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St. Valentine

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The origins of Valentine’s Day appear to go back to at least three Christian martyrs named Valentine. One legend states that a Roman priest in the Christian church was the namesake for our modern Valentine’s Day. Valentine lived during the rule of Claudius II (Claudius the Cruel) in the third century. Emperor Claudius involved Rome in many unpopular and bloody campaigns but had difficulty maintaining a strong army. He believed the problem arose because many Roman men refused to join his armies for fear of what would happen to their wives and families if they died in battle. Claudius’ solution to the problem was to ban all marriages and engagements in Rome. For Valentine and the Christians, this was a violation of biblical commandments with […]

The failure of Western liberal ideology

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Nothing has exposed the falsity of the reigning humanist-progressivist worldview and its tenets of tolerance, multiculturalism, and diversity in Western civilization as has the massive flood of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East to Europe. The same is occurring to a lesser extent along America’s porous southern border. Floods are destructive, but a steady flow of unpolluted water is crucial to sustain a beautiful and bountiful land. Is the analogy of the hydrology of water and the occurrence, flow, movement, and distribution of immigrants into a country not accurate? One is not anti-immigrant to want an orderly, lawfully conducted immigration process that respects the existing citizens of a nation whether they were natural born or properly immigrated and assimilated. Progressivist policies that fail to […]

Much for which to be thankful!

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This has been a difficult year in America and for most of the world. In spite of all the bitter rhetoric on both sides, the 2016 presidential campaign was not so much about a choice between two candidates but was substantially about the fundamental differences in the worldviews of the voters they represented. Some (including myself) believed that the presidential election would determine the trajectory of the nation for decades to come. Given the outcome of the election, it appears that those identifying with the Judeo-Christian worldview have been given another chance to make the necessary course corrections to save the nation from cultural disintegration. For many, the election is not over as can be seen on college campuses throughout America, in Hollywood, academia, establishment […]

The Church triumphant – Part II

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[Part II was intentionally written before the results of the November 8, 2016 elections were known. It was released for posting on November 11, 2016.] Will the church of Jesus Christ survive in Western civilization? If Christianity does not survive, then the church must also die, and there have been many predictions of the imminent death of both over the last three centuries. The skeptics Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock n’ roll or Christianity.[1] These are the words of John Lennon of Beatles fame who made these statements during an interview for a magazine article fifty years […]

The Church triumphant – Part I

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Christians in the West are living in a grand clarifying moment. The gap between Christians and the wider culture is widening, and many formerly nominal Christians are becoming “religious nones”… We face a solemn hour for humanity at large and a momentous showdown for the Western church. At stake is the attempted completion of the centuries-long assault on the Jewish and Christian faiths and their replacement by progressive secularism as the defining faith of the West and the ideology said to be the best suited to the conditions of advanced modernity. The gathering crisis is therefore about nothing less than a struggle for the soul of the West…[1] So wrote Os Guinness wrote in Impossible People. One aspect of this grand clarifying moment for Christians […]

America’s “Gray-suited bureaucrats”- Part II

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As described in Part I, most Americans believe they have been stripped of most of their Constitutionally-mandated freedoms and are being controlled by a vast army of gray-suited governmental officials and bureaucrats who are no longer responsive to the will and wishes of the people. Three principal culprits were identified in the marginalization of the American electorate in the governing process. First, the modern judiciary has crossed the line of its Constitutionally-mandated powers by creating legislation as opposed to interpreting the law. These court-created laws are wrongly assumed to be the law of the land. Second, overreach of the Executive branch has ignored or violated the Constitution through disregard of Constitutional limits on executive powers, selective enforcement and/or bureaucratic changes to laws enacted by Congress, […]

America’s “Gray-suited bureaucrats”- Part I

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On June 23, 2016, the British People throughout the United Kingdom voted to end forty plus years of membership in the European Union. As one writer put it, many Britons felt forsaken by the country’s political and cultural leadership. Many believed that their lives were controlled by “gray-suited Brussels bureaucrats” at the EU’s headquarters.”[1] Many Americans and possibly a large majority feel they, too, are being controlled by a vast army of gray-suited governmental officials and bureaucrats who are no longer responsive to the will and wishes of a majority of the people. There are three principal culprits in the marginalization of the American electorate in the governing process. Judiciary The problem with the modern judiciary is that it has crossed the line of its […]

Would Jefferson label the modern Judiciary as the “Despotic Branch”?

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George Will is one of the brightest and most articulate columnists on the national scene (Washington Post Writers Group). I normally savor every one of his appearances on the opinion page. This is why I am disturbed by Will’s false and malicious criticism of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (“Huckabee’s ‘appalling’ crusade for nullification”).[1] Will is a huge fan and student of baseball and occasionally writes a column on the subject. Using a baseball analogy, Will must know that his column’s pitches at Huckabee were not only far outside the strike zone but that they were intended as bean balls meant to injure and harm Huckabee. This disappoints because Will has not lowered himself to such levels in past columns that I have read. Will claims […]

Gridlock – Governmental stalemate arising from a deeper cultural divide

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Gridlock is a favorite bogeyman of journalists, columnists, and commentators in recent years, especially following national elections. They may as well save their breath and barrels of printer’s ink for the political divide has never been wider and deeper. Perennial prescriptions of non-partisanship and cooperation disappear as quickly as the morning mist following Election Day. One must ask if political polarization always results in gridlock which is shorthand for the inability of government to govern effectively. A cursory review of American history reveals many times of intense polarization, but the country and its government survived. Why was that possible then and not possible now? An examination of one of the defining moments in our nation’s history suggests an answer. The fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional […]

“Workplace violence” comes to Canada

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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as “…violence or the threat of violence against workers. It can occur at or outside the workplace and can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and homicide, one of the leading causes of job-related deaths. However it manifests itself, workplace violence is a growing concern for employers and employees nationwide.” The OSHA website also tells us that workplace violence can strike anywhere and anyone…people in homes, pizza delivery persons, gas meter readers, psychiatric evaluators…literally anywhere work is or can be done.[1] But OSHA’s definition is so broad that it is meaningless. Almost any violence can be classified as connected to the workplace however tenuous that connection might be. Not only does OSHA […]

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