Weakness in the Face of Murder

I'm so sorry that...you're destroying our flag?

Yesterday, on the 11^th anniversary of the worst terror attack on United States soil, a violent mob attacked the U.S. embassy in Egypt, tearing down our nations flag and, in it's place, raising a black one that said there was no other god than Allah. Not long after, a group of armed men attacked the U.S. embassy in Libya and murdered our ambassador and three other people.

What was the State Department's response?

They apologized.

They apologized for a private citizen making a film critical of the prophet Muhammad. That's right folks. Their immediate response was to apologize on Twitter for the actions of a person they had literally no control over. And who did they apologize to? A bunch of people who murdered an American diplomat. Not a combatant. A civilian.

First of all, these riots had nothing to do with that film. The Egyptians had flags eerily similar to those of Al Qaeda and the Libyans had guns. Generally, people don't store those away for spontaneous protests. These were both organized attacks on the United States on the anniversary of 9/11. Second, that filmmaker, no matter how distasteful his mockery of Muhammad is, has every right in this country to do that. To even be cowed into apologizing for our freedoms to people who have attacked and burned our consulates is beyond weak. It is reprehensible.

Then our president comes out this morning and says we condemn these actions “in the strongest terms.”

What does that even mean?

I condemn you fire!  Condemn you in the strongest terms!

If you want to condemn these actions in the strongest terms, use the damn terms. Tact doesn't matter to people who barge into places of diplomacy and peace, American soil in a foreign country, and tear down our flag and murder our citizens. When you are president, you should take a stand. You need to call out the rioters and defend American freedoms. You need to call out the murderers and condemn their evil.

And where is the president off to now? Vegas, for one of his big fund-raising events. Our president, instead of being in his office, keeping a close eye on the situation following violent attacks on our embassies, is off at a fundraiser.

I have no words.

I have had enough of this weak-kneed response to evil. Every time there is some sort of violence or rise of radicalism in the Muslim world, this administration gives, at best tepid response, devoid of courage and passion. At worst, they justify and support it, as with the Arab Spring and the rise of radical regimes in both nations. Our government is devoid of the defense of our values and beliefs that we, as Americans, deserve from our leadership.

On Choosing Life

With the conventions over, we now have a taste of the party platforms for the coming years. There's one issue I would like to dive into regarding that.

You see, the Republican platform, like previously, seeks to end the practice of abortion in our country. What caught the media's eye was that there was no exceptions for rape or incest. It was immediately jumped on, supporters of abortion claiming that the Republican position on abortion was “extreme” and “against women's rights” and their “health” and their “reproductive choices.” Of course, they would have said so with or without the exception.

The following week, the Democrat's presented their platform. In it, the party spelled out a desire to end all restrictions on abortion and to make available through taxpayer funding. In a country in which half of its citizens find abortion morally wrong and a vast majority believe that some sort of restrictions should be codified in law, this position is naturally the opposite extreme of the Republican position.

The media, ever the careful watchdog, reported on it...oh, right, this is the mainstream press we are talking about. Which means that, instead of reporting on it, they glossed over it, so that only the part country that has the time to pay close enough attention to the platforms is actually aware of it.

Nice.

Personally, I'll take that Republican platform over anything the Democrats present.

You see, I'm against abortion in all of its forms. I believe it is just as wrong at conception as it is on the day of birth, whether natural or induced. I believe it is wrong no matter how the child was conceived. I believe it's wrong no matter how much feminists and progressives preach to me about the “rights” of women to do what they want with “their own bodies.”

I think those arguments are false, plain and simple.  The fetus, no matter how old, is a human being. It isn't just some clump of tissue nor is it, at any point, dead or inert. Once, you and I were both that small, that helpless. Now we've developed into fully functional human beings. Yet those who favor abortion favor the ending of those lives, whether they openly consider it in those terms or not.

They favor the deaths of people long before they ever take their first breath of fresh air.

Before they can see the face of another human being.

Before they can smile, cry or speak.

They are for the right of the mother to consent to the death of their child, but not for the right of that child to live.

Pro-child, eh?  Only if lying in a puddle of one's own blood is in its best interest.

Since the legalization of abortion in the United States in 1973, nearly 55 million babies have been killed in abortion procedures. In context:

• Though estimates vary widely, World War II killed somewhere from 50 million to over 70 million people in the war itself.
• The Holocaust killed somewhere between 11 million to 17 million people.
• The famine created by China's first Great Leap Forward killed between 15 million and 43 million people.
• The Rwandan Genocide killed anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million people.
• The Darfur Conflict has killed approximately 400,000 people.

How can we call ourselves a moral and civilized society when we have killed more defenseless, innocent human lives than some of the most violent wars and horrendous violations of human rights in recent history?

The short answer: We cannot.

Remembering 9/11

Do you remember where you were when you first heard the news of the attacks on the World Trade Center? I do.

It was seventh grade and I was doing...something in Mr. Castanzo's geography class. Whatever it was has been erased by the events of the morning. In particular, the announcement that came over the intercom. In what may have been the least sensible instruction they could have given, the voice instructed teachers to not turn on their TVs. No reasons or justifications were issued. Just a simple request...that likely caused every teacher in the building to turn on their TVs. Mr. Castanzo did, at least. That's when I first saw the images.

When I was a child, prior to moving to Pennsylvania, I grew up in Irvington, New Jersey, a suburb of the city of Newark. Thus, I lived fairly close to relatives in nearby Kearny and Jersey City. Visiting them often, sometimes weekly, I grew up with the New York City skyline. The high placement of my grandparent's house on the Passaic Ridge in Kearny made the city clearly visible on a nice day. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in particular would glint in the distance, grand and impressive despite being several miles away. With my uncle in Jersey City and our visits to the piers and Liberty State Park, I could almost reach out and touch them across the Hudson. I even visited them once.

To see those towers, in many ways symbols of my childhood, burning on that screen was surreal. The class just watched, stunned. Some of us, myself included, tried to continue working, but the image of billowing smoke on the New York skyline kept much from getting done. Many students in our school had parents and relatives who worked in the city and they were now beset by confusion and fear. Then the signal went dead. After the clever “don't turn on your TVs” announcement, they shut off the cable, leaving us all in the dark.

I only heard sporadic rumors in the building for the rest of the day until I got home, at which point I found out the towers had outright collapsed, the Pentagon had been attacked and a fourth plane had crashed in my own state. I watched as the normally unflappable Peter Jennings broke down into tears while reporting on the attack.

The nation had changed. Life as we had known it had changed. Before, it seemed that the world was on track into a period of peace and ever-growing prosperity. Instead, in one single act, that naïve assumption was dashed and we were reminded we had enemies in the world and likely always would.

Yet, I feel that people are already forgetting that reminder. I see so many today willing to complacently sit by. They assume that there is no threat to our safety and liberty waiting to strike at us from the shadows. They assume that we were attacked because of who we, as a nation, are rather than who they, as homicidal radicals, are.

“Never forget.” Those words don't only remind us of the people who died that day.

They remind us that complacency invites death.

On Trivializing Race

I promise hope and change...just like four years ago.

Well, the conventions are over and the election season now begins in earnest.

I decided to listen to President Obama's acceptance speech last night and, much to my surprise, was not tempted to throw something at the TV. Not that I do otherwise. I normally just yell at the screen in frustration. Then again, since I'm a conservative and hate all that is good in the world, I murder a puppy to vent my rage. All in a day's work.

Sadly, I didn't see the Barack Obama of 2004 or 2008 on my screen. The one who inspired hope in people (which I was immune to) was absent. All I saw was a whiny and petulant man, frustrated with his failures and, in his anger, lashing out at others for them.

As I listened to the speech, I wondered: do we really want another four years of this guy's administration?

After four years, all I see is a country that is underemployed (myself included) and stagnant. It is a country that is increasingly dependent, not on itself, but on the food stamp and welfare benefits encouraged under this administration. The anemic growth of the economy prevents people from strengthening on their own and, even worse, keeps them mired where they are.

I see an administration that could care less about the limits placed on it by the Constitution. I've seen the Justice Department, created to enforce the laws of the land, ignore its obligation to enforce laws it doesn't like, such as the Defense of Marriage Act. I see a president who, by executive decree, declares that certain illegal immigrants should not be deported based on unverifiable claims.  I see a man who believes himself to be king, fighting proxy wars with the Central Intelligence Agency, deploying soldiers without our knowledge and keep a “kill list,” far beyond any power the Constitution has vested in his office.

I see a man who drags the specter of Chicago corruption with him. He has attempted to bully and shame the Supreme Court time and again, despite it being a separate and equal branch of the government. Most recently, in his own convention, nearly half of the delegates in his party were railroaded in a fixed “vote” over the presence of God and Jerusalem in the platform. 

Do I find the “no” votes to be scary? Yes. Do I think they deserved better treatment? Yes.

In the end, I believe that President Barack Obama is far more interested in improving his golf game than leading our country.

Now, you're probably saying, “Wait a minute, this post is supposed to be about race, isn't it? It's in the title and everything! And what's with all of this underlining business?”

You see, I've decided to write this post in code. All of those underlined words don't have the meaning you think they mean. They are actually all racially tinged “code words;” dog whistles, as it were. I use these words to trigger the inherent, unchanging racist sentiments of white people, who only see color in everything.

And now you're probably asking, “Are...are you stupid?” To which I answer, “Nope, but the liberal media is.”

I've had enough of the race-baiting this election and it's only just beginning. You see, there is such a thing as real racism. It is not, however, commonplace in America today. Yet, liberals and progressives want us, the American people, to believe it is and that it is just as prevalent and widespread as it was in the glory days of Jim Crow.

Uh...who are the racists again?

I find this despicable. Racism is a serious charge and not one to be leveled lightly. It implies that someone feels irrational hatred for another purely because of their ethnicity or the color of their skin. Hatred is a scary thing and the last thing we should be doing is ascribing it to people who do not feel it. Not only does it heinously insult the accused, but it also lessens the character of the accuser.

It also diminishes the impact and meaning of real racism. Racial hatred has a long and storied past. Outside of this country, it is a harsh reality. Just ask the Jews, the Kurds, or the Sudanese. How is it justified for anyone to charge it recklessly?

Then again, I suppose it's just a classic case of projection as I've seen time and again.

On Restoring Love

So, after a hiatus (writer's block is really, really frustrating), I'm back. This time, to talk about love.

How do you not even give this a mention?

Today, the TV was on to TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), a Christian television network. To my pleasant surprise, their flagship program, Praise the Lord, was not the usual affair, but a special presentation of “Restoring Love.” For the unaware (whom I don't blame, considering the media somehow ignored a gathering of tens of thousands of people in Dallas), Restoring Love was an event back in July hosted by Glenn Beck. It was the third and final of his “Restoring” series of rallies.

Unfortunately for me, I was unable to view it back then.

Suffice it to say, seeing it today was wonderful.

Now, there are many things I could discuss about it, however, one thing stuck in my mind. When Beck referenced the “American Dream,” he said it wasn't about material things. Now, keep in mind, I have not thought it was about material things for years. However, he defined it (which I paraphrase) as, “service to God and to our fellow man.”

When I look on the world today, I see people seek out “love” and the “American Dream.”

I believe believe that many fall well short of the mark for both.  Americans, particularly younger ones like myself, who have been mired in a culture obsessed with sex and things.  We forget that love, true love, is selfless. Instead, we seek love in things that make us feel good, regardless of the consequences, both to others and ourselves.

For years, we, as a people, have been bombarded with imagery and ideas that miss the purpose of that dream. We seek love and fulfillment in things and other people.

True love comes from selfless service, first to God, and through our service to God we serve our fellow man. Whether we help the needy through our own time and devotion, as we are commanded, or share the gospel, we serve our fellow man. In many ways, it is a loop, for through our service God, we serve our fellow man and by serving our fellow man, we serve and glorify God.

God is first, but the ultimate outcome is both.

If we, as a country, could return to an understanding of this basic truth, then not only would we gain an understanding of love...but we would also achieve the American Dream. Through our hard work and devotion, we can meaningfully serve others, whether we preach, volunteer, or just work in our jobs and our businesses. Because it is commitment to God and hard work for others in His name where people find true contentment.