Samuel Adams and Slavery

Samuel Adams wrote in 1776:

I fully agree in Opinion with a very celebrated Author, that "Freedom or Slavery will prevail in a (City or) Country according as the Disposition & Manners of the People render them fit for the one or the other"; and I have long been convinced that our Enemies have made it an Object, to eradicate from the Minds of the People in general a Sense of true Religion & Virtue, in hopes thereby the more easily to carry their Point of enslaving them. Indeed my Friend, this is a Subject so important in my Mind, that I know not how to leave it. Revelation assures us that "Righteousness exalteth a Nation." Communities are dealt with in this World by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general Character. The diminution of publick Virtue is usually attended with that of publick Happiness, and the publick Liberty will not long survive the total Extinction of Morals.

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False gods -- Fascist symbols

Happy Birthday, Bill Wilberforce

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wilberforce.

Here is an excellent commentary by Charles Colson.

The Bible says slaves are to obey their masters, even wicked masters. They are to work for their masters as if they were working for Christ.

So wasn't it a mistake for Wilberforce to seek to abolish the institution of slavery?

The Bible says citizens are to obey their government, even wicked governments. They are not to resist them, but are to pray for them.

Would it be a mistake if we followed the example of Wilberforce and sought to abolish the institution of "government?" Why? Why not? Please add your comment below.

Note: I'm not saying we should abolish slavery the way it was abolished in the U.S.: by suspending the Consitution and killing half a million human beings. Wilberforce abolished slavery without firing a shot. Nor should we abolish the government the way America's Founding Fathers did so: by taking up arms and killing thousands of human beings.

But we need to abolish theft, murder, and kidnapping, and especially the institution that thrives on all three, stealing trillions of dollars to pursue its objectives of vengeance and the overthrow of governments of which it does not approve.

We need more Wilberforces today.

Roots of Violence in Iraq

As a self-proclaimed Christian President, George Bush should have understood that missionaries, not the Marines, could bring peace to Iraq. Peace is not possible in a nation where 59.1% of the women believe it's OK for their husbands to hit them.

"Racial Profiling": Economizing on Information Costs

Is Racial Profiling Racist? by Walter E. Williams

Death and Taxes

Separation of Church and Religion

I believe in the separation of church and religion.

I do not believe in the "Separation of Church and State." (I believe in the abolition of church and state. [The non-violent abolition, of course.])

James 1:27 defines true religion:

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

It is a terrible mistake to say that religion should be kept out of society and left in churches. (It may also be a mistake to say that "pure religion" can still be found in most churches.) We need to get true religion out of churches and spread around our whole society.

True religion is what made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history. If there's any pure religion left in churches, we need to ship it to Washington D.C.

True religion needs to be practiced at home, in school, at work, and in every area of life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The idea that religion should be kept in churches is destroying America. (Unless we're talking about churches that promote false religions.)

Jo Ann Emerson on ObamaCare

One might think that the healthcare debate is a dividing line for politicians.

Every plan for healthcare "reform" now being put forth by Democrats would cripple our economy and cause death to many people through rationing or abortion.

Either that, or the failure of Republicans to pass one of the "reform" measures will cripple our economy through the continued increase in healthcare costs, and cause death and suffering to millions without insurance or access to quality healthcare.

I believe the first option is true.

But one thing all parties should agree on, neutrality is not an option. Got to take a stand!

But Jo Ann Emerson, representative for Missouri's 8th District, seems to disagree with me.

I took advantage of an online contact-your-congressman website and sent an email to Rep. Emerson asking a simple question: Will you vote for a healthcare plan that we will be forced to accept but Congress won't. She didn't answer that simple question. Instead, I received this:

Thank you for contacting me about the debate over health care reform taking place in Congress and across the country. This is such an important issue for our nation, I am very glad to have the benefit of your opinions on the subject.

I didn't really write to give my opinion, just wanted an answer to the direct question: Will you vote for a healthcare plan that we will be forced to accept but Congress won't. But I suppose every letter to constituents starts off with this kind of boilerplate.

The number of Americans without health insurance is a continuing concern to me and to other members of the U.S. Congress. I take this problem very seriously, as it disproportionately affects Americans in rural congressional districts. In response to the increase in the uninsured population, policymakers at the state and federal levels of government have been searching for effective, affordable and responsible ways to expand access to health insurance coverage.

More boilerplate, I guess. But on an issue this important, I guess I would have skipped the boilerplate and gotten right to the important issues facing us.

As I am sure you have heard, debate over the past few weeks has centered on a particular legislative proposal from the House Democratic leadership. However, moderate Democrats and Republicans were shut out of the debate. Fortunately for those of us who think this legislation costs too much and does little to protect the quality coverage of Americans who like their plan and their doctor today, negotiations have opened back up.

Does she really believe the Democrats' proposal "does [too] little?" Should government do more in the field of healthcare?

Today the poor and working class have medical care hundreds of times better than the healthcare only the richest had 100 years ago. This is due to capitalism. When Washington D.C. started "reforming" health care to "protect" certain groups, we began to have a "healthcare crisis."

As congressional discussions on health care move forward in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, I will continue to stand on the principles that are valued in Southern Missouri.

What are those principles? What should those principles be? I believe one of the most important things a Congressman can be is an educator. Is anyone learning anything important from this letter?

At the end of this debate, it is my hope to vote on a bill that provides a pathway to health care for those Americans who do not have it today without corrupting the doctor-patient relationship for those who do.

A Congressional bill will do this? Every time Washington D.C. tries to "provide" something, it takes from those who have, claims to give to the have-nots (actually nobody in America has-not; though some have less than those who have more; this is not a problem), and destroys the system that produces goods and services for everyone.

Americans deserve a bill that protects people from extravagant costs without sacrificing care. Americans deserve a bill that extends coverage to those in rural areas without exploding the deficit.

How can a government law possibly do this?

I truly appreciate your interest in this issue, and I hope you will continue to follow this debate closely as Congress addresses the health care issue.

Kind regards,

Jo Ann Emerson

Didn't answer my question, and didn't say anything important. I guess she's against the Democrats' bills. But if the same kind of bill were sent to Congress from the Bush White House, I think she'd vote for it.

What's a Federal Government For?

Libertarians believe in smaller government for two reasons: Constitutional reasons, and economic reasons.

Politicians who have taken an oath to "support the Constitution" have violated one of its most central principles: that of "enumerated powers." They have exercised powers which were never given to the federal government in the Constitution. This includes job training, environment, education, nutrition, housing, income security, health, and inflating the currency by creating huge amounts of "fiat money." Cutting "unconstitutional" programs would mean cutting more than 90% of the federal government.

Then there are those pesky laws of economics. The best economists have shown that capitalism works better than socialism. Politicians and bureaucrats lack the fundamental economic incentives of profit, competition, and calculation that that motivate businesses to make our food, computers, cell phones, cars, and houses better every year, yet with fewer and fewer hours of our labor required to purchase them.

America was a great idea. A land of "Liberty Under God." A land where anyone could work and save and eventually live safely under his own "Vine & Fig Tree." America was once the most prosperous and admired nation on earth. Today it is bankrupt and despised.

So why do we have a federal government? Why not abolish it entirely?

America's Founding Fathers did not believe we needed a federal government to invade foreign nations. America's Founders thought we needed a federal government to protect the new united States from foreign invasion. The most important justification for a federal government is "national security."

But as we've seen this past weekend, by looking at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9 - see the list of posts here), the federal government has been a miserable failure at providing "security." Not just for Americans who lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation during the "Cold War," and not just for the millions of people the federal government has intentionally killed, but for millions of people whose deaths might have been prevented if the U.S. federal government had not gotten involved. As arm-chair quarterbacks, we can speculate about what might have happened, but Ralph Raico makes a good point when he speculates,

it is quite possible that Japan would have been in a position to prevent the Communists from coming to power in China. And that could have meant that the thirty or forty million deaths now attributed to the Maoist regime would not have occurred.

Japan would have been worse than Communism? Does anyone still believe the federal government is omniscient, or a prophet? Overwhelmingly and undeniably, the real winner of World War II, thanks largely to the U.S. federal government, was communism in Europe (Stalin), and communism in Asia (Mao) -- for the benefit of whom millions of German and Japanese civilians were killed by the U.S, enemies unquestionably worse than the declared enemies of the U.S. federal government (Hitler and Hirohito).

The federal government failed to protect us from foreign invasion at Pearl Harbor, where 2,345 military and 57 civilians were killed, and then retaliated by killing over a million Japanese, in acts that were arguably "war crimes," described by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Truman as "not worthy of Christian man."

The federal government failed to prevent the 9-11 attack, where 3,000 Americans died, but the federal government has killed perhaps a million Iraqis during the Bush-Clinton-Bush regime, most of whom probably didn't like Saddam Hussein any more than we did, and Iraq is now an Islamic Theocracy.

In both Japan and Iraq, the real core problem was the worldview of the people, which led to Emperor Worship rather than Liberty Under God. The federal government would have better served America and the entire world by holding a going-out-of-business sale and encouraging capitalists and missionaries to go to Japan and Iraq a generation before the pretext for war became a reality.

If we had no federal government at all, Missouri would be the 38th largest nation on earth. And who would be the enemy of Missouri? Nobody, except perhaps those terrorist regimes and emperor-worshipping thugocracies that have been the recipients of billions of dollars in federal aid and military support during the 20th century.

The only way to save the idea of America is to Abolish the Federal Government.

Religion and National Security

This weekend we have tried to call the reader's attention to the two fateful days in August, 1945, in which the United States ushered in the Atomic Age. We have discussed the use of nuclear weapons against the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki here, here, here, here, and here. Now let's step back and get a bigger picture, and apply the lessons to the current "war on terror."

America originally thought of herself as "a City upon a Hill." The metaphor is from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, but America's settlers also thought of themselves as being planted on "the Holy Mountain" mentioned by Micah and other prophets. Every American had a shot at the American Dream, which was living safely under one's own "Vine & Fig Tree."

Evangelism, not imperialism, was the core of America's foreign policy. (Those two links are key; we will not repeat their arguments here.)

The first proposal, on May 15, 1776, that the 13 original American colonies become independent States, was not a proposal that they become atheistic states. The Declaration of Independence was a Theocratic declaration of 13 Christian Theocracies. They formed a union primarily to protect themselves from foreign invasion. Nothing in the Constitution of 1789 was intended to repudiate or overturn America's Theocratic character. In Federalist 45, Madison described the relationship created by the Constitution between the federal government and the states in these famous words:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former [powers delegated to the federal government] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. [emphasis added]

The Foreign Policy given us by our Founders was simple, and one pundit summed it up by saying "Businessmen make the best diplomats." When American businessmen travel to foreign nations, they sell goods and services which increase the standard of living of those nations. If they're honest and don't defraud people, then the world loves Americans.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible."
— Washington, Farewell Address (1796) [Washington’s emphasis]

I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one] which ought to shape its administration,…peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
— Jefferson, First Inaugural Address (1801) [our emphasis]

In 1892 the U.S. Supreme Court summed up America's history from "Christ-bearer" Columbus to the present day, by warning an increasingly-secular nation that America was "a Christian nation." That case was overturned early in the 20th century, as we saw in a previous post, and the United States became a secular government that put itself ahead of God.

The dominion-oriented Puritan Calvinism that created America was pretty much dead in the United States by this time. The idea of America as a City upon a Hill, from which the Gospel would go out to every nation on earth, turning the world into a global Christocracy, was also dead.

It is beyond the scope of this humble blog post to write the history of the world from the Holy Trinity decision to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Highlights can illuminate the trends.

In 1910, two Union Oil Co. millionaires began funding the publication of a series of pamphlets entitled "The Fundamentals." The two were rivals of the Rockefellers. A decade later, one would also donate a significant sum to the Northern Baptist Convention, which then pledged that its missionaries would adhere to fundamentalist theology. Gary North reports that

This enraged John D. [Rockefeller], Sr., who had Junior inform every denomination and missionary society that had been receiving Rockefeller funds that there would be no further gifts if their missionaries were forced to espouse fundamentalism. This action, Senior told Junior, was designed "to forestall, if possible, the ill effect that their still treacherous action may have on the final carrying out of our ideas."

These "ideas" came into conflict in the persons of Pearl Buck, Presbyterian missionary to China and J. Gresham Machen, whose excommunication from the Presbyterian Church was front-page news for months in the New York Times.

Gary North's book Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church, could also be subtitled, "How the Liberals Captured U.S. Foreign Policy." Foreign missions and foreign policy were both hijacked by the religion of Secular Humanism. Suffice it to say that Pearl Buck and other liberal missionaries to China and Japan were not interested in "exercising dominion," or helping to create a Christian Republic such as America was. This chapter in particular is helpful in seeing what was not happening in China and Japan. Nobody was planting governments in Japan like the Puritans planted on God's "Holy Mountain" in America.

World War I was perhaps the first great evidence of this secularization of the U.S. The entire nation mobilized -- not for evangelism -- but for militarism. The foreign policy of Washington and Jefferson was scrapped. Not one in 100 Americans in 2009 can give a cogent explanation of why the U.S. entered the Great War. There was nothing Christian about that war, or the treaty that was imposed on Germany, and it paved the way for Hitler and Stalin, as Jim Powell and others have observed.

American Churches, both fundamentalist and liberal, united behind Wilson's War. (North, p. 391f.) From the time of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) through the "Mukden Incident" (1931) through the "Rape of Nanking" (1937), Japan was ignored by fundamentalist churches, who were preoccupied fighting liberalism at home, while liberals were promoting humanism around the world. Chapter 11 of North's book, entitled "Conflict Over Foreign Missions," describes the meeting between E.H. Harriman and the founder of The New Republic magazine, who eventually became Teddy Roosevelt's U.S. Consul in Mukden, and upon returning to J.P. Morgan headquarters in the U.S., discovered "where the real power lies in this country."

Flashback to Thomas Jefferson: When the young United States was pestered by "native American" terrorists at the time of the signing of the Constitution, the general strategy for dealing with them was to evangelize them, to civilize them, and not to "bomb them back to the stone age." What Japan needed in the decades before the Japanese invasion of China was Christian civilization.

Keep in mind that the reason why Japan was not allowed to surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped, was because Truman held out for "unconditional surrender," which was held over the Emperor's head like a sword of Damocles. Historians, both traditional and revisionist, agree that the Japanese Emperor was worshipped like a god, and Japanese soldiers would fight for the Emperor to the death. Japan's problem was therefore fundamentally a religious problem.

Read that last sentence again. Since when do Christians drop atomic bombs rather than missionaries on those who adhere to a false religion?

Harry Truman frequently talked like the Christian President of a Christian nation. But it was just talk. President Bush had the same kind of rhetoric. But his war on Iraq was far less Christian than the treatment of the "heathen" by Thomas Jefferson. And certainly less Christian than that of James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," who said legislators should vote against any bill if

the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift, ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of (revelation) from coming into the Region of it; and countenances, by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of levelling as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of truth, the Bill with an ignoble and unchristian timidity would circumscribe it, with a wall of defence, against the encroachments of error.

Japan labored under a false religion, similar in many ways to the Emperor worship which 1st-century Christians faced under the Caesars, but 20th-century Christians rereated from the world and left dominion-through-missionaries to the Rockefellers and liberals. Rather than turning the Japanese into American Puritans through missionary outreach, liberals incinerated them with nuclear weapons.

Liberals thought that they could orchestrate world events to bring about a New World Order. They prevented the Japanese from taking over China, but allowed the Communists to take control of China and murder more than 50 million Chinese.

• Why Hiroshima Was Bombed: The 'Utopians' Duped a Nation
• Dropping the Bomb By John F. McManus
• How China Became Communist: to understand why Mao triumphed, it is necessary to look beyond the battlefields in China to the fateful decisions emanating from Yalta and Washington.

Was this a "success" or a "failure" of liberal secularist foreign policy? If the takeover of China by the communists marks a "success" of liberal foreign policy, then it should be obvious that we cannot trust the liberal Establishment. If the "cure" (atomic bombing of Japan and communist takeover of China) was worse than the "disease" (Japanese takeover of China), then liberal foreign policy was a failure, and again, we should not trust the liberal Establishment.

The U.S. federal government failed to orchestrate world events in a way that preserved "Liberty Under God." Too many Christians still put their faith in the federal government.

Rather than dropping the atomic bombs, the United States should have followed original American foreign policy, should have endorsed Calvinist missionary efforts, and should have had "a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence." God can change the heart of the Emperor. Trusting in God is the only path to national security.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was truly a worldview issue.

(If you've had a chance to look at the links we've provided this past weekend regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they undoubtedly consumed your entire weekend. Those last five links are next weekend's reading.)

Nagasaki - August 9, 1945

Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

Imagine that you had been President in 1945. Two days earlier, an atomic bomb had annihilated Hiroshima, and somewhere around 100,000 human beings -- mostly civilians -- are now dead. It was clearly one of the most significant events in human history.

Do you let the significance of that event sink in, hoping that the Japanese will now surrender?

On August 10, Truman told his cabinet that he was reluctant to drop a third atomic bomb on Japan. "The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible," he said; he didn’t like the idea of killing "all those kids."

Why didn't this moral reasoning interdict the bombing of Nagasaki?

The lack of time between the bombings has led some historians to state that the bombing of Nagasaki was "certainly unnecessary", "gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst", and not jus in bello.

But then, this moral reasoning should have taken place before the bombing of Hiroshima. But something took priority over this moral value.

It was not the Japanese Emperor. The U.S. had demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan, meaning giving the U.S. total jurisdiction over the Emperor and his control over the Japanese people. But in the end, Japan surrendered conditionally, that is, on the condition that the Emperor be allowed to retain his throne, which he did until 1986.

The U.S. knew for months before the atomic bombings that Japan was ready to end the war. On July 12, the Soviets (with whom Japan had a pact of neutrality) were given this message:

His Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greater evil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all the belligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated. But so long as England and the United States insist upon unconditional surrender, the Japanese Empire has no alternative but to fight on with all its strength for the honor and existence of the Motherland.

The war could have ended before a quarter of a million Japanese were nuked.

Bombing Nagasaki soon after Hiroshima also prevented Russia from entering the war against Japan and securing a piece of the post-war spoils.

Having dropped the uranium-based bomb on Hiroshima, the decision to drop the second atomic bomb also gave the U.S. an opportunity to deploy the more complex plutonium bomb on Nagasaki.

There are historians and other observers who may sincerely believe the atomic bombs were dropped out of military necessity. They weren't. They may then believe that they were dropped for shrewd strategic political reasons. This is the more probable motivation.

The question is then, was this political motivation in fact successful? Or better, was the political motivation for the atomic bombings of Japan what most people think it was?

Most people think that preventing Russian from entering the war against Japan was an anti-communist motivation. There were certainly those within the Truman Administration who were opposed to Soviet-style communism. But there were also those who supported. And those who opposed Soviet-style communism were not opposed to an Anglo-American-style one-world government. Here is an interesting discussion of this conflict in vision, from a source that may lean toward the left:

Why Hiroshima Was Bombed: The 'Utopians' Duped a Nation

Here is a view from the right:

Dropping the Bomb by John F. McManus

Here is a view, again from the right, on the post-war alignment of powers:

How China Became Communist:
to understand why Mao triumphed, it is necessary to look beyond the battlefields in China to the fateful decisions emanating from Yalta and Washington.

In summary, the U.S. prevented Japan from conquering China, only to allow the Communists to do so. The Communists killed over 40 million Chinese. Would the Japanese have been more vicious than the Communists? Would you have been willing to use atomic bombs to kill a quarter of a million men, women, and children, in order to hedge your bet on which side -- Japanese fascists or Chinese Communists -- was more evil?

Looking back, should we have trusted Washington D.C. to intervene in Asian affairs? Did Washington do so successfully? Did the unleashing of the atomic bombs make the world more secure? Did it increase "Liberty Under God?" Did atomic annihilation make America more moral, and ensure God's blessings on our nation?

These last questions show that the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan -- especially the second one on Nagasaki -- is a worldview question. It wasn't just a matter of military calculations. It was a matter of political prognostication, as well as deeply moral questions. The Truman Administration concluded that suspending God's Law against mass murder would bring long-term political prosperity ("blessing"). The failure to drop the bombs, the White House concluded, would not bring political blessings, even if we avoided metropolitan murder.

This is a religious faith. It is a religious worldview. It is faith in the saving power of the State and its military-industrial complex.

The federal government made its choice in the 20th century to repudiate God and put its trust in the military state. In 1892 the U.S. Supreme Court reminded an increasingly-secular nation that America was intended to be a Christian nation. That conclusion was overruled in the 20th century, when the Court ruled that our allegiance to the warfare State must be greater than any allegiance we have toward God, just as Truman demanded that Japan's allegiance to the U.S. be greater than her allegiance to the Emperor. Surrender must be "unconditional." The Court declared:

we are a nation with the duty to survive; a nation whose Constitution contemplates war as well as peace; whose government must go forward upon the assumption, and safely can proceed upon no other, that unqualified allegiance to the nation and submission and obedience to the laws of the land, as well those made for war as those made for peace, are not inconsistent with the will of God.

But as the bombing of Nagasaki shows, they are inconsistent.

Even if you believe the atomic bombing of Japan was necessary, the federal government does not have the right -- as the Framers of the Constitution envisioned this nation -- to impose that belief on Christians. But the Framers' vision for America was discarded long ago, and today a Christian who would defy a government order to nuke the enemy rather than love the enemy cannot become an American citizen.

Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 set forth the consequences of obedience and disobedience. Obedience to God's Commandments brings "blessings," while disobedience brings curses.

Among the curses the come upon a nation are these:

Deut 28:43 “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

Sound familiar? Or this:

Deut. 28:32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand.
41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.

America's Founders wanted their children to live confidently under their own Vine & Fig Tree. They would look at America in 2009 and see their posterity in captivity, not enjoying "the blessings of liberty." Seeing America deeply in debt, America's Founders would understand why "the borrower is the slave of the lender" (Proverbs 22:7).

When Israel asked for a king "like all the nations," they were warned,

“This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
. . . But the people refused to listen. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

America believed -- and still wants to believe -- that the Truman administration was more competent to fight our battles and bring "national security" -- indeed, global peace and security -- than God. As a result, we are in captivity. We are slaves. Sure, we have our microwaves and cell phones, but that just means we are still pampered slaves. If we continue to spend over $2,000 a year for every man, woman, and child in America on efforts to kill human beings in other nations, we may not long be so pampered.

The Worst Terrorist Act in History

Which is the worst terrorist act in history:

• The firebombing of Tokyo by the United States
(killing 80,000 in a single day)
• The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima by the United States
(killing 70,000 in a single day)

Come to the Ozarks Virtual Town Hall Saturday morning and be prepared to defend your answer!

FOAB

Who needs Hiroshima-sized nukes when a new 15-ton bomb would move aside "The Mother" and become "The Father Of All Bombs."

Obama Pentagon Plans Speeding Up 'Bunker Buster' Bomb

From the "Father of All Bombs" to an essay by Father Richard McSorley (written in a day before the Soviet Union became known as the "former" Soviet Union). McSorely was Director of the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University before his death in October, 2002:

It’s a Sin to Build a Nuclear Weapon

Does God approve of our intent to use nuclear weapons?

No, I don’t believe so. Moreover, I do not believe God approves of even the possession of nuclear weapons.

The danger of world suicide through nuclear war “compels us to undertake an evaluation of war with an entirely new attitude,” Vatican II said. Einstein puts it this way: “When we released the energy from the atom everything changed except our way of thinking. Because of that we drift towards unparalleled disaster.” Something of what Einstein means is this: we still look upon war as a conflict between two armies. The armies try to break through each other’s front line to reach the civilian population. When they do, the suffering is so great that the war is ended. However, war with nuclear weapons will reach the civilian immediately. Nuclear missiles take only 24 minutes to travel between Moscow and Washington. Both the speed and total penetrability are so different from war in the past that the word “war” should not be used. Something like “mutual suicide,” “Doomsday,” or “Apocalypse” would be more accurate.

What can a nuclear weapon do? In his book, Nuclear Disaster, Dr. Tom Stonier of Manhattan College, describes what would happen if a 20-megaton nuclear weapon was detonated in the center of New York City:

• The first result would be death. Ten times as many deaths as all the battle deaths that occurred in all the wars of American History-from the Revolution up to and including the 55,000 battle deaths in the Vietnam War. Seven million people would die from blast, firestorm, and radiation. The blast would cover a radius of ten miles. It would dig a crater 650 feet deep and a mile and a half across even if it was dropped in solid rock. All living things, even in the subways, would die. Trucks and automobiles would be hurled about like giant molotov cocktails spewing gasoline and fire. Most of the victims would be killed by falling buildings.

• As the shock front moved out to its ten-mile radius, the huge vacuum at its center would begin to draw the winds back at speeds up to 125 miles per boor. A house or tree caught in this double pressure would be blasted from both sides.

• Above the blast a ball of fire would form. This fireball, four miles wide, would swiftly rise to a height of about 20,000 feet. At its center the heat would be eight times hotter than the sun, its heat so intense that the unexposed human body 40 miles away, would receive second-degree burns. Two hundred and fifty miles away, as far as Washington, many people would suffer severe eye damage.

• Within a 39 mile radius a sea of fire would roll and boil fanned by the winds of the shock wave. Asphalt, which we do not generally consider combustible, would pass its combustion point of 800 degrees and burn.

• From the huge cavern dug by the blast, vaporized material pulled up into the air by the fireball would form a radioactive cloud of death. This cloud would blow with the wind over Connecticut towards Hyannis Port and out to the ocean. The cigar-shaped cloud would grow until it covered an area of X800 square miles. At the center the radiation intensity would be measured at about 2300 roentgen units. One roentgen unit is severe enough to damage a primate cell. Four hundred roentgen units are 50 percent lethal. The lethal capacity of this radiation would decrease as it got further from New York. What would a person need for protection from radiation? A shelter enclosed on all sides by two fees of concrete or three feet of earth with its own oxygen, food, and water supply for at least 96 hours, perhaps 12 days. At the end of ten months there would still be a dosage of 100 roentgen units over most of the area. This is not imaginary. It is carefully dd d f scales made through American testing and through measurements from Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing.

How many bombs do we really need? If it were not sinful to make a nuclear weapon, how many could we get by with? Between 204 to 440 megatons delivered on an enemy would be enough to destroy the possible enemy as a viable society. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara once argued this before Congress. No one has contested his figures. Delivery of 200 to 400 megatons would destroy 75 percent of the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union or any other collection of enemies.

The Soviet Union has roughly 200 cities with a population over 140,000. A bomb or two delivered on these cities would destroy them. McNamara’s argument was that we don’t need any more than 200 to 400 weapons delivered on target. He was trying to show the Congress and the country that beyond that amount we are not dealing with deterrence but overkill.

How many nuclear weapons do we have in our stockpile today? We have 30,000 nuclear weapons — 8000 large (strategic) weapons, and 22,000 smaller (tactical) weapons. We are making one new nuclear weapon every eight hours. We have enough weapons in our arsenal to deliver over 615,000 Hiroshima bombs. We can destroy every Soviet city of 100,000 or more 45 times over. The Soviet Union can destroy every American city of 100,000 or more 13 times over.

Can the use of these weapons be reconciled with the Gospel? Can even their existence be reconciled, with the command “Love your enemies”? The United States policy is that we will retaliate with massive nuclear destruction if we are attacked. This is the very heart of our nuclear deterrence policy. This is what we mean by deterrence. Is there any way that the Christian conscience can accept this policy of nuclear deterrence?

There are only two ways in which Christians have tried to reconcile war with the Gospel. One is the way practiced by the Christians in the first three centuries. During the first three centuries Christians considered joining the army incompatible with the following of Christ. The other is the just/unjust war theory of St. Augustine of the fourth century. This theory holds among other conditions that in any war there be a proportionality between the evil done and the good to be hoped for, and that there be no direct killing of the innocent. Have we in the nuclear age reached the point where we finally must say that war is incompatible with the Christian conscience? Can we imagine Jesus pushing the button that would release nuclear weapons on millions of people? Vatican II says that military personnel who refuse orders of this kind are worthy of the highest commendation. Vatican II calls the arms race a trap in which humanity is caught. Vatican II points out that the massive outlay of money for the weapons of death insures the hunger and deprivation of the masses of poor of the world. Vatican II condemns the use of weapons that destroy whole areas with all their people. Nuclear weapons will do all these things.

Can we go along with the intent to use nuclear weapons? What it is wrong to do, it is wrong to intend to do. If it is wrong for me to kill you, it is wrong for me to plan to do it. If I get my gun and go to your house to retaliate for a wrong done me, and then find there are police guarding your house, I have already committed murder in my heart. I have intended it. Likewise, if I intend to use nuclear weapons in massive retaliation, I have already committed massive murder in my heart.

The taproot of violence in our society today is our intent to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that all other evil is minor in comparison. Until we squarely face the question of our consent to use nuclear weapons, any hope of large scale improvement of public morality is doomed to failure. Even the possession of weapons which cannot be morally used is wrong. They are a threat to peace and might even be the cause of nuclear war. The nuclear weapons of Communists may destroy our bodies. But our intent to use nuclear weapons destroys our souls. Our possession of them is a proximate occasion of sin.

Technology in the nuclear age teaches us what we should have learned from our faith. As John Kennedy said at the United Nations in 1962: “Because of the nuclear sword of Damocles that hangs over us, we must cooperate together on this planet, or perish together in its flames through the weapons of our own hands.”

Dorothy Day said,

"All you have to do is compare what the Gospel asks and what war does. The Gospel asks that we feed the poor, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, house the homeless, visit the prisoner and perform works of mercy. War does the opposite. It makes my neighbor hungry, thirsty, homeless, a prisoner and sick. It kills them by the millions. The Gospel asks us to take up our cross. War asks us to lay the cross on others."

Hiroshima - 200,000 Killed

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (which oversees nuclear weapons technology),

No one will ever know for certain how many died as a result of the attack on Hiroshima. Some 70,000 people probably died as a result of initial blast, heat, and radiation effects. This included about twenty American airmen being held as prisoners in the city. By the end of 1945, because of the lingering effects of radioactive fallout and other after effects, the Hiroshima death toll was probably over 100,000. The five-year death total may have reached or even exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold.

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Today is the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The United States is the only nation to have used a nuclear weapon on civilian populations.

There is nothing unique about nuclear weapons. Tokyo had been all but destroyed by conventional firebombs before the U.S. used a more-dramatic single nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. The U.S. gets no credit for not using a nuclear bomb on Tokyo.

The U.S. more recently killed a greater number of civilians by blockading needed supplies to children and other civilians in Iraq. On 60 Minutes in May 1996, Leslie Stahl asked Clinton’s UN Ambassador, Madeline Albright, point blank: “We have heard that a half million children have died [from the sanctions]. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and you know, is the price worth it?”

Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."

Most Americans agree with Albright, who later became Clinton's Secretary of State. The Clinton-Bush-Obama regime has the support of a majority of Americans, and polls show continued support for the bombing of civilians in Hiroshima, just as we saw yesterday American support for torture.

Given the fact that the U.S. has mastered the art of democide (murder of entire civilian populations) without using nuclear weapons, unilateral nuclear disarmament would at least be a symbolic gesture.

But it would only be symbolic, and even that won't happen without national repentance.

Whitewashing Hiroshima: The Uncritical Glorification of American Militarism

Hiroshima marks nuclear anniversary Al Jazeera English - Asia-Pacific

AUGUST 6,1945 / THE DAY OF INFAMY EXPOSED

A new reality on nuclear weapons -- chicagotribune.com

Previous posts on this blog:

Hiroshima / Nagasaki 2006

Hiroshima - Gulf of Tonkin 2007

Ban Nuclear Weapons 2008

Reading Help for Congressmen

For Congressmen who don't have time to read the bills, Tim Ferriss reposts information on The PX Project: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes. (But will they have time to read the blog?)

Approving Torture

Which nation has the highest percentage of people who are willing to tolerate the use of torture:

a. China
b. Indonesia
c. Egypt
d. United States

The answer is "d" according to Economist Magazine.

If you support torture and you're driving right now, why not text your friends with this news!

Stupid Laws for Stupid Americans

I wonder what America's Founding Fathers would think if they traveled through time to our day and learned that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Says He'd Ban Texting While Driving If It Were His Decision [ABC News].

These questions might come to mind:

Are Americans so stupid that they type letters on palm-sized devices while driving 2-ton gasoline-filled machines 80 feet per second down asphalt highways?

Is Ray LaHood so stupid that he thinks people who type letters on palm-sized devices while driving 2-ton gasoline-filled machines 80 feet per second down asphalt highways even know who Ray LaHood is, or cares what decisions he makes?

Or are Americans so stupid that they obey every law the government passes?

Does the government really have the ability to know which text messages we send were sent while driving? (did you read that ABCnews link?)

I wouldn't doubt it.

And speaking of the "enumerated powers" doctrine, what's a "Transportation Secretary?"

Do politicians really think their stupid laws do any good?

I guess they do.

-----=====******O******=====-----

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.

(We also have no government -- nor do we want one -- powerful enough to deal with a nation of stupid people.)

Pre-Existing Conditions

I figured out a great way to win my campaign for Congress in 2010.

I just need a few million dollars.

So the idea came to me: I need to become the beneficiary of a multi-million dollar life insurance policy.

So I called up a leading Insurance broker and asked about getting a multi-million dollar life insurance policy on my father.

My father died about 8 years ago.

I was refused!

My rights were denied because of pre-existing conditions!

I'm writing my Congressman.

The broker had the unmitigated gall to tell me I don't know the first thing about insurance. He told me to look here:

Insurance: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics Library of Economics and Liberty

WikiAnswers - What is considered a preexisting condition

This can't be right. This would completely invalidate the current discussions in Washington D.C. about our "right" to health coverage for pre-existing conditions.

All those politicians are wrong?

Are they transforming "insurance" into confiscation and redistribution of wealth?

Anarchism vs. "Minarchism"

There might be a discussion emerging here. Brian Holtz doesn't like anarchism.