Posts Tagged → Bible
One Year Later…SoCal still a disaster
Recently I had the pleasure of visiting southern California. But the much vaunted amazing Mediterranean climate SoCal is famous for was nowhere in sight, as buckets of rain fell day after day. The temperature stayed between 45*F and 60*F, which coming from the frozen East Coast sure felt like a vacation to me. But boy did the locals beeatch up a storm of complaints about this unseasonal discomforture.
What was striking about the trip’s weather was not so much the uncharacteristic cold, but the lack of official preparation for the torrential rains that accompanied the cold. You would think that the people there have been through this enough to know what to do by now. You know, mitigate the threat, reduce the pending damage, save lives, save property.
Much of SoCal’s building surface is a weird mix of loose dirt and small rocks, and it is prone to easy erosion. This has been known since the time of Ronald Reagan’s ranching days there, an Ice Age ago. As we drove north along the 405, we could see many large, often extravagant buildings perched unsteadily over chasms below, which had once held enough dirt to comfortably, on which to confidently, build a house.
And then the summer fires came (year after year) and burned the vegetation that holds the dirt in place, and then came the winter rains that washed the loose un-anchored dirt away, and left the expensive homes literally hanging, clinging for life to shreds of dirt on the uphill side of the ever-deepening slope below.
Eventually all the homes and buildings we saw hanging out in the wind, perched over a void, will slide downhill like a toboggan, like those before them that were once closer to the growing chasm and which are now completely removed from that landscape.
Their once carefully secured electric, water, data, phone, and sewer connections will be lost forever. Many are already visible, sticking out of the dirt like veins and arteries of a heart held high in the hand of a surgeon, or of an Aztec priest.
The place, the actual land itself, that was once surveyed and measured and given a parcel number, will no longer exist. The old building lot will be seen on paper and on old aerial photos, like a ghost, but the actual dirt that it was once made of will no longer exist. That building lot will go the way of so many others right there over the past few decades: Mass wasted by heavy rains downhill into steep arroyos, and eventually washed out into the Pacific Ocean.
When I was a kid, people not from California joked a lot about how the great San Andreas Fault would eventually crack open, Biblically swallowing great swaths of expensive SoCal real estate and its fancy cars and shiny people, and then shearing off the surviving residual into the Pacific Ocean. The more culturally conservative the joker was, the more emphatic was their lack of humor about this looming armageddon. And why not?
Yes, you and I must be curious about the strange mindset of all those tanned beautiful people living their pretty plastic lives over there in SoCal, surrounded by palm trees and perennially perfect days. It cannot possibly be real. Kind of like the American Pompeii – not if it will happen, but simply when. Especially curious about the people, because They seem so damned judgmental and contemptuous of Us, the great unwashed and untanned living in Flyover Country.
And while there have been some exciting earthquakes in SoCal, it is more the tick-tock-tick-tock metronome-like regular prosaic wildfires and monsoons that are the real threat to house and home and happiness in SoCal. These natural disasters happen like clockwork, and yet are treated each time with wide-eyed amazement by SoCal residents. Yes, the rains come every winter, but these rains, oh God, THESE rains, this year, they say…
Even worse have been the elected officials, whose reactions have run from feigned amazement to outright glee at the opportunity to score so much waterfront or Pacific view properties at such low prices…and so why not wonder at both the residents and their duly, unquestioned elected leaders, who fail to prepare for the erosive rains or the wildfires. A year ago this week, catastrophic wildfires ate a lot of beautiful SoCal real estate and homes, due to no brush management, no water in reservoirs, incompetent DEI firefighters.
Nothing has changed a year later. SoCal residents now just as defiant and silly as they were last year, still blaming the unusually extra strong sunshine or some guy in Washington DC for their unhappiness. I think just one building permit has been issued for the thousands of homes lost last year, and yet the Los Angeles mayor and the California governor enjoy plenty of support from their victims.
But just maybe the failure to issue building permits to last year’s total loss homeowners of Malibu and Palisades is the biggest mitigation step ever taken. That would be ironic. I don’t know, can’t know, and really don’t want to know. Rather, I am sitting over here on the cold East Coast drinking a hot cocoa with a splash of whisky, watching SoCal go through the death convulsions and twitches of a dying body politic and its sick land base.
You could possibly write the script to this Hollywood movie, but I think the best one was already written a long time ago. It is called The Bible…
(My iPhone screenshots of the 2025 fire are below, taken as it developed, and they include some heartbreakers such as spectacular homes and barns catching on fire, and a homeowner racing back to his home in his pickup truck, only to be blocked by smoke and then fire, and then turning and retreating just as the flames engulf his position, his beautiful mansion going up in flames behind him. Some of the mountain cameras send messages that they cannot upload their images… because they have been burned to a crisp)
Recall that the beautiful Will Rogers homestead and farm in Topanga burned to the ground. It was my favorite hiking destination in SoCal
Note the pickup truck on the road. One of the screenshots I took showed the driver get out with his hands on his head, obviously upset
Hunting season is always glorious
To a lot of American hunters, including me, hunting season is a unique and special combination of extended holiday, camping trip, hiking trip, family gathering with the family members you like being with, nature viewing, rest and relaxation in pretty places, occasional deep naps way out in the woods, and opportunities to talk with God in remote spots that probably only see humans once every year or two when some hunter clambors his way out there for an hour.
Even for the urbanites who will be joining me over the coming weeks, simply hanging around “hunting camp” has a special role in re-charging personal batteries long depleted in bumper-to-bumper traffic and urban clutter with endless noise. Some urban guys are real go-getter hunters, while others enjoy sleeping in, drinking coffee and catching up with old friends, and having a cigar inside. Yes, this is a guys-only, cigars-permitted environment. People also say naughty things and tell politically incorrect jokes.
Comparing hunting knives, blade sharpening techniques, and new rifles is of course de rigeur.
After all, where else can a guy go and hang about with a bunch of other guys and talk about guns and knives all damned day and night long, while eating way too much food that their wives would never approve of: Only at hunting camp.
And whether you actually get something big and hairy, or not, the time spent there is always glorious. Believe it or not, there is plenty of Bible study, too.
I am looking forward to this hunting season, as I always do, and perhaps more so now that I am in my early sixties. Decades have flown by, some friends have died along the way, some have moved too far away to join me, and some of them were never really into the hunting anyhow, while others have jobs and businesses that absorb every waking moment of their lives. Which is a way of saying that I am appreciating this special time even more so this year.
We have not killed a bear here since 2006, not that our guys have not tried, and missed, since then. Nor have I killed a big buck here in years, despite having many opportunities. Seeing a big trophy buck in the woods gives me great pleasure, and 9.9 times out of ten, I will sit and let him walk by. Does, almost never.
Hunting season is not really about the killing; it is more about the hunting. Our hunting camp tee shirts this year say “One hunts not in order to kill; rather, ones kills in order to have hunted.”
Just being here, and being afield in the Big Woods with friends, is a deeply satisfying feeling. I hope the hunters who read this have a successful and safe season. And to the as-yet non-hunters reading this, get with it. We can mentor you, and show you the way of being a complete and whole human being.
Hunting season is also about running into old friends. Pam Mould was our township tax collector for decades, and our neighbor until about five years ago. Ran into her at Wolfe’s General Store in Slate Run today, while getting milk etc
You are a Zionist, so am I, the Irish especially
Whether you think you are a Zionist, or not, you absolutely surely are one if you love your country. And it turns out you are in good company, because literally everyone else around the world is also a Zionist, albeit in shades of grey that suit each person and nation. The Irish are especially Zionist, they who have been exhibiting intense nationalistic pride and fervor lately in defense of their homeland.
The Scots, on the other hand, are nowhere near being Zionist, as they have completely given up on their own nation and turned it over to people who violently hate them. How sad; pathetic, really. They of Highlander and Claymore fame have no self pride, no sense of their own fantastic history. The irony here is that the nation that once dominated Scotland so brutally, England, is right behind them, also swirling down the “diversity” toilet bowl and throwing national pride and defense of homeland over the side of the boat filled with foreign invaders who hate them.
What is Zionism, this strange sounding word? Why call nationalism Zionism? Good question!
Zion is the ancient Biblical word for Israel, and in its most essential form Zionism is just simple old nationalism for Zion, which is simply a national pride in and defense of one’s homeland. Here it is Zion (Israel, Jerusalem, the Holy Land), but you can have nationalist feelings like Russiaism, Francism, Chinism, Brazilism etc. All the same thing about different places.
Generally speaking, that is all Zionism is, and literally everyone around the planet has some degree of national pride in their own country, whether they are from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia, France, or especially Japan and China. Thus, it follows that everyone has their own form of Zionism, though they might call it something different than that exact word. It is really simple:
Zionism = nationalism = universally felt love of and pride in one’s own country. Everyone feels it, everyone is it, everyone is Zionist. Everyone, especially the Irish. Go Irish!
The fact that Israelis are also proud of their nation and devoted to its defense like everyone else around the world is devoted to their own country is no surprise or deviation from the international norm. Israeli nationalism is no different than anyone else’s nationalism, except that Israel’s nationalism, called Zionism since the 1850s, is recorded throughout the Bible and begins about 3,500 years ago. That is a pretty old claim on a piece of real estate! Especially when we think of the Franks claiming what ended up becoming France only a thousand years ago, at most.
Recently I saw a video of some goofball lout yelling at participants in a pro-Israel rally, “Zionism isn’t even a part of Judaism,” he said over and over.
Really? I don’t think he is right about this.
If anything, the historical and Biblically commanded devotion of Jews to living in and militarily controlling Zion AKA The Holy Land AKA Israel AKA Judea is one of the most fundamental tenets of Judaism. In the very beginning of the Bible, and repeated again and again throughout the Bible with different characters, God promises to Abraham that his Jewish descendants will inherit Israel. So strongly did Jews feel their Zionistic nationalism 1,960 years ago, that they ended up in a war (year 67 CE) with the world’s leading superpower, Rome. And then again, seventy years later (year 131 CE) the Jews rose up and duked it out with the Romans again. And then again in the 1940s with the British Empire, and now again with the Islamic Empire.
So yeah, Jews are super nationalistic and Zionism is fundamentally a part of Judaism. Always has been, always will be.
True, there are Jews who say they are not Zionists, but hey, there are chickensh*t traitors in every group, people looking for what they think is the easiest way out of whatever situation they find themselves in. Those Jews decrying Zionism and Israel are, no surprise, the least involved, least devoted, least Jewish Jews you can find anywhere. So for them, attacking the most visibly Jewish thing, Israel and Jewish nationalism, is their way of trying to disassociate from being Jewish. After all the hell that Jews go through for simply being Jewish, I can’t say I blame them for wanting to check out.
Interesting, then, that Christian America has SO MANY PLACES named Zion!
In the Bible, Zion was always the Promised Land, and to America’s European founders, America was the new Promised Land. And so they named thousands of places in America and across America after Biblical places, including Hebron, Zion, Jerusalem, etc.
America has a Zion National Park, and my area of central Pennsylvania has a ton of places named Zion (see some of the photos I took below).
The point is, when a person opposes Zionism they are opposing just one country’s nationalism. Now why would any person oppose just one country’s nationalism, and not everyone else’s? I mean, I don’t think I have met anyone who loved French nationalism who did not also grudgingly recognize German nationalism and pride. Lots of us Americans are nationalists for America, but we understand why others feel strongly about their own country. Right?
So why are only the Jews being singled out for attack and de-nationing among an entire planet filled with people and nations? Why is only Jewish nationalism such a terrible thing?
I think we all know why. Zionism is being singled out because the same evil envious loser people who always hate Jews have simply found another way to show that they hate Jews. And so Zionism is attacked by people who themselves have tremendous Zionism for their own country.
Oh, the irony of people claiming that Zionism is a “colonial settler ideology,” when Zionism is simply the 3,500-year-old unbroken Biblical and modern history of Jews living in their ancient homeland, Judea/Israel/Zion. Jews cannot possibly be strangers or colonists in their own homeland, and so it is richly ironic that it is the land-stealing Islamic imperialists and Arab and Turkish colonialists who oppose the Jews. Across the planet, jihadi imperialism has spread Islam (Two Billion People total) by force and violence far beyond the Arabian Peninsula, and yet these same colonists covet this tiny little sliver of land held by the smallest of peoples, the Jews (Ten Million People total).
The Han Chinese ethnic group numbers somewhere close to a billion people, in one of the largest nations on the planet, and yet they maintain a sincere fear of being replaced, and so the Han Chinese maintain one of the most aggressive, largest militaries on the planet, and they are in a constant state of imperial expansion.
If we have to render unto Caeser what is Caeser’s, and if the Han Chinese get to keep testing everyone else’s boundaries, and if political and jihadi Islam never stops trying to take over other people’s lands, can’t we just let the tiny Jews enjoy their tiny little Zion, their ancient Promised Land? Is that really too much to ask? I don’t think so. You yourself don’t want to give up your own Zion, either, wherever that happens to be.
Every human being is a Zionist for their own Zion, whether that Zion is actually in Zion or is in France or China or Russia, America, or Italy.
Zion PA, Centre County
Zions View PA, York County
Mount Zion in Zion, the original site of Zionism 3,500 years ago
The Jewish deed to Israel is 3,500 years old and says “Zion” on it. Blessings to all Zionists
Another NFL season? Who cares
According to the aggressive internet advertising I have encountered, and clicked right through, another National Football League season has begun. And unlike my childhood and adulthood up until 2016, I now just don’t care. I won’t be watching any NFL games at home, I won’t be going out to a sports bar to watch a game, and I won’t be going over to a friend’s house to watch a football game.
The fact is, me and the NFL are splits-o, over, finis, done, parted ways, divorced. Oh, I did my part as a fan; it was the NFL that caused our breakup. When the NFL’s strange public policy positions got me mad in 2015, the disrespectful kneeling by spoiled brats in 2016 got me furiously disconnected. I could not then relate to a business that deliberately stuck its finger in my eye and then expected me to overlook it and keep on keepin’ on. Nope. In 2016 I turned off the NFL TV and never looked back.
The situation has not been helped by a woke, racist, anti-America ESPN and fellow sports “media” outlets, in which the NFL continues to appear and participate, as if nothing is wrong. The situation has not been helped by the NFL adopting certain flags, colors, etc as statements about sensitive social issues and political policies that are guaranteed to drive away people who take their business with them. I always wonder what the outcome would be, the response would be, if the NFL jerseys and helmets sported the National Rifle Association logo….we know it would not be positively received by the ESPN et al “sports media” entertainment complex, which is really now just an adjunct of communist anti-America Hollywood.
I don’t think the NFL misses me, either. Occasionally I will be at someone’s home, or out with family, and a football game will be playing on a TV. My eye or ears will catch snippets of the game, and sometimes bits of the advertising during the game. So far the advertising ratio seems to (roughly) be about 25:1 aimed at American blacks over American whites. That disproportionate advertising effort tells us that American blacks are still loyal fans of the NFL, and very much the target audience of NFL games, while American whites have left the stadium, euphemistically and statistically speaking.
Incidentally, my disgust with NFL rubbing my nose in its leftist politics also bridges over into Penn State football. “The house that Joe [Paterno] built” has also left me in the dust, not so much the team or its management with the silly names on the jersey shtick, but Penn State University itself. My alma mater has gone totally woke, adopting policies and political positions completely at odds with my values. And at odds with the university’s own stated values of fairness, dedication to academic excellence, etc.
The way Coach Joe Paterno was mistreated by the PSU board of trustees didn’t help my view of the school. Then there was the unjustified hiding away of the Joe Paterno statue, and unjustified general official abuse of the golden Paterno name. PSU has done nothing of substance to correct its poor behavior. Instead its administrators and trustees and staff just keep on keepin’ on with the leftist nonsense, expecting me to get on board. Every year since 2012 PSU has found some new way to alienate me.
Despite receiving constant emails from Penn State and the PSU Alumni Association begging me to contribute and participate, I have backed away and found other ways to spend my time and money. Not getting back on that PSU train, despite five decades of dedication and personal participation.
So, just like I won’t support an NFL that aggressively adopts political positions that I cannot agree with, I cannot support a Penn State University that has adopted policies and politics that I cannot possibly agree with. The same goes for Major League Baseball, the National Basketball League, the National Hockey League, and a cornuplethora (thanks to John Correia for this funny word) of other now leftist-woke sports-entertainment institutions. All of whom seem to be doing just fine without me, I might add. If they missed me and my business, then they would have been courting me by dialing back the leftist politics junk. And they have not done so, but rather increased their leftist politics activism.
I will bet that if there is ever a need to financially support sports teams and leagues that have deliberately alienated their audiences by adopting leftist politics, and thereby lost a great deal of money, the political establishment will find a way to bail them out with taxpayer money. And we know the GOPe will make it happen.
Meanwhile, with the NFL out of my life I now have a lot more time and money of my own to spend on things that really bring me happiness. Reading on the couch next to my wife, visiting with friends and laughing about our kids, reloading antique black powder cartridges that became obsolete a hundred years ago, but which are still plenty effective for taking wild game at sporting distances, splitting firewood, studying the Bible, writing, there are so many productive uses of the time I used to mis-spend on the NFL.
So long, Screwy, I won’t see ya in Saint Louee, as Bugs Bunny would have said.
The Prayer Heard ‘Round the World
About a week ago, a Pennsylvania state representative dared to make a Christian prayer in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, a building filled with beautiful religious symbols and statements from the Bible writ large upon the walls and the ceilings.
The world then exploded around her, condemnations filling the empty spaces at every corner of her life and space. Her prayer was labeled “Intolerance” by the fake news PennLive/Patriot News (which published a viciously anti-Christian article and then deleted every online pro-Christian comment afterwards, which is going to be our next essay here).
What is strange about all this anti religion sentiment is that mere minutes before Rep. Stephanie Borowicz made her public prayer, in the official time and place allotted to her, a fellow Muslim representative was sworn in. By an Imam using the Koran. No boos or hisses followed that religious event. The negativity only resulted from and surrounded a Christian speaking as a Christian in a building built by Christians in a state founded by Christians in a nation – the world’s freest and most successful- founded by Christians, and based on the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Testament, together or separately otherwise known as the Bible.
Everything about America, from our concept of law and order to our stop signs and street lights to our universal education and safety net for the destitute to free speech and tolerant free religion, are based on the orderly rules laid out in the Bible by God. Simple as that. Without Christianity, there is no America, no freedom, no big opportunity, no tolerance. Yes, Christianity started out as an offshoot of Judaism, but it is its own religion. It is the repository of all of America’s basic, founding principles and values. America has always been about shared values, shared goals, despite different theologies among its citizens.
If you take away Christianity, you no longer have America. No doubt, that anti-America goal is behind most of the negativity surrounding Borowicz etc et al. People complaining about Christianity are essentially declaring war on America. They no longer share values, goals, or a common vision of what it means to be an American.
Today, in the establishment media and its one political party, God is out, the US Constitution is out, the First Amendment freedoms are especially out, Christians are very, very out, and fake victims and even fakier minorities are forced in and falsely elevated and valued above everyone else (how can a group of people 1.3 billion strong be considered a minority anywhere on our planet?). This situation is not right, but it is the fight we find ourselves at this time and place. Freedom is never free, world-wide it is uncommon, and every generation has had to fight to hold onto it. America is still a majority Christian country, and if those Americans wake up, there is still time to save the nation from the physical and cultural onslaught exemplified by the negative response to Rep. Borowicz’s simple prayer.
Whether Christian theology speaks to you, or not, and whether or not a person believes that Christianity will save your soul, or not, is a matter of a particular faith. One thing here is absolutely certain, and that is only Christians and Christianity can save America. Whether America’s Christians are up to the task is the question before us. Our nation’s armed rebellion against British tyranny started quietly in a church pulpit. Rep. Borowicz made a prayer heard ’round the world; pray that it resonates further.
How to properly pronounce “Lancaster” and why it matters, here
“Lan—Cas–Ter.”
When I heard the radio ad with that unnatural, long, drawn out pronunciation of the county and city just south of me, the endless chasm between the syllables felt years apart, so unnatural that my internal warning system flashed “outsider alert, outsider alert.”
This ear-grating goofball advertisement played for two days before being pulled and replaced with the same voice, but subsequently correctly saying “Lancaster” as almost one long syllable.
How many calls and emails did the radio station get about this? Evidently enough to make an impression on the people in charge of advertising. Running a radio advertisement that annoys the audience is counterproductive, and you’d have to hear from a large enough segment or sample of that audience to get the message that your message was not just falling flat, but actually bothering your target audience. People cared enough to contact the radio station and voice their opinion.
Why do Central Pennsylvanians care about how their locations are pronounced?
Probably for the same reason that Perry County has communities like Newport and Duncannon and New Bloomfield housing most of the county’s 30,000 citizens, and yet those same people will tell you they are from Perry County. Not from Newport, New Bloomfield, or Duncannon. This is because the identity of the locals in Perry County, and elsewhere around the Central Pennsylvania region, is one of community, togetherness, joined together in common interests and identity. Not separated from one another, as in most other places. The larger community, like the county, is the defining characteristic for the residents. We all belong here and we belong to each other, in common and shared purpose.
I recall reading a linguistics study of Central Pennsylvania years ago, and how the authors traced the unique accent here to Swiss and German immigrants in the 1700s. And in fact, if you talk to older old order Amish and some older old order Mennonites, you will indeed hear that very distinct English spoken with some sort of heavily foreign accent. Like all languages, including British English, Southern drawl American, Ebonics in the ‘hood, and so on, this common sound is the sound shared by a commonly identifying group of people. When they hear the familiar pronunciation of their own language, they know they are communicating with someone who is “one of us.”
One of the defining characteristics of Central Pennsylvania is its pretty resilient regional identity, including political views and political engagement, religiousness, and so on. Outside forces may be at work here, altering our beautiful landscape with criminally ugly warehouses and temporarily bombarding our ears with Flatlander-foolish pronunciations of our local places, but through it all, we still hold on to our common identity, our common purpose, our common interests.
Central Pennsylvania is still one big community with common identity. This is one of the reasons that the Obama Administration targeted Lancaster County (and rural Minnesota) for simply air-drop dumping huge numbers of fresh foreign immigrants, most of whom could neither speak nor read English, but who had been carefully instructed how to vote for the “(D)” on the ballot. Politicized efforts to disrupt traditional American sense of community and togetherness, and common purposes and commonly held interests and values, are increasing, as one political party in particular attempts to destroy and re-make America into an identity-less, gender-less, Constitution-less, all-powerful big government global nerve center for everyone on the planet and every cockamamie idea that will destroy “evil” capitalism etc.
And this is why people here so strenuously resist the improper pronunciation of “Lancaster.”
This mispronunciation concretely represents the outside evil forces arrayed against our traditional identity and lifestyle. When we reject that pronunciation, we are asserting our identity and rejecting outsiders, carpetbaggers who attempt to sell us snake oil without even taking the littlest amount of time to understand our closest held thoughts and beliefs. And they fail to do that because they simply don’t care about us or our religious redneck identity; and, in fact, they look down on us.
For all you outsiders, for the record, here in Central Pennsylvania we pronounce Lancaster as one long, fast, single syllable, Lancaster. Not like actor Burt Lan-cas-ter, who, as a Hollywood actor engaged in silly dress-up and fanciful make-believe his whole life, was the ultimate alien to our deal-in-real, natural, down-home, farming and mountain dweller environment here.
So say it again, quickly, Lancaster.
No time or spaces between what your head tells you are syllables. Say it again, fast, one quick word, Lancaster.
There, you said it, and we like you already. See? You fit right in, you hillbilly, you. Here’s a gun, and a Bible. Display them prominently in your home.
Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land
For a long time, former NRA president Charlton Heston was still my president.
During the Clinton presidency for sure, and even plenty of times in the George W. Bush presidency, I felt like the person in the White House did not understand or represent my views. So, frequently I would say “Charlton Heston is still my president.”
Even though he was no longer NRA president, he still best captured my views on being an American.
Charlton Heston may have been president of the NRA, a big deal, but even more important, he played the role of Moses in the movie The Ten Commandments.
Heston played that part with intense passion, because as a man of faith, it meant a lot to him. He believed in the words he said as an actor, because the words he said on screen had the power to suggest in millions of homes across America.
His suggestion was that America follow the Bible.
Why not? America is based on the Bible.
Heston ends his role on the east side of the Red Sea, proclaiming liberty throughout the land.
Here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Liberty Bell sits, with the Biblical words “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land,” taken from the story of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. The Passover story tells the details of that experience, an inspiring lesson that has come to symbolize freedom for oppressed people all over the world.
Tonight is the beginning of Passover, and this coming weekend is Easter. Together the two holidays capture the Judeo-Christian foundation of America. One is a more physical release from bondage, while the other is more of a spiritual release, a resurrection of the indomitable human spirit.
You need both to be totally free, to totally know liberty. And to be an American you absolutely must know liberty, and reject big government, nanny state policies, and government overreach.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.
The bigger the individual liberty, the happier the American, the more spirited he is.
So this special week in particular, let each of us proclaim liberty throughout the land of America, my fellow citizens.
Rejoice in our religious liberties, our political liberties, our free speech liberties, our freedoms, and cherish them, cherish them all.
Remain dedicated to liberty, for it is always unpopular with the many people who would enslave us all, and we do not have to look far at all to find those people, as power corrupts.
Some thoughts on MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech
Our family just sat down to watch Martin Luther King Jr. deliver one of America’s most powerful speeches, his 1963 I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Thank you to YouTube for publishing this historically important footage.
We had a discussion about it, and here are some thoughts that resulted:
MLK’s face is clearly moved, the righteousness of his words providing a passion that cannot be ignored then, or now. How refreshing is that.
The causes of justice, freedom, voting rights, and integration were true tests of just how honest America was going to be, how accurately it was going to live up to its promises. Genuine race and fairness issues are almost gone today, due to that passion.
How refreshing it is to hear true righteousness, and dignity, and careful measure. Few leaders since MLK have been able or willing to lead listeners down different paths simultaneously.
In the context of Georgia Congressman John Lewis’s crazy comments about November’s election results, MLK stands out as a real outlier. Race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are phonies, and Congressman John Lewis has been riding on his one real achievement from fifty years ago. Are there any honest brokers remaining on race issues? What I would give to have MLK back with us today. America could use his gentleness, his insights, his vision. His truthfulness.
After all, a great deal of the goals MLK put forth in his speech have been achieved. What has not been achieved could easily be ascribed to the destructive methods of Sharpton, Jackson, and now Congressman Lewis, whose personal attack on the president elect brought a swift and accurate rebuttal. American blacks are more the victims of their regressive “leaders” than they are of any racism.
One of my favorite bits of knowledge is that MLK was an ardent gun owner. He was not politically correct. Oh, I don’t believe he was a violent man, bitterly clinging to his Bible and guns in preparation for some racial Armageddon. Rather, he was a hunter, a target shooter, and a practical self-defense-oriented American who believed it was better to defend one’s home from violent intruders than it was to die unarmed.
Unfortunately, this great man left America far too soon, but like all righteous martyrs, MLK’s murder inspired great change in the greatest nation ever on Planet Earth.
Thank you for your many gifts to us, Martin Luther King, Jr. We thank you for the biggest one, your ultimate sacrifice that America might live up to its best hopes and dreams.
Is America like Samson?
Ancient Jewish hero Samson was so strong he could use the lower jaw of a donkey to fight against men who were using edged weapons. It was almost a dismissiveness to use such a low-tech tool under circumstances where failure was not an option. Because it meant death.
From where did Samson get his incredible strength? Obviously he was physically capable, meaning strong and cat-like quick. But he also had a deeper power, a power every human possesses. A spiritual power. It enabled him to rise far above his physical limitations and perform remarkable, superhuman feats of mortal combat.
Samson was a Nazirite, a person who denies himself physical pleasures like wine, meat, fancy clothes, and sex. By abstaining, Nazirites are able to disconnect from worldly distractions and focus on spiritual development. Samson’s strength was not just physical.
The town in northern Israel called Nazareth was evidently a city where many men took on the stringencies which guided them on their spiritual paths through an innately physical and material world. Like Samson before him, Jesus was also a Nazirite. The long hair and beard are famous symbols of the Nazirite oath.
The story of Samson is tragic, because he forgot who he was, forgot his vows of abstinence, and allowed himself to be led astray and into bed by Delilah, who was understandably attracted to his manly qualities.
Once Delilah had conquered Samson sexually, she took the symbolic step of cutting his long hair. Removing the symbol of his abstinence signified his end of being a Nazirite and the beginning of their physical relationship.
Samson lost his strength and was eventually captured by the Philistines not because his hair was cut. It was because his reason for existence had ended. His cut hair was as much a symbol as it had been when it was long. It said he had lost his way, lost his focus, and lost his purpose. He had broken his vow, and the pain of his spiritual failure drained him of physical strength.
The Bible has always been the bedrock of American and Western civilization. After all, religion gives humans basic essential values. It informs how we make choices, how we relate to one another, how our societies function.
But biblical beliefs are lagging these days, with resulting cultural chaos. Americans seem to have forgotten who they are (independent citizens with individual liberty, not serfs), and their purpose (run their own government). This complacency has invited vile intruders to take advantage and control of our many freedoms. Like Samson before us, we have been led astray, forgotten our vows to our fellow citizens, and as a result we are greatly at risk.
Let’s hope America has a spiritual renewal that strengthens our resolve to live by the divine laws spelled out in our Constitution, and not by the whims and laws of mere men.
Israel’s Independence Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day, So Where are We Today?
Israel Independence Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day are here.
Obviously these two milestones are related in the sense that out of the ashes of the European genocide against Europe’s Jewish minority (not to be confused with the similar and nearly simultaneous Muslim Arab ethnic cleansing of the Jewish minority once living in the Middle East, now presently applied to Christians there) arose the modern state of Israel on the soil of the ancient state of Israel.
Here in America most Jewish communities spend a full 24-hour period on Holocaust Remembrance Day reading the names of Nazi victims. By reading their names, they are in some small but meaningful way not forgotten. And by remembering them as people, larger society is supposed to remember what happened so that people, and government, do the necessary things so genocide does not happen again.
This is all sound logic to me, although it is questionable whether it works, or not.
Why am I sounding a bit skeptical here? Because the evidence isn’t supportive that this approach works, in the sense that it does not inspire humans around the globe to treat one another better, much less treat Jews any better. The evidence in front of us demonstrates that Holocaust Remembrance Day, with all its universalist activities, primarily appeals to Jews, their friends, and liberal-minded news reporters. Meanwhile, plenty of genocide is going on ever since, namely in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kurdistan, and now once again in the Middle East, where Muslim Arabs are sadistically rampaging among the religious and ethnic minorities among them.
And Israel has been under sustained and increasing attempted genocide from the day it was founded in 1948. Every libel, slander, lie and contrivance has been drummed up to delegitimize Israel and to justify the ceaseless murders of unarmed Jews within and outside Israel. Boycotts, divestment from Israeli companies, and sanctions against Israeli academic institutions and the government of Israel are proof that Israel, and Jews, receive an incredibly harsh and unjustified treatment from a world that really ought to know better.
Making things even worse, and totally odd to me and to most people I know, is the overwhelmingly liberal mindset American Jews maintain. Their liberal political views, on a policy-by-policy basis, are completely contrary to the Torah (the Bible) to which their ancestors swore loyalty and which created Western Civilization.
Abortion-on-demand and as a form of birth control, faith in big government, rejection of religion’s role in good government, gun control, you name it, every single one of the politically correct issues that liberal Jews believe in are at odds with their own founding document, the Bible.
One would logically conclude that a group of people who had recently undergone such incredibly painful and devastating attacks, round-ups, shot on sight, murder in the street, painful medical experiments, gassing, bodies burnt to hide the atrocity, and so on, you would think that the survivors and heirs would adopt a more self-preserving view. That is the conclusion that their friends have arrived at and said is needed many times, and asked why Jews don’t, for many years.
You know, why do most Jews vote for people and policies that are against their own interests? Like for Obama, or against gun rights?
That American Jews are overwhelmingly supportive of intense gun regulation is without question. Public surveys show it. Even more to the point are the lists of leaders on gun regulation; nearly all of them are Jews – Past and present US Senators Feinstein, Schumer, Metzenbaum, Lautenberg, Boxer – joined by an endless list of Jewish members of Congress, and not to mention the actual leaders of gun regulation, Josh Sugarmann, Shira Goodman, to name but a few, and not to mention the Jewish donors to anti-gun rights groups, like Bloomberg and Hechinger, to name but a few.
More locally, two years ago I sat in on a meeting between my then-newly elected state senator Democrat Rob Teplitz and a group of citizens gathered at a local Harrisburg synagogue. As the morning Boy Scout function there was the drawing attraction, and not everyone there was Jewish, there was one group of men who had just completed their prayers and who had then gathered to join in the following meeting with Senator Teplitz. Either the first or second question of the event came from a man in that group, who asked Senator Teplitz when he was going to become an ardent and active advocate for serious gun regulation. Heads nodded in agreement around the table, and Teplitz responded that he would be neither “too pro gun nor too anti gun.”
Further confusing many Americans is how vociferously anti-Israel so many American Jews have become. Whether by strongly supporting an obviously anti-Israel Obama or by actively participating in anti-Israel actions and activities, lots of American Jews clearly are at war with the one nation designed to protect them should the very things they are remembering now begin to happen once again.
Why would a tiny group of people, who have experienced such awful tragedies and injustices over and over again, seek to both disarm themselves and their fellow citizens in favor of big government, which has never anywhere been a friend to Jews or liberty, and also disarm and undermine the one country capable of protecting Jews should the you-know-what hit the fan?
Folks, I know you are moved by recalling victims and inured to maintaining victimhood. It is practically the Jewish identity to the point where “Holocaust worship” has been decried by the more religiously observant Jews; you know, the Bible believers.
If you really want to remember the European Holocaust and say “Never Again!” in a way that means something, then be able to defend yourself. Get a 12-gauge pump shotgun, learn to use it with buckshot and store it safely, and support a strong Israel capable of easily defending itself against all attackers. That’s it.
Otherwise, you just make people ask “Do Jews today really remember what happened, and do they really understand how important Israel is to them?”
In other words, people just must ask “are Jews really so smart?”