This is a Problem?

HT LRC:

If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party

-          George Will

If there ever was anything that could be called a “conservative party,” Reagan killed it.  If there was one thing conservatives might once have been known for, it was some reasonable concern about deficits.  This ended with Ronnie.

Since then, neither George Will nor any other commentator can identify a single issue of substance upon which so-called conservatives and so-called liberals disagree.  Yes, it is all theater – political theater.

Now, if George is concerned about a Trump victory bringing on the end of the Republican Party, this is more understandable – this schism should have been recognized by party leadership in 2008, with Ron Paul’s success.  In any case, nothing to lament (one mainstream party down, one to go), but more understandable.

Let’s see what George has to say in defense of his concern: his opening paragraph is nothing but psychobabble regarding Trump’s personality disorders (as Will observes these from afar, presumably).  If George is looking for mentally and emotionally well-balanced individuals to be president, I suspect he would have to go back at least 120 years, maybe more, to find even one. 

Will does not like that Putin and Trump have formed some version of a mutual admiration society; Putin, after all, is a murderer:

Perhaps the 56 journalists murdered were coincidental victims of amazingly random violence that the former KGB operative’s police state is powerless to stop.

We are fed daily by white pundits and talking heads ignoring the thousands of brown-skinned Muslim deaths caused by white action while lamenting the handfuls of white deaths at the hands of brown-skinned Muslim terrorists.  But George Will has hit a new low: Putin is bad because he murders (supposedly) those of Will’s profession!

It has, however, been “proven,” perhaps even to Trump’s exacting standards, that Putin has dismembered Ukraine.

One reason that the so-called “conservative party” is coming to an end is because the lies are so completely transparent.  Without suggesting Putin’s hands are clean regarding Ukraine, the weight of evidence is overwhelmingly pointed to western fingerprints in the troubles of this region.  Two words will suffice: NATO and Nuland.

Will further condemns Putin:

(Counts one and two at the 1946 Nuremberg trials concerned conspiracy to wage, and waging, aggressive war.)

To which a reasonable person might reply: Iraq; George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  Let the trials begin.

…by his embrace of Putin, and by postulating a slanderous moral equivalence — Putin kills journalists, the United States kills terrorists, what’s the big deal, or the difference? — Trump has forced conservatives to recognize their immediate priority.

One reason that the so-called “conservative party” is coming to an end is because the lies are so completely transparent, but I repeat myself. 

The United States creates terrorists; I will suggest more have been created than have been killed.  The United States kills wedding parties and doctors without borders and starves hundreds of thousands of children and deploys depleted uranium and causes hell on earth throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and tells China that the South China Sea is American territory and perpetuates NATO against phantom enemies in order to extend empire.

Will goes on to a long history of his version of conservatism in American politics, ending with another whopper:

But the Republican Party won five of the next seven presidential elections. In two of them, Ronald Reagan secured the party’s continuity as the custodian of conservatism.

I have already offered my view of Reagan’s so-called conservatism.  I will end with the view of someone far more qualified than I on this (and just about any) topic; Murray Rothbard offers his views on Reagan’s so-called “conservatism”:

Eight years, eight dreary, miserable, mind-numbing years, the years of the Age of Reagan, are at long last coming to an end. These years have surely left an ominous legacy for the future: we shall undoubtedly suffer from the after-shocks of Reaganism for years to come.

Rothbard then catalogues a long list of failings – measured against a conservative standard.  He ends, however, on a positive note:

Has the Reagan Administration done nothing good in its eight ghastly years on earth, you might ask? Yes, it has done one good thing; it has repealed the despotic 55-mile-per-hour highway speed limit.   And that is it.

Leave it to Rothbard to find the needle in that haystack!

Conclusion

One reason that the so-called “conservative party” is coming to an end is because the lies are so completely transparent, but I repeat myself…repeatedly.

I will not vote for Trump or any of the candidates in this election.  However, there must be something good about the man if so many monkeys are going bananas about his success.

Which brings me to a point I have contemplating for some time.  Trump has said many things in the last few months that would have derailed any other candidate for political office; the media would have destroyed and then ignored such a beast.  But this hasn’t happened this time.  It leads me to one of a handful of possible explanations:

1)      Some powerful people want Trump to win.

2)      The mainstream media has finally been exposed as impotent due to the internet.

3)      Some powerful people want Hillary to win, and they believe Trump is the easiest Republican to take down in the general election.

It all makes for great reality TV, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Who You Gonna Believe...Your Own Lyin’ Eyes?

The Guardian is out with an examination of conspiracy theories and the reasons why people go for these (HT The Daily Bell).  From the piece, with my initial thoughts in italics:

From 9/11 to the Paris attacks, from Ebola to Isis, every major global event attracts a corresponding counter-narrative from the ‘truthers’ [this is good news], some so all-encompassing that they take over people’s lives [probably not healthy unless focused on real investigation and action]. Are our brains wired to believe, as a new book argues? [Wired to believe authority, perhaps] And could such thinking actually be beneficial? [For the healthy among us.]

It is interesting that this comes from the Guardian – the news source that has gained some credibility with anti-state / anti-empire types due to reporting such as provided regarding Snowden, as one example (not that I am advancing a conspiracy theory or anything).  The author does tread lightly and respectfully.

The author of the piece, David Shariatmadari (I won’t type the last name again), begins with some testimony from a recovering conspiracy theorist, one apparently previously obsessed with 911 conspiracy theories.  How does David respond?

Elliott’s reaction to the trauma of 9/11 was far from unusual. The attacks were so unprecedented, so devastating, that many of us struggled to make sense of them. Early reports were confused or contradictory: as a result some treated the official version of events with scepticism. A proportion of those in turn plumped for an explanation that would require fakery and coordination on a massive scale.

The official narrative of 911 involves “an explanation that would require fakery and coordination on a massive scale.”  If we are to dismiss every theory of 911 based on this criteria, it is the official narrative that is the most preposterous and therefore must be the first to go.

Setting this aside, it seems to me unnecessary to come up with an alternative theory, at least as a starting point; the official narrative is so full of holes – and questioned by numerous architects and engineers, pilots, etc. – that it is sufficient to acknowledge that we have been fed a massive lie, and one that has resulted in the needless death of millions and the trashing of liberties for billions.

Within a day of the terrorist attacks on the French capital, blogs had been published arguing that they were the work of the government – a so-called “false flag” operation.

I have no idea if the recent attacks in Paris were a false flag operation (although the apparent perpetrators were well known to French intelligence agencies); however, no one with even an ounce of curiosity could conclude it was the first one ever in history.  Questions should be raised, if for no other reason than to call into question the spending of countless trillions of dollars spent to spy on everyone in the world, resulting in the stupendous failure of Paris (or San Bernardino, or whatever).

Belief in so-called conspiracy theories has been pretty consistent, according to Viren Swami, professor of social psychology at Anglia Ruskin University:

What has changed, however, is the speed with which new theories are formed. “It’s a symptom of a much more integrated world,” he says. The internet speeds everything up, allowing conspiracy-minded individuals to connect and formulate their ideas.

This is to the benefit of us all: no matter how quirky our ideas – not only regarding such events, but also (in my case) regarding economics, liberty, etc. – it has become much easier to find community and to build on the learning of others.  We are no longer confined to work colleagues, the neighborhood bar, a church social group, or postage-sized ads in the back of some obscure magazine or another.

Social psychologist Karen Douglas agrees:

It’s very easy to go online and find other people who feel the same way as you.

Returning to Viren Swami:

In contrast, it took months for theories about Pearl Harbor to develop.

And such theories about Pearl Harbor turned out to be true.

It turns out we are not alone:

“Recent research has shown that about half of Americans believe at least one conspiracy theory,” [Douglas] says. “You’re looking at average people; people you might come across on the street.”

Half down, half to go.

Karen Douglas is wary of rubbishing all conspiracy theorising as dangerous. “Thinking in that way, it must have some positive consequences. If everybody went around just accepting what they were told by governments, officials, pharmaceutical companies, whoever, then we would be a bunch of sheep, really”.

Would it be a conspiracy theory if one suggested that the entire premise behind government education and control of mainstream media is to turn us all into sheep?  Swami offers:

For him, this hints at an important potential role for education. “The best way is, at a societal level, to promote analytical thinking, to teach critical thinking skills.”

How much critical thinking does it take to question something very simple: say building 7, for example?  If furniture fires can bring down a modern high rise, why hasn’t every building over three stories tall been condemned as unsafe?

In any case, they don’t want to teach critical thinking (wait, another conspiracy, perhaps?).

Returning to the recovering conspiracy theorist noted at the beginning of David’s piece, describing his liberation of being set free from critical thinking:

“That was the epiphany, really. I was free. I was happy. None of the doom and gloom predicted and promised ever came.” For Ryan, by then 27, the bizarre ride was over.

And this is the hope of those who spoon feed us (is that another conspiracy theory?): it certainly makes life simpler to just believe what we are told.

All is for the best

Believe in what we're told

Blind men in the market

Buying what we're sold

-          Neil Peart, RUSH

Here is my own list (not only conspiracy-theory type items, but also an examination of the false history we have been fed).  It is over a year old; I suspect a few links may be dated or dead.  I have also written more on such topics since then; I intend to update this list in the next month or so, but it will do for today.

Conclusion

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

-          Mahatma Gandhi

We are clearly somewhere between steps two and three.

Reason Enough to Vote…

…for Trump or Cruz?  Yes, for many, because George Soros says not to:
 

That is why, as 2016 gets underway, we must reaffirm our commitment to the principles of open society and resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, however hard that may be.

Why?  He says we have nothing to fear but fear itself.  Not exactly, but that is what he says.

Trump and Cruz offer an irrational, fear-based response to Muslim terrorism, according to Soros (he is right, but not for the right reasons).  We must not let this irrationality control how we vote (I suspect Rubio or Clinton are preferred).

He also comments on the “existential threat” of Muslim immigration to Europe (again, he might be right about the threat, but not for the reason he wants you to read into his statement):

Consider the Syrian conflict, which is the root cause of the migration problem that is posing an existential threat to the European Union as we know it.

I don’t necessarily see the Muslim immigrants as a threat to European culture – after all, much of this was destroyed at the outbreak of the Great War.  However, the immigration issue is one more reason for the residents of Europe to loathe the European project – and it is this “existential threat” that concerns the likes of a Soros.

 

If [the Syrian conflict] was resolved, the world would be in better shape.

Does Soros mention a solution?  Of course, but not the correct one – not the most direct and certain.  He points to a one-world solution:

The United Nations security council has unanimously adopted a resolution against it…

He could not have offered more flavorful red meat to Trump supporters than to try to calm them with the ungodly salvation that is the United Nations.

No, I won’t be voting for Trump or Cruz.  Not Clinton or Rubio either.  The only thing this editorial from Soros demonstrates is that he doesn’t understand the attraction that many Americans have to Trump.

American Anti-War Society

Where is it?

I have been thinking about this in reference to my earlier post, Common Cause, on the intersection of left, right, and libertarian anti-war / anti-empire supporters.  There are many voices, across a wide-ranging set of political ideologies, against war and empire.  Yet where is the center – an organized and focused effort to end the wars that have been a continuous feature of the government of the United States?

It is easy to understand why there is no such focus: war as it is practiced by today’s America visibly and directly costs the general population little – no conscription, no tax increases, no meaningful price inflation; the manifestation of the evils of war are all occurring “over there,” against those who are less than human. 

Conversely, to stand up against war brings a cost: the entirety of mainstream opinion and political correctness is arrayed against those who denounce war and come out against supporting the troops.  Time, money, reputation, and energy spent on a seemingly futile task, in opposition to an ungodly array of powerful and wealthy interests.

A search for any such organizations today turns up this apparently ancient listing at Antiwar.com; of the four main organizations identified, only one web site seems to even be active.  What was once United for Peace has evolved into United for Peace and Justice:

Together we are working to end war and oppression, shift resources toward human needs, protect the environment and promote sustainable alternatives.    Our long-term goal is to grow a culture of justice, peace, equality, cooperation and respect.  We value diversity and respect the earth.

A mish-mash of causes certain to turn off more anti-war supporters than it might draw – a perfect complement to my aforementioned post: I share little politically with the mainstream left or right other than with the subset who also desire an anti-war position.  But then we divide ourselves because of all the other stuff.  Perhaps one more casualty of being stuck in a false left-right dichotomy.

Then there is a more exhaustive list presented by The Guardian.  It appears to be a British-based listing; upon checking the first several links, half come up dead or otherwise confusing.

I am not going to spend forever looking; that it might take forever only proves the point: any such organizations – if they even exist – are invisible.

Yet, there was once an issue that presented the exact same situation as does this issue of war today: slavery.  To whites, there was little visible or direct cost, the costs were born by the other – in this case, the Negro slave.  It was accepted that the Negro was something less than human, and to consider otherwise was not politically acceptable.  All nicely parallel the situation of today’s westerners relative to the fate of the (mainly brown-skinned and/or Muslim) victims of war.

A successful anti-slavery movement formed in Britain:

After the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, William Wilberforce led the cause of abolition through the parliamentary campaign. It finally abolished the slave trade in the British Empire with the Slave Trade Act 1807. He continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

The background of this committee, formed in 1787:

The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, (or The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade), was a British abolitionist group, formed on 22 May 1787, by twelve men who gathered together at a printing shop in London, England. The Society worked to educate the public about the abuses of the slave trade; it achieved abolition of the international slave trade in 1807, enforced by the Royal Navy.

It later was superseded by development of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1823, which worked to abolish the institution of slavery throughout the British colonies. Abolition was passed by parliament in 1833 (except in India, where it was part of the indigenous culture); with emancipation completed by 1838.

Of the twelve founding members, nine were Quakers and three were Anglicans: the roots of the movement are undeniably to be found in the morals of the Christian men of the age.

The Christian roots in the abolitionist movement in America are also quite evident, through the American Anti-Slavery Society.  From Jeffrey Rogers Hummel in Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men.  Consider the following excerpts from Hummel’s book and the applicability of each statement to the possibility and consequences of a movement against today’s issues of war and empire:

Out of Chaos, Chaos

I refer to the investigative report by Seymour Hersh, with thanks to Robert Wenzel:

Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya.

So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

You get the idea.

It is not my desire to get into the plausibility of the various statements in the piece; not every statement need be factual for one to conclude that US foreign policy is as much the result of chaos as it is order.

There is no such thing as a uniform, consolidated US foreign policy: there are dozens of departments and agencies that are both armed and also have intelligence capabilities; they also have the ability to act covertly – not just covertly from me and you, but from each other (at least to a reasonable degree).  They spy on each other, they manage the messages delivered to each other.  They tell the president not necessarily what he wants to hear but what they want him to hear.  They are each led by an almost autonomous actor.

The one thing they have in common is a general tendency to expand power and control – both within the administration and throughout the globe.  For this reason, they cover up for each other because to reveal one as rogue reveals them all as rogue.

But I suspect they also have something else in common – within each agency are many individuals with many disparate views, include some who see the catastrophe’s unleashed by previous actions and the likely catastrophes in the future.  Suffer enough catastrophes and credibility will be lost; even worse, enough catastrophes and life on earth will likely end.

So, the one point on which I might disagree with Hersch is the emphasis placed on what Obama desires.  He has little control over any of this; instead, I see a relationship of one hand washing the other:  the various autonomous actors throw a few bones to the Puppet-in-Chief, and the Puppet-in-Chief provides cover to the various autonomous actors.

It is in these few bones that the Puppet-in-Chief can make a difference.  The fact that these autonomous actors have views that differ with each other and the fact that there are individuals within each department and agencies that view the catastrophes rationally ensures this. 

For this reason, it is interesting to watch the Trump campaign.

Common Cause

There are issues that bring together a subset of libertarians, traditional conservatives and modern liberals.  War is one of these.  Many readers will be familiar with traditional conservative Pat Buchanan and his views on war and empire; on the left one will find Noam Chomsky.

Then there are those on one side or the other of the political spectrum who can appreciate a position, and not an ideology.

Speaking the Unspeakable: Why the Establishment Wants to Silence Donald Trump, by Sam Husseini. 

Much of this post will be a restatement of Husseini’s position; however, at the end I would like to offer a few thoughts about the good and bad of Trump.

The establishment so wants everyone else to unfriend Trump supporters on Facebook. There’s even an app to block them. That’ll teach them!

Yes, Trump plays a bully boy and is appealing to populist (good), nativist, xenophobic, and racist sentiments (bad).

Trump appeals to nativist sentiments, but those same sentiments are skeptical of the militarized role of the U.S. in the world — as was the case during Pat Buchanan’s 1992 campaign.

Husseini offers that focusing only on the “bad” Trump allows many – including many in the media – to dismiss or ignore the “good” Trump.

While the New York Times concludes Trump is an “off the scales” liar, Husseini finds reason to disagree:

…he recently said the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State “killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity….The Middle East is a total disaster under her.” Now, I think that’s pretty accurate, though U.S. policy in my view may be more Machiavellian than stupid, but the remark is a breath of fresh air on the national stage.

Instead, he sees statements such as these ignored:

But I’ve not seen anyone fact-check that assertion, because that’s not an argument much of establishment media wants to debate.

It is a conscious omission, according to Husseini:

…Trump — or Rand Paul’s — remarks about U.S. policies of regime change and bombings are often unexamined. It’s more convenient to focus on our kindness in letting a few thousand refugees in than to examine how millions of displaced people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somali might have gotten that way as a result of U.S. government policies.

To those who complain that Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims is unconstitutional, Husseini retorts – what about all of Obama’s undeclared wars?  Two wrongs don’t make a right, but “pretend moral outrage” is rather unbecoming.

Trump wants to ban Muslims until the government figures out what is going on:

Now, a reasonable stance would be to say let’s stop bombing until “we can figure out what the hell is going on.” But Trump — unlike virtually anyone else with a megaphone — is actually raising the issue about why there’s resentment against the U.S. in the Mideast.

Trump is not afraid to say what some know to be true:

The Hundred Years’ War

When the British armed forces occupied the Middle East at the end of the war, the region was passive.

From chapter 43: “The Troubles Begin: 1919 – 1921”; A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin

With this sentence, Fromkin begins his examination of the troubles for western imperialists throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.  Of course, there were interventions before this time (Britain already had significant presence in Egypt and India, for example), yet – corresponding with the overall theme of Fromkin’s book – his examination centers on the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Fromkin summarizes the situation and conflict in nine different regions (many of which were not “countries” as we understand the term).  He suggests that the British did not see a connection in these difficulties, one region to the other:

In retrospect, one sees Britain undergoing a time of troubles everywhere in the Middle East between 1919 and 1921; but it was not experienced that way, at least not in the beginning.

As I have found repeatedly throughout this book, while history might not repeat, it rhymes so obviously that one could suggest plagiarism.

This is a long post – 3500 words; for those who want the summary, I offer the following: Egypt, Afghanistan, Arabia, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, Eastern Palestine (Transjordan), Palestine – Arabs and Jews, Mesopotamia (Iraq), Persia (Iran).

Promises made during war, promises broken during the peace; local factions at odds with each other; most factions at odds with the imperialists; intrigue and double-dealing; fear of the Bolshevik menace; costly wars and occupations; the best laid plans of mice….

There you have it – you can skip the details if you like.  Alternatively, just pick up a copy of today’s paper.

Liberty’s Most Successful Entrepreneur

From Alejandro Chafuen at Forbes:

TheBestSchools.org, an online resource for campus and online education, has just released a ranking of the 50 most influential think tanks in the United States.

From this list, Mr. Chafuen has culled the subset that he considers the “Leading Conservative / Libertarian Think Tanks.”  On the list are the likes of the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institution, and Hoover Institution – each with annual revenues from about $30 million to over $110 million.

TheBestSchools.org, some of the results are similar, especially the top four free market groups: Heritage Foundation, Cato, Mises Institute and American Enterprise Institute.

Like other rankings, this new effort treats “think tanks as principally in the business of selling their ideas.” But it focuses on social media more than any other previous ranking.

Third on Mr. Chafuen’s subset is the Mises Institute (which I would not necessarily call a “think tank”), with annual revenue below $5 million – found to be more influential than a dozen other entities with budgets as much as 10 times larger.

Mises Institute is the one with the smaller budget ($4 to 5 million), and they can rightly claim that, at least in social media measurements, they provide more “bang for the buck.” In addition to the superb collection of scholarly books and studies in the Austrian tradition, especially by Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and their disciples, Mises Institute sometimes releases provocative articles, defying politically correctness and attracting wide readership.

Yet, on this same list, Mises receives the lowest ratings for average media references per year.  To demonstrate that he “gets it,” Mr. Chafuen notes:

This increases its social media impact, but who is to say that think tanks were only created to influence the academic and policy elites?

Today’s academic and policy elites draw support from the established media, and the established media draws its support from the academic and policy elites.  But with the internet, they are all fighting a losing battle.

Into this battle stepped Lew Rockwell, who founded both the Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com – certainly two of the most successful libertarian / free market web sites in the world.  Neither of these hold claim to the title of largest think tank or most influential within mainstream media circles, however Lew Rockwell discovered early on the power of the internet to reach a world-wide audience.

Entrepreneur: a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

Entrepreneur: Someone who exercises initiative by organizing a venture to take benefit of an opportunity and, as the decision maker, decides what, how, and how much of a good or service will be produced.

I will venture to guess that there is no one within the libertarian / free-market world for whom these definitions of “entrepreneur” are more applicable.  Not for biggest, but for most influential.

If you believe the best chance for the ideas of liberty to spread will come by spreading the ideas of liberty, there is no more effective means to do so than by supporting these two enterprises, each one founded by liberty’s most successful entrepreneur.

Lew Rockwell has earned this label not once, but twice.

Two Trillion Dollars

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade on Wednesday, signalling faith that the U.S. economy had largely overcome the wounds of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

The U.S. central bank's policy-setting committee raised the range of its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to between 0.25 percent and 0.50 percent, ending a lengthy debate about whether the economy was strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs.

In accordance with my earlier posts on this topic, how will they do it?

To edge that rate from its current near-zero level to between 0.25 percent and 0.50 percent, the Fed said it would set the interest it pays banks on excess reserves at 0.50 percent, and said it would offer up to $2 trillion in reverse repurchase agreements, an aggressive figure that shows its resolve to pull rates higher.

These are the two tools that I have concluded are the only tools available to the Fed for raising rates, given the level of excess reserves.  I earlier posted an analysis that suggested that up to $800 million in reverse repos would have to be offered to move rates 0.25%.  $2 trillion?  They aren’t fooling around.

They also have never done anything like this.  What will it mean for liquidity?

This should be interesting.

Muslim Eviction Notice

I received a comment on my post “Borders and Culture”:

Ted R. Weiland December 12, 2015 at 5:13 AM

Eliminate the genesis for Muslims here in America and deport all practicing Muslims back to their home countries.

CLUE: There were no practicing Muslims, no Mosques, no Sharia, and no Islamic terrorism in 17th-century America whose governments of, by, and for God were established upon His unchanging moral law, beginning with the First Commandment.

Biblical immigration and border policy begins with the First Commandment, which, in turn, demands all immigrants leave their gods, their culture, and their laws at the border or suffer the consequences. No Muslim would ever agree to such law.

QUESTION: So, WHAT was it that changed America from what it was in the 17th-century to what it is now--arguably the most polytheistic nation to exist, including Islam?

ANSWER: The First Commandment was replaced with the First Amendment's First Commandment-violating Free Exercise Clause.

It's one thing to allow for individual freedom of conscience and private choice of gods (something impossible to legislate to begin with). It's another matter altogether for government to enable any and all religions to proliferate through the land evangelizing our posterity to their false gods.

For more, Google online Chapter 11 "Amendment 1: Government-Sanctioned Polytheism" of "Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective."

My reply:

bionic mosquito December 12, 2015 at 7:05 AM

“The First Commandment was replaced with the First Amendment's First Commandment-violating Free Exercise Clause.”

And this was done, per your own observation, before there were any practicing Muslims in America.

The problems in America are not due to Muslim influence. The problems in America are fundamentally due to the actions and beliefs of those who can loosely be labeled WASPs.

It is from this group that the Constitution came; it is from this group that slavery was upheld; it is from this group that Indians were slaughtered; it is from this group that hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were killed; it is from this group that the Middle East was carved into nonsensical borders; it is from this group that carpet-bombed hundreds of thousands of non-combatants; it is from this group that two Japanese cities were turned to ash; it is from this group that the two main regional enemies of civilized Arabs/Muslims gain their support - Saudi Arabia and Israel; it is from this group that – for at least three decades – overt war has been perpetuated on Arabs and Muslims.

None of this will be solved by “deport[ing] all practicing Muslims back to their home countries.” It is attitudes such as this that convince many Muslims that they are once again dealing with holy crusaders.

Who is Ted R. Weiland?

Ted R. Weiland pastors Christian Covenant Fellowship in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and is the evangelistic head of Mission to Israel Ministries.

His “Mission to Israel” does not appear to be what you might conclude on the surface.  On his site, he offers a survey; really more like questions designed to lead the witness:

No Rest for the Wicked

One of my regular listens is John Batchelor’s weekly interview with Stephen F. Cohen; Cohen provides commentary regarding his view of the Russian perspective on various geopolitical issues of the day.  Of course, lately, this discussion has been focused on Ukraine and Syria.

At the beginning of the interview from December 8, Cohen commented on a flurry of antagonistic moves against Russia.

To set the stage, Paris was attacked on November 13.  Shortly thereafter, French President Hollande visited both Washington and Moscow, calling for a coalition to fight ISIS.  Cohen then listed several events (taken by Washington or its puppets / allies), each one of which can be clearly understood to hinder any possibility of (or even desire for) a common fight against this so-called greatest threat to mankind, ISIS.

Blow-out of Crimea’s electricity

From the BBC, November 23:

Only essential services and government offices are operating in Crimea after key electricity pylons connected to the peninsula were knocked down in Ukraine.

Russia does not have a land border with Crimea, which gets about 70% of its electricity from Ukraine.

Shoot down by Turkey of Russian attack aircraft

From the BBC, regarding the November 24 shoot-down:

Both Russia and Turkey say the Russian Su-24, an all-weather attack aircraft, was shot down by Turkish F-16s in the Turkey-Syria border area on 24 November.

NATO takes in Montenegro

From NATO, December 2:

Montenegro aspires to join NATO and the Allies have invited the country to begin accession talks to join the Alliance.

These talks are the final step before approval of full membership.  Montenegro represents, of course, a continuation of NATO’s advance to the east.  Montenegro’s military value?

The military currently maintains a force of 1,950 active duty members.

An attack on Montenegro is an attack on all NATO countries. 

Biden goes to Kiev for the fifth time, promising no rest until Crimea is restored

From The New York Times, December 7:

Opening a two-day visit, Mr. Biden told the Ukrainians that the United States still supported them in their conflict with pro-Russian separatists, and accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of violating a cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk, Belarus. To reinforce American backing, Mr. Biden promised another $190 million in aid.

“The United States stands firmly with the people of Ukraine in the face of continued — and I emphasize continued — aggression from Russia and Russian-backed separatists,” he said. “Minsk cannot succeed if Russia does not fulfill its commitment and President Putin fails to live up to the promises he has repeatedly made to my president, to you and to the international community.”

Also on the visit, Biden spoke of corruption in Ukraine (and forgive this digression from Cohen’s list):

When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traveled to Kiev, Ukraine, on Sunday for a series of meetings with the country’s leaders, one of the issues on his agenda was to encourage a more aggressive fight against Ukraine’s rampant corruption and stronger efforts to rein in the power of its oligarchs.

But there is the issue of his son:

But the credibility of the vice president’s anticorruption message may have been undermined by the association of his son, Hunter Biden, with one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies, Burisma Holdings, and with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was Ukraine’s ecology minister…

Zlochevsky had personal accounts frozen by the British, due to concerns about corruption.

“Now you look at the Hunter Biden situation, and on the one hand you can credit the father for sending the anticorruption message,” [Edward C. Chow, who follows Ukrainian policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies] said. “But I think unfortunately it sends the message that a lot of foreign countries want to believe about America, that we are hypocritical about these issues.”

They “want to believe” it “about America” because it is true; the American government is hypocritical about every issue.  I don’t credit Biden “for sending the anti-corruption message”; I credit Biden for being able to pull-off such a blatant hypocrisy without even blinking. 

Back to Cohen’s timeline of events since Paris…

IMF suspends rules about lending to countries in arrears, approving further loans to Ukraine

On December 8:

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday changed a rule that would have blocked its financial aid program to Ukraine in the event the country defaulted on debt owed to Russia.

Until now, the IMF could not provide financing to a member country that was in arrears to an official creditor, such as a government.

And what does the Russian government think about this?

The move -- which drew an angry response from Moscow -- comes as cash-short Ukraine faces a looming year-end deadline to repay Russia for a $3 billion loan.

As perhaps could be said about every American action noted by Cohen since the November 13 attacks in Paris and Hollande’s attempt to build a coalition to include Russia in the fight against humanity’s (supposedly) greatest threat.

Conclusion

Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.