Mark Horne, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On August 10, 2013 By Mark Horne In Politics, Theology Like

Why Hating Government Keeps It In Power

“In any successful attack on freedom the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the citizen who forgets his duty, wastes away his strength in the sleep of sin and sensual pleasure, and so loses the power of his own initiative.” –Abraham Kuyper

Let us imagine that there is a nation somewhere that is ruled by a wicked government. Let us further imagine that God doesn’t like the nation’s current regime and is looking for a way to change it.

You’re thinking, “But God is omnipotent so he doesn’t ‘look for a way.'”

Right, but I’m speaking of God’s actions within certain God-ordained constraints. God said he would not destroy Sodom for the sake of ten righteous persons (Genesis 19). So we can say, without denying God’s omnipotence that he was looked for an excuse to save Sodom and didn’t find it.

But what would be the God-ordained constraint that would make Him “look for a way” to replace a wicked government with another.

In the case of regime-change, let’s assume God has more foresight than, say, American imperialists. He is not going to overthrow a government just to see it replaced with a worse one. He wants a better government to take the place of the one he wants to overthrow.

What that means is that God is going to look for an available group of people who can reliably govern.

(I realize various de-centralist ideals might cause some readers to ask why God would bother to replace it. But even if we are talking about fifty righteous independent state governments, or people with enough respect and understanding of property rights to produce a purely private sector order, the same factors will still apply.)

What kind of people will God look for?

Will he choose people who think that the world needs them to be in control because they alone are right?

Will he choose people who can’t tolerate opposition?

Will he choose people who respond to adversaries by lashing out?

Will he choose people who long to destroy all their enemies?

Look at it this way: Either the world is changed by God in his providence or he has left us alone to save ourselves. If the latter is true, then the qualities of a good ruler will be whatever are best suited to take power by any means necessary. Otherwise, he cannot ever gain power.

But if God gives authority to those he wants to have it, then other considerations should be important. If one wants to be put in power by God one must develop the will and skill to use power in a way that God commends. “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25.21). In that case, gaining more power is not your primary responsibility. Your responsibility is learning to do well with what little power you already have.

Most people, when they have little power or wealth or responsibility of significance, tell themselves that their habits and speech don’t matter that much. But the Bible says differently. “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16.10)

Won’t God prefer people who are cheerful in adversity, humble about themselves, and able to extend mercy, be tolerant, and show prudence?

If God prefers these latter qualities, are they ones he is likely to find in hate-the government sub-cultures, even those that have a just cause?

Back when Obama was running for his first presidential term, it came out that he taught from Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals. Here’s the deal: the Bible has one of those. It is a book that talks about authority being wielded by the wicked and provides guidance for those who would like to see that authority transferred to the righteous.

So go read the book of Proverbs!

Proverbs will tell you that hard work and restraint of your mouth is a strategy for overthrowing tyrants. I know it sounds dodgy to use a Ghandi quotation as if he had anything in common with Solomon, but “Be the change you want to see in the world” does seem pretty close to the basic idea of Proverbs regarding social change. If you want your world to be governed well, show God you are sincere by governing yourself well. Train your children and select your friends to be God’s ideal ruling class without craving to rule anything or anyone. Let God give that to you or your progeny in his own timing.

If you want a new and better government you need to be one yourself first.<>консультант

On August 9, 2013 By Mark Horne In Scribblings Like

What made us all turn into raving civi-killers?

I have to say this defense of nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki convinces me of exactly the opposite of what the writer claims to be arguing for. (Though it does bother me that the atomic bombs get so emphasized when the same crimes were first committed with conventional bombs).

Not only was there a time when Americans had a sanctified conscience about such war crimes, but there was a time during Wold War II when such war crimes were even repudiated in war propaganda. I refer of course to the classic “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.”

Here’s a clip. Notice the words spoken to the bombers and pilots starting at 6:55

So:

Pilots were sternly ordered to not dump there bombs anywhere in the city except on their military targets. If they missed the targets then they didn’t get to drop their bombs in the city
Despite the fact that only military targets were selected, this would obviously entail some civilian deaths. Since the targets had not been revealed before, all pilots and bombers are asked if anyone needs to resign from the mission as a matter of conscience.

In my opinion, a “civilian” working at a legitimate military target is a justifiable homicide. Apparently, all the crew agreed. But my point is that they asked.

Obviously, by the time this movie was released, a very different mindset had been inculcated in some number of people. General LeMay certainly never was burdened with any of the moral principles that James Doolittle is portrayed as holding in this scene.

I suspect you will see some more commentary on this issue on this website in the near future.<>наполнение а это

On August 9, 2013 By Mark Horne In Politics Like

The snares of politics: Did David really learn from Abigail?

1 Samuel 25 – ESVBible.org.

This is one of my favorite Bible stories. It shows David trying to run an honest protection racket as best he can. The pressure must have been immense. Consider who followed David:

David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men. (1 Samuel 22:1-2, ESV)

I don’t think you want four hundred “bitter of soul” men with swords hungry and angry at you. Later, after the group had grown to six hundred (1 Sam 27.2), they almost decided to stone David to death because of a defeat they suffered under his leadership (1 Sam 30.1-6).

So David upon hearing that a rich farmer/rancher was not going to provide rations for his militia, immediately promised to exterminate him and every male in his company, referring to them by their capacity to urinate standing up. In other words he deliberately reverts to crude soldier talk that depersonalizes the people he plans to murder (Notice the ESV totally euphemizes what David says about the men he promises to kill).

Abigail, the wife of Nabal the foolish ranch and farm owner, intercedes. She makes two things clear:

Because of the exemplary behavior of David and his militia, it was reasonable and right for them to request and receive a gift of food.
David’s intended response was sinful because it was both murder and self-aggrandizement.

Thus:

When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. And when the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.” (1 Samuel 25:23-31, ESV)

David responds in part by frankly admitting that he was intending on committing the sin of homicide. “Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand!” Samuel 25:33, ESV) David doesn’t say his planned reprisal was justified he admits it would have left him guilty of what Abigail claimed: shedding blood “without cause.” He also admits that he, king though he may be, is supposed to allow room for the wrath of God, and allow YHWH to save him, rather than take his own vengeance. He should have trusted God to provide for his men and protect him from their anger.

So, in the past, I have seen this story as one with a happy ending. David turns away from murder and learns to not pillage even when he thinks he is being mistreated by a lack of hospitality. David has to somehow restrain himself from the real temptation of exercising power the way other kings would exercise it. And God vindicates Abigail’s word. God fights for David and kills Nabal once David has renounced his plan to commit his own vengeance.

So all’s well that ends well.

But the story doesn’t end well.

When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the Lord who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The Lord has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife.

David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim. (1 Samuel 25:39-44, ESV)

The remark about Palti sets us up for one of the more sad scenes from David’s exaltation (2 Samuel 3.12-16). But apart from that, this story ends with David violating God’s commands for kings in Israel:

“When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. (Deuteronomy 17:14-17, ESV)

David, even in exile, is asserting his authority and kingly status by establishing a polygamous dynasty for himself. To David’s credit, it takes another generation for his precedent to work out to the full blown result in his son Solomon, whose heart is “turned away” by his wives. But it starts here. David thinks he knows what it means to be a king, and he has learned that it means to have several wives (and later concubines as well).

So did David really learn his lesson? I think the story ends with an ominous feeling. And it makes me re-read David’s own confession when he meets with Abigail:

And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” (1 Samuel 25:32-34, ESV)

Again, David doesn’t say “male,” but refers to urination methods to identify which sex he was going to kill. Perhaps I’m overly suspicious, but it seems as if David is still posturing for the sake of his men-at-arms. And why spell out what would have happened as an oath before God? (“For surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives..”) It makes me wonder if David still wants to re-assure people that he would have done the deed, rather than simply confess to wickedness.

Hard to say.

But I can say that the story shows us David being prevented from one sort of self-aggrandizement but seduced by another.

Does this story have a moral for us? I suppose some people think one should never read an OT story moralistically. Here we see that David, as a type of Christ, but still stuck in the corruption of the Old Adam, falls short of the one to Whom he points.

OK fine. But I still think there is a moral.

Politics is an arena fraught with temptation that can be covered easily with self-deception. People can avoid one danger and fall into another. Beware.

(cross-posted)<>окна пвх реклама

On August 6, 2013 By Mark Horne In Culture, Pro-Life Like

How Greenspan And Bernanke Are Ending Civilization As We Know It

Greenspan managed to get away with a low-interest boom in the nineties, thanks to the rise of cheap imports from overseas markets. China both kept their prices low and bought US treasuries so that government debt could increase with little consequence in popular perception.

The Fed’s low interest rates and the resulting cheap money fueled bubbles during the Clinton and Bush (the younger) years. When the NASDAQ crash occurred, we had an opportunity to suffer through a recession and reset the economy. Bush, however, probably believed he would never be a two-term president under such conditions. And it is easy to see the lure, since he would probably lose to a candidate who would pressure the Federal Reserve to inflate another bubble. So why take the thankless job of Martyr? Part of the answer is: So you don’t go down in history as the single president who destroyed the American economy, and so discredited the Republican brand, that the very worse possible successor to your stimulus precedents could win the office.

Remember: Bush picked Ben Bernanke to be the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve because he pretended that we were not facing a dangerous housing bubble. Since Bush, Mr. Hope and Change kept Bernanke in power where he has doubled down on the toxic stupidity that has degraded the economy further since the day he (Bernanke) stepped into office.

This brief history of recent events is commonly recited to explain why we are now poor, broke, underwater with debt, and/or unemployed. Everyone wants recovery. But I am rehearsing this recent history to make another point: we are headed into a far worse economic situation in the long term because of this recession and “slow recovery” so that, even if we had a fantastic recovery tomorrow, we will still suffer more economic pain in the future.

The engine of recovery and of real economic growth in general, is people working. And, while we were already headed toward problems, this recession has come at the worst cultural time. It is going to be much worse.

It is happening in several different ways at once. One area I have already written about is student debt combined with post graduate un- or underemployment. Couples are indefinitely delaying children because they don’t see how they can make it on their income with their expenses—a major expense being student debt.

For readers who have been taught the overpopulation myth, the impending disaster may be hidden from their view. But unless something changes dramatically, America’s de facto one-child “policy” is going to bring economic stagnation. (This is especially true in countries that provide for the aged by a pension system that requires more working young people than retirees.) Economic bubbles are misallocated investments and resources. …[D]uring a recession and anemic ‘recovery,’ in a culture when it is easier than ever to not get married and not have children, a further and more massive misallocation is easily made. A demographic winter gets arranged in order to pay bills. Present indebtedness leads to less people in the future.

Mish (who I think is the best Austrian economics blogger dealing with contemporary trends) touched on another aspect of this issue with his post, “Bernanke wants 2% inflation in a deflationary world. Who pays the price?” He points to a PEW study that provides this graphic:

So as married 31-year-olds reach their thirty-second birthdays, not enough younger people are getting married to replace them. And we can guess their probably not breeding either.

The reason they are not marrying isn’t too hard to figure out. Young women are rarely willing to move into the guy’s parent’s basement. And they are probably even less likely to want to bring a crib into the room.

Mish writes:

Bernanke wants 2% inflation in a deflationary world. Wages have not kept up with inflation as Fed policies exacerbate the trends. The result is apparent. Everyone pays the price, but especially young adults who cannot afford to get married, and they certainly cannot afford a house. The Fed wants home prices up to help out the banks, but what about the new household formation? And what about student loans and the ability to pay those loans back? And think about how cheap money allows corporations to borrow money for next to nothing to buy technology to replace humans with hardware and software robots.

This effect on young adults is far more perverse than the consequences of their absence from marriage, parenthood, or the workforce. The most toxic consequence is that they get used to it.

There are parents who will actually defend their child basement dweller as someone who ought to not enter the workforce. But the damage is not limited to that extreme. The time to begin life as an adult should not be delayed. As I argue here, much of Obama’s “economic” speeches seem to be designed to entice us all to be satisfied with a basement, subsidized, existence.

People who can’t live without the protection of authority figures, and who can never get married or form a household, are increasingly the future of America. Even those who do have some sort of role in the productive economy are being urged to see children as a problem they can do without. Of course, I actually agree that couples should be politically free to breed or not, but you know how that works out—with the non-parents turning into busybodies lording it over parents and telling them how to raise their children. This also often happens with the elective single-child parents over against the multi-breeders. That aspect of the future will also be ugly since it will amplify some ugly features of the present. This recession has hit us at a time when the culture is most inclined to decide that babies are a dispensable luxury, and when the resulting political environment will make it harder to parent children if you love lots of them.

All of this promises a future of economic decline, and probably far worse things. Human beings are being trained for domestic captivity without any real means to pay for the costs of the zoo.<> полный аудит а

On August 5, 2013 By Mark Horne In Politics Like

J Gresham Machen understood the tyranny of laws over the prosperity of spontaneous order

At the time I’m writing these words, we have experienced almost a week of technical problems making our website unavailable. I have been constantly checking and re-checking the site because I have wanted to post this excellent piece by J. Gresham Machen. Dr. Machen was the leader of the conservative or “fundamentalist” resistance to modernism or liberalism in the American churches (he was Presbyterian but the scope of his work went beyond his denominations). To give the reader some idea of his importance in history and his greatness as a man, I have also appended the obituary for him that was penned by the notorious (and delightful) infidel, H. L. Mencken.

These anti-pedestrian laws are intended either for the protection of the pedestrian, or for the convenience of the motorist. In either case . . . they are wrong.

If they are intended to protect the pedestrian from himself, they are paternalistic. I am opposed to paternalism. Among other far more serious objections to it is the objection that it defeats its own purpose. The children of some over-cautious parents never learn to take care of themselves, and so are far more apt to get hurt than children who lead a normal life. So I do not believe that in the long run it will be in the interests of safety if people get used to doing nothing except what a policeman or a traffic light tells them to do, and thus never learn to exercise reasonable care. (more…)

On August 1, 2013 By Mark Horne In Culture, Politics, Theology Like

A Life of Plunder: The First Temptation of Foolishness

Proverb begins with a promise of, and praise for, the value of wisdom. Verse 7 warns that fools despise it and/or being instructed in it.

But the first warning Proverbs gives of a specific sin seemed, at first, counter-intuitive to me:

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.

My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
let us ambush the innocent without reason;
like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse”—
my son, do not walk in the way with them;
hold back your foot from their paths,
for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
For in vain is a net spread
in the sight of any bird,
but these men lie in wait for their own blood;
they set an ambush for their own lives.
Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors. (Proverbs 1:8-19, ESV)

Why is this temptation the first concern of wisdom”

After the Fall, as we find it recorded in Genesis 3, the first big sin was brother murdering brother–the sin of Cain against Abel. One might be inclined, at first glance to associate this story with Solomon’s warning to resist the lure, “let us ambush the innocent without reason.” But I don’t think that hold’s up. Here “without reason” isn’t referring to the motivations of a psychotic thrill killer (though there is a hint in much of Proverbs that this way of life leads to an addictive thrill), but it means simply unjustly–that is, “without cause.”

Cain was motivated by resentment due to God’s approval of Abel. That is not the temptation here in Proverbs 1. Rather, the bloodshed is a means to an end. The temptation here is for a life of plunder, a shortcut to wealth:

we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse…

Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain.

So of all the sins that could possibly head the list in Proverbs, why does Solomon start with the temptation to join a gang and acquire loot? Why is a life of plunder the first temptation?

A general observation: From my reading in Proverbs, I think the main concern is how people drift into sin–how they start down a wrong path. If so, it is not surprising that Cain’s sin wouldn’t be the forefront. His hatred of Abel, who had done him no harm at all, and from whose death he gained nothing, seems to go far beyond what we have here in the beginning of Proverbs.

If my instinct is right to look back at the first stories of Genesis as the background to Biblical wisdom (stories that include a contrast between God’s way and humanity’s way to “become wise”) perhaps we should go back earlier than the story of Cain and Abel. Rather than looking for a negative example of embracing a life of plunder, we might look for a corresponding positive command.

The first recorded command in the Bible is to embrace a life of productivity:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28, ESV)

So what are the alternatives. If you don’t want to take dominion over world, you survive and attempt to thrive by taking dominion over people. If you don’t live by being fruitful, you find those who have done so and cut them off, stealing the fruits of their life and labors.

Notice how rejecting God’s ways are parasitic. Someone has to work the land and produce good things by labor and exchange. Without such people, human life is impossible. But some find it tempting to let others do the work, and then take a shortcut by using violence to plunder such people.

One implication of all this which I believe Proverbs repeatedly addresses, is that it is not enough to repudiate plunder. Knowing you should not steal or rob is insufficient. You have to embrace as best you can a life of work and savings and investment. Otherwise, you will always find yourself tempted to resort to the other means of acquisition. In fact, by failing to work, you’ve taken the first step toward theft.

I can’t help but think of the national media campaigns against Wal-mart and McDonald’s for the crime of not handing over more cash to their employees. I’ve written several times about this recently:

One way to teach plunder is to rationalize it as if it was owed. While people who have truly wrecked the economy (a crime perpetrated by as many Republicans as anyone else, by the way) are only given a passing glance, or even treated as saviors, companies who have no control over the economy, and who depend on the will of consumers to live, are used as scapegoats.

If laws are passed to match these impulses, we can say of the reduced employment and/or string of bankruptcies that result: “these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.”<>регистрация а google

On July 29, 2013 By Mark Horne In Culture, Politics, Pro-Life Like

It Is Time For Christians To Recognize The Evil Empire

mordor is DC I’ve written some posts opposing US military intervention. This post has almost nothing to do with that topic.

The Eastern European Pro-Life Virus

Here is a story from Macedonia that was published earlier this month:

“A ‘virus’ of restrictive abortion legislation is spreading from Eastern Europe, health experts and rights campaigners have said, amid Church pressure and misguided government attempts to stop falling birth rates. Just weeks ago a new law was introduced in Macedonia tightening up relatively liberal abortion legislation which had been followed for more than 40 years. And last month, Lithuanian lawmakers gave initial approval to some of strictest abortion legislation in the world. Tighter abortion laws are also being considered in Russia and the Ukraine while the Georgian parliament is expected to debate abortion laws after the country’s Orthodox Church made calls in May for it to be banned. Critics say that some governments appear to be moving towards introducing total bans on the procedure. Bojan Jovanovski, executive director of the Health Education and Research Association (HERA) in Macedonia, told IPS: ‘What has happened here is not unique and is happening in a lot of countries, spreading like a virus from Eastern Europe westwards… What this law here will do in the short term is it will make it harder for women to get an abortion, because of the bureaucracy and hurdles they will face. This will possibly lead to them undergoing illegal abortions and the problems that brings with it. But its wider meaning is that it is a step towards more restrictive measures and, ultimately, a ban on abortions.’ In recent years Eastern Europe has witnessed a push, in many cases driven by socially dominant Churches, to reinforce or tighten abortion legislation and deter access to them.”

This is amazing news. If Russia was to truly stop most abortions in that country, it would have immense demographic consequences—arguably extremely positive consequences—for that country. As one via the United Nations as our proxy:

“Amid a surge of anti-gay violence and repression in several countries, the United Nations’ human rights office on Friday launched its first global outreach campaign to promote tolerance and greater equality for lesbians, gays, transgender people and bisexuals. Called Free & Equal, it’s an unprecedented effort by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to change public attitudes around the world on issues that have bitterly divided the U.N.’s own member states. The multi-pronged campaign — announced at a news conference in Cape Town, South Africa — will include videos and public-service announcements distributed through social media, a new website, a series of fact sheets, and engagement by celebrities well-known in different regions of the world. ‘Changing attitudes is never easy… It begins with often difficult conversations,” said Navi Pillay, the high commissioner for human rights. “And that is what we want to do with this campaign. Free & Equal will inspire millions of conversations among people around the world and across the ideological spectrum.’… According to the human rights office, at least 76 countries still criminalize consensual, same-sex relationships, and discrimination against LGBT people is widespread in many other nations. Less than half of the U.N.’s 193 member states have gone on record in support of gay rights and in opposition to laws criminalizing homosexuality. In March 2011, for example, only 85 states signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council expressing their concern at violence and human rights violations against LGBT people. Radcliffe said funding for Free & Equal is being provided by outside contributors, and is not reliant on U.N. funds, thus skirting any possible opposition from U.N. members who oppose gay-rights activism.”

So, at the same time the so-called US Department of Justice has used its resources to force a California school district to “accommodate” a girl who calls herself a boy—by, among other things, allowing her to use the boy’s restroom—the American elite (perhaps with some Western European help—is financing a propaganda war on what remnants of Biblical sexual ethics exist around the world.

The Russian Resistance

And as far as the US establishment is concerned, Russia is the big “bad guy.”

“Putin has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church, and his government has introduced various social programs to promote young couples having more children. Putin has also pushed through another law banning gay foreign couples from adopting Russian children. All U.S. adoptions of Russian children have since been banned. In response, the U.S. state department issued a travel warning for homosexuals in Russia. ‘Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is widespread in Russia, as harassment, threats, and acts of violence have been targeted at LGBT individuals. Government officials have been known to make derogatory comments about LGBT persons,’ the warning said.”

Americans and others are pushing back however they can. Boycotting vodka (I’d be amazed if local Russian consumers cannot make up for the slack) and threatening to boycott the winter Olympics. Ad Age reported,

“Led by President Vladimir Putin, Russia has taken a host of actions of late, including passing one measure that bans ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.’ The controversy could cause headaches for U.S. corporations linked to the 2014 Winter Olympics that will be hosted in Sochi, Russia. In a column in the New York Times this week, actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein called on the U.S. Olympic Committee to demand retraction of Russia’s laws ‘under the threat of boycott.’”

Who Is The Evil Empire Now?

There are lots of reasons to doubt Putin’s character. It is easy for me to wish death upon him just for the Smolensk Crash, apart from all his other alleged sins or crimes. But it is naive to think that a good person could gain the reins of power in almost any current government, not least that of the United States of America.

As a public figure, Putin is leading Christian resistance to the United State’s ruling class’ hard push for sexual perversity–for a pagan planet. If he improves Russia’s horrible abortion ethic, and does so as part of a general Eastern European revival of a pro-life practice, then speculations about his personal character are beside the point. Russia becomes a new Constantinople working to hold back the hordes of infidels howling to conquer them.

There may be good reason to expect Christendom to revive south of the equator. Perhaps Russia’s prominence will be temporary. But even so, I think that temporary protection would be important and helpful.

American Evangelicals need to pray for it. With Christianity spreading in China, the whole world may change in ways we can’t easily envision. Think of China and Russia giving aid and support to Kenya in resisting Obama’s culture war.

So stop calling Russia Red. Practice a new phrase: Holy Russia.

And whether or not that happens, be sure of one thing. The United States is the Evil Empire. We Christians are the enslaved masses that Sam and Frodo saw as they approached the Dark Tower. Our taxes (which, lest anyone misunderstand me, God says we should pay) are supporting the Eye.

We live in Mordor.<>cms 1с битрикс

On June 25, 2013 By Mark Horne In Politics Like

American Hypocrisy: How Would Saint Paul Write To Us?

by Mark Horne

I’ve heard Mormons believe that God directly inspired the Constitution. As a Christian, I know there was only one nation that had a directly inspired “Constitution.” Knowing that one’s country is founded by God should have given Israel a great deal of confidence among the nations. Sometimes it did so. Other times, due to unbelief, it did not.

But there was another way unbelief could trap Israelites. They could allow God’s gifts to Israel to give them confidence even when they were in sin and should have been humbling themselves both in the sight of God and the nations. Paul wrote to them about this:

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:17-24, ESV)

As I write my posts on how to understand Romans, I’ve been thinking a great deal about this passage. In light of recent news about Edward Snowden, with headlines like, “US Seemingly Unaware of Irony in Accusing Snowden of Spying,” there seem to be similarities. Israel was both publicly immoral and publicly moralistic, at the same time, without any insincerity. If that seems impossible, look at the news about how America’s ruling class is posturing. (more…)

On June 22, 2013 By Mark Horne In Politics Like

Establishment still working to keep Americans running on their mental/political rat wheel

by Mark Horne

A Freakonomics post led me to this article. The thesis is that many people who self-identify as conservative are actually more liberal than they think they are. Given recent voting outcomes, I find this depressing but credible. However, I’m more interested in the use made of this quiz developed by the Pew Research Center. (more…)

On June 21, 2013 By Mark Horne In Politics Like

Should Muslims Try To Legislate Their Morality?

by Mark Horne

Should Muslims Try to Legislate Their Morality? | Old Life Theological Society.

Daryl Hart’s agenda is to turn Christians into secularists in the public square. He thinks asking the above question makes his case.

I don’t see how.

The answer has different levels.

On the one hand, we can look at it from a Constitutionalist point of view. I have seen Muslim girls in my local public school wearing traditional dress. Hopefully, their classmates are respectful and kind. But there are indecency laws all over this country and there is no reason in the world why they shouldn’t lobby to have their definitions of decency used as the standard for what counts as public indecency.

Why shouldn’t they try to do this? Why should they have the values of other people, which they find plainly indecent, imposed on them? If they are citizens of the United States it is plainly their right to influence legislation according to their values. Some may want to legalize polygamy for up to four wives, for example. While the First Amendment would limit what they can do to some extent, it still gives them space to make many changes if they ever succeed in becoming the “moral majority” of a future time.

So from an American, Constitutionalist, perspective, of course they should try to legislate their morality. (more…)