The Hens and the Foxes

The latest political posturing, where liberals are calling for the dissolution of I.C.E., is so laughable as to be idiotic. For those of my readers who have only a passing acquaintance with this necessary agency, let me provide you with a short history. 

Ever since the American Revolution, wise government leaders have “provided for the common defense” (see the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America). This organized effort to support and protect the unique experiment in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (see the Declaration of Independence) has taken many forms: the formation of the War Department, including the various military branches, beginning officially in 1789 (when the Constitution was ratified); the transition to the National Military Establishment in 1947; the present-day Department of Defense. 

The much-maligned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) came about as a direct result of the hideous attack on innocent Americans by Muslim terrorists on September 11, 2001. Wise government leaders realized almost immediately that the war on terrorism would require new strategies. No longer would the protectors of our freedoms be able to identify the enemy through open battles, identifiable uniforms, etc. It would mean “fighting fire with fire.”

In this day of mindless anti-conservative stances, the main stream media has adopted a new “outrage”: abolish I.C.E. As this narrative goes, all of the evils experienced by illegal aliens are a result of I.C.E. activities. “Decent, law-abiding citizens” [sic] have supposedly been seized, “ripped from their families,” and both imprisoned and deported. Huh??? Really??? The anti-conservative pundits start with an illogical stance: First, they automatically assume that all people apprehended by I.C.E. are “decent” (yes, I have actually read that word being used) – except that these rather naïve people include MS-13 gang members, drug dealers, rapists, terrorists, and murderers in this group. By no stretch of the imagination can any of these aliens be labeled “decent.”

Next, let us examine the idea of “law-abiding.” Hmmm… According to the Bible, if one is guilty of breaking even one of God’s commandments, one is a law-breaker. Period. (See James 2:10.) If a resident of the United States has broken a law – and does nothing to rectify that situation – he or she is a law-breaker. Now, a citizen of the United States has certain safeguards afforded him or her in order that justice be served. 

Notice I said “citizen” – and I trust that the legal requirements of citizenship are not lost on whoever reads this essay. A person who crosses a border does not automatically become a citizen of the country that he or she enters; this should be self-evident to people who travel (with proper passports, etc.) outside the confines of our borders. Therefore, it is nonsensical to claim that illegal aliens have “rights” under our Constitution; it just doesn’t follow the rules of logic.

I have read some pretty lame appeals to “Biblical hospitality” – both from the Old and the New Testaments. For instance, one group has maintained that Leviticus 19: 33-34 means that every country should support open borders:

"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

This instruction is also duplicated in Deuteronomy 10:19. And, on the surface, the injunction to “love” this hypothetically friendly alien seems so right. However, the B.C. version of “love” and the 21^st-century version of “love” are miles apart. In Israel before Christ, aliens were self-supporting. No stranger would ever enter a Jewish city or province and “demand” free housing, food, and creature comforts. No stranger would ever be allowed to “demand” land, or jobs, or Jewish status, when that individual obviously was not entitled to any of those privileges.

Rather – get this! – a truly devoted follower of Yahweh would deliberately seek out the sojourner in the marketplace or on the border of the city, and welcome him or her into their home for the night or even a few days. (It was never meant to be a permanent arrangement!) Where have we seen this concept displayed in those calling for open borders, free entry at will for all comers, the dissolution of I.C.E., and other amenities for illegal aliens? In Biblical times, the idea of welcoming the traveler (alien, sojourner, etc.) required a serious commitment and responsibility on the part of the native Jew – what say ye, anti-conservative, anti-enforcement proponents?

Let us progress to the New Testament. Here, we have some clear agreement that law and order required soldiers, guards, and even some harsh enforcement. John the Baptist famously did not urge the soldiers who came to him for baptism to leave their then-current job. He just instructed them to act honorably within the duties of their commissions (Luke 3:14). Instead of lecturing the Roman centurion who came to Jesus to petition for healing about his “nasty occupation,” He praised him for his faith in His Lordship (Luke 7:1-10).

When Jesus was crucified, He publicly prayed to His Father to forgive the Roman soldiers who had put Him on the cross, because they acted in ignorance (Luke 23: 34). What’s more, Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that the two men crucified alongside Jesus were criminals – not innocent “victims” of Roman oppression. Luke even includes the confession of the Good Thief, “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23: 41). My point in reminding my readers of these instances is to reinforce the idea that at NO time did Jesus or any of His followers ever assert that there was no need for enforcement agents within the Roman Empire, because “God is love” or some other misleading interpretation of Biblical truth.

My final point in summing up this essay is this: If one wants to protect the chickens from the fox, do not remove the chicken coop! If one wants to protect the true citizens of the United States of America from law-breaking aliens, do not abolish I.C.E.!

Trolling Words

To all future trolls on this blog: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." If you want to make a comment, be honest enough to put your full name. Otherwise, I will simply delete your insult. And be reminded of this: a nasty word makes a very poor argument.

Have you ever heard the words, "My beach, my ocean"? If you are going to troll, criticize with name-calling, or just repeat the same tired liberal rhetoric, feel free to write your own blog. I do NOT owe you a free platform!

The Feeding of the Four and the Feeding of the Four Thousand

Once upon a time, there lived a restaurant owner in the small town of Lexington, Virginia, by the name of Stephanie Wilkerson. Feeling morally superior to those people who walked by her establishment, she posted the following quote from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in her building’s window: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” An admirable sentiment, to be sure, but one that the owner does not seem to have understood, much less practiced.

You see, there came a weekend when four people came to her restaurant to eat a meal. They made no extraordinary requests. They walked in without fanfare or disruptive gestures. Apparently, they simply wanted to eat a meal. However, one of their company was an Enemy – yes, that’s right, a person (a white female, by the way) whose political views were different from those of the owner.

The waiters were the first to notice the presence of their hated Enemy, and they called the owner, who happened not to have been present when the Enemy entered her establishment. The owner, full of moral outrage that the Enemy would dare present her ugly, hated face in Lexington – much less at her own exalted (and morally superior) establishment – not only saw to it that her Enemy was chastised for her involvement in political engagement that struck a nerve with Ms. Wilkerson, but that her Enemy was summarily expelled. Furthermore, the righteous owner made sure that other residents of Lexington were fully informed of this political outrage; she gathered a rent-a-mob together in the street, and harassed and ridiculed the half of the Enemy’s party who had dared seek a meal in another establishment across the street. Satisfied with her righteousness and moral superiority, the owner blithely returned to her building, proudly walking by the sign with the quote from Martin Luther King.

It was truly unfortunate that she did not understand the meaning of King’s statement. She could have avoided closing down her restaurant only a few days later – putting the very waiters who had objected to the Enemy’s presence out of work (unless, in her righteousness, she had paid them anyway – who knows?).

Let us, dear friends, go back into the distant past, to a mountainside in the ancient land of Israel. Let us imagine – it’s not that hard to do, since the illustrious Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King could do it – that we are witnessing the miracle of the feeding of the four thousand (Matthew 15:32-39 and Mark 8:1-9). One does not have to be a Bible scholar to connect the devotion that Martin Luther King showed with the King of kings, Jesus Christ. One does not have to be a Bible scholar to know that the two Gospels reporting this singular event claim (with every right to do so) that Jesus Himself performed this miracle. Please notice, dear friends, the following points:

Jesus did not attach any political requirements to the consuming of the bread He provided. For all we know, there were Temple leaders, Pharisees, Sadducees – even a Roman soldier or two – in the audience. Nowhere in either Gospel account are we told of any political sifting or litmus test, or any other form of discrimination. If you were near Jesus, you got fed.

In verse 3 of the 8^th chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus Himself pointed out, “If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a long distance.” I have no idea where the Enemy in our 21st-century story lives, but I’m pretty sure she and her entourage came into the restaurant hungry. And they were turned away. I wonder what Jesus would have done.

Jesus required His disciples to serve the people (verses 6 and 7). Imagine: those high-and-mighty (not!) colleagues of the King of kings were instructed by their Master to hand out bread and fish (no questions asked) to every kind of person who was around Jesus – dirty people, angry people, loud children, bratty teenagers, political enemies, even ordinary, God-fearing people!! Maybe some of the waiters at the Red Hen could take a lesson in servanthood from Jesus’ disciples.

Jesus could have elected to leave the bread scraps that were left over to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. (After all, aren’t they “God’s creatures,” too?) Instead, He ordered His disciples to clean up the picnic area by themselves: “They [the people] ate and were filled. Then they [the disciples] collected seven large baskets of leftover pieces” (verse 8). Gosh, I sure hope Ms. Wilkerson knows all about clean-up procedures; I have a feeling she will be involved in a LOT of it, once the restaurant reopens!

Finally, I just want to ask this question: If Jesus showed up at the Red Hen restaurant, would Ms. Wilkerson even have recognized, much less served Him? I think I know Martin Luther King’s own opinion.

Musings on Variety in the World Around Us

This is just a random musing, but, in speaking to atheist friends, I find they cannot answer the following:

If there is no God except Evolution, why is there such variety in the world?

Take, for instance, an ordinary chicken. Why does the female chicken lay an egg that thrusts her potential progeny out into the cold cruel world before it has fully formed? Why, on the other hand, does a human baby incubate in his or her mother’s womb for nine months? Is it that each being has a different function – a different destiny?

If Evolution were truly the only force present in the universe, how could there be such variety, such stunningly different designs all over the world? Surely if life “determined” itself into being – as Stephen Hawking so irrationally insists – it would “choose” the strongest and best way to evolve! There would be no variety, because Evolution as a force would not choose to produce weak beings – it would “stick” to one form, one “expression.”

Ah, but perhaps evolution does not exist; perhaps there is a Designer Who wants variety because He wants to please someone other than Himself…perhaps He wants to please His creation – mankind!

Back to the chicken:

The age-old famous Chicken Question is this: “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” In my own experience, this very question is supposed to reveal the utter “foolishness” of Intelligent Design.

“Neither came first,” the worshipers of Evolution maintain. “One day, a random bird-like creature ‘decided’ to become a chicken, and so he / she laid eggs and – voila! – the next generation of the bird-like creature became what we now gather eggs from for our breakfasts."

Atheists want to believe in Evolution, but they just can’t figure out how that amphibian crawled out of the primeval goo and “decided” to become a chicken – or any other mammal or reptile or land-dweller. Luckily, some people have grown beyond accepting the “the creature just decided” theory. There really is no evidence – fossilized or experiential – that any creature (even man) “decided” to take on some other form. (Remember, we are talking about eons before plastic surgery!)

All the time, atheists insist that God – as an answer to where we came from – is definitely out! But I repeat: Why is Evolution apparently so “creative”? So far, the god Evolution hasn’t answered its followers (although man, anthropomorphizing his idol, tries to put words into its mouth).

There is delicate beauty in this world – a world where we are supposedly at the mercy of impersonal forces. The touch of an infant’s hand, a newly-opened crocus, a bud on the side of a fallen branch that insists on opening and giving beauty, despite its ultimate doom – these are tactile and visual facts which demonstrate the truth of a Creator’s involvement. Beyond the delicate beauty all around us, even the most hardened of those who worship Evolution are at a loss explaining how Love, Sacrifice, Joy, Patience, Kindness, Self-control, etc., supposedly “evolved.” Although “evolutionary psychology” attempts to explain away these phenomena as merely imaginary constructs we sentient humans assign to them (“because we want to”), the truth is that this so-called science which attempts to explain Evolution’s “purpose,” is merely the latest falsehood that the worshipers of Evolution have dreamed up so far. There is no outside evidence to support their assertions.

Where does all this lead us with respect to our original question? It points out how utterly foolish Evolution is as a rational theory. The very fact that there is delicate beauty, as well as strong mental and spiritual forces within man’s psyche, seriously undermines the idea of Evolution as a rational explanation of how our world came into being. It just isn’t that “creative.”