connecticut. Jefferson was reassuring the Baptists that being a minority religion would not be a problem in a Protestant majority state as far as the federal government was concerned.

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”(Wikipedia)

Jefferson’s letter clearly indicates that for Jefferson, religion was a matter of Man and God. Jefferson’s interpretation was the widely accepted and understood view of religion in the early 18th century. By the 20th century the U.S. Supreme Court “incorporated” the Establishment Clause and expanded its application from the federal government to the state governments as well.

The practical application of the freedom of religion also requires a uniform understanding of the meaning and interpretation of the word religion. The Exercise Clause clarifies the supremacy of Constitutional laws and freedoms over religious laws and freedoms. This is particularly important in contemporary America because we are facing “religious” practices of Islam that threaten our Constitutional freedoms.

The Free Exercise Clause distinguishes between religions beliefs and religious practices. It is the equivalence of distinguishing between thinking and doing. In America an individual is free to think murderous thoughts but he is not free to murder. Islam is a religion governed by religious Sharia Law that endorses honor killings, female genital mutilation, murder of apostates, murder of homosexuals, wife beatings, child marriage and pedophilia. American jurisaprudence does not have the will or authority to change people’s beliefs whether they are citizens of the United States, guests in this country, here illegally, or citizens of other countries, but we most certainly have the right and legal obligation to disallow any and all practices in conflict with the U.S. Constitution and our cultural norms. Free Exercise Clause (Wikipedia)

“Freedom of religion means freedom to hold an opinion or belief, but not to take action in violation of social duties or subversive to good order.”[28] In Reynolds v. United States (1878), the Supreme Court found that while laws cannot interfere with religious belief and opinions, laws can be made to regulate some religious practices (e.g., human sacrifices, and the Hindu practice of suttee). The Court stated that to rule otherwise, “would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government would exist only in name under such circumstances.”[29] In Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), the Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied the Free Exercise Clause to the states. While the right to have religious beliefs is absolute, the freedom to act on such beliefs is not absolute.

In Jefferson’s time as in Truman’s time the meaning of the word religion was understood as items 1 and 2:

  1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
  2. A particular system of faith and worship.

Seventy years later in 2017 we must reconsider the meaning of the word religion and ask the question What is Islam?

Islam is not a religion like Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Judaism. Islam is a unified supremacist socio-political system with a military wing and a religious wing. Islam is governed by religious sharia law. The goal of Islam since the 7th century is to make the world Islamic and impose sharia law worldwide.

Islam is tyrannical in its demand for conformity to its barbaric sharia laws. Islam is intolerant. Islam is a political force seeking world dominion and cannot be allowed religious protections like the Baptists in Connecticut during Jefferson’s times.

Islam is far more like the Nazis during Hitler’s time. Consider this question. What if Hitler declared Nazism to be a religion. It certainly qualifies as a religion according to Item 3. A pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes superhuman importance.

If Adolph Hitler declared his Nazism a religion would the left-wing liberal apologists for Islam defend Nazism and its determination to rule the world and rid the Earth of every Jew? Would the lefty-wing liberals declare murder of Jews protected by religious freedom? How is this different from allowing Muslims to perpetrate honor killings, female genital mutilation, murder of apostates, murder of homosexuals, wife beatings, child marriage, and pedophilia.

There is no difference.

If, as apologists for Islamic barbarity claim, Islamists have perverted their religion – then it is also true that they have perverted our concept of religious freedom. Islam is not a religion like any other and its savage practices do not deserve protection under our religious freedom laws and the free exercise clause.

U.S. Catholic bishops complicit in Muslim persecution of Christians

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Recently I was interviewed about the persecution by Catholic bishops of Catholic priests who enunciate unpopular truths about Islam.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Islamic Expert: US Bishops Complicit in Muslim Persecution of Christians,” by Anita Carey, ChurchMilitant.com, May 8, 2017:

DETROIT (ChurchMiltant.com) – A prominent Islamic expert is comparing the bishops’ silence on terrorism to sex abuse cover-up. Robert Spencer, an Islamic terror expert and author of 16 books on Islam, released an editorial Sunday excoriating the U.S. bishops’ actions to punish clergy and schoolteachers who speak out against Islam, including Spencer himself.

“The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops moves actively and swiftly to silence and demonize voices that tell the truth about the Muslim persecution of Christians,” Spencer noted, naming various bishops who’ve refused him, as well as other Muslim critics, a platform in their dioceses.

“You can reject every element of the Nicene Creed and everything the Church teaches, and still the U.S. Catholic Bishops will consider you a Catholic in good standing,” he continued. “But if you believe that Islam is not a religion of peace, you have no place in the U.S. Catholic Church.”

Church Militant spoke with Spencer on his thoughts regarding the reasons why the U.S. bishops are so reluctant to speak out against the evil of Islam.

CM: At what point do you think the bishops started to pander to a politically correct agenda?

RS: This is an outgrowth of the confusion that overtook the Church in the wake of Vatican II, and the popular but erroneous idea among liberal Catholics that the Church had discarded its tradition and dogmas and essentially embraced the leftist agenda. This idea took root in earnest in the 1960s, but began germinating long before that.

CM: Knowing the historical conflicts between Islam and Christianity, why would the bishops be so quick and severe toward those who are informing the laity? Why would they want the laity ignorant?

RS: This mystifies me, but my best assessment is that this is an outgrowth of the spirit of Vatican II, which called upon Muslims and Christians to set aside ancient antagonisms and find common ground. There is a general assumption among the bishops that just as Christianity has changed since the time of the Crusades, so also has Islam, and dialog will iron out any remaining differences.

In reality, this is an unfounded assumption, as Islamic teaching has not changed, and still contains an imperative to wage war against Christians and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law. I would expect that most bishops, however, would dismiss the idea that Islamic teaching contains such an imperative as an “Orientalist” and “Islamophobic” false claim. They, however, are the ones who are ignorant.

CM: What do you think the bishops’ problem is with your talks and position on Islam?

RS: I’m told that Bp. Nicholas Samra believes that I am “spreading hate,” and since I was a member of his diocese, he himself told me that many bishops had approached him at the USCCB conference telling him that he had to “do something” about me. They apparently believe that I am harming the dialog they are conducting with Muslims, and they apparently also think that this dialog is producing results, even though Muslim persecution of Christians has increased exponentially since it began.

For my part, I reject the charge that I am spreading hate, and challenge Samra or any other bishop to quote a single hateful statement from my work. I am exposing facts that many would prefer to keep concealed; the “hate” charge is simply an attempt to make people of good will turn against my work.

CM: If the bishops do start to speak out against Islam, will it make Christian persecution worse or start an all-out war? 

RS: In Islamic law, Christians must live in subservience and submission to Islamic law. If they speak out about their plight, it will get even worse for them, and their lives could be forfeit. Thus they generally adopt an attitude of publicly praising and siding with those who persecute them, so that it won’t get even worse for them. This is the attitude that the bishops now appear to have adopted as well: Samra himself told me that I shouldn’t speak out against Muslim persecution of Christians, as doing so would only make matters worse for Middle-Eastern Christians.

While I am aware of that possibility, at the same time to dissimulate about the nature and magnitude of that persecution only misleads Christians outside the Middle East into complacency. It also just validates and reinforces violent intimidation. It is incumbent upon the bishops as messengers of the truth to tell the whole truth about what is happening to the Christians of the Middle East, and to reject a submission to Islamic intimidation that would condemn our children and our children’s children to slavery. To accept that intimidation and lie or remain silent because of it is only to encourage more such intimidation. They could speak out while working to ensure that the United States and other powers do everything they can to protect the remaining Christians in the Middle East from further persecution.

CM: What can the faithful do to influence the bishops or fight back against the liberal media?

RS: Call them to tell the truth. When they issue statements about Islam that are dishonest and misleading, challenge them. I have been severely criticized for criticizing bishops. Many Catholics seem to think that to do so is disloyal to the Church. On the contrary, I believe that not to call out bishops when they are sinful and wrong is even more disloyal to the Church. It is the kind of thinking that led to the pedophilia scandals.

RELATED ARTICLE: Video: The globalist agenda and President Trump’s immigration ban

RELATED VIDEO: Vice President Pence — ISIS Guilty Of Genocide Against Christians.

Offending Certain People is OK

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When it comes to offending, only certain people matter.

The list of offended people is seemingly approaching a mile in length. Whether it is feminists, black lives matter grumps, homosexuals, trans-genderites, animal lovers, lesbians, socialists, bisexuals, communists, Muslims, atheists, pro-abortion advocates, pro agenda 21 zealots, open border and illegal immigrant supporters, etc., etc. of course there are numerous other special interest and dangerous groups and individuals who are overly sensitive. Yet they are the first ones to verbally and sometime physically rip into those who do not agree with their destructive motives and missions.

Recently, president Obama stated “Congress will still be gridlocked. State houses will continue to roll back voting rights and write discrimination into the law.” The sensitive president also said, “we see it right here in Mississippi, just two weeks ago, how swiftly progress can hurdle backward, how easily it is to single out a small group and marginalize them because of who they are, or who they love.” The president has made a career out of promoting his warped view of offending certain people or progressive oriented groups.

I have also noticed a consistent theme among the variety of easily offended people promoters. They go out of their hypocritical way to offend Christians, American Patriots, Black Americans who don’t want to be hyphenated or African Americans, pro-lifers, those who appreciate the successful traditional family, capitalism, or even men or women who just want to use a plain old fashion rest room. Those same offenders are of course themselves offended by everything that is good for America, the traditional family, the free market economy and free speech for all sovereign citizens are the biggest hypocrites throughout humanity. To be perfectly honest, progressive hypocrisy is one of the most dangerous of all aspects of American society today.

Not only to certain groups like Christians, or people who simply want bathrooms for either women or men, but to our beloved republic as a whole. Hypocritical progressive hypocrisy is one of the most destructive aspects of today’s American society. The progressives have for decades bemoaned the racist history of America. Yet they ignore and are not offended by the current ongoing racist traditions of Muslims who actually believe that black people do not have souls. To add insult to their evil societal injury, the progressives (including president Obama) seek to flood America with Muslims who make KKK members look like Boy Scouts. Oops! Remember how the hypocritical easily offended progressives were offended by the Boy Scouts because of their one-time practice of traditional Biblically based values?

When good education is replaced with immoral, politicized, progressive indoctrination that includes an exaggeration of the problem of racism in America. The end result is the multi-generational decline in the quality of life, for the very sovereign citizens the progressives like to say they are trying to help. An even bigger insult is the fact that the progressives actually know that their so-called solutions will not work. For me, that is very offensive.

Progressives are often offended by what is good because, their goal is to fundamentally change America into the total evil opposite of the great republic she was meant to be. When president Obama assumed office, he openly told the American people that he would “unite the country.” However, behind closed doors he plotted the opposite and through numerous deeds of his, our republic is more divided now than during almost any time since the civil war.

But at least during the civil war era, the lines of division were clearly defined. Both sides were ready and willing to fight for their position. The major issues were states rights, slavery and a little economics thrown in for good measure. People were offended by clearly defined issues or practices. Not stupid stuff like bathroom use identification, the denial of Christian prayers in school while allowing or teaching Muslim prayers. Or even, whether students can sing the national anthem in public. Just recently, aa group of middle school students from North Carolina visiting the 911 memorial in New York City. They were inspired to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice serving others dealing with the aftermath of the Muslim attacks. As a result, the students began singing the national anthem. But because of political correctness and certain people being easily offended, they were ordered to stop. Of course, after being embarrassed on FOX News, the students were allowed to return to the 911 memorial and sing.

I am willing to bet that those hypocrites who didn’t want to hear the national anthem performance would not lift a finger or a decibel of verbal protest if a mob of black lives matter grumps were to show up and block roads while shouting their hateful garbage. It is sad we have society where people are more offended by a patriotic song by students than many foul occurrences in our nations streets. Such as thousands of Muslims blocking streets in Brooklyn, NY on a recent Friday morning, as they tried to intimidate Americans while they bumped their heads on the pavement while calling out to their little god. Yes, my fellow American, our republic is divided like never before.

But despite the hypocrisy of our easily offended sensibilities today, I remain optimistic that through it all “We the People” will band together and through the wisdom of God, wrestle America away from those who are hell bent on destroying her through offenses and hypocrisy.

Personal Character Conquers Another Welfare-State Tragedy

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On a fateful day he’ll never forget, 18-year-old Lawrence (“Larry”) Cooper, an unmarried black man and high school dropout, found himself on the wrong side of the law. He attempted an armed robbery of a store in downtown Savannah, Georgia. It was April 1987. The cash involved? A mere $80, enough to finance his cocaine habit for less than a day. Larry was caught and sent to a maximum-security prison.

One month after Larry’s arrest, his son was born. The boy wouldn’t see his father outside of a cell until November 2015, when his dad was finally released.

“I wasn’t there to even sign the birth certificate,” Larry told me just a month ago.

These lamentable chapters of the Larry Cooper story are distressingly familiar in America.

Today, incarcerated black American males number about 750,000. That’s more than the entire prison populations of India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel, and England combined. In August 2013, a report from the Sentencing Project on Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System revealed that “one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime.”

The leading cause of incarceration of black males is nonviolent drug offenses. This is no accident. As President Richard Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser and Watergate co-conspirator John Ehrlichman revealed in a 1994 interview,

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

The next leading causes are false accusations, then crimes against persons, followed by crimes against property. Economist Thomas Sowell argues convincingly, as do many others, that the genuinely criminal behavior — the violations of person and property — have much less to do with racism and poverty than they have to do with the debilitating, family-busting policies of the welfare state. (And it doesn’t help that poor, inner-city families are often trapped in lousy government schools.) Sowell observes,

Murder rates among black males were going down — repeat, down — during the much lamented 1950s, while [they] went up after the much celebrated 1960s, reaching levels more than double what they had been before. Most black children were raised in two-parent families prior to the 1960s. But today the great majority of black children are raised in one-parent families. Such trends are not unique to blacks, nor even to the United States. The welfare state has led to remarkably similar trends among the white underclass in England over the same period.… You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large.

Larry Cooper was one of the statistics, a prime candidate for exhibit A in this national tragedy. But today, he’s well on his way to a life of honor and redemption. Perhaps the jury on him is still out, but I’m betting he’s a hero in the making.

Growing up in Savannah in the 1970s and ‘80s, Larry faced the challenges posed by a broken family.

“My dad had 33 kids with six or seven women,” he informed me in a February 2016 interview over breakfast.

“Mom and Dad separated early, so Dad just wasn’t around. I saw him maybe twice a year.”

As a teenager, Larry started skipping school, stealing, smoking marijuana, and then doing cocaine.

“I dropped out of school when I was 16 and it broke my mama’s heart,” he said. His mother implored him to find employment so he took a landscaping job that lasted only a week before he was in the streets again.

Hanging out with the wrong people, trapped in a vicious circle of using drugs and stealing what he could to afford more — and with only a brokenhearted mother at home to offer any hope at all — Larry was headed for destruction. His poor choices caught up with him two years later with a 10-year sentence for armed robbery. But things would get much worse before they would get better.

Bad behavior, including aggravated assault, earned Larry additional prison time — a grand total of 28 years. He went in at age 18 and emerged at 47. It will be another decade before he can say he’s been a free man for as long as he wasn’t.

“Over the years while behind bars,” Larry says, “I thought more and more about what my mama had told me. She said this would happen if I didn’t straighten up. She prayed hard for me, all the time. She visited me as much as she could. I still remember how bad I felt when she once came to see me but was turned away because I was ‘in the hole’ for bad things I done. But she never gave up on me.”

I asked Larry what the low point of his time in prison was. I expected it might have been a run-in with a guard or another inmate, an ugly incident of short duration.

His answer: “Seven years in solitary confinement.”

“Seven years?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, and every day it was the same: one hour out in the yard, 15 minutes in the shower, and then 22 hours and 45 minutes in solitary,” he replied. “At first, I was in despair. But then I started reading and then writing to folks, exercising in my cell and thinking hard about what had happened to me and what was going on in my life. It took those long hours by myself to make me come to my senses and start feeling bad about the people I stole from, all the friends and family I had hurt. Things mama told me finally started to have an effect on me.”

Larry’s mother arranged his baptism when he was a child, but he never made time to read more than a few words of the Bible — or anything else, for that matter. A prison chaplain introduced him to a Bible study course conducted by mail. Larry enrolled and completed it.

“That’s when my life really began to change,” he told me. “Ever since that course, I’ve been a different man. I’ve settled down. I use my brain now. I’m no longer the man I used to be.”

Larry’s personal and spiritual recovery were well underway before I’d ever heard of him. His reading had brought him into contact with ideas of political and economic liberty. He wrote my former place of employment in Michigan, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, asking for more information. My old colleagues there forwarded his letter on to me at FEE, and that began a correspondence that now fills two shoeboxes on a shelf in my home office.

Never before had I contemplated developing a friendship with a man in prison. I wouldn’t know how to begin. If Larry hadn’t taken the initiative to contact me, such an undertaking would never have happened. I now count it as a great blessing in my life.

Larry was much more diligent in writing than I was, I confess with some remorse.

“I had more time on my hands than you did,” he jokes.

But I’m pleased to have helped deepen his understanding of liberty by sending him many books and articles.

“Were there any particular things I sent you that made a big impact?”

Without skipping a beat, he replied, “Yes. One was your book, A Republic — If We Can Keep It and the other was What It Means to Be a Libertarian by Charles Murray.” The reader will excuse me, I hope, if I report this with a smile and considerable pride.

Larry and I corresponded but never spoke by phone until after his release. I was looking forward to the day when I could finally drive down to Savannah to spend time with him. Until we met, I didn’t even know what he looked like, but we embraced as if we were brothers.

We dined at the Bonefish Grill on Abercorn Street, then went to see the fantastic film Race about Olympian Jesse Owens. The next morning, we had breakfast, and I recorded the interview with him that this article is based on before visiting the public library on Bull Street so I could show Larry how to create his first email account.

I learned much from Larry during that breakfast interview. For example, he opposes the drug war from a vantage point I’ve never experienced — from inside prison walls where, he says, “drugs are everywhere.” I asked him where they come from.

“All sorts of ways and places,” he said. “Guys out on work detail get ‘em. People throw ‘em over the prison gate. Guards and officers bring ‘em in.”

Larry’s views on current issues are interesting, but his personal transformation is, to me at least, positively captivating. As the well-known expression puts it, “I love it when a plan comes together.” The sad part of it is that Larry’s mother, one of the few anchors in his life, died just three months before he earned his freedom.

“At first I couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. “She was living for the day I would get out, which was the day after Thanksgiving, 2015. It really hit me at Christmas. At my first Christmas dinner as a free man in 28 years, family and old friends got together. Everybody was there but mama. It took me so many years to realize how important your character is. Thanks to mama and my faith, I’m not going to ever let it slip again.”

The Salvation Army in Savannah is generously providing Larry with a place to live and a church to attend on Sundays as he puts his new life together. He’s working two jobs, one with a prestigious catering service and the other with a local staffing firm that places him in short-term stints at manual labor.

He doesn’t want welfare.

“I try to earn every penny I get,” he asserts proudly. He’s both optimistic and excited about his future. He’d love to start a new family.

“I want to prove to myself that I can be a good independent man and make amends for what I did. I take one day at a time, but my spirits are real good.”

After all Larry’s been through and with freedom so new to him, I suppose there’s a chance of a relapse. Surely there will be occasional bumps on his ongoing road of recovery. I hope I’ve encouraged him and can continue to do so.

There are many lessons here: Strong families and good parenting can make all the difference in the world. Building character for navigating the pitfalls of life is a priceless undertaking you’ll likely never regret. Don’t underestimate the value of a mother who never gives up on a wayward son. Through an inner transformation, in this case facilitated by a spiritual renewal, even the seemingly incorrigible can turn his or her life around. Never miss an opportunity to encourage someone who is clearly trying to do the right thing.

I intend to stay in touch with Larry Cooper. I’ll watch his progress and assist with it if and when I can. He’s already taught me a valuable truth: that heroes aren’t always the ones who make the headlines or the history books. They may just be on the other side of a wall.

For further information, see:

Lawrence W. ReedLawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became president of FEE in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

Each week, Mr. Reed will relate the stories of people whose choices and actions make them heroes. See the table of contents for previous installments.

Donald Trump is a ‘Christian Nationalist’

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I have written that Donald Trump went from running a campaign, to heading a movement and is now leading an insurgency. Until today I could not define what was driving this insurgency. I may now have the answer.

Karl Marx wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people“.

Donald Trump is viewed by his followers as the heart of a heartless world, the soul fighting a soulless government and he understands that it is morals that drives him and the American dream. It is religion that is inextricably linked to politics in America. It is something citizens have not seen since the American Revolution.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.”

Gandhi also said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Michael Savage in his column “Here’s how to define Donald Trump” writes:

And I want to define something for you.

Here’s something important. People don’t know how to define Donald Trump.

I’ve defined him as a moderate nationalist. But I’m going to redefine Donald Trump for everyone listening to this show around the world on “The Savage Nation,” because I’m the idea man. I’m known as the idea man.

And here’s your idea. Take it, run with it, drop it, reject it, debate it.

Trump is a Christian nationalist.

No one’s said that.

He’s proud to be a Christian. He is a proud Christian, and he’s a proud American nationalist.

This is anathema. This is anathema to the media. This is anathema to the university America haters. This is anathema to the thuggish left who has taken over everything in this country and threatens everybody by threatening your advertisers if you dare speak out about their communism and their desire to control every aspect of our life from top to bottom, telling us what we’re supposed to think about sexuality.

Everything; they tell us what we’re supposed to think.

Well, finally we have someone who said: “Drop dead. We’re not your slaves. We’re not slaves of the radical left. We’re not gonna eat this garbage anymore, and we’re fighting back.”

And he is the man carrying the banner of this Christian nationalism, and that is why he’s ruffling feathers around the world, because they’re used to stamping on us.

They have disrobed the Statue of Liberty and molested her. The radical left has disrobed her and rolled her in mud, and the Statue of Liberty is crying, and Donald Trump wants to clean her and clothe her again! [Emphasis added]

Read more.

Trump is a church militant. The Church Militant comprises the souls on Earth engaged in battle against the forces evil. The evils that Trump and the insurgency are battling are: political correctness, political power, collectivism, Communism, socialism and radical Islamism. All of which are forces of evil.

I can now define the insurgency as a “Christian insurgency” and Donald Trump embodies the core of it.

This is why Trump is winning.

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The Bible and Hayek on What We Owe Strangers by Sarah Skwire

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It’s so much easier to sympathize with our own problems and with the problems of those we love than with the problems of complete strangers.

Adam Smith observes in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that our ability to sympathize with ourselves is, in fact, so out of all proportion to our ability to sympathize with others that the thought of losing one of our little fingers can keep us up all night in fearful anticipation, while we can sleep easily with the knowledge that hundreds of thousands on the opposite side of the world have just died in an earthquake.

Hayek makes the same point in The Fatal Conceit:

Moreover, the structures of the extended order are made up not only of individuals but also of many, often overlapping, sub-orders within which old instinctual responses, such as solidarity and altruism, continue to retain some importance by assisting voluntary collaboration, even though they are incapable, by themselves, of creating a basis for the more extended order. Part of our present difficulty is that we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts and our emotions, in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders according to different rules.

It may not be the best part of our humanity, but it is a very human part. We care more about those we see more often, understand more thoroughly, and with whom we share more in common.

And maybe that’s not so bad. We treat family differently, after all. My daughter will get a giant pink fluffy stuffed unicorn from me on her birthday. I don’t believe that I am similarly obligated to provide fuzzy equines for all other eight-year-olds. Different treatment is a way of acknowledging different kinds of bonds between people and different levels of responsibility to them.

All of this is on my mind because the other night, after I gave a talk on liberty and culture, an audience member and I had a discussion about banking, debt, and interest rates during which he carefully explained to me how Jews lend each other money for no interest, but when they lend to Christians, the sky’s the limit. Everyone knows it, because it’s in the Bible.

He was right, sort of. It is in the Bible, sort of.

It’s right there in Deuteronomy 23:

You shall not give interest to your brother [whether it be] interest on money, interest on food, or interest on any [other] item for which interest is [normally] taken. You may [however], give interest to a gentile, but to your brother you shall not give interest, in order that the Lord your God shall bless you in every one of your endeavors on the land to which you are coming to possess.

But textual interpretation is a tricky business. And textual interpretation of a text that has existed for thousands of years and been wrangled with by millions of interpreters — well, it doesn’t get much trickier than that.

But it seems worth noting that the word used here (both in translation and in Hebrew) is literally “brother.” This has been interpreted over the years to mean “fellow Jew.” But the word, as given, is brother.

What I think the passage means to emphasize by using this word — regardless of whether we are talking about literal brothers, or just “brothers” — is the importance and of treating those who are closest to us with particular care and concern. The kind of business relationship that is part of Hayek’s extended order, or that is located in an outer ring of Smith’s concentric circles of sympathy, doesn’t come with extra moral responsibilities to one another. A price is agreed on. A bargain is struck. An exchange is made. Everyone is content. But in an intimate order — with brothers or sisters, husbands or wives, parents or children — we have a responsibility to give more and do more than in the extended order.

And so observant Jews are told that they should not pay or charge interest to brothers — whomever they consider those brothers to be.

Though it has been interpreted uncharitably by many over the years, this passage from Deuteronomy is not a passage about cheating the outsider. This is a passage about taking special care of those who are closest to our hearts. It’s hard to find anything to object to in that.

Sarah SkwireSarah Skwire

Sarah Skwire is the poetry editor of the Freeman and a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc. She is a poet and author of the writing textbook Writing with a Thesis. She is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

Cupcake Kasich is a (Rather Dull) Tyrant Enabler

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When Governor John Kasich said recently that he probably should be running in the Democrat Party, he wasn’t kidding. Although seeking office in Cuba might be even more fitting.

Taking a break from lecturing us on how we must accept amnesty, the presidential contender recently weighed in on the case of the Oregon bakers fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a faux wedding. Mentioned briefly in Thursday’s GOP presidential debate, here are his comments, made on Monday at the University of Virginia:

I think, frankly, our churches should not be forced to do anything that’s not consistent with them. But if you’re a cupcake maker and somebody wants a cupcake, make them a cupcake. Let’s not have a big lawsuit or argument over all this stuff — move on. The next thing, you know, they might be saying, if you’re divorced you shouldn’t get a cupcake.

Now, Kasich is a man who just loves the idea of moving on. After the Obergefell v. Hodges decision last June, he said that recognition of faux marriage was “the law of the land and we’ll abide by it” and that now “it’s time to move on.” It’s no wonder Republicans long ago move on from the idea of him as president.

Kasich managed to squeeze a remarkable number of misconceptions into his three sentences. First, while the cupcake lines may be cute to some and possess rhetorical flair, they’re nonsense. There’s not one Christian baker persecuted by governments recently who said he wouldn’t bake “cupcakes” or anything else for a given group; in fact, these businessmen have made clear that they serve homosexuals all the time. This isn’t about serving a certain type of people.

It’s about servicing a certain type of event.

Only someone who hasn’t bothered to ponder the matter deeply or who’s intellectually dishonest could miss this simple fact. And I’ll put it to you, Governor Kasich: can you cite any other time in American history when the government compelled a businessman to service an event he found morally objectionable? This is unprecedented. And is it really a road we want to go down?

If so, can the government compel a Jewish or black businessman to cater, respectively, a Nazi or KKK affair? How about a forcing a Muslim restaurateur to serve pork at an event for the National Pork Producers Council? Or is this another situation where government gets to pick winners and losers, this time in matters of conscience?

Of course, this is already happening, which brings us to Kasich’s divorcé cupcake eater. The proper analogy here doesn’t involve serving such a person because, again, the bakers in question serve homosexuals.

The proper analogy involves servicing an event celebrating a divorce.

Government wouldn’t even consider compelling participation in the above, or in events celebrating adultery, fornication, polygamy (yet) or auto-eroticism. So why the double standard? Well, homosexuals have very effective lobbying groups and millions of enablers — such as Cupcake Kasich.

Kasich‘s “churches should not be forced to do anything that’s not consistent with them. But…” comment is also interesting. Our First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. For those who say this is only meant to restrain the central government’s legislature (and I’m sympathetic to this view), note that the constitution of Kasich’s own state dictates that no “interference with the rights of conscience be permitted.” And since he was commenting on a case involving Oregon residents, consider that the Beaver State’s constitution likewise reads, “No law shall in any case whatever control the free exercise, and enjoyment of religeous [sic] opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.”

Now, “exercise” is action; thus, at issue here isn’t just the freedom of religious belief, but of acting on that belief. Of course, there are limits in that we don’t allow practices such as human sacrifice. But anything considered legitimate action under these constitutions is allowed in churches. And here’s the point: none of these constitutions limit this free exercise to church property.

Thus, any type of exercise allowable in church is allowable outside of it.

So for this reason alone, the action against the Oregon bakers was unconstitutional. Since a person can refuse to be party to a faux wedding within a church, he can also refuse to be party to a faux wedding outside of it.

Interestingly, Kasich and others seem to be espousing a kind of “dual truth” philosophy, which I understand is part of Islamic theology. This basically states what what’s “religiously true” may not be true beyond the religious realm (whatever that’s supposed to be). But a moral issue doesn’t cease to be a moral issue because it moves down the block.

The action against the bakers is unconstitutional for another reason. Perhaps invariably, part of creating a wedding cake is placing a written message on it; in the case of faux weddings, this message would relate to faux marriage. Even two male figurines placed on top of the cake relate a message; note here that the courts have rule that symbolic speech is covered under the First Amendment. And where does the government have the constitutional power to compel people to be party to a message they find morally objectionable? Forced speech is not free speech.

Of course, none of this would be an issue if we accepted a principle even many conservatives today reject: freedom of association. Think about it: you have a right to include in or exclude from your home whomever you please, for any reason whatsoever, whether it’s because the person is a smoker, non-smoker, black, white, Catholic, Protestant, or because you simply don’t like his face.

Why should you lose this right merely because you erect a few more tables and sell food?

Or because you bake cakes, take pictures, plan weddings or conduct some other kind of commerce?

It’s still your property, paid for with your own money and created by the sweat of your own brow. Is a man’s home not his castle?

Of course, this all goes back to a Supreme Court ruling stating that private businesses can be viewed as “public accommodations,” which was a huge step toward the Marxist standard disallowing private property. And it has led to endless litigation, with the Boy Scouts sued by homosexuals, atheists and a girl (who wanted to be a “boy” scout); the PGA Tour sued by a handicapped golfer who wanted a dispensation from the rules; Abercrombie & Fitch sued by a Muslim woman who wanted to wear her hijab on the job; and Barnes & Noble sued by a male employee who claimed he suddenly was a female employee, just to name a few cases. It has also led, now, to some Americans being confronted with a Hobson’s choice: cast the exercise of your faith to the winds and bow before the government’s agenda, or kiss making a living goodbye.

Is all of this worth it just to stop less than one percent of the population from discriminating in unfashionable ways? And remember, freedom of association is like any other freedom: it’s only the unpopular exercise of it that needs protection. As for popular exercise, its popularity is usually protection enough.

As for Kasich’s desire for popularity, it’s pretty hard to achieve when your implied campaign slogan is “A chicken-hearted politician in every office and a coerced cupcake in every cupboard.”

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

The Islamic State vs. the Laffer Curve by Daniel J. Mitchell

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Based on my writings, some people may think I’m 100 percent against higher taxes.

But that’s not exactly true. In some cases, I like punitive taxation. Or, to be more precise, I sometimes take pleasure when punitive tax policy backfires on bad people.

Here’s an example. An interesting article in Slate, authored by Adam Chodorow of Arizona State University Law School, looks at how a terrorist group’s attempt to form a government is being stymied by an inability to collect taxes.

Revolution is easy. Governing is hard. And there are few things more difficult than taxes. Operating a country requires money, and that typically requires taxes. … 

The population in this area is estimated to be between 7 million and 8 million, about the same as the population of Washington state. While ISIS currently collects about $1 billion annually, countries of similar size collect about $16 billion, suggesting that ISIS has a long way to go if it wants to operate like a real state.

But the comparatively low levels of tax revenue are not because of a Hong Kong-type commitment to limited government.

Instead, the terror group is discovering that people don’t like giving their money to politicians and bureaucrats, even ones motivated by Islamic fundamentalism.

Taxes aren’t a great way to ingratiate oneself with the governed. … More than one government has fallen because of its tax policy. ISIS must face these challenges just as any emerging polity does… ISIS may have displayed prowess on the battlefield, but it has revealed that it is as stymied and constrained by the complexities of taxation as the rest of us. …

ISIS’s taxes appear to be … no more popular in the territory it controls than they would be here in the U.S. As the Times reported, ISIS’s taxes are now so onerous that large numbers of people, who were apparently willing to tolerate ISIS’s religious authoritarianism, are fleeing Syria and Iraq to escape them. At some point people will either rise up or leave, threatening ISIS’s internal revenue source.

So taxes are becoming so onerous that taxpayers (and taxable income) are escaping.

Hmm… excessive taxation leading to less taxable economic activity. That seems like a familiar concept — something I’ve written about one or two times. Or maybe 50 or 100 times.

Ah, yes, our old friend, the Laffer Curve!

ISIS is … constrained by a lack of administrative resources and the simple reality once sketched on the back of a cocktail napkin by the economist Arthur Laffer: that tax rates can only get so high before they actually drive down government revenues.

Given current conditions, ISIS may be near or at the limits of its ability to tax, even if it can recruit jihadi tax accountants to its cause. Thus … it’s not clear how much room the group has to grow internal revenues. More important, its efforts to do so may do more to damage its prospects than outside forces can accomplish.

This sounds like the tax equivalent of War of the Worlds, the H.G. Wells’ classic in which alien invaders wreak havoc on earth until they are felled by bacteria.

Tom Cruise was the star of a 2005 movie adaptation of this story, but I’m thinking I could rekindle my acting career and star in a movie of how the Laffer Curve thwarts ISIS!

But to have a happy ending, ISIS has to be defeated. And Professor Chodorow closes his article with a very helpful suggestion.

Rather than send in ground troops … view our tax code as a weapon of mass destruction. … We could make full use of it in the war on ISIS, perhaps by translating it into Arabic in the hopes that the group adopts it.

Sounds like the advice I once gave about threatening Assad with Obamacare.

A version of this post first appeared at Dan Mitchell’s blog International Liberty.

Daniel J. MitchellDaniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

What is your Religion?

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On 26 Nov 2008 at a tourist hotel in Mumbai India, a group of Islamic terrorists murdered 266 innocent people and injured over 250 more.  Their common question to the tourist’s at the hotel was “What is Your Religion”?  Christians and Jews were murdered because of their religion.  Muslim for the most part were allowed to live. Islamic terrorist’s Murder Jews and Christians

On 1 Oct 2015, Chris Harper-Mercer entered a community college in Oregon and murdered 9 people and injured many more.  He asked students, “What is Your Religion”?  Article by Pamela Geller Oregon Shooter Islamic Ties

Have you heard any discussion on the major news outlets about Chris Harper-Mercer’s religion or his ties to Jihad support?  Have you heard any Oregon law enforcement discussing Harper-Mercer’s ties to Islam?  Anything from the FBI or our pseudo President Obama?  No and you will hear little of anything about Harper-Mercer’s ties to Islam and his support of jihad (murder) against non Muslims at the Oregon community college.  You will only get such information from great people like Pamela Geller.

America will continue to have Islamic supporters murder our children in their schools for many years to come.  I have written several articles since 2003 about Islamic terrorists who have openly stated they will target our children in America.

What can be done.  In reality very little can be done to prevent these type murders because our senior law enforcement and politicians led by America’s number one Islamic supporter (Obama) will not allow common sense security measures to be implemented.

It is common sense that if one military force has an enormous supply of weapons and the other side has virtually none, the more heavily armed will conquer their foe.  This is why we give billions of dollars to Iraq and Syrian rebels.  We want them to be on the same playing field and have an equal chance of defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The same common sense concept needs to be applied in America.  Instead of limiting the number of people and guns that American citizens can own and legally carry/store in their homes and to be allowed to carry openly and concealed in public must increase.  Obama and the media (to include FOX News) will never advocate or encourage every lawful American over the age of 18 to carry a firearm with them at all times.  This means at schools, work, sporting events, and yes even our military on U.S. bases and recruiting centers.  Seems strange we should even have to discuss U.S. military personnel being allowed to be armed in America.  Seems common sense to me.

The vast majority of Americans are law abiding and the number of mass murderers are minimal.  If every lawful student in the Oregon college had a firearm do you think the murderer would have been able to kill nine and injure even more?  If criminals knew every American homeowner had firearms, every student in higher education schools had a firearm, every person in a bank had a firearm, every person at a sporting event had firearms, and every teacher and administrators in our elementary and high schools had firearms, do you think they would second guess themselves before planning a criminal act using a firearm.  Of course they would.

Islamic based terrorists and their supporters at all levels will continue to attack and murder innocent Christians and Jews around the world, and yes there will be more school type attacks in America.  Unfortunately there will continue to be Islamic terrorist supporters at the top level of our political chain who will continue to provide more rights for Muslims than they will for Christians and Jews.

America needs a leader who is strong such as Russia’s President Putin.  We need someone such as Donald Trump, otherwise America will fall just as Rome fell many years ago.

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The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America

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CatholicGraphs_gendividePope Francis is coming to America this week and will be addressing the U.S. Congress at the invitation of Speaker of the House Representative John Boehner. Pope Francis starts his visit to America on Tuesday, September 22nd and plans to stop in Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia.

Indications are that Pope Francis will be talking about several issues including climate change and the refugee crisis in the Middle East. But there is one topic Pope Francis may not be talking about – spiritual matters important to American Catholics.

Perhaps Pope Francis should be using this opportunity to address how to stop the decline and fall of the Catholic Church in America?

In his seminal five volume work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in 1782, Edward Gibbon, Esq. wrote:

After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.

The Roman Empire has gone with the wind. Will the Catholic Church in America suffer the same fate?

Let us look at each of these four principal causes of the ruin of Rome and compare them to the Vatican and American Catholics.

I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent than the narrow span of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time, his life and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment.

The Catholic Church is witnessing a reduction of its monuments in the United States.

According to the non-profit Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, in 1990 there were 19,620 parishes in the U.S. In 2014 there were 17,483 parishes or a loss of nearly 11%. As parishes closed so did other Catholic monuments: churches, schools and hospitals.  In 1965 there were 10,667 Catholic Elementary Schools, in 2014 that number was 5,368 (a 50% loss of Catholic Elementary Schools). Catholic Secondary Secondary Schools went from a high of 1,986 in 1970 to 1,200 in 2014 (a 40% loss). Even Catholic Colleges and Universities declined from 305 in 1965 to 225 in 2014 (a 26% loss).

Time and nature has taken its toll on Catholic Churches in the U.S. As the Catholic population ages, parishes close. CARA notes, “As the largest religion in the U.S., Catholicism has the largest number of former members (some later return as reverts). Catholicism has a higher retention rate than most other religions in the U.S. (including all Protestant denominations).

It is the institutions that must survive to carry on the word of the Gospel. As the institutions decline so does the Catholic Church in America.

II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians.

Today the hostile attacks are coming from the “new Barbarians”: Collectivists, Marxists, the Communist Party USA, atheists, the pro-choice movement, the feminist movement, homosexuals and government.  Today it is the followers of Mohammed who are attacking the people of the Cross globally and in America.

There is a coalition within America that is anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic. Their tactics and strategy are to diminish the role of religion by removing God from the public square. As that has happened in America we now have Collectivists, atheists, abortionists, homosexuals (some of whom are practicing witchcraft) and the U.S. government taking positions and implementing policies which are anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic.

As Sandy Ikeda in his article “Progressivism Is Illiberal” writes, “Progressivism [Collectivists] today goes beyond the liberal position that, for example, same-sex marriage should have the same legal status as heterosexual marriage, to the belief that the state should threaten physical violence against anyone who refuses to associate or do business with same-sex couples.”

In the Middle East Catholic Churches are being burned to the ground, Christians slaughtered, Christian children sold into sex slavery and Christians crucified as was done in ancient Rome.

The attacks against Catholicism are real and palpable. Daily news reports tell us that a unholy war is being conducted against the Catholic church.

III. The use and abuse of the materials.

Materialism is the God of many in America. The quest for power and riches outweigh the need for God and redemption. Collectivists demand submission to the state as does Islam, which literally translated means “to submit.” Government becomes God and by doing so restricts what the individual can and cannot do.

As Ayn Rand wrote, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” In a short 19 page paper Rand wrote:

“A great many people today hold the childish notion that society can do anything it pleases; that principles are unnecessary, rights are only an illusion and expediency is the practical guide to action.

It is true that society can abandon moral principles and turn itself into a herd running amuck to destruction. Just as it is true that a man can cut his own throat any time he chooses. But a man cannot do this if he wishes to survive. And society cannot abandon moral principles if it expects to exist.”

In America corn is used to produce Ethanol, a gasoline additive. Over 50% of the corn produced in America goes toward the production of Ethanol. According to the World Food Programme, “Some 795 million people (1 in 9) in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life.”

Using food for fuel is immoral.

The use and abuse of materials and the people is the greatest threat to Catholics and the Church. For whenever the individual is diminished so to is the role of the Catholic Church. Jesus was an individualist who fought government. Many question why won’t the Catholic Church follow in Jesus’ footsteps and fight against government and defend individual rights including religious liberty.

IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.

The United States was founded on Judeo/Christian beliefs and values. Today the various Christian denominations are quarreling amongst themselves about social and political issues. This quarreling is occurring while all Christian and Jewish organizations are under attack from the new barbarians and the followers of Mohammed (see item II above).

CatholicGraphs_decline

Perhaps it is time for pastors, priests and rabbis to unite in one cause – to preserve their belief in God and the Judeo/Christian way of life.

The American way of life has led to great happiness and prosperity both in the homeland and throughout the Western world. A way of life that insures life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by United States Constitution. A way of life that celebrates life over death. A way of life that insures salvation and the return of the Kingdom of God to this earth.

There are lessons to be learned, for if we forget the history of the decline and fall of Rome, we are doomed to repeat it.

Perhaps Pope Francis would better serve the Church if he addressed Catholic persecution by the new barbarians and Muslims in America?

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On Privatizing Marriage: No, Matrimony Is Not Irreducibly Public by Max Borders

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Marriage is society’s primary institutional arrangement that defines parenthood. – Jennifer Roback Morse

The idea of marriage privatization is picking up steam. And it makes strange bedfellows.

There are old-school gay activists suspicious that state marriage is a way for politicians to socially engineer the family through the tax code. There are religious conservatives who are upset that a state institution seems to violate their sacred values. Don’t forget the libertarians for whom “privatize it” is more a reflex than a product of reflection.

But they all agree: it would be a good idea to get the government out of the marriage business. Principle, it turns out, is pragmatic.

First, let’s disentangle two meanings for one word that easily get confused. When we say “marriage,” we might be referring to:

A. a commitment a couple enters into as a rite or acknowledgment within a religious institution or community group (private); or

B. a legal relationship that two people enter into, which the state currently licenses (public).

Now, the questions that follow are: Does the government need to be involved inA? The near-universal answer in the United States is no. But does the government need to be as involved as it is in B? Here’s where the debate gets going.

I think the government can and should get out of B, and everyone will be better for it. This is what I mean by marriage privatization.

Some argue that marriage is “irreducibly public.” For Jennifer Roback Morse, it has to do with the fate of children and families. For Shikha Dalmia, it has to do with the specter of increased government involvement, a reinflamed culture war, and a curious concern about religious institutions creating their own marriage laws.

First, let’s consider the issue of children. According to Unmarried.org:

  • 39.7 percent of all births are to unmarried women (Centers for Disease Control, 2007).
  • Nearly 40 percent of heterosexual, unmarried American households include children (Child Protective Services, 2007).
  • 41 percent of first births by unmarried women are to cohabiting partners (Larry Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu, 2000).

Does the law leave provisions for the children of the unmarried? Of course. So while state marriage might add some special sauce to your tax bill or to your benefits package, family court and family codes aren’t likely to go anywhere, whatever we do with marriage. This is not a sociological argument about whether children have statistically better life prospects when they are brought up by two married parents. Nor is it a question about gender, sexuality, and parental roles. It’s simply a response to the idea that marriage is “irreducibly public” due to having children. It is not. (I’ll pass over the problem for this argument that some married couples never have children.)

Dalmia is also concerned that “true privatization would require more than just getting the government out of the marriage licensing and registration business. It would mean giving communities the authority to write their own marriage rules and enforce them on couples.”

It’s true. Couples, as a part of free religious association, might have to accept some definition of marriage as a condition of membership in a religious community. But, writes Dalmia, “This would mean letting Mormon marriages be governed by the Church of the Latter Day Saints codebook, Muslims by Koranic sharia, Hassids by the Old Testament, and gays by their own church or non-religious equivalent.” And all of this is could be true up to a point.

But Dalmia overstates the case. Presumably, no religious organization would be able to set up codes that run counter to the civil laws in some jurisdiction. So if it were part of the Koranic sharia code to beat your wife for failure to wear the hijab at Costco, that rule would run afoul of criminal laws against spousal abuse. Mormon codes might sanction polygamy, but the state might have other ideas. So again, it’s not clear what sort of magical protection state marriage conjures.

What about Dalmia’s concern that in the absence of state marriage, “every aspect of a couple’s relationship would have to be contractually worked out from scratch in advance”? Never mind that some people would see being able to work out the details of a contract governing their lives as a good thing (for one, it might prevent ugly divorce proceedings). There is no reason to think that all the functions normal, unmarried couples with children and property have in terms of recourse to “default” law would not still be available. Not only would simple legal templates for private marriage emerge, but states could establish default civil unions in the absence of couples pursuing private alternatives.

There is no reason to think that all the functions normal, unmarried couples with children and property have in terms of recourse to “default” law would not still be available. 

Indeed, if people did not like some default option — as they might not now — there would be better incentives for couples to anticipate the eventualities of marital life. People would have to settle questions involving cohabitation, property, and children just as they do for retirement and for death. Millions of gay couples had to do this prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality. Millions of unmarried couples do it today. The difference is that there would be a set of private marriage choices in a layer atop the default, just as people may opt for private arbitration in lieu of government courts.

In the debates leading up to marriage equality, an immanently sensible proposal had been that even if you don’t like the idea of hammering out a detailed contract with your spouse-to-be, simply changing the name of the entire statutory regime to “civil unions” would have gone a long way toward putting the whole gay-marriage debate to bed. The conservatives would have been able to say that, in terms of their sacred traditions and cultural community (as in A), “marriage” is between one man and one woman. Gay couples would have to find a church or institution that would marry them under A. But everybody would have some equal legal provision under the law to get all the benefits that accrue to people under B. You’d just have to call it a “civil union.”

And that’s fine as far as it goes.

But I like full privatization because “marriage” is currently a crazy quilt of special privileges and goodies that everybody wants access to — unmarried people be damned. But marriage should confer neither special favors nor goodies from the state. We can quibble about who is to be at the bedside of a dying loved one. Beyond that, marriage (under definition B) is mostly about equal access to government-granted privileges.

Not only does the idea that marriage is irreducibly public represent a failure of imagination with respect to robust common law, it also resembles arguments made against privatization in other areas, such as currency, education, and health care. Just because we can’t always envision it doesn’t make it impossible.

Max Borders

Max Borders

Max Borders is the editor of the Freeman and director of content for FEE. He is also co-founder of the event experience Voice & Exit and author of Superwealth: Why we should stop worrying about the gap between rich and poor.

His Absurdness Pope Francis: Koran and Holy Bible are the Same!

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Ayn Rand wrote, “The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

On Monday, Pope Francis, the Bishop Of Rome, addressed Catholic followers regarding the dire importance of exhibiting religious tolerance. During his hour-long speech, a smiling Pope Francis was quoted telling the Vatican’s guests that the Koran, and the spiritual teachings contained therein, are just as valid as the Holy Bible.

As a Catholic it pains me to read words like this when daily I see the persecution of Christians and Jews by the followers of Mohammed. The Catholic Church is retreating and Islam is gaining. At some point Islam will become the official ideology of the Vatican, the Islamic State promises so.

Rather than go into a long litany of reasons why the Holy Bible is different than the Quran, not the least of which is the Koran does not recognize that Jesus was crucified, died and then rose from the dead to forgive our sins. For it is the Holy Trinity which is the foundation of Catholicism and the Holy Catholic Church.

Rather I will focus on Quran versus 2: 191-193, which read:

And kill them [the non-believers] wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.

Jews, Sikh, Christians, Hindus, Kurds, Buddhist, Ezidis, and anyone else who is not a Muslim is to be slaughtered if they do not embrace Islam.

Show me in the Holy Bible where it says that anyone who does not accept Jesus is to be slaughtered. One cannot.

When Pope Francis stated, “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence”, Robert Spencer wrote:

No one would even be interested in this question were it not for the abundant evidence to the contrary: the daily record of jihad violence carried out by Muslims who point to Islam and the Qur’an to justify their actions, including many who are burning churches and terrorizing Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere. It is because of them that Pope Francis, David Cameron and others feel compelled to insist that, contrary to what we see happening every day, Islam is really peaceful. The question is whether they are doing the victims of jihad any real service by insisting this.

For if Pope Francis were to admit that Islam is a violent religion, that admission would imply the necessity of addressing Islamic intolerance of Christians.

The last thing that Pope Francis and certain world leaders want to do is to further enrage Fitnaphobes (i.e. the Muslim community). This is a false and dangerous position, as it ignores the social disease (existential threat) of Fitnaphobia, the known Islamic wolves at the gates of the Vatican.

Pope Francis is an Islamic apologist and Fitnaphobic.

Islam cannot be stopped unless and until Muslims, citizens, political and national security leaders at every level begin to profile and identify Fitnaphobic individuals, organizations and nation states.

When religious tolerance becomes a one way street, then the Vatican will fall to the Islamic Caliphate.

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EDITORS NOTE: To learn more about why Muslims slaughter visit www.Fitnaphobia.com.

Religious Charities, Gay Marriage, and Adoption: A Case for Pluralism by Walter Olson

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At Reason, Scott Shackford has a valuable piece on where libertarians’ interests are likely to coincide with those of organized gay rights advocates and where they are likely to diverge, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage.

One flashpoint of controversy is likely to be the role of conservative religious agencies in areas of adoption that are commonly assisted with public funds (as with the adoption of older kids from foster care).

It is now legal all across America for gay people to adopt children, and now with same-sex marriage, they can adopt their partner’s child as well. This fight is largely over, and was actually pretty much won even before gay marriage recognition.

But there is another side, and it ties back into the treatment of religious people. Some adoption agencies are tied to religious groups who do not want to serve same-sex couples or place children in same-sex homes. They are also typically recipients of state funding for placing children, and are therefore subject to state regulation. Should they be required to serve gay couples?

Some states, such as Illinois, attempted to force them. As a result, Catholic Charities, which helped the state find adoptive and foster home services for four decades, stopped providing their services in 2011.

At the time, a gay activist declared this a victory, saying “Finding a loving home for the thousands in the foster/adoption system should be the priority, not trying to exclude people based on religious dogma.”

Some libertarians I admire have taken the view that where any public dollars are involved, private social service agencies must be held to rigorous anti-discrimination standards.

While I respect this view, I don’t share it.

Programs that are explicitly voucherized (such as G.I. Bill college tuition benefits, which can be used for seminary study) often go to institutions that I might find discriminatory, and the same logic can apply even with some less explicitly voucherized benefits.

If a state depot is dispensing gasoline to rescuers’ boats after Katrina, and Catholic Charities’s boats spare the need for government boats to reach some rescue targets, the “subsidy” might in fact save the taxpayers money.

In Olson’s experience, the more agencies out there serving the needs of the children looking for homes, the better. …

Much as with the controversies over bakers and florists, being denied service by one agency does not actually impact a gay couple’s ability to find and adopt children at all.

But eliminating Catholic Charities from the pool reduces the number of people able to help place these children. It’s the children who are punished by the politicization of adoption, not Catholic Charities.

This is especially important when dealing with older children or children with special medical needs. … Allowing both sides (and others as well) to play their role as they see fit benefits all children in the system.

As for the concern that some adoption agencies take taxpayer money and then discriminate, Olson points out that it’s much more expensive to the taxpayers to leave children to be raised by the state, not to mention terribly cruel.

“If you don’t care about the kids or the families, at least care about the taxpayers,” Olson says. But you should probably care about the kids, too.

I’ve written about the same set of issues (in the foster care context) before. The new Reason piece is here.


Walter Olson

Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Cake Artist’ Fights in Court to Be Able to Refuse to Make Wedding Cakes for Gay Couples

EDITORS NOTE: This post first appeared at Cato.org.