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Posts Tagged ‘Immigration’

The Week in Review 9/9/16

Posted in The Week In Review, tagged , , , , , , on September 10, 2016| 2 Comments »

For a few months there I wrote a series of weekly posts I called This ‘n That dealing with various stories from the week that was. Over the summer I abandoned that format for a weekly podcast. Well, I plan to keep the podcast going, but I thought I restart the weekly review post as well under the updated name The Week in Review.

I know, I know, that’s not really the most imaginative title in the world. But I think it’s certainly appropriate for the subject matter. So, without further ado, let’s get started…

They Just Don’t Get It

The Washington Post and the liberals who love it just don’t get it. They can’t figure out why Mrs. Clinton isn’t totally dominating the presidential race and let show their frustrations in a story titled, “Democrats wonder and worry: Why isn’t Clinton far ahead of Trump?” According to the article,

With Election Day less than two months away, Democrats are increasingly worried that Hillary Clinton has not built a formidable lead against Donald Trump despite his historic weaknesses as a national party candidate.

The piece goes on to quote former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle saying, “Generally, I’m concerned, frankly…all the things that Trump has done, the numbers should be far more explicitly in her favor, but they’re not.”

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Immigration, Citizenship and the Bible, Part 1

Posted in Immigration, tagged , , , , , , on September 4, 2016| 4 Comments »

Ruth_and_Naomi_Leave_Moab

Ruth and Naomi Leave Moab, 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872).

Of all the issues roiling Western electorates, immigration may well be the most emotional. Proponents of mass, government subsidized third-world immigration see themselves as compassionate promoters of the social justice and the common good. On the other hand, those who stand in opposition to the immigration policies currently popular among Western elites see their way of life under attack.

 

Here is the United States, Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination largely on the strength of his tough-on-illegal-immigration-stance. Trump has galvanized support by rejecting amnesty for those who have violated US immigration law, promising instead to deport them, especially those who have been convicted of other crimes while in the US. He also has indicated that he wants to make it harder for those in the country illegally to obtain jobs, to significantly restrict Muslim immigration and, most notably of all, to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to stanch the flow of illegal border crossings from Central and South America into the US.

While Trump’s stance has won him widespread support among rank-and-file Republicans, the Republican party leadership, Democrats and the overwhelming majority of those in the mainstream press quickly become apoplectic when it comes to anything Trump related, especially when it comes to his immigration stance. One of the most extreme offenders in this regard is The Huffington Post, which lends a serious and dignified tone to the immigration debate by placing the following paragraph at the bottom of every column it runs about the Republican nominee:

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims – 1.6 billion members of an entire religion – from entering the U.S (Links in the original).

And the HuffPo is hardly alone. According to the New York Times, it is Trump, not the reporters and pundits who write about him, who is responsible for “testing the norms of objectivity in journalism.”

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Radio Lux Lucet, Episode 6: The What and Why of Oligarchy

Posted in Radio Lux Lucet, tagged , , on August 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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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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This ‘n That 6/3/16

Posted in This 'n That, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Harambe

Harambe the gorilla with the four year old boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, 5/28/16. 

Stories of interest for scripturalists can pop up anywhere. They can be on the other side of the world, or right in our backyard. And it just so happens that this week there were two noteworthy items right here in river city. Let’s kick off this week’s This ‘n That with…

 

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World

Unless you spent this whole last week in a cave or out protesting Donald Trump, you’ve probably heard a little bit about the shooting of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Just to recap, last Saturday a four year old boy climbed into the Zoo’s gorilla exhibit, fell ten feet into a moat, and quickly found himself a person of interest to Harambe, the Zoo’s 450 pound, alpha-male lowland gorilla.

While the boy’s mother frantically watched, the animal grabbed the boy and dragged him about. When things appeared to become life-threatening, the Zoo have the go-ahead for a sharpshooter to put an end to the standoff.

The episode ended with a dead gorilla and a living boy.

Only it really didn’t end there.

As news spread, it didn’t take long for the animal rights crowd to start up with an irrational two minutes hate directed at the Zoo and the mother of the boy. Check these sample tweets from the compassionate man-haters on Twitter,

It didn’t take me long to find these, so doubtless there’s plenty more nonsense out there. And from these comments it is abundantly clear that not a few members of my own species lack the discernment to understand the vast difference in value between a brute beast and a person made in the image of God.

The Scriptures tell us that God made man a little lower than the angels and set him over the works of his hands. It was God himself who gave man dominion over the earth.

We could wish that things had turned out better for the gorilla. But when it comes to the life of a person or the life of an animal, it’s the animal that goes every time.

The Bible tells us that no man yet ever hated his own flesh. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder how the social media shriekers would react if it were their lives that were on the line and not that of another. Not that I can prove it, but I rather suspect they’d be singing a different tune.

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Zeal Without Knowledge

Posted in Economics, Politics, tagged , , , , on March 13, 2016| 5 Comments »

Angry Voter

The angry voter.

The angry 2016 voter. Anyone who’s followed presidential politics even a little this year has heard all about it. The establishment seems puzzled by it. Jeb Bush, the early odds on favorite to win the Republican nomination, never connected with voters. His campaign is over, an object lesson that all the money in the world cannot buy public support. Hillary Clinton began the campaign with an aura of inevitability about her. Everyone knew the White House was hers for the taking. Instead she finds herself in a political dogfight with an elderly socialist Vermont. And with a possible FBI indictment hanging over her head, her problems on the campaign trail may be the least of her worries.

 

When it comes to voter anger, my first reaction is wonder what took them so long. Theft, lies and double standards have infected the whole of society, and it is amazing to this author just how much nonsense people have been willing to tolerate from the so-called masters of the universe who rule us. But on second thought, is voter anger really a positive development? The apostle Paul tells us it’s good to be zealous in a good thing always. And anger, if it’s focused on the proper object and seeks redress in the proper way, can be good. But anger can easily be channeled in the wrong direction, scapegoating the wrong party or going about things in such a way as to actually make a bad situation worse.

Ever since Soren Kierkegaard famously praised the pagan for worshipping his false god with infinite passion, men have carried about in their minds the false notion that sincerity is more important than truth. But the Bible knows nothing of this notion. Truth is everything. How one feels about it makes no difference. It was the same apostle Paul who praised zeal when focused on good ends, who rebuked the Jews, his countrymen, for having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Zeal without knowledge is not a good thing. In fact, it is downright dangerous.

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They’re Only Making it Worse: The GOP Establishment vs. Donald Trump

Posted in Politics, tagged , , on March 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney speaks out against Donald Trump in Salt Lake City, March 3, 2016.

They’re only making it worse…for themselves that is. I’m speaking about the GOP establishment and it’s lame orchestrated attacks on Donald Trump. Trump, it would seem, is their worst nightmare come true. He’s the raging bull trashing their finely cultivated china shop. And, needless to say, they’re not about to take it lying down. Only given how transparent and ineffective their shots at Trump have been, lying down just might be their best option.

 

Take for example the missive released by CNBC on the morning of March 2, the day after Trump’s decisive Super Tuesday victories. In the article, titled Why Trump can’t be president,
author Julissa Acre calls Trump a sexist, a racist and a bigot. And not content with that, she smears his supporters with the same.

Now far be it from me to defend the Donald’s many outrageous statements or his desire to erect the Great Wall of the Rio Grande. But is Trump really so much worse than putative Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton that he warrants such an attack? It seems to me, no. If fact, if presidential politics were a high school yearbook, Clinton would be a shoe in to win the coveted most-likely-to-be-indicted award. There hasn’t been more guilty looking public figure than Hillary Clinton since, well, Bill Clinton. But CNBC didn’t see fit to run a hit piece titled Why Clinton can’t be president. No, they reserved that honor for Trump.

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Antichrist on the Border, Part 2

Posted in Economics, Immigration, Politics, Roman Catholicism, tagged , , , on February 21, 2016| Leave a Comment »

 

Pope Francis_Juarez

Pope Francis speaks at the Bachilleres College in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on February 17, 2016. Background image is Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Gabriel Bouys, AFP

 

 

“The Romanists have very cleverly built three wall around themselves,” observed Martin Luther in his treatise To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. “Hitherto,” he continues, “they have protected themselves by these walls in such a way that no one has been able to reform them. As a result, the whole of Christendom has fallen abominably.

In the first place, when pressed by the temporal powers they have made decrees and declared that the temporal power had no jurisdiction over them, but that on the contrary, the spiritual power is above the temporal. In the second place, when the attempt is made to reprove them with the Scriptures, they raise the objection that only the pope may interpret the Scriptures. In the third place, if threatened with a council, their story is that no one may summon a council but the pope.”

In this way they have cunningly stolen our three rods from us, that they may go unpunished. They have ensconced themselves within the safe stronghold of these three walls so that they can practice all the knavery and wickedness which we see today.” Thus Luther.

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Our “Benefactors”

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

Cologne

Over 100 women and girls claimed they were sexually assaulted in the main square of Cologne, Germany during New Year’s Eve festivities.  For the most part, the attackers were reported to have been North African or Middle Eastern in appearance and likely refugees.      

When Jesus rebuked his disciples for arguing about who was the greatest, he made a brilliant contrast between the sort of leadership approved by the world and the sort that finds favor with the world.

 

All the world, it seems, loves a dictator. As Christ put it, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors’ ” (Luke 22:25). The Greek word translated “benefactors” is euergetes, which just so happened to be a title taken by many kings in antiquity. For example, a third century BC king of Egypt went by the name Ptolemy III Euergetes. Not believing in the Christian principle of doing his good works in private, apparently he wanted everyone to know what a great guy he was.

It seems to me that we have many such individuals in politics today. Not that they take the title “benefactor,” but when you consider their words and their actions, they make it clear that they are eager to be seen in this light.

I was prompted to think about this while considering the mass sexual assaults carried out in Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve. Ever eager to play the champions of humanitarianism, German chancellor Angela Merkel and others in her government went out of their way to welcome large numbers of middle-eastern refugees to the country, only to find out that some of them hold a decidedly unchristian view of women

These “benefactors” seem to have boundless compassion on peoples of other nations, all the while holding their own citizens in contempt. For not only have the German people been subjected to the most outrageous sort of criminality, but they are forced to pay for the privilege as well. All those refugees, you see, they come at a cost. And that cost is born by the German taxpayers. As the website of Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior explains,

If the asylum application is accepted, persons granted asylum status and those granted refugee status receive a temporary residence permit and are given the same status as Germans within the social insurance system. They are entitled to social welfare, child benefits, child-raising benefits, integration allowances and language courses as well as other forms of integration assistance.

This sort of thing has the sounds compassionate, but in truth it represents nothing more than the German government stealing money from pockets of its own citizens and giving the loot to foreign refugees, some of whom have utter contempt for the hands that are forced to feed them.

True charity, Christian charity, involves the voluntary giving of one’s own things to another in the name of Christ. Government “charity” means using the power of the state to take one man’s property and transfer it to someone else. It’s what the Bible calls theft. And individuals who hold government office are prohibited from engaging in theft in just the same way as are private citizens.

But hey, running a government “charity’ scam has its upside. After all, if you manage to get really good at it, everyone will call you “benefactor.”

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Antichrist on the Border

Posted in Economics, Immigration, Politics, Roman Catholicism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 20, 2015| 2 Comments »

 

Pope Francis_Unholy MixNot content with parading around the nation’s capital, New York City and Philadelphia, Pope Francis I, the current occupant of the office of Antichrist, has big plans for the U.S. Mexican border. According to a recent report,

The Vatican has announced the program for Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Mexico, which will include a visit to the U.S.-Mexican border with the celebration of a “cross-border” Mass.

The focus of the pope’s border visit, which is to take place during his February 12-17 tour of Mexico, will be to press for immigration reform, which is code for flooding the U.S. with taxpayer subsidized third-world Roman Catholics. According to a statement by El Paso Bishop Mark J. Seitz,

During Mass, Pope Francis will undoubtedly call attention to many realities that are lived on both sides of our U.S.-Mexico border, particularly the plight of so many migrants and refugees fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries, in search of better lives for themselves and their children.

As the Breitbart article notes, the pope’s visit will take place, “just as voters are heading to the polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, where immigration policy is a major issue.” The timing of the papal visit almost certainly is no coincidence. Rome has long sought to turn the U.S. into a majority Roman Catholic country. To date, its efforts have failed, as the Roman Catholic population of America is about 65 million in a nation of over 300 million. But with a virtually bottomless supply of potential immigrants from Latin America at its disposal, the Church hopes to finally realize its goal of a majority Roman Catholic America. What are American Evangelicals to make of this latest push by Antichrist?

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