Sunday, April 21, 2013




Who Really Fosters Hate?

 Jerry Newcombe

Terrorism is in the news again as seen in the tragic bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday. This man-made disaster gives a time to reflect on terrorism---as we continue to pray for the victims of the bombing.

By now we have probably all heard about the infamous slide presented at a US Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on religious extremism. They had a slide with the title “Religious Extremism.” (The slide is reproduced below).

First on the list was Evangelical Christianity (U.S. Christians). Fifth on the list was Al Qaeda. Later on the list was Catholicism (U.S. Christians). At the end of the list was Islamophobia.

There are millions of evangelical Christians in this country, as well as Catholics. To label them as haters and as dangerous boggles the mind. Many of them pray daily, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Or “…where there is hatred, let me sow love…” Where’s the hate?

Some have said that the Army person putting this slide together traced her information back to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based in Montgomery, Alabama.

One of the groups who sued former (and current) Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for having the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) on display at the state judiciary building in Montgomery was the SPLC. Prominent on their own building are words also carved in stone, attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Let justice roll down…” These are words of Amos 5, also in the Bible.

Dr. King’s church, Dexter Avenue Baptist, is just down the street from the judiciary building. It was in that church that the civil rights movement was born---when a group met there in the mid-1950s to deal with the injustice that had just been meted out to Rosa Parks.

The word “hate” is bandied about these days to the point that it may be losing its meaning. People who love are often called haters because they don’t hold to the latest politically correct view on what marriage is or on abortion. Real hate blows up people, total strangers no less.

Meanwhile, SPLC says on their website: “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.” Sounds great, until you look at their map of “hate.”

Click on any of the states, and you’ll see listed organizations branded as hate groups. I work at one of them, Truth in Action Ministries. We’re right there with “United Klans of America,” an offshoot of the KKK.

SLPC brands us as “Anti-Gay.” We certainly believe what the Bible says---that all sinners (and that’s all of us) can be forgiven when we repent of our sins and come to Christ and ask for forgiveness. Thousands of ex-homosexuals are alive today who have found hope and change through the Gospel of Christ. Yes, we promote that at Truth in Action Ministries; and, of course, we believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. But we don’t hate anyone.

Family Research Council in Washington, DC is also on SPLC’s map of hate. That fact almost led to serious bloodshed.

Lt. Gen. (retired) Jerry Boykin, vice president of the group, tells what happened: “August 15th, 2012 Floyd Lee Corkins walked into the lobby of the Family Research Council with a backpack with a Glock 9 mm and about 70 rounds of ammunition as well as 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. And he shot a very heroic man named Leo Johnson, who tried to stop him. Leo wrestled him to the ground with one good arm, took his pistol away from him and started to shoot him, and then Leo told us later that God told him not to shoot Floyd Lee Corkins.”

Boykin adds, “Now it’s important to understand that he was motivated to come in and try to kill as many people as possible at the Family Research Council because we had been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s incredible that Leo stood over him bleeding after having been shot with nobody to help him and God told him not to shoot this man, and that’s hate? I don’t think so.”

Why the Chick-fil-A sandwiches? Boykin says, “what Corkins said at his hearing when he plead guilty to 3 charges was that his intention was to kill as many people as possible that day, smear a Chick-fil-A sandwich in their face and then go on to two other organizations, both of which he had found on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website listed as hate groups; what he objected to was our stand on traditional marriage.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, says that their group regularly prays for Corkins’ salvation, that he “might come to an understanding of the truth, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I can tell you today in working with our team---there is no animosity, no bitterness, there is compassion, but understanding of the stakes of standing for religious freedom today.”

Dr. King told his followers, “We must meet hate with creative love.” He added, “Let us hope there will be no more violence. But if the streets must flow with blood let it flow with our blood in the spirit of Jesus Christ on the cross” (Birmingham, May 1963).

On a few occasions, I have interviewed Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. King, who is active in pro-life work. She told me, “Well, Dr. Martin Luther King’s daughter, Reverend Bernice King, marched with her Bishop, Bishop Eddie Long in Atlanta late in 2004. And the theme of their march was marriage between a man and a woman and that gay rights and gay marriage was not included in the civil rights movement. Bernice said in her own words, ‘I know deep within my sanctified soul that my father did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage.’”

If that were the case, would SPLC label Dr. King a “hater”? Of course not. But as it stands, the SPLC is, by their actions, denying the meaning of Dr. King’s (and Amos’) words. Like the boy who cried wolf, using the term “hate” to describe someone whose politics you disagree with is wrong on every front. Real hate is what struck the finish line in Boston Monday---regardless of who turns out to be at fault.

SOURCE

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American Laws for American Courts Legislation Wins Major Bipartisan Victory in Oklahoma

The American Laws for American Courts legislation to protect the fundamental constitutional rights of all Oklahoma residents against foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah, was signed into law today by Governor Mary Fallin.

This unequivocal victory for Oklahoma and US law is the latest vindication of a long-term national trend supporting constitutional protections for ALL Americans against foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah, that have found their way into our court systems.

Center for Security Policy President and Chief Executive Officer Frank Gaffney applauded the passage into law of this important legislation:

        “Oklahoma has played an important role in protecting America’s justice system from the incursion of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah. American Laws for American Courts is the primary 21st Century civil rights initiative to ensure constitutional liberties for all Americans. It is needed especially to protect women and children, who have been identified by international human rights organizations as the primary victims of discriminatory foreign laws, Shariah in particular.”

The bill won a decisive bipartisan victory in both houses of the Oklahoma legislature. It was approved in the House of Representatives by an 85-7 margin and in the Senate by a 40-3 margin.

The legislation, sponsored by State Representative Sally Rogers Kern in the House and State Senator Gary Stanislawski in the Senate, is based closely on the American Laws for American Courts model promoted by the American Public Policy Alliance (APPA), which had previously won similar bipartisan approvals in Tennessee, Louisiana, Arizona and Kansas.      Representative Sally Kern stated:

        “Today the will of the vast majority of the citizens of Oklahoman was acknowledged when HB1060, American Law for American Courts, was signed by Gov Fallin. Three years ago 71% of the voters approved State Question 755 prohibiting the use of Sharia Law in Oklahoma. That SQ was declared unconstitutional because it named a particular group. I have worked for three years to get ALAC passed so that the citizens of Oklahoma will be protected by the fundamental rights and liberties that our US Constitutional upholds without the fear of any foreign law being used against them.”

A host of community and interfaith organizations came together to support the effort to pass this important legislation in Oklahoma, which culminated in the signing on Thursday.

More HERE

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Israel - The Happy Little Country

Caroline Glick writes below.  "Glick" means "good fortune" or "happiness" and she writes in that mood below

As Independence Day celebrations were winding down Tuesday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a guest appearance on Channel 2's left-wing satire show Eretz Nehederet. One of the final questions that the show's host Eyal Kitzis asked the premier was how he would like to be remembered after he leaves office.

Netanyahu thought a moment and said, "I'd like to be remembered as the leader who preserved Israel's security."

On the face of it, Netanyahu's stated aspiration might seem dull. In a year he'll be the longest-serving prime minister in the state's history, and all he wants is to preserve our national security? Why is he aiming so low? And yet, the studio audience reacted to Netanyahu's modest goal with a thunderclap of applause.

After pausing to gather his thoughts, a clearly befuddled Kitzis mumbled something along the lines of, "Well, if you manage to make peace as well, we wouldn't object."

The audience was silent.

The disparity between the audience's exultation and Kitzis's shocked disappointment at Netanyahu's answer exposed - yet again - the yawning gap between the mainstream Israeli view of the world, and that shared by members of our elite class.

The Israeli public gave our elites the opportunity to try out their peace fantasies in the 1990s. We gave their peace a chance and got repaid with massive terror and international isolation.

We are not interested in repeating the experience.

A lot has changed since the 1990s. Twenty years after Yitzhak Rabin shook Yasser Arafat's hand on the White House lawn and so officially ushered in Israel's Age of Terror, most Israelis don't really care what the Europeans or the Arabs think of us.

The Europeans prattle on about Israeli racism, and threaten to put yellow stars or some other nasty mark on Israeli goods. They ban Israeli books from their libraries in Scotland. They boycott Israeli universities, professors and students in England. In Italy they hold rallies for convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti at their national Senate. And in France they butcher Jewish children.

And then the likes of Catherine Ashton expect us to care what they think about us.  Well, we don't.

But in their endless search for the next silver bullet, the Europeans and the Americans and their Israeli followers miss the fact that the easiest way to build a secure and peaceful world is not by wooing terrorists. The best way to achieve these goals is by accepting the world as it is. This is what the Israeli people has done. True, we needed to have our fantasies blown away in suicide bombings before we reconciled ourselves to this simple truth. But life has been better, happier and more secure since we did.

The "international community's" inability to accept that sober-minded contentment is better than pipe dream fantasies has caused leftist writers in Israel, Europe and the US alike to express mystification at a recent survey carried out by the OECD, which ranks Israelis among the happiest people in the world. The ranking made no sense to commentators.

Israelis work harder than other members of the OECD. We complain more than other members of the OECD. We don't have "peace." And yet, we are among the happiest people in the OECD.

What gives? For decades before we embarked on the phony peace process, Israel was a model socialist state. We had paralyzing tax rates and failed government industries that crowded private entrepreneurship out of the market. Monopolies ran every sector and provided shoddy goods and horrible services at astronomical prices. The Histadrut labor union owned most of the economy along with the government and in every sector, Histadrut commissars ensured that anyone with an ounce of initiative was subject to unending abuse.

Nirvana.

Just around the time we began extricating ourselves from our socialist straitjacket, we were also recognizing that the peace thing wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. And at that point we began to understand that happiness and success aren't about what other people give you - money, treaties, a phone line after a five-year wait. Happiness and success are about what you accomplish.

At that point, sometime between 1996 and 2000, Israelis began creating large families and embracing the free market.

Today, with an average of three children per family, Israelis are the fecund outliers of the industrial world. And as David Goldman at PJ Media has demonstrated, there is a direct correlation between children and human happiness. This is why fruitful Israelis have the lowest suicide rate in the industrial world. When you have children, you have a future.

And when you have a future, you work hard to secure it, and have a generally optimistic outlook.

What could be so bad when your kid just lost his first tooth? Israelis are also happy because we see that we can build the future we want for our families and our country even without another glitzy signing ceremony at the White House every six months. Our country is getting stronger and more livable every day. And we know it.

Those on the international stage that share our view that life is about more than pieces of paper signed with Arab anti-Semites recognize what is happening. For them Israel is not "that shi**y little country." It's "The Little Engine that Could."

Take the Chinese. Last July China signed a deal with Israel to build an inland port in Eilat and a 180- km. freight railway to connect Eilat to Israel's Mediterranean ports in Ashdod and Haifa. The purpose of the project is to build an alternative to the Suez Canal, in Israel. The Chinese look at the region, and they see that Egypt is a failed state that can't even afford its wheat imports. The future of shipping along the Suez Canal is in doubt with riots in Port Said and Suez occurring on a regular basis.

On the other hand, Israel is a stable, prosperous, successful democracy that keeps moving from strength to strength. When the freight line is completed, as far as the global economy is concerned, Israel will become the most strategically important country in the region.

Then there is our newfound energy wealth. Israel became energy independent on March 30, when the Tamar offshore gas field began pumping natural gas to Israel. In two to three years, when the Leviathan gas field comes online, Israel will become one of the most important producers of natural gas in the world. Moreover, in 2017, Israel will likely begin extracting commercial quantities of oil from its massive oil shale deposits in the Shfela Basin near Beit Shemesh.

At 65, Israel is becoming a mature, responsible, prosperous and powerful player in the international arena. The only thing we need to ensure that we enjoy the fruits of our labors is security. And the one thing we can do to squander it all is place our hopes in "peace."

And so we won't, ever again.

More HERE

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Some satire from Israel

It helps if you know a bit about the scene in Israel but is worthwhile for others too



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