Lux Lucet

Image from the riots in Charlotte, NC.

Another week. Another race riot. I realize putting it that was seems to trivialize what is a very serious situation in Charlotte. But really, this whole Black Lives Matter burnin’ down the house routine got old a long time ago.

And to make matters worse, there are reports indicating that the majority of those arrested in connection with the Charlotte riots aren’t even from North Carolina let alone from the local Charlotte area. As the spokesman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police told CNN,

This is not Charlotte that’s out here. These are outside entities that are coming in and causing these problems. These are not protestors, these are criminals.

We’ve got the instigators that are coming in from the outside. They were coming in on buses from out of state. If you go back and look at some of the arrests that were made last night. I can about say probably 70% of those had out-of-state IDs. They’re not coming from Charlotte.

According to a Washington Times
report, “For all its talk of being a street uprising, Black Lives Matter is increasingly awash in cash, raking in pledges of more than $100 million from liberal foundations and other eager to contribute to what has become the grant-making cause du jour.”

And among the biggest donors to the cause is, you guessed it, none other than George Soros himself, who is said to have given $33 million in grants to the cause.

During the Ferguson riots, the genesis of the Black Lives Matter movement, the UK’s Daily Mail reports that Soros’ money, “was reportedly funneled into keeping up numbers of protesters in the community over a period of months by bringing in outside activists.”

Soros has repeatedly shown himself willing to sow discord if he believes it benefits his pet causes.  Are we seeing a replay of this in Charlotte?

Be All That You Can Be

Way back in the day, the Army had a catchy recruiting slogan that challenged would be soldiers to “be all that you can be in the Army.” The idea was that the Army would take boys and make them men. I don’t know if that was true, but at least the ad spoke to a normal motivation.

Well, fast forward to 2016 and be all you can be has taken on a whole new meaning. Now, instead of making men out of boys, the Army will help boys realize their true woman within.

In an announcement that should surprise no one, the Military Times
reported this week that, Transgender troops on active duty may qualify for sex-reassignment surgery if their physicians deem it necessary, according to Pentagon officials.

Here we have a nation with a federal government debt of $19.5 Trillion – it’s actually a lot higher, but we’ll go with the official number for now – acting as if it has all the money in the world lying around to indulge the warped fantasies of deeply disturbed people.

On the authority of Scripture, there are no transgendered persons. There are men and there are women. Due to sin, doubtless there are individuals who are confused enough to believe they actually are men trapped in women’s bodies – see this story about a transgender ex-Navy Seal, for example – but the people who claim this are lying both to themselves and to society at large.

As Christians, we can pray that God would open their eyes and save them, but there is no reason to indulge their destructive foolishness.

Prairie Home Jihad

The state of Minnesota, which until recently was best known for Lutherans and Prairie Home Companion, seems determined to forge for itself a whole new identity: jihad central.

CNBC reports that, “Authorities are investigating the stabbing of nine people at a Minnesota mall as a potential act of terrorism – a finding that would realize long-held fears of an attack in the immigrant-rich state that has struggled to stop the recruiting of its young men by groups including the Islamic State.”

The rampage was conducted by 22-year Dahir A. Adan, whom the Star Tribune describes as “Somali refugee.”

The idea of taking in refugees is certainly one that has appeal for the Christian. But what many people don’t understand is the extent to which the refugee business has become a racket, and a very lucrative one at that.

According to James Simpson, groups know in the refugee business as Volunteer Agencies (VOLAGs) are, “richly rewarded with your tax dollars when they collaborate with federal government agencies.

There are nine major VOLAGS acting in the role of refugee contractors for Uncle Sam, the biggest of which is Catholic Charities/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. According to US government figures, Catholic Charities as paid over $2 billion dollars between 2008 and 2015 to resettle refugees.

But the overburdened US taxpayer’s bill doesn’t stop with Catholic Charities. Unlike immigrants, “refugees are eligible for all welfare programs upon arrival” (Steven A. Camarota, The High Cost of Resettling Middle Eastern Refugees).

So, Americans pay once to bring the refugees in, then pay again and again and again to keep them here, and then for all their trouble find themselves subjected to occasional random acts of jihad. Such a deal!

The problem with the refugee situation is not in the desire to help others, but rather a system of government intervention that substitutes public largess for private charity, one that funnels large sums of money to the Roman Church-State in the process.

When the Good Samaritan helped the robbery victim, he did it out of his own resources, providing for the man’s stay in the inn and care using his own money. That’s the model for Christian charity.

Government giveaways of taxpayer money to foreigners and to the Antichrist Roman Catholic Church are not charity, but theft.