The Ideological War For Freedom Is Over

It Lost…

“Wherever private property disappears, man’s liberty is gone.  Man is placed completely at the mercy of the state.  Wherever private ownership is weakened, man’s liberty is weakened also.  There is an essential relationship between liberty and property.”  R. J. Rushdoony

The Heritage Foundation provides an excellent summary of property rights.  They describe a rating of 100 this way: “Private property is guaranteed by the government. The court system enforces contracts efficiently and quickly. The justice system punishes those who unlawfully confiscate private property. There is no corruption or expropriation.”  At 50, “The court system is inefficient and subject to delays. Corruption may be present, and the judiciary may be influenced by other branches of government. Expropriation is possible but rare.”  At 0, “Private property is outlawed, and all property belongs to the state. People do not have the right to sue others and do not have access to the courts. Corruption is endemic.

In 1995 world property rights were rated at 56.  In 2013 they are rated at 43, a reduction of over 20 percent. (See the graph in the Heritage Link below.)

Though freedom is tending down throughout the world it remains highest in Western nations and lowest in the Third World. 

The Heritage link rates the United States of America tenth behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius, and Denmark.  

Click here for the Heritage Foundation Property Rights link.

The U. S. Government now owns over 50 percent of the nation’s land and the incremental incursion of United Nation’s Agenda 21 continues to add to the coffer.  On Michael Shaw’s “Freedom Advocates”page he writes, “Agenda 21 seeks to transform America while eliminating the middle class. It plans to reach these goals on several fronts: by restructuring agriculture, creating broad wildlife corridors void of human activity, determining where and how people live, controlling human reproduction and human movement, constraining and controlling energy consumption and water use—in short, by eliminating private property.”

“The institution of private property makes possible three things essential to our liberty:  It encourages productive activity, allowing us to turn our ideas into actions and to realize the benefits of those actions. It allows us to engage in voluntary trade with others, multiplying the benefits of individual action a thousand-fold.  It enables us to safeguard and develop our resources responsibly and to secure peace and prosperity as a result. To appreciate the importance of private property in your own life, you need only to consider the significance of these two facts:  Private property represents everything you obtain through productive effort or voluntary trade.  Its essence is your right to determine its use”

The right to private property is being eroded in the United States and around the world.  World government seeks to exert absolute control; treating people like herds of cattle to be used as labor on the world plantation.  Like a bee hive the world will be filled with worker bees whose sole task is to provide an opulent leisure for the ruling class.  National pride will give way to a multicultural social order with intermarriages blurring racial identities. Only the Nation of Israel will remain intact.  Other nations and races are destined to become worker bees indistinguishable from one another.  This is the plan.  It is the logic behind the deliberate dumbing down of America and the massive push for multicultural integration. It is the impetus for the destruction of Christianity with its emphasis on the individual. The plan is diabolical, a direct download from Satan himself.

The snake of humanism is very prolific when it invades a society rationality disappears and as humans stray farther and farther from their Creator, foolishness grows with exponential rapidity.

We live with and have accepted an increasing number of social insanities: Our president who may be Constitutionally ineligible has been elected to a second term; our government has enslaved its citizens with a national debt of $16 trillion dollars which amounts to over $50 thousand per citizen; in direct defiance of the natural order we are training women to fight against men in defense of our nation and sanctioning homosexual marriage; the hallowed halls of our educational institutions have accepted the weakening results of multiculturalism as a desirable goal;  our citizens have been convinced that relatively weak and militarily insignificant nations in the Arab world are a danger to us; with text book insanity Americans continue to participate in a political system that is progressively enslaving them; and while all this subterfuge goes on our government supports an international court that prosecutes crimes against humanity while they are the biggest perpetrator.

Most Americans harbor a lackadaisical confidence that things will improve.  They ignore the world debt crisis and fail to consider that ultimately the lenders will call on the citizens of the United States to pay the debt their government has accumulated. Think of the austerity required for an American family of four to pay off a debt of $200,000.00.  That figure is quickly rising as our politicians continue to use the public credit card.  The debtor is a slave to the lender and the United States of America is a plantation populated by slaves whose willful ignorance allows them to go about their daily tasks as if all were well. 

The One True God is at odds with the new world order; it seeks to tyrannize us while He seeks to free us through obedience to His Commandments.  When God and His Law are forsaken despotism is inevitable.  We were not created to govern ourselves and since we have failed to encode this truth we are experiencing the results of our failure.

Partisan politics warned us about the dictatorial nature of the Obama Administration but the erstwhile Bush cabal was equally malignant.  Changing political partoes is useless. We have long ago lost control of our government and our opinions no longer matter.   Congress persons and senators vote the will of the money powers and the money powers reward them with re-election.

In Boston and Watertown, Massachusetts local, state, and federal authorities deployed a frightening array of coordinated force to apprehend two young men they described as terrorists.  Acting as judge and jury they violated the legal rights of the suspects and encroached on property rights by invading homes and restricting the movement of their occupants.  The entire operation resembled aiming a howitzer at a house fly.

The citizens of the United States of America have been put on notice that neither they nor their properties can claim protections from the unrestrained power of those that rule them.

Several times I have written that Americans need to repent from theirs and their father’s wicked ways. This admonition has fallen on deaf ears and some have advised me that I should stop writing about it because it will never happen.

In a recent email from American Vision Dr. Joel McDurmon wrote that “a corrupt government is the product of a corrupt people”. He quoted H. L. Mencken, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what They want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” and went on to contend that God often punishes a wicked populace by exposing them to their own sins. “Thus do the politically deluded live in a denial which dismisses even God’s Word in favor of the assertion of human wisdom.  So often do men shelter their pet political beliefs from even divine criticism.  So often do men deny God’s Word to advance their own desires. So often do men rest on false assurances built on their own godless dreams.  And just as often do societies weather and decay from the blights of human vanity.”   Read here.

America and its people have supported illegal aggression and encouraged murderous wars.  We have pride fully maintained our national superiority and encouraged the use of weapons of mass destruction. We have supported our government in the role of a deity and now, since we have granted it that role, it has begun reflecting it in action.  We have winked at sin, dallied in its fringes, and taken an occasional bath.  Dishonest measurements have been accepted for decades; our buildings are constructed with dishonest two-by-fours that are actually only one and a half by three and three quarters.  Now even our Pound Cakes weigh only fourteen ounces.  Dishonesty has permeated our culture!  Our media uses lies, gross omissions, and misrepresentations in reporting the news and our government regularly distorts facts and figures.  While all this defiance of God continues our churches disregard their proper function by seeking peace and respectability.  Abortion is a horrendous sin but it is only one sin; our cancerous pride covers scores of others.

One of my nieces is married to a lawyer.  He employs a logical mind that makes conversation interesting.  He is a Democrat who supports Obama and believes he is doing a reasonably good job.  His approach to life is pragmatic, he considers himself moral, and understands that there is room for disagreement.  We did not set parameters for our talk but I believe he would agree with Democrat Harry Reid that government is inherently good and with Libertarian Jacob Hornberger that it should be constrained by natural law.

Natural law alone would never have created the freedom and order the United States of America has enjoyed.  It was Christianity and the Laws God gave to Moses that buttressed a secular government and made our nation great. Though not always pronounced it was almost universally supported even by many whose personal beliefs were different.  Pragmatism is a pagan procedure that allows compromise with evil and the end to justify the means.  Freedom is always endangered by pragmatism.

Because we are no longer a righteous nation we are quickly losing our freedom. The longer we linger in secular humanism the greater the constraints.  Private property was flagrantly invaded in Watertown, Massachusetts. When tyrants are successful in exercising inordinate power they will continue to do so.

We no longer have private property in America.  The internet is devoid of privacy with everything subject to the prying eyes and ears of big brother.  Private homes are no longer sanctuaries but can now be invaded by heavily armed, jack booted government troops who can kill with impunity.  Public safety trumps individual rights leaving citizens without privacy or even the right to occupy of their own property. 

Life is no longer restrained by absolutes.  Power prevails and the full force of the United States military can be used to enforce the whims of those that wield it.

When we forsake God’s Law we subject ourselves to the whims of human power!

Human Liberty Is Doomed

Any discussion on liberty presupposes an understanding of human nature. Today, the utter confusion and distorted mindset of humankind, relegates animal instincts, as the premier motivation for salacious existence. The criteria for a cordial civilization have long been “consigned to the dustbins of history“. Standards for civil and moral conduct are debased by a global disintegration to achieve the ‘good’ for the hunt of acting ‘nice’. Polite and pleasant facades are no substitute for truth and meaning. Yet, the heights of evil transactions seem to be hailed routinely, as the only achievement that power hungry sociopaths aspire to impose on the rest of the planet. Never-ending conflict is inherent in the human condition, while the state of liberty is unusual and resides within the character of the ethical spirit.

The spread of international humanism as a social value-system is fundamentally hedonistic. The pretence of caring about humanity by adopting a regulatory anatomical structure of benign coercion has relegated individual dignity to the graves of a universal cemetery. At every turn in the propaganda evangelism cycle, the media masters preach a gospel of fake tolerance and respect, while implementing policies and dictates, based upon hate and oppression.

The confessedly exposed religion of their belief is in a hegemonic demon of worldwide enslavement. The defect in the progressive creed requires the extermination of individualistic sovereignty. The whole, as long as it conforms to the orthodox version of subjugation, requires every unique person, to obey the community master of social welfare.

According to the Barack Hussein Obama II epithet, the epistle of his self-indulgence lecture is offered up as a path to worldly happiness. Mere mortals need to sacrifice their integrity to a demon deity, upon an altar of desolation and abandonment. The devil of state adoration demands mandatory veneration.

Hell on earth is the inevitable result from the elimination of personal liberty. The foundation of civilization rests upon the free will of each mortal and the cement of society is the ability of every person to make independent decisions and accept responsibility for their actions. The principles of the Christian gospel, the sacred heritage of the worth in each person and the traditional values of the golden rule are immutable and indisputable. Even so, the collectivist culture rejects the very core cornerstone that has provided the only intermittent sanctuary from the pillaging of the barbarians.

Even an eastern establishment agent like The Atlantic has to admit the evident in the article, There’s No Room for Civil Liberties in Obama’s Inauguration View of America. Wendy Kaminer uses the erroneous illusion of a difference in a partisan political ideology. “The authoritarian right and egalitarian left meet in the middle on at least one issue: Neither side values the rights of the individual.” Stating the obvious, there is no manifest departure within the communalist system that hates any citizen objections to the supremacy of the State. Ms. Kaminer continues:

“Civil libertarians have been cataloguing and futilely litigating the gross abuses of post-9/11 era for years. They include, but are probably not limited to, summary detention and torture; the prosecution of whistleblowers; surveillance of peaceful protesters; the criminalization of journalism and peaceful human-rights activism; extensive blacklisting that would have been the envy of Joe McCarthy; and secrecy about a shadow legal system that makes the president’s “we the people” trope seem less inspirational than sarcastic.

Precisely because civil libertarians have focused on these abuses, they’re old news — which means that progressives reveling in Obama’s speech can’t claim ignorance of them. When they applaud the president’s “muscular liberalism,” without qualification, they’re effectively applauding his strong-arm security state.

When Obama praised collective action in his address, he wasn’t praising efforts by individuals to organize against government abuses. He was praising organized support for government programs.”

Conversely, concluding that the state is the ultimate enemy of the individual, missing the true lesson of the human experience. The addiction to authoritarian discipline is not motivated primarily out of a fear of reprisals, but more often stems from a desire to belong to a social order. The dread of being labeled an outsider and a social misfit creates more self-imposed compliance, with an acceptable politically correct stance, than the threat of fines or incarceration.

The artificial disposition of public or even interpersonal discourse, illustrates the extent and length people go to avoid asking the most profound questions, much less an attempt to discover answers for social issues. The lack of meaningful dialogue is symptomatic of a terminal disease that strips away the flesh from the bone of a cadaver, awaiting a funeral.

The essence of a reasoned relationship with another person or an entire society must be founded upon a mutual respect and common interest. How can a solitary national bear loyalty to a government that tramples inherent rights, which are ordained by God at birth, not delegated by government fiat?

With the unholy alliance of the corporatist/state fascist economy, the model of a system of psychopathic delusion becomes the official reality. People relish in their self-induced mental illness and celebrate their diminished capacity from accepting their subservient and docile role. Liberty cannot survive when citizenry willingly surrender.

Mark Tapscott makes the case that Individual liberty cannot survive a republic of civic dunces.

“As with so much else, James Madison captures the profoundly serious implications of raising a generation politically crippled by its gross civic ignorance in a single concise statement about the difference between Europe and America: “In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example … of charters of power granted by liberty.”

If you don’t grasp how Madison’s simple equation makes all the difference in the world in how this country is governed, then you probably don’t understand why liberals and conservatives disagree on just about everything.”

The Obama administration is engaged in the Europeanization of America. Note this transition removes the historic race, ethnic and cultural differences, that created the vibrant civilization, which produced Western thought and social institutions. In its place, a new world order of an ecumenical hierarchy of globalist plutocrats, running a technological prison planet of apes, is in the making.

No liberty exists for anthropoids! Ironically, “the Forbidden Zone was once a paradise. Your breed made a desert of it, ages ago”, applies to the authoritarians that would be King Kong in domain of Dr. Zaius. When George Taylor laments, “YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!’; the fans of the POTUS dictatorship, whoever is in office at the time, deserves their oblivion.Is it so difficult to see the destructive conversion going on in a country that once understood the purpose of the American Revolution? The preachers from the pulpits of press conferences want you to believe that their pronouncements are from on high. The fools, who extend them credibility in the face of official tyranny, much less their acquiescence and submission, are endorsing treason.

Liberty must be defended, not with superior firepower, but with eternal determination. Since the lack of willpower is the critical problem, what would it take to motivate the lethargic minions to take real affirmative action? Pray tell the squeamish dare not get involved. Just the mere thought of offending your overlords, is far too audacious, in a feeble attempt to practice personal self-respect.

The village of the damned is as close as your adjacent neighborhood. Living a life of liberty is too intrepid of a concept for most registered party voters. As the evidence mounts that, the dictatorship of the proletariat is not confined solely to Marxist regimes, but is eminently thriving in the land of the former brave and bold.

The Madisonian framework model of federalism and separation of powers is long dead. Even the appearance of Liberty in public institutions is scorned upon as an affront to the supremacy of state authority. Individual autonomy and specific actions is the principle purpose of the genuine patriot, while the last refuge of the scoundrel is the pledge of allegiance to the admiralty flag.

Since the decline of the original Republic, the chronicle into totalitarianism is nearly complete. Now the gatekeepers of the oligarchy look and act like Dr. Zaius. When he admits that he has always known that human civilization existed long before apes ruled the planet, he really is saying that the nation was once lead by representatives of sovereign individuals and is now ruled by egomaniac tyrants that like to whip their knuckle dragging serfs.The reason the country is doomed lies squarely upon the shoulders of the docile. With the criminalization of society, the faint-hearted demand harsher penalties for anyone, who defies the slave state. Do not just blame the elites sitting on high for all the ills of our national plight. The little people, gaming the system, bear the scarlet letter of shame for their lust of government adoration. As long as the rebellion of courage remains in a stage of limbo, the cowardly primates of Amerika will obey their orders.

Going Against God “Just For Fun”

Today we’re hearing a lot about Spiritism or Spiritualism, not to be confused with spiritual or spirituality, as in “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual,” or “I’m into spirituality.”  The term Spiritism has replaced what was once called animism and other religious practices involving the invocation of spiritual beings.

Some religions meld Spiritualism with Christianity.  For example, a blend of Christian and African folk beliefs that originated in Brazil is now practiced in the U.S.   Spiritualism is much the same as Spiritism only it has adopted Christian rites and prayers.  People visiting Spiritualistic services can be misled into thinking they’re Christian churches.  The problem is Christianity cannot be melded with any other religion or practice.

One of the major tenets of Spiritism is reincarnation.  The classic form of reincarnation originated in India in the 9th century BC.  Reincarnation has become a hot topic in our post-modern culture.

There are a whole host of beliefs about reincarnation.  The most widely touted belief  is that upon death one’s spirit exits the body in search of another body to inhabit. Believing in reincarnation gives hope for continuing one’s existence in further lives to work off one’s karma.  Karma is broadly defined as the consequences of one’s actions.

Ask professing Christians as they flow through the doors of a Sunday worship service if they believe in reincarnation, some will give you a cavalier “Yes,” as if it’s no big deal for believers to mix Christianity with mystical beliefs.  However, believing in reincarnation is a very big deal for the serious Christian.  For example, reincarnation is a central tenet within Hinduism, not Christianity!

The thing Christians need to come to terms with is that belief in reincarnation goes against what the Bible teaches regarding the soul’s final judgment by a holy God.  What Jesus Christ clearly taught is that unrepentant sinners are condemned to an eternity in hell.  Jesus never mentioned reincarnation – not once!

Hebrews 9:27 reveals what occurs when human beings die:

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

Listen to what Paul says happens when we die:

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.(2 Cor. 5:8)

It is imperative that serious Christians view mysticism as evil.  When Paul came face to face with the Jewish mystic Elymas, he charged him with being a child of the devil and an enemy of righteousness. Moreover, he accused the mystic of perverting the right ways of the Lord.  (Acts 13:10)  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul caused him to go blind.  Not only did he put out the sorcerer’s eyes, he also put him out of a job! When it came to confronting evil, Paul never backed down, never hesitated, wavered or vacillated.  He had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer when it came to evildoers.

God forbids any sort of participation in paganism for our own protection.  His reason is simple: its roots are steeped in pagan idolatry and drug use.  The occult world is an open door to Satan’s world.  Those who enter find themselves on a quest for ‘hidden wisdom’ or ‘deeper truth.’  And, not surprisingly, the sought after ‘hidden wisdom’ is not meant for everyone, it’s meant for a select few such as New Age disciples and gurus.

We call those who possess supernatural power (power’s what it’s all about) shamans, witchdoctors, clairvoyants, trance channelers, spiritists, and the list goes on.  So, how does a spiritist go about getting in contact with the spirit world?  By receiving radiation, frequencies or vibrations from the dead.  “Communication from the spirit world manifests itself in psychical phenomena (e.g., telepathy, clairvoyance, trance speaking, and apparitions) and in physical phenomena (e.g., levitation, automatic writing, and poltergeist and ectoplasmic activities).” (Source)

The Bible tells us that it is God who instigates communication, not man.  Generally the Lord will use angels as His envoys to humans.  We know very little about angels, either the elect or the fallen.  However, the scriptures inform us that on occasion the Lord sent a holy elect angel to Earth to deliver messages. And He also sent angles to minister to people, to protect them, and also to execute His judgment.  The angels have one purpose: to glorify God’s holy Name and to carry out His will.

There are also fallen angels – the rebellious ones!  The most notorious of the lot is Lucifer aka Satan.  The Bible refers to the fallen angels as demons, spirits of darkness and evil spirits.  The ones that rebelled against God fell from grace.  Consequently, they were hurled out of heaven, lock stock and barrel.  Bible expositor John MacArthur elucidates what happened next:

At that point, Satan gained the rulership of the world, and the term world took on a third meaning: the evil system opposed to God that now dominates this planet. The system that Satan began will continue to develop up to the time period known as the Great Tribulation.

As I have made clear, Christianity and Spiritism have nothing in common whatsoever.  I mean, think about it. Can you trust God and Satan at the same time?  Here’s what Paul said:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the uncleanthing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor. 6:14-18)

Satan is known as the “father of lies.”  Even those who are guided by an “inner voice” can be deceived, warns occultist Nicholas Weeks:

Channels such as [Alice] Bailey are sincere and convinced that their inner voices and visions are real Masters. Unhappily, sincerity is no protection from delusion. In 1884 Master KH wrote to a psychic of that time, giving an explanation for the befuddling of a channel or seer. ‘Since you have scarcely learned the elements of self-control, in psychism, you must suffer bad consequences. You draw to yourself the nearest and strongest influences “often evil” and absorb them, and are psychically stifled or narcotised by them. The airs become peopled with resuscitated phantoms. They give you false tokens, misleading revelations, deceptive images. Your vivid creative fancy evokes illusive Gurus and chelas [disciples], and puts into their mouths words coined the instant before in the mint of your mind, unknown to yourself. The false appear as real, as the true, and you have no exact method of detection since you are yet prone to force your communications to agree with your preconceptions. (Source)

And to think, many Christians are now engaged in magical mystical practices such as contemplative prayer that can give the practitioner misleading revelations and deceptive images, where the false may appear real.  (See a column I wrote on contemplative prayer here.)

Keep in mind that the spirits that speak through the mouths of the willing are demons.  People who get themselves into a mind-altering trance with the purpose being to channel a benevolent spirit may end up becoming demon possessed!  Granted, some channelers are really nothing more than convincing actors who write the script as they go along.  These are the charlatans who do it for money or fame – or both.  However, there are many dupes that allow their bodies to be used by spirit entities that use the occasion to spew anti-Christian propaganda!

The Bible tells us to, “Prove [test] all things; hold fast that which is good.” (1 John 4:1). We’re also told to flee (run like a maniac) from the devil who “walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Now, picture a lion hiding in the brush to pounce on an unsuspecting wildebeest.  The devil’s like the hungry lion, only he’s waiting to pounce on Christ’s sheep!  Unfortunately many Christians fail to obey God’s command to resist the devil, which is one of the reasons Christianity’s in the sorry state it’s in today.

Far too many followers of Jesus Christ are unaware that our Lord quite literally detests all forms of sorcery. There are no exceptions!  Sorry to be a wet blanket, but even astrology is banned.  And it doesn’t matter if it’s done “just for fun.”  One cannot be a Presbyterian on Sunday and a spiritist the other six days of the week.

This brings me to two blogs I stumbled on.  Both male bloggers declare their love for Christ and state that the Bible is the standard by which they live their lives.  One studies apologetics; the other is a youth pastor.  They both have their Zodiac signs on display.  That way if you land on aspiring apologist’s blog, you’ll know that he’s a Gemini; likewise, if you land on youth pastor’s blog, you’ll discover that he’s a Virgo.  One can only assume that these young men have not yet read Leviticus 19:26, Deuteronomy 18:9-12, Exodus 22:18 and other similar passages where God commands His people to steer clear of sorcery.  And yet these so-called Bible believers find time to read up on astrology?

Christians who are confronted with an evil practice must lace up their trusty running shoes and high tail it out of there, pronto!  Keep away from horoscopes (astrology), numerology, séances, tarot cards, tealeaves, palm reading, crystal balls, talking boards, omens or signs.  Moreover, do not get involved in wizardry, witchcraft, the study of Kabbalah, nature religion (Wicca), and the practice of yoga (its sole purpose is purely spiritual). Believers must flee from any and all pagan customs and practices.  Those who are currently involved in any of the above must bring it to an end today!

Since dabbling in sorcery is a sin against God, repentance is of paramount importance.  So if you’ve been dabbling, repent! And never return to any sort of evil practice — even if it’s “just for fun.”

Bear in mind that the demonic powers operating in the realm of the occult are very real.  These spirits are stronger and more dangerous than people realize.  The Bible warns us to “regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.” (Lev. 19:31).

The Apostle Paul understood all too well that evil forces are ever present in the “heavenlies.” Hence, he admonished followers of Christ to wear the “armor of God” to protect against familiar spirits that prey on gullible humans.  He even gave specific instructions to the Church in Ephesus:

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: (Ephesians 6:1-12).

Christian — take Paul’s instructions to heart and daily put on the full armor of God to protect against the rulers of the darkness of this world.

Recommended:

The Old Serpent and the Slacker—an allegory on the “Armor of God” By Marsha West
Are You Armed for Battle? By Marsha West
Occult – On Solid Rock Resources
Angels – On Solid Rock Resources
New Age Movement – On Solid Rock Resources
Contemplative Prayer – On Solid Rock Resources
Christian Yoga? – On Solid Rock Resources

Christians Mystically Encountering God

For a couple of decades there has been a big push by numerous evangelical leaders to incorporate pagan practices into the visible Church. These unbiblical practices have their origins in Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, likewise the New Age movement. Roman Catholic Trappist Monks fully embraced Eastern religion’s pagan practices. Through the writings of Thomas Merton, Basil Pennington, William Menninger and Thomas Keating these practices have been introduced into mainline Protestant churches as well as independent, nondenominational, charismatic and Pentecostal churches.

Those who wish to develop a more meaningful prayer life are urged by popular evangelicals such as Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Rick Warren, John Ortberg, Ruth Haley Barton and Tony Campolo, just to name a few, to undertake a mystical prayer practice called The Silence.

How does one achieve The Silence? By practicing eastern-style mantra meditation aka Transcendental Meditation (TM).

What is the goal of TM? To gain “ultimate knowledge of God by a direct experience that bypasses the mind.”

What must one do to attain this sort of mind-altering experience? Settle into a quiet comfortable place and with eyes closed repeat a word or phrase from Scripture over and over until the thinking process shuts down to the point of silence…..and, low and behold, the practitioner will allegedly have an encounter with God in the spirit realm.

Our final goal is ‘union with God,’ which is a pure relationship where we see ‘nothing.’ (Source)

Wow. Sounds a bit New Age, doesn’t it? No doubt about it! And because it is New Age, why, pray tell, do shepherds of the flock not have a problem pushing this sort of practice on their sheep?

Contemplative prayerUndoubtedly many Christians have never heard of The Silence. Be that as it may, terms such as ; centering prayer; lectio divina; Divine presence; sacred word; transformation/transforming union; listening prayer; soaking prayer; and breath prayer may ring a bell. But it matters not what term we use; what matters is that to pray The Silence is unbiblical.

Former New Ager Marcia Montenegro wrote an in depth essay on Contemplative Prayer (CP) entitled “Contemplating Contemplative Prayer: Is It Really Prayer?” Marcia warns us that,

The influence of Buddhism and Hinduism on Contemplative Prayer … is apparent. Words such as “detachment,” “transformation,” “emptiness,” “enlightenment” and “awakening” swim in and out of the waters of these books. The use of such terms certainly mandates a closer inspection of what is being taught, despite the fact that contemplative prayer is presented as Christian practice.

Themes that one finds echoed in the CP movement include the notions that true prayer is: silent, beyond words, beyond thought, does away with the “false self,” triggers transformation of consciousness, and is an awakening. Suggested techniques often include breathing exercises, visualization, repetition of a word or phrase, and detachment from thinking. (Source)

Evangelical pastor Gary Gilley also tells us what to watch out for:

[C]ontemplative prayer is not the same as prayer defined biblically; “sacred reading” (also called lectio divina) of Scripture is not the same as Bible study; meditation (mystically encountering God) is not the same as knowing God and so forth. Many of the same terms are used, but as the classical liberals, and the more recent emergents, are fond of doing, they take our terms, including biblical ones, and give them new definitions and twists. (Source)

Spiritual Disciplines

Paul wrote, “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). This sort of training promotes Christlikeness. The ESV translates “train” as “discipline.” To “train yourself for godliness” means a call to holy living. It also means hard work. According to the John MacArthur Study Bible study notes, “train” is an athletic term “denoting the rigorous, self-sacrificing exercise an athlete undergoes. Spiritual self-discipline is the path to godly living.” Training such as this has been termed “spiritual exercises” or “spiritual disciplines.” As a result of “spiritual disciplines” many Christians now practice Contemplative Prayer. Many CP practitioners believe that they’re receiving direct revelations from God. “From years of studying mystics of all stripes,” says Ken Silva, “I can tell you their perceived revelations then trump the texts of Holy Scripture for them. In other words, rather than testing these experiences by God’s Word, now these (CP) practitioners … are instead using their feelings to interpret the Bible through what they think God is saying. I’m telling you, the tragic fact is, the mainstream of professing Christendom is rapidly devolving into all kinds of silly superstitions.” (Source)
Gospel Coalition’s D.A. Carson explains the spiritual disciplines thusly:

Nowadays spiritual disciplines may include Bible reading, meditation, worship, giving away money, fasting, solitude, fellowship, deeds of service, evangelism, almsgiving, creation care, journaling, missionary work, and more. It may include vows of celibacy, self-flagellation, and chanting mantras. In popular usage, some of these so-called spiritual disciplines are entirely divorced from any specific doctrine whatsoever, Christian or otherwise: they are merely a matter of technique. That is why people sometimes say, “For your doctrine, by all means commit yourselves to evangelical confessionalism. But when it comes to the spiritual disciplines, turn to Catholicism or perhaps Buddhism.” What is universally presupposed by the expression “spiritual discipline” is that such disciplines are intended to increase our spirituality. From a Christian perspective, however, it is simply not possible to increase one’s spirituality without possessing the Holy Spirit and submitting to his transforming instruction and power. Techniques are never neutral. They are invariably loaded with theological presuppositions, often unrecognized. (emphasis added) (Source)

As I said above, many Christians feel like something is missing from their prayer life and they long to “connect with God” in a more meaningful way. So they’ll do just about anything to “cultivate intimacy with God,” including unbiblical meditation. The irony is that they’ll attempt to defend an unbiblical practice by quoting Scripture. Take for example Joshua 1:8:

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Some Christians will argue that Joshua 1:8 shows that God approves of this mind emptying type of meditation. Wrong! The text is instructing us to meditate on God’s Word, not to empty our minds.
I’ll explain biblical mediation in a moment. But first let’s look at how Webster’s defines meditation:

The words Ponder, Meditate, Muse, and Ruminate are synonyms and mean to consider or examine attentively or deliberately. PONDER implies a careful weighing of a problem or, often, prolonged inconclusive thinking about a matter; MEDITATE implies a definite focusing of one’s thoughts on something as to understand it deeply; muse suggests a more or less focused daydreaming as in remembrance; RUMINATE implies going over the same matter in one’s thoughts again and again but suggests little of either purposive thinking or rapt absorption.

Now let’s look at Psalm 119 to see what the Bible teaches on meditation:

I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. (119:15).

Princes also did sit and speak against me: but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. (119:23)

Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works. (119:27)

My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes. (119:48)

See also: 119:78, 119:97, 119:99,119:148.

The Apostle Paul says the following:

Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. (2Tim 2:7)

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think [mediated] on these things. (Phil 4:8)

Could the Almighty have made the meaning of meditation any clearer? God has also made it abundantly clear that He forbids His people to indulge in any form of pagan idolatry. So practicing mystical mantra meditation is going against God! This alone should be enough to scare individuals away from this type of approach to prayer.

When it comes to pagan practices God leaves no room for doubt: Do it and die spiritually…even physically, as in King Saul’s case.

Yoga Meditation

Over the years I have dealt with “Christian yoga” in several of my columns. So I’ll briefly touch on it here for the simple reason that a large number of Christ followers have wholeheartedly embraced the Buddhist practice of yoga. Even churches offer yoga classes with a Christian spin on it! Not surprisingly, enterprising Christians head up successful yoga businesses such as “Holy Yoga,” “PraiseMoves and “Yahweh Yoga” (YY) just to name a few. YY’s website promises to “increase the kingdom of Jesus Christ by establishing, providing and maintaining a Christian yoga studio and teaching academy that honors God in all business and ministry endeavors. Yahweh Yoga seeks to…empower men and women to de-stress, to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ and to improve their mind, body and spirit…”

It’s not a stretch to say that the language used to promote YY comes right out of the New Age handbook.

Here’s the bottom line. So-called Christian yoga has nothing in common with authentic Christianity. In fact, the Bible warns:

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Eph 5:8-11)

In one of my columns entitled Can A Pagan Practice Be “Christianized” I drew attention to the fact that:

Yoga is being marketed to mainline churches with the assurance of creating stress reduction, developing self-confidence, and improving concentration. It is also marketed to business and industry, athletes, senior citizens, students, teens and adolescents. Because of our fast paced life-style, who wouldn’t want to reduce stress? This is why yoga classes have become so popular.

Now here’s the main reason Christians should avoid yoga. Christian apologists John Ankerberg and John Weldon maintain that, “The basic premise of yoga theory is the fundamental unity of all existence: God, man, and all of creation are ultimately one divine reality.” To explain the basic premise, the authors quote from an editorial in the Yoga Journal:

“We are all aware that yoga means ‘union’ and that the practice of yoga unites body, breath, and mind, lower and higher energy centers and, ultimately self and God, or higher Self. But more broadly, yoga directs our attention to the unity or oneness that underlies our fragmented experiences and equally fragmented world. Family, friends, the Druze guerrilla in Lebanon, the great whale migrating north — all share the same essential [divine] nature.”

This quote alone should raise concerns among Christians but when looked at in light of Bible expositor John MacArthur’s comments extracted from a CNN Primetime interview where he was asked “Should Christians practice yoga,” it ought to be completely clear that Christians should not participate:

John MacArthur…wondered why Christians would want to “borrow a term that is part of a false religion” (that clashes with historic orthodox Christianity). MacArthur contends that Christians shouldn’t put themselves in weird physical positions, empty their minds, focus on him or herself, and try to find the “god within” as a way to relieve stress. “This is practicing a false religion,” he said rather pointedly. Then he boldly shared the gospel. He said in order to have a whole and complete life, Christians must go to the Word of God, to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “The idea of Christianity is to fill your mind with biblical truth and focus on the God which is above you.”

We can be thankful that there are a few Christian leaders in America who are willing to stand up for the truth.

In conclusion, “Christian mysticism” has emerged from false religious systems. But instead of fleeing from magical mystical practices, scores of Christians have embraced them! The brethren must be warned that Scripture strictly forbids uniting with pagans and apostates. Moreover, those who profess Christ must be admonished not to participate in Contemplative Prayer or any sort of mantra meditation for the reason that spiritual harm can result from it.

The Obama Exodus To The Promised Land

Barak Obama’s journey to the Holy Land hardly resembles the trek of Moses through the wilderness. Nonetheless, his flee from accountability does remind of that often professed transparency. In this case, he cannot hide from his misdeeds. An open question remains, will public outrages banish the POTUS under the weight of his transgressions. Alternatively, will the powers of Pharaoh succeed in suppressing his enemies?

“Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” (NRSV Exodus 　2:14)

This deed is the event that sends Moses on his long journey. The Old Testament is careful to say that Moses killed the Egyptian when no one was around. Yet the implication in the Bible is that you can run, but you cannot hide.　Barry S. Roffman’s Ark Code offers an esoteric, if not bizarre theory that attempts to make a connection with the Hebrew Torah.

Barak OBAMA – REINCARNATION OF PHARAOH, KING OF EGYPT, may be a stretch by most mainstream standards. However, the political point that Obama seeks to dictate to others certainly has the stain of Pharaoh.

“This matrix was originally posted in conjunction with President Obama’s overt hostility toward Israel. When the crisis arose in Egypt where there was widespread opposition to President Mubarak, Obama declared, “What is clear — and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak — is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, and it must begin now.” The demands made by the U.S. President had a tone that made it sound like he was also elected as President of Egypt. There seemed to be no concept of Egyptian sovereignty, or of the need for Egypt to solve its own problems internally. On the matrix, BARACK OBAMA is the axis term. His name is shown at its 6th lowest ELS in wrapped Torah (which requires more than one computer pass through the 304,805 letters of Torah to find). It is directly crossed by one of the Torah’s 8 uses of the term PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT. Perhaps President Obama has a distant memory of being Pharaoh, King of Egypt in a past life. Indeed, there is a statue that backs this idea in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that was attacked in the rebellion, and which was at the heart of the rebellion in Cairo’s Tahrir Square!

Who will play the role of Pharaoh? As shown above, a statute in the Cairo Museum offers a huge clue. It and the actions of Obama, when combined with the Torah Code matrix above, and the odds below appear to make the answer rather apparent.

The p value of the match of BARACK OBAMA and PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT is just ~0.015. It equates to about one chance in 66 that we could find such a match. By itself this is only of mild interest. However, when the matrix is expanded to just 170 letters, a second occurrence of PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT is seen. With just 7 remaining such terms to match, the p value of the larger matrix is now adjusted to 0.000104, which is about one chance in 9,607 – highly significant.”

Mr. Roffman’s conclusion: “It is not certain who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, butone suspect is Akhenaten. His statue is found in the Cairo Museum, and it is a dead ringer for President Obama.”

 

For an op-ed viewpoint authored by ANDRÉ ACIMAN, in the New York Times, The Exodus Obama Forgot to Mention, illustrates the complexity of living together, much less in harmony.

“PRESIDENT OBAMA’S speech to the Islamic world was a groundbreaking event. Never before has a young, dynamic American president, beloved both by his countrymen and the nations of the world, extended so timely and eager a hand to a part of the globe that, recently, had seen fewer and fewer reasons to trust us or to wish us well.As important, Mr. Obama did not mince words. Never before has a president gone over to the Arab world and broadcast its flaws so loudly and clearly: extremism, nuclear weapons programs and a faltering record in human rights, education and economic development — the Arab world gets no passing grades in any of these domains. Mr. Obama even found a moment to mention the plight of Egypt’s harassed Coptic community and to criticize the new wave of Holocaust deniers. And to show he was not playing favorites, he put the Israelis on notice: no more settlements in the occupied territories. He spoke about the suffering of Palestinians. This was no wilting olive branch.

It is strange that our president, a man so versed in history and so committed to the truth, should have omitted mentioning the Jews of Egypt. He either forgot, or just didn’t know, or just thought it wasn’t expedient or appropriate for this venue. But for him to speak in Cairo of a shared effort “to find common ground … and to respect the dignity of all human beings” without mentioning people in my position would be like his speaking to the residents of Berlin about the future of Germany and forgetting to mention a small detail called World War II.”

 

Viewing the Ed Show video, from the progressive media, Netanyahu Sets US Conservatives Straight on ‘Anti-Israel’ Obama, attempts to give the impression that playing nice with Bibi Netanyahu implies progress. Just how realistic is this assessment, when examined in light of the record of the administration?

How far the daring darling of the peace process has fallen from grace among the Middle East Semites, should not be a surprise. Even the pro-Israel establishment Daily Beast questions Obama’s ability and commitment to engage the eternal feud in the article, How Obama Became Netanyahu.

“When it comes to the Palestinians, Obama is also governed by political fear. Obama’s own dovish instincts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are clear.

Before he won the Democratic nomination in 2008, Obama spoke openly about Palestinian suffering, about the narrow confines of the Israel debate inside the United States, and about his dim view of Likud. But ever since his bruising, and ultimately futile, conflicts with Netanyahu over settlements in 2009 and the 1967 lines in 2011, Obama has gone to great lengths to avoid Israel-related fights. During the past 18 months, he’s barely uttered a public word about settlements or the 1967 lines. Last year’s Democratic platform excised previous language pledging a “personal” presidential “commitment” to the peace process. And now Obama is traveling to Israel without any specific plans for moving toward a Palestinian state.

Obama is essentially telling Palestinians to keep their heads down until an Israeli leader comes along who wants to create a viable Palestinian state. Or until ordinary Israelis stop worrying about the ultra-Orthodox and the price of cottage cheese and create another peace movement. Or until politics change in Washington. He’s telling Palestinians to relinquish every form of counterpressure they have and put themselves at Israel’s and America’s mercy, even though this trip itself is evidence that without Palestinian counterpressure, America and Israel will do little else except entrench the status quo.”

Woe is I, for the “so called” reincarnated Pharaoh; his pilgrimage to the Promise Land is not exactly a vacation in Eden. No “parting of the waves” on this visit for the Tempter look alike. Even on the home front, ‘The Bible’ viewers: Seeing Obama in Satan gains traction.

“The similarity was seen and commented upon by people hostile to the president by people who because of the their general political opinions, found it quite “obvious” that the Devil and the president should look so much alike.

Plenty of the president’s biggest fans also saw the similarity and went to social media to spread the word about it. Why? Because, according to them, it was all part of the producers’ plan to smear the president and appeal to the “Bible thumpers” who oppose him.

In other words, both groups saw the president in the Devil – one group because they see the Devil in the president, and the other because they see the Devil in those who strongly oppose the president.”

If not a Pharaoh or a Beelzebub, what precisely is Barak Obama? While he surely would like to be the sheikh of the last days, he certainly is no vessel of revealed scripture. The “born again” Netanyahu – Obama love fest, is no transcendental relationship. Only by answering, Who made you a ruler and judge over us?, can serious minded brothers of good will cross over into the promise land of honest accountability.

Obama is a creature of satanic control and implements global Talmudic law. With the abandonment of Mosaic Law and the New Testament gospel, the international community is executing a worldwide inferno of hatred and death. “Let my people go” applies to all of humanity. The exodus from perdition needs universal acceptance that only obedience to God is the path to paradise.

Christian: It’s Time To Vote With Your Feet

I confess right out of the gate that this column is not going to be enjoyable for me to write. It may not be enjoyable for some to read. But the time has come that it has to be said. If Christians truly have any intentions of helping to preserve liberty for their children and grandchildren, they must put rhetoric, tradition, friendship, and personal feelings aside and take action. Christian: it is time to vote with your feet.

And while many people who never darken the doors of a church love to cast stones at preachers and churches, I have been in the Gospel ministry all of my adult life. I have pastored for over 37 years. I know the inner workings of church work; I personally know hundreds of preachers; I understand how preachers think; I have attended hundreds of church meetings and fellowships, and hundreds of pastors’ conferences and seminars. I know what it’s like to balance a church budget, counsel families in need, stand with a congregation in good times and bad. There isn’t an area of church work with which I am not very familiar. And I can also say that for over 37 years, I have never desired or attempted to harm another man’s ministry. And that is not the intention of this column.

However, the time has come in America to tell it like it is. These are not ordinary times. Our country is on the precipice of tyranny and oppression like we have not seen since the days of Colonial America before our War for Independence. It is no hyperbole to say that what we do–or don’t do–now will determine the state of freedom in America for the next 50 years or more. To make no decision is to decide for tyranny. We can no longer pretend that what we do doesn’t matter.

One of the most glaring differences between Colonial and modern America is the attitude of our pastors.

In 1770-1776 (and actually for many years previous to this period), Colonial pastors (of all denominations) lit the fire of freedom in the hearts of their congregants like no generation has ever seen–before or since. The British Crown was so frustrated with these patriot-pastors that they coined a moniker for them. They were called, “The Black (or Black-Robed) Regiment.” In truth, Colonial pastors were more influential in the “holy cause of liberty” (Patrick Henry) from their pulpits than any military regiment on the battlefield. And, yes, many pastors in Colonial America also fought on the battlefields in our War for Independence.

Today’s pastors, on the other hand, are mostly noted for saying absolutely NOTHING about the attacks that are currently being waged against our liberties. And when I say NOTHING, I mean absolutely NOTHING. About the only thing they seem to be able to do is pass out some slanted “voter guides” every Presidential election. But most don’t even do that. A few (a very few) will encourage their congregations to protest abortion; some (again, a very small number) will preach a “pro-life” sermon on “Sanctity of Life” Sunday each January. But most deliberately and stubbornly refuse to take a public position on any subject that has the air of being “political.”

Should we really wonder why our country is teetering on the precipice of oppression and slavery?

When Bible stories such as Daniel And The Lion’s Den, The Three Hebrew Children And The Burning Fiery Furnace, or the stories of Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson are told, they are taught simply as allegories or explained away as being for “another time.” The practical application of myriads of Bible examples of resistance to tyranny is NEVER TAUGHT in the vast majority of most churches today. NEVER!

I preached a message last Sunday to the people of Liberty Fellowship entitled, “Shepherd Or Hireling?” The text was John 10. To watch the video of this message, go to:

“Shepherd Or Hireling?”

In this chapter, Jesus said, “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.” (John 10:12, 13 KJV)

Jesus made it clear that the central difference between a true shepherd and a hireling (hired hand) was that the shepherd was willing to fight and die for the protection of the sheep, while the hired hand was not willing to risk his life for the sheep.

Pastors are depicted as being shepherds. Is it not then the central duty of the pastor to be willing to fight and die for the protection of his people? When he sees the wolves approaching, does he run away and leave the sheep to the slaughter or does he confront the wolves and fight to the death to protect them?

Ladies and gentlemen, the wolves are attacking the flock! Those mangy, mad, maniacal monsters are attacking the lives and liberties of the American people (including the Christian people in our churches) with a vengeance. When they attempt to strip us of our right to defend ourselves with arms, they are attacking the very lives and liberties of our homes and families. Life is a precious gift of Almighty God, and anyone who would make our children and families vulnerable to death and destruction by wicked and evil men is tantamount to a mad wolf that attacks the life of a little lamb.

How dare our shepherds (pastors) stand silent and mute in the face of such evil? How dare they refuse to sound the alarm? How dare they piously proclaim that God “has not called” them to perform this most fundamental duty of a shepherd? Does not their refusal to fight, does not their silence, does not their fear and inaction prove that they are not really shepherds at all, but merely hirelings? I believe so.

And knowing that what I am about to say will be misinterpreted by some, I say it still: preaching the Gospel, by itself, will NOT save America. And these preachers who hide behind the mantra that the only thing God has called them to do is preach the Gospel, and that only preaching the Gospel will save America, are either themselves seriously deluded or are despicable cowards hiding behind the veil of pretended spirituality.

America has had more Gospel preaching during the last 50 years than any nation in history. There are more churches, more Christian schools, more Gospel radio and television programs, more missionary endeavors, more inner-city missions and shelters, more Bible publications, and more Gospel influence in America during the last 50 years than in any country in the history of the world.

And what has happened to America over the last 50 years? Our historic Christian culture has been turned into rank hedonism and licentiousness; legal abortion has taken the lives of over 60 million innocent unborn babies; a blatant police-state is proliferating; more babies are being born out of wedlock than at any time in history; and now we are facing the tyrannical attempt to ban and confiscate America’s premier self-defense tool: the semi-automatic rifle. And all of this happened, and is happening, while hundreds of thousands of pastors and churches across the land “preach the Gospel.”

Again I say, preaching the Gospel, by itself, will not save America. Christians have to be taught how to understand; how to discern the difference between good and evil; the principles of law and justice; jurisdictional authority; and the principles of Christian resistance. As long as pastors refrain from teaching these essential and necessary truths, our nation will continue its slide into tyranny and oppression–all the Gospel preaching going forth notwithstanding.

I ask you: if the only thing God expected us to do was preach the Gospel, why did He give us a voluminous Bible, which is filled with examples, principles, teachings, and truths relating to virtually every important area of life? If one takes only those Scriptures that deal specifically with the Gospel, he or she is going to have a very small Bible, my friends. The stories of the Old Testament, for example, were written for “our learning.” (Romans 15:4) Hebrews 11 challenges us with the examples of Old Testament men and women who were “not afraid of the king’s commandment,” who did not fear “the wrath of the king,” who “subdued kingdoms,” “waxed valiant in fight,” and who “turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”

Furthermore, the Apostle Paul spent about as much time in jail as he did out of jail. And, of course, he was thrown in jail for breaking the unjust, evil laws of men. Every apostle except John was killed by tyrannical governments because they refused to submit to unjust laws. How First Century Christians chose to resist versus how free men and women in Colonial America chose to resist is material for another day. The point is, THEY ALL CHOSE TO RESIST.

The story of God’s people, from the beginning of time, is the story of people who refused to submit to tyrannical, unjust laws and chose to “obey God rather than men.” Yet, modern American pastors refuse to resist. They choose to sheepishly comply with the unjust laws of evil, wicked men. And they refuse to be the courageous shepherds for their people. It’s time to say it: any pastor who will not warn his church of the impending tyranny that is sweeping our land, any pastor who refuses to take a stand for the right of the people in his congregation to keep and bear arms–and, therefore, be able to protect the precious gift of life that has been given by God–and any pastor who stands silent while evil men trample the God-given liberties that were purchased at so awful a cost by our Christian forebears must be regarded, not as a shepherd, but as a hireling. It really doesn’t matter how nice he is, or how educated he is, or how charming he is, or how inspirational his sermons are, or how sincere he is: if he refuses to stand and fight the wolves, he is a hireling, not a shepherd.

By the way, to see the list of pastors around the country who have vowed to fight for the right of their flocks to keep and bear arms, go to:

Second Amendment Pastors

It’s time to speak plainly. The time for politeness and timidity is behind us. Any pastor who refuses to take a stand of resistance to the evil forces of tyranny that are now sweeping as a horde of locusts upon us is as guilty of the loss of our nation’s freedoms and liberties as are the evil despots who perpetrate these atrocities. He is as guilty of the death and destruction of his people as the hireling who flees in the face of the wolf is guilty of the death and destruction of the sheep.

Let me ask you a question: would you vote for a legislator or senator who would strip you of your right to keep and bear arms? Would you passively and indifferently continue to support such a one simply because of his or her political party or nice personality or inspirational speeches? Would you not determine such a one to be a dangerous threat to your liberties, and to the safety and security of your children, and reject him or her with your vote? Sure you would. So, why would you continue to support a pastor who facilitates these ravenous beasts?

Christian, it’s time to vote with your feet and leave these silent, sheepish pastors and find a shepherd-pastor who will fight for the lives and liberties of your homes and children.

It’s time for a reality check: if your pastor is not warning the flock, alerting the flock, and fighting for the life and freedom of the flock, he is helping to put the chains of slavery and oppression upon the necks of your children and grandchildren. If he is not engaged in the fight to preserve the liberties of our nation, he is helping to put the chains of slavery and oppression upon the necks of your children and grandchildren. If your pastor refuses to publicly take a stand against the wolves of our land, he is facilitating and enabling those wolves to tear and shred the life and flesh of our country.

As I studied what God said about His shepherds in the Old Testament, I came upon this fascinating passage from the book of Amos: “Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.” (Amos 3:12 KJV)

Do you see the picture of the shepherd God paints in this passage? The shepherd fights for his sheep so fiercely and ferociously that he fights the lion even when the sheep is half-devoured. If he is only able to save two legs or an ear, he fights like a wild man for every part of the sheep. This is how a true shepherd is supposed to fight.

We need pastors to stand up and fight for the lives and liberties of their flock like wild men (figuratively speaking). We need pastors to scratch and claw and bite for every last little bit of life and liberty of our country. Anything less is to wear the mark of a hireling for all eternity.

Christian, cast your vote! Choose a side! The line in the sand is being drawn between liberty and tyranny. Your pastor cannot be neutral, and neither can you!

I dare say that if every Christian across America who, in his or her heart, truly believes in liberty were to flee these say-nothing hirelings and run to shepherds who are genuinely standing for truth and liberty in our land, we could turn the ship of state around almost overnight. This is more important than the “youth program” or “children’s ministry” or “senior-saints program” or “music program,” or nice buildings or “my friends are there,” or any number of other things that so many people seem to think is so important about which church they attend.

Ladies and gentlemen, the survival of our republic is at stake! For God’s sake, and for the sake of your children, don’t just complain, VOTE WITH YOUR FEET!

P.S. Remember, too, that my attorney son and I are now in the process of publishing a blockbuster new book entitled, “To Keep Or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns.” This book conclusively shows that nowhere does the Bible teach that God’s people are supposed to sheepishly give up their arms in the face of tyranny. In fact, the Bible teaches just the opposite. This book is absolutely must-reading for every Christian (or non-Christian) who desires to know the truth about what the Bible teaches relative to the right of people to keep and bear arms. We are taking pre-orders now. It’s possible that the first printing of this book will be sold out even before it is printed. Orders are coming in feverishly. If you want a first edition copy of this new book, go to:

Keep Your Arms

Everyone Who Voted For Obama Voted For More Free Stuff

Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

Everyone who voted for Barack Obama voted for the man because he and his party give away free stuff. Democrats push socialism at all costs. They love to take your money and give it to everyone else. The fact that the rest of us taxpaying citizens pay for all the free stuff didn’t seem to bother the majority of voters.

The fact that our country and all its citizens suffer a $16 trillion debt and headed toward $20 trillion didn’t dissuade the majority of voters to vote for Romney who proved his ability to balance budgets and create jobs. The majority voted to add another $4 trillion in debt to the US financial nightmare.

Why? Answer: more people in this country feel entitled to a lot of free stuff. Over 47.7 million Americans love their free food via food stamps. Millions more love their government jobs where they show up to sit all day doing virtually nothing that creates anything.

This lady, with 15 kids, loves to get free stuff. You may multiply her story times 10 to 20 million single mothers sporting endless children paid for by you. She pointed to all her kids in the video by saying, “Somebody needs to pay for them.”

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/women-with-15-kids-somebody-needs-to-be-held-accountable-and-they-need-to-pay_122011

Several million Americans love the fact that they can continue their two years of unemployment benefits so they can take long vacations on your taxpayer dollar backs.

Freebies such as medical care for 20 million illegal aliens attracted more illegal aliens who are about to become instant citizens. They will vote for another “Obama” in the next election because they expect free stuff.

Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.

Blog writer Pruzansky said, “The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff. Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote; so too those who anticipate “free” health care, who expect the government to pay their mortgages, who look for the government to give them jobs. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.”

Most folks love to get free stuff. Free food, free gas, free housing, free rides, free living. The old America, based on European work, thrift, personal accountability, personal accountability and paying your bills—lost in the election.

As we import another 100 million third world people into this country within three decades, we will discover why they flee their own failed countries and come here to “get free stuff.”

Four hundred thousand pregnant illegal migrant women come here every year to deliver their “anchor babies” or what could be called “free stuff getters” : to get free food, housing, medical and other stuff.

Over 1.2 million legal immigrants without any skills come here annually: to get free food, housing, medical and stuff.

At some point, our financial systems collapse and no one gets free stuff. At some point, our communities suffer free fall from so many expecting free stuff. At some point, no one will get free stuff. It’s called a failed civilization.

Pity we voted for so much free stuff.

Statist Philosophy The Scourge of Christianity

The normal condition of man ruling over men resorts to the practice of coercive force. Statism so aptly reflects this system of compliance. When you strip away all the rhetoric and institutional validation, what is left is a doctrine of kingship. Governments are fashioned to exert control over people. Contemplate the intrinsic contradiction of this structure of dominance with the message of the Golden Rule.

“The Golden Rule is based on the principle Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

The significance of Jesus Christ’s statement here is huge. What we call the Golden Rule is the summation of God’s entire way of life.”

Christianity professes that Jesus is divine. Earthly governments strive to minimize God’s authority and substitute temporal supremacy. “Fundamentally, the idea of Jesus being King of kings and Lord of lords means that there is no higher authority. His reign over all things is absolute and inviolable.” This refusal to submit and humble oneself to our supreme creator is the essence of the worldly nightmare.

The lessons from history are mostly ignored in the frantic diversions of modern life. Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD makes a perceptive observation in The Philosophical Basis of the Conflict Between Liberty and Statism.

“Plato was the first statist. He offers his vision of the ideal state in the Republic. An elite group of philosopher-rulers run it. They are wise and all knowing. The rulers are not accountable to the public, and they require absolute individual devotion and submission to the good of the state. In Plato’s republic only philosophers can have access to objective knowledge, philosophers being, as he puts it, people “who are capable of apprehending what is eternal and unchanging” — those few individuals who can sit down in a quiet place and think clearly. Everyone else, the rest of us, he describes as “those who are incapable of this [and] lose themselves and wander amid the multiplicities of multifarious things.”

Note that the gods of the Greeks did not teach the purity of the Christian faith as revealed in the Sermon on the Mount. Natural law is predicated upon celestial creation and inspired purpose, designed to include every soul. When temporal powers impose arbitrary submission, their righteous claim on authenticity must be questioned and frequently resisted.

Philosophical Statism and the Illusion of Citizenship by Frank van Dun expresses a basic departure from the academic tranquil Platonic vision of the Philosopher King.

“Liberals all too easily acquiesced in the state’s claim to represent or embody the law, in its usurpation and monopolisation of legislative, judicial and executive powers. In the end, few people were able to understand that law should be seen as the restraining condition of legislation rather than as its product. The state, the institutionalised form of (preparedness for) lawless war, came to be regarded as a necessary institution of lawful peace.

To the extent that liberals subscribed to this view—and they did so en masse—they conceded the main point of political ontology to the apologists of statism: that war, not peace, is the normal or natural condition of human life. This is perhaps the most basic axiom of statism. It implies that there can be peace only inside an organisation designed to fight and win wars. It implies that there is no natural society, no “spontaneous order” (as Hayek would say). Man plus man equals war. The whole of the statist philosophy is contained in that simple statement.”

Statists have substituted the political order for divine worship. Christians accept the “Prince of Peace” as the alternative to perpetual warfare. While faith in His teachings is routinely ignored, the continuous wickedness that engulfs the planet expands as a prelude to the final conflagration.

In the account “Javert’s Religion of Statism” a secular viewpoint of what has become the Statist creed, is acknowledged. Since the Illuminati Victor Hugo, was a Grand Master of thePriory of Sion, his sentiments needs reassessment within the larger context of the broader,Inspector Javert Society.

“In 19th century France, and in 18th century America, the belief that there was a line that the government must never cross gave rise to what was known as the liberal movement of which both Victor Hugo and Frederic Bastiat were members. Hugo had the poetry and the drama. But it was Bastiat who saw the answers in the form of economic freedom.

Sixteen years after Hugo wrote Les Misérables, Bastiat wrote “The Law”- a brilliant tract that explained that the answer to social and economic problems was not a different form of government- republican legislatures, democratic mobs, or autocratic monarchs can all be oppressive- but to devolve all power away from government to people in their capacity as owners and self-managers.”

The Enlightenment thinkers hardly differed from Protagoras in their acceptance that “Man is the measure of all things“. Where is that elusive human progress that is incessantly preached by countless regimes of political governance? The horrors of the last two centuries have been a continuous reign of terror.

The philosophical basis for removing God from civic conscientiousness and the public square is fundamental to the “Sanctification of the State”. Salvation and redemption is outside the abilities of governmental administrators. The Grand Inquisitor Planet of Fydor Dostoevsky presents the consequences, “The rejection of God, as a condition to serve man, is the work of the devil.” For those who scorn the notion of daemon metaphysics, the herculean task of explaining away the savagery of government destruction and pillage becomes essential.

The proponents of Statism have a long line of tyrants to model upon their oppressive aspirations. The practice of entrenched totalitarianism has a long record in both the old and new worlds. The difference between Christian communalism and secular communism is frequently blurred, when liberation theology supplants the fundamental message of the gospels.

America has lost its way as identified in the article, German Statist Philosophy, the legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner.

“Since the materialistic conception of history is the foundation stone of the socialist movement and was invented by Karl Marx there is no doubt that Turner had produced an American historical account fitting into the socialist principle. Leftist books are replete with accounts of Turner’s major theme that the frontier is gone and opportunities for personal advancement have dried up. This theme fits into the socialist premise that the only way out now is a controlled collectivist society.”

When the sins of the Catholic Papacy or the heresies of Protestant Dispensationalists spurn the evangelistic teachings of Jesus, ruthless despots of Statism seize the opportunity to expand and consolidate their pernicious rule over humanity.

The failings of institutional religion to actively oppose the collectivization of society under the auspices of spurious state legitimacy, is a betrayal of cardinal Christian doctrine. While resistance to tyranny is indispensable, having the courage to express your belief openly in a Statist authoritarian system, often takes virtuous faith and trust in God.

Redemption of the individual is a gift from God and no government or temporal power can extinguish the light of HOPE. Politics is interminable, while salvation is eternal.

Nicholas Marville writes in The scourge of Christianity.

“By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master.

A good example of this is the rule “turn your enemy the other cheek”, as Jesus taught:

“Christians should pray for Osama bin Laden’s soul even though he was their enemy, as forgiveness is a key teaching in the Bible, a cardinal told an Italian daily in an interview out today.

“I have prayed for the soul of Osama Bin Laden. We have to pray for him just like we pray for the victims of September 11. It’s what Jesus teaches Christians,” French cardinal Albert Vanhoye, 87, told Il Messaggero daily.

“Jesus obliges us to forgive our enemies. The ‘Our Father’ that we recite every day says that. Does it not say ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’?” Vanhoye said.”

Turning the other cheek does not mean you are prohibited from resisting evil governments. The effective means of opposition are naturally ordained in your nature. Forgiveness may be a foreign concept to the Statist, but to the faithful Christian the prophecies of a Second Coming provide the promise of a just final judgment for every mortal.

Destructive politics is inherent in this ungodly world of government worship. Immortality of Statists is impossible. Their propensity to destroy all that is good and substitute every Luciferian evil imaginable is all that can come from the supremacy of the State.

Nations need to atone before their governments can be reformed. Statist philosophies of any school of thought are intrinsically anti-Christian. Only sincere prayer and repentance that begs for Almighty mercy for intervention will save this planet.

The “New Breed” of Christian Fashion

A couple of weeks ago, while I was surfing the net for articles to include in the Email Brigade News Report, I came across a piece entitled “Provocative Clothing Company Creates Tees to Help Christian Girls be ‘Playful’ for Jesus.” For obvious reasons the headline grabbed my attention.

Featured in the article is a picture of an attractive young woman in a sexy pose seated on a bed wearing a tank top with the words “God knows my secrets.”

From the Christian News Service story:

A California-based clothing company is targeting professing Christian girls who seek to be provocative and “playful” in the way that they dress, all in the name of Jesus Christ.

The company Heart OMG says that its line of clothing for girls is “heavenly inspired” and is “a delightful mix of fun, fashion, faith and love.”

“At Heart OMG, we believe in sharing our faith and love through fashion, while embracing our fun and characteristic lifestyle, as well as giving back to the ones in need,” the clothing company’s website states. “Every single irresistible Heart OMG piece is wonderfully made to complement those playful and fashion forward individuals who celebrate life, and are eager to make their faith and love a true influence to the world.”

If you visit Heart OMG’s website (although I don’t recommend it) you’ll discover the story of “New Love and True Love”:

Once upon a time three lovely girls found a new love in Jesus Christ.

God had gifted each girl with a special talent.  They gathered their gifts and became the worship crew at church.  Through music they expressed their faith & love.  This love grows stronger every moment.

The girls soon realize that this new love is definitely the “True Love” they had been looking for.

It all starts on a sunny Sunday morning.  Scroll down the page and you’ll see photos of the trio sitting in a convertible in front of a church.  Two girls are wearing off the shoulder t-shirts and, it appears, nothing is worn underneath.  On the front of one of the shirts is the graphic “Worship Crew.”

Another photo shows the titillating trio decked out in short shorts, four inch heels and a pound and a half of makeup on their faces as they stroll up the walk toward the church…looking like hookers.

Further down the page the girls are now lounging on a bed together in suggestive poses.  One of them is sporting a pink night shirt with a large graphic of an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top. “Sweet Jesus” adorns a purple cup.

Under the heading “When New Love Becomes True Love” one of the girls is reading a Bible (hopefully 1 John).  The shirt she’s wearing has a graphic of two large red apples.  You can guess where the apples are purposely placed.  What does this tell you about the creative minds that designed a whole collection of “Christian” t-shirts?

Another photo shows the trio in church perched on what appears to be the edge of the stage, hands clasped in prayer.  The girl wearing the “Worship Crew” shirt has an open Bible on her lap.  Two of the girls are wearing off the shoulder shirts that are, well, way off the shoulder…in church.

If the trashy apparel Heart OMG produces is “heavenly inspired” like they claim, I’m the Angel Gabriel.

As I investigated the website I discovered this tidbit in the “About” section:

EVERY SINGLE IRRESISTIBLE HEART OMG PIECE IS WONDERFULLY
MADE TO COMPLEMENT THOSE PLAYFUL & FASHION FORWARD
INDIVIDUALS WHO CELEBRATE LIFE, AND EAGER TO MAKE THEIR
FAITH & LOVE A TRUE INFLUENCE TO THE WORLD.

If the advertisements/photos on the site depict the fashion trend for the “new breed” of Christian women, then the visible Church is in far worse shape than I thought.

Before I move on I need to make something clear.  I’m not saying that the girls in the photos are Christians.  I came across an acknowledgment at the bottom of the page stating only that they’re models.  But that’s neither here nor there.  The fact of the matter is that whoever owns Heart OMG has hired models who presumably are Christians.  Certainly the girls who visit the site think they are!  And let’s not forget that a photographer is involved and perhaps a marketing person as well.  I’m going to presume these people are professing Christians.  And if that’s indeed the case, my question to them is, why do you choose to participate in pushing a clothing line that dishonors God?

For years I’ve reported on the ways Hollywood and the liberal elite have made it their goal to sexualize young girls (here, here, here, here and here).  However, this is the first time I’ve dedicated an entire article to so-called Christians who seem bent on sexualizing teens and tweens.

I first wrote about tawdry church attire in 2006 and conveyed how the pastor of my former church handled a sticky situation:

The church I attend once held outdoor services during the summer. Not anymore. The reason given by our pastor–with no apology–is the “inappropriate way people dress.” When it’s hot outside some folks show up pretty much undressed, and I am not prone to exaggeration. Women attend services dressed in short shorts, low-cut clingy tops, or crops. In some cases skintight low-rider jeans are worn as low as they go so that permanent artwork (tattoos) etched into backs and hips can be viewed by all. Excuse my bluntness, ladies, but exposing your butt crack in church is unacceptable, even if you’re sporting a Rembrandt across your back.

I also objected to the clothing worn by young guys, the ones who aren’t the least bit concerned with their grungy appearance.  But my point here is that Bible believing, God honoring Christian females mustn’t wear flashy, flamboyant, tight fitting, low cut, sexually explicit clothing to church – or anywhere else!  Being uninhibited and unreserved may be A-ok with “Sweet Jesus.”  But being “too sexy for my shirt” is not A-ok with the Jesus of the Bible.

In 1Timothy 2:9, 10 Paul reminds women:

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness [modesty of appearance and manner] and sobriety [self-restraint].

Likewise, Peter had something to say to women in the early church:

But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. (1 Peter 3:4)

Jesus Christ gives His followers this command:

As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:14-16)

Getting back to my’06 article, I pointed out that one of the problems with trying to be cool is that, followers of Jesus aren’t supposed to be cool; they’re supposed to be holy. But few pastors preach on holiness these days. Even though we serve a holy God and are called to be holy as He is holy, the message of sin and repentance has been diluted to appeal to the “felt needs” of today’s self-absorbed audience. People want to leave the church feeling good about themselves. No one wants to hear anything “negative” anymore. “That’s what liberalism is,” says Gene Edward Veith, “changing your theology to fit whatever the culture is.”  (Source)

Our younger generation is being preyed upon by adults that will do anything for a buck. Adults are the ones who peddle the raunchy products that hyper-sexualize the culture.  Young people, especially, are demeaned and exploited for profit.  A word of warning to sleaze peddling “Christians”: God deems what you’re doing a grave sin. Repent!

Back in 2008 I penned a piece entitled “Hyper-sexualizing girls.” In it I described how even professing Christians are participating in this terrible offense against God.  I asked,

And what, pray tell, is the Church doing to put a stop to the madness? The sad fact is that many Christians have yielded to the culture. And those that have are just as complicit in hyper-sexualizing youngsters as liberals are. So I pose this question to followers of Jesus Christ: Why do you suppose the world doesn’t believe what Christians have to say?

The answer is that Christians don’t live what they say they believe. Instead they live like the world.

“The Christian life,” says Warren Weirsbe, “is not a playground, but a battlefield.” [Read Eph. 6:11-12] Those who commit to follow Jesus Christ have got to get off the playground and make haste to the battlefield. Your children’s future is at stake. And I’m not talking to you nominal Christians. I’m talking to those who are serious about their commitment to Christ. Yes, fighting the culture is an uphill fight. But we can win some battles! “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). (Source)

In closing, I’ll restate what I said above. Bible believing Christians who really want to glorify God must steer clear of the “new breed” of Christian fashion and dress modestly.  Believers must pray that so-called Christians who are promoting trashy clothing to impressionable girls will have a change of heart.  What can change hearts and minds? The Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Recommended reading:
Should Christians “judge” others? You betcha!—By Marsha West

What Would Jesus Shoot?

A co-religionist friend of mine asked some years ago, “What is the [Catholic] Church’s teaching on firearms…?

Does it recommend an assault rifle or a shotgun?”

He was kidding, of course, but not so funny are some recent attempts by liberal “Christians” to turn Jesus into Sarah Brady. Motivated by their unique brand of religiosity in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, they say that the Lord would never condone gun ownership. Why, didn’t He state, “[A]ll that take the sword shall perish with the sword”?

Were I to steal a leaf out of the liberals’ book, I’d now become conveniently literalistic and say that if anyone wants to consider sword control, I’m game. But let’s address the matter seriously.

When the temple guards of the Sanhedrin came to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, the apostle Simon Peter leapt to the Lord’s defense, drew his sword, and sliced off the ear of a slave accompanying the guards. This is where the quoted Bible passage comes into play. The gospel of Matthew (26:52) tells us that Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, “Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Quite a pacifist message, huh?

Yet there’s something generally overlooked here. Peter only had a sword to draw because he had one on his person — and Jesus obviously took no issue with this. In fact, even during Jesus’ rebuke, He never told Peter to throw his sword away. The command was simply to resheath it.

Why? Perhaps because Jesus had actually ordered the apostles to acquire swords. As Luke 23:36-38 tells us:

“But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword. For I say to you, that this that is written must yet be fulfilled in me: ‘And with the wicked was he reckoned.’ For the things concerning me have an end.” But they said: “Lord, behold here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.”

So what is the actual meaning of Jesus’ words in Matthew? I won’t say anything definitively, but I will note that the relevant line has often been interpreted to mean “He who lives by the sword shall die by it also.” And, of course, there’s as big a difference between legitimate self-defense and living by the gun as there is between respecting the state’s legitimate role and living by government.

So what would Jesus shoot? Nothing, I’m sure. He wouldn’t get married, either; His role wasn’t exactly the same as ours. But I’m also sure that a clear understanding of Christianity shoots the liberal arguments right out of the sky.

(Hat tip: the readers who emailed me the Luke reference.)

Should Christians Hold Prayer Vigils With Apostates?

During the 2012 election, the New Religious Right (NRR) held prayer vigils all throughout the United States. Their rallying cry: “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

There is nothing wrong with Christians gathering together to pray for a common cause.  There is nothing wrong with asking God to return our country to biblical principles for the simple reason that those of us who profess Christ believe that there’s something diabolical going on, and our country is in the grip of evil.  The way we see it, spiritual forces of wickedness have invaded virtually every aspect of society.  And this reality is what drives us to our knees to plead with God to intervene on our behalf.  As the election drew close, we appealed to the Creator to spare us from an administration that aims to transform America into a socialist utopia.

Even though large groups of conservatives from many religious systems joined together and prayed their brains out, God did not spare America.

What struck me as odd is that many professing Christians met in large groups to pray with people that reject the God of the Bible even knowing that those from other religious faiths do not pray to the God of Christianity. So the purpose for praying with unbelievers is….?

Now consider this. The Bible teaches that anyone who is not born again is not indwelled by the Holy Spirit.  I tackled this subject in “Are you praying to the only true God”:

Scripture speaks of God the Holy Spirit residing within all who believe in the Son of God. The Spirit guides, instructs and empowers believers. (John 14:16-17) As well, the “Spirit of truth” confirms everything about Jesus. (John 15:26) The unregenerate (unsaved) person is not Spirit filled. God does not hear anyone’s prayer unless it is put into words by the Holy Spirit. So if we want our prayers to be heard and answered we must pray to the right God. (Source)

Paul drives home the point in 1 Timothy 2:5:

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

As mediator, Jesus Christ stands between God and men to reconcile man to God.  According to Scripture, God does not hear the prayers of the unrepentant sinner. “Sin had made a quarrel between us and God; Jesus Christ is the Mediator who makes peace.”

Returning to the election, Albert Mohler believes it was a “catastrophe” and a “disaster” for evangelicals. He said in a New York Times interview:

It’s not that our message—we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong—didn’t get out. It did get out.  It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed. An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.

Perhaps the NRR leaders should put their priorities in order and do what the Bible commands.  First and foremost followers of Jesus Christ must share the Good News of the Gospel with the lost.  (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Mark 16:15) We may defeat the evils of our day through political means and we may change laws. But unless man’s sinful heart is changed, evil will persist.

We must also oppose the evolutionary secularist worldview.  Many pro-family groups have been in the trenches for decades, fighting to “take back America for God.”  It has been an up-hill battle — and expensive to boot.  But let’s be honest; in spite of all our efforts and the money we’ve poured into winning the culture war, liberals are winning!

After months of pleading with God to oust Obama, we’re now asking, “Why did God allow his re-election?”

In a word: Judgment.

So with that in mind, the question we should be asking ourselves is, “Why is God judging America?”

Again, in a word: Sin.

When I was a child and disobeyed my parents I got a spanking.  But before the boom was lowered I’d cry out, “Don’t spank me! I’ll be good, I promise!” All the pleading in the world did not work with my parents. They’d give me a licking because I deserved one.

Well, America is getting a licking because we deserve one. It would seem that God has closed his ears to our pleas and stale promises. We the Peeps have not repented of our sins and turned from our wicked ways.  In fact, most Americans could care less what God thinks of their lascivious behavior.  So for now, at least, God will allow us to continue wallowing in filth.

I believe one of the reasons God has turned us over to a reprobate mind, to do what should not be done (Rom. 1:28) is that, like the world, the visible Church is awash in sin.  A whole host of self-professed Christians are deep in sin simply because they have no clear understanding of what God deems sinful — and they have no desire to find out!

Satan uses syncretism to separate God from His people.  Religious syncretism is the blending of differing systems of belief.  “Syncretism relies on the whim of man, not the standard of Scripture.”  Syncretism in Protestantism occurred when elements of other religious beliefs were integrated into mainstream denominations. So, what’s the big deal?

The big deal is blending historic Christianity with other philosophies!  Listen to Deuteronomy 12:29-31:

When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

The LORD was not kidding around.

Syncretism slithered into the Church through liberalism.  But well intended evangelical conservatives who make up a large part of pro-family groups are also responsible.  In their desperation to “bring America back to God” groups such as the American Family Association, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Americans for Working Families, Wall Builders, Traditional Values Coalition, Liberty Council and Concerned Women for America reached out to a slew of controversial Christians (false teachers), including men and women in theological cults!  And they’re routinely invited to participate in spiritual and political endeavors — even prayer rallies!

Over the years religious renegades have shared the platform with GOP candidates, congressmen, entertainers, heads of pro-family groups, and other conservative superstars.  Now, I’m not saying that people on stage with renegades share their beliefs; what I’m saying is that when highly regarded leaders unite with heretics and cultists, the public sees it as an endorsement!

“If the New Religious Right were truly committed first and foremost to sound biblical theology and doctrine,” says Brannon Howse, “they would not be involved in spiritual enterprises with those who participate in the New Age Movement, the New Apostolic Reformation, ecumenicalism, globalism, communitarianism, the Church of Rome, the Word of Faith movement, social justice, and the social gospel.”

As Brannon rightly pointed out, the Word of Faith movement is not committed to sound biblical doctrine. What they teach is heretical!

Here CRI exposes word-faith teaching:

God created man in “God’s class,” as “little gods,” with the potential to exercise what they refer to as the “God-kind of faith” in calling things into existence and living in prosperity and success as sovereign beings. Of course, we forfeited this opportunity by rebelling against God in the Garden and taking upon ourselves Satan’s nature. To correct this situation, Jesus Christ became a man, died spiritually (thus taking upon Himself Satan’s nature), went to hell, was “born again,” rose from the dead with God’s nature again, and then sent the Holy Spirit so that the incarnation could be duplicated in believers, thus fulfilling their calling to be what they call “little gods.” Since we’re called to experience this kind of life now, we should be successful in virtually every area of our lives. To be in debt, then, or be sick, or (as is even taught by the faith teachers) to be left by one’s spouse, simply means that you don’t have enough faith — or you have some secret sin in your life, because if you didn’t, you would be able to handle all of these problems.

Further…

In every instance, the “Word-Faith” teaching is guilty of presenting an inflated view of man and a deflated view of God, thereby compromising God’s message as revealed in the Bible. This fast-growing movement has disastrous implications and, in fact, reduces Jesus Christ to a means to an end — when in fact he is the end. If the New Age Movement is the greatest threat to the church from without, “positive confession” may well be its greatest threat from within. (Online source)

Another movement mentioned by Brannon Howse is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).  The NAR, aka dominionists, hold that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance, namely the offices of Prophet and Apostle.  The leaders fancy themselves modern-day apostles and prophets and believe they have the same gifts as the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles.  In a piece I wrote entitled “Dominionists are on the move…and they mean business” I brought to light some of their unbiblical beliefs:

The NAR/dominionist’s goal is to transform society into the kingdom of God on earth. How? By controlling various aspects of society. The term they use is the “Seven Mountains,” or “Seven Spheres” of society. The Seven Mountains are: 1) Arts and Entertainment; 2) Business/Economy; 3) Education; 4) Family; 5) Government; 6) Media; 7) Religion. The NAR holds that as they accomplish ridding the world of evil, things will get better and better and then Jesus Christ will return to set up His kingdom.

The goals of the CR [Christian Right] and the NAR seem like a good idea, right? I mean, who could argue with wanting to influence the seven spheres of society that are dominated by secular humanists. Christians are not wrong in desiring to have a society based on Judeo-Christian principles. But here’s the problem. This “mandate” the NAR mob subscribes to did not come from the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 18:36 Jesus made it clear: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

However, dominionists never let a little thing like what Jesus said get in the way of their lofty goals. One of the most troubling aspects of their “theology” is the unbiblical teaching on spiritual warfare. They believe they have a kingdom mandate to do “strategic-level spiritual warfare” which is “a popular charismatic method of casting out demons from geographical locations or territories. It identifies three levels of demonic control on earth. Firstly, are “Ground-Level” demons, which possess people. Secondly, “Occult-Level” demons empower witches, shamans, magicians. Finally, “Strategic-Level” demons which are the most powerful of the three, are said to rule over certain regions or territories. Their main purpose is to hinder people from coming to Christ.”

Hence, dominionists go hither and yon to do strategic-level spiritual warfare to tear down demonic strongholds established by Satan and his demons. This is not local; it’s global. (Source)

The fact of the matter is that the word-faith/positive confession movement and the NAR have many of the same heretical beliefs.  In Matthew 7:15-17, Jesus warned:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. … Therefore by their fruits you shall know them.

In Ephesians 5:11 Paul tells us to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”  We are not only to expose them, we are to call them what they are – evil!  We have many examples in the Bible of name calling. For example, in Matthew 23 Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites and “whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones.”  He called these same men serpents and a brood of vipers, looked them squarely in the face and said, “how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

But instead of exposing unfruitful works of darkness as we are commanded to do, New Religious Right leaders, many of whom profess Christ, organize prayer events with them!

So – did God hear those prayers?  Consider who He hears according to Scripture and draw your own conclusion.

Resources:

New Apostolic Reformation articles—On Solid Rock Resources
Televangelists & Word of Faith Movement—On Solid Rock Resources
Are you praying to the only true God? By Marsha West
Liberals created the culture of evil and death, part 2 By Marsha West
How the Religious Right Assisted in the Re-Election of President Obama And Are Hastening God’s Judgment of America By Brannon Howse

Another Victory For The Anti-Christian Grinches

The Salvation Army has long been a holy-day season fixture in front of my local supermarket, providing some Christmas sounds and cheer as it raises money to serve the poor. But when I went grocery shopping a couple of days ago, a difference was apparent: there was an SA volunteer and collection pot on the premises, but no trademark bell-ringing. So I asked the man why — even though I already knew the answer.

You might have read the recent news stories concerning complaints about the SA bells. And, sure enough, the volunteer at my supermarket confirmed that these grinches’ griping was the reason they’d been silenced. So now another element of the Christmas season is no more, at least in my area.

Of course, some may say that any continual noise can be irritating. But this raises questions: why didn’t people seem to find the SA bells as annoying 25 years ago? Is it any coincidence that increasing irritation with them seems to hew closely with the growth of our society’s secularist-grinch constituency?

It goes without saying that some people must have found the bells annoying decades ago as well. Most everything irks someone and everyone is irked by something (with me, it’s the grating, purposeless noise emanating from liberals’ mouths). Yet we tend to often tolerate things that annoy us, realizing that dealing with such comes with the territory of living among other beings. And tolerance is the relevant factor here because, clearly, it is only growing intolerance that could explain complaints intense enough to instigate the change in question.

Before proceeding, I’ll point out that “tolerance” is almost universally misunderstood today. While we often conflate it with affection or sympathy, the word actually implies the abiding of a perceived negative. We wouldn’t tolerate a fine car, delectable meal, or a beautiful work of art; we relish those things. But we would have to tolerate bad weather, a cold, or a Nancy Pelosi speech. Could you imagine someone asking not about pain, but “How much pleasure can you tolerate?”?

This explains why liberals fancy themselves the epitome of tolerance when they’re anything but. They will point to their attitudes toward homosexual behavior, illegal entry into our country, and the exaltation of other cultures within our borders as prime examples of tolerance, but they’re nothing of the sort. Liberals actually like or at least don’t mind those things, which means that, by definition, they cannot be tolerant of them. Their affinity or indifference makes that impossible.

So how tolerant are liberals really? Well, just consider how they react to things they actually do perceive as negatives. How tolerant are they of conservative commentary, politically incorrect dissent on college campuses, or expressions of Christianity? Heck, anything that finds disfavor with a liberal sets off bells in his head.

Now, it’s also true that what influences whether we perceive something as a negative or, at least, how tolerant of it we’ll be, is the person or group with which it’s associated. For example, we may discover that a habit we found intolerable in a person we disliked we find quite tolerable, or even endearing, in someone we like (I must confess to having once been guilty of this myself). Then we may realize it wasn’t that the earlier individual was so intolerable; it’s that we were unjustly intolerant and let our negative feelings for a person color our judgment of everything he did.

Liberals exhibit this all the time. They may detest former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet, pointing out that 3000 people disappeared under his rule, while seeming not to bat an eye at Joseph Stalin’s murder of tens of millions. They’ll condemn Sarah Palin for supposedly using crosshairs imagery, but then say nothing about Barack Obama’s statement, “If they [Republicans] bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” And they’ll defend the broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer in Hamtramck,Michigan, while getting all bent out of shape over SA bells.

So it’s clear that the main problem some people have with the SA bells is not the ringing, but who is doing the ringing. The Salvation Army is a Christian organization with a mission statement that reads, in part:

“[The SA] is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.”

Christian, church, Bible, love of God, and Jesus Christ…. It’s no wonder liberals perceive the SA as a negative.

Of course, this is just one little front in the War on Christmas. But now yet another element of the Yuletide season has been purged, thanks to the actions of liberals and inaction of yesterday’s liberals (conservatives).

Ah, liberals, the very embodiment of negativity, negative about all the wrong things for more than 100 years.

Ron Paul’s Farewell To Congress

This may well be the last time I speak on the House Floor. At the end of the year I’ll leave Congress after 23 years in office over a 36-year period. My goals in 1976 were the same as they are today: promote peace and prosperity by a strict adherence to the principles of individual liberty.

It was my opinion, that the course the U.S. embarked on in the latter part of the 20th Century would bring us a major financial crisis and engulf us in a foreign policy that would overextend us and undermine our national security.

To achieve the goals I sought, government would have had to shrink in size and scope, reduce spending, change the monetary system, and reject the unsustainable costs of policing the world and expanding the American Empire.

The problems seemed to be overwhelming and impossible to solve, yet from my view point, just following the constraints placed on the federal government by the Constitution would have been a good place to start.

How Much Did I Accomplish?

In many ways, according to conventional wisdom, my off-and-on career in Congress, from 1976 to 2012, accomplished very little. No named legislation, no named federal buildings or highways – thank goodness. In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive, and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues. Wars are constant and pursued without Congressional declaration, deficits rise to the sky, poverty is rampant and dependency on the federal government is now worse than any time in our history.

All this with minimal concerns for the deficits and unfunded liabilities that common sense tells us cannot go on much longer. A grand, but never mentioned, bipartisan agreement allows for the well-kept secret that keeps the spending going. One side doesn’t give up one penny on military spending, the other side doesn’t give up one penny on welfare spending, while both sides support the bailouts and subsidies for the banking and corporate elite. And the spending continues as the economy weakens and the downward spiral continues. As the government continues fiddling around, our liberties and our wealth burn in the flames of a foreign policy that makes us less safe.

The major stumbling block to real change in Washington is the total resistance to admitting that the country is broke. This has made compromising, just to agree to increase spending, inevitable since neither side has any intention of cutting spending.

The country and the Congress will remain divisive since there’s no “loot left to divvy up.”

Without this recognition the spenders in Washington will continue the march toward a fiscal cliff much bigger than the one anticipated this coming January.

I have thought a lot about why those of us who believe in liberty, as a solution, have done so poorly in convincing others of its benefits. If liberty is what we claim it is- the principle that protects all personal, social and economic decisions necessary for maximum prosperity and the best chance for peace- it should be an easy sell. Yet, history has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.

Authoritarianism vs. Liberty

If authoritarianism leads to poverty and war and less freedom for all individuals and is controlled by rich special interests, the people should be begging for liberty. There certainly was a strong enough sentiment for more freedom at the time of our founding that motivated those who were willing to fight in the revolution against the powerful British government.

During my time in Congress the appetite for liberty has been quite weak; the understanding of its significance negligible. Yet the good news is that compared to 1976 when I first came to Congress, the desire for more freedom and less government in 2012 is much greater and growing, especially in grassroots America. Tens of thousands of teenagers and college age students are, with great enthusiasm, welcoming the message of liberty.

I have a few thoughts as to why the people of a country like ours, once the freest and most prosperous, allowed the conditions to deteriorate to the degree that they have.

Freedom, private property, and enforceable voluntary contracts, generate wealth. In our early history we were very much aware of this. But in the early part of the 20th century our politicians promoted the notion that the tax and monetary systems had to change if we were to involve ourselves in excessive domestic and military spending. That is why Congress gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax. The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be “progressive” ideas. Pure democracy became acceptable.

They failed to recognized that what they were doing was exactly opposite of what the colonists were seeking when they broke away from the British.

Some complain that my arguments makes no sense, since great wealth and the standard of living improved for many Americans over the last 100 years, even with these new policies.

But the damage to the market economy, and the currency, has been insidious and steady. It took a long time to consume our wealth, destroy the currency and undermine productivity and get our financial obligations to a point of no return. Confidence sometimes lasts longer than deserved. Most of our wealth today depends on debt.

The wealth that we enjoyed and seemed to be endless, allowed concern for the principle of a free society to be neglected. As long as most people believed the material abundance would last forever, worrying about protecting a competitive productive economy and individual liberty seemed unnecessary.

The Age of Redistribution

This neglect ushered in an age of redistribution of wealth by government kowtowing to any and all special interests, except for those who just wanted to left alone. That is why today money in politics far surpasses money currently going into research and development and productive entrepreneurial efforts.

The material benefits became more important than the understanding and promoting the principles of liberty and a free market. It is good that material abundance is a result of liberty but if materialism is all that we care about, problems are guaranteed.

The crisis arrived because the illusion that wealth and prosperity would last forever has ended. Since it was based on debt and a pretense that debt can be papered over by an out-of-control fiat monetary system, it was doomed to fail. We have ended up with a system that doesn’t produce enough even to finance the debt and no fundamental understanding of why a free society is crucial to reversing these trends.

If this is not recognized, the recovery will linger for a long time. Bigger government, more spending, more debt, more poverty for the middle class, and a more intense scramble by the elite special interests will continue.

We Need an Intellectual Awakening

Without an intellectual awakening, the turning point will be driven by economic law. A dollar crisis will bring the current out-of-control system to its knees.

If it’s not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties. Prosperity for a large middle class though will become an abstract dream.

This continuous move is no different than what we have seen in how our financial crisis of 2008 was handled. Congress first directed, with bipartisan support, bailouts for the wealthy. Then it was the Federal Reserve with its endless quantitative easing. If at first it doesn’t succeed try again; QE1, QE2, and QE3 and with no results we try QE indefinitely – that is until it too fails. There’s a cost to all of this and let me assure you delaying the payment is no longer an option. The rules of the market will extract its pound of flesh and it won’t be pretty.

The current crisis elicits a lot of pessimism. And the pessimism adds to less confidence in the future. The two feed on themselves, making our situation worse.

If the underlying cause of the crisis is not understood we cannot solve our problems. The issues of warfare, welfare, deficits, inflationism, corporatism, bailouts and authoritarianism cannot be ignored. By only expanding these policies we cannot expect good results.

Everyone claims support for freedom. But too often it’s for one’s own freedom and not for others. Too many believe that there must be limits on freedom. They argue that freedom must be directed and managed to achieve fairness and equality thus making it acceptable to curtail, through force, certain liberties.

Some decide what and whose freedoms are to be limited. These are the politicians whose goal in life is power. Their success depends on gaining support from special interests.

No More ‘isms’

The great news is the answer is not to be found in more “isms.” The answers are to be found in more liberty which cost so much less. Under these circumstances spending goes down, wealth production goes up, and the quality of life improves.

Just this recognition – especially if we move in this direction – increases optimism which in itself is beneficial. The follow through with sound policies are required which must be understood and supported by the people.

But there is good evidence that the generation coming of age at the present time is supportive of moving in the direction of more liberty and self-reliance. The more this change in direction and the solutions become known, the quicker will be the return of optimism.

Our job, for those of us who believe that a different system than the one that we have had for the last 100 years, has driven us to this unsustainable crisis, is to be more convincing that there is a wonderful, uncomplicated, and moral system that provides the answers. We had a taste of it in our early history. We need not give up on the notion of advancing this cause.

It worked, but we allowed our leaders to concentrate on the material abundance that freedom generates, while ignoring freedom itself. Now we have neither, but the door is open, out of necessity, for an answer. The answer available is based on the Constitution, individual liberty and prohibiting the use of government force to provide privileges and benefits to all special interests.

After over 100 years we face a society quite different from the one that was intended by the Founders. In many ways their efforts to protect future generations with the Constitution from this danger has failed. Skeptics, at the time the Constitution was written in 1787, warned us of today’s possible outcome. The insidious nature of the erosion of our liberties and the reassurance our great abundance gave us, allowed the process to evolve into the dangerous period in which we now live.

Dependency on Government Largesse

Today we face a dependency on government largesse for almost every need. Our liberties are restricted and government operates outside the rule of law, protecting and rewarding those who buy or coerce government into satisfying their demands. Here are a few examples:

Undeclared wars are commonplace.

Welfare for the rich and poor is considered an entitlement.

The economy is overregulated, overtaxed and grossly distorted by a deeply flawed monetary system.

Debt is growing exponentially.

The Patriot Act and FISA legislation passed without much debate have resulted in a steady erosion of our 4th Amendment rights.

Tragically our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.

The drone warfare we are pursuing worldwide is destined to end badly for us as the hatred builds for innocent lives lost and the international laws flaunted. Once we are financially weakened and militarily challenged, there will be a lot resentment thrown our way.

It’s now the law of the land that the military can arrest American citizens, hold them indefinitely, without charges or a trial.

Rampant hostility toward free trade is supported by a large number in Washington.

Supporters of sanctions, currency manipulation and WTO trade retaliation, call the true free traders “isolationists.”

Sanctions are used to punish countries that don’t follow our orders.

Bailouts and guarantees for all kinds of misbehavior are routine.

Central economic planning through monetary policy, regulations and legislative mandates has been an acceptable policy.

Questions

Excessive government has created such a mess it prompts many questions:

Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?

Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?

Why can’t Americans manufacturer rope and other products from hemp?

Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?

Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating their gold held by the FED for her in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy beginning to wane?

Why do our political leaders believe it’s unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?

Why can’t Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?

Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?

Why should there be mandatory sentences – even up to life for crimes without victims – as our drug laws require?

Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?

Why is it political suicide for anyone to criticize AIPAC ?

Why haven’t we given up on the drug war since it’s an obvious failure and violates the people’s rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can’t even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?

Why do we sacrifice so much getting needlessly involved in border disputes and civil strife around the world and ignore the root cause of the most deadly border in the world-the one between Mexico and the US?

Why does Congress willingly give up its prerogatives to the Executive Branch?

Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?

Why did the big banks, the large corporations, and foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 and the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?

Why do so many in the government and the federal officials believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?

Why do so many accept the deeply flawed principle that government bureaucrats and politicians can protect us from ourselves without totally destroying the principle of liberty?

Why can’t people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?

Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the President authority to establish a “kill list,” including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?

Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.

Why is it is claimed that if people won’t or can’t take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?

Why did we ever give the government a safe haven for initiating violence against the people?

Why do some members defend free markets, but not civil liberties?

Why do some members defend civil liberties but not free markets? Aren’t they the same?

Why don’t more defend both economic liberty and personal liberty?

Why are there not more individuals who seek to intellectually influence others to bring about positive changes than those who seek power to force others to obey their commands?

Why does the use of religion to support a social gospel and preemptive wars, both of which requires authoritarians to use violence, or the threat of violence, go unchallenged? Aggression and forced redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with the teachings of the world great religions.

Why do we allow the government and the Federal Reserve to disseminate false information dealing with both economic and foreign policy?

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority?

Why should anyone be surprised that Congress has no credibility, since there’s such a disconnect between what politicians say and what they do?

Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there’s a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.

Trust Yourself, Not the Government

Too many people have for too long placed too much confidence and trust in government and not enough in themselves. Fortunately, many are now becoming aware of the seriousness of the gross mistakes of the past several decades. The blame is shared by both political parties. Many Americans now are demanding to hear the plain truth of things and want the demagoguing to stop. Without this first step, solutions are impossible.

Seeking the truth and finding the answers in liberty and self-reliance promotes the optimism necessary for restoring prosperity. The task is not that difficult if politics doesn’t get in the way.

We have allowed ourselves to get into such a mess for various reasons.

Politicians deceive themselves as to how wealth is produced. Excessive confidence is placed in the judgment of politicians and bureaucrats. This replaces the confidence in a free society. Too many in high places of authority became convinced that only they, armed with arbitrary government power, can bring about fairness, while facilitating wealth production. This always proves to be a utopian dream and destroys wealth and liberty. It impoverishes the people and rewards the special interests who end up controlling both political parties.

It’s no surprise then that much of what goes on in Washington is driven by aggressive partisanship and power seeking, with philosophic differences being minor.

Economic Ignorance

Economic ignorance is commonplace. Keynesianism continues to thrive, although today it is facing healthy and enthusiastic rebuttals. Believers in military Keynesianism and domestic Keynesianism continue to desperately promote their failed policies, as the economy languishes in a deep slumber.

Supporters of all government edicts use humanitarian arguments to justify them.

Humanitarian arguments are always used to justify government mandates related to the economy, monetary policy, foreign policy, and personal liberty. This is on purpose to make it more difficult to challenge. But, initiating violence for humanitarian reasons is still violence. Good intentions are no excuse and are just as harmful as when people use force with bad intentions. The results are always negative.

The immoral use of force is the source of man’s political problems. Sadly, many religious groups, secular organizations, and psychopathic authoritarians endorse government initiated force to change the world. Even when the desired goals are well-intentioned – or especially when well-intentioned – the results are dismal. The good results sought never materialize. The new problems created require even more government force as a solution. The net result is institutionalizing government initiated violence and morally justifying it on humanitarian grounds.

This is the same fundamental reason our government uses force for invading other countries at will, central economic planning at home, and the regulation of personal liberty and habits of our citizens.

It is rather strange, that unless one has a criminal mind and no respect for other people and their property, no one claims it’s permissible to go into one’s neighbor’s house and tell them how to behave, what they can eat, smoke and drink or how to spend their money.

Yet, rarely is it asked why it is morally acceptable that a stranger with a badge and a gun can do the same thing in the name of law and order. Any resistance is met with brute force, fines, taxes, arrests, and even imprisonment. This is done more frequently every day without a proper search warrant.

No Government Monopoly over Initiating Violence

Restraining aggressive behavior is one thing, but legalizing a government monopoly for initiating aggression can only lead to exhausting liberty associated with chaos, anger and the breakdown of civil society. Permitting such authority and expecting saintly behavior from the bureaucrats and the politicians is a pipe dream. We now have a standing army of armed bureaucrats in the TSA, CIA, FBI, Fish and Wildlife, FEMA, IRS, Corp of Engineers, etc. numbering over 100,000. Citizens are guilty until proven innocent in the unconstitutional administrative courts.

Government in a free society should have no authority to meddle in social activities or the economic transactions of individuals. Nor should government meddle in the affairs of other nations. All things peaceful, even when controversial, should be permitted.

We must reject the notion of prior restraint in economic activity just we do in the area of free speech and religious liberty. But even in these areas government is starting to use a backdoor approach of political correctness to regulate speech-a dangerous trend. Since 9/11 monitoring speech on the internet is now a problem since warrants are no longer required.

The Proliferation of Federal Crimes

The Constitution established four federal crimes. Today the experts can’t even agree on how many federal crimes are now on the books – they number into the thousands. No one person can comprehend the enormity of the legal system – especially the tax code. Due to the ill-advised drug war and the endless federal expansion of the criminal code we have over 6 million people under correctional suspension, more than the Soviets ever had, and more than any other nation today, including China. I don’t understand the complacency of the Congress and the willingness to continue their obsession with passing more Federal laws. Mandatory sentencing laws associated with drug laws have compounded our prison problems.

The federal register is now 75,000 pages long and the tax code has 72,000 pages, and expands every year. When will the people start shouting, “enough is enough,” and demand Congress cease and desist.

Achieving Liberty

Liberty can only be achieved when government is denied the aggressive use of force. If one seeks liberty, a precise type of government is needed. To achieve it, more than lip service is required.

Two choices are available.

A government designed to protect liberty – a natural right – as its sole objective. The people are expected to care for themselves and reject the use of any force for interfering with another person’s liberty. Government is given a strictly limited authority to enforce contracts, property ownership, settle disputes, and defend against foreign aggression.

A government that pretends to protect liberty but is granted power to arbitrarily use force over the people and foreign nations. Though the grant of power many times is meant to be small and limited, it inevitably metastasizes into an omnipotent political cancer. This is the problem for which the world has suffered throughout the ages. Though meant to be limited it nevertheless is a 100% sacrifice of a principle that would-be-tyrants find irresistible. It is used vigorously – though incrementally and insidiously. Granting power to government officials always proves the adage that: “power corrupts.”

Once government gets a limited concession for the use of force to mold people habits and plan the economy, it causes a steady move toward tyrannical government. Only a revolutionary spirit can reverse the process and deny to the government this arbitrary use of aggression. There’s no in-between. Sacrificing a little liberty for imaginary safety always ends badly.

Today’s mess is a result of Americans accepting option #2, even though the Founders attempted to give us Option #1.

The results are not good. As our liberties have been eroded our wealth has been consumed. The wealth we see today is based on debt and a foolish willingness on the part of foreigners to take our dollars for goods and services. They then loan them back to us to perpetuate our debt system. It’s amazing that it has worked for this long but the impasse in Washington, in solving our problems indicate that many are starting to understand the seriousness of the world -wide debt crisis and the dangers we face. The longer this process continues the harsher the outcome will be.

The Financial Crisis Is a Moral Crisis

Many are now acknowledging that a financial crisis looms but few understand it’s, in reality, a moral crisis. It’s the moral crisis that has allowed our liberties to be undermined and permits the exponential growth of illegal government power. Without a clear understanding of the nature of the crisis it will be difficult to prevent a steady march toward tyranny and the poverty that will accompany it.

Ultimately, the people have to decide which form of government they want; option #1 or option #2. There is no other choice. Claiming there is a choice of a “little” tyranny is like describing pregnancy as a “touch of pregnancy.” It is a myth to believe that a mixture of free markets and government central economic planning is a worthy compromise. What we see today is a result of that type of thinking. And the results speak for themselves.

A Culture of Violence

American now suffers from a culture of violence. It’s easy to reject the initiation of violence against one’s neighbor but it’s ironic that the people arbitrarily and freely anoint government officials with monopoly power to initiate violence against the American people – practically at will.

Because it’s the government that initiates force, most people accept it as being legitimate. Those who exert the force have no sense of guilt. It is believed by too many that governments are morally justified in initiating force supposedly to “do good.” They incorrectly believe that this authority has come from the “consent of the people.” The minority, or victims of government violence never consented to suffer the abuse of government mandates, even when dictated by the majority. Victims of TSA excesses never consented to this abuse.

This attitude has given us a policy of initiating war to “do good,” as well. It is claimed that war, to prevent war for noble purposes, is justified. This is similar to what we were once told that: “destroying a village to save a village” was justified. It was said by a US Secretary of State that the loss of 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, in the 1990s, as a result of American bombs and sanctions, was “worth it” to achieve the “good” we brought to the Iraqi people. And look at the mess that Iraq is in today.

Government use of force to mold social and economic behavior at home and abroad has justified individuals using force on their own terms. The fact that violence by government is seen as morally justified, is the reason why violence will increase when the big financial crisis hits and becomes a political crisis as well.

First, we recognize that individuals shouldn’t initiate violence, then we give the authority to government. Eventually, the immoral use of government violence, when things goes badly, will be used to justify an individual’s “right” to do the same thing. Neither the government nor individuals have the moral right to initiate violence against another yet we are moving toward the day when both will claim this authority. If this cycle is not reversed society will break down.

When needs are pressing, conditions deteriorate and rights become relative to the demands and the whims of the majority. It’s then not a great leap for individuals to take it upon themselves to use violence to get what they claim is theirs. As the economy deteriorates and the wealth discrepancies increase – as are already occurring – violence increases as those in need take it in their own hands to get what they believe is theirs. They will not wait for a government rescue program.

When government officials wield power over others to bail out the special interests, even with disastrous results to the average citizen, they feel no guilt for the harm they do. Those who take us into undeclared wars with many casualties resulting, never lose sleep over the death and destruction their bad decisions caused. They are convinced that what they do is morally justified, and the fact that many suffer just can’t be helped.

When the street criminals do the same thing, they too have no remorse, believing they are only taking what is rightfully theirs. All moral standards become relative. Whether it’s bailouts, privileges, government subsidies or benefits for some from inflating a currency, it’s all part of a process justified by a philosophy of forced redistribution of wealth. Violence, or a threat of such, is the instrument required and unfortunately is of little concern of most members of Congress.

Some argue it’s only a matter of “fairness” that those in need are cared for. There are two problems with this. First, the principle is used to provide a greater amount of benefits to the rich than the poor. Second, no one seems to be concerned about whether or not it’s fair to those who end up paying for the benefits. The costs are usually placed on the backs of the middle class and are hidden from the public eye. Too many people believe government handouts are free, like printing money out of thin air, and there is no cost. That deception is coming to an end. The bills are coming due and that’s what the economic slowdown is all about.

Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. It is the tool for telling the people how to live, what to eat and drink, what to read and how to spend their money.

To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. Granting to government even a small amount of force is a dangerous concession.

Limiting Government Excesses vs. a Virtuous Moral People

Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed. The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.

Most politicians and pundits are aware of the problems we face but spend all their time in trying to reform government. The sad part is that the suggested reforms almost always lead to less freedom and the importance of a virtuous and moral people is either ignored, or not understood. The new reforms serve only to further undermine liberty. The compounding effect has given us this steady erosion of liberty and the massive expansion of debt. The real question is: if it is liberty we seek, should most of the emphasis be placed on government reform or trying to understand what “a virtuous and moral people” means and how to promote it. The Constitution has not prevented the people from demanding handouts for both rich and poor in their efforts to reform the government, while ignoring the principles of a free society. All branches of our government today are controlled by individuals who use their power to undermine liberty and enhance the welfare/warfare state-and frequently their own wealth and power.

If the people are unhappy with the government performance it must be recognized that government is merely a reflection of an immoral society that rejected a moral government of constitutional limitations of power and love of freedom.

If this is the problem all the tinkering with thousands of pages of new laws and regulations will do nothing to solve the problem.

It is self-evident that our freedoms have been severely limited and the apparent prosperity we still have, is nothing more than leftover wealth from a previous time. This fictitious wealth based on debt and benefits from a false trust in our currency and credit, will play havoc with our society when the bills come due. This means that the full consequence of our lost liberties is yet to be felt.

But that illusion is now ending. Reversing a downward spiral depends on accepting a new approach.

Expect the rapidly expanding homeschooling movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to build a free society with Constitutional protections. We cannot expect a Federal government controlled school system to provide the intellectual ammunition to combat the dangerous growth of government that threatens our liberties.

The internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex that controls the news and most political propaganda. This is why it’s essential that the internet remains free of government regulation.

Many of our religious institutions and secular organizations support greater dependency on the state by supporting war, welfare and corporatism and ignore the need for a virtuous people.

I never believed that the world or our country could be made more free by politicians, if the people had no desire for freedom.

Under the current circumstances the most we can hope to achieve in the political process is to use it as a podium to reach the people to alert them of the nature of the crisis and the importance of their need to assume responsibility for themselves, if it is liberty that they truly seek. Without this, a constitutionally protected free society is impossible.

If this is true, our individual goal in life ought to be for us to seek virtue and excellence and recognize that self-esteem and happiness only comes from using one’s natural ability, in the most productive manner possible, according to one’s own talents.

Productivity and creativity are the true source of personal satisfaction. Freedom, and not dependency, provides the environment needed to achieve these goals. Government cannot do this for us; it only gets in the way. When the government gets involved, the goal becomes a bailout or a subsidy and these cannot provide a sense of personal achievement.

Achieving legislative power and political influence should not be our goal. Most of the change, if it is to come, will not come from the politicians, but rather from individuals, family, friends, intellectual leaders and our religious institutions. The solution can only come from rejecting the use of coercion, compulsion, government commands, and aggressive force, to mold social and economic behavior. Without accepting these restraints, inevitably the consensus will be to allow the government to mandate economic equality and obedience to the politicians who gain power and promote an environment that smothers the freedoms of everyone. It is then that the responsible individuals who seek excellence and self-esteem by being self-reliance and productive, become the true victims.

Conclusion

What are the greatest dangers that the American people face today and impede the goal of a free society? There are five.

1. The continuous attack on our civil liberties which threatens the rule of law and our ability to resist the onrush of tyranny.

2. Violent anti-Americanism that has engulfed the world. Because the phenomenon of “blow-back” is not understood or denied, our foreign policy is destined to keep us involved in many wars that we have no business being in. National bankruptcy and a greater threat to our national security will result.

3. The ease in which we go to war, without a declaration by Congress, but accepting international authority from the UN or NATO even for preemptive wars, otherwise known as aggression.

4. A financial political crisis as a consequence of excessive debt, unfunded liabilities, spending, bailouts, and gross discrepancy in wealth distribution going from the middle class to the rich. The danger of central economic planning, by the Federal Reserve must be understood.

5. World government taking over local and US sovereignty by getting involved in the issues of war, welfare, trade, banking, a world currency, taxes, property ownership, and private ownership of guns.
Happily, there is an answer for these very dangerous trends.

What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.

Source: LewRockwell.com

You Cannot Separate A Culture And Its Attendant Civilization

Writer Sam Francis said, “You cannot separate a culture and its attendant civilization from the genetic endowments of its founding people, nor can you expect to transfer it to another people, i.e. [immigrants.]”

Today in America (as well as other Western societies), African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Muslim-Americans and European-Americans share an uneasy if not cautious tolerance for each other across the land. The news reports didn’t talk about the American vote. They discussed the Hispanic vote, the black vote, the white vote and with the addition of another 20 to 30 million Muslims in a few decades—the Islamic vote.

As the American people allow themselves to be transformed into another kind of culture, i.e., a multicultural society, neither democrats who pander to the new cultural paradigm or the republicans who are trying to extend the old successful one—understand the destructive forces facing future generations of an “incompatible mixed bag” of a confusing and forthcoming American non-culture.

This phenomenon also occurs in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and most of mainland Europe

About half the American electorate feels freaked out by Obama’s re-election. They pray for the next four years to go as fast as possible so they can replace Obama with a republican.

But they fail to understand the direction of America. Within the next four years, somewhere between 12 and 20 million illegal alien migrants will gain full citizenship by Obama’s executive orders or Congress’ lay-down. Another 8 to 10 million immigrants will be imported through legal immigration—in the next four years. Millions of them will tap into Social Security, food stamps and assisted housing. Millions of them will be able to chain-migrate their families into America. Millions will legally displace Americans from their jobs.

Millions of them will become voters and millions of them will elect another person just like Obama. In the land of milk and honey, the minority voter will become the new power in the White House—until, of course, the Fractured States of America collapse via socialism.

Multiculturalism is unworkable and illogical in any society

“A multicultural society is a physical and sociological impossibility,” said Satoshi Kanazawa, professor at the University of Washington. “It is rare that one learns anything important from the pseudo-science of sociology, but one thing it does teach us is that there is no such thing as “multicultural society.”

“When I taught “Introduction to Sociology” at the University of Washington, I had back-to-back lectures during the first week on culture and society. I explained to my students that culture and society were two sides of a coin; one cannot exist without the other. Culture needs society (and its inhabitants) to sustain its existence and initiate its change, and society needs culture to hold it together and survive. Just as there is no such thing as a coin with only one side, there is no such thing as culture without society or society without culture. It is physically impossible to construct a coin with only heads without tails or a coin with only tails without heads. It is equally impossible to have a culture without society or a society without culture.”

While Kanazawa introduces the logical failure of the multicultural model, Francis illustrates that immigrants from incompatible cultures cannot change their own paradigms, cultures and languages to mesh with the host country. It’s an anthropological impossibility. It’s like asking a tiger to lose its stripes to fit in with a pride of lions.

“Nobody disputes these truisms about culture and society from the social sciences, yet the same people also claim that we now live in a “multicultural society,” said Kanazawa. “If you think about it for a moment, you’d realize that the notion of “multicultural society” is a logical and physical impossibility. It is similar to a coin with only one head but several tails. It is physically impossible to construct such a coin.

“That culture needs society to sustain its existence means that multiple cultures require multiple societies. That society needs culture to hold it together means that multiple societies require multiple cultures. There must be exactly the same number of cultures as there are societies, just as there must be exactly the same number of societies as there are cultures. In any bag of coins, regardless of how many coins there are, there are exactly as many heads as there are tails, and vice versa. One culture, one society. “Multicultural society” is a physical (and sociological) impossibility.”

In virtually all Western countries attempting multiculturalism today, immigrants rely on welfare, subsidies and food stamps to exist because they lack the tools to contribute to those societies. Most arrive without the intellectual horsepower to evolve quickly from third world systems to first world complexities.

Great Britain’s Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

As it stands today, 47 million people in America feed themselves off the backs of American workers. Millions more accept unemployment checks. The United States sinks like the Titanic from $16 trillion in debt on its way to $20 trillion within four years—under Obama. Barack Obama has become the “great emancipator” of those who avoid or lack skills to work on a daily basis.

The ones that won’t work or can’t work or suffer illiteracy and can’t hold a job, ride this U.S. Titanic down into the depths.

The result of mass amnesties and mass immigration can be summed up in these two short videos:

In a five minute astoundingly simple yet brilliant video, “Immigration, Poverty, and Gum Balls”, Roy Beck, director of www.numbersusa.ORG, graphically illustrates the impact of endless immigration. Take five minutes to see for yourself:

“Immigration by the numbers—off the chart” by Roy Beck

This 10 minute demonstration shows Americans the results of unending mass immigration on the quality of life and sustainability for future generations: in a few words “Mind boggling!” www.NumbersUSA.org

Intractable Poverty; Cultural Poverty Create Perfect Storm For America

About half the American electorate feels freaked out by Obama’s re-election. They pray for the next four years to go as fast as possible so they can replace Obama with a republican.

But they fail to understand the direction of America. Within the next four years, somewhere between 12 and 20 million illegal alien migrants will gain full citizenship by Obama’s executive orders or Congress’ lay-down. Millions of them will tap into Social Security, food stamps and assisted housing. Millions of them will be able to chain migrate their families into America. Millions will legally take jobs from Americans.

Millions of them will become voters and millions of them will elect another person just like Obama. In the land of milk and honey, the minority voter will become the new power in the White House—until, of course, the Fractured States of America collapse via socialism.

Great Britain’s Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

As it stands today, 47 million people in America feed themselves off the backs of American workers. Millions more accept unemployment checks. The United States sinks like the Titanic from $16 trillion in debt on its way to $20 trillion within four years.

The ones that won’t work or can’t work or suffer illiteracy and can’t hold a job, will ride this U.S. Titanic down into the depths.

Intractable poverty and cultural poverty create the perfect storm for America
I interviewed Canadian population expert Tim Murray. He said much the same occurs in Canada as to poverty, immigration and cultural fracturing.

“More distressing than the Presidential results were the lessons that both Republican and Democratic pundits drew from it,” said Murray. “The common thread that ran through most commentaries was that the demographic foundation of the Republican Party was no longer broad enough to capture a majority of votes. “The numbers just aren’t there anymore, and never will be” was a common refrain.

“The remedy offered by friend and foe alike was for Republicans to “modernize” their party. Translation–they must jettison some their traditional baggage and appeal to those voters who might be prepared to accept the party’s core economic message. Lower taxes, limited government, fiscal prudence and encouragement to small business.
“The problem is, however, some of the policy positions thought expendable to some conservative voters are regarded as vital to others.

“Imagine the Republican coalition as a zeppelin that is losing altitude in the mid-Atlantic. It has become apparent to the crew that the air ship will not make it to shore unless some baggage is tossed out. Not much. A mere 5% would probably do. Some luggage is labeled “right-to-life”, some “opposition to gay marriage”, some “no corporate tax hikes”, some “no amnesty”. Obviously something has to go. But what?

“I think it was most telling that the favored scapegoat for the party’s demise was its failure to relate to “Hispanic” voters, which is code language for the failure to surrender to illegal immigration and to open the doors even wider. After all, we’re told, Hispanics are a “growing demographic” soon to form 25% of the population, and the GOP cannot afford to concede 73% of Hispanic voters to the Democrats and expect to win elections. Most commentators made a particular point of saying that the Republican Party should be the natural home of Hispanics, for Hispanics tend to be quite conservative people. They are hard working, believe in traditional family values and are anxious to “get ahead”.

“If only the Republicans would ditch these old fashioned ideas about a nation having the right to control its borders, or that cheaters should never prosper, or that illegals should not be able to vote or drive a car or hold a job or make a claim on health care and educational services—Hispanics would run to them with open arms. If Republicans pushed for the kind of immigration reform the open borders lobby wants, and made Marco Rubio their next Presidential nominee, victory in 2016 should be in the bag. Or so goes the reasoning.

“Canadian conservatives have joined this chorus with some unsolicited advice of their own. What Republicans need to do is what Canada’s Conservative Party did. They need to “outreach” to ethnic communities. Encourage them to join, to nominate, and to run. They need to include them as an integral part of a new conservative multi-ethnic, multicultural coalition.
Nonsense!

“The Republicans don’t have to open the floodgates. They don’t have to accelerate the displacement of more American-born workers and the suppression of their wages. They don’t have to cave in to bilingualism and threaten the cohesion of the nation. They don’t have to add to the net fiscal burden that unskilled, poorly educated migrants impose on American taxpayers. They don’t have to lead America further along the road to ecological and economic ruin by contributing to the addition of another 100 million people to the country’s population by mid-century.

“All they have to do is accept the fact that the culture war should not be fought in Congress. All they have to do is not use the law to prevent women from choosing abortion and homosexuals from choosing marriage. That’s it.

“Does that mean that conservatives should not attempt to persuade people that abortion and same sex marriage is wrong? No. It only means that they should wage their arguments outside the offices of government, if only for pragmatic reasons. As Prohibition should have taught us, moral conduct cannot be legislated if there is not a broad and strong societal support for it. Laws against theft work because theft is universally regarded as wrong across all religious, cultural and racial lines. Laws against marijuana use are unworkable because they do not enjoy such universal support. I think recreational use of cannabis is ill-advised and dangerous for a great many people. But I don’t think it is a matter for the law.
“There is no moral consensus in favor of restricting abortion rights. But there is, however, substantial support for an end to illegal immigration, and a reduction of legal immigration. Even among Hispanics. Or do we forget that 46% of Hispanics voted for Arizona’s Proposition 200, and that a majority of Hispanics polled in Colorado favored an immigration law modeled on Arizona’s? And it should be remembered, after all, that Caesar Chavez stood on the Mexican border to protest the traffic of illegal immigrants from Mexico.

“How ironic is it that the very people who tell us not to engage in ethnic stereotyping are so quick to tell us what “Hispanics” want, as if they are a monolithic entity that can be moved around a political chessboard by one or two concessions.

“Republicans don’t need to modernize. They just need to take their own belief in limited government more seriously. Guard borders, not morals.”

Living In Illusion: A Modern Epidemic

“Our media is pumping out lies and propaganda because it is part of the one percent; it is owned by conspirators and populated with talented individuals who have sold their souls to the same devil that is loose in our government. Like a nation of Zombies our elected officials support the lies, live the lies, and betray their trust to the liars. It is a charade of great magnitude so big that a few decades ago everyone would have thought such mendacity would be impossible.” From my essay “The End of Democracy”

“His watchmen are blind, all of them know nothing. All of them are dumb dogs unable to bark, dreamers lying down, who love to slumber; and the dogs are greedy, they are not satisfied. And they are shepherds who have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each one to his unjust gain, to the last one. ‘Come,’ they say, ‘let us get wine, and let us drink heavily of strong drink; and tomorrow will be like today, only more so.’” Isaiah 56: 10-12

Some years ago, as the sun shone on an office building window, someone noticed that the reflection looked like the Virgin Mary. Believers in apparitions soon gathered in great numbers to see the “miracle”. Some saw her weeping. The story gained media attention and hundreds were convinced it was a genuine miracle.

While not debunking the origin of this particular apparition it is plain that God’s human creations are vulnerable to believing all sorts of things that have no basis in fact; especially when the false beliefs fulfill a subliminal desire.

There are millions of United States citizens whose cherished beliefs are unshakeable but patently false:

We believe Arabs are our enemies though they lack the resources to threaten us and, before recent provocations, have never done so. We support the Middle East War because we entertain the illusion that they hate us for our freedom and intend to attack us.

We hate Arab immigrants and fear Sharia law while it is neocon hegemony in our own government that has encoded the cultural deteriorating principles of multi-culturalism allowing Muslims legal entrance into our nation.

We believe illegitimate, neo-Israel is our friend and Jews are a persecuted people deserving our sympathy when, in reality, neo-Israel, founded against the will of Arabs who had owned and occupied the land for centuries, has gained control of the power centers of our nation and is using us for its own evil purposes. Jews, the world’s most powerful race, hate us and our Christian religion with a Devilish passion.

We believe a group of Arabs planned and executed the 9/11 travesty because they hate us for our freedom when there is irrefutable evidence that the murder of thousands of U. S. citizens on that ignoble day was a false flag operation, that may have been conducted by our Israeli comrades to bring on the Middle East War.

Hundreds of thousands of government employees along with a lesser number of media mavens live, breath, sleep and act as if the shaky government story on 9/11 is factual; purposely refusing to report or even consider mountains of data that refute it.

Millions of Evangelical Christians believe the heretical theology of Dispensationalism which supports contemporary Pharisees who hate and seek to destroy the Christianity Evangelicals claim to cherish.

Both candidates for President of the United States vow to support the afore-mentioned Zionist cabal to the detriment of our nation; sacrificing the lives our young men, ruining our reputation, deteriorating our morals, and bankrupting the government. One of these illusion filled individuals will become the stooge that governs United States of America.

While encouraging us to conserve energy to prevent depleting our resources, the ruling elite has exported our manufacturing to China cluttering our highways with trucks and requiring the shipment of millions of tons of product half way around the world in the most inefficient, energy consuming system imaginable.

Christians, even the few that actually claim The One True God is sovereign, deify the government by forgetting God and seeking salvation from a government idol.

Weather gurus, harnessed to our underhanded media, keep us posted on outside conditions but fail to address Chemtrails which are plainly visible but universally ignored.

While our elected representatives claim they are satisfied that President Obama was born in the United States the president continues to create suspicion by hiding his Passport and Educational records.

Christians claim to “believe in God” but act as if He is their servant rather than they His.

Wives often live as if everything is normal while their husbands philander. Christian pastors who are homosexual or see prostitutes often have wives who act as if all is well. Internet pornography is a captivating vice that festers in families that ignore its dangers. Gambling bankrupts other deluded homes.

Illusion is a common condition. We are born with the ability to fanaticize. It produces great novels, plays, music, and operas. When it is recognized, properly labeled and properly used, it can be an entertaining diversion offering relief from the tedium of everyday life. But when it invades the decisions of authority centers it is a shifting, toxic foundation that creates chaos by destroying the ability to reach sound conclusions.

Some illusion is a result of planned deception and manipulation; some is a result of intentional evasion; some is useful human diversion; some is a result of coercion; and, some enhances artistic endeavors.

Toxic illusion is deeply entrenched in our nation. We have ignored it too long. Much of what we believe is fictitious.

Seeing 435 congresspersons, 100 senators, and 8 justices with little American flags prominently pinned on their garb acting as if the government agenda is unquestionable when their computers are exploding with contrary data is a curious phenomenon. It is unanimously assumed that 9/11 was a malicious al-Qaeda attack on our nation resulting in the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the deaths of three thousand people. The validity of this scenario is never seriously questioned even though it has been refuted by hundreds of reputable engineers and thousands of citizens. Illusion encompasses our entire government.

Government, a human administration of power, if it is not properly critiqued tends toward imperialism. The Christian Church is responsible for the continuity of freedom by regularly comparing government actions with the Word of God. Unfortunately, the Christian Church is as deep into fantasy as the government they are supposed to critique. Contemporary Christians have never learned to swim; instead they wade about in neophytic shallow water unable to swim into the sea of Godly service and reach the distant shore and the commendation “Well Done Good and Faithful Servant”!

God wants us to evangelize, He wants to fill us with His Spirit and He wants us to praise Him, however, before all of this He wants us to obey and serve Him. We cannot serve Him until we obey Him. Learning to swim is learning to obey, it allows a Christian to leave the shallow water and enter the deeper water of service. Obedience is a prerequisite to service. Obedience to human law without regard for God’s Law leaves us in shallow water. Mass Christian conversions are of little use when the converts are not obedient.

Christians who claim that God “speaks” to them are always subject to indwelling sin. Personal guidance is real but it is always questionable and not the same as obedience. Obedience involves the Law God gave to Moses which is recorded in our Bible and which is the same today as it was when it was given to Moses. It is a solid platform not subject to the darkness of the fallen human spirit. Obedience to God’s Law is the deep water of the Gospel. Those who depend on personal guidance will always remain in the shallows and the Christian religion will remain with them.

Christians define it as sin but regardless of its name we all have a tendency to choose a lie and allow it to distort our actions. Too many citizens cling to the belief that their elected officials would deceive them or act against the interests of the nation. When this subliminal tendency is exploited by the cunning owners of our press and media the result is disastrous; a majority of our citizens are deceived into acting against and fighting the Will of God and their own better interests! It is not what they know that causes the problem but what they don’t know, are not told, and sometimes do not want to know.

R. J. Rushdoony wrote several volumes of daily devotional readings entitled “A Word in Season”. These reading are unique because they apply God’s Word to our actions and the actions of society. He compares our generation to the ancient Israeli generation that Moses led from Egypt. God would not allow this generation of former Egyptian residents to enter the Promised Land because they were unfit for freedom. They were more concerned about access to cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic than the freedom of the Promised Land. He ends the short reading with this question: “Will we too perish in a desert of our own making because we reject the responsibilities of faith and freedom?”

Unfortunately we have been and are doing so!

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