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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Unspeakable: A Woman Commander in Chief, Part 4

Posted in Politics, tagged , , on August 21, 2016| 4 Comments »

The specific purpose of this series has been to look at what the Bible has to say about the now popular idea that , not only is it improper for voters to reject a presidential candidate because she’s a woman, but that having a female head of state is itself actually a positive development, demonstrating progressive thinking on the part of any nation whose electorate votes for such a thing.

More broadly speaking, it has been my intention to make people aware that what Martin Luther called the Schriftprinzip – Schriftprinzip is German for “Scripture principle” – applies not just in matters that Christians normally think of as “spiritual”, but to all facets of life, politics included. A typical formulation of the Schriftprinzip is this: Scripture is, “in itself most certain, most easily understood, most plain, is its own interpreter, approving, judging, and illuminating all the statements of all men…Therefore nothing except the divine words are to be the first principles for Christians; all human words are conclusions drawn from them and must be brought back to them and approved by them” (emphasis added).

Note well Luther’s use of the words “all” and “nothing”. All statements of all men must be judged by nothing other than the words of the 66 books of the Bible. For some, the idea that the Bible has anything to say about politics may be a new thought, let alone that what it has to say is authoritative. God is not the God of 11 am on Sunday mornings only. He is God 24/7, and his Word is authoritative in all things 24/7.

This means, among other things, that when Christians think about politics, they must not take their cues on what is right and what is wrong from secular thinkers, but they are required to bring the statements of the political pundits and philosophers back to the Bible to see if their opinions square with the Word of God.

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The Origins of Western Oligarchy

Posted in Politics, tagged , , on August 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

ready for oligarchyShortly following the Brexit vote – for those not up on the various and sundry “-exits” that have dotted the news landscape over the past couple years, Brexit refers to the June 23rd vote in Great Britain where the British voted to exit membership in the European Union – James Traub, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) penned an article for Foreign Policy, the CFR’s journal of opinion, in which he said some things that got regular folks – that is to say, non Master of the Universe types who aren’t in the CFR – a little excited.

Traub’s piece, amazingly titled “It’s Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses,” was a manifesto of sorts, a call to arms to rally the elite to man the barricades against the populist “ignorant masses” in Great Britain and elsewhere who had the unmitigated temerity to reject the globalists’ program of onerous bureaucracy, subsidized mass immigration, and crushing taxes all which are imposed by unelected and unaccountable elites.

Around the same time as Traub penned his charming diatribe, German President Joachim Gauck decided he’s like to audition to play the part of the 21st century’s Marie Antoinette. Gauck said, “The elites are not the problem, the people are the problem.” Now keep in mind that it is elites such as Gauck and German Chancellor Angela Merkel who have mass-imported radical Muslims, not a few of whom have raped, hacked, mass shot and suicide bombed their way through the once peaceful streets of the German nation.

And as if it were a small thing to subject the German people to an onslaught of jihadist criminality, Gauck and company think the German ought to foot the bill for their scheme as well.

And yet, when Germans get a little upset at having to pay for the destruction of their own country, it’s the German people who have the problem, not the “elites” who foisted the mess on them.

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Unspeakable: A Woman Commander in Chief, Part 3

Posted in Politics, tagged , , on August 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

monstrous-regiment-of-women

The Monstrous Regiment of Women, title page.

In part one of this series we looked at the history of the idea of a woman president. As it turns out, people have been agitating for a woman president since at least 1872 when Victoria Claflin Woodhull became the first woman to run for president of the United States.

But even though in some quarters there has been a push for a woman president for well over one hundred years, in recent decades the clamor for this has increased considerably. Those who favor this idea scored a major victory with the nomination of Hillary Clinton as the first female presidential candidate of a major political party.

The spirit of the times is such that to question the propriety of having a female chief executive is viewed at best as hopelessly out of date and at worst a thought crime worthy of severe punishment in the gulags of political correctness. No current day political thinker, at least none that I am aware of, questions whether having a woman president is a good idea. Perhaps the only high-profile secular writer of recent times who clearly opposed the notion of a woman head of state was Ayn Rand, who commented that a woman commander-in-chief was “unspeakable.”

Part two of this series took a look at woman suffrage, which was a necessary condition to bring us to the present state. When the nations of the West gave women the vote, by this very act they also implied that it is appropriate to have a woman head of state.

At least some people were aware of this at the time woman’s suffrage was being debated. According to Grace Saxon Mills, one reason to oppose women getting the vote was, “because the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices. It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that and many similar absurdities.”

Mills obviously understood where the logic of woman suffrage would lead and had the good sense to reject it as absurd. One could hope that today’s Evangelicals would be so perceptive and courageous. But such is not the case.

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The Few. The Proud. The Transgendered.

Posted in Politics, tagged , , on August 9, 2016| 1 Comment »

The Marines

Time was when the recruiting slogan of the US Marine Corps was The Few, The Proud, The Marines. Petty catchy, that. But, alas, such talk is unfit for the new order of the ages which is fast upon us.

No, in times like these, more inclusive slogans are what’s needed. And after reading this piece from the Army Times, I think I have just what the PC doctor ordered. From henceforth, I propose that the Marines use the following, safe-space approved slogan: The Few. The Proud. The Transgendered.

As the story, titled “Sailors, Marines will be able to declare transgender status this fall,” reports,

Following the Defense Department’s lifting of the ban on transgender service members in June, the Navy Department is preparing to provide medical and administrative support for transitioning sailors and Marines, train personnel on the particulars of serving in a transgender-inclusive force and, by next summer, accept transgender recruits into boot camp….transgender sailors and Marines may serve openly and cannot be involuntarily separated or denied re-enlistment for their gender identity…

When I showed this to a friend at lunch today, his reaction was, “The end is near.” And really, it’s hard to argue with his comment. The government really has only two jobs, punishing evildoers – this Biblical provides justification for, among other things, a nation having a defense force – and praising the good, which means the laws put forth by the civil magistrate ought to line up with the Ten Commandments.

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Unspeakable: A Woman Commander in Chief, Part 2

Posted in Politics, tagged , , on August 7, 2016| 4 Comments »

monstrous-regiment-of-women

The Monstrous Regiment of Women, title page.

Ratified in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed women the right to vote in the United States. The text of the Amendment reads in part, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Prior to the adoption of this Amendment, women had limited access to the ballot box. Some states permitted women to vote, as did some municipalities. But with the 19th Amendment, women were guaranteed the same voting rights as men. And if women had the same voting rights as men, on what basis could anyone deny them the right to hold office, up to and including the presidency?

This very point was raised during the debate over woman suffrage in Great Britain. During the parliamentary debate on the 1906 Resolution on the Enfranchisement of Women, several points were put forth by those opposed to women voting. Among the reasons for opposing female suffrage was the following:

Because the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices. It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that an many similar absurdities.

But what was scarcely imaginable in 1906 has in 2016 become a self-evident truth. To deny it is to run the risk of being declared a heretic in the church of progressive liberalism and, at least metaphorically speaking, being burned at the stake.

But if this be heresy, let us make the most of it. It is the contention of this writer that those opposed to woman suffrage were in the right, and the suffragists in the wrong. My case rests on the evidence of the Scriptures. And while the conclusions drawn from Scripture on the matter are, in and of themselves, decisive, the practical experience of the last 96 years can be called upon to support this contention as well.

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Unspeakable: A Woman Commander in Chief

Posted in Feminism, Politics, tagged , , , on July 31, 2016| 1 Comment »

monstrous-regiment-of-women

Title page from John Knox’s famous, shocking and politically incorrect essay, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

In 1558, John Knox wrote was is still to this day perhaps the most politically incorrect tract in history, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. The proximate object of Knox’s blast was the reign of Mary Tudor in England, but in targeting Bloody Mary, the Scottish reformer also took aim, “against the very principle of female government itself” (Roger A. Mason, John Knox On Rebellion, xv)

Over the following centuries, the political theory and practice of Protestant nations generally was ikn agreement with Knox. But with the rise of secular feminism in the 19th century and its subsequent influence on the evangelical church, that consensus began to fracture.

Today, not only does Great Britain have its second female prime minister, but Germany in headed by Angela Merkel. France is likely to find itself under the sway of a woman as soon as next year. And here in the United States, the Democrats have nominated Hillary Clinton for president.

Much has been made of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The mainstream press is fond of describing it as “historic” as indeed it is. The reaction of the New York Times was typical of mainstream reporting on Clinton’s nomination, with the paper featuring the headline “Democrats Make Hillary Clinton a Historic Nominee.”

As the story itself went on to report, “The Democratic convention formally nominated Hillary Clinton for president on Tuesday, making history by choosing a woman to be the first standard-bearer of a major political party, a breakthrough underscored by a deeply personal speech by Bill Clinton calling her ‘the best darn change-maker I have ever known.’ ”

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Tax “Fairness”

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , on July 30, 2016| 2 Comments »

Crooked Hillary

Hillary Clinton

Fairness. Such an innocent sounding word. So why do I always loath to hear politicians speak of it?

 

Very likely my trepidation has something to do with the way political hacks abuse the English language. Our public discourse has reached what could be called peak dishonesty. Whatever words our public servants use, if you understand the opposite you’re probably pretty close to catching their drift. And so it is with fairness. If some wanna-be office holder starts using that word, think “mega-ripoff” and you won’t go far wrong.

Hillary Clinton, to no one’s surprise, is the latest politician to use the oft-exploited term “fairness” as cover for more theft by government. One need only look at her proposed “fairness” tax to see this principle in operation.

According to the factsheet Investing in America by Restoring Basic Fairness to Our Tax Code,

There is essentially a “private tax system” for the wealthiest Americans that lets them lower their tax bill by billions, while working families play by the rules and pay their fair (sic) share. In 2013, the 400 highest-income taxpayers – those making more than $250 million per year on average – paid an effective tax rate of just 23 percent, in part because of tax gaming and sheltering to reduce their tax bills. Some multi-millionaires can pay lower rates than their employees.

Now there is much here that is true. The US tax code is hopelessly complex and provides ample opportunity for those who can afford top-notch CPAs and tax-lawyers to take advantage of legal loopholes to shelter vast wealth from the tax man. Ordinary Americans, on the other hand, are not so positioned. Most of us dupes on Main Street end up forking it over big-time to the IRS.

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Hillary Clinton’s Monstrous Regiment

Posted in Feminism, Politics, Radio Lux Lucet, tagged , , , on July 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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Nothing to Show for It: The Epic Political Failure of the American Religious Right

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , on July 24, 2016| 2 Comments »

epic-failNow that convention season is upon us and the thoughts of many are tuned politics, specifically to the party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia, it seemed good to discuss the relationship between Evangelical Christians and the political process.

For some time now, really since the end of WWII and the rise of the neo-evangelicalism, American Evangelicals have worked assiduously to influence the culture, oftentimes through the political process.

Growing up, I recall the rise of the Christian right during the 1970’s. Led by such figures as the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, the Christian right promised to push back on the radical cultural changes that had rocked the nation during the 1960’s.

And now after several decades of Evangelical politicking by these and other groups, it’s fair to ask, Just what have they accomplished? Is our nation more moral, or better still, is America more Christian than it was forty years ago? Is there greater respect in 2016 for the rule of law, for private property, for public morality than before the rise of the Christian right?

The answer to these questions is, I believe, obviously no. In fact, it seems to me, that not only has the religious right failed to reverse the tide of national decline – and make no mistake about it, the US and the entirety of Western Civilization is in the midst of what appears to be terminal decline – but that things actually are far worse now than they were before the term “religious right” entered the mainstream of public discourse.

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