The President Didn't "Inherit" Anything.....

Happy Birthday, 2012, USA!

May we return to the principles contained in this document that made us free.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

SCOTUS, Obamacare, and the Constitution....

I have been puzzling for some time about why Obamacare was not simply overturned on the basis that it violates Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution requiring that all revenue legislation originate in the House of Representatives.

I just figured out why.

Article 1, Section 7 says,

"All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

The House had originally passed its own version of the healthcare act, which was rejected by the Senate.  Instead, the Senate took H.R. 3590, a bill revising the Internal Revenue Code with regard to housing tax breaks for military personnel, gutted it, incorporated some of the aspects of the rejected House Bill, added loads of its own amendments (as permitted by Article 1, Sec. 7), and passed it.  Since the original revenue-related legislation originated and was passed in the House, Obamacare is a legal tax.  And since the Democrats knew that H.R. 3590 revised the Internal Tax Code, they also from the outset that this was a new series of taxes.

Just one more example of the lengths to which the Democrats went to force Obamacare on us - turning a tax break for military personnel into the single biggest package of new taxes (21 of them) in the history of the United States.

A Response to the “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform”...

More than 100 "evangelical" organizations have banded together to publicly call on the church to push for amnesty for more than eleven million illegals now living in the US.  Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission are just a couple such organizations.


As a fundamental, Bible-believing Christian who is also an ordained minister of the Word, I am well aware of the biblical teaching to love our neighbor, just as I am also aware of the teaching regarding showing mercy.

I am likewise aware of the clear teaching of Romans 13:1-5, 

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience."

The course of action for which you advocate is contrary to God's clear instructions that we obey the laws established by our authorities. The individuals for whom you advocate are those who have CHOSEN to disobey the laws of our country; now they demand that we set those laws aside and give them the entrance for which thousands of others stand in line and patiently wait as they navigate our immigration system.


Worse, this course of action violates the Bible's clear teaching that forgiveness first requires repentance. You would have us offer amnesty where no repentance, rather, defiance, has been shown. Our salvation first requires us to recognize our sins. It then requires us to repent of those sins. Finally, it requires us to receive God's forgiveness on HIS terms - not ours. As this applies to the current situation, illegals must first recognize that they have violated our laws, that they have stolen livelihoods from the families of the citizens whom they displaced. They must turn away (repent) from their illegal status and activities. Finally they must make application for citizenship in the manner specified by the laws of our country.


Will this have potentially adverse ramifications for the families of illegals? Obviously, the answer to that question is Yes. But therein lies the problem with sin; it affects not only the sinner, but many associated with the sinner as well. Likewise, because of the choices of parents, children may face undesirable consequences, as is true of any situation in which a lawbreaker has children. Or as is stated in the proverb found in Ezekiel 18:2, 

"...The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 

Yet, even in this passage there is hope for the children of illegals: 

"Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:19-20). 

Many of the children of illegals are old enough to make application for citizenship on their own, or to acquire citizenship through serving in the armed forces of our country. If they do what is right, it is possible for them to legally obtain the citizenship they now DEMAND by way of amnesty.


God's love and mercy is offset by His justice. All three characteristics are integral to who God is, and to emphasize love and mercy to the exclusion of His justice is to misrepresent His character and teachings.


I implore you to reconsider the course of action to which you call others who name the name of Christ, and to recognize once again the explicit teaching of Romans 13. 

68th Anniversary of the D-day Landings.....

‎"6 June 1944. Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France."

To all who served and died on this longest, momentous day that led to final defeat of the Nazis, D-day, Thank you.

Selective Prosecution and the Michigan Marijuana Law....

An article appearing in the Grand Rapids Press on June 4 claims that the federal government is practicing "selective prosecution" against holders of Michigan Medical Marijuana cards.  This resulted in a number of postings by newly-minted supporters of States' Rights, arguing that the federal government has no business prosecuting these people in the first place, and calling on those of us who have long supported the precept of States' Rights to back their cause.  One individual went so far as to say that selective prosecution violates due process and the Equal Protection Clause, to which I replied:

No, it doesn't. Just as Michigan state laws include preeminence clauses that override local ordinances and laws, so do federal laws. Their prosecution of MM users is in line with those laws, and they aren't obligated to cut you ANY slack. 

 As I said before, this is what happens when you elect officials who interpret the Constitution as affording the fed the power to override the protections of States' Rights that were an integral part of the Bill of Rights any time it desires to do so. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were included specifically to make these sorts of federal power grabs impossible, but the continued election of officials who choose to believe that the Commerce and "Necessary and Proper" clauses override those explicit protections has brought us to where we are today. 

 I almost have to laugh at all this. Many of you who are now angry with Obama because he isn't honoring his word about this voted for the man in the first place because he promised you all sorts of things that violate States' Rights - like Obamacare, for example. You can't pick and choose. You voted for officials who told you from the outset that their understanding of the Constitution gives them the right to do exactly what they are doing now. If you are going to be for States' Rights, then you have to be for States' Rights even when it doesn't necessarily benefit you. If you are going to vote for a man who believes that the Commerce and "Necessary and Proper" clauses give the federal government the right to override the explicit protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments at will, then you have no business complaining when that elected official actually does it. 

 You voted for him. Now it's up to you to see if you can change him. Good luck with that.

For the record, I don't believe in luck.  I felt it appropriate to wish them something I don't believe exists as they try to perform a task that I don't believe possible to achieve.  Both are fairy tales. 

Memorial Day 2012...

It isn't about steaks, fireworks, and road trips to vacation spots, its about MREs (or C Rats, as the case may have been), firefights, and convoys through insurgent-held territory to get support to your buddies. It's about joyful meetings at the door when family members came home from their deployments - or about the feeling of dread experienced when a non-descript government car pulled up to the house. Years in service at home and abroad.

We remember.

To all who served - or are still serving - Thank You.

Forces of Darkness....

Mayor George Heartwell of Grand Rapids, MI, made the following statement at a recent fundraiser:

"What's not to love about that?" said Heartwell, a former Planned Parenthood board chairman. "Yet every year the forces of darkness seek to deprive women" of the health care and reproductive education they get through Planned Parenthood.

"Ultraconservative political forces in league with ultraconservative religious forces have mounted a frontal assault against Planned Parenthood. This is a time like no other to rally behind Planned Parenthood. It's time for us to fill their treasury."

So pro-life supporters are now the "Forces of darkness"? 

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20. When fighting for life equates to darkness, we are truly on a downslide. 

A Response to the Call for Gay Marriage......

Let’s assume for the moment that the argument put forward by homosexuals is correct, and they really are born this way.  The assertion today is, if they were born this way, then it is wrong to expect them to change.  They can’t change who they are.

OK, for the sake of discussion, let’s accept that premise.

There is even scripture to back it up.

Psalm 51:5 says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  Sin is an inbred part of the human condition.  It is part and parcel of who we are by birth and by inclination.

We are predisposed to lie, cheat, gossip, kill, fornicate, adulterate, and steal - just to name a few.  The name of the sin doesn’t matter; the fact of the matter is that the predisposition to do these things is part of who we are.

Using the logic put forward by the homosexual lobby, then, we shouldn’t designate anything as illegal.  After all, the person who engages in these, or any number of other things, all labeled sin in the Bible, is simply following the inclination with which they were born.

But we don’t think like that.  We expect people to change their predisposition to conform to societal, and more importantly, moral and Biblical norms.  We expect them to stop stealing, or lying, or cheating, or fornication, or killing - all of the things that are labeled as sin in the Bible.  And we have no problem saying that GOD can change them.  After all, that is why God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us - to deliver us from our sins (“...the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age...”,Gal. 1:3-4)

Homosexuality is no different than any other disposition labeled by the Bible as sin.

The Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is sin.  Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”  That doesn’t get much clearer.  Oh, but you say, that was the OLD TESTAMENT; we live under the NEW TESTAMENT, and it doesn’t say anything like that.  For me to accept that line of reasoning first requires me to believe that Malachi 3:6 (“For I the Lord do not change...”) and James 1:17 (“...the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.) are wrong, and God’s character is variable and changing.  Since God says His character doesn’t change, I have to reject that line of reasoning.  

OK, so lets play along for a moment and see what the New Testament tells us.  

Romans 1 tells us that, because man rejects the revealed Truth of God contained in His Word AND in creation (verses 18-21) and professes himself to be wise according to his own ideological and intellectual constructs - setting himself up as the ultimate measure of truth (verses 22-23) - GOD GAVE MAN UP (verse 24).  What was one of the many results? 

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (verses 24-27)

Men having intercourse with men and women having intercourse with women.  Today this is known as homosexuality.  That is the NEW Testament teaching.  Paul doesn’t stop there, though.  He goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Wait a second, Paul explicitly names homosexuality in these verses.  Yes, he lists a whole lot of others as well (remember what we said at the beginning about other sins?), but he specifically names homosexuality.  But wait a minute - I thought all sins were the same!  Paul puts that notion to rest in this chapter as well.  Take a look at verses 13 and 18:

“The body is not meant for sexual immorality...Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (verses 13, 18).

Yes, all sins are reprehensible to God, but He takes special exception to sins of a sexual nature - that’s not MY interpretation, those are the explicit words of God through the Apostle Paul!

So let’s go back to where we began.  We are all predisposed to different sins.  In that respect, homosexuality is no different than any other sin.  But just as we expect people to change, to stop practicing all of the other sins we listed previously, SO THE BIBLE SAYS THERE IS HOPE FOR THE HOMOSEXUAL!  Regardless of what is being spouted by psychiatrists and psychologists today, one’s predisposition can be changed.

You see, 1 Corinthians 6 doesn’t leave us in our sin without any recourse or hope of redemption.  Remember verses 9-10, the verses that specifically name homosexuality along with the laundry list of other sins?  These verses are followed by verse 12:

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (bolding added).

The Bible, contrary to politically correct social theory, tells us that, just as it is possible for our predisposition toward all other sins to be changed, SO CAN ONE’S PREDISPOSITION TOWARD HOMOSEXUALITY!!!  Is this just my interpretation?  NO!  Read the verses for yourself!

You see, there is no parallel between homosexuality and being African-American, even though this is one of the strongest arguments used by the homosexual lobby to garner support.  And the article published by ABC News tells us that there are many African-American pastors - even those who regularly advise the President - who aren’t buying it (“Obama calls pastors to explain gay marriage support; black churches ‘conflicted' by president's decision”).  Being black - or yellow, or red - is not a sinful predisposition.  Christ didn’t die to save one from being a different color.  But the Bible tells us that He DID die to save us from our sinful dispositions so that we could live lives that please God.  He saved us to DESTROY our old dispositions so that He can give us NEW ones, dispositions that desire to follow the revealed Truth of God’s Word.  As Paul tells us in Romans 5:6-7,

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin.”

As this debate continues to unfold, there are many who assert that this has nothing to do with religion, or Christianity, or the Bible, that the Bible really doesn’t spend a lot of time addressing it - as if God has to say something many times in order for us to take Him seriously.  And after all, Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality.  You’re right.  He didn’t.  When given the perfect opportunity to change the one-man/one woman paradigm, as recorded in Matthew and Mark, He went right back to the truth given in Genesis 2:23-24, 

“Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Is this about hating homosexuals?  No.  This is about loving them by giving them the Truth of God’s Word.  You see, Proverbs 26:28 tells us that ”A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”  We don’t accuse the doctor of hating us when he or she gives us truth that we would rather not hear.  We acknowledge that they are looking out for our welfare.  If we accept this as true in the context of human wisdom, then how much more true is it when the wisdom we share is of DIVINE origin?  

Michigan Legislative Prayer Caucus....

There have been reports appearing in the media questioning the propriety of a legislative prayer caucus that  appeals to the God of the Bible, rather than a non-sectarian god.


To those who ask this question, I offer the following response:

"Mr. President,

The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other-our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.

To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service."

Benjamin Franklin, July 28, 1787

This is why prayer is offered each day in Congress in Washington, D.C. I fail to see why it is suddenly inappropriate for our state legislators to engage in prayer directed to the same Judeo-Christian God to whom Benjamin Franklin attributed our success as a nation.