Lux Lucet

The Battle of Puebla, May 5, 1862.

Welcome one and all to this year’s TWIR Edition Cinco de Mayo! For those of you not down with the whole Cinco de Mayo thing, it’s a Mexican holiday celebrating the Mexican army’s 1862 beat down of the French at the battle of Puebla.

While reading through the Wikipedia entry on the Cinco de Mayo, I found this interesting little bit,

Cinco de Mayo has its roots in the French occupation of Mexico, which took place in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 and the 1858-61 Reform War. The Reform War was a civil war which pitted Liberals (who believed in separation of church and state and freedom of religion) against the Conservatives (who favored a tight bond between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mexican State).

The article doesn’t say where the liberals’ got their idea about the separation of church and state, but one would suppose that the US Constitution, ratified less than a century before, had at least some effect on their thinking.

Contrary to what the ACLU would like you to believe, the separation of church and state is a Biblical idea, one that took root in nations influenced by the Protestant Reformation. Long before Clarence Darrow showed up for the Scopes Monkey Trial, Calvinists were diligent about keeping government out of their churches and churches out of their government.

On the other hand, the Roman Church-State does not look too kindly on this idea. For Rome, church and state are one, which goes a long way to explaining the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. Roman prelates would find some poor soul guilty of heresy against Holy Mother Church, say, disbelieving the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the mass, and then proceed to turn him over to the civil authorities who could carry out the “appropriate” punishment for the “crime.”

On a slightly less serious note, the Cinco de Mayo has become, in recent decades in the US, another excuse to party.

For example, when I went to the University of Cincinnati back in the day, there was this annual thing called the Cinco de Stratford. Stratford was a street near campus where a lot of the frat houses were located. And every May 5th they’d hold a big bash.

This was a long running event, until finally one year things got a bit out of hand. As I recall, the evening’s festivities turned into something of a riot, the crowning glory coming when some joker decided to set fire to a couch in the middle of the street. Neither the University fathers nor the Cincinnati cops were terribly amused. And that, as they say, was that.

But enough already about the Cinco de Mayo. Let’s look at the goings on from this past week.

Workers of the World, Unite!

Since we’re on the subject of May holidays, it seems fitting to discuss the great commie celebration known as May Day, or, more formally, International Workers’ Day.

I have to hand it to the comrades this year, they really put on a good show. In Portland, “Police canceled the permit for the demonstration after ‘anarchists’ began throwing projectiles and incendiary devices, and causing unsafe conditions for protesters…the march ‘devolved into a full-scale riot with random acts of vandalism.’ ”

Ditto in Seattle where police had to issue a dispersal order to the gathered crown after several fights broke out.

Protesters in New York “carried signs with slogans, some reading, ‘Every species has a right to freedom’ and ‘We’re here, we’re queer, we’re fabulous.’ ” You go, girl/guy/whatever.

May Day demonstrators in San Francisco.  Does Sanctuary For All include actual American citizens?

There was also a strong pro-immigration flavor to this year’s celebration.

For instance, DNC Chairman Tom Perez took the occasion to protest outside the White House, helpfully declaring that “no human is illegal.” This silly argument from enthusiasts for taxpayer subsidized mass immigration would have us overlook the simple point that calling someone who violates US immigration law an illegal immigrant is no different than referring to a man who steals as a thief. In both cases the law breaker is identified with the crime.

“May 1 is a day where we lift up the voices of immigrant workers and their families,” said a tone deaf Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

There once was a time when immigrants came to America to embrace American values such as limited government. Some still do. But immigration advocates who insist on associating their cause with Marxist flavored May Day celebrations send a very different signal. And it just may be that Americans who are leery of the militant immigrationistas, far from being “deplorable,” in fact have some very good reasons for believing as they do.

It’s really a simple matter of branding. What is it with these immigration enthusiasts that makes them think attaching themselves to Marxism is going to win them friends in middle America?

Message to Tom Perez and Angelica Salas, et. al.: Millions upon millions of Americans HATE with a passion the collectivist political philosophy of Karl Marx, Che Guevara, and Antifa. This is a major reason why you guys lost the presidential election, but you obviously still don’t get it. 

And thinking that you’re going to win Americans to your cause by parading around on May Day with your Hey Hey, Ho Ho chants is foolishness. 

But if you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll take it from the Beatles.  “But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.”

Maribel Trujillo Redux

Since I’m on the topic of immigration, I thought I revisit the case of Maribel Trujillo, about whom I’ve written the past two weeks (see here and here).

The case received a lot of attention in the media, locally, nationally and even overseas. That being the case, it’s not surprising that SJW queen herself, Rachel Maddow, weighed in on the subject.

In her report on the Trujillo’s deportation, Maddow repeated the oft used cliché that Trujillo “was snatched off the street” near her home by ICE agents who took her into custody for deportation.

From the way Maddow relates the account of her arrest, you’d think Trujillo had been kidnapped.

But far from seeming like some lightning bolt out of the blue, her arrest should have come as no shock to Trujillo. As the Washington Post
reports, “In 2014 her [Trujillo’s] appeals were dismissed, and she received a final removal order. At the discretion of immigration officials under the Obama administration, ICE allowed Trujillo to remain in the U.S. free from custody as long as she checked in with officials once a year.”

In other words, Trujillo should have been deported three years ago, but the incompetent, evil Obama administration, contrary to American immigration law and the wishes of the American people, allowed her to remain in the country anyway.

Well, there’s a new sheriff in town.

And the new sheriff, unlike the old one, actually takes seriously his job of enforcing American immigration laws.

Oh, the humanity!

There’s an old saying, “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” The same holds true for those who violate US immigration laws. As the apostle Paul reminds us, the civil magistrate does not bear the sword in vain.

Maribel Trujillo broke America’s immigration laws, and was justly, if belatedly, punished for her wrongdoing.

Enough with this “snatched her off the street” nonsense.

Default Puerto Rican Style

As Wednesday’s New York Times headline put it, “Puerto Rico Declares a Form of Bankruptcy.” The story goes on to state that the governor of the territory intends to move the case into federal court, “making it the largest government to seek refuge from its creditors in the United States history.”

This is a huge story. At issue is the restructuring of the island’s “roughly $73 billion of bond debt, and nearly $50 billion of unfunded pension obligations.”

Or to put it a little less delicately, Puerto Rico’s creditors’ are about to take a major hair cut. That is to say they’re going to receive a lot less money back than they thought when they made the loans.

And Puerto Rico is just the start. Individuals, corporations, and government the world over have been running up their credit cards for years, and now they are all getting to the point where their maxed out.

And just as individual borrows eventually hit the wall when year after year they spend more than they earn, so too do governments.

The debt situation in the US is just as bad, and perhaps even worse than in Puerto Rico. But we in the US have one advantage over our neighbors to the south. It’s this wonderful invention called the printing press. That, coupled with the fact that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, is why America has been able to erect the largest debt edifice in the history of the world, all the while being considered a good credit risk.

The truth is, we are Puerto Rico. And someday the world’s going to figure this out. That’s when things will get interesting.

Voilá, The French Elections

Here’s a story that isn’t getting nearly enough attention in the American press, the big French presidential election to be held this Sunday.

This is the final round which pits former Finance Minister Emmanuel Macron against populist Marine Le Pen.

Le Pen, dubbed the French Donald Trump, has promised to pull France out of the European Union and end the nation’s use of the Euro, returning it to the use of the Franc. She is also sharply critical of an immigration policy that has flooded the country with millions of Islamic immigrants, some of them militant Islamists.

This election represents nothing short of a referendum on the very existence of the European Union itself. If Le Pen were to win Sunday, her victory would change the world immediately. For Americans, this would be felt at the opening of financial markets on Monday, which likely would sharply sell off.

On the other hand, a victory by Macron likely would be viewed as a vote of confidence in the globalist political establishment, not just in Europe but around the world.

Keep an eye open for the results this weekend. This is a big deal.

Trump Repeals the Johnson Amendment, Kinda Sorta

The National Day of Prayer was on Thursday, and Donald Trump used the occasion to sign an executive order said to weaken the Johnson Amendment, the 1954 law that prohibits charities, including churches, from endorsing political candidates.

At this point, I’m not sure what to think of Trump’s order. It seems to me that to the degree that it increases freedom of speech for ministers and charitable organizations, it’s a good thing.

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible teaches a very definite system of politics and economic, one that has been called constitutional-capitalism. That is, the Scriptures support limited, constitutional government and private property and condemn all forms of big government and collectivism.

Of course, a far better solution than weakening the Johnson Amendment would be to entirely get rid of the IRS and its absurd tax code altogether. If there were no IRS, there would be no need for churches and other organizations to apply for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, and the government would have no ability to impose silence on ministers through the tax code.

The IRS is an agency of tyranny. And the sooner Americans come to realize this, the better.