19 September 2001

I guess Falwell and Robertson don’t know anything about national covenantal infidelity after all (see September 18). Nor does William F. Buckley, who has probably never read the Bible if he is unaware that God often uses the ungodly to dispense His judgment. Nor does this “conservative” named Ralph, who apparently has never heard of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now Falwell has apologized, and Pat Robertson, who was in full agreement at the time, has issued a statement that he really didn’t understand what Falwell was saying. These guys are trapped in a perpetual Charlie Chaplin movie.

Karen DeCoster thinks we’ve kicked enough anthills and beehives: “So go ahead and dare to tell me one more time that McDonald’s golden arches, Brittany Spears crop tops, and Mustang GT convertibles are why people of other cultures hate our guts.” It’s a first, but I agree with Susan Sontag: “Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?”

I always get nervous when the Claremont Institute issues a new press release, like this one: Prince of Peace, God of War. I wonder if it ever occurs to them that 18th-century Americans and 19th-century Southerners fought DEFENSIVE wars. Lincoln never fails to inspire the warmongers. We should certainly defend the borders, and that includes missile defense, yet Democrats inexplicably continue to argue against it. We need racial profiling and we need to discriminate: “Some commentators and so-called experts have been quick to suggest that we will have to give up rights and freedoms in order to achieve greater security against the terrorist threat. They are wrong. The liberties of America’s citizens do not facilitate terrorism – rather it is the liberties we have wrongly allowed to non-citizens. Because so many of us are the heirs of America’s immigrant tradition, we have been tempted to lose sight of the common-sense truth that we have the right to maintain and enforce the distinction between those who are citizens and those who are not. We have the right to scrutinize more carefully the access and activities of non-citizens, and to bar from our ports of entry or expel any non-citizens who we believe are involved with or abet the terrorist threat. With fairness, but without apology, we must implement a regime that secures the borders and gateways of the nation.” – Alan Keyes

I hope everyone is ready for Vietnam II. War without end, amen. I will mourn the stupidity of my countrymen, who just don’t understand why we’re hated, when I see mothers burying their sons. Here are some stats from Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses, by G.F. Krivosheev, to prepare you for the spectacle:

Soviet troops killed in action in Afghanistan: 9,511

Soviet troops killed by wounds: 2,386

Accidental deaths, suicides, etc.: 1,739

Killed by disease: 817

Total killed: 14,453

Total wounded: 53,753

War-related illnesses: 415,932

The Soviets, as you know, gave up and went home, but not before planting the 10 million mines that are waiting for us. One of the two most powerful countries in the world was defeated by a bunch of shepherds. But they were, and are, shepherds unafraid to die.

Read about the difference between the Sunni and Shi’a sects of Islam. One is acknowledged as extremist and the other as moderate. I find it interesting that the radical sect is so large. “Christianity” has its share of kooks, too, but relatively few, and the Bible has always been a lucid reference for exposing them. Not so with the Koran, and this is simply because the Koran is not the Word of God. The size of the radical element of Islam is corroborating evidence for this fact.

From AgapePress, covert state-sponsored assassination and subversion of the rule of law (heretofore banned by three executive orders): “CBS News reported Sunday night that President Bill Clinton ordered Osama bin Laden’s apprehension or death, and that there was a failed attempt on the Saudi-born millionaire last year. Following the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, President Clinton signed a directive authorizing the CIA to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial for his role in the bombings. According to CBS, the directive authorized the use of deadly force if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible. And in fact, non-Americans in Afghanistan working on behalf of the CIA tried to kill bin Laden last year. These foreign operatives, who were promised a bounty if they succeeded, told the CIA they fired a rocket-propelled grenade at bin Laden as he drove in a convoy of cars through a mountainous road in Afghanistan, and that the grenade hit one of the vehicles – though not the one bin Laden was in.” No big deal when it’s a terrorist, you say? What you may not realize is that a precedent is set for an expansion of state power, specifically state terrorism. What else do you think anyone on the receiving end of that grenade would call it? And who knows who a president will choose to target next? Read more about targeting civilians and why a proper understanding of Lincoln’s War is crucial for understanding current events.

Here’s what we desire for our land: “That all Kings and Princes at their coronation, and reception of their princely authority, shall make their faithful promise by their solemn oath, in the presence of the eternal God, that, enduring the whole time of their lives, they shall serve the same eternal God, to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in his most holy word, contained in the Old and New Testaments; and according to the same word, shall maintain the true religion of Christ Jesus, the preaching of his holy word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm, (according to the Confession of Faith immediately preceding,) and shall abolish and gainstand all false religion contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of God revealed in his foresaid word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received in this realm, nowise repugnant to the said will of the eternal God; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the kirk of God, and whole Christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming: and that they shall be careful to root out of their empire all hereticks and enemies to the true worship of God, who shall be convicted by the true kirk of God of the foresaid crimes…And finally, being convinced in our minds, and confessing with our mouths, that the present and succeeding generations in this land are bound to keep the foresaid national oath and subscription inviolable.” – From The National Covenant, Westminster Confession of Faith, 1638.

Read Too Glad to be True, on Puritan culture. Capital Crimes in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641):

1. If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other god, but the Lord god, he shall be put to death.

8. If any man lies with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death.

9. If any person commits adultery with a married or espoused wife, the adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Over 200 years later, James Henley Thornwell’s proposed preamble to the Constitution of the Confederacy: “Nevertheless we, the people of these Confederate States, distinctly acknowledge our responsibility to God, and the supremacy of His Son, Jesus Christ, as King of kings and Lord of lords; and hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the Congress of these Confederate States inconsistent with the will of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.”

“The law of God must be perpetual. There is no abrogation of it, nor amendment of it. It is not to be toned down or adjusted to our fallen condition; but every one of the Lord’s righteous judgements abideth tor ever.” – Charles Spurgeon

“No disestablishment of religion as such is possible in any society. A church can be disestablished, and a particular religion can be supplanted by another, but the change is simply to another religion. Since the foundations of society are inescapably religious, no society exists without a religious foundation or without a law-system which codifies the morality of its religion…there can be no tolerance in a law-system for another religion. Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law-system as a prelude to a new intolerance…Every law-system must maintain its existence by hostility to every other law-system and to alien religious foundations or else it commits suicide. – R.J. Rushdoony

“I don’t think there has been any school in the history of the Christian Church that has produced a more devastating, scintillating, and effective critique of alternative worldviews to Christianity than the advocates of the Presuppositionalist school…the disciples of Dr. Cornelius Van Til and company…have been more effective in exposing the weaknesses and the fallacies in terms of comprehensive critique of all alternate systems to Christianity, I have no dispute there…” – R.C. Sproul, an evidentialist, in debate with Greg Bahnsen, a presuppositionalist

Read what Greg Bahnsen had to say about Keeping Covenant with God in the Education of Our Children. Then read Secularized Education, by R.L. Dabney.

Here are some good links if you want to learn more about Christian Reconstruction. “What Christian Reconstructionists argue is that virtually all schools of biblical interpretation today, and too often in the past (excepting only the Puritans), have been far closer to dispensationalism’s hermeneutic principle – ‘the commands of the Law are presumed to be no longer binding except where the New Testament repeats or ratifies them’ – than to the theonomists’ hermeneutical principle, also correctly summarized by Bowman: ‘[T]he commands of the Law are Presumed to be binding today except where the New Testament modifies them or sets them aside in some manner.’ This is why Christian reconstructionism does represent a break with traditional Protestant theology, not in the details of theology – our distinguishing theological beliefs have all been preached before within orthodox circles – but in our packaging of a unique, comprehensive system: Predestination, covenant theology, biblical law, Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetics, and postmillennialism.” – Gary North

Black Confederates: Quotations, Vignettes, and True Defiance, all from the outstanding Credenda/Agenda.

Jeff Shaara, author of Gods and Generals, is sitting on top of the world.

Homeschoolers always like free stuff. Click here for a 10 Commandments book cover.

Pat Robertson defends Jerry Falwell’s statement that ungodly Americans are partly to blame for the terrorist attacks. Joel Belz agrees. Walter Cronkite later called it “the most abominable thing I’ve ever heard…It makes you wonder if [Falwell and Robertson are] worshipping the same God as the people who bombed the Trade Center and the Pentagon.” (Cronkite is a spokesman for the Interfaith Alliance, which exists to “promote the positive and healing role of religion,” including, presumably, voodoo and Aztec human sacrifice rituals.) I affirm what these oddball preachers have said (even Baptists and Pentecostals have a greater understanding than Bush of the consequences of national covenantal infidelity), but let’s not allow that fact to shift our attention from the flaws in American foreign policy. Notice that other Western nations aren’t being terrorized. I can’t blame Arabs for wanting us out of their countries, and I don’t think we should be surprised when a few are radical enough to try to force us out. Since the USA declared war on the South, it has never been one to mind its own business. We now have troops scattered across the globe, and we interfere with politics across the globe, even in places that have no bearing on our defense or the defense of our friends. When the victims of our pseudo-imperialism retaliate, we beg our so-called leaders to tax us even more and exchange our few remaining liberties for additional security and enough bombs to blast those “towelheads” back to the Stone Age. As Benjamin Franklin said: “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Was Flight 93 shot down by a fighter jet? The British and Soviets were defeated there. Will Afghanistan become America’s second Vietnam?

I saw this on one of my newsgroups, and it hits the mark: “We the people of the United States, in order to promote the illusion of security, provide for the preservation of the corporate powers that be in all current nations, and ensure steady progress on the road to totalitarianism, will, in the spirit of anxiety and anger, make numerous meaningless gestures and support all manner of ignorance and stupidity. We will concentrate our efforts to determine upon whom we should exercise our vengeance and never take a moment to learn why someone would undertake the mass slaughter of strangers. We will then, assured that God is on our side, proceed to do the same.”

Gary Bauer, presidential candidate and former head of the Family Research Council, says “it’s time for war.” According to AgapePress, “Bauer says any Muslim who considers the U.S. the enemy should be targeted.” Here we go, folks. I hope you have a saber to rattle so you don’t feel so alone. “This is not a situation where we need to prove in a court of law that somebody is responsible for this,” he says. The rule of law; how antiquated; bomb away, and let’s count the pieces later. No “years of legal wrangling and political games” for Gary Bauer. No sir! This Christian demands “swift, merciless retaliation to bring the Muslim world to its knees.” You know, kind of like how we brought Cuba and Iraq to their knees.

80% of America’s 1100 mosques were built in the last 12 years. If immigration trends continue, and they will, Muslims will outnumber Presbyterians within a decade. Of course, they already do outnumber by far true Presbyterians. 15 of the 19 terrorists made their home in Florida, I’m sad to say. A lot of flags are waving these days. Here’s a copy of Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner. Let’s remember the good old days, and what the flag used to represent.

Secession reconsidered. Look at how a Confederate Constitution might differ from that dead letter left over from the Old Republic.

Pregnancy centers online.

Housekeeping as a means to higher consciousness, and assorted psychobabble. In Austria, husbands are actually forced by law to do half of the domestic chores. This is a change of laws on the books since 1938, when the Nazi view was that women should content themselves with Kinder, Küche, and Kirche (children, kitchen, and church). Needless to say, modern Austrians don’t go for the old traditions. They don’t identify with the Nazis, but they think nothing of using the power of the state to rail against biological differences. What’s the difference? And all in the name of lowering the divorce rate!

The pros and cons of being an earwig. Beer and snakes don’t mix.

Gary North asks: What was the motive for the day now known as 9-11? He gives a view very different from what anyone on TV is saying. He reminds us that what we witnessed was an act of total warfare, war taken to civilians. And where did total warfare originate? With Union General Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, 1864. Bush calls the terrorists “faceless cowards,” but who were we to the citizens of Dresden, Germany, during World War II? For decades we’ve followed the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction with our enemies. Do you think nuclear warheads are aimed only at government buildings? The “good old USA” intends to kill civilians too. A million Iraqi citizens have died since our war against their leader, and the survivors quite simply don’t give a damn about the politics involved or Bush’s stern eyebrows or all of our star-spangled talk about “freedom” and “democracy.” They only want to avenge the deaths of their countrymen and see Americans burn in hell.

As I’ve said, my people have been there. Just this morning I heard historian Douglas Brinkley on The Early Show talking about how Bush and all presidents in their “darkest hours” can learn from Lincoln’s actions, for just across the Potomac he had his own “group of terrorists” (the Confederate army) to deal with. Incredible! So those who defend their homes are now terrorists. Mr. Brinkley must have received his Ph.D. in a happy meal. Or perhaps he’s forgotten that the Confederates could have marched straight into Washington after First Manassas, when they had the Yankees running for their lives. But their war was not a war of conquest; it was simply to repel the enemy from Virginia. Without excusing bin Laden, that’s all the Arabs want: America must leave the Middle East. We have no business there and never have. I’m sure Israel appreciates our defense of their country, and the money that accompanies it, but Israel can defend itself. Have we forgotten the Six Days War in 1967?

The problem with choosing sides is that we never see good versus evil. I hate to strike a dischordant note from the ecumenical hogwash now issuing from the idolatrous National Cathedral in Washington, but Muslims and Jews are all going to hell. They have separated themselves from the ony One who can save them. We have an interest in protecting ourselves or rescuing Christians in Sudan and elsewhere, but not in fomenting hatred and revenge. Pagan Americans concur with Cicero: “Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.” Where else does our love affair with the United Nations lead? (Look at the flag of the UN flying over the University of Missouri!) The UN likes to say that our differences are strictly economic in nature, and all “people of faith” can learn to get along. Yet each group considers the other’s faith to be as useless as the rubble on New York streets, and only one can be correct. Only the people of one religion can love their neighbors, and those are they to whom love has been given. The clash of nations is the clash of religions. But don’t let me detain you with reason; turn on that TV and watch the parade of ignorance. As Larry Norman sang years ago, “You think the only way to bring about the peace is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies.”

Where the Clintons chose to live.

A 15-year study of more than 10,000 students reveals that even Christian students in public and private schools are sliding towards a socialistic and humanistic worldview.

“Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5). The tragic terrorist attacks are being called the defining moment of the decade, if not this generation. The architect who designed the World Trade Center said the buildings couldn’t be toppled by a plane crash (Boeing 707). And of course, nothing could sink the Titanic. All that man creates, all the castles he builds, will turn to dust; September 11 is a metaphor for all human achievement. I choose to ponder that fact and mourn the dead than listen for one second to the nationalists on TV who vow to rid the earth of this “new evil.” The Taliban hates us because we, and especially the UN, have intruded into every country’s politics. We believe we have this right simply because we’re the world’s superpower. It is of course hardly ironic that the CIA created Osama bin Laden by funding his attacks against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Now we propose to unleash our dogs of war – sorry, I mean our “peacekeepers” – to be policemen to the world. The whole thing makes me sick. Now Americans, who for generations ha

ve watched wars waged on other continents while they sat safe on their couches, see what retaliation is like. The bigger the country, the harder it falls. Pat Buchanan pulled in about 1% of the vote last year. Today he wears the mantle of a prophet. Still, the polls show that a huge majority unfortunately agrees with Newt Gingrich, who said: “I don’t want to bring them to justice. I want to defeat them.” Dr. Michael Hill laments the bitter fruits of empire.

Plenty of young Palestinians are now volunteering for suicide bombings. They believe 70 virgins will await each of them in heaven. As Gene Callahan notes, one commentator demanded that we “strike back one hundred times harder.” So if the terrorists have killed 50,000 Americans, we should even the score by killing 5,000,000 foreigners. “You should not doubt this: it is the activities of our own government that have focused the ire of those criminals upon us.” Joseph Sobran is sick of hearing our so-called “leaders” denounce “cowardly attacks” by men who “hate democracy and freedom.” That’s “rubbish,” says Sobran. No one willing to die is a coward, and these terrorists don’t hate democracy and freedom, they hate us. I do not excuse their crimes, but I can’t say that I blame them for how they feel.

Terrorist attacks are nothing new to the South. Was slavery the cause of Lincoln’s War? Not according to that chief terrorist, William T. Sherman. He wrote to his father-in-law that “Slavery is not the Cause but the pretext.” To his wife he wrote: “Down here they think they are going to have fine times. New Orleans a free port, whereby she can import Goods without limit or duties, and Sell to the up River Countries. But Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore will never consent that N. Orleans should be a Free Port, and they Subject to Duties.” Always follow the money; Republicans feared the loss of tax revenue, not the promulgation of slavery, and Northern banks were more than eager to lend money to fight the War. Sherman wrote to David F. Boyd that slavery “is and was no cause for a severance of the old Union, but [I] will go further and say that I believe the practice of slavery in the South is the mildest and best regulated system of slavery in the world now or heretofore.” Read this: The South was Not Responsible for Slavery.

“But the mass of respectable Northerners, though they may be willing to pay, do not very naturally feel themselves called upon to give their blood in a war of aggression, ambition, and conquest; for this war is essentially a war of conquest. If ever a nation did wage such a war, the North is now engaged, with a determination worthy of a more hopeful cause, in endeavouring to conquer the South; but the more I think of all that I have seen in the Confederate States of the devotion of the whole population, the more I feel inclined to say with General Polk, “How can you subjugate such a people as this?” And even supposing that their extermination were a feasible plan, as some Northerners have suggested, I never can believe that in the nineteenth century the civilised world will be condemned to witness the destruction of such a gallant race.” – Arthur J.L. Fremantle, a British officer who observed the Battle of Gettysburg

A new study shows that 95% of sexually-abused boys are molested by homosexuals. But we can’t do anything about it because “reality” TV and prime-time sitcoms just wouldn’t be the same without the queer quota.

Meanwhile, in religionist news, the Methodists have launched a $20 million ad campaign touting not the hope of salvation but the corporation’s diversity, open-mindedness, and tolerance. So that’s where the collection plate money goes.