On the Next Pope

 As most may have heard, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, died on the Monday after Easter (which always occurs on a Sunday.)  I have reserved commenting on Francis because a.) I am not Roman Catholic, though we Lutherans like to call ourselves Evangelical Catholics, and b.) because I needed time to assess my feelings.  But Alicia Colon has pretty well summed up what I think about Pope Francis in her essay at the American Thinker today entitled What This Congenital Catholic Thinks About Pope Francis and the Papacy. She also writes briefly of her hopes for the next Pope. (Sigh) Since they are bound and determined to elect another Pope, I think her hopes are well meaning. But I don't really believe that the Pope has supremacy over other bishops, nor should he rule a physical state. After all, Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world.

Now, I will take exception here to the papacy as having supremacy over all the other bishops of the church. There is no historical support for the Bishop of Rome being somehow more in touch with the Holy Spirit than other bishops, or indeed of congregations of the Church. But I recognize that the Roman Catholic Church will elect another Pope, so we can only hope that the next Pope understands what his duties are.

I, myself, do not believe that Pope Francis was an evil man, nor do I feel that he is suffering in Hell as some of the nasty commentators posted on various blogs.

I believe he was a very compassionate man who cared deeply for the disenfranchised and those people who are considered unworthy sinners by judgmental critics. He has been quoted as saying, “Who am I to judge?” when confronted by reporters after advocating that gay and lesbian couples be allowed to have their own families, allowed priests to bless gay couples, and cleared the way for transgender Catholics to be baptized and even serve as godparents.

No wonder he is beloved by the progressive community.

Unfortunately, like so many liberals, the pope forgot that as the Vicar of Christ, he is required to judge and to remember what Jesus Christ said to the sinners he embraced, “Go, and sin no more.”

It is not that the church rejects gays or lesbians, or even so called "transgender" people. Rather, such people too often reject the church and Jesus Christ because the church demands that they stop behaving as they desire to do. Here I do not merely mean the Roman church, but all the churches demand that people stop behaving in ways contrary to the teachings of God. That is the law, which convicts, but the here comes the Gospel, that says we must forgive repentant sinners as many times as they truly repent.

Colon gives Pope Francis wide room here by calling him naive. He may have been, but there are surely elements in the church, all churches, that are trying to destroy it. The fact that it can not be destroyed is no excuse for letting these elements stay in place. These Satanic elements have not just infiltrated the Roman church but many of the mainline Protestant churches as well. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a good example. But even there, one can find congregations where the Gospel is being preached, and so it is with the Roman church. I attended a service with my granddaughter at her Roman Catholic congregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the place was filled to standing room only, with families and children of all ages. Such are places where the Gospel is preached, and the sacraments are given.  Praise be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I have other issues with the Roman church, which seems to be run by the clergy for the clergy, among which I include the various religious orders. Individual congregations do not call someone to serve as their pastor, but rather the bishops assign pastors to congregations. During the mass, the congregation sits passively and watches most of the action at the alter though there are some parts where they take an active role. In contrast, in the Lutheran liturgy the congregation takes an active role in every part of the Divine Service.

As the papal conclave is assembled to pick the next pope, many on the left are afraid that the next pontiff will be super-conservative. I am just hoping that our next pope will be a man who is a true vicar to guide the Church in His name.

As much as I may have disagreed with Pope Francis’s advocacy for change in the Church, he did once perform a very significant and positive action that magnified the most important tenet of the Church -- the Divine presence in the Eucharist.

Here I stand with Alicia Colon. I too hope that the next Pope will guide the church in His name. Enough with the nonsense. And perhaps Francis's devotion to the Presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist should not be overlooked. We Lutherans also confess that the bread and the wine are the true Body and Blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. It is not just a symbol or a memorial meal, but He is present with us in the Divine Service. For the record, though the church excommunicated Martin Luther, Luther did not reject the church and remained a faithful catholic. But this is about the next Pope.

All I can say is I pray with Colon that they elect someone who truly speaks for Christ

Now They Want To Deprive Us of Man's Best Friend

 If you look at my side bar there is a blog entitled War on Guns which is written by gun writer David Codrea. It is called that because, despite the ownership and bearing of arms, including firearms, being a right protected in our Constitution, there is a constant drum beat to disarm the American people. Oh, if we just gave up those guns.  It ain't gonna happen.

Now it appears there is a similar drum beat to take away our pets, or rather, to so regulate the ownership of pets, particularly dogs, so onerous as to make it not worth keeping them. My first response is "for cryin' out loud. Leave us alone." But of course, our betters can never do that. They always believe they know better how we should live our lives.

I am the proud owner-not pet parent, mind you-owner of three dogs. Yes, they are little pains in the butt. They each have their own personality, and of course I love them. So it was with some consternation that I read at the Epoch Times There Is A Growing Plot Against Dogs by Jeffery A. Tucker. Note that Tucker is for dog ownership.

In August 2020, Anthony Fauci co-authored an article in Cell that broadly called for “radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence.” Among the specifics, the article obliquely targets pet ownership, urging that we must reduce “unsafe exposure to animals.”

I wondered about that line at the time. The whole theory of the article is that humans are everywhere surrounded by icky things that can infect us. We’ve neglected these threats for many thousands of years by traveling around, moving here and there, domesticating animals, and living too closely together. This must change, they opine, because bad pathogens are ever more leaping from the outside world into humans.

...snip...

Mother Jones has reprinted a piece from the Guardian which is a riff on a new journal article published in Australia, pointedly called “Bad Dog?: The Environmental Effects of Owned Dogs.” If you understand how this works, you don’t even need to read it. Dogs are polluters and wasteful. Feeding them requires too much in the way of resources. They threaten birds. They emit harmful gases. They sully the environment and spread diseases.

To quote from the breathless article: Dogs “are implicated in direct killing and disturbance of multiple species, particularly shore birds, but also their mere presence, even when leashed, can disturb birds and mammals, causing them to leave areas where dogs are exercised. Furthermore, scent traces and urine and faeces left by dogs can continue to have this effect even when dogs are not present. Faeces and urine can transfer zoonoses to wildlife and, when accumulated, can pollute waterways and impact plant growth. Owned dogs that enter waterways contribute to toxic pollution through wash-off of chemical ectoparasite treatment applications. Finally, the sheer number of dogs contributes to global carbon emissions and land and fresh water use via the pet food industry. We argue that the environmental impact of owned dogs is far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than is generally recognised.”

The solution seems obvious: get rid of them!

This is all hogwash, as are most of the proposals coming from these people. They want us to live sterile lives, where we will live in sterile little apartments and not own anything, but we will be happy serving the elite...or else. Meanwhile, whole books have been written on the amazing things dogs can do, that mankind needs. All of that is utilitarian, to be sure. But dogs and people have relationships. Oh, not the kind we have with each other, of course. One cannot have a discussion with a dog about, say, religion. But if you pay attention, dogs are constantly communicating with their owners.

The main way that dogs communicate with humans is through petting. Pet a dog, and you instantly relax. And dogs like getting pets. Mine come over several times a day to get a pet or two, or three. They would sit there all day and receive pets if you let them. And you can tell them anything. They make great sounding boards. A dog has been called "man's best friend." I think God created dogs specifically to help man in myriad ways. First as a hunting companion, then as a herding dog, but we keep finding out ways that the dog touches our lives for the better.

He Is Risen. He Is Risen Indeed

Yesterday, Ben Voth had a piece at the American Thinker entitled Jesus and Academia in which Voth pointed to a great profundity, the great problem with Leftist thought and theory is that it must contend with the teachings of Jesus Christ:

Jurgen Habermas is one of the most cited international academics and his pedigree among Frankfurt School scholars makes him an important example of what debaters call "reluctant testimony." As a secular academic and scholar, Habermas confirmed for his fellow critical theorists that nothing in current social justice theories can be derived apart from the teachings and influence of Jesus Christ: “Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in the light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage.”

It is the life, teaching, and resurrection of Jesus that brings us to the persistent yet peculiar moment of Jesus versus the intellectuals in 2025.

I have pointed out that Leftists have been around since the beginning. God acts; the Left opposes. God said let there be light, and the light shone in the darkness. God creates; the left tears down. For those that know ancient history, before Christ, the whole world had been abandoned to the devil and his minions, and men did as they pleased, except for the Jews. The Jews were to be a nation of priests; God's way to salvage mankind. In the rest of the world, life was brutal, cheap, and short. In the rest of the world men worshiped these minions as if they were gods.  Creatures like Baal, Astarte (Isis) and Molock.  When someone got sick, it was generally assumed that some "god" or another wanted to get them, and people abandoned them. There were no thoughts and prayers, except in Israel.

Of course, God was not passive about the state of mankind.  He led His people out of bondage to Egypt with great power.  Then He molded the Israelites through all their trials and tribulations.  He announced His plan through Psalms and prophets starting 1000 years before Christ appeared.  Isaiah was perhaps the most specific, and yet the Jews somehow expected a warrior King.  So did the devil.  But God sneaked into history, lived a perfect life, and died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins to reconcile those who believe in Him to God.    

Which then brings us to Scott S. Powell's piece today entitled Easter: the Resurrection of Jesus Transformed the World Forever. Indeed it did, so much so that we swim in a world changed by Christ such that we cannot often see it. All of our laws, until recently, are based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Hospitals for the average person came about because of Christianity. The sacrifice of children, including abortion was outlawed because of Christianity. Our whole culture would be entirely different had Christ never entered history.

Across cultures throughout human history, people have sought to flee oppression and escape persecution. A recurring theme in Western literature and in modern classics such as Superman and Disney originals, which revolve around the struggle between good and evil, is the need and critical role for a rescuer or savior.

Easter is the celebration of the finished work of the messiah Jesus Christ, the ultimate rescuer and savior for mankind, who sacrificed his life to provide forgiveness of sin -- enabling all who believe in Christ to have a direct relationship with God.

That no other religion makes the claim that it was founded by a messiah makes Jesus the most revolutionary figure of human history.

Still, some assume Christianity is like other religions that require followers to perform certain works and rituals acceptable to God. Not so with Jesus, for he implores us in Matthew 11:30 that, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” When a learned Jewish Pharisee, whose life required living up to stressful “dos and don’ts” of the Mosaic law, asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus answered simply that if we love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, we will have fulfilled all the laws.

You can read Powell's article for yourself. My desire in writing this is not to save anyone. That is, in any case, not my job, but the Holy Spirit's. He alone draws people to Jesus. Rather, I think it is important for us all to understand history. It is divided in two, Before Christ and Anno Domini (year of our Lord.) So,t for me, I will praise God and say with the whole Church catholic, "He is risen. He is risen indeed."

"It Is Finished"

 Easter is fast approaching.  It is on Sunday, April 20th this year.  On that day, our LORD and savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  But the event that Kevin McCollough writes about today happened 3 days before Easter, on Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified and died on a Roman cross.  Though sinless, yet he became sin that He might dies to save the whole world.  McCollough describes one of the significant events that took place that day in a column at Townhall.com entitled No One Is Too Far Gone, Not Even Me.

It is a moving story, one that brings me to tears. I have only one little tweak to make to it. But, that one little tweak changes the story in mountainous ways. You see, no matter how far down the slope we have fallen, Christ can forgive us. That is the meaning of the thief on the cross. We all deserve to be there, to be crucified for our deeds, but Christ can save even the worst of us. My little tweak is that McCollough thinks we must do something, take some action. I disagree. We must, in McCollough's telling, make a decision for Christ. This is wrong. In fact, Christ has done everything required, and all we have to do is...nothing...do not to reject it. Christ's last words before he died were "It is finished" meaning everything was done that needed to be done.

If my salvation depended on me, I would be lost. The good things I would do, I do not, while the bad things I would not do, I do. I am absolutely unreliable. Fortunately, I do not have to depend on myself, with my doubts and fears. I can, and do rely on the word of Him, who is faithful, even if I am not. That is the meaning of the story of the thief on the cross. One rejected Jesus, one did not and was saved.

I urge gentle readers to read McCollough's article, then read the story of the thief on the cross. You probably have a Bible somewhere in your house, or you can go to Bible Hub Online and read the account in Luke 23. Who knows, it may inspire you to read the whole of Luke, a good place to start.

They Have Found In Themselves a Hollow Man

Over at Townhall.com today, Tom Knighton has an article entitled Why Do I Have Guns? Because of People Like Taylor Lorenz. Taylor Lorenz has often been the story, as opposed to merely reporting it, because...well...to put in kindly, she is not a very good journalist. Recently, she gushed over Luigi Mangione who (allegedly, because innocent until proven guilty) killed United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. The Left has been making heroes of killers since I was a child.

Former New York Times and Washington Post "journalist" Taylor Lorenz is not a very good person, but I want to start by making it very clear that the headline is not a threat against her. I wish her absolutely no physical or even psychological harm from any kind of violent encounter.

No, I carry a gun because of people like her, but not so much because I'm looking to hurt them.

I'm looking to make sure me and mine don't get hurt by the kind of people who want to impress people like her.

As you may have heard, Lorenz embarrassed herself by fawning over UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's alleged killer. Luigi Mangione reportedly shot Thompson with a privately made firearm with a privately made suppressor on the streets of one of the most anti-gun cities in the country.

Knighton's reasons pretty well sum up my reasons for carrying a gun as well. I don't want to hurt someone. I would prefer to be left alone to pursue my own business. But the Left does not allow that. Several years ago, Erick Erickson and Bill Blankshaen wrote a book entitled You Will Be Made to Care that sums up the attitude of the Left. The Left believes that if you don't at least mouth the words du jour, violence will be visited on you. In the culture war, they have always been the aggressor, though the play the victim.

Lorenz, however, celebrated the murder from the start, and in her latest comments during an interview with CNN, she literally called Mangione "moral."

Yes, the guy accused of killing another, who Lorenz believes did it, was the moral one.

A lot of people agree with her.

This is sick and twisted, especially as this kind of celebratory attitude encourages others to kill people they disagree with or simply don't like because they did something "bad."

...snip...

And now we know what Lorenz wants to see happen to "bad people."

If people like Lorenz have this sort of attitude, that an individual can, without due process and all on his own decide that someone is "bad" and kill him, and then be lionized by the mob, no wonder that have such disregard for human life. They have looked inside themselves and found a hollow man.

The Mission Comes First

 I spent 25 years working for the Department of the Navy in various positions from local bases to Headquarters of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command.  I can affirm that the Colonel, Kurt Schlichter is correct in his assessment that The Pentagon Must Go On the Offensive to Defeat Politicized Officers. Insubordination, and that is what this is, cannot be tolerated.

We simply cannot have a functioning military that tolerates individuals putting their own personal prerogatives ahead of the mission – and that’s exactly what this political posturing is. It brings to mind a story of my continuing dispute with my command sergeant major when I commanded a cavalry squadron. We rarely disagreed on anything; my CSM was that guy whose picture is scowling back at you, judging you, when you look up the definition of a noncommissioned officer. But every chow time in the field, we had a confrontation. One of us would note that the last of the soldiers had eaten, and then the argument would begin.

“Sir, time for you to grab chow.”

“After you, Sergeant Major.”

“After you, Colonel.”

It was the same dispute, every meal. Both of us wanted to eat last. That’s because leaders eat last. That’s because leaders put themselves after their troops. It was a point of pride.

Now, I led this way not because I was some super-duper, awesome exceptional officer. Every senior leader I knew did this, or at least every senior leader who lasted – there’s always a tail-end of the Bell Curve. If I were seen as putting myself before my soldiers or my mission, my peers would have done me in, never mind my commanders. We all understood our role. I was trained by real leaders, so doing something different never occurred to me. It’s not about you. Putting your politics first is a betrayal. That’s what babbling about politics to undermine your bosses’ boss is.

I recommend you read the whole article. Once upon a time, most Americans had family members who had served, and all understood the military. Unfortunately, today that is no longer the case. So, I especially recommend it to those not familiar with the military. In the military, it is not about you, or me, it is always about the mission. It doesn't mean you have to give up your personality. But the mission always comes first. Always.

The Satanic Left Part 2

 Yesterday's post was entitled The Satanic Left, and you probably thought I might be exaggerating just a bit. But sadly, along comes Mike McDaniel with poll numbers to show that, if anything, I may have been too generous. You can read McDaniel's post at Assassination culture comes for America.

At least 31.6% of all people responding to the study think the murder of Elon Musk at least partly justifiable, and 38.5% think the same for Donald Trump. Consider this: nearly 40% of this group of Americans think the murder of a POTUS is to some degree justifiable, and they are willing to say that to strangers conducting a study! How much of the social contract--the universally understood beliefs and behaviors necessary for our society to exist—has been discarded for that to happen?

It's probably no surprise to see nearly 49% of self-identified leftists willing to see Musk murdered, nor is 55% for Trump. These, after all, are people who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, people in a constant state of rage. Musk and Trump are destroying “our democracy,” they’re racist, fascist and both are worse than Hitler. These are the same people who wanted Americans who disobeyed fraudulent and unnecessary Covid rules financially destroyed, jailed, even killed.

As McDaniel makes clear, we cannot survive long with two very different cultures: the Left and Normal Americans. Normal Americans do not go around murdering their political opponents. They vote them out of office, but unless they have committed egregious crimes, they tend to let them alone. But the Left has always believed that the ends justify the means. For Normal Americans, and especially Christians, assasination of leaders by individuals is off the table.

Let's take the a well discussed case: If you could go back in time, would you kill Hitler as a child before he could commit the evils of the Third Reich? For Leftists, the answer is "Yes." Very much like Islam, if their actions advance the cause, it is permitted. For Christians, though, the answer is "No." Hitler had not yet done anything deserving of death, so to kill him would be sinful. Even after he rose to become Chancellor of Germany, and began committing evil acts, the individual does not have the authority to kill or to order the killing of someone (except for self-defense.)  The state has the power of the sword, not the individual. Either another state would have to wage war and then put Hitler on trial, or the German people would have to rise up in self-defense and, forming a new government, could then put him on trial and execute him.

We’re to “believe the science,” and it’s now telling us Normal Americans—men and women who know evil lurks within us all and keep it under tight, voluntary control--are not at all like as much as 60% of self-described leftists who seem happy to unleash the evil within. Normal Americans aren’t perfect, but they know what happens when rage rules, when hatred consumes the soul and the body politic. They know what men and women are and willingly restrain the very human capability for violence.

Sane, normal Americans must worry that it may be impossible for people with such different views of human nature and political reality to live together in peace. A second civil war may be inevitable.

Sigh

The Satanic Left

 Jeffrey Folks, over at the American Thinker today has penned a piece explaining the Left's resistence is because most Democrat leaders are at heart Marxists. I would argue that a fair number of their voters, whether they know it or not, are also Marxists. Many years ago now, a co-worker accused me of not liking Obama because he was black. I am afraid I lost it here and replied "I don't care if he was blue. What I don't like is that he is a god damned Communist." According to his auto-hagiography, I suspect Obama would wear that with pride. My co-worker replied, "Does that mean I am a Communists?" to which I replied, "If the shoe fits."

Whether they admit it or not, most Democrat leaders are Marxists, and they justify their resistance to Trump’s reforms on the basis of Marxist ideas. They oppose renewing and expanding the Trump tax cuts because those cuts, they believe, benefit the rich over the poor. Elizabeth Warren and others on the left support a wealth tax — the seizure of a percentage of total assets of affluent Americans. Their proposals for taxing unrealized capital gains, for a minimum tax on the rich, and other new taxes all assume that affluent Americans have grown rich on the backs of the poor. It is exactly what Karl Marx meant when he wrote in The Communist Manifesto of “the exploitation of the laborer ... [who] is set upon by ... the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.”

In theory, Marxism seizes wealth from the rich and transfers it to workers. In reality, in every case where Marxism has actually been tried, wealth and the means to produce it are controlled by the State, not the workers. The only winners under Marxism are those who run the State, and never in 200 years has there been a Marxist ruler who shared wealth on an equal basis with the poor or who willingly returned power to the common people. Democrats resist Trump’s reforms because he aims to expose the lie of Marxism: the fraudulent idea that Democrat programs for the poor have done the poor any good. Instead, they have enriched Democrat leaders themselves and the enormous cohort of bureaucrats, academics, media, and others on the left.

The left’s resistance has turned violent, with firebombing of Tesla dealerships, death threats, assassination attempts, and violent protests at several universities. Very few Democrats have wholeheartedly condemned this violence, and some have urged the public to continue it.

I would note that the Left has also ripped off the mask, and we can see what they prioritize: it ain't what normal Americans want. They are all for killing children in the womb. They believe in the notion that a man can become a woman and vice versa by just wishing it were so, but hey, they believe science is real! They believe that man is changing the climate, but they do not want even nuclear power though that is the best way to reduce CO2 (that science thing again.) They believe in human trafficking, gang rape, sexual perversions, antisemitism, anti-Christianism, anti-prayer, and the list goes on. Their parents, and Satan himself, must be so proud!

It’s crucial to understand that left-wing resistance is based on the fear that Trump, by his success, will actually restore our nation’s faith in free-market economics. Democrats have been leading America on a long march toward socialism for more than a century and they refuse to give it up. Wilson instituted the personal income tax in 1913; FDR created an alphabet soup of agencies, supposedly to assist the poor; LBJ expanded those bureaucracies, including Medicare and Medicaid; Jimmy Carter added Title IX; Clinton attempted socialized medicine and “welfare without work” until he was reined in by voters at the polls; Obama and Biden picked up where Clinton failed.

None of those Democrats had a whole lot to say about the American Dream because that dream is based on the opportunity that capitalism affords the poor. Democrat resistance has always failed to recognize that capitalism is a better pathway to wealth than government handouts. Eighteen percent of U.S. households are millionaires; the vast majority of these millionaires, But between 80 and 90 percent, are self-made, and it would be hard to believe that many of them were created by the kind of government programs that Bernie Sanders and AOC believe in and want to expand.

Folks has written a generally insightful article that explains the Left's violent behavior in the face of what, for most of us, is the right thing to do. Are they really upset that Elon Musk is exposing waste, fraud, and abuse? Well, yes, they are because Trump then cuts off their source of funding. But Folks is also generally optimistic that this foolishness can be stopped. Here, I am afraid I must split with Folks. When we look at the things the Left wants for America, we see that it truly is the Devil's plan. He ultimately controls Leftists, and unfortunately, he doesn't give up. Leftists will always be with us, and we must always be eternally vigilant to keep them down.

Let Us Pray Trump Succeeds

 I had multiple things to do, and appointments to keep yesterday, so I didn't get to this article by J. B. Shurk.  The article, at the American Thinker entitled There's Nothing Free About 'Free Trade,' that points to some criticisms of the direction America has taken since WWI and, that need correcting if we are ever to be the truly exceptional country we were.

Back then there were people who decried the removal of the United States from the gold standard. The general consensus was that these "gold bugs" were old fashioned, stuck in the mud, and probably luddites at that. Most of the "gold bugs" were economists, and their concerns were economic. What Shurk brings to the table is a historical look at what happened after the creature from Jekyll Island came into existence.

President Trump, Treasury secretary Bessent, and Commerce secretary Lutnick are effectively teaching a course right now on the fundamentals of international trade. How many Americans previously understood that nations around the world use tariffs and other economic tools to keep American-made products from reaching their markets? Hasn’t the United States been spreading the gospel of “free trade” for centuries? Doesn’t commitment to “free markets” separate the civilizational West from more authoritarian countries with “closed” economies? Shouldn’t a “rules-based international order” ensure that the rules are the same for all participating countries?

Or asked another way: How “free” can international trade be if its proponents depend upon a labyrinthine system of rules that requires thousand-page treaties and guidance from the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, central banks galore, the Bank for International Settlements, international standards organizations, law firms specializing in commercial and maritime law, more law firms specializing in the administrative law of specific nations, even more law firms specializing in the labor and environmental laws of each nation, and an ever-increasing number of national and international regulatory bodies to tell producers what they can and cannot produce, how and when to produce what they are permitted to produce, and whom to pay for the “privilege” of producing it — all while restricting which domestic consumers around the world are permitted to purchase what the aforementioned producers end up producing?

Answer, not very free, or fair for that matter. But it gets so much worse:

There is a strange — and perhaps quite dangerous — disconnect between the way most Americans see their country and the way the U.S. government actually operates. A reasonable, patriotic American believes that the United States is a great and powerful country with unique influence on the world stage. Yet citizens still see it as a nation with distinct borders, a distinct culture, distinct interests, and a distinct Constitution that limits federal powers while ensuring that the American people are ably represented in their government. The U.S. government, on the other hand, sees itself as the international headquarters of a global empire that has no borders; includes all cultures; pursues competing interests; acts without constitutional constraint; and represents international banks, corporations, and institutions with no allegiance to the political culture, historical inheritance, or territorial sovereignty of the United States.

The result of this disconnect is striking: While the American people expect their government to do what’s best for them and their country, the U.S. government does what’s best for itself and the expansion of its empire. If international companies can profit from illegal immigration, then the federal government will ignore its own immigration laws and even fly illegal aliens into the United States. If international banks can profit from slave labor manufacturing in communist China, then the federal government will outsource entire industries to its geopolitical enemy. If the European Union and the World Economic Forum can use U.S. military and economic support to create totalitarian systems of control across the continent, then the federal government will spend itself to financial death in order to sustain the “New World Order’s” globalist hegemony.

Americans didn’t vote for open borders, endless wars, forty trillion dollars of debt, or a hollowed out economy dependent on overseas slave labor. The U.S. government ignored their wishes and the limits of its constitutional powers and constructed a global empire anyway.

No, we did not. This, I think, is what Trump is trying to correct. Let us pray he succeeds.

In New York, Insanity Reigns

At Bearing Arms today, Tom Knighton reports on New York's latest anti-gun legislation. One of the features of this legislation is new merchant codes to track the sale of guns and ammunition. You can find the report at Understanding the Stupidity of New York's Latest Anti-Gun Legislation. Governor Kathy Hochul explains that the state needs to know who is buying what guns and ammuntion and who is stockpiling ammunition in case they are planning something.

Now, as Knighton points out, there are no laws against stockpiling ammunition anywhere in the United States. Now, I won't tell you exactly how much I have on hand, but during the various ammunition shortages and buying panics that have occured since Obama was in office, I was not one of the panic buyers. I keep enough on hand to go to the range regularly, though most of my practice is dry firing at home.

Also, the definition of a "stockpile" varies with the intended purpose. Competitive shooters go through a lot of ammo. Guys regularly show up at IDPA matches with a whole ammo can filled with loose rounds. How many rounds in one of those, 2000, 3000? Those taking training classes will go through 1000 rounds in a weekend. Preppers, preparing for TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) will accumulate vast quantities of ammuntion. All of these people have valid reasons for laying up a reserve of ammo, and none of them is planning anything illegal.

Yet I have seen news stories showing confiscated guns and ammo where there may be a box of pistol ammo described as a "stockpile." One box is not a stockpile. But who is to decide? Do New Yorkers really trust the police to decide these things? Frankly, it is a toss up these days whether the most anti-gun states are those of the Left coast, or on the Northeast coast. I am reminded of a saying attributed to Einstein that one definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results. This describes New York's anti-gunners to a "T."

A Good First Step

 Jacob Sullum, at Townhall.com has a piece that warms my heart entitled Mel Gibson Regains Gun Rights, Highlighting Injustice of Federal Law for Nonviolent Offenders. As Sullen points out, Congress created the lifetime prohibition for anyone convicted of a crime with a potential sentence exceeding a year. Then gave people a way to regain their gun rights, but turned around and refused to fund the process. In any case, I don't see the ATF ever wanting anyone to have these rights in the first place.

Like millions of Americans, Mel Gibson has a criminal record that disqualifies him from legally owning a gun. Unlike nearly all of those people, the movie star, whom President Donald Trump has designated as one of his three "ambassadors" to Hollywood, will be relieved of that disability, thanks to a recent decision by Attorney General Pam Bondi that also covers nine less famous individuals.

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To give you a sense of how capacious that category is, it includes the president himself, who last year was convicted of 34 state felonies involving falsification of business records. Because of those convictions, which did not result in any formal punishment, a man entrusted with control of the nation's vast military might, including its nuclear weapons, is not allowed to own a gun.

No matter what you think about the underlying case, that situation makes no sense as a matter of public safety. It is likewise hard to see the logic of taking away someone's Second Amendment rights because he grew or sold marijuana, underreported his income to obtain food stamps, misrepresented the thickness of shoe inserts, tampered with fishing gear, inadvertently transported a box of ammunition into Mexico, or committed any of the myriad other nonviolent offenses that trigger this disability.

David Codrea, author of The War on Guns website and a writer of articles for various gun publications notes: if a man cannot be trusted with a gun, he cannot be trusted without a custodian. We used to understand that, and kept dangerous people in prison, or hanged them. It is time we acknowledged the truth of this statement and put it into practice. Note that the same people who claim to be "keeping guns out of the wrong hands" are doing their best to keep the "wrong hands" out of prison in many cases.

Enough!

If someone is convicted of a nonviolent crime, then after serving their time, their gun rights should be restored. But, if it is the opinion that some can not be trusted with guns, those people should never be let out among us. Of course, there wouldn't be this problem if there weren't so many laws, rules, regulations and sometimes made up crap in the first place.

Victory is the condition for the restoration of civilization

At the American Thinker today is a piece by Lars Møller entitled Upheaval and Pushback that shows us through several counter revoutionary defeats that our winning this one is by no means a sure thing. The modern left (for the left has always been with us. It is in fact ancient and goes by many names, though Lucifer will suffice) began with the French Revolution. Its counter revolutionaries, the Vendee were destroyed, slaughtered, and executed. Møller spends the first half of his article on the history of French Revolution and its subsequent loss of life, all to satisfy a belief in an ideology that has proven time and again to be false. All this to discuss the American experience with this same ideology:

There are striking parallels between the events of the French Revolution and its Russian counterpart. In both cases, on the one hand, there were revolutionary forces trying to reshape an entire country, gripped by utopian fantasies, whatever the human cost, and on the other hand, counter-revolutionary forces fighting to roll back the revolution and restore order. In Russia, the “Whites” suffered the same tragic fate as the insurgents of Vendée.

What has attracted relatively little attention, considering the severity of the cultural impact in our society, is the struggle between the forces that have driven the “woke” revolution and the counter-revolutionary forces that fight for the values ​​that underpin Western civilization. Many imagine that “woke” simply stands for (ridiculously) exaggerated “humanism” and “tolerance”. However, that is a monumental fallacy. It denotes in reality one side — the dark one, to be sure — in a life-and-death struggle between totalitarianism and freedom.

Under the guise of humanism, Democrats have been working to reshape the United States ever since Lyndon B. Johnson’s immigration bill of 1965. Although with the resemblance of a bitter parody, in this case too, it is as if there is a fantasy of a thousand-year empire guaranteed, not by the presence of enlisted savages with bayonets in the streets, but by the steady influx of immigrants dependent on public benefits and with the prospective right to vote in general elections.

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The reality is that the United States has had its own piecemeal revolution since Obama came to power in 2009. In a civilized society like the American one, where people generally trust legislators, judges, and executive authorities, many have long been reluctant to stand up to them. However, as absurdities and injustices have become increasingly obvious, not least the socially devastating mass immigration from the South, people across the country have begun to sense danger and fear for the future of their children.

Unfortunately, Marxism did not die with the Soviet Union in 1991, but lives on in disguise. Its goal, however, is the same as before: the destruction of Western civilization. In recent years, it has attacked its enemy in subtler ways than before, weaponizing ethnic and sexual minorities, and is constantly seeking new strategic alliances in political movements of importance, e.g. Islamism. At its core, therefore, it is as totalitarian, anti-human, and evil as ever. Revolution is a bloody affair. It begins with boundless dreams and promises, but invariably ends in “terror”. Justice, of course, has nothing to do with it.

I do not know if Møller realizes it or not, but the term "Western civilization" is a code term for Christianity. The entire edifice of Western Civilization was built on the Christian faith. The idea of Judeo-Christianity ignores the Old Testament, pretending that Christianity was something New and thus destroyed the Old. But in fact, Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, and as Paul noted, we gentiles who call ourselves Christian are now grafted into the vine of God's chosen people Israel. The first disciples of Jesus were Jews. The first Christians were about 5,000 Jews baptized into Christ on Pentecost. Even today, there are Jews still being baptized into Christ. Glory hallelujah

Marx was virulently atheistic, as were the French revolutionaries and the Russian revolutionaries. Indeed, atheism has characterized all Communist and Marxist revolutionaries. One can think of them as teenagers rebelling against their parents, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous to the rest of us.

Since Obama, Americans have endured a revolution intended to dissolve any sense of national identity, cut it off from Western civilization, and drown it in multiculturalism, with invading masses of Third-World aliens acting as unwitting accomplices. The project has been truly revolutionary — all-encompassing and nihilistic.

It was not a given that Trump should win the November 2024 election. He did, however. And in doing so, he gave voice to all the decent people of the country who, for years on end, saw their national pride trampled and dishonored by hostile forces rooted in Marxism and other anti-Christian ideologies. Undoubtedly, he will unleash the righteous anger that has gripped the Americans, as it once gripped the brave counter-revolutionaries of the Vendée. Not to forget: It is a fight to the death!

Faced with a lurking, uncompromising enemy of everything we hold dear, we cannot take victory for granted because we have justice on our side, but must fight until victory is truly won. As Trump shouted to the crowd during the Pennsylvania campaign rally: “Fight, fight, fight!” Victory is the condition for the restoration of civilization.