Matthew 20: 1-16...The Invisible Hand Of God

In my last post I was pretty hard on both the Republican, and the Democratic parties, and I feel rightly so. But there are others that I feel are complicit in this whole mess of a comparatively frozen job market, and excessively endless process of unemployment benefits. The narrow-minded politicians that pollute the halls of Congress with their demagogic tirades promoting either the Democrats' socialist values, or the Republicans' big business profit-stimulating tax breaks are equally guilty of callously destroying the middle-class capacity to survive in a truly robust economy. But they have had lots of help along the way. Culture-crushing greed is not confined to Congress, it is just more obvious there, because our representatives foolishly believe that their Constitutionally mandated terms protect them from responsibility for their greedy, self-serving actions. They feel that they merely have to promote popular legislation every two years, for Representatives, and every six years for Senators to protect them from the consequences of their destructive demagogic legislation the rest of the time. They are foolishly wrong, as there is definitely a God who is keeping score, and will one day settle accounts with those who do not repent.

However, in reading over the text of Matthew 20, today, I was struck by the multiple ways in which God ( through Jesus, in this case) frequently ties messages together to give valuable lessons on different levels. He frequently gives messages that relate to us not only on spiritual levels, but frequently on physical, or mental, and emotional levels as well. But sometimes the spiritual message is so important that we can easily miss the other levels, if we are not careful. Such is the case with Matthew 20, I believe.

Here Jesus recounts His parable of the owner of a vineyard who goes out early in the morning to hire his day-laborers, agreeing with them all for a wage of a penny ( which in that day was considered a fair wage for a day's labor). Later he goes out again at 9:00, 12:00, and 3:00 and finds other men who haven't yet been hired, so he hires them at the same daily wage. He does the same at 5:00, even though the work-day is apparently over at 6:00 pm. The men who were hired first are outraged when they discover that those who were hired last will receive the full wage that they themselves agreed to. They seem to feel that they should be paid more, if he wants to pay the others a day's wage, since they worked longer. He refuses, without much explanation, but I think I know what his thinking is all about, on a material level that can be applied to modern-day business practices. Ignoring the complex spiritual issues here, there are practical business issues that seem to be ignored in commerce today.

First, we must realize that the main consideration of the owner of the vineyard was getting his grapes picked as quickly and efficiently as possible, in order to maximize his potential profits. Obviously, the more hands he had doing the job, the faster the job would get done. But there is a spiritual issue here that is frequently ignored, even by business people who see it carried out all the time. That is the exponential increase in the amount of labor that can be produced by additional employees, if we theoretically presume that each laborer is capable of producing at exactly the same rate, individually. The miracle here is that we assume that ten laborers, of theoretically equal production capacity would obviously produce ten times the amount of production as one. Then twenty such laborers should produce twenty times the amount of production, right? The same rate applies for thirty, forty, and fifty laborers, etc. But that just isn't so.

Adam Smith, who is generally considered to be the "founder" of "modern" economics, even though he lived in the 18th century, concluded after studying the labor practices of workers at a pencil factory of his day that more laborers produced more products than a mere multiplication of there number's labor. In other words, ten extra laborers would produce more than ten times the products. And twenty extra laborers would produce more than twice the amount that the ten extra laborers could produce. There seemed to be a miraculous exponential increase in the EXTRA PRODUCTION of each additional laborer, above and beyond the expected multiplied effect of his individual capacity. And the more additional laborers, the greater INCREASE in that extra production. It increased exponentially, not by simple multiplication. Adam Smith, who apparently was not afraid to express his Christian values in the discussion of economic principles ( as many seem to be today) referred to this phenomenon as, "The Invisible Hand of God". Apparently, Jesus was saying that this owner of the vineyard was fully aware of this miraculous principle, and therefore it was worth the cost of hiring extra labor, even at the late hour. He felt that the potential profits would more than cover the apparently wasteful expense. The reason he agreed to pay a full day's wages to the last hires was apparently because they would not be interested in working for one hour's equivalent of that wage. They needed a full day's wage just to meet their daily expenses, or they wouldn't be available to work in the future. Starvation has a winnowing effect upon any labor force.

The moral I'm trying to apply to today's business practices from this is that big business should stop lobbying Congress for legislation that allows them to offer lower wages at reduced hours, and at the same time lobby for reduction of unemployment benefits to force an increase in the available labor force, by making many people desperate for any employment ( just to survive), that will only be available for a comparative few, at wages that won't meet their minimum daily needs. Yes, applying Chinese slave-labor employment practices will profit them initially, but sooner, or later some competitor will discover that paying a wage that their employees can survive on will greatly increase their company's individual labor market, at the expense of their competitor's. Then their increased production will bring increased profits, and eventually increased market share. The moral approach is to extend reasonable benefits long enough for businesses to get so desperate for help that they will be willing to pay a wage that people can survive upon. I'm not talking about those idiot labor unions who think McDonalds employees should get $15.00 per hour, as "minimum wages". There needs to be a reasonable balance between what the employees need and what the employers can pay. That balance will be discovered when employers get off their greedy little behinds, and take a risk by raising the wages they're offering to the point that those invisible job-seekers start crawling out of the woodwork. Then they can experience the miracle of exponential increase in productivity that will more than pay for the increase in salaries. But cutting the unemployment benefits prematurely eliminates the incentive for businesses to offer decent salaries, without giving employees the wages they need to survive. If only Congress could be made to understand this.

Evangelical Conservative; Or why I Won't Register Republican

I can't help feeling a bit traitorous to, "the cause" ( as if politics could be monolithically categorized as such), but the whole debate in Congress over extending unemployment benefits, or not, makes me politically want to puke. These idiots who presume to represent us are so short-sighted that they seem to feel the issue boils down to the morality of spending more money inefficiently, or not. Can there really be such an absence of compassion, tempered by reasonable understanding congregating in one building anywhere else in the country, if not the entire world? Guess what, you jack-asses? All government spending is by it's very nature wasteful, and inefficient ( DUH!!!). That's what government is reluctantly established to decide when, and where, and if it should be spent; and if so, then how much to spend without interfering with the more efficient Free Market principles that stimulate maximum employment. The only thing government does well is performing necessary tasks that are too big, or too expensive for the free market to do profitably. The down side of this is the consequential wasteful spending, and corruption that government spending produces. That will unfortunately be the case until Jesus returns to thankfully save us from our own corrupt natures. The trouble is when we have knee-jerk Republicans trying to reign in the wasteful spending of knee-jerk Democrats, when the only apparent consideration is whether or not they can earn any political "browny-points" for their cause, then they risk creating chaos in the market that is greater than the alternative.

If this economy were as robust as Wall Street analysts would have us believe ( bearing in mind that these "analysts" are paid to tell us only the part of the truth that makes us want to invest), or if it were rebounding due to the natural stimuli of supply and demand then I would not find fault with the Republican effort to let expire whole segments of the unemployment compensation benefits that have been necessary for the past five years, or so. It's surely true that there must be many healthy, able-bodied former workers who prefer to exploit the benefits opportunity, rather than take the effort to look for profitable employment for which they are easily qualified. But there are just as surely many people who are unable to find work that they can qualify for that will pay them a livable wage, in an era when Congressional edict has made it more profitable for businesses to scale back on both wages, and full-time hours to offer their employees. Obamacare is just another example of legally punishing businesses for having too many full-time jobs, and encouraging them to turn them into multiple part-time jobs. This makes the knee-jerk-liberal Democrats feel good because they have "created more jobs". Yeah, but at the expense of eliminating full-time jobs. Now you have twice as many employees willing to work who can't earn enough on one job to pay the bills for themselves, let alone their families. So, they have two logical choices: 1) work multiple part-time jobs, if they can find them. And this increases the transportation costs, and lost time in commuting from one job, to another. Or, 2) continue to receive unemployment benefits, which barely cover expenses, until the economy really rebounds sufficiently to offer employment that will pay for their financial needs. Another consideration is that those benefits are calculated by 50% of their last full-time salary, or wage. If they were last paid an inflated wage before the deflationary effects of the recession, then a new job may not pay as much as the old one, even if it pays more than the unemployment benefits do now. So, if the risk of being laid off of the new job is considerable, they would face future benefits that were less than they receive now, which might not be a survivable income. Concern for their families survival certainly takes precedent over the moral issue of whether their drawing benefits is perceived as idleness, or laziness by some pompous Congressman who draws a fat government salary, and foolishly believes that he deserves every penny of it.

This economy is made "out of whole cloth", or is constructed out of "chewing gum and baling wire", or whatever flimsy euphemism one cares to apply. We are in an excessive inflationary economy, built upon the paper stimulus of the Federal Reserve, and trending dangerously close to a runaway Hyperinflationary economic disaster of absolutely historic proportions. The only reason we don't feel the horrible effects of it yet is because we have been inflating our currency since 2007 to keep from sliding into the Deflationary Depression that we were naturally entering after more than 75 years of profligate governmental inflationary spending. If the economy is really recovering from the worst recession in history ( at the very least), then the job market will have to improve considerably in order to tempt workers off the unemployment benefits line (which amounts to subsistence living) by offering employment which will meet their financial needs as well as the ability to actually save money. When that happens there will be a flood of able bodied workers fighting over the available jobs. That's the time when Republicans should talk about reducing the money for benefits, not before. To foolishly think that kicking people off of the benefits roster will necessarily create a better job market, out of employee desperation, is as stupid as the Democrats' belief that all problems just naturally go away by throwing tons of money at them. But in this case the gross lack of compassion on the Republicans' part for the people who will not be able to survive without living "on the streets" is so insensitive that it boggles the mind. This will have the effect of creating more die-hard Democratic voters for years, if not permanently. What kind of party idiots are running the show here? How many people have to freeze to death in the winter, or beg for food on the streets, just to give big business a little bigger work force to hire from, without the concern for paying a livable wage? Rather, if the economy is genuinely rebounding, restoring the unemployment benefit for a while longer will create the "greed-stimulus" for those companies that are desperate to take advantage of increasingly ripe opportunities to produce profits that they will gladly create better paying job opportunities which will naturally attract the workers they need. Have you Republican Congressman forgotten the overwhelming efficiency of the law of supply and demand? The only way it doesn't work is when impatient Congressmen try to artificially create either the supply, or the demand with their bone-headed meddling in the natural economic trends.

This is why I can't bring myself to register as a Republican. I see too little difference between the bone-headed meddling from Democrats, who want to throw enormous amounts of wasteful tax money at whatever current issue is deemed popular at the moment; and the big business, butt-kissing Republicans who want to stop the wasteful spending on programs that actually help desperate people in times of comparative emergency. Don't cancel programs prematurely just because the spending is wasteful. DUH!!! All government spending is wasteful, especially Defense spending! But Defense spending serves a very necessary purpose, even if Democrats prefer to pretend that it doesn't. I don't think Republicans want to cut spending on Defense, even though it is the most outrageously wasteful part of government spending. But it is wasteful spending that profits corrupt businesses, which in turn kick back money to the Republicans who protect their programs, so they can fund their re-election campaigns. This is reprehensible to me, but the alternative is worse, if the Democrats get their greedy little fingers into massive disarmament legislation. We nearly lost World War Two because of the pre-war disarmament policies of the 1930's. ( Back then, Congress thought money for more Army Cavalry units meant purchasing more horses, rather than building new Tanks.) But for the Republicans to callously end unemployment benefits before the economy creates sufficient jobs with livable wages, is not only immoral to me, but it stupidly enhances the roles of die-hard Democratic voters. What kind of moronic, self-serving, short-term thinking is this, anyway?

Now you know why I feel the only recourse I have is to say, "a pox on both your houses", and stay reluctantly registered as an Independent. When the Republican party can figure out how to balance a reasonable degree of compassion for Americans, even if they might vote Democrat, with their self-serving needs to support big business, then perhaps I'll consider registering as a Republican. I'd be too ashamed to do so now, even if I must vote Republican, for lack of a better alternative. Chris Christy for President in 2016,...yuck, what a horrible thought!!! How many more John McCain, and Mitt Romney clones do we have to reluctantly support for lack of an alternative, rather than deal with another Obama clone, like Hillary, or John Kerry??? While the Lord tarries, it almost makes one wish for the second coming of Ronald Reagan!!!

UPDATE;  -- 4/25/2018;

All right, I admit my humiliating hypocrisy!!!  I still feel the same as I've written above, but I have swallowed my pride, and registered as a Republican, in spite of my feelings.

I was surprised to find out that if a candidate claimed something in the primary that only registered party members were allowed to vote, in those primaries.  This happened. locally, in the 2016 election, and I was unable to vote for a friend of mine, as were others, including Democrats, who were also personal friends of his.   (I know, it's hard to believe, but some Republicans can actually have Democratic friends!!!)

So, I have been forced to swallow my pride, and join a party that combines sincere, concerned, people (including many "Born-Again" Christians), with people of varying degrees of sincerity, along with people  whose values vary little from the self-serving liberals who are dragging this country down!  (May God have mercy on my soul!!!)

Celebrating A Very Cynical Un-Birthday

I wonder who of us care more about Christmas time; devout, Bible-believing Christians, or God-hating, cynical Academics, posing as "experts" in the field of Biblical History? Because they erroneously attach the word "history" to their pompous title, these "experts" seem to give credence to their opinions concerning the credibility of various stories of the Bible that are clearly meant to edify the faith of those who are truly interested in learning the true nature of God, throughout the Old Testament; and the power, and mercy of the salvation of Jesus Christ in the New. It simply boggles the mind to try and understand why anyone on the History Channel, or the Washington Post ( to name only two sources that promote anti-Biblical cynicism, especially at Christmas time) would think that Bible believing Christians would be interested in reading, or listening to some pseudo-intellectual cynic expound on what amounts to their own baseless opinions, wrapped around some somewhat-relevant historical facts that they laboriously try to weave into a reasonably believable argument explaining why the particular account in the Bible must not be accurate. Close examination of their viewpoints invariably reveal that their basis for stating their opinions stand upon nothing firmer that the fact that they simply can't believe the Bible is true!...EXCUSE ME???...Can't the History Channel executives manage to find any Bible Historians in all of Academia that actually believe in the Bible, and use their faith to help them discern between relevant facts that add to our understanding of various biblical stories, and those facts that are obviously irrelevant? There are Bible Colleges, and Seminaries all across the country that have plenty of such qualified Academics, but it seems that expressing opinions that show they believe in the truth of the Bible is a disqualifying attribute, rather than a recommendation for their programs. Of course, the History Channel grabs our interest by titling their shows with names like, "Mysteries of The Bible", when the only "mystery" they leave us with is "where the heck did they get these belligerent cynics" that they audaciously use for the "expert" information?

To date, I have seen several shows that labor fruitlessly to try and convince me that God never parted the Red Sea. These cynics would rather believe that Moses led the Children of Israel due east from the land of Goshen, in Egypt, across a marshy area where a strong northerly wind would dry the mud sufficiently to keep the Isrealite's sandals clean, rather than swallow the Biblical account of God's leading them three days' journey into the desert ( which would necessarily be to the southeast), where He caused the wind to blow strongly enough to cause the waters of the Red Sea to stand up like a wall on both sides as they walked through "dryshod". The whole debate here centers on the fact that these selected "experts" simply choose not to believe the Biblical account, and they wish to trivialize the truth in order to discourage others from believing that which they are unable to accept. Shame on them for expressing their opinions in ways that seem to be irrefutable facts, and shame on the History Channel executives for obviously seeking out these cynical historians who are clearly expressing the History Channel's own collective cynicism, while giving them deniability that they don't deserve. This is obvious by the overwhelming air-time given to those who express their "Bible-debunking" cynical opinions, versus those who expound the Biblical accounts credibly. One must wonder how the History Channel's ratings would fare if they titled their shows more honestly like, "Mysteries Of The Cynical Bufoons", or "Worthless Crap Intended to Confuse The Ignorant"?

Sodom's Ugly Head Vs. Duck Dynasty

The devil is trying to raise his ugly head above the Church of Jesus Christ, again. This time he wears the mask of that poor "down-trodden persecuted minority", the so-called "gay rights movement", that has been increasingly given more, and more political power and undeserved cultural legitimacy by the incessant media brain-washing of the Left, and the conspiratorial lobbying of their billionaire bullies who fund their perverse aspirations. Now they are taking on the First Amendment to the Constitution; namely the rights to Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and (in a modern era stretch) Freedom of the press. And, oddly enough our Champion of the Hour is every bit as unlikely in appearance as that belligerent young lad who had the audacity to face off against the loud-mouthed Goliath, and give him an eternal headache!

Our unwitting, and unintentional Champion is none other than "Duck Dynasty's" patriarch, Phil Robertson; who is already prepared for the battle that appears to be looming, decked out in what seems to be his "24/7 Camo- P.J.'s". Why, he's so anxious for battle that he even forgot to shave today, or this millennium, for that matter. Or even much of the last, I guess. Anyway, Phil had the audacity to say that homosexuality was a sin, according to the only document that has any righteous credibility to make judgment in that regard, the Bible. He also mentioned that there are many other things listed in the same context as sinful, like adultery, murder, theft, lying, stealing, etc. But none of those sinful preoccupations has any Billionaires lobbying the Media to promote their political interests. There doesn't seem to be a movement for the promotion of "Adulterers United", although having mentioned it, there probably will be some idiot trying to start it up tomorrow. Nor do we hear about the oppressive persecution of serial murderers, who by the same logic should be allowed to practice their quirky little obsessions, so long as "they aren't really hurting anybody". Homosexual lobby groups would have us believe that what they practice behind closed doors is perfectly harmless to the rest of society, and therefore no one else's business. Christianity, and the Bible, counter-argue that the moral perversion they promote does not stay behind closed doors; it's very nature is both exhibitionist, and promiscuous, and has therefore a culturally degrading effect upon their converts, who in turn promote their twisted political values upon society as a whole, eventually leading to the moral collapse of any such culture, as was the case for both the Ancient Greek, and Roman societies ( as
described in, "The Fall Of The Roman Empire".

Now, that bastion of moral integrity known as the Washington Post has weighed in on the matter ( guess which side). They have come down on Fox News for their "ignorance" of the Constitution since the only body restrained from persecuting those exercising their First Amendment rights is the government (and the Congress ,in particular). While they are correct in this point, they show their moral insensitivity, along with their own ignorance of the spirit of the First Amendment by implying that only the letter of the law must be considered, and that beyond that anything else is acceptable. This is typical of Liberal/Socialists' tactics, who are great believers in the principles of lying, or cheating in any way necessary to convince the ignorant to support their cause. But try and turn the tables on them and try to shut them up from their freedom to promote their perverse values and you'll hear a loud crescendo of outraged cries of "violating their rights". You see, Liberals only care about the Constitution when it serves to protect their efforts to destroy it's authority. The average Liberal voter doesn't realize how much the real power-brokers of their Socialist movements actually hate the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. Once they could manage to gain absolute political control over the Government, without fear of a significant revolt, they would certainly abolish the Constitution, dismissing it as an old and obsolete document that needed to be brought up to date. Thus the political efforts to abolish the second amendment right to "keep and bear arms". They don't care as much for the slaughter of innocents, by the evil and insane, they are afraid that enough people with guns might revolt against an ultimate Socialist power grab, and they're right! Then they would as certainly create a new document that would guarantee that their Socialist control of the government would be permanent, and that personal freedoms would be inviolable, but only for those who agreed with them. The rest of us would be doomed to the kind of persecution that the Coptic Christians are now suffering in Egypt, at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood. There, they endure threats, their Churches are burned, and they are constantly in danger of Muslim riots that can easily turn murderous, without risk of police interference, or arrest. Yes, Liberals truly care about the First Amendment protection of our freedoms, but only as it applies to themselves, and those who agree with them. Keep listening to the Media debate over Phil Robertson's right to speak his mind openly, in condemning homosexuality as a sin, and you will see just how serious the Left is about honoring the spirit of the First Amendment, when it is applied to those who disagree with them. This will serve as a preview of things to come, when that ultimate Socialist Dictator, the Antichrist will apply the same tactics on a world-wide scale in his temporarily successful bid to take over absolute control of his one-world government! Stay tuned!

"Even so, come Lord Jesus and count us worthy to escape the wrath that is to come!"

Sometimes Prophetic

There are times when God causes us to say things that turn out to be prophetic, in spite of ourselves. Such it seems was the case when I wrote the post for Nov. 9th, sarcastically lauding the "wonderful" accomplishment of our brilliant new Secretary of State, John Kerry, who had apparently negotiated a new treaty with Iran, that he assured us would stop Iran's advancing enrichment of plutonium into weapons grade material capable of producing sufficient nuclear arms to wipe Israel off the planet. I had heard a news report to this effect in passing, and I'm afraid my outrage got the better of me, and I published my post before I confirmed that the treaty was signed. Subsequently, the treaty is now reality, and Kerry can now rest assured that he will go down in history, along with Churchill's predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, who gave up Hungary, or Chekoslavakia to Hitler's enslavement, in order to ensure continued "world peace". But enslavement is not quite as bad as absolute genocidal holocaust, and Kerry's conscience must now face the possibility of having to answer to God for setting up His people for that risk. Well we know how Chamberlain's treaty worked out, and I'm sure the Israelis are suffering from a bad case of "Deja-Vu-all-over-again" ( to quote that wise old prophet, Yogi Berra). So now I feel a bit like a prophet myself, since God caused my premature sarcasm to eventually be appropriate for now. Only trouble is, I still have to look myself in the mirror, and I guess I don't look much like what I think a prophet should look like. So, I'll just give God all the glory, and try a little harder to verify my stories before posting comments, in the future.

Bibli-econ 101

In reflecting upon a series of posts that I wrote back in early 2009, which I called my "Stupid series" ( not to demean the content, but referring to the political adage, " It's the economy, Stupid..."), I came up with some interesting thoughts that I decided to share. They may seem outlandish based upon our present economic, and political reality, but I believe it should make for interesting discussion if anyone remembers that there is a "comments" button at the bottom of each post. If you make sincere and relevant comments, I will publish them, and perhaps comment back ( provided you are not trying to promote some anti-Christian cult, as happened recently).

These earlier posts were made to try to explain, Biblically, why the chaotic state of the economy would most likely doom the Democratic majority in Congress to wholesale losses in the coming 2010 elections, and also make President Obama's 2012 re-election unlikely, as well. So much for my new career as a political prognosticator! I couldn't fathom the American public being duped to the extent that we would re-elect the Bums who perpetuate this quagmire which has to end in the worst economic tragedy in history, if it is not brought under control soon. I guess my optimistic regard for the political acumen of the average citizen is tragically misplaced. It now seems we will have to depend entirely upon God's infinite capacity to care for, and provide for those who truly repent, in Jesus name, in the future economic disaster that may not be too far off. Thank God He is up to the task, but it's a shame we will have to experience a lot of the financial pain that now seems inevitable to me.

Anyway, in my old posts ( written in my now-defunct previous blog, which I recently cancelled permanently. If you now Google-up "The End-Times News Review" you will get a blank page with the title only on it.), I tried to describe the plan for economic activity that God revealed to the Israelites, the best that I could understand it. It is designed to automatically deflate the economy a little at a time, thereby eliminating the possibility of their economy having to suffer through the painful effects of a hyper-inflationary collapse such as historical evidence suggests the Roman empire may have dealt with as a consequence of Nero's tax-and-spend, and currency-inflating policies, and the record accounts for the similar collapse of the post-World War I German economy of the 1920's.

In my considering this plan, it occurred to me that this economy would not only protect the obedient individual, but it would tend to benefit small businesses who practiced it, while punishing the disobedient profligacy of the ancient equivalent of today's Multi-national Global Corporations. As the economy was designed to gradually deflate, it made it difficult to fund the rapid expansion of the rich ( i.e., corporations), which is generally accomplished through massive borrowed-capital investments ( massive borrowing would have been disastrous in a deflationary system). The rich would have survived, but only after defaulting on their massive debts, which would consequently have forced the liquidation of much of their assets. Eventually, those assets would be for sale at cheap prices, and the more prudent small business owners, and merchants of the day would have been the most likely people to have the funds to purchase them. This would accomplish two things: 1) it would be God's way of blessing the more prudent business practices of those who obediently applied His principles, while they gradually became the rich members of society; and, 2) it served as a painful, but not fatal lesson to the greedy, former rich business people, who thought massive borrowing was the best way to expand their business. If they chose to repent, and return to God's plan they could soon begin to prosper safely, but their previously greedy short-cut practices would continue to create the same result.

Today, we have an economy that runs completely opposite to God's plan. It is based upon massive borrowing ( called "financing") to build most of our businesses, with the result being massive corporate debt leaving our economy hanging by a thread, waiting for the next economic "bubble" to send us crashing into the next recession, with each successive recession probably more painful that the last, as consumer spending would be slower to recover from an attitude of emergiency-need-based-spending-only. But wait! To the rescue comes our "hero", the Fed! They move in with massive foreign-borrowed money to save the Banks that are "too-big-to-fail", which in turn loan money to the Global Corporations that are too indebted to them to allow them to fail, because then the Banks wouldn't get paid, and the Corporations would be forced to sell their valuable assets cheaply to the more frugal small businesses, which would be in the process of becoming the next major corporations through more wise and less greedy business practices ( such as expanding only through self-financing, using money from previous profits to turn back into the business, to create the opportunity for greater future profits. But this would crimp the style of the greedy Corporate C.E.O.'s, Directors, and Managers, who prefer to spend their company's profits on their own lavish lifestyles, and borrow the funds for expansion). But thanks to the Fed, the old, corrupt "Capitalistic" system is preserved, which does not in the least resemble the so-called "Free Enterprise" system that it claims to be. ( Please, spare me the old knee-jerk reaction to call me a "communist", just because I am not enamored with today's concept of "Capitalism".) It is "free" only to the Banks, and Global Corporations that the Fed protects, and it is paid for by the rest of us through suffering the Fed-driven inflation that they institute to pay off the interest to their foreign loans, which they borrowed to prop up the Banks, etc., that probably should have been liquidated into the hands of more responsible owners. True "Free Enterprise" would allow the greedy to fail, so their assets could be re-purchased cheaply by more frugal, smaller business owners, who could be trusted not to become the greedy corporate owners, and managers of the future, for fear that they might suffer the same consequences as their predecessors. But this would take the largest part of the economy out of the hands of the Bankers, who might have to make their living providing a service of protecting the money of their depositors, and making smaller, and safer loans to consumers, who would soon be able to buy houses and other assets more cheaply, because there would not be so much inflationary-borrowed money available to drive up the prices artificially.

Interestingly, it occurred to me that the Fed was created by Congress about the time of the Teddy Roosevelt anti-trust campaign which eventually broke up so many of the old "Robber Barons'" corporations. The likes of J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller saw their vast corporate holdings broken up into smaller companies ( but, they were compensated through the sales prices, so not suffering the financial losses of bankruptcy, they still maintained their wealthy power to influence the economy to their favor; hence the Fed was created to be run by wealthy Bankers, with the Fed's stock being owned by the Banks that were owned by these same "Robber Barons", to the ultimate protection of their Bank, and corporate holdings, at the expense of the average citizen, who was hurt the most by inflation.) What a brilliant plan to corrupt God's natural plan for allowing the economy to cleanse itself from Hyper-Greedy business practices, and steal the average man's desperate attempt to save, and prosper from his labors, in order to perpetuate their greedy ways! In God's economy, the greedy business owner may use greater riches to acquire more property, assets, subsidiary small businesses, and even more efficient competitor's businesses. But these very expansion acquisitions will only increase the profits in good economic times. When hard times hit, they tend to hit the bigger, less efficient businesses hardest. Soon the rich owner tires of paying the expenses of the unprofitable subsidiaries out of his own pocket, so he will seek to divest himself of the financial drag, and whomever buys it will likely run it more efficiently, and profitably. Even more efficient divestiture is through bankruptcy, after the rich guy hangs on too long to his inefficient businesses, and loses his shirt. That's how God would have the fat, inefficient corporations broken up, and sold to more efficient owners, at cheap prices. Not by government edict, when the former owner can sell the subsidiaries at reasonable prices, and maintain his wealthy power to continue his greedy practices once the economy rebounds. Without the automatic punishment of significant loss of wealth, there is no motivation for the greedy owner to change his ways, in the future.

Whoopee!!! Iran Has "Seen The Light"!?! And The World Is Safe!

Ain't it great what International Diplomacy can accomplish!!! After years of worrying over those insane terrorists who run Iran actually developing their Nuclear Missile capacity, we now have the assurance of the international diplomatic corps of America and our N.A.T.O. allies that the years of economic sanctions have finally worn down Iran's intransigence, and they are finally willing to negotiate a treaty. The only catch is that any treaty will not stop Iran from further developing their "peaceful development, and use of nuclear technology for electrical energy production". Of course their definition of this clause does not strictly prohibit the total nuclear annihilation of the entire nation of Israel, but that's okay because they are convinced that God hates Israel, and that all Jews are really descended "from apes and pigs" so they really are of no more significance than making a ham sandwich!

But the sticking point is this terribly unreasonable attitude of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu. I just don't get this guy... right when we are about to settle on a treaty, that will end many of the sanctions for Iran, he has the audacity to denounce the whole process as being, "a really bad deal". I mean what does this guy want? He knows that it is traditional for international diplomacy to settle for compromises when one, or both parties in a heated dispute remain intransigent. That's exactly what would be done here. Iran would "settle" for the lifting of economic sanctions in exchange for agreeing to keep doing exactly what they have been doing, and have fully intended to continue doing all along. In return, one supposes that the international diplomats will "settle" for the minor indiscretion of the total nuclear annihilation of the nation of Israel. And I suppose they will consider the collateral damage of the wiping-out of the Arab populations of the Gaza strip, and the Palestinian territory, and perhaps the nation of Jordan, and other Israeli neighbors as acceptable. I guess nuclear explosions are hard to contain within recognized borders. After all the only thing that matters is that the diplomats can go home and proudly proclaim that the world is now safe, because a treaty has been signed! And I guess it doesn't matter to them that after Iran wipes out Israel, their next goal would certainly be to develop more powerful missiles that would be capable of carrying their nuclear warheads across the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic Ocean in order to wipe out their second most hated enemy, America!!! But that's okay because we will have ourselves a nice new international treaty! Yip, Yip, Yahoo and Hooray!

Thank God for the wisdom of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the State Department diplomats who pulled this off, along with our European allies from N.A.T.O.! What would we ever do without them. I guess they are prepared to spend the next thousand years in some nuclear fallout shelter, in Arkansas, ( or wherever) along with our beloved Muslim President, who figures he can run the whole Muslim world from his underground tomb.

But, who cares! Whoopee, we got ourselves a brand new treaty!!!

[Can anybody sense just a little bit of sarcasm here?]

Venting My Spleen, Biblically

This past weekend I experienced a dilemma that I consider to be an intolerable invasion of my editorial rights concerning this Blog. From the beginning of my writing, back in December of 2008, when I began to write the predecessor to this present Blog (called "The End-Times News Review", which is generally listed on the same Google page as this one but a few listings below it), I determined to keep this as my Personal Opinion Blog. I am not an expert in Biblical Eschatology ( the study of Prophecy), I am not the Pastor of a church, I don't even have a degree from a Bible college. Therefor, technically speaking, I have no credibility to even express the opinions that I do, if I am trying to convince my readers of my ultimate authoritative correctness. And so I endeavor not to do so, as I don't wish this Blog to be so much about my personality as it is about the issues I discuss. As the heading suggests, I am depending upon the basic Biblical knowledge of the readers to easily discern my correctness, or not, and to agree or disagree with me as they choose. It is not as important to me to convince the skeptic as it is to simply point out to the believers who read my Blog the various news items that may, or may not serve as minor, or partial revelations from God that He is gradually setting up the conditions in the world today that are necessary for His Prophecies to eventually come to pass. As far as the skeptics are concerned, I'll leave them up to the Holy Spirit to provoke them to jealousy of the faith that I, and presumably the majority of my readers have in the inevitability of all of God's prophecies eventually being fulfilled. I certainly do hope that my reasoning might have some small part in leading the skeptics to faith in Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior, but that is not the main purpose of my Blog. There are probably millions of Pastors, and Evangelists out there that can do a much better job of it than I can, so I have determined not to overtly try to do that which I am not qualified to do. But I am concerned that our busy lifestyles might cause some sincere, devout Christians to simply miss some news item that seems of minimal interest to the non-believers, but under careful Biblical examination might reveal some gem of information pointing to the eventual fulfillment of some End-Times prophecy. If this also tends to provoke the Biblical curiosity of the former skeptic, so be it, and praise the Lord! It'll be to His Glory, and not mine!

On the other hand, as this is somewhat a "labor of love" for me, and it is almost an exclusive expression of my personal opinions ( excepting the Bible quotes, which are almost the same thing), I take offense when someone tries to latch onto my expressed opinion in order to promote a lie which I have not, and would not ever endorse. Such was the case this past weekend, and my blood is still boiling over the subtle audacity that obviously was entailed.

As I've said since I am not a qualified, or ordained preacher, I would never consider trying to set up a non-profit ministry in order to raise the funds necessary to live on, in order to make this my full-time occupation, which it is almost anyway ( even without any Funding). First of all I couldn't find any respectable Board members, to serve as my Biblical, business and financial guides, as they couldn't reasonably trust me to not write anything that would reflect badly on their own reputations ( as implicit endorsers of my unqualified preaching, and I'm not about to spend the necessary time to get a degree from a seminary or Bible college so I can get ordained, in order to write the opinions that I already am). That said, I have grown fond of being able to put food on the table, and being able to sleep under a roof at night. So, I have been trying to establish an advertising arrangement with Google Adsense in which they would pay me small fees to run inoffensive ads on my Blog. Frequent readers should already have seen many of the ads that have been running for the last couple of months. Unfortunately, I have been unable to receive any payment as my considerable computer illiteracy has kept me from being able to connect my Adsense "Ad Code" to the proper spot on my Blog, which requires a familiarity with the HTML computer language. This final step in the process has eluded me, in spite of my dogged efforts. Meanwhile Google has been running ads on my Blog, technically without my permission, since the payment procedure is incomplete. I haven't minded, as I considered this to be a temporary situation, though it has dragged on to infuriating lengths. My main concern was that I reserved the right to edit the choice of ads that were shown on my Blog. This was the case when I found ads that I considered to be inappropriate; they always had an "x" in the corner that I could "click" to remove. That is until this past weekend!

To my outrage I discovered an ad was being run on my Blog that said, "Mormons believe in Jesus as Savior". I acknowledge that this may be true with some Mormons, but then by definition they could not truthfully call themselves "Mormons" any more. The most central doctrine of the Mormon faith, as I understand it is that they consider the "Book Of Mormon" to be the most accurate revelation of God's word, supplanting even the Bible in authority whenever there is a contradiction in the stated principles of each, which are considerable, and frequent. This is an inexcusable contradiction in the authority of the Bible for any true Christian believer, and there is no denying that. The Bible expressly forbids anyone from intentionally changing the text that was given by God to His people, complete with an explicit curse the He pronounced upon those who intentionally do so. God said in the last chapter of the book of Revelation that anyone who would, "add unto", or detract from the words of the prophecy of this book ( Revelation), that God would take away their part in the book of life ( meaning their eternal salvation). I know how "judgmental" that sounds, but it is not me that has pronounced the judgment, but God Himself. And God is the only one who has the legitimate right to judge any of us. We can merely accept His standards, or rebel, and I've made my choice! Therefor if I were to allow that ad, with it's blatant lie to continue to be shown on my Blog, I would be indirectly guilty of an implicit endorsement of that lie. I will not do that!!!

Unfortunately, though I've come to suspect lately that it was intentional, I found that this ad was the only one I've seen on my Blog without an "x" in the corner so that it might be rejected if I didn't approve. As I've said, I suspect that whoever placed the ad knew that it would be offensive to Bible-believing Christians, and that I could be expected to try to reject it. Therefor I suppose that they may have specifically requested ( perhaps for an additional fee) that the rejection "x" not be allowed on their ad. This I found to be an intolerable violation of my editorial rights to protect the content of my Blog, for which I have the sole legal copyright authority, not them!!! But lacking the capacity to edit the ad, I was left with the only alternative, which was to cancel the ads altogether ( though they have since been restored).

My intent was to ad an advertising capacity to my Blog in which it was obvious to my readers that I didn't necessarily agree with everything that was promoted thereon, but that I had absolutely no intention of allowing the blatant promotion of anti-Christian doctrine on my blog, nor was I ever going to forfit my editorial rights to any third party to manipulate my expressed opinions to imply something other than what I have said!!! To expect me to do so unwillingly is nothing less than a clear violation of my First Amendment Constitutional rights of Freedom of Expression, and Freedom of Religeon! And in this case at least, that, "shall not be abridged"!

NOTE TO BRIAN:
I chose to edit your comment out not because it was bad, but because it was dead wrong. I'm sorry you have chosen to believe a lie; I'm sure you are sincere, but that doesn't change the facts. If you care to argue the point by further commenting, then you can leave your E-mail address and I will respond further, but I won't use this format to argue the point further. Let me just make a few points from my perspective: 1) Why is it that the heavenly angels mentioned in the Bible have names ending in "el"( a suffix which means "of God" in Hebrew) which He obviously chose to distinguish His angels from those fallen angels of Satan, which we refer to as demons, but in Joseph Smith's case He is supposed to have sent an "angel" named Moroni to deliver the "revelation" of the book of Mormon. That seems rather Moronic to me! There is no one in heaven, or on earth throughout history that is more meticulously consistent than God. Yet He didn't give this angel a name that followed the pattern ( i.e., "Gabriel", and "Michael"); it doesn't fit. Perhaps that "angel" works for the other side? After all, Satan's very name means, "the deceiver", and Jesus said the Satan has the power to appear as an angel of light; 2) The Ummim, and the Thumim were used by the Temple High Priest ( and he alone) to cast as lots before God to determine between two choices that they wished God to use to direct the decision process for the children of Israel. Nowhere does the Bible describe them as being instruments of major divination, such as supposedly in revealing the whole book of Mormon; 3) When Jesus left this earth, in His Ascension, from the mount of Olives, the true angels told His disciples that He would return again the same way. We have record that He will touch down upon His return exactly on the mount of Olives. Nowhere does it say that he will come back first to Utah, and pronounce that the local American Indian tribes are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. 4) Nowhere in the Bible does it say that when we go to heaven we will be changed into heavenly angels; in fact the Bible makes it very clear that we are entirely different creations from the angels; our corrupt bodies will be changed into heavenly bodies, but that is different from the angelic beings. Here are just a few inconsistencies with the book of Mormon, versus the Bible, which can not be reconciled without choosing one version over the other. Yet you say that the book of Mormon is not thought to "supplant" the Bible. Perhaps not, but it is considered to supercede the Bible in that when there is an apparent discrepancy the book of Mormon is considered to be more correct than the Bible. This amounts to a changing of the Biblical account, which is cursed of God in Revelation 18, through 21. And if Joseph Smith is guilty of changing the Biblical account, guess where that leaves him? So, your choice is simple: believe in his lies, which puts you in ultimately his same dangerous position; or recognize the truth of the Bible. You can't have it both ways when there is clear contradiction. Choose one way, or the other!

[ On the outside chance that you may be the very person who placed the ad in question on this Blog, let me say that your efforts have been largely dismissed, and the remainder will be soon. Immediately after writing this post I clicked over to my original Blog, which I have referred to above. Surprise, surprise!!! Guess what advertisement appeared on my screen?!! At least it appeared when I merely clicked the Blog. After I signed in as the Publisher, and then went back to my last post, it was discreetly gone without my efforts to remove it yet. That sounds like someone is manipulating it so I won't remove it. Well, since I don't post on that Blog very often any more, I'll let it stay temporarily as I need to do some things before I'm ready to cancel the whole Blog. But your, or whomever's, message will not reach too many pageviewers in the meantime, so the effort is essentially in vain! UPDATE: I have now saved my archive for future reference, and have cancelled my original Blog: "The End-Times News Review". I did this mostly because I was dissatisfied with the Server's quality of service, including running their ads on my Blog for years without asking my permission, or paying me a single penny for the privilege ( Kind of like Adsense has been doing on this blog for the last couple of months. There seems to be no end to the number of people who are dying to take advantage of the computer illiterate, as I am, unfortunately. Anyway, now "Mormons.org" can advertise all they want to on a blank page, and see how many they can get to swallow their deception!]

"Happy" Halloween???

In keeping with the spirit ( pardon the pun) of Halloween, let me go on record as saying this is clearly the most utterly perverse concept for a "holiday" that any predominantly Christian world has ever had the sheer audacity to invent in the history of the church. First of all, to use the term of "holiday" to categorize it is blasphemously inaccurate at best, as there is certainly nothing Holy about the concept as it has evolved today, and rather lame Christian reasoning when it was first conceived. The concept of dressing up like witches, ghouls, and goblins was originally intended to "frighten" away the evil spirits on All Saints Eve, or "All Hallows Eve", thereby protecting the parishoners of the local Catholic church in the dark ages, which was more than likely meant to pacify the locals who probably kept some pagan festival at that time, and the local preists wanted to seem to "Christianize" the revelry to make it seem they were having an effect on the populace, which was difficult since those few who were literate were kept from reading the Bible, the sole responsibility, and even the sole property of the priests.

Jesus himself put the lie to the concept of frightening demonic forces away with scarey costumes when he said, "How can Satan cast out Satan..." since, "a house divided can not stand". Jesus is the only one that really scares Satan and his minions, along with Christian believers willing to resist them in the name of Jesus. Satan knows that he has no authority over Christians, in Jesus' name, and that Jesus has the ultimate authority over them to cast them into Hell, which He will do when the time is right. In the mean time Satan is trying to frighten as many of us as he can into believing that all that I've just written is wrong, and that he is the most powerful force in the world, not God.

The thing that really nauseates me is the stampede of T.V. shows and movies that are falling all over themselves to produce some new story about how the heroes and heroins struggle mightily to kill off the millions of Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies that are roaming the earth, usually after some cataclysmic event which they blasphemously describe with what they obviously consider to be a generic term, of "Apocalypse".

There is nothing generic about the Apocalypse. There is only one source for the word itself ( the Bible), and it's use is found only in the book of Revelation, which also is the definition of "Apocalypse" (meaning "revelation", or "uncovering"). I have come to be convinced that Hollywood's perverse obsession with producing such an overwhelming flood of Vampire, and Zombie flicks, and the audiences' even greater thirst ( again, pardon the pun) to view them is no less than additional evidence that the End Times are upon us and that Satan is trying to prepare as many as he can to rationalize the inexplicable disappearance of multiple millions of born-again Christians around the world, simultaneously, when Jesus "Raptures" the Church and takes us all to heaven. Those who remain will be desperate for some comfortable explanation, and I guess they'll prefer to believe that all the Vampires, and Zombies flew in from Mars in their flying saucers to round up all the Christians to take home to Mars, for food. ( New meaning to the term, "guess who's coming to dinner?", huh!) Perhaps we should all think twice before eating any candy made by the Mars Corporation, including "Snickers", and "Three Musketeers". ( Parents, check your childrens' "Trick Or Treat" bags carefully tomorrow!)

Anyway, it is interesting to see just how much publicity Hollywood, and more recently all the "reality" Cable networks, are giving to the concept of "surviving" the Apocalypse and having to deal with the chaos that they imagine will follow. I get tickled to watch some of these so-called "Prepper" shows to see the unbelievable lengths to which some people are desperately willing to go to "protect" their families, and their property from the hoards of starving survivors of the Apocalypse, who've figured out that their food stores are the only supplies left after the grocery stores have all been pillaged to emptiness. It's sad to realize all the money that's being spent, and all the back-breaking labor they're putting into their preparations, just so they don't have to ask Jesus to save their souls now, and their whole beings later. There is even one formerly disgraced televangelist who apparently finances his new show ( since his prison record most likely prohibits his establishing a non-profit ministry to raise donations) by selling freeze-dried foods, and other emergency-preparedness stuff that is consistent with the Prepper mentality. He gets around this apparent Biblical inconsistency by saying it's just to prepare for any emergency social breakdown, but it does sound very similar to the old Howard Ruff financial collapse scenario of the 1980's, when he was pushing his freeze-dried Mormon concept of preparedness. There's certainly nothing wrong with the concept, but it seems so silly if they are trusting in their freeze-dried foods, instead of trusting in Jesus to save them from having to survive the aftermath of the real Apocalypse, which may not be too far off. What are they going to do when Jesus comes? Are the going to ask Jesus to take along their freeze-dried supplies? I guess they'll have to leave it all behind for the "survivors" to fight over. Oh wait, I forgot that Vampires, and Zombies don't eat regular food. So I guess that leaves the Zombies to try and eat the brains of all the Vampires, while the Vampires are trying to drink the blood of the Zombies ( if they have any left). And on that pleasant thought, let me say "Happy Halloween, everybody"!

A Pox On Both Your Houses!!!

Pardon my political cynicism, but this Shakespearean quote expresses my feelings toward today's political chaos better than I can myself. I am a registered Independent ( conservative, evangelical) and frustrated as heck at the bone-headed belligerence of the party lines of both the Democratic, and Republican parties. Its time we as responsible Americans take charge of both parties, and serve notice that the politics of yesterday ( meaning the last 50 years) is no longer acceptable, and either they clean house on their greedy, irresponsible policies, and practices, or we will clean house of them. The third choice is a new third Party, which is more difficult to create with sufficient credibility, though the Tea Party is making a stab at it ( see my last post).

Fifty years ago America was entering a period of heightened economic prosperity, though much of it was created by the early stages of Government induced inflationary spending, to soften the effects of both the Great Depression, and World War II. If that had been limited to several years before our government began to pay off the principle of our debt we could have handled it well enough. But successive Congressional, and presidential administrations found it easier to simply pay off the interest, and allow the whole debt to increase, leaving the increasing mess for their successors to deal with ( which of course no one did). Our present-day hyper-inflationary quagmire is the horribly painful result of that profligate Government spending, which left the impression for those who did not understand what was happening that this kind of prosperity was both natural, and reliable for the indefinite future. What we were not told was that it would all come due eventually, in the form of runaway hyper-inflation like Germany suffered in the 1920's, and which Hitler used to justify his reign of terror ( especially on the Jews). We are now approaching a time when our currency will collapse, and we will suffer such runaway inflation that it will make Germany's 1920's look like a kindergarten parody. This may well be the harbinger of the the economic crisis the Bible describes in Revelation chapter 6, when it talks of a future time when a man's daily labor will earn him merely enough to pay for a day's amount of food. ( See Rev. 6: 5,&6; where it talks about the "opening of the third seal".)

What we desperately need is at least one Party that will actually stand for righteousness, in the face of a population that has been conditioned to believe a whole series of political lies, to the point where they find the truth to be hilariously rediculous ( i.e., John Stewart, of the "Dailey Show", who has made a lucrative career out of witty ridicule of the truth, and the few people who have the courage to speak it, almost exclusively conservatives. This follows the old tried, and true tactic of Liberal politics: "When you have no good argument to the contrary, simply ridicule the opposition". Although I must credit him with some hilarious wit concerning "Obamacare", recently. I suppose that fiasco seemed to be just a bit too lame-brained for him to pass up the opportunity to slam it good, even if it was a liberal "sacred cow". I tried hard not to laugh at his quips, but the absurd irony of it all got the better of me. It was hilarious! Too bad Stewart's not on our side!)

Today, we have a Democratic Party that once was the bastion of Red-neck racism, Ku Klux Klan protectionism, and horrified resistance to anything that smacked of Big-Government spending, because it threatened their racist-based political empire, which was breathlessly waiting for, "the South to rise again". This is the basis of liberal politicians trying to associate tax cuts with Racism. Simply associate something you ( the liberals) hate, with something that is universally despised and you won't need to explain why you hate it. As the party found that Government spending could quiet the outrage of the masses and coincidentally guarantee re-election, the party slowly changed from it's racist roots to one that merely bought off criticism by throwing taxpayer's money at whatever special interest yelled the loudest. But the exponential nature of inflationary spending necessitates continued spending, at greater and greater levels, or the whole "house of cards" will collapse in on itself, leaving whatever party is in control to take political responsibility for the inevitable deflationary depression that must follow. We are on the brink of that point now, we just can't see it because the Fed has continued to cleverly hyper-inflate the currency sufficiently to temporarily disguise it from public view. At some point their efforts to continue doing so will become inadequate to hide it, and it will all collapse. Till then, we will continue to have a welfare system that rewards teen-aged girls for intentionally getting pregnant ( when neither the father, nor the mother intend to get married and raise the child, but prefer to let the Government pay for it all), and they find that the more children they have ( regardless of how many different fathers) the more profitable it is. Also, we will continue to struggle with a financially bereft Social Security system that continues to foment the lie that it is paying money that we have saved from our employment years, rather than paying out cash borrowed from general tax revenues. The Democrats continue to ignore this bankrupt quagmire, preferring to throw more inflated money at it, while hoping the crisis will somehow disappear. And the best idea the Republicans can come up with is to raise the eligibility age a few years, which is a heartless rip-off of those who will truly be in need in future years, when they are unable to work.

The obvious solution to Social Security's financial stability is simple, but politically painful for the politicians who must vote it into law. They must have the courage to recognize that the real purpose of Social Security is to provide Emergiency Aid to the elderly who can demonstrate that they can not provide for their care themselves. Obviously, this excludes those who are so rich that they can afford to pay for their own needs, instead of receiving benefits that are as much as six, or seven times greater than those who are desperately in need, when those obscenely large benefits wouldn't begin to pay a small portion of the cost of the rich person's lifestyle, which they can easily afford themselves. Why does the Government continue to pay huge benefits to those who don't need it, and a comparative pittance to those who do, and still wring their hands worrying about how to save Social Security from bankruptcy??? It's mind-boggling lunacy that can't pass for status quo anywhere else but the Federal Government!

Now for the Republicans, and their Sacred-Cow Tax Breaks, and exemptions for wealthy Tax(non)-payers. They have become the Lobbying equivalent of Meth-amphetamine addicts who desperately protect every tax loophole that benefits the rich ( individual and corporate), at the expense of the slowly disappearing middle-class, who's left to pay for the profligate spending of the Democrats. If Congress would ever do the right thing ( fat chance!) and create real campaign finance reform by limiting contributions to a $100.00 maximum for each individual,( who must declare it, legally), while abolishing all foreign, and corporate contributions ( including Labor Unions), then we might have Congressmen who campaign for what they actually believe to be right, rather than what they have sold themselves out to be to the lobbying interests, to raise sufficient funds to get re-elected. If every politician were so limited in how they raised campaign funds ( legally, at least) they would need to earn it by convincing there constituents that they represented money well spent. And they would have to spend it more surgically, which means fewer media ads, and thus less influence for the media ( which we all know is corrupt and nauseatingly biased). Then there would need to be careful accounting of how much is raised, and exactly how it is spent, so any campaign that spends more than it can account for will immediately set off alarms for corruption prosecution.

This is what I believe needs to happen if America is going to save itself from declining into a third-world economic status, in the not too distant future. But I'm afraid I remain skeptical that there remain enough courageous voters in America to hold our politicians to these standards. Pardon my cynicism, and pray God that I'm wrong!

Lets Have A Party!

We're all invited! Welcome...come on in! Just one little problem...No fun allowed! At least not likely, or not for quite a while. No Booze, certainly no illegal drugs, no music, no dancing ( at least not the non-verbal kind), no wild sexual orgies, nor anything that passes for "fun" among liberal, Humanists, or atheists; nor teens and twenty-year-olds who really have no good idea where they stand, morally and politically. In fact, all we're doing right now is just sitting around and waiting to see what's going to happen. Sound like fun??? Well, me neither.

We are serving refreshments, though. How do you like your Tea? Sugar? Sorry, our's only comes complete with all the bitterness of the straightest brew. And no milk either. Only those who've been weened are welcome at this affair. We didn't have time to prepare any food either, this party kind of caught us all by surprise, and we really weren't prepared for a big get together. So, I guess we'll just sit around and guzzle Tea until it comes out our eyeballs!

That's right, you guessed it! We're talking about the Great American Tea Party, named for the historical Bostonian revolt against intolerably oppressive Government, which initiated the American Revolution. Back then there were not even a lot of people who even realized how intolerable their Government was, outside of Boston. There was great concern that if Boston's outrage could not be expressed convincingly to the more populous Virginia colonists the whole conflict surrounding the Tea Party Revolt would prove to be futile, and would be quickly stamped out by British troops. ( Which would bring new meaning to the dreaded term of "the Stamp Act".)

But thanks to King George's belligerence, and the flowery prose of Thomas Payne's "Common Cause", coupled with a few fire-brand orations from Patriots such as Patrick Henry, this country's mood slowly began to turn from blind obedience, and cattle-brained acceptance of the status quo, to one of progressive outrage ( enough to feed a Revolution through to it's unlikely victory).

Now we find ourselves in much the same place as our fore-fathers were. Oppressed by an intransigent Legislature, which supports a foolish ideologue of a socialist President, who thinks he is above our Constitutional form of government, and that "majority rules" is the only thing that matters when it comes to the enforcement of Law. And besides, even if we ultimately reject his ideals, he probably figures he'll be out of work in three more years, so all he really wants is to gain international fame and respect, especially among radical Muslim nations so that he will ultimately be "elected" as the one-world Caliphate Leader, who will turn the world into a form of Muslim-dominated Socialism. And there will be no term limit for that job.

The only hope that I can see for a resurgent America is in a third Party revolt, like the Tea Party, but not necessarily that. Any party that can convince enough Americans that the Liberalism of the Democrats is just another form of economic slavery, and that the wishy-washy "Moderate" Republicans have nothing better to offer, as long as we keep propping up Wall Street, and the Banking industry with hyperinflationary cash. Someone has got to tell the people the truth, even though it's obvious that we really don't want to hear it. And the Tea Party of recent has done the best job of trying to do that lately.

Now, the Liberals are gleefully praising themselves for forcing the Conservatives in the House to shoot themselves in their collective foot over the debt ceiling controversy, and the Government shut-down. And the "Moderate" Republicans are outraged at being dragged into this situation against their will. Both are now crowing about how the Conservatives will face electoral retribution for their sins, in 2014. But at least the battle lines have been clearly drawn. Everybody will know where their Candidates stand on the foolish issue of ObamaCare, and I guess every other issue will stem largely from that. We will see if the Tea Party Conservatives are run out of town, like the Congressional Wizards are all hoping. Or is this the start of a third-party movement that God has given us to help lead this nation back to a more righteous, and responsible form of government?

Welcome, in the mean time! Have a cup of very bitter Tea, and take a seat while we wait to see how this will all turn out. It promises to be very interesting, one way or the other! And to God be the Glory,amen!!!

Shame America, For Raising The Debt Ceiling

The most condemning statement I can think of to describe our run-away, tax-and-spend Congress ( not even to mention our Socialist Presidency) is to remind America that, "you get what you pay for"! Any System of government that would rather be paying the interest on President Woodrow Wilson's debt for the funding of our World War I war efforts, rather than simply pay off the $35 million debt forever, is lunatic beyond belief, and apparently has been for the past 90-plus years, since it was borrowed. And now these are the same kind of elected numbskulls we have allowed to vote to raise the borrowing capacity of our government beyond its present nearly $17 trillion level. How many of you level-headed parents out there think it's a good idea to punish your shop-till-you-drop teenaged daughters who have just maxed out their credit cards ( which they don't pay for; you do!) by raising their spending capacity to unlimited credit??? Boy!!! That'll sure teach them a lesson, won't it!!!

There is an alternative to raising the debt ceiling that we didn't hear either the President, or any member of the Congress talk about during this entire Budget/Debt Ceiling fiasco. It's called, "pay off your debts, you idiots!". Wow, what an amazing concept! Unfortunately, we are faced with the necessity of not only paying off our debts, but the legal indebtedness of our fathers' governmental borrowing, and our grandfathers', and at least a couple of "greats" in there as well. Some day, and probably not too distantly in the future, this is going to have to be faced up to, one way or another. Either we must pay off our predominantly international debts, to the tune of around $17 trillion (which is roughly the equivalent to our entire Gross National Product, for one year) or we will have to willingly and permanently default on all our indebtedness, with the equally painful stipulation that all foreign indebtedness to us is permanently forgiven ( which I understand is approximately equal to our own debt).

This does not remotely resemble the Biblical form of international debt Forgiveness that is expounded in Leviticus 25, and which I described in detail in my previous blog which can be "Googled" at almost the same title ( see "The End-Times News Review"), some 5 years ago ( posted as the "Stupid..." posts; as in "It's the economy, stupid", and "Stupid is as stupid does"), but it's as close as we could manage today, under our present form of economic chaos. The only other option available to us is the one our "brilliant" (read: "cowardly", and "Greedy") politicians have chosen for us over the last near century. It's called Hyperinflation, and it is the most painful and socially destructive option of the three. The ultimate conclusion of which always gives a meglo-maniacal tyrant for a ruler, just as Hitler used the German Hyperinflation of the 1920's to rise to power in the most diabolical government history has ever known, to date. I added the last qualifier to this statement because the Bible prophecies a "future" tyrant that will one day make all his evil predecessors look like pansies by comparison to his evil tyranny ( referred to as the Antichrist). The question is: how far in the future is he? He may be waiting in the wings now, looking for his opportunity to take over!

We are trapped in a spiral of financial decline that will eventually leave our nation in a third world condition if we don't slam on the breaks before it's too late. And we know that neither Congress, nor the President has the desire, or courage to stop this economic spiral. Why should they; I suspect that most of these liberal politicians are looking out for themselves by socking away tons of money, perhaps through influence pedaling ( which is equivalent to bribe-taking, in my book), which will give them each enough of a nest-egg to be able to bail out on a "dying America", and emigrate to whatever country will fare the best after the coming international financial collapse! So much for our politicians' patriotic fervor!

So what am I suggesting as a "solution"? There is no good one, just a lesser of the evil choices! Our best choice is the most frightening in the short term: Intentional Default on our debts, and forgiveness of those owed to us ( which will be automatic anyway, as retaliation), and a permanent illegality of international borrowing to service our governmental spending, rather than paying for it all with revenue, no matter how painful in the short-term. This will surely drive us immediately into a Deflationary depression that will probably make the "Great Depression" look like peanuts. But we can survive it, as we did the last one. And afterwards we will be financially stronger than we are now. As far as our international lenders/creditors are concerned we must leave them alone and let the "chips fall where they may", sadly. But the crisis is so severe that we must look to our own house, first. One by-product of this will probably be that the illegal immigration crisis will simply dry up, as things will be worse here for immigrants than in their home countries, as the international community will initially sanction us with boycotts of all trade, to try and force us to repent of our defaulting on their loans. But after a number of years of economic isolation, our economy will rebound enough so that their greedy desperation will bring them crawling back looking for loans from our rebuilt economy to bail out their bereft Socialist economies, with the consequential resumption of international trade relations. And if we remember the Biblical principle of lending to others, but never borrowing from them we will never see a financial crisis of this scale again!

Putin To The Rescue!

Christians have long known that the world was in desperate need of a Savior. In fact, the defining moment in a person's life is when he, or she actually becomes a Christian by acknowledging in prayer that they believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and the Savior of the world, and they ask Him to come into their heart, forgive them of their sins, and become their personal Savior, and Lord of their life, forever. This decision is then sealed spiritually, by God, in some personal manner that confirms to them that their prayer has been answered, usually in a way that is somewhat different from what others experience, yet confirming their faith in Jesus, personally.

Now it seems that the world no longer needs Jesus, and that they have another "savior" in the person of Russian Premier Vladimier Putin who has personally volunteered his country's scientists, and technicians to dismantle all of the poison gas munitions stored in Syria, in order to prevent further gas attacks against Syria's rebel forces, and any collateral civilian populations. What a relief! Now the world can relax, especially Barak Obama who doesn't have to stammer around any more trying to talk his way out of his previous threat of retaliation, by explaining how "crossing a Red Line" is not really what it seems. And isn't it wonderful of Putin to offer his help, considering that it was Russia's scientists that gave Syria the technology to produce the poison gas in the first place, and that there would most likely be a very incriminating paper trail leading right back to the Russian sources for any other U.N. sponsored technicians to see if they began snooping around the Syrian stockpiles. Now that won't be necessary, the Russians will take care of all that themselves! How sweet!

Of course it might take a while to finish the process, like about as long as it takes for Russia to quietly fly in thousands of military "experts", ranking from Privates to Generals, all armed to the teeth, and staring hungrily at Israel, Syria's neighbor to the south. I'll bet there will still be a massive stockpile of Sarin gas available when Putin decides to stop pretending, and begins his invasion of Israel by sending a massive barrage of the poison gas on them. My what a "savior" we have in Putin! Thank God we have such brilliant, and compassionate world leaders such as himself, and Barak Obama to save us from the folly of Assad's poison gas, and Iran's soon-to-be nuclear arsenal, which they have assured us is, "only need for electrical power", and not for "genocidal power" against Israel.

The world grows palpably safer by the minute, under such wise, and benevolent leadership!

Antichrist Identified?

I stumbled across a brief biography of the former Israeli Prime Minister/former Defense Minister/former long-time General of the I.D.F., Ariel Sharon. I knew he had suffered a major stroke back in 2006, but I hadn't heard whether he had survived it, or not. Apparently he has survived it though he has supposedly ended up in a coma, in a "permanent vegetative state". At least that's what the doctors thought until last January. They had a team of Israeli and American doctors examine him then to see if there was any discernible brain response to various stimuli, and they were surprised to find significant measureable brain activity in response to various pictures that would have been familiar to him before his stroke, as opposed to similar pictures that would have been unfamiliar to him. The doctors were careful to report that while this brain activity was indeed significant, it was a long way away from stating that they expected him to awaken out of his seven-year coma any time soon.

The reason I had Googled his name in the first place was because I had been reading the scriptures concerning the "Abomination of Desolation" in Revelation 13, and 17, and also in Daniel chapter 9. Like probably every other Born-Again Christian, I have long speculated as to the identity of the Antichrist, assuming he is already alive, and soon to be revealed. For a long time I wondered if it could be Mikhail Gorbachev, since the Antichrist was described as a man, "as though he was wounded in the head" ( but not actually saying that he was wounded). Gorbachev's very prominent scarlet-red birth mark on his forehead seemed very condemning to me, as someone viewing him in a vision ( like the apostle John) could easily presume it to be an open wound, yet he would be seen walking and talking normally. This seemed to fit the bill for someone presumed to have been miraculously brought back from the dead ( see Revelation 17: 8, and 11 where it talks of, "the Beast that was, and is not"). Yet there were obvious problems with the logic here.

First, Revelation 17 also talks about a perverse system of false worship, referred to as, "the great whore" (in contrast to the true "Bride of Christ" which is His Church), and it describes "her" as residing in a city that can be traditionally recognized as Rome, when it says in verse 9, "And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth." This can only refer to the Vatican, situated in the heart of Rome, a city renowned for being built upon seven great hills, with all apologies to our many Catholic brothers, and sisters. I am not attempting to start baiting Catholics as being false Christians; I'll leave that up to people like Martin Luther ( who was after all one of the most virulent anti-semites in history, so his understanding certainly had it's limits, just like all of us). But the Vatican does have a tainted history with its papal throne historically being available for purchase to the highest bidder; I believe it was one of Lucretia Borgeas' relatives who bribed himself into being elected Pope, and later was quoted as saying something to the effect that he found the concept of Salvation through the forgiveness of sins a very convenient concept for the manipulation of the believers. Somewhere in Revelation I believe it is talking about worshipers of the "great whore" when it quote's God as talking to the true believers when He says, "come out of her my people", meaning that God recognizes a difference between Catholics who are truly Born-Again Christians, by faith in Jesus, and those who merely trust in their Catholic (or Protestant, for that matter) traditions to get them into Heaven when they die. This is the crux of the issue that has caused Christians to believe that the throne of the Pope would eventually be taken over by the Antichrist, though it was never clearly stated to be so in the Bible.

Nonetheless, I can't quite picture Mikhail Gorbachev being able to purchase the papacy, or even wanting to. He has always seemed to be a confirmed secularist, so I guess that birth mark is probably just a coincidence after all.

Now this report of Ariel Sharon's brain reacting to various simple stimuli has peaked my curiosity once again. I'm sure various other "coincidences" will interest all of us, from time to time, until the actual moment of the "Abomination of Desolation" truly reveals the identity of the Antichrist. Yet if Ariel Sharon should one day completely awaken from his coma, there are certain "coincidences" that are remarkable, along with serious flaws in the logic. It could be that he might be the false Messiah which is prophecied in conjunction with the revelation of the Antichrist. Many Jews have believed in a soon coming Messiah ( so long as his name was not Jesus), and I understand that the popular belief is that they expect him to be a normal Jewish man of exceptional power ( but not the "Son of God") to lead his nation, as was Ariel Sharon for so many years. Also there were reports of Sharon allowing himself to be escorted around the site of the ancient Holy Temple not long before his stroke, as if he were attempting to act out the prophecied entrance of the Messiah into the Temple, which we Christians believe Jesus already did on Palm Sunday. He even went so far as to begin his tour of the Temple Mount from the inside of the East Gate, which has been blocked-up with stone and concrete for decades, or more. This was a blatant attempt to seem to "fulfill" the Messianic Prophecy stating that the Messiah would enter the Temple through the East Gate. Could this actually be the "Abomination of Desolation", way in advance? Well, probably not, as it is supposed to be accompanied by some sort of blasphemous setting up of an image, like some kind of giant hologram of the Antichrist proclaiming himself to be the third member of the Godhead ( the Holy Spirit?). I've long thought that this, coupled with the receiving of his "mark of the beast" might actually be the "unforgiveable sin" that Jesus mentioned, but did not clearly define, other than to refer to it as the "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit". One must surely wonder if Sharon was attempting to place himself in position to be proclaimed the Messiah by his followers. Anyway this created such an outcry among the Palestinian Arabs that a new Intifada riot broke out because of it.

All this is reported to you as merely interesting facts to contemplate until the real "Abomination of Desolation" is carried out ( assuming we're still here, and the Rapture hasn't yet happened). I certainly mean no disrespect to the family of Ariel Sharon, especially if all this speculation should ultimately prove to be nothing more than coincidence. But, as he has been a very public personality for decades, I don't feel that this constitutes any form of slander, even if it proves to be wrong. At worst I suppose this seems a bit insensitive of me to even suggest the possibility of it being true. But for Christians this is a very significant issue to be concerned with, and ignorance of issues like this could possibly effect someone's salvation, though I certainly am not trying to make any definitive charges as to the truth of my conjecture. Again, all apologies to any family or friends whom I may have offended by it. God bless!

NOTE: (from January 12, 2014):

As noted above, I certainly meant no disrespect to the now late Ariel Sharon, who was reported to have passed away yesterday, with my wandering speculations concerning the identity of the Antichrist. I apologized in advance to his relatives should my suggestions prove untrue, and therefore offensive. But the larger issue stands irrefutable, that many secularly-inspired Jews have attempted to act out aspects of the Messianic Prophecies in the past, as Sharon clearly did, and others will likely follow until the real Antichrist actually comes forward to commit the "Abomination of Desolation" that Daniel referred to. As Christians, we would be remiss if we didn't examine these attempts to replace Jesus Christ with a secular impostor as Israel's Messiah, in order that we would not be fooled by the real Antichrist if we are still here ( which I strongly doubt we will be). My purpose was not to defame anyone, but to show the lengths that some have gone to in order to avail themselves of the worshipful loyalty that would be accrued by being declared the Jewish Messiah, again, so long as his name was not Jesus.

Obama Peeks Out of the Closet

Recently I committed the indiscretion of wondering if President Obama was actually a "closet Muslim" ( see post of that title). My, how un-patriotic of me to dare to besmirch the reputation of the leader of our government( no matter how apparently deserving he may be), who is credited with being the "leader of the free world". Moreover, how un-Christian of me to not blindly support him since the Apostle Paul encourages us to pray for our leaders. Well, I do pray for Mr. Obama. I pray earnestly that God will change his heart before he destroys this nation, as he certainly seems to be attempting to do, whether he realizes it or not. Never before in American history have we ever elected as president a man who seems so bent on cozying up to international organizations who state openly that their intention is to destroy America's constitutional form of government and replace it with a Jihadist form of crack-pot theocracy, all the while he pretends to "protect and defend" that very Constitution. The closest we've ever come to this before was with Aaron Burr, and all he was able to destroy was Alexander Hamilton's liver. But a story broadcast by C.B.N. News, on the "700 Club",( see story at www.cbnnews.com, on August 28th) details how President Obama has apparently been meeting openly with members of an organization called the "I.S N.A.", which stands for the "Islamic Society of North America", and whose leader ( one Mohammed Magid) has apparently become a trusted advisor to the Obama administration.

Apparently, the Obama administration rationalizes this cozy relationship by claiming that Mr. Magid is representative of the moderate element of Islam in America, yet the evidence suggests that he has very close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which gave us the inception of Osama Bin Laden's Al Quaida network, and the failed attempt to turn a questionable Egyptian presidential victory into a creation of a Sharia-law radical Islamic state. This attempt was reversed by the Egyptian Army's "non-coup" Coup recently and the consequential blood bath when the Brotherhood encouraged thousands of protestors to threaten the Army positions, while giving cover to their Jihadist snipers to shoot at the Army soldiers. The intent here was to instigate the soldiers into firing defensively upon the crowds of protestors, behind whom the Jihadist snipers were hiding, knowing that the soldiers fire would surely kill many unarmed protestors, as it did, while most of the snipers would escape. Then the international news media would just love to carry the story about how the Egyptian Army blatantly massacred hundreds of unarmed protestors ( which they did), mostly failing to report the instigation of the Jihadist snipers. ( This from the Media which belligerently continues to proclaim itself to be free, and unbiased.) There are only two institutions in the world today that the Muslim Brotherhood hates more than those in Egypt who are resisting their attempts to destroy that nation. First, there is their genocidal hatred of Israel, and all Jews around the world. And second is their hatred of America because of our long-standing support for Israel, and especially Christian Americans, because we believe that the Bible encourages us to both pray for Israel's peace, and to bless them in any way that we can.

Anyway, President Obama's apparent friendship with this Mohammed Magid and his Muslim Brotherhood-supporting organization seems entirely consistent with two other issues of recent report. First, there have been speculations that the recent refusal to send in supporting military troops to the embassy attack in Benghazi, Lybia, along with the Administration's incredibly lame efforts to stonewall any investigations that followed, indicated an official decision by the White House to support the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts to take control of all the governments in the North African, and Arabian Penninsula regions. (Nor has there been any apparent effort made to bring any form of retribution upon the Al Quaida operatives in Lybia who carried out the embassy attack, even though there are reports to the effect that we know who they are, and where they live.) Secondly, we recall that the White House was quick to condemn the Egyptian overthrow of Mohammed Morsi's Sharia-law ( or radical Islamic, oppressive legalism) government, in spite of the fact that he had abolished his country's constitution, and disbanded their Parliament in order to illegally try to force his Sharia-State upon a population that did not want it, and did not realize his intentions when he duped them into electing him. It boggles the mind to think that Obama, and his Administration seem unable ( or unwilling?) to draw the connection between the Muslim Brotherhood, and the international terrorist organization that they founded ( Al Quaida; which gave us the 911 plane crashes into the "Twin Towers"). Logically, it follows the simple Algebraic formula: if "A" equals "B", and "B" equals "C", then "A" must equal "C"; and if "A" is the Muslim Brotherhood approval of Al Quaida, and "B" is the Obama White House approval of the Muslim Brotherhood, then "C" is that the Obama White House approves of Al Quaida ( and indirectly of their terrorist activities, including 911). Exactly how does Obama square this with his oath of office ( "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"), unless he considers our Constitution to be as irrelevant, and therefore as disposable as the Egyptian Constitution was to Morsi!

Let's be clear on one thing. I have nothing against Mr. Barak Obama; it's President Obama that I can't stand! Obama seems to be a very personable man. He is intelligent, but seems to be fatally devoid of wisdom, as so many Harvard graduates seem to be likewise afflicted! He has compassion for the poor and needy, as long as he can get someone else ( taxpayers) to fund their aid programs ( welfare, "Obama-care", etc.). In short, I think he'd make a great Mayor of Chicago ( if they'd kick that other guy down to something more appropriate, like Dog Catcher). Just keep him out of Washington, D.C.; he wasn't even much of a Congressman. We've got to keep people of his liberal ilk away from getting their hands on the public treasury, or they'll spend it into oblivion. So don't think that I'm some kind of racist looney, who hates Obama because of his skin color. He doesn't think with his skin. Trouble is he doesn't think well enough with his brain! Anyway, I'm already on record as saying the only thing that keeps me from calling for his Impeachment is the frightening thought of a Joe Biden presidency! He' not as smart as Obama, and has even less wisdom!

So what's next? Does Obama plan to abolish the U.S. Congress, and set up a Sharia-Law Theocratic Looney State??? Does he really believe that our military would blindly allow that, any more than the Egyptian Army did? And even if they did, don't forget the Constitution's amendment allowing for us to "keep and Bear arms", which the Liberals have so far been unable to repeal, for all their efforts to do so. The old adage is true; if you make gun ownership illegal, then only the cops and the criminals (or terrorists) will have them. The Egyptian people don't have that privilege, so only the lawless Muslim Brotherhood have easy access to weapons. As I've said, the mind simply boggles when trying to fathom what Obama and his lackies are thinking!!! On the one hand, they approved the Seal Team Six raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, because they knew that there was political gain to be had by doing so. But at the same time they give Carte Blanche approval to the organization that founded Bin Laden's terrorist organization! Somebody please explain the wisdom, and logic behind all this to me!!! It just escapes me!

Obama's "Moral" Indecisiveness

President Obama's sense of moral outrage only seems to appear when it is in perfect agreement with the views of the International Socialist community, rather than appear to have any consistent view of right versus wrong. Lately he has been wrestling with the issue of how to respond, or even if to respond to the poison gas attack of primarily innocent Syrian civilians, caught living in areas of Damascus that are controlled by the rebel forces. Some would say, and I tend to agree, that the time to respond is already past. There should have been an almost immediate response to the Geneva convention violation, which certainly was an intentional thumbing-of-their-noses at the whole concept of "Rules of War", human morality, and concern for international reprisal. Instead, Obama waited until the U.N. Chemical Weapons Inspectors flew into Damascus, leaving him an excuse to foot-drag while waiting for their ponderously slow investigation. If he was truly decisive about a punitive response he could have asked the U.N. to withhold the investigation until after the retaliatory strike against Assad's Chemical weapons depositories, which would probably have caught the offending military units napping, wiping out the weapons stores and the technical personnel necessary to deploy them. Verification of the gas attack was not necessary beyond the eyewitness medical accounts of the symptoms, supported by the obvious symptoms which were visible to the world as the Media broadcast it internationally.

By now it is reasonable to assume that Assad has had time to move significant stores of Chemical weaponry, and technical personnel out of known storage areas, and it is entirely consistent with the Jihadist mentality to store the munitions in places where any attacks against them will collaterally destroy Mosques, Hospitals and schools in order to maximize public outrage against us for our "immoral" attack. Remember that the Muslims on both sides will follow the Koran's values against each other, believing that they are doing "God" a favor, as the "real" jihadist warriors, and that includes intentionally setting up unwitting civilians to be massacred by those trying to help them, simply to gain a deceptive international public relations advantage that they do not deserve. I'm sure this is why Assad agreed to allow the inspectors to begin their investigation, because he knew it would buy him extra time to prepare for any retaliation.

UPDATE: The above entry was written on September 2nd, but not published. I wanted to wait to see how things developed before I finished this post. Since then Obama has foot-dragged his decision process through an interminable Congressional debate, while appealing to our allies for support ( which was largely refused), and lately a G-8 conference in Russia ( of all places, considering that they are as much responsible for the gas attack as Assad is). Everywhere he turns people are saying not to get involved. (The French have agreed to support Obama's position, but as the host of Fox News' "Huckabee" show stated, so far that support amounts to, " a basket of Wine, cheese, and Baguettes" for the trip.) Until recently, I would have agreed with him of the necessity to destroy the gas storage depots, as they seem likely to be used against Israel in the coming "Gog/Magog" Russian invasion recounted in God's prophecy in Ezekiel 38, and 39. In fact, it may be that Jesus' account in Matthew 24: 15 through 22 was a warning to the believers in Israel today of an impending gas attack, as it describes a time when people must drop what they are doing and immediately flee to higher ground for their safety. Note that the type of gas used by the Assad forces was verified to be Sarin gas, which is characteristically heavier than air, and therefore sinks to the lowest point of ground that it can find where it displaces all oxygen with it's own toxic formula. Israeli officials have apparently reached a similar conclusion, as they have been distributing free gas masks to their population for years. I am unaware of any time in history when any invasion of Israel ( Assyrian, Babylonian, or Roman) would have required this kind of specific flight to higher ground, for safety. Previous invading forces would have required a simple get-out-of-town-fast action, and not specifically a destination of higher ground.

Now I fear that President Obama's endless wrestling with his decision process has exhausted any effective window of opportunity for a successful attack to destroy the gas weapons, as they have reportedly been moved around and dispersed into areas that are politically sensitive, like schools and hospitals, etc., as I speculated that they probably would be. Any attack now would probably create such horrible collateral civilian casualties that the public outcry would be overwhelmingly against America, and not Syria.

The one puzzling thing about the afore-mentioned Matthew 24 prophecy of Jesus is that it is preceded by a warning about the prophecied "abomination of desolation" signaling the beginning of the period of immediate danger. If I am understanding the chronology correctly, this would mean that this period would precede the Russian and Muslim nations' invasion of Israel. And if these things may well be about to happen soon, as current events seem to be indicating, it means that the Antichrist may soon be revealed, standing "in the Holy Place" on the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem. And if this is so, then the Rapture may not be far behind, so, "look up, for your redemption draweth nigh!!!"