Immigration
I Finally Get President Obama
I followed closely and did my research on Senator Barack Obama during his ascent to power. It was important because he was a rising political star and eventually became the 44th president of the United States.
US presidents have a great influence on American life, the economy, cultural trends and also the state of freedom and liberty around the world.
The POTUS is the most influential political fugure on the planet.
Now that he is in the last year of his presidency, a light has gone on for me.
I finally get President Obama.
The first Revive America blog that I wrote detailed the 2008 presidential election and what I knew about both Barack Obama and then-challenger John McCain.
The genesis of that article came on a plane ride back from Asia in the summer of 2008. Whipping out a legal pad as I sat in coach on a Korean Airlines flight, I jotted down all that I knew about Barack Obama’s policy positions.
That article was published as “One Hundred Reasons I Will Not Vote for Barack Obama” and detailed his economic, social, and foreign affairs positions as I understood them at the time.
They proved to be quite accurate.
In 2008, I thought Barack Obama’s policies showed he was an ideological liberal and would govern from the left of the political spectrum. (He had run as a moderate.) Liberals generally favor government cronyism in economics, secular social values, and downplay America’s military role in the world.
That fits Barack Obama to a “T.”
I’d perused Mr. Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father. It revealed the strong anti-colonialism of Barack Obama Sr. that he passed down to his son. Much of President Obama’s foreign policy decisions seem to echo this call to down size America, especially in the Middle East and Africa.
That view of President Obama’s MO also makes sense.
I’d also studied the rise and evolution of progressive politics–the new, trendier name for American liberalism. Following in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt, progressives want to transform America into the image of a European social welfare state. Thus the need for wealth distribution by taxing the rich and giving out freebies to everybody else.
Check another box for under understanding the president.
But now after viewing his presidency through the prism of seven years of speeches, rhetoric, executive actions, court battles, legislative achievements and Supreme Court decisions, I believe I have a better understanding on what makes our current president tick.
I believe I understand the Obama Doctrine–his primary operating philosophy. It is this:
Don’t discriminate against anybody–with one exception.
If you reflect on what Barack Obama has done over the last seven years, his accomplishments, policies, and battles all come down to fighting discrimination as he sees it.
Here are some examples:
Health Care
His largest legislative success, what we call Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), was aimed at non-discrimination against the uninsured in the United States–those with existing pre-conditions (requiring more expensive healthcare), and the poor in general. He felt that the free enterprise system of health care (which was the best in the world at the time) discriminated against some folks.
So he “fixed it” and forced us down the path toward socialized medicine now being touted by Socialist Senator and Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Of course, nineteen million Americans still don’t have healthcare and costs are up and services are down. Socialism doesn’t work in any business domain. It just gives a “feel good” experience to those concerned about “medical discrimination.”
Immigration
The Obama Doctrine is equally clear in this area of not discriminating against those who come across our border illegally. They should be protected from the law in sanctuary cities, get jobs, work–and in some cases even vote. But they should never be called “illegal” but rather “undocumented.”
Sounds like they lost their visas somewhere. (Woops–they never had one because they entered the country illegally.)
The Administration’s encouragement of open borders, the mass migration of Central American children, and lax deportation reveal his desire to not discriminate against anybody who wants to come here.
I agree with one immigration decision made by this Administration: The Dream Act. Children of illegals should not be held accountable for the sins of their parents (Exekiel 18:20).
Women
President Obama based both of his election campaigns on a phony war about discriminating against women in the marketplace. He said that women made seventy cents on the dollar to men; That women were not promoted like men in the workplace; That women needed special rights for maternity leave, child care and other government programs.
Of course it wasn’t true. Woman have equal rights and opportunities in America that are the envy of the world. President Obama should have been speaking up for the rights of women in Muslim nations.
LGBT
Much of the Obama presidency has concentrated on diminishing the Christian vestiges of sexual morality in this country (such as marriage) and replacing it with the atheist/secularist version of non-discrimination against any form of sexual immorality.
Legalizing gay marriage was the big win in this anti-discrimination category and was celebrated by lighting up the White House with the colors of the rainbow.
The final thrust in this anti-discrimination crusade is trans gender acceptance–attempting to give .01 percent of the US population the “right” to have every public bathroom in America neutered. This allows a man or a woman who thinks they are the opposite to walk into a restroom or locker room and bare their private parts (to the horror of the other 99.99 percent).
So much for sexual sanity and democracy. Anti-discrimination will rule the lieus!
African Americans
I’m proud of the civil rights progress we’ve made in the United States. At a university class I taught last night, I showed the entire “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. There used to be institutional racial discrimination in this nation. God used MLK and others to eradicate most of it fifty years ago.
Not in Barack Obama’s eyes. From the Ferguson riots, to the burning of Baltimore, to the war on police, to inviting the head of Black Lives Matter to the State of the Union address, President Obama keeps insisting that blacks are systemically being discriminated against in the urban centers of the nation.
Not true. More blacks are incarcerated because they commit more crimes. They commit more crimes because 70% grow up without dads and live in poverty as a result. There’s no discrimination here–just a neglect in evangelism, discipleship and social incentives to strengthen the black family.
President Obama missed a great opportunity, as our first black president, to strengthen African-American families. Instead, he beat the drum of racial discrimination for votes and political pandering.
Muslims
The final aspect of President Obama’s Doctrine of no discrimination is seen in his prosecution of the War of Terror. He rarely uses that term. He calls Islam a religion of peace. He will unleash the American military to defeat ISIS and will not call the jihadists of the world what they are: terrorist Muslims that are following Mohammed’s example.
President Obama does not want the world discriminating against his father’s and step father’s religion. So he doesn’t weep when heads are cut off, and doesn’t say that terrorism comes from a traditional strain of Islam that goes back fourteen hundred years.
Meanwhile, the Middle East is on fire, millions of Muslim refugees are de-stabilizing Europe, and jihadists are emboldened kill Americans here.
I could give numerous other examples of our president’s non-discrimination mindset. It’s clear from looking at the full array of President Obama’s policies that his central operating ideology is:
Non-discrimination–with one exception.
It’s not making judgments on anything or anybody–with one exception. It’s celebrating cultural diversity–with only one exception.
That exception, which, in his view, should be discriminated against is biblical values and faith in Jesus Christ.
The evidence of President Obama’s war on biblical values is abundant:
- Forcing Catholic charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for condoms and abortions through the ACA.
- Persecuting non-profit organizations via the IRS for their faith and free market principles.
- Promoting freedom of worship (only in your building) instead of freedom of religion (everywhere in public life).
- Radically promoting abortion and the selling of aborted baby body parts (Planned Parenthood).
- Negating ala the Supreme Court the 5000 year definition of marriage (that comes from Genesis chapter 2).
- Not participating in the National Day of Prayer each May (the only president to do so).
- Welcoming thousands of Muslim refugees and refusing Christian ones.
- Persecuting Christian colleges and seminaries. (Right now 47 Christian colleges are suing the federal government over religious freedom).
And on and on.
President Obama, at his core, does not believe in making any moral judgments (discrimination) against anyone or anything–except the Christian faith.
Why the exception?
Because the spirit or mindset influencing him disdains America’s Judeo-Christian heritage, the true meaning of freedom which comes from right living, America’s role in world evangelization, and the protection the US provides against evil around the world.
That spirit wants to persecute and destroy Christ, his ways and his followers (Revelation 12: 13-17).
Under the guise of non-discrimination.
Get it?
What We Must Do About the New Nazis and Refugees
As the entire world knows, 129 innocent people were cruelly murdered last Friday in Paris, France by savages related to ISIS (the Islamic State). Another 350 people were injured, many of them seriously. It was the worst terrorist attack on the Western World since 9-11.
In past columns I have called the Islamic jihadists the New Nazis because they share the same disregard for human life and rights as the followers of Adolph Hitler. Read More
If You Tell a Lie Long Enough…
A number of items in the news have prompted my thinking on telling the truth. It seems like that reality is in short supply these days–especially when it comes to government affairs. It’s also a problem in many people’s individual lives.
You see, when you tell a lie long enough you might just start believing it yourself.
A number of issues are forefront on the world stage this week. They include the Greek debt crisis, the nuclear deal with Iran, and an illegal alien killing 32-year old Kate Steinle in San Francisco.
Let’s talk about the power of words, especially when used to tell ongoing lies.
Words are powerful and truth is important. It was by the spoken word that God created the entire universe (Genesis 1:1-29 and John 1:1-4). On a human level, we’ve all experienced that words can give life (“You can do it!”) or they can bring death (“You’ll never amount to anything.”)
And I think we all know that if you tell a lie long enough, it takes on a meaning of its own. After awhile, you’re no longer sure what the original truth was.
Adolph Hitler nearly took over the world on the power of his words and the promulgation of lies. The killing of millions of innocent people was wrapped in the language of “The Final Solution” which sounds like solving a business problem–not annihilating a race.
The power to distort truth with words is a problem we face everyday. Who do we believe about the big issues of life? Who do we trust in making daily decisions?
Words are powerful and lies are destructive. A good portion of our day should be spent in serious thought, sorting out truth from lies.
Let me help you with a few contemporary issues.
The Greek Debt Crisis
I’m sure many have been praying for the Greek people as they voted in a referendum last week and their leaders shuffled between Vienna and Athens. I have a number of friends in Greece and have visited that nation on a number of occasions. It is a beautiful country with a wonderful people that have made a great impact on the world.
But Greece is in trouble with debt–like many other nations (including the United States). We are being told that their answer is austerity. Sounds awful and undeserved.
One dictionary defines austerity as:
“The fact or condition of being rigorous and unsparing: hardness, harshness, rigidity, rigor, rigorousness, severity, sternness, strictness, stringency, and toughness.”
Doesn’t sound like fun–more like someone’s out to get you. We are told in headline after headline that the Greek people are facing “austerity” and their mean neighbors to the north are inflicting it upon them.
No wonder the Greek people said NO in the referendum. Would you want to be faced with austerity?
But it’s the wrong word. It’s not a matter of what you want or like, but what you deserve and need to get back on the right path.
Many Greek people and certainly Greece’s leaders have lived an economic lie for many decades. That lie is called socialism. Socialism’s basic tenet is that government can take care of us from cradle to grave so we don’t really need to work hard, save money, and be frugal in life. We can pile up debt and hope that someone in the future will pay for it.
But as Margaret Thatcher pointed out a generation ago, eventually socialists “run out of other people’s money.” That’s where Greece is today, a nation of 11 million people, many living on the dole, with billions of dollars in unsustainable and unpayable debt to other people and nations.
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore puts it this way:
“Greece is now sitting on $350 billion of debt. It’s unpayable and the international monetary experts are deluding themselves if they believe that by some magic stroke this nation of 11 million citizens will sometime in the future come up with the funds to repay it.”
“Greece is already overtaxed, and adding more taxes on the few businesses that are still functioning is only going to ensure their eventual demise too. Meanwhile the Greek citizens have come to the conclusion that fat pensions and cradle to grave welfare benefits are a human right that can never be taken away. That is what they declared in the referendum. But those benefits are going to be lost. Socialism has radically reduced the standard of living of the citizens.”
“The big lie is that Greece has already lived through austerity. This is a nation that in 2013 was spending up to 59 percent of its GDP on government benefits and programs. Even today the government accounts for half of all spending. How is that austerity? The problem is as the private economy shrinks, the government’s role keeps expanding. Greece’s debt was 120 percent of GDP a decade ago, and now its 175 percent. This is the opposite of austerity. It is a spendfest.”
“In sum, Greece needs much less socialism, and much more privatization. Sell off government assets. Cut tax rates. Sell one of the islands to Disney. Oust the communists who ruined this nation. Get government spending down to 25 percent of GDP.”
Get the picture? Austerity, as a term for this situation, is victim drivel. Greece needs national repentance from living it up with other peoples’ money.
It’s not Europe’s or anybody else’s fault. I can just hear Dave Ramsay giving the same advice to a wildly spending married couple: “Sell your big house, get rid of that car you can’t afford, work two jobs if you have to, and get out of debt so that you can rescue your dignity and future!”
That’s what Greece needs to do.
Don’t feel sorry for them about “austerity.” Pray for their honesty and repentance. (And look in the mirror because we’ve not far behind.)
The Iran Nuclear Deal
The truth is pretty simple on this one. The government of Iran is the world’s leading cause of terrorism. Making a deal with them that allows them a pathway to a nuclear bomb is insanely suicidal. Even a few years ago, that idea was unthinkable.
But then President Obama almost unilaterally decided and promoted the falsehood that a deal with Iran was in the best interest of the Middle East and world. His powerful advisor, Valerie Jarratt, was born in Persia. Apparently, she convinced him that a “deal with Iran” would be great for his legacy.
But disaster for the globe.
He told the lie long enough to himself and those around them that even with Congress and the nation kicking and screaming about stopping Iran from getting nukes, John Kerry forged ahead with a monstrous and dastardly deal.
Columnist Clifford May brings us back to reality:
“Imagine if, on Sept. 12, 2001, I had written a column predicting that within less than 15 years, the president of the United States would be offering the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism a path to nuclear weapons and tens of billions of dollars. You’d have thought me a lunatic. But that’s what President Obama means to do.”
“Just to be clear: There can be no doubt that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. No less an authority than the U.S. government has affirmed that many times over. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans have been killed and maimed by Iranian-backed militias and proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan.”
“The founding principle of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution was “Death to America!” Even as Iranians negotiators have smiled across the table at their American counterparts, that chant has been repeated—not least by Ayatollah Khamenei himself.”
Yet the US administration drinks in the lie like koolaid which could lead to a nuclear holocaust.
Immigration Madness
Thirty-two year old Kate Steinle was taking an evening walk with her dad on a San Francisoc pier on July 1, 2015, when she was allegedly shot and killed by Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had seven felonies on his record and had been deported (and returned) to the US five times.
Bill O’Reilly is trying to use Kate’s senseless death to spur Congress to pass “Kate’s Law” which would mandate a five year mandatory sentence for any deported felon who returned to the USA. If caught twice, it would be ten years. If three, twenty years.
Why are illegal alien felons walking the streets of America?
Because we’ve been telling ourselves a series of lies about immigration for many decades. They include:
- They aren’t really alien and they aren’t really illegal. They’re just desperate people who should be called “undocumented workers.” (Notice the deception of the words here. “Undocumented” implies no illegal entry and “workers” focuses on what they give to America, not what they take away by disobeying the law.)
- The border can’t really be sealed. Try saying that about your own house: “We can’t really put a fence up on have locks on the doors. Everybody should be welcome to come in.”
- Businesses need cheap labor (promoted by Republicans) and Democrats want new voters (who are bribed by giving licenses, voting rights, and welfare entitlements.)
- We need “Sanctuary Cities” where illegal aliens are shielded from the crime of illegal entry by sympathetic city councils. Illegals break the law then city governments do too. Is it any wonder that many other Americans think they can now loot and destroy and break the laws of our country because others are doing it?
Kate Steinle, and many others like her, would be alive today if we had not changed the words to propagate a lie that illegal immigration is benign. That lie has now been told so long and in so many different ways that the United States is under attack on its southern border by illegal immigrants, criminals and terrorists.
Words are powerful. Use them carefully. Don’t tell yourself lies–especially over time.
And don’t vote for leaders who do the same.