|
Wednesday, 28 February, 2007
Sunday, 21 January, 2007
MILITIAMAN CONVICTED IN FIRE ARMS CASE
It's been a while since Pridger has mentioned the
Second Amendment, gun rights, or militias. But the recent (January 12th)
conviction of Hollis Wayne Fincher, of the Washington County Arkansas Militia,
prompts a few words. Fincher, who is a Lt. Colonel in that militia, was
convicted on charges of possessing illegal firearms, which included at least one
homemade machine gun and a sawed-off shotgun.
Before Pridger comments, here are two short but
articulate blog posts on the matter that essentially bracket two ways of looking at the
case. The first is the "rationalized" way of the modern pragmatist.
The second is what many of us consider to simply be the "only right"
way in a truly free country.
Not that those "many of us" are
incapable of rationalization and pragmatism. We can rationalize and be as
pragmatic as anybody when it becomes necessary. But we refuse to rationalize
away our freedoms, or be pragmatic when it comes to accepting such
"realities" as, "you're much safer and better off being subject
to a government that knows what's best for you."
The following are from: https://www2.blogger.com/comment
Anonymous said...
Maybe I just look at things differently. I am absolutely for the right to own fully-automatic guns, but there are legal and moral obligations that go along with that right. You MUST file for a special ATF permit to own firearms like that. There is a fine line between the good guys and the bad guys and the line of
demarcation is the law. If you break the law, you are a criminal (convicted or not). Based on this verdict, he has lost his "rights" because now, he would not be granted an ATF stamp/permit.
A good lesson to all of us. Don't be a bad apple - Be responsible, law-abiding, and safe.
January 13, 2007 5:33:00 AM PST
NineseveN said...
The words "rights" and "granted" never belong in the same sentence, that's the problem. I don't think people like anonymous know what the term "rights" means. Rights are not granted, you have them at birth, you lose them at death; that's the long and short of it. Asking for permission negates the entire notion of a "right".
The only legal or moral obligations that come with firearms ownership as the founding fathers intended was to not use them for nefarious purposes against one's fellow citizen or the republic unless in time or tyranny and/or revolution.
From: https://www2.blogger.com/comment
See also : http://usvfincher.blogspot.com/
and http://www.arkansasmilitia.com/
Naturally, Pridger's convictions and sympathies
lie on the side of "real" rights (freedom and liberty), rather than government
"licensed"
rights (or privilege). As for rationalizing government efforts to protect us
right down to telling us what we can and cannot personally own Pridger just
doesn't think we should ever have to admit to such usage.
One can rationalize the desirability of being
confined in a padded cell, rather than being allowed out alone in the cold,
cruel, and dangerous world. And, having found the cell rather comfortable in the
short term, it's very easy to be very pragmatic in accepting it as a great
benefit.
Pridger believes Fincher and everybody else has
a perfect constitutional right to possess automatic weapons and sawed off
shotguns without registration or licenses. The only moral and "constitutionally
legal" obligation that accompanies those rights is that they be exercised
responsibly. The overwhelming majority of us are constrained by simple common
sense (and perhaps Common Law), not
to use our weapons (or even our minds and hands), to commit "real" crimes against any person or property.
Unfortunately, we no longer live under
constitutional government in any real context. All constitutional issues have been superceded by
volumes of statute law so many of them that practically everything
imaginable is is effectively subject to some law. In the face of these laws,
whether federal, state, or local, constitutional guarantees have effectively
lost all meaning.
Thus, though we have the constitutional right to
possess machine guns and travel the nation's highways, "getting caught" with a
machine gun or driving the nation's highways without government "permission,"
are against the laws of the land (if not the still
alleged Supreme Law of the Land), and subject to legal proceedings, including
prosecution, probably conviction, and fines and/or imprisonment.
We have the perfect right to drive without
buckling our seat belts, too but if we get caught, the police officer will
issue a ticket. If you've been drinking, the consequences may literally be
draconian. Some rights, such as the right to grow marijuana or engage in such personal
businesses as prostitution, can't even be licensed in most jurisdictions.
A large majority of the people rationalize such
government restrictions and (being pragmatic about it), have adjusted to them as
facts of life. Many, if not most, have even grown quite comfortable with them.
The fact is,
where freedom and liberty were once considered precious national commodities,
the majority of the public is now much more interested in safety, security, and
personal comforts than preserving their freedoms. And the most "rational
and pragmatic" of them increasingly literally clamor for
the degree of protection that only a police state can provide.
Fincher is one of the exceptions. And he made the
mistake of flaunting his exceptional status as a free man living openly, and
possessing arms, as
if he were under the constitutional republic that ceased to exist some time ago.
While Pridger has similar beliefs to those
Fincher holds, he admits doing considerable rationalization himself. In other
words, he's perhaps somewhat of a coward. He rationalizes that it's unadvisable
to bate ravenous tigers and tempt fate. It makes little sense to insist on playing games that
are clearly, carefully, and overwhelming, rigged against you. If Pridger had any unregistered
sub-machine guns or weapons of mass destruction (which, by the way, he doesn't),
they'd all be safely buried somewhere out in the back forty.
In fact, Pridger will go a step or two further
and admit that he is careful to keep his drivers' license valid, and his auto insurance
up to date, and seat belt fastened, when venturing out into "foreign
territory" beyond his own property line. He admits that he religiously pays
his real estate taxes in order to maintain his claim on the old homestead and
enjoy a little "domestic territory" and "domestic
tranquility" of his own.
He also admits that he knuckled and paid the required $5.00
fee for an Illinois Firearms Owners' Identification card, which makes him
officially eligible to enjoy some unconstitutionally abridged Second Amendment
rights at least in the state of Illinois. This means his squirrel gun and
plinking rifle are legal, not only in fact, but as a matter of official public
record as long as the Police Powers of the Illinois so permit.
If Pridger wanted to openly own a machine gun, he'd go
to the trouble and expense of buying the exclusive privilege from the
government. Fortunately, he doesn't want nor need one. If he wanted a sawed off
shotgun, he'd cut the squirrel gun off just a quarter inch above the illegal
limit. (Better yet, he'd buy a perfectly legal .50 caliber Smith & Wesson
hand cannon).
But so much for Pridger's wilted and craven ways
and back to Fincher's case. Fincher's only defense was to challenge the
validity of the laws under which he was being prosecuted. As a strict
constitutionalist, he personally doesn't consider them valid. He admits that he
owned machine guns and a sawed off shotgun, but rejects the notion that such a
"non-crime" (of mere possession), can be considered a prosecutable
offense under the constitution which still says "...the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Mr. Fincher also contends that the Washington
County Militia is "A well regulated Militia," of the sort
"...necessary to the security of a free State..." as stated in the
Second Amendment guarantee of the right to Arms.
The federal and state governments disagree, of
course.
Most judges and other government functionaries
today do not accept the clearly stated purposes our founders had for making the
Second Amendment the very second article in the Bill of Rights. Judges and most
lawyers, as agents of the government court system (the State), agree with the
"government" (the State) that all the fire power, including
anything termed a militia, ought rightly to be in the "responsible" hands of
state itself.
Of course, anybody who has studied the evolution
of the ideas behind the Second Amendment (including several significant court
rulings), know that one of the most significant purposes behind guaranteeing the
right of the people to keep and bear arms an was to protect themselves from
their own government should it ever lose its legitimacy and devolve into
tyranny.
"The security of a free State" (in the
contexts of enemies within or without), is the
business of the people rather than the strictly the State itself. As the only repository of
armed power, the State could very easily become a totally oppressive
dictatorship. In fact,
many would argue that we are already a long way down that slippery slope.
Unfortunately, in this day and age it is probably
impossible to find either a sympathetic judge or jury in such cases as
Fincher's. The judge will inevitably instruct the jury to come to a verdict
based on the laws under which the defendant is being tried rather than on any
concept of "justice" or any notion of rights under the federal
constitution they may otherwise be inclined to have.
There isn't one juror in a hundred who
fully understands his own rights and obligations under the jury system that
in despite anything the judge or law may say, the very purpose of the jury
system is to insure that "justice be done." If a law is
unjust, or a conviction would result in an unjust punishment, the jury has the
right and obligation to rule against the law itself and in favor of the
defendant.
This, of course, is known as jury nullification.
The tendency of the justice system under an all-powerful State, however, is to
deny that such a power resides in jurors just as it tends to want to disarm the people.
Yet the power of jury nullification is one of the most important powers a jury
possesses. It constitutes a major check against both unjust laws and State
tyranny. Nullification sends a message to lawmakers that perhaps they should
reconsider the law as written.
While the founders intended that this be a nation
of law, they did not mean that laws should become written in stone simply
because some jurisdiction passed them. The jury system itself was developed to
prevent arbitrary convictions and sentences by state functionaries bound by the
laws of the government of which they are an agent. Juries are not so bound. The
jurors are private citizens and free agents, and they are intended to rule in
favor of "justice" for the accused, regardless of the laws.
For example, if a defendant is being tried for
unlawful possession of a firearm, though no actual crime had been committed or
intended, and the penalty if he is found guilty could be ten or twenty years in
a federal pen, the jury has a perfect right (even an obligation), to make sure
no such injustice can be perpetrated in its name. The only way to do that is to
ignore the law and acquit the prisoner.
Lawmaking bodies are perfectly capable of passing
laws making just about anything a crime, but that doesn't make violation a crime in
fact. Jurors are the eyes, ears, voice, and conscience of the citizenry, and are (or should be), capable of distinguishing between what is and
is not, in fact, a crime and whether a law is unjust or being unjustly
applied.
When the judge instructs the jury to rule
strictly on the merits of the law alone (i.e., did or did not the defendant
break the law?), disregarding all other factors, the cause of justice is not
being served, but rather the power of the state is being served.
But fully informed jurors are not only difficult
to find they are actively discriminated against. If such a potential juror is found during the jury selection process, he or she is
almost certain to be "excused from duty." If one is found out during
the trial, he will be likely be threatened with a contempt of court charge if he
begins to go against the judge's instructions.
Of course, the jury always has the power to acquit, regardless of whether or not it knows of its powers of
nullification. In a murder trial, for example, it need only find a shadow of a
doubt in order to acquit. In the trial of O. J. Simpson, the jury may have effectively
nullified the law in his particular case. It many have done so in good faith, if
they actually thought he might be innocent, or it could have been a case of
favoring a defendant who happened to be popular with the men and women of the
jury.
The laws that Fincher has admittedly violated are
clearly infringements upon the right to keep and bear arms in a nation with a
Bill of Rights that supposedly guarantees that such rights shall not
be infringed.
It takes a very brave or very foolhardy man to
stand up and use constitutional rights as a defense these days in a federal
firearms case. In the eyes of the government, doing so is like proclaiming
oneself as an enemy combatant in the war on terror. The only prudent thing for
him to have done would have been to keep his machine guns and shotgun hidden
away in hopes he would never have a need for them.
If Fincher had been fully awake, he would have
known that he didn't stand a chance. He, and others like him, haven't yet
awakened to the fact that they have become foreigners in their own land. As
foreigners, they have no rights except by the leave of government through
proper registration, licensing, and protocols.
Our Government is now a
government on steroids. It isn't a limited republican government any more (nor
even a constitutional government), but an unlimited government. And the laws of
the land are so all pervasive and all-encompassing that it is as if the federal
government now occupies the position our founders reserved to God alone in
our government we now have "G.O.D., Government Omnipotent and
Deified."
John Q. Pridger
Monday 15 January 2007
ROBERT E. LEE DAY (Centennial Edition)
Robert E. Lee was born January 19, 1807. He was
the Confederacy's greatest general. Though not a hero to all Americans, he was a
great hero to a large majority in the Confederate States of America, and greatly
respected and admired even by his Union counterpart, General Ulysses S. Grant, who
later became the 18th president of the reunited nation. In
keeping with the Paradise Ridge custom of moving holidays to Mondays or Fridays to make for a
long weekend, the day is observed on the third Monday of January.
Pridger is neither a rebel flag waver nor all that
much of a General Lee enthusiast, but he does observe Lee's birthday rather than
Martin Luther King's. It's a matter of principle. Naturally, Robert E. Lee Day
should not be a proclaimed a national holiday because Lee is not a national hero.
Martin Luther King may be a hero to the black
minority and perhaps to many white liberals, but he's not exactly a
"national" hero to the majority of Americans, and certainly not to
most white Americans of Pridger's generation. Of course, almost three generations of
students in our public schools, colleges, and universities have been indoctrinated
in King's heroism, accomplishments, martyrdom and legacy.
Even Pridger admits considerable admiration for what Dr.
King stood for, as well as his bravery and heroism, but he isn't one of Pridger's
personal heroes. And even if he was, he would be rather lower on the national
holiday totem pole than several others.
This is not to say that Martin Luther King should
not have been honored with a national holiday. But the King holiday definitely should not
have been awarded at the expense of the "Father of the Country" and
the "Great Emancipator" and herein lies sufficient cause for many
Americans to slightly resent the Martin Luther King holiday.
Congress, in its zeal to placate the embittered,
threatening, and newly empowered black minority (and possibly the desire to atone for
rather widely suspected
government complicity in King's assassination), saw fit to eliminate separate holidays
honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln two universally recognized
national icons.
Martin Luther King is now the only individual honored
by a national holiday that bears his name. In other words, by an act of Congress, King
(who definitely was not a Saint from a personal moralistic point of view), was
effectively recognized as the nation's most highly honored individual. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were
both downgraded to a
national holiday score of Zero.
Since there is now only one holiday honoring all 43 generic presidents,
the resulting "national holiday score" is thus 43 to 1 in Martin
Luther King's favor. Each individual president (whether good, bad, indifferent, or
or totally embarrassing),
enjoys a national holiday score of 1/43rd of a holiday (with no particular
recognition at all for the two extra special national icons formerly honored).
Any alien arriving on our shores and touring the country today,
and unfamiliar with American history, would naturally have to
deduce that Martin Luther King must have been not only the
Great Emancipator, but the Founder of the Nation.
Every city of any size has a broad Marin Luther
King Avenue or boulevard. Most have major schools named after Martin Luther
King. Some schools previously named after George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
have even been renamed in honor of Martin Luther King.
Our children emerge from the public school system
knowing quite a lot about Martin Luther King but almost nothing about George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or any other "dead white man". And they
know precious little, if anything, about such notable black men as Booker T.
Washington and George
Washington Carver.
Many, including many white liberals, have come to
consider Presidents Washington and Jefferson embarrassments because they were
slave owners. While Lincoln is still universally recognized for freeing the
slaves and saving the Union, his image as a champion of human rights has been
overshadowed by Martin Luther King.
An alien visitor touring
the nation's capital would be puzzled at such things as the Washington,
Jefferson, and Lincoln memorials. They would wonder that there is no overshadowing
Martin Luther King memorial to put them into proper diminutive perspective.
The change in American society and culture since
the Civil Rights era is another thing that rightly disturbs many people. The end
of segregation did not result in constructive integration it ended in the
disintegration of most of our greatest cities and the collapse of educational
and cultural standards, and the standards of common decency. It provided the
opening though which a tide of moral permissiveness has flooded the nation.
Who can deny that (in spite of the allegation
that 70% of Americans remain professed Christians), America has become a
hedonistic nations?
Ironically, the decline in educational standards
came very close after the realization that we sorely needed to upgrade our
educational standards in all scientific and technological fields in order to
keep up with the Russians in both the space and arms race, not to mention the
many emerging technologies that were increasingly driving the consumer economy.
But "social studies," and various "ethnic" departments, rather than mathematics and science, became the
great educational imperative after civil rights.
After the initial period of forced integration of
schools and housing, over the next decades society merely re-segregated itself in new patterns. It
resulted in barren wastelands of government provided low-income inner city housing, completely
devoid of cultural amenities and commercial opportunities.
The once segregated
Black communities where black owned businesses and commercial and professional
activities once thrived, along with a rich array of black cultural institutions
and industries, simply disintegrated and disappeared. Though those communities
may have been "second class" in an economic sense, and largely ignored
or shunned by most of white society, they represented a
very rich and vibrant parallel universe and society in the cultural sense.
Where Martin Luther King hoped that people would henceforth
be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin,
we actually developed a society wherein the color of skin became an official
ticket to special consideration under the law a circumstance that has
further exacerbated the problems associated with race and has accentuated the
black and white divide.
The laws of the land did not become colorblind as
Mr. King had wished, but effectively even more broadly color conscious than
before, with resentment-building reverse discrimination components that only
insured an artificial and superficial "equality" while increasing resentment in a large
sector of white society.
Thus it came to pass that officially
coerced
"improvements" in race relations, accompanied by a concerted
educational attempt to make that social coercion seem just and proper, came to
be the law of the land. In this manner, "Civil Rights" legislation
engendered coercive
public policies that insured a large degree of mostly
unarticulated white resentment would result.
For this reason, more than four decades after the
major issues of institutionalized racial discrimination were
properly addressed, major, and seemingly intractable racial problems, obviously
continue. In many ways, race is today a much more sensitive issue than it was
before Civil Rights.
"Why can't we all just get along?"
Rodney King asked in the wake of the death and destruction of the riots that
followed the acquittal of the "peace officers" who had beaten him.
Why? indeed!
In spite of the fact that desegregation and
affirmative action opened up new opportunities for many African-Americans, and
has enabled significant numbers of blacks to break into the middle class, the black
underclass has grown much faster, with an array of social problems that hardly
existed before.
Prior to the Civil Rights era, and the subsequent
development of "corrective" social programs (i.e., the rise of the welfare
state, Affirmative Action, etc.), both the
black and white under-classes were at least largely productive segments of
society. The man of the family (and families were largely whole back then),
simply had to earn a living or his family would go hungry.
Partly because public
assistance in cash and kind became so easily available, the underclass has grown by leaps and bounds
but because work was essentially no longer required to keep poor families from going hungry, it is no longer nearly as
productive as it once was.
In fact it became "normal" for the man of
the house to simply leave, so the mothers and children could qualify for
Assistance to Families with Dependent Children. Then, the fathers (or other men)
could drop in occasionally for a bite to eat, and perhaps contribute to the
family income by producing another qualifying dependent child. Many of the
fathers considered regular work beneath their dignity, so they lived by their
wits rather than by a job or menial labor. Of course, this malady infected poor
whites as well as blacks.
As a result of this, a whole new underclass is
currently being imported, mostly from Mexico, to provide the productive labor
once supplied by the poorer classes of Americans, both black and white. And, of
course, as the result of poor educational standards, we now also have to import
foreign labor to satisfy the increasing needs of our technological industries,
not to mention professionals such as medical doctors.
Of course, a large and relatively non-productive
underclass has resulted in other social ills too such things as extraordinarily large drug and
crime problems, not to mention our shockingly high incarceration rate,
especially among
blacks.
The murder rate among African-American youth puts
all the former depredations of hate-filled white racists to shame in terms of
annual body count. And, while crime in black communities is overwhelmingly black
on black, black on white crime, including rape and murder, far exceeds similar
crimes committed by whites on blacks.
The fact that white on black crimes tend to
attract considerable media attention, and are often prosecuted as, "hate
crimes," while black on white crimes tends to be under-reported or ignored by the media,
doesn't help race relations either.
Unfortunately, while almost all whites claim they
have no resentment against blacks, a broad spectrum of white racism (both
of the benign and hateful varieties), remains just below the surface. It has merely been capped
by coercive laws and the socially dictatorial powers of "political correctness"
campaigns, and held in check by a combination of enforced suppression and self-denial.
But every once in
a while a cork pops under the pressure, and somebody reveals their long
suppressed feelings and frustrations, such as in the recent case of comedian
Michael Richards.
Because he expresses these views and
opinions, Pridger is sometimes accused of being a bigot, if not downright racist.
Of course, Pridger admits to having a high regard for his own race and culture,
and that he even has his personal prejudices, tastes, and biases. But he has no
prejudices against any people or person on the account of race, culture, or
religion. He judges all people as he would have himself judged which is the
only Christian (Jewish, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, even Humanist), way
to judge anybody.
Pridger doesn't blame blacks for the course race
relations and socio-economic conditions in America have taken. (Though the
predominate Black leadership has made a profession of exacerbating the
problems.) Blacks, like most
of the rest of us, continue to be the victims. The primary
blame, in Pridger's humble opinion, lies elsewhere and its predominate colors
run from lily white to red (and Pridger isn't referring to Native-American
Indians).
Much of it, of course (including Martin Luther
King's Civil Rights movement and most of the resultant legislation), was driven by good intentions. For example, the
idea of getting blacks and whites to speak the same language and enjoy the same
educational and economic opportunities, was certainly commendable. But to
accomplish it with rapidity by dropping standards society-wide certainly was
not.
Dropping standards (language, education, common
decency in public entertainment, etc.), in order to speed up the process of
integration and racial and economic equality was not only the work of wrongly focused do-gooders it was
also a goal of others with quite different motives. Some of these others were
hostile to Western civilization in general and Christianity and the economic
success of the United States in particular. Others, of course, were driven by
the all American profit motive.
This said, literally all people naturally and instinctively
tend to prefer to reside, interact, and associate, predominately with people of their own kind.
This is simply nature's way of insuring a diverse and interesting world of many
peoples and cultures.
Of course, this does not preclude openness, hospitality,
and friendship among diverse peoples. Nor does it preclude cultural and racial
"mixing pots" such as the United States has historically been. But
even in those mixing pots, most people return to the preferred comforts of their
own communities, homes, and their own families, at the end of the day.
Though Pridger has nothing against
African-Americans as far as race is concerned, he admittedly (like most safety
minded Americans), generally avoids black inner city neighborhoods. Bad policy
and bad neighborhoods, however, don't make a bad race.
Regardless of the environment, on a
person to person basis Pridger initially
judges all people by their manners and civility rather than the color of their skin.
Character is something that doesn't become apparent until an acquaintance has
had a little time to jell at which time it becomes a primary consideration.
There is no color or racial component to good manners, civility, or character.
As for having pride in one's own race, Pridger
readily admits pride in his. And he would be sorely disappointed in anybody that
did not have a similar high regard for his or her own race, culture, country, tribe, or
family. Not having such pride would be to admit or accede to a flaw, or the inferiority, of
one's own race.
Had Pridger been born a Zulu tribesman, you can bet he would
have had just as high a regard for his race and culture as he does under the
circumstances of his present incarnation. There is nothing wrong with being proud of one's
race, but there is something wrong with being ashamed of one's race. Problems
occur only when individuals or "peoples" fail to have all due respect
for all others, regardless of differing physical or cultural characteristics.
The age of conquest and exploitation of weaker
peoples and nations by stronger ones ought to finally be over in this enlightened age. We
all have our places and our equal status under the sun. Hopefully we are now
civilized enough to recognized this.
John Q. Pridger
For another conservative (but perhaps more
scholarly), perspective on Martin Luther King and the King holiday, see Patrick
J. Shanahan's "The
Legacy of Martin Luther King" at:
http://www.commonconservative.com/shanahan/shanahan011607.shtml
And if you think white men are the only ones who
think something is wrong with the way race cards are being played in America,
check out some very poignant black perspectives on the subject. See Elizabeth
Wright's ISSUES AND VIEWS at:
http://www.issues-views.com/.
AMERICA NOT A PLACE BUT AN IDEAL?
Our president is so proud of being an American
that he believes everybody in the world ought to have a part of it whether
they want it or not. It seem that Mr. Bush has expressed the opinion that
America should not be regarded as a place with borders, but a universal idea or
ideal.
That's the kind of patriotism that drives our
president. This is the "anti-nationalism" of internationalism and
global idealism coupled, of course, with notion that globe straddling
corporations are the proper regulators of the global marketplace. And that's the kind of reasoning, along with a great deal of think
tank rationalization, has actually managed to sell the nation out from under the
American people. The sell-out has progressed so stealthily, so long, and yet so
openly, that "none dare call it conspiracy." It's called globalism and
the New World
Order.
Since America is an idea and ideal rather than a
single country, and George Bush is the American president, he see that he has a
mandate from God to try to remake the world into a better place a place
where everybody is obliged to purchase their every life-sustaining morsel of
food, and their ever consumer need, through proper corporate channels.
It's not an easy job, of course. Right now the
president is having problems getting things just right in Iraq and Afghanistan.
None Dare Call it Conspiracy, of course,
was the title of a book written by Larry Abraham with Gary Allen (published in
1971), telling of the "Insiders'" conspiracy for a New World Order. In 1983 and 1985
it was updated and reissued by Larry Abraham under the title Call it Conspiracy.
If a sequel were to be written today, it would
probably have to be entitled Success of Conspiracy or, The Done Deal!
for we Americans (some of us), woke up to a New World Order one day back in
the early 1990s. That announcement came from President George H. W. Bush, during
the first Gulf War.
Of course President Reagan had actually made the
initial announcement some years before, but few caught its full significance
because of Reagan's conservative rhetoric and credentials. In
addition to "deregulation," to get the government out of the way of
international business in order to fully develop unfettered global markets, he announced that the nation was
entering a post-industrial era and was to become a "service economy"
in a "new international economic order." And Reagan did more than
that, including the first big amnesty program for illegal Mexican immigrants and
building the foundation of NAFTA.
Recently, with the second Gulf war(s) still very
much stuck in our national craw (along with the war on terror), George Bush II,
has told us that America is no longer a place but a global ideal.
Back in 1993 one of Pridger's colleagues wrote
and published a small (and now very rare), booklet entitled Voodoo Economics
a B.S. Degree in One Easy Lesson. George Bush I was one of the
inspirations, since he'd more or less coined the term "voodoo
economics." The sequel to it would be Voodoo Economics and the Triumph of
Mammon for the New World Order is very much the triumph of Mammon as the
international standard for progress and "good."
Some 2,500 years ago, Chinese philosopher and war
scholar, Sun Tsu, wrote: "Supreme excellence in warfare lies in the
destruction of your enemy's will to resist in advance of perceptible
hostilities."
America's will to resist the One World conspiracy
was very skillfully destroyed over a number of decades without having to reveal
that anything like a domestic war was even going on at all. The American public
was so skillfully deceived and distracted that their collective will was, and
continues to be, effectively turned against its own interests.
Most of that time the Cold War was the main
distraction and the Soviet Union (as the only enemy), was the focus of public
fear. Since the end of the Cold War the troubles in the Middle East and other
threats have taken its place. But the real war for our nation, if it could be
called that, has already been lost. Though few have noticed, may Americas now
have an uneasy feeling and it isn't just a fear of terrorism. It's the
feeling that something precious has been irrevocably lost.
As it turned out, the threat of international
communism itself merely served as a convenient, and very valuable, long-term
distraction during which the conspiracy perfected and put into effect the
final phases required for its victory. In the end, the triumph of capitalism
over international communism, turned out to be the event that ushered in the
final triumph of the "conspiracy" over the people and the people's
government.
Overt "hostilities" were never
necessary to win the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Americans during
the period the Constitutional Republic was under attack. The miracles of
"Voodoo Economics" did the trick, and (long before the victory was
complete), the American people were eagerly casting their votes for the New
World Order on a daily basis (among other places, at Wal-Mart checkout
counters). As far as democratic processes were concerned, voting in national elections was concerned, voting for either
Democrat or Republican was to cast a vote for the New World Order.
As Carol Quigley put it in his Tragedy &
Hope, the aim (of the conspiracy [which, of course, he didn't call a
conspiracy]), was "nothing less than to create a world system of financial
control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country
and the economy of the world as a whole." That system is now fully in place
and the global economy is the result. There are, however, still a few rogue
states yet to be put in their place.
While Quigley took some exception to the secrecy
under which the (Anglo-American) "network" operated, he looked
favorably upon its goals and was very much an academic insider himself.
Ironically, Quigley may have changed his tune
somewhat before he died. According Larry Abraham in Call it Conspiracy, Gary
Allen received an unsigned letter in the late 1970s from someone who claimed he
had been a friend of Quigley's. According to Abraham,
"The sender said that ...at the end of his
life, Quigley had concluded that the people he had dealt with in the book were
not really public benefactors, as he had believed when he wrote it ...Quigley
had come to think of them in the same way as Allen did, and that Quigley had
been very fearful of reprisals toward the end of his life."
When Tragedy & Hope, and Larry
Abraham's conspiracy books were published, the Soviet Union was still very much
alive, and presumably getting stronger and more dangerous all the time.
"Better Red than dead!" was a rallying cry of America's far left,
communist fellow travelers, and apologists.
Allen and Abraham believed that the New World
Order was intended to come into full fruition through a merger of the two super
powers. To everybody's surprise, the Soviet super-state collapsed along with its
half of the New World Order empire. In spite of "winning" the Cold
War, however, the United States and the rest of the West, have proceeded to
build the New World Order anyway, with Russia and many of its former socialist
republics still in disarray and out of sync. Surprisingly, however, communist
China has come on board and is milking our New Order, and particularly America, for all it's worth.
After the great white hope of Soviet Russia
collapsed, a fairly large number of leftist academics and political activists
with socialist credentials or leanings underwent a peculiar political transformation. They
became "conservatives" and flocked into George H. W. Bush's Republican
Party as his new brand of "compassionate conservatives" the new, post-Reagan, face
of Republican conservatism. Today the are more commonly called
"neo-conservatives," and have been very active in urging George Bush
II to extend their compassion to the long suffering people of Iraq and other
rogue states.
But all is not well with the New World Order. Many around the world, outside of the public in
the United States and most of Western Europe, have come to regard the NWO network as an "Anglo-American-Zionist" affair, adding a
component which is pretty difficult for anybody in the United States or Western Europe to
acknowledge. Doing so would be very politically incorrect and probably
considered anti-Semitic.
The "network" which Carol Quigley
exposed was strictly acknowledged as an Anglo-American network (though it
included those usually unmentionable "international bankers"). The
network essentially consisted of those persons and organizations that
"conspiracy theorists" have focused on for a long time (Rhodes and
Milner's Round Table group and its offspring, i.e., Royal Institute for
International Affairs, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral
Commission, Bilderburgers, et. al.).
Such names as the Rothschilds, Morgans, and Rockefellers,
etc., of course, have also been intimately associated with the those groups
all being big names in international finance, with the Rothschilds also very big
in support of Zionist goals.
Bill
Clinton, as a Rhodes scholar, as well as an admitted protιgι of professor
Quigley, was obviously very much aboard that particular bandwagon. (Otherwise,
he could not have become president with his known record of being somewhat of a
philanderer.) But, in spite of his special training and talents, Clinton had
apparently missed some of the required brush-up courses in latter day Round
Table politics.
Bill and Hillary apparently spoke out a little
too boldly about the Palestinians deserving a state of their own. It
so happened that Bill had met an attractive White House intern a nice Jewish
girl. She fell head over cigar butt in love with the president, and the rest is
sordid presidential history. The ultimate result was that Bill barely escaped
impeachment for trying to keep the affair under wraps without sufficient
authority to do so.
After the extraordinary embarrassment of having
to publicly grapple with "what the meaning of 'is' is," Clinton
dutifully caught up on his lessons and launched a significant missile and
bombing attack against Iraq. Apparently this made someone sufficiently happy and
he thus passed the final exam. The media immediately modified its tone with
regards to Clinton's transgressions, and the impeachment proceedings met with a
brick wall in the Senate. Clinton went happily on to win a second term in office
and has gone down as one of the best and most loved presidents in American
history.
The process was begun many decades earlier, but
the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, have all been the most effective New
World Order presidents. Within the span of those presidential terms, a period of
only 27 year, this nation has gone from being the world's leading industrial
powerhouse, and a largely independent nation, to (not just another
internationally interdependent nation), but a magnificently dependent nation
an economically and strategically vulnerable nation. It has become a nation that
depends on other nations to stock its consumer shelves, provide for its energy
needs, and underwrite it's deficit spending and its increasing deficit trading.
And our president has said that now America is no
longer a place, but an idea and ideal. Apparently he feels that it's an idea
whose time has come.
He's got a point. The question is, whose idea was
it? And whose ideal?
John Q. Pridger
Friday, 12 January, 2007
CHURCH AND STATE
Pridger has often expressed his opinion that our nation was founded,
and intended to be, a Christian nation. Of course, this opinion tends to raise a
lot of hackles. But let me explain the context in which Pridger uses the term
"Christian nation."
Of course, it goes without saying that the United
States has never had an "official" religion. The Constitution and the government it
established could not have been any more explicitly secular. And, significantly,
even the Declaration of Independence (which invoked God to justify the right to
national self-determination, and "officially" proclaim and establish
the concept of the inalienable God-given rights of men), was totally devoid of any
references to any specific religion. Jesus and "Christ"
were not mentioned. Christianity, itself, was not mentioned.
By "Christian nation" I refer to a
philosophical ideal that Pridger believes was embodied, and embedded, in the founding culture
of the nation one that very pointedly repudiated both monarchy and theocracy
and the very idea of a "state religion" or a state "favored church."
The American Revolution was a revolution not only
against the mother country, but all the so-called Christian
theocracies of monarchial Europe and the tradition of an official church or religion. Our
founders were very aware of the violence and damage that Church and state (both
singularly and in combination), had wrought throughout the history of the
Christian era. But the Revolution was not a revolt against religion itself or
Christianity. It was a revolt against "taxation without
representation" and the political control and civil administration of the
mother country.
It should be noted that the European theocracies
were to a great degree rooted in the church-state tradition of Roman Empire.
Christianity was imposed on the Empire by decree of the Roman emperor for the
purpose of unifying the Empire under a single belief system, and establishing an
effective "control mechanism" over its diverse subject nations,
tribes, and peoples. Religion particularly the Christian religion was the perfect
vehicle of that control, for in an earlier period of that empire Jesus himself had said, "Render unto Caesar
that which is Caesar's."
When the United States was
formed, it was already united in a single belief system. The predominate
divisions within and among the various States, were creedal denominational divisions
but all of them were Christian denominations.
The population of the United States at the
time of it's founding was composed almost entirely of professing Christians. It
was a nation of Christians thus, in a very real sense, it was a Christian
nation. Not officially, of course, but a Christian nation nonetheless. And, as
far as government was concerned, how
could the government of such a religiously united people (wherein the people themselves were to be the
government), be anything but a Christian government?
Thus, by almost universal consensus, the United
States was a Christian nation without having to make any official mention of
what was understood by literally the entire citizenry. By the same token, we do
not (yet) have an "official" national language, but few would contend
that the United States is not an English speaking nation.
Of course, several of our most brilliant and
wisest founding fathers were deists rather than orthodox Christians. But they were
nonetheless of Christian
heritage and strongly committed to "Christian ideals." Each and
every one of them fully realized the importance of religion in a nation of people expected to be
both righteous and self-governing.
Though some of our founders literally spurned all churches and organized religion (along with all
superstition, religious error, and hypocrisy), they were very cognoscente of, and
dedicated to, the value of what they recognized as the true Christian
message. Perhaps the most adamant of all against adopting a national religion
was Thomas Jefferson, an avowed deist.
Though Thomas Jefferson said (with reference to
churches and religious error):
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man..."
He also said:
"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the
doctrines of Jesus..."
"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or
modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that
of Jesus..."
"Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as
pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been
Christian."
It was largely due to the efforts of such men as
Thomas Jefferson that religion was officially, and totally, omitted from our
national charter. The Christian message, which those men knew and believed in,
however, could
perhaps be encapsulated in the a few words, such as "good will" and
"righteousness." They sought a righteous (just), government for (not
over), a good and righteous people.
History had already proven time and again that
the state-church combination inevitably made a mockery of true religion, and resulted in tyranny.
The last thing Thomas Jefferson and our other
founding fathers would have dreamed of,
however, would
have been to establish an anti-Christian government, or a government which was
actively hostile to religion.
But today we have powerful forces attacking the
idea that America was, or is, in any way a Christian nation. This seems to be the main
goal of many champions of "religious freedom" and
"tolerance" today. Ironically, but predictably,
this attack on our religious identity is causing a backlash which is itself very
peculiar in nature and very counterproductive. Religious fundamentalism is
getting stronger and is making inroads into government, even encouraging the
administration to "do God's work in the world!" And evangelicals have
allied themselves with some of the very the very anti-Christian forces that have
been working on the "de-Christianization" of the nation.
All of this, of course, works against
rationalism, and gives ammunition to those who say this that Christianity has no
place in either our government or national identity. Yet the political doctrine of separation of church
and state was not intended to make the state hostile to Christianity or
religious expression. Separation of church and state was a safeguard
against sectarian divisiveness rather than an effort to separate government from
reflecting religious ideals.
It was to insure freedom of religion, and, more significantly,
pave the way for the new nation to reflect the true spirit of what was hoped
would be a perpetually Christian people hopefully also free from bigotry,
intolerance, and tyranny over the minds of men of which Jefferson so eloquently
spoke. It was to insure that this nation would avoid the errors so endemic to the
nations of Europe down the through the centuries tyrannies that donned the robes of false
Christianity and errant dogma.
The great debates over "faith based"
national policy initiatives in our nation today are the result of a backlash against the ongoing attempt to
literally de-Christianize the nation. That is, they (the anti-Christians), would
make this into a nation of people under
a government that actively discriminates against, and disassociates from, the
very idea of Christian morality (or the Christian ideal), as the core moral guidepost
of the nation.
Ironically, the backlash against those who would
expunge God, Christianity, and religion from the nation and the national
identity itself, has brought to office an administration that is the very
personification of religious error allying itself with anti-Christians while
proclaiming Christian motives in pursuit and execution of wars against other
non-Christians allegedly for the sins of a miniscule few radical
anti-Christians.
John Q. Pridger
SHEDDING IDENTITIES IN THE NAME OF WORLD PEACE
Many (including very good and well intentioned
people), think that shedding various "exclusive" identities are the
key to good human relations and world peace. We should not consider or call
ourselves Christians or Americans. We should not take pride in our separate
races or cultures. We should should only consider ourselves to be identically
equal citizens of the world.
To do otherwise is to open the "us vs.
them" divide.
One wonders how we can keep our secrets, when
everything about us advertises what we are to some degree. Say we're of East
Indian extraction, Hindu or Sikh, professional and comfortably wealthy. A rich,
dark skinned, foreigner, who probably helped fund the attack on the Pentagon and
World Trade Center. A poor white clod who works as a Waste Management pick-up
man, and goes to the Baptist church on Sundays, is likely to be a little
resentful. Likely he'll be for going to war with Iran, or maybe North Korea, in
order to fight such people. "Kill the lousy terrorists! Remember
9/11!".
The same people who say we should shed our
inherited and superficial differences also tend to be for more
"diversity," which is exactly the opposite of what they otherwise
claim to want. They want diversity all around everywhere (at least here in
America), but at the same time they don't seem to want a colorful and diverse
world of many distinct races, cultures, religions, tribes, communities, nations.
They want everybody to be the same, so we can all live in peace and harmony.
But the bloodiest wars in history have been
between kindred peoples. For example, we've gone in and leveled the playing
field in Iraq, which is a relatively homogenous nation when compared to a
melting pot like the United States. Almost all of them are of the Moslem faith.
But that hasn't resulted in peace and harmony.
We were a much more racially and religiously
homogenous nation when we engaged in the bloodiest war of our history, the Civil
War. The kindred nations of Europe have fought each other tooth and nail
throughout history right up to the Second World War.
Racial, religious, and cultural differences are
not a requisite for hatred and war. If we finally attain universal equality of
race, religion, and culture, chances are mankind would simply go to killing one
another over such trivial things as soccer matches the red jerseys against
the green or perhaps over a drug deal in back of the bleachers.
The key to peace and harmony is not to shed our
many inherited and superficial differences. That would merely lead to a bland
and dull world. The key is "right thought" which is found at the core
of the most fundamental teachings of every major world religion or ancient
school of philosophical thought. But rather than finding that key, men tend to
find only the divisive issues that tend to inflame their basest war making
instincts.
John Q. Pridger
THE CULTURE WARS AND THE MARKETING OF EVIL
The Marketing of Evil, is the title of a
recently published book by David Dupelian. Though Pridger has only read some
reviews of the book, it promises to be an interesting read. David Dupelian is
the managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com,
one of the largest independent news sites on the world wide web a site well
worth exploring.
Says Dupelian, "The plain truth is that
within the space of our lifetime, much of what Americans once almost universally
abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped, and sold to us as though it
had great value... these marketers have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened
and noble that which all previous generations regarded as grossly
self-destructive in a word, evil."
Pridger has been trying to say something like
that for a long time. "The marketing of evil" is a wonderful euphemism
for just about everything associated with globalism and the debauchery of
American culture. Not just the American culture, of course, but all cultures
around the world.
The marketing of evil entails the
commercialization of literally everything imaginable, on a grand scale, including not only
products and ideas, but such diverse things as religion, dependence, and waste.
The old biblical saying that "love of money
is the root of all evil," would seem to point to the very source of the
present marketing of evil dilemma. Money has been a source of both problems and
solutions since the dawn of civilization. But only since commodity money was
abandoned in favor of debt money has the wholesale marketing of evil on a global
corporate scale become feasible.
The availability of unlimited credit financing
for unworthy or misconceived purposes or projects has become the grand
facilitator of most of the evil that now plagues the world in corporate form.
There is a lot more to the mix than money, of
course. We have many "social reformers", "intellectuals",
and politicians at work marketing evil too. But money means power to those who
have it, and those who tend to have it in the greatest quantities are the ones
who are re-shaping the social, political, and commercial environments in which
we live and they are doing it to accomplish their own private ends. They are
the driving force behind today's global economy and the New World Order. And
they are the ones doing the marketing required to accomplish their goals. Their
goals are simply the retention and enhancement of their own power and, of
course, a perpetual increase in their bottom lines.
In the process, perhaps as an unintended
consequence (for, no doubt, some sincerely believe they are building a better
world), they are also busily discounting and downgrading everything previous
generations considered right, proper, and worthy.
John Q. Pridger
Monday 8, January, 2007
GLOBAL WARMING
With many ski resorts in the Northeast suffering
a great lack of snow, and shorts in style in New York's Central Park, many are
beginning to take the threat of global warming much more seriously than just a
month or two ago.
Even here in Pridger's neck of the Heartland,
this is shaping up to be the warmest January ever. Spring flowers have already
pushed up about four inches. Last year was the first time Pridger ever remembers
swatting at mosquitoes in mid-January. That might have been a fluke, but two
such Januarys in a row tends to look like a positive trend.
Though it has become quite obvious that global
warming is very real, what isn't so clear to many is whether it is attributable
to man's activities or natural causes. What is clear is that no matter what the
cause, there are some serious problems ahead for vast numbers of people around
the globe and there will be serious consequences for literally everybody.
What we do know is that radical climate changes
have been part of the story of the earth since Creation. This being a given,
mankind has definitely developed into a major ecological blight on planet.
If man's activities are significantly effecting climate change now, it's
unlikely we'll be able to fix the problem in time to avoid some serious
inconveniences, if not outright disaster.
All the manmade "systems" that would be
causing global warming are practically on autopilot with nobody in effective control and
the New World Order model that we have been committed to knows nothing but the
business imperative to stoke of fires of global commerce and pile on more steam.
This steam roller of unbridled global business expansion is tied to
corporate profitability and the perpetual expansion all human climate changing systems to the nth
degree all in the name of corporate profitability.
The only real controlling influences are exerted
on behalf of international capital, with global market forces supposedly the
only ruling, or limiting, factors. All potential remedies to the perceived global warming crisis
that may threaten continued corporate profits will be actively ignored until
it is too late to avoid major ecological crises.
If climate change continues, and escalates, as
many are beginning to worry, necessity itself will eventually dictate that remedies be
found and put into practice. You can bet, however, they will not be allowed to
interfere with the profitability of all the major "systems" already in place.
The very forces suspected of causing global warming are the very forces driving the global
economy.
The idea that every citizen in the world must
have the "opportunity" to become an American style super-consumer
(literal engines of super-waste), is a seriously flawed ideal with increasingly
serious negative consequences in the offing. But all systems currently driving
the steamroller of globalism are geared to that end, and the imperative is
always to pile on more steam.
The "Wonderful New World" we call the
New World Order runs on heat-driven systems that emit greenhouse gases even more
profusely than greenback profits.
John Q. Pridger
TWENTY THOUSAND MORE TROOPS TO IRAQ!
Well, it looks like president Bush is going to
begin scaling down the war in Iraq by adding more troops and firepower to the
fire. The theory is, of course, that with a few more troops we can get the
situation in Iraq under control. We began getting out of Vietnam that way too.
After increasing our
troop levels to some half a million (to get the situation under control in
Vietnam), the
only final solution was to abandon the war effort entirely. We abandoned our
South Vietnamese allies after sacrificing some 50,000 of our own men, and no
telling how many millions of Vietnamese. There's no real
reason to believe we won't finally have to abandon our few friends in Iraq in a
similar manner, no matter how unthinkable that alternative may seem today.
We really ought to get out of the Armageddon
business. We've done our good deed in Iraq our Christian duty. It's time to
cut our losses and get out. With Saddam finally dead, Iraq should be declared a
democratic Utopia and our mission successfully accomplished.
We ought to spend our next hundred billion
dollars on more positive pursuits than manufacturing tar babies.
John Q. Pridger
Friday 5, January, 2007
PRIDGER'S NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS
Pridger has resolved to begin to cure himself of
blogging. He's not going to quit cold turkey, however, but rather just slow down
by trying to keep his posts rather short and sweet-n-sour. Wish him luck.
SADDAM'S HANGING
It seems Saddam's Execution was not carried out
in a very dignified manner. Once again, we Americans have been embarrassed by
the results of our good intentions.
Of course, when good intentions include a
burning desire to see a fellow human being dead, you really shouldn't expect too
much in the way of decorum. It's hard to dignify an execution under the best of
circumstances. If the party being executed has been painted as the embodiment of
evil, it's all the more difficult.
The American tradition was for the mechanics of
justice is for them to hold their heads high and the condemned criminal to be hooded in the
interests of decency. It's ironic, and rather revealing, that the only
one who was not hooded at Saddam's execution was the victim himself.
In the case of Saddam, the
executioners all wore black mask hoods, giving the appearance of a brave man being
executed by a band of terrorist thugs. The brave man refused the hood, and withstood
the taunts, insults, and degradations hurdled upon him by his executioners and
the government witnesses and died a hero's death in spite of all attempts to
make him look small.
Well, we got what we wanted. That's the important
thing. But our national image has not been well served. Nor was that of the
government we are sponsoring in Iraq well served. The photos and film clips of
the execution are bound to serve to pour a little more oil on the fires we've
been tending in Iraq.
Those outrages committed against the condemned are not
a great issue with the Iraqi
government, of course. The outrageous conduct in the execution chamber was
apparently considered "normal" and "to be expected." To address the matter,
they're going after the cell
phone photographer who revealed the sordid affair to the world and if it happens he is not too high on
the government hierarchy, he'll probably be dealt with rather harshly.
No doubt, Saddam Hussein will increasingly be
viewed as an Iraqi national hero to an increasing number of Iraqis, and his
executioners will be viewed as a bunch of thugs doing America's bidding.
One thing is certain. Saddam will never again
rule Iraq. But we are left wondering whether Iraq will ever again be effectively
ruled at all.
John Q. Pridger
SPEAKING OF TERRORIST THUGS...
Pridger happened to turn onto a TV program called
"Detroit SWAT" (or something like that), the other day. He wasn't
surprised to see the SWAT team (American peace officers), dressed in the usual
Ninja black, but Pridger noted they were also outfitted with black knitted face
masks. With their face masks pulled down, they looked remarkably like the men
who hanged Saddam Hussein for us.
Not that Pridger is implying that our peace
officers are anything like terrorist thugs. It's just that they dress to look
like them these days at least the elite commando style door crashers do.
They've literally become troops that practice shock and awe tactics, and the use
of overwhelming force, when going after ordinary everyday bad guys. As often as
not, of course, the bad guys are dressed like ordinary good guys.
This, in Pridger's modest opinion, does not
reflect well upon the direction our law enforcement culture is moving. We used
to take care to make sure our peace officers were uniformed to appear civil. The
militarization of our civil authorities does not bode well for for what was
supposed to have been a democratic republic.
No doubt, the Iraqi execution squad, felt rather
comforted by hiding their features from both the condemned and the public. And,
if any American infidel should happen to criticize them for it, they only have
to point to how our own law enforcement personnel dress on live TV, and ask,
"Aren't you trying to make us just like the United States?"
John Q. Pridger
AMERICA A CHRISTIAN NATION?
The ACLU and our Zionist friends have always
contended that America is not, never was, and ought not to be, a Christian nation. To them,
freedom of religion and tolerance are only to be found by insuring that
Christianity never gets an upper hand. As far as they are concerned, Christians are
the epitome of intolerance and bigotry.
However,
the Zionists are very pleased that a large majority of American evangelical
Christians are on their side, eagerly supporting Israel (right or wrong), and
supporting our wars in the Middle East, regardless of the carnage involved and wide-spread
destruction and suffering that continues the predominant by-product.
The evangelicals are eager for Armageddon, of
course, but it
seems in their eagerness to see the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, they
totally ignore the admonitions of their Christ, Jesus. His core message was one
of peace, brotherly love,
compassion, tolerance, selflessness, etc., and love thy enemy; do unto others as you
would be done by; turn the other cheek. All of those most Christian of all
things seem totally forgotten in the
rush to Rapture.
According to the scriptures, those making the
trip will not comprise a very significant number, so (if the scriptures are to be
believed), there are bound to be a lot of disappointed contenders when the magic
moment arrives.
In the mean time, the evangelicals are on the bandwagon,
along with the ACLU, Zionists, neo-conservatives, and the Administration of
"born again" President Bush, proving that this is not, by any stretch
of the imagination, a Christian nation (all good intentions notwithstanding).
John Q. Pridger
|
vs.
The New
