Democrats Out To Watch Their Sixes

 Mark Lewis, at Townhall.com has an article entitled China abd the Democratic Party I: Gradual, Creeping, Tyranny Leads To... that points out that brutal treatment of people generates fear, but it only goes so far. China may have pushed the Chinese people too far. At some point, people realize that they have nothing left to lose but their lives, and they might be better off if they lost those too. But Lewis is using China as a cautionary tale:

The Democratic Party better check their six. Some serious butt-kicking may be approaching. People don’t tolerate tyranny and oppression forever. Witness China.

I don’t think a revolution in America is near (yet). I’m analyzing history. People can be pushed only so far, and there comes a point, never foreseen by government tyrants, when robbed of one freedom too many, the people WILL react and reassert who is really in control.

You see, not even an autocrat has unlimited power. A king, emperor, czar, dictator can’t kill everybody. He must make some reasonable response to those under him. If he doesn’t, his regime will collapse.

He goves several examples including the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution. All turned tyrannical. Only the American Revolution turned out well, because the Founders were perhpas political geniuses inspired by God.

The Americans did it right. After the Seven Years War of 1756-63, the British began taxing the colonists in ways they didn’t appreciate. Long story short, by 1775, the Americans were in revolt. We were fortunate. We had some of the greatest political minds in human history leading our Revolution. John and Samuel Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Henry, Madison, Franklin—a host of others. They established a country based on freedom and on principles that made slavery anathema worldwide and led to its global abolition. Only the Marxist Left, with its monumental mutilation of history and hatred of freedom, refuses to see the greatness of these men.

Lewis almost recognizes, but not quite, that the Left is driven by Lucifer, and the Original Sin, pride. God is pleased to let Lucifer have his way with us for now. To find out why, read the book of Job.

My point in these examples—obviously only briefly surveyed—is that no government ever has absolute, unlimited power. Gradual, creeping tyranny, the frog in the pot on the stove—and EVERY government eventually tries it, America is not immune—will, at some point, cause severe pushback.

Revolutions are not pretty. They almost always produce war, societal chaos, countless deaths, and, too often, end in a dictatorship when the people finally want peace and stability and give power to any demagogue who has the organization behind him to establish order (Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler, Mao). Revolutions usually aren’t good and may take generations to mend. France has had five constitutions and 13 changes of government since 1789. Look at Russia the last 100 years. America, because of the greatness of our Founders and her people, was a noble, exemplary exception.

What the Democrats, and the RINOs don't forget, have unleashed on us is chaos with the purpose to do so demoralize us that we just give in so long as we can live peacefully enough. But what I see is a lot of angry people. So far it is the slow boil kind. People recognize that the elections have been stolen, even if no one in power wants to admit it. We know it, they know it. As Lewis says at the start: Democrats ought to watch their six.

Fauci Lied.

 They say the lie travels around the world twice while the truth is putting on its pants.  In this case, the "Truth" must be extremely slow moving. At the Epoch Times today it was reported that Fauci Couldn't Name Any Studies Showing Masks Work Against COVID-19: Lawyers

Lord Anthony Fauci sat for a deposition against the federal government. Fauci at first claimed that masks were ineffective, and that people shouldn't wear them. Then he changed his recommendation to everyone needed to be masked. So the lawyers rightly asked what studies, for it was supposedly on the basis of these studies, did Fauci review?

Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, was among the U.S. officials repeatedly urging people not to mask early in the pandemic unless they were showing symptoms. Among his many public and private statements, he wrote in a Feb. 5, 2020 email that “the typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”

About two months later, Fauci and other top officials reversed course and issued widespread masking recommendations, regardless of symptoms. Asked about the change while under oath on Nov. 23, Fauci couldn’t provide any studies, according to lawyers representing plaintiffs in a case against the federal government.

“He was asked what studies or study changed his mind in that interim, which is what he claimed—he claimed that it was studied. He couldn’t name any,” Jenin Younes, one of the lawyers, told The Epoch Times.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who was also present during the deposition in Maryland, said on social media that Fauci “couldn’t cite a single study” to back up his claim that masks were effective against COVID-19.

And so, now that it is too late, we find out that Fauci lied. It will be interesting to find out what else he lied about, but I suspect it will be pretty much everything including "a," "an," and "the." Hopefully, this effort will lead to other conspirators.  Oh, and mask nazis, I hope you are deservedly humbled, but I doubt it.

There Will Be Blood

I was just about to stitch together two or three posts into a common theme, when I happened upon Christopher Chantrill's article at the American Thinker entitled Dreaming of America's Future. As I was reading today, I was reminded of at story in the Book of Genesis about a group of people who were building a tower to reach up to heaven. In the story, the Tower of Babel, God took away the people's common language such that they could no longer effectively build a tower to heaven. 

It's a nice story, but what does that have to do with things today, you ask? Genesis is a dusty old book full of dusty old stories that have nothing to do with today.  Just this: whenever men attempt to become too powerful, to control every facet of their fellow citizens' lives, and to create a Great and Powerful Oz who demands the citizens worship it, God cuts those people down to size.  Lucifer can only do what God allows him to do.

 Right now, the Pope is claiming that salvation is only through the Church at Rome. But Jesus says that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one enters heaven except through Him. Of course the Pope says that the only way to Christ is through the Church. But perhaps the schisms that have occured means that Rome may not be the true Church after all. Perhaps. And note that this Pope is playing footsie with open homosexuals, with proabortionists, with Muslims and Communist China-all things past Popes have preached against. Could it be that Rome is cruisin' for a bruisin'?  Perhaps.  God is no respecter of men.

 Speaking of Communist China, over at the American Thinker today, Monica Showalter has a post entitled Eric Hoffer can tell us a lot about what's going on in China right now. What's going on is that despite the brutal repression, people all over China are rising up in protest. Brutal repression only takes you so far. When it becomes obvious that you are better off dead, that you literally have nothing left to lose, the totalitarian finds himself at the bitter end of the rope. There is no knot to hang onto. Will the Chinese people succeed? I am no fortune teller, but I am praying they do. Then there is Klaus Schwab and his merry band of World Economic Forum (WEF) wannabe totalitarians in Davos.

Second, I think that the top-down political and economic philosophy of everyone from Klaus Schwab to President Xi to the Duke of Fauci is going to blow up. As I put into my maxims library this week:

Five Year Plan equals Great Leap Forward equals Build Back Better.

Do you understand what that means, you progressives, you CCPers, and you WEFers, and all you twentysomething journalists that literally know nothing? It means that top-down supervision of the economy has never worked and never will. It means that your top-down Great Reset is just another version of the two biggest economic debacles of the 20th century, when educated idiots thought they knew the shortcut to the future.

But what if the climate reaches a tipping point?

What if it does? The one thing certain is that we don't want Klaus Schwab or Joe Biden or Lord Fauci anywhere near the Engineer's Dials.

Roussaeu, Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Marcuse and the Frankfurt School and now BLM, Antifa, Schwab and the Biden administration are just the latest to challenge God in support of Lucifer. The ruler of this world continually hopes finally to beat his adversary. We should, as Christ told us, pray for our enemies and those who despise us. But God has hardened their hearts.

Meanwhile, as J. B. Shurk notes in Some Will Run, Some Will Stay, there will be suffering along the way. It has always been such. It is what we were designed for. There will be blood. We must remain, and to stay and fight.

What happened to Americans' rights to privacy? Or does that only apply to abortions?

It seems that the Biden keeps pushing towards the Great Reset.  And it seems our Democrat "friends" are all on board with it as well.  One wonders what they will get out of giving up sovereignty to international communists?  Between guns, climate alarmism, LGTBQxyz ++...and now CBDC.  What, you might ask is CBDC?  As it turns out it is Central Bank Digital Currency, and it is anything but benign.  Andrea Widburg has a post entitled Push back hard against plans to impose Central Bank Digital Currency

The plan is that the federal government would end paper and coin money in favor of purely digital money—all under the government’s control. Suddenly, in addition to your bank’s ATM, you would be dependent on the federal government’s ATM for every penny you possess. It would be the Chinese social credit system and the Canadian “let’s shut down the bank accounts for anyone protesting the government” system all rolled up into one.

Tucker Carlson discussed it on his Friday night show, during which he said, correctly, that it would be the end of America because it would make us all slaves to the government. Do what the government says, and you can buy food and pay rent. Offend the government, and you will be cut off. Suddenly, every American would be a potential January 6 prisoner.

In a different era I would think that both Carlson and Widburg are being paranoid. In another era, American's Constitutional protections would keep your money safe. But this is the not that era. This is the era where the communists are taking over, and our Constitutional rights are ignored. The tyrants jack boots are stepping on America's neck. We already have political prisoners. Now imagine that not only are people put in jail without trial or charges and held for years, but their families funds are simply erased. Now you wife and children get to starve to death while you are kept in prison.

Article I, Section 8, clause 5 grants the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. One wonders if Congress has had any imput into this scheme, or is this another Executive order situation? And then there's the problem of how the government will ensure the security of your funds. So far no database has been invented that hackers have not been able to crack.

Neither Tucker nor his guest discussed something that would be obvious to me, which is that if money lives on the computer, that computer can be hacked. Can you imagine if a hacker, with the push of a button, starts draining government funds or your personal bank account? Or perhaps the hacker defunds an entire state or stops all payments to members of the military. The risk of a bad outcome is so overwhelming I cannot believe governments are arrogant enough to think they can insulate themselves against it.

Of course, go read Widburg's post. What I want to know, though, is where is that famous right to privacy hidden in the emanations and penumbras of the Constitution when Americans' papers and money are under consideration? Or does that only apply to abortions?

Biden Administration Running Amok

 Over at the American Thinker today, Andrea Widburg has a post entitled Biden Takes Aim At Massive Numbers of American Guns. She is writing about the fact that Biden has said the quiet part out loud; that he wants to ban all semiautomatic weapons. I would guess that most handguns produced and sold today are semiautomatic. These weapons have been around since the late 1800s, and have become very reliable. Of course, the sidearm that served veterans in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam was the semiautomatic M1911 and M1911a1. It is still produced today by such as Springfield Armory, Kimber, Wilson Combat and others, too numerous to mention. So, Biden wants to ban these along with AR 15 and AK 47 pattern rifles. But, again he would also ban the much beloved M1 Garand rifles used in WWII.

When leftists hear “semi-automatic weapon,” they instantly imagine machine guns, endlessly spraying thousands of rounds a minute, with no stopping, as long as the shooter keeps his finger on the trigger. In fact, it’s extremely difficult for consumers to get fully automatic weapons and I’m hard-pressed to think of any mass murder on American soil since the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929 with then-legal Tommy guns.

Semi-automatic weapons are not machine guns. They require that the shooter pull the trigger for every shot fired. However, instead of having to manually rechamber a round after every shot (think of that “chik-chak” sound associated with Granny Clampett’s shotgun), a semi-automatic will automatically rechamber a round.

This speeds up the process somewhat and is definitely a convenience. Indeed, for women, who have smaller and weaker hands, both of which interfere with chambering a round manually, a semi-automatic weapon may be the difference between life and death if they’re fighting off a large, fast assailant.

Ms. Widburg notes that there are a lot of semiautomatic weapons in the United States. Indeed it may be as high as 52.4 million. What are the chances that Biden can round all those up? First of all, there will be no record for anything built before 1968, and that includes a lot of M1911 pattern pistols. Second, will criminals give up their guns? Does the government even know which criminals have which guns (I am being facetious here)? Of course, they don't, and in any case, it is clear that they don't care about criminals having guns. If they did, they would enforce the gun laws on the books. Third, a certain number of Americans will meekly turn in their guns, but I suspect the vast majority will not. We have seen what happened in Australia and the Formerly Great Britain, so are unlikely to cooperate.

Ms. Widburg makes note of the fact that by confiscating these weapons, the government will be denying us the ability to defend ourselves IF the government becomes oppressive:

In other words, because two deeply disturbed men made headlines, you must lose your self-protection. More than that, you need to lose your constitutionally guaranteed self-protection. And even more specifically, given that the biggest killer in every society, always, is a government that has run amok (see, e.g., Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, North Korea, China, Cambodia, etc.), the head of our government is demanding that we lose our constitutionally guaranteed self-protection against that very government should it ever begin to run amok.

I don't know, but I think if the government enacts such a law, perhaps it is already running amok?

Pray for Pope Francis

On my reading list, when I get through reading at least two other books, are two books by Paul Kengor. The one is The Devil and Karl Marx. But before that, I want to read The Devil and Bella Dodd. Unfortunately, I have lately had such a wealth of books to read I barely do anything else. So, I was happy to find this "book report" on The Devil and Bella Dodd at Crisis Magazine in The Roots of Woke: The Devil and Bella Dodd by Joseph Serwach.

Bella Dodd was a community organizer before the term became "cool."  She was Saul Alinski before he wrote Rules for Radicals and dedicated it to Lucifer.

Where did all this woke stuff come from? The Devil and Bella Dodd shows that today’s progressives follow the same strategy, script, and seeds American communists planted in Catholic seminaries and U.S. universities 86 years ago.

...snip...

The roaring rapids of social media news feeds means few modern Americans recognize Dodd. Still, her name was once universally known (her flip from communist organizer to baptized Catholic speaking to everyone from Congress to small school audiences) made her the ultimate party switcher. The closest we come today is Tulsi Gabbard moving from Democrat presidential candidate to Fox News host.

Dodd (1904-1969) was a sharp attorney and radical warrior, a key “fixer” at the dawn of the American communist movement. She organized efforts to infiltrate and undermine key U.S. institutions before she changed sides and shared her story in the 1950s. Her 1,281-page FBI file, one of the largest ever found during a FOIA request, remains mostly classified 53 years after her death. But the authors have obtained several hundred pages to date while also tracking down people who knew her.

So, what changed Dodd's mind? What, in other words, made her repent, for that is what repent means, to change one's mind? It seems Father Fulton Sheen had something to do with it, although in reality only the Holy Spirit can perform such miracles. Men can only be there to the mop up work. That is not to denigrate Sheen's efforts, but to place the credit where due. The fact is that communism is antithetical to Christianity. Communism is often described as atheistic, but in reality it hates God. It wants to replace God as our savior. Communism partakes of the Original Sin, Lucifer's sin.  It is, as Sheen says, a religion itself.  And that religion is the worship of Lucifer:

For years, she believed she was fighting for a revolution to undermine a corrupt American system. Still, Fr. Fulton Sheen wrote multiple books and took to the radio, calling atheistic communism “a religion to destroy a religion, a politics which is a religion.

” Dodd noticed, “The little sparks of my conscience caught fire. I began to realize and to feel uneasy at the contradictions between what the Communists preached and what they did.”

You can read the rest of the article to find out how Dodd found her way back to God. Pope Francis seems particularly sympathetic to communism. People will say that Francis is socialist, but that is a distinction without a difference.

I have had people, who don't read the Bible and don't attend church, say that Jesus was a socialist. They often cite the story of Jesus's conversation with the rich young man in Luke. Jesus advised the rich young man to sell all he owned and give it to the poor, then come and follow Jesus. This supposedly showed that Jesus was in favor of redistribution of weath. But in fact the point of the story is that while wealth is not sinful in itself, the fact that the rich young man was reluctant is. Jesus demands that God be everything to you. Notice that Jesus did not say that Ceasar should confiscate the rich young man's goods and distribute them to the people who supported him. But of course, that is what advocates for redistribution actually mean.

So, pray for Pope Francis, that he runs into his own Bishop Fulton Sheen.

A Thanksgiving Todah

At Crisis Magazine Father Dwight Longenecker has a piece about the Theology of Thanksgiving. Longenecker, as usual goes very deep into the the love that defines God's salvation plan for mankind. Indeed, he goes back to the original Passover, that finally allowed the Israelites to escaped from bondage in Egypt. But it also has roots in a little known Jewish feast offered after escape from a dire situation such as serious illness called the todah.

For, of course, in Greek the word ‘Thanksgiving’ is ‘Eucharist’, and the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass has its roots in the Jewish thanksgiving sacrifice called the todah which is Hebrew for ‘thanksgiving and praise.’ Anyone familiar with the Old Testament religion may know about sacrifices such as the holocaust offering, sin offering or burnt offering, but not many will be aware of the todah.

A todah sacrifice would be offered by someone whose life had been spared. Maybe they recovered from a disease or survived a deadly battle. The person who had scraped through would call his friends and family together and celebrate a todah sacrificial meal. A lamb would be sacrificed in the Temple by the priest, and then some bread would be consecrated just at the moment the lamb was sacrificed. The bread and meat, along with wine, became the menu for the thanksgiving meal. Along with the meal would be prayers and psalms of praise and thanksgiving.

The usual thinking is that the Eucharist is the Christian celebration of the Passover, in which Christ is the Passover Lamb sacrificed once and for all. And while this is true, according to Longenecker it is also a todah offered for our excape from death due to sin.

When we celebrate the Thanksgiving Meal of the Eucharist, we thank God for our deliverance from the bondage of sin and give thanks for Christ the Passover Lamb who was slain. We give thanks for our salvation. We recall the once-for-all sacrifice, bring it into the present moment and celebrate the feast. As such we re-live not only the Paschal mystery but the earlier Passover mystery of Exodus.

And isn’t the pilgrimage of the settlers in the new world also a kind of Exodus story? They went out from the land of bondage and made a long, hard journey to the promised land. Therefore the theology of Thanksgiving is the theology of Passover. We celebrate not just the good things we have, but our deliverance from bondage, our hard won freedoms and our souls’ salvation.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving feast, and think about the long history it represents.

Thanks Be To God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

 Larry Elder has a great post today, Thanksgiving Day here in America.  The article, at Townhall.com is entitled A Pro-Abortion Advocate Made This Case Against Abortion. Elder starts out by making the case that abortion weighed heavily against the red wave. I suspect he is right in this conclusion. People who voted because of fear of a loss of a "right" to abortion did so either out of gross ignorance (I suspect most) or out of a deeply evil impulse. The Supreme Court was right to strike down Roe on both legal and religious grounds. The legal grounds are that abortion is outside the scope of the Federal Constitution. It can be in the scope only by the passing of an amendment, not by interpretation. It is high time that the Supreme Court begin to return to reality, which is what Clarence Thomas was talking about with some of the other rulings of the Court that need to be struck down. The religious grounds, outside the Courts perview, but within our's is that the killing of an innocent baby is evil. There is no other word for it.

Thus, it is surprising that this advocate for abortion once upon a time made a very strong case against abortion, pointing out that the issues in the woman's life that caused her to seek an abortion should be dealt with directly. Go read Jesse Jackson's case against abortion. One has to wonder if Jackson found that giving up his principles for the equivalent of a mess of pottage was worth the price.

I should also point out that if you are a woman who has had an abortion, you can yet repent. Go see a pastor, confess and seek absolution. God still wants you and has a mission for you. Incidentally, saints need not apply, Jesus can for the lost and sinners, not the saints. If you are a woman thinking to abort, seek out a support group such as Lutherans For Life.

U. S Is Outlier on Abortion. Most Countries Heavily Restrict It.

Elissa Korem has an article at The Federalist today entitled Biden Uses Your Tax Dollars To Deal Abortions To Countries That Don't Want Them. As we will learn in this article, the default preference World wide is pro-life. But you will not hear that from our own press. The United States sticks out as uniquely pro-death of the unborn.

Hungary is currently at the forefront of international pro-life momentum. The government has recently taken on the role of leading the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a coalition of 36 countries that pledges a commitment to authentic women’s health beyond abortion. At the second anniversary of the coalition’s launch on Nov. 17, the Hungarian government articulated its pro-life position with resounding clarity. “Every human being should have the right to life … and fetal life shall be subject to protection from the moment of conception,” stated Szabolcs Takács, the Hungarian ambassador to the United States.

At the Geneva Consensus anniversary, staunch pro-life positions were reiterated by the representatives of Brazil, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and others, with the ambassador of Guatemala stating, “Life starts at conception. For us there is no question.”

...snip...

These government initiatives are reflective of political momentum to fight back against abortion activism and to assert sovereign national positions in defense of unborn life. Ultimately, they are irrefutable proof that any insinuation that a human right to abortion has come by political evolution is a lie removed from the deeply rooted pro-life ethos of these countries.

In the midst of ongoing backlash, both at home and abroad, to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the significance of robust international commitment to unborn life cannot be overstated. There exists strong global opposition to the creation of a faux human right to abortion, which is so often invoked to pressure countries to abandon their laws and policies that protect unborn life. As Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., co-chair of the Geneva Consensus commemoration, said in his remarks to the coalition, the reason for the group’s existence is to ensure that “international law and international agreements are not rewritten to invent an international right to abortion that would override the duly enacted laws of your countries protecting pre-born babies.”

Of course, Biden, if he considers himself a faithful Catholic, should not be pushing other countries to promote abortions. But even if he were Lucifer himself, he should not be using our tax dollars for something as controversial as abortion. While some churches have gone "woke" with LGBTQxyz bishops, and who knows what you will have to put up with in the pews, the fact is that the Biden administration is pushing abortions in countries where such is illegal. A little humility would be in order. After all, we have enough problems here at home.  Of course, go read the whole article.

A Marine Who Fought on Guadalcanal Decries Our Loss of Freedom

I haven't posted this fact in a long time, but I remember when the only time the Federal Government crossed peoples minds was when the mail came, and when we voted. Washington D.C. was far away in both distance and effect. And we were surprisingly free. Boys carried pocket knives to school every day, and nobody cared. Highschool kids carried rifles to school to go hunting after school. Nobody cared. Free speech was taken for granted, free religious expression was taken for granted. Men, who had fought real tyranny were unafraid of petit tyrants at home.  But as the 1960s rolled on, things began to change for the worse. They didn't start in the 1960s, of course, that is just when they began to manifest in public life. But the totalitarians had been working in the background for 100 years by then, maybe even longer.

All of these thoughts came flooding back to me as I read today at the American Thinker an article by J. B. Shurk entitled Ctrl-Alt-Delete The Totalitarian State. Shurk's thesis is that we are in an epic struggle, whether we want to be or not, for freedom. Either the tyrants will win or the people (termed "Westerners" in Shurks piece) will fight back.

There are three government narratives pushed today that are not real: (1) fraud-free elections, (2) a looming climate apocalypse, and (3) a COVID health emergency requiring total government control. If you see through only one, then you're not looking hard enough. Or as Bill Engvall might say, "If you now believe COVID is mostly a hoax but are still terrified of global warming, here's your sign." Conversely, if you do see through them, you're likely being censored for expressing those points of view.

Here's our impasse: when governments claim to have a monopoly on truth, then citizens are expected to accept preposterous fantasies, no matter how much opposing evidence they might see. The narrative is absolute. Dissent is forbidden. Total obedience is the objective. Last century, free Westerners understood these features as telltale signs of totalitarianism. Today, much less free Westerners have been taught to embrace — without scrutiny or wisdom — the government's fairy tales as part of our required, if not sacred, deference to the bureaucratic State's cult of expertise. Whether citizens grasp this shift in individual freedom or not, the general rule handed down from governments is stark yet succinct: ask us no questions, and we will tell you no lies!

Westerners desperately need to reboot their systems of government before those systems of government delete the public's power to make changes ever again. It is not possible for political leaders to claim that their countries support personal freedom when they snatch that freedom away at the first sneeze, cow fart, or unapproved tweet. It is not logical for governments to claim that they protect "democracy" when armies of unelected permanent bureaucrats run the modern State. It is not reasonable for Western nations to claim that they cherish "free thinking" and "free expression" when their technocratic surveillance arms actively censor speech and promote State-approved points of view over all others.

Ok, so I am an old fart and you young whippershappers don't have to listen to me. What do I know, right? But maybe you will pay attention to an even older person, someone who actually fought on Gaudalcanal in WWII:

Earlier this year, a U.S. Marine who fought at the bloody Battle of Guadalcanal during WWII was being interviewed in celebration of his hundredth birthday. Veteran Carl Dekle, who went through absolute hell in the Pacific theater and managed to persevere against exhaustion and relentless close combat, broke down in tears. However, the Silver Star recipient was not reliving nightmares from the past; he was heartbroken at the state of America today.

"Nowadays I am so upset that the things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it's all going down the drain," he said. "Our country's going to hell in a handbasket. We haven't got the country we had when I was raised, not at all. Nobody will have the fun I had; nobody will have the opportunity I had. It's just not the same."

Imagine fighting Japanese Imperialism and the threats of global totalitarianism, surviving when so many friends did not, and living long enough to see the very ideological threats that you once defeated on foreign battlefields find a malevolent foothold on the same land of liberty you defended with selfless love. This is a brave warrior who battled through terror today's generations cannot imagine, and he is reduced to unbearable sadness because "our country's gone to hell."

All is vanity, says the preacher in Ecclesiasties 1. So it is, but while one of us is alive to remember, we will continue to exhort our fellow citizens that you are being fed lies. And you can change things. Oh, not that you won't continue to be fed lies, but you don't have to believe the lies. Furthermore, you can act to blunt the effect of these lies, but only if you act.

Biden Proposes Another Hairbrained Scheme

 So, it seems the Biden administration has come up with another idiotic idea.  Eric Utter at the post at the American Thinker entitled White House proposes blocking sunlight to fight global warning.

The White House recently announced that it was funding a five-year research plan for a controversial proposal to fight climate change by geoengineering — i.e., technologies and processes that can be used to artificially modify the Earth's climate.

This research would be dedicated specifically to a form of geoengineering known as "solar radiation management," which involves spraying fine aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the Earth. The hope is that, once the sunlight is reflected, less heat will be generated, and ergo temperatures will go down. Presto: actual anthropogenic climate change! A global SPF 100, as it were!

There is so much that is wrong with this proposal. First, it goes at cross purposes to another Biden proposal: that we get our energy using solar panels. Solar panels are notoriously inefficient as it is. Cut down the sunlight and they become even more inefficient. Second, cutting down the amount of sunlight means that photosynthesis will be less efficient, meaning that food crops will be less productive. And it is unlikely that China and India will want to go along with this hairbrained scheme.

But the real problem with this proposal is that it assumes mankind has the knowledge and the power to affect the climate.  As I have repeatedly pointed out, climate models have not been able to predict any existing climate given inputs of preceding climates.  Such models therefore can not predict the future.  It is the height of hubris and arrogance to believe that we can.  I realize that the people proposing this do not believe in God.  But it might be better to let Him worry about our climate.  He created it after all, and I for one trust Him to do the right thing.

Candace Cameron Bure Switches to Great American Family Channel

 Gentle readers may know that I have mentioned on occasion that I like Hallmark Movies, or rather, I used to like them.  Hallmark has gone woke, and in the process has destroyed the brand.  Every . show . has . to . have. a . gay . couple.  How many gay couples do you meet in real life?  Never?  Certainly there are not that many.  Hallmark could have one Christmas movie with a gay couple and that would be enough.  But no, now it is EVERY movie.  Among those in the the Hallmark Movie stable of stars that I especially appreciate is Candace Cameron Bure.  Whether it is acting as Aurora Teegarden, of doing Christmas movies, Bure's characters are always charming.

So, it was gratifying to see Candace Cameron Bure's name mentioned in an article by Elle Purnell at The Federalist entitled Instead Of Caving To The Haters, Candace Cameron Bure Just Used Their Attacks To Share The Gospel. Bure is leaving Hallmark Channel to join a new channel Great American Family.

Candace Cameron Bure, the Hallmark Channel queen who rose to fame as D.J. Tanner on “Full House,” just wants to make Christmas movies that spread the joy and wholesomeness of Christmas and of her Christian faith. To that end, she recently moved from Hallmark to Great American Family, a new, smaller channel “that is positioning itself as the God-and-country alternative for holiday entertainment.”

For the crime of wanting to make a product that aligns better with her Christian faith, Bure is getting slammed as a bigot. But instead of apologizing for her convictions, Bure’s words and actions indicate she’s more interested in spreading the love of Christ than appeasing her Hollywood haters.

I am glad that Candace Cameron Bure has found a new home that fits in with her beliefs. Let's hope that other stars decide to find a friendlier place at the Great American Family channel.

How the Perverse Fix the Game

 At the American Thinker yesterday, Jack Gleason had an interesting piece entitled How The Game Is Fixed.

In Dallas, Texas there are reports of hundreds of votes being added at poll closing time.

A Democrat in New Hampshire was awarded 1,106 votes in a town with about 700 people.

Why is Maricopa County, Arizona the only place in the country where there is no chain of custody for mail-in ballots? In the same county an elections clerk claimed that uncounted “Slot 3” ballots were mixed in with already counted ballots.

In Maryland there were 1,000 votes left to count in a House race, but overnight 10,000 votes were added, leading to a Democrat victory.

In Santa Clara, California, a bag of mail-in ballots was found deep in a ravine.

Adam Laxalt in the Nevada Senate race had a lead Thursday night.

One such "miracle" is perhaps a just what it seems: a miracle. Two such "miriacles" are a coincidence. But this many? This many "miracles" represent a concerted attack on the integrity of our election system. It is, as the "Democrats" like to keep telling us, a "threat to democracy," as if we lived in a democracy rather than a Constitutional Republic.

While cleaning up the voter rolls of phantom voters, dead voters, those who have moved, and phantom addresses, as Jay Valentine advocates is essential, that will not cure all these ways of cheating.  We need to limit mail in ballots to people who request a mail in ballot for specific reasons.  We should definitely elimate early voting.  We must require every voter to show a valid ID when he or she shows up to vote.  Oh, and go back to paper ballots, or at the very least, have the voter fill out a paper ballot that is preserved such that it is possible to check the tabulator vote against a separate hand count.  Even with these reforms, cheating will still be possible, just harder.

You will never convice me that John Fetterman won a fair and free election, or that Adam Laxalt or Blake Masters lost such elections.  Nor, that Kari Lake lost such an election.  I can not prove it, but using the old fashioned "where there is smoke" test, I believe this election, like 2020, was rigged.  And the Democrats are getting more and more blatant the more they get away wiht it.

Which brings me to why won't anyone with a position to do something about it at least bring up the subject.  Could it be that some Republicans are in on the scam?  If so, shame on them.  We really do need free and fair elections if we are to determine what the public REALLY wants.  I, personally, and tired of being nudged in directions I don't approve.

God's First Commandment: Be Fruitful and Multiply

 We Christians have always understood that men and women are different, yet complementary creatures.  Women are created especially for the carrying and nurturing of children.  Women are naturally somewhat more risk averse.  Men, being somewhat more risk taking, have traditionally gone out and worked to bring home the necessary funds to feed, clothe, put a roof over the heads of wife and children, and see to childrens' education.  Women must be as smart and educated as men, though, because while the man may determine their overal curriculum, women must do the detail work keeping children on task.

Feminism and particularly the feminazis propose that women are no different than men.  The old "anything you can do, I can do better."  But voting patterns prove the feminazi proposition to be false. On November 15, Christian winter had an aricle at The Federalist entitled How Conservatives Men Can Help Solve the GOP's Single Women Problem

Last week’s election revealed an ever-deepening divide between the voting preferences of single women and everyone else. Single women broke +37 for Democrats, whereas single men, married men, and married women all favored Republicans. Perhaps “toxic feminism” or “AWFL discourse” is the problem. But whatever the explanation, given the slim margins of the recent election, this is a real issue for Republicans.

Such voting trends are problematic yet understandable. Single women who lack the protection and security that a husband or father provides are likely to look elsewhere, such as to government, for the securing of their interests. Increasingly atomized and isolated from family and community, it is understandable that many single women vote for politicians who will help shape society to be more amenable to their natural instincts. Women naturally pursue harmony and avoid conflict. A public square defined primarily by such qualities will be very different than one characterized by rational argument and directness.

You can read the whole article for yourself. What is clear is that, no surprise, ideology has not been able to overcome nature. That single women, thrown into the world without a husband or father to protect them seek goverment is of course a poor substitute. Husbands and fathers generally care for their wives and daughters. Government cares not a whit. It is true that society has done its best to emasculate men, and sometimes young men, without a good role model, attempt to act as think real men should. Society has failed men, and men are failing women. But the answer is not big government. 

 Interestingly enough, women are being encouraged, by men no doubt, to forgo their natural instinct to have a family, and instead are offered jobs as drones and widgets in a major corporation machine making moeny for someone else. How will a woman feel as her biological clock ticks away and she realizes, too late that she has wasterd her life pretending to be something she was never intended to be.

The actual answer lies in going to church, learning about God's saving grace, and for men and wormen to get and to stay married for the sake of the children. For children are the reason for marriage. Men and women complement each other, and in old age, each helps the other in time of need. But we also must remember God's first commandment to mankind: Be fruitful and multiply.

Cheaters Gonna Cheat Redux

 It has been a while since I have seen an Andrea Widburg post at the American Thinker, but she came out swinging today with a piece entitled We're getting played when it comes to the real 2022 winner. Widburg, as usual, is spot on. She starts by laying out the case as seen in various press reports and pundit blatherings. Keep in mind that these people are no smarter than the rest of us, but they must fill their space with something. As a result, we get a lot of half baked nonsense:

Following the dismal midterm showing, there’s a lot of blame to go around. While I can and will sum up the issue, I want to focus more narrowly on the way in which the entire Republican machine is turning from Trump, who is now anathema, to Ron DeSantis, who is the new god. Considering that we still have a long time before the primaries and then the 2024 election, this kind of decision-making is premature and dangerous—and that’s why we’re being forced into it.

Here's a short list of leading blame topics: (1) The GOP was useless; (2) American voters (especially the young ones), after 60 years of non-stop propaganda in the media, entertainment, and schools, no longer value freedom and the Constitution; (3) brainwashed women voters believe that fulfillment lies in a career and an appointment with the abortionist; and (4) Trump anointed weak candidates in pivotal elections.

The idea that candidates were of insufficient quality is pure humbug. Blake Masters is a superior candidate period. Compared to Fetterman, Oz is stands as a giant of a candidate. And Kari Lake is another Ron DeSantis. You could not ask for better. That they lost is do to...well, let Ms. Widburg tell you:

Oh, and here’s what I believe is the most significant factor: mail-in ballots. In states with mail-in ballots, the Secretary of State mails ballots to every person on the registrar’s list. It’s irrelevant that many have moved, are dead, or are manifestly fraudulent (see all of Jay Valentine’s articles on the subject). At apartment buildings, you may see dozens of ballots sitting in piles in the lobby, addressed to people who long since moved away.

The ballots then get mailed back in again. The Secretary of State has no idea who filled out the ballots or popped them in the mailbox. He or she doesn’t care that 1,000 are returned from the same 30-unit apartment building or temporary homeless shelter. The ballots are then taken from their envelopes, effectively removing all identification, and “counted.”

This is a process without any brakes on fraud. And if the current crop of ballots doesn’t provide a victory for the Democrats, it’s perfectly easy to slip in a few more ballots that are untethered to a real person to tip the “correct” candidate into the winning pile.

But at the moment, as Widburg says, the issue of election integrity is less important than the immediate drum beat to run Donald Trump out of the party. By blaming the woes of the party on Trump, and attempting to make DeSantis the new "leader," the establishment, deep state, and Never Trump have combined to take Trump out. Believe her when she says that at the appropriate moment, they will take out DeSantis too. Remember how John McCain was lionized as a "maverick" Republican by the press until he secured the nomination? Then they turned on him too. It is the same old same old. The whole idea is to retain power, money, and status...in other words corruption.

Which brings us to another piece, this time at Townhall.com by John Nantz, entitled Christians Are Responsible for the State of American Politics. But, how, you may ask, are Christians responsible. Many, especially evangelicals, shy away from politics, precisely because everyone involved seems to be corrupted. And Nantz would it seems agree:

McConnell is a statist dinosaur who only cares about the maintenance of his power, and, like so many other politicians, about filling his treasure chest by making merchandise of his fiduciary office. He’s a disgusting political creature whose corruption of soul is reflected in his pallor and weak, watery eyes. How this calcified bureaucrat continues to maintain his hold over the good citizens of Kentucky can only be explained in terms of pork-barrel spending, earmarked for key districts. His is an all too common story of corruption, greed, and compromise with China.

Republicans seem poised to wrest power from the totalitarian Democrats in the House. This victory should not be discounted, despite the thinner than hoped for margin. No thanks to Kevin McCarthy, who has carried forward the establishment Republican strategy — accomplish nothing, defame the conservative Republican base, and hope that independents will vote merely in opposition to Democrat policies.

But it’s not enough to simply mimic Karl Rove’s blank whiteboard. Rove can posture with his silly board on Fox News until doomsday, but that won’t convince conservative constitutionalists that he’s anything more than a big state, crony-capitalist Republican like George W. Bush — what a profound disappointment he has become in his dotage.

Incidentally, W was profoundly disappointing during his presidency. But I digress.

Lest we forget, it was primarily Christians who worked, prayed, and worked some more to finally get the Dobbs decision, and some of that work involved getting into politics. There are faithful Christians on the Supreme Court, for instance, Clarence Thomas. And the moral clarity and power of his decisions shows it. There are other faithful Christians like Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Pence. But you can also get involved by being a election official, or becoming involved in your local voter integrity group. We need these in every county in every state as described in yesterday's post.  If Christianity is failing in America, it may be because we are not leading by example. 

Perhaps it would work better if we let our light shine, by which I mean the Light of Christ within us.

Cheaters gonna cheat, but we can stop them

 Once again, the Democrats overwhelmed votes for Republican candidates with tons of mail-in ballots.  Some of those ballots were no doubt legitamate, but I, personally, am skeptical as to whether the majority of them were actual votes from real voters.  I have been around Democrat cheating too long.  I can still remember the Kennedy-Nixon election, in which Nixon would have won except for Chicago's dead vote.  Indeed, the dead vote may be the most loyal Democrat voting block.  I would bet money that this is what happened in Pennsylvania, and suspect it happened in Nevada and is happening now in Maricopa County.

The landscape has changed, as Jay Valentine shows in his article at the American Thinker entitled How Wisconsin Streetfighters Disrupted a Democrat Ballot-Gathering System.

Democrats, expert in anything government-related, drove states to change laws, increase voting days, loosen voter standards. Republican leadership dozed.

Democrats, leftist non-governmental organizations, Big Tech invented every conceivable way to manipulate the ballot process: collect ballots, drop into streetside bins, fill them out if the voter doesn't.

That is a ballot-gathering strategy. It works!

Yes, it works, but as you will see, it requires the use of phantom voters, fake addresses, and an army of people willing to break the law. Republicans are not saints, heaven knows, but finding an army to break the law is much harder on the Republican side. Just sayin'.

Live, votable ballots accumulate at addresses where the indicated voter does not reside. Those ballots, gathered, are the inventory of electoral victory. He who gathers them can vote them.

The ballot-gathering system was frictionless until 2020. Thousands of phantom addresses inhabited every state's voter list.

Clever leftists built a national system, ERIC, now used by about 30 states, to make sure voter rolls protected phantoms. Using in-your-face messaging, ERIC claimed it was a resource to keep voter rolls clean.

This has been going on for a long time. You remember how that weasel, Al Franken, won? A campaign official "found" a bunch of ballots in the trunk of his car that just "happened" to break for Franken with enough votes to "win." What luck! And of course, that is why we now have Obamacare. And we'll never get rid of it.

But now Democrats have sytemitized ballot gathering. So here's the question: How do Republicans counter it. Remember, it is here to stay. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is impossible to stuff it back in. (Kind of like guns.)

The once frictionless ballot-gathering apparatus was challenged in every state as voter integrity teams, citizens at kitchen tables, picked apart voter rolls. They quickly found tens of thousands of dead or moved voters. There were innumerable addresses where no voter could possibly live.

For the first time, there was pushback against ballot gathering. Citizens demanded that voter rolls be cleaned, addresses be real. In too many cases, affidavits with photographs of an empty lot where several voters claimed to live failed to convince a judge to action.

(Which is why it is important to elect Republican judges wherever possible. In some cases judicial elections are nonpartisam, but you can usually find out what party they represent by peeling back the onion on the internet wayback machine.)

Democrats know how many votes they need and cast them during the forever campaign time in the name of phantoms. Their ballot inventory comes from real ballots sent to fake addresses, then collected by someone — never a Republican — and voted

...snip...

For the ballot-gathering strategy to work, Democrats need tens of thousands of phantom addresses and voters. A few is not enough. Without thousands of loose ballots tied to phantoms, the edifice comes crashing down.

They also need Republicans to do nothing.

The Wisconsin team proved, in this election, that adding even a small amount of friction – removing thousands of phantom names and identifying several hundred thousand incorrect addresses — has a massive impact on the ballot-gathering system.

Our Wisconsin election heroes applied Fractal Programming technology, funded by Mike Lindell, at scale to find and challenge phantoms. The process is explained at www.Omega4America.com.

Republican polititians have been too lax allowing this to happen. Could it be that they also take advantage of these systems?  If so, shame on them. But we have a way for small 

ndependent voter integrity groups to force the cleanup of voter rolls. Here in North Carolina, we have elected a Republican majority to the Supreme Court, so we may finally have voters show their true identification at the polls. But there are still ways to game the system, and cheaters are going to cheat. But the kind of massive wholesale rigging of our election system may be curtailed for now, until the Dems figure out another way.

Are these typical Democrat voters?

Olivia Murray has a post at the American Thinker entitled A supervillain lookalike, baby-killers and demons-just your usual Democrats. Ms. Murray shows a blue haired doctor of public health who appears not too healthy. Then there is the woman who would rather murder her unborn child than be a mother. and a prayer call for Kari Lake that was hacked by leftists who screamed blasphemes at the participants.

Is there any doubt that the Left is under the sway of the Devil? Unfortunately these people vote. And judging by the midterms, there are a lot of them.

Night of the Walking Dead

The best commentary on the midterm elections seems to come from Austin Ruse at Crisis Magazine in an article entitled Election 2022: Night of the Walking Dead. Ruse points out that the Democrat party has become the party of the dead for several reasons. First, by voting for the brain dead such as Biden and Fetterman. Pennsylvainians should be deeply embarassed. But so should anyone who voted for Biden. But also because of votes for abortion and against life. Really, people actually voted to kill innocent children rather than allowing them to be raised by loving families who want them. It boggles the mind.

If the Democrats proved one thing on Tuesday night, it’s that they are quite happy to vote for a brain-dead zombie for a major-state senatorship. John Fetterman can barely walk or talk or even think. It is as if a Walker invaded Hilltop and was elected leader over Maggie Rhee.

In the genre, there are fast zombies, which are the most dangerous, and slow zombies, that can still kill you nonetheless; it’s just you have a better chance of getting away. The good news is Fetterman, like Joe Biden, is a slow zombie. But it is revealing that Democrats have proven themselves as the Party of the Walking Dead.

...snip...

To continue the Walking Dead metaphor, two lockdown Democrats won, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Kathy Hochul in New York. It should be noted that Hochul’s Manhattan is nearly uninhabitable because the zombies rule the streets and certainly the subways. These were two of the most aggressive states in masking, vaxxing, lockdowns, and the release of violent criminals thanks to their beloved Soros prosecutors.

The unborn child lost Tuesday night. Bigly. Michigan, Vermont, and California made killing babies a constitutional right, and Kentuckians refused a constitutional amendment to protect the unborn child. The Walking Dead particularly like children since they tend to be even slower than slow zombies.

Strangely, Ruse finds some good news for the GOP in the fact that DeSantis won a decisive victory. He is willing to stand with DeSantis, as am I. But also in the fact that the GOP chipped away at the minority vote as well as the so called "youth" vote. But of course, those aged 18-29 are in fact adults. Single women however were solidly for the Democrats.  But read the whole article.  It isn't long, and you will get some interesting points from it.

I find little good news in all this, though since we pray everyday "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," I must assume that the election was God's will. What is God's will for us?

Update: For more puzzlement, please go to the Epoch Times to Gingrich: GOP Got Nearly 6 Million More Votes but Lost Many Races. What's Going On? I hope Gingrich doesn't get arrested for questioning the election results.

The Church's Role in Preventing Abortion

Matthew Meritt, writing at Crisis Magazine notes that The Small Choices Come First before a young woman ponders having an abortion.

That’s the abortion issue in a nutshell. It manifests in the skirmishes of seemingly small choices in each life that lead to a frightened, lonely girl who faces a decision that seems to have no easy choice. Sin is like that—it lulls a person along in a crowd and abandons her when the consequences are too big to escape.

But if the arena is the human heart, then the Church should enjoy homefield advantage because, as Pope St. John Paul II said, God’s moral law is inscribed there, “valid and current in every time and place.”

That lonely girl’s battles were fought in her heart, and with the forming of her imagination, well before her unplanned pregnancy, as she went along with the crowd, seemingly befriended but really alone.

Was the Church “accompanying” her—or the boy who was to become the father of her unborn child?

Meritt makes a good point, that the poor girl and the boy who got her into trouble had committed many sins before she got to the point where she felt the need to have an abortion. The church has a role, if they will take it up, in preventing the need for abortions as much as ensuring that these children are born rather than being thrown away. Pray for the unborn.

We hope the Dems can live with what the voted for. Their neighbors will have to live with it too.

Patricia McCarthy at the American Thinker today has a barely controlled angry post exposing What All Those Democrats Voted For in the Midterm Elections. McCarthy is obviously in a rage, and for good reason. But rather than throw a tantrum, as so many Leftists do, leaving our cities burned and in ruins, she has channeled her rage into a column that is worth not only reading, but sending to your "friends" as well. Rub their noses in the stinky mess they have made by voting for these clowns.  And of course, if you know anybody in Pennsylvania, shower them with this column as well.  They clearly would have voted for the jackass if the party put it up.

1. In New York, Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania they voted to release violent criminal without bail, to allow them to continue to commit violent crimes against innocent people, to shoplift with impunity, and to use drugs on city streets with their mayors’ and governors’ blessings. These career criminals will continue to harass and kill citizens brave enough to ride the subway in New York or even to stand on the platforms.

2. They voted for unrestricted abortion, up to and including birth and even after, if the mother makes that decision. They voted for infanticide which makes us about as “progressive” as the Aztecs.

In a Christian country, we thought we had defeated the demon Moloch. In the Middle East, they used to throw their children into Moloch's firey belly, a great idol whose belly was a furnace that burned the children alive. This was for fertility of the fields. Lucifer was well pleased with these people, and with Democrats, no doubt.  Are we any better? Oh, yes, you have a "right," which is fancy language to paper over the fact that whether you feed your children to Moloch, or you suck them out of your womb with a vacuum, it is still murder. You voted for that, Dems!

4. They voted for energy shortages – gasoline, LNG, coal -- all of which Joe Biden has promised to restrict or end. No more coal, no more drilling, no more pipelines. Their plan is to send us all back to the Stone Age since there is no way solar or wind can provide even a tiny percent of this country’s energy needs. Just a few years ago, when Donald Trump was president, we were energy independent. Now we are systematically being starved of the energy this land has under our feet in spades. If we run out of diesel, that is when our grocery shelves will empty.

...snip...

6. They voted to usher in the nefarious Great Reset, the globalist plan for a one-world government where “we will own nothing and be happy.” These reset scoundrels have big plans for us; we will live by their rules, as serfs, without control over our own lives, or the lives of our children. Who will we answer to? These psychopathic, self-appointed elites.

These are just a few of the pithy list of horribles that the Democrats voted for. I hope you can live with it. Your neighbors will have to live with it too.

God and Socialism

 People often suppose that the Bible and Christianity support socialism.  Unfortunately, many times pastors and priests seem to espouse this theory. It seems on the surface to be reasonable, especially if you don't understand how God loves his creation. They often cite as examples Jesus parable of the rich young ruler in Luke Chapter 18.  Jesus tells the rich young ruler that in order to get to heaven, he should sell all he owns, give it to the poor, and come follow Jesus.  But notice Jesus does not condemn the rich young ruler's wealth, but his attachment to his wealth.  Jesus does not condemn wealth or private ownship. That is because Jesus did his Fathers will at all times.

What? God endorces private ownership? As a matter of fact, the 10th Commandment states:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Again, what most people focus on is what you shall not do: covet. What one doesn't notices is that these are all privately owned items. Wives were "owned" by their husbands in those days, as were servants. God doesn't tell people to pool their resources and distribute them to the poor. He tells you not to covet them. At it's core, socialism is a philosophy of envy. In essence, the philosophy is that someone has more than you do. The socialist asks you to vote for him because he will take what the other guy has and give it to you. This envy is a form of covetousness, and is from the Devil. while we are allowed to "own" property while here on earth, we must always understand that everything we supposedly own is really God's. We can think of it as if God lends them to us, but we should use them wisely.

It's God's Way or the Highway

 Kurt Schlichter, at Townhall.com today advises us to Be Caring for the Libs Feelings When the Red Wave Hits The title sounds like the attitude we ought to have, for doesn't Christ tell us to pray for our enemies? And even though Lucifer hates God with a burning passion more hot than the center of the Sun, yet God loves him. More on that later. For the moment, just note that Schlichter is being ironic here. What he really feels is schadenfreude, the feeling of joy at someone else's misery.

The next few days will be very difficult for the progressives, pinkos, commies, and other Democrats around you as they watch most – or perhaps all, if it is a red tsunami – their dreams die at the ballot box. You should take their profound sadness into account when you deal with them, and do everything you can to make the process of dealing with their total humiliation as miserable as possible.

...snip...

Point out, accurately, that their embarrassing rejection by America is personal, that they are malignant and ridiculous people who thought that the angry weather goddess had blessed them with the divine right to rule over the rest of us. But they were wrong, totally and completely wrong, and the misery they are experiencing is all their fault.

It is proper that you do this mercilessly. It’s for their own good. You see, in our soft, silly culture, we have forgotten the undeniable reality that the best teacher for people too dumb to learn from others’ experiences is pain. They did not learn from history that if you are incompetent, corrupt, yet still arrogant, the people will toss your sorry butts out of power. And pain is what they are likely to feel as the red wave drowns what remains of the Biden Administration’s fantasy of FDR II: Dementia Boogaloo. You owe it to them to amplify their agony. It’s for their good. You’re helping them. But even if that was not true, it’s fun to mock them. And that’s reason enough.

Alright, alright...we've had our fun. Now it's time to roll up our sleaves and get to work changing what the Evil One has wrought, and he has had a field day. But do we forgive them? Individually, perhaps. To be forgiven, one must have the humility to recognize that he or she has done wrong, and ask. Most of them are unlikely to ask. Pride will keep them from doing so, so no. 

Also, in order to be forgiven, one must show that he doesn't intend to do it again. So, for instance, teachers might stop grooming our kids.  Drag queens might restrict their shows to perverse men who invite such behavior.  Climate alarmists might stop trying to convince us that the weather is our fault (hint, it is not. We are not that powerful.) Oh, and doctors my decide to return to practicing the Hippocratic Oath and stop mutilating our children.  But go read Schlichter's piece for a fuller list of the damage they have done, including subjecting us to the possibility of nuclear armaggedon.

If Lucifer could repent, and had done so, as we can, God would not have cast him out. As I say, God loves even Lucifer. It is Lucifer himself whose pride and arrogance would not let him be subject to the will of his Creator that got him sent to hell. But don't be too smug, for we can also be too prideful to admit our sins. God wants us with Him, but he brooks no opposition. You might say it is God's way or the highway.

The Sin of the World

 Yesterday, I wrote about abortion, and why it is so wrong.  Of course, it is wrong because to do it, one must kill another human being.  But we do not have the right to kill another human being except under very limited circumstances.  But it goes deeper than that.  So I want to explain why it is so wrong, so maybe if you don't yet understand, you might.  Note that I am not preaching, because I am in the same boat as everyone else.  Paul says everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The reason it is wrong, and so much else is too, starts with the 1st Commandment.  A Lutheran pastor once told me that the only sin is to violate the first commandment.  This is usually stated as "I am the Lord your God.  You shall have no other gods before Me."  So people think if they are not worshiping at the feet of a graven image, they're good to go. 

Not so fast.  Jesus, who we learned was God Himself, said that the 1st and greatest commandment was to love God with all our hearts, and all our minds, and all our souls, and the second was like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.  But what does that mean?  Is that even possible?

Do any of us satisfy Jesus version of the 1st commandment?  What does that require?  First of all, it would mean trusting implicitly that God has your best interests at heart.  Second, it would mean thinking about God every waking hour.  And since we would love him, we would want to do whatever pleases him, whatever is his will for us.  But what pleases God?  That is answered also by Jesus, "love your neighbor as yourself."

In order to fulfill God's desire, one first must undersand his or her own place in the universe.  One has been placed on earth as a special creature, not like the birds, or animals, or fish.  You and I have been gifted with a soul.  We have a dignity not enjoyed by the other creatures of the earth.  Understanding who we are is key to loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Loving yourself doesn't mean as a narcissist does.  This is not romantic love, nor is it self centered.  Indeed, it is the kind of love that sacrifices self for others, as Jesus demonstrated on the cross.

If we truly loved and trusted and feared God as we should, then we would automatically honor and respect our parents as those having authority over us.  But we would also respect and correct our children as those over whom we have authority.  We wouldn't steal because we would respect the property of others as our own.  In short, if we loved, trusted, and feared God as we should, the other 9 commandments would be unnecessary. 

Of course, if one love, feared and trusted God enough, no one would commit adultery because each person would realize that having sexual relations outside of marriage is using each other thus destroying the dignity of both.  Therefor you wouldn't need to commit abortion, which is murder.  The same goes for rape, for incest, for anyother reason for that matter.

So, where does that leave us.  The good news is that Christ died on the cross for our sin, the failure of everyone to love, trust and fear God. We all think we know better, but we do not. The result is the Good News, the Gospel if you will, is that God, in his infinite compassion offers forgiveness.  He offers this forgiveness through His church.  The Catholic church in particular offers family planning and support for women who find themselves pregnant and think abortion is the only option.  Contact the local diocese for help  

Do We Love Those Who God Loves?

 Over at The Federalist Kaylee Griswold has a piece entitled Abortion Suckes the Life Of Not Only Our Bodies But Our Souls. She points to a NPR radio narration of an actual abortion while it takes place. You can listen if you want..I did not.

The same week that actress Anne Hathaway advocated for mercy killing unborn babies on “The View,” declaring that this is “not a moral conversation about abortion,” but “a practical conversation about women’s rights, and by the way human rights, because women’s rights are human rights,” NPR aired a troubling audio clip of a mother undergoing an abortion.

And not just any abortion, but one at 11 weeks. At that point, babies already have fingerprints and facial expressions and can suck their thumbs. Their sex is evident on an ultrasound, their vocal cords are present, and they begin to yawn.

“Most patients are partially awake during the procedures,” the National Public Radio broadcaster narrates over the sounds of hospital instruments clattering. “They get IV medication for pain and anxiety, the lights are dimmed, there’s soothing music. It actually feels a lot like a childbirth — the medical gown, your bare legs in stirrups, and a person next to you saying, ‘You can do this.’”

Except it’s nothing like childbirth. Human beings know this not only in our minds but in our souls, whether we are willing to acknowledge it outwardly. It’s actually the exact opposite of childbirth. At its brutal core, it is child sacrifice at the altar of human ambition, fear, deception, greed, faux altruism, and selfishness, and no medical gown or stirrups or death-dealing doula can mask that.

One can sympathize with a woman who is so desperate, who feels she has no other choice but to have an abortion. Indeed, one feels tremendous compassion for her. But how can someone "shout" her abortion? How can anyone claim a "right" to kill her own child? Moreover, why the shrill vehemence? The clue is in the pride with which abortion is advocated. Pride, it is the the work of the father of lies.

Americans have been taken by a great many lies about women. They’ve believed that value derives from productivity and that any discrepancy in pay or title denotes gross unfairness. They’ve believed that sex is inconsequential and modesty is unnecessary, giving up their agency in their sexual encounters while purporting to do the opposite. They’ve believed that men can become women, that some women have male reproductive systems, and that in order to be the best kinds of women, they must make themselves the most like men. And, among a slew of other falsehoods, they’ve believed that motherhood is dispensable.

To too many women, who have been endowed with the remarkable and unique ability to create and incubate new human life and the maternal instincts to protect and nurture that life into maturity, pregnancy and birth-giving are burdensome. Like the preborn life inside the NPR subject, motherhood is something to be torn apart, sucked away, and discarded.

But while women have convinced themselves that taking the life of an innocent person can be “mercy,” a “human right,” or a moral positive, they cannot evade their imago Dei. Extinguishing a human life cannot do the same to our created order, to the motherhood-sized chasm in each woman’s life that, once realized, can literally cultivate the next generation. In suctioning out mothers’ wombs, we really hollow out their souls.

Is it any wonder then that people of faith protest at abortion clinics? Is it any wonder that they offer an alternative, that they try to get women to carry their children to term? Because they know what this does to the souls of the women. God, of course will recieve these children to himself, for he loves them. But do we love those who God loves?

We Are Being Ruled By Saruman

 Perhps you have read the book by J.R.R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings. It is an epic tale of a thousand pages, or so it seems.  Maybe, instead, you like me have the movie adaptation of the Lord of the Rings (not the newest Jeff Bezos monstrosity.) But did you know it is a religions and very Catholic work? Each week at Crisis Magazine Joseph Pearce does a column on a particular work of great literature in a nutshell .  This week it is The Lord Of The Rings In A Nutshell.

Some of the symbology in The Lord of the Rings is obvious. Sauron is clearly the Devil, and the ring of power is Original Sin. Whoever puts the ring on becomes invisible to everyone else by becomes visible to Sauron. Mordor, where Sauron reigns is, of course, Hell itself.

The power of the Ring is, therefore, an allegorical depiction of the power of sin. The act of putting on the Ring is the act of sin. The Ring-wearer is living in sin. He becomes invisible to the good world that God has made, excommunicating himself from the light of goodness, truth, and beauty; but he becomes more visible to the demonic Sauron who rules wherever the shadow of sin shields the sinner from the light.

On the other hand, the one who bears the weight of the Ring, the weight of sin, without succumbing to its power, is bearing the cross. The Ring-bearer is the cross-bearer. In this sense, Frodo Baggins is both a Christ figure and a figure of one who follows Christ by taking up his cross. It is, therefore, not surprising that Frodo leaves Rivendell on December 25 and arrives at Mount Doom (Golgotha) on March 25, his journey matching the life of Christ from the Nativity to the Crucifixion.

But go read Pearce's article. It is not long, but unless you have made a study of Lord of the Rings, you may miss the the fundamental richness and religious nature of this entertaining tale.  If you haven't yet seen the original movie version, you can purchase it here.

I Can Not Forgive Them Because...

 Wow.  That Emily Oster article at The Atlantic has hit a nerve. It is not surprising though, since so many many conservative and Chritian groups kept protesting that the actions taken by the government were without merit, only to be dismissed as crazy kooks and worse. We were accused of trying to kill our Leftist fellows.

First up today, is an article at the American Thinker by Paul Krause entited Democrats Declared War on Democracy Through COVID Tyranny.

We were not left in the dark at all. The media, Big Pharma, and Big Government all worked together to destroy our freedoms and ruin the lives of many Americans. Not because we didn’t know what COVID might do to us. But because we were emphatically told that these tyrannical policies of eliminating church services, closing down businesses, and trying to force a national vaccine mandate was going to save lives. There was no ambiguity in what was being promoted and for what reasons.

With inflation raging across the country, grocery bills skyrocketing, and an economy teetering on the brink of stagflation because of our asinine mishandling of COVID, we are also told that “democracy is on the ballot.” Of course, what about democracy and our rights and liberties during the COVID lockdowns? The destruction of democracy and the erosion of social trust was far more ruinous during the pandemic lockdowns than anything else.

...snip...

Some of us were sounding the alarms on COVID tyranny when it was first starting. Lockdown policies were never about saving lives but a test to see how many liberties and rights the government could take away without much pushback by the population. Fear is the main path tyrants take in trying to strip freedom from their citizens. Scare citizens enough and they will enslave themselves to whatever dictates the dear savior will come up with.

This is replaying itself as we approach the November 8 election. Democrats destroyed entire families through their COVID lockdown policies which eliminated businesses, put stress on homes, and harmed the intellectual development of children. Those are years that will be hard to recover, if at all.

COVID tyrants are hoping Americans forget their debacle in handling the pandemic and the tyranny that so many experienced because of it. Families were unable to visit loved ones. Churches were shut down, some never to reopen. Businesses, once staples and pillars of the community, suddenly vanished and are now vacant and rotting with overgrown weeds and mold.

Krause is quite explicit that whatever you call what was, and is happening, whether Communism, or Socialism, or Facscism, or old fashioned tyranny, all these totalitarian systems ultimately are expressions of the  Serpent from the Garden of Eden. The "Our Democracy" supposedly at stake in the coming midterms is not democracy, but the loss of power by those under the influence of the Evil One.  Pride and the desire for power mark them all as of the Devil

Which brings us to an article at Crisis Magazine by Kennedy Hall entitled Pandemic Amnesty? Not So Fast. Hall points out that the Leftists globalists deliberately did this to us, in hopes of breaking us. It was wrong and immoral.

In any case, the author of the piece then attempted to explain away the lunatic behavior she instilled in her child. “These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know.”

It is that last line that bugs me. “We didn’t know.”

As the Irish say: malarkey!

Because, the information was out there. Most of it we have known since the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. It was readily available, but this was just too good a crisis to let go to waste. and since the Left does not believe in God, they have no moral scruples about doing anything to people if it gets them to go along. The media, of course, carrying the water for their Leftist masters, do not get a pass. Hall points to how this all played out in real time with Oster and her cohort:

So, it needs to be asked. Is she asking for amnesty from acting like an Orwellian nutjob, or is she asking for amnesty from being idiotic?

Of course, we should all forgive in a Christian sense; but amnesty is another thing.

I can forgive a murderer, but the murderer doesn’t get amnesty.

I can forgive an idiot—which is good because I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself, otherwise—but the idiot does not have amnesty from being an idiot.

But these people who want to simply move on without acknowledging they were not just wrong but insane believe that being scared because the TV told you to be scared justifies behavior that you don’t need to do penance for, even though you acted like a Hitlerian neophyte.

Make no mistake that there are some who did know, who actively sought a such a virus or worse, and who turned in loose on the public for ideological reasons. Those people should face serious consequences, as a penance. Then there are the media toadies who probably had the information, but ignored it to promote the Leftist agenda. They also should face at the very least a loss of their positions of power. As for Oster's claim that "we just didn't know," I would point out that in a court of law that would not fly. They could have known, had they read and used their critical thinking skills. Still, I would forgive Oster and her ilk if they would acknowledge their failure. But Pride, the cause of Lucifer's downfall, will prevent them from doing so. Therfore, I can not in good concience forgive.

Greta Thunburg Again Haunts the News

 From the inestimable Katie Pavlich comes the truth about Greta Thunburg. Why does this unaccomplished child garner so much public attention.  In any case, is anyone surprised? Greta Thunburg Finally Admits What Climate Activism Is Really All About. It turns out that what she is really after is...drum roll please...to destroy the captialist system. You're surprised, right? No? Neither am I. 

Go read Katie's piece, which includes a lot of twitter traffic from Micheal Shellenberger. You may remember Shellenberger as an environmentalist and former gubinatorial candidate in California.

This is tireseome.  Everytime some crackpot wishes to get some attention, he or she comes out with "I want to destroy the whole capitalist system."  What is surprising is how many are willing to follow them over that cliff.  Look at the ne'er-do-wells who have promoted this idea, staring with Karl Marx.  Marx never built anything, lived on his parents and his buddy Frederick Engles.  He sounds a lot like Fetterman.  But as with this child, none of the people who lead such efforts have ever done anything to improve the world or make life easier for anybody but themselves.  the world could use a few more Mother Teresas and a lot fewer Greta Thunburgs

A pox on all such.

Taking A Pass on Emily Oster's Request For Amnesty at The Atlantic

 At Townhall.com today, Laura Hollis has an article entitled They Knew They Were Wrong; We Warned Them, that reacts to an article at The Altnatic by one Emily Oster asking for forgiveness. She says they didn't know. But as Hollis points out, we warned them. Had they at least listened with an open mind...

The Atlantic magazine featured an article earlier this week authored by Emily Oster, an economist, and professor at Brown University. Oster looks back over the many grievous wrongs that were committed in the name of "public health" during the COVID-19 pandemic and invites us all to "declare a pandemic amnesty."

Hollis answers rather coldly:

I think not.

There should be no "amnesty" for those who held positions of power -- people like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, or the mayors and governors who locked down entire cities and states, or the CEOs who demanded that all their employees take experimental shots or lose their jobs. They have not to request forgiveness. Whether they ultimately do so or not, the only proper response is to see to it that their hands never touch the reins of power again.

But Oster isn't speaking as a power broker; she's just an average American who was wearing masks outside as her 4-year-old son shouted "SOCIAL DISTANCING!" to another child who got "too close" when they were hiking. She's asking for blanket amnesty for the millions of Americans like her.

She acknowledges -- now -- that COVID-19 was not going to be transmitted outdoors. She admits that cloth masks do nothing. She concedes that "schools were closed for too long," and that American children have suffered monumental academic setbacks as a result. But it's not as if getting these things wrong was a "moral failing." "The thing is," she concludes, "we didn't know."

Oh, but you did know. We told you. You didn't listen.

Forgiveness is a process. It requires that the person seeking forgiveness ask for it and at least show sincere repentance. It may also require some form of penance: an act to show repentance. I agree that as for the power brokers, they have not asked, and deserve none. Indeed, some of them deserve jail, but of course that will never happen.

But as for giving blanket amnesty...again no. That mask Nazi that made your life miserable at work has never asked for forgiveness, so deserves none. And you know, given the chance, his authoritarian tendencies will come out again.

And then, there is the very real harm done to countless Americans by the actions of these ignorant people. Children were harmed, young people died as a result of taking the vaccines. There was an apparent drop in male fertility as a result of the vaccines. This is not something that can be shrugged off because the people who imposed these vaccines on the rest of us supposedly meant well.  But we know that many of them, by their actions, did not mean well.  Whether out of greed or ideology, many meant us harm.

So the answer to Professor Oster's request is "no." Not because those of us who were right want to "gloat" or "keep score." But because if those of us who were demanding free speech, serious scientific inquiry, and truth dismiss the past three years by saying, "Aw -- they meant well," they'll be back next time -- and there will be a next time -- just as ignorant, haughty, shrill and authoritarian as ever.

Update: Joy Pullman at The Federalist has a piece of her own on Oster's article entitled There Can Be No Amnesty on 'Lockdowns' Without a Reckoning.

We the people were never told by the Covid totalitarians that their predictions were “uncertain” and “complicated.” They were so certain of their false claims that they sent police to record the license plates of people who attended church on Easter, a constitutional and human right. They shut down schools while keeping abortion facilities and marijuana dispensaries open. They were so sure of their moral righteousness that they seemingly gleefully threatened people’s ability to feed their kids if they didn’t take experimental injections for a disease that may have posed little risk to them. The vaccine mandates led to dangerous employee shortages at hospitals, police departments, and now in the U.S. military.

None of this deliberately inflicted mass suffering was necessary, and that was all known early on. It wasn’t, as Oster claims, a matter of “deep uncertainty.” Among others, Dr. Scott Atlas very publicly presented strong evidence that mask mandates and shutdowns were poor policy choices throughout 2020. He was brutalized in the media and his own Ivy League university for pointing out this data. So were the eminent authors of the Great Barrington Declaration that made similar data-based arguments, Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff.

As I pointed out at the time, when my work sent me home in March 2020, I had too much time to read, and I had concluded by May of that year that lockdowns, so called "social distancing," mask requirements and other totalitarian measures were necessary. Furthermore, I was skeptical of the vaccines and would not have taken it but feelt pressured to.

Read both articles. Then take your anger and go out and vote. This can never happen again.

40 Years Later, the Attack on Our Civilization Has Ony Intensified

Something different today, something I feel the need to express to dear readers, although the words may fall on deaf ears. Nonetheless, it is something I need to say. Eric Sammons, the editor in chief of Crisis Magazine has an important article on the 40th Anniversary of Crisis Magazine entitled The Present Crisis Revisited. The article takes the original opening salvo of Crisis by the first editors, Ralph McInerny and Michael Novak, and juxtiposes it onto the situation today. But why is the magazine called Crisis?

At the beginning, Ralph McInerny and Michael Novak—the founders of Catholicism in Crisis—lay out the stakes, and they are significant: our very Christian-based civilization is under attack. Forty years later, who would say they are wrong? I’m sure neither McInerny nor Novak imagined a day where a Catholic would be attacked for simply affirming that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, yet here we are. If anything, the attack on our civilization has only intensified.

Is there a Christian minister who believes that the rights which he daily enjoys and which he takes for granted, like the air he breathes, would be his to enjoy unless these rights had been fought for by Cromwell, by William of Orange and by Washington? Are Protestants in the United States to live off the liberties which others are maintaining for them and then express complete indifference to the fate of those whose sacrifice makes the tranquil and serene life of American Christians possible? Should this become the American Protestant attitude toward the world, it would inscribe one of the darkest pages of the annals of the Church.

Today is All Saints Day, but yesterday was the 505th anniversary of the Reformation, when Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church. Lutheran churches celebrated, as did a number of other protestant denominations. First, I don't think Martin Luther would be pleased celebrating what turned into a schism with the Roman church. I believe he wanted for his churces to eventually reconcile with the Church at Rome. Unfortuantely, politics in the Gernan prinicpalities of the time got in the way.  Second, faithful Catholics find themselves in a similare place as faithful Catholics did 505 years ago. One has to wonder at times, without irony, if the Pope is actually Catholic?   Does the church leadership actually believe what the church teaches?  It often seems as if the Devil has overtaken the Church.

And yet, Jesus tells us that nothing will triumph over his Church.  We are assured that He has already won.  What faithful Catholics, indeed all people must hang onto is...well...faith.  Please read Eric Sammon's piece at Crisis Magazine.  Recognize that it is all in God's hands, and it would be a good idea if more of us acknowledged the fact and humbly prayed.  Think about it.