Month: July 2013

I was well enough to go on errands this morning, which took us up and down the county. I kept my eye out for children at play on a nice summer day.

Sort of like trying to spot the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Hey, this isn’t funny anymore–what have they done with all the children? No kids playing in the parks, or on the residential streets, or in the big back yards (all those swings and sliding-boards and see-saws going to waste). I did see maybe four or five very small children, all told, but I didn’t count them because they were with their mothers.

I was looking for free-range children riding bikes, playing ball, pitching horseshoes, messing around in the creeks, or just hanging out together without some adult breathing down their necks to make sure they follow the program. I couldn’t find any. Aside from the rare, lone adult pedestrian, the only sign of human life was people in cars. A visitor from another planet might mistake the car for a life-support system.

This ain’t natural, folks. I dread to contemplate a future inhabited by a generation whose every thought has been spoon-fed to it by someone else. Morlocks and Eloi, brethren. Morlocks and Eloi. God, save us.

Help me out, O readers–how should I answer an atheist who says God is cruel and unjust, on account of all those innocent people He kills off in the Old Testament–and that the Bible is not the “good book,” but the bad book?

I think his arguments are sophomoric and inane, and hardly deserving of an answer. But answer them I must, because I don’t know who else might be reading: it may be someone who very badly needs an answer.

To avoid the risk of misrepresenting my opponent, you can read his comments and mine on the “Playground Player Chessforum” at http://www.chessgames.com . Scroll down to the menu at the bottom of the page, click “Chessforums,” and then look for the little green dinosaur and “playground player.”

Adam, of course, was the first to blame God for his own sin: “The woman that you gave me, Lord, made me eat of the forbidden fruit.” (Genesis 3:12). So if we want to deny free will, which we do at our peril, we can say it’s all God’s fault for making us the way we are. It would be hard for any eight-year-old to come up with a more persuasive argument.

We might want to ask, If God is cruel and unjust, then how can Jesus Christ, God’s Son, be any better? “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) But who can point to anything cruel or unjust done by Jesus? Either He truly represents the Father, as He says He does, or He doesn’t, and must therefore be a liar.

Antichrists great and small want to get rid of the Bible so they can do whatever they please without being judged for it. But if they hadn’t, in their secret hearts, already judged and condemned themselves, they simply wouldn’t care about the Bible. They would not protest so much unless they knew they were guilty. Otherwise their behavior makes no sense.

I don’t expect to convert the atheist. God has tapped me to perform this service, and I must do the best I can.

I don’t know about you, but I sure could use $85,000.

I had just received an email this morning from someone called “The Slot Guru,” offering me his booklet on “How to Win Big” at the slot machines. But I was distracted by a news item that demonstrated a surer way to hit the jackpot.

As reported by The Daily Caller ( http://dailycaller.com ), July 7, a high school English teacher in South Carolina has been paid $85,000–plus his regular salary and benefits, plus $32,000 in attorneys’ fees–for stomping on an American flag in front of his class. In three different periods, no less. In recognition of his childish behavior, school officials suspended him with (of course) full pay.

Now the taxpayers have to pony up for an out-of-court settlement to avoid a lawsuit. The flag-stomping teacher sued the school district for breach of contract (it’s virtually impossible to fire a unionized public school teacher), defamation (like anyone but this doofus himself is to blame for showing himself to be an ass), and–ta-dah!–“emotional distress.”

I cannot explain why school officials thought they’d lose this lawsuit if it came to court.

So we must suppose it’s okay for a public school teacher, battening on the taxpayers, to tear down their country’s flag in front of their children and grind it underfoot. Come to think of it, we ought to applaud him for showing so vividly what public education is doing to America on a much bigger scale. It’s almost Biblical in its symbolism.

Do you suppose he would have been paid $85,000 for stomping on organized sodomy’s “rainbow” flag? Or the Mexican flag?

Meanwhile, American parents continue to send America’s children to schools where they are taught, by the likes of this flag-stomping teacher, to despise America.

That’s another thing I can’t explain.

Oops! The headline is misleading. After all, you can’t successfully argue with a liberal, anymore than you can argue with a bird-bath or a fence-post.  So probably the headline should be, “Why You Can’t Argue With a Lib.”

My wife and I were discussing British socialists the other night, and I marveled that persons who seemed otherwise intelligent simply can’t see that socialism has been a total bust all over the world. There’s no denying it–the bigger the dose of socialism a country gets, the bigger the failure. Even Red China has had to change to a market economy, while preserving the name of communism. And to the extent that China can’t resist the urge to impose government controls on the people and the economy–to build things that never should be built, and to refrain from buildings things that really need to be built, simply because the state is the supreme authority–to that extent will China fail: almost certainly in your lifetime and mine.

So why can’t socialists (and other libs and progs) see that their hair oil doesn’t grow hair, their seeds sprout only into weeds, their boat doesn’t float, and their cockamamie system depresses productivity?

Because it’s their religion.

They don’t believe in God, they don’t acknowledge the authority of Scripture. The state is their god, its political leaders their angels, and its teachers’ unions their priesthood. They are incapable of questioning any of it. That’s why, if you do try to argue with them, and are uncivil enough to subject them to facts and logic, they instantly resort to shouting, name-calling, and threats. You are a racist! You are a bigot! You are a hater! In the interests of peace and love and harmony–not to mention diversity–you must be beaten senseless.

So, no, you don’t really argue with a liberal. You just have to find some way to get him out of office.

As reported by the UK Telegraph and umpteen dozen other papers, pro-abortion protesters last week chanted “Hail, Satan!” at a public event in Texas ( http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100224931/pro-abortion-activists-chant-hail-satan-at-a-texas-rally-satan-doesnt-need-this-kind-of-bad-publicity/?ico=^editors_choice ). You can see and hear it on video.

So if you still think “a woman’s right to choose”–that is, her desire to kill her baby before it can be born, or even shortly after birth–is anything but satanic, you’re out of step with your fellow libs and progs. But then leftism, secular humanism, whatever else you want to call it, has always been the work of Satan. Ye shall be as gods, deciding good and evil for yourselves. It’ll work out great!

Out of one corner of their mouths you get all this pap that sounds so nice and well-meaning, if a bit muddle-headed. “We want a health care system that works for everybody!” “All we want is for marriage to be equal for everyone who loves someone else.” “We’re taxing the blood out of your veins to save the planet.” But out of the other corner you get the truth about who they really are: “Hail, Satan!”

Hey, they said it, not me…

Dear King George:

Today we celebrate our forefathers’ Declaration of Independence from you and Great Britain. We are sorry to hear that your spirit is uneasy on this day.

We apologize to you for declaring independence, shooting up your army, depriving you of your American colonies and their revenue, and making you look weak and incompetent in the eyes of the world.  Heck, all you wanted was a stamp tax and a tea tax.

We apologize for doing you all those injuries, when today we lie down on our backs for insults and injuries to which you never would have dared subject us, for fear of God’s wrath and the contempt of civilized people everywhere–insults and injuries done us by our own elected officials. Remember how we demanded our own representation? You must be laughing yourself silly, to see how that turned out!

We stood in arms against you when Britain was the greatest military power in the world. Now we tamely submit to indignities that it never, ever would have occurred to you to subject us to. We grovel before homosexuals, feminists, illegal aliens, welfare queens, community organizers, and other low forms of life. Maybe if you’d sent over a regiment of poofs and pansies instead of the Hessians and the Royal Navy, you might have won the war in a matter of days.

But be comforted, old boy–as much as we wronged you, we wrong ourselves the more.

A couple of my readers in Canada have reported that they can’t buy my new book, The Fugitive Prince, because amazon.com charges in excess of $22 per book to ship to Canada.

I have just been on the amazon.com page which lists “Shipping Rates to Canada.” According to this, Standard Shipping (for one book) totals $4.99 (per shipment)  plus $4.49 (per item)=$9.48 to have one book shipped to a customer in Canada. With Expedited Shipping, the cost would be $6.99 per shipment plus $4.49 per item=$11.38.

Those are the rates as listed by amazon.com on its official Help page.

Note: You can also order my books directly from the publisher, the Chalcedon Foundation, at http://www.chalcedon.edu . Click on “Store,” then “Books,” then “Fiction.” Or phone Chalcedon at 209-736-4365 (Ext. 12 for Orders). When Chalcedon HQ opens today, I will call and find out what is their shipping rate to Canada, and inform you accordingly.

I have no idea how two Canadian readers would arrive independently at the figure of >$22 shipping per book. But, happily, it does appear to be wrong.

PS–Upon further investigation, I can’t say whether the $22-$23 figure is right or wrong! But I have been informed that international shipping rates were sharply increased in January. Meanwhile, the shipping charge from Chalcedon (in California) to Canada is $12-$14 (depending on the weight of the book) for one book.

I admit it’s expensive, but governments determine international shipping rates and there’s not much any of us can do about it. So, ask yourself–“Would I rather read Lee’s book, which is noble and edifying and great, and keep it for myself and my family, or go to some stupid movie about a comic book and take my kids and spend $50 or $60 just to aggravate myself?”