Half a man views women as chattel.
A quarter of a man defends that half a man.
Infrastructure -- Government spending -- does not create Prosperity, Liberty does.Charles Krauthammer on Obama's fundamental dishonesty regarding "infrastructure" (h/t Tom):
You write as if Government is a god, creating ex nihilo. But it doesn't. All that Government "gives" – including infrastructure – is paid for by its citizens through either taxes, debt, or inflation.
Every dollar spent by a politician – which politician knows better than you what to do with your own wealth, Tony? – is a dollar that the one who earned it no longer has to use for his own purposes.
Having a political "elite" decide how everyone else should live is fine as long as you're part of that elite, but it's not Liberty.
Spoken by a man who never created or ran so much as a candy store.
And it's completely a straw man argument — as if conservatives and Republicans are arguing to disband the fire department and the police department so we can all do it individually on our own. The idea that infrastructure is necessary and good is as old as the republic. It's older than that. The Romans had the Via Appia and that wasn't exactly a new idea. And they had the sewers as well.
The question is: What do you do with the money once you build the infrastructure? You heard Obama talking about the moon shot. … in that speech. He went through a list of the great achievements that the government has done. The moon shot. Well, Obama's the guy who shut down the moon program — manned space program so that today we have to outsource our access into space. For any American astronaut who wants to go to the space station we have to pay the Russians $50 million a shot.
He spoke about the invention of the Internet, which he neglected to say was the work of Al Gore. In fact, it wasn't the government that invented it, in general, it was the Defense Department, a part of the government. And what has Obama done as he sprinkled billions of dollars on all the other departments in government? He shrunk the Defense Department and it's now looking at draconian cuts.
This is a man that spent $1 trillion [stimulus] and left not a residue. He could have, for example, done something about the electric grid. He did nothing on that. Instead he sprinkled the money on cronies, pie in the sky ideological fetishes, like solar panels and electric cars…. Money wasted, it's water on the sand. He did not leave behind residue on all that, and yet he speaks of infrastructure.
All of us want infrastructure — but real infrastructure. And leave the rest of life to the private individual and the entrepreneur.
if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ . . . if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins . . . If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.Some reflections the nature and proper use of Reason, especially with regard to Faith, in response to a friend:
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15).
Official Roman Catholic teaching is that when the Pope defines a matter of faith or morals, he is infallible. (This does not mean that he doesn't sin or err in other matters, such as discipline or personal opinion).
I reject that doctrine, since it conflicts with the teachings of Christ: He tells the truth; it is up to us to recognize and admit that. No office makes a man infallible in any matter; it is only to the degree that the Pope -- or any man -- speaks accurately the words of Christ that he speaks Truth.
As for Luther, he was a miserable sinner, just like every pope, you, and me. His value was that at a time when the western church taught officially that Christians could literally pay (cash) to remove sins, when the Church of Rome preached that God was a terrible, malevolent judge waiting to torment us in hell forever unless we could in some way satisfy His justice on our own merit (an impossible task), when those entrusted with the responsibility to preach faithfully His Gospel instead preached doctrines of hell, Luther rediscovered the clear teachings of Scripture.
He found that God's justice was not in treating us as our sins deserve, but in declaring all of us just (justified, innocent, righteous) in Christ, through faith in Him.
Though all of us sin daily and much and deserve God's wrath, God has had mercy on all of us by sending His Son to become flesh, die for our sins, and rise from the dead. In Christ, God reconciled the whole world -- all of us -- to Himself. He forgives our sins, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all people, as the words and promises of God declare.
Luther was completely fallible (just like us); his great contributions were restoring to preeminence in the Church the true Gospel and reviving the teaching that unless something can be shown to be true from Scripture, it has no place as doctrine in the Church.
As for Mr. Jefferson, he was partly correct: We should question everything, but we should not use our skepticism as an excuse for denying the answers when we find them. Or when they find us.
It appears from the quotation provided that Mr. Jefferson misunderstood the nature and purpose of Reason, since by definition, reason is a tool each man possesses to determine objective truth; an "Oracle given by heaven" comes from heaven and not from the mind of a man. (If Man could discover from within all that God intended to communicate to us, then why would He send his Son?)
Some misunderstand Luther's comments on Reason being "the devil's whore;" he did not mean that we should reject the use of reason or the objective truth we determine with it and live in ignorance and superstition, but that we should put Reason in its proper place, which is as a tool that we use to determine fact, especially with regard to understanding the Scriptures as God intended.
Many Christians err in subjugating Scripture to their contra- or extra-Biblical, man-made "traditions" (as in Roman Catholicism and American Evangelicalism) or to their own Reason (as in American Evangelicalism as derived from Calvin; you may recall what Jefferson said regarding Calvin's god). All of us sin, all of us err, and all of us have a responsibility to speak faithfully what God has revealed. So we are responsible not only for the uprightness of our decisions but also the rightness of our declarations.
As for the First Amendment? It opens the door to, invites in to supper, and then locks the door behind to shield from the wolves the skeptic, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, animist, pagan, agnostic, atheist, and truly peaceful Muslim.
So, what specific objections are in the way, my friend?
All law is the expression of someone's worldview; the American Constitution, which was set up to guarantee the protection of Individual Rights from all forms of tyranny -- was created by Christians (and a few others influenced heavily by Christianity).
Even Thomas Jefferson -- who apparently rejected the deity of Christ -- believed Christ's teachings to be the highest expression of morality and supreme to all others, used tax dollars to fund Indian education in Jesus' doctrines, and attended church services in Congress. He declared:
"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."Such a system of government depends on the moral goodness, knowledge, and vigilance of its citizens. The recently-accelerated usurpation of our Constitution by power-hungry and condescending elected and judicial tyrants -- who believe that We the People exist to provide them power and position, rather than understanding that their position exists to protect our liberties -- is due not to any fault in our Constitution, but to the American people's ignorance, negligence, and greed.
By contrast, shari'a (Islamic law) -- which sacralizes and institutionalizes the vilest of atrocities, including pedophilia, torture, mutilation, slavery, rape, murder, wife-beating, polygyny, and religious and gender apartheid -- is founded on the words and deeds of Muhammad, whose example is considered by Allah a "beautiful pattern of conduct" for those who want to please it. This is why no Islamic nation with any form of shari'a enjoys spiritual, cultural, philosophical, moral, technological, or material prosperity, and those non-Muslim nations with Muslim populations of any significance endure constant turmoil, depredations, and every form of insecurity.
Chancellor Angela Merkel championed German export strength as “the right thing” for her country, spurning President Barack Obama’s call to boost private spending as both leaders prepare for Group of 20 talks.
Merkel, addressing a business audience in Berlin today, said she told Obama in a phone call that cutting government debt is “absolutely important for us,” exposing a second point of contention ahead of the June 26-27 G-20 summit in Canada.
Reducing the budget deficit by 10 billion euros ($12 billion) per year “won’t put a brake on the world’s economic growth,” Merkel said, relating what she told Obama yesterday. Germans are more likely to spend money if they feel the government “is taking precautions” to ensure solid finances, she said.
When he was 28 years old, Abraham Lincoln posed this haunting question to the Young Mens Lyceum of Springfield:
He asked, “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.["]
Today, THIS generation of Americans has arrived at one of the great turning points of history. Upon the outcome of this struggle is nothing less than the question of whether America is to fade away as yet another failed socialist state, or whether this generation of Americans will rescue, redeem and restore the founding principles that made the American Republic the most prosperous and successful in the history of the world.
It has now been nine months since the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States – with all the hope and trust that the American people placed in him for our future.
Think about what has happened in these nine months. And think about how far our country has strayed from what Jefferson called the “sum of good government.” -- what he described as “a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
Last year’s deficit of $450 billion has nearly quadrupled to $1.6 TRILLION.
Let’s put that in perspective. All of the debt accumulated by this nation from the very first day of the George Washington administration to the very last day of the George W. Bush administration, will now double over the next five years and nearly triple over the next ten under the budget that President Obama signed.
Congressman Tom McClintock offered the following remarks in Washington, D.C. last Friday to the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Pacific Research Institute that clearly illustrate why California is facing such a large fiscal mess.
[. . .]
“I know that everybody likes to poke fun at California – but I can tell you right now that despite all of its problems, California remains one of the best places in the world to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a successful large business.”
[. . .]
Laugh if you will, but let me remind you that when these policies finish wrecking California, there are still 49 other states we can all move to – and yours is one of them.
I should also warn you of the strange sense of déjà-vu that I have every day on the House floor as I watch the same folly and blunders that wrecked California now being passed with reckless abandon in this Congress.
We passed a “Cash-for-Clunkers” bill the other day – we did that years ago in California.
Doubling the entire debt every five years? Been there.
Increasing spending at unsustainable rates? Done that.
Save-the-Planet-Carbon-Dioxide restrictions? Got the T-Shirt.
To understand how these policies can utterly destroy an economy and bankrupt a government, you have to remember the Golden State in its Golden Age.
A generation ago, California spent about half what it does today AFTER adjusting for both inflation and population growth.
And yet, we had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country. California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one. We produced water and electricity so cheaply that many communities didn’t bother to measure the stuff. Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and its diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.
One thing – and one thing only – has changed in those years: public policy. The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of radical and retrograde policies that have destroyed the quality of life that Californians once took for granted.
The Census Bureau reports that in the last two years 2/3 of a million more people have moved out of California than have moved it. Many are leaving for the garden spots of Nevada, Arizona and Texas.
Think about that. California is blessed with the most equitable climate in the entire Western Hemisphere; it has the most bountiful resources anywhere in the continental United States; it is poised on the Pacific Rim in a position to dominate world trade for the next century, and yet people are finding a better place to live and work and raise their families in the middle of the Nevada and Arizona and Texas deserts.
I submit to you that no conceivable act of God could wreak such devastation as to turn California into a less desirable place to live than the middle of the Nevada Nuclear Test Range. Only Acts of Government can do that. And they have.
You can trace the collapse of California’s economy to several critical events: the rise of environmental Ludditism beginning in 1974; the abandonment of constitutional checks and balances that once constrained spending and borrowing; and the rise of rule by public employee unions . There are other factors as well: litigation, taxation, illegal immigration – but for the sake of time let me concentrate on the big three.
The first was the rise of environmental Ludditism with the election of a radical new-age leftist named Jerry Brown as governor of the state – an election that also produced overwhelming liberal majorities in both legislative houses.
Like Obama today, Brown lost little time in pursuing his vision of California – an incoherent combination of pastoral simplicity, European socialism and centralized planning. At the center of this world view was a backward ideology that he called his “era of limits” — the naïve notion that public works were growth inducing and polluting and that stopping the expansion of infrastructure somehow excused government from meeting the needs of an expanding population.
Conservation replaced abundance as the chief aim of California’s public works, and public policy was redirected to developing irresistible incentives for the population to concentrate in dense urban cores rather than to settle in suburban communities.
Brown infused his vision into every aspect of public policy, and it is a testament to his thoroughness and tenacity that its basic tenets have dominated the direction of California through both Republican and Democratic administrations.
He cancelled the state’s highway construction program, abandoning many routes in mid-construction. He cancelled long-planned water projects, conveyance facilities and dams. He established the California Energy Commission that blocked approval of any significant new generating capacity. He enacted volumes of environmental regulations that created severe impediments to home and commercial construction, empowering an incipient no-growth movement that began on the most extreme fringe of the environmental cause and quickly spread.
This movement reached its zenith with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the enactment of AB 32 and companion legislation in 2006. This measure gives virtually unchecked authority to the California Air Resources Board to force Draconian reductions in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.
This has dire implications to entire segments of California’s economy: agriculture, baking, distilling, cargo and passenger transportation, cement production, manufacturing, construction and energy production, to name a few.
We, too, were promised an explosion of “green jobs,” but exactly the opposite has happened.
Up until that bill took effect, California’s unemployment numbers tracked very closely with the national unemployment rate. But since then, California’s unemployment rate began a steady upward divergence from the national jobless figures. Today, California’s unemployment rate is more than two points above the national rate, and at its highest point since 1941.
The second problem is structural: the collapse of the checks and balances and other constitutional and traditional constraints on government spending and borrowing.
Let me mention a few of them.
The State Supreme Court decision in Serrano v. Priest severed the use of local revenue for local schools and invited the state take-over of public education. AB 8 of 1979 – the legislature’s response to Proposition 13 – essentially did the same thing to local governments generally.
This means that vast bureaucracies have grown up over the service delivery level, wasting more and more resources while hamstringing teachers in their classrooms, wardens in their prisons and city councils in their towns.
Next, constitutional constraints on fiscal excesses began to fall. In 1983, Gov. George Deukmejian approved legislation to remove the governor’s ability to make mid-year budget corrections without having to return to the legislature. The loss of this provision exposed the state to chronic deficit spending by removing any ability of the governor to rapidly respond to changing economic conditions.
In 1989, Deukmejian sponsored Proposition 111 that destroyed the Gann Spending Limit that had held increases in state spending to inflation and population growth. If that limit had remained intact, California would be enjoying a budget surplus today.
The disastrous tax increases by Pete Wilson in 1991 and Arnold Schwarzenegger this year were made possible by this tragic blunder.
Finally, we’ve watched the constitutional budget process that had produced relatively punctual and relatively balanced budgets for nearly 150 years collapse in favor of an extra-constitutional abomination called the big five.
That new process, that began under Pete Wilson and has culminated under Arnold Schwarzenegger bypasses the entire legislative deliberative process in favor of an annual deal struck between the governor and legislative leaders behind closed doors and handed to the legislature as a fait accompli.
This short-circuits the separation of powers that is designed to discipline fiscal excess and it literally bargains away the line-item veto authority of the governor. It is a process that allows legislative leaders to extract concessions from the executive that would not be possible if the separation of powers were maintained.
With the checks against excessive spending broken down, borrowing became the preferred method of public finance. The Constitutional requirement that all taxpayer-supported debt be approved by voters began to erode in the 1930’s, when a depression-era Supreme Court decision allowed the state to run a temporary deficit in the event of an economic down-turn — as long as the shortfall was addressed in the following fiscal year. This practice was narrowly construed until the Wilson administration began using it to justify spreading out a single year’s budget deficit over several years.
During the 1980’s, Gov. Deukmejian began employing a legal fiction called a “lease revenue bond,” to circumvent constitutionally required voter approval.
Although Proposition 13 still protects property owners from unsustainable increases in their property taxes, most of the other fiscal constraints are now gone, and California has entered a period of unprecedented public debt to finance an unprecedented expansion of state government.
The third factor that also can be traced back to the 1970’s was the radical transformation that took place in the nature and power of the state’s public employee unions. Until that time, state law prohibited public employee strikes against the public and prohibited collective bargaining or closed shops.
During the Jerry Brown era, a series of collective bargaining acts handed to public sector unions all the rights and powers of private sector unions – but without any of the natural constraints on private sector unions. The unions soon brought these newly-won powers to bear to elect hand-picked officials to state and local office.
Today, political expenditures by public employee unions exceed all other special interest groups, while they hold compliant majorities in the state legislature and most local agencies.
The result has been radically escalating personnel costs and radically deteriorating performance.
The impact on governmental services has been devastating. Despite exploding budgets, service delivery is collapsing. Firing incompetent teachers has become a virtual impossibility, adding to the deterioration of educational quality. Essential services can no longer be performed because labor costs have made it impossible to sustain those services.
Today, California is like the shopkeeper who leased out too much space, ordered too much inventory, hired too many people and paid them too much. Every month the shopkeeper covers his shortfalls with borrowing and bookkeeping tricks. Ultimately, he will reach a tipping point where anything he does makes his situation worse. Borrowing costs are eating him alive and he’s running out of credit. Raising prices causes his sales to decline. And there’s only so much discretionary spending he can cut.
That’s the state’s predicament in a nutshell. California’s borrowing costs now exceed the budget of the entire University of California and it is increasingly likely that it will fail to find lenders when it must borrow billions to pay its bills at the end of this month.
Ignoring dire warnings, Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislators from both parties earlier this year imposed the biggest state tax increase in American history.
And I can assure you that the Laffer curve is alive and well. In the first two months after the tax increase took effect, state revenues have plunged 33 percent.
Although there are many obsolete, duplicative or low priority programs and expenditures that the state can – and should – do without, there aren’t enough of them to come anywhere close to closing California’s deficit.
Sadly, California has reached the terminal stage of a bureaucratic state, where government has become so large and so tangled that it can no longer perform even basic functions.
Fortunately, we have a model that we know works. A generation ago, it produced a high quality of public service at a much lower cost. It maximized management flexibility and it required accountability at the service delivery level. It recognized that only when commerce and enterprise flourish can we finance the basic responsibilities of government.
Restoring this efficiency will require a governor and a legislature with the political will to wrestle control from the public employee unions, dismantle the enormous bureaucracies that have grown up over the service delivery level, decentralize administration and decision making, contract out services that the private sector can provide more efficiently, rescind the recent tax increases that are costing the state money and roll back the regulatory obstacles to productive enterprise.
Alas, we don’t have such leaders and even if we did, the systemic reorganization of the state government can’t be accomplished overnight. Restructuring the public schools would take at least a year; prisons at least two; and health and welfare three to five years before serious savings could be realized.
This brings us to the fine point of the matter. What Churchill called history’s “terrible, chilling words” are about to be pronounced on California’s failed leadership: “too late.”
A federal loan guarantee or bailout may be the only way to buy time for the restructuring of California’s bureaucracies to take effect, but the discussion remains academic until and unless the state actually adopts the replacement structures, unburdens its shrinking productive sector and presents a credible plan to redeem the state’s crushing debt and looming obligations.
Without these actions, federal intervention will only make California’s problems worse by postponing reform, continuing unsustainable spending and piling up still more debt.
In short, if California won’t help itself, the federal government cannot, should not and must not.
And before anyone gets too smug at California’s agony, remember this: Congress is now enacting the same policies at the national level that have caused the collapse of California. So whistle past this cemetery if you must, but remember the medieval epitaph: “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now so you will be.”
The good news is there is still time for the nation to avoid California’s fate. If anything, the collapse of California can at least serve as a morality play for the rest of the nation – unfortunately in the form of a Greek tragedy.
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."Break out those chains if you want to preserve the liberties you possess still.
"to compel a man to furnish ... money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
Assisting the needy in health care is a "moral imperative" – not a constitutional right. The two are as different as a squirt gun and an Uzi.
If something is not permitted under our Constitution, the federal government simply cannot do it. Period. The Founding Fathers vigorously debated the role of the federal government and defined it in Article I, Section 8 – spelling out the specific duties and obligations of the federal government. Most notably, this included providing a military for national security, coining money, establishing rules for immigration and citizenship, establishing rules for bankruptcy, setting up a postal system, establishing trademark and copyright rules, and setting up a legal system to resolves disputes, in addition to a handful of other matters.
Charity is not there.
Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison – a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution – wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
But what about the Constitution's general welfare clause?
Madison said: "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
And consider government welfare's effect on people's willingness to give. During the Great Depression – before the social programs that today we accept as givens (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) – charitable giving increased dramatically. After FDR began signing social programs into law, charitable giving continued, but not at the same rate. People felt that they had given at the office and/or that government was "handling it."
Government "charity" is simply less efficient than private charity. Every dollar extracted from taxpayers, sent to Washington, and then routed to the beneficiary "loses" about 70 cents in transfer costs – salaries, rent and other expenses. The Salvation Army, by contrast, spends 2 cents in operating costs, with the remainder going to fundraising and the beneficiary. They achieve this, among other ways, by relying on volunteers to do much of the work.
Following Hurricane Katrina, private companies, including The Home Depot and Wal-Mart, provided basic needs, such as water and shelter, faster than did government. What were their motives? Generosity? Positive public relations – a form of "selfishness"? Does it matter?
What about the issue of "moral hazard"? Does government welfare distort behavior and cause people to act irresponsibly? In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson launched a "War on Poverty." "Anti-poverty" workers literally went door to door to inform women of their "right" to money and services – provided the recipients were unmarried and had no men living in their houses. Out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. In 1960, before the "War on Poverty," out-of-wedlock births accounted for 2 percent of white births and 22 percent of black births. By 1994 – just three decades after Johnson began his "War" – the rates had soared to 25 and 70 percent, respectively.
Numerous studies conclude that children of "broken homes" with absentee or nonexistent fathers are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, do drugs and produce out-of-wedlock children. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times asked both the poor and non-poor the following question: Do you think those on welfare have children to get on welfare? More poor people (64 percent) said "yes" to that proposition than did non-poor (44 percent).
If not taxation, how then?
In 1871, the city of Chicago burned to the ground. Contributions, with virtually no money from government, rebuilt the city. After 9/11, so many Americans gave money that the Red Cross used some contributions for non-9/11 purposes. Christianity Today wrote in January 2002: "Suddenly awash in a sea of money, relief agencies such as the Salvation Army need help. So much money – $1.5 billion so far – has come in that charities are having a hard time spending it." And Americans donated an even greater sum to those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Three in four families donate to charity, averaging more than 3 percent of their income, with two-thirds going to secular charities. In total, Americans give more than $300 billion a year – more than the gross domestic product of Finland or Ireland. More than half of families also donate their time.
Absent (unconstitutional) government programs, individuals and charitable organizations can, will and – in many cases – already do provide services to the needy. A limited government – one that taxes only to fulfill its permissible duties – would allow even more disposable time and money.
People-to-people charity is more efficient, less costly, more humane and compassionate, and more likely to inspire change and self-sufficiency in the beneficiary. People can and would readily satisfy society's "moral imperative."
"We are God’s partners in matters of life and death . . . ."This is evidence of Obama's pathological, self-deifying narcissism.
your analogy is ludicrous. Hitler wasn't governed by a religious doctrine but by HIS false interpretation of reality and history. He exploited national greivences following the defeat in WW1 and directed them towards Jews and his neighbors who he claimed either took German land or imposed unfair terms of surrender.Muhammad was governed -- or rather, governed others -- by "HIS false interpretation of reality and history." He exploited Man's vilest impulses and directed them at Jews, Christians, the rest of the non-Muslim world, apostates, women, and little girls.
"Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone (in the whole of the world). But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do" (Qur'an 8:38; ayah 39 from Noble Qur'an).Here's his desire to eradicate the Jews:
"Allah's Apostle said, 'The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him"'" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177).Maxtrue continues:
". . . We were (sitting) in the mosque when the Messenger of Allah . . . came to us and said: (Let us) go to the Jews. We went out with him until we came to them. The Messenger of Allah . . . stood up and called out to them (saying): O ye assembly of Jews, accept Islam (and) you will be safe.
[. . .]
"he killed their men, and distributed their women, children and properties among the Muslims, except that some of them had joined the Messenger of Allah . . . who granted them security. They embraced Islam. The Messenger of Allah . . . turned out all the Jews of Medlina. Banu Qainuqa' (the tribe of 'Abdullah b. Salim) and the Jews of Banu Haritha and every other Jew who was in Medina.
[. . .]
"It has been narrated by 'Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah . . . say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim" (Muslim Book 19, Number 4363-4366)."
There is not one dictator directing more than a billion Muslims, nor do Islamic despots even have clear control of their populations as Hitler did. We see tonight not "death to Israel" but "death to Russia" and "death to China" on the streets of Tehran. Neda who many Muslims have made the poster girl of resistance was wearing a cross when she died.Muhammad and his allah "direct [potentially] more than a billion Muslims."
"the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: 'Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them . . .'" (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).
"fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . " (Qur’an 9:5).And those people protesting in Iran do so with various goals in mind. Many of them protest against the Islamic rule that you (apparently unknowingly) defend here.
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).
"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle . . . '" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).
What Muslim nation poses such enormous risk to the Western world as Hitler did?9/11.
Do you honestly think that the US, Russia and China are no match for Iran, HIzb'Allah or Hamas? Your comparisons while couched in selective history completely ignore the historical differences between Germany and a Greater Islam. Certainly Jews would prefer the Muslim Spain they experiance to the Catholic one they were thrown out of.Such a conclusion shows your ignorance of dhimma and what Jews endured under your "Islamic Golden Age."
“Remember, my coreligionists, that on account of the vast number of our sins, God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the Arabs [Muslims], who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us … Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they….”Here begins the flood of Max's logical fallacies:
-Maimonides, victim of Islam in conquered Spain
Are you trying to tell us that more than 1 million Muslim Israelis embrace your literal interpretation of the Koran?A straw man and red herring: I've never mentioned what "1 million Muslim Israelis embrace" nor what "Jews around the world accept."
And what about the Old Testament? Are you suggesting that Jews around the world accept a literal interpretation of the Old Testament? Are jews of a singular mind? Ultra Orthodox Jews are against Israel whereas some Jews are for a greater Israel.
Do you accept the literal interpretation of the New Testament? And if you do, why are you not as equal a threat to Jews as you say Muslims are?Perhaps because Jesus commanded, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (every person is my "neighbor"), "Treat others the way you want to be treated," and, "Love your enemies."
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).So, it's not me saying "Muslims are a threat to Jews" . . . it's Muhammad.
How many Muslim nations help us in our struggle with radical Islam? How many Muslims serve in our military forces and don’t you insult them by characterizing them falsely?Where have I "characterized falsely" Muslims in our military?
And what slaughter was carried out in the name of Jesus or by communist regimes? Did they not kill, rape and murder far more human beings than all killed by Muslims?Speaking of "peddling nonsense under the pretense of a lecturing historian"!
Again, shall I quote for you from the Bible?Please do.
It is one thing to say that the literal interpretation of the Koran is used by radicals to promote jihadist thinking, but quite another in extending such thought to all of Islam thus proving to the critical "moderates" that Westerners are just as crazed as Islamic radicals.Where have I tried to "extend such thought to all of Islam"? The texts say what they say. Muhammad did what he did. His followers conquered, enslaved, raped, brutalized, and butchered whomever they could. Do you know nothing of the spread of Islam?
You prove to them an equivalency of ideology when the way we will eventual triumph against radicalism is not by killing a billion Muslims, but through reformation.How are you going to "reform a billion Muslims"?
And your remarks on Hitler are astounding given the apparent alliance between many on your flank with neo-Nazis.You have no apparent moral reservations about committing libel.
Do you believe all who do not accept Jesus Christ are going to Hell? Do you believe that woman was created from the rib of Adam? Do you believe Homosexuals sin? Do you believe Jews killed Christ? Why cannot Muslims ask this of Christians? Why cannot Muslims ask if YOU see them as heathens regardless of Jihad?I am happy to address everyone's theological questions, since I desire all people to trust in Christ for their salvation.
And this is the worst part. Your mindset so angers centrist Westerners like myself, you divide the consensus needed to address the real threat which is the ability of radicals to exploit the Koran in an effort to extend THEIR hegemony. In this struggle we unquestionably need the many moderate Muslims on our side.Yes, fairy tales are much more effective in winning wars.
Your thinking and declarations are counterproductive as you move from reasonable threat assessment of the spread of radicalism into extremism that denies the reality of hundreds of millions of Muslims seeking no Jihad, no death to infidels.They're not my declarations, they're Allah and Muhammad's.
Perhaps you should get out more and see the world. Instead you point to unquestionable Islamic militancy and then spin it to impose your simplistic dialectic on history rather than see history for what it is. How do you explain that the world has more liberty today than it did a thousand years ago? Are you really claiming that human nature does not conspire to be free?Anyone who can read will see that I've not "pointed to unquestionable Islamic militancy," but the words and works of Muhammad and his allah.
"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."-Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801
Terror is fundamental to Islam“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror.’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).Be happy, free, and wrong
and,
"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).
Steve wrote:"Obviously, someone can be a bad Muslim as easily as someone can be a bad Christian. The issue isn't what they claim to be, but rather what they are."But "good" and "bad" must be defined in light of each religion's authoritative texts, not human opinion.
A "good" Christian will tell the truth, love, serve, do good, and refrain from harming others because that is what Christ commands.
A "good" Muslim will fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to establish the tyranny of Allah over all mankind because that is what his god requires and his prophet practiced:". . . the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: 'Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya . . . If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them...'" (Muslim Book 019, Number 4294).Steve continues:"America claims to have a separation of church and state . . . ."The separation to which Jefferson referred was a protection of religion against government, not a protection of government against religion."Men have used violence to serve their own glory for thousands of years, and expect obedience and honor from those they rule over. A Nazi, a communist, an Islamist and a democratic imperialist are all wired the same way, the only difference is the self-satisfying text that they reference."How naive. The difference between all those you name and a Muslim is that the followers of Mahomet have the permanent, unalterable, and "divine" commands to: ". . . fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . " (Qur’an 9:5), and:"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).Not only this, but the faithful Muslim also has the words and deeds of Mohammed -- described by Allah as a "beautiful pattern of conduct" -- to emulate. Mohammed said, ". . . 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle . . . '" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24)."Christ and Socrates would be crucified for their pursuit of virtue . . . ."Christ was killed for speaking the words and doing the work of His Father.". . . Look at the resistance to amnesty for illegal aliens, for example. The door to the inn is still closed, and a child is born in a land with little compassion but with huge warehouses and grand houses of hypocrisy."That hypocrisy exists is true. That our nation lacks virtue is for growing numbers of our people also true.
That defending one's borders and enforcing the rule of law (we still have quite generous legal immigration rules) is immoral or cruel is suicidally false.
To justify the destruction of American sovereignty and the end of the rule of law by conflating it with the birth of the Son of God is sacrilege.
In response to JFP
JFP observed:"Theoretically, yesThe many interpretations are the fault of human error, arrogance, and carelessness.
Just as there are many interpretations of the Bible, so there can be many interpretations of the Qur'an."
They are not indicative of any weakness or ambiguity in the Biblical texts.
The same is true of Islam's authoritative documents. Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira say what they say. It is the ignorant and the liar who claim the texts say anything other than what they clearly do.
There is no indication from these *Islamic* records that Mohammad and his followers understood these texts should be taken in any way other than with fatal literalism.
The nearly fourteen centuries of Infidel blood spilled, their women and children raped and enslaved, and the destruction of their religions, cultures, and nations in obedience to those texts also demonstrate that Muslims traditionally take Allah and his apostle at their word."When this point is brought up to secularists, what do they say?Which should cause all thinking Infidels to question whether or not these people are really "secularists" in fear of non-Muslim over-generalizations or actually apologists for jihad deceiving ignorant and gullible people of good will.
1. They call us racist, as though that solves the problem.
2. They say it is too remote a possibility to worry about . . . ."
In response to Phylo
Can Phylo's arguments co-exist w/ truth? He writes:"Can Jesus coexist with Jefferson?"The answer is, clearly, "yes," since Jesus commanded His people to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's."
(And in case this little fact eluded your apparently vigorous intellectual curiosity, the Founding Fathers were overwhelmingly Christians.)
Phylo continues:"This article is pure demagoguery. It's nothing but a play on his audiences fears and prejudices. I swear the Republicans are aching to start a war with the Muslims. This is crazy."And your argument here is an impassioned appeal to people's cowardice and ignorance.
What is truly crazy is that six years out from 9/11 (and centuries out from America's first taste of Muslim terror) so many people fail to realize that Islam is at war with us.
Phylo reinforces the impression he has no understanding of Christianity or Islam with:"I wonder if any of you who read this article will recognize that the exact same question could be asked of Christians and Jews."An implied equivalence in the answers betraying either your deficient knowledge, reason, moral judgment, or some combination of the three.
Find some Methodists beheading girls on their way to school, shouting "Christ is LORD!" and citing their Biblical justification for it. Then we can talk.
Phylo:"So how can a good Christian still honor Jefferson?"[Considering Jefferson’s self-professed preference for the doctrines of Christ above all others, “vigorously,” I’d say.]
That is a different question. Was the switch intentional or accidental?
Of course, a "good" Christian will honor what is honorable. Much of Jefferson's contribution to America and the world is quite remarkable.
Phylo continued:"And how does Jesus' admonition to sell everything and follow him comport with capitalism? Can Jesus and Adam Smith co-exist?"Another false comparison. But that's easy for one with little intellectual integrity to do.
The command from Matthew 19 (and the parallel accounts in Mark 10 and Luke 18) was given to a specific person, at a specific time, and for a specific purpose.
If ownership of property were immoral, Christ would not have forbidden stealing.
More from Phylo:"And how can a good Jew live in a country that doesn't stone gays to death?"Another command taken out of its proper context! Your lack of truthfulness is disappointing.
Capital punishment for homosexual behavior (and many other sins) was for the nation of Israel living under the Mosaic Covenant. It was not a universal command.
