I was shown an article called Ten Facts That Will Blow Right-Winger’s Minds. This is my response to the article. I've edited the ten points and quotes for space. If you want to read the entire article you can find it here. href="http://www.alternet.org/10-facts-will-blow-right-wingers-minds". These ten comments don’t blow my mind simply because they are all disingenuous liberal propaganda. Maybe my answers will blow some liberal minds, but I doubt it. Liberals generally are only interested in their agenda, not the truth.
1. The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law.
I will admit we are probably in a post-Christian era as much of the country has turned against God, and Christian churches and businesses are coming under increasing pressure from anti-Christian elements in government and public institutions, and organizations like the ACLU, in an attempt to exclude all references to Christianity in public places, especially in public schools. But the statement is disingenuous and not true.
Any quote taken out of the context of the speech, the letter, or the time in which it was given can be manipulated to make any argument you want. That is the case with all of the quotes given here. The argument against our Christian roots usually focuses on a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Separation of Church and State, which many people ignorantly believe is a part of the Constitution. It is not.
The Separation of Church and State doctrine was penned in a letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Baptist church in Danbury, Connecticut, in response to a letter from the Baptists who were concerned that there was an attempt to establish a national religion. Jefferson assured them that the Constitution was written to assure a separation of church and state so that the government could never establish a national church or interfere with church affairs, but which did not prevent churches from influencing the government by means of First Amendment rights.
Jefferson also wrote the following:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever....” – Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.
This is most definitely a reference to the Christian God. Jefferson was not a deist as many claim. For one thing, a deist god would not be just or even care what its creation was doing. In fact, funds were designated for the evangelization of Indians to the Christian religion in every annual budget of Jefferson’s administration. Jefferson wrote the following as well:
“I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.” – The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.
John Adams is quoted concerning the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 that the United States is not a Christian nation in any sense of the word. Adams’s meaning about the treaty was that we do not have a national Christian Church that controls the government. This had been the situation in Europe under Roman Catholic influence and in England under Anglican Church influence for centuries and the Founders were not going to have it. Adams also wrote a letter to the Massachusetts militia in 1798 in which he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Take the time to read David McCullough’s biography of Adams and you will find dozens of quotes from Adams about Christianity and its influence on the Founding Fathers.
Madison is quoted affirming the separation of church and state. Madison’s statement, however, does not disprove our Christian founding. It simply verifies the Separation of Church and State as Jefferson stated it, which in the context of the time meant to keep the government out of religion, not religion out of the government. It was a 1947 Felix Frankfurter Supreme Court ruling that turned the meaning of separation upside down to keep Christianity out of the government.
Madison, known as the “Father of the Constitution,” also wrote, “We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind to self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
John Jay, a co-writer of the Federalist Papers with Madison and Alexander Hamilton, delegate to the Continental Congress, and first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court wrote: Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
A long statement by George Washington is given in which he opposes spiritual tyranny by any state church. Washington’s statement is also indicative of the times. He was against a church-state union that would produce a spiritual tyranny such as what the colonists fled England to escape. Washington, who was a vestryman in his church, also said the following:
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
The French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America and wrote: “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other ... Religion in America must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country.”
Woodrow Wilson declared in 1911: “America was born a Christian nation.”
There are hundreds of quotes from the Founders and Framers of the Constitution about America’s Christian heritage. They are all in the public domain for anyone who is serious enough to investigate the truth about our Founders, but here is one more decisive statement. In 1892, in Holy Trinity v. United States, Justice Brewer wrote in the opinion of the Supreme Court:
“These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”
To say we are not a Christian nation is nothing but the dishonest agenda of extremist left-wingers who will selectively choose certain founding statements and deliberately misconstrue, pervert, and misapply the quotations in order to rewrite America’s history. Nobody is perfect, and nobody has never told a lie, but leftists who put out this stuff live by spewing falsehoods. It is their shameless lack of character and integrity that blows my mind.
2. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist.
So? The Pledge of Allegiance states the Patriot’s love and devotion to his country. You might also remember that the original pledge made no reference to God. The U.S. Congress corrected that in 1956 when it was changed to read, “one nation under God.” Under God was President Eisenhower's idea. When he introduced the proposal in 1954 he said, "In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future."
3. The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican.
So? Republicans make mistakes too. The fact is, it’s a Democrat issue today that every Republican in Congress opposes and rightfully so. Far from fixing any supposed problems with the medical insurance industry, obamacare is destroying the entire health care system.
4. Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion. As Casey Stengel said, ‘You could look it up.’
Yes, and you could also look it up in Reagan’s autobiography, An American Life, and find that he was misled into believing the bill only allowed abortion to save the life of the mother, and he thought it was going to reduce the overall numbers of abortion. It didn’t, and he admitted it was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. That doesn’t take away any credibility from his pro-life stance, as he became one of the greatest defenders of life during his presidency.
5. Reagan raised federal taxes eleven times and only those in the top income brackets benefitted.
Yes, and they were small increases that hardly compared with the tax cuts. It is also misleading to suggest that they only affected the top income brackets. That’s the typical Democrat class warfare argument that doesn’t hold an ounce of water when you consider there are more millionaire Democrats in Congress by far than millionaire Republicans. They also benefited from the tax cuts and never complained about growing their own fortunes.
The other fact is that Reaganomics led to the longest economic expansion in our history up to that time. If you weren’t alive in the 1980s you cannot really appreciate how good we had it in America after the Carter malaise. The criticism that the '80s was the worst economy in fifty years was a Clinton strategy to destroy capitalism and replace it with a high tax socialist economy. That was soundly rejected, as was Hillarycare, by the country in 1994 with the Republican Revolution that led to a longer economic boom than in the '80s. Clinton went along with it and took the credit at the time, even though he brazenly waved his finger and denied it at the Democrat convention in 2012. There are other things to consider as well including the Democrat controlled House that Reagan had to deal with. It is interesting after all, how many times Obama has compared himself with Reagan, while at the same time trashing Reagonomics.
6. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.
It is a hard thing to understand how supposed conservatives appointed to the Court keep turning liberal. Sandra Day O’Conner is another example as well as John Roberts. Nixon expressed his disappointment in Earl Warren. Unfortunately, the Senate has to confirm the nominees, and when the Democrats had large Senate majorities, Republican presidents were forced to appoint moderates in order to get them confirmed. Staunch conservatives like Judge Harlan, nominated by Nixon, and Robert Bork, by Reagan, were slandered with such vitriol by such Democrat stalwarts of integrity as Ted Kennedy that the nominations had to be pulled.
The bigger issue here is the one thing left out of this argument. Roe v. Wade also stated that if it could ever be proven that life began before birth, the ruling would be overturned. There is now absolute evidence that a child is a live human being from conception, with a heartbeat in only a few weeks, and with the ability to hear, and to feel pain. So the real question is, why has Roe v. Wade not been overturned?
7. The Federal Reserve System was a Republican invention. The grandfather of Nelson Rockefeller was one of its architects.
So? The Rockefellers have been notoriously liberal in politics regardless of party affiliation. It was also a Democrat president, Woodrow Wilson, who favored and signed the bill creating the Federal Reserve, and instituting the personal income tax system and the IRS, which today is the biggest scandal ridden agency in the government. All the more reason to get rid of the Fed and the IRS.
8. The Environmental Protection Agency was, too, created by Richard Nixon, who also was in favor of healthcare.
The EPA was created for a good reason, to clean up the environment. It did a pretty good job at first. Air pollution has been greatly reduced; parks and wilderness areas are kept clean. It was a good thing. The fact that it has morphed into a monstrosity trying to regulate every aspect of everybody’s life and destroy all production of energy isn’t the fault of Nixon. The EPA is run today by extremely leftist liberals.
Oh, and Nixon was for healthcare. He was also forced to resign from office over the cover up of a small break-in that had no national consequences. One of his advisors, Charles Colson, went to prison for having illegally in his possession one FBI file. Obama has presided over cover ups of Fast and Furious and Benghazi and others, and has yet to be held accountable even though these have had not only national, but international consequences. During Clinton’s presidency, Hillary had over 900 FBI files illegally in her possession, but she did no jail time, and now she is stonewalling the Benghazi investigation. Obama, through executive order, has illegally overturned the Constitutional separation of powers over and over. Where’s the accountability? The hypocrisy of defending Democrats for crimes far greater than Republicans have been punished for is appalling. Obama’s administration is undoubtedly the most corrupt administration America has ever seen.
9. Obama has increased government spending less than any president in at least a generation. Several percentage statistics were given to show Obama’s spending growth at only 1.4%, while Bush was over 5% and Reagan over 8%. It calls Obama the most thrifty president in at least a generation.
This is nothing but a flat out lie. The numbers do not in fact add up no matter how they are manipulated, and confusing the issue with percentages rather than real numbers doesn’t change anything. Obama called Bush’s last budget deficit of 450 billion dollars "irresponsible and unpatriotic." He then ran budget deficits of over 1.3 trillion dollars for five straight years. The national debt under Obama has doubled from 9 trillion in 2008 to 18 trillion in only six years. He has added more deficit spending and more debt than all 43 presidents before him combined. Thrifty is not a word that describes BHO. Out of control spend freak is more like it.
10. President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most people know. It is claimed that eleven of his mother’s ancestors fought in the American Revolution.
Since the last proposition was a complete fabrication, what is there to prevent us from believing this one is too? If his Dunham lineage is so well documented, let’s see it. Obama made a lot of claims in his fantasy autobiographies but this wasn’t even one of them. If there were any modicum of truth in it, I’m sure it would have been plastered all over the place in his defense. The fact that nobody knows it gives it very little credibility.
Even if it is true it says nothing about the place of his birth. Neither is it irrational to question his American citizenship. Obama spent a million dollars in legal fees covering up his past so that it was not available for examination. Why? The birth certificate he finally produced is so full of anomalies its validity is suspect. The sequence of birth numbers is out of order with certificates of other births issued on his birthday. It identifies him as African-American, a term that was not commonly in use until the 1990s. In 1961 he would have been identified as a Negro.
He supposedly became an Indonesian citizen when he lived there under the name of Sotero. That alone would disqualify him for the American presidency. By his own admission in one of his books he traveled to Pakistan in 1981. At the time U.S. citizens were barred by the State Department from going there. How did he make the trip? He could have with a British passport, which is possible if he was born in Kenya. In 1961 Kenya was still a part of the British Commonwealth, not yet independent, and he would have had a British passport if born there.
I lived in Kenya for fourteen years. The Kenyans certainly believed Obama was born there. They claimed him in their newspapers. His grandmother claimed to have witnessed his birth. And his yearbook bio from either Columbia or Harvard claims he was born in Kenya.
The smoking gun, however, is his Social Security number. He has a Connecticut number that belonged to a man who died many years ago. When they rolled out obamacare he had his staff enroll him. Funny thing. They could not get him enrolled because the system wouldn’t recognize his SSN. If he can credibly explain the SSN, I’ll drop the argument, but the evidence points to an illegal, unqualified usurper sitting in the White House.
None of this blows my mind, except as I wrote above, the absolute lack of intellectual integrity on the part of leftist propagandists who shamelessly produce statements like these in an attempt to distort and pervert the truth. As the Fonz would have said, “Sit on it.”
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
SOTU 2015
Watching Obama give a speech is a painful experience and the State of the Union address last week was no different. I am so tired of hearing people gush about what a great orator or speaker he is. He is not. He drops his voice like a thud at the end of short, choppy sentences, and when he makes gestures, drops his left hand on the podium, which thumps the microphone in a frustratingly irritating manner.
He bounced up to the podium as he always does like Mr. Cool Guy trying to appear jovial, casual and relaxed. The problem is we are not in a jovial, casual or relaxed time in history. His attitude was Nixonian in its arrogance and defiance. His whole manner was disturbing at best.
If you were hoping to hear anything of real substance you probably came away disappointed. Obama said nothing new. It's the same old speech he's been giving for five years, same failed ideas, same false claims of a great economy, a great foreign policy, and the respect of the world. The speech was a fraud, full of contradictions, mythical statistics, and a perverted sense of what is good.
It's time to turn the page and remake America, he said. What? What has he been doing for the last six years? That's the same message he was preaching in 2008. Or is he saying it's time to turn around the train wreck we've been on for the last six years and get back to where we were? If only that were true.
It was no surprise that he touted the economy. In fairness, every president will take credit for a good economy. Remember how Clinton took credit for the 1994 Republican Revolution reforms that led to the greatest economic boom in our history? (Remember also how liberals blamed Bush for the recession that followed the economic bubble that Clinton created with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac unsecured loans that burst as he was going out of office?)
Obama claimed that last year we had the fastest job growth since 1999. What he left out is that this recovery is the slowest recovery from a recession in American history. He also conveniently forgot to mention that there are still fewer people working today than when he took office, and the labor participation rate has dropped from 66.4% in 2009 to 62.7% today, the lowest rate since 1978, and that the net gains are in part time jobs, not full time. Ninety-two million Americans are out of work, and the number of people receiving food stamps has gone from 33 million in 2008 to 46 million today, an increase of 29%. He wants to raise the minimum wage because families can't survive on the current minimum level. They won't survive on 15 dollars an hour either if the only work they can get is part time.
Obama shamelessly took credit for the drop in oil prices and touted the success of solar and wind energy. People seem to have forgotten that in 2008 he told us to expect seven dollar a gallon gas. His policies were never designed to lower gasoline prices, but rather to cripple the energy industry. It has taken five years for him to conduct an environmental study on the XL pipeline and he still refuses to approve it, even though 70% of the country is in favor of it. He threatened to veto any bill approving it because he wants a comprehensive bill to cover other forms of energy including trains, bridges and infrastructure. Right. If you believe that I've got swamp land to sell you.
If he was really interested in helping the country he would take what he could get and work for the rest, not hold the pipeline hostage to his failed wind policies (Remember the bankrupt Solyndra?) while he destroys the coal industry. The reality is, oil has come down because of private industry research and development. Almost all of the new oil and gas deposits have been found on private land. Obama has refused to open up government lands for exploration or off shore drilling. The potential oil in ANWR in Alaska is so great it alone would make America energy independent, but it's inaccessible thanks to a government cowed by environmental nut cases.
The reality of the recovery is that it was the two stimulus packages Obama pushed through in 2009 (Remember the ones that he scared the Democrat controlled Congress into passing to prevent the entire economy from collapsing?) that have held up the recovery. The reason we are finally seeing a little light now is that the government infusion of money in failed efforts to stimulate the economy are past, the deficit has come down, and private enterprise is finally able to get back on its feet. Without the stimulus packages the recovery would have been complete four years ago.
Obama also shamelessly touted the deficit, which he has "cut" in half. What he and all his lapdog worshippers ignore is that the 590 billion dollar deficit last year was still 150 billion higher than President Bush's worst budget deficit, which Obama called "irresponsible and unpatriotic." And he's only cut in half the monstrous deficit he created. What is also lost in his view of the deficit is that the national debt is now over 18 trillion dollars, double in six years what it was when Obama took office.
Obama continued to praise obamacare, which, he said, brought health care rates to the lowest level in fifty years. The comment received no Republican applause and shouldn't have received any. The average American under obamacare will pay over $6000 a year for health insurance. Before obamacare the average American was paying under $4800.
Time and again Obama sounded like a Republican (which all liberals do when campaigning). He said the country works great when government doesn't get in their way. It's the free enterprise argument. The problem is, Obama doesn't believe it. His big government policies (Remember "You didn't build it?") have stifled the recovery and the growth of small businesses.
One of the greatest strains on the economy is illegal immigration and the porous border that Obama refuses to secure. But Obama promised to veto any immigration bill that would overturn his executive orders. He said we all need to work together to see that everyone gets a fair shot. We should not be allowed to just share in success, we should also contribute to success. In other words, redistribute the wealth by paying more taxes.
Along with this socialist idea he added universal child care, guaranteed paid sick leave, tax cuts up to $3000 per child, and equal pay for women who do equal work. He ignored the IRS scandal and how to deal with it, and the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963 and signed by Kennedy, which already guarantees equal pay for women.
He praised military members for their service and challenged businesses to find them work, but failed to mention the reason so many servicemen and women need jobs is because he is systematically gutting the military and sending them home.
Obama said he wasn't going to make this speech a laundry list of wants, but by the time it was over he had demanded quite a few items including free community college education. He wants to pay for it by closing loopholes that give tax breaks to lobbyists and the rich. What loopholes he didn't say, but he wants to reward companies that will bring their businesses back to the U.S. from China. How he wants to reward them wasn't clear either, but the best way to start bringing them home would be to end the stifling taxes and OSHA regulations that drove them away in the first place. He talked a lot about tax reform, but made no mention of reforming the scandal ridden IRS.
Up to this point his address was pretty much what I expected; rehashing the same one-liners and spin drivel we've been hearing for the last six years. But building up to the finish it was the most galling piece of lily-livered hypocritical tripe I've ever heard. He actually defended his cowardly leadership from behind. He called it the smarter strategy of diplomacy and threatened to veto any legislation to toughen sanctions on Iran. He insisted we must give the diplomatic efforts a chance to work.
Let's see. He was unable to get Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions with his softer, gentler diplomacy, so he loosened the sanctions that were about to put Iran under in order to get them to stop work on their centrifuges. Six months was agreed upon in order to come up with a treaty. Then it was extended six months. And then it was extended six months again. In June, no doubt, there will be no agreement and it will be extended again. All the while Iran continues to work toward nuclear power while Obama in Jimmy Carterish blindness claims they have stopped.
He then criticized America's embargo of Cuba and claimed that if after fifty years a policy isn't working it's time to try something else. Well, duh! Something else should have been tightening the sanctions against Cuba, not surrendering the store to the last hold out of the Cold War.
Obama then claimed that American air strikes are turning back ISIL (He continues to use the title for ISIS that recognizes their right to claim Palestine.), and then asked Congress for authority to send troops to fight them. This is the war Obama claims to have ended. A year ago he said ISIS was the JV, and when he authorized air strikes he and Secretary of State Kerry promised there would be "no boots on the ground." Now he's asking to put boots on the ground to restart the war that Bush won and he gave away. He said it's time we stand down from our war setting while he's gearing up to start another war.
He talked about standing up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism, and although he did use the word "terrorism" once in the speech, he refused to link it to Islam or to mention Al Qaeda. Last year he boasted of success in Yemen, but this year never mentioned the country even though its leader was being overthrown as Obama spoke. Neither did he say anything about the Al Qaeda terrorist attack in France the week before.
Obama lectured us that we don't lead with bluster, but with firmness and resolve. Well, first of all, Putin has taken the Crimea and moved into Ukraine with a whole lot of bluster, challenging Obama's firmness and resolve and finding it to be wanting. The reality is, you need a little bluster to reassure your allies (Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!), because the lack of bluster exposes your lack of firmness and resolve. Bluster worked pretty good for Reagan. It won the Cold War.
Then he turned to Climate Change. The theory that the earth is warming up has been so debunked that even Al Gore has stopped talking about it, but Obama brought it up again. All scientists believe it, he said. Really? Fourteen of the last fifteen years are the hottest on record, he said. Really? The facts used on those studies were manipulated to a pre-determined outcome, as the leaked e-mails back in 2009 proved, and the only scientists still preaching it are those being paid to. Average temperatures have actually gone down ten years in a row according to other meteorological scientists. But Obama will veto anything that challenges the "progress" he's made in battling the weather. He's not only a narcissist, he's got a God complex.
Obama claims our pillar of leadership is based on our values. Then he gave us a most mixed up explanation that had nothing to do with values. We need to use drones with the proper constraint. Why? If you're going to use them, why not send overwhelming numbers and win the war? He said we must reject Muslim stereotypes. Why? Every major terrorist attack in the world in the last twenty years has been done by Muslim terrorists. You're not going to win the War on Terror if you don't identify your enemy and send him to blazes. He failed to condemn ISIS for killing women, children, Christians, and gays. He again insisted on closing Guantanamo because "that's not who we are."
Well, who the heck are we? He praised as an accomplishment of our values system the overturning of traditional marriage by the courts in favor of gay marriage, even though the majority of Americans are against it. He held up a woman's right to choose for health care (meaning abortion on demand) as another pillar of our values. Then he said the right to vote is sacred and is denied to too many. What was he talking about? Who has been denied the vote? Democrats and their illegal immigrant stooges voted, some as many as three times in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia in the 2012 election. Who was denied?
He finished with a rah-rah about America's greatness and in his only biblical reference in the speech decided that we are our brother's keeper. Of course, in liberalese, that means not you and me, but big government nanny state.
In defiance of the recent election in which all of his policies including obamacare were resoundly rejected by the American public, he then said he has two years left to do what he thinks best. Work with me, he said, and I'll work with you. He hasn't worked with the Republicans for the last six years. What makes anybody think he will now? He wants America to unite. Why? He's been the greatest divider the nation has seen since the Civil War. With another dividing reference to Furguson, Missouri, he wants us to let the children know that every life matters. What about the lives of the unborn? Planned Parenthood received over half a billion dollars last year from the government to continue to be the nation's largest abortion provider.
He said we've laid a new foundation of remaking America. Wait a minute. That was his plan in 2008. You mean after six years he's only laid the foundation? The only thing left for his remaking of America is its destruction.
This was the stupidest, most anti-American speech ever given by a president before Congress. It was the most arrogant, self-serving pack of lies ever foisted on America, and he ought to be impeached for it. Obama doesn't care about you. He says he wants to equalize the playing field by redistributing the wealth. Socialism, as Joe the Plumber pointed out. But Obama has increased his personal wealth over a thousand percent from a little over one million dollars in 2008 to over 13 million now. Do you think he's going to give any of his wealth to level the playing field? He's living like a king, spending over a billion dollars in travel expenses galavanting all over the world to play golf while he ignores world wide crises that need his attention.
Wake up America. If the Republicans don't stand up to Obama over the next two years we may not have a country left to stand up for. These are the times that are trying our souls. These are the times that are going to prove whether we can turn our country back to constitutional government and the God of our Forefathers, or whether we deserve the leadership we elected in 2008 and 2012 and the continued fall headlong to destruction.
He bounced up to the podium as he always does like Mr. Cool Guy trying to appear jovial, casual and relaxed. The problem is we are not in a jovial, casual or relaxed time in history. His attitude was Nixonian in its arrogance and defiance. His whole manner was disturbing at best.
If you were hoping to hear anything of real substance you probably came away disappointed. Obama said nothing new. It's the same old speech he's been giving for five years, same failed ideas, same false claims of a great economy, a great foreign policy, and the respect of the world. The speech was a fraud, full of contradictions, mythical statistics, and a perverted sense of what is good.
It's time to turn the page and remake America, he said. What? What has he been doing for the last six years? That's the same message he was preaching in 2008. Or is he saying it's time to turn around the train wreck we've been on for the last six years and get back to where we were? If only that were true.
It was no surprise that he touted the economy. In fairness, every president will take credit for a good economy. Remember how Clinton took credit for the 1994 Republican Revolution reforms that led to the greatest economic boom in our history? (Remember also how liberals blamed Bush for the recession that followed the economic bubble that Clinton created with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac unsecured loans that burst as he was going out of office?)
Obama claimed that last year we had the fastest job growth since 1999. What he left out is that this recovery is the slowest recovery from a recession in American history. He also conveniently forgot to mention that there are still fewer people working today than when he took office, and the labor participation rate has dropped from 66.4% in 2009 to 62.7% today, the lowest rate since 1978, and that the net gains are in part time jobs, not full time. Ninety-two million Americans are out of work, and the number of people receiving food stamps has gone from 33 million in 2008 to 46 million today, an increase of 29%. He wants to raise the minimum wage because families can't survive on the current minimum level. They won't survive on 15 dollars an hour either if the only work they can get is part time.
Obama shamelessly took credit for the drop in oil prices and touted the success of solar and wind energy. People seem to have forgotten that in 2008 he told us to expect seven dollar a gallon gas. His policies were never designed to lower gasoline prices, but rather to cripple the energy industry. It has taken five years for him to conduct an environmental study on the XL pipeline and he still refuses to approve it, even though 70% of the country is in favor of it. He threatened to veto any bill approving it because he wants a comprehensive bill to cover other forms of energy including trains, bridges and infrastructure. Right. If you believe that I've got swamp land to sell you.
If he was really interested in helping the country he would take what he could get and work for the rest, not hold the pipeline hostage to his failed wind policies (Remember the bankrupt Solyndra?) while he destroys the coal industry. The reality is, oil has come down because of private industry research and development. Almost all of the new oil and gas deposits have been found on private land. Obama has refused to open up government lands for exploration or off shore drilling. The potential oil in ANWR in Alaska is so great it alone would make America energy independent, but it's inaccessible thanks to a government cowed by environmental nut cases.
The reality of the recovery is that it was the two stimulus packages Obama pushed through in 2009 (Remember the ones that he scared the Democrat controlled Congress into passing to prevent the entire economy from collapsing?) that have held up the recovery. The reason we are finally seeing a little light now is that the government infusion of money in failed efforts to stimulate the economy are past, the deficit has come down, and private enterprise is finally able to get back on its feet. Without the stimulus packages the recovery would have been complete four years ago.
Obama also shamelessly touted the deficit, which he has "cut" in half. What he and all his lapdog worshippers ignore is that the 590 billion dollar deficit last year was still 150 billion higher than President Bush's worst budget deficit, which Obama called "irresponsible and unpatriotic." And he's only cut in half the monstrous deficit he created. What is also lost in his view of the deficit is that the national debt is now over 18 trillion dollars, double in six years what it was when Obama took office.
Obama continued to praise obamacare, which, he said, brought health care rates to the lowest level in fifty years. The comment received no Republican applause and shouldn't have received any. The average American under obamacare will pay over $6000 a year for health insurance. Before obamacare the average American was paying under $4800.
Time and again Obama sounded like a Republican (which all liberals do when campaigning). He said the country works great when government doesn't get in their way. It's the free enterprise argument. The problem is, Obama doesn't believe it. His big government policies (Remember "You didn't build it?") have stifled the recovery and the growth of small businesses.
One of the greatest strains on the economy is illegal immigration and the porous border that Obama refuses to secure. But Obama promised to veto any immigration bill that would overturn his executive orders. He said we all need to work together to see that everyone gets a fair shot. We should not be allowed to just share in success, we should also contribute to success. In other words, redistribute the wealth by paying more taxes.
Along with this socialist idea he added universal child care, guaranteed paid sick leave, tax cuts up to $3000 per child, and equal pay for women who do equal work. He ignored the IRS scandal and how to deal with it, and the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963 and signed by Kennedy, which already guarantees equal pay for women.
He praised military members for their service and challenged businesses to find them work, but failed to mention the reason so many servicemen and women need jobs is because he is systematically gutting the military and sending them home.
Obama said he wasn't going to make this speech a laundry list of wants, but by the time it was over he had demanded quite a few items including free community college education. He wants to pay for it by closing loopholes that give tax breaks to lobbyists and the rich. What loopholes he didn't say, but he wants to reward companies that will bring their businesses back to the U.S. from China. How he wants to reward them wasn't clear either, but the best way to start bringing them home would be to end the stifling taxes and OSHA regulations that drove them away in the first place. He talked a lot about tax reform, but made no mention of reforming the scandal ridden IRS.
Up to this point his address was pretty much what I expected; rehashing the same one-liners and spin drivel we've been hearing for the last six years. But building up to the finish it was the most galling piece of lily-livered hypocritical tripe I've ever heard. He actually defended his cowardly leadership from behind. He called it the smarter strategy of diplomacy and threatened to veto any legislation to toughen sanctions on Iran. He insisted we must give the diplomatic efforts a chance to work.
Let's see. He was unable to get Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions with his softer, gentler diplomacy, so he loosened the sanctions that were about to put Iran under in order to get them to stop work on their centrifuges. Six months was agreed upon in order to come up with a treaty. Then it was extended six months. And then it was extended six months again. In June, no doubt, there will be no agreement and it will be extended again. All the while Iran continues to work toward nuclear power while Obama in Jimmy Carterish blindness claims they have stopped.
He then criticized America's embargo of Cuba and claimed that if after fifty years a policy isn't working it's time to try something else. Well, duh! Something else should have been tightening the sanctions against Cuba, not surrendering the store to the last hold out of the Cold War.
Obama then claimed that American air strikes are turning back ISIL (He continues to use the title for ISIS that recognizes their right to claim Palestine.), and then asked Congress for authority to send troops to fight them. This is the war Obama claims to have ended. A year ago he said ISIS was the JV, and when he authorized air strikes he and Secretary of State Kerry promised there would be "no boots on the ground." Now he's asking to put boots on the ground to restart the war that Bush won and he gave away. He said it's time we stand down from our war setting while he's gearing up to start another war.
He talked about standing up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism, and although he did use the word "terrorism" once in the speech, he refused to link it to Islam or to mention Al Qaeda. Last year he boasted of success in Yemen, but this year never mentioned the country even though its leader was being overthrown as Obama spoke. Neither did he say anything about the Al Qaeda terrorist attack in France the week before.
Obama lectured us that we don't lead with bluster, but with firmness and resolve. Well, first of all, Putin has taken the Crimea and moved into Ukraine with a whole lot of bluster, challenging Obama's firmness and resolve and finding it to be wanting. The reality is, you need a little bluster to reassure your allies (Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!), because the lack of bluster exposes your lack of firmness and resolve. Bluster worked pretty good for Reagan. It won the Cold War.
Then he turned to Climate Change. The theory that the earth is warming up has been so debunked that even Al Gore has stopped talking about it, but Obama brought it up again. All scientists believe it, he said. Really? Fourteen of the last fifteen years are the hottest on record, he said. Really? The facts used on those studies were manipulated to a pre-determined outcome, as the leaked e-mails back in 2009 proved, and the only scientists still preaching it are those being paid to. Average temperatures have actually gone down ten years in a row according to other meteorological scientists. But Obama will veto anything that challenges the "progress" he's made in battling the weather. He's not only a narcissist, he's got a God complex.
Obama claims our pillar of leadership is based on our values. Then he gave us a most mixed up explanation that had nothing to do with values. We need to use drones with the proper constraint. Why? If you're going to use them, why not send overwhelming numbers and win the war? He said we must reject Muslim stereotypes. Why? Every major terrorist attack in the world in the last twenty years has been done by Muslim terrorists. You're not going to win the War on Terror if you don't identify your enemy and send him to blazes. He failed to condemn ISIS for killing women, children, Christians, and gays. He again insisted on closing Guantanamo because "that's not who we are."
Well, who the heck are we? He praised as an accomplishment of our values system the overturning of traditional marriage by the courts in favor of gay marriage, even though the majority of Americans are against it. He held up a woman's right to choose for health care (meaning abortion on demand) as another pillar of our values. Then he said the right to vote is sacred and is denied to too many. What was he talking about? Who has been denied the vote? Democrats and their illegal immigrant stooges voted, some as many as three times in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia in the 2012 election. Who was denied?
He finished with a rah-rah about America's greatness and in his only biblical reference in the speech decided that we are our brother's keeper. Of course, in liberalese, that means not you and me, but big government nanny state.
In defiance of the recent election in which all of his policies including obamacare were resoundly rejected by the American public, he then said he has two years left to do what he thinks best. Work with me, he said, and I'll work with you. He hasn't worked with the Republicans for the last six years. What makes anybody think he will now? He wants America to unite. Why? He's been the greatest divider the nation has seen since the Civil War. With another dividing reference to Furguson, Missouri, he wants us to let the children know that every life matters. What about the lives of the unborn? Planned Parenthood received over half a billion dollars last year from the government to continue to be the nation's largest abortion provider.
He said we've laid a new foundation of remaking America. Wait a minute. That was his plan in 2008. You mean after six years he's only laid the foundation? The only thing left for his remaking of America is its destruction.
This was the stupidest, most anti-American speech ever given by a president before Congress. It was the most arrogant, self-serving pack of lies ever foisted on America, and he ought to be impeached for it. Obama doesn't care about you. He says he wants to equalize the playing field by redistributing the wealth. Socialism, as Joe the Plumber pointed out. But Obama has increased his personal wealth over a thousand percent from a little over one million dollars in 2008 to over 13 million now. Do you think he's going to give any of his wealth to level the playing field? He's living like a king, spending over a billion dollars in travel expenses galavanting all over the world to play golf while he ignores world wide crises that need his attention.
Wake up America. If the Republicans don't stand up to Obama over the next two years we may not have a country left to stand up for. These are the times that are trying our souls. These are the times that are going to prove whether we can turn our country back to constitutional government and the God of our Forefathers, or whether we deserve the leadership we elected in 2008 and 2012 and the continued fall headlong to destruction.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Happy New Year
Well, I finished the last year writing out a message, so I decided to start the New Year with another one. I hope it will be an encouragement and a blessing to you.
Pressing On Toward the Mark
Text: Philippians 3:14
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Introduction: Throughout life we will come across milestones, specific events that can be life changing or life confirming. For example, when you accepted Christ and were saved, it was a life-changing event. You became a new creation in Christ. When you graduated from high school or college it was a life-confirming event. You had taken a big step forward in your life. Certain birthdays and anniversaries are considered to be milestones and gemstones are used to honor them. Silver marks a 25th anniversary, gold the 50th, and a diamond the 75th. Our church is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. If you didn’t know, the 40th gemstone is a ruby.
Our theme for this year is Pressing On For Thee at Forty. The ruby seems appropriate as the blood red color reminds us of the blood Jesus shed to secure our salvation and establish the church.
Let us consider what is the mark, and what is the prize? The mark is often represented as heaven and the prize our rewards, but that idea misses the point. The mark is Jesus Christ, and the prize is salvation. So then, what does it mean to press toward Jesus Christ? Romans 8:29 says that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son. If the mark is Christ, then pressing to the mark is becoming more like Christ. We need to ask ourselves as a church, after forty years, are we continually becoming more like Christ? Is your pastor leading you to be more Christ like, and are you becoming more like Christ in your daily walk?
David wrote, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with your likeness” (Psalm 17:15). If it is the destiny of every Christian when we get to heaven to be like Christ, shouldn’t we be trying as much as we can to be like Christ now? So, how do we get there? How do we press toward the mark? What are we pressing for? Let me give you some ideas.
I. Holiness (I Peter 1:16).
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
Peter quotes a command given by God in Leviticus 11:44-45 to be holy. God cannot abide sin in His presence, and if there is sin in your life the first thing you need to do is get your heart right with God. You can never be holy without a clean heart. Clean up your thoughts, words, and actions, the places you go, the people you meet, the things you do. You should make your activities acceptable to God.
You need to repent of specific sin; not just a generic “forgive me for whatever I’ve done wrong.” Search your soul, examine yourself, and confess specific sins, not to me, not to a priest, your relationship is between you and the Lord. Tell the Lord where you have failed and ask His forgiveness. When Isaiah saw God on the throne and the angels calling out, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts,” he cried out, “Woe is me” (Isaiah 6:5).
He confessed that he was a man of unclean lips. What he meant by that I don’t know. Maybe he had a problem with swearing or cussing. Maybe he had a penchant for repeating off-color jokes. Maybe he was arrogant and condescending to people. It doesn’t matter what, he repented and he was cleansed. When we repent of all sin in our lives and get our hearts right with God, then we are pressing on toward holiness.
II. Purity (1 Timothy 5:22).
Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep yourself pure.
If there is any area that people everywhere have trouble with it is the idea of moral purity. Unfortunately, Christians have as much trouble with this as non-Christians. If you can find people who have kept nine of the Ten Commandments, the one they’ve likely broken is number seven, immorality.
Sex is all about us. It’s commercialized; it is on TV and movies, in novels, it’s everywhere. The way models and movie stars are fawned over for nothing more than showing off a beautiful body, you would think sex rules the world. And it probably does. The National Education Association wants to teach sex, emphasizing the gay lifestyle as being normal, to five year olds in kindergarten. That’s how wicked our society has become.
Young people will often say, “I can get involved, I know my limits, I’ll stop in time.” But they never do. They don’t know their limits. They don’t understand that when the fire of passion is ignited it’s hard to put out. Middle aged and old folks haven’t figured it out either. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). In a moment of passion you never know what you’ll do.
Paul tells us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, “and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). Don’t go where sin is; don’t put yourself in a place where you will be tempted. You’re not strong enough to stand in your own strength against the “wiles of the devil.” Peter compared Satan with the king of beasts.
We lived in Africa for fourteen years. We’ve seen 500 pound male lions in the wild. A lion roaring nearby will make your hair stand up. You’ve never heard anything so ferocious. Satan as a roaring lion will devour you if you play with sin. The answer is to flee youthful lusts and keep yourself pure.
How? By following after righteousness, faith, charity, and peace (2 Timothy 2:22). Hang around with friends who call on God with pure hearts. Surround yourself with friends who will encourage you to live a pure life.
Young people, old people, all people, don’t throw away your life over moral sins. Proverbs 2:19 says that you will never reach your full potential in life if you give in to immorality.
You get your heart by pressing toward holiness; you keep your heart right by pressing toward purity.
III. Integrity (Proverbs 4:23).
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
A person of integrity is one who is true, honest, a person of conviction, with strong moral principles. Integrity is undivided in its thoughts. That is, a person of integrity is not double-minded. He knows what is right and what is not, and he doesn’t compromise his convictions. He will always to the right thing.
I’m not a drinker. I’ve never been a drinker. When Proverbs says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise,” I take that to mean not to be deceived by it. So I don’t imbibe. I’ve seen the affects of it on too many people who have thrown their lives away, ruined their families, even died. I had a friend who broke the Navy’s twelve hour “bottle to throttle” rule, went flying when his head was not clear, and crashed into San Diego Bay. I’ve had friends killed by drunk drivers. Some Christians will disagree with me on whether you can take it in moderation or not. That’s fine, I believe they are wrong, but this is my position and I will not compromise on it.
Back in 1986 when I was flying here at Cubi Point, the Navy base put together a package four-day tour to Hong Kong. Operations were slow and nine of us at my squadron took leave and went on the tour. The other guys went just for the nightlife. I wanted to tour the place and go shopping. One night one of the guys invited me to go with them. He said, we understand your religious position. You don’t have to drink, just come sit with us. We’d like to talk to you. I politely declined. For one thing they weren’t just drinking, they were going to topless bars. For another, if I had gone, even if I didn’t drink, my presence with them would justify in their minds that I thought it was okay for them. I wanted no part of it.
When I was in Marine Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, one weekend my platoon was the duty platoon. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere but into Quantico town, which was on the base, in order to eat. Saturday evening I went with about ten other candidates to eat. They all ordered beers and when the waitress came to me I ordered a large milk. She looked at me funny and laughed and said okay. The guy next to me said you might at least order a coke to make it look like you’re drinking with us. I said that’s exactly why I ordered milk. I don’t want anyone to think I’m drinking with you. When they all ordered another round I told the waitress, “I’ll have the usual.” It got a big laugh from everybody.
Listen, I’ve heard people say they go to bars and drink because it opens up opportunities to share the Gospel with people. Frankly, I doubt that, but the end never justifies the means. “It is never right to do wrong to get a chance to do right” (Bob Jones, Sr.).
As a person of integrity, people should be able to say about you that you are true to your word. You are dependable. You will always do what you promise, and you will always stand by what you believe.
You get your heart right by pressing toward holiness. You keep it right by pressing toward purity. You demonstrate that your heart is right by pressing toward integrity.
IV. Wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Knowledge is simply the accumulation of facts. But there are people without conscience who ignore the truth and manipulate the facts. We see that in public school textbooks that have perverted the truth about such things as the first Thanksgiving. They say the Pilgrims thanked the Indians for helping them through the winter, when in fact they invited the Indians to join them in thanking God. We see it in political correctness that denies the Christian heritage of our Founders, refusing to even allow their writings to be taught in public schools because of a perverted twisting of the concept of “separation of church and state.” We find it in Obama’s public statements about the contributions Muslims have made in the building of America. This is because there is no fear of the Lord in the lives of the people who manipulate the facts.
The fear of the Lord gives us a proper understanding of the facts, but it is wisdom that will help us make the proper application of the facts in our lives. Proverbs 2:2 tells us to listen to wisdom and apply our hearts to understanding. Wisdom will guide you in holiness, purity and integrity.
So, how do you get wisdom? You won’t get it watching TV. Not from politicians. Not from dirty movies, romance novels, or gossip magazines, and certainly not in the life of arrogant, stuck up movie stars who think they own the world because of their fame and money. No, you find wisdom in the Word of God. James 1:5 says that if you lack wisdom ask God for it. He will not scold or rebuke you for asking. He’ll give it to you if you are serious about applying it.
When you press toward wisdom it will help you maintain holiness, purity and integrity in your life.
Conclusion: We are at the start of a New Year, a time for new beginnings. For many it’s a time to put 2014 behind them and start over. For others it’s a time to build on the successes of 2014 and press on. As a church we are approaching our 40th anniversary. It is not a time to rest, but a time to press on and to determine that we will continue for another forty years as God enables us. Individually it is time for us to make a greater effort than ever before to press toward the mark of being like Christ. It doesn’t matter if you are 4, 14, 40, 54, or 74, or anywhere in between or beyond, keep on pressing on “toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Pressing On Toward the Mark
Text: Philippians 3:14
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Introduction: Throughout life we will come across milestones, specific events that can be life changing or life confirming. For example, when you accepted Christ and were saved, it was a life-changing event. You became a new creation in Christ. When you graduated from high school or college it was a life-confirming event. You had taken a big step forward in your life. Certain birthdays and anniversaries are considered to be milestones and gemstones are used to honor them. Silver marks a 25th anniversary, gold the 50th, and a diamond the 75th. Our church is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. If you didn’t know, the 40th gemstone is a ruby.
Our theme for this year is Pressing On For Thee at Forty. The ruby seems appropriate as the blood red color reminds us of the blood Jesus shed to secure our salvation and establish the church.
Let us consider what is the mark, and what is the prize? The mark is often represented as heaven and the prize our rewards, but that idea misses the point. The mark is Jesus Christ, and the prize is salvation. So then, what does it mean to press toward Jesus Christ? Romans 8:29 says that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son. If the mark is Christ, then pressing to the mark is becoming more like Christ. We need to ask ourselves as a church, after forty years, are we continually becoming more like Christ? Is your pastor leading you to be more Christ like, and are you becoming more like Christ in your daily walk?
David wrote, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with your likeness” (Psalm 17:15). If it is the destiny of every Christian when we get to heaven to be like Christ, shouldn’t we be trying as much as we can to be like Christ now? So, how do we get there? How do we press toward the mark? What are we pressing for? Let me give you some ideas.
I. Holiness (I Peter 1:16).
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
Peter quotes a command given by God in Leviticus 11:44-45 to be holy. God cannot abide sin in His presence, and if there is sin in your life the first thing you need to do is get your heart right with God. You can never be holy without a clean heart. Clean up your thoughts, words, and actions, the places you go, the people you meet, the things you do. You should make your activities acceptable to God.
You need to repent of specific sin; not just a generic “forgive me for whatever I’ve done wrong.” Search your soul, examine yourself, and confess specific sins, not to me, not to a priest, your relationship is between you and the Lord. Tell the Lord where you have failed and ask His forgiveness. When Isaiah saw God on the throne and the angels calling out, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts,” he cried out, “Woe is me” (Isaiah 6:5).
He confessed that he was a man of unclean lips. What he meant by that I don’t know. Maybe he had a problem with swearing or cussing. Maybe he had a penchant for repeating off-color jokes. Maybe he was arrogant and condescending to people. It doesn’t matter what, he repented and he was cleansed. When we repent of all sin in our lives and get our hearts right with God, then we are pressing on toward holiness.
II. Purity (1 Timothy 5:22).
Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep yourself pure.
If there is any area that people everywhere have trouble with it is the idea of moral purity. Unfortunately, Christians have as much trouble with this as non-Christians. If you can find people who have kept nine of the Ten Commandments, the one they’ve likely broken is number seven, immorality.
Sex is all about us. It’s commercialized; it is on TV and movies, in novels, it’s everywhere. The way models and movie stars are fawned over for nothing more than showing off a beautiful body, you would think sex rules the world. And it probably does. The National Education Association wants to teach sex, emphasizing the gay lifestyle as being normal, to five year olds in kindergarten. That’s how wicked our society has become.
Young people will often say, “I can get involved, I know my limits, I’ll stop in time.” But they never do. They don’t know their limits. They don’t understand that when the fire of passion is ignited it’s hard to put out. Middle aged and old folks haven’t figured it out either. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). In a moment of passion you never know what you’ll do.
Paul tells us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, “and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). Don’t go where sin is; don’t put yourself in a place where you will be tempted. You’re not strong enough to stand in your own strength against the “wiles of the devil.” Peter compared Satan with the king of beasts.
We lived in Africa for fourteen years. We’ve seen 500 pound male lions in the wild. A lion roaring nearby will make your hair stand up. You’ve never heard anything so ferocious. Satan as a roaring lion will devour you if you play with sin. The answer is to flee youthful lusts and keep yourself pure.
How? By following after righteousness, faith, charity, and peace (2 Timothy 2:22). Hang around with friends who call on God with pure hearts. Surround yourself with friends who will encourage you to live a pure life.
Young people, old people, all people, don’t throw away your life over moral sins. Proverbs 2:19 says that you will never reach your full potential in life if you give in to immorality.
You get your heart by pressing toward holiness; you keep your heart right by pressing toward purity.
III. Integrity (Proverbs 4:23).
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
A person of integrity is one who is true, honest, a person of conviction, with strong moral principles. Integrity is undivided in its thoughts. That is, a person of integrity is not double-minded. He knows what is right and what is not, and he doesn’t compromise his convictions. He will always to the right thing.
I’m not a drinker. I’ve never been a drinker. When Proverbs says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise,” I take that to mean not to be deceived by it. So I don’t imbibe. I’ve seen the affects of it on too many people who have thrown their lives away, ruined their families, even died. I had a friend who broke the Navy’s twelve hour “bottle to throttle” rule, went flying when his head was not clear, and crashed into San Diego Bay. I’ve had friends killed by drunk drivers. Some Christians will disagree with me on whether you can take it in moderation or not. That’s fine, I believe they are wrong, but this is my position and I will not compromise on it.
Back in 1986 when I was flying here at Cubi Point, the Navy base put together a package four-day tour to Hong Kong. Operations were slow and nine of us at my squadron took leave and went on the tour. The other guys went just for the nightlife. I wanted to tour the place and go shopping. One night one of the guys invited me to go with them. He said, we understand your religious position. You don’t have to drink, just come sit with us. We’d like to talk to you. I politely declined. For one thing they weren’t just drinking, they were going to topless bars. For another, if I had gone, even if I didn’t drink, my presence with them would justify in their minds that I thought it was okay for them. I wanted no part of it.
When I was in Marine Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, one weekend my platoon was the duty platoon. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere but into Quantico town, which was on the base, in order to eat. Saturday evening I went with about ten other candidates to eat. They all ordered beers and when the waitress came to me I ordered a large milk. She looked at me funny and laughed and said okay. The guy next to me said you might at least order a coke to make it look like you’re drinking with us. I said that’s exactly why I ordered milk. I don’t want anyone to think I’m drinking with you. When they all ordered another round I told the waitress, “I’ll have the usual.” It got a big laugh from everybody.
Listen, I’ve heard people say they go to bars and drink because it opens up opportunities to share the Gospel with people. Frankly, I doubt that, but the end never justifies the means. “It is never right to do wrong to get a chance to do right” (Bob Jones, Sr.).
As a person of integrity, people should be able to say about you that you are true to your word. You are dependable. You will always do what you promise, and you will always stand by what you believe.
You get your heart right by pressing toward holiness. You keep it right by pressing toward purity. You demonstrate that your heart is right by pressing toward integrity.
IV. Wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Knowledge is simply the accumulation of facts. But there are people without conscience who ignore the truth and manipulate the facts. We see that in public school textbooks that have perverted the truth about such things as the first Thanksgiving. They say the Pilgrims thanked the Indians for helping them through the winter, when in fact they invited the Indians to join them in thanking God. We see it in political correctness that denies the Christian heritage of our Founders, refusing to even allow their writings to be taught in public schools because of a perverted twisting of the concept of “separation of church and state.” We find it in Obama’s public statements about the contributions Muslims have made in the building of America. This is because there is no fear of the Lord in the lives of the people who manipulate the facts.
The fear of the Lord gives us a proper understanding of the facts, but it is wisdom that will help us make the proper application of the facts in our lives. Proverbs 2:2 tells us to listen to wisdom and apply our hearts to understanding. Wisdom will guide you in holiness, purity and integrity.
So, how do you get wisdom? You won’t get it watching TV. Not from politicians. Not from dirty movies, romance novels, or gossip magazines, and certainly not in the life of arrogant, stuck up movie stars who think they own the world because of their fame and money. No, you find wisdom in the Word of God. James 1:5 says that if you lack wisdom ask God for it. He will not scold or rebuke you for asking. He’ll give it to you if you are serious about applying it.
When you press toward wisdom it will help you maintain holiness, purity and integrity in your life.
Conclusion: We are at the start of a New Year, a time for new beginnings. For many it’s a time to put 2014 behind them and start over. For others it’s a time to build on the successes of 2014 and press on. As a church we are approaching our 40th anniversary. It is not a time to rest, but a time to press on and to determine that we will continue for another forty years as God enables us. Individually it is time for us to make a greater effort than ever before to press toward the mark of being like Christ. It doesn’t matter if you are 4, 14, 40, 54, or 74, or anywhere in between or beyond, keep on pressing on “toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
The Gift Child
Text: Luke 2:8-18
Introduction: Imagine if you will the shepherds out in the fields watching their sheep, minding their own business on a particular night sometime in December a little over 2000 years ago. It would have been an unseasonably warm evening, for if it had been winter cold the flocks would have been gathered together in a sheepfold for warmth. But on this night the shepherds were out on a hillside when suddenly a light as bright as the sun appeared and shown down on them.
To say that they were scared probably isn’t sufficient to describe their reaction. This is a day long before helicopters with spotlights ever hovered overhead looking for criminals. A light from the sky was something they would have been wholly unprepared to expect. Luke says they were “sore afraid.” They probably thought their lives were all but over that very moment.
But then the angel speaks words of comfort, “Fear not.” He has a message for them direct from God, but it’s not one of judgment. It’s a message of “great joy.” The long awaited Savior had been born in Bethlehem. It’s interesting that the shepherds were the first to be given this great message. They weren’t educated scribes or Pharisees. They weren’t doctors of the Law. But neither were they ignorant. They knew the promise of a coming Messiah. They knew what the angel meant, and they were privileged to receive the first notification of the event, and then become the baby's first visitors.
An angelic choir then joined the angel and sang praises. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.” Who was this child that He should receive such an announcement of His birth?
About 750 years earlier the prophet Isaiah wrote about this child in Isaiah 9:6-7, and described who He should be and what He would do. In 1741, the famed composer, George Frideric Handel, was given a libretto drawn from the King James Bible by Charles Jennen. So impressed by the idea of a Sacred Oratorio, Handel worked furiously, hardly stopping to eat or sleep for weeks until his crowning masterpiece, Messiah, was completed. One of the choruses in the oratorio is taken from Isaiah 9:6.
(We stopped to watch a recording by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of For Unto Us a Child is Born, from Handel’s Messiah.)
Let me for the next few moments share three thoughts with you about this Gift Child who was so spectacularly given to us so long ago; the Gift, the Government, and the Guide.
I. The Gift.
First let us be clear that this Gift was given to “us.” That is, all of us. He was not given privately to wealthy or privileged people. You don’t have to be rich and famous, successful, important or any special thing to know Him. He was given to all; rich and poor, famous and infamous, important and unknown. Jesus is a gift to all of us given by an all-loving God. In one verse John 3:16 explains it as clearly as it can be described:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life..
Second notice also that specifically a Son was given. Not just any Son, but the Son of God, Emmanuel, God with us.
Our Catholic friends here in Olongapo love to celebrate with parades around the city at Christmas and Easter. On my way to church today a parade passed by on our street. Novices in hooded white robes carrying tall candlesticks led the procession. Faithful devotees followed crowded around four floats. On each of the floats was a statue of Mary wearing a crown. There were no Nativity scenes, or Mary holding baby Jesus, just Mary. Now I respect the Catholics for their piety and devotion, but they have missed the point. Christmas isn’t about Mary; it’s about Jesus Christ.
Mary was a humble, pure, godly young woman whom God honored by allowing her to bear the Christ child. But she was a woman, the daughter of a man and a woman, just like every other woman since Eve. She was not immaculately conceived, and she is not the Mother of God. She is the mother of the Man, Jesus. Neither is she the co-redemptrix. When she shared her news with her cousin Elizabeth, Mary spoke what has become known as the Magnificat in Luke 1:46. “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” She took no honor for herself. She gave it all to the Child she was bearing.
I took a psychology class in high school and one day we had a discussion about God. One girl made the comment, “If only God would come down and show himself to us then we would believe.” Ah, but that’s just what He has already done. He came to us as Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life, walked on water, fed thousands, healed the sick, raised the dead and rose from the grave, and people still rejected Him, as they still do to this day.
Third you might take notice that this special child was born in the humblest of places in a manger, a cattle stall. But it made perfect sense. What better place for the Lamb of God to be born than with the sheep in a barn? The picture of humility is complete. But along with the humble gift comes the responsibility of government.
II. The Government.
Isaiah makes an unusual comment in 9:6, when he writes, “the government shall be upon his shoulder.” It’s an ancient phrase that was common at the time. The person who had the government on his shoulder was the ruler. He was the king, dictator, Caesar, whatever, but he ruled. Isaiah makes it clear this child would rule.
He is the heir to the Throne of David, but not just any heir, and His kingdom will not be just any kingdom. Verse seven says it will be an everlasting kingdom. It will be a rule of prosperity and peace, an economy that will never go into recession, and a peace that won’t end. No one will be cheated or unfairly punished. It will be a rule established on judgment and perfect justice. The Lord himself guarantees it.
Isaiah is speaking of a day when the Lord Jesus Christ will reign here on the earth. It is a reign that will, according to Revelation 20:4, last for a thousand years, commonly called the Millennial Reign. Isaiah further describes it in chapter 11 of his prophecy as a time when the wolf and the lamb lie down together, and children will lead the calf and the lion. There will be no poisonous snakes or scorpions. Not just man will be at peace, but all nature as well.
More information about this glorious reign is given in Isaiah 35. Rivers will flow in the desert and it will blossom like a rose and rejoice. The weak and feeble will be strengthened. There will be no need to fear. The blind will see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and the mute sing. For the ransomed of the Lord it will be a time of great joy and gladness.
But that's not all. This child who will reign is further identified. In many ways He will be our Guide.
III. The Guide.
This child who will have the government on His shoulder is identified by several titles. First He is called "Wonderful Counselor." In the King James text a comma separates these two words, and well could this child be described as both Wonderful and Counselor. But in the Hebrew it is actually a single term. The wonder is indicative of a miracle, and certainly the reign described above could be considered to be a miraculous reign.
Counselor is often used in Hebrew in parallel with King. The prophet, Micah, in chapter 4:9 of his prophecy, used the two terms synonymously. So Wonderful Counselor seems to indicate miraculous counsel that will be given by this King.
The next title is "The Mighty God." The Hebrew word is El Gibor. It is the strongest of all the titles given in identifying this child. El is a word that always refers to God, never to a man. Gibor literally means “Hero.” Together these words describe God as the Mightiest Hero. There is none that can stand before Him. He is the only one that could be Creator and Redeemer, because He is the only true God. Isaiah further records this Mighty God saying in 42:8,
I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
In the strongest possible terms, El Gibor describes this child as the Almighty God.
Next He is called "The Everlasting Father." Literally He is the “Father of Eternity.” It signifies the eternal Creator and Author of eternal life. More than that, the title moves from power and strength, to love and compassion. God is not an evil tyrant sitting on a throne somewhere on the rim of the universe watching His creation with disdain. Neither is He a cruel taskmaster. He is a loving, heavenly Father, who cares for us from the depths of His soul, who gave His own Son for our redemption, whose yoke, according to Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30, "is easy, and His burden light."
And finally He is "The Prince of Peace." The Hebrew term is Shar Shalom. It indicates that the Mighty God will be a benevolent, kind Ruler, who will bring peace on earth through the establishment of His kingdom. We live in a violent world. Tensions between nations are continually growing worse. We hear people, from leaders and diplomats to the lowest of citizens, crying for relief and for peace. But there will be no peace until the world turns its eyes to the Prince of Peace and He comes to reign.
In Isaiah 7:14, God gave the wicked king Ahaz a sign when He said that a virgin would conceive and bear a child. The child’s name would be "Immanuel." But this prophecy was obscure and not well understood. What could it mean a virgin would conceive? Nobody had ever heard of such a thing. But Isaiah 9:6 brings Immanuel to clear light: this child is himself God incarnate. And likewise Matthew explains it in 1:23 of his Gospel. His name was Immanuel, meaning "God with us."
Conclusion: This is the great God we serve. What a wonderful time the Christmas season is when we realize just how great the Gift Child really is, and just what a great sacrifice He made for us. Truly all who know Him can call Him “Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.”
The question today is, “Do you know Him yourself?” Not just do you know about Him, but do you know Him in your heart? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Have you ever repented of your sins and asked Jesus to come into your life and save you?
This is the true purpose and meaning of Christmas. We talk of peace, but there is no peace without Jesus Christ. O struggling soul, the peace that you need in your heart, that will calm all your fears and prepare you for heaven, comes only from the Prince of Peace.
If you do not know Him, or if you are unsure about eternal life, wouldn’t you like to settle that matter now? Pray this prayer from the sincerity of your heart, or word it in your own way, and ask Jesus Christ to save you.
Dear God, I realize I am a sinner, and I am lost. I believe that Jesus Christ is the only Savior, that He was born of the Virgin Mary, that He died on the cross for my sins, and that He rose again bodily from the grave. I now repent of my sins and sinful ways, and receive Jesus as my Savior. Please forgive me, come into my heart and save me, and give me the gift of eternal life as you have promised. In Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction: Imagine if you will the shepherds out in the fields watching their sheep, minding their own business on a particular night sometime in December a little over 2000 years ago. It would have been an unseasonably warm evening, for if it had been winter cold the flocks would have been gathered together in a sheepfold for warmth. But on this night the shepherds were out on a hillside when suddenly a light as bright as the sun appeared and shown down on them.
To say that they were scared probably isn’t sufficient to describe their reaction. This is a day long before helicopters with spotlights ever hovered overhead looking for criminals. A light from the sky was something they would have been wholly unprepared to expect. Luke says they were “sore afraid.” They probably thought their lives were all but over that very moment.
But then the angel speaks words of comfort, “Fear not.” He has a message for them direct from God, but it’s not one of judgment. It’s a message of “great joy.” The long awaited Savior had been born in Bethlehem. It’s interesting that the shepherds were the first to be given this great message. They weren’t educated scribes or Pharisees. They weren’t doctors of the Law. But neither were they ignorant. They knew the promise of a coming Messiah. They knew what the angel meant, and they were privileged to receive the first notification of the event, and then become the baby's first visitors.
An angelic choir then joined the angel and sang praises. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.” Who was this child that He should receive such an announcement of His birth?
About 750 years earlier the prophet Isaiah wrote about this child in Isaiah 9:6-7, and described who He should be and what He would do. In 1741, the famed composer, George Frideric Handel, was given a libretto drawn from the King James Bible by Charles Jennen. So impressed by the idea of a Sacred Oratorio, Handel worked furiously, hardly stopping to eat or sleep for weeks until his crowning masterpiece, Messiah, was completed. One of the choruses in the oratorio is taken from Isaiah 9:6.
(We stopped to watch a recording by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of For Unto Us a Child is Born, from Handel’s Messiah.)
Let me for the next few moments share three thoughts with you about this Gift Child who was so spectacularly given to us so long ago; the Gift, the Government, and the Guide.
I. The Gift.
First let us be clear that this Gift was given to “us.” That is, all of us. He was not given privately to wealthy or privileged people. You don’t have to be rich and famous, successful, important or any special thing to know Him. He was given to all; rich and poor, famous and infamous, important and unknown. Jesus is a gift to all of us given by an all-loving God. In one verse John 3:16 explains it as clearly as it can be described:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life..
Second notice also that specifically a Son was given. Not just any Son, but the Son of God, Emmanuel, God with us.
Our Catholic friends here in Olongapo love to celebrate with parades around the city at Christmas and Easter. On my way to church today a parade passed by on our street. Novices in hooded white robes carrying tall candlesticks led the procession. Faithful devotees followed crowded around four floats. On each of the floats was a statue of Mary wearing a crown. There were no Nativity scenes, or Mary holding baby Jesus, just Mary. Now I respect the Catholics for their piety and devotion, but they have missed the point. Christmas isn’t about Mary; it’s about Jesus Christ.
Mary was a humble, pure, godly young woman whom God honored by allowing her to bear the Christ child. But she was a woman, the daughter of a man and a woman, just like every other woman since Eve. She was not immaculately conceived, and she is not the Mother of God. She is the mother of the Man, Jesus. Neither is she the co-redemptrix. When she shared her news with her cousin Elizabeth, Mary spoke what has become known as the Magnificat in Luke 1:46. “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” She took no honor for herself. She gave it all to the Child she was bearing.
I took a psychology class in high school and one day we had a discussion about God. One girl made the comment, “If only God would come down and show himself to us then we would believe.” Ah, but that’s just what He has already done. He came to us as Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life, walked on water, fed thousands, healed the sick, raised the dead and rose from the grave, and people still rejected Him, as they still do to this day.
Third you might take notice that this special child was born in the humblest of places in a manger, a cattle stall. But it made perfect sense. What better place for the Lamb of God to be born than with the sheep in a barn? The picture of humility is complete. But along with the humble gift comes the responsibility of government.
II. The Government.
Isaiah makes an unusual comment in 9:6, when he writes, “the government shall be upon his shoulder.” It’s an ancient phrase that was common at the time. The person who had the government on his shoulder was the ruler. He was the king, dictator, Caesar, whatever, but he ruled. Isaiah makes it clear this child would rule.
He is the heir to the Throne of David, but not just any heir, and His kingdom will not be just any kingdom. Verse seven says it will be an everlasting kingdom. It will be a rule of prosperity and peace, an economy that will never go into recession, and a peace that won’t end. No one will be cheated or unfairly punished. It will be a rule established on judgment and perfect justice. The Lord himself guarantees it.
Isaiah is speaking of a day when the Lord Jesus Christ will reign here on the earth. It is a reign that will, according to Revelation 20:4, last for a thousand years, commonly called the Millennial Reign. Isaiah further describes it in chapter 11 of his prophecy as a time when the wolf and the lamb lie down together, and children will lead the calf and the lion. There will be no poisonous snakes or scorpions. Not just man will be at peace, but all nature as well.
More information about this glorious reign is given in Isaiah 35. Rivers will flow in the desert and it will blossom like a rose and rejoice. The weak and feeble will be strengthened. There will be no need to fear. The blind will see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and the mute sing. For the ransomed of the Lord it will be a time of great joy and gladness.
But that's not all. This child who will reign is further identified. In many ways He will be our Guide.
III. The Guide.
This child who will have the government on His shoulder is identified by several titles. First He is called "Wonderful Counselor." In the King James text a comma separates these two words, and well could this child be described as both Wonderful and Counselor. But in the Hebrew it is actually a single term. The wonder is indicative of a miracle, and certainly the reign described above could be considered to be a miraculous reign.
Counselor is often used in Hebrew in parallel with King. The prophet, Micah, in chapter 4:9 of his prophecy, used the two terms synonymously. So Wonderful Counselor seems to indicate miraculous counsel that will be given by this King.
The next title is "The Mighty God." The Hebrew word is El Gibor. It is the strongest of all the titles given in identifying this child. El is a word that always refers to God, never to a man. Gibor literally means “Hero.” Together these words describe God as the Mightiest Hero. There is none that can stand before Him. He is the only one that could be Creator and Redeemer, because He is the only true God. Isaiah further records this Mighty God saying in 42:8,
I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
In the strongest possible terms, El Gibor describes this child as the Almighty God.
Next He is called "The Everlasting Father." Literally He is the “Father of Eternity.” It signifies the eternal Creator and Author of eternal life. More than that, the title moves from power and strength, to love and compassion. God is not an evil tyrant sitting on a throne somewhere on the rim of the universe watching His creation with disdain. Neither is He a cruel taskmaster. He is a loving, heavenly Father, who cares for us from the depths of His soul, who gave His own Son for our redemption, whose yoke, according to Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30, "is easy, and His burden light."
And finally He is "The Prince of Peace." The Hebrew term is Shar Shalom. It indicates that the Mighty God will be a benevolent, kind Ruler, who will bring peace on earth through the establishment of His kingdom. We live in a violent world. Tensions between nations are continually growing worse. We hear people, from leaders and diplomats to the lowest of citizens, crying for relief and for peace. But there will be no peace until the world turns its eyes to the Prince of Peace and He comes to reign.
In Isaiah 7:14, God gave the wicked king Ahaz a sign when He said that a virgin would conceive and bear a child. The child’s name would be "Immanuel." But this prophecy was obscure and not well understood. What could it mean a virgin would conceive? Nobody had ever heard of such a thing. But Isaiah 9:6 brings Immanuel to clear light: this child is himself God incarnate. And likewise Matthew explains it in 1:23 of his Gospel. His name was Immanuel, meaning "God with us."
Conclusion: This is the great God we serve. What a wonderful time the Christmas season is when we realize just how great the Gift Child really is, and just what a great sacrifice He made for us. Truly all who know Him can call Him “Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.”
The question today is, “Do you know Him yourself?” Not just do you know about Him, but do you know Him in your heart? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Have you ever repented of your sins and asked Jesus to come into your life and save you?
This is the true purpose and meaning of Christmas. We talk of peace, but there is no peace without Jesus Christ. O struggling soul, the peace that you need in your heart, that will calm all your fears and prepare you for heaven, comes only from the Prince of Peace.
If you do not know Him, or if you are unsure about eternal life, wouldn’t you like to settle that matter now? Pray this prayer from the sincerity of your heart, or word it in your own way, and ask Jesus Christ to save you.
Dear God, I realize I am a sinner, and I am lost. I believe that Jesus Christ is the only Savior, that He was born of the Virgin Mary, that He died on the cross for my sins, and that He rose again bodily from the grave. I now repent of my sins and sinful ways, and receive Jesus as my Savior. Please forgive me, come into my heart and save me, and give me the gift of eternal life as you have promised. In Jesus name, Amen.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Ants
If you have ever lived in the deep South you probably know about sugar ants. They are little red ants that can smell sugar, honey, and anything sweet from seemingly miles around. They live in the woodwork and under the tile floors of homes. They come out whenever you're not looking and will glom onto anything not protected. If you've ever lived in Texas you've probably heard the legendary stories about women who have baked a fresh pie or a cake and put it in a bowl in a basin of water to keep the ants off, only to come back later and find the ants have crawled up the wall across the ceiling to a point directly overhead and dropped like paratroopers down onto the cake.
I lived in south Texas for over four years and I never saw anything like that happen, but I know about sugar ants. Once I had moved into a brand new apartment building and never thought that a new place with new cupboards and new paint could fall prey to sugar ants so quickly, but I was wrong. I bought a box of cereal and a carton of Chips Ahoy cookies. I had the cereal for breakfast one day, and the cookies for snacks later on. The next morning when I got the cereal box it was covered with sugar ants. So were the Chips Ahoy cookies. I learned right away the value of tupperware.
We have an ant problem here in our apartment. A multiple ant problem. We have these black ants that are about a sixteenth of an inch long. They usually come out when the lights are off, but if there is any fruit on the counter, especially bananas, they are all over it at any time. They're fast too. I'll bet if they were human size they'd be moving a hundred miles an hour. But that's not all. We also have these little red ants that are about half the size of the black ants. They are everywhere. They come crawling over my little desk in the bedroom and run around on the computer, even getting under the keys. They're in the bathroom all over the sink and on any spilled toothpaste or open tube. They've even taken up residence in the couch, and of course they are all over the kitchen counter anytime of day.
I have two six foot high book shelves side by side, the put together yourself kind that you get with laminated wood from Lowes or wherever. The lamination is all finished and polished, but the tops of the side pieces are just rough and not varnished. I have books on the top shelves and one day as I picked a book out to read, I noticed ants all over the bottom of it, in the binding, and crawling up into the pages. A closer examination found they were all over the bottom of all the books. When they started to scatter I at first thought they were little spiders. They were all carrying little white things. Then as I started smashing them I realized those were eggs. They had come up out of that lamination and were trying to set up nests in my books. By the time I removed the books and smashed all those ants the top of the bookshelf was wet from all those broken little eggs.
There's a third kind, a little brown almost microscopic kind, that run camouflaged along the grout on the countertop tiles until they get close to food and then spring surprise attacks. These are probably the least obnoxious simply because you can hardly see them, but they are there.
I decided to go on a campaign to eradicate the apartment of ants. I have sprayed, wiped the counters with Clorox, put everything into tupperware, and smashed every ant running loose that I can get my fingers on. It's no use. No matter how many I destroy, the survivors never run back into the woodwork or walls and tell the others its dangerous, don't come out. They just keep coming. I keep smashing, but one day not long ago I read that the experts, whoever they are, estimate that there are about 1.7 million ants for every human being on earth. I probably kill a hundred or two every day. In other words, I'm hardly making a dent in my share of the ant menace in the world. They are persistent little vermin. No matter what the odds they never give up. They keep coming back to the same old thing even if they get smashed every time.
They remind me of liberals. They never quit spouting their failed socialist doctrines. No matter what the truth is, it never prevails against their mode of thinking. Ferguson, Missouri for example. No matter how many times they are smashed in debate, and no matter how many times their policies put into practice fail, they keep coming back with the same debunked ideas. They never learn, never grow, never improve themselves, and yet they never go away. They are relentless and the result is BHO in the White House, obamacare, 18 trillion dollars in debt, a border crisis, a constitutional crisis, and myriad scandals. Yet they keep coming back touting the same stupid failed socialist mantra.
Solomon said, "Go to the ant thou sluggard" (Proverbs 6:6). Conservatives would do well to take this advice and become as relentless in our pursuit of the truth as the liberals are in their efforts to pervert it. It has only been six weeks since the resounding midterm election victory and the conservative movement is already being sold out by RINOs, liberals in Republican clothing. Now we're already talking about the next presidential election and the first announced candidate out of the box is a RINO, Jeb Bush, who agrees with BHO on an open border and amnesty, and favors the hideous Common Core program for education.
The problem with conservatives is we tend to sit back and let things go until they reach a breaking point and then we get energized to save the country. But when the elections are over, even after a big victory, we tend to go back into our cubbyholes and let liberals take control of events. We need to learn the lesson from those relentless liberals and become relentless ourselves, never resting, never stopping, never letting liberals, whether Democrat or RINO, gain the upper hand. Unless we learn from the ants and become as active and relentless in pursuit of conservative ideals, we will never win our country back. A good place to start would be replacing John Boehner as the Speaker of the House.
I lived in south Texas for over four years and I never saw anything like that happen, but I know about sugar ants. Once I had moved into a brand new apartment building and never thought that a new place with new cupboards and new paint could fall prey to sugar ants so quickly, but I was wrong. I bought a box of cereal and a carton of Chips Ahoy cookies. I had the cereal for breakfast one day, and the cookies for snacks later on. The next morning when I got the cereal box it was covered with sugar ants. So were the Chips Ahoy cookies. I learned right away the value of tupperware.
We have an ant problem here in our apartment. A multiple ant problem. We have these black ants that are about a sixteenth of an inch long. They usually come out when the lights are off, but if there is any fruit on the counter, especially bananas, they are all over it at any time. They're fast too. I'll bet if they were human size they'd be moving a hundred miles an hour. But that's not all. We also have these little red ants that are about half the size of the black ants. They are everywhere. They come crawling over my little desk in the bedroom and run around on the computer, even getting under the keys. They're in the bathroom all over the sink and on any spilled toothpaste or open tube. They've even taken up residence in the couch, and of course they are all over the kitchen counter anytime of day.
I have two six foot high book shelves side by side, the put together yourself kind that you get with laminated wood from Lowes or wherever. The lamination is all finished and polished, but the tops of the side pieces are just rough and not varnished. I have books on the top shelves and one day as I picked a book out to read, I noticed ants all over the bottom of it, in the binding, and crawling up into the pages. A closer examination found they were all over the bottom of all the books. When they started to scatter I at first thought they were little spiders. They were all carrying little white things. Then as I started smashing them I realized those were eggs. They had come up out of that lamination and were trying to set up nests in my books. By the time I removed the books and smashed all those ants the top of the bookshelf was wet from all those broken little eggs.
There's a third kind, a little brown almost microscopic kind, that run camouflaged along the grout on the countertop tiles until they get close to food and then spring surprise attacks. These are probably the least obnoxious simply because you can hardly see them, but they are there.
I decided to go on a campaign to eradicate the apartment of ants. I have sprayed, wiped the counters with Clorox, put everything into tupperware, and smashed every ant running loose that I can get my fingers on. It's no use. No matter how many I destroy, the survivors never run back into the woodwork or walls and tell the others its dangerous, don't come out. They just keep coming. I keep smashing, but one day not long ago I read that the experts, whoever they are, estimate that there are about 1.7 million ants for every human being on earth. I probably kill a hundred or two every day. In other words, I'm hardly making a dent in my share of the ant menace in the world. They are persistent little vermin. No matter what the odds they never give up. They keep coming back to the same old thing even if they get smashed every time.
They remind me of liberals. They never quit spouting their failed socialist doctrines. No matter what the truth is, it never prevails against their mode of thinking. Ferguson, Missouri for example. No matter how many times they are smashed in debate, and no matter how many times their policies put into practice fail, they keep coming back with the same debunked ideas. They never learn, never grow, never improve themselves, and yet they never go away. They are relentless and the result is BHO in the White House, obamacare, 18 trillion dollars in debt, a border crisis, a constitutional crisis, and myriad scandals. Yet they keep coming back touting the same stupid failed socialist mantra.
Solomon said, "Go to the ant thou sluggard" (Proverbs 6:6). Conservatives would do well to take this advice and become as relentless in our pursuit of the truth as the liberals are in their efforts to pervert it. It has only been six weeks since the resounding midterm election victory and the conservative movement is already being sold out by RINOs, liberals in Republican clothing. Now we're already talking about the next presidential election and the first announced candidate out of the box is a RINO, Jeb Bush, who agrees with BHO on an open border and amnesty, and favors the hideous Common Core program for education.
The problem with conservatives is we tend to sit back and let things go until they reach a breaking point and then we get energized to save the country. But when the elections are over, even after a big victory, we tend to go back into our cubbyholes and let liberals take control of events. We need to learn the lesson from those relentless liberals and become relentless ourselves, never resting, never stopping, never letting liberals, whether Democrat or RINO, gain the upper hand. Unless we learn from the ants and become as active and relentless in pursuit of conservative ideals, we will never win our country back. A good place to start would be replacing John Boehner as the Speaker of the House.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Alias Smith and Jones
The western was the first and perhaps the most popular genre ever produced in both movies and on television. The very first movie made for theaters was a fifteen minute oater called The Great Train Robbery in 1903. William S. Hart and Buck Jones made westerns popular in the silent era, and Harry Carey and Tom Mix topped a plethora of cowboy actors in the 1920s, both leading the transition into talkies. Many future stars, including Clark Gable, got their start in westerns. Gable's first credited role was in a William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy) cowboy picture called The Painted Desert, in which he played a very grumpy bad guy.
In 1930 John Wayne was given his first starring role in The Big Trail. It was a monumental production about the Oregon Trail, but because the movie studio used a new widescreen format called 70 mm Grandeur Film, the movie flopped. Theaters were unwilling to change to the widescreen because of the cost and the uncertainties of the onset of the Great Depression. With few exceptions, such as The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper in 1936, Westerns were relegated to B movie and weekly serial productions through most of the 1930s.
Then John Ford, the greatest of all western movie directors, took John Wayne, by this time a B movie western staple, and not only made him a star but elevated the western to A level status in Stagecoach. From the 1940s through the 1970s westerns again dominated the screen, and no actor more personified the genre than Duke Wayne, who rode the western to superstardom.
Along came television and again the most popular form of entertainment was the western. There were at least 91 different western shows on TV in the 1950s, beginning with Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger in 1949, and extending on into the 1960s. The longest running TV drama until Law and Order was Gunsmoke, which was on the air from 1955 to 1975. TV westerns still dominated the early 60s, but by the end of the decade most of them were gone. In 1970 there were only eight western shows left, and four of those would not be around in 1971. Two others would be gone in '72, and Bonanza, after the death of Dan Blocker (Hoss) would only limp through its fourteenth and final season in 1973.
In the '70's only eighteen new westerns appeared on TV, most of which didn't make it through one season. The most successful was Michael Landon's Little House on the Prairie, which lasted nine years from 1974 until 1983. Clint Walker made several made for TV western movies, but the best of all of these '70s productions were two mini-series, Centennial, and James Arness's How the West Was Won. In the '70's cop and detective shows dominated the airwaves, and in the '80s prime-time soaps eclipsed everything in popularity.
Several attempts through the years to bring back the western failed to gain strong followings, although there were some quality programs such as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and on the Silver Screen blockbusters like Silverado, and Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider. Nowadays if you want to watch a good western you have to go back to the good old days to find them. Fortunately in the DVD age they can be found. There are also western channels on cable and satellite TV, and a lot of programs can be found on the internet for free on such websites as Youtube.
The reason for the decline in the popularity of the western may have been that after twenty years of saturation every night on TV the story lines had become monotonous and people grew tired of them. In 1971, however, there was one new western that potentially had the appeal to revive interest in the genre. Alias Smith and Jones hit the screen in January as a mid season replacement and was an immediate hit. It was an unlikely tale about two outlaws trying to go straight and the predicaments they went through in order to get amnesty from the governor of Wyoming. The addition of occasional humor to a somewhat serious/somewhat tongue-in-cheek drama gave the show a light-hearted air that resonated with the viewing audience and in the fall it was back for a second season.
Smith and Jones starred two young, good-looking guys who meshed so well together you might have thought they were close brothers. In fact, Pete Duel and Ben Murphy who played Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, alias Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones, had a chemistry that Murphy would later say was just luck. They worked together well but did not socialize off the set. Roger Davis had become friends with Duel previously when they had worked on another TV pilot. Both Davis and Murphy greatly admired Duel's talent and ease as an actor.
Before Smith and Jones, Duel had been in two TV series, Gidget, in which he co-starred with Sally Fields, and Love in the Afternoon with Judy Carne. He had also made numerous guest appearances on different TV shows before he was picked for the part of Hannibal Heyes. His resonant baritone voice was perfect for the role of a "silver-tongued" manipulator who could talk his way out of any situation. Ben Murphy had fewer credits to his record, but Kid Curry, the fastest gun in the west, would be the biggest role he would ever play. After Smith and Jones he starred in two short-lived series and appeared in episodes of numerous other programs. Roger Davis got his start in a World War 2 drama called The Gallant Men in 1962. Later he would appear in two Dark Shadows movies as well as the soap opera. His greatest claim to fame may have been that he was the first husband of Charlie's favorite Angel, Jaclyn Smith. (She was also his first wife.)
The show moved smoothly into its second season and continued its success until tragedy struck on December 31, 1971. Few people knew that there was a dark side to Pete Duel. In spite of all of his good looks, success, and fame, he brooded over his life and conditions in the world. He felt like he had to do something to make it a better place, and that somehow he wasn't doing enough. He often suffered from fits of depression. In 1968 he campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president, but came away disappointed when McCarthy lost. He also had a problem with alcohol and began to despair when he lost his driver's license for a drunk driving accident he caused that injured two women. As his drinking became worse he became despondent for not being able to break the addiction. Then in the early morning hours of New Year's Eve, after an argument with his girlfriend, he got drunk, put a gun to his head and killed himself.
The producers of the show, uncaring, money greedy mongrels that they were, called Roger Davis that very morning to take Duel's place as Hannibal Heyes and continued working without even taking a moment to mourn Duel's passing. Davis and Murphy tried, but there wasn't the chemistry that had developed between Murphy and Duel. In all fairness to Davis, nobody could have filled the role once Pete Duel had established it. They continued to finish the second season and start a third, but the show's popularity died with Pete Duel, and so did any real chance (if there actually was one) of reviving the 1950s and early '60s popularity of the TV western.
Recently I came across Alias Smith and Jones on Youtube, all fifty episodes. I'm about half way through. Most of them aren't that good of quality, but it has been fun watching and remembering some of the episodes I watched 43 years ago. In 1971 it was my favorite show on television. I still remember how saddened I was when I heard the news about Pete Duel on the radio. It still saddens me to this day. I suppose it was one of the things that kind of marked a passing for me from a time of teenage innocence to the realities of life. Six weeks earlier, a friend of mine since the first grade, Dean Mosier, had been killed in a motorcycle accident, but Duel took his own life. It added perspective. Life is short and can be taken in a heartbeat, and all the fame, money, women, and success in the world can't bring peace to a troubled heart. Neither can drowning your sorrows in alcohol.
It also saddens me that the western movie genre has mostly disappeared from our culture today. Oh there are still westerns from time to time, but none like those simple old programs of half a century ago that often taught real values of decency and family, character and integrity, and sometimes even Christian principles. Today's movies dwell in computer generated unrealities filled with potty-mouthed dialogues and actions that are generally indecent and teach nothing of merit. How far we have come!
Interesting that the decline of the western sort of coincided with the removal of God and the Bible from public schools and discourse in the early '60s. Just a thought, but could it be that there is a connection?
Oh for the days of Smith and Jones.
In 1930 John Wayne was given his first starring role in The Big Trail. It was a monumental production about the Oregon Trail, but because the movie studio used a new widescreen format called 70 mm Grandeur Film, the movie flopped. Theaters were unwilling to change to the widescreen because of the cost and the uncertainties of the onset of the Great Depression. With few exceptions, such as The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper in 1936, Westerns were relegated to B movie and weekly serial productions through most of the 1930s.
Then John Ford, the greatest of all western movie directors, took John Wayne, by this time a B movie western staple, and not only made him a star but elevated the western to A level status in Stagecoach. From the 1940s through the 1970s westerns again dominated the screen, and no actor more personified the genre than Duke Wayne, who rode the western to superstardom.
Along came television and again the most popular form of entertainment was the western. There were at least 91 different western shows on TV in the 1950s, beginning with Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger in 1949, and extending on into the 1960s. The longest running TV drama until Law and Order was Gunsmoke, which was on the air from 1955 to 1975. TV westerns still dominated the early 60s, but by the end of the decade most of them were gone. In 1970 there were only eight western shows left, and four of those would not be around in 1971. Two others would be gone in '72, and Bonanza, after the death of Dan Blocker (Hoss) would only limp through its fourteenth and final season in 1973.
In the '70's only eighteen new westerns appeared on TV, most of which didn't make it through one season. The most successful was Michael Landon's Little House on the Prairie, which lasted nine years from 1974 until 1983. Clint Walker made several made for TV western movies, but the best of all of these '70s productions were two mini-series, Centennial, and James Arness's How the West Was Won. In the '70's cop and detective shows dominated the airwaves, and in the '80s prime-time soaps eclipsed everything in popularity.
Several attempts through the years to bring back the western failed to gain strong followings, although there were some quality programs such as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and on the Silver Screen blockbusters like Silverado, and Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider. Nowadays if you want to watch a good western you have to go back to the good old days to find them. Fortunately in the DVD age they can be found. There are also western channels on cable and satellite TV, and a lot of programs can be found on the internet for free on such websites as Youtube.
The reason for the decline in the popularity of the western may have been that after twenty years of saturation every night on TV the story lines had become monotonous and people grew tired of them. In 1971, however, there was one new western that potentially had the appeal to revive interest in the genre. Alias Smith and Jones hit the screen in January as a mid season replacement and was an immediate hit. It was an unlikely tale about two outlaws trying to go straight and the predicaments they went through in order to get amnesty from the governor of Wyoming. The addition of occasional humor to a somewhat serious/somewhat tongue-in-cheek drama gave the show a light-hearted air that resonated with the viewing audience and in the fall it was back for a second season.
Smith and Jones starred two young, good-looking guys who meshed so well together you might have thought they were close brothers. In fact, Pete Duel and Ben Murphy who played Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, alias Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones, had a chemistry that Murphy would later say was just luck. They worked together well but did not socialize off the set. Roger Davis had become friends with Duel previously when they had worked on another TV pilot. Both Davis and Murphy greatly admired Duel's talent and ease as an actor.
Before Smith and Jones, Duel had been in two TV series, Gidget, in which he co-starred with Sally Fields, and Love in the Afternoon with Judy Carne. He had also made numerous guest appearances on different TV shows before he was picked for the part of Hannibal Heyes. His resonant baritone voice was perfect for the role of a "silver-tongued" manipulator who could talk his way out of any situation. Ben Murphy had fewer credits to his record, but Kid Curry, the fastest gun in the west, would be the biggest role he would ever play. After Smith and Jones he starred in two short-lived series and appeared in episodes of numerous other programs. Roger Davis got his start in a World War 2 drama called The Gallant Men in 1962. Later he would appear in two Dark Shadows movies as well as the soap opera. His greatest claim to fame may have been that he was the first husband of Charlie's favorite Angel, Jaclyn Smith. (She was also his first wife.)
The show moved smoothly into its second season and continued its success until tragedy struck on December 31, 1971. Few people knew that there was a dark side to Pete Duel. In spite of all of his good looks, success, and fame, he brooded over his life and conditions in the world. He felt like he had to do something to make it a better place, and that somehow he wasn't doing enough. He often suffered from fits of depression. In 1968 he campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president, but came away disappointed when McCarthy lost. He also had a problem with alcohol and began to despair when he lost his driver's license for a drunk driving accident he caused that injured two women. As his drinking became worse he became despondent for not being able to break the addiction. Then in the early morning hours of New Year's Eve, after an argument with his girlfriend, he got drunk, put a gun to his head and killed himself.
The producers of the show, uncaring, money greedy mongrels that they were, called Roger Davis that very morning to take Duel's place as Hannibal Heyes and continued working without even taking a moment to mourn Duel's passing. Davis and Murphy tried, but there wasn't the chemistry that had developed between Murphy and Duel. In all fairness to Davis, nobody could have filled the role once Pete Duel had established it. They continued to finish the second season and start a third, but the show's popularity died with Pete Duel, and so did any real chance (if there actually was one) of reviving the 1950s and early '60s popularity of the TV western.
Recently I came across Alias Smith and Jones on Youtube, all fifty episodes. I'm about half way through. Most of them aren't that good of quality, but it has been fun watching and remembering some of the episodes I watched 43 years ago. In 1971 it was my favorite show on television. I still remember how saddened I was when I heard the news about Pete Duel on the radio. It still saddens me to this day. I suppose it was one of the things that kind of marked a passing for me from a time of teenage innocence to the realities of life. Six weeks earlier, a friend of mine since the first grade, Dean Mosier, had been killed in a motorcycle accident, but Duel took his own life. It added perspective. Life is short and can be taken in a heartbeat, and all the fame, money, women, and success in the world can't bring peace to a troubled heart. Neither can drowning your sorrows in alcohol.
It also saddens me that the western movie genre has mostly disappeared from our culture today. Oh there are still westerns from time to time, but none like those simple old programs of half a century ago that often taught real values of decency and family, character and integrity, and sometimes even Christian principles. Today's movies dwell in computer generated unrealities filled with potty-mouthed dialogues and actions that are generally indecent and teach nothing of merit. How far we have come!
Interesting that the decline of the western sort of coincided with the removal of God and the Bible from public schools and discourse in the early '60s. Just a thought, but could it be that there is a connection?
Oh for the days of Smith and Jones.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Another Vietnam
I seldom found myself agreeing with Ted Kennedy while he was alive. In fact, I don't think I ever agreed with him on anything. But there is one thing that he said that I am now finding I at least partially agree with. Back in 2004, in typical liberal fashion, after voting for the invasion of Iraq, he turned on President Bush and opposed it. On April 16, he said, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."
Actually, it didn't become Bush's Vietnam. After the war effort stalled due to lack of sufficient troops, and after the 2006 Republican shellacking in the midterm elections, Bush authorized a troop surge that effectively destroyed most all Al Qaeda resistance in Iraq and stabilized the country. In spite of the criticism he still receives, it turned into a great Bush success.
Then Obama got hold of it. He pulled our troops, which were helping keep the peace and training the Iraqi army, out before Iraq was ready, and shamelessly took credit for ending the war. But hardly had our troops returned home before Al Qaeda started moving back in, suicide bombings began shaking Baghdad again, and now ISIS controls a large part of the country.
In response Obama has called for limited air strikes against ISIS, and began redeploying troops as military advisors in Iraq. At first it was 375, then 400 more, eventually a deployment of over 1500, and today it was announced elements of the 82nd Airborne are being sent, bringing the total number of "boots on the ground," which Obama promised would never happen, to over 4,000. This is exactly how Lyndon Johnson ramped up the war in Southeast Asia, and then kept the American military from winning it by directing the war from the White House.
Ted Kennedy was right in one respect. Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Only it's not George Bush's, it's Obama's.
Actually, it didn't become Bush's Vietnam. After the war effort stalled due to lack of sufficient troops, and after the 2006 Republican shellacking in the midterm elections, Bush authorized a troop surge that effectively destroyed most all Al Qaeda resistance in Iraq and stabilized the country. In spite of the criticism he still receives, it turned into a great Bush success.
Then Obama got hold of it. He pulled our troops, which were helping keep the peace and training the Iraqi army, out before Iraq was ready, and shamelessly took credit for ending the war. But hardly had our troops returned home before Al Qaeda started moving back in, suicide bombings began shaking Baghdad again, and now ISIS controls a large part of the country.
In response Obama has called for limited air strikes against ISIS, and began redeploying troops as military advisors in Iraq. At first it was 375, then 400 more, eventually a deployment of over 1500, and today it was announced elements of the 82nd Airborne are being sent, bringing the total number of "boots on the ground," which Obama promised would never happen, to over 4,000. This is exactly how Lyndon Johnson ramped up the war in Southeast Asia, and then kept the American military from winning it by directing the war from the White House.
Ted Kennedy was right in one respect. Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Only it's not George Bush's, it's Obama's.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Morning in America
To steal a theme that was used when Reagan was reelected president in 1984 (Morning in America), for the first time in six years it felt good to wake up Wednesday morning and say I'm an American. Unlike Michele who was never proud of her country until BHO was elected, I was never more ashamed of my country when he was voted in, with the possible exception of the second time he was voted in. It has nothing to do with racism as I think my life story will prove. You can go back and read my posts from the time BHO announced he was running, from the first time he said that we live in the greatest country in the world and he wanted our help to change it, and I basically predicted the disaster he would set upon us. Not that I'm a prophet. Any thinking, intelligent person could have seen it coming.
Unfortunately, about 40% of Americans were brainwashed by the promises of the false "messiah," who was going to be making their house and car payments for them, and the swing voters in the middle were driven left by the inept McCain campaign and inability of the Republicans to field a half decent candidate who could articulate their policies. It also didn't help that W. had become increasingly unpopular with an unending war that he couldn't figure out how to win, and budget deficits so high that the country had never seen anything like it. In a sense, the Republicans had more reason to blame Bush for the 2006 and 2008 election fiascos than Obama had to blame him for his (Obama's) poor economic recovery.
Even though the 2010 midterm elections "shellacked" the Democrats, weak Republican leadership in the House and a fractured Republican Party in the Senate did little to really hold up Obama's agenda. Then the 2012 campaign, in which Romney decided apparently to act like a gentleman and not challenge Obama on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and other scandals that he could have nailed him with (after he ran a bitterly dirty campaign against Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination), showed the unique ability once again of moderate/RINO Republicans to snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory.
When conservative talk show hosts like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, and Fox News analysts started predicting a big win for Republicans again in this midterm, my immediate thought was I hope they don't blow it again. Obamacare last year, and ISIS last spring should have been the complete undoing of Obama, but because of Republican lack of resolve (other than Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the Senate, and Trey Gowdy in the House) he essentially got off the hook. But the people it seems were beginning to wake up. Obama's approval rating dropped in the polls down to around 41%. It looked like another Democrat shellacking was in the making, but then Obama's approval ratings went back up to around 45% or higher. I was more than a little concerned.
But as ISIS grew from J.V. to Varsity, James Foley was beheaded by terrorists and BHO played golf, Marine Sgt. Tamoressi sat in a Mexican jail while BHO did nothing after making such a big deal of trading five terrorist leaders so as not to leave traitor Bowe Bergdahl behind, and then did nothing while he assured us ebola would never reach our shores and it did, his poll numbers dropped again to 40% or below. A Republican victory in this election looked like a sure thing, but then the poll numbers started showing very close races all across the country within one or two points, and the liberal media started predicting better times ahead for Democrats.
When Republicans started projecting at least six Senate victories, I started to get a little nervous. Could we throw it away again at the last minute? Then liberal pundits started talking about how the Senate campaigns weren't that important because BHO could still veto any bill a Republican controlled Congress could send him, and besides, the governorships were more important, and they were predicting big Democrat victories. Early on election day when Democrat Tom Wolf was quickly projected to win the governor's seat in Pennsylvania from the Republican incumbent, and Scott Brown couldn't seem to catch Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and other races were reported as being dead heats, I started to wonder if Republicans weren't being a little too optimistic.
Then within the first hour or two a pattern started to emerge. Ed Gillespie came out of nowhere to lead Mark Warner in Virginia, and even though he eventually lost by only one percent of the vote, it was a race nobody had even considered would be close, and an indication that people, even in Democratic strongholds, were beginning to show their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. Apparently Democrat candidates had seen it coming. They didn't want BHO campaigning for them. But BHO wasn't about to be left out. Since they didn't want him, he made it clear that even though he wasn't running, the campaigns were all about his policies. Thank you BHO. Your snooty-nosed pride, which wouldn't let you become irrelevant, was the best campaign ad the Republicans could have asked for. It made it clear what was at issue in the election, and the country absolutely repudiated everything you stand for.
Other than the Tom Tillis - Kay Hagan race in North Carolina, most of the races weren't even close. In the end the Republicans picked up seven Senate seats, and will likely get two more, and fourteen House seats and will likely get two more, as well as a net gain of three governorships including those in uber-liberal states Maryland, Massachusetts, and Obama's home state of Illinois. In Wisconsin, a state where liberal unions had spent tens of millions campaigning against Republican Scott Walker, and which was reported as being a statistical tie when the polls opened, Walker trounced his Democrat opponent sparking speculation that he might even be a presidential candidate in 2016.
A resounding Republican victory, and although all Republicans are not strong conservatives, the mood of the country is so much against BHO's agenda on the border, immigration, ISIS and Obamacare, that even John Boehner is now sounding like a Tea Party representative. So what's going to happen?
Did you see BHO's press conference? He's defiant. He heard us, he said, and he also heard the two-thirds of voters who didn't vote, as if they were all his supporters. No doubt they aren't, but he'll claim that as his mandate to do whatever he wants. He's going to do something about immigration before Christmas whether he has the support of Congress or not. He's ready to consider any proposals the Republicans have and sign them if he agrees with them. We've heard that how many times in the last six years? And he's never considered a single Republican proposal. In fact, Harry Reid has over 350 Republican passed bills in the House waiting to be voted on in the Senate, which he refuses to act on, and BHO refuses to prompt him on it.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next two years. The false messiah has been exposed for the emperor with no clothes that he is. The best I think Congress will be able to do is keep BHO in check and prevent him from anymore illegal executive orders, such as what he is promising to do on immigration. I think that Boehner's comments and the letter from several Senators warning him not to do it, is a good sign. But we'll see. The Republicans have had a penchant for throwing away their advantages just when it looks like they are in position to get the country back on the right track.
Will they throw it away again, or will they in the next two years prepare the way for a presidential candidate who will reclaim America's prestige and position of power in the world? We need a return to constitutional limited government and the bill of rights, but more importantly, a hunger for a return to the God of our Forefathers. We'll see. In the meantime, it feels good to wake up in the morning and be able to hope that there is new promise for America's future.
Unfortunately, about 40% of Americans were brainwashed by the promises of the false "messiah," who was going to be making their house and car payments for them, and the swing voters in the middle were driven left by the inept McCain campaign and inability of the Republicans to field a half decent candidate who could articulate their policies. It also didn't help that W. had become increasingly unpopular with an unending war that he couldn't figure out how to win, and budget deficits so high that the country had never seen anything like it. In a sense, the Republicans had more reason to blame Bush for the 2006 and 2008 election fiascos than Obama had to blame him for his (Obama's) poor economic recovery.
Even though the 2010 midterm elections "shellacked" the Democrats, weak Republican leadership in the House and a fractured Republican Party in the Senate did little to really hold up Obama's agenda. Then the 2012 campaign, in which Romney decided apparently to act like a gentleman and not challenge Obama on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and other scandals that he could have nailed him with (after he ran a bitterly dirty campaign against Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination), showed the unique ability once again of moderate/RINO Republicans to snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory.
When conservative talk show hosts like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, and Fox News analysts started predicting a big win for Republicans again in this midterm, my immediate thought was I hope they don't blow it again. Obamacare last year, and ISIS last spring should have been the complete undoing of Obama, but because of Republican lack of resolve (other than Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the Senate, and Trey Gowdy in the House) he essentially got off the hook. But the people it seems were beginning to wake up. Obama's approval rating dropped in the polls down to around 41%. It looked like another Democrat shellacking was in the making, but then Obama's approval ratings went back up to around 45% or higher. I was more than a little concerned.
But as ISIS grew from J.V. to Varsity, James Foley was beheaded by terrorists and BHO played golf, Marine Sgt. Tamoressi sat in a Mexican jail while BHO did nothing after making such a big deal of trading five terrorist leaders so as not to leave traitor Bowe Bergdahl behind, and then did nothing while he assured us ebola would never reach our shores and it did, his poll numbers dropped again to 40% or below. A Republican victory in this election looked like a sure thing, but then the poll numbers started showing very close races all across the country within one or two points, and the liberal media started predicting better times ahead for Democrats.
When Republicans started projecting at least six Senate victories, I started to get a little nervous. Could we throw it away again at the last minute? Then liberal pundits started talking about how the Senate campaigns weren't that important because BHO could still veto any bill a Republican controlled Congress could send him, and besides, the governorships were more important, and they were predicting big Democrat victories. Early on election day when Democrat Tom Wolf was quickly projected to win the governor's seat in Pennsylvania from the Republican incumbent, and Scott Brown couldn't seem to catch Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and other races were reported as being dead heats, I started to wonder if Republicans weren't being a little too optimistic.
Then within the first hour or two a pattern started to emerge. Ed Gillespie came out of nowhere to lead Mark Warner in Virginia, and even though he eventually lost by only one percent of the vote, it was a race nobody had even considered would be close, and an indication that people, even in Democratic strongholds, were beginning to show their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. Apparently Democrat candidates had seen it coming. They didn't want BHO campaigning for them. But BHO wasn't about to be left out. Since they didn't want him, he made it clear that even though he wasn't running, the campaigns were all about his policies. Thank you BHO. Your snooty-nosed pride, which wouldn't let you become irrelevant, was the best campaign ad the Republicans could have asked for. It made it clear what was at issue in the election, and the country absolutely repudiated everything you stand for.
Other than the Tom Tillis - Kay Hagan race in North Carolina, most of the races weren't even close. In the end the Republicans picked up seven Senate seats, and will likely get two more, and fourteen House seats and will likely get two more, as well as a net gain of three governorships including those in uber-liberal states Maryland, Massachusetts, and Obama's home state of Illinois. In Wisconsin, a state where liberal unions had spent tens of millions campaigning against Republican Scott Walker, and which was reported as being a statistical tie when the polls opened, Walker trounced his Democrat opponent sparking speculation that he might even be a presidential candidate in 2016.
A resounding Republican victory, and although all Republicans are not strong conservatives, the mood of the country is so much against BHO's agenda on the border, immigration, ISIS and Obamacare, that even John Boehner is now sounding like a Tea Party representative. So what's going to happen?
Did you see BHO's press conference? He's defiant. He heard us, he said, and he also heard the two-thirds of voters who didn't vote, as if they were all his supporters. No doubt they aren't, but he'll claim that as his mandate to do whatever he wants. He's going to do something about immigration before Christmas whether he has the support of Congress or not. He's ready to consider any proposals the Republicans have and sign them if he agrees with them. We've heard that how many times in the last six years? And he's never considered a single Republican proposal. In fact, Harry Reid has over 350 Republican passed bills in the House waiting to be voted on in the Senate, which he refuses to act on, and BHO refuses to prompt him on it.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next two years. The false messiah has been exposed for the emperor with no clothes that he is. The best I think Congress will be able to do is keep BHO in check and prevent him from anymore illegal executive orders, such as what he is promising to do on immigration. I think that Boehner's comments and the letter from several Senators warning him not to do it, is a good sign. But we'll see. The Republicans have had a penchant for throwing away their advantages just when it looks like they are in position to get the country back on the right track.
Will they throw it away again, or will they in the next two years prepare the way for a presidential candidate who will reclaim America's prestige and position of power in the world? We need a return to constitutional limited government and the bill of rights, but more importantly, a hunger for a return to the God of our Forefathers. We'll see. In the meantime, it feels good to wake up in the morning and be able to hope that there is new promise for America's future.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Voter Fraud
Has anybody ever noticed that whenever there are allegations of voter fraud like the electronic voting machines changing votes, that the changed votes are always for Democrats?
Remember the hanging chads in 2000 that almost all turned out to be Democrat votes? Or the ballots forgotten in automobile trunks that turned up days late in Minnesota and turned out to be just enough Democrat votes to throw the election to Al Franken? And now we haven't even reached election day and early voting machines in multiple places are changing Republican votes to Democrat again. Democrats, the same people who in 2008 declared that Republicans didn't have a monopoly on God (we never said we did, and we obviously do not considering a lot of Republicans), and then in 2012 booed God out of their convention. These are people with no scruples, no probity, no moral character, and not only no monopoly on God, but very little, if any, knowledge of God, and no conscience about stealing elections. And then they piously get insulted if you challenge their integrity (Remember BHO in the 2012 debates with Romney?).
You can be sure that if the Democrats hold control of the Senate, they will probably have stolen the elections they needed.
Remember the hanging chads in 2000 that almost all turned out to be Democrat votes? Or the ballots forgotten in automobile trunks that turned up days late in Minnesota and turned out to be just enough Democrat votes to throw the election to Al Franken? And now we haven't even reached election day and early voting machines in multiple places are changing Republican votes to Democrat again. Democrats, the same people who in 2008 declared that Republicans didn't have a monopoly on God (we never said we did, and we obviously do not considering a lot of Republicans), and then in 2012 booed God out of their convention. These are people with no scruples, no probity, no moral character, and not only no monopoly on God, but very little, if any, knowledge of God, and no conscience about stealing elections. And then they piously get insulted if you challenge their integrity (Remember BHO in the 2012 debates with Romney?).
You can be sure that if the Democrats hold control of the Senate, they will probably have stolen the elections they needed.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Clint Walker
I'm a son of the west, born and raised in Denver, Colorado. I love the mountains, the wide open spaces, and especially the canyon lands in Utah and Arizona. My favorite place in the whole world is Monument Valley.
I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. My favorite TV shows were the oaters, the horse operas. All my brother, Steve, and I ever wanted for Christmas was cowboy hats and six guns. It was our youngest brother, Randall, however, who got to join the Westernaires horse riding club and become the real cowboy. He was in the cavalry in the James Arness How the West Was Won series in 1978.
As far back as I can remember, every Saturday morning was Roy Rogers. It was a special moment in 1997 when we passed through Victorville, California and stopped at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. Just as we were about to leave Roy came through the lobby riding on a golf cart and we got to shake his hand. My son, Jonathan, was just two years old then and he stood in awe looking up at this real live cowboy. Do you know who that is? I asked him. John Wayne, he replied. I had a full sized John Wayne poster on the wall in our basement so he was already aware of him.
My dad loved westerns and I loved westerns. In fact, westerns is about the only thing I remember watching in my childhood. In our house every Friday night after dinner we watched Have Gun, Will Travel followed by Gunsmoke. Paladin and Matt Dillon were almost household names. My favorite, though, came on Monday nights. Warner Brothers had a rotating series called The Cheyenne Show. Three programs, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and Bronco alternated every Monday night. Bronco and Sugarfoot were okay, but my cowboy hero was the big tall guy who played Cheyenne, Clint Walker.
Clint Walker was born in Illinois just before the Great Depression. He had a twin sister, Neoma. They grew up in a conservative midwestern family, and he grew strong and big working along the Mississippi River. He would eventually reach 6'6" tall with a 36 inch waist and a 52 inch chest. With jet black hair and blue eyes, his face was finely chiseled and his looks were perfect. Not only was he the biggest guy around, he was the hands down handsomest.
He joined the Merchant Marines at age 18 at the end of World War 2, then worked as a longshoreman in Los Angeles, finally moving his family to Las Vegas, where he had a security job in the Sands Hotel. He had a great baritone voice, and somewhere along the line a movie actor, Van Johnson, suggested he should be in the movies. He went back to L.A. where an interview was arranged with Cecil B. DeMille, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He had a couple of small roles in movies, including being the Captain of the Guard in The Ten Commandments. He actually had speaking lines in the movie but they were cut out because he stole the scenes from a very proud, and apparently very jealous of being outshone, Yul Brynner. Then he was invited to test for a western series at Warner Brothers. They immediately liked him, bought his contract from DeMille, and in September 1955 he had the lead role in the first hour long TV western. Cheyenne was an immediate hit. It put Warner Brothers on the TV map. For eight seasons it was a top 20 rated show, three times in the top ten. For awhile Clint Walker was the biggest thing in Hollywood, not just in size, but in popularity as well.
His acting ability is often described as being wooden and very stiff. If you watch the first two or three seasons of Cheyenne that's probably a good description. But I don't think Walker is given enough credit by the critics. He essentially walked off the street and became an almost overnight star. He had no acting experience, no resume to go on to indicate he had any acting ability. He was learning as he went. If you compare his acting in his later Cheyenne episodes you see a real transformation into a quality performer. He started making movies in the late 1950s as well, and in those he was very good. Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly and Gold of the Seven Saints were all B rated films, but Walker's acting in each of them is top notch.
In the mid 60s he reached his zenith as an actor. He had tired of the same monotonous story lines in Cheyenne, and with contractual disputes he left it behind, but from 1965 to 1969 he was in some very highly rated movies including None but the Brave with Frank Sinatra, Night of the Grizzly, and The Dirty Dozen. Night of the Grizzly was his best starring role, and probably the best movie he ever made. (He actually wrote the script.) He seemed to be in demand then making several television appearances, including two on The Lucy Show where he proved himself to be very good at comedy. In 68 and 69 he was busy making several films including The Great Bank Robbery, Sam Whiskey, and More Dead Than Alive.
After a meteoric rise to fame and a decade at the top, his career started to decline at the end of the 60s. The Dirty Dozen was probably the biggest movie he was ever in, and he didn't have a major role. By the 70s he was back in television with a series, Kodiak, that lasted only one season, and several made for TV movies, mostly westerns, but he did branch out. In Cry Wolf he plays a very convincing psychotic bad guy opposite Peter Graves. In 1972 he went to Spain to make Pancho Villa with Telly Savallas, in which he has a very funny scene with Ann Francis. Francis was also in More Dead Than Alive. It's too bad they didn't make more movies together because they seem to have played well off each other.
It was also in 1972 that he had a near life-ending accident while skiing. He fell and one of his ski poles actually pierced his heart. It was only because of a doctor who recognized him and wouldn't give up working on him that his life was spared.
It's always been a puzzle to me why he wasn't more in demand in the 70s and on into the 80s. He hadn't lost his looks any, and from what I've seen, his ability as an actor grew from those wooden early days to some quality emotional performances. In Yellowstone Kelly he actually shed tears when his young protege is killed by Indians. He did again when his wife is killed in Deadly Harvest (which may have been the worst movie he ever made but not because of his acting).
It may be because of his conservative values and that he was very picky about the roles he accepted. He refused to do anything with gratuitous sex, excessive swearing, or bloody graphics. He rarely if ever said a foul word in his films. That kind of standard doesn't get you very far in Hollywood anymore, if it ever did. In the 80s he was making cat and dog food commercials on The Family Channel. Nowadays he runs his own website, Clint Walker: the Big Guy Himself, with his wife, Susan, selling his movies, and he makes appearances at western TV autograph shows.
My brother, Randall, met him in Branson when he was working there in a show in 2005. He had a friend who was named Clint after Clint Walker, and the two of them had a chance to talk to him for awhile when there were no crowds. Walker advised them to do good, clean, wholesome, family oriented entertainment rather than the sexually provocative stuff. In fact, that is evident in the movies and TV shows he made.
In Cheyenne there are many shows where reference is made to the Bible and Christian values. In one episode he recovers a gold cross stolen long ago from a Catholic Church and insists it must be returned to respect the church. Talking with an orphaned boy in another episode he tells the boy he has read the entire Bible. And in an episode with James Coburn, he is arrested on trumped up charges, but when they take his gun and wallet, they allow him to keep a small Bible he has in his shirt pocket, after laughing at him for having a Bible. When bail is set he pulls the money out of the Bible where he had it hidden and tells Coburn, "There's a lot of interesting things in the Bible. You ought to read it sometime." Night of the Grizzly is probably one of the best family films ever made. Twice in the movie the family gathers around the table while Walker says grace for the meal. In real life he's also a patriot. Back in about 1982 he made a pro-Second Amendment infomercial for The National Rifle Association. (That's actually what convinced me to join the NRA!) He spoke out against communism in the day and he holds strong conservative positions still.
Everybody knows what a great John Wayne fan I am, but before there was John Wayne, there was Clint Walker. And honestly, if there were more Clint Walker movies to rave about, I would be raving about them. His personal character and morality is much more Christian in nature than that of John Wayne (although that doesn't make me any less of a Duke fan!).
Clint Walker was my first and longest cowboy American hero. When I took a Creative Writing class in college we had an assignment to write a short story. I wrote a western about a mysterious frontiersman named Walker. I knew of Clint Walker long before I knew of Bobby Richardson. Richardson is my number one hero, and on my Bobby Richardson page I made the comment that if there is anybody I could meet before I die, I would want it to be him. Well, I haven't updated that page yet, but last year I met him, as is shown by the picture on the blog. Today I would say if there is anybody else in the world that I would like to meet before he dies or I do, it would be Clint Walker.
Looking back at my life one of the things that still makes Cheyenne so appealing to me are the lyrics of the song. They seem to describe me. I wandered through a number of things before settling in the military, and then I didn't get married or settle down until I had traveled the world and was 36 years old. And now I'm a missionary still following the winds of God's call to various parts of the world. I don't suppose I'll ever really settle down until I'm in heaven.
God bless you, Clint Walker. Thanks for wonderful memories.
Cheyenne, Cheyenne,
Where will you be camping tonight?
Lonely man, Cheyenne,
Will your heart stay free and light?
Dream, Cheyenne, of a girl you may never love;
Move along, Cheyenne, like the restless clouds up above.
The wind that blows, that comes and goes, has been your only home,
But will the wild wind one day cease and you no longer roam?
Move along, Cheyenne,
Next pasture's always so green.
Drifting on, Cheyenne,
Don't forget the things you have seen.
And when you will settle down, where will it be?
Cheyenne, Cheyenne.
I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. My favorite TV shows were the oaters, the horse operas. All my brother, Steve, and I ever wanted for Christmas was cowboy hats and six guns. It was our youngest brother, Randall, however, who got to join the Westernaires horse riding club and become the real cowboy. He was in the cavalry in the James Arness How the West Was Won series in 1978.
As far back as I can remember, every Saturday morning was Roy Rogers. It was a special moment in 1997 when we passed through Victorville, California and stopped at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. Just as we were about to leave Roy came through the lobby riding on a golf cart and we got to shake his hand. My son, Jonathan, was just two years old then and he stood in awe looking up at this real live cowboy. Do you know who that is? I asked him. John Wayne, he replied. I had a full sized John Wayne poster on the wall in our basement so he was already aware of him.
My dad loved westerns and I loved westerns. In fact, westerns is about the only thing I remember watching in my childhood. In our house every Friday night after dinner we watched Have Gun, Will Travel followed by Gunsmoke. Paladin and Matt Dillon were almost household names. My favorite, though, came on Monday nights. Warner Brothers had a rotating series called The Cheyenne Show. Three programs, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and Bronco alternated every Monday night. Bronco and Sugarfoot were okay, but my cowboy hero was the big tall guy who played Cheyenne, Clint Walker.
Clint Walker was born in Illinois just before the Great Depression. He had a twin sister, Neoma. They grew up in a conservative midwestern family, and he grew strong and big working along the Mississippi River. He would eventually reach 6'6" tall with a 36 inch waist and a 52 inch chest. With jet black hair and blue eyes, his face was finely chiseled and his looks were perfect. Not only was he the biggest guy around, he was the hands down handsomest.
He joined the Merchant Marines at age 18 at the end of World War 2, then worked as a longshoreman in Los Angeles, finally moving his family to Las Vegas, where he had a security job in the Sands Hotel. He had a great baritone voice, and somewhere along the line a movie actor, Van Johnson, suggested he should be in the movies. He went back to L.A. where an interview was arranged with Cecil B. DeMille, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He had a couple of small roles in movies, including being the Captain of the Guard in The Ten Commandments. He actually had speaking lines in the movie but they were cut out because he stole the scenes from a very proud, and apparently very jealous of being outshone, Yul Brynner. Then he was invited to test for a western series at Warner Brothers. They immediately liked him, bought his contract from DeMille, and in September 1955 he had the lead role in the first hour long TV western. Cheyenne was an immediate hit. It put Warner Brothers on the TV map. For eight seasons it was a top 20 rated show, three times in the top ten. For awhile Clint Walker was the biggest thing in Hollywood, not just in size, but in popularity as well.
His acting ability is often described as being wooden and very stiff. If you watch the first two or three seasons of Cheyenne that's probably a good description. But I don't think Walker is given enough credit by the critics. He essentially walked off the street and became an almost overnight star. He had no acting experience, no resume to go on to indicate he had any acting ability. He was learning as he went. If you compare his acting in his later Cheyenne episodes you see a real transformation into a quality performer. He started making movies in the late 1950s as well, and in those he was very good. Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly and Gold of the Seven Saints were all B rated films, but Walker's acting in each of them is top notch.
In the mid 60s he reached his zenith as an actor. He had tired of the same monotonous story lines in Cheyenne, and with contractual disputes he left it behind, but from 1965 to 1969 he was in some very highly rated movies including None but the Brave with Frank Sinatra, Night of the Grizzly, and The Dirty Dozen. Night of the Grizzly was his best starring role, and probably the best movie he ever made. (He actually wrote the script.) He seemed to be in demand then making several television appearances, including two on The Lucy Show where he proved himself to be very good at comedy. In 68 and 69 he was busy making several films including The Great Bank Robbery, Sam Whiskey, and More Dead Than Alive.
After a meteoric rise to fame and a decade at the top, his career started to decline at the end of the 60s. The Dirty Dozen was probably the biggest movie he was ever in, and he didn't have a major role. By the 70s he was back in television with a series, Kodiak, that lasted only one season, and several made for TV movies, mostly westerns, but he did branch out. In Cry Wolf he plays a very convincing psychotic bad guy opposite Peter Graves. In 1972 he went to Spain to make Pancho Villa with Telly Savallas, in which he has a very funny scene with Ann Francis. Francis was also in More Dead Than Alive. It's too bad they didn't make more movies together because they seem to have played well off each other.
It was also in 1972 that he had a near life-ending accident while skiing. He fell and one of his ski poles actually pierced his heart. It was only because of a doctor who recognized him and wouldn't give up working on him that his life was spared.
It's always been a puzzle to me why he wasn't more in demand in the 70s and on into the 80s. He hadn't lost his looks any, and from what I've seen, his ability as an actor grew from those wooden early days to some quality emotional performances. In Yellowstone Kelly he actually shed tears when his young protege is killed by Indians. He did again when his wife is killed in Deadly Harvest (which may have been the worst movie he ever made but not because of his acting).
It may be because of his conservative values and that he was very picky about the roles he accepted. He refused to do anything with gratuitous sex, excessive swearing, or bloody graphics. He rarely if ever said a foul word in his films. That kind of standard doesn't get you very far in Hollywood anymore, if it ever did. In the 80s he was making cat and dog food commercials on The Family Channel. Nowadays he runs his own website, Clint Walker: the Big Guy Himself, with his wife, Susan, selling his movies, and he makes appearances at western TV autograph shows.
My brother, Randall, met him in Branson when he was working there in a show in 2005. He had a friend who was named Clint after Clint Walker, and the two of them had a chance to talk to him for awhile when there were no crowds. Walker advised them to do good, clean, wholesome, family oriented entertainment rather than the sexually provocative stuff. In fact, that is evident in the movies and TV shows he made.
In Cheyenne there are many shows where reference is made to the Bible and Christian values. In one episode he recovers a gold cross stolen long ago from a Catholic Church and insists it must be returned to respect the church. Talking with an orphaned boy in another episode he tells the boy he has read the entire Bible. And in an episode with James Coburn, he is arrested on trumped up charges, but when they take his gun and wallet, they allow him to keep a small Bible he has in his shirt pocket, after laughing at him for having a Bible. When bail is set he pulls the money out of the Bible where he had it hidden and tells Coburn, "There's a lot of interesting things in the Bible. You ought to read it sometime." Night of the Grizzly is probably one of the best family films ever made. Twice in the movie the family gathers around the table while Walker says grace for the meal. In real life he's also a patriot. Back in about 1982 he made a pro-Second Amendment infomercial for The National Rifle Association. (That's actually what convinced me to join the NRA!) He spoke out against communism in the day and he holds strong conservative positions still.
Everybody knows what a great John Wayne fan I am, but before there was John Wayne, there was Clint Walker. And honestly, if there were more Clint Walker movies to rave about, I would be raving about them. His personal character and morality is much more Christian in nature than that of John Wayne (although that doesn't make me any less of a Duke fan!).
Clint Walker was my first and longest cowboy American hero. When I took a Creative Writing class in college we had an assignment to write a short story. I wrote a western about a mysterious frontiersman named Walker. I knew of Clint Walker long before I knew of Bobby Richardson. Richardson is my number one hero, and on my Bobby Richardson page I made the comment that if there is anybody I could meet before I die, I would want it to be him. Well, I haven't updated that page yet, but last year I met him, as is shown by the picture on the blog. Today I would say if there is anybody else in the world that I would like to meet before he dies or I do, it would be Clint Walker.
Looking back at my life one of the things that still makes Cheyenne so appealing to me are the lyrics of the song. They seem to describe me. I wandered through a number of things before settling in the military, and then I didn't get married or settle down until I had traveled the world and was 36 years old. And now I'm a missionary still following the winds of God's call to various parts of the world. I don't suppose I'll ever really settle down until I'm in heaven.
God bless you, Clint Walker. Thanks for wonderful memories.
Cheyenne, Cheyenne,
Where will you be camping tonight?
Lonely man, Cheyenne,
Will your heart stay free and light?
Dream, Cheyenne, of a girl you may never love;
Move along, Cheyenne, like the restless clouds up above.
The wind that blows, that comes and goes, has been your only home,
But will the wild wind one day cease and you no longer roam?
Move along, Cheyenne,
Next pasture's always so green.
Drifting on, Cheyenne,
Don't forget the things you have seen.
And when you will settle down, where will it be?
Cheyenne, Cheyenne.
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