Grunions

The grunions are running. Or so we're told. Grunions are little fish that come up on the beach at night and lay their eggs in the sand. They were scheduled to be there at 9:30 to 11:30 last night, and 11:30 to 1am tonight. I guess some experts figure it out based on the full moon and its position in the sky and past history. Apparently last night the grunions forgot to set their watches. We were out there on the beach watching the breakers roll in on six to eight foot high waves. The water was cold and we were starting to shiver when we finally gave up. By 11:30 we hadn't seen one grunion. But it was so much fun we decided to try it again tonight. Maybe they'll show up at 9:30 instead of 1 am.

Well, there are so many things are happening in the scandal ridden Obama administration that it's hard to keep up. A lot of it is frustrating. The collapsing Obamacare, the signature legislation of the Obama legacy, is so unpopular, as well as a disaster waiting to happen, that even the president is trying to delay parts of its implementation. Well over 60% of the people want it repealed, several states have voted not to allow the exchanges to set up in their states, or are refusing to fund the exchanges, the major unions that helped Obama win election are now against it, and the president keeps getting up and blaming Republicans for being against what the American people want and need. I don't believe there has ever been a president less in tune to the wants and needs of the people, or more enslaved to special interest groups than this one.

Just today the administration said defense spending robs other federal programs of needed funds. Remember the sequester? It gutted defense spending. I'd say the reason for the shortfall is too many federal programs wasting too much borrowed money and accomplishing nothing of real economic value. Certain federal employees are now being furloughed due to the sequester. White House tours had to be suspended, Marines in Afghanistan could no longer have hot lunches, the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds have suspended their air shows, the military was not allowed to have July 4th celebrations, and school lunch programs are suffering all due to the sequester according to Obama. Of course, the shortfall didn't stop Obama from spending 100 million dollars on a family vacation to Africa. I wonder how many Marine hot lunches and school lunches 100 million dollars could provide? Remember when Obama said we needed to tighten our belts and inflate our tires to save money? I suppose he's never heard that the best leadership is leadership by example. Most tyrants are unaware of that. That's why so many of them get overthrown.

Obama said when campaigning in 2007 that he would heal the racial divide in the country. He then began to play the race card trying to goad Americans into voting for him to prove we aren't racist. We proved it, but it wasn't enough. There hasn't been a more racially divisive political figure in America since John C. Calhoun and Roger B. Taney before the Civil War. (If you don't know who they are a review of American history is in order.) The Trayvon Martin case proves the point. Obama praises a 17 year old thug who has been arrested twice and had marijuana in his system when he attacked George Zimmerman, but completely ignores drug-free heroes who have given their lives in Afghanistan for the country.

Although he claims to have created 6 million jobs since coming into office, more people are out of work today than when Obama started. Something is wrong with this picture. It is anything but indicative of a strong recovering economy, but to hear the president talk you would think Americans were enjoying the best days of their lives economically. Just like everything else he tries to sell, the economy he's talking about is the utopia in the socialist mind that has never existed and never will exist. He and Janet Napolitano both are insisting that the border with Mexico is as secure as it has ever been. Only in the fantasy world that they live in.

The Obama foreign policy is an abject failure. Half the Middle East is in flames, North Korea is more belligerent than ever, Al Qaeda is stronger than it's been in years regardless of his campaign speeches, and his influence is so weak that when he asks the Russians to extradite our traitor, Edward Snowden, Putin practically laughs in his face and offers the guy asylum.

And of course there is Benghazi, still unaccounted for nearly eleven months after the attacks that killed the ambassador and three other Americans. But what difference does that make as long as Hilary has resigned so she can distance herself from her own failure as well as the administration's, and run on a clean record in 2016.

So where is Obama now when there is work to do? At Martha's Vineyard, taking another vacation. Just like the grunions last night, he's not where he needs to be or doing what he should be doing when he is needed. But then, what does it really matter? According to the economically astute Barbara Streisand, Obama has been more fiscally conservative than any president in history except for Bill Clinton. You just can't argue with genius like that. Maybe Babs can tell us when the Grunions are going to show up tonight.

Grunions 2

Well, we went out grunion hunting again on Tuesday night but by 11pm they weren't coming and we called it off. Our daughter, Hannah, and my wife Lhey's sister, Rachel, had to work at 7am so we went on home.

Last night was the last night for this cycle and the fish were predicted to hit the beach between midnight and 1:30am. Hannah took off work today and Rachel's schedule is flexible, and Lhey's mother, Norma, didn't have to work until 10:30, so at 8:30pm we went to a Japanese sushi bar near the beach for dinner, then went out to the beach around 10. It was still early so we waited in the car awhile and napped a little, but our young son, Ethan, was restless and Rachel and her boyfriend, Alex, wanted to get out, so Hannah joined them and they ran around the beach.

At about 11:00 or so I checked on them. Alex is a big guy, 230 pounds, and he was goofing off showing how strong he was and tried to hold Rachel and Hannah up on each arm. A challenge a former Marine like me couldn't resist. I held them both up, one on each arm too. No big deal. Then to show I'm not as old as everyone thinks I am, I picked up Alex over my shoulders in a fireman's carry. When I first got under him I didn't think for a moment my knees were going to stand up straight, but they didn't fail me and I carried him about 30 feet across the sand before I had to put him down. (And the Navy turned me down for reenlisting as a chaplain five years ago because they said I was too old!)

There were seven of us and seven more came from the Filipino church in Spring Valley. We were surprised because only five other people that we saw were on the beach and they didn't stay long, and then only two others came later on. We had the entire beach to ourselves.

We caught a few sand crabs for amusement at first. I think Ethan was just as excited about those as the fish. One of the church members set up a small tent and when Ethan and the pastor's son got tired, they went to the tent and played games on iPads.

About 11:45 we saw our first grunion. Soon after Pastor R.J. from the church caught the first one. By midnight we were seeing more and soon entire schools were coming in on the waves together. We were scattered along the beach and whenever someone started to see them we'd be running in that direction to help. Then they'd show up behind us and we'd be running back. Grunions are thin, silver and slippery, and about 4-6 inches long. They ride in on the waves and as the surge flows back to the sea they are left exposed on the beach where they burrow into the sand to lay their eggs. If you shine a light on them they turn to flip-flop their way back to the water, so you have to be quick. Nets are not allowed! You have to catch them with your hands, and if you don't grab them before the next wave comes in they'll wash back out.

Each time a wave came and we saw them we raced to the spot diving to the sand on our hands and knees trying to grab as many as we could before they got away. We probably missed more than we caught. Many times we'd be behind them trying to grab them when the next wave hit and we were soaked from top to bottom before we were through, not to mention all the sand that got into our clothing. The water was cold, but we persevered. Everyone was screaming and laughing. We had two small buckets of fish by the time it started to rain at 2am, so we decided to call it a night. It was just plain fun from beginning to end and worth the first two frustrating nights to reach the grand finale.

While we walked down the beach toward our car Lhey wasn't ready to give up and she caught four more fish before we left the water. Strange as it may seem, one of the church members, Dan, didn't get the word we were leaving. How he didn't figure it out when everyone else was gone I don't know, but when we all got cleaned up and ready to go, he still hadn't reached the cars. I had seen him last down by the pier so we went and looked there, then walked up the beach but didn't see him. Then we drove to the far end of the beach and walked all the way back down and still didn't see him. We didn't know where else to look so we went back to the cars and there he was. He just happened to be wearing a T-shirt with a logo that appropriately said, "I am lost."

We were finally able to head for home and by about 3:30 everyone was in bed except me. Norma had a cup of coffee before she went to bed. I don't know why, but I went ahead and had one with her. With eyes wide open I finished an episode of Matlock and hit the sack at 4. Tonight we're having fried grunions for dinner.

Well, if you're ever bored and looking for something exciting to do, let me recommend coming down to Imperial Beach when the grunions are running. No matter how old you are it will make you feel like a kid again.

Scandalous Tom Brokaw

So according to Tom Brokaw, Obama's multiple scandals are not as bad as Abu Ghraib. You remember that's when some soldiers humiliated a few Iraqi POWs, were court-martialed and went to prison.

Let's see, Tom. The difference is Bush was not involved in the one scandal while Obama is up to his neck in the many scandals. Furthermore, Dan Rather and the sleaze merchant liberal news media broke the story on Abu Ghraib even though they'd been asked by the government to hold off on it for national security reasons, while the same sleaze merchant liberal news media, until the AP scandal came to light, has been silent about all of Obama's sins even though they include national security breaches, and so far, nobody has been held accountable.

Yeah there's a real comparison there. Nobody died at Abu Ghraib, no liberals were targeted by the IRS, no reporters were spied upon by the DOJ, no lies were told by the Secretary of State or the White House, and what do you know, it really wasn't Bush's fault!

Go bury your head back in the sand, Tom. You look less foolish that way.

Ronald Reagan on Memorial Day, 1986

PRESIDENT REAGAN: Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

Dignity

Did you hear the latest from Queen Pelosi? She said that a pay cut for Congress is beneath their dignity. I would say that the work Congress is doing is beneath their dignity and that the salary they are extracting from the American public is beneath our dignity. The truth is, there is very little dignity left in Washington and the queen along with her lapdog Reid and their messiah are the least dignified people that have ever held office.

The War on the Second Amendment

Almost before the ink was dry on my last post, Nazi America, CBS's celebrated journalist, Bob Schieffer, took to comparing the National Rifle Association with the Nazis. He said:

Surely, finding Osama bin Laden; surely, passing civil rights legislation, as Lyndon Johnson was able to do; and before that, surely, defeating the Nazis, was a much more formidable task than taking on the gun lobby.

The sentence almost doesn't make sense, but what Schieffer was attempting to do was to compare Obama's war on guns with Johnson's battle to pass the Civil Rights Act, and with America defeating the Nazis in World War II. Once again a liberal, with no substance to offer for a rational debate of the issue, turns to slander in order to make his case. He ought to be ashamed that he has no journalistic integrity, but liberals aren't concerned with things like that. They've sold their souls to their false messiah in the White House and being in lock step with the Father of All Lies (John 8:44), the truth to them doesn't matter.

So why make such a big deal about it? I was asked. If a few limitations would reduce crime and prevent mass killings wouldn't it be worth it? What do we need machine guns for anyway? They were sincere questions, but they sincerely showed a lack of understanding of the issue.

First of all, we're not talking about machine guns. You can't buy a machine gun in the United States. Those were outlawed by the National Firearms Act in 1934. We're talking about rifles that look like a military gun, but are semi-automatic single shot weapons. The tag, assault weapon, was added by liberal anti-gun advocates to try to stir up public sentiment against them, but so-called assault weapons are no different than a Remington 270 or any other kind of regular hunting rifle.

Furthermore, most gun related crimes don't involve rifles. They involve handguns. There are already strict Federal laws like the Brady Bill, and State laws involved in buying handguns including background checks and waiting periods. The 2nd Amendment is a basic constitutional right. It is the right that ensures the 1st Amendment will be upheld. It is the one right more than any other that protects the public from tyranny.

Why not a few limits? Because if you give in a little, the government will take more, even it is only a step at a time, and Obama is living proof. His 23 executive orders costing 500 million dollars to implement is first of all a violation of the Constitution, and if he gets away with this, he'll get away with anything.

The executive orders he's trying to force illegally on the public have very little to do with guns and very much to do with control. One of the orders requires doctors to ask their patients if they own guns, and where they are kept in their house. What does that have to do with medicine? What does it do to the doctor-patient privilege? This isn't just about guns. It's about our right to be free.

Obama is attempting to rule like a dictator and this is one of the most blatant examples of it. Included in these orders is several million dollars for training in weapons and security for 1,000 security officers in public schools across the country. It sounds good on the surface until you realize there are 132,000 public schools in the US, and they're talking about spending multiple millions per each person they train. That has nothing to do with security, it has to do with excessive government wasteful spending.

Consider also that Clinton banned assault weapons in 1994. The two boys that shot up Columbine in Littleton, Colorado five years later used assault weapons! The ban prevented nothing. It was overturned in 2004 by Bush, and murders by guns have declined every year since the ban was lifted.

Consider this: there were 500 murders using guns in Chicago last year. That's Obama's home, yet not one word was said about it. That's almost two murders per day every day of the year. Yet one crazy shoots 27 people in one day and all of a sudden we have to have gun control. Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

The most common weapon used in murders in the US for the last several years are baseball bats. Why don't we ban bats or register purchasers of bats and make them wait 14 days to pick them up like we do handguns? More people are killed with knives every year than are killed with guns. Why don't we ban knives? Because it's silly and makes no sense. Neither does banning guns.

Ever since they banned all firearms ownership in Great Britain and then in Australia, people from those countries have warned us in the US not to do the same. The crime rates in those countries are four times higher than they were when they owned guns. The four states that have the most restrictive gun laws in the US also have the highest crime rates, New York being the highest I think. In contrast, Texas, where conceal-carry permits are almost given away, has one of the lowest crime rates in the country, and the same is true in every state that has conceal-carry laws.

The media was quick to jump all over Newtown, but most of the country has not heard is that the day after the Newtown shooting a man entered a mall in Portland, Oregon and fired 50 rounds, hitting only two people fortunately, but when a man with a conceal-carry permit pulled out his weapon, the shooter thinking it was over, shot himself. A similar thing happened in a Dallas theater a few days later. The criminals had the guns and shot up unarmed people until law abiding armed people confronted them.

Gun ownership and the right to carry has proven over and over to be a deterrent to crime. Something else the media doesn't report; there were fewer mass shootings last year than in 2011, and the numbers have gone down every year for the last ten years or so. But the only thing you hear about is the occasional mass shooting, and the reporting is designed to make you think this kind of thing is going on all over America every day. It's not.

Bottom line, what Obama is proposing is an attempt to deny constitutional rights from the people in order to take more power and more control of our lives. It will lead ultimately to a complete dismantling of our Constitution and a loss of all of our freedoms. The government and the courts already trample all over the freedom of religion, and if they can take away the 2nd Amendment, it will only be a matter of time before they take away the freedom of speech, the press, and the right to assemble.

This is a war not just for guns but for America. The outcome will determine whether or not we will remain a free county. That's why no more limits.

Nazi America

Obama is about to announce his gun control program while surrounded by children. You might remember that Hitler surrounded himself with children too right before he took away all of Germany's guns.

You might also remember that it was Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others that spoke out against Hitler and wound up disappearing into concentration camps. Hitler youth sang the praises of the Fuhrer, the Bundestag (parliament) sat silent, bullied into submission, state controlled media covered up abuses while reporting the party mantra, and the army high command, vying for power in the administration, allowed the dictator to remake the military and take over. Nobody had the guts to stand up to him.

What do we see happening in America today? Christianity and Christian belief more and more being restricted by the government, school children singing Obama's praises, Democrats in lock step with Obama and enough Republicans cowed into silence that there is effectively no opposition in Congress, the sold out media repeating the Obama mantra, ignoring the Obama lies, broken promises, and abuses of the Constitution, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff falling all over themselves to carry out Obama's social engineering of the military without a whimper of dissent.

We already have a holocaust of our own called abortion - 54 million dead in the last forty years. We also have doctors experimenting with genetic engineering, using stem cell parts from aborted babies. Seventy years ago Josef Mengele and a host of other Nazi doctors experimented with genetic engineering, using the victims of their holocaust.

We often hear liberals comparing conservatives with Nazis because we favor the Christian principles of our Founders of life, liberty, morality, common sense, and constitutional government. But the Nazis in America are the leftists, liberals and Democrats blindly following their Fuhrer, Obama. The question is whether or not there is enough opposition, be it Republican, Independent, Conservative, Libertarian, or whatever, that will work together to stop the madness.

Obama is leading us down a slippery slope to destruction, and unless we stop it someday the world is going to look back in history and say (pardon the paraphrase), "Alas, alas, that great city (America), that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come." (Revelation 18:10).

Merry Christmas

Two days have passed since the Mayan calendar ended and just as I predicted, the days started getting longer. The world hasn't come to an end. That reminds me of another end-times prophecy "expert" whose prediction will probably be proven false in another eight days. Jack Van Impe used to be a pretty good evangelist but he finally went off the deep end with his prophetic teachings. Back in about 2001 he declared that the Lord had shown him that He would return between 2002 and 2012. Well, we've got a week to go.

Since no one knows the day nor the hour it always irritates me when people set dates because I have an idea that even if somebody got it right, God would probably change the date just to prove him wrong. Van Impe, not wanting to sound like a date setter, hedged his bets with a ten year window, but apparently he got nervous about it because back around 2004 or 5 he had a new revelation in which God told him that Jesus would come back before 2018. Well, I always hate it when they start saying things like that because now he's claimed every possible date for the next six years which means we'll have to wait at least that long for the rapture! I was really hoping I could count on it happening sometime in the next year before our country falls completely apart with the inept vacationing leaders we've got. (Heavy sigh!)

On a lighter note, we've finally reached Christmas Eve. Ethan's been begging me to let him open his presents for the last five days, but tonight he'll finally be able to do it (our family tradition has always been Christmas Eve). Tomorrow of course is Christmas, the day we celebrate the Lord's birth. You may have heard preachers or people say through the years that we really don't know when the actual day of Christ's birth is. We had "Christmas in July" once in our church to compensate for that.

You may also be aware that the Jehovah's Witnesses and other very strict groups, even some Baptists I've met along the way, don't celebrate Christmas because the December 25 is actually the date of a pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice and all that. The Druids worshipped trees therefore the practice of putting up a tree is pagan. Well, I've done a little studying on the subject and here's what I've come up with.

Right off the bat, the winter solstice is December 21, so unless the argument is based on general timing and nearness to the date, Christmas is not the same day as the Druid holiday. Druids were around from at least 200 BC in England, Wales, and France, but the Druids as a religious practice mostly died out around the 13th century. There has been a revival of interest in the last 250 years or so. The opera composer, Vincenzo Bellini may have helped revive the interest with his opera, Norma, about a Druid priestess, first performed at La Scala December 26, 1831.

The Druids worshipped trees as part of their practice, but they also made human sacrifices. The word, Druid, comes from a Latin root referring to the oak tree. The Druids had a calendar that was divided into 22 segments, each honoring a specific type of tree. None of the trees even remotely resembled an evergreen tree. The modern practice of a Christmas tree actually has nothing to do with the Druids. It began with Martin Luther about 500 years ago, who saw the shape of the pine trees as resembling a star, and so added lights to it to show that the Light of the World had come.

As for the actual day of Christmas, there is a formula to figure it out. The Day of Atonement in the Jewish Calendar comes on September 25. Since that is the only time in the year that the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies, that had to be the time when Zacharias encountered the angel who told him his wife would bear a son. Assuming that an excited Zacharias, old as he and his wife Elizabeth were, went home and got things started that night, it would have been around March 25 when Mary came to visit Elizabeth in her sixth month. Assuming again that March would have been the time the angel brought the news to Mary, the 25th to be exact, go forward nine months and you have December 25. So really, we have every reason to believe that December 25, if not the exact day, is very close to the exact day of Jesus' birth.

Along with that you may have wondered where the Twelve Days of Christmas came from. Well, although the western church accepted December 25, the Eastern Orthodox church accepted January 6 as the day of Jesus' birth. The difference is 12 days. The Twelve Days of Christmas came about as an effort to reconcile the differences between the two dates. The twelve days were referred to as "Holy Days," which over time has come down to us as "holidays." So in essence, even though the ACLU and the American Atheists are pushing to remove Christmas from any greetings, even if you say "Happy Holidays," you are still giving a Christian greeting, and the mockers don't even know it!

So celebrate away. The date is accurate, the tree represents the Light of the World, and it is a Holy season. HAPPY HOLIDAYS, but especially,

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Let's Blame the Guns

The bodies of the innocents in Newtown weren't even cold before the leftist ideologues were crying for more gun control. The president said we can't go on like this. Yesterday brain dead Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill tried to throw a guilt trip at the NRA. Even Bill O'Reily said last night there is no need for "assault weapons." China is now calling for the disarming of all Americans. Oh boy would they like that.

How about handling your own weapons problem; three multiple murder knife attacks in public schools in the last month. Mind your own communist human rights violating business first before you start sticking your hypocritical mouths into our affairs. Hey, O'Reily, the so-called assault weapons are not automatic military weapons. They may look military, but they operate like any other hunting rifle. So why stop there? If you want to ban single shot semi-automatic weapons, why not ban all of them? Why be a hypocrite about it?

Hey, Claire. Get your head out of the stinking sand and face reality. The NRA didn't do this, neither did it create an atmosphere for it. The lunatic involved, as those involved in all mass murders, was not a member of the NRA. Your hero Bill Clinton banned "assault rifles" in 1994. The two delinquent boys who shot up Columbine and murdered 12 in 1999 used "assault rifles." The ban didn't work! Gun control is dealing with symptoms not the cause. Now your false messiah, BHO, wanting to ban all guns, actually said something intelligent, although he doesn't even know it. We can't go on like this, he said.

He's right. We can't go on denying scriptural truths like Thou shalt not kill, and prohibiting these truths from being taught in public schools, and then making appeals for Bibles to give to murderers in prison. You want to change the atmosphere, start changing it when they start school, not when they've wasted their lives thanks to a godless culture teaching them they are only animals on the top of the evolutionary chain. How can leftists expect anyone to think they give any serious thought about life when they are silent and approving of nearly 4,000 abortions that go on every day in America? Hypocrites all. The lowest, most vile of all hypocrites.

Did anyone see the statement by liberal Hollywood star Samuel Jackson? He said it's not about the guns, it's "about people who aren't taught the value of life." I was amazed at that coming from him, but he is absolutely right. This is a cultural problem. We have a culture that is failing to value life. Wake up Barack. Wake up Claire. Wake up Alan Colmes. Wake up Juan Williams. Wake up Planned Parenthood. Wake up Harry the rat Reed. Wake up liberals. The answer is not banning guns, it's changing the culture, and that will only happen when people learn the truth of God's Word and turn their hearts to Christ.

The Fruit of the Vine

I am working on a Masters at Liberty University Online. One of the classes I'm taking is Survey of the New Testament. We are required weekly to post a 500 word essay on particular questions having to do with our reading. Last week my post was on I Timothy and the requirements for pastors and deacons. A second assignment each week is to respond to other posts made by the class and enter into discussions on the subjects. Kind of a class participation.

One of the class members answered my post with favorable comments, but especially appreciated that I was not "legalistic" concerning drinking as he liked to drink wine. Now, I try not to be legalistic about anything because we do have liberty in Christ, however, that liberty is not to be a stumbling block to others, and I do have strong convictions on this subject, as much from real life experience as from scriptural principle. So here is my response to my fellow class member. It is lengthy, but I hope you'll wade through it and please let me know what you think. Please also accept this in the spirit of love and concern in which it is intended. This is not a condemnation of anyone who disagrees, but I hope it will make you pause and think, and to change your mind.

My position on drinking for a Discussion Board post for Survey of the New Testament at Liberty Online University, 3 December 2012.

Hello,

Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm glad if my post was helpful to you. However, I think you misunderstand my position on drinking alcohol. I try not to be legalistic about it because I have Christian friends who do drink now and then and it doesn't seem to be a problem for them. I have also known chaplains and pastors (no Baptists that I know of) who also take a drink now and then, but I am dead set against it and I'll tell you why in a moment. Although I am passionate about it, I try to teach my position through gentle persuasion with verses like Proverbs 20:1, because the issue at hand seems to be getting drunk, not just the drinking itself. But here are a number of things to consider.

You mention Jesus turning water into wine. True, and yet the wine the Bible talks about is only fermented. The alcoholic content was much less then than what modern distilling processes create today. Plus, the King James Version of the Bible is very indiscriminate when it speaks of the fruit of the vine. Wine, juice, even in one instance the vine itself, are all translated wine so it seems you have to read into it a little bit to determine whether or not the passage is speaking of a fermented or non-fermented drink. I would think that it would take an awful lot of wine to have gotten someone drunk in those days which would be indicative of someone who had no control over his imbibing.

That being said, I was told once by a flight surgeon when I was in the military (and I've heard Christians who follow this advice say the same thing), that a little shot of wine every day is actually healthy for the body as long as you don't have stomach problems. It is not good for a bad stomach, and I also had a flight surgeon tell me that once when I was having some stomach problems. (The argument that Paul told Timothy to "take a little wine for his stomach's sake," makes it okay is a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. Timothy most likely held such strict convictions against drinking that he got sick from bad water, and Paul was telling him to drink "wine" to kill the amoebas.) There was a very well known preacher among independent Baptists, whose name I will not mention, who had a very large church in Virginia Beach. He was told by a doctor to take some wine for his health when he was already in his 60's, and started taking a drink of wine every night. But then it became two and three until one night he was arrested for driving under the influence and it ruined his ministry. There was nothing intentional on his part, but once he got started he apparently couldn't stop it.

That brings up the point of alcoholism. Some people are able to hold a whole lot more than others. Some people are alcoholics and can't hold anything. I had a step-sister who was an alcoholic. I tried to help her over and over, but you can't imagine the damage she did to her family and friends when she started drinking. All it took was one drink and she went out of control. The thing is, nobody knows how much they can take until they try it. Unfortunately, if you are an alcoholic, all it takes is one drink to get you hooked, and the only way most people will find out is if they try. I have a pretty strong constitution, but I choose not to even try. I don't want to take the chance of finding out that I can't handle it.

This is where the idea of pastors and deacons being "blameless" comes into play. I think being blameless has to do with not doing anything that anyone could possibly construe as being improper or unChristian. You may not have a conviction against taking a drink, but depending on where you are, another Christian who knows you and who does have a conviction against it may see you and be offended, or someone who is not saved may see you and point the finger at you in accusation because many unsaved people don't expect to see Christians drinking. In that case you've hurt your testimony.

I guess the bottom line is, I have seen too many people like my step-sister who have ruined their lives with alcohol. I was a pilot in the Marine Corps and Navy, and spent five years in the Philippines at Subic Bay where the entire industry of the Navy town, Olongapo, revolved around bars and prostitution. I had to deal with more sailors who got drunk, got arrested, and ruined their careers than I care to think about. One sailor in a drunken stupor had beaten up his wife. The shore patrol was called and when they came to arrest him, he poured gasoline on his gate and his shirt, and held a lighter out to keep the sp's away. When he finally lighted the fence on fire, it spread to his shirt and burned him so severely that he died a couple days later. Another time a pilot friend of mine, after a night of binge drinking, took a flight the next day when his head still wasn't clear. He wound up having an engine fire approaching NAS Coronado in bad weather, flew a terrible approach, missed the runway and ejected too late and died. I had another very dear pilot friend, who was Catholic and not a drinker, who was killed on the highway by a drunk driver who came sliding across a median head on into his car. The crash also killed his three children and left his poor wife crippled without a family in a moment of time. She was still in intensive care the day of the funeral. And now I have tears in my eyes remembering it.

I try not to be legalistic, but I am dead set against drinking alcohol of any kind, whether it's beer, liquor or wine. I hope you can understand why and I hope that I can persuade you to see my position.