.
And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17
In the future I will talk about God's intended state for man, that man be free and in fellowship with Him. Adam had perfect liberty in the garden, but he sacrificed it by breaking the one and only rule God had given him. The rule was in place to protect the man from a great evil. The serpent wished that evil upon Adam, and persuaded him to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Man did not need to know the nature of evil. His choice doomed him to death, but more than that, to sorrow in life. Now the one more knows about the world, the more sorrow he has. I always check the news in the morning, and usually the mix of good and bad is balanced enough to start my day off reasonably well. Not this morning, however. As I browsed my regular web sites, I ran into the following items. My day is not starting off well. This is your fault, Adam...
1) A two minute video from the National Guard, glorifying war and exalting soliders to saintly, almost divine status.
2) A Palo Alto, California cop, bragging on Facebook on how if he killed law abiding citizens legally demonstrating their second amendment rights he'd get "two weeks off."
Note: The implication of course is police are above the law and will be exonerated for any crime. This was one of the "injuries" Jefferson spoke about in the Declaration of Independence: "For protecting (the King's armed men), by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states..."
3) Attacks on Texas gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina from both the left (Chris Matthews on MSNBC labeled her a racist) and the right (Glenn Beck made her out to be a conspiracy theorist nutcase on his radio show).
Note: Debra Medina has exploded from 4% to 24% in the polls. This has sent the establishment into panic mode. They are scared to death of Medina, and have set their nefarious propaganda machine in motion. This is obvious because 1) the attacks came on the same day, just after the poll was released, 2) the attacks came from both sides of the single Republicrat coin, and 3) both of these charges were made with prevarication--deliberately made with the explicit knowledge that what was being charged was not in fact true. And then both hosts marginalized and laughed about her--this candidate the Houston Chronicle called "the only adult in the room" after the first gubernatorial debate.
There is a war on for the minds and souls of men. This morning I felt we were losing ground. So I'm not feeling so well.
How's your day going?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
U.S. Abandons NAIS!
*
In what appears to be great news, the USDA has apparently given up on their attempt to implement the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). You can find the official announcement here:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/traceability/
Although some people are suspicious of a bait and switch, it really looks like family farms will be safe. Click on the link to Questions and Answers from the above page to learn more.
Thank God for this great victory.
In what appears to be great news, the USDA has apparently given up on their attempt to implement the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). You can find the official announcement here:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/traceability/
Although some people are suspicious of a bait and switch, it really looks like family farms will be safe. Click on the link to Questions and Answers from the above page to learn more.
Thank God for this great victory.
The End of Western Civilization
_
Western civilization is at a crossroads. Its very existence is at stake. Our way of life, our freedom of speech, religion, association, self-defense, etc. are threatened permanently. What happens, predominantly in the United States, in the next few years will determine whether liberty will continue or fail at its grand experiment.
To the average person such comments might seem ludicrous. Barack Obama accepts a Nobel Peace Prize and proclaims "a vision of liberty" for the world. Hollywood continues to crank out its blockbusters. The NFL plays their games religiously every Sunday. The sixth generation of the iPod hits the shelves. If anything, Western civilization appears to be stronger than ever.
So why do I contend it's all about to end? Carroll Quigley (1910-1977) was an eminent historian and researcher on the history of civilizations. He was also an insider and proponent of one-world government, who wrote openly of his first hand knowledge of the Round Table groups, Council on Foreign Relations and the "Shadow Government" of elites that pulls the strings behind supposedly free societies (see Tragedy and Hope, 1966).
Quigley may have been on the globalist team, but he appears to have been an excellent historian and honest broker of his knowledge. One of his most important works was his 1961 book, "The Evolution of Civilizations." In the book, after defining exactly what civilizations are and how they ascend to the title, he notes a particular pattern, or set of phases, that all civilizations have empirically passed through in their journey from inception to dissolution.
These phases are:
1) Mixture
2) Gestation
3) Expansion
4) Conflict
5) Universal Empire
6) Decay
7) Invasion
For brevity's sake I will give slight comment on only the last of these phases. The good news, and the purpose of this post, is that the phases do not have to be irreversably consecutive.
In fact, Quigley asserts that Western Civilization has proceeded beyond, and back to, phase 3, or Expansion, three times. The "instrument of expansion" has been feudalism (about 970-1270), commercial capitalism (about 1420-1650) and industrial capitalism (about 1725-1929). However, he then states that industrial capitalism had become institutionalized by 1930 as monopoly capitalism, and Western civilization entered, "for the third time... a major era of crisis."
He then describes the phase of conflict as a period of imperialist wars, encouraged by a public that has lost vested interest in the existing institution of expansion:
"Unable to get ahead by other means (such as economic means), they seek to get ahead by political action, above all by taking wealth from their political neighbors. At the same time they turn to irrationality to compensate for the growing insecurity of life... This is generally a period of gambling, use of narcotics or intoxicants, obsession with sex (frequently as perversion), increasing crime, growing numbers of neurotics and psychotics, growing obsession with death and with the Hereafter." pg 152.
Sounds like a pretty good description of the world from 1930-1990. Yet civilizations can and do "reform" and can pass back to phase 3. But if not, they pass on to phase 5, or Universal Empire. Interestingly, Quigley had this to say (in 1961, remember):
"... we may continue in the Age of Conflict until the whole of our civilization comes to be dominated by a single state (probably the United States)." pg 154.
Quigley describes Universal Empire as having these attributes:
"Little real economic expansion is possible because no real instrument of expansion exists... The vested interests have triumphed and are living off their capital, building unproductive and blantant monuments ... The masses of the people in such an empire live from the waste of these non-productive expenditures. The golden age is really the glow of overripeness, and soon decline begins."
On phase 6, Decay:
"The Stage of Decay is a period of acute economic depression, declining standards of living, civil wars between the various vested interests, and growing illiteracy. The society grows weaker and weaker. Vain efforts are made to stop the wastage by legislation. But the deline continues."
And phase 7, Invasion:
"...the Stage of Invasion, when the civilization, no longer able to defend itself because it is no longer willing to defend itself, lies wide open to 'barbarian invaders.'"
I believe today we have moved into Phase 6 in the evolution of Western civilization. The United States has acheived Universal Empire and is now in decay. The emminence and prosperity of the US-led West is an illusion, the "glow of overripeness." Washington D.C.'s "vision of liberty" is nothing more than newspeak. Slavery is freedom. How could it be anything else when while giving lipservice to liberty he is systematically dismantling the Bill of Rights at home?
Where do we go from here? Unless something dramatic happens, we are destined to move quickly through phase 6 and into phase 7, taking the entire West with us. This may indeed be what Quigley and his ilk, certainly understanding this, want. But it's not what I want.
I began by saying Western civilization was at a crossroads. I say this with dead seriousness. It is certainly harder to go from phase 6 all the way back to phase 3 than from phase 4 to phase 3, but I feel it can, it must be done. If it is not, we will slide into a new Dark Age of slavery and opression.
I feel that with restored liberties, an abandonment of Universal Empire, and as an economic instrument of expansion true, free-market capitalism we can get there. But it will not happen by "adjusting leadership" from Republican to Democrat, the two parties sharing a bucket to hell. Barack Obama is George Bush with a nice tan. It will only happen by a radical, revolutionary change in our direction.
It will only happen if the freedom movement grows and takes back the reigns of our nation, and our civilization.
Western civilization is at a crossroads. Its very existence is at stake. Our way of life, our freedom of speech, religion, association, self-defense, etc. are threatened permanently. What happens, predominantly in the United States, in the next few years will determine whether liberty will continue or fail at its grand experiment.
To the average person such comments might seem ludicrous. Barack Obama accepts a Nobel Peace Prize and proclaims "a vision of liberty" for the world. Hollywood continues to crank out its blockbusters. The NFL plays their games religiously every Sunday. The sixth generation of the iPod hits the shelves. If anything, Western civilization appears to be stronger than ever.
So why do I contend it's all about to end? Carroll Quigley (1910-1977) was an eminent historian and researcher on the history of civilizations. He was also an insider and proponent of one-world government, who wrote openly of his first hand knowledge of the Round Table groups, Council on Foreign Relations and the "Shadow Government" of elites that pulls the strings behind supposedly free societies (see Tragedy and Hope, 1966).
Quigley may have been on the globalist team, but he appears to have been an excellent historian and honest broker of his knowledge. One of his most important works was his 1961 book, "The Evolution of Civilizations." In the book, after defining exactly what civilizations are and how they ascend to the title, he notes a particular pattern, or set of phases, that all civilizations have empirically passed through in their journey from inception to dissolution.
These phases are:
1) Mixture
2) Gestation
3) Expansion
4) Conflict
5) Universal Empire
6) Decay
7) Invasion
For brevity's sake I will give slight comment on only the last of these phases. The good news, and the purpose of this post, is that the phases do not have to be irreversably consecutive.
In fact, Quigley asserts that Western Civilization has proceeded beyond, and back to, phase 3, or Expansion, three times. The "instrument of expansion" has been feudalism (about 970-1270), commercial capitalism (about 1420-1650) and industrial capitalism (about 1725-1929). However, he then states that industrial capitalism had become institutionalized by 1930 as monopoly capitalism, and Western civilization entered, "for the third time... a major era of crisis."
He then describes the phase of conflict as a period of imperialist wars, encouraged by a public that has lost vested interest in the existing institution of expansion:
"Unable to get ahead by other means (such as economic means), they seek to get ahead by political action, above all by taking wealth from their political neighbors. At the same time they turn to irrationality to compensate for the growing insecurity of life... This is generally a period of gambling, use of narcotics or intoxicants, obsession with sex (frequently as perversion), increasing crime, growing numbers of neurotics and psychotics, growing obsession with death and with the Hereafter." pg 152.
Sounds like a pretty good description of the world from 1930-1990. Yet civilizations can and do "reform" and can pass back to phase 3. But if not, they pass on to phase 5, or Universal Empire. Interestingly, Quigley had this to say (in 1961, remember):
"... we may continue in the Age of Conflict until the whole of our civilization comes to be dominated by a single state (probably the United States)." pg 154.
Quigley describes Universal Empire as having these attributes:
"Little real economic expansion is possible because no real instrument of expansion exists... The vested interests have triumphed and are living off their capital, building unproductive and blantant monuments ... The masses of the people in such an empire live from the waste of these non-productive expenditures. The golden age is really the glow of overripeness, and soon decline begins."
On phase 6, Decay:
"The Stage of Decay is a period of acute economic depression, declining standards of living, civil wars between the various vested interests, and growing illiteracy. The society grows weaker and weaker. Vain efforts are made to stop the wastage by legislation. But the deline continues."
And phase 7, Invasion:
"...the Stage of Invasion, when the civilization, no longer able to defend itself because it is no longer willing to defend itself, lies wide open to 'barbarian invaders.'"
I believe today we have moved into Phase 6 in the evolution of Western civilization. The United States has acheived Universal Empire and is now in decay. The emminence and prosperity of the US-led West is an illusion, the "glow of overripeness." Washington D.C.'s "vision of liberty" is nothing more than newspeak. Slavery is freedom. How could it be anything else when while giving lipservice to liberty he is systematically dismantling the Bill of Rights at home?
Where do we go from here? Unless something dramatic happens, we are destined to move quickly through phase 6 and into phase 7, taking the entire West with us. This may indeed be what Quigley and his ilk, certainly understanding this, want. But it's not what I want.
I began by saying Western civilization was at a crossroads. I say this with dead seriousness. It is certainly harder to go from phase 6 all the way back to phase 3 than from phase 4 to phase 3, but I feel it can, it must be done. If it is not, we will slide into a new Dark Age of slavery and opression.
I feel that with restored liberties, an abandonment of Universal Empire, and as an economic instrument of expansion true, free-market capitalism we can get there. But it will not happen by "adjusting leadership" from Republican to Democrat, the two parties sharing a bucket to hell. Barack Obama is George Bush with a nice tan. It will only happen by a radical, revolutionary change in our direction.
It will only happen if the freedom movement grows and takes back the reigns of our nation, and our civilization.
Arrogance, Hypocricy, Reciprocity, and the Golden Rule
_
"Be not deceived. God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7
The war party is asking for trouble.
The verse above from the Bible is far more than just a religious nicety. It reflects an immutable natural law. Evidence of this is that similar expressions appear in other religions, and from secular sources, as well as science itself. No one can deny that if you sow a kernel of corn, the plant that breaks through the soil will absolutely be a corn plant, not a watermelon, nor a hawk nor a handsaw.
One cannot say 'I am planting corn because I want to produce wheat for all.' Yet this is exactly what the war party is saying when it pushes pre-emptive wars in the name of global freedom and peace. They contend that planting a little war today will harvest a lot of peace tomorrow.
But it will not. And it can not. If the authors of pre-emptive war believe they are so righteous and so important they can change the rules of the universe, they are in for a rude, and devastating, awakening.
So the question is, what will the doctrines of the war party harvest? The answers are too bitter to swallow, so the current regime pretends they don't exist. They clasp their hands over their ears, shut their eyes tight, and hum at high volume. However, ignoring the answers will not change them.
If it is acceptable to torture an "enemy combatant" because he might have information that will save American lives, it is acceptable for the enemy to torture American soldiers for information helpful to the enemy cause. The war party today is planting the seeds of the horrifying pain and suffering of American soldiers in the future. Thanks, guys, you really support our troops.
If it is acceptable to cut off food and essentials through sanctions and account seizures, causing millions of innocents in other countries to suffer, starve, and die from illness and hunger, it is acceptable for future enemies to cut off food and essentials to American children. Sorry, thinking we're the "good guys" so we're immune from natural law doesn't cut it by any measure.
If it is acceptable to launch a pre-emptive war against a country that might do something bad in the future, it is also acceptable to have a pre-emptive war launched against the United States, by say, China, a decade or two from now, because America might do something "bad" to China. The only requirement is military strength, which China is rapidly acquiring.
Unfortunately, if a single kernel of corn is planted, the harvest does not consist of a single kernal of corn. It is multiplied exponentially, multiple ears with hundreds of kernels. Therefore one more Bible verse, representing yet another natural law, sheds light on our future, if we do not change our course soon:
"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Hosea 8:7
The harvest of our present evil will return to us greater evil. (Hands to ears, eyes closed! Start humming now!)
Neither does any claim of God being "on our side" negate the natural law. From the same chapter in Hosea, a claim of "knowing God" is made:
"They cry out to Me, "My God, we (of the war party) know Thee!" (verse 2)
But it simply cannot be. Iif that were true, they would have followed the natural law!
"Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, they are regarded as a strange thing." (verse 12)
And so the corn comes up, and the harvest is... corn. In abundance. (Religion helpful, but not required.)
So what should we as a nation be sowing, if we want peace and freedom for ourselves and our neighbors? I have an idea. How about... peace and freedom?
"But... but... but... terrorists are bad!" Yes, and this changes natural law how?
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 7:12
"Be not deceived. God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7
The war party is asking for trouble.
The verse above from the Bible is far more than just a religious nicety. It reflects an immutable natural law. Evidence of this is that similar expressions appear in other religions, and from secular sources, as well as science itself. No one can deny that if you sow a kernel of corn, the plant that breaks through the soil will absolutely be a corn plant, not a watermelon, nor a hawk nor a handsaw.
One cannot say 'I am planting corn because I want to produce wheat for all.' Yet this is exactly what the war party is saying when it pushes pre-emptive wars in the name of global freedom and peace. They contend that planting a little war today will harvest a lot of peace tomorrow.
But it will not. And it can not. If the authors of pre-emptive war believe they are so righteous and so important they can change the rules of the universe, they are in for a rude, and devastating, awakening.
So the question is, what will the doctrines of the war party harvest? The answers are too bitter to swallow, so the current regime pretends they don't exist. They clasp their hands over their ears, shut their eyes tight, and hum at high volume. However, ignoring the answers will not change them.
If it is acceptable to torture an "enemy combatant" because he might have information that will save American lives, it is acceptable for the enemy to torture American soldiers for information helpful to the enemy cause. The war party today is planting the seeds of the horrifying pain and suffering of American soldiers in the future. Thanks, guys, you really support our troops.
If it is acceptable to cut off food and essentials through sanctions and account seizures, causing millions of innocents in other countries to suffer, starve, and die from illness and hunger, it is acceptable for future enemies to cut off food and essentials to American children. Sorry, thinking we're the "good guys" so we're immune from natural law doesn't cut it by any measure.
If it is acceptable to launch a pre-emptive war against a country that might do something bad in the future, it is also acceptable to have a pre-emptive war launched against the United States, by say, China, a decade or two from now, because America might do something "bad" to China. The only requirement is military strength, which China is rapidly acquiring.
Unfortunately, if a single kernel of corn is planted, the harvest does not consist of a single kernal of corn. It is multiplied exponentially, multiple ears with hundreds of kernels. Therefore one more Bible verse, representing yet another natural law, sheds light on our future, if we do not change our course soon:
"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Hosea 8:7
The harvest of our present evil will return to us greater evil. (Hands to ears, eyes closed! Start humming now!)
Neither does any claim of God being "on our side" negate the natural law. From the same chapter in Hosea, a claim of "knowing God" is made:
"They cry out to Me, "My God, we (of the war party) know Thee!" (verse 2)
But it simply cannot be. Iif that were true, they would have followed the natural law!
"Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law, they are regarded as a strange thing." (verse 12)
And so the corn comes up, and the harvest is... corn. In abundance. (Religion helpful, but not required.)
So what should we as a nation be sowing, if we want peace and freedom for ourselves and our neighbors? I have an idea. How about... peace and freedom?
"But... but... but... terrorists are bad!" Yes, and this changes natural law how?
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 7:12
More On Thomas Jefferson
_
Here is an excerpt from an old blog I used to write:
Thomas Jefferson was so adamant about religious freedom that he chose to include his contribution to it on his headstone. I have visited Monticello and have seen it with my own eyes:
“...author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia”
Note that he thought little of his 8 years as President. The opening of the Virginia statue begins thus:
Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do...
He compared attempts to coerce the human mind into one belief set or another to tyranny. At the same time, after being elected president he attended church services inside the House of Representatives. To many this may be contradictory, but it is not. It is an expression of his true belief in religious freedom.
Jefferson was reviled by the religious right of his day as being a sinner and an infidel. But it was a huge error. They confused his tolerance of other beliefs, or no beliefs, based on the concept that God had created man as a free being, with an endorsement of sin.
Likewise, I've seen atheists quote Jefferson many times in justification of their own attacks on religion. They count him in "their camp" in disparaging Christians. Jefferson would be appalled with such behavior, and based on his words above and in many other of his writings, he was a man of personal faith. But his public tolerance rained judgement upon him in his day, and misinterpretations of his faith in ours.
Here is an excerpt from an old blog I used to write:
Thomas Jefferson was so adamant about religious freedom that he chose to include his contribution to it on his headstone. I have visited Monticello and have seen it with my own eyes:
“...author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia”
Note that he thought little of his 8 years as President. The opening of the Virginia statue begins thus:
Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do...
He compared attempts to coerce the human mind into one belief set or another to tyranny. At the same time, after being elected president he attended church services inside the House of Representatives. To many this may be contradictory, but it is not. It is an expression of his true belief in religious freedom.
Jefferson was reviled by the religious right of his day as being a sinner and an infidel. But it was a huge error. They confused his tolerance of other beliefs, or no beliefs, based on the concept that God had created man as a free being, with an endorsement of sin.
Likewise, I've seen atheists quote Jefferson many times in justification of their own attacks on religion. They count him in "their camp" in disparaging Christians. Jefferson would be appalled with such behavior, and based on his words above and in many other of his writings, he was a man of personal faith. But his public tolerance rained judgement upon him in his day, and misinterpretations of his faith in ours.
Gold Mine
I was at the birthday party of an old friend last night, who showed me an amazing book that I want to recommend to everyone who feels some affinity with the subjects presented here. The name and subtitle of the book are:
America's God And Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations
Highlighting America's Noble Heritage - Profound Quotes From Founding Fathers, Presidents, Statesmen, Scientists, Court Decisions - For Use In Speeches, Papers, Debates, Essays
I opened the book to a random page and found the following quote from Thomas Jefferson (Emphasis mine):
“My views...are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others."
Of course you can buy the book yourself, but I've just ordered it, and if you hang around here long enough, I'm pretty sure you'll get some of the best quotations.
Monday, February 1, 2010
29 American Soldiers Died In Afghanistan in January
_
For what?
What is the objective? What is the success criteria? What is the exit strategy?
Hey, hey O-bomb-A, how many kids did you kill today?
For what?
What is the objective? What is the success criteria? What is the exit strategy?
Hey, hey O-bomb-A, how many kids did you kill today?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)