First Word

At its national convention Saturday April 26 in Kansas City, the (more…)

The plot and message of this movie can be summarized (more…)

William F. Buckley has a place in the intellectual history of right- (more…)

This video documents some of the lies of Bush and his cronies.

If you don’t need convincing that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are all liars, send the link to the many Christians you know who think that they are all men of integrity.

Watch up to 4 minutes 15 seconds.  The last part is not very good.  Also a few Bush/Cheney-type vulgarities can be heard.

In his book, I May Not Get There With You (full bibliog. info at bottom), Rev. Michael Dyson discussed a variety of contemporary topics in racial politics using the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (hereafter: MLK) as springboard. He is clearly upset that conservatives of many stripes and variations have appropriated the MLK mythos, and wants to set MLK’s iconic status back in service to radical politics. Actually, blacks, whites, liberals, and conservatives have all wandered from the right track due to having come under one or another forms of “amnesia” (290-4) which Dyson details. (more…)

Last January I wrote piece called Target Iran in which I argued that the US or Israel (or both) would soon attack Iran. Though I still believe this is likely, there seems be resistance to this plan from the Pentagon. Below is my take on what may be going on. (more…)

Everyone that cares knows the Phils were swept by Colorado in the division playoffs. Colorado outplayed the Phils in every department — hitting, fielding, pitching, coaching, scouting. They deserved to win, and it is therefore good that they did win.

However, listening to the away-game on the radio, I heard something that froze me in my tracks. Thinking about it caused me to learn yet again something about pasture management. Let me give a little background. (more…)

Christian Incrementalists never tire of telling us that when it comes to election time, we should follow the principle of choosing the lesser of two evils. This principle constitutes the major premise of their syllogism which always concludes that we should vote for the leading Republican candidate. The minor premise is, of course, Rudy, Mitt, and Fred are less evil than Barack, John, and Hillary. Indeed, the premise is actually much stronger. Rudy, Mitt, and Fred are good while Barack, John, and Hillary are bad. (more…)

One of the stock political villains of my Republican youth was George McGovern. As a teenager with a head addled by congeries of contradictory ideas that perhaps only the Republican Party of the second half of the twentieth century has had the audacity to simultaneously advocate (small government, yet world imperialism; low taxes, yet massive welfare state; localism, yet pro-“civil rights” movement), I saw McGovern as the epitome at once of socialism and stupidity. Never mind that there was not much content behind my judgment. (more…)

Great Britain is just like every other craven and effeminate western nation – only more so. Frightened by media-hyped terrorism and crime, the British have allowed their government and big corporations to turn the country into the world’s largest monitored nursery. (more…)

The view of man and of history presented by Augustine in the City of God is glorious and awe-inspiring. In this vision, all men are active and loyal citizens of one or the other of two invisible Cities: the City of God, or the City of Man. (more…)

In the little bet we have going, my colleague perhaps shows his youth by pitting Hillary against (any x such that x is not Hillary). Considering the scope that x can range over, this seems like a pretty good bet for me to have taken, even if Hillary were the lead horse. I don’t know whom our rulers have chosen to be the next President, but just the raw odds made it too hard to turn down. And yes, I’ll take mine medium, at the Main Street Cafe please. (more…)

In reply to somebody who posed a reasonable question about 9-11 “conspiracy theories,” a blogger made the following comments.

“Not to mince words, I deem the 9-11 conspiracy theorists — both Far Left and Right — uninformed, ridiculous, dangerous, and sinful. . . But they have overstepped the bounds of reason and Scripture when they publicly declare that the Bush Administration had previous knowledge of or, worse yet, was in collusion with the 9-11 terrorists.” (more…)

This article by Gresham Machen is must-read; as timely today as it was in 1936. I have seen almost all these same tricks used at every level, including congregational meetings.

There is nothing more wicked than cloaking power-religion with the form of godliness.

Jones gets an anonymous call and is told that his distant neighbor, Smith, (he lives several blocks away) is stock-piling guns and ammo and is planning to attack other households including Jones’. Jones is outraged. He decides, without bothering to demand evidence for the plot, to petition the rest of the neighborhood to put together a posse in order to disarm Smith. Most are unwilling, but a couple decide to join in after they are threatened and bribed. (more…)

Some of our correspondents seem to depart from the legacy of Christendom on the subject of the magistrate. They think the magistrate is beyond criticism by men. (more…)

Like a few recent commentators, I too believe that there is a good deal more to history than what the court historians report. Like the poor, conspirators will always be with us. Augustine reminds us that history is to understood as a battle between two cities. One uses the power of the Word and Spirit to advance its kingdom, the other is apt to cheat, steal, rape, kill and blunder. But the City of Man’s main method of warfare is not force, but dissimulation and secrecy. Christendom seems to have forgotten that our enemy is the deceiver of the nations. (more…)

A few people have accused me of being apathetic about current politcal affairs. (See the comments under “I’ll take mine rare”, particularly #’s 7 and 13 ). Allow me to indulge in a few words of defense against this charge. (more…)

It’s official. Hillary Clinton has announced that she will be running for the Office of President of the United States of America. Her handlers are already packaging her as Thatcher redivivus. (more…)

Most of us know our own national anthem and possibly even Canada’s (”O Canada”). Like most familiar things, though, we often fail to reflect on the meaning of the words. But it is worth doing. For national anthems provide a picture into the heart (more…)

Today is election day, the day all of us can take part in the great sacrament (more…)

We started by pointing out that the choice of D and R as such is a choice between shame and horror. We qualified that by admitting that there may be reasons in certain isolated cases to vote D or R; such as for a principled RINO like Ron Paul.

We pointed out that, both Parties being evil, the American genius for the last half-century has been to seek to bring about political stalemate in Washington. Today, that implies the need to vote against (more…)

Yes; but each reason only applies to some people.

A reason to vote R (more…)

For despot he is. So says constitutional scholar, Jonathan Turley. He said this last night on Keith Olbermann’s program. You can watch it here. His full statement is worth pondering.

“People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is (more…)

This quote is from Keith Olbermann on the October 12 broadcast of MSNBC’s Countdown. In a report that featured excerpts from the soon to be released book, Tempting Faith, by the former number-two man in Bush’s office of “faith-based initiatives,” David Kuo, Olbermann reveals what should have been obvious (more…)

(revised from a 9/29/06 post)

The reason the current regime does not want to build walls or place troops at the U.S.-Mexico border is that there is no U.S.-Mexico border. At least there is no border in their mind. And their ideas may soon be our reality. (more…)

With the current Republican pedophile scandal and cover-up dominating the headlines, you may have missed what happened last week. On Thursday, September 28, Congress passed a law that effectively destroyed the Bill of Rights. The name of the bill that killed it sounds benign enough, “The Military Commissions Act of 2006.” But with its passage the last vestiges of our constitutional republic disappeared. (more…)

For the last half-century, Americans have exhibited a genius for putting opposite parties into control of Congress and Presidency.

Even the exceptions prove the rule. (more…)

Distasteful as it is, we are approaching yet another election season.

At least, no one can plausibly suggest, “we just need a few more Republicans to get the job done.”

Since 2001, the Republicans have owned both houses of Congress and the Presidency. The Supreme Court is now 7/9 Republican appointees.

• Row v Wade is still firmly ratified
• Government spending is higher than ever
• Yet another cabinet department has been created
• That department, the Heimatsicherheitsdienst, is laying in place everything the Gulag was about, just waiting for the implementation.
• Two wars have been waged that cannot be defended by Christian just war theory.
• War has been declared against an abstraction (The War on Terror); war has not been declared when we actually go somewhere and kill people.
• A citizen surveillance act has twice been passed, with the insulting “Patriot Act” given as its name.
• The President has repeatedly told falsehoods about the grounds for his wars, lied about the extent of citizen surveillance, and thumbed his nose when questions about constitutionality are raised.
• For the first time in American history, the use of torture is openly discussed and defended.

In short, we stand and watch in horror at what the Republicans are turning our country into.

To be fair, however, we need to recall the previous decade.

• Row v Wade was still firmly ratified
• A bunch of unpopular religionists were incinerated at their gathering place in Waco, Texas.
• The President adulterously abused young girls in his administration
• Then, he lied about it.
• Miss Lewinsky’s War was waged, equally unjust as the Bush Wars, but even more shameful because waged against a Christian, European nation.

In short, we stood and watched with a sense of shame at what the Democrats were turning our country into.

That is our choice this November: Shame, or Horror.

You are not shirking your Christian duty if you opt out of having to make this choice.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

– Aristotle

In the end, more than [the Athenians] wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.

– Edward Gibbon

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary

– H. L. Mencken