Mr. President, Please Explain….

Mr. President, during your prayer breakfast speech, you addressed the issue of atrocities committed in the name of religion.

Please explain how it is that you have no trouble attributing the crusades, the inquisition, slavery and Jim Crow directly to individuals acting in the name of Christianity, yet you continue to insist that atrocities committed by muslim jihadis in the name of Islam and Islam are mutually exclusive.

It was a jihad - for all intents and purposes, a crusade - that lasted for over nine hundred years that left Islam in control of the middle east, northern Africa, and much of the Iberian peninsula.  It was atrocities committed against Jews and Christians - an inquisition, if you will - as well as the capture of the Holy Land in general and Jerusalem in particular that brought about the crusades.

Muslims are responsible for instituting their own version of Jim Crow - dhimmitude - against the unconverted living in their controlled areas, essentially relegating them to second class citizenship status.

It was muslim slavery and pillaging of American personnel and shipping traffic that led to the assault by US Marines on Tripoli on orders of President Thomas Jefferson, yes, the same president to whom you attribute the "celebration" of the first iftar at the White House.  You know it was nothing of the sort.  The dinner in question to which Libyan ambassador Mellimelli was invited was to have taken place at 3:30 pm.  The ambassador, however, was observing the ramadan fast, so the dinner was re-scheduled to after sundown as a diplomatic courtesy to accommodate his religious beliefs.  Jefferson had no reason to love Islam.  It was his earlier meetings, while US ambassador to France, with Ambassador Sidi Adja that taught him (as he reported to Congress), 

"...that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise." 

Some 1.5 million white slaves were taken by the Barbary (muslim) pirates.  To this day, muslims lead the world in the slave trade. 

Mr. President, you argument simply doesn't hold water.  Muslims have done all of these things in the name of their religion for millennia.  If you attribute guilt for similar atrocities directly to those who committed them in the name of Christianity, then you must also acknowledge and attribute the same atrocities to the muslims that commit them in the name of their religion to the present day.

Israel and Russia Just Did It - Time For America To Do It, Too….

An open letter to our elected officials:

Terrorist acts are increasing in the world.  They have now begun to come to the US and Canada.  In response to such acts, both Russia and Israel have made it easier to carry firearms for self defense - including in so-called "sensitive areas."  It is time for the US to do the same.  

Gun control has stopped nothing - and never will.

At the federal level, it is time to revoke the federal gun free school zones act, it is ime to finally permit lawful carriers to carry in so-called "sensitive areas," and it is time to revoke the "gun free" status of our military bases and let our military personnel carry the weapons on which they have trained.

At the state level, it is time to revoke "gun free" zones.  It is time to establish open carry and concealed carry parity; there is no logical reason why a concealed carrier should be required to complete hours of training that are not required of an open carrier just because the method of carry is different.  It is time for Michiganders to be able to exercise their right to lawful self defense in so-called "gun free" zones by carrying concealed - a method far less likely to incite panic.

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."  -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"  -- Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836

"The great object is, that every man be armed ... Every one who is able may have a gun."  -- Patrick Henry, Elliot, p.3:386

"...I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize, and independance to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks," Thomas Jefferson in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr.

Sincerely,

John Lott - America should make it easier to carry guns

Pres. Obama and the "Chains of the Constitution"

Some time ago, Pres. Obama made a remark regarding his frustration with the way Constitutional constraints hampered his efforts to reshape America according to his own ideals:

"It turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change that I would like sometimes.  But what I have been able to do is move in the right direction..."

And, for once, he nails it. 

It cannot be expressed any better than the following words penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions:

"...in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution…"

Mr. President, when the direction you desire to go conflicts with, or diverges from, the directions established in our Constitution, you are going in the WRONG direction.  End of story.

It is past time to re-bind our government with the chains of the Constitution that were intended to safeguard the enumerated rights of the States, and more importantly, the People. 

Privileges and Favors, or Inalienable Rights?

"Just because you have a right does not mean that the state or local government cannot constrain that right…"  B.H. Obama

"I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom..." Michael Bloomberg 

At every turn, we are witnessing an all-out attack on the freedoms guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights. It's amazing that the words "unalienable" or "shall not be infringed" could ever be interpreted as, "at the government's whim."

If one looks at our rights only as amendments to the Constitution, it is easy to dismiss their importance. When you put them back into their original context of the Bill of Rights, however, one is confronted with the critical nature of those amendments. The States that created the federal government with the ratification of the Constitution DEMANDED the addition of the first 10 amendments, and ratified them with a 3/4 supermajority. Those amendments to the Constitution made this country what it was. Our government's penchant to disregard them has made us what we are today.

The Danbury Baptists nailed the basic issue when they wrote their historic (and abused) letter to then-president Thomas Jefferson:

"[A]nd such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men--should reproach their order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ."

Our rights are not privileges or favors granted to us by a beneficent government; they are INALIENABLE RIGHTS, recognized by our Founders as having been granted to us by God by virtue of having been created in His image. Therefore, the attacks and slanders we endure at the hand of our government for the exercise and defense of those rights are "inconsistent with the rights of freemen." But as was the case already in Jefferson's time, those of us who believe and defend that position are instead looked upon as the enemy by those who seek absolute power.

That Offensive Nativity Scene....

Kristin Terheqes, "Pro-Life Illustrator", recently published the following picture on Facebook:

As one might expect, the picture generated a few responses, including the following:

"Misses the point completely.  Whether the nativity scene is offensive is behind the point - in the US, governments granting public space for religious displays is a violation of the first amendment..."

To which I replied, 

No, SCOTUS missed the point entirely. This is exactly what happens when something is lifted out of its context and made to say something it was never intended to communicate. I offer the following excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's reply to the Danbury Baptists, from which the now-infamous quote originates - with one major exception: I have put it back into its original context, in which Thomas Jefferson explains the true nature of the "wall of separation."

'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" thus building a wall of eternal separation between Church & State. Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the executive authorised only to execute their acts...' (bolding added).

The "wall of eternal separation" prevents Congress from passing any legislation interfering with religious practices, and the president, who is only authorized by the Constitution to execute acts passed by the legislature, is powerless to execute any law of his own initiative that would have the effect of infringing the right to - and free exercise thereof - religion guaranteed in the first amendment of the constitution.

As an example, THE ABORTIFACIENT MANDATE ISSUED EXCLUSIVELY ON "PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY" IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACCORDING TO THE EXPLANATION PROVIDED BY PRES. THOMAS JEFFERSON, MAIN AUTHOR OF BOTH THE US CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS.