Category Archives: Politics

This Won’t End Well

Racial Unrest Impedes U.S. Bid to Counter China in Africa - Bloomberg

By Davis Carlton

I’ve gone on record arguing that racial segregation is a practical solution to the increasingly hostile nature of race relations in the Western world. The past several months certainly haven’t changed this belief as the specter of all out violence continues to loom. The George Floyd/Derek Chauvin verdict managed to stay black violence at the expense of justice…at least justice as understood in the Anglo-Saxon Christian common law tradition. Calls from black California Congresswoman Maxine Waters for “confrontation” directed at BLM activists with a well-documented history of violence were blatant threats aimed at jurors and the city to render the “right” verdict. The threatening nature of Waters’ rhetoric was even noted by Judge Peter Cahill in the Floyd/Chauvin trial as a potential pretext for granting Chauvin a new trial. Add to this that one of the black jurors has been discovered to have participated in a BLM protest prior to the trial and who was clearly prejudiced (in the proper legal sense of the term) against Chauvin from the beginning. read more

Clickbait Conspiracy: Or, the Death of Discernment Among the Right

Dangling this” drip torture, or the “poor man's clickbait” | Multidisciplinary Reflectives

By Colby Malsbury

Things have been understandably quite tense around Pastor James Coates’s GraceLife Church, as reported here recently.

So it was with a mixture of horror and elation that conservatives read about a typical example of state overreach in which two hundred Royal Canadian Mounted Thugs attempted to strong-arm the church service being held outside the fenced-off church grounds on Sunday, April 11, moving in en masse to break up the gathering with brute force. Enraged congregants, pushed to the very limit by nwo diktats, stormed the fence and began breaking it up, just like East Berliners venting their frustrations on their anything-but-beloved Wall in 1989. Details remained sketchy, but no doubt massive arrests were made and onerous prison sentences were meted out to the participants. read more

Thinking About Divine Providence and The Trump Presidency

Analysis: Two Experts Envision Trade Under President Trump — Goodbye, Wal-Mart

By Davis Carlton

The conclusion of Donald Trump’s tenure as President of the United States has given me an opportunity to contemplate God’s purposes in providentially bringing recent events to pass. By way of personal background I was enthused by Donald Trump’s success in overturning the GOP establishment during the 2016 primaries and Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election. Many of Donald Trump’s positions were untenable: chiefly his endorsement of homosexual “rights” and his promotion of the gay agenda abroad. Nevertheless, these were not the issues that made him successful during the 2016 campaign. Donald Trump, for all of his many personal flaws, demonstrated that the populist platform that he borrowed (or pilfered) from Pat Buchanan could motivate tremendous loyalty and support from many in the American heartland. read more

Democracy Sucks

By Colby Malsbury

So, as of this writing (Nov. 17, 2020), it appears to be president-in-waiting Kamala Harris, is it?

Well, color me pleasantly surprised.

Oh, please don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to comprehend a more unmitigated disaster for the country at large than Joe Biden, a man who should have been retired to the old folks’ home a decade ago and who, when asked to pick his cabinet, likely will opt for an oak-paneled one that contains lots of extra space to store booze and children in. But that is exactly what we both require and deserve at this point in time. Anything that has the potential to entirely disabuse the Right of the idiotic notion that casting a lot in an electoral system so putrid that it would make Boss Tweed eschew politics in favor of missionary work in the Congo is worth their time, money, and efforts can only work to our good. A ‘record turnout’ this election? If you care about the future of your children and your volk, that stat can only depress you. We’ll only know that our clans have finally clued in as to what ‘illegitimacy’ entails when voter turnout degenerates into the single digits, at least among whites. Assuming there ever is another election, anywhere in the western world. And never say never. read more

If John Piper Actually Believes This Then He Should Resign

 

By Davis Carlton

John Piper manifests the absolutely worthless contribution to political discourse being made by prominent mainstream evangelical pastors (Big Eva). Piper posted on Desiring God with his thoughts on voting and moral priorities in the upcoming election. The article is noteworthy for Piper’s glaring and entirely unacceptable moral hypocrisy as well as his thoroughly unchristian understanding of history.

Piper doesn’t mention either Donald Trump or Joe Biden by name, but it is abundantly obvious that Piper has Trump supporters in mind when he thunders condemnation at the “many Christians [who] consider the sins of unrepentant sexual immorality (porneia), unrepentant boastfulness (alazoneia), unrepentant vulgarity (aischrologia), unrepentant factiousness (dichostasiai), and the like, to be only toxic for our nation, while policies that endorse baby-killing, sex-switching, freedom-limiting, and socialistic overreach are viewed as deadly.”

The reason that Piper gives for his disapproval is the sins attributed by Piper to Trump; sexual immorality, boastfulness, vulgarity, and factiousness, “are sins that destroy people. They are not just deadly. They are deadly forever. They lead to eternal destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:9). They destroy persons (Acts 12:20–23). And through persons, they destroy nations (Jeremiah 48:29–31, 42).” This is true, but this applies to any unrepented sin. All unrepentant sinners are condemned to Hell. The issue is that Piper draws a false equivalency between relatively minor sins like “vulgarity” and “factiousness” with sins like murder, homosexuality, and transsexuality which are identified in the Bible as abominations.

John Piper poses as a Reformed pastor, but evidently utterly rejects reformed clarity on the issue of the severity of sin. Does Piper really “think it is baffling and presumptuous to assume that pro-abortion policies kill more people than a culture-saturating, pro-self pride?” Question and Answer #83 in the Westminster Shorter Catechism addresses this very issue, “Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.” The Larger Catechism expands upon the topic of how some sins are more heinous than others. It is dishonest for Piper to equate “arrogance” with murder even if arrogance and anger can lead to murder. They aren’t the same and they are not interchangeable. Not even close! It shouldn’t be necessary for me to have to explain basic theology to one of America’s most prominent “reformed” pastors.

Piper also dishonestly equates Trump’s personal flaws with the horrible Democratic Party platform. Donald Trump certainly suffers from pride and arrogance, but these aren’t integral to his campaign platform the way that abortion, sodomy, and anti-white hatred are issues that the Democrats are specifically promoting. Evangelical Trump supporters aren’t voting for Trump based upon his checkered sex life or his obnoxious Tweets, but on the policies that Trump has campaigned on. I also agree with AD Robles who states that Trump’s reputation for arrogance is over hyped by the media. Essentially Piper is uncritically accepting the anti-Trump narrative of the mainstream media which blames Donald Trump for all the political unrest in the country as though his rhetoric has forced BLM and Antifa activists to violently rob, loot, and attack innocent bystanders.

While Piper’s drawing a false equivalency between relatively minor sins and grave abominations seriously calls his judgment into question, this is far from his worst offense. This isn’t simply a case of unnecessary preening about how Trump is “divisive” or in Piper’s words “vulgar” and “factious.” If Piper were overly concerned with minor sins this would be annoying, but Piper’s whining about Trump’s sexual immorality and factiousness is rife with blatant hypocrisy.

John Piper presents himself as a committed Christian willing to be ostracized from society for defending his Christian convictions, but an examination of his commentary on political and social issues demonstrates just the opposite. Piper imagines himself bravely singing “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also” as he’s lead to the scaffold prepared to give his life for his uncompromising Christian commitment. The truth is that Piper almost never speaks up when matters of actual Christian morality. Piper rejects “gay marriage” while choosing not to speak out in favor of a Minnesota constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman for fear of his church losing its tax-exempt status. At the time Piper’s spokesman David Mathis stated that Piper “wants to avoid the political realm as much as possible. The Christian Gospel is not left, it’s not right. It is what it is.” Of course, Piper has plenty to say about “social justice” issues.

After rejecting the BLM movement due to its radical attack on the family, Piper caved to pressure from black Bernie Sanders supporter Ron Burns and decided to direct people to the BLM website so that people could be educated on race relations by self-described “queer black women.” You’ll forgive me if I’m suspicious of the claim that Piper is above political issues. All of the social issues that Piper weighs in on (invariably on the wrong side) are political issues because politics always concerns public morality. Piper chooses to remain silent on issues that concern actual biblical morality like homosexuality while repeating patently false narratives about black victimization. Piper condemns evangelical Trump supporters by drawing a false equivalence between abortion and Trump’s supposed “factiousness.”

Piper isn’t merely overly concerned by the supposedly nation-destroying effects of Donald Trump’s tweets because in this article Piper admits that he would be open to voting for a non-Christian; someone who by definition is living in soul-destroying sin. After complaining about Trump’s moral failures Piper imagines someone responding, “So what? Rejecting Jesus as Lord also leads to death, but you are willing to vote for a non-Christian, aren’t you?” To which Piper responds, “I am, assuming there is enough overlap between biblical uprightness and the visible outworking of his character and convictions.”

Evidently John Piper believes that Donald Trump’s personal moral flaws have rendered him unfit for office because his “character and convictions” don’t sufficiently “overlap…biblical uprightness.” This might be a valid critique coming from someone else, but not John Piper who complains about Trump’s “unrepentant sexual morality” while praising Martin Luther King as one who “gave his life to change the world” (no, he isn’t talking about Jesus). Piper participated in the MLK50 conference, calling it “risky and righteous” in which he praised King as an agent of divine providence to bring about the end of segregation. Piper did allude to King’s heterodox beliefs while ignoring his sexual indiscretions, which is simply inexcusable given that even mainstream sources now acknowledge the substance of King’s sexual profligacy.

This is nothing other than glaring hypocrisy. Piper treats Trump’s sexual immorality as disqualifying him from office while turning a blind eye to the far worse sexual sins of King, who has influenced contemporary American culture to a far greater extent than Trump has or ever will. This is simply another instance of John Piper utter lack of discernment in his political commentary. Piper complained in 2009 when newly elected President Barack Obama defended the right to abortion, but in so doing so stated that he “wept for joy” at Obama’s inauguration. Why would Piper weep for joy at the election of someone who he acknowledged was a radical pro-abortion candidate to the Presidency? Piper considered the election of a black man as President to be “thrilling,” “amazing,” and “a golden moment.”

John Piper states that voting for Donald Trump undermines “authentic Christian witness” to the extent that he cannot understand how any Christian can vote for Trump in good conscience, but when Piper was asked about pastors at Bethlehem Baptist Church (Piper’s church in Minneapolis) voting for Obama, Piper responded that they could and suspected one of them or possibly more did. Piper insisted that if one took the “whole package” of how Obama was likely to impact the culture, “I would be hard-pressed to say that it is impossible for a solid, reformed, Bible-saturated Christian to make the judgment that at this point in history it might have been a good thing for him to be President.” One of the considerations that Piper said could be considered along with Obama’s “views” and “philosophy” was his ethnicity. According to Piper, it’s possible for a Christian to favor Obama because he is black in spite of the manifest evil of his stated positions presumably because having a black President would be highly symbolic and instrumental in improving race relations (such predictions certainly haven’t aged well). I suppose no price too steep to pay to end “structural racism,” even if it means voting for the most radical pro-abortion candidate for President in American history.

For those keeping score; John Piper speaks out frequently on “social justice” causes, but doesn’t get involved in politics when it comes to issues like the definition of marriage. Piper condemns Donald Trump for his unrepentant sexual immorality, but lauds Martin Luther King without uttering so much as a word against his far worse sexual transgressions. Piper castigates Trump supporters for displaying too much attachment to the material comforts of American institutions by prioritizing policy over character, while Piper himself only manages to speak out on issues within the Leftist mainstream and ignore character issues when it suits him. When Piper does speak out on an issue like abortion, it is to

whine about “black genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” read more

You Will Be Silent, O Chattering Class: Why a Revolt Against the Mainstream Media Must Be in Deadly Earnest

 

By Colby Malsbury

You know what? I’m feeling uninformed today. Let’s remedy that by going to Twitter and checking out some breaking news stories.

“Trump fatigue is setting in hard at the worst moment for his campaign.” – MSNBC

“Sam Elliott narrates Biden ad premiering during the World Series: ‘There is only one America.’” – The Hill

“Obama trolls Trump saying ‘his TV ratings are down’ while campaigning for Biden at drive-in rally in Miami.” – The Daily Mail US read more

Todd Friel Face Plants on Face Masks

 

By Davis Carlton

Todd Friel of Wretched Network has recently released a video explaining why Christians who don’t support mask mandates should joyfully submit to the mandates of our governments for the sake of Christ. He hopes to impart to his Christian listeners a “Wow, I get to wear a mask!” mentality. Friel acknowledges that many Christians resent the many mask mandates being imposed upon them and many intend to ignore them. Friel objects citing Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17 which command Christians to submit to governing authorities “for the Lord’s sake.” Friel also alludes to Jesus’ exhortation to “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” (Matt. 22:21/Mk. 12:17/Lk. 20:25). Friel states that he cannot see exceptions to the principle of submission taught in these passages unless we are specifically being told to do something sinful.

Friel suggests that the widespread opposition to mask mandates stems from “21st century Western ideals, particularly American ideals” which reflect America’s “rugged individualism” which insists that the government “keep [their] masks off my body”, as though opposition to mask requirements follows the same logic used by those telling anti-abortion activists “my body, my choice.” Friel did receive pushback from listeners via email and Facebook. In a follow-up video Friel reads a selection of some of the comments opposing his position. Many comments stated suspicions that these mask mandates are politically motivated. Others questioned submission to nonsensical mandates which are pointless at best but could even prove potentially harmful. Friel in many cases acknowledges these complaints and suspicions, but always winds up repeating the same refrain after virtually all of the comments; “submit to the government.” I find virtually everything that Friel says on the subject to be problematic.

Friel makes several arguments to try to advance his case. First is the nature of authority itself. Rom. 13 and 1 Pet. 2 definitely do teach the need to submit to government, but does this necessarily entail that we must do whatever we are told by anyone involved with civil government regardless of their actual authority to make pronouncements on these issues? In the case of mask mandates, many have pointed out that governors and mayors do not have the authority to mandate the wearing of masks because their words are not law. This was even mentioned in one of the comments that Friel read in his follow-up video. Friel mentions the conflict over masks in Georgia in which Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has overrode the mask mandate of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Instead of acknowledging the substance of this argument, Friel instead states that the “scales should tip towards obedience.” Friel’s suggestion is recipe for tyranny, as it would allow anyone in power to cloak any of their opinions with the mantle of authority reserved to their office, even if their opinions on any number of subjects have nothing to do with the office being held.

Friel states that when 1 Peter was written “Nero was the king of nasty,” and from this Friel concludes that we are to submit to any governing authority no matter how evil or “nasty” they might be. This is an overly simplistic reading of 1 Peter that fails to take into account the broader context of this passage and the circumstances in which it was written. Taken at face value one would think that Christians would be required to submit to the vile tyrants even to the point of death. Friel even seems to allude to this possibility when he states that “Jesus submitted to the government; whose nature we are reflecting when we submit. Jesus submitted to the point of death.”

I was astonished when I heard Friel say this because Jesus’ willingness to die was not born out of a sense of absolute submission to government at all but rather submission to His Father. Jesus willingly submitted to death in the confidence that He would take His life up again in order to conquer death and deliver His people from God’s wrath against sin. Up to the point at which His “hour had come” Jesus persistently evaded arrest even when Jewish authorities sought to try him on charges of blasphemy. Jesus did not sheepishly place His head in the guillotine, but actively resisted the Jewish authorities and called out their hypocrisy and reserved for them His most scathing criticism. And when His case was turned over to Rome, Jesus did not submit to the will of Pontius Pilate when the latter was initially inclined to find no fault in Him. Jesus was no rabble-rouser, but He also did not feel compelled to obey the arbitrary and hypocritical decrees handed down by His Jewish opponents.

Jesus acknowledged that the Pharisees held legitimate authority and even sat “in Moses’ seat,” and commands His disciples, “do and observe whatever they tell you” (Matt. 23:2-3). This sounds like the kind of endorsement that Friel imagines that Paul and Peter give to secular civil governments, but Jesus clearly didn’t feel bound to observe arbitrary and hypocritical rules imposed by those who did not keep the rules they themselves imposed: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matt. 23:4).

Jesus frequently ignored Pharisaical injunctions against healing on the Sabbath, noting that those who accused Him of breaking the Sabbath would have at least have been willing to exert themselves to feed their animals on the Sabbath, so why should Jesus have been condemned for healing on the Sabbath? Jesus ignores a Pharisaical hand-washing ritual and once again notes the Pharisees; hypocrisy in imposing arbitrary burdens while ignoring the Law of God (Matt. 15:1-9/Mk. 7:1-13). Jesus’s teaching to obey those in authority was not a demand to slavishly and unquestioning obedience devoid of reason.

The hypocritical nature of lawmakers seeking to impose mask mandates calls to mind Jesus’ words, “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! For ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers” (Lk. 11:46). Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York has been one of the most outspoken purveyors of the corona myth was spotted in Georgia without wearing a mask. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot imposed drastic measures which shutdown hairdressers, but this didn’t prevent her from getting her own haircut. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s husband dropped her name to a northern Michigan dock company in an attempt to get his boat serviced earlier than scheduled due to his wife’s imposed quarantine. When this was exposed Whitmer attempted to dismiss this as her husband’s “failed attempt at humor” while still trying to cover it up. Lincoln County, Oregon has exempted non-white “persons of color” from their own mask mandate. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has banned virtually all gatherings including churches gathering for worship, but has decided to exempt Black Lives Matter protests because COVID doesn’t spread when protesting on behalf of “social justice.”

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s family members violated his own shelter in place order so that they could travel to family properties in Florida and Wisconsin which did not close down to the same extent. When questioned about this Pritzker became indignant that journalists

would dare to bring his family into politics read more

Covid-19 and the Rise of the Karens

 

By Colby Malsbury

Simone de Beauvoir, the lesbian Stalinist who bedded Jean-Paul Sartre whenever there was nothing sufficiently sapphic around for her liking, once said ‘one is not born, but rather becomes a woman.’ Even in such a pithy statement, we can perceive the special kind of tyranny that the female is especially capable of, and culpable for – not as a mere agent of ‘destiny’, whatever that might mean, but as an active participant in and, if not a creator, then a domineering influencer of said destiny, all done for everyone else’s good and not as a vulgar patriarchal power grubber, of course. If the squeaky wheel gets the grease, then the squeaking caterwauling of feminism has garnered its denizens an entire chain of Minit Lube franchises over the past century. read more

It Buttereth No Parsnips: The Myth of the Black Conservative

 

 

By Ehud Would

“What do you call a Black person at a Republican rally? The keynote speaker.”
~Everybody’s Grandfather

A popular trope of late among Fox News devotees and the Alt Lite is a mass #walkaway phenomenon among Blacks.

Granted, Trump has resonated with some Blacks. Whereas Blacks generally poll 95-98% Democrat (at most 5% Republican), the latest figures show them trending a whopping 30% for Trump.

Okay, that still amounts to a landslide for whatever Dem homunculus runs against him, but the Shapiros assure us it’s the passion of this groundswell that counts.

Listen for yourself as Black Conservatives explain their growing reservations with the Democrat party. Two Blacks on the Fox panel cited offense at the Democrats making abortion accessible in Black neighborhoods. And the Whites who have fought Roe for decades swoon at these words. Everyone wants Blacks to awaken to the evil of infanticide because, though they are only 13% of the population, they account for nigh 40% of abortions.

But lost amidst the rapture at their pushback on abortion is their express rationale for that change. The fawning Paternalists and PC Libertarians just cannot allow themselves to hear what these ‘Black Conservatives’ are actually saying. Things like …

“Any real Black leader knows there is strength in numbers, so why would you want us to abort our children?” read more