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Women in Combat

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

On January 23^rd the Military opened all combat assignments to women. This has been a long time coming. When I resigned from the Navy in 1978 I gave as part of my reason “the admission of women to the US Naval Academy.” Not many people joined me. My thinking at the time was that either the nation was not serious about the combat mission of the service academies or was serious about putting women in combat. In either case I wanted nothing to do with it.

As I reflect on this sustained course of madness, I realize the fact is that we are simply following the inexorable logic of our decision to walk away from God.

God created mankind as man and woman for a reason. That reason was to reflect God’s own nature in creation.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27

God is triune. The three persons of the Trinity are so united in love that they are just as much one as they are three, and we can truly say there is only one God. This is imaged in marriage where man and woman become “one flesh” producing yet more life.

In his rebellion against God each man (and each woman) seeks to be his own self-sufficient god. The fact that men and women are complimentary parts of a whole and need each other is a problem for their self-centeredness. One way of dealing with this has been for men to oppress women and regard them as lower than human, maybe somewhere between men and animals. This is common in paganism. Another more modern way is feminism, which ironically agrees with paganism that true womanhood is inferior and focuses on making women just like men. The “women in combat” gambit is just the latest example of this need for symbolic sameness. Perhaps the ultimate way is homosexuality where even the most obvious and irreducible complimentary biological functions of men and women is denied.

In addition to the married state being the image of the Godhead, it is also an image of the relationship between Christ and His Church. This is described in Ephesians 5:22-33. We note in particular Ephesians 5:25,

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it”

It is Christ who gives his life for the Church, not the other way around. All Christian societies have always assumed that men have the duty to protect their women and if necessary give their lives for them. The men on the Titanic, and before them the men on the Birkenhead, became famous for the saying “women and children first,” willingly giving their lives to save even unrelated women, and reflecting this noble and godly ethic.

When a society turns its back on God it progressively becomes more debased, contemptible, and worthless, as God gives it up to dishonorable conduct and final destruction. Is a nation where the men think nothing of sending their women to do their fighting worth fighting for?

There is a storm of judgment coming. Yet even now there exists in America a sizeable number who morn for the ruin of our moral and spiritual state. It is not yet a time for despair and resignation. It remains a time for courage and steadfastness. Here is my verse for today:

“When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.” Proverbs 10:25

Posted in Current Politics, Military, Spiritual and Philosophical Questions, The Homosexual Political Agenda | 4 Comments »

The Fiscal Cliff

Saturday, December 29th, 2012

As we all wait to either go over the fiscal cliff or get some last minute deal to half way avert it, I would like to go back to my posting on 40 years of Roe v. Wade and impending judgment. My own view is that this game of chicken over the fiscal cliff is far more dangerous than most people imagine owing to the underlying weakness of the national and world economy. Here is how I think things will play out.

First, it is obvious to me that President Obama is focused on the political aspect of the cliff, i.e., how he can use it to destroy Republican power so he will have a freer hand to enact his desired radical change for this country. I don’t think he is particularly concerned about the economic consequences since he believes he can successfully blame those consequences on the Republicans. He will only sign off on a deal if he gets tax increases on “the rich” with no increases on the middle class, and if the spending reductions are mostly phony or mostly on the military.

Since he is focused on the political, and the political winds favor him today, he will likely succeed. But that doesn’t mean the economic consequences are not real. If he wins politically and brags about his win, and then the economy really tanks, this may come back to bite him big time. Here is an article suggesting the world financial system is on far shakier grounds than we think, and that Obama’s failure to deal with it could damage the Democratic Party brand for a generation.

Second, I look at the complete disarray and dispiritedness of the Republican Party and conservatives in general. It has revealed a deep split between the establishment people and the movement people. We all saw this with Boehner’s failed attempt to pass a tax increase on those with incomes above a million dollars a year and his removal of some movement conservatives from key committees. We heard Newt Gingrich, someone we would have expected to stand strong, throw in the towel on gay marriage. (It made me think of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, “This very night you will all fall away.”)

Putting these two thought together, I expect Obama to have a time of political victories and economic disasters while his opposition is divided and in disarray. To us, this will seem like the worst of times, but it may in fact be the preparing the round for future victory for the following reasons:

The policies of the Democrats will eventually be revealed as disastrous to even the most ill-informed voter.
Leadership of the Republican Party and conservatism in general may shift from the failed compromising establishment to more principled movement conservatives.

This second item of leadership change must also occur in the Church. The Church has had a parallel problem to that of the Republican Party in having leadership that more interested in public relations than fidelity to Christ. You should really think about what pastor you are supporting and where you are giving God’s money.

So in the immortal words of Jeremiah Wright, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” The economic consequences of our profligate ways are about to hit hard. This will discredit the whole ruling establishment and prepare people for truly radical change, either for good or for bad. What is needed is leadership for the good to be ready.

What does being ready mean? Here are some specifics.

Above all else, guard your hearts. Don’t look at what man is doing; look at what God is doing. Look for where God is moving and raising up men to lead in these times. Identify them and support them. I recommend CBR and FRC.
Get your own act together, financially and in terms of relationships. We will need each other.
Be prepared to sacrifice and help each other in the hard times.
Save money and store food.
Your email:

Posted in Current Politics, Economics | 4 Comments »

My Election Post-Mortem

Monday, November 12th, 2012

Many of us were shocked by Obama’s easy victory over Romney after being misled by our right wing pollsters. The natural reaction has been to sink into a deep funk and declare the nation finished, given over to welfare state decline and depravity. Christians in particular are dismayed at the electorate’s apparent approval of Obama’s extreme embrace of abortion and the homosexual political agenda, and are sinking into an even deeper funk, expecting an age of persecution.

During the primaries I did not support Romney. Santorum was my guy. This was not about his Mormonism; my problem with Romney was twofold: 1) his weak commitment on the social issues, and 2) his image as a corporate suit.

Let’s start with the second issue. During the 2007 primaries Governor Huckabee ran against Romney and pointed out that he, Huckabee, “looked like the guy you’d have a beer with” while Romney “looked like the guy who laid you off.” The Obama campaign understood that people vote their emotions and not their thoughts, and early on worked to define Romney as an out of touch plutocrat who only cared about rich people. While this charge is false, he does look the part. This neutralized voters who are unemployed due to Obama’s policies, or even swung them to vote for more of Obama. The big story in this election is not about all of the Latinos, blacks single women and young people who voted for Obama, but all of the people in general and white working class in particular who sat it out.

As to the first issue, Romney once again took the default position of the Republican establishment which is to run away from their social conservative base in the hopes of wooing swing voters from Democrats. Obama and the Democrats in contrast, doubled down on their base of abortion and same sex marriage advocates. It has been my observation that there is no percentage in disrespecting your true believers in order to win over some of the wishy-washy. The wishy-washy are that way precisely because they are conflicted about these issues, and are more likely to vote for leaders who look like they know their own minds whichever side they are on. The winning formula seems to be to nail down your base on the social issues with absolute positions and then fight for the middle on economic issues.

When, for example, you say you are for (or against) abortion in all cases, you take the issue off the table and can move on to the economy. When you take a “moderate” position with exceptions and qualifications, you keep the issue on the table for endless debates about “legitimate rape” or “partial birth abortion.” You do not nail down your base and can never get around to making your economic argument to the middle.

When Todd Akin made his poorly worded argument against killing children conceived in rape Romney threw him under the bus. When Richard Mourdock made a similar clumsy statement in his Indiana race, a female Romney surrogate who was coming out to campaign for him instead publically denounced him. Can anyone imagine a Democrat similarly disavowing a fellow Democrat in the midst of an election over an embarrassing choice of words? This is because, while Democrats don’t know how to run an economy or anything else, they do know how to win elections.

In conclusion, the country is far gone but not as far gone as the election results would have you think. Our problem is that the Republican Party leadership does not know what it is doing. And that is a big enough problem for now.

Posted in Current Politics | 1 Comment »

Forty Years

Saturday, September 15th, 2012

I am finding myself having some difficulty getting into this election. I do think electing Romney and defeating Obama and the Democrats is important, and I am putting my money where my mouth is. You can do the same. But the fact that at nearly 50% of my fellow citizens are sold on the Democrat’s national suicide agenda is pretty depressing. Even if we eke out a 51% win, will it be enough to change our trajectory? Add to that the contrast between the Democrats’ full throated screaming support for industrial scale child killing and the destruction of the institution of marriage, and the Republicans’ tepid “let’s talk about the economy instead” defense of life and marriage, and I’m left feeling a little like Jeremiah.

And speaking of the economy, I also can’t help thinking we are headed for an economic catastrophe beyond our imagining. Putting the two together makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that we are already consigned to judgment.

First, the looming economic disaster: Last Friday rating agency Eagan-Jones downgraded US Treasury bonds from AA to AA-, two notches down from our historic AAA. Moody’s and S&P put Treasuries on credit watch. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said he would print money until the cows come home. The European Central Bank said it would start Euro printing to cover government debt too. Family income and the percentage of men in the workforce are dropping more during our so-called recovery than they did during the recession. So the world and national economies are, let us say, weak.

Now consider the “fiscal cliff.” Unable to reach a deal last year for raising the debt ceiling, Congress passed a law creating large automatic cuts in both military and social spending to take effect in January 2013. Congress and the administration are also unable to reach an agreement on extending the Bush tax cuts, so they will expire in January. That this simultaneous tax increase and spending cut in January will plunge the economy into deep recession is widely agreed. No one seems likely to blink, and the election in November will not change this. Question: What will Bernanke do in response to a sharp recession? Answer: It’s not like he has two tricks. He will print even more money.

Now consider this hammer blow, this economic shock hitting the fragile world economy I have described. What could possibly go wrong? The thing I worry about is the world “going off the dollar” as the basis of international trade because of fears that it will be inflated away. What will that do? Two things: First, our price for all imports (think oil) will go up since we have to convert our Bernie Bucks to something else first. Second, everyone else will have to decide what to use instead of dollars. Euros aren’t much better, so I see all international transactions being slowed as traders try to figure out what to use for money. The volume of international trade would fall sharply, impacting all of the already hurting domestic economies. A world-wide depression of 1930s magnitude seems entirely plausible.

Such large depressions are the breeding ground for political upheaval and war. The point is this could happen suddenly and it could start in January no matter who wins in November.

That gets me to the subject of “forty years.” The number forty is associated with testing or judgment, most notably the forty years of Israel wandering in the wilderness and Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted. Jesus was crucified in 30 AD. Jesus predicted judgment on Jerusalem for “not knowing the day of their visitation.” He said no stone of the Temple would be left on another, and that all of these things would come on this generation. A biblical generation is usually taken to be forty years. Forty years following the crucifixion, in 70 AD, Jerusalem fell to Titus of Rome in a terrible siege. The Temple was burned, and Roman soldiers pried all the stones apart to get at the melted gold.

On January 22, 2013 it will be forty years since the U.S. Supreme Court “legalized” abortion in its infamous Roe vs. Wade decision. While there have been praiseworthy attempts to reverse this atrocity by a small number of people, most Americans of all ranks have accepted it and ignored the warnings of our own Jeremiahs. We will not be able to ignore our own equivalent of Titus and the Roman army.

What is to be done?

I am just sharing my thoughts here, and not claiming it as a prophecy. But it has struck me as a burden to share this with you. I would also like to share my thoughts on what the God-fearing can do:

Pray. Pray on your own, with your family, and with your Church. Cry out to God for His hand of mercy.
Vote and give money to support righteousness in this election.
There is a special opportunity to support what I consider to be the most effective pro-life organization and have your contribution matched. I am on their board and can vouch for both their integrity and effectiveness.
Prepare. Pay down debt, save money, secure your job by being the best employee you can be. Repair and maintain relationships in your life because we will need each other. Beyond that, personally, I’m looking at food storage options.

Posted in Current Politics, Economics, Spiritual and Philosophical Questions | Comments Off

Three Months to Go

Saturday, July 28th, 2012

We now have about three months before the November 6^th elections. These will obviously be highly consequential elections for the future of our country. On November 7^th you and I will not be able to go back and “do more” to affect the outcome. That means we all have to put our money where our mouths are right now and as often as we can between now and late October. I have created a page on the ActRight website that will allow you to make credit card contributions to a number of candidates and ballot issues while only having to enter your information one time. You can pick and choose who to give to and how much. Please take advantage of this and pass the link on to your friends.

I have put the four Protection of Marriage initiatives on top for a reason. Same Sex Marriage cases are headed to the Supreme Court right now. Big wins for these popular initiatives this November will make the Court think twice about “discovering” a right to same sex marriage in the Constitution. Ambiguous results will encourage them to do what I think they are inclined to do, which is impose same sex marriage on the whole country by fiat.

A Republican victory in the Presidential, Senatorial, and Congressional races is critical to halting and possibly reversing the downward spiral of our nation. We are rapidly approaching moral and economic collapse, dramatic military decline, and the creation of a much more dangerous world. Even if you are lukewarm about Romney and other Republicans they are infinitely better than the alternative. As former Secretary of defense Rumsfeld might say, you go to war with the Republican Party you have, not the Republican Party you would like to have.

The root cause of our decline is not the weakness of the Republican Party. It is the weakness of the Church and her teaching. The Church and her pastors must rediscover the full gospel of the comprehensive Lordship of Jesus, laying aside compromise and the fear of man. Only then will we see a reversal of this baneful decline.

Posted in Current Politics | No Comments »

Some Remarkable Developments

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

The past 24 hours have seen some remarkable developments.

First Senator Lugar, a “moderate” Republican, lost to a Tea Party hard liner by something like 20 points.

Second, North Carolina passed a state constitutional amendment outlawing both gay marriage and civil unions by 61 to 39%.

Third, the Colorado legislature adjourned without passing a civil union bill after a raucous session involving extreme filibustering by the Republicans.

Fourth, President Obama finally came out and endorsed gay marriage.

Wasn’t this election supposed to be all about the economy? Weren’t social issues supposed to be off the table? Has the November election been transformed into a plebiscite on gay marriage? What’s happening?

Here are some thoughts:

Civil Unions are off the Table

The fact that both Colorado and North Carolina rejected civil unions means that civil unions as a possible compromise everyone could live with are off the table. Now it’s gay marriage or nothing. Civil unions were always just a stepping stone anyway. In fact the courts which have mandated gay marriage have cited the existence of civil union laws as proof that withholding the honorable name “marriage” had no basis other than impermissible animus. Some compromise. Additionally, the recent dust up over the HHS mandate that Church related entities would have to pay for abortion pills has made people realize that the real goal of the abortion and gay rights movements is to silence the Church and force her into the smallest space possible. In fact he whole gay rights/gay marriage agenda can be interpreted as just a ploy to attack the Church.

The Republican Base is Energized

The results in Indiana, Colorado, and North Carolina, are all manifestations of an energized Republican base. Meanwhile, the Democratic base is in the doldrums. Even the President’s support of gay marriage is being criticized for coming the day after the North Carolina vote.

The Black Church is in a Tough Spot

Even with black unemployment going up much worse than for the country as a whole, support for Obama has been unwavering. But blacks are more anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage than whites by a good measure. They already have to deal with the tension between their Christian faith and Democratic positions on these social issues. They usually point to Democratic social spending as Christ-like concern for the poor and oppressed as justification. But gay marriage is different. Signing off on gay marriage may be too much for many members of the black clergy. They especially chafe at this being sold as “just like civil rights for blacks.” Obama’s nominal opposition to gay marriage had given them a fig leaf, but now that’s gone. Some may even be realizing that their loyalty has been taken for granted by the Democratic Party which is only interested in catering to rich white homosexuals. Blacks will not vote Republican, but they may just sit this one out.

Obama’s Shrinking Base

Obama apparently decided to write off the independent voters and appeal to the Democratic base a while ago with his class warfare strategy. Now he has been forced to choose between blacks and gays. He seems to have calculated that gay money is variable but that the black vote is solid. Time will tell. But it sure looks like Obama is playing harder and harder to a smaller and smaller base. Meanwhile it does not look like the economy is going to help him at all.

Barak Obama ran as a center-left uniter but has governed as a left-left divider. In our system that is a formula for a backlash. It’s beginning to look like Rush Limbaugh’s prediction of a Republican landslide in November may come to pass.

Posted in Current Politics, The Homosexual Political Agenda | 2 Comments »

Smoking, Drinking, and Epistemological Self-Consciousness

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

Two articles in today’s news got my attention. First, the Navy and Marines, fresh from celebrating the introduction of open homosexual relationships in their barracks and on their ships moves to crack down on the true moral failings of our times, namely smoking, drinking and thinking. You will notice that these initiatives tend to go together. Whenever a jurisdiction, whether San Francisco, Laguna Beach, or the Navy, decides to take sexual behavior that was previously considered immoral and elevate it to the status of super-sacred right, they also suddenly become hyper puritanical about minor vices like smoking, drinking and putting salt on your food. This goes along with the whole “diversity” push which requires diversity on the outside (race, gender) but absolute uniformity and conformity on the inside (thoughts, beliefs, expression of opinion).

At first this may seem paradoxical. If this is all about increasing freedom for everyone, why liberalize in one area while cracking down on others? This is the libertarian myth that increasing freedom beyond the limits of God’s Law for one group increases freedom for all. Sort of a rising tide lifts all boats theory. But in practice we see that the opposite is true. Increasing freedom for the sexually libertine diminishes freedom for the well behaved who now are required by law to pretend that they also approve of the new “right.” To keep these dissenters in line, a sort of tyrannical thought control accompanied by the speech police must be instituted. Thus individual lawlessness (anarchy) always brings with it collective lawlessness (tyranny). To put it another way, if you thought showing tolerance to sexual deviancy would be reciprocated by a similar tolerance of your own choices, think again.

The second was Howard Fineman’s article in the Huffington Post in which he identifies the Republican Party as the nation’s first religious party. He notes, I think correctly, the increasing influence of Christians and other socially conservative groups in the Republican Primaries. Of course, he completely ignores the similar dominance of the militant anti-Christian secularists in Democratic Party, whose assault on the passive, formerly apolitical pew sitters is the cause of their increased activism in the Republican Party.

Nonetheless, his observation butresses my own over the past few decades. In the past, say pre-1960 and going back to the founding, both major parties and their members perceived themselves to be Christian, (and for that matter, mostly Protestant.) Even while killing each other in the bloody Civil War, both sides strongly held to this. But starting in the 60’s and up to the present time the Parties have been slowly sorting themselves into Christian and Humanist camps with increasing consistency and clarity. The idea that the two major parties would become openly Christian and anti-Christian rather than say, Christian-capitalist and Christian-socialist is pretty startling and does not bode well for a peaceful domestic future. When the country is split 50/50 into parties that do not speak the same language, perceive the same reality, and most importantly, love the same things, then there is no longer really a “country.”

All of this calls to mind an obscure doctrine taught by a theologian named Rousas John Rushdoony. (Rushdoony is considered a father of a school of thought called Christian Reconstruction, Theonomism, and/or Dominionism which has never claimed more than a few followers in the Church. But maybe his time has come.) One of his teachings was that of “epistemological self-consciousness.” Rushdoony taught that as history moved toward its climax, the godly would become more consistently godly and the ungodly more consistently ungodly. Sort of like the parable of the wheat and the tares. The mixture of believers and unbelievers in visible entities like churches and parties would sort themselves out into more consistent visible entities. So whereas in the 1930’s for example you might not be able to label either the Democratic or Republican Parties as “Christian” or “non-Christian,” in the future you would have to because it would be too glaring. We are not there yet, but it looks like it’s heading in that direction.

Posted in Current Politics, Spiritual and Philosophical Questions | 1 Comment »

Proposition 8 Ruling

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

On Tuesday February 7, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Walker’s mysterious discovery of the right to same sex marriage in the U.S. Constitution. Some people who have read the Constitution wonder about this since marriage is nowhere discussed there any more than privacy, abortion, sodomy or the right of local governments to take private property to deliver it to other private parties. Such people may have missed the news that we no longer have a written Constitution, but rather a “living” one, which is to say an imaginary one that exists only in the minds of a committee of nine lawyers called the Supreme Court. This situation has been going on for decades because the U.S. Constitution is dead in the hearts of an overwhelming majority of Americans. When asked about the Constitutionality of Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi replied “Are you kidding? Are you kidding?” This is a reasonable response from her point of view since no one has cared about the Constitution for a very long time. That is what also makes the question of Obama;s eligibility seem farcical. Why do you care about the Constitution now? Must be racism since you haven’t cared about it forever.

This same sex marriage ruling comes at the same time as a large number of other brazen assaults on the Christian community which is finally showing some signs of realizing their peril, albeit possibly too late. Secretary Sebelius has issued orders for Catholic institutions to participate in what they consider to be mortal sin. General Boykinis not allowed to speak at a West Point prayer breakfast because the U.S. arm of the Muslim Brotherhood calls him names. The federal courts uphold New York’s policy of not renting school space to churches while renting them to everyone else. The Supreme Court refuses to take up the case. It all reminds me of a Tee Shirt I saw a pro-abortion demonstrator wearing at an Operation Rescue event in 1989: “Christians Are Asswipes.”

This morning’s OC Register covered the Ninth Circuit Ruling with a picture of a typical pastor looking shocked, but still unsure of his position. “I don’t want to see people discriminated against, but this goes against Biblical morality.” No Scat Sherlock. Here we have Christian leadership on display. “I never took a stand against abortion, gay civil unions, gay sex clubs in schools or any of those violations of God’s Law, but now I want to take a half-hearted stand against this one.” Is it any wonder we are losing?

Still, one must hope. Faith, hope, and Charity are, after all, what always remain. Perhaps the devil’s disciples are going too far too fast. Perhaps a few segments of the sleeping Church will wake up.

If nothing else, this is good timing for me. I just bought my first ad for EMPIRE on the Christian Examiner online edition. It should go up in a few days. Maybe some frustrated Christians will buy a copy and start thinking about these things before they are thinking about them in a gulag somewhere.

Posted in Constitutional Issues, Current Politics, The Homosexual Political Agenda | 18 Comments »

Thoughts for the New Year

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

First, here is an interesting link to the story of how Santa Claus saved Christmas, actually an account of the real St. Nicholas at the Council of Nicaea. The links on that page are also interesting.

The big issue immediately ahead of us is who will win the Republican nomination and run against President Obama. I think the common view of it being Romney versus the many anti-Romney candidates is pretty accurate. The majority of Republican voters want a strong, consistent conservative who will fight Obama and the Democrats hard and effectively, and they don’t think that’s Romney. The whole field of Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, Perry, Cain and others seems flawed, and none have been able to emerge as the conservative champion. Romney stays at 25% and is running a disciplined, well financed campaign. I supported Romney against McCain in 2008, but now I am deeply troubled by him. The reason for this is his support for the homosexual political agenda.

At a time when the threat of legalized gay marriage looms as the next great step on destroying our country’s moral foundations, Romney’s history and shifting positions on this give us little reason to hope he will actively oppose it. He has also said on a number of occasions that he supports the idea of gay rights. What this means is unclear, but it certainly means he won’t spend any political capital opposing the homosexual political agenda.

The extreme danger posed to our society by the homosexual political agenda is not understood by many people. A group that does seem to get it is the Rabbinical Alliance of America which has issued an excellent statement opposing the homosexual agenda and another calling for the Mormon Church to sanction Romney for promoting this agenda. (It’s a sad day when the fate of Christianity in America depends on Orthodox Jews and Mormons fighting for decency.) Here is a link to my previous postings on this subject.

The smart money is betting Romney will win the nomination. Others think no one will have enough delegates and the nominee will be chosen in the Convention. We need to support whoever seems to have the best chance of getting enough delegates to prevent Romney from having it locked up before then. If Romney is the nominee careful consideration may even have to be given to supporting Obama in order to prevent the Republican Party from joining the Democratic Party as a mindless tool of the enemies of God’s moral law.

Posted in Current Politics, Spiritual and Philosophical Questions, The Homosexual Political Agenda | 7 Comments »

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