Protecting The Image of God Among Us

Many dear readers know me as a gun rights guy.  What may have eluded them is why?  I am a gun rights guy because I believe it to be first and foremost, the man's responsibility to defend his wife and children, and secondarily the woman's responsibility to defend her children.  Does that sound too sexist and too traditional?  Well, tough.  That is the reality on the ground.  Guys have the primary responsibility to defend their wives and children.  Of course, one always prays that the one never has to use the gun he carries.  But unfortunately, the Evil One stalks this world looking for people to influence to do his bidding.  One must be prepared for and alert to such evil people.

Less well known, but I have commented on it before, I am staunchly against abortion.  I have not always been so.  I too bought off on the lie that it was a "woman's choice," until I reasoned from the Bible and America's founding documents that here was a human life; a sacred thing to God, and one protected by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  From the moment of conception, the growing child inside her body will become a fully developed human being, if allowed to develop.  From the moment I reasoned these things, I became a believer in the idea that to abort one's own child is murder.

Does that sound harsh, murder?  It may.  But like God himself, I do not believe that the punishment for murder should be executed.  I do believe though that before a child is to be aborted, the mother should be required to go before the court as prosecutor. with a lawyer of course.  The child should have an advocate who can speak for the child, since these people have no voice.  If the child is to be executed, then the court must rule so, after careful consideration.  The child is entitled to the same due process requirements as anyone else.

All of this background is by way of illustrating how I came to be an anti-abortionist.  Today, at Townhall.com, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has a discussion about abortion, the death of an abortionist, and the lies that are told to support the evil of abortion entitled The Foundational Lies of Abortion Are Crumbling.

Earlier this month, authorities discovered the preserved remains of 2,246 unborn children at the home of deceased abortionist Dr. Ulrich Klopfer.

You should have heard this horrific news by now. Everyone should have heard. And yet, the media gives more attention to President Trump’s joke that fluorescent lighting makes his skin look orange than to the discovery of 2,246 corpses at an abortionist’s home.

...snip...

Abortion has always required the acceptance of a lie. For years, the dominant lie was this: “It’s a fetus, not a baby.” Thus, an abortion only terminates a pregnancy, it doesn’t end a life. But then science revealed the truth. Within a few short weeks, this “clump of cells” has fingers and toes, eyes and a nose, a beating heart and a developing brain. This is not a bundle of tissue, but rather a bundle of joy, a life made in the image of God.

Made in the image of God. Think about what that means. If we truly believed we are made in the image of God, there is so much we would not do. We wouldn't, for example, take harmful drugs to kill our emotions. We wouldn't allow ourselves to become fat and out of shape (I am pointing to myself here), or to drink alcohol to excess. We wouldn't put tattoos on our bodies. Because we would view our bodies as the temples they were intended to be. And we wouldn't tolerate women having abortions.

In National Review there is an article entitled When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense, where the author, Frederica Mathewes-Green has come to a similar understanding from a secular point of view:

A woman who had had an abortion told me, “Everyone around me was saying they would ‘be there for me’ if I had the abortion, but no one said they’d ‘be there for me’ if I had the baby.” For everyone around the pregnant woman, abortion looks like the sensible choice. A woman who determines instead to continue an unplanned pregnancy looks like she’s being foolishly stubborn. It’s like she’s taken up some unreasonable hobby. People think, If she would only go off and do this one thing, everything would be fine.

But that’s an illusion. Abortion can’t really “turn back the clock.” It can’t push the rewind button on life and make it so she was never pregnant. It can make it easy for everyone around the woman to forget the pregnancy, but the woman herself may struggle. When she first sees the positive pregnancy test she may feel, in a panicky way, that she has to get rid of it as fast as possible. But life stretches on after abortion, for months and years — for many long nights — and all her life long she may ponder the irreversible choice she made.

I confess that I should have been more forceful in my opposition to this violence against children. Indeed, everyone of us who have felt that somehow it would be more convenient for us if a child was not born have partaken of the evil fruit that Eve first bit into.  We must repent, which means to rethink what we have been doing, and go down a different path.  We all must become anti-abortionists.  We all must protect the image of God among us.

What Listening to Children Begets

I am still astonished that so many can be taken in by a 16 year old of no special accomplishment who is apparently and unfortunately in fear of her life because of the constant drum beat of climate alarmists.  She also apparently has not read of (does know of?) countervailing evidence that in fact the climate is controlled not by the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but by the sun.  And so she is angry.  That much is clear.

Deana Chadwell has an article today at the  American Thinker entitled Greta The Angry in which she compares and contrast Greta Thunberg and Joan of Arc. But the comparison is anything but flattering. We may wonder that a teenager was called by God to lead French forces against England  during the Hundred Years War. But it is also clear from history that she did not behave as Greta the Angry has behaved.

Chadwell:

Those who are befuddled and beleaguered by climate nonsense look to Greta Thunberg as if she were another Joan of Arc. Those of us who live in reality see her as being hopelessly mired in the arrogance of untruth. Yes, Greta’s childhood has been stolen from her, but it isn’t America that’s done that – it’s her parents who have allowed her to be prostituted in this manner. It is the leftist politicians and their ilk who are milking her youth and gullibility and her hunger for acceptance who have stuck her up on a tilting pedestal. I’m as uncomfortable watching her as I am seeing a parent mistreat a child in public. Humiliation is coming at her like a locomotive and no one is yanking her off the tracks.

Let’s explore this comparison with the French teenager who was martyred in her attempt to free France from English control. She was a devout, if untutored and illiterate, Christian. She was, from the age of 13 until her death at 19, sure she saw visions of saints who told her what she must do. She was amazingly successful. Her followers, who included King Charles VII, believed in her -– a young girl in the 15th century! –- and allowed her to command their troops in battle.

One of the first non-fiction books I read as a child was entitled Candle in the Sky and was a biography of Joan of Arc. I read it over and over, completely astounded. Something very unusual was going on with her, and after 50 years of intense Bible study and further reading about the Maid of Orleans, I am still mystified. She believed so strongly in the divinity of her mission that she let them burn her at the stake and yet, I am unsure what concern God had in France maintaining its sovereignty, but God is the only way to even begin to grasp what happened there. He does, after all, control history.

Now look at Greta. If God had anything to do with what she’s up to, she’d understand that He has everything planned and that, in spite of human free will, the world will continue as long as He wants it to. She would know that saving the world is not a job for mere humans and that we can’t possibly be important or powerful enough to alter the carefully tuned workings of this astounding machine we call Earth.

An old English proverb states that "Children should be seen and not heard."  That is because a child, with so little experience of life under his or her belt, does not know as much as an older person.  Such is to be expected, and it is not to put youth down, but rather to keep them from embarrassing themselves later.  Those who repeat it to their children are doing so out of love.

Greta The Angry is angry that we have not taken action, that we have not "done something."  Like gun control, where the solutions always seem to be the same, so too with climate issues, where whether the Earth is getting warmer and will burn up, or whether the Earth is getting cooler and we will all freeze to death, the answer seems to be the same.  Give up living comfortably and get back to back breaking striving for a small morsel to keep body and soul together, while those scolding us to do so live like kings. But if she had just a little more of life under her belt, she would realize that the Left is constantly trying to stampede us into jumping off the cliff.  So many of their alarms have been proven untrue, but we are supposed to believe them now.

Chadwell again:

But, alas, she knows very little and what she thinks she knows makes her very angry. She shouts, “How dare you!” at her audience as if merely staying alive in this world is something we’ve all done to offend her. She shouts about “mass extinction” as if a half a degree warming over a century will have us all choking to death in the streets. She moans about losing her childhood and missing school. Joan once said that she would rather be “spinning wool at her mother’s side” than commanding armies, but she screamed no accusations at the French people. She merely cited her divine mission and went off to war. Even when she was burning to death she said only two words, “Blessed Jesus.”

Note, the emphasis is mine.

Here, then is the arrogance of which Ms. Chadwell speaks in her opening paragraph.  The arrogance of untruth.  Nobody has done anything to Greta the Angry.  But she believes, unlike the manufactured outrage we so often see, she really believes that she will be dead in 12 years, and that by not doing something, whatever that something is supposed to be, we are killing her.  As has been noted by a number of writers, this sort of thing is gross child abuse.  No such thing is going to happen.  Will Greta the Angry be embarrassed?

Greta will not meet such a fate, but one that is perhaps worse. She will either live long enough to find out what a fool she was and how people used and abused her, or she will never connect with reality and will live out her days as frightened as she is now. There’s no happy place on her horizon.

Incidentally, for more on another Leftist alarm, this time raising Malthus from the dead again, please see Laura Hollis at Townhall.com in an article entitled Scaremongering Isn't Science. There you will find this little tidbit:

A little more than two years ago, I wrote a column titled "What Margarine Can Teach Us About Climate Change." Inspired by a book excerpt in National Geographic, that column summarized just one example (the U.S. government's promotion of margarine and synthetic oils over actual dairy products to reduce heart disease) of how politicizing science can have devastating results.

As the "climate crisis" wunderkind have been "striking" all over the world, led by grumpy guru Greta Thunberg, I couldn't help but think of that column and the many other "crises" we've been warned about over the years that never panned out.

Take Paul Ehrlich, for example. Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb." Published in 1969, it made shocking and foreboding pronouncements like, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over," and "(H)undreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." While researching Ehrlich, I came across a 2018 article in Smithsonian Magazine that was sharply critical of Ehrlich and his book, which Smithsonian describes as having "fueled an anti-population-growth crusade that led to human rights abuses around the world."

And while your at it, look up Hollis's article What Margarine Can Teach Us About Climate Change. There, I've done if for you.

As it turned out, not enough was known about different kinds of fats and cholesterol. That didn't stop the USDA, FDA, National Institutes of Health and WHO from promoting diets low in saturated fats — which turned out to play little to no role in heart disease.

Consumer advocacy groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the National Heart Savers Association went even further, accusing American companies that used saturated fats in their products of "poisoning America," and warning Americans to avoid all saturated fats.

Later research showed that trans fats — like those used in margarine — were actually much more damaging to health than butter and other animal fats, or tropical oils like coconut oil and palm oil. But it took decades for public policy to change. In the meantime, how many heart attacks — and related deaths — could be traced to trans fats?

Oops.

The point of this whole post then is that when certain ill behaved children speak out, even at the U. N., adults should not pay attention: and rhat we adults should be a little more humble and circumspect about making policy decisions that may cause more harm than good, and will surely cost us all dearly. The Left (read children in adult bodies) has been wrong all along, and there is no reason to believe they are finally right this time. This is what listening to children begets.

The Tragedy of a Stolen Childhood

One of the purposes of Biblical teaching is to teach wisdom.  Wisdom can be acquired through learning from other's mistakes, or learning through one's own mistakes.  The second method is not recommended because we seldom live long enough to become wise on our own.

Unfortunately for us, the so called "youth culture" of today, which is promoted because one can make money and have fame from the idiocy of the young person's drive to gain status with the opposite sex.  If the young person can be manipulated into believing that if certain products are purchased, or as the Left uses it, certain ideas are espoused, it will give one status, then the adults who are making the products or promoting the ideas can gain money and power.

Back before dinosaurs roamed the earth, in the 1950s and the 1960s, there was great fear that life on earth would be wiped out by nuclear war.  (That was before we were going to freeze to death due to global cooling.)  I hate to admit it, but I was caught up in the hysteria.  Great scientists had devised something called the Doomsday Clock. The link is to Wikipedia, which gives a somewhat inaccurate description. The Doomsday Clock was only about the probability of nuclear war, and was set at the 11th hour to constantly remind everyone that we were only a push button away from nuclear doom. It hung over us children like a sword of Damocles.   We had regular practice for air raids, which of course we knew even then would not save us.  And we too felt that we could not enjoy life for fear it would be cut short. Why have children? It almost seemed irresponsible, immoral even to do so.

Fortunately, our parents, having lived through a horrible world war, were more sanguine about the future. Today, when people ask me how am I doing, I say "So far so good."  The saying represents the fact that right at this moment I am healthy, and have everything I need. In another moment I may not, but the important thing is to stay in the here and now. The past is the past, and one should learn from it, but not dwell on it. It is like a cancelled check. The future is a promissory note that may not come true. All you have is the moment. Make the best of what you have in that moment. 

Today, the Left is trying to sell the world on the idea that CO2 is the great danger.  That carbon dioxide is warming the earth, that the world will burn up, and the human race will go extinct.  Some people predict that the only animal to survive will be the cockroach.  Having experienced the Left's alarmism before, I say "Balderdash!"

Dennis Prager says it better in a post at Townhall.com entitled If You Can't Sell Your Hysteria To Adults, Try Kids. Of course, the great tragedy is that the Left has convinced teenagers to believe that they are somehow wise enough to tell adults what to do. And then we have a 16 year old Swedish school girl who has the audacity to do it in front of the whole world! Will she be embarrassed when 12 years later she still has to go through a harsh Swedish winter? I wonder?

The entire American left -- the mainstream media, the environmentalist movement and Democratic politicians in particular -- are celebrating the involvement of teenagers and even younger children in protesting the world's "inaction" with regard to global warming.

...snip...

Apparently, however, the left-wing hysteria about global warming leading to the virtual extinction of life on Earth has not moved enough adults. Many adults who do not deny that the Earth is getting warmer -- such as Danish writer and environmentalist thinker Bjorn Lomborg -- do deny that the threat is "existential" and do believe that the left's solutions, such as the Green New Deal, will damage the world far more than will carbon emissions. Proof that the left is hysterical is its unwillingness to promote nuclear power -- a completely clean, non-fossil fuel-based source of power. It provides France with 70 percent of its energy. Anyone who really believes life on Earth is endangered would grasp at the nuclear power lifeboat. That they do not proves what many of us have believed from the beginning: The "existential threat" scenario is another left-wing falsehood used to whip up hysteria that will lead to the left's control of the economy and society.

And that takes us back to the children: If you can't sell your hysteria to adults, try kids. And that is what the left has done. After all, no one is as malleable or as easily indoctrinated as children.

Consider this: If the left didn't tell them the world is going to end, they wouldn't worry about it. They'd be enjoying their young lives, maybe even learning to appreciate that they live in the freest country at the most prosperous time in human history. Instead, thanks to leftists (who are children in adult bodies), they live in their grip of "existential eco-anxiety."

David Harsanyi, writing at The Federalist notes in at article enitiled The Tragedy of Greta Thunberg that:

Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg lives in the healthiest, wealthiest, safest, and most peaceful era humans have ever known. She is one of the luckiest people ever to have lived.

In a just world, Thunberg would be at the United Nations thanking capitalist countries for bequeathing her this remarkable inheritance. Instead, she, like millions of other indoctrinated kids her age, act as if they live in a uniquely broken world on the precipice of disaster. This is a tragedy.

Yes, it is a tragedy. Even more tragic though is that so called world leaders, of presumably great accomplishments, deign to listen to a 16 year old who has no expertise, has not done anything of importance, has not done any research...why is she there? But of course we know. The Left has poured this hogwash into her little skull full of mush and now she can regurgitate what has been force fed her to perfection, with just the right amount of heart felt righteous anger. But her anger is misplaced. She should be railing at the alarmists who have stolen her childhood.

Please read both articles.

Music Is Evidence Of God

I am still reading Dennis Prager's book The Rational Bible: Genesis. It is not a quick read, or an easy one, even for an inveterate reader like me. Prager's insights on the revolutionary nature of the book, Genesis, just keep coming. As an example, the biblical injunction to punish with an "eye for an eye," was a command to make the punishment fit the crime. In the time of the writing of Genesis, people were incredibly brutal to each other. They would kill not only the perpetrator, but his wife, children, and grandchildren, all because of an eye. If more evidence that Genesis was inspired by a loving God, I don't know what it is...

Oh, yes I do.  One of the insights that Prager points out is our human capacity for making music.  Music is one of those things that is so important in our lives, whether it is just listening to the radio, or playing a musical instrument, or singing.  And in my church, music and singing is a central part of our service.  Indeed, it is so central that we have had music directors and composers in our churches since the beginning.  Johann Sebastian Bach was one such.  You might have heard of him.

But, as Prager points out, there is no evolutionary purpose to music.  One can see an evolutionary purpose to drawing for example.  Incidentally, no other animal makes, or understands music.  Interestingly, music is part science, part mathematics, and part art.  The science part comes in because sound is a wave traveling through a medium such as air, at a specific frequency.  The standard frequency for "A" is 440 Hz.  It is mathematics because each octave is twice or half the previous frequency.  So, the next "A" is either at 880 Hz, or 220 Hz.  In between say 440 Hz and 880 Hz, there are 12 notes including the half step sharps and flats. Then there are the duration of the individual notes.  Some notes are held longer, while some are quite short, some music is played fast, while other is played slow.

Beyond  the science and the mathematics is the art or music.  It touches our soul in ways that nothing else does.  We have just 12 notes with which to work, but we can produce happy sounding music with major scales, haunting music with minor scales, the blues, jazz, Country and Western, as well as the classics, Baroque, and all the other music humans have created.  Funny, but we don't run out of ideas.  Music evokes emotions every time we hear it, so much so that when we hear certain words, or see certain scenes, or even eat certain foods, different music comes to mind.  We may even sing the music we hear in our minds.  It is so important that music figures in most advertisements on radio and television, in most movies and television shows.  If fact, every show has a theme song.  Pretty strong reasons to believe that music is important to people.

I played the piano at my parents insistence, grudgingly.  I played the organ badly, if joyfully.  At 40, I finally learned the trumpet and played that in church. It was a bucket list thing, as I had wanted to play the trumpet as a child, but as I said, my parents insisted on the piano.  Lately I have been learning the guitar.  I am also taking the opportunity to learn some music theory at long last.  Strangely, you don't have to know that a chord you are playing on the piano is a G maj 7, or a C min chord.  You play what you see.  But along with playing the guitar comes that wonderful thing called "improvisation."  But one can only improvise if one first knows the "rules of the road" so to speak.

But, back to the original premise, Prager notes that music is evidence of God, not proof.  I don't think our Creator wants us to have proof of his existence.  That would make it too easy.  Rather, he wants us to have faith in his existence, to develop faith that he will keep and protect us, and that we will be with Him in the next life. He wants us to want to get to know Him through His inspired Word, and through religious services.  Israel means to struggle with God.  It does not mean to submit to God, though in the end, everyone who wants to live a happy life will have to submit also. Most of all, God wants us to know that He loves us.

"Live free or die. Death is not the greatest of evils."

Another post today on the many gun control bills floating around Washington DC and its fellow travelers. It is not like the gun rights community is not giving them ample warning. Today's post comes from Justin O. Smith at the American Thinker and is entitled "Live Free Or Die" and Government "Buybacks". He starts out with a quote:

"Live free or die. Death is not the greatest of evils." —Gen. John Stark July 31st 1809

Smith writes about the grit American gun owners will need in the coming weeks and months, perhaps years, if we are to stand up to the gun grabbers in Congress, the Administration, and around us every day. We are a minority, make no mistake about it. While the United States has more guns in the hands of civilians than any other country in the world, there are still "only" 80 or so million of us out of an estimated 325 million.

Americans may mouth the words, but when push comes to shove, too many either really don't care or they are cowards deep down, who will allow the status quo to carry on, no matter how sorry a state of affairs has grown around it; or, their own ignorance is so deep that the God Given nature of our individual rights is beyond their grasp and understanding, and those words in the mouths of the timid, the weak and unsure become mere noises like the squeaking of a mouse eking out an advertising catch-phrase. Their words are empty and void of any sense of duty and obligation to themselves, their families and their country and what one must do to actually maintain a free society.

Today, in astounding fashion, we see a majority of the Democrats and even quite a large number of Republicans bowing to their feelings and the communists and statists withinthe House and the Senate, as the whine over the scourge of "gun violence" reaches a fever pitch. These gun-grabbers personify firearms, as if these inanimate firearms are chaotically running about America slaughtering innocent citizens. And we now hear many Democrats and television network host and pundits asserting "assault weapons ownership is not synonymous with gun ownership."

I am one who believes that dead is dead. One is not more "alive" because one has been killed by a hammer blow, or with fists and feet. And it is little consolation to those left behind that one is killed in a car crash. I know people who lost sons and daughters to car crashes, and they are inconsolable 20 years later. The term "gun violence" is a made up term to allow the speaker or writer to focus on guns, as if they were the sole cause of unnatural death.  They are not.  And each death, whether natural or not, is a tragedy of immense measure.  But guns are the most effective means of self defense.  That is why police officers carry them.  You should too.

Smith is also astounded to see that so many people, both Democrats and Republicans are falling for the myth that somehow they and their loved ones will be safer if guns are taken away from the law abiding.  Frankly, I think, perhaps wishfully, that the poll is one of those designed to come up with a particular answer.  Surely these numbers of people can not be so ignorant and thoughtless.  The Second Amendment absolutely prevents the government from infringing on the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms useful in defense of self, family, and the nation.  In today's world, those kinds of arms include. but are not limited to semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols.  The reason why is because the Second Amendment protects the other nine, which guarantee our liberty.

Our right to keep and bear arms shouldn't even be up for debate, that time having long passed. No deluge of facts and statistics will change the minds of the Democratic communists and their radical brown shirts, since their true desire is to render the law abiding Americans defenseless and unable to defend our families, our property, our communities and ourselves and stand in the breach in defiance of their numerous depradations and treason, while they reduce everything and everyone to the common denominator of poverty and misery and nothing more than serfs, who are forced to surrender to their socialist super-state, the Leviathan. These radicals absolutely will try to take our weapons.

Noted in the Berkshire Eagle: Thirty-two years after the Battle of Bennington [August 16th 1777], in a letter to Veterans of the War for Independence, General Stark wrote: "They were men who had not learned the art of submission, nor had they been trained to the art of war. But our astonishing success taught the enemies of liberty that undisciplined freemen are superior to veteran slaves".

I would also point to further down in Stark's letter where he speaks of foreign influences:

In case of my not being able to attend, you wish my sentiments, — them you shall have as free as the air we breathe. As I was then, I am now — The friend of the equal rights of men, of representative Democracy, of Republicanism, and the Declaration of Independence, the great charter of our National rights: — and of course the friend of the indissoluble union and constitution of the States. I am the enemy of all foreign influence, for all foreign influence is the influence of tyranny. This is the only chosen spot of Liberty, — this is the only Republic on earth.

Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and all other collective political theories including Islam are foreign to the United States. They are all, to one degree or another tyrannies that will render free men and citizens mere serfs. Tyrants always want to disarm their citizens because then they can impose any policy upon them, and they will not be able to fight back.

The absence of a Second Amendment does not negate the rights of people to arms. Thus, Australia, and more recently New Zealand were wrong to place mandatory so called "buy backs" of weapons in place. And we can see that England, far from having less violent crime, has more now that the average law abiding citizen can not defend himself. The Second Amendment is merely a guarantee that the right will not be infringed; it does not grant the right, which is pre-existent. Our rights, indeed, the rights of all men, come from Our Creator.

Many expect that if the Democrats take power, that they will be confronted with door to door confiscations, rather in the fashion of "Beto" O'Rourke.  O'Rourke is clown.  But red flag laws are a more subtle form of confiscation.  Someone makes a complaint anonymously to the courts.  The courts then hold an ex parte hearing in which they find, surprise, that you should not have guns.  No effort is made to determine whether anything in the complaint is truthful.  And, of course, the Democrats have already determined that gangbangers won't be red flagged. (Didn't I tell you it would be like this?)  The whole idea is to confiscate the guns of the law abiding, one by one so they don't raise any alarm, but slowly they will get them all.  In the process, gun owners will be smeared, and it will all be nice'n legal like.  You betcha.

Begin preparing if you have not already.  And remember General Stark's words: "Live free or die. Death is not the greatest of evils."

Gun Control (s The Wrong Solution

The most recent push for gun control is perhaps the worst one I can remember.  The gun grabbers smell blood in the waters, and they are determined to finally write finished onto the Second Amendment.  Between "universal background checks," "red flag laws" and something new Trump is considering, the so called "SafeHome Act" which is being lobbied by former NBC Chairman Robert Wright.  What all of these ideas have in common, indeed, what the gun grabbers have been after for at least the last 100 years is that blame is placed on the instrument, rather than on the people wielding those instruments.

The theory is that the  gun somehow causes the crimes, that the crimes would not have happened except that a gun caused it.  Thus if you take away guns, then nobody will be able to kill another.  Looked at within the theory, it makes sense.  But the problem is that this theory is another example of Bastiat's seen and unseen.  What is seen, and indeed, is magnified by the press is a shooting of multiple people.  What is unseen is the estimated 300 million guns that did not cause the law abiding people who own them to shoot anyone.  What then is the difference between the guns own by the law abiding and those possessed by the shooter?

The answer to that question is that there is no difference whatsoever.  Guns are inanimate objects.  They have no will of their own, and can not motivate anyone to do anything.  They are literally tools used in some very specific circumstances, and like other tools, will prove useless in others.  So, if the problem is not the guns themselves, what might be? The answer to that question is given in an article by Fletsch Daniels entitled Gun Control: Wrong Solution to Wrong Problem

But gun control is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. The actual problem is the growth of mental illness in American society. So the real question that must be answered before any realistic solution can be proposed is why mental illness is trending so noticeably upward.

One measure that shows this increase in mental illness is the significant rise in the number of suicides, which have been steadily climbing for the last couple decades. There were over 47,000 U.S. suicides in 2017, and it is only getting worse.

The explosion in mental illness is a manifestation of cultural rot. Liberals gleefully turned America's culture into a death-celebrating cesspool and, in Saul Alinsky-like fashion, indicated that the only solution is the shredding of the Second Amendment, something they have always wanted to do.

Please go read the entire article, because it discusses multiple areas of culture that have changed, and which have led to more mental illness that leads to more shootings. What Daniels discusses used to be just common sense to most Americans. The Bible tells us that human life is sacred, different from all the other animals.  We are told that human beings are created in the image of the Creator.  If someone takes these lessons to heart, one will be much more reluctant to killing others.

When liberals spend years telling people that life isn't sacred, should they really be surprised that more people treat life as not being sacred? There have been more than 61 million abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Every single Democrat candidate in contention is applying the Pete Buttigieg "breath" standard, meaning they all support abortion up to, and perhaps beyond, birth. When you make an effort to devalue life in the interest of political expedience, people will be affected in tragic, horrible, and surprising ways.

...snip...

It is also worth noting that the mass shootings, even within this cultural climate, are far less common than most people realize. The Washington Post ran the names of every victim of a mass shooting in American since 1966 in an attempt to pressure Republicans. There were about 1,200 names. They needed a 53-year time period to get that. While each of those 1,200 names represents a terrible tragedy and many lives turned upside-down, that is a relatively small number — about 23 people killed per year.

For comparison's sake, we average about 40,000 automobile fatalities in the United States a year and are approaching 50,000 suicides annually. Planned Parenthood, our nation's most efficient killing machine, kills over 330,000 babies in a year.

The bottom line is that if you really want to make progress addressing the issues that are growing out of the mental illness crisis, it is not wise to turn to the same people who created that crisis. That's like going to Harvey Weinstein for dating advice.

I know many even among the gun rights community don't want to hear it, but we all need to repent to turn our thinking around, and return to God's plan for us.

The United States May Already Be Lost, If Conservatives Do Not Change Strategies

Today, at the American Thinker Christopher Skeet notes that Liberals Want To Grab Guns...But Who Will Do The Grabbing? His point is that many police officers agree with citizens owning and carrying guns, so would be reluctant to do the bidding of their political bosses. Keep in mind that we are talking here about taking guns from people who have never done anything wrong, and who believe they have the right to own these weapons. Further, as the quotes below show, the author is aware that the Left knows all these points, but they still want to disarm us. This leads to frustration on our part, and a realization that there can only be one reason for this seemingly unreasonable behavior:

I don't think I'm alone when I say it's frustrating having the same conversation over and over and over again. I'm frustrated trying to explain the difference between a semi-automatic and a "military-style assault" weapon, parrying asinine retorts of how our Founding Fathers "only had muskets," and being told by strangers what weapons I "don't need." I'm frustrated with citing statistical evidence showing that the vast majority of gun violence in America is the result of suicides and of criminals who have obtained their guns illegally. I'm frustrated with trying to justify my personal choices to people who are completely ignorant about guns and who are completely unwilling to learn.

...snip...

If reducing gun violence were an honest aim of the Left, leftists would follow the evidence where it leads. But leftists oppose gun ownership not out of any heartfelt reaction to mass shootings (though they routinely go through the necessary public genuflections). They don't care about dead students, dead Walmart shoppers, dead worshipers, dead police, or dead black Americans. They don't care about getting help for the mentally ill. They care about the consolidation of political power into a centralized totalitarian entity, which they arrogantly assume they possess the competence to administer.

So, who will do the grabbing, if not the police. The Army, perhaps, or the National Guard? It seems clear it will not be the Leftist elite themselves. And as Skeet makes clear, voluntary compliance is unlikely. Therefore, despite what the Democrats want, it is clear they are passing a useless bill that will do nothing...or are they?

Scott Morefield has a different take on what the Democrats are after, and I think his is the more realistic. Morefield, writing at Townhall.com that Leftists Won't Be Going 'Door to Door' To Take Your Guns, Because They Won't Have To. Morefield thinks, and again, I suspect he is right, that the Left is smart enough to realize that going 'door to door' would raise too much ire. Better to take guns away quietly, one at a time.

And even assuming you “defy” a law they’ve passed – which, granted, many currently do in heavy gun-controlled blue states – what long-term purpose will that serve? They may not physically have possession of your AR-15, or your handgun, or your scoped 30-06 semi-auto deer rifle, but what good are weapons when you’ll be prosecuted as a criminal for using them? People like Beto O’Rourke and their leftist cohorts may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. They know this, and so they can say they won’t go “door-to-door” with a straight face and a smarmy “I’m a reasonable person” grin, knowing full well the long-term ramifications.

Like the frog in boiling water, the totalitarian state will happen when leftists are able to use the law to make de-facto criminals out of everyone they hate. Then, whether the proverbial jackboots come to your home and beat down your door now or later, whether they arrest you in a grocery store parking lot or sleeping in your bed, whether they prosecute you for using an “illegal” weapon to defend yourself against a home invader or hunting for food, whether they take your guns via “voluntary” buyback because you’ve got a family and can’t afford to risk going to prison, or from your cold, dead hands, they’ll know they’ve won. Because they’re eventually going to get your guns, one way or another.

I encourage gentle readers to read both articles today.

Clearly, we need a different strategy. The Left has shown itself to not care about laws, rules of conduct, civility, truth and facts, the Constitution, or indeed, anything that gets in the way of them having total power. And it has become mind numbingly clear that they want to control everything from where and how you can travel, to what and how much you can eat. They want Medicare for all because they want to tell you what medicines you can take, and at what age you are no longer 'worth' keeping alive.  Their agenda is evil, as grossly so as the Soviet Union was or North Korea is today.  You must be controlled for your own good, you see. Our insistence on following the rules in hopes they will see the error of their ways is not working.  Indeed they are depending on it. 

I am not saying to break the Laws of God, But the Bible shows us that God is not a pacifist, and neither should we be.  I confess here that I have no idea what would work, but we nust find a way, or the United States is lost.  It may already be.

The Left's Long March Through The Institutions Includes The Churches

In a post several days ago, I mentioned that I finally left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) over issues with the church's stance on politically correct issues that the Bible declared were against God's will. Now the fact that the church can go against God's will is not surprising, since the church is composed of men and women who are, by their very nature sinful beings. One doesn't leave an organization for these sorts of reasons lightly. But my split came when I realized that I could not change the thinking of the majority of the congregation either. At that point, I had to decide if I wanted to continue to be an outspoken defender of traditional faith, or to find a church body that already had such beliefs. I found a new congregation in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). But the LCMS has some errors in its doctrine too. We are all sinners and have strayed far from God. WE all need God's grace and mercy if we hope to be saved.

Today, at the American Thinker Bill Thomas has a piece touching on this issue entitled The Left Hopes To Destroy Christianity By Changing It. Yes, Rudi Dutschke's "long march through the institutions" has sent disciples into the church bodies to pervert them as well. And perversion they have done, from condoning abortion to ordaining LGTBQxyz individuals to pastoral and priestly duties. In these positions, of course, the perverts will find themselves running the church itself.

Perhaps this is God's plan: to make being a Christian so difficult, so hated, that only the most committed will remain.  But I fear for and pray for friends and family who do not remain. 

Meanwhile, gentle readers, check out  Thomas's article, and think about where you go to church, if you do.  Does it subscribe to the latest politically correct doctrine, or does it refuse to change for the sake of men no matter what.  Frankly, I say with Martin Luther, "Here I stand.  I can do no other!"  God's principles are timeless, and do not conform to the latest politically correct thinking.  Instead, God expects each of us to conform our lives to His principles. If we can not, yet, then God expects us to pray that we can conform, that He will guide us each day to do the right things, be the right people.  Christianity, like Judaism, is a struggle with God each and every day.  It is in this way that we have a true relationship with the Divine.

How the AR-15 Became The Plastic Straws Of The Gun World

Selwyn Duke at the American Thinker today explains how How The AR-15 Became The Plastic Staw Of The Gun World. And just as banning plastic straws will do next to nothing about pollution in the world's oceans, banning AR-15s will have a minuscule effect on crime.

How did AR-15s become the plastic straws of the gun world? It’s simple: Demagogues need scapegoats. Yet just as banning plastic straws won’t make a dent in the ocean-polluting plastics problem, banning “assault rifles” (which aren’t) won’t save even one life.

...snip...

Joining straws in the dock, and giving new meaning to demonizing the one percent, are Assault Rifles™. Not only are they used in approximately just one percent of homicides, they aren’t even “assault rifles,” a term that had always referred to weapons that could be fired fully automatic or in more than one way (fully auto, three-shot bursts, etc). Now the term is being applied to semi-automatic (one trigger pull, one shot) rifles with certain cosmetic features (a military “look”), which is a bit like putting a Porsche body on a Yugo chassis and claiming the car will win races.

But, hey, as anti-gun crusader Josh Sugarmann once put it, these “weapons’ menacing looks,” coupled with the public’s confusion — “anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

Yeah, it’s a con.

As Duke goes on to make clear later in the article, the AR-15, far from being weapon that fires a very powerful round, the 5.56 NATO round is a pipsqueak of a round, which is popular precisely for its low recoil and ease of use. And, of course, the rifle itself looks cool. While it can be used for hunting varmints, it should not be used for game even as small as deer for fear one would wound the deer rather than kill it outright.  The rifle is also popular because it is the tinker toy of the gun world, allowing the owner to customize it to meet his or her special needs.

No, the Left is not really worried that this is a highly effective "weapon of war."  What this is really about is symbolic.  If they can ban a class of arms, any class at all, and make it stick, they can effectively nullify the Second Amendment without having to repeal it.  It's the way the Left works. They see nothing wrong with with attacking from the flanks when a direct assault doesn't work.  This is how one fights a war, not how one conducts politics, but from this you can see that we are truly fighting a war.  The Republicans seem to think they are sincere, and want to accommodate them.  Unfortunately there is nothing sincere about it.  They want us disarmed so they can push their foul agenda uninhibited.

Update on a related issue:  Please read Rachel Malone's piece entitled There Isn't Enough Due Process To Make Red Flag Laws Tolerable. Here point is that any amount of due process can not cover the fact that "Red Flag" laws target alleged "thought crimes." But nobody truly knows what another is thinking. It's what makes red flag laws so terrible, and do easily abused.

You Go Girl!

You may have noticed that I keep harping on so called "red flag" laws and, to a lesser extent, so called "universal background check" laws.  I do this because both of these laws to one degree or another are Unconstitutional.   Red Flag laws violate the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the U.S Constitution.  Quite a feat.  Either Congressmen have never read the Constitution (unlikely) or just don't care.  But I am concerned about these violations under color of law because I am concerned about any violation.  The government should be scrupulous in its conduct to always make sure that it grants any defendant the full measure of Constitutional protections.  In prosecuting a defendant, it should always be searching for the truth. If, after satisfying these Constitutional protections the government secures a conviction, they can be assured they have done their job well. Note that they still may convict the wrong person, but as far as humanly possible, they sleep easy at night.

Lawyer Sidney Powell is a former Federal prosecutor turned defense attorney.  She wrote the book  Licensed to Lie about gross misconduct by Federal prosecutors in the Enron case, and in the wrongful conviction of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. The Ted Stevens case was likely brought for political purposes. Many of the names mentioned in the book are the same people involved in the Mueller investigation. Indeed, Mueller's bulldog, Andrew Weissmann, figured prominently in her book.

Besides being able to make dry as dust material interesting to the lay reader, she is a brilliant legal mind in her own right.  So, it was gratifying to learn that she had taken on the Michael Flynn case.  There is hope yet that Flynn will get some measure of justice.

All of that is background to the most recent article at The Federalist by Margot Cleveland entitled Powell's Latest Motion in Michael Flynn's Case Is A Russiagate Bombshell. According to Cleveland, it appears that Powell intends to expose as much of the Deep State skullduggery as she can using the Michael Flynn case. Her Motion to Compel, if granted, would require the prosecution to produce both exculpatory evidence, and evidence that would impeach witnesses for the prosecution, both required under what is called the Brady ruling.

I have believed for a long time now that General Flynn got an extremely raw deal; that he was forced to plead guilty to lying to Federal Agents when face with millions of dollars to defend himself, and the fact that his family was threatened to boot. Since when is our government empowered to act like the mafia?

To Sidney Powell, I say, "You go girl!"

Another Reason to "Do Nothing," No, Really.

Trevor Thomas at the American Thinker has a piece entitled Anti-Gun Laws Will Never Solve Gun Violence In America. Thomas makes the point, with appropriate charts, graphs, and appeals to experts, that mass shootings in America are not trending upward. Indeed, they have remained remarkably consistent for the last 2 decades.  He also makes the point that:

Not only are mass shootings still very rare, but they represent an extremely small portion of overall gun murders in the U.S. Even a leftist publication like Vox makes note of this. While using a variety of data, including Professor Fox’s, Vox’s Dylan Matthews rightly reveals that “while tragic,” deaths as a result of mass shooting “are a tiny sliver of America’s gun homicide problem.”

What’s more, though we comprise about four-and-a-half percent of the world’s population, and though we own about half of the world’s privately owned guns, America accounts for less than half of one percent of the world’s murders. Likewise, across the U.S., this trend is similar: the presence of guns does not correlate to more gun murders. As this piece points out, many of the safest areas in America have the highest rates of gun-ownership.

So, if you read the entire article, including the linked pieces, it becomes clear that more gun control will not curb crime. And obviously, the Repblicans in the Senate know this. So, what are they thinking of?

Frankly, especially with the proposals on the table, I suspect they are thinking like the Democrats, of disarming the American people by means they think could get by the Supreme Court (not a hard task, I'll admit.) Many Republicans, unfortunately, are not conservative. Indeed, Republicans from the Bush wing of the party are on board with the idea of global governance. And they would just love to install an antidemocratic system of rule by the self appointed "philosopher kings" just like the EU.

I have to run today, but in addition to the Trevor Thomas article, please also read Beth Baumann's article at Townhall.com entitled Read'em And Weep Anit-Gunners: Dana Loesch Proves, Once Again, Why Red Flag Laws Are Dangerous. Loesch has tweeted ten reasons. Read them all.

Criminals For Gun Control

When the topic comes up, I often tell women I meet that if they don't have a gun, and carrying it everywhere, they should get one, and get trained in how to use it. Women, despite the "I am woman, see me roar" types, are generally weaker and more vulnerable to male predators. So, it was gratifying seeing an article making the same point with many examples. The article, written by Adam Mill, at The Federalist is entitled Why Criminals Looking To Victimize Women Love Gun Control. The gun is the great equalizer when one finds oneself confronted by an attacker who is more numerous, bigger, stronger, and often younger.

Often overlooked in the gun control issue is that laws intended to disarm male attackers also reduce the choices women have for self-protection. It might make sense for some gun control advocates to carry pepper spray or remain in the company of a protective male. But for some women who wish to live independently, the option of a firearm offsets the overwhelming physical superiority of a potential attacker. It’s her body. Shouldn’t she have the right to choose how best to protect it?

And, if reports from the NSSF are to be believed, women are the fastest growing demographic among gun owners. Well...good for them. While I would try to defend my wife if needed, I can not be around every minute of the day. As always, go read the whole article.

Kurt Schichter Tries New Rules On Climate Alarmists. Good Luck, Kurt!

In years past I have noted that the entire global cooling...no global warming...no global climate change cult was a giant hoax.  I also pointed out that the real purpose of this hoax was to separate you from your freedom and money.  As usual, Kurt Schlichter has said it better, though.  Today at Townall.com Kurt Schlichter has written a typically snarky post entitled Climate Change Is A Hoax that exposes the entire climate change scam without using the typically dry charts and facts.

What? No charts and facts?

Well, no, and why should he use charts and facts.  Climate Change True Believers pay no attention to facts or science anyway, so who knows...maybe shark will penetrate their dense brains.  Or not.

Here is Schlichter's take:

Understand that the term “climate change” does not refer to actual meteorological phenomena but, rather, to the sordid rat-king of lies, scams and power grabs that we are commanded to accept as pagan gospel lest we burn to a crisp or drown or suffer...whatever the Armageddon du jour is. When you say “climate change is a grift,” and you should as often as possible, you are pointing out that this green-on-the-outside/red-on-the-inside fake frenzy is really just a set of intertwined grifts transparently designed to separate you from your freedom and your property in the name of somehow adjusting the weather.

Observing that “climate change” is steaming garbage served in a dirty ashtray is not disputing that the climate changes. That the climate is not static, and never could be static, is one of the myriad reasons that this whole idea is ridiculous. The planet gets hotter, it gets colder, sometimes quickly, sometimes over eons, and there are a bunch of reasons why, like the sun and volcanos. Human-produced carbon might be one of the factors, but there’s simply no evidence that it is a significant one. Of course, if they really cared about carbon, they would be up in arms about China and India, which are upping their output while we are slashing ours. Yet the object of their ire is your New York strip. Gosh, does that seem consistent with 1) someone truly concerned about atmospheric carbon, or 2) someone who trembles with joy at the notion of bossing around you rubes out in gun/Jesusland?

Apparently Schlichter has had much the same experience as I have. Note that the earth has been much hotter than today, and mammalian life survived. Withing the time that man has been on earth, it has also been much colder, and man has survived.

The underlying premise of their claims seems to be that there is a “right” temperature for the earth; watch them sputter when you enquire about that perfect setting for Earth’s thermostat. Remember, if you ask questions you hate “science.” If they did stop telling you how you hate “science” long enough to respond, they might explain that of course there’s no perfect temperature – it’s not like LA, where it’s always 72 degrees.

Another clue, in case you hadn't noticed, is that no matter whether it is global warming, global cooling, or just global climate change, the solution is always the same:

That’s another big red flag – have you noticed how “science” always tells us that the only possible response to the climate hullabaloo is to give liberals exactly what they always wanted anyway? How lucky are the leftists to have had an existential problem drop in their laps where the only solution is to give them everything they could not otherwise convince us to give them? What a remarkable coincidence!

And what’s also weird is how nothing that we must do right now no time to debate it’s a crisis think o’ the children in any way inconveniences or calls for sacrifices from our climate crisis-pushing elite. Boy, they really scored with climate change – if they were going to manufacture a crisis in order to get the power and money they craved, how would they do it any differently?

I have pointed these things out, using charts, graphs, and science. Anthony Watts, a meteorologist has pointed these things out at his site Watts Up With That?. S. Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Willie Soon, and others have raised the alarm that the climate cult is a great hoax. Still the climate hoaxers keep marching on. Maybe it is time to try a different approach. Since these people do not understand science, and why would they, having never studied it, maybe they can be reached by a different approach. Good luck Kurt. I wish you the best.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church Beclowns Itself Again

I have been a member now of a Congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for a couple of years now.  When I meet another member of my new church home, they usually ask, of course, where I was before.  I always explain that I am an escapee from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).  They always nod in understanding.  Today, over at the American Thinker, Don Fisher, Jr. has a post explaining that the Evangelical part is just notional, not really binding on the church body at all. His post is entitled The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Misinterpreting Christ's Teachings Yet Again.

You can read the whole thing, but let me explain what the word "evangelical" actually means.  Many people think it means something like conservative, or fundamentalist.  But it doesn't mean any of those things, although someone who is indeed "evangelical" could be described that way.  The word "evangelical" means, according to Merriam-Webster's first definition: of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels. The ELCA has strayed far from the Gospel.  Now, they want to become a "sanctuary church."  They, of course, hang their latest invention on the admonition in Jeremiah 22:3 to "Do no wrong to the resident alien."  But you must first understand that a "resident alien" is one who has applied under law for a visa to live here, and possibly to work here.  These resident aliens have Constitutional rights extended BECAUSE they have taken steps to enter the country legally.  Illegal aliens have not, and therefore their rights are less under our laws.

Please go read the entire post.  If you want to find out more, the ELCA has a website, that you may view at your peril.  However, if you want to find out what real Christianity is, go to Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, where we still believe that we are saved by Grace alone, Faith alone, and Scripture alone. One may not add to, or subtract from one jot or tittle in the Holy Scripture. The ELCA seems to be doing exactly that.

It Looks Like the Stupid Party Is About To Act Stupidly

On Wednesday, Mark Overstreet had a very long article telling Republicans not to cave to the Democrat demands for universal background checks and red flag laws.  The reasons include that it would be another stupid move by the stupid party, and would virtually ensure a Democrat victory in the Senate and White House.

More importantly though, these laws are terribly Unconstitutional.  Further, they wouldn't do anything to stop crime, because criminals, by definition, do not obey laws.  So, what in the heck or Democrats, who are not giving up their guns, trying to do.  Mark Overstreet has the answers in  Why Republicans Shouldn't Cave To Democrats On Guns:

‘Universal’ Checks Are Really About Gun Confiscation

...snip...

However, almost all mass murders with guns are committed by people who pass background checks to get guns. As Professor James Alan Fox, the nation’s leading criminologist in the study of murder, has explained, “Most mass murderers do not have criminal records or a history of psychiatric hospitalization. They would not be disqualified from purchasing their weapons legally.”

Furthermore, “universal” checks would not be universal, because most other criminals—who commit the vast majority of murders with guns—get guns by methods to which a background check requirement is irrelevant. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics has repeatedly found in surveys of state prison inmates imprisoned for gun crimes that most—90 percent, in the most recent survey—got guns by stealing them, by buying stolen or illegally trafficked guns on the black market, or from acquaintances such as “straw purchasers”—people who can pass a background check, who illegally buy guns for people who cannot pass checks, and who would still be able to do so if a “universal” checks requirement were imposed.

So, if all this is true, and I have written about for as long as I can remember, what is it the Democrats are really after? Again, after a long rehashing of the history of American gun control, he finally gets to the real goal:

Democrats are going after guns for two reasons. First, since the advent of the big-government Democrat Party under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, they have increasingly opposed people having arms with which they might most easily defend themselves against government overreach.

After imposing the NFA and GCA, primarily to restrict guns particularly useful for defensive purposes, Democrats in the late 1970s and 1980s supported campaigns to get handguns banned. In 1986, when most members of the House of Representatives were not present, Democrats snuck into the otherwise favorable Firearms Owners’ Protection Act an amendment banning newly manufactured fully-automatic firearms. In 1989, they began campaigning to ban various semi-automatic firearms. Democrats also signed amicus briefs supporting the District of Columbia’s handgun ban in Heller.

Second, midway through the Obama administration, “progressives” decided to use “guns” as a core issue around which to rally their voter base.

The next point that Overstreet makes is that the Second Amendment does not protect sporting weapons, except as those may be useful for war, but it does protect the individual possession and carrying and use of weapons of war.This is something I have argued in these pages, as well as David Codrea and others. The Second Amendment is designed to produce a population armed with the latest small arms carried by the most recent soldiers into battle. That would probably be something like the M4 carbine and the M9 Pistol.

***Rant***As an aside, here is one way to ensure it happens: At age 18, an   able bodied person is drafted into the Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Air Force for two years. They are trained, and, at the end of their two years, take home with them their M4 and M9. Every 6 months for the next twenty years, they muster out with their weapon to receive additional training, including marksmanship. If someone is a conscientious objector, or otherwise doesn't want to be drafted, they also can never vote. There would of course be provisions that our current standing forces would necessarily be reduced.  There would also be provisions for those disabled, or not able to be trained.  But many of the disabled can none the less perform as communications, clerks, or other functions in the armed forces, and who says that a person can not defend themselves, so many of them would have to go through weapons training.***/Rant***

Please go read the whole article.  Federalist articles are longer than is typical at other sites, but they are also more informative.  Oh, and please write or call your Congressman and Senators and tell them you do not want them voting for further gun control.  If anything, they should be putting in legislation to repeal what is already illegally in the law.

The Left Has Stopped Trying To Persuade You To Give Up Your Rights. They Are Just Going To Take Them.

Today, at Townhall.com, Kurt Schlichter has a post about the dumb, as in stupid, arguments being advanced about gun control by the left.  Schlicter's article is entitled interestingly enough, Dumb Arguments About Gun Control. If you have been a faithful reader, and I know there are at least 2 of you out there, you have read a debunking of every idiotic idea the Left has come up with to try and talk you out of your right to arms.  Remember the "but if it saves just one life" and the "do it for the children" arguments?

The change that is happening now is that the Left is no longer trying to talk you out of your rights, and instead they are saying now that if elected, they will just take them. The have given up on convincing you because it has become clear that you are not going to willingly give up your rights.  This should come as no surprise because the Left has always been a totalitarian operation.  They have simply been lying in hopes of catching you off guard.

Not-Senile-At-All Joe Biden inarticulately joined the “Take All The Gunz” chorus the other day, joining the rest of the socialists, socialists lite and fake Indians who make up the Democrat slate in thinking we’ll just hand-over our arms because of their wanting us to. There are good arguments against their position, including not wanting to rip our country apart with a bunch of Waco redos, but I don’t argue except for money, and I especially don’t argue about my gun rights since they are not up for debate. If I were to argue over the right to keep and bear arms, my position would be simple. Fifty percent of my “argument” would consist of the naughty word the media squees over Beto now uses when babbling about disarming us, plus the word “you.”

The elite, including their pet media, are no longer lying about how they are not going to try to take our guns. They are now all in on disarming you. We need not worry that Donald Trump will roll over on gun rights because that’s political suicide, and a hara kiri move that would leave his family at the mercy of a Democrat Department of Justice who will no doubt be much less picky with his people about who they charge with crimes then they have been with Democrat faves. However, there are weak-hearted GOP congressmen and senators who would love to surrender because that’s what squishes who read the NYT and respect it do. They need to fear our electoral wrath. They need to know that we will destroy them at the ballot box if they allow their cowardice to bring our country to the brink of chaos by empowering the same folks who brought you Spygate, and who let Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit off, prosecute millions of Normal Americans for “crimes” that are legal acts today and that the Constitution says are our natural rights.

No gun bans, ever. You feel us?

Of course, you should read the entire article, but you can take action as well. Go to the Gun Owners of America site and take action to tell Republicans to not go squishy on gun rights. If you have been keeping up with gun news, you may know that many Republicans are feeling the pressure to pass gun control. We need to let them know that the gun grabbers will never vote for them in any case,  But if they vote to infringe our rights, those of use who WOULD normally vote for them, will sit out the election.  We are their base, and any politician who votes against his or her base can not survive.

Milano Gets Taken To The Woodshed

So, Alyssa Millano got a virtual ear full from Ted Cruz on gun control in a post by Leah Barkoukis at Townhall.com entitled Ted Cruz Launches a Tweetstorm on Alyssa Milano Over Guns, Bible.

Actress and liberal activist Alyssa Milano got quite the earful from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after she posed a question asking if someone could “cite which passage of the Bible God states it is a God-given right to own a gun.”

This is not as uncommon as one might suspect, as people with little intelligence and few debating skills believe it is clever to propose that God did not say in the Bible that we have a right to guns, per se. However, Cruz chose to take her seriously, and answered her both seriously and correctly.

Among the Ten Commandments in Exodus, Chapter 20 is this one:

13 “You shall not murder.

Cruz correctly notes that the commandment to not murder includes also the commandment to defend your life and the lives of your neighbor and loved ones under your care.  Of course how you do that is up to you.   Each person must constantly evaluate the risks and decide for himself what he needs to defend his life, and provide a defense for his family and neighbors.

Milano tweeted back at Cruz:

She also pointed him to 1 Peter 4:8, which says: "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."

Unfortunately, for Milano, the context of the scriptural reference she makes is important. The book of 1 Peter is about dealing with the suffering and persecution of the Christian communities in Asia minor which was then prevalent.  Note that one should suffer for the Gospel, but that does not mean that one should suffer death because a criminal attacks.  The admonition to defend life still holds.  Jesus came to fulfill the law.

At one point the author does say that we should love one another. However, loving one another does not detract from being prepared to defend one another. Indeed, preparing to defend one another shows great love for the other person.  Again, context matters.

Please read the whole story, and hope that Milano meets Cruz in person.  She would be taken to the woodshed indeed.

Antenna Up

I think I have mentioned before that I am an Amateur Radio operator with a General Class license.  I haven't spent much time lately on the air, but with Hurricane Dorian bearing down, I put up an antenna in order to monitor Dorian.  According to American Partisan you can monitor on 20 meter and 40 meters if you have a short wave radio. The specific frequencies are 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz. As they say, you can listen in, but unless you have active traffic to pass, stay off the air. Traffic is normally passed by the members of the National Traffic Service, who actively train to be able to pass traffic in an emergency by passing routine traffic on certain frequencies ever day. The type of traffic passed in a hurricane would typically be welfare of individuals who have been affected. People want to know that their loved ones are okay.

At 4:30 pm local time in Raleigh, NC, the hurricane was had 150 mile an hour winds and was moving eastward at 1 mile per hour.

Reaching For Enlightenment: Anthony J. DeBlasi

In keeping with the theme in yesterday's post, I have another, also from the American Thinker entitled Reaching For Enlightenment by Anthony J. DeBlasi. DeBlasi makes the point that we can only go so far with reason, and the intellectual pursuits. While that may seem a vast territory, in the end, a leap of faith is required to attain true enlightenment. The limits of science are well known, in that science can not explain how or why the universe exists. Oh, they have theories, but that is all they are. We are, as DeBlasi says, just guessing.

Compensating for that spiritual blindness with brain-powered “enlightenment” requires an impossible act: the substitution of self for God, an act that mostly leads to misery, not progress. For it feeds an egomania, especially among scientists, social reformers, even theologians who, unlike honest artists and music makers – to bring up a sharp contrast – are too proud to admit that the products of their thought and designs have no more real substance than Rembrandt’s lighting or Ravel’s orchestral color. At best their facts fit together as well as the tile-bits in a Byzantine façade and their constructs encompass life as well, tone-wise, as a Brahms symphony.

Admit it or not, at root level, everyone is guessing – a truism missed entirely by those who have no use for truth, including the value of human life, yet insist on lording over people and controlling their lives, divested of even a shred of humility. This skipping over what it means to be human and mortal while reaching for what is best for human life closes the mind to the nature of reality and predictably leads to an endless return to Square One.

The emphasis is mine.

 A pastor I knew once said to me that all sin (sin is a word for missing the mark. An archer aims for his arrow to penetrate the center of the bulls eye on the target. But if he misses, his arrow goes somewhere other than the bulls eye This missing of the target is the concept of sin.) can be found in the First Commandment from Exodus Chapter 20 (NKJV)

20 And God spoke all these words, saying:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of [a]bondage.

3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor [b]serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting[c] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

The Pastors main idea was that if we as people got the First Commandment right, all the other Commandments would be superfluous. But we can not get even that right.

In the book of Exodus, the Lord literally brought the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Good for the Israelites, but what does it have to say to us today? The truth is that if you let him, he wants to bring each of us out of bondage to the many idols we set up for ourselves. Money is important, but if we let it rule our lives, it becomes an idol. We ourselves can become an idol if we fail to recognize that He is the ultimate truth. And as Admiral Byrd wrote in his book "Alone":

“approaching the final enlightenment, how little one really has to know or feel sure about...”

In Genesis, the story of Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden is a story about people assuming the role of God. But we are not God. In the physical world, we do not have the intimate insights that God has. Too often we miscalculate, and miss the mark in all sorts of ways. We need to remember:

For mortals, the answer to the question – Which is the true reality? – is far less important than the lessons to be drawn from circling the truth. Taking Lesson One, that we are guessing, and Lesson Two, that we are agents in a pliant world – contending with the evil of heartless men and women, it must quickly be added – we can proceed to move in life as though it is a divine journey, guided by time-tested tenets that transcend every generation and are madness to discard. History provides ample evidence that people cannot be their own gods and shows that there are really no supermen or superwomen to take the place of our Creator.

To cut to the quick: when we know that we don’t know, we can see that because every system of thought and action begins with a belief, a leap of faith, we may start by abiding in God without the mental gyrations of “proof” deemed necessary. For they who don’t believe can dismantle every “proof” and those who believe need no “proof.” We may opt for the the goodness of Creation that we form a part of, since all that is left in the way is not a body of data, a set of theories, a political inclination, not even the facts of suffering and the fear of death that attend being mortal in an uncertain world but, as with rebellious children, a foolishly stubborn will.

As always, read the whole article, and ponder. And really, read Genesis, and then read Dennis Prager's book The Rational Bible: Genesis. Believe, or don't, but do not dismiss it without first investigating it.