A Baptist minister, governor of Arkansas, and an extreme suck-up to Mexican interests. What’s worse is his equating liberal welfare and immigration programs to Christian charity and compassion, even making cheap shots at his own people and state to please the media. There’s nothing more disgusting in my view than someone who sells out his own people for worldly approval…
“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
The Lone Star Report, a weekly political newsletter for conservatives interested in state government, featured a piece last week about the cowardice of Republicans in the Legislature when the usual suspects play the race card.
These race-baiters recently played the race card when a Republican brought up a bill to protect Confederate memorials on the University of Texas campus:
This session, it seems every time Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Fort Worth) or Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) approaches the front microphone to play the race card, half the GOP caucus scurries for cover and hides in the corner of the House chamber or the member’s lounge, fearful of being deemed “divisive” or “insensitive.”
So far this session, representing Republican values has seemed to take a back seat to avoiding the race card. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.
On March 21, Rep. Sid Miller (R-Stephenville) brought forward HB 459, a bill designed to protect historic monuments at Texas university campuses from being removed or renamed by university administrators.
Lo and behold, some of the Democrats figured out that some of the monuments being protected honor officers of the Confederate States of America.
These particular Democrats want to rewrite history and ban even-handed treatment of the Civil War from schools.
At first, the GOP did the right thing. GOP representatives went to the back microphone to defend Miller. When Veasey tried to exempt monuments to slave owners from Miller’s bill, one GOP lawmaker reminded Veasey that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned slaves. The Republicans voted down all the goofy amendments.
Then, Rep. David Swinford (R-Dumas), chairman of the committee that heard the bill, went to the front microphone and apologized for bringing such a “divisive” bill to the House floor, and Miller pulled the bill down.
Apologize? What on earth for? Swinford and Miller brought an excellent bill to the House floor - one that most Texans would support. These lawmakers should step up to the front microphone to accept congratulations from grateful colleagues for having the courage to take on this issue, not apologize.
We see in this incident the endgame of political correctness- somewhere deep in the recesses of his heart, Swinford actually does feel guilt for what his ancestors did- the race card attack worked, instead of being brushed off or ridiculed for the racket it is among most minority lawmakers, the Honorable Representative Senfronia Thompson included.
We will never endure these attacks successfully until we accept one truth in the bedrock of our hearts:
Our ancestors did nothing wrong. They didn’t and we have nothing to feel guilty about.
Now, of course, I’m not making a theological statement or anything, as every mortal man has committed sin, including ourselves and our ancestors, as individuals. But when we’re talking about groups of people as whole, and judged on the relative scale of humanity (as these minority hucksters aren’t exactly free of sin themselves), we have nothing to be ashamed of. Period.
Why are we letting African-Americans beat us up about slavery when their ancestors sold them into it, the West was the first to end it, and the only place where it is still practiced on a large scale today is in Africa?
It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black, no pun intended. And just why is it that our elected, supposedly conservative, representatives fall for this junk?
Because they labor under the effects of political correctness themselves, even while they sometimes claim to defy it.
I recently had time to see the new movie 300, about the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held the pass against the entire Persian army- many believe it to be the glorious battle of Western history. With a bit of editing out of gratuitious sex and nudity (we now have editors than can snip DVD footage without recompression), the movie will be a classic worth showing to young men of the West for many years to come.
It shows our pagan ancestors in their full glory, hardened men of war, utterly merciless when facing a foe as equally unforgiving. Before we judge them too heavily, let’s remember the kind of wars fought at this time, those like Biblical wars of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Canaanites, divinely commanded and sanctioned. The sort of wars Stonewall Jackson said should be fought under the black flag of death, as he recommended the Confederacy do when the federal government exceeded its constitutional bounds. When one’s very civilization is at stake, as Jackson understood, there can be no mercy. As we see the federal government continue its reign of evil and death (50 million+ abortions and counting), Jackson does not sound so unreasonable.
To change gears a bit, what if I told you that Thermopylae was not the most glorious battle of all time? Some think it actually occurred 154 years ago, during the war Jackson fought.
In an 1882 speech, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis made an exuberant claim: “That battle at Sabine Pass was more remarkable than the battle at Thermopylae.”
In arresting prose, Edward T. Cotham, Jr., recounts the momentous hours of September 8, 1863, during which a handful of Texans—almost all of Irish descent—under the leadership of Houston saloonkeeper Richard W. Dowling, prevented a Union military force of more than 5,000 men, 22 transport vessels, and 4 gunboats from occupying Sabine Pass, the starting place for a large invasion that would soon have given the Union control of Texas.
The Davis Guards, a Confederate Army unit named for Jefferson Davisqv and composed of forty-five enlisted men, one engineer, and one surgeon, all Irish and all in their twenties or younger, belonged to Company F, Texas Heavy Artillery, under Capt. Frederick H. Odlum. The recruits were hand-picked from the docks at Houston and Galveston and were known as the Fighting Irishmen. In August 1863 the unit, under command of Richard W. (Dick) Dowling,qv was ordered to man the guns at Fort Sabine,qv half a mile below Sabine City. They constructed an earthen-work fort large enough to hold their six guns. In the battle of Sabine Pass,qv September 8, 1863, in the space of forty minutes, they fired 137 shots without stopping to swab the guns. Although they captured 350 prisoners and killed 50 Union soldiers, the Davis Guards sustained no losses. Gen. John B. Magruderqv gave them a special citation and presented them with silver medals, said to be the only medals struck during the Confederacy.
It’s been called the “Alamo in Reverse”. Somebody should make a movie of this one too.
I dismissed this as possibly an overreaching conspiracy theory when I first heard it, but Daniel Sheehy has put together a good piece at VDARE discussing the facts behind a possible North American Union supported by Bush, Rice, Guitterez and other globalist members of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Interestingly, both Rick Warren and Richard Land are members of the CFR, which explicitly supports the political extinction of the United States. We know about Warren, but Land is lesser known, and works for some sort of lobbying bureaucracy funded with Southern Baptist tithe money called the Ethics and Religous Liberties Commission. Land has explicitly endorsed a guest worker program as an imperative for Christians, playing religion for politics.
So if you’re a Southern Baptist, how do you feel about your tithe money and offerings being used to lobby in support of Ted Kennedy’s immigration bill? From now on, I’ll be earmarking all of my offerings for specific purposes, not simply into the general pot for abuse by these liberal bureaucrats.
The Left, of course, is ecstatic over his betrayal:
Kudos to Dick Land. First he teams up with Kennedy, the “liberal” National Council of Churches, and the same-sex endorsing Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. Now, just a few weeks later Land is getting his picture taken with Ted Kennedy AGAIN!
Merely a decade or two ago, Roger Moran and other Southern Baptist fundamentalists were giving moderate ethics and religious liberty leaders hell for participating in coalitions with groups such as Americans United and People for the American Way. Let’s not forget that these same leaders regularly were involved in coalitions with VERY conservative organizations as well.
Heck, just a few months ago 2nd Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention, Wiley Drake, was moaning and groaning because Rick Warren invited Barack Obama to speak at his AIDS Conference. I believe good ole Wiley dubbed Obama, “THE ENEMY.”
I’m curious - are the Roger Morans of the Southern Baptist Convention slightly bothered that Richard Land is regularly partnering with that Massachusetts liberal Ted Kennedy?
This Southern Baptist is very bothered by it.
A good friend of mine is running for local office, and it’s incumbent-hunting season right now with the municipal elections coming up here in Texas. Much of my discretionary time spent writing is now being spent talking to voters.
One of the things I’ve noticed about candidates is that they’re lazy, often sticking to nice neighborhoods for block-walking.
Since a lot of the voters live outside suburbia proper, it provides an opportunity to meet a lot of characters. It’s quite entertaining- the South has more characters per capita than any region of the country, especially when you get out of the ‘burbs and go talk to the people. The real blessing of our country is not our government (which is a curse), but the nature of the people themselves. Their anti-government, anti-tax, “leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone” attitude is the very thing that has preserved us from further slouching towards socialism.
Ironically, in the South, where inequality of wealth is highest, real equality of persons also reaches its peak, in terms of the respect that men show each other regardless of their social station.
Someone who lives in a $5000 market value trailer on 1/2 acre on a dusty rural road despises the few hundred dollars he pays in property tax every year as much as I despise my larger bill. And what he hates more than anything else is the government monkeying in his business, and critically, at the same time, would accord me the same respect- specifically, that the government should not engage in wealth redistribution experiments that would ostensibly benefit him at my expense. This is the real test of the golden rule, whether someone with something to gain can resist the temptation of government meddling.
And this is why I think the working people of our country are entitled to the wages the market dictates, however high, and should not have their jobs bid down by massive immigration. Just as they respect the rights of those more blessed financially, those at the top should not support policies that undermine their earning potential. I continue to be amazed by the willful blindness of many people, who keep talking about a labor shortage. Yes, we have a labor shortage of $8 an hour landscapers, but there’s plenty at $15 an hour. But bring up the prospect of higher wages and many of those profiting from the immigration invasion quickly change the subject.
The Mexicans we are importing will eventually elect a Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro, and when that happens, all of those who made their wealth on $8 an hour drywall installers will be wishing they could pay some back wages to get their country back.
Let me summarize-
Christian fundamentalism: Repent or burn in hell after you die.
Jewish fundamentalism: One thousand Gentiles are not worth a Jewish fingernail. So let’s fire up the Caterpillar and head into the West Bank; maybe we can machine gun some Palestinian kids throwing rocks!
Islamic fundamentalism: Acknowledge Mohammed or we will kill you.
Clearly different, but too much detail for Mr. Warren- it’s about deeds, not creeds, don’t you know?
Who exactly is Warren talking about? Who are liberals from California usually talking about when they condemn “fundamentalism”? Generally, anyone who believes in anything approaching historic Christianity. “Fundamentalism” itself was simply an effort to restore the fundamentals of the faith from mealy-mouthed ecunemism enthusiasts like Warren.
Something smells funny about this guy- anybody who thinks a Powerpoint presentation with a cute acronym can solve African poverty needs his head checked, or else has a different agenda than what he claims. And I don’t think the man is stupid.
The following is said in a humorous tongue-in-cheek tone…
[Note: I realize the site linked to above is dispensationalist in nature. I, ironically like Rick Warren, hold to an optimisitic postmillenial view, though I am only slightly this way, maybe 55/45 postmillenial/amillenial. However, if Rick Warren is the fulfillment of Christian "Dominion" over the Earth, I'm gonna have to switch over to a dispensationalist view- esp. if he starts sweet-talking us about the Scriptural mandate for letting the nice men from the government inject a microchip under our skin for our protection. Coming Soon: The Data-Driven Life: Why the Government Needs to Know Where You Are at All Times and Why It's a Sin to Resist Being Chipped by Rick Warren- complete with DVD...ahem.."simulcast"...and small group indoctrination..
"Hi, this is Pastor Rick. See this red spot on my arm? Well, that's my new little buddy, Chip. Like many of you, when Congress passed the PATRIOT ACT III with Mandatory Citizen Microchipping Program, I was apprehensive. Then I was reminded about an important truth from Scripture, in particular Page 17, Verse One from the Purpose-Driven Life: Rick, it's not about you. It shouldn't matter that I was uncomfortable with the idea of an RFID-GPS microchip in my forearm. It's about our security. It's about obeying the legitimate authority of the government over a New Testament Christian. It's about deeds, not creeds.... In your small group today, I want you to have a dialog about how you feel about being chipped- are you afraid of shots? Do you have some extremist political or theological limiting beliefs that are holding you back? Let's share our feelings openly with the group. Well, I'll see you next week, when I'll discuss cool ways to use the onboard storage and bluetooth capability of the your new chip to spread the Gospel in a whole new way. Until then..."]
Apparently they can’t pay their bills to Russia for nuclear fuel, but they did figure out a great PR stunt. Sadly, I find myself agreeing with a small part of his statement:
He had criticised Britain for deploying Mrs Turney, mother of a three-year-old daughter, to the Gulf.
“Why was the difficult task of searching the seas given to a mother thousands of miles from home?” he demanded.
“Why is there no respect for motherhood, for the love of her child? How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don’t they respect family values in the West?”
I’m friends with a lot of pro-Bush Republican people (and technically speaking, I’m a Republican as well, though I despise the cowardice of most Republican leaders). There’s almost a mythical worship of all things military among these folks, and I guess a big gaping hole in most social conservatives’ agendas is this issue of women in the military.
Maybe it’s a dead duck politically, but there’s something wrong with a civilization that sends women to fight. As Al Mohler has said, the future belongs to the fundamentalist “extremists”. They’re the only ones having babies. We in the West had better develop a fundamentalism of our own to counter that of Islam.
There was a time in my Christian thought when I was frustrated with theological disputes and the seeming “gaps” in the Bible on major issues. Not errors, but rather just a lack of organization might be the way to put it. The New Testament, particularly, starts off well with straightforward narratives, but then proceeds to various epistles, snapshots of theology based on the problems of local churches at the times. For example, Paul supposedly wrote three letters to the Corinthians, yet we have only the latter two. Why do we not have the first? What information might it contain?
In short, I wished the Bible were so explicit in its theology that theological disputes would be greatly reduced. I have a probabalistic mode of thinking, and on many non-essential issues I can put probabilities surrounding various doctrines. If you’d like entertainment, I can cite odds for you. For example, I think the Church of Christ people might have a point about losing your salvation, but that would also require belief in free will, so the probability of their being correct is approximately 30% (the chance of free will being correct in my view) times 40% (the chance that the “losing salvation” interpretation is correct, if one assumes free will), for a rolled average of 12% chance of correctness.
I realize I am weird for thinking this way. Having had much experience seeing precious hypotheses crushed by experimental data in my business and other pursuits, I have learned to be humble about my assumptions.
It was only recently that a particularly interesting hypothesis hit me that might explain why God would not make the Bible as theologically organized as we might prefer. It’s the same reason that continues to frustrate globalists- part of God’s Grace is His division of man into tribes and camps so that evil is compartmentalized and cannot take over the entire world.
Multiculturalism, then, can be seen as a particular evil, as it seeks to mix, and thus destroy, real diversity to create a false uniform diversity. Any chemical engineer can tell you it’s easier to mix something than take it apart- hence all of those insanely tall towers at the refineries. Thus, if the end result of multicultural mixing is a destruction of differences, then the globalists would finally have a perfect scenario for world government, which could and almost certainly would propagate a great deal of evil.
Similarly, doctrinal disputes in the Christian community prevent a Church with a false unity under a common government, a situation where evil can flourish. With legitimate doctrinal disputes, it follows naturally that there will be administrative divisions as well, ensuring that heresy is firewalled within one denomination at a time.
However, this is not to say that doctrine is worthless, or a mere hedge of protection. It is worthy of study, and good Christians should pick one and stick with it, particularly when raising children. This a particular challenge for me, as three-year-olds don’t pick up well on probability trees.
Recently a friend of mine, inspired by the catechisms of the Presbyterian Church (yeah, I know that’s a weird sounding word to Baptists like myself, but it’s really just a series of questions and answers about doctrine), decided to create a children’s catechism for use in educating his kids about doctrine. However, he modified it to focus less on particularly Reformed elements (predestination and the like), and more on the basics of the faith, as would be acceptable to most Baptists and non-denominational Christians.
I’m starting to use it with my oldest girl, and besides her thinking that the questions are actually short answer (her favorite response to question 3 is “so he could get some glory”) instead of calling for a memorized response, it’s going pretty well. With a child even older, it should be even easier.
The text document is below, feel free to copy and paste for your own use.
Non-Denominational Catechism for Young Children
Q. Who made you?
A. God.
Q. What else did God make?
A. God made all things.
Q. Why did God make you and all things ?
A. For God’s own glory.
Q. How can you glorify God?
A. By loving God and doing what God says.
Q. Are there more gods than one?
A. No, there is only one God.
Q. In how many persons does this one God exist?
A. In three persons.
Q. Who are the three persons of God?
A. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Q. Where is God?
A. God is everywhere.
Q. How long has God existed?
A. God has always existed.
Q. What does God know?
A. God knows everything.
Q. What can God do?
A. God can do anything.
Q. Where do you learn about God?
A. In the Bible.
Q. Who wrote the Bible?
A. God wrote the Bible.
Q. What is the Bible?
A. God’s Word to all men.
Q. Why is man special?
A. Man was made in the image of God.
Q. Who was the first man and woman?
A. Adam and Eve.
Q. What did Adam and Eve do in the garden of Eden?
A. Adam and Eve sinned against God.
Q. What is sin?
A. Disobeying God.
Q. Who has sinned?
A. Everyone has sinned.
Q. What is the penalty for sin?
A. Death.
Q. What should we do with our sin?
A. Repent of it.
Q. What does repent mean?
A. To turn away from our sin.
Q. Who should we trust to save us from sin?
A. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Q. Who is Jesus?
A. Jesus is God’s Son.
Q. What three offices does Jesus have?
A. Prophet, Priest, and King.
Q. Did Jesus ever sin?
A. No, Jesus is perfect.
Q. How did Jesus pay for my sin?
A. Jesus died on the cross for me.
Q. Did Jesus stay on the cross?
A. No, Jesus was buried.
Q. Is Jesus still buried?
A. No, Jesus rose from the dead after three days.
Q. Where is Jesus now?
A. Jesus is in Heaven.
Q. Will Jesus come again?
A. Yes, on the last day at the sound of the trumpet.
Q. What will Jesus do on the last day?
A. Judge all men.
Q. Where will all men go after judgement?
A. Heaven or Hell.
Q. What is Heaven?
A. A happy place where we will be with God.
Q. What is Hell?
A. A bad place of eternal separation from God.
Q. Can you get to Heaven by being good?
A. No, good works will not get you to Heaven.
Q. Who will go to Heaven?
A. All who trust in Jesus.
Q. Who will go to Hell?
A. All who do NOT trust in Jesus.
Q. Who helps us to trust in Jesus?
A. The Holy Spirit.
Q. What does the Holy Spirit give us?
A. The Holy Spirit gives us faith.
Q. What is faith?
A. Trusting in Jesus.
Q. How do you get the help of the Holy Spirit?
A. By prayer.
Q. What is prayer?
A. Asking God for things He promised to give us.
Q. In whose name should we pray?
A. In the name of Jesus.
Q. What has Jesus given us to teach us how to pray?
A. The Lord’s Prayer.
Q. Can you repeat the Lord’s Prayer?
A.
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy
will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And
forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, for ever. Amen. Matthew 6:9-13
Q. How many commandments did God give to Moses?
A. Ten commandments.
Q. What is the first commandment?
A. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Q. What is the second commandment?
A. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Q. What is the third commandment?
A. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
Q. What is the fourth commandment?
A. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Q. What is the fifth commandment?
A. Honour thy father and thy mother.
Q. What is the sixth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not kill.
Q. What is the seventh commandment?
A. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Q. What is the eighth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not steal.
Q. What is the ninth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Q. What is the tenth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not covet.
Q. What did Jesus say was the greatest commandment?
A. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
Q. Who else should we love, other than God?
A. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Q. Who is your neighbor?
A. Everyone is my neighbor.
Q. What are sacraments?
A. Signs and seals of God’s covenant.
Q. What is Godís covenant?
A. Godís promise to save us from sin.
Q. How many sacraments are there?
A. Two.
Q. What are the two sacraments?
A. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Q. Who appointed these sacraments?
A. Jesus.
Q. Why did Jesus appoint these sacraments?
A. To make us different from the world.
Q. What sign is used in baptism?
A. The washing of water.
Q. What does baptism signify?
A. That our sins are washed clean by the blood of Jesus.
Q. In whose name are we baptized?
A. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Q. What is the Lord’s Supper?
A. Breaking and eating bread and drinking the cup.
Q. Why do we take part in the Lord’s Supper?
A. To remember the death and suffering of Jesus.
Q. What does the broken bread represent?
A. The body of Jesus, broken for our sins.
Q. What does the cup represent?
A. The blood of Jesus, shed for our salvation.
Q. Who should partake of the Lord’s Supper?
A. Believers in Jesus.
Two Interesting Articles to Pass Along:
Media Male-Bashing:
A Doozy of a Post at the Chalcedon Blog:
The Death of the Middle Class, Part One: