tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62452802400008989222024-03-13T20:11:25.989-04:00Contra MundumJ. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-30410098587161624762009-10-08T02:05:00.015-04:002009-10-08T02:35:34.705-04:00Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and OblivionLet me begin this essay with the acknowledgment that I have no credentials whatsoever in geo-politics or military planning. I never served in the military nor do I have any experience in anti-terrorism. I am just a plain everyday American who thinks too much and wonders about the future. <br /><br />We are losing the “war” in Afghanistan. That is inevitable. We have lost the “war” in Iraq. That too was inevitable. The only “hot” war we have not lost since 1945 was in Korea where our efforts in repulsing North Korean aggression permitted the South Korean people to develop a free and prosperous society.<br /><br />In Korea, we fought another nation and its allies that sought to defeat and occupy a free state. The threat in Korea was external. In Viet Nam, we fought on behalf of less than popular governments against an indigenous insurgency as well as external forces. In Iraq and Afghanistan we fight on behalf of cobbled together governments in states created out of whole cloth by American, British and French diplomats after WWI against local Muslim extremists intent on toppling these regimes. The only way we can “win” these wars is to behave as conquerors have for time immemorial. Ruthlessly and permanently impose our will on the entire nation. To succeed we must do as was done in The Great Plains, drive out the local peoples and populate the countryside with our own settlers. Make Afghanistan into North Dakota. Since we have no interest at all in permanently colonizing Afghanistan or Iraq we cannot win unless we utterly destroy the insurgency root, branch and leaf. We lack the viciousness necessary for such an undertaking.<br /><br />This is not to say that America lacks the will to destroy an enemy, just ask Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan - or the Comanche’s or Apaches. Americans must sense an existential threat before unleashing the fullness of its violent nature. The North American Indians were herded and eliminated because they either killed and terrorized settlers or just stood in the way of occupation and growth. In WWII America fueled by rage at the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and a real and legitimate fear of that our way of life would be destroyed created and released the most horrific multi-modal killing machine the world has ever known. <br /><br />The current conflicts resemble much more the Plains Indian wars than the global wars of yesterday but with one huge difference. Our “cavalry” in Iraq and Afghanistan are proxies for an element of the peoples within those benighted lands as if the French Foreign Legion had fought the Apaches for white settlers. <br /><br />An indigenous insurgency using guerilla tactics such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban need only avoid total obliteration to defeat a foreign occupying force that is not committed to permanent and merciless rule. In Iraq, our forces won the war when Saddam was toppled. We lost the war when we signed on to protect the nascent and artificial democracy. In six or seven years, we have killed massive numbers of terrorists and Baathists, but we have not killed the critical mass necessary to eradicate the threat. We will not do this because it would require too much bloodshed, combatant and otherwise. Whether we stay another year or six, anti government insurgents will likely still remain, growing stronger among fanatics and those who resent the foreign occupier. When we leave there will be a new war, a civil war in which the most powerful and vicious side will prevail. The winner will then subjugate the land to its will by force. So has it ever been in this part of the world, so will it ever be. <br /><br />The same dynamic is playing out in Afghanistan. In 2001-2003 we killed tens of thousands Taliban and Al Qaeda in that country. We installed a faux democratic government [as we did in Iraq] and began to apply pacification policies that worked in a devastated Western Europe and Japan in the middle of the last century that have not worked anywhere since and will not work in a region mired in the 12th century. The new government lacking any direction not given by American diplomats and generals flopped about like a fish on the shore while the Taliban and Al Qaeda retreated to Pakistan, licked their wounds, regrouped and began to terrorize yet again.<br /><br />Having read and participated in recent history the insurgents know well that the American people tire quickly of shedding their own blood fighting for questionable regimes halfway round the world and doing so in kid gloves. They know we will leave and they will have only to defeat the weak and marginally popular government we leave behind. <br /><br />Experts opine that defeating the Taliban is an absolute must if we are to avoid more and deadlier terrorist attacks on American soil. The American people do not believe this and for good reason. The Taliban live in caves on the other side of the planet. They are no threat to us. An eight-man sleeper cell sponsored by Iran or Egypt or some rich private terrorists has the capability of killing more Americans than all the Taliban in the Afghanistan! The only threat The Taliban poses if they once again rule Afghanistan is permitting and operating training bases for Muslim killers. Our armed forces are reputed to possess satellites that can display the breed of a stray dog scratching himself in a vacant lot. We have weapons that appear out of nowhere to destroy city blocks. We can deliver bombs with drones operated by video game joysticks. Keep one of these eyes on Afghanistan and if a training camp or arms depot appears destroy it from afar. Apply the same policy to Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, Iran or any other potential home to the Mohammedan scourge.<br /><br />I fear that our government from GWB to Obama has used Iraq and Afghanistan to deflect our attention from their refusal or inability to deal adequately with the one rogue state in the Middle East that does pose an existential threat to America. Iran. Iran sponsors more terrorism in a month than comes from Afghanistan in a year. It spreads Muslim malignancy throughout the globe, thumbs it nose at world opinion and actively seeks nuclear weapons it has pledged to use to wipe Israel off the face of the map. While we waste money and blood on primitives in Afghanistan a storm brews over Iran that may literally bring an end to civilization, as we know it.<br /><br />Israel is the most peaceable of all nations. It minds it own business and protects its own borders. It does not involve itself in foreign intrigues. However Israel strikes as quickly and lethally as a cobra when sufficiently threatened. It would do well for today’s world leaders to study the conditions facing Israel on the eve of the Six Day War. Without a homeland for nearly four centuries the Jews will not sit idly by awaiting destruction.<br /><br />Iran will not obtain operational nuclear weapons. It will be deterred either by the spectre of overwhelming force from America and permit the western alliance to dis-mantle its nuclear infrastructure without conflict – or – Israel will dis-mantle it for them in a first strike that will leave Tehran a smoking, radioactive ruin and the world in shock. If Israeli leaders believe other nations might rise to avenge Iran they too will be preemptively destroyed. Once this nuclear Pandora’s Box is opened who can say what nightmare may ensue. Will India take the opportunity to destroy Pakistan? Will China attack India? Will North Korea take vengeance on Japan for centuries of abuse? <br /><br />Some allow that Barack Obama is the antichrist. Of course this is so much hysterical hyperbole. That said if he continues to play games in Afghanistan and seek games for Chicago while Iran slouches toward oblivion, our President may well be present with him at the end of time.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-12360770757547981322009-07-29T00:34:00.006-04:002009-07-29T01:12:24.450-04:00Sycamore TreesI love sycamore trees. I played hours alone as a boy under an ancient old specimen at my grandmother's. I love the leaves, the bark, the size, shape and smell of sycamore trees. I love everything about sycamore trees.<br /><br />Sycamores are a tough lot they suffer badly during a hot dry summer. The older men are usually scarred from loss of limbs to ice and storm. They are very late to come out in spring and each year I anxiously await the many fine old gentlemen that populate my neighborhood to show signs of life. Every year just as I am about to despair some particularly gnarly one he displays his new leaves.<br /><br />If looking for water, a surface stream, a spring or an underground pool look skyward for a sycamore. They love water. Some many years ago, I planted a small sycamore in the corner of my yard that collects runoff into a deep and wide French drain. He prospered in the perennially wet corner. <br /><br />In his sixth year, torrential rains blitzed our town for 36 non-stop, hours. During this deluge, as I looked out into the backyard I watched my little sycamore begin to list. The youngster was being washed out. My young son and I rushed out looped a heavy rope around the trunk and lashed it to the garden gate. His ball had been about 40% exposed and we wondered if it would reset itself and he would live. It did and he did. Several years later during the construction of a brick fence around our yard my now mature friend sustained root shock. Once again, I feared he would not survive. The next spring showing quite a bit of limb loss he nonetheless gave leaf once more.<br /><br />Three years thence, we experienced a horrible ice storm that devastated those branches not destroyed previously by the root shock. This time I knew for sure the old boy was a goner and sure enough that spring I counted only half dozen pathetic leaves on the entire 30-foot tree. The wide canopy of lush limbs he had once proudly shown were either gone or barren. He had finally succumbed. <br /><br />That summer we had a Mexican tree crew out to trim our trees. Were Ruben an educated man one would call him an arborist as it is he is just a man of trees. Trees feed Ruben and his family and he loves them for it. On the strenuous urging of my wife, I reluctantly asked Ruben to take what was now no more than an eyesore down and haul it away. “Senor Hacker” “I think he might be saved, would you like me to try?” “You think so" I hoped. The gentle eyes in the wizened brown face smiled as he answered; “yes I think so”. Ruben owns no bucket truck or fancy ladders he trims trees the old-fashioned way, climbing into and up them on jackboots, with handsaws. He went to work and when he finished what was left was more totem pole than sycamore. The surgery was as radical as radical can get. “Now we wait,” Ruben announced.<br /><br />It’s two years later now and I am looking out at a 30 foot sycamore just covered with life. No suckers here but new little branches full with lush green leaves. My sycamore has suffered virtually everything nature and man can throw at a tree. He has survived flood, trauma, drought and ice. In the most recent crisis, every live twig was cut back to the trunk. He must have hurt tremendously and felt terrifically embarrassed, even ashamed. Even so had Ruben not performed his draconian but gentle cutting my tree would have surely died. <br /><br />The experience of my pal the sycamore reminds me of the painful and humbling ways my Lord grows me and prunes the death from me. As I look at the robust vitality of life on display out my window, I am reminded too that if He chose to spare me the hurt and shame caused by His loving care, I too would die. <br /><br />I love sycamore trees.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-13233885286595858802009-07-01T16:40:00.002-04:002009-07-01T16:47:11.426-04:00A Call To ActionThe United States Constitution belongs neither to the Supreme Court nor any other branch of the federal government but to the states and to the people. The 9th and 1oth amendments to that sacred charter bar the central government from the greater part of its mischief. Yet it continues to abuse and over-reach its privilege. If Washington can enforce on “we the people” a particular type of light bulb nothing then out of its malevolent grasp. The ballot box has proven ineffective in stopping the growth of Leviathan.<br /><br />In 1799, Kentucky and Virginia in resolutions written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison declared the extra-constitutional and tyrannical Alien and Sedition Acts null and void within their respective borders. Thus was established the Doctrine of Nullification. The offending acts were soon repealed. In 1832, South Carolina risked war with Andrew Jackson’s budding empire by interposing the same doctrines with regard to the “Tariff of Abomination” Henry Clay’s “Great Compromise” forestalled for a generation bloody warfare between a sovereign state and its subordinate creation.<br /><br />The current activity and enactions of the federal government are no more legal than those cited above – The Constitution is after all a legal document – and of far greater threat to liberty so dearly won and preserved. Citizens call out for justice and restraint but our words fall on the deaf ears of arrogant despots. Our cries to be effective, must be backed by the promise of bold action. Tyrannies are not easily undone. I call on the governors, legislatures and peoples of the fifty states to rise up in damnation of federal subjugation and follow the lead of their ancient fathers in Kentucky, Virginia and South Carolina. Nullification is legal within the four corners of The Constitution. It has been proven an effective restraint on federal excess. I pray we take this non-violent action now lest the jackboot and/or bloody revolt necessarily follow.<br /><br />In Kentucky we have a saying “talk is cheap it takes money to buy whiskey”. So is it with freedom. There is no better way to celebrate this Independence Day than to stretch up tall and once more pledge our honor and treasure against the price of liberty, for ourselves and our posterity.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-65644493928014330232009-05-14T03:37:00.007-04:002009-05-14T04:34:28.511-04:00The Attributes of A ManThere is much debate and quarreling today concerning the attributes of a “real man”. It is an important question. The future of our culture depends on the answer. I think the plain term "man" is sufficient for this discussion and will use it throughout this essay. Before offering an answer, a more fundamental issue demands attention. How did America arrive at the point where this question needs even be posed?<br /><br />1942 was truly the watershed year in modern American History. Recovering from the December 1941 sucker punch leveled on Pearl Harbor, America mobilized for war. It would never be the same. Conventional liberal wisdom gives FDR’s New Deal credit for ending the Great Depression. Conventional conservative wisdom holds it was the wartime military-industrial buildup. In fact, General Hideki Tojo cured the pernicious economic illness with his audacious attack. Unemployment dropped from 14.6% in 1940 to 1.3% in 1945 as millions of young men left the unemployment lines and entered the armed forces. <br /><br />With most men in uniform America’s women left the kitchen en masse. Trading pastry gun for riveting gun they made the tools their men used to defeat The Axis. Husbands and boyfriends gone to war women learned and proved there was very little masculine work they could not do. Wearing respect and confidence earned in the crucible of wartime deprivation the weaker sex entered the post war era a force of nature non-existent on Thanksgiving Day 1941. Their daughters would remake American culture.<br /><br />The men of “America’s Greatest Generation” began to de-mobilize and re-enter civilian life in 1946. They too were a new race of men. Entering the conflagration as mere teenagers and fuzzy faced young men [the average age of an army colonel in 1944 was 26 years] these “boys” returned home battle hardened grown men having experienced all the horrors Hell has to offer. Reclaiming wives and girlfriends this warrior generation was determined to fill up on that fine wine they fought and bled for. As they drank deeply, they created a grand, booming prosperity.<br /><br />Days of happiness, peace and plenty were virtually unknown to the fathers and mothers of the baby boom. Born mostly in the mid to late 1920’s these men and women endured a childhood in depression scarcity and came of age just in time to go to war. Despite the affluence of wartime full employment, rationing of essentials like sugar, meat, leather and gasoline kept the home front in want another four years. Having endured poverty and travail and survived the Reaper’s great harvest, fresh faced civilian couples of 1946 to 1955 embarked on a relentless campaign to define and achieve the American Dream. The prize was now theirs for the taking and they seized it without remorse. These children of the valley of the shadow of death wanted material wealth and the warm sunshine of peace for themselves and a better future for their issue – in that order. They loved their children but having themselves grown up fast and hard in the worst of times they concentrated on giving them security and opportunity rather than overweening attention. They must have succeeded in this for the youth of the 1960’s enjoyed enough security to take it for granted and enough opportunity to throw it away.<br /><br />The Civil Rights struggle of the late 1950’s and 1960’s destroyed the idea of American innocence. Televised, it brought us face-to-face with the injustice and hatefulness in our midst. A foundational myth shattered a crisis of faith ensued that saw American sons turn on their fathers, the first military defeat in US history, assassination and the resignation of a sitting President. Every standard of society went up for grabs. If the qualified working women of 1941 to 1945 stepped down willingly from the workforce as their men demobilized, their girl children grew up to demand mother’s legacy.The Feminist movement was conceived in the wartime arsenals of democracy. It was born on the college campuses of 1968.<br /><br />Feminism attacks the very structure of society. Using unceasingly the agitprop of gender equality and the deadening effects of time the movement has effectively remade contemporary culture in its own image. As Delilah of old used barber shears to take Samson’s strength while he slept so modern Delilah has talked her paramour drowsy in order to take the gelding shears to him. The very question before the house today is ample testimony to the totality of the feminist victory.<br /><br />Having arrived at last to the question of the hour, to answer it requires we return now from whence we have come. The characteristics of a man can be found in the heritage and DNA of the United States soldiers, sailors, marines and pilots of WWII and the men that from necessity remained stateside and sustained them. A man offers his life in defense of his women and children. He returns from fighting, picks up where he left off and builds a colossus such as the world has never seen. A man does not do his best to make a better life for his family – he does what is required. He brings his paycheck home, and is faithful to his bride; he loves his children and disciplines them according to godly principles. A man strives to model the character of Christ for his charges and leads them in the ways of The Lord. He accepts the burdens and duty of his divine commission to oversee the home. A man knows the value of freedom and doesn’t stifle his youngsters with endless pre-packaged activities. He recognizes life is cold and mean, that his sons and daughters need a hard-eyed father. The junior mother, playmate and buddy are not for him. A man stands fearlessly on his hind legs in service of justice and honor. He is ruthless in opposition to inequity and evil. Though generously fitted with the qualities noted above a man remains but a man and cannot escape his fallen nature. He sins, repents and sins again. A man is aware of his shortcomings and his excesses. He grieves over them and the damage they cause. He is intimate with failure and bears it with grace.<br /><br />Three quarters of a million American graves scattered over the face of the earth testify to the masculinity of those men buried in them. It is impossible for a man not participating in the dreadfulness of war to possess the perfect fullness of manhood. Only a magnificent few born after 1945 have suffered these experiences. Nonetheless, lack of combat is no bar to genuine manhood. If you are my age, you probably grew up under the protection, provision and authority of a man. If you are under 40, you are likely to find a man in the person of your grandfather. Perhaps your father is a man. If so, pay close attention to him and remember him well for his kind is unwelcome in the Metrosexual Century and has been marked for extinction. A man today is inconvenient. He expects respect from his wife and honor from his children grown or at home. A man is too authoritarian, too independent, too frank and too unyielding for today’s estrogen softened milieu. He talks like a man and understands like a man. He will stand up when called and will not back down when threatened. A man today is one born out of time. We will likely not see his equal on American soil again.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-64968096753541804372009-04-11T22:52:00.012-04:002009-04-11T23:58:48.464-04:00Church and Culture<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> 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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";" >I received today an “urgent” appeal to sign a petition demanding the US Senate filibuster an Obama nomination to the federal bench of a certain “anti-Jesus” judge. The judge opposes public prayer using Jesus name, is very much pro abortion and in general is a liberal twit. I will sign a petition opposed to the fellow for being very much pro abortion and in general a liberal twit – but not for being anti-Jesus! Evangelicals in a misguided attempt to be “salt and light” to a decadent culture have gone from preaching to meddling. The moralistic drones of today's Christian Right have proved the secularists correct. We have gone so far over the line in politicizing The Gospel, that charges that Christians wish to impose a theocracy in America have become more right than wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";" >I am grateful to Our Lord that we are not a Christian nation, nor Mohammedan, nor Jewish <span style=""> </span>nor any other theistic political construct. <span style=""> </span>Constantine the first “Christian Emperor” of Rome proclaimed Christianity the official religion of the empire in the 4th century. Once joined to earthly power The Church mutated over the next 1000 years becoming a venal, corrupt and voracious monster that punished unbelief and dissent with death and oppressed its own nearly as harshly. In Ireland state churches have fostered murder and mayhem for centuries. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""> </span>The Puritans of New England sought to establish the “New Jerusalem”, <span style=""> </span>a “holy city set on a hill.” The laws of New England based on the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy including idolatry and blasphemy were ecclesiastical in nature harsh in enforcement. Dissenters mostly Baptists, were persecuted and banished. In response to these abuses Roger Williams established Rhode Island, the first political entity in the new world to secure free expression of one’s faith. James Madison, a devout Presbyterian and arguably the most truly <span style=""> </span>Christian of our founders was militantly opposed to any attempt to establish The Kingdom of God on the western shore of the Atlantic. We should be as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";" >In the second chapter of Revelation Christ chastises the church at Ephesus for abandoning The Gospel in favor of good works. </span><span style=";font-family:";" >“<i style="">I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.”</i> He did not criticize the good works - only that they had eclipsed the purer and more important purposes of His Church.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:";" >Just what are the more important purposes of The Church and its people? Jesus <span style=""> </span>answers this <span style=""> </span>in numerous accounts but three seem to summarize them well. According to John’s gospel [21: 15-18], Jesus asked Peter three times “<i style="">Do you love me</i>”? Peter answered in the affirmative all three times. In reply, on each occasion Jesus said, “<i style="">feed my</i> <i style="">sheep</i>”. In what is known as the Great Commission, Christ calls his disciples to <i style=""><span style=""> </span>"Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation”</i>[<i style=""> </i>Mark 15: 16] and teach them [those who believe] to “<i style="">observe all that I have commanded of you” </i>[Matthew 28: 20]. Where within these texts does one find instructions to either establish “Christian Nations” or compel unbelievers to observe what Christ commands? According to Jesus the pure work of the church is to evangelize and then educate and care for those who accept His offer of salvation. <span style=""> </span>Nowhere does He compel atheists, agnostics or pagans to obey Christian precepts. Atheists don’t believe in God or His Son, why would they follow His rules or respect His axioms? To expect unbelievers to accept and obey Christian principles is as preposterous as expecting Christians to obey Buddha or The Koran! Trying to pressure goats to fly accomplishes nothing save making them angry, so too efforts to coerce heathens to follow a code meant for Jesus’ followers.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:";" >Jesus also made very clear statements about His Kingdom. <span style="font-size:100%;">“</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Jesus answered</span>, "<i style=""><span style=";font-family:";" >My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.</span>"</i> [<i style=""><span style=";font-family:";" >John 18: 36</span></i>]. <span style=";font-family:";" >The biblical task of The Church is not ambiguous. <span style=""> </span>Clearly we are to be about evangelizing, teaching, worshiping and ministering to each other. Clearly we are not to be about establishing His Kingdom on earth or creating and ruling Christian Nations. We are to Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Civil government is Caesar’s by God’s ordinance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";" >Doesn’t Christ call us to be “salt and light”? Of course</span>! <span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >"</span><i style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >You are the salt of the earth . . . <span style=""> </span>"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. [Matthew 5: 13-16]. </span></i><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >We are always to model Our Lord and oppose sin both as individuals and corporately. The analogies found in these texts are of great import in this discussion. Salt is but one of many ingredients in a meal. Without salt the stew is not very tasty. However as we all know, too much salt ruins it. A light does not compel, it illumines. <span style=""> </span>The light forces no one to take the right path it only makes it visible.<span style=""> </span>Christians then are to season the world not embalm it, to show the way not coerce the unwilling to follow it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >For one who has been a staunch “culture warrior” the above realization has come painfully. “I have been wrong” does not form easily on my lips. To acknowledge that even a jot or tittle of truth is found in secularist indictments of The Church swallows hard. However I have been wrong in demanding that pagans abide by Christian mores and they have been right that Evangelicals attempt even unwittingly to establish a North American Christian theocracy. I repent.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >Does this mean I no longer think I should take a position on public political and moral issues? Again, of course not. I am still to be a light amidst the darkness, revealing the truth. I am to meliorate the culture by proclaiming The Gospel and encouraging public policies that uphold the sanctity of life, respect our God given liberties and secure the future for our children. None of these are exclusively Christian yet all reflect His goodness. It is past time pietistic, Evangelicals repent, quit moralizing the culture and <i style="">“do the works it did at first”</i> It may be astonishing what a few decades of fervently trumpeting the grace of God in Christ His Son might effect on our perishing civilization.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >
<br /><span style=""></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" ><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-77036087393288212942009-04-04T03:15:00.024-04:002009-04-07T22:45:01.692-04:00Emergent HeresyI have spent considerable time lately reading about the “Emergent Church”. There is much to read, too much. What one may ask is the Emergent Church? Based on my reading Emergent [it goes by this part of the formal name to distinguish itself from the "Emerging Church"] is a “conversation” about the refusal of the hierarchical evangelical church to meet the demands of postmodern man and what must be done about it. It is the latest effort by the “all about me” community to remake The Gospel in its image. What puzzles me is that so many see this movement as something new and take it so seriously. Emergent is nothing more than the extension and updating of the revolt against form, doctrine, and propositional truth that began in the sixties when Father Tim first took his Martin to Mass.<br /><br />The Emergent conversation begins with the premise that The Age of Reason [modernism] beginning from The Enlightenment of the 18th century, has passed away. Postmodernism has arrived, an age in which there are no absolutes and objective reality does not exist - a sort of updated, intellectualized “Free to be You and Me”. The thoughtful postmodern will not be reached it is said, by arguments from doctrines that order all creation under a singular universal authority.<br /><br />Postmodern thought offers a worldview, actually a non world view claiming that every pretense to reality is culturally informed and one culture's perspective is no more or less valid than another's - though it may be antithetical! It is an anti-philosophy that precludes knowledge at all. Emergent proposes to adapt Christianity to these ideas. I am at a loss how one one might merge ultimate truth with nonsense and produce anything but rubbish.<br /><br />Young postmoderns the Emergents insist, will not respond to the “exclusive” “arrogant” and “intolerant” message of the traditional church. If it is to survive the 21st century, Christianity must be stripped of its hard-edged dogmatism and rigid, confessions. God's precepts must give way to “poetry” “community” “affections” and “mystery”. In other words, The Church must surrender truth and embrace emotion if it is to be palatable to these young Hegelians. The message is clear. Unless the gospel is post-modernized an entire generation will be lost and perhaps The Church as well.<br /><br />Save that this movement has a smokey smell and will surely lead many astray it would be unworthy of thoughtful consideration. It is derivative, vapid, self- indulgent and intellectually dishonest. The Emergent Church proposes its own anti meta-narrative to answer the questions of a world rejecting all meta-narratives. It offers its own non dogma to a society that denies all dogma. The Emergent conversation prescribes incoherence to a culture dying of incoherence. It would replace an ancient edifice built up in service over centuries on the blood of martyrs and standing on the "shoulders of giants" with an amorphous accretion of free form ,leaderless "faith communities" and house churches, un-guided by un-thinking fresh faced, neo hippies.<br /><br />The visible church is not infallible, nor is it always warm, loving, accepting or authentic. She is made up of hypocrites, idolaters, drunks, adulterers and every other type of malefactor one can name. St. Augustine is quoted as saying of The Church “she’s a whore but she’s my mother”. She has persevered through a never ceasing progression of persecutions, heresies, corruptions, inquisitions and scandals. She has survived Rome, Marx, Nietzsche and unbelief. Until abandoned by Her betrothed, She is the face of Jesus' Bride.<br /><br />The Church is slow to learn and slow to turn. She is by nature and necessity a conservative establishment. She must also be organized and functional. The apostle Paul set forth the hierarchy and qualifications for leadership and church discipline in his letters to the New Testament churches. The Church is called to do all things properly and in good order and to hand down the gospel and tenets of the faith to its children. This task requires structure and continuity. Emergents pillory the late 20th century churches for failing in just that mission. I suggest that failure to the extent it is failure is the result not of the constitution of those churches but of abandoning truth reverence and tradition in fearful pandering to whining and demanding children. Emergent offers more of the same poison as cure for the first.<br /><br />Jesus said,"<span style="font-style: italic;">I am the truth”</span>. How do these new age spiritualists plan to season that clear assertion of universal and exclusive truth to the tastes of multiculturists? He also proclaimed Himself <span style="font-style: italic;">The Son of God</span> and that only through Him may one be reconciled to His father. To all who believe on Him He offers eternal life. To those who don’t He promises Hell. How does Brian McLaren or Rob Bell soften these “hard edged” absolutes?<br /><br />The entire New Testament teaches the exclusivity of Christianity. Can Christo-Buddhism be true? What about Christian-Satanism? I read recently a progressive believer declare that a Muslim-Christian may acknowledge both Jesus as Savior and Allah as God. Would Allah then be Jesus' father? How can this be? Allah’s word expressed in the Koran denies the deity of Christ. Accommodation with other “equally valid” faiths demands just this sort of syncretism on a massive scale. Be it syncretism or 21st century gnostic mysticism, The Emergent Church preaches something but not the revealed Word of God.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”.[Hebrews 4:12] -<br />“So shall My Word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it”. </span>[Isaiah 55:11]<br /><br />So the Bible says and it still is news. The common thread in all the movements or conversations to make Christianity more "relevant" is the disregard for the timelessness and power of God’s Word and the sweetness of The Gospel. The Apostles preached, “Christ and Him crucified” to a cultural milieu thoroughly Jewish and pagan. With fearless audacity, they proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection. They built Christ's Church in a militantly, antagonistic environment. The Great Commission commands “spread The Gospel to all nations”. For nearly two thousand years, this message in its pure and unadulterated form has proven relevant enough to win the hearts of Kings and Emperors, sustain The Church and add millions of vastly diverse citizens to The Kingdom of God.<br /><br />The wise of this world proclaimed God dead, Jesus a fraud and The Church an anachronism - in the 1960's. Oddly since then, Jesus has continued to call His sheep, they have continued to recognize His voice, come to Him and be added to His Church. S0 it was in the 1st century, so it is in the 21st, so shall it be until He returns.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-33044745729457878402009-02-03T04:25:00.004-05:002009-02-03T04:57:14.989-05:00From The Pen of AbaddonDo Tom Daschle and other Democrat pols not have tax accountants?<br /><br />If the government actually did something that created real money and if it maintained a massive excess stockpile of the stuff - then - federal spending would be stimulating to the economy. As it is our benefactors in DC first take it from us schmoos losing 10%-20% per cent in the process, move it around through the bureaus burning a few more percent and then returning it to some other schmoo at 50 cents on the dollar. I guess they would call this "addition by subtraction."<br /><br />The next time you consider trusting your well-being to Washington be sure and remember that your house is cooler in winter, warmer in summer and your lights dimmer all around in order to protect you from a "Global Warming" threat that has seen the earth's temperature plummet almost a degree and a half since 1998.<br /><br />Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet. Why would you believe anything else he says?<br /><br />If you think the $20 billion in bonuses Wall Street bankers gave themselves last year was grand, imagine what Uncle Hank got for making it possible.<br /><br />Banks too big to fail, politicians too important to pay taxes and a nation full of plump little schmoos ripe for the harvest. Are we almost there yet daddy?J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-55719941953672601722009-02-03T03:42:00.002-05:002009-02-03T04:18:47.074-05:00Hacker's First Law of Roundball<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> 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mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"High Tower Text","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:"High Tower Text"; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:"High Tower Text"; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" > All Wildcat fans fancy themselves experts on the game of basketball. I am no exception. That said 50 years playing the game and of listening, watching live and watching on TV the winningest team in history does I think, qualify one at least an educated ,amateur expert. Some things about this team are so obvious they are overlooked. In other areas the stats tell an interesting story.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >
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<br />Kentucky’s problems this year are not – despite CBG’s assertions - toughness or defensive rebounding. Nor is want of talent the issue. The turnover problem, while troublesome is merely symptomatic of the coaching style employed by coach G. That we lack talent when possessing a lottery pick center and a guard who makes 44% of his threes and is the fourth leading scorer in America is akin to bemoaning that one’s ten-thousand square foot home has only eight bedrooms.
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<br />First the obvious, basketball teams make turnovers for three primary reasons, timidity with the ball, inability to make jump-shots [which increases timidity] and lack of unit cohesiveness.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >With the exception of Jodie Meeks and Pat Patterson, no Wildcat player appears offensively aggressive or seems comfortable with the basketball. In the case of Darius Miller, it is painful to watch him start and stop, start and stop and then pass up an open jumper for a bad pass.
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >With three of the five players on the floor routinely passing up open shots early and midway through the shot clock opponents are able to surround Patterson and face guard Meeks. As the clock approaches zero, passes [and individual offensive efforts] become panicked and forced, resulting in miscues. The plain reason UK commits so many errors is so obvious it goes without scrutiny. Efficient, crisp, offense requires cohesiveness and hopefully a bit of chemistry, cohesiveness alone though is sufficient to limit turnovers to a manageable number. Gillispie’s purposely-erratic substitutions, two minute playing stints and practice of “disappearing” players for games at a time categorically precludes any sort of unit cohesion and obliterates the chance of team chemistry. The ‘system” breeds uncertainty, indecision and constant “bench checking” by players on the court. These are qualities that demand large numbers of mistakes.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >Too many turnovers is an easy target for blame in losses. However, turnovers are only one factor – and not the greatest – limiting this team to mediocrity. For a long time I have instinctively suspected that [despite coaches’ reflexive denials] the 3pt shot is the most important element in the game. I posit the secret to winning college basketball games is “make the 3 – stop the 3”. The value of a good big man is as a rebounder and inside scoring threat requiring “double downs” to open up the perimeter. Even PPat is not strong enough [too little time for enough 2’s] to carry the team without outside help. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" >After the S. Carolina game, I did a little statistical analysis of the season so far. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" > Kentucky has only one player making at least one 3pt field goal per game. By contrast, every team in the current top five has at least three and two have four players.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" > In the sixteen wins, this year UK makes on average seven 3pt shots in 16 attempts while opponents go six for 19. <span style="color:white;">In its six losses, Kentucky has averaged only four 3pt goals in 17 tries. Winning opponents are making nearly 10 in 22. When losing the Wildcats give up four more 3’s on three more attempts than when winning. In losing <span style=""> </span>vs winning efforts UK is making three less per game on the same number of shots. For the season Kentucky commits an average 18 turnovers a game, 21 in the losses. Only in the S. Carolina game was rebounding [offensive or defensive] a statistical factor. In fact UK out-rebounded all six opponents. </span></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" >Summarizing, in the six losing games the ‘Cats have scored on average three less 3pt goals, and given up four more per game than when winning, an astonishing negative 21 point per game turnaround. Clearly this stat explains the difference in winning and losing for UK this year. Soon I will undertake a more exhaustive analysis of this phenomenon including the perennial top teams. If this investigation supports my premise as well as the current data does the “make the 3 – stop the 3” hypothesis must soon become Hacker’s First Law of Roundball.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" >If I am correct, employing a stubborn coach who values “length”, athleticism and head games over unit cohesiveness and making and defending the three does not bode well for UK, which may well be bearing down on its fifth straight 10 loss season.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:white;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-45033257929695325232009-01-24T15:32:00.004-05:002009-01-24T15:57:08.885-05:001860 and 2009: The First Shot<div style="text-align: left;">Less than four days into his presidency and one day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v Wade Barack Obama overturned an executive order that has barred US dollars from funding abortion overseas for twenty of the last twent-eight years. This could be the action [see 1860 and 2009 posted 1.16.09] that initiates a struggle for the soul of the nation.<br /></div>J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-45671554931847427662009-01-18T13:32:00.005-05:002009-01-18T13:59:27.116-05:00From The Pen of AbbadonThe ga-ga press has imbued Barack Obama with the combined attributes and vision of Abe Lincoln and FDR. Heaven help us if they are right!J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-60519413435896161842009-01-16T14:56:00.008-05:002009-01-16T15:27:59.872-05:001860 and 2009<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CJoe%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> 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<br />The most serious and divisive moral issue since black slavery tore the Republic apart in the mid nineteenth century is that of abortion. We are divided almost equally among those who oppose it and those who do not. The lines are drawn clearly. Abortion on demand has been the salient issue for feminist groups since the sixties and is a galvanizing theme among the liberals who control the Democratic Party. Opposing these are Christians who have steadfastly opposed abortion since long before it was legalized in 1962 by the dubious Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade. To them abortion is no less than the killing of innocents, a direct and monstrous violation of the Sixth Commandment prohibition of murder.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""> </span>
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >It was once argued that abortion is not infanticide because a fetus is not a person until it is born. Science and medicine have since shown irrefutably that a fetus from its earliest stages is an unborn human being. Only the most partisan abortionists deny this today. As intolerable as is slavery, it involves only the enslavement of a person, abortion on the other hand is the destruction of a person. If eradicating the former lesser offense justified the death of 500,000 Americans, how much more the latter? Our country may be on the precipice of having to answer that ominous question.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >For the first time since Lyndon Johnson was President 40 years ago, Democrats have overwhelming control of both houses of Congress and the White House. During Johnson’s term, many of the Democrat legislators were southerners and most of these conservative. Today the left wing of the liberal wing of the party exerts hegemony. The Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader and both President-Elect Barack Obama and Vice President-Elect Joe Biden are long time supporters of abortion on demand.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >The abortionist lobby, in anticipation of a friendly reception from the new regime has submitted a fifty page, pro-abortion program involving more than a billion dollars in public funds. Among the recommendations are $65 billion for UNFPA a United Nations family planning group that promotes abortion in the third world. $700million for grants to pro-abortion clinics and organizations such as Planned Parenthood andthe repeal of the <i style="">Hyde</i> <i style="">Amendment</i> that limits Medicaid from funding abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. Obama has been a vocal opponent of <i style="">Hyde</i> and can be expected to support its repeal. In addition, the proposal asks the new President to sign an executive order repealing the <i style="">Mexico City Policy</i> that prohibits non-governmental-organizations like the UN from using US funds to finance abortion overseas. The most odious of the demands is that funding for abortion become a part of the mandatory national health insurance scheme supported by the left. President Obama is drifting right on the environment and the economy. He must give the left something of significance or risk losing his base; that thing is likely to be abortion on demand with all its attendant sorrows.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p>
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Heretofore what little use of public money for abortion has been hidden, quiet, and abroad. Abortion opponents have chosen to turn a blind eye toward it. If the above proposals become law, they - particularly Christians - will not be able to ignore it. Believers will be put to the ancient test. How will they respond when the power of government demands they pay for an activity that so grossly offends their true Sovereign? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Christians are by faith and habit quiet people. Not only are they about peacefully worshiping their Lord and raising families; they are commanded to obey their government - or civil magistrate - as an instrument of God for policing society. There are only two exceptions to this mandate, when the magistrate forbids something The Lord requires and when the magistrate commands something The Lord forbids. The question before The Church is to be; in using one's tax money to fund the killing of innocents, does the magistrate command the believer to participate in what The Lord forbids?. For the only time in our nation’s history, individual believers will have to decide whether to obey Caesar or God. The consequences of that decision are grave for the Christian, The Church and the nation.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-84201421108246323112008-12-15T21:34:00.008-05:002009-04-07T21:46:37.510-04:00Liberals Hate Poor PeopleA very liberal acquaintance of mine remarked recently that Wal-Mart is the most “destructive” entity in the world because its business plan focuses heavily on reducing costs! This is only slightly less shocking than progressive New York Daily News columnist Neil Steinberg’s description of the company as “an enormous fascist beast”. Wal-Mart’s emphasis on cost control and low prices runs afoul of a number of liberal shibboleths such as buying manufactured items from nations having wage scales below some arbitrarily derived minimum, selling “too cheap” and operating in sprawling “big boxes” that crowd out local mom and pop stores. That Wal-mart furnishes its customers serviceable to excellent products at deep discounts and that items it obtains from third world regions provide otherwise non-existent jobs is willfully ignored.<br /><br />One trip to a Wal-mart in say Hattiesburg, Mississippi quickly reveals that it is the least economically endowed who shop there. The cars of the working poor and the elderly fill the Wal-mart parking lot. With many prescription drugs at $4 for a month’s supply and cut-rate groceries, clothes and other necessities of life, the company brings American prosperity to the least of us. It is no stretch to assert that Wal-mart does more for poor people in this country than all the liberal welfare programs adopted since the New Deal - and without damning consequences. Overseas Wal-mart suppliers provide countless men and women with jobs at a wage they stand on line to accept.<br /><br />In public education, progressive teachers unions foster a culture of inferiority where excellence is suspect and mediocrity rewarded. These same unions promote bloated, out of touch school administrations that siphon off much needed funds from the classroom. Deweyite educators push multicultural and new age curriculums in place of basic and foundational studies. Our schools no longer teach grammar, civics, a truthful history of our nation and other subjects necessary in preparation for life in a 21st Century world. It is the children of the impoverished of course who are condemned to these factories of failure.<br /><br />Free exchange of goods and services is among the most dignified and moral acts in creation. Dignified because each man gets what he wants from the bargain and moral for the transaction is totally without compulsion. Free enterprise with its handmaiden, privately owned property is the ultimate wealth and prosperity engine yet created by the society of men. The excess profit of trade has furnished every improvement in man’s environment and life since the dawn of time. Liberals despise private property, trade and profit.<br /><br />Unfettered, free enterprise will ever produce more and better goods and services at lower prices. The production of this merchandise and benefits create the jobs by which the meanest among us may improve their lot. The lower prices guaranteed by competition put more and more quality products in their homes. Social reformers seek heavily sanctioned state control of both trade and production with favored products and services subsidized and others regulated away. Each time the heavy thumb of government falls on the scales of the marketplace, more poor people are put of work and denied the advantages they need and desire. Progressives seem to abhor general prosperity.<br /><br />Extreme environmentalism harms struggling people by artificially raising gasoline and other energy prices. Excessive regulation and taxation restrict profits thus impairing job creation, again disproportionately affecting families at the bottom of the ladder. Farm subsidies push up food prices making it more difficult for the humble to eat properly.<br /><br />From demonization of large discount stores to ineffective state schools. From family devastating welfare programs to excessive regulation and taxation I can think of no progressive policy that has produced anything but a negative impact on the less well off. The left claims a deep affection and compassion for poor people. Measured by the effect of its actions, liberals hate poor people.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-56399685927318124182008-12-12T22:15:00.002-05:002008-12-12T22:22:03.329-05:00The Little Moron Blunders AgainFor those of who continue to mistake George W. Bush for a conservative, please consider his response to the Big Three Bailout. Ignoring his own party’s principled opposition to requiring autoworkers in Kentucky making $49/hr to share their checks with union cousins in Detroit making $79/hr. The Little Moron of Pennsylvania Avenue has elected once again to add another liberal merit badge to his Weasel Scout sash. He has instructed Uncle Hank to dip into to his rapidly diminishing slush fund for a few billion for Detroit. In doing so he continues in Poppy’s tradition of state sponsored corporatism.<br /><br />Having given banks billions not to loan, credit card companies billions to cover losses on cards mailed out like spam and giant insurance companies billions to cover bad bets, it is now the UAW that gets Uncle’s largesse. I have heretofore considered those calling to impeach Bush to be cranks. That notwithstanding by continuing to steal from the average and give to the rich he is getting in my opinion, perilously close to “high crimes and misdemeanors”. The President’s action, which is opposed by more than 60% of U.S. citizens is if not unconstitutional certainly repugnant. He is to be reviled. It is hoped someone will go into the federal courts seeking to stop this knavery.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-48586388671359766632008-12-05T23:49:00.007-05:002009-04-07T12:23:15.989-04:00Tyranny RantThe Federal government and the big banks have generated an economic collapse such that 10% of all American homeowners are at least 30 days delinquent on their mortgages. The same tribe of Wall Street vipers and bureaucrats who created the debacle have been given over a trillion dollars of public money to fix it. $350billion has been used to cover the large banks speculative losses and restore liquidity in the marketplace. Credit windows are nailed down and covered by plywood. 530,000 people lost their jobs last month as a recession hidden by the government for nearly a year threatens to become a depression. Your national government has bailed out credit card companies that mass mailed cards like sale flyers. Now cometh the carmakers and the UAW demanding the USA force autoworkers in Kentucky making $70,000 a year share their pay with their unionized cousins in Detroit who make twice that. Congress will after a pro-forma posturing cave in.<br /><br />America has enough coal to heat and power our country for 200 years. Burning it produces carbon dioxide, which makes the trees green. In homage to a known fallacy and enviro-nazis, our leaders intend to as the new Vice President put it, “bankrupt the coal companies”. While gasoline was $4 Congress wouldn’t permit drilling off our shores and in frozen wastelands. God only knows what they have planned now that gas is below $2. Our same keepers began paying people to turn corn into a fuel that produces more carbon than coal and caused a shortage of corn for food. Democrats who now run the federal circus want to let the UN tell us how warm we can keep our houses. The new President and Congress want to take over our health care and turn it into the type that drives Canadians across the border to use our current system. If you earn more than $50,000 a year Washington grabs half of it. For 6 months a year each working man is a slave. Federal bureaucrats mandate toilets that won’t flush and light bulbs that poison you if you break them. The President elect can't find his birth certificate. By order of Uncle Sam doctors go to jail for alleviating pain and fathers for spanking their sons.<br /><br />The government makes murdering terrorists’ distinguished professors and distinguished teachers unemployed. Grandmothers are rudely searched while young Arab men walk right on to airliners. Shutting down talk radio is constitutional but listening in on terrorist phone calls is not. You may murder an unborn baby without fear but be prosecuted for cutting a tree that might be occupied by a rat. I could go on but I am just too tired.<br /><br />Thomas Jefferson allowed,<em> “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”. </em>The tyrants are plentiful, where are the patriots. I am 58 years old and have the better part of life behind me. If things continue to run as they are now I may soon declare myself with Jefferson’s fellow Virginian Patrick Henry.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-15185877246068888302008-12-04T23:24:00.002-05:002008-12-04T23:26:42.867-05:00Republicans BewareCONSERVATIVE - one who favors building on learned experience rather than untried innovation; in a political context- favoring free enterprise, individual and private property rights and traditional mores.<br /><br />Lately some traditionally conservative journals such as National Review have become less conservative and more Republican. This bodes ill for both constituencies. Kathleen Parker writes recently that social conservatives, particularly Christians are “what ails” the GOP. Others suggest that the party must be more open to pro-abortion candidates and soften its stance on social issues like gay marriage and the 2nd Amendment. They cite statistics that gun owners and white married couples are shrinking as a demographic and Republicans must court the moderates and independents that are put off by the overtly religious.<br /><br />I have included the definition above to remind the reader that “Republican” is not part of the definition of conservative. “One who favors…traditional” mores however is. The GOP would be well advised to remember this distinction. In 1966 when Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California, the Republican Party was calcified and dying. It stood for nothing and virtually no one stood for it. Reagan like NR founder William F. Buckley was a movement conservative more concerned with first principles than pragmatic attempts at power. Republicans occupied the White House all but four years from 1968 to 1992. By 1988 to be Republican was to be conservative. George Bush [The Elder] however abandoned Reagan’s legacy for the moderate center over the next four years and facilitated the election of Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992. Returning to principles in1994 Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America led a GOP sweep of both houses of Congress. Sending Sen. Robert Dole, another Republican moderate to the post in 1996 assured Clinton’s re-election.<br /><br />By 2000, Republicans had repented and nominated the proven conservative Governor of Texas, George W. Bush and won a hard fought campaign to retake the oval office. Solid Republican majorities were maintained as well in Congress through 2006. Bush 43 held on in 2004 defeating Sen. John Kerry. By then however GWB had become compassionate. GOP members of Congress who had been reading the Washington Post for nearly ten years, opened wide the tent and became Democrat Lite. In 2006, they were rightfully swept out. In November last the most liberal member of the U.S. Congress, Barack Hussein Obama was elected President along with 58 Democratic Senators leaving Ronaldus Magnus’ glorious revolution little more than a memory.<br /><br />The Reagan Coalition that dominated American politics for over 20 years included all those persons described in the definition above, many were Democrats, all full conservatives. A plain reading of this shorthand political history reveals clearly that the Republican Party came to power on the broad shoulders of conservatives and kept that power as long as it remained true to conservatism. Each time Beltway pundits chattered the party leftward [see Rope-A-Dope On the Left; Contra Mundum 5.21.08] electoral losses followed.<br />In 1992 and 1996 the Republican nominee for President ran as a moderate. Being neither hot nor cold; fish nor fowl, the electorate gagged on Bush 41 and Bob Dole respectfully. Social – conservatives remained loyal. By 2006 it was obvious Republicans for the most part had abandoned conservative axioms and they were turned out. John McCain, ‘The Maverick” that would save the day by attracting independents found his margin of defeat last month equal to the number of independents Bush The Younger got in 2004 that he didn’t.<br /><br />Republican leaders need understand that many conservatives in the aftermath of the November slaughter are beginning to believe that the party no longer serves our interests. A few party leaders must be getting the message; radio hosts that have gone fool for the party are busy lately reminding conservative listeners they have no place else to call home. Of course, third parties are very problematic. Political organizations though do outlive their usefulness. Whigs are conspicuously absent from ballots recently. Without gun owners, evangelicals and other religious stalwarts more Republican defeats will certainly come followed inevitably by defects of fiscal and national security conservatives. Overtime The Reagan Coalition will reorganize under another banner and the GOP will pass from the scene forever. Let those Republican leaders with eyes to see, see and ears to hear, hear. Drive Christians and other So-Cons out at your own peril.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-55819551271896860202008-12-03T09:32:00.025-05:002008-12-03T15:38:05.544-05:00Lincoln's WarHe suspended the civil rights of his own country, took over 13,000 political prisoners, including mayors, legislators, ministers and newspapermen. He invaded his neighbor lay waste to her lands, killed over 250,000 of her people and caused the remainder to be subjugated to his own political will. Who was this man?<br /><br />The short resume above belongs to President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is given almost godlike reverence on two counts, resulting from the northern victory in The War Between The States; emancipating the slaves and preserving the Union of 34 states. That he accomplished these with no authority save more and bigger cannon has been ignored if not denied by ancient and modern historians alike. In the brief essay that follows, I hope to gauge Lincoln and the conflict against the philosophical underpinnings of the Union he strove to save not merely the immediate results of the conflict of 1861-1865.<br /><br />The <em>casus belli</em> of The War Between the States remain as debatable today as they were in 1861. The writer is inadequate to the task of unraveling that Gordian knot. The actions of the 16th President of The United States on the other hand are visible to anyone with eyes to see. President Lincoln unleashed horrible destruction and loss on the southern people not to mention the 300,000 Union soldiers who lost their lives. More Americans died in Lincoln’s War than in all other U.S. conflicts combined. The above notwithstanding, I do not suggest that Lincoln was motivated by anything other than what he thought to be right under the circumstances. I believe Lincoln was met with such intractable problems and powerful external forces that he wearied under the pressure and chose to try to accomplish quickly by force of arms what might have been achieved only through years of painstaking diplomacy.<br /><br />The America of the 1860’s was very unlike our nation today. Neither the interstate highway system nor the automobiles to travel it existed to tie us together. People and commerce travelled by horseback, steamship and loosely connected railroads. The Republic was divided north and south, geographically, industrially, monetarily and spiritually. The northern states were fast becoming an industrial giant. In just more than a half century it would become manufacturer to the world. The wealth of the nation passed through the banks, trading houses and ports of New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Much of the population north of the Mason-Dixon was urban. On the other hand the American south in the middle of the 19th century, was overwhelmingly rural and dependent on growing and selling tobacco and cotton. More than 90% of the world’s cotton came from the states of the Confederacy. Southern cotton was shipped on northern ships, sold through northern commercial houses and the profit deposited in northern banks. Virtually all southern manufactured goods from farm equipment to weapons to clothing were imported either from abroad or from the north. Industrial tariffs on these importations produced 70% of federal tax receipts in 1860. The high exactions drastically reduced the value of southern crops. Lest we ignore the obvious, the far greater part of plantation labor was performed by black African slaves while radical abolitionists dominated the newly minted and powerful Republican party. In the south, paranoia began to run deep.<br /><br />When South Carolina and then the other slave states seceded and formed The Confederate States of America a whole host of problems arose for the northern states and the federal government. Without southern tariff receipts federal coffers would soon run empty requiring increased taxes on northern merchants and manufacturers. Additionally, the Confederacy offered foreign nations tax free ports at Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans presenting a mortal threat to the protectionist northern sea trade. In fact, an independent southern nation had the potential to bankrupt the north. These conditions met the 16th President at his inauguration.<br /><br />It is clear that in defense of the wealth, property and well-being of the northern states and their people, Lincoln could not permit the Confederacy [without mutual agreements on trade etc] to remain as an independent country. Yet the President had the same obligation to protect the people and property of the south, at least as long as they were states. Truly no President before or since has faced such an imponderable dilemma. Half of the nation that elected him President no longer believed it bound to the Union and had set up a nation that threatened the well being of the other half. Lincoln was left hanging between heaven and hell. He had really only three options; accept the Confederacy as a legitimate, sovereign nation and begin the long and arduous task of negotiating the salient issues toward a peaceful resolution and perhaps reunification, declare war on the C.S.A. or claim the southern states in “revolt” and use the United States Army to subdue the “rebellion”. Under severe pressure for a quick solution from northern commerce and with abolitionists railing at him to take the opportunity to free the slaves, Lincoln seemed never to have considered diplomacy. In his first inaugural he put his marker down asserting: <em>“ in your hands my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen and not mine is the momentous issue of civil war…You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."</em> In a brilliant piece of political legerdemain, Lincoln established a self-serving and false rhetorical basis for the conflict that obtains even today.<br /><br />No threat was uttered nor intent given by the seceding states toward an overthrow of the government of the United States. Civil war [a legal term] by necessity of definition requires such a struggle thus no civil war was imminent and in fact, none occurred. Further Lincoln’s oath was to “preserve, protect and defend “, not the sitting government but the Constitution. Nothing in The Constitution compelled any state to remain a part of the U.S. We shall see further on what oath the south staked its claim. On April 13, 1861 goaded by Lincoln's ordering gunboats toward Charleston, intemperate South Carolinians fired on Ft. Sumter. In late July 1861, Lincoln invaded Virginia.<br /><br />The ethical and moral foundations of the United States are expressed in the <strong><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Declaration of</em></span></strong> <em><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Independence of 1776</strong></span></em>. In that year, the 13 American colonies of King George III of England declared:<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.<br />We hold these truths to be self-evident:<br />That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.<br /></span></em><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em><br />If these truths are not eternal and invioable the United States is and forever will be a rogue nation founded by brigands and traitors with no moral or ethical grounds for its being and no basis for its laws and customs save force. Below is an excerpt from <em><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">The Declaration of Independence of the Confederate States of America.<br /></span></strong></em><em><strong><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></strong></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.<br /></span></em><br />Lincoln’s arguments, to the contrary the Confederacy held exactly the same writ asserted by the colonies against Britain some four-score years past. In ignoring the legitimacy of the Confederate States and using armed force to keep them under United States rule, Lincoln denied the foundational principles of his own country. Like George III before him, Lincoln became a tyrant.<br /><br />In judging Abraham Lincoln, one may not retreat behind events occurring after the War Between the States. It also cannot be assumed the he was prescient in knowing a re-united America would become a great power and force for good in the world just as we cannot assume that had he let the Confederacy go reconciliation would not have taken place peaceably or that both nations may not have been great. Neither can we contend that the slaves would not in time, have been emancipated. President Lincoln, like all men must be judged according to his times, by the knowledge and wisdom available to him. Lincoln was dealt a terrible hand. He felt an immense pragmatic and mystical burden to maintain the union – whatever the cost. Lincoln’s policies in response to that burden were by the immutable axioms of our own beginning, illegal, immoral and unethical. His actions were those of a despot and resulted in a spiritual, physical, societal and cultural devastation of the nation that is not healed 140 years hence. That the Union Abraham Lincoln salvaged became the American Colossus may be accounted to his favor. That slavery was abolished at that precise time and in the manner it was, is more problematic. I hope to address that issue as well as other significant historical consequences of The War Between The States in future posts.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-21632546963566139152008-11-24T10:29:00.010-05:002008-11-24T10:49:38.831-05:00Out of the Asylum<div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><strong>Legislator</strong></em> <em>n - A person who goes to the capital of his country to increase his own</em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em></em></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Ambrose Bierce</em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>"The Devils Dictionary"</em></span></div><br />Does anyone remember a time when the Commonwealth of Kentucky was not crying for more funds? Good times and bad, state government offers the tin cup to its citizens. Always the threat is that education, roads, police and parks will have to do without. Always the same solution is asserted, higher taxes. The more things change the more they stay the same.<br /><br />Enter Governor Steve Beshear, calling for an emergency session of the legislature to deal with a $450-million budgeted shortfall. Beshear declares taxes must increase or schools, roads and public safety will vanish. Rubbish! Budgets can be reduced. The nation is in deep recession, perhaps heading for depression. The states are only the nation in miniature. Each has its own economy determined at least partially by actions they may control. For instance, Michigan, a high tax, heavily regulated, closed shop is in actual depression now while low tax, right-to-work states like Tennessee and South Carolina are performing well, even in these troublesome times.<br /><br />Raising taxes into a depressed economy is the equivalent in golf of hitting your first shot into the lake with a 7-iron, using the same club for your third and fifth shot and then selecting it for your seventh. Experience has proven a 7-iron is not the right choice and will result only in further penalty. Likewise, history plainly shows that raising tax rates decreases rather than increases receipts and produces an additional penalty in statewide job and income loss. That being the technical reason for not pushing exactions higher, the moral one is of even greater clarity. For a bloated bureaucracy to impose additional financial burden on its populous when the latter is already in financial extremis is the utmost in public knavery. A government must exist for its people, not the other way around.<br /><br />Clearly, the Commonwealth must adjust its budget downward cutting those services less important to its populace rather than those most dear. If Beshear really seeks to promote growth in public receipts as well as improving the lot of his constituents, he will propose eliminating the state income tax and intangible property tax along with opening the shop floor. Investment and jobs will then flow into Kentucky and as surely as night follows day, those projects lost to tightening today will be redeemed tomorrow, with more besides. If not, Senate President David Williams must steadfastly stand in the gap against even higher taxes. It is said that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is the practice of the insane. It is time Kentucky government stood up and walked out of the asylum.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-35619563320499526712008-11-22T21:22:00.001-05:002008-11-22T21:25:55.919-05:00From The Pen of Abaddon“I have never seen a Kentuckian without a gun, a pack of cards and a bottle of whiskey”<br /><em>General Andrew Jackson</em><br /><br />The Reaper comes quickly<br /><em>Anon.</em><br /><br />“The politician is the lowest form of life on earth. The Democrat is the lowest politician”<br /><em>General George S. Patton</em>J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-56729868591240295082008-11-21T10:43:00.003-05:002008-11-21T10:47:55.184-05:00From The Pen of AbaddonAccuse - to affirm another's guilt or unworth; most often as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.<br /><br /><div align="right">Ambrose Bierce</div><div align="right"><em>THE DEVILS DICTIONARY</em></div>J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-34389614512890981672008-11-20T21:40:00.005-05:002008-12-04T00:00:17.863-05:00Back Up and Look Around vol 1It is very awkward to decry giving tax money to those making so little they pay no tax while at the same time feverishly doling it out to those so rich they can avoid paying any at all.<br /><br />Were George W. Bush not leaving office in less than 90 days the disgracefully dishonest bill of goods he and Uncle Hank sold the nation would warrant sure impeachment.<br /><br />An officer at a large regional bank granted over $3billion from TARP laughed derisivly when it was suggested the bank would now be opening the credit windows. "That money wasn't given to loan - it was given so we could buy other banks"<br /><br />The stock market is off nearly 1500 points since The Messiah's election. All you "middle class" geniuses who voted for change have so far had your 401k's changed by a negative 16%. You earned it.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-44724599914252865112008-11-10T18:54:00.037-05:002008-11-11T20:36:17.152-05:00Doctrines of Fairness and FreedomOur Founders constructed a number of strong redoubts against the onslaught of tyranny. Strictly limiting and delineating the powers of the federal government, separation of powers among the three branches, the right of the citizenry to keep and bear arms, <em>habeus corpus</em>, the sanctity of private property and perhaps the strongest of all bulwarks, unfettered political speech.<br /><br />Freedom of speech was first abridged in 1798 when a federalist congress under President John Adams sought to criminalize political dissent in the <em>Aliens and Sedition Acts</em>. Quickly Kentucky and Virginia announced their intention and asserted their right to nullify these acts within their bounds and a smattering of secessionist rumblings were heard throughout New England A chastened congress soon repealed the nefarious enactions and the nascent union was saved. Lincoln in the 1860's aside from revoking <em>habeus corpus,</em> imprisoned opposition journalists and closed newspapers critical of his continuing prosecution of the War Between The States. Woodrow Wilson the first categorically fascist western leader imposed strict and abusive restrictions on speech during WWI and Sen. Joseph McCarthy is infamous for demanding censorship of ideas in the 1950's. So repudiated and reviled was McCarthy [particularly from the left] that one might have thought free speech safely established till the end of time.<br /><br />Time, it seems, has come today. Holding a virtual monopoly on the post-Watergate print media and seeing the mainstream television networks become little more than Democrat house organs, the left [ironically] began in the 1990's to try and fetter the expression of opposition opinion. After several abortive tries and with the help of putative Republican John McCain the effort bore fruit as The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act. Claiming to reduce the corrosive effect of money on the electoral process the act restricts the amount of cash a candidate may receive from a lone donor thus constraining the degree to which individuals rich or poor, might express political ideas and opinions. The self-serving act also limits criticism of incumbent candidates 60 days before an election and by force of operation dramatically increases the power of the friendly press. In a decision that will puzzle legal scholars for as long as the republic exists, the Supreme Court found this bluntly oppressive act constitutional. One locus of free speech so far remains unencumbered, talk radio.<br /><br />Rising on the broad back of Rush Limbaugh in the 1980's and resurrecting <em>AM</em> radio frequencies and stations, talk radio overwhelmingly conservative in opinion, became outrageously popular. It seemed to have addressed a glaring need in the body politic - an outlet for political expression by Mr. and Mrs. Everyman. The success of talk radio represents a magnificent achievement of three of America's signature attributes, grass roots democracy, free markets and the free dissemination of ideas. The phenomenon however poses a problem to the progressives in our midst. Liberal thought, not only under represented on the air suffers constant and cogent attack from conservative hosts like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. The distribution of ideas having atomized among millions of everyday people is now being harnessed by well prepared and popular hosts. This outcome seems a certain disaster to many on the left.<br /><br />The talk radio revolution was made possible when the Federal Communications Commission responding to its own finding that its order <em>"had the net effect of reducing rather than enhancing the discussion of controversial issues of public importance" </em>[emphasis mine] repealed the 1949 Fairness Doctrine that required over air media outlets to offer equal time for all viewpoints. Progressives made the proper response in 2004 launching the Air America Radio Network featuring liberal talk, phone calls and opinion. By the end of 2006 Air America was in bankruptcy. It remains on the air today though having only 66 affiliates as compared to the nearly 1000 of Limbaugh's EIB Network. Two factors are responsible for the failure of Air America. In the first instance the mainstream print and TV media more than adequately distribute liberal ideas which tends to reduce the felt need for an additional outlet in <em>AM</em> radio. Secondly and more importantly, it seems as if the appetite for progressive talk among the general population is nearly non-existent. To the liberal mind the market forces that have suffocated Air America have made a demonstrable minority of those persons who enjoy left leaning chatter. They have been locked out by corporate greed and power. The progressive movement is at its heart opposed to the winner-loser results of free enterprise. It is not difficult at all to see that it views this situation as unfair.<br /><br />Recognizing conservative talk radio as not only unfair but a clear and present danger to recently established political hegemony the freshly minted Democrat regime is wasting little time in executing a plan to eliminate the threat, perhaps forever. The brand new Office of The President Elect announced yesterday that former FCC commissioner and Fairness Doctrine devotee Henry Rivera will head up a committee to select the new FCC Chairman who will, in his turn likely support reinstating the doctrine. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who only days ago referred to conservative talk shows as "pornography" and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will head up what must become a particularly autocratic congressional campaign that will attempt to memorialize the FCC regulation in permanent federal law.<br /><br />The silencing of opposition speech whether from the right, left or center is for a democracy, nothing less than a death wish. From the very beginning of our nation such actions have been opposed by patriots of all stripes and at one time or another by all political factions. It matters not in this controversy, whose ox is getting gored. Liberty itself is in the dock. Now is the time for all good men from every walk of life and the four corners of the political compass to unite behind the banner of freedom, rise up as one and slay this awful dragon that seeks, in the interest of the most base partisanship, to destroy the foundations of our very existence as a free and self-determining people.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-25937852594275579412008-11-04T22:57:00.016-05:002008-11-06T00:38:13.768-05:00God Bless The Commonwealth"The sun shines bright in my old Kentucky home" never sounded so good as it did yesterday. As the nation marched hands-over-eyes into the darkness of marxism Kentucky became a shining beacon of hope. A true land of the free and brave. My Kentucky brothers and sisters not only returned stalwart Senator Mitch McConnell to Washington to bear the torch of freedom and stand against repression but also rejected overwhelmingly the The Prairie Socialist and his call to serfdom.<br /><br />The nation is lost. With every catastrophe though comes an opportunity. This election proves a great majority of Kentuckians still cherish independence, the rights of property and individual responsibility. Let this great majority unite now behind a new banner, a banner of growth and abundance. Let this great majority demand of our legislature the repeal of the state tax on incomes, on Kentucky businesses, and the union shop. Let us announce to the world that as those who embrace socialism stagnate and decline we in Kentucky will create a rennaissance of prosperity. Put the call out to industry that King Coal furnishes Kentucky the lowest electricity costs in America and that inside our borders we will tolerate no caps, trades or carbon taxes that reduce this advantage or oppress our citizens. We have shown that we will not follow like lemmings over the cliff of collectivism. Let us now invite all those in North America who long to be free to come and join us as we reclaim the Spirit of 1776.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-84929549260480032532008-11-04T22:03:00.005-05:002008-11-04T22:55:09.403-05:00The Republic Is LostAs the landslide begins to take shape, one thing is painfully clear. America is no longer America. What has happened tonight is not something that has happened. It is a choice made, the willful act of the American people. Let us not be terrified at an Obama presidency. Let us be terrified at what we have become. I can no longer look at my countrymen in the same light knowing that over half of them have chosen serfdom. America has abandoned principle for pottage and taken a flight from reason unimaginable only a few years ago. I am embarrassed to be numbered among them and fearful of other travesties to which they might subscribe. It was once said a divine Providence watched benevolently over drunkards, fools and the United States. Tonight Providence turns away. The Republic is lost.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-36190982327502283432008-11-02T23:32:00.016-05:002008-11-03T17:30:46.494-05:00Time of the Season Final: My VoteI often answer: “Why bother” when asked for whom I plan to vote. When George W. Bush and the Republican Congress failed to honor the trust they were given I renounced the pathetic poseurs and vowed to support them no more. With Republicans holding both houses of Congress and the Presidency, those of us who participated in the Reagan Revolution watched helplessly as our hopes for fair tax, a roster of strong new judges and a muscular foreign policy morphed into pork barrels, gangs of 14 and nation building. Why waste time and effort voting electing GOP candidates who upon taking office become republocrats. Voting Democrat of course is expressing a death wish.<br /><br />By the response of my interlocutor, you might have thought I had just announced my intent to fly the Second Flag of The Confederacy! <em>“Why, you mustn’t give up your right to vote!”</em> they wail, <em>“It’s your duty to vote.”</em> “<em>Thousands of good Americans have given their lives so you can vote” “You can’t dishonor their sacrifice.”</em> And of course: <em>“Well if you don’t vote, don’t complain about what happens.”<br /></em><em></em><br />By definition my right to vote is exclusively mine and confers an equal right not to vote. Thus in not voting I am exercising my voting right. Further, a right as any literate citizen understands is never a duty. The watchful hens of The League of Women Voters, I offer dreamed up voting as duty believing that more voters begets better government. Anyone vaguely familiar with the quality of the American electorate knows what a misguided notion that is. I shudder at every third person I encounter wearing one of those <em>I Voted</em> stickers!<br /><br />Not thousands, no not even one person died for my right to vote for John McCain, Barack Obama, Bob Barr or Ralph Nader. If asked to do so I suspect one would punch you in the nose. For every courageous American soldier, seaman or marine who died to protect his voting right, ten-thousand or more did so for their buddies, families, girlfriends or just for pride of duty. A great majority I imagine, if told they were enduring the filth, privation and danger of war in faraway places for my right to choose between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, would have dropped their rifles and walked on in.<br /><br />Sometime in the last century, American civics teachers began mistakenly to equate democracy with freedom. Politicians of all stripes quickly took up the call as a way of convincing people they are free even while enslaving them. The Bill of Rights was a response to the fears of our Founders that the majority of self-serving dolts would impose its oppressive will on the poor lot in the minority. I do not trust the mob. Give me a monarch and nobles who leave managing my life and property to me over an elected congregation of knaves and blackguards intent on taking my property and becoming my keeper.<br /><br />The prospect of President Barack Obama leading a leftist, Democrat congress though is just too frightening to ignore. I will thus please the hooray for democracy crowd tomorrow by going to the polls and voting - not for John McCain but against Obama and the Democrats.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245280240000898922.post-48169921083637019542008-10-30T15:00:00.008-04:002008-11-03T00:19:13.215-05:00Why Not?Uncle Henry Paulson sold Congress a bill of goods that he must have $700 billion to buy troubled mortgages. He trotted out The Little Moron of Pennsylvania Avenue [LMPA] to tell the country if Uncle Henry didn't get the dough our world would come to and end in less than a week. Congress ponied up. After LMPA dutifully signed the bill Uncle Henry changed his mind and decided instead to buy stock in banks. This accomplished nothing at all for anyone except the shareholders of these failing institutions many of whom are likely on a first name basis with Uncle Hank.Then along came the big insurance companies with hands upturned. Having given busted and fraud-filled AIG more than $100 billion Paulson felt obliged to help these Westchesterites as well.<br /><br />Meanwhile the banks still won't make loans, thousands of families are foreclosed on, and countless small businesses from home builders to small manufacturers go under. Now come GM and Chrysler asking dear Uncle for $10 billion so they can continue to operate in the red. Ford can't be far behind. To add insult to our injury, Ole Uncle Henry gives his insolvent, mismanaged banks the OK to use your money and mine to make dividend payments to well-off shareholders.<br /><br />Barack Obama is a Marxist. He intends to take money from hardworking middle Americans and redistribute it to those who, for whatever reason, have less. I am not sure I can argue this is more troubling than than taking money from hardworking middle Americans and redistributing it to the friends of Uncle Henry.J. Robert Brock Hackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13865900983876451599noreply@blogger.com