The Democrat Party Has Become a Death Cult

 The Democrat sacrament of abortion is the modern-day equivalent of the sacrifice of first-born children to Molock.  Many of the kings of Israel were guilty of "passing their children through the fire" of Molock, which is a euphemistic way of saying that their children were literally thrown alive into the fire that burned in the belly of the image of Molock.  King Ahab was notorious for this perversion.  As a result, God allowed the Israelites to be carried off into captivity.  The 10 Northern tribes were scattered and never returned.

At the Democratic National Convention (DNC) held earlier this month, abortion was highlighted as a part of the party platform.  This immorality was sickening and cannot go on.  Whether you believe that the God of creation causes things to happen, or you believe that the universe itself, or as the ancient Greeks had it, Fate, can lead man to destruction, our continued tolerance of this practice will lead to our downfall. 

At the American Thinker yesterday, Thomas Klocek had an article entitled The Democrat Abortion Convention.

The Democrat Abortion Convention is over. The Democrats have vowed to keep abortion front and center during this election cycle. Their push for abortion is graphically evident at the Democrat National Convention (DNC) by the grisly presence of a mobile abortuary provided by Planned Parenthood (PP). They have virtually nothing else to run on. The record of the Biden-Harris administration has been constructed with one lie upon another, from inflation being only temporary to the strength of our military and economy (with its $35 trillion debt), to “slashing” the deficit, to “the border is secure.” Abortion hurts women and society, a characteristic of this administration, just like their attempted changes to Title IX hurts women.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan (NY) has identified the Democrat party as the “Party of Death.” They have made abortion the centerpiece of their policies, some going so far as to say pro-lifers are not welcome in the party, although about one-third of Democrats claim to be pro-life.

The Culture of Death is a Culture of Lies. In order to support abortion they need to keep the lies coming and obfuscate or deny the truth about life. They have even tried to claim biblical and religious support for their culture of death. This issue is about the dehumanization of life. In Europe and Canada we have seen an increase, not only in abortion (e.g., Ireland) but also euthanasia. As for a biblical perspective, there are many references to being formed in the womb, but this one is pretty clear: “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.” Wisdom 1:13 Other examples include Psalm 139:13, “you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” (Cf. Is 44:2, Is 49:5, Jer 1:5, to name a few) To support the tearing apart of this work of God in the womb is contrary to God’s will.

I would add that Jesus himself said in Luke, chapter 20, verse "38 For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” Klocek goes on to point out the monstrous lies that are told to justify the practice of abortion. For example, that women deserve reproductive freedom, or that aborting your child is actually an act of love. Really?

Another lie is that abortion is an act of love. How can murdering one’s baby be an act of love? An act of love would be to carry the baby to term (healthier for the mother than an abortion) and give it up for adoption. Or, even greater, raise the baby yourself. Certainly this will involve sacrifice, but there is no sacrifice without love and there is no love without sacrifice. And most of those women who do so are happy with their child and with their choice, even victims of rape.

Yet there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians (and even Catholics) who not only believe that abortion is okay, but avidly promote it. The Didache, a first-century Christian teaching document, prohibited abortion as does the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

God is the Creator. He created man in His image and likeness. Abortion is an act of destruction, not creation. But God is not in the Democrat platform.

The only love in abortion is self-love to the exclusion of all else, meaning you hate everything that is not you, including God, essentially making yourself an idol. Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights” must be defended with maximum determination. (Christifideles Laici). Note recently that Harris conveniently left the “right to life” out of her attempted quote of the Declaration of Independence.

Please read all of Klocek's article, and the links to other articles. I was struck by the recent ad for the Harris campaign that showed several teenaged girls telling us that if Trump is elected, their abortion "rights" will be taken away, and to please think of them when we vote. My first reaction is that I AM thinking of them. Do they want to have the killing of their child on their consciences for the rest of their lives? Do they want to become infertileause of botched abortions? Do they want to experience the pain of losing a child? Believe me, I do think of them. I hope gentle readers will too.

Another Gun Grabber Speaks

 Over at Ammoland, David Codrea has a particularly angry and biting article entitled Gun Prohibitionist Ultimatum Warrants Appropriate Gun Owner Response. I do not blame Codrea in the least. Once again, we have a gun-grabber trying to relitigate the past 100 years of the "gun debate" and impose his chosen "solution." In his fevered mind, we are to give up our rights because if we don't, he will do worse. Like Codrea, I say to go ahead and do your worst. I will not disarm.

“I would personally suggest the gun control groups develop a BATNA to help induce more good-faith negotiating,” Tom H. Hastings, Director of the Peace and Nonviolence Studies, Conflict Resolution graduate program at Portland State University and Secretary for the Oregon Peace Studies Consortium writes in the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal.

“BATNA?” Hastings asks rhetorically (“Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement”). “It simply means that, if you are trying to negotiate with anyone, it’s important to not only think about ‘what if these negotiations fail,’ but to let the others know what you will be forced to do in that case.”

What does Hastings believe he’s “negotiating,” with whom, and what will he feel compelled to do if his demands aren’t met?

"My choice of BATNA would be, ‘Look gun rights people, we want to negotiate common sense regulations with you,” Hastings explains. “However, literally every time we pass such measures at the local or state level, you work to overcome the will of the people by challenging those commonsense measures in court, with your lawsuits, and it’s all based on the Second Amendment.”

“So we have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement,” Hastings imagines. “Our BATNA is that we are going to stop all other gun control work and focus all our resources on a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment.”

No carrot, just the stick? Give us everything we demand or we’re going to take even more? Hastings’ use of the term “negotiating” invokes nothing so much as Inigo Montoya’s famous “You keep using that word” line from The Princess Bride.

Here’s a counter-BATNA, Mr. Hastings: No. Your move.

Here's the thing: a negotiation requires that both sides give up something of value to achieve a common goal. In the case of the gun debate, gun owners are asked to give up a valuable right, the right of armed self-defense, in exchange for what, exactly? This has been the gun-gabbers cry all along. We are supposed to give up our rights in exchange for nothing. The other side "feels" unsafe and that is supposed to be our problem. But they could grow a pair and change how the feel just as easily.  What Mr. Hastings is offering sounds more like terms of surrender, as if he had won a battle or something. Well, no thank you. I will keep my guns, and Hastings can go pound sand.

Please read the whole article. Codrea has some choice words for this hippie peacenik.

Having Jettisoned God, the Democrats Hail Their New Death Cult

 I did not watch the whole DNC convention, but as is usual, I saw enough of the gag-worthy event to know it was, as one suspects, truly awful.  The first thing I noted about it was that there was a Planned Parenthood (sic) van parked out front of the arena so people could go in and have an abortion or a vasectomy.  In a just world, the organization would be called Planned Non-parenthood.  But we live in Bizzarro World where everything is upside down. The Babylon Bee mocked this open afront to our senses.  The National Catholic Register said in Democrats Double and Triple Down on Abortion:

We won’t know until November whether going all-in for abortion will prove to be a winning strategy electorally for Democrats. But we don’t need to wait another two months to denounce the celebratory and mocking tone of the pro-abortion advocacy on display at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.

It’s immoral and despicable.

The convention’s launch on Aug. 19 coincided with the shocking spectacle of a Planned Parenthood abortion van deliberately parked directly adjacent to the DNC site, the United Center in Chicago, with the obvious complicity of Democratic officials. Planned Parenthood proudly announced beforehand that the van would provide free so-called “medication” abortions via distribution of the deadly drug mifepristone, as well as sterilizations via vasectomy and the distribution of contraception.

Today, at the American Thinker Fay Voshell has an article entitled A Death Cult's Worship Service that tells even the nonbeliever what is manifestly wrong with abortion. It is the killing of innocent children  in the womb. If somebody was killing a child in front of you, would you not react to stop him?  And vasectomy is little better.  But what makes this more shocking is the open celebration of the act.  Voshell calls it a new religious cult, and she is right.

Viewers of the four-day Democratic National Convention were treated to more than a political gathering. They saw a spectacle that has been the equivalent of a four-day-long religious retreat. The services proved that the religious impulse never dies. It just takes on new shapes and forms reflecting the core values of devotees.

Observers saw a number of quasi-religious ceremonies, including a liturgical procession of pilgrims dressed in white costumes symbolizing abortion pills.

Potential converts also were invited to visit a small chapel in the form of a van placed by Planned Parenthood. There, disciples of the religion/political cult could observe the initiation rites deemed necessary for entrance into the realm of the 144,000 chosen of the left.

The Planned Parenthood high priests offered initiates the modern-day equivalent of cults promoting castration and child sacrifice in the form of free vasectomies and abortion pills. Women got on stage and offered testimonies about the salvation abortion had afforded them. Many of the female congregants wore white, a symbol of purity of mind and heart.

Ms. Voshell points out that cults have appeared in history before. They usually run their course before the mountain of absurdities and conflicts with reality cause disciples to look elsewhere. She cites the flagellant cult of the middle ages, who went around flagellating themselves in imitation of Christ's scourging. But Christ did not scourge himself, and never demanded we scourge ourselves. I think an even better example are the Shakers, a cult who among other things practiced celibacy. You can imagine that few wanted to join, and having no children, they died out, leaving behind Shaker furniture.

The flagellants’ beliefs and motives, distorted as they have been, still represent a contrast to the political/religious procession at the beginning of the DNC, in which death was celebrated. Not only was the extinguishment of human life promoted, but the prevention of even the seed to fertilize the beginning of life was seen as a sacramental means of regeneration and vivification of the Self.

Such a distorted idea of human salvation and well-being is why the left celebrates what Rush Limbaugh truthfully named its “sacrament” of abortion. The abortion pill is a sacramental wafer offered by priests and priestesses devoted to death. It is the means through which budding life is flushed from the body in order for a woman’s life to be saved from an unfulfilled destiny. By taking and eating it, the body is rid of a toxic encumbrance.

The ritual promoting death is in direct contrast to the Christian sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, so recently mocked during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. For Christians, receiving the eucharistic wafer mysteriously but truly imparts the life of Christ to the recipient. It is taken in obedience to the words of Christ to his disciples recorded in Matthew 26. For the believing Christian, it gives renewed life.

What a contrast between the eucharistic wafer and the abortion pill that ensures death, not life.

I ask gentle readers to please read Fay Voshell's article. She asks rhetorically of her readers “Are those representatives at the convention the best lights the Democrat party has to offer? Is their advocacy of mutilation and death the way to personal and societal salvation?" But on a deeper level, if you are currently pregnant and thinking of abortion, you have already done something that will change your life. There is no turning back. You will if the pregancy goes to term experience the joy and sorrows of motherhood. But if you have that abortion, you will instead have the blood guilt on your concience for the rest of your life. Think about when you are 75, and still have that on your concience every day. Is it worth it?

Freedom Is One Election Away from Being Extinguished

 Vince Conyer has an article at the American Thinker today entitled Britain, Which Birthed American Ideas About Liberty, Has Embraced Despotism. In the article he quotes President Ronald Reagan: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." A correlary to this is that getting it back will take much blood and treasure. For politicians who once grabbed for our liberty will be loathe to give it up.

When I grew up, Great Britain was exotic. There were the red telephone booths, Buckingham Palace, black cabs, and, of course, the Bobbies (police) and the Beefeaters. England was the land of Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, and Henry IV. For me, Britain was history incarnate.

Obviously, part of that comes from the fact that, as Americans, we share a great deal of history with the British. Not only did we split from Britain in 1776, but our history continued to stay close until modern times…from the US joining Britain in the fight to end slavery to fighting two world wars together to the British Invasion in the 1960s that brought us the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks.

Modern England largely dates back to 1066, when William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel and put the finishing touches on a unification that had been evolving since the Romans abandoned the island in 410 AD. (For clarity, as the terms are often used interchangeably, the United Kingdom (UK) is a sovereign nation comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. “Great Britain” is the largest island in the British Isles, containing England, Scotland, and Wales, but not Northern Ireland.)

The 1,000-year span since has seen Britain, like the rest of the world, evolve—always, however haltingly, in the direction of freedom. This journey began with the Magna Carta, agreed to by King John in 1215. A watershed event in Western culture, it limited the King’s powers and declared he was subject to the law, guaranteed church rights, access to an impartial system of justice, and limited taxes.

I would point out that while Britain gave us our ideas about freedom and liberty, the system of government in Britain is not the same as here. In Britain, the Crown, represented by the king, as the representative of the divine, gave the people the rights it wanted them to have. The people were, and are, subjects of the Crown.

In the United States, the rights of man are given to him by the Creator God, and he lends some them to the Sovereign state for the common good. But he always can take them back when the state acts against his interests. As Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, men will suffer a lot of abuse rather than revolt. But there comes a time when men must take back their God given rights and throw off the government they have and form a new one.  (see below)

Thus, contrast the past with the Britain of today:

The genesis of today’s dystopia began almost three decades ago when immigration took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The number of non-EU immigrants averaged over 200,000 per year for a decade and then skyrocketed after 2020. A nation of 55 million in 2000 is today over 65 million, with almost all of that growth coming from immigration, a majority from non-EU nations, particularly from the Middle East and Africa, countries that don’t share British culture or, importantly, religion. (It’s also likely that many of the ostensibly EU immigrants originated in non-EU countries.)

As a consequence, London, home to 20% of England’s population, has gone from approximately 80% native white British in 1991 to approximately 36% in 2021. The native population has surely shrunk more since then.

The result of this transformation of Britain from a largely British nation to something else has been monstrous. Possibly the single most despicable example is the 20-plus-year Rotherham child rape scandal that saw hundreds of Pakistani Muslims rape over a thousand British girls right under the noses of police who did nothing for fear of being called racists. As if that wasn’t bad enough, those who dared report on the various trials—see, e.g., here and here—found themselves jailed for doing so.

There is more to this story, to be sure. No doubt, British politicians, disatisfied with their current electorate decided to import a new electorate. No doubt also the politicians will cover their true motives with vague words that can mean anything like "multiculturalism" and "anticolonialism" and "reparations for colonial abuses." But the proof is in the pudding, and the traditional yeoman British subject finds himself at the bottom of the ladder, and he better shut up about it or else.

Like Turkey and Venezuela before it, Britain demonstrates that a single election can make the difference between freedom and tyranny. As we approach November 5th, we just might want to take note…

*After thoughts:  Many in the Roman Church have a problem with the American system of government, based on Paul's epistle to the Romans chapter 13 verse 4.  But they read this too broadly and conclude that God appoints rulers and rulers rule over subjects.  Thus, the rulers have the power to determine a person's rights by the "Divine Right of Kings."  Paul was only referring to just laws in accord with the laws of God.  There is ample evidence in the Old Testament that God enjoined rulers to rule justly, without prejudice, and punished those who delivered injustice.   Moreover, Jesus himself noted that we were to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.  And what do we own our God?  Nothing less that our complete love, trust and loyalty.

The Popes have styled themselves as the Vicar of Christ and just like Paul's letter to the Romans, believe that Christ passes His authority to His Vicar, who in turn rules the world.  In this scheme, we owe our love, trust and loyalty to the Vicar of Christ, and through him to God.  He thus imposes himself between the individual and Christ, who is our intercessor to God.  I think this is a misreading of the Bible.

Now, nobody has ever completely loved, trusted, nor granted his complete loyalty to God.  But the Bible offers glimpses of what it would be like if we could completely empty ourselves and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Jesus stands as the exception because Jesus was God incarnate.  And Jesus is pretty clear that faith in Him, and thus salvation is granted to individuals, not to groups.  Indeed, there were many that did not believe in him, and others who believed for utilitarian purposes.  These Jesus condemned. But, we can draw the conclusion the idea that God grants each individual with rights.  And if each individual has rights, he can delegate some of them to a ruler for the common good while retaining others.  Therefore, a democratic Republican form of government is possible under Christian principles.  But it is not possible under Islam or the many pagan religions.*   

How Democrats Plan to Erode the Second Amendment

Over at Ammoland Lee Williams has a post telling us The Harris/Walz Game Plan for Attacking the Second Amendment. A lot of it is Unconstitutional, but as we have seen over and over, it takes years, even decades to get a grievance before the Supreme Court, and even then one is never sure what will happen. (And as a side note, how is it that Harris can get on the ballot in all fifty states, but Biden could not? Just wondering...)

If you’re planning tyranny, at least don’t put it in writing. That seems to be the guiding principle behind the Harris-Walz administration’s 2024 Democratic Party Platform. In terms of gun control, their once radical ideas are now missing or appear watered down.

The campaign finally released the platform Monday night, including its gun control plans called “Protecting Communities & Tackling the Scourge of Gun Violence.”

According to the platform, the Democrats want:

Universal background checks.

“Assault weapon” and standard-capacity magazine bans

Mandatory safe-storage laws

Repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act

Increased red-flag laws

Increased funding for the ATF

Increased funding for the FBI, to conduct more background checks

Increased funding for the CDC, “because the gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis.”

Most of these ideas are unconstitutional, and all have been floated before. They’re bad enough, but the real issue is what was not included in the platform, because if Harris and Walz told voters their true intent, they’d never get elected.

So, that is what they are telling us about. Harris has also said that if elected, and if Congress does not act, she is prepared to write executive orders putting some of these into "law." I put "law" in scare quotes because under our system of government, a president cannot make up his own "laws." Executive orders are meant to clarify how executive agencies will execute laws written by Congress only. But as we have seen, presidents now seem to feel that they can write their own laws whenever they can't get Congress to act on their desires as if they were Sovereign Kings. And as we have also seen, the Supreme Court is slow to act, and even then, presidents feel they can ignore the Court, again as if they were Sovereign Kings.

Another problem is the issuing of illegal orders to law enforcement agencies:

During the pandemic, Gov. Walz ordered police to keep Minnesotans indoors. If officers encountered folks outside their homes, either on their porch or in their yard, he ordered police to shoot them with paintballs. To be clear, if a civilian did the same, they would face aggravated battery charges. To no one’s surprise, some officers complied with Walz’s illegal order. This proves Walz has no compunction with ordering law enforcement to break the law and violate civil rights. If elected, the Harris-Walz administration will find a group of federal officers more than willing to carry out their illegal orders – the ATF. Like Walz, ATF agents have proven they do not care about civil rights or breaking state law. Expect a massive surge in unconstitutional “knock & talks” – home invasions conducted under the guise of what the ATF calls “consensual encounters.” Once unleashed, the ATF will target law-abiding gun owners and federally licensed gun dealers with a frequency and a ferocity never seen before.

I ask gentle readers to go read the whole article by Lee Williams and consider this: Have either candidate for president and vice president ever shown any respect for the Constitution and laws as written. As a prosecutor, Harris flaunted the law to achieve the results she wanted. This is not the job of a prosecutor. And she has continued this pattern throughout the various offices she has held. Neither she, nor Walz are fit for the office of president. Indeed, they are not fit for any office, not even dog catcher.

When People Believe the Ends Justify the Means

Is the Democrat party a political party or an organized crime cartel? That is the question Monica Showalter asks at the American Thinker today in a post entitled Just how dirty are the Democrats? Nicole Shanahah describes a long string of outrageous acts against the RFK, Jr campaign. In her statement she lays the blame squarely on her erstwhile allies, the Democrats, and totally exonerates the Republicans in the affair.

Now, RFK, Jr. may be a perfectly nice individual, and a gentleman.  And Nichole Shanahan may be incredibly naive; I don't know either of them. But they still hold to most of the Democrat agenda, which includes things like gun-grabbing and the "right" to abortion, the "right" to have others pay for your health care, etc. So, while I sympathize with Ms. Shanahan's feelings on the matter, I do not endorse the RFK, Jr. campaign. It would impose the same Leftist, Marxist government on the American people as the Kamala campaign.

Still, I urge you to watch Shanahan as she describes the various ways the Democrats underhandedly, and in some cases illegally, have worked to undermine the RFK, Jr. campaign. Which brings us back to Showalter's post:

Maybe the question should be raised about breaking up this lawless party given its lawless nature. At a minimum, Congress should hold hearings. And the Trump Republicans should welcome them into the fold the way big ships rescue lifeboats for this election. This is about saving democracy and a two-party system. With Democrats gone, in coming years, they can be the liberal party and the Trumpsters can be the conservative party, with honorable competition of ideas, not the dirty Democrat deeds we see now. This shouldn't be what politics in a free society is about.

I think it would be a very good idea to charge the Democrat party under RICO. It would be a very good idea to send some of its most egregious members to jail. It is what they themselves would do, given how afraid they are that the Republicans will do it. The punishments under a RICO conviction would be appropriate. But you cannot legislate morality, you can only legislate the punishments for breaking the law. As long as people do not trust the rest of us to come to correct conclusiions, as as long as they believe that the ends justify the means, the problem of political dirty tricks will be with us.

Go Woke, Go Broke

Mrs.  PolyKahr owns a Dodge Challenger.  Our grandson, when one of us takes him to school, prefers to ride in the Challenger rather than my stogy, if practical vehicle.  Yet Dodge announced last year that they would discontinue the popular Charger and the more muscley Challenger.  Mike McDaniel has the story at the American Thinker entitled Dodge emasculates muscle cars.

A long-profitable niche for American car makers has been the all-American muscle car. Low-slung, two door sedans with enormous horsepower, wide tires, aggressive styling and the low rumble of those powerful V-8 engines. There’s nothing quite like them, and they sell for a premium. Ford made the Mustang, Chevy the Camaro, and Dodge, the Charger and Challenger.

They were initially designed to go fast in a straight line, but as technology improved and suspensions became more sophisticated, they began to hold their own on the racetrack as well as the drag strip, and their internal amenities began to rival luxury sedans. Dodge’s 2023 Challenger, available in a variety of models, boasted a beginning price of $32,800. But engines of over 700 horsepower were available, pushing the MSRP to some $99,315. The more horsepower, the higher the price, and prices from $60,000 to $80,000 were demanded for the real muscle cars.

And suddenly, in August of 2022, Dodge announced beginning in the 2024 model year, there would be no low, V-8 rumble, at least not a gasoline-powered rumble. Dodge was going full woke and would henceforth produce only electric powered muscle cars.

I have wondered, time and again, what drives executives to believe that any of this woke garbage is what the American public wants? One suspects they are the sole audience for MSNBC, which explains MSNBC's tiny ratings. Yes, there is a small...note "small"...market for EVs, though Tesla is by far the dominant brand here. But anyone who travels routinely anywhere understands that finding the next charge is akin to ancient cave men finding the next antelope. Perhaps you will, then again, perhaps you will not.

Enthusiasts tout the EV like it is the next great revolution in transportation, akin to the days of horse drawn carriages yielding to the automobile. But you have to realize that they have been pushing these ideas since the early 1980s, when some self-styled "futurist" drove a electric contraption resembling a golf cart around a track and telling us it was the next big thing. Of course, I am still waiting for the flying cars they promised us in the 1950s. The fact is that EVs will always be a niche market.

But, back to the Challenger, one of the things buyers of these vehicles like is the throaty sound of the V8 engine. Together with the quick response to the throttle, it is a major part of the muscle car experience.

Muscle car enthusiasts willing to part with nearly $100,000 dollars aren’t going to be satisfied with muscle cars with fake muscle. Replacing the throaty roar of a V-8 with the muted whine of electric motors isn’t going to raise their blood pressure, and Dodge knew it two years ago. They touted their “Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust” and their “eRupt Multispeed Transmission, as viable replacements for the real thing.

The exhaust system on the concept Charger, which [Dodge CEO Tim] Kuniskis said is as loud as a Hellcat engine, pushes sound through an amplifier and tuning chamber located at the rear of the vehicle. He compared it to a wind organ with chambers and pipes.

“Exhaust system?” EVs have no exhaust systems. Perhaps the “exhaust system” will expel unused electrons? What Kuniskis is trying to sell is a stereo system that plays, at enormous volume, a sampled simulation of the real thing. And the “eRupt” transmission is software that momentarily interrupts power delivery to the electric motors to simulate the shifting of real transmissions.

Really? A stereo system? When will automobile makers learn: Go woke, go broke. The tell tail sign that EVs are a part of the woke ideology is that government feels the need to subsidize them. A true improvement stands on its own, and nobody has to subsidize it because the market is always looking for the next thing.

The Ninth Circus...er ...Circuit Stikes A Blow for the Second Amendment?

 I am not shocked too often by the news.  After all, man's cruelty to man is a feature (or bug) of human nature since we first walked the earth, and it is not likely to ever change.  But sometimes it happens.  In this case, two anti-gun groups came out with remarkably pro-gun statements.

The first is the Ninth Circuit, often characterized as the Ninth Circus for the unbelievable rulings that have come out of it.  One has to wonder if the judges of the Ninth Circuit are partaking of a little too much of the product of the Napa valley.  Anyway, The Ninth Circuit Upholds the Second Amendment according to Mike McDaniel at the American Thinker today.

The Ninth Circuit court is infamous as the circuit most overturned by the Supreme Court. It has been notoriously leftist in its decisions, often ignoring the law and Constitution in favor of progressive ideology. It has been particularly fervent in ignoring the Second Amendment, which is why the Court’s recent response to California’s gun rationing law is so unusual.

The law in question restricts Californians to buying only one handgun every 30 days. There is no evidence this restriction has ever contributed to public safety. How could it? If a criminal bought a handgun, but couldn’t buy a second for 30 days, that would somehow prevent them from using the first gun in crimes?

Good question. But wait, don't most criminals buy the guns they use in crime from the black market in guns, which if truth be told are merely stolen from law abiding people? So, the first thing one needs to understand is that this law doesn't present a barrier to the criminal in any way, since they don't, by definition, obey the law. Instead, it burdens the law abiding individual.

For an example, see the following quote taken from a Bearing Arms article on the same subject:

Judge Danielle Forrest wondered if someone doesn't own any firearms, and it's impossible for them to legally purchase more than one at a time, how their core Second Amendment right to possess arms for self-defense wouldn't be implicated if they, for instance, wanted to have a gun in their primary residence and a vacation home, or one for their home and another for their business.

Wen's response was that the individual in question could "borrow" a firearm until they were allowed under California law to purchase another; a circumstance that could only take place if the individual a) knows someone else who owns a handgun and b) is willing to part with it, even temporarily.

Laws that do what they are advertised to do are worth making, if those who break them are prosecuted and punished. But too often, they laws, particularly around guns, are designed to harass legal gun owners and make it so difficult as to discourage people from exercising their Constitutionally protected rights. Government should never find itself in that business.

The second item that shocked my is to be found at Bearing Arms in an article by Tom Knighton entitled SHOCKER! The Guardian Makes Valid Point on Guns. The valid point, not directly said, but made anyway is that guns don't kill people, people kill people using guns. Indeed, people kill people using guns, knives, or anything else at hand that can be used as a weapon including hands and feet. The first recorded murder was committed with a rock. God was not pleased.

When I want a reasoned take on guns, The Guardian from the UK isn't who comes to mind.

Over the years, they've run numerous anti-gun stories and opinion pieces and their take on the right to keep and bear arms is well understood. They're pretty OK with the fact that the UK doesn't have it.

So I don't expect a reasonable take from them on guns. Ever.

Yet, it seems it happened.

The piece has the headline, "‘Wherever you have drugs, you have guns’: why is there an epidemic of violence in the Caribbean?"

Well, yes, wherever you do have drugs, there you will find guns also. Drugs are a very profitable, if illegal business. If someone steals some of the drug dealers' property, they can't run and complain to the police, now can they? So, they must defend their property themselves, and that means guns. And where you can smuggle drugs, you can smuggle guns as well.

This line of reasoning, of course, points to the total folly of so-called gun control, which usually means gun bans and gun confiscation. It doesn't work as intended because, as point out, guns can be smuggled in just as easily as drugs. Unlike drugs, though, guns do have a legitimate use. Therefore there can be no excuse for gun control other than to impose tyanny on a population.

Was Nehemiah the First Pharisee?

I want to say that I am not a professional theologian. I am strictly amatuer, so take the following with a grain of salt.

 What is the difference between Christianity and every other religion, you may ask.  Actually, there are many differences, but I think the principle thing is that the God who created everything that is in heaven and on earth loves us.  He loved us before he created us.  He loved us despite us doing wrong against His instruction.  He loves us even though we do not love him, or our fellow man.  Most of all, He loves us not because of who WE are, but because of who HE is.  For most other religions, consideration from the god is purely conditional upon doing something great or heroic that the god desires, for which he or she may deign save you.

I was thinking about this today as we finished up reading Nehemiah in our daily readings.  Nehemiah was the governor of Judah under the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes.  The Judeans had been conquered by Babylon, which was in turn was conquered by the Persian Empire under Emperor Cyrus.  Cyrus was moved by the Holy Spirit to allow the Judeans to return to their homeland and rebuild the City of Jerusalem.  The books of Ezra, the Priest, and Nehemiah the governor tell us about the return from captivity.

While in captivity, the Jews pondered what it was that they did so wrong to cause Yahweh, the God of Israel to punish them by allowing Babylon to conquer them.  Of course, they had plenty of warning from the various prophets about things like sacrificing to foreign gods, to Baal, Astarte and especially to Molech, and making images of these gods.  Moreover, they did not trust in Him, which caused them to go after other gods.  But their conclusions were typically wrong-headed and sought to bribe God by following every jot and tittle of the law instead of just loving Him and being repentant.

The so-called Second Temple Theology in my humble and not so learned opinion began with Nehemiah.  Someone found a copy of the "law" of God (the first 5 books of the Bible) and read it to Nehemiah.  Fearing a repeat of the Babylon captivity, he set out to cause Jewish men who had married wives from the nations to divorce their wives for example.  He closed the gates of Jerusalem to prevent merchants from selling their goods on the Sabbath. Nehemiah in the last chapter of his book makes these statements:

15In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. 16Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.

17Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, “What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? 18Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

19So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day. 20Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of [b]wares [c]lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

21Then I warned them, and said to them, “Why do you spend the night [d]around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you!” From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath. 22And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should go and guard the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy!

Was Nehemiah the first Pharisee? Could be. He seems to believe that Yahweh is a mercurial and vengeful deity ready to exact punishment for any slight. He also believes as evidenced by his statement above that God's salvation depends on things he does. But what we learned in the Psalms is that loving and trusting in our God can cover a world of sin. When David killed Uriah and took his wife Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan called him out. Thereafter, David repented and wrote Psalm 51:

14Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,

The God of my salvation,

And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.

15O Lord, open my lips,

And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

16For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;

You do not delight in burnt offering.

17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise.

God did not desire that they slavishly followed every one of the 613 "laws" of God every day for however long one lived and then, maybe, he would save them. He desired rather we had a humble contrite heart and a relationship with the Him.

Another American Icon Bites the Dust

As a former motorcyclist (actually, I still have a motorcycle endorsement on my driver's licence) I am saddened to see what Harley Davidson has become. Mike McDaniel has the story at the American Thinker today entitled Harley Davidson goes woke?. Apparently, H-D hired a German...German?...to be its CEO, and he doesn't know motorcycles, but does know all the latest buzz words and stupid ideas coming out of business schools. If you know Harley, then you know that making Harley Davidson motorcycles electric will kill the company. The Motor Company has been making V-Twin motorcycles for over a hundred years, and the unique sound of a V-Twin is part of the lore of H-D. McDaniel notes:

There are some brands strongly identified with America, with American values and ideals and with American design and quality. They’re known and coveted around the world, prestige symbols here and abroad. That’s why it’s so dumbfounding when the makers of those profitable, iconic, products do incredibly stupid things to fix what isn’t broken.

Remember “New Coke?” “Crystal Pepsi?” Those dimwitted marketing stunts were pre-woke, pushed by people who thought they knew better than Americans what Americans wanted.

In the woke era in which we currently suffer, the most notorious example of marketing dimwittery is Budweiser’s abortive association with trans Tinkerbell Dylan Mulvaney. Not only did a newly minted marketing executive think that a good idea, she also insulted Bud’s customer base, telling them, in essence, they‘d better get with the woke program or be left behind. That bit of legendary marketing brilliance cost Anheuser-Busch nearly $7 billion in market capitalization virtually overnight, and knocked Bud Lite out of its top spot, a blow from which it has never recovered.

...snip...

It’s inexplicable. Harley owners have long been faithful to Harley, even when there was little to be faithful about. There were long stretches when Harleys were reasonably good machines, but not very good motorcycles, and other stretches when if a motorcycle was broken down at the roadside, it was a 99% certainty it was a Harley. Harleys have never been inexpensive. Yet through all that, Harley owners stuck to their brand and wouldn’t ride foreign-made motorcycles.

Their faithfulness was eventually rewarded. Harleys became much more reliable, retaining their big, rumbling V-twin character, while expanding into an ever-increasing model line of good, reliable, attractive motorcycles that met nearly every motorcycling need and look. For anyone wanting to buy American, Harley was the choice, though Indian has been making some inroads into that demographic. Harley was the all-American motorcycle, the mount of the proudly patriotic--American Iron--a motorcycle like no other.

And then, in 2020, Harley hired as CEO a German, one Jochen Zeitz.

I actually find the idea that companies can hire someone who doesn't know the brand, doesn't even have any experience with the product or a competitor's product.  The make that person its CEO, and expect him succeed...it's insane. What were they thinking? For that matter, what was Bud Light thinking? Despite the fact that many of our ancestors came from Europe, we are not like Europeans, any more than Black Americans are like Africans. But the Communist/socialist/Marxist globalists keep insisting that we will be changed...darn it...and fall into their one world government. It ain't gonna happen.

I urge gentle readers to click on the linked articles and go read about how Harley Davidson is betraying Harley owners.

The Full Power of the Government Will Turn on Us

 I don't usually highlight videos, but this one, by Kurt Schlichter is one worth watching.

Sincere Christians Should Never Vote for Democrats

Trevor Thomas, at the American Thinker today tells us that Sincere Christians Should Never Vote for a Democrat. He gives some pretty convincing examples of the evil and destructiveness of Democrat policies, and these are by no means exhaustive.

Mrs. PolyKahr asked me one time why I am so hard over for Republicans. She styles herself as an "independent" who votes based on the issues. I thought about it and said that it was not that I am in favor of the Republicans, many of whom strike me as self-serving cowards who have no moral character. But I have concluded that the Democrats, especially at the leadership level, are positively evil. As Thomas says, they are "one of the greatest tools of Satan in the world today."

I’ve reached that stage of life where, on occasion, I’m asked for life advice. My best, most succinct answer is this: follow Jesus, and don’t vote for Democrats. The reason for the former part of my statement is widely known, and the reason for the latter is simple: the Democrat party is one of the greatest tools of Satan in the world today.

Let me pause here to cite the embedded article just above, written in 2014, ten years ago:

To be sure, Americans have seen immoral leaders of every stripe and flavor. However, in the history of our nation, only the pro-slavery Democrats of the 19th century rival the immorality practiced and preached by today’s liberals that lead the modern Democrat Party.

Support of everything from abortion, to gender perversions, homosexuality, pornography, a redefinition of marriage, wicked climate policies, and an enslaving welfare state have made today’s Democrat Party little more than a modern-day Mephistopheles. Instead of magic to lure their Faustian targets, today’s Democrats employ, among other things, bribery, class warfare, fear, greed, lust, propaganda, scientism, vengeance, and violence.

The evidence is, of course, all around us. This is especially the case given that we are in the midst of another election season. Take note of the political ads run by Democrats. How long before we get to meet the next Julia or Pajama Boy? How many times will we get to hear about, if elected, what Democrats will do in order to give out more goodies from the government? Where will the next fraudulent statistics in the “War on Women” originate?

I have wondered how so many people can vote for these Democrats, who lead America astray as did the ancient Kings of Israel such as Ahab. Oh, I realize that Trump is a flawed human being as well. But which one of us is not? I have described the Church as a "sinners anonymous club," after all. The difference is that Republican policies generally decrease the chaos while Democrat policies increase it. While we can never enjoy absolutely no chaos this side of paradise, the party that reduces chaos is the party leading toward more godliness whereas the party leading to more chaos is obviously leading to more evil.

Thomas calls out a group calling itself "Evangelicals for Harris" which until recently had called itself "Evangelicals for Biden." This is clearly a false flag operation, sort of like happens in the realm of guns. False flag operations are designed to draw off support by sounding like people with similar beliefs are also for the Democrat candidate. In this case, the group is led by one Rev. Jim Ball, PhD.

The Rev. Jim Ball, Ph.D., is author of Global Warming and the Risen LORD. For 20 years he formerly served as a senior executive in a Christian environmental organization. The architect of the “What Would Jesus Drive” educational campaign and the key organizer and national spokesperson for the Evangelical Climate Initiative, Jim has testified before Congress and appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, Fox, CNN, and NPR. He has been featured in the New York Times, and honored by Rolling Stone magazine as one of their environmental “Warriors and Heroes,” and by Time magazine as one of its climate change “innovators.”

Mr. Ball sounds like a reverend in the “New Religion of the First World Elites.” In other words, he sounds more like he’s devoted to the Church of Climate Change than he is to Christianity.

Once again, the Democrats are lying, and that is and always has been their straight up modus operandi. Thus the title of Thomas's piece.

Yet Another Plan That Can Not Work

 I can hear my pastor telling me now that belief in Christ is not utilitarian.  While I agree, certainly defending the West and Western Civilization requires that we also defend Christianity.  And it is a truism that There Is No Western Civilization Without Christianity. Laura Hollis has the story at Townhall.com today. I think it is not required that everyone believe or believe fully. But Christianity must be the dominant religion as the institution that sustains Western culture. Oh, we can tolerate a few Hindus, Sekhs, Buddhists, and a couple of Confucianists. Muslims, on the other hand are our sworn enemies, by their own words. We did not start the war on Muslims, they started the war on us. As I have pointed out in their current war with the Jews, all they need to do to have peace is surrender.

Somewhere along the way, Western governments decided to experiment with "multicultural" societies. None of this was debated. No one ever voted for this. And in the case of the United States, it has been bipartisan. George Bush let in Muslims. Biden has welcomed the whole damn world. The multiculturalist insist that no culture is good or bad, no better or worse than ours. I don't intend to contest that argument here, though it sounds specious on its face. Instead, I want to point out that as a practical matter, a given nation must have a single dominant culture or governing it is total chaos. One cannot have one set of laws for one group, and another for another group.

For a look at what may be in our future:

For the past two weeks, the news has been filled with stories and videos of riots across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The unrest is in response to the murders of three little girls who were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift dance party in Southport, England, on July 29. The accused is a young man whose family emigrated to the U.K. from Rwanda. Although the suspect is a British citizen, Britons took to the streets in angry and violent protests about the massive amount of immigration successive governments have allowed to take place.

Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the protests "far-right thuggery," and virtually every single media outlet has smeared all protesters as "far-right" bigots and racists. This ignores legitimate concerns of the native British population. Ever-larger percentages of Great Britain's residents are not native-born. Forty percent of London's population was not born in Great Britain, and 54% have parents who were born elsewhere. Sixty-three percent of immigrants to Great Britain now come from non-EU countries, and many arrive from countries with religious beliefs and cultural practices that are not only different from those of Great Britain but actively hostile to them.

In a Nov. 2023 interview with former Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, bestselling author Douglas Murray decried the West's absurd hostility to its own history and culture. He cited the recent election of former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf as an example:

"[Yousaf] had himself photographed on his first day in office with a group of other Muslims doing the Islamic prayers in the first minister's office, bending to Mecca. If Kate Forbes (Yousaf's opponent) had become leader and promptly posted a photograph of her and some others taking Holy Communion, I think there would have been an uproar. So why would that have been the case, but no uproar for Humza Yousaf doing the Islamic prayer in the office? Because we want everybody to have religious freedom except ourselves. We want to praise every tradition apart from our own. And we want to promote every belief system other than the one that got us here. That is madness."

...snip...

The West is being overrun because it has grown soft and complacent, disdainful of religion (at least, of Judeo-Christianity), arrogant and egotistical in its belief that either there is no God, or that man's reason -- often phrased as "science" -- should supplant faith. In fact, it's a relatively modern notion that science and religious faith are at odds; both Judaism and Christianity (as well as other religious traditions) have produced some of the greatest scientists in human history.

More to the point, however, the nihilistic absurdities we have witnessed in just the past few years demonstrate that there is neither science nor rationality separate and apart from God. Science, properly done, is supposed to be about the pursuit of truth. But without God as the ultimate source of truth, men soon come to believe that the truth is whatever they say it is, then demand that others agree.

Hollis makes some excellent points above. Science, properly understood is the search for the truth about our material world. It holds no meaning for the spiritual world. And that search can only proceed on the assumption that it is possible to find such truths. And that is based on the assumption that our Creator is a rational God. If our creator was one of the pagan gods, who were capricious and anything but rational, there would be no point.  And that is why "science" as it is, or at least was, understood was a uniquely Christian undertaking. In the absence of Christianity, men define their own "truths" and we wind up with absurdities such as men can become women and vice versa, and men can bear children. It is all a lie and utter madness!

What happens when men begin to believe their own bullsh*t, and when they place themselves on God's throne?

Thus were we told demonstrably, scientifically false statements about COVID-19 and ordered to believe them: about the origins of the virus, the necessity of masking, social distancing and lockdowns, the efficacy of ivermectin and other drugs, and the safety of mRNA "vaccines." Thus, too, are we continually told demonstrably, scientifically false statements as part of the current transgender activism and ordered to believe them: that men can become women, and women can become men, with chemical and surgical interventions, and that young children have the maturity to understand and consent to medical alteration of their bodies that leaves them scarred and often infertile.

Because so many Westerners think themselves "above" nonsense like religion, they pay insufficient attention to those whose religious and political beliefs are about conquest, destruction, enslavement and murder. They casually and happily promote ideologies and policies that undermine the family, threaten the safety of children, attack masculinity, collapse the educational system and weaken society. By way of example, none of the West's enemies will care about our armed forces' alleged "inclusiveness," the number of transgender officers, or the widespread use of sexually confused pronouns, except to see them as further proof of weakness to be exploited.

They also begin to believe that the killing of children in the womb is allowed, even moral. They justify this because some of these mothers are poor, and after all, who wants to be raised in a poor household. Or some of them may be addicted from birth because they mother used drugs, or their "quality of life" might not be as great as one might wish. Again, they place themselves on God's throne using false compassion. What would the people saved by surgeon Ben Carson have done had his mother thought this way?

I urge gentle readers to read all of Hollis's article today. Multiculturalism is a deadly philosophy proposed by so-called "academics" who have too much time, and too little wisdom. It does not and cannot work in the real world. It is time we woke up to this fact.

It's Time To Take Down Big Businesses

Also, another quick note.  Gentle readers should go read J. B. Shurk at the American Thinker today in an article entitled Deep State Plutocrats Have Nowhere to Hide.

The worst mistake the Deep State ever made was to turn conservatives against Big Business. Traditionally, fighting corporate power was the purview of the political left. Conservatives have generally backed “free markets” because they despise socialism’s predilection for choosing economic winners and losers. Conservative voters have long seen government regulation as more of a threat than Wall Street wheeling and dealing.

...snip...

What’s changed over the last ten years is that the vestigial boundary between private markets and government force has all but disappeared. Strangely enough, the corporate embrace of woke-ism as a social philosophy that should be imposed upon consumers has had the serendipitous effect of shattering the imaginary wall once separating Big Business from Big Government. Parents began asking why Target and Disney were shoving transgenderism and child sex changes down their throats. Moviegoers started resenting how Hollywood studios had replaced entertainment with divisive re-education seminars on “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” and “global warming.” Voters were forced to acknowledge that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and corporate news shows were censoring conservative speech and promoting far-left propaganda. Consumers realized that banks were systematically punishing them for their Second Amendment advocacy, religious affiliations, and political beliefs. All of these corporate provocations fell like sledgehammer blows upon conservatives’ heads, and Americans who once gave corporations a quiet pass became increasingly loud and angry.

Shurk points to just who is the problem, but provides no possible solution. Well, I have one. In the early part of the 20th century, so-called "trust busting" was big, and the government went after all sorts of monopolies. These massive corporations have again become monopolistic, and we need to break them up again. Companies like BlackRock need to be broken up. Banks need to be separated again. We need more local and regional banks and corporations and fewer national and international ones. We need to go back to local restaurants and get rid of the national chains. companies like Google and Microsoft also need to be divested of a lot of their services, which should go to smaller more agile competitors. Just as Standard Oil was broken up, so should giant, unaccountable businesses.

What You Are Aborting Is Not Your Body

 Just a quick note.  I have mentioned on several occasions that abortion is murder and thus I can not support it.  The child growing in the mother's womb is a separate human being, not the mother herself.  Thus the "my body, my choice" argument fails.  The Supreme Court in its Dobbs decision turned the question of the limits of abortions back to the states, which was a correct decision as far as it went.

But there is a deeper place to which the Court might have gone, and it is to look at our founding documents, specifically, the Declaration of Independence. Bill Guild at the American Thinker does exactly that in Abortion and the Constitution.

Let's go back to square one. In spite of any opinion one might hold, ours is a constitutional republic. So the laws that govern abortion must reflect our Constitution or be struck down. That's why the recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson was so significant.

The Declaration of Independence states that:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

No one would deny that the Declaration represents the theoretical principles of our government, while the Constitution is the legal embodiment of those principles. In turn, it is the courts that ensure our laws reflect our founding principles.

Please read all of Guild's short post.

Taking Note of History

 Once again, I do not have a lot of time today.  The news is occupied with the "horse race," otherwise known as Trump vs. Harris.  Oh, they throw in stuff like "WW3 is about to begin.  Run in circles and go and hide!"  Or they distract us with the current Taylor Swift drama.  Meanwhile, the (formerly) Great Britain has fallen into absolute totalitarianism. C. A. Skeet has the story at PJ Media entitled Britain Is Now a Totalitarian State. Oh, and it is threatening to extradite Elon Musk, and by extention anyone else, who dares to get crosswise with its Fuhrer...er...Prime Minister.

There are lessons in what is happening in (f)GB to the United States. You can find those at the American Thinker in a piece by E. Jeffrey Ludwig entitled Western Civilisation In Decline. I urge readers to read this post as well. But back to Skeet:

We can safely declare, without exaggeration or hyperbole, that Britain is now a totalitarian state. The ruling machine may not yet have the absolute control that Stalin did, but it's not for lack of trying. The British government's hysterical Chicken Little response to online support for this past week's rioting is proof enough for anyone paying attention that it attaches no value whatsoever to Western principles like freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

Here's a video of an elderly man being arrested in his home for "improper use" of social media for "some comments that [he] made" on his Facebook page. The two Stasi thugs masquerading as police officers are doing the dirty work for a government that, not too long ago, declared that "just following orders" was not an excuse for human rights violations. And yet...

This is where Britain is now, and if there's a definition for it other than "totalitarian," I'm open for suggestions.

To be sure, the (formerly Great) British push to criminalize speech which goes against the official narrative and represents the common sense of the average citizen...er...surf has been going on for some time. Like Leftists here in the United States tearing up our constitution and using it for toilet paper, Leftists in the UK have been tearing up the Magna Carta. What were, at the time of America's founding considered the "rights of Englishmen" are no longer.

The British rioters have been deemed "far-right" by the state apparatus, and you know what that means. It means the state will be relentless and ruthless in tracking down every single one of them and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of whatever arbitrary interpretation is used to stretch and twist the law this particular week. Their crime is not rioting. Their crime is running afoul of state ideology. The J6 defendants could offer them some legal advice.

Riots far more destructive and murderous occur on the regular by coordinated elements that an honest media would accurately describe as "far-left" or "Islamist," but instead are described by our palace eunuchs as "mostly peaceful." Had the British rioters waved a Palestinian flag or two, Kamala Harris could start a fund to bail them out.

Much like Stalin dispatching Trotsky in Mexico, or a Moroccan gutting Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam, the totalitarian mindset is nothing if not global in outlook. You might not be interested British virtue signaling, but British virtue signaling is interested in you. Hence, we have Elon Musk, an American citizen on American soil under the protection of the American Bill of Rights, being threatened with prosecution by UK authorities for posting opinions on the social feed of his own company.

You were wondering how Elon Musk got into this story. Well, it seems that one Sir Mark Rowley, Metropolitan Police Commissioner threatened to extradite anyone anywhere who fell afoul of their so-called "laws." Here is how Skeet handled it:

And what horrific crimes did Elon commit that raise the specter of a possible extradition request? According to that insufferable socialist rag, the U.K. Independent, he "launched a tirade" on his platform X against Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

ELON LAUNCHED A TIRADE!!!

But that's not all. He used his platform to "...attack Sir Keir personally..."

ELON MADE A PERSONAL ATTACK!!!

"...as he appeared to fan the flames of discontent..."

ELON FANNED THE FLAMES!!!

...in an "apparently unprovoked attack on Starmer and the UK government"...

FIRST A PERSONAL ATTACK, NOW AN UNPROVOKED ATTACK!!!

Yes, Musk used words. I remember when people used to think rationally here remembering that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Oh yes, words can sting. But proportionality demands that the punishments fit the crime. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. I would note that Sir Keir Starmer has an entire army at his disposal, whereas Musk has...Teslas? The whole fiasco seems out so of proportion as to be laughable. After all, anyone who doesn't care for Musk's comments can turn them off. I certainly do along with most other social media.  But that is the point, isn't it.  Leftists cannot stand to be laughed at.

This is the essence of totalitarian regimes. They cannot stand to be laughed at or ignored. It is true here in the USA and there in (formerly) Great Britain. They know they are doing wrong, but fear if the citizens realize it there will be consequences. To forestall those consequences, they intimidate as many as possible.  They jail some, put others in "re-education camps" and if necessary, execute still others.  Oh, but there will be consequences. The question is, will the consequences be merely kicked out of office, and living to fight another day, or will the perpetrators be hanged for crimes against humanity. Note that I do not advocate the latter, I just take note of history.

The Evil of Abortion

 Today, at the American Thinker the Rev. Jim Harden has a post entitled Barbarism in America: The Harris-Walz Agenda. The Harris-Walz agenda should be angering and outraging every American. But the push to bring abortion back to the national stage should shock everyone with righteous anger.

The Supreme Court rightly turned the abortion question back to the states to decide individually. After all, there is no provision in the Federal Constitution for abortion. It simply is not one of the few things assigned to the Federal Government. But of course, that is not what Harden is concerned about.

No, What Harden is concerned about is the pagan and barbaric nature of abortion in general, and of so-called post birth abortion, or infanticide. In the Bible, one of the ancient gods, Moloch, whose images included a fiery belly into which people would throw their first-born children, in the hopes that Moloch would give them more children. But of course, what the King James calls "passing children through the fire" offended the Most High God beyond our understanding. So it was that when Ahaz, king of Judah passed his children through the fire, God brought disaster on Israel and Ahaz.

In a move that should outrage every American, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who is now Kamala Harris' running mate, recently signed into law the Pro Act, a bill that allows babies born alive to be left to die if the child survived an abortion attempt. This legislation, now law in Minnesota, represents a level of barbarism that should have no place in a civilized society.

Some will claim this is an overstatement. However, eight infants born alive have already been lost to post-birth abortion -- bald-faced infanticide.

This barbaric policy is a brutal reality where newborns, who survive attempted abortions. Abortion is unethical to start with as the purpose of medicine is to heal and maintain the health of the patient -- every ethical doctor knows a pregnant woman represents two patients. Abortion neither heals nor maintains the health of either patient, stopping the healthy function of the woman’s reproductive system and snatching life itself away from the baby.

One of the justifications pro-abortion Left uses is the "my body, my choice" argument. But this agrumemt is specious, at best. It is not just "her body." There is her body and the body of the person temporarily living inside her. We are, after all, mammals. Mammals carry their children to full term inside the mother's body. The term "foetus" is a medical term for a stage of development, not to imply that the child inside is not a child. And to dehumanize that child by calling it a "clump of cells" is...well let's call it what it is...it's evil.

This clash of civilizations between the values of life and the barbarism of the Harris-Walz agenda is stark, to say the least. But do our elected representatives are under prepared to solve this massive issue. The Right only talks about abortion in terms of arbitrary gestational age restrictions, while the Left hammers the campaign trail with the rhetoric “You’ll lose your rights unless we have abortion on demand!” The Left knows that the fear of loss is more powerful than vain debates on when we should start protecting human beings -- which is how they keep winning elections.

The nation needs pro-life statesmen. These men and women need to understand that all people are equally valuable, from conception until natural death -- whether in an IVF clinic’s freezer, a woman’s womb, or on their deathbed -- deserving of blessing and protection. Then they must have the resolve to stand in front of the barbaric horde of radical pro-abortion extremists, exposing the evil of abortion, and say, “If you want to hurt those women and babies, you’re going to have to go through me.”

Please read the entire post.

Update:  Please also read the article at The Federalist entitled 'Pull Off a Leg or Two': Planned Parenthood Staff Discuss Havesting Baby Parts In Unsealed Footage, that is if your stomach can take it. This footage was siezed by Kamala Harris when she was AG of California and kept under wraps. And no wonder as it is damning stuff. But it fits with her and Walz's overall agenda.

On Climate Change, Pot Meet Kettle

 James T. Moodey at the American Thinker has an article explaining measurements taken at his Weights and Measures gas-physics test facility that showed that there is no "greenhouse effect" at Greenhouse Gases are a Scientific Myth.

Despite the oncoming tropical storm Debby, I need to go to work, so I ask gentle readers to read the whole article. As Moodey noted, when natural gas is burned, the result is carbon dioxide and water, the building blocks of life when acted upon by plants. But more importantly, tests show that carbon dioxide does not retain heat any more than any other gas. Indeed, what retains the heat is water vapor, as anyone can observe who lives in a humid environment like North Carolina.

It turns out that the source of the greenhouse gas theory was a paper produced in 1861 by John Tyndall based on flawed measurements using seriously flawed equipment. Such equipment would not pass muster in the modern world, yet because of the money to be had from government grants, academics did not question Tyndall's paper. Instead, they accepted it and produced results that showed what the government wanted. So, when they claim climate change deniers are taking funds from the oil companies that color their views, they are simply projecting what they themselves are doing. Pot meet kettle.

Voting As If Our Lives Depended On It

 I send a little Jeremiad from Andrea Widburg today at the American Thinker entitled The Harris-Biden administration has broken the Pax Americana.

The Pax Americana existed from 1945 until 2021 when America was the world’s strongest nation. There were regional wars but, for the most part, American pressure kept them from escalating into nuclear chaos or complete regional collapse. 9/11 shook that system, Obama’s “leading from behind” weakened it, and the Harris-Biden administration destroyed it. We now tremble on the brink.

After explaining some similar historical examples she launches into a list of current events that threaten to blow up in our faces with perhaps nuclear consequences. The Kingston Trio's song is apt. She concludes with "(This fall, vote as if your life depends on it because it really may.)"

Gentle readers should read the whole post. Of course I am not in favor of using fear as a means of getting people to take action. I trust in God, who works for the ultimate good, though we may be individually inconvenienced. But Andrea Widburg is ultimately correct that we must vote as if our lives depended on it, because it may.

Living In the Former USA

 Anthony DeBlasi has an autobiographical article at the American Thinker today that reminded me of...well...me to a certain extent. Oh, DeBlasi is older than I am if he fought in Korea. And he has more artistic talent that I do. Still, I can relate to An American Who Became an Alien. I have noted how many of our former freedoms have been restricted or done away with entirely. I often feel like I am living in the Former United States of America, where the states are just provinces of the Federal government, not independent sovereign states. And while technology has made many things better, one cannot help but feel that overall, life is worse, not better.

I have to get ready for Church so this post will be necessarily short, but I encourage gentle readers to read the entire article at the American Thinker. But the heart of it is here:

Anthony talked and played classical music with a schol chum and painted murals on school walls with another. Later, a college friend introduced him to something new from England called “high fidelity.” Anthony had seen 78 rpm records turn to LPs, then 45s, then “stereo.” He saw records and film “replaced” with magnetic tape. He saw radio “replaced” with television, and saw black-and-white turn to color.

...snip...

Anthony bit, chewed thoroughly, then spat out the Enlightenment and its spin-off socio-political theories and isms. They denied or rejected God, which went counter to his discoveries. To deny God is to deny self. To reject God is to reject life, a form of blindness that leads to radical error and suicide, spiritual if not physical. To him, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, John Dewey, and other manipulators of the facts of life were to be pitied, not enshrined. So-called social “science” and social “engineering” were arrogant, pseudoscientific non-disciplines at odds with reality, human intelligence, and life itself. Judeo-Christian tenets rooted in the facts of life were ultimately more enlightening, more human, more liberating than social theories spun out of abstractions based on wish lists. Reason and science that lead instead of serve humans are misapplied.

Anthony married a girl from Scotland, had three children, and lived in New England thereafter. His beloved Sicilian parents died close to the age of 90. With growing disbelief and indignation, Anthony witnessed cradle misfits trash a wonderful culture by polluting young minds with puerile social theories.

Feeling like an alien in his own country, Anthony misses the depth and breadth of freedom he once enjoyed – and fought for – in an America that lost its marbles after mid-century. Happily his love of writing never left him.

I was one of those who were warped by the "cradle misfits" that found their way into the schools. It has been a long and painful path back to God, which I could only do because He did it for me. I take no credit. Now I really must start getting ready for Church.