As America grew in the 1800s from a republic of a few millions, whose
frontier stopped at the Mississippi, into a world power, there were
constant collisions with the world’s greatest empire.
In 1812, we declared war on Britain, tried to invade Canada and got
our Capitol burned. In 1818, Andrew Jackson, on an expedition into
Spanish Florida to put down renegade Indians harassing Georgia, hanged
two British subjects he had captured, creating a firestorm in Britain.
In 1838, we came close to war over Canada’s border with Maine; in 1846, over Canada’s border with the Oregon Territory.
After the Civil War, Fenians conducted forays into Canada to start a
U.S.-British battle that might bring Ireland’s independence. In 1895, we
clashed over the border between Venezuela and British Guiana.
War was avoided on each occasion, save 1812. Yet all carried the
possibility of military conflict between the world’s rising power and
its reigning power. Observing the pugnacity of 21st-century China, there
appear to be parallels with the aggressiveness of 19th-century America.
China is now quarreling with India over borders. Beijing claims as
her national territory the entire South and East China seas and all the
islands, reefs and resources therein, dismissing the claims of half a
dozen neighbors.
Beijing has bullied Japan and the Philippines and told the U.S. Navy to stay out of the Yellow Sea and Taiwan Strait.
In dealing with America, China has begun to exhibit an attitude that is at times contemptuous.
Here is a partial list of the targets of Chinese cyber-espionage:
It’s the question of our time – an age of moral relativism.
“What difference does it make?”
You hear it from kids in public school. You hear it from top officials of government.
When right and wrong are matters of opinion, every man does what’s right in his own eyes. The result is always chaos.
Let me give you some examples:
What difference does it make if prayer and Bible reading is banned
in public schools? Supreme Court decisions in 1963 through 1965 have
given us the answer nearly 50 years later. Evolution is no longer taught
as a “theory” in schools. It’s a matter of fact, despite the fact there
is no proof and little evidence to support it. Secular humanism is the
official religion of the state. The result? Look at the headlines.
“Another teacher charged with sexually abusing students.” “STDs
skyrocket among schoolkids.” “Illiteracy at all-time high.” “Bullying
reaches epidemic in schools.”
What difference does it make if we stop going to church and synagogue? “Fewer Americans think traditional morality is relevant.”
What difference does it make if we stop reading the Bible? “Youth shoots baby in the face.” “Flash mob leads to looting spree.”
What difference does it make if the church stops serving the community? “Government spending hits all-time high.”
What difference does it make if we abort babies in the womb as a
matter of convenience? “Students kill in school massacre.” “Youth opens
fire on Mother’s Day parade.”
What difference does it make if you hand out condoms in school
rather than teach sexual responsibility? “Another female teacher
convicted of sex with students.” “Sexting the new rage among teens.”
What difference does it make if open homosexuality is permitted in
military ranks? “Report: 22 soldiers commit suicide every day.” “Sexual
assaults rampant in military.”
What difference does it make if the traditional family is destroyed?
“Fatherlessness linked to exploding prison populations.” “Single mother
households usually spells poverty.” “Domestic violence against women
increases.” “Number of homeless youth increasing.”
What difference does it make if we ban the Ten Commandments in public places? “Crime rates soar in cities.”
I know many people will look at all this and see no cause-and-effect relationship.
That’s what I would expect in a morally relativistic age.
“What difference does it make?”
Nothing matters.
Prove it.
There are no consequences for sin and immorality. In fact, there is
no such thing as sin and immorality. They are simply matters of opinion.
There is no God. And, if there is, He doesn’t have any requirements for us other than those I imagine.
That’s the reigning ethos in America today.
And it’s leading us to destruction.
Do I expect politicians and the cultural elite to suddenly see this?
Not at all.
But I do expect believers to get it – and to do something about it.
What’s that?
I expect real believers to follow the scriptural prescription for times like these. It’s found in 2 Chronicles 7:14.
It’s a Word directly from the Creator of the universe to “His people, which are called by His name.”
The liberal world vision and reality are often at variance, for
example, with equal pay for equal work. I’ve often watched “Lockup,” a
show that features California supermax prisons, including Pelican Bay
and Corcoran. Often, a recalcitrant prisoner must be extracted from his
cell through brute force. I’ve never seen female guards remove a
prisoner. If they are part of the process at all, it’s to videotape the
extraction for legal purposes. It’s my bet that female guards receive
the same salaries as male guards while not having to risk injury. Along
the same lines, women on aircraft carriers earn as much as their male
counterparts, but I have yet to see women hefting a hernia bar to attach
a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb to a fighter jet wing. All of this suggests
that liberals are for equal pay for unequal work. Or could it be sex
discrimination whereby equally qualified women are denied the
opportunity to extract beastly inmates from their cells and load heavy
bombs on fighter planes?
Here’s another bit of liberal confusion. Liberals deny that raising
labor cost through minimum wages reduces incentives to hire. But if you
asked a liberal for advice on how to stop rich people from shirking
their tax obligations, they’d say raise the penalty. Ask low-information
Harvard University doctors what should be done to stem gun violence and
they answer that government should institute “a new, substantial
national tax on all firearms and ammunition.” Ask Illinois’ Cook County
Board of Commissioners President Toni Preckwinkle how to reduce
purchases of bullets and guns. She’d say levy a nickel tax on each
bullet and a $25 tax on each gun. Liberals demonstrate they understand
the law of demand – that raising the cost of something lessens the
amount taken – but they deny that it applies to labor. That’s as
ludicrous as suggesting that the law of gravity applies to everything in
the universe except cute creatures, such as pandas and puppies.
Liberals love political correctness that conceals information. For
example, how does one know whether the “chair” of a board of directors
or the chair of a city council is a man or woman? This issue arose
during my (1995-2001) chairmanship of George Mason University’s
distinguished economics department. At a chairman’s meeting or
gathering, I was referred to as department chair. I told the speaker
that I am a chairman and that I have empirical evidence as proof.
Needless to say, it didn’t go over well. Academics don’t like the terms
chairwoman or chairperson, either, but puzzlingly, God forbid that
people refer to their idol as Chair Mao instead of Chairman Mao.
How liberals identify black people must be confusing to whites.
Having been around for 77 years, I have been through a number of names.
Among the more polite ones are colored, Negro, Afro-American, black and,
more recently, African-American. Among those names, African-American is
probably the most unintelligent. Let’s look at it. To identify their
races, suppose I told you that I had a European-American friend, a South
America-American friend and a North America-American friend. You’d
probably say, “Williams, that’s stupid. Europe, South America and North
America are continents and home to different races, ethnicities and
nationalities.” You might suggest that my friend is a German-American
instead of European-American. My friend from Brazil is a
Brazilian-American rather than a South America-American, and my friend
from Canada is a Canadian-American instead of a North America-American.
So wouldn’t the same apply to people whose heritage lies on the African
continent? For example, instead of claiming that President Barack Obama
is the first African-American president, he’s the first partially
Kenyan-American president. Obama is lucky; he knows his national
heritage. The closest thing to a national identity for most black
Americans is some country along Africa’s Gold Coast. Adding to the
confusion, what would you call a white American of Afrikaner or Egyptian
descent? Is he an African-American?
Liberals suffer confusion and cognitive dissonance because the rest of us don’t help explain things to them.
So let me get this right. Dr. Kermit had the legal right to butcher a
little baby by any method, however hideous, and even to torture her
first by not administering an anesthetic, as long as she was still in
her mother’s womb. But he killed three babies once they had been born
alive, so he is a murderer.
Science tells us a new life begins at the moment of conception, not
at two weeks or 10 weeks or 24 weeks or nine months less one day or some
other arbitrary timespan plucked out of the air. The law ought to
follow science and logic in saying that any taking of human life, from
conception to resurrection, is unlawful. Period.
And which political faction is it that favors and promotes abortion? The left.
The climate scam is a series of connected scientific frauds
perpetrated by organized crime and calculated to enrich the few at the
expense of the many by tampering with data and faking results to turn a
likely modest and beneficial warming into a bogus Apocalypse.
Look at the graph. In red is what the warming U.N. scientists say
should have happened in the 100 months since January 2005, at a rate
equivalent to somewhere between 2 and 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit (central
projection 4 F°) per century. In blue, the cooling that actually has
happened, trending downward at a rate equivalent to 0.5 degree
Fahrenheit per century.
I’ll be posting an updated graph here at WND every month, just as
soon as the two satellite temperature records for the previous month
become available. That will stop the left’s lies about “ever-faster
warming.”
Which political faction is it that says global warming is worse than
we ever thought, and devotes more of its Inaugural Address to the
non-problem of man’s influence on the climate than to anything else,
including the crippling federal debt? The communist left.
Since my column a week ago
on the federal debt and the impending collapse of the United States,
seven days, or 168 hours, or 10,000 minutes, or 600,000 seconds, have
passed. Every 45 seconds, Black Jesus borrows another million dollars,
much of it from China. That’s getting on for $15 billion every week, or the best part of a trillion a year.
And he prints another trillion a year, diluting and debasing the
value of the dollar so fast that China is getting restive because the
dollars it has lent to Uncle Sam will be worth a tiny fraction of
today’s value when – or, rather, if – Uncle Sam ever gets around to
repaying them.
Which political faction is it that makes a virtue out of borrowing so
that it can buy votes with other people’s money, and printing money so
that it can pay back less than it borrowed, and to blazes with America
and her future? The hard, flinty-faced left.
Which political faction is it that cares so little for those upon
whom it lavishes the taxpayer’s involuntary generosity that it has taken
no thought for what will happen to those people, many of whom have
become helplessly dependent, when China wises up and stops lending to
keep Soetero afloat, and the money to pay their handouts is gone? The
left.
Which political faction is it that hates and fears democracy so much
that it fiddles the electoral system on so large a scale that without
the stuffed ballot boxes The Amateur would never have gotten into the
White House first time around, let alone fool us twice? The left.
Which political faction is it that is most eager to sign away
America’s democracy by making international treaties that transfer real
political power and wealth from elected hands nationally to unelected
hands globally? The left.
Which political faction is it that relentlessly punishes success and
rewards failure? That puts its fraudulent “birth certificate” on the
White House website? That supports so-called “gay” so-called “marriage”?
That detests the family? That hates religion? That wants to strip
Christian religious symbols from public buildings? That plots and
schemes to take all mention of God out of everything from the Pledge of
Allegiance to the Gettysburg Address? The left. The left. The left.
Last week’s column, in which I described the coming collapse of the
dollar, provoked a huge response from all around the world. People
wondered how America could have been brought so very low so very fast.
The central reason is the sheer, in-your-face immorality of the left.
It is not that they do not know the difference between right and wrong.
They know it full well. They consciously, deliberately, willfully
choose the wrong and not the right.
Perhaps the severest indictment of the left is that they have created
almost nothing since Karl Marx laid down his pen. They are a vicious,
nasty, nihilistic, purely destructive force. They do not do harm by
accident. They do it by design. They create nothing. They destroy
everything. They want America to fail, just as fervently I want her to
succeed. If they fail, America will succeed. Count on it.
Why is Bangladesh, after China, the second-largest producer of
apparel in the world? Why are there 4,000 garment factories in that
impoverished country which, a few decades ago, had almost none?
Because the Asian subcontinent is where Western brands – from Disney
to Gap to Benetton – can produce cheapest. They can do so because women
and children will work for $1.50 a day crammed into factories that are
rickety firetraps, where health and safety regulations are nonexistent.
This is what capitalism, devoid of a conscience, will produce.
U.S. Presidential flag, 1960-present (not usually called a "standard" in official U.S. government terminology). It is defined in Executive Order 10860. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“The worst mistake of my presidency,” said Ronald Reagan of his
decision to put Marines into the middle of Lebanon’s civil war, where
241 died in a suicide bombing of their barracks.
And if Barack Obama plunges into Syria’s civil war, it could consume
his presidency, even as Iraq consumed the presidency of George W. Bush.
Why would Obama even consider this?
Because he blundered badly. Foolishly, he put his credibility on the
line by warning that any Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a
“red line” and be a “game changer” with “enormous consequences.”
Not only was this ultimatum unwise, Obama had no authority to issue
it. If Syria does not threaten or attack us, Obama would need
congressional authorization before he could constitutionally engage in
acts of war against Syria. When did he ever receive such authorization?
Moreover, there is no proof Syrian President Bashar Assad ever ordered the use of chemical weapons.
U.S. intelligence agencies maintain that small amounts of the deadly
toxin sarin gas were likely used. But if it did happen, we do not know
who ordered it.
Syrians officials deny that they ever used chemicals. And before we
dismiss Damascus’ denials, recall that an innocent man in Tupelo, Miss.,
was lately charged with mailing deadly ricin to Sen. Roger Wicker and
President Obama. This weekend, we learned he may have been framed.
It is well within the capacity of Assad’s enemies to use or fake the use of poison gas to suck us into fighting their war.
Even if elements of Assad’s army did use sarin, we ought not plunge in. And, fortunately, that seems to be Obama’s thinking.
Why stay out? Because it is not our war. There is no vital U.S.
interest in who rules Syria. Hafez Assad and Bashar have ruled Syria for
40 years. How has that ever threatened us?
Moreover, U.S. intervention would signal to Assad that the end is
near, making his use of every weapon in his arsenal, including chemical
weapons, more – not less – likely.
U.S. intervention would also make us de facto allies of Assad’s
principal enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Nusra Front, Syria’s
al-Qaida. As the New York Times reported Sunday, “Nowhere in
rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”
Do we really wish to expend American blood and treasure to bring about a victory of Islamists and jihadists in Syria?
..“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1
Be they theist or be they atheist, on this most scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.
And then, bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we too popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or “physics.”
Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1
Be they theist or be they atheist, on this most scientists agree: In
the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter.
There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural
anyway.
And then, bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing
became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned
universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we too
popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness
and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or
“physics.”
Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.
And then they were.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists, whether they believe in
God or deny Him, is that the “Big Bang” moment of singularity is the
only feasible explanation to account for the universe and everything in
it. All things material must have a beginning and an end.
- See more at: http://www.onenewsnow.com/in-depth/2013/04/23/the-fool-says,-there-is-no-god#sthash.EsTEDWFf.dpuf
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1
Be they theist or be they atheist, on this most scientists agree: In
the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter.
There wasn’t even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural
anyway.
And then, bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing
became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned
universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we too
popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness
and the ability to think, communicate and observe – “natural law” or
“physics.”
Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.
And then they were.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists, whether they believe in
God or deny Him, is that the “Big Bang” moment of singularity is the
only feasible explanation to account for the universe and everything in
it. All things material must have a beginning and an end.
- See more at: http://www.onenewsnow.com/in-depth/2013/04/23/the-fool-says,-there-is-no-god#sthash.EsTEDWFf.dpuf
It seems that the establishment media has intensified their attack on
"conspiracy theorists". It's long been their feeble attempt to
discredit anyone who dares question the "official" narrative of events.
But why the sudden deluge of attacks?
First, what does conspiracy theory even mean?
con·spir·a·cy - An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
the·o·ry - A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena.
con·spir·a·cy the·o·ry - The belief that the government or a covert organization is responsible for an event that is unusual or unexplained.
In short, a conspiracy theorist seeks the full facts about covert
subversive acts, and unusual or unexplained events. Put another way,
when the story of an event doesn't add up, theories arise to explain
what really happened.
While driving into D.C. last week, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh
expound on an important issue that I don’t believe many pro-liberty
people give much thought to. He said that “low-information” voters
present a serious problem because there is no way to reach people who
are uninformed. Worse, most of these people don’t like conservatives or
libertarians.
No doubt about it, Rush has zeroed in on the crux of the problem when
it comes to the decline and fall of the American Empire. How in the
world do you reach people who not only are devoid of knowledge, but, in
addition, don’t like the very people who have the information they so
desperately need?
Does anyone really believe that John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitt
Romney, John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, or Jeb Bush (yes,
he’s coming!) – to name but a handful of high-profile establishment
Republicans – is fighting for a totally free market or something even
close to individual liberty?
Ditto some of the best-known media pundits who are, appallingly,
labeled arch-conservatives by both their peers and enemies – people like
Bill Kristol, Ann Coulter, Ben Stein and Bill Bennett.
And why not? Even Fox News, which started out as an alternative to
the radical left-wing media, has drifted increasingly to the left. Why
do you think they were willing to part ways with Glenn Beck and his huge
ratings? Or, just as shockingly, with Judge Andrew Napolitano, another
libertarian, who, to the displeasure of Roger Ailes, used his show as a
platform to preach anti-government gospel. Who’s next – John Stossel?
And by day’s end, the world would know who Adam Lanza was.
Lanza kept firing at the children until he heard the sirens. Then he
pulled out one of the Glocks, put it to his head and ended it, knowing
he was on his way to becoming world famous.
Just as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine are famous. Just
as James Holmes, the “Joker” of the Aurora “Dark Knight Rising”
massacre, is famous. Just as Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson mass
murderer who shot Gabby Giffords, is famous.
A desire to be famous coupled with a dead conscience is the common
thread running through these recurring atrocities. These loners and
losers want us to know who they are. And, to succeed now, each almost
has to outdo in horror those who went before.
Since the news first came in Friday from Newtown, we have argued
about guns in America and mental illness, but heard little about the
moral sickness of our society.
In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, leave it to the state-run
media and politicians who surround themselves with armed security at all
times to offer up exactly the wrong prescription to stopping the
slaughter of more innocents.
It was as predictable as clockwork that those who seek a state
monopoly on firepower would exploit a tragedy like this to push for
unconstitutional, counter-productive, anti-American solutions to a mess
they helped create.
Let me give you some things to think about – things you won’t likely hear or read elsewhere.
First, consider why Israel, a nation surrounded by madmen who seek to
kill innocent Jewish children any way they can, has rarely seen the
kinds of mayhem America witnessed in Newtown, Conn. I can show you in
one simple photograph that doesn’t require any further explanation.
In the age of the Internet there are rumors, myths, urban legends and
half-truths that abide in blogs, Facebook and the like. Thanks to the
Internet we no longer live in an age where information is hidden for
very long. While this can be good, it can also be quite dangerous. In a world where there is real evil and men lust after power, there is
truth in the saying, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. We understand from the Bible, that in the heart of a man
without Jesus, there is a powerful sin nature that rules him. However,
not every conspiracy theory under the sun is true.
It would be easy to dismiss such claims, but the real problem is too big
to dismiss. On the one hand, our government has done some terrible
unthinkable stuff such as the MK Ultra project that occurred in the 1950’s and 1960’s, that tested drugs on unknowing citizens.
The bigger problem we now face, is that there are so many conspiracy
theories; all coming from different angles with different levels of
believability to different people, all of this data has acted as
misinformation. Misinformation is when an entity “leaks” information
that is not true to confuse the enemy. Who is our enemy though? It’s
Satan and his demons. The devil has used the biggest information tool
that we know of to spread misinformation. If the devil is the father of
lies, of course he will spread lies through every means possible. But
could it be that so much false information is put out there, so that
when people indentify his work and the work of the antichrist, they will
dismiss it as just standard conspiratorial rhetoric from so called
“extreme” right wing Christians?
byWalter WilliamsEmail | Archive Walter E. Williams, Ph.D., is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
Back in 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said we were “a nation of cowards” on matters of race. Permit me to be brave and run a few assertions by you just to see whether we’re on the same page. There should be two standards for civilized conduct: one for whites, which is higher, and another for blacks, which is lower. In other words, in the name of justice and fair play, blacks should not be held accountable to the same standards whites are and should not be criticized for conduct we’d deem disgusting and racist if said or done by whites. MORE>>>>>>>>>
With negative growth now for six months, Britain has fallen back into recession. “I don’t think we’re anywhere near halfway through the eurozone crisis,” said Prime Minister David Cameron this weekend.
Romania’s government fell last week. The Czech government barely survived a vote of no confidence. In the capital cities of both countries, tens of thousands have angrily protested the new austerity.
The Dutch government also fell last week, when the Freedom Party of right-wing populist Geert Wilders abandoned the governing coalition.
Wilders refuses to support spending cuts and new taxes needed to meet the hard deficit target of 3 percent of gross domestic product set by the European Union for 2013.
The Rome government of Silvio Berlusconi is history. New Prime Minister Mario Monti says Italy cannot sustain the austerity being imposed upon her.
In Spain, unemployment has hit 24.4 percent. Half her young are jobless. “Spain is undergoing a crisis of enormous proportions,” says Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo. He compares the EU to the Titanic.
For nearly four years, criticisms of Obama’s policies, lack of business experience and Marxist proclivities have been labeled as racists attacking him because he’s black. And, of course, he has done nothing to defuse those ridiculous allegations. But let’s flip these allegations over for a moment.
If a white man with no business experience of any kind, on any level, were elected president and his economic plan increased government spending, increased government intrusion into private business and increased taxes on the so-called rich – what would criticism of him be because he is white? If this same white president employed failed Keynesian economic strategies, which resulted in his increasing our total national debt more than the first 41 presidents combined, in less than three years of his first term in office – would criticism of him be because he is white? If this hypothetical white president were driving us off an economic cliff from which economists say there is no return, would criticism of him be because he is white? More>>>>>>>
Looking forward based on the zeitgeist of today, there is no small amount of oratorical and ecclesiastical commentary, but I will still offer my thoughts pursuant to same.
My first thought is that those blacks crying that “they can’t get a break because of the color of their skin, they ain’t got no job, and the white man’s holding blacks down,” should do the following: Shut up, stop making excuses, remove the racial blinders, and take a good look around them. As long as Fox News sanctions the raw racism of the Marxist-negress Jehmu Greene and gives credibility to the Sharptons and Jacksons – black people have no leg to stand on when it comes to the oft-voiced mantra “white racism.” More>>>>>>>>>>>
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9
As homeschooling parents, my husband and I are students of history and try to pass on this interest to our daughters. Anyone with a passion for the past appreciates the cyclic nature of human governance and the repetition of historical behavior and events, hence the well-known adage by George Santayana: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” When you stop to think about it, those words are quite eerie – and prescient.
EXCERPT Often subjects discussed in the realm of archaeology can be investigated with little direct connection with the experiences of our present day. Whether that perception is true or not, it is a reality, and the study of the ancient past can often be very esoteric and compartmentalized to the modern mind. Not so concerning the subject of child sacrifice. The parallels to the modern day practice of abortion and the murder of innocent, defenseless babies is plain and unavoidable.
The motives for the destruction of babies in the past may not all seem the same when compared to present day practice, and the processes from an open, public murder at a religious altar verses the sanitized and hidden slaughter in an abortion clinic may seem worlds apart, but they are not. Ancient ritual sacrifice of babies to a demonic idol at pagan temples has been replaced by intentional “medical” murder of children at the altar of self at secular, state-sanctioned “clinics” and “medical” facilities. Legalized abortion-on-demand is the result of rampant secularism and atheism whose propaganda has beguiled modern culture into a deadening personal autonomy that makes monsters out of every day citizens.
The Winter 2012 issue of Bible and Spade presents a number of powerful articles that address the issue of child-sacrifice in the ancient day, focusing primarily on the tophet at Carthage. Henry Smith and our friends at Artifax magazine untangle attempts by certain scholars to reinterpret the tophet at Carthage as simply a burial ground for cremated babies and children, and not as a place of ritual sacrifice. Mr. Smith adeptly reasons that the arguments against a tophet at Carthage will then be used to deny the biblical accounts relating such pagan sacrificial practices in the land of Canaan and Israel as outlined in OT Scripture. John Currid and Andrew White, in separate articles help us see clearly the connection between the sacrifice of children at Carthage and Israel and our own practices today. John Roskoski provides a fascinating analysis of the account of Jephthah’s vow as related in Judges 11, challenging us to not embrace the distorted beliefs of the culture we live in, as Jephthah had apparently done, with staggering personal consequences. The Didache and the Oxyrynchus Papyritexts bring light to our readers on the response by the early church to address the culture of death in their day. Lastly, Paul Humber provides a helpful reminder of how evolution and its philosophical underpinnings are the ground from which the culture of death and the practice of abortion grow….
If it had been a white teenager who was shot, and a 28-year-old black guy who shot him, the black guy would have been arrested.
So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
And they may be right.
Yet if Trayvon had been shot dead by a black neighborhood watch volunteer, Jesse Jackson would not have been in a pulpit in Sanford, Fla., howling that he had been "murdered and martyred."
Maxine Waters would not be screaming "hate crime."
Barack Obama's statement that the death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy that cries out for a more thorough investigation was the right and necessary thing to say.
But it fell far short of what was needed: a presidential call for a halt to the rhetoric that is stirring up racial rage and inflaming the nation. The incendiary language being deployed is both divisive and dangerous.
Addressing the Sanford, Fla., incident, Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan tweeted: "Where there is no justice, there will be no peace. Soon, and very soon, the law of retaliation may ... be applied."
The New Black Panther Party has issued a "Wanted Dead or Alive" poster featuring the face of George Zimmerman, the man who shot Martin, and printed up a flier saying Martin was "murdered in cold blood." MORE>>>>>>>
A liberal, who is also a major donor to the Democratic Party, calls conservative women “sluts” (and other words I cannot use in this column), and no comments ensue. A conservative commentator uses “slut” and “prostitute” about a liberal woman’s alleged behavior, and practically the entire media erupts in outrage. Even the president of the United States gets involved. Double standard?
Not too long ago, I was watching one of my favorite television talk shows, and there was this heated debate on the death penalty. As I listened to the rhetoric, I took a moment to reconsider a phrase I once heard: “How foolish our arguments can become without absolutes in our reasoning.” There is a reason it is virtually impossible to have a rational debate with people who do not acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being. Without the Judea-Christian God, there are no transcendent principles, no standards and no absolutes that place value on humanity. Absent absolutes and standards, chaos reigns. Try to conduct banking, science or commerce without agreed-upon standards of measure. If such mundane operations as counting dollars, measuring inches and determining how much a pound (hamburger or British currency?) is require standards, how much more such esoteric concepts as right and wrong? More>>>>>>
Mark Steyn -- The breast-cancer-fighting foundation could not be permitted to get away with disrespecting Big Abortion. -- As Sen. Obama said during the 2008 campaign, words matter. Modern "liberalism" is strikingly illiberal; the high priests of "tolerance" are increasingly intolerant of even the mildest dissent; and those who profess to "celebrate diversity" coerce ever more ruthlessly a narrow homogeneity.
Thus, the Obama administration's insistence that Catholic institutions must be compelled to provide free contraception, sterilization and abortifacients. This has less to do with any utilitarian benefit a condomless janitor at a Catholic school might derive from Obamacare, and more to do with the liberal muscle of Big Tolerance enforcing one-size-fits-all diversity. The bigger the Big Government, the smaller everything else: In Sweden, expressing a moral objection to homosexuality is illegal, even on religious grounds, even in church, and a pastor minded to cite the more robust verses of Leviticus would risk four years in jail. In Canada, the courts rule that Catholic schools must allow gay students to take their same-sex dates to the prom. The secular state's Bureau of Compliance is merciless to apostates to a degree even your fire-breathing imams might marvel at. Consider the current travails of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
This is the group responsible for introducing the pink "awareness-raising" ribbon for breast cancer – as emblematic a symbol of America's descent into postmodernism as anything. It has spawned a thousand other colored "awareness-raising" ribbons: my current favorite is the periwinkle ribbon for acid reflux. We have had phenomenal breakthroughs in hues of awareness-raising ribbons, and for this the Susan G. Komen Foundation deserves due credit.
Until the other day, Komen were also generous patrons of Planned Parenthood, the "women's health" organization. The Foundation then decided it preferred to focus on organizations that are "providing the lifesaving mammogram." Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, despite its president, Cecile Richards, testifying to the contrary before Congress last year. Rather, Planned Parenthood provides abortions; it's the biggest abortion provider in the United States. For the breast cancer bigwigs to wish to target their grants more relevantly is surely understandable.
But not if you're a liberal enforcer. Sen. Barbara Boxer, with characteristic understatement, compared the Komen Foundation's Nancy Brinker to Joe McCarthy: "I'm reminded of the McCarthy era, where somebody said: 'Oh,' a congressman stands up, a senator, 'I'm investigating this organization and therefore people should stop funding them.'" But Komen is not a congressman or a senator or any other part of the government, only a private organization. And therefore it is free to give its money to whomever it wishes, isn't it? Dream on. Liberals take the same view as the proprietors of the Dar al-Islam: Once they hold this land, they hold it forever. ...
We were invited to dinner this week with a family who lives nearby. John and Mary are a bit younger than my husband and I, and their five children range from 12 to 2 years old. They are a devoutly religious family, and their children are homeschooled. The kids are happy, well-behaved, rambunctious, polite and funny.
With seven young people in the house (their kids and ours), things sometimes got noisy, but it was the kind of fun, shrieking noise that adults love to hear. Our 16-year-old daughter (who wants to be a nanny) babysits for this family, so the kids know her well, and everyone embarked on a rousing game of chase and hide-and-seek and other diversions. Once in a while the toddler would fall and bump a body part, but a brief kiss from his mama was enough to convince him to rejoin the other children.
Map of the Taiwan Strait (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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