US History

J. Waller’s CCP/Cuba Prescient Warning 2-Years Ago

Published by Papa Giorgio

MIAMI HERALD reminds us of this recent news:

Remember the Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States earlier this year, the one the Biden administration said had been capable of collecting intelligence before the U.S. shot it down off the South Carolina coast?

Now there’s a new threat coming from China. It’s a lot more blatant and it’s just 90 miles away — in Cuba.

China is establishing a spy base in Cuba, according to information first reported by the Wall Street Journal. It would be focused on the United States and give Chinese intelligence agencies a way to track electronic communication in the southwestern U.S, though the region covered would include U.S. Southern Command — in Miami-Dade County — and other military facilities.

J. Waller was on this topic early…. in this interview 2-years ago  he points out the following:

Contras in Nicaragua with J Michael Waller and Michael Johns

Thomas Sowell and Carol Swain Slinging Red-Pills

Published by Papa Giorgio

This was my YouTube “rabbit hole” yesterday…. and I feel like this is a much better challenge than the cinnamon or Tide Pods type challenges.

Carol Swain get’s tagged in and does some suplexes of truth! My lingering thought is that our graceful God is opening up some young minds to the common grace of truth about history to a young generation as a “parting gift” to a man who has defended truth his whole life. The man is 92… I hope he lives more, but I surely hope after all these years, more and more young black men get red-pilled. I pray so.

These are the main videos watched below…. there are others, but these are the biggies:

  1. Facts About Slavery Never Mentioned In School | Thomas Sowell
  2. The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party | Carol Swain
  3. The Inconvenient Truth About the Republican Party | Carol Swain
  4. The British Crusade Against Slavery | Sargon of Akkad
  5. What Most ‘Experts’ Aren’t Telling You During Black History Month | Larry Elder Show
  6. The Hidden Truth Behind The End Of Slavery | Thomas Sowell
  7. The Bitter Truth About The Arab Slave Trade In Africa | Thomas Sowell
  8. TRUTH about the White Slave Trade | Forgotten History
  9. Thomas Sowell on the Current Black Culture | Thomas Sowell

I do these from oldest to newest  because in some cases, as you go through these people’s YouTube Channels, you can find the 1st time they see one of these… and then follow through their “evolution in thought” [so-to-speak] to inviting others to experience the mind opening they encountered.

FIRST, here is an OG on this topic… a red-pill passed out over a years ago:

Now This Youngster:

(3-WEEKS AGO)

He gets red-pilled at the 11:00 minute mark.

(2 WEEKS AGO)

OTHERS

From Oldest To Latest:

(1-YEAR AGO)

This beautiful young lady is red-pilled at the 8:40 mark where she mentions that “everything we been reacting to…” [all their previous channels videos] …”[this] is [her] wake-up call.”

(8-MONTHS AGO)

(7-MONTHS AGO)

(4-MONTHS AGO)

(4-MONTHS AGO)

(3-MONTHS AGO)

(3-MONTHS AGO)

(3-MONTHS AGO)

(2-MONTHS AGO)

LMAO… at the 14:20 mark the “George Washington” comment is funny!

The 26:00 minute mark is precious to me. These young men, starting out in life talking about — just finding out about “So-Well,” and asking if he has a book. Lol. I love it!

(2-MONTHS AGO)

(2-MONTHS AGO)

(2-MONTHS AGO)

(2-MONTHS AGO)

(2-MONTHS AGO)

(1-MONTH AGO)

(1-MONTH AGO)

(1-MONTH AGO)

(1-MONTH AGO)

(3-WEEKS AGO)

(2-WEEKS AGO)

(5-DAYS AGO)

(2-DAYS AGO)

(1-DAY AGO)

Thomas Sowell Goes Through The History of Slavery

Published by Papa Giorgio

(ORIGINALLY POSTED ON JAN 18, 2015)

  • “…virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat.”

Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), ix;

  • “…not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.”

Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 19.

Thomas Sowell’S Full Chapter on the “Real History of Slavery”

ISOLATED and ART ADDED OF THE ABOVE:

History of Slavery, Dixie Crats,
Southern Strategy, Party Switch, etc.

Slavery

The Third Force Act, also known as the KKK or the Civil Rights Act of 1871, empowered President Ulysses S. Grant to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired to deny equal protection of the laws and, if necessary, to suspend habeas corpus to enforce the act. Grant signed the legislation on this day in 1871. After the act’s passage, the president for the first time had the power to suppress state disorders on his own initiative and suspend the right of habeas corpus. Grant did not hesitate to use this authority. (POLITICO)

Terrorist Arm of the Democrats

Southern Strategy/Dixiecrats Switch

1) The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South, by Joseph A. Aistrup.
2) The Rise of Southern Republicans, by Earl Black and Merle Black.
3) From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994, by Dan T. Carter.
4) A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, by David L. Chappell.
5) The Emerging Republican Majority, by Kevin Phillips.

A Brief History of the Irish | Thomas Sowell (and More)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted on May 2, 2017)

Excerpt from Thomas Sowell “The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective“

UPDATED WITH THESE VIDEOS:

Were Irish People the “First Slaves in America”?

WHY WASN’T I TAUGHT THIS?! TRUTH about the Irish – First slaves brought to the Americas

Native American History In Public School (Howard Zinn Refuted)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Indians vs. Settlers – Letter from a Concerned Parent

An in-class (6th-grade) supplement from the desk of SeanG

(Updated 6/2023 and 11/2015 | Published here 7/2010 | Originally published 4/2007 | Letter written to school in 2004)

First and foremost, the reason behind this paper is not, let me repeat, is not to incite parents to call the school and complain about what our kid’s are being taught. We must keep in mind that the teachers only teach what they are told to teach. The purpose of this paper is meant as a supplement for those who wish to deepen their conversation of history with their son or daughter that reveals both sides of the historical coin.[1] I do not wish this paper to be viewed as an apologetic[2] for the atrocities that some in the name of religion or greed inflicted on the New World. We hear of these all the time, however, this truth can be twisted and misrepresented in a way that is a tool for special interest groups as well as being a means towards a political goal, which, in California, is par for the course.

I was somewhat troubled when I was going over my child’s in class social studies notes and homework. His notes were gleaned from an in class video[3] and discussion (the social studies book[4] does a decent job at staying neutral on the subject, so this critique deals primarily with the in class discussion and video). Below (fig. 1) is an exact reproduction of my son’s notes (cannot reproduce for this posting).

At first glance, to some, this may sound standard, and some may even believe that the European man was this horrible, and that the Native-American is angelic and at “one with nature.” This assumption that one is indoctrinated with needs a critical look however. And afterwords, you, the parent, can decide what is relevant to discuss with your kids, as I have done.

The first two columns on the Native-American and Explorers side will take some time to deal with. The Native-American certainly did believe that the land was a gift from their Creator[5]; however, the litany of tribal elders in the video speaking of the land as not being “owned” is merely semantics. Most tribes did – I repeat – did fight for territorial rights and hunting grounds. Some tribes, after depleting an area of its natural resources[6] (dealt with more in-depth later) would pack up and move, only to battle for more resources elsewhere. They may not have set up picket fences, but they sure did act as if this land was theirs. The video also portrayed contradictory statements by the elders of the various tribes, in one quote it was said that the Native-American did not own the land, and in another, we are told that the Comanche owned 600 million acres.

This comparison of the Native-Americans respecting nature so much that they thought it immoral to “own land,” (column #2) compared with the column to its right mentioning that the explorers “own[ed] humans,” is another play on words. Not only a play on words, but devoid of important information that could balance the times in which these two peoples tried to co-exist. The video makes it seem like slavery was the invention of the European settler, and only he was vile enough to practice such. The video showcased Native-Americans expressing their distaste for the white-man[7] in a virulent manner. For example (and bear in mind this quote – directly from the video – can be applied to this entire thesis):

“The white-man has always had the philosophy that they are thee dominant race. That it is their manifest destiny to take over the world, so to speak. Indians did not accept this idea. They were here as stewards of the land. They were here to take care of it while they were here, but they never owned it.”[8] (Emphasis added)

The video is conveniently silent on the matter of Native-Americans owning slaves, and not only that, but treating them horribly (e.g., separating other Native-American couples and forcefully taking the women as wives [rape], murder, etc). Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokee, Creeks and Seminoles[9] are just a few examples of tribes that owned slaves. To be fair, the social studies book did mention that the Aztecs, at least, owned slaves (p. 67).

There were, to be sure, peaceful tribes in the pre-Columbian America, like the Hopis of the Southwest and the Slaves (not to be confused with slaves) of sub-artic Canada. Most Native-American tribes, however, were familiar, long before Columbus, with the kinds of wickedness that had beclouded European (and the Asian and African continents) history for centuries: aggression, warfare, torture, persecution, bigotry, slavery, and tyranny,[10] just to name a few. This isn’t pointing fingers; it is merely a comment on the nature of man. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., comments,

“Cruelty and destruction are not the monopoly of any single continent or race or culture.”[11]

Not only did they own slaves prior to the European settlers coming to the New World, when West Africans were introduced to the Americas, the Native-Americans even took (acquired in raids, trading, or simply bought) them as slaves. Yes, you heard me; Native-Americans owned other Indians and Blacks as slaves, even some Whites after raids. The Seminoles were somewhat tolerant, and in the nineteenth century an Afro-Indian community, via intermarriage, in the state of Florida was generated (a gorgeous mix by the way, Seminole/African-American).

KEY: So we see that the Native-Americans, contrary to my child’s in-class video, did believe in “owning” people… pre-Columbus and post-Columbus. (Native Americans had enslaved each other for millennia!)

…when the Europeans took over the American West just in time to save the Hopi Indians from genocide at the hands of the Navajo (a fact that explains why maps of Arizona show the Hopi reservation as a tiny dot in the middle of the vast Navajo reservation).

Wilfred Reilly, Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2019), 35.

warfare that was common to kinship-based societies. Pueblo warfare was not, however, limited to blood feuds. Living in and near the densely populated but resource-poor Rio Grande valley, Pueblo tribes such as the Hopis, Zunis, Piros, and Tewas fought with one another to secure control of the region’s limited supply of arable land. Such economically and territorially motivated warfare led the Pueblo Indians to make their adobe towns—called pueblos—powerful defensive fortifications. They did so by building their settlements atop steep mesas, by constructing their multistory buildings around a central plaza to form sheer exterior walls, and by limiting access to the main square to a single, narrow, easily defended passageway. Navajo and Apache raiding parties consequently found the Pueblo Indians’ settlements to be tempting but formidable targets.

(ENCYCLOPEDIA.COM)

The significance of warfare varied tremendously among the hundreds of pre‐Columbian Native American societies, and its meanings and implications changed dramatically for all of them after European contact. Among the more densely populated Eastern Woodland cultures, warfare often served as a means of coping with grief and depopulation. Such conflict, commonly known as a “mourning war,” usually began at the behest of women who had lost a son or husband and desired the group’s male warriors to capture individuals from other groups who could replace those they had lost. Captives might help maintain a stable population or appease the grief of bereaved relatives: if the women of the tribe so demanded, captives would be ritually tortured, sometimes to death if the captive was deemed unfit for adoption into the tribe. Because the aim in warfare was to acquire captives, quick raids, as opposed to pitched battles, predominated. Warfare in Eastern Woodland cultures also allowed young males to acquire prestige or status through the demonstration of martial skill and courage. Conflicts among these groups thus stemmed as much from internal social reasons as from external relations with neighbors. Territory and commerce provided little impetus to fight.

[….]

On the Western Plains, pre‐Columbian warfare—before the introduction of horses and guns—pitted tribes against one another for control of territory and its resources, as well as for captives and honor. Indian forces marched on foot to attack rival tribes who sometimes resided in palisaded villages. Before the arrival of the horse and gun, battles could last days, and casualties could number in the hundreds; thereafter, both Plains Indian culture and the character and meaning of war changed dramatically. The horse facilitated quick, long‐distance raids to acquire goods. Warfare became more individualistic and less bloody: an opportunity for adolescent males to acquire prestige through demonstrations of courage. It became more honorable for a warrior to touch his enemy (to count “coup”) or steal his horse than to kill him.

Although the arrival of the horse may have moderated Plains warfare, its stakes remained high. Bands of Lakota Sioux moved westward from the Eastern Woodlands and waged war against Plains residents to secure access to buffalo for subsistence and trade with Euro‐Americans. Lakota Sioux populations, unlike most Indian groups, increased in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; this expansion required greater access to buffalo and thus more territory.

(OXFORD REFERENCE)

The column under that (#3a, and b) deals specifically with the Christian faith. Now, mind you, the video did mention that the explorers committed horrible acts against the Aztecs only after witnessing their ghastly sacrifices of other people (it didn’t mention that this included babies). After this the European explorers went about destroying those who wouldn’t become Christians – that is, rejecting their horrible religion that included human/baby sacrifice.

Although the video mentioned this in passing, it made the explorers seem worse than they were.[12] I am all for discussing the blight of Western-man and his religion, but in all fairness, this should slice both ways. From what I can tell from my child’s notes, and after viewing the video for myself, the in-class work chose “to focus on the Native Americans as the ‘victims’ because they lost their lives and culture as a result of European progress. In doing so… [it]… completely ignores a large portion of history in which both Native Americans and Europeans ‘matched atrocity for atrocity’.”[13] This is an important distinction that was made in my sons fifth-grade class, that is: a moral position was chosen and advanced, rather than history being taught as just that, history.

The last blurb in the “Explorers” side of the column (row 4, side b) reflects as well the videos hatred for the European settler, and again, the video is very sure in its quoting Native-Americans who are vehemently “anti-white-man.” We want to take over the world still, or so the video seems to say. What can you do? The last column (Row 5, side a) on the “Native-American” side mentions, “They were stewards of the land.” This is another long one, and mind you, I will list some web sites to visit for some short commentary as well.

This is similar to an old VHS video my son’s 5th grade class watched regarding American Indian and Settler relations. This video excerpt is from the video “American History for Children Video Series: Native American Life,” Narrated by Irene Bedard (Schlessinger Video Productions, 1996). Like I said, I viewed a similar VHS tape when I checked out the video in 2004 from my son’s elementary school.

We, of course, have all heard of the Native-Americans using every part of the buffalo, not wasting, caring for Mother Nature and the like. However, the whole story is conveniently left out.[14] The entire buffalo was only used in times of want. In times of plenty, some tribes would run entire herds of buffalo off of cliffs, killing hundreds to thousands at a time just for their tongues. Some tribes would burn entire forests killing many species and sometimes, entire herds of buffalo. A commentary[15] does well to expand on this theme:

From James Fenimore Cooper to Dances with Wolves and Disney’s Pocahontas, American Indians have been mythologized as noble beings with a “spiritual, sacred attitude towards land and animals, not a practical utilitarian one.”[16] Small children are taught that the Plains Indians never wasted any part of the buffalo. They grow up certain that the Indians lived as one with nature, and that white European settlers were the rapists who destroyed it.

In The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, Shepard Krech III, an anthropologist at Brown University, strips away the myth to show that American Indians behaved pretty much like everyone else. When times were bad they used the whole buffalo. When times were good, “whole herds” of buffalo might be killed only for their tongues or their fetuses.[17] Although American Indians adapted to their environment and were intimately familiar with it, they had no qualms about shaping it to their needs.

Indians set fires to promote the growth of grasses and make land more productive for the game and plants that they preferred. Sometimes fire was used carefully. Sometimes it was not. Along with the evidence that Indians used fire to improve habitat are abundant descriptions of carelessly started fires that destroyed all plant life and entire buffalo herds.[18]

Nor were American Indians particularly interested in conserving resources for the future. In the East, they practiced slash and burn agriculture. When soils became infertile, wood for fuel was exhausted, and game depleted, whole villages moved.[19] The Cherokee, along with the other Indians who participated in the Southern deerskin trade, helped decimate white-tailed deer populations.[20]Cherokee mythology believed that deer that were killed in a hunt were reanimated.

In all, contemporary accounts suggest that many Indians treated game as an inexhaustible resource. Despite vague hints in the historical records that some Crees may have tried to conserve beaver populations by allocating hunting territories and sparing young animals, Krech concludes that it was “market forces in combination with the Hudchild’s Bay Company policies [which actively promoted conservation]” that “led to the eventual recovery of beaver populations.”[21]

Those who blame European settlers for genocide because they introduced microbes that ravaged native populations might as well call the Mongols genocidal for creating the plague reservoirs that led to the Black Death in Europe.[22] Microbes travel with their hosts. Trade, desired by Indians as well as whites, created the pathways for disease.

Another interesting item that came up in the video was that of the “white man” bringing his diseases, as mentioned above and in the video. However, little is ever said about the normal lifespan of the Native-American, which was around 35 at the time due to the already present poor health, disease, dysentery and hygiene, or, lack thereof. The photo’s we have all seen of the Native-Americans during Civil War times are older mainly due to the introduction of medicine and hygiene by the European settler. New information in a paper written by Richard Steckel, a professor of economics and anthropology at Ohio State University, and published in the journal Science, has shown that the health of the Native-American was in drastic decline prior to the settler coming to the New World.[23]

Footnotes

[1] There is some adult material herein (e.g., descriptions of violence and the like), so edit accordingly.

[2] apologetic: “defending by speech or writing.” (Definition #2) Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, CD-ROM (1999).

[3] Schlessinger Video Productions, Indians of North America, Video Collection II; Bala Cynwyd: PA (1995); in the school library.

[4] A New Nation: Adventures in Time and Place, National Geographic Society/McGraw Hill Pub; New York: NY (2000)

[5] The video was very religiously entwined; I only wish that such positive representations of other faiths were allowed equal time in the classroom. Say, like, Christianity.

[6] e.g., game (animals), wood, healthy top-soil, ran species into extinction (like certain sea turtles and the like), etc.

[7] The distasteful manner in which the video represents and uses the term “white-man” (a quote) is quite inappropriate.

[8] Veronica Valarde Tiller – a Jicarilla Apapche. Quote from the in-class video.

[9] Dinesh D’ Souza, The End of Racism, The Free Press; New York: N.Y. (1995), p. 75.

[10] Paul F. Boller, Jr., Not So! Popular Myths About America from Columbus to Clinton, Oxford Univ. Press; New York: NY (1995), p. 7. (This book is a fun, interestingly invigorating read! I highly recommend it)

[11] Ibid., p. 12. Quoted from: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Was America a Mistake?,”Atlantic Monthly (September 1992), p. 22.

[12] This is a side note for those who are of the Christian faith:

The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name. It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [“Christians”] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God. For example: the Inquisitions, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials killed about 40,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana). A blight on Christianity? Certainty. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed); the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of the populations dead, etc, etc. The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no natural law is being violated in other words (as atheists reduce everything to natural law – materialism). However, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as Natural Law.

[13] “Shades of Truth,” by Jeff Bricker, found at: http://parallel.park.uga.edu/~tengles/102m/bricker.html (I highly recommend this paper as it will add to the reasons and logic behind the different historical “takes” on this issue. UPDATE: (these links are since gone) I was contacted by the author who has become more left-leaning in his later days and he asked me to remove this portion as he has excised all his previous works. I refused on the grounds that he must prove to me that what he said is untrue, after which I would remove his older work. “A True Story,” by Katie Patel, found at: http://parallel.park.uga.edu/~tengles/102m/pa##l.html (another high recommend.) UPDATE: Another dead end – keep in mind when I wrote this my oldest son was in sixth-grade. He is now a Marine.

[14] “The Ecological Indian: Myth and History,” by Terry L. Anderson, from the Detroit News, reviewing a book of the same name by Shepard Krech III, October 4, 1999. Can be found at:

[15] Buffaloed: The Myth and Reality of Bison in America (12-01-2002) by Larry Schweikart:

[16] Shepard Krech III, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, W.W. Norton & Company; New York: NY (1999), p. 22.

[17] Ibid., p. 135.

[18] Ibid., p. 119.

[19] Ibid., p. 76.

[20] Ibid., p. 171.

[21] Ibid., p. 188.

[22] For a discussion of the effect of the Mongol invasions and their effect on European epidemiology see, William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, Doubleday; New York: NY (1977).

[23] “Health Of American Indians On Decline Before Columbus Arrived In New World,” This study involved 12,500 Indian skeletal remains from 65 different sites. Can be found at:

CHALLENGING THE “GENOCIDE” CHARGE

…and, THE “STOLEN LAND” CHARGE

Are Americans living on stolen land acquired by nefarious means? Jeff Fynn-Paul, professor of economic and social history at Leiden University and author of Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World, dispels this misleading and destructive myth.

Example of the BRAINWASHING in the classroom:

Shocking Excerpts from A Book Used w/Third Graders Up

MRCTV intros the video thus:

…. As Moonbat Tracker writes: “These outrageous and toxic books teach kids that the United States is an institutionally racist  system filled with “bloodsucking capitalists” and Anglos who “rape Hispanic culture.”

Here are a couple of quotes from the books in which the lady recites:

  • “Hard drugs and drug culture is an invention of the gringo because he has no culture.”
  • “We have to destroy capitalism and we have to help 5/6 of the world to destroy capitalism in order to equal all peoples’
  • “The Declaration of Independence states that we the people have the right to revolution…the right to overrule the government…”
  • “Any country based on capitalism is based on greed…”

Warning: There is some adult language within the video….

This is from 2011… a decade before other parents in masse, due to lockdowns, became aware of the indoctrination foisted on their children. This is a Tucson United School District (TUSD) board meeting. A parent reads from a book authorized for use from third-grade up. 

Reconstruction Retarded via Segregationists (Little Has Changed)

Published by Papa Giorgio

My response to this short video follows — with many links. I do not mean to counter the below but to merely add to it’s content our current malaise.

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

After the Civil War, the Reconstruction era brought about hope and change in the form of citizenship and equality in America. Black men were given the right to vote, and in 1870, Hiram Revels became the first African American in the U.S. Congress when he was elected to represent Mississippi in the Senate. What followed included more than 2,000 Black office holders serving at every level of America’s political system.

Sadly, this progress was short-lived.

Black men were denied access to the ballot box and the rights they were granted at the start of the Reconstruction period slowly diminished. In result, a Black presence in Congress was completely eradicated by 1901, and it would take a full generation for it to be restored. In this episode of Black History in Two Minutes or So, we’ll discuss the African-American achievements in the political system that were systematically overturned.

Lesson. Stop voting for segregationists… otherwise known still to this day as Democrats. Who want to segregate housing to ethnicity on campuses. Who want to segregate which speech is allowed and which is not. Who want to segregate graduations, neighborhoods, etc. Even Don Lemon just said this to Vivek Ramaswamy: “when you are in black skin and you live in this country then you can disagree with me.” I was literally the only white kid in my neighborhood in Detroit, the Jefferson/Chalmers area. And? I was routinely chased, beaten up by groups of kids, I ran a lot, etc…. all because of “white skin and you live in this country” [to tweak Lemon] — do I have a more truthful voice? Or does truth reside in someone’s educated opinion more strongly? No matter his race. Truth exists outside my experience, I have to connect with it rather than making truth conform to me and my ideas of it. Which is why I say, quit voting for segregationists who want to curb the rights of the GOP rightly clarified in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. (All while the Left emboldens a new slavery.)

Heck, even mathematics is now considered racist in some school districts. Has this position been reached by “conservative” or by “leftists“? Is intersectionality causing unity or division?

(Professor Sommers’ full video is HERE)

You have to decide and vote well on it. A new Civil War is brewing over those that want to divide, segregate, and stop freedom of thought/speech. (Even reparations is divisive.) And those that want freedom to enjoy the liberties of 1870 and beyond, derailed by Democrats. Found as searching for additions to my “NRA and Black History (Don Lemon Fact-Checked)” The Civil War and Reconstruction are in the mix in that particular post.

American Racial History (David Barton)

Published by Papa Giorgio

If you have never learned about America’s racial history well, this is a must see documentary/presentation. It is long but well worth the time. The book and the video are a must see and read: “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White” (BOOK | DVD)

NRA and Black History (Don Lemon Fact-Checked)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is with a hat-tip to:

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy traveled over to CNN This Morning on Wednesday to discuss his campaign. During the part of the interview about his recent speech at the NRA convention, host Don Lemon told Ramaswamy that it was “insulting” he would dare to say that black Americans enjoy equal rights.

(The longer video can be watched HERE)

NEWSBUSTERS has this:

….As Ramaswamy started to explain himself, Lemon repeated himself, “Okay, but that wasn’t fought for black people to have guns. I think—”

Again, Ramaswamy started to defend himself, “black people did not get to enjoy the other freedoms until their Second Amendment rights were secured and I think that that’s one of the lessons—”

Lemon was not happy with that explanation and started to shift the conversation away from guns to about race more generally, “But black people still aren’t allowed to enjoy the freedoms.”

After Ramaswamy told Lemon he disagreed and was “doing a disservice to our country” with those remarks, Lemon essentially told Ramaswamy to shut up, “when you are in black skin and you live in this country then you can disagree with me.”

Ramaswamy then called Lemon out for trying to use race to silence his critics and argued “Black Americans… absolutely have equal rights in this country.”

Lemon replied, “I think it’s insulting to black people, it’s insulting to me as an African-American. I don’t want to sit here and argue with you because it’s infuriating for you to put those things together. It’s not right, your telling of history is wrong.”

After Ramaswamy asked what he got wrong, Lemon returned to the straw man, “you’re making people think the Civil War was fought for black people—only for black people to get guns and for black people to have—”

[RPT BREAK]

This is a common thing I have found in Left’s and Atheist’s response to things they will say that the point you are making IS THE point of the of the discussion. So in this instance Don Lemon is saying Ramaswamy is saying that the Civil War was fought [only] to secure gun rights for black Americans. That that is it.

That is a straw man.

The Civil War was fought to secure Constitutional rights for black Americans.

SEE: What Was the Civil War Over?

I am gonna take another break within the break to give another example of how deterministic the Left thinks. This comes from my many years old post that grew beyond the debate I had with a professor of history at Michigan State U. We were told over-and-over-and-over again that THE REASON we entered Iraq was for WMDs. That is a rewriting of history.

[break-in-break]

Reasons for Entering Iraq

This next portion is taken from a series I do in responding to a local writer in a small journal. The original post is entitled, “Concepts: Are We Insane? Nope, Just You Van Huizum.“

U.N Resolutions

Yet another unfounded swipe at the Iraq War. John Van Huizum lives in a bubble where if he has come to a conclusion years ago… that’s it! History forever stays right where John wants it to stay. Here is an excerpt of John’s (click to enlarge it) article shows a complete lack of history.

I doubt he think any differently about Vietnam based on his 1970’s conclusions. It wouldn’t matter that after 1990 — the fall of the Wall — 100,000 of thousands of Soviet era documents were now being translated and reviewed by military historians and good books based on MORE historical documents. Because these new documents support the traditional (and not the Left’s reasoning) for entering and fighting this proxy war of WWIII (the Cold War), this new information is rejected from the matrix of the left’s consciousness. But that is neither here-nor-there.

So, let’s deal with some of the contentions in John’s excerpted article. Firstly he notes that there were insufficient reasons for going to war.

May I remind him there were many U.N. Resolutions against Iraq that were almost all not met:

  1. UNSCR 678 – November 29, 1990
  2. UNSCR 686 – March 2, 1991
  3. UNSCR 687 – April 3, 1991
  4. UNSCR 688 – April 5, 1991
  5. UNSCR 707 – August 15, 1991
  6. UNSCR 715 – October 11, 1991
  7. UNSCR 949 – October 15, 1994
  8. UNSCR 1051 – March 27, 1996
  9. UNSCR 1060 – June 12, 1996
  10. UNSCR 1115 – June 21, 1997
  11. UNSCR 1134 – October 23, 1997
  12. UNSCR 1137 – November 12, 1997
  13. UNSCR 1154 – March 2, 1998
  14. UNSCR 1194 – September 9, 1998 (“Condemns the decision by Iraq of 5 August 1998 to suspend cooperation with” UN and IAEA inspectors, which constitutes “a totally unacceptable contravention” of its obligations under UNSCR 687, 707, 715, 1060, 1115, and 1154.)
  15. UNSCR 1205 – November 5, 1998
  16. UNSCR 1284 – December 17, 1999

….See Additional UN Security Council Statements…

Official U.N. resolutions aside, Bush went to Congress and made his case with these and many other points. One point being that Iraq was firing almost everyday on our fighter pilots in the no-fly zone. In the cease fire of the First Gulf War, this was enough — under international law — to RESUME aggression….

…read it all…

So you see, the reasons of going in were many. But the Left is so tunnel visioned that this is why they often lose in any conversation they stay in over 2-minutes.

[break-in-break over]

The War was for applying many principles of rights to and for blacks while trying to unite the country, namely freedom. And an important aspect of this is the 2nd Amendment.

The Reconstruction era was mutated under Democrats.

  • The period immediately following the Civil War (1865 -1877) is known as Reconstruction. Its promising name belies what turned out to be the greatest missed opportunity in American history. Where did we go wrong? And who was responsible? Renowned American history professor Allen Guelzo has the surprising answers in this eye-opening video.

MORE EXAMPLES

Slavery

The Third Force Act, also known as the KKK or the Civil Rights Act of 1871, empowered President Ulysses S. Grant to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired to deny equal protection of the laws and, if necessary, to suspend habeas corpus to enforce the act. Grant signed the legislation on this day in 1871. After the act’s passage, the president for the first time had the power to suppress state disorders on his own initiative and suspend the right of habeas corpus. Grant did not hesitate to use this authority. (POLITICO)

Terrorist Arm of the Democrats

The above links are from my PAGE about America’s racial history

[RPT BREAK OVER]

Later in the argument, Lemon burned a second straw man, accusing Ramaswamy of ignorning Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. Ramaswamy never discounted those things, CNN even played a clip of him invoking Lyndon Johnson, but narrowing in on gun rights, Ramaswamy portrayed the NRA as a civil rights organization, “And you know how they got it? They got their Second Amendment rights, and they actually got the NRA played a big role in that, but today Don—”

Clearly not paying attention, Lemon shot back, “The NRA did not play a big role in that. That is a lie. That’s a lie. That’s not—the NRA did not play a big role in that.”

Going back again to race generally, Ramaswamy added “The part that I find insulting is when you say today, black Americans don’t have those rights after we have gone through Civil Rights Revolution in this country—”

Not happy with that, Lemon claimed it was Ramaswamy who was being insulting, “you are here sitting here telling an African-American about the rights and what you find insulting about the way I lived the skin I live in every day and I know the freedoms that black and white—that black people don’t have in this country and that black people do have.”

After Ramaswamy again called him out for trying to silence people, Lemon absurdly claimed he wasn’t, “I’m not saying you should express your views; but I think it’s insulting you’re sitting here—you’re sitting here, whatever ethnicity you are, splaining to me about what it is like to be black in America. I’m sorry.”

That led to Ramaswamy being the most agitated he got during the interview, “Whatever ethnicity I am? I’ll tell you what I am, I’m an Indian-American, I’m proud of it, but I think we should have this debate. Black, white, doesn’t matter on the content of the ideas.”

If the partisan labels on that question were reversed, it would be considered racist which is not surprising for the host who is always putting his foot in his mouth.

NRA

As for the NRA… even the modern Civil-Rights Movement were connected closely to their 2nd Amendment rights.

  • Negroes With Guns: The Untold History of Black NRA Gun Clubs and the Civil Rights Movement (LIBERTARIAN INSTITUTE)

Race, the Second Amendment and the NRA | NOIR Season 7 Episode 2

Black NRA Supporter Confronts STUPID Kids Against Guns at March for Our Lives (Full Show)

Rand Paul Invokes Davy Crockett | Not Yours to Give

Published by Papa Giorgio

Rand Paul quotes Essay from 1867 Harper magazine ‘Not Yours To Give’ Davy Crockett.

David Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet “King of the Wild Frontier”. He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Texas Revolution.

The MISES INSTITUTE has a cataloging of this story from The Life of Colonel David Crockett, compiled by Edward S. Ellis (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1884). Included in Free Market Economics: A Basic Reader, compiled by Bettina B. Greaves (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1975). See also the MACKINAC CENTER.

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Davy Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker—I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and—’

“‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

“This was a sockdolager…I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“‘Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest….But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.’

“‘I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’

“‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’

“‘Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.’

“‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

“‘So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.’

“I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.’

“He laughingly replied: ‘Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.’

“‘If I don’t,’ said I, ‘I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.’

“‘No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’

“‘Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-by. I must know your name.’

“‘My name is Bunce.’

“‘Not Horatio Bunce?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.’

“It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

“At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had every seen manifested before.

“Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

“I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him—no, that is not the word—I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

“But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted—at least, they all knew me.

“In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

“‘Fellow-citizens—I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.’

“I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

“‘And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

“‘It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.’

“He came upon the stand and said:

“‘Fellow-citizens—It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.’

“He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

“I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

“Now, sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday.

“There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men—men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased—a debt which could not be paid by money—and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighted against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

Is Gun Culture “Driven” By Christians?

Published by Papa Giorgio

For countries AND FOR soft sites like schools… the application is still the same:

Since the dawn of the atomic age, we’ve sought to reduce the risk of war by maintaining a strong deterrent and by seeking genuine arms control. “Deterrence” means simply this: making sure any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States, or our allies, or our vital interests, concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won’t attack. We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.

This strategy of deterrence has not changed. It still works. But what it takes to maintain deterrence has changed. It took one kind of military force to deter an attack when we had far more nuclear weapons than any other power; it takes another kind now that the Soviets, for example, have enough accurate and powerful nuclear weapons to destroy virtually all of our missiles on the ground. Now, this is not to say that the Soviet Union is planning to make war on us. Nor do I believe a war is inevitable — quite the contrary. But what must be recognized is that our security is based on being prepared to meet all threats.

(Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security, March 23, 1983, Ronald Reagan)

A friend posted a link to an article where a “theologian” (I assume he theologizes vs. being a professional “theologian” noted the following:

  • There are few things as quintessentially American as apple pie, the Dallas Cowboys and the possibility of being shot anywhere you go.” [….] “Christians in America are going to have to voluntarily divest themselves of weapons of war if we’re going to muster the political will to reform our systems and markets that profit from the fear and death they sell.” (America’s Gun Culture Is Driven By Christians – Here’s How To Stop School Shootings)

Just a few thoughts out loud before the quotes, links, media, and the like.

The article says Scott Baker is a theologian. I could teach theology, but wouldn’t say I am a theologian.

If your shot in Texas, is it by a regular church going Christian?

Note as well that the article gets no where close to the subtitle’s statement of stopping school shootings.

Also, I wonder which of these choices or thoughts, investing vs. divesting, were racing through the mind’s of the Christians who worked at the Presbyterian Elementary Covenant School (or even non-believers at Uvalde for that matter) thought of. Were they thinking, “gosh darn it, I am so glad I divested in my right to defend my own body and the bodies of the innocent.” [/sarcasm]

There seems to be a false dichotomy. Gun violence happens, and, it will [presumably] stop when Christians [who are law abiding and God serving] “divest themselves” of them these “weapons of war” — whatever that is?

  • …given the constitutional protection that is interpreted as a blanket right to private gun ownership, creates an environment in which no single action can solve this quandary. I know it can be done because I grew up in a world in which people smoked on airplanes and in restaurants, and now they don’t. (IBID)

Once Christians are “out of the way” then federalism can be moot and much like a federal law that stopped smoking on a plane, so to will shootings stop?

Or.

More people will be be killed like sheep.

I think the later.

Thankfully the police response at Covenant School was quick. Fourteen minutes to the scene. And a few minutes to the threat was stopped. However, if “investing” was practiced, the threat could have been neutralized in minutes.

This hope of “divesting” will happen in “no place,” or, UTOPIA.

Opining still may I say this idea of giving up a right by Nature’s God is not a Christian idea, not to mention that Christians and Jews, historically, around the world would have been in a better position in life if they were armed [I mean, actually having it – life that is].

…How many Jews the Nazis would have murdered if most European Jews had guns is impossible to know. But common sense suggests that the number would have been much lower. The Warsaw Ghetto revolt was begun with 10 old pistols and very little ammunition. Later a few hundred pistols and rifles and a few machine guns were smuggled into the ghetto. Himmler told Hitler he would quell the revolt in three days. It took four weeks. Many hundreds of German troops — perhaps a thousand — were killed or wounded.

If the Nazis knew that Jews refused to go to roundup areas and that many Jews were armed, awaiting Nazis to enter every apartment, it is difficult to imagine that the Nazi genocidal machinery would have been nearly as effective. And, vitally important, even had the number of Jews murdered been near 6 million (which I doubt), not all ways of dying are equal. There is a world of difference between being gassed or shot to death while standing naked beside the mass grave you were forced to dig and getting killed while shooting a Nazi….

(Jews and Guns [emphasis added])

Common sense seems to be missing in the article at Premier Christianity.

Take a more recent example of a divesting that was through complacently:

Or a kid who stopped a mass killing at a mall by conceal carrying. And the many other documented persons who stopped mass killing sprees – see FEE’s article on Eli, but this short video is good:

Here is how I (at the time) characterized it on my Facebook:

The mall had a “gun free zone” notice at all entrances. Glad Eli ignored that and embraced his Constitutional right.

[A friend noted this]: What a complete bad ass. Self taught. 8 hits in 10 shots at 40 yards is amazing shooting.

[My response]: He wasn’t Dicken around

NEW DETAILS

The Greenwood Park Mall shooter began firing at 5:56:48PM.

15 SECONDS LATER, at 5:57:03, 22-year-old Eli Dicken carrying under the new NRA-Backed Constitutional Carry law, fired 10 rounds from 40 yards, hitting the shooter 8 times. The shooter collapsed & died. 

(NRA)

There are many instances of this heroic action, as noted well here:

Or the research by criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, noted here in an article by Larry Elder:

…The “common-sense” gun control activists rarely ask, “What about the beneficial effect of gun ownership?” The Centers for Disease Control examined research on the defensive uses of guns. It concluded: “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

The CDC’s report also found that “defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence.” Exact statistics are hard to find because the police are not always notified, so the number of defensive gun uses is likely understated because they’re underreported. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals,” wrote the CDC, “with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.” The CDC noted one study of defensive gun users who believe that but for their own firearm they would have been killed.

Criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year. One in six of that number, or 400,000, believe someone would have been dead but for their ability to resort to their defensive use of firearms. Kleck points out that if only one-tenth of the people are right about saving a life, the number of people saved annually by guns would still be 40,000.

For some perspective, consider the number of Americans who die each year because of medical errors. A 2016 Johns Hopkins study called medical error the third-leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for about 250,000 deaths annually, or 10 percent of all deaths. Other studies put the number as high as 400,000 a year or more — since medical examiners, morticians and doctors rarely put “human error” or “medical system failure” on a death certificate….

Likewise, Reason.com notes much the same:

…Thirty-one percent of the gun owners said they had used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on multiple occasions. As in previous research, the vast majority of such incidents (82 percent) did not involve firing a gun, let alone injuring or killing an attacker. In more than four-fifths of the cases, respondents reported that brandishing or mentioning a firearm was enough to eliminate the threat.

That reality helps explain the wide divergence in estimates of defensive gun uses. The self-reports of gun owners may not be entirely reliable, since they could be exaggerated, mistaken, or dishonest. But limiting the analysis to cases in which an attacker was wounded or killed, or to incidents that were covered by newspapers or reported to the police, is bound to overlook much more common encounters with less dramatic outcomes.

About half of the defensive gun uses identified by the survey involved more than one assailant. Four-fifths occurred inside the gun owner’s home or on his property, while 9 percent happened in a public place and 3 percent happened at work. The most commonly used firearms were handguns (66 percent), followed by shotguns (21 percent) and rifles (13 percent).

Based on the number of incidents that gun owners reported, English estimates that “guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.” That number does not include cases where people defended themselves with guns owned by others, which could help explain why English’s figure is lower than a previous estimate by Florida State University criminologists Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. Based on a 1993 telephone survey with a substantially smaller sample, Kleck and Gertz put the annual number at more than 2 million….

But I want to return to that FEE ARTCLE linked above. In it some person’s are quoted that may be more rightly called “theologians” IMHO.

…For centuries, many people have employed the term “Good Samaritan” to describe anyone who isn’t compelled to come to the aid of the innocent but takes the initiative to do so anyway. A Good Samaritan takes charge of a bad situation, improves it as best he can, and prevents further harm. That is exactly what Elisjsha Dicken did in Greenwood.

Undoubtedly, the critical reporter in this instance is a person of good intent. He can’t imagine Jesus endorsing Dicken’s action because Jesus was a man of peace. He might even cite Matthew, chapter five, in which Jesus urges us to “turn the other cheek” if someone insults us or physically slaps us in the face.

“The question of rendering insult for insult, however, is a far cry from defending oneself against a mugger or a rapist,” writes Lars Larson in Does Jesus Christ Support Self-Defense?. To “turn the other cheek” means to refrain from a needless escalation of a problematic situation. Elisjsha Dicken did not escalate anything; in fact, he dramatically and decisively de-escalated it in the only possible way, given the circumstances.

The reporter likely shares the widely-held, radically pacifist or “namby-pamby” view of Jesus—the view that he would never endorse an act of violence for any purpose, even if it’s necessary to save lives. It implies that Elisjsha Dicken should have run for cover and allowed the Greenwood shooter to kill another dozen or two people. That’s wrong, if not downright blasphemous.

When Jesus dined at The Last Supper, he gave his disciples specific instructions, including this one (Luke 22:36):

He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

Note that he did not advise anyone, then or at any other time, to stand idly by and allow wanton slaughter of innocents. And he offered support for the threat of force to prevent the theft of property as well. In Luke 11:21, Jesus said:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted, and divides up his plunder.

This is the same Jesus who, in Luke 12:39, says, “If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.” It’s the same Jesus who never criticized anyone for possessing a lethal weapon such as a sword, though he certainly condemned the initiation of force or the impetuous and unnecessary use of it.

In Jesus, Guns and Self-Defense: What Does the Bible Say?, Gary DeMar maintains that

Being armed and willing to defend ourselves, our family, and our neighbors is not being unchristian or even unloving. Self-defense can go a long way to protect the innocent from people who are intent on murder for whatever reason.

The Greenwood reporter’s errant perspective is not untypical of people who think they know Jesus and Christianity but spend more time criticizing them than learning about them. I see evidence of this all the time, most recently from a speaker at an April 2022 conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

“When it comes to the source of individual rights,” the speaker pontificated with misplaced confidence, “there are only three possibilities.” One, he said, is a Creator (God), which he summarily dismissed as a ridiculous, untenable proposition. The second is government, which he ruled out as equally ridiculous and untenable. The only logical option, he said, was “nature”—something which he suggested evolved out of nothing from nobody. As I listened with the largely student audience, I thought to myself, “This supposed expert hasn’t even considered a fourth option, namely, a combination of the first and third—which is to say that God, as the author of nature, is in fact the author of individual rights as well.”

The speaker added another uninformed dig at Christianity by claiming it was stupid for Jesus to ever suggest you should love your neighbor. “What if your neighbor is an axe-murderer? How much sense would that make?” he asked derisively. If he had known of the passages I cite above, he would have been embarrassed by his own ignorance. As a general principle, Jesus argued, you should love your neighbor but the same Jesus would urge you to arm yourself if your neighbor threatens your life or property.

In The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Time, Christian theologians Norman Geisler and J. P. Moreland write:

To permit murder when one could have prevented it is morally wrong. To allow a rape when one could have hindered it is evil. To watch an act of cruelty to children without trying to intervene is morally inexcusable. In brief, not resisting evil is an evil of omission, and an evil of omission can be just as evil as an evil of commission. Any man who refuses to protect his wife and children against a violent intruder fails them morally.

When Elisjsha Dicken pulled out his gun to stop a shooting spree, he had every reason to believe he might attract the shooter’s aim and be killed himself. Fortunately, he was not, and he is among the living whose lives he saved.

If Elisjsha Dicken had been killed, the rest of us could at least take comfort in the words of Jesus as quoted in John 15:13. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…..

Turning to Gary DeMar’s article that was quoted above but needs more room for further context:

…What about Jesus’ injunction to “turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:38-39)? There’s a big difference between slapping someone across the face and someone wanting to take a baseball bat to your head or the head of your wife and children. Self-defense is a biblical option in such cases. Consider this passage from biblical case law:

“If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account. But if the sun has risen on him, there will be bloodguiltiness on his account. He shall surely make restitution; if he owns nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft (Ex. 22:2-3).”

The homeowner can assume that someone breaking into his house at night has nothing but bad intentions. He may be armed or not. The homeowner does not have to ask any questions to find out. The homeowner can respond by striking the intruder “so that he dies.” If this happens, even if the attempt was only theft (unknown to the homeowner), the homeowner is cleared of all guilt in the thief’s death.

Daytime is a different story because the victim can make a better assessment of intent. If two people enter a building with a shotgun, as happened in the Texas church, killing these people before they kill you and others is the right thing to do. Being loving, peaceful, just and generous, and self-giving do not apply. To put it simply, there’s no time.

[….]

The story of David and Goliath is helpful since “five smooth stones” and a “sling” are the closest equivalent to a handgun we can find in the Bible. David seems to have been armed with his sling at all times. There was no way he could run home to get his sling when a lion or a bear was about to attack his flock (1 Sam. 17:31-37, 41-54).

It’s possible that Jesus had the Old Testament case law in mind when offered this injunction to His disciples:

“But be sure of this, if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into (Matt 24:43).”

But of course, you rarely know when someone is going to break into your house or decides to kill people in your church, therefore, you must be on guard all the time.

In another passage, Jesus is teaching by analogy:

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder (Luke 11:21).”

A fully armed strong man is a deterrent to a thief. It’s the fact that the strong man is armed that protects the potential thief from being harmed. Another strong man will think twice about ever trying to rob or harm someone who is armed.

Here’s what critics of armed church members miss: Armed people save lives by making evil people think twice about attacking a person or place where there might be some armed push back. One could say that it’s loving to be armed since it might stop someone who has evil intent from not following through with an evil act.

The most famous New Testament passage is a command of Jesus for His disciples to sell their garments and buy a sword (Luke 22:36-38). Personally, I do not believe this is a good proof text for being armed, but it does show that being armed was a norm for that time, and Jesus does not object.

Peter impetuously uses his sword against a servant of the high priest (John 18:10; Matt. 26:51; Luke 22:50) who had come out with a crowd armed with clubs and swords (Luke 22:52). Under normal circumstances, swords were permissible for self-defense, otherwise why did the “chief priests and officers of the temple and elders” have them? There is, however, something else going on here of biblical-theological importance that has little to do with self-defense.

However the sword passage is interpreted, at no time did Jesus condemn anyone for having a sword. The disciples lived in dangerous times (Luke 10:29-37). Furthermore, the Romans didn’t seem to have a problem with their subjects (the Jews) owning swords.

Gun-Free Zones are soft targets for people who have no regard for the law. The gunman who killed the people in Luby’s Cafeteria had broken the law by bringing a firearm into a place where the law said it was unlawful. Murderers are, by definition, lawbreakers.

Now to the question. Should churches, for example, ensure that there are armed and trained people at every service? Absolutely! Christians might say, “But we should put our trust in God.” God has given us the ability to reason and assess the times like the sons of Issachar, “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command” (1 Chron. 12:32).

Consider the following from the book of Nehemiah:

“But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.

Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.”

Also our enemies said, “Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.”

Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us.”

Therefore, I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”

When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to our own work.

From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.
 
Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!” (vv. 7-13).

While they trusted God and prayed, they also understood that they were responsible for their immediate welfare by posting a guard (v. 9). Notice that while Nehemiah said, “Our God will fight for us,” we’re also told that “half [the men] were equipped with spears, shields, bows, and armor.” This is not a contraction. Prayer is not enough unless it’s the only act that we have at our disposal.

They never let down their guard.

So, we carried on the work with half of them holding spears from dawn until the stars appeared. At that time, I also said to the people, “Let each man with his servant spend the night within Jerusalem so that they may be a guard for us by night and a laborer by day.” So, neither I, my brothers, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us removed our clothes, each took his weapon even to the water (vv. 21-23).

One more thing, when Israel’s enemies heard that the men were armed and on guard, they had second thoughts about attacking. Human nature has not changed since Cain killed Abel. What has changed in our culture is a disregard for human life.

May I connect the dots and say “Christians divesting” themselves of a God given right is disregard for life.

Right around the time David French went #NeverTrump, he had an excellent article at NATIONAL REVIEW which I noted on my website. Here is an excerpt from it:

…One cannot analyze the Second Amendment without understanding its moral and philosophical underpinnings. Colonial America was a land populated by people who were both highly literate biblically and steeped in Lockean philosophy.

The biblical record sanctioning self-defense is clear. In Exodus 22, the Law of Moses permits a homeowner to kill even a mere thief who entered his home at night, and the books of Esther and Nehemiah celebrate the self-defense of the Jews against their lawless attackers. Nehemiah exhorted the Israelites to defend themselves: “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” The oft-forgotten climax of the book of Esther is an act of bloody self-defense against a genocidal foe.

Nor did Jesus require his followers to surrender their lives — or the lives of spouses, children, or neighbors — in the face of armed attack. His disciples carried swords, and in one memorable passage in Luke 22, he declared there were circumstances in which the unarmed should arm themselves: “If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Christ’s famous admonition in his Sermon the Mount to “turn the other cheek” in the face of a physical blow is not a command to surrender to deadly violence, and it certainly isn’t a command to surrender family members or neighbors to deadly violence.

In his Second Treatise of Civil Government, Locke described the right of self-defense as a “fundamental law of nature”:

Sec. 16. The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man’s life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other’s power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power. (Emphasis added.)

Moreover, Locke argues, these laws of nature were inseparable from the will of God:

The rules that they make for other men’s actions, must, as well as their own and other men’s actions, be conformable to the law of nature, i.e. to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good, or valid against it.

This right is so fundamental that it’s difficult to find even leftist writers who would deny a citizen the right to protect her own life….

So much different than Scott Baker seemed to say…

  • “given the constitutional protection that is interpreted as a blanket right to private gun ownership”

… we really find out IT IS a blanket right. And on Facebook I asked the following question bnecause I could not for-the-life-of-me understand why my friend liked the article? So I asked him,

  • What did you like from the article? I read it twice, and I am curious what was the main part of the article made you go “yes, that makes sense”

He merely responded with over six paragraphs from the article.

Which was vacuous of history, common sense, facts, and full of cherry picked verses.