Think About It

Colin Kaepernick’s freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment, and he has the right to kneel during the National Anthem. If people find his actions offensive, that’s unfortunate. The price we pay for living in a free society is that people are going to say and do things that we find disagreeable. Anyone of us could one day find ourselves in Colin Kaepernick’s position. There may be disagreement with what he’s saying, or how he’s saying it, but there should be absolute unanimity in defending his right to say it.

Here is where Colin is right. African-Americans are definitely at a disadvantage in America. They have the worst schools, the highest unemployment rate, and are more likely to be victims of a violent crime than the rest of the population. It’s unjust, and Kaepernick is rightfully angry.

However, if Colin is claiming that the police in America are intentionally murdering black men, he’s wrong. Certainly, there are racist cops and corrupt police departments in America, but they are the exception, and not the norm. Statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, show that a black person is no more likely to be killed by a police officer than a white person. This was confirmed by an independent study conducted by Roland Fryer, an African-American Professor of Economics at Harvard, who found that there was no racial bias in police shootings in America.

If Colin wants to protest the fact that bigotry and racism still exist in America, he’d be right because there are racists and bigots of every color in America. However, if he’s claiming that institutional racism still plagues this country, he’d be wrong, because it’s virtually impossible to find a business, school, civic organization, city, state or federal agency, or any other institution that still discriminates against people because of race.

Now, if Colin is claiming that the deck is stacked against black people in America, he’s right. However, what he needs to understand is that today, the deck is stacked against most Americans.

“The American Dream,” is a term coined by historian James Adams to describe the idea that everyone in America, regardless of the circumstances of birth, has the opportunity to ascend to whatever level their ambition and abilities can take them. Unfortunately, for more than three centuries, it was nothing but a myth for most African-Americans. Finally, America began to awaken to the injustice, and the civil rights movement promised to give African-Americans access to opportunities that were previously denied them.  Although many African-Americans have been able to take advantage of the opportunities afforded them in America, rising to the pinnacles of the government, military and industry, today most African-Americans still find themselves languishing behind.

The frustration and anger being vented by the African-American community, although sometimes misdirected, stems from the realization that the promise of the civil rights movement has not, and may never materialize. A black child born to an unwed mother in the inner cities of America today, has little or no chance of working her way out of the poverty into which she was born. This is what I believe is the crux of Colin’s protest, and if it is, he’s right.

But why are the opportunities to improve their lives being denied African-Americans? They’re not. The simple truth is that there are fewer opportunities today for everyone. The Millennials will be the first generation in our history that will not have it as good as, or better than their parents. It will be harder for them to buy a house, educate their children, and to save for retirement. It will be more difficult for those entering the workforce today to improve their lives, then it was for those who grew up during the Great Depression.

“The American Dream,” is vanishing for all Americans. However, it’s hit the African-American community hardest because they were the ones relegated to the periphery of society and therefore, the most vulnerable.

Fifty-years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. His idea was to provide the disadvantaged in America with the resources needed to improve their lives. It was a noble undertaking that was unfortunately, ill-conceived and negligently implemented. The war on poverty initiated the largest expansion of government in history, creating over 120 programs and bureaucracies intended to fight poverty. However, instead of giving people greater access to the opportunities needed to advance themselves, it has ensnared millions of Americans in a culture of dependence.

Social Scientists have shown that there is a direct correlation between welfare spending and out-of-wedlock births. An increase in welfare spending causes an increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births. The single biggest indicator that a child will grow up in poverty, drop out of school, become involved with drugs, crime and violence, and have almost no opportunity to improve their lot in life, isn’t race or ethnicity. It’s being born out-of-wedlock, and today 75% of all African-American children are born out-of-wedlock.

It may have been well intentioned, but the war on poverty has been a colossal disaster. All it’s succeeded in doing is creating a big government that is dependent upon dependent people. It has destroyed the nuclear family and pushed the African-American community into a never-ending cycle of dependency and despair.

Liberty creates the opportunity individuals need to improve their lives. However, liberty is a zero-sum proposition. The more power the government has, the less liberty the people have. The less liberty the people have, the fewer opportunities, they have to improve their lives. An individual’s opportunity to improve their life decreases, as their dependence upon the state increases. The more dependent upon government we become, the less free we are, and the less free we are, the worse our lives become.

If Colin Kaepernick wants to kneel down during the National Anthem to protest the injustices going on in America, he needs to do it while he still has the opportunity.

“Trust me, put your faith in me, and I’ll make your life better!” That’s the big lie. The lie people tell when they want power. It’s what Lenin told the Russians, Hitler told the Germans, and what every politician whoever sought public office has told the voters. The liar’s intent doesn’t matter. It could be benevolent or sinister, what makes the lie so convincing, is that the people telling the lie actually, believe it.

When Vladimir Lenin formed the Communist Party and overthrew the Czar, he believed it was going to improve the lives of the Russian peasants. He never envisioned that his party would one-day murder 20-million of its own people. Or when Adolf Hitler became the leader of Germany, as evil as he was, he didn’t intend to plunge the world into war and destroy his own country. It just doesn’t work that way.

History is full of dreamers and schemers that are going to change the world. They mesmerize and beguile with the promise of creating a utopia on earth.  And we willingly accept the lie because they passionately and sincerely believe what they’re saying.

So what happens? Why can’t these liars deliver on their promise? Well, Christian theology calls it Original Sin, but most everyone else knows it as human nature.

Putting your trust and faith in another human being, or a human institution is generally not a good idea. Giving government more power and control over your life, has never in the history of mankind worked out well for the people. No matter how noble the intentions, no matter how alluring the promises, no matter how plausible the policies, it will not in the long run benefit the people. It will however, benefit those in power.

Programs created to help people become more self-reliant, instead create dependence. Policies designed to improve education, only guarantee mediocrity. Government agencies formed to safeguard the homeland produce a labyrinth of bureaucracy that endangers its citizens.

It works this way not because the people who run these programs are bad or evil. It works this way because the people who run these programs are people. It’s inherent in our human nature. We will automatically and subconsciously, do the things that benefit us personally.  When given the choice between completing the job and keeping the gravy train going, we’ll choose to keep the gravy train going. That’s why government agencies never end, and why government programs never solve the problems they’re intended to solve.

The truth, is that no human being, or human institution is worthy of our trust and faith. The Founding Fathers understood this; that’s why they set the country up as a Republic where the rule of law reigns supreme over a monarch or a president.  That’s why they separated the branches of government, and most importantly, that’s why they guaranteed the freedom of religion.

Our individual free-will is the key to our freedom and prosperity. No political party or politician, and no policy or program can give it to us.  We must choose it for ourselves. We must make the conscious decision to take the talents and gifts God has given us, and use them to improve our lives, the lives of our loved ones, and the community and country in which we live. The only one truly worthy of our trust and faith is God, because God is the source of both our free-will and freedom. That’s why totalitarian states suppress religion.  They don’t want the people to be dependent upon God. They want the people dependent upon the state because that’s how they secure their power.  God’s the competition, and it’s better for them to eliminate the competition.

For the past fifty-years, liberals have been telling the American people, “Trust me, put your faith in me, and I’ll make your life better.”  It started in 1965 with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. “Give those who don’t have a little more,” and end poverty in America. That was the promise. However, five decades and 22-trillion dollars later, the poverty rate remains at fourteen percent, and for some, things have actually gotten worse.

Today, seventy-five percent of African Americans are born out-of-wedlock, and forty-seven percent live in households that receive means-tested benefits. The percent of black men in the workforce has dropped from eighty-one percent in 1965 to just sixty-seven percent in 2015. And in America, a black person is eight times more likely to be killed than a white person, and ninety-four percent of those killed are killed by another black person.

The truth is that the prospects for a young black person growing up in the inner cities of America are abysmal. Their neighborhoods are infested with drugs, gangs and violence. Their public schools are appalling failures. They have no education, no marketable skills, and little or no hope of improving their lot in life. Even the election of the country’s first African-American President in 2008, hasn’t provided any real hope and change. They are part of an entitlement class that is permanently and terminally dependent upon the government. They bought the lie, and are now entrapped by it.

What do we do when we discover that we’ve been lied to? We get angry. We strike-out and try to extract our vengeance on those who have taken advantage of us. But when the lie is this big, and this intricately woven, who do you go after? Well, the liars are never going to admit the lie because they still believe it’s true. So, who do you blame? Enter the scapegoat, the lie wrapped inside the lie, the convenient way to redefine the truth, absolve yourself of responsibility, and continue the lie. “Hands up don’t shoot!”

On April 26, 1981, Dr. Michael Harrison performed the world’s first fetal surgery at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. Dr. Harrison and his team inserted a catheter into a fetus to relieve a urinary tract blockage that was threatening to damage the baby’s kidneys. The procedure revolutionized the treatment of prenatal birth defects, and Dr. Harrison is regarded as the “Father of Fetal Surgery.”

Since that first pioneering procedure, the field of fetal surgery has continued to evolve. Today, there are over 20 hospitals across the country performing fetal surgery to repair heart and lung damage, remove life-threatening tumors, and give unborn babies a chance at a quality of life that was previously unimaginable. A University of Texas study evaluating the impact of fetal surgery to repair spinal bifida, a debilitating condition that causes permanent paralysis, concluded the surgery doubles the chances a child will one day be able to walk normally. And the future of fetal surgery holds even more promise. Scientists are currently researching in utero stem cell treatments and gene therapies that may eliminate diseases in unborn children before the debilitating symptoms even appear.

The genius of people like Dr. Harrison is amazing, and their commitment to the dignity of human life is inspiring. They are remarkable people that make us proud to live in a society that invests hundreds of millions of dollars to protect and improve the lives of its unborn children. Truly, we have created a culture that’s the envy of the civilized world. However, before we go patting ourselves on the back consider this; the hospital that performed the world’s first fetal surgery also performs abortions. In one operating room, you could have a team of surgeons working feverishly to patch a hole in the spine of an unborn baby, while across the hall; they remove and dispose of an unwanted fetus.

How do you reconcile this hypocrisy? What criteria is used to decide what child lives and what child dies? Is it as simple as one child is wanted and the other one isn’t? Is it because one mother sees some utility or value in the life of her unborn, while the other sees only a responsibility and burden? Does it really come down to the perceived value of a particular life? Is the mother the sole arbitrator of that value, or is there some fundamental value inherent in every human life? These are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions that absolutely define a culture.

Pro-choice advocates will argue that these questions don’t apply to the abortion debate because a fetus isn’t technically a human being, and because it isn’t human, it doesn’t possess any human rights. Furthermore, whatever rights a fetus does have, if any, they do not supersede a woman’s right to choose.

Does a fetus have rights, and if it does, what are they? Well, as a minimum, a fetus must have the right to life simply because it’s alive. It takes in nourishment, metabolizes energy and grows, and is therefore, a living organism. And all living organisms, at some fundamental level, have a right to life. But is a fetus a human life? It’s of human origin and contains human DNA, so yes, it is a human life. In fact, it is an unborn child. So, the dilemma is how to balance the right to life of an unborn child against that of a woman’s right to choose. However, in order to do that, someone must assign a value to the life of the unborn child, and this is what pro-choice advocates want. They want the right to assign a value to human life.

So, the question remains; is there a fundamental value inherent in every human life, or do human beings have the right to determine that value?

It’s a self-evident truth that all human beings are created equal. Meaning, there is no such thing as a natural aristocracy. No one has the right to assign a value to another human life. Our value as human beings is not dependent upon our parentage, ethnicity, race or any other factor. We possess an equally immeasurable and infinite value by virtue of the fact that we are all human beings. It is a universal truth that applies equally to everyone, everywhere, even to those in the womb.

There will always be people who will deny this truth, and insist that they have the prerogative to assign a value to someone else’s life. Mao, Starlin, Hitler, Tojo, and Pol Pot are a few of the twentieth-century despots who believed this, and murdered more than 150 million people. Of course, pro-choice advocates insist that abortion is different! Is it different because the Nazis used box cars and chlorine gas to dispose of their unwanted, while we use clinics and fetal forceps? Or is it because it was an official policy of the Nazi regime that justified the killing, while here it’s only a Supreme Court Decision?

In the spring of 1945, after six long years of war, the Allied Armies entered Germany and liberated the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau, unveiling the true evil of the Nazi regime. Outraged by the horrors they discovered, the Allies demanded an explanation from the German civilians living in these towns. The only answered they could muster was, “Wir wussten nicht!” (We didn’t know!) Infuriated by the façade of ignorance, military commanders paraded the civilians through the death camps, and forced them to bury the dead. General Eisenhower ordered film crews to document the atrocities “because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

Somewhere down the track of history the abortion debate will be decided, and it will be the truth and not opinion that will prevail. An unborn child is either a human being or it isn’t, and either all human life has value or it doesn’t. However, whenever that verdict is rendered, we won’t be able to claim, “Wir wussten nicht!”

In 325 AD, the Roman Emperor was becoming concerned. Arguments between Christian sects had become violent and were threatening to disrupt the Empire. The Emperor Constantine intervened, and ordered the 300 Christian Bishops to meet and resolve their doctrinal differences. The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Church, and resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. More importantly, it quelled the disputes and restored peace to the Christian world, a peace that would last for twelve-hundred years, and continues today.

If God exists, couldn’t he reveal himself to whomever he wanted in whatever manner he wanted? And maybe that’s what he’s done over the centuries to Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Muhammad, and countless others? And if God is universal, unchanging and fixed, wouldn’t his truths be universal, unchanging and fixed?

The great religions of the world all claim to teach God’s truths. So, if God exists, and his truths are unchanging and fixed, any fundamental disagreement regarding these truths must be the result of a faulty interpretation of those truths. For any religion to be truly great, it must have some element of the divine truth within it. At some level then, there must be some common truth that exists within the great faiths of the world, and of course there is. It is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Eighty-one percent of the world’s population subscribes to a religious belief that promotes the Golden Rule. So, if eighty-one percent of the world’s population subscribes to a religion that promotes the Golden Rule, why is there so much animus and conflict between the faiths, and within certain religions? It is because people neither understand nor practice what they claim to believe.

In 1979, Radical Islam seized the US Embassy in Tehran taking fifty-two Americans hostage. It was their first salvo in their war with the West. San Bernardino and Paris are the inevitable next phase of that conflict. However, Radical Islam’s war with Western Civilization is in reality an expansion of a Muslim sectarian conflict that has been raging for centuries. The on-going war between Sunnis and Shiites has created an extremist ideology of intolerance and hate. It has pitted Muslim against Muslim, and the extremist against anyone who opposes their brand of fascism. Ninety percent of the people killed by Radical Islam are Muslim.

The time has come for another Council of Nicaea. The major religions of the world should convene their own ecumenical council and issue a uniformed doctrine of belief that reasserts the Golden Rule, and reaffirms the self-evident truths put forth in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to live free from slavery, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, the right to work, the right to marry and raise a family, and equal protection under civil law. Any religion or interpretation of a faith that is unable, or unwilling to issue such a doctrine, is an illegitimate interpretation of the divine truth.

Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is the King of Saudi Arabia, the head of the House of Saud, and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. They are the two holiest places within Islam and the center of the Muslim world. King Salman needs to be a modern-day Constantine. He needs to convene an ecumenical council of the five major Islamic sects, and issue a unified doctrine of belief that will end the sectarian conflict. If he doesn’t, the war will continue to expand until the Western powers are no longer willing to distinguish between the radical and peaceful Muslims. The clash of civilizations will continue to expand until one, or both civilizations are destroyed.

March 4, 1865 started as a gloomy and overcast day, but no amount of rain or mud could dampen the spirits of those assembled in Washington for the second inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln. Four long years of civil war had taken its toll on the nation, and although one and a half-million Americans lie dead or wounded; this was a day of celebration. The Union armies were on the march, the Confederacy was in retreat, and the end of the war was in sight. As thousands gathered on the mall awaiting the appearance of their Commander in Chief, they speculated about the contents of his address. Many expected to hear about the progress of the war and the inevitable victory, while others expected him to pay tribute to those who had sacrificed to preserve the Union. Some wanted to know his plans for reconstruction and reunification, and others pondered what he’d say about emancipation and the end of slavery. Although most heard what they expected, few, heard what they wanted.

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address ranks among the greatest speeches in American history. It’s only seven hundred words long and took less than seven minutes to deliver, but its eloquence is unequaled. Although Lincoln considered it his best speech, it’s not a speech one would expect to hear from a sitting President because it was more of a homily than a speech. As Fredrick Douglas described, “it was a sacred effort, more like a sermon than like a state paper.” In the brevity of the address, Lincoln mentions God fourteen times, quotes scripture four times and invokes prayer three times. It is a truly remarkable speech, something that is unimaginable today.  However, more startling than Lincoln’s invocation of the Almighty, is the content of his message.

In order to appreciate the significance of Lincoln’s Address, you need to understand the context in which it was delivered. One out of every twenty people living in the United States was either killed or wounded during the Civil War. Today, that would equate to fifteen and a half million Americans dead or wounded. There wasn’t a person living in the country, or assembled on the mall that day, that hadn’t suffered a loss. However, knowing this, Lincoln told the American people that we had reaped what we had sown. At the heart of his message was the assertion that the war was God’s punishment for the sin of slavery. That is truly astonishing! Can you imagine the President of the United States standing before the American people, telling them that their pain and suffering was divine retribution for their immorality? Where would Lincoln get such an idea?

Lincoln studied the Bible and was familiar with the divine retribution of the Old Testament, where God brought punishment upon the wicked, like in the great flood of Noah, the destruction of Sodom and Gomora, and the ten plagues of Egypt. He also studied history and understood the retribution that befalls decadent and corrupt societies, like the collapse of the Babylonian and Greek Empires, and the fall of Rome. Lincoln was a practical and pragmatic politician and selected his words very carefully. He knew that his message would not be well received, but delivered it because he believed it to be true.

Is Lincoln right, does God smite the sinful and the wicked? It would be difficult to argue the divine retribution of the Old Testament; earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods are natural phenomena, and not the acts of an angry deity. However, the premise that corrupt and decadent nations tend to self-destruct, deserves consideration. During the twentieth-century, both Germany and Japan pursued ideologies of evil until the righteous of the world rose up to destroy them, and the Soviet Union oppressed half of Europe, but eventually imploded under the weight of its own depravity. So history tends to support Lincoln’s premise. Whether or not it’s divine retribution, or merely the natural consequence of corruption is a matter of perspective.

A recent Gallup poll indicates that seventy-five percent of Americans believe their government is corrupt, and that society’s morals and ethics are declining. Surveys indicate that most Americans have been dissatisfied with the direction the country has been moving in since the early seventies. So what happened during that period to create this sense of pessimism? First, was Watergate, and second was Roe vs. Wade.

Watergate shattered the American people’s faith in government. Richard Nixon abused the power of his office by using the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Internal Revenue Service to target and harass his political adversaries, and committed a felony when he destroyed evidence and obstructed justice. Eventually, he was forced to resign when the American people demanded his removal, and Congress threatened him with impeachment.

In Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy up until viability, the point at which the unborn child could potentially live outside the mother’s womb. This ruling reshaped the American political spectrum by dividing the nation and driving people into either the pro-choice, or pro-life camps. Pro-choice advocates argue that prior to viability, an unborn child is not a human being and therefore, not entitled to the protection of the state, and that its right to life cannot supersede the woman’s right to choose. Pro-life advocates argue the opposite. Of course, what camp is right depends upon when human life actually begins, but unfortunately, no one knows with absolute certainty, just when that occurs.

We know that the human gestation period is forty weeks long, and that at five weeks the baby’s heart begins to beat, at six weeks, it has facial features, and at ten weeks, its vital organs begin to function. At fifteen weeks the baby can see light, at sixteen weeks, ultrasound can determine its sex, and at twenty weeks, it reaches viability. Viability was initially at twenty-eight weeks, but advancements in medicine have reduced that period. So again, no one knows with absolute certainty when human life begins. However, we do know with absolute certainty, that at the moment of conception; human DNA is present, and that the process of life has begun, and that when you terminate that process, you terminate a life that’s progressing.

It’s estimated that there have been more than fifty-million abortions performed in the United States since Roe vs. Wade. If human life actually begins at conception, then we are guilty of a mass murder that is five-times greater than the Nazi holocaust. I don’t know what divine retribution we’d face, but “as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Fritz Haber was born in 1868 to an affluent Jewish family in Breslau, Prussia. His father owned a pharmaceutical and paint business. However, Fritz wasn’t interested in the family business. He studied chemistry in college and received a doctorate from Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1891. While teaching at the University of Leipzig, he teamed up with Carl Bosch and invented the Haber-Bosch process of making ammonia. It’s considered a breakthrough in industrial chemistry because it’s the process used to manufacture the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which helps produce half of the world’s food supply. For his work, Fritz Haber was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Occasionally, something that at first seems wonderful, a significant breakthrough or accomplishment, can turn out to be something that has disastrous side-affects. It’s called the law of unintended consequences.

On June 26, 2015, Justice Anthony Kennedy issued the majority opinion granting same-sex couples the right to marry. Obviously, the decision was heralded by the LBGT community as a major victory. Their response to the last paragraph of his ruling is particularly noteworthy; many calling it beautiful, eloquent, and even poetic. The problem, however, is that Anthony Kennedy is not a poet. He’s a Supreme Court Justice.

As a judge, Kennedy should have limited his ruling to the legal aspects of marriage. He could have established the legal definition of marriage as a civil contract between two individuals, a lawful union which is recognized by the State and entitles the spouses to certain protections under-the-law regarding: taxation; inheritance and property rights, as well as other spousal privileges. He then could have argued that the right to enter into a civil contract is protected by the Constitution, and cannot be infringed upon by the State. He could have, but he didn’t.

Justice Kennedy’s opinion goes well beyond a legal definition of marriage. His 28 page brief delves into the philosophical, theological, social, emotional, and spiritual aspects of marriage. It’s an all-encompassing definition that will be litigated in courts for decades. He has sown the seeds for what is certain to be an all-out assault on the First Amendment, and potentially given the State unlimited authority to insert itself into the private lives of its citizens.

Kennedy defines marriage as a keystone of social order, an institution that safeguards children and families. What happens if a marriage fails to live up to that definition? If a dysfunctional marriage creates an unhealthy environment for children, does the state have the right, or even obligation to nullify it? He continued, defining marriage as an enduring bond, which promotes the freedoms of; expression, intimacy, spirituality, and is critical to the right of self-identification. It’s a wonderful sentiment, but the State does not have the authority to establish the reasons for why people get married, or to question their motives? Are we going to have the State administer a compatibility-test to ensure that people enter into marriage with only the most noble and unselfish intentions?

A marriage, like any relationship, is unique to the individuals who enter into it. It’s up to the individuals themselves to determine the emotional, philosophical or spiritual significance of their union. It is not within the purview of the Court to define that for anybody. Kennedy overstepped his authority, and although briefly touched upon the First Amendment, failed to adequately differentiate between a legal marriage, and the sacrament of marriage.

The sacramental rite of marriage, how it is defined and who is eligible to receive it, is something that belongs exclusively to the Church. Each faith must define the sacrament within the context of its own theology. Catholic theology states that a marriage is a union between a man, a woman and God. It is a sacred and holy union because it is the union through which God brings forth new life into creation. The Church instituted the sacrament of marriage in order to recognize God’s presence in the union, and his role in the creation of life. The sacrament is not exclusionary and does not discriminate against anyone. It simply acknowledges what the Catholic Church believes to be the fundamental truth of creation.

Because Justice Kennedy’s opinion strayed from the legal definition of marriage and ventured into a spiritual definition, he has paved the way for a showdown between Church and State. There are groups within this country that despise organized religion and want to eradicate it from our culture. It is inevitable; law-suits will be filed to force churches to perform same-sex marriages. Today, military chaplains are being coerced into performing same-sex marriages that are contrary to the teachings of their faith.

Justice Kennedy has fractured the separation between Church and State that has protected the rights of believers and non-believers for more than two centuries. The State does not recognize an annulment as legally binding, and the Catholic Church does not recognize a divorce as spiritually binding. However, the Church is obligated to, and does recognize the legality of divorce, and complies with the dictates of civil law. Justice Kennedy’s opinion blurs this separation and threatens the protections guaranteed to us by the First Amendment.

It’s possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and for the Court to render the right decision with the wrong opinion. Now, it’s up to history to decide how Justice Kennedy’s opinion will be viewed.

Fritz Haber won the 1918 Nobel Prize but actually didn’t receive the award until 1919. Europe was at war, and he was unable to travel to Stockholm to accept the award. In addition to the title of “Nobel Laureate,” Fritz Haber also enjoys the title of “Father of Chemical Warfare.” He developed the chlorine gas weapons used by the German army in World War I, and personally supervised their deployment on the battlefield. The Nazis built upon Haber’s work to develop the Zyklon-B gas that killed 1.5 million of his fellow Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald.

In 69 BC, as the Roman General Lucius Lucullus advanced on the city of Tigranocerta with an army of 40,000 legionnaires, a messenger was dispatched to warn King Tigranes of the approaching danger. Tigranes was so upset by the news that he drew his sword and beheaded the messenger. Thus supposedly, is the origin of the phrase, “Don’t shoot the messenger.” However, there are others who credit Shakespeare with first having penned the phrase. Regardless of its origin, it is clearly a metaphor used to describe the human tendency to lash out at people we believe are bearers of bad news.

In April 2013, the Jackson City Middle School in Ohio was ordered to remove a portrait of Jesus that had been hanging in its Hall of Heroes since 1947. The American Civil Liberties Union had filed suit against the school, and the Superintendent didn’t want to incur the cost of a federal lawsuit. Regardless of the reason, might it not be another case of shooting the messenger?

Determining the appropriateness of displaying Jesus’ image in a public school is difficult, because he is both a religious and historical figure. Jesus the Christ is a religious figure because he is regarded by Christians as a deity; the second person of the Trinitarian God. Christians believe that he is God made man, who by his death and resurrection conquered sin, destroyed death and reconciled all of mankind to God the Father. And if we limited our examination of Jesus to this viewpoint, we might rightly conclude that hanging his portrait in a public school is inappropriate. However, Jesus was also a very real historical figure.

Jesus of Nazareth was a Rabbi, and arguably the greatest teacher who has ever lived. He taught tolerance, inclusion and diversity, and introduced the concept of human equality to the world. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century German philosopher and atheist, who espoused that “God is dead,” credits the Christian concept of the ‘equality of souls before God,’ as the prototype of all theories of all human and civil rights. Of course Nietzsche the official philosopher of Nazism, was mocking the Christian doctrine of egalitarianism.

Christian egalitarianism asserts that all human beings; regardless of race, gender, religion, or ethnicity are created equal, and are endowed with the same inalienable human rights. It is the doctrine on which Jefferson based the Declaration of Independence, and on which the United States was established. It is what we refer to as a self-evident truth; a truth first revealed to the world by Jesus of Nazareth.

So in the context of human history, in terms of influencing the development of western civilization, could one not make the case for recognizing the impact of Jesus of Nazareth? Might it not be appropriate to hang his portrait alongside Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Lock and the other great minds of western civilization? I think you could make the case.

Why then is Jesus’ image so objectionable to so many secularist and progressives? Aren’t these the very same people who supposedly embrace and promote the very egalitarian virtues of tolerance, inclusion and diversity that Jesus first taught? That answer might be found in a closer examination of his teachings.

Integral to the teachings of Jesus is the concept of sin. To Jesus, sin isn’t just breaking the rules, or doing something wrong. Sin is a condition of the human heart, a fundamental flaw in human nature that drives a wedge between man and God, separating him from the very source of his life. The effects of sin are death and decay, for both the individual committing the sin, and the society that harbors it. It is a universal sickness that infects everybody and every culture, and something that must be healed. And this is where many people take issue with Jesus.

No one likes being told that they’re wrong, or that there is something wrong with them, no matter how true or warranted the criticism may be. Think about it, most of us can’t stand being told that we’re wrong. We get angry, defensive, obstinate and sometimes even belligerent. It’s almost a physiological response that we can’t control. “No one’s going to tell me what I can or cannot do,” or the new mantra of liberalism, “Who are you to judge me?” It’s the plague of our human egos, and unfortunately the bigger the ego, the more volatile the response.

Now consider the liberalism that began to emerge in the United States in the nineteen sixties, and now has a death grip on the American culture. In liberalism, everything is relative to the individual; “What’s right for you is right for you, and what’s right for me is right for me.” There are no longer any universal norms, morality is dependent upon who you are, where you were raised and what you were taught. There is no more right and wrong, if you can justify it in your own mind, then its ok. Contrast that arrogance to teachings that emphasized humility and piety, and you can understand the secular-progressive’s unwillingness to embrace the Nazarene.

However, morality is not relative, and the world works the way it works, because it works. The cultures that are hardworking and virtuous tend to succeed and flourish, while those that a decadent and corrupt tend to decay and collapse. And no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that self-evident truth.

Despite Tigranes’ arrogance and unwillingness to accept the bearer of bad news, he couldn’t avoid the inevitable. Lucius Lucullus defeated the Armenian army and lay siege to the capital of Tigranocerta. The city eventually fell and the legionnaires literally deconstructed the city, plundering it of its wealth, power and prestige.

The other night I was watching television, flipping back and forth between a documentary on Jack Nicklaus and the news coverage of the Baltimore riots.

Jack Nicklaus was somewhat of an enigma on tour. His fellow competitors often joked that golf was his part-time job. Unlike most touring pros, Nicklaus limited the number of tournaments he played in and centered his career around the Majors; The Masters, US Open, British Open and the PGA Championship. His Majors record of 18 first place finishes, and an equally impressive 19 seconds, will probably never be broken. However, Nicklaus’ real reason for limiting the number of tournaments in which he participated was his family.

Jack Nicklaus is a devoted husband, father of five, and grandfather of twenty-two. His family has always been his first priority. When he started his golf career, he promised his wife Barbra that he’d never be away from home for more than two weeks, and he’s never broken that promise. He would finish a tournament on the West Coast on Sunday evening at 7 PM, and fly through the night to attend one of his children’s baseball games or school plays. Jack Nicklaus was a father first and a golfer second.

Although Nicklaus may have been unique on tour, he wasn’t unique for the times. Growing up, most of the Fathers in my neighborhood were family first dads. My Father often worked two and sometimes three jobs, but was always there on the sidelines of my Pop Warner games. He’d get up at 5 AM to drive me on my paper route if it was raining, or too cold to ride my bike. He coached my basketball team, and picked me up at 1 AM when I got off work as a bus boy. He sat me down at the kitchen table before I started High School and laid out my curriculum ensuring that I took; four years of Math, Science, History, English and Literature, and at least two years of a Foreign Language. My Father was and still is, one of the most important and influential people in my life.

Flipping to the coverage of the riots in Baltimore the contrast to the Nicklaus documentary was striking. Watching the chaos, I couldn’t help wondering about the fathers of those young people burning down their own city. Where were they? Why weren’t they out there taking charge of their children? The sad truth, is that the fathers don’t exist. Obviously, there is a biological father somewhere, but a father in the sense of what I know to be a father, they don’t exist in those neighborhoods. Seventy percent of those children are born out-of-wedlock and grow up in a single-parent home raised by their mother or grandmother.

The number-one indicator that a child will drop out of school, get involved with drugs, participate in criminal activity, and end up in jail, isn’t race, income, or education. It’s being born out-of-wedlock. The simple truth is, that a child born to and raised by a single mother has a much harder time succeeding in life than a child born and raised in a home with both a mother and father.

What happened? How did we get to this point?

The disintegration of the family is not just an African American problem; it’s an American problem. Fifty years ago, the illegitimate birth rate in the United States was seven percent. Today, over forty-percent of all births are out-of-wedlock. For the first time in our history, less than half our children are being raised in a home with two parents. It’s more prevalent in the African-American community because for far too long they were forced to exist on the periphery of our society.

Every ethnic group that has immigrated to America has struggle to establish themselves. However, no group has faced more adversity than the African-Americans. For the first two hundred and fifty years, they were enslaved. For the next one hundred years, they were systematically and institutionally discriminated against. And when the country finally began to wake up to the injustice and started allowing them access to the opportunities that the rest of us enjoyed; they were blindsided by the rise of liberalism.

The basic premise of liberalism is that it is the role of government to interject itself into the lives of its citizens in order to improve those lives. It is the ideology that inspired the War on Poverty, and ushered in the largest expansion of the Federal Government in history. Today, there are 126 federal programs, staffed by thousands of bureaucrats, trying to eradicate poverty. However, no matter how well intentioned these programs may be, they will never succeed. Not because the government is incompetent or corrupt. They will never succeed simply because the bureaucrats who administer these programs are human beings.

Human nature dictates that human beings will always act in their own self-interest. The livelihoods of the people running these programs is dependent upon the growth and expansion of the bureaucracy, and not the successful completion of the mission. The unintended but inevitable consequence of these programs is that they encourage and promote the irresponsible and self-destructive behavior that keeps people in poverty. This is why the War on Poverty has been a complete and total failure.

The African-American community has been so adversely affective because they are the most vulnerable. They have existed on the edge of our society for decades. When the entitlement bureaucracy began to expand, they were the first ones pushed over the cliff into the abyss of dependence and dysfunction. If we don’t reverse course soon, our family structure, and society will collapse.

To those advocates of liberalism, who continue to insist that more government is the answer, “You don’t know Jack!”

The violence and self-destructive outrage in Ferguson Missouri is not what happens when a verdict doesn’t go your way. It’s what happens when you’re force to confront the brutal reality of life. And that reality for many in Ferguson and other inner-city communities is that there is no opportunity, no hope, and no way out of the crime ridden, drug infested neighborhoods into which they are born, and in many instances, will prematurely die. The outrage in Ferguson is what happens when America breaks her promise.

Fifty-years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. In his speech, he put forth his vision of the “Great Society.” It was a promise of a utopia where children would be educated, cities rebuilt, lives enriched, and people liberated from the boredom and restlessness of the work-a-day world. It was a bold vision, a courageous idea, but was it achievable? Could any nation build such a society?

The belief was that if any nation could do it; the United States of America could. We’d survived the Great Depression, won the Second World War, became the world’s first economic superpower, and were winning the race to put a man on the moon. There was nothing we couldn’t do. We assembled the “best and the brightest,” and set out to win the war on poverty. Within 2 years of LBJ’s address, Congress enacted over two hundred major pieces of legislation, and more than a dozen landmark initiatives. It was the largest expansion of the Federal Government in history, and a jump start to five decades of entitlement spending that would exceed 22 trillion dollars.

How are we doing, are we winning the war on poverty? Well, in 1965 when LBJ declared war on poverty, the poverty rate was 15 percent, and today it’s still 15 percent. However, today, 57 percent of the children in Detroit live in poverty, as do 54 percent of the children in Cleveland, and 47 percent of the children in Buffalo, and on and on across the major urban centers of America. So, I guess the answer would have to be; not very well.

What happened? America sincerely tried to be the Good Samaritan. We saw a neighbor in need, delivered him to the inn keeper, opened our wallets and said, “Here, take what you need.” However, unlike the Good Samaritan of scripture, we never returned to check-up on our neighbor. Had we, we would have realized that we had checked him into the “Hotel California.”

Today, there are 126 Federal programs fighting poverty. We spend $20,000 a year for every poor person in America, or $60,000 for a family of three. Between the Federal and State governments, we spend a trillion dollars a year on entitlement programs. Now, if you consider that the Federal poverty level for a family of three is $19,790, there should be no poverty in America, but that’s not the case. Why?

Well, there are tens of thousands of federal, state and local bureaucrats in the business of fighting poverty, and for them at least, business is booming. Private organizations that deliver services to the poor, like the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities, spend less than 10 percent of their budgets on overhead and administration. More than 90 cents of every dollar that they spend, goes directly to aid someone in need. The government, on the other hand, spends between 40 and 50 percent of their budget on over head and administration, meaning that less than 60 cents of every dollar goes to help someone in need. The ones most benefiting from our entitlement system are the ones working for the government. We’ve spent 50-years and $22 trillion investing in the entitlement bureaucracy, and created an entire class of citizens who are terminally dependent upon the government for their subsistence. That’s the entitlement state, “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.”

How then do we eliminate poverty? The truth is, that as long as human beings have free-will, poverty will always exist. People will always make poor decisions and find themselves in dire circumstances. That is an unfortunate part of the human condition. However, we can certainly do better than a 15 percent poverty rate.

Between 1940 and 1965, the poverty rate in United States dropped from 39 percent to 15 percent. It was so high in 1940 because America was still coming out of the Great Depression. Then World War II mobilized the entire nation, and created the world’s first economic superpower. The war decimated the cities and factories of Europe and Asia, but left America untouched. The US factories that built the trucks, tanks and plains that won the war, returned to building the automobiles, televisions, and washing machines that would be bought by the ever expanding middle-class. America prospered while the rest of the world rebuilt. That coupled with the best public education system in the world, and the construction of the interstate highway system that gave the rural poor access to the jobs in urban factories, and “most” Americans had an unlimited number of opportunities to better their lives.

Opportunity, not entitlements, reduces poverty. Entitlements breeds dependence. Opportunity provides a path to prosperity and independence. As the philosopher Maimonides said: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” The entitlement state will never reduce poverty because the government agencies and bureaucracies that administer the entitlement programs have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The Great Society and war on poverty has been a colossal failure. There will never be peace, until we can restore the true promise of America. And the true promise of America is an abundance of opportunity for all its citizens, to exercise their God given free-will to advance and improve their lives.

In the fall of 1919, the German Workers Party was struggling to increase its membership. It had been in existence for almost a year, but had only signed up 55 members. So, the party leadership placed an ad in a Munich paper inviting the public to a meeting. On October 16th, about a hundred people gathered in a beer cellar to hear some of its party members speak. Second on the docket that evening was one of its directors; a failed art student, and army corporal of absolutely no importance.

The corporal captivated the audience that evening. His ideas were appealing, his oratory skills hypnotic, and after 30-minutes, he had “electrified” the room with enthusiasm. The German Workers Party received over 300 marks in contributions that night. And thus began the assent of Adolf Hitler. Fifteen years later, Hitler would stand in front of over a million Germans at the Nuremberg rally, as their absolute dictator.

How did that happen? How could an obscure nobody rise from corporal to dictator? Why did the German people let it happen? Why didn’t anyone stop him? The simple answer is that the German people liked what Hitler was saying. They liked his ideology.

What was the Nazi ideology? The Nazi ideology was anti-Capitalist, anti-Communist, and anti-Semitic. It created the idea of a Master Race, and promoted the belief that the German people, or Aryans, were superior to all other races, because they were the only truly pure white race. It was a vile, and evil ideology.

Still, how could the German people let a mad man like Hitler come to power? The Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, was vindictive and punitive. It seized Germany’s most valuable land, dismantled her industry, and imposed financial reparations that cripple her economy. In the 1920s, Germany was a humiliated and poor nation. Hitler promised to restore her to glory, and the German people bought what he was selling. Not all Germans of course. It’s true that many enthusiastically embraced his ideology and became hard-core Nazis. However, others were simply sympathetic to his ideas and unwilling to oppose him. And there were those who knew he was insane but chose to dismiss him as irrelevant. In the end, Hitler had enough support and not enough opposition, to enable him to come to power.

The German people allowed the Nazi ideology to infect and consume all aspects of their culture; their art, music, theater, literature, and even their children. They alone bear the responsibility for the war in Europe, the holocaust, the horrors it inflicted, and the millions that suffered and died. Once the German people willingly traded democracy for a dictatorship, and gave the reins of power to Hitler, they became the enemies of humanity. By 1934, there was no such thing as a good German.

Today, the Muslim world is in danger of being consumed by the ideology of Islamic extremism. This ideology believes that Islam is the one true religion, and that the entire world must live under an Islamic state, and Sharia law. Sharia is a religious and legal code that regulates public and private behavior, as well as personal beliefs. The extremist interpretation of Sharia is barbaric. It advocates death for non-believers, the subjugation of women, and the execution of homosexuals. It is an intolerant and sadistic assault on human dignity, and basic human rights.

It’s important to understand that what we are witnessing in the Middle East is not a war with Islam; it is a war for Islam. The extremists are trying to establish their Islamic state (caliphate) in order to dominate the region. If they succeed, they will inevitably turn their attention to the west, and then, we will witness the war with Islam. For now, they are still engaged in the war for Islam.

Like the Germans before them, only the Muslim people can stop the extremist ideology from consuming their culture. It is their responsibility, and theirs alone! The western powers can, and should help. However, nothing the west can do, including putting “boots on the ground,” will succeed, unless the good and decent Muslims of the world universally and summarily reject the ideology of radical Islam. If they fail to do so, and they allow the extremists to come to power, there will be no such thing as a good Muslim.

What will happen if they don’t? What if they allow the extremist ideology to consume the Muslim world? Well, the western democracies will once again have to wage war to defeat the ideology of evil. And, how will we do that? The same way we did it last time!

By the fall of 1944, the Allies were certain that the war was almost over. We had pushed Germany’s armies out of most of Europe, decimated its military-industrial complex, destroyed its infrastructure and crippled its ability to wage war. The Third Reich was finished. Then in December, the Germans launched a major offensive into the Ardennes region of Belgium. We eventually won the Battle of the Bulge, but it showed our leadership that there would be no easy surrender. To end the war, the Allies made the strategic decision to start targeting and bombing Germany’s population centers. Up until then, we tried to limit the civilian casualties by focusing on military targets. Now, the civilians became the targets. From January through April 1945, we systematically firebombed German cities killing over a half-million civilians, and leaving an additional seven and a half-million homeless.

In the spring of 1945, despondency and fatalism occupied Germany. With their armies defeated, and their cities smoldering in ruin; the German people wandered aimlessly among the piles of corpses trying to come to terms with the sad reality of their situation. The Nazi ideology was an evil lie. On April 30th, Adolf Hitler committed suicide, and on May 7th, Germany surrendered.