The UN the UNmoral Authority

       On September 3, 2013, group of United Nations “independent experts” called on the United State to finalize the ongoing review of the Trayvon Martin case citing us for discrimination and racial profiling, violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

          Are you kidding me? What other nation in the world has done more than the United States to protect and defend the rights of minorities?  The UN is certainly not calling Assad to account not for slaughtering a thousand of his own people?  Are they calling Egypt to account for slaughtering Coptic Christians, burning and looting their churches?  Look at the abuses across the globe, in Nigeria, North Korea, China, Vietnam, and Pakistan.

         In ignoring genocide in all corners of the world, 2,000,000 in Cambodia, another million in Darfur, hundreds of thousands in Communist China and millions under Stalin’s hammer in the Soviet Union, the UN long ago lost its moral authority to interfere in our affairs.     

       When our leaders talk about “The New World Order” or “One World Government,” I am chilled to the bone considering the consequences.

September 3, 2013

Politicized Global Warming

             Two articles in The Yuma Sun this week suggest that the winds of change might be brewing.  The first was Wednesday’s story about the Dutch king’s sayonara to the 20^th century welfare society.  He’s looking toward a “participation society” where people take responsibility for their own future and create safety nets at a local level responding more realistically to the needs of the people.  Sounds like what our founders intended, doesn’t it?

               The Dutch have faced two truths, first that the classic welfare state is unsustainable.  More importantly, they discovered what the Romans learned all too late:  that dependence on government empties the body politic of its soul, its spirit. 

               On September 20, The Sun reported that the climate change theists at the UN are wrestling with disconcerting data.  Although we are pumping exponentially more “greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere, the earth has been experiencing a cooling trend since 1998.  (“Is global warming slowing down?”)

               The “scientists” managed to overlook Vice President Gore’s fake hockey stick trick, but this information cannot be ignored.  The fact that the dilemma was reported by the Associated Press suggests that conventional wisdom may finally catch up with real science. 

               Ten years ago Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv mapped the path that our solar system travels through the spiral arms of the galaxy, and Canadian geologist Jan Veizer plotted 500 years of climate change. The pair of scientists discovered an exact correlation.  Apparently the inflow of cosmic rays affects variations in earth’s temperatures. 

               American Thinker columnist Raymond Richman suggests that an anthrocentric view of the universe appeals to man’s vanity, so it takes a long time for academia and the general public to come to terms with another explanation.  Galileo was under house arrest for the rest of his life for his disrupting the notion that earth was the center of the universe. 

               I guess we can be thankful that Shaviv and Veizer were not imprisoned or executed for publishing their heretical findings.  You might remember, however, that Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell did threaten to ostracize climate skeptics in her department.  When science is politicized, government becomes a dangerous force.

               Maybe we are awakening from the fog after all. 

September 21, 2013

Prayer, the Most Radical Act of the Tea Party

            I didn’t think the Vincenzo Torrecelli’s letter (“IRS should pay attention to organizations,” Yuma Sun, May 27, 2013) merited a response.  His “what are they hiding” comment showed that he has absolutely no understanding of the IRS issue. The IRS exerted partisan pressures to stifle voices of the opposition.  No thinking American would applaud their actions, not one.  

               His suggesting it’s Tea Party members who “scream nonsense and disrupt meetings” shows that he’s not paying attention.  The screamers and the burners and the bombers are the progressive groups like Occupy Wall Street and Code Pink.  The most disruptive, radical activity at Tea Party meetings is prayer.

               The most radical concern of the nation’s Tea Parties is the national debt.  Every child in this country is born chained to a $60,000 debt before it takes its first breath.  Our national debt increases by $3,000,000,000 every day.  Our legislators have betrayed the American people.  They buy votes with the blood of the next generation.  It’s criminal.  They make promises that my little Reia Ann will have to keep.    

               Because I recognized that Vincenzo, proud American that he is, understands very little about the idea of America, I wasn’t going to respond to his diatribe.  However, my friend Marlene nagged me about it, so here it is.

               What is “juvenile,” Mr. Torrecelli, is that we have contented ourselves with our toys and distractions while Washington sells us down the river.  What is juvenile is that we fall prey to their hypnotic mantras about much they care, hoping we’ll be content with their crumbs while they feather their Dachau nests,  sip Pernod-Ricard Perrier-Jouet and nibble on Italian truffles.   What’s juvenile is to accept the generosity of thieves, and that is what we’ve wrought among the criminal classes in Washington D.C.

               Thanks, Marlene.  That was therapeutic

May 29, 20103

Biblical Capitalism

               The message of so many cartoons, like the December 6, 2013’s  “The Mighty Pen,” feed into blatant falsehoods about liberals.  It suggests, first of all that liberal public policies are more Christ-like because they “care about the poor.”  If liberals cared about the poor, they would give more of their personal income to help them.  Every study shows that as a percentage of income conservatives contribute 3 times as much to charitable causes.  Liberals want to take our money to contribute to their causes, but they are shamefully reluctant to contribute their own. A classic example:  Joe Biden gives 1.3 per cent of his income to charity; Mitt Romney gives 29 per cent. 

               The cartoon also uses the image of Christ on the cross to suggest that socialism is Biblical.  The truth is that capitalism is Biblical.  It is true that love of money is condemned, but over and over again the gathering of wealth is applauded.  Jesus himself praised the servant who profitably invested his money and called the one who didn’t profit wicked and lazy.   Hundreds of passages in the Bible reflect capitalist principles like Proverbs 13:4: “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the diligent are richly supplied.”        

               Capitalism is a founding principle in the Bible, especially as it relates to property rights.  In Genesis:  ”Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.“  In Exodus:  “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house … nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.”  Economic justice is best achieved when each person is accountable for his own actions.

               As I sit at my computer writing this I can hear James Sefcak:  “Pure capitalism produces greedy monopolies that bleed the poor.” But James, it’s the government that creates the monopolies.  The problem is caused by the government’s getting in bed with capital and forcing competition out of the market place, the government deciding which entrepreneurs should succeed. Left to itself, the free market neutralizes greed, balancing selfish desires with the needs of those with whom they wish to do business. Capitalism reaps benefits.  Government greed leads to debauchery.  

               The story of the Tower of Babel is a clear statement about God’s attitude toward big government.  In order to prevent the clans from gathering together under one government, God confused the languages of the people and caused them to scatter across the earth. That story, as well as many more throughout the Bible, support economic freedom for another reason, recognizing the strengths as well the weaknesses of human nature and the limits of human knowledge.  No one can know enough to know how to manage complex societies and economies, and those who think they do always, always, become tyrants.   Families and clans that gather in smaller groups tend to rely on one another and their faith in God, and they prosper. 

               But we don’t need to look at the Bible for answers regarding economic truths; the evidence is historical, empirical, indisputable, the freer the people the healthier the culture.  The classic example is the Roman republic.  Governed by their much lauded virtues, manliness, piety, and reverence, the country flourished.  Their representative democracy, like ours, was designed to be inefficient, incapable of interfering in domestic affairs.  But the natural order of things is for hard fought freedoms to yield and governments to grow.  They promise us beautiful things, perpetual peace, a fuller life, abundance for all, “by robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul.”  So the Roman Republic became an empire and imploded.

               Rudyard Kipling said it well:  “As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man. There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, and the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.”

               Not this time.  This time we learn the lessons of Peter 2:16 and “Live as free men.”

December 13, 2013

Atheists Fear of Religious Symbols

             Once again the Freedom From Religion group is on the warpath.  They want “In God We Trust” eliminated from our coinage.  I have long pondered the attitude of atheists, thought that were I an atheist, crosses and creches would arouse my humor, not my gall.  I would smile and shake my head in wonder that so many people can believe in such hogwash, and I would go merrily on my way, safe in the knowledge that I had not been so duped.

           But Atheists cannot go merrily on their way.  They feel compelled to fight every symbol to the death, ban them from market place to hillside. It has always puzzled me.  Why do they care?   Why do they protest so vehemently.

           Then I read a meditation on Psalm 63 that served as something of an epiphany.  Perhaps the Psalmist speaks truth.  “O God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as a dry and weary land yearns for water.”  

        Perhaps the core of every cell in our bodies is imprinted with a thirst for God, a hunger to know the almighty.  Perhaps those cell walls are our intellect, our noble reason proudly resisting.  “Silly, how could Jonah have been swallowed by a whale and lived to tell the story?  How could the blare of Joshua’s trumpet have felled the walls of Jericho?”

            Perhaps reason manages to quiet that thirst to know God, but those religious symbols destroy the peace, reawaken that longing.  They must be banned lest the atheist fall into the humble pit of faith. 

Not So Newsy News Conference

       President Obama held a news conference.  And newsy it was.  He has already cut the deficit by 2.5 trillion dollars.  I am so relieved.  Not! 

The president assured the press club that he had done everything in his power to resolve the Sequester problem but that the recalcitrant Republicans refuse to have a serious discussion. He has offered serious spending cuts. “I’ve made a deal with certain numbers,”

       But he has not.  He has said he is willing to cut if the Republicans agree to more tax increases, but he has specified absolutely no cuts of his own.  He says he is willing to take on entitlement reform if the Republicans agree to more tax increases, but he has not offered a single entitlement reform plan. He confessed to the press club that he didn’t “want to make himself perfectly clear,” and that is true on a myriad of issues and certainly on the budget issue.  It was perhaps the only honest statement he made today.

       No.  That’s not true.  He did report that the Boehner had offered to cut tax loopholes two months ago, and that it true.  What he doesn’t tell you is that Boehner traded that deal for the biggest tax hike in 20 years and a promise to cut spending. President Obama has not, and will not offer a deal until the Republicans cave on more tax hikes, and I hope to God they will not.  Republicans have played Charlie Brown way to often on that empty promise.

       CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin smiled so charmingly as she asked the president why he didn’t just refuse to allow the Republicans to leave the room before they made a deal.  How cute was that?  Perhaps she should have asked why the Republicans didn’t refuse to let the President get on Air Force 1 yet again and again for another campaign trip unless he and the Democrats offered a serious deal. We’ve been waiting three years for them to propose a plan.

       He assured the press club that, setting aside the budget problems, he is making progress with congress.  They have passed the Violence Against Women Act. (Now I don’t know what that was all about, but I think we have thousands of laws regarding violence muddying up the congressional record as it is.)  

       He boasts that he is making progress with gun laws (most or all of which are unconstitutional), and is working on immigration legislation (his attempt to block Marco Rubio’s excellent proposal and destroy the possibility of resolving the problem.  It’s obvious the president doesn’t really want immigration reform.  He’s beholding to the unions.  He just wants to create a bluster and trick the Hispanics into further solidifying their vote.)

           He does have high hopes, however, that the Republicans will get over their partisan snit and kneel to kiss his ring.  

President Obama, Professor of Constitution? Which One?

             I long suspected that President Obama’s appointment as an adjunct professor of constitution was a sham, a staging prop for his political ambitions.  Now I am convinced.   His commencement speech at Ohio State is definite evidence of the fact that he does not understand, and perhaps has never read anything dealing with the founding.

             He told the students to reject the voices that say that government is the source of the problems that beset us, voices that warm us that tyranny is just around the corner, voices that say "we cannot be trusted." 

              The founders all knew that tyranny is always just around the corner.  How could he not know that?  Did he read Thomas Paine? "Government is a necessary evil."  And “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."

              Did he read Benjamin Franklin:  "We've given you a Republic, if you can keep it."  Did he read George Washington: “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." 

           Did he read John Adams?  "The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." And those powerful jaws are devouring us, taking “from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” (Thomas Jefferson).  We can no longer call terrorism terrorism, but it is justifiable to all Christians “incredibly well funded gangs of fundamentalist monsters.” 

           Barack’s warnings were the absolute antitheses of philosophical foundations of The United States of America.  It is incumbent on our citizenry to always have a healthy distrust of government.  Now I am not suggesting armed rebellion, although Thomas Jefferson did say that without a revolution every twenty years we would be in danger of tyranny. 

             I am suggesting, however, that politicians who tell people to trust them and “reject other voices” are the most dangerous kind and should be greatly feared, politicians who think they are the only ones with the right answers, politicians who warn that if they can’t get their programs passed through congress they’ll do it through executive order.  Samuel Adams warned us of that.  "If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

                George Washington also envisioned a country in ruins, but his warnings were of a different stripe: that our government depended on a moral and religious citizenry.  He didn't specify a religion, but he said over and over again that when we lose the notion that our rights are given us by God, we are in danger of losing our liberty.  "I agree to this Constitution ... and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."