What would the analysts at “Lie to Me” (tagline: “The truth is written all over our faces”) say about this photo:
The woman on the left is France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The woman on the right is First Lady Michelle Obama.
The picture was taken at the ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy at Colleville-sur-Mer cemetery, June 6, 2009
This:
or this:
This was created by a teen-ager in Alabama and posted on Youtube about a month ago.
It is outstanding. Take four minutes and watch it. You will not regret it.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkFFwyyjZC8
Making an appearance:
I may have missed a few…
Chilling.
This banner pretty much says it all. It was displayed in New York City as part of a counter-protest to a rally celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the nation of Israel on Sunday, May 31, 2009 – just hours ago.
It is this assertion that the Islamic terrorists use as justification for attacks on the civilian population of the United States. In their minds, we are all legitimate targets.
More pictures at Atlas Shrugs blog, courtesy of Pamela H.
Whoever killed George Tiller has committed murder. For that they will have to give an answer to the civil authorities and, ultimately, to God.
As will George Tiller for his actions. But Tiller’s notorious guilt as a late-term abortionist does not make the act of murdering him any less wicked.
The best immediate quote I have seen today came from Prof. Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University:
Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller’s life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our “weapons” in the fight to defend the lives of abortion’s tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.
Conversations I have had with a few friends today have prompted me to review the Christian and Biblical case for the use of the sword.
The sword is a symbol for civil authority. It is referenced as such in Romans 13:4:
for it [the governing authorities] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
I am not a pacifist, though I do believe that for a private individual, gentleness and a soft answer are our first line of defense, and when confronted with a tyrannical authority it is our only appropriate response.
But there are those to whom God has legitimately entrusted the sword – the civil authorities. They not only may use force, they have an obligation to use force to protect those who are in their charge. Civil authorities are called “minister of God” (diakonos) twice and “servant of God” (leitourgos). They are directly commissioned by God as his servants and ministers. They have the responsibility to use the sword to restrain wickedness and punish evil-doers.
This is why a police officer may legitimately use force to arrest a law-breaker, and why the civil authorities may biblically, legitimately use corporal punishment, up to and including putting to death. It is also a justification for the use of military force – not in every instance, obviously, but to restrain wickedness in the world, and to be a terror to evil-doers.
But what is lawful for a civil magistrate, commissioned by God, is NOT lawful for those who have NOT been commissioned by God. NOTE: I am not saying that every use of force by the civil authorities is biblical or justified. All are subject to God’s law. But as individual Christians, we have NO authority to use the sword to punish evil-doers. Personally, I believe I have the right to use force to protect those in my charge – but not necessarily to protect myself. Translation: I may not fight back if you attack me, but if you attack my wife or one of my children, expect me to use any means at my disposal to protect them.
What has this got to do with the murder of George Tiller? Tiller did evil. The dismemberment of children in the third tri-mester of pregnancy is evil. Partial birth abortion is evil. But only the magistrates have a legitimate commission from God to punish evil-doers. The magistrates of Wichita and of Kansas had an obligation to stop him. They could have done so. They should have done so. When they first learned that he had killed the first child, they should have arrested him and punished him. It is an outrage that he was allowed to continue to commit his evil deeds. But we who are not magistrates have no commission from God to use force to punish him.
Many of these issues were worked out in thoughtful detail during the 16th & 17th century by Huguenot resistance leaders dealing with the persecution of French Protestants and then further developed by John Locke, the great English philosopher and father of political science. The French Protestants had to deal with the very real and troubling issue of how to respond when the civil authorities persecuted Christians. They concluded, after exhaustive study of the scriptures, and with special reference to Romans 13:4, that an individual Christian did NOT have the right to use force to resist the persecution of the civil authorities, but that lesser magistrates, who had been commissioned by God to bear the sword DID have a right to resist the persecution of those under their care and in their charge. This became known as the “right of resistance.” The right of lesser magistrates to use force, in some circumstances may very well prove to be an obligation to use force to protect those in their charge.
These ideas played a key role in the political thought of the English colonists in North America in the 1700s. They held that it would be illegitimate for private citizens to rebel and take up arms against the English authorities. But it would be legitimate for the colonial legislatures, and local magistrates to resist the attempt to impose tyrrany by the English government. There is a legimate use of force. There is, indeed, a legitimate right to resist tyranny. But it is limited to those whom God has commissioned with the sword.
The killing of George Tiller by a private individual was wicked and sinful. Though the deeds of Tiller were evil, it was the duty of the civil authorities to stop him and to punish him.
We may need to revisit this issue again in the coming days. . .
– Rob Shearer
As they did last year.
And the year before that.
And the year before that.
Here’s how that number is derived and reported by the Centers for Disease Control:
“Using new and improved statistical models, CDC scientists estimate that an average of 36,000 people (up from 20,000 in previous estimates) die from influenza-related complications each year in the United States.”
– CDC Press Release from January 7, 2003
So, while we should definitely be alert to what is happening in Mexico, we need to balance the news reports against the fact that in a normal year, 100 people die from the flu EVERY DAY!
Isn’t it great that the main stream media have those legions of editors and fact checkers to provide us with perspective? It’s really terrible how one-sided and distorted bloggers are. Isn’t it great that we have such a careful and balanced main stream media? What would we do without the calm, balanced reporting of the television news shows?
Move along folks, nothing to see here.
Not quite time to panic yet…
The end of the Roman Republic was signaled by the transformation of political disputes into criminal prosecutions.
The Romans had always dabbled with a dangerous brew of political trials and private prosecutors. There were no public prosecutors, so even criminal charges had to be brought by a citizen. From time to time, Senators and prominent Roman figures would launch an attack via a criminal charge – but though the motives might have been political, the substance of the charges usually rested on a ciminal act which violated the Roman legal standards.
Ominous things began happening in the 2nd century BC. The great wealth acquired by the Republic during its expansion around the Mediterranean aroused great passions, rivalries, and jealousy. Triumphant generals became wealthy men. Wealthy men became generals commanding great armies. The armies of the Senate and People of Rome became the army of Marius or the army of Sulla. And, in the next generation, the army of Pompey or the army of Julius Caesar.
At the same time, political rivals sought not just to achieve political victory over their rivals, they began to seek their rivals destruction. When they began to seek the criminal conviction of their political rivals over policy differences the end of the Republic was at hand.
Case in point. Julius Caesar had immunity from criminal prosecution so long as he was the commander of the army of the Roman Republic in Gaul. But once he surrendered that command, he could be charged and tried as a criminal in the Roman courts. This is what his political rivals threatened to do.
Facing the threat of criminal prosecution, there was little to deter Caesar from leading his army south from Gaul and using it to seize power in Rome. His rivals demanded that he surrender his command. He knew that if he did, he would likely be destroyed. He justified his march on Rome as an act of self-defense.
If the leaders of one political party threaten to prosecute the leaders of a rival political party as criminals, once they acquire control of the government, they create a powerful incentive for the other party to fight, by fair means or foul, to retain power.
This is not a happy development in our political life.
If deficit spending were truly stimulative, then why didn’t the Bush deficits stimulate the economy?
If World War II brought us out of the Great Depression, then shouldn’t the War in Iraq have stimulated the US economy?
These are just two of the provocative questions raised in the new Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, by Robert P. Murphy, scheduled for release next month, but already shipping and available now from Greenleaf.
Murphy is eminently well-qualified for the topic. A Ph.D. economist, he was a professor at Hillsdale College and is now an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Here’s the most striking sentence in the book (in my humble opinion):
“Economies recover from recessions or depressions by reallocating labor and capital to their most efficient uses. Propping up ailing industries only delays that necessary process and thereby deepens the weaknesses of an economy and delays recovery.” page 66
The book is divided into eight sections:
Ch. 1 The Crisis
The Roaring Twenties; The Onset of the Great Depression; FDR and the New Deal; The 1937-38 “Depression Within the Depression;” Rosie the Riveter: Happy Times are Here Again; Just the Facts Ma’am? The Need for Interpretation; The Reason Why; If a Policy Failed in the 1930s, Why Would it Work Today?
Ch. 2 Big-Government Herbert Hoover Makes the Depression Great
Herbert Hoover: Consistent Critic of Capitalism; Hoover’s “New Economics;” Making the Depression Great, Step 1: Prop up Wages; Making the Depression Great, Step 2: Cripple International Trade; Making the Depression Great, Step 3: Tax-and-Spend Like a Democrat; Making the Depression Great, Step 4: Install a New Deal-Lite; Herbert Hoover: A Big Government Man
Ch. 3 Did the Tightwad Fed’s Deflation Cause the Great Depression?
Friedman: The Timid Fed and the Deflation in the 1930s; Who’s Afraid of Falling Prices?; Deflation: Historical Evidence; But Why Would the Fed Destroy Money?; Propping up Losers;
Ch. 4 Did Conservative Economic Policies Cause the Depression?
The Roaring ’20s; Andrew Mellon’s Incredible Tax Cuts; Was the Depression payback for the 1920s Boom?; How Did the Classical Gold Standard Work?; Did the Gold Standard Cause the Depression?; The Final Verdict on Gold
Ch. 5 The Failures of the New Deal
Continuing the Work of Hoover: Restricting Production and Raising Wages; The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Roosevelt Himself
Ch. 6 The Outrages of the New Deal
Roosevelt’s “Bank Holiday;” Going Off Gold; The National Recovery Administration: Big Government and Big Business Join Forces; How the New Deal Helped Poor People Go Hungry; Old Age insurance: Not Really Insurance, and Neither Social nor Secure
Ch. 7 The Myth of Wartime Prosperity
The Immortal Error: The Broken Window Fallacy; A Billion Wrongs Don’t Make a Right; Wartime Prosperity? Damned Lies and Statistics; Central Planning: Bad in Peacetime, Deadly in War; Postscript: Ways in which World War II Did Boost American Production
Ch. 8 The Great Depression: Lessons for Today
The Fed Caused the Housing Boom – and Bust; The Myth of Laissez-Faire George Bush; Is Barack Obama the New FDR?
Here are some other thought-provoking observations:
The creation of the FDIC may have created a moral hazard of banks. The existence of the FDIC actually induces banks to make risky loans, by insulating them from the risks, and thus preventing them from learning the consequences of making bad loans.
The “bank holidays” begun by various state governors and eventually instituted nationally by FDR actually introduced additional uncertainty into the banking system and may have contributed to the climate which caused “runs” on various banks.
The National Recovery Administration price codes resulted in such absurd tyrannies as the jailing and fining of a New Jersey tailor who insisted on charging 35 cents to press a suit of clothes when the NRA price code set the amount at 40 cents.
This is a VERY timely book. Highly recommended for high school students and up who want to understand the economic history of the US and how it is being mis-used in the current crisis.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal
is a paperback, 198 pages and is available from Greenleaf Press for $19.95.
The surviving Somali pirate was taken to New York City by the US Navy.
The smile might be a nervous one, then again he may be smiling because of the improvement in his circumstances.
So what will happen the next time four pirates are holding a hostage?
Which of the pirates will volunteer for the dangerous task of going aboard the US warship and negotiating with the Navy captain?
And which of the pirates will agree to stay behind and guard the hostage?
Actions have consequences. Rules of engagement have consequences.
Why don’t we just print up flyers and distribute them in the Somali coastal villages: Kidnap a merchant captain and win a free all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, with the possibility of becoming a US citizen!
Precedent is not just a concept for the courts.
The budget deficits incurred by President Bush were excessive, and wrong.
The budget deficits enacted in the budgets adopted by the Republican-led Congress from 2000-2006 were excessive, and wrong.
President George Bush has completed his two terms of office and will not run for office again.
The Republican congressmen who voted for the budgets of 2000-2006 should be primary-challenged and replaced with fiscal conservatives. The Republican members of congress who voted for the Wall Street bailouts should be primary-challenged and replaced with fiscal conservatives.
The budget deficits already begun and planned for the future by President Barack Obama are outrageous, and unjustifiable.
The Democrats who voted for the budgets of 2006 and onwards should be opposed and defeated by fiscal conservatives. The Democrat members of congress who voted for the Wall Street bailouts should be challenged and replaced with fiscal conservatives.
The federal government of the United States is too large, and has become too oppressive. It violates the rights of citizens and strangles the productivity and creativity of the American workers and the American businessmen.
The ONLY way to increase the prosperity of the people of the United States is for American workers and American businessmen to be set free to use their ingenuity and creativity to produce more value. The biggest obstacle to this is the nanny state – the oppressively large and bewilderingly complicated regulations of the federal government.
We need less government, not more.
We need less government spending, not more.
We need less government taxation, not more.
The American people are finding their voice. We are crying out for relief. We are looking for leadership.
We do not need speeches about hope and change.
We need leaders with common sense. We need leaders who will reverse the growth of government over the past ten years… the past twenty years… the past thirty years.
Ronald Reagan was right. Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.
Where is the Ronald Reagan of 2010?