Sunday, December 18, 2016

Only 28 American refugees fled to Canada after the election. None of them were celebrities.

Remember the rash of vows by American celebrities that they would leave the United States if Donald Trump won the election? With nearly a month-and-a-half to plan and execute their exodus, a total of none of them have left.

Social media buzzed about the masses of “regular” people who would leave as well. Canada was prepared to open the floodgates and take in the survivors of the American apocalypse with open arms. Since the election, a total of 28 Americans have applied for Trump-related refugee status. Unfortunately for these endangered liberals, their requests might not work even with so few of them.

According to Heat Street:

Of the 28 who applied, it’s possible none will be approved to relocate to America’s northern neighbor. The CBC found only two successful claims for asylum out of hundreds of cases filed from the U.S. since 2010. There was no successful claim out of the 170 filed in 2015.

The bad news for the rest of us is that the leftist Hollywood types have failed to follow through with their threats as well. According to The Blaze:

Among those who said they would leave are: Bryan Cranston, Rosie O’Donnell, Jon Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg, Miley Cyrus, Amy Schumer, Cher, Samuel Jackson, Lena Dunham, Barbara Streisand, Raven-Symone and others.

None of them have followed through and several have said following Trump’s election to the White House that they were simply “joking” when they made their vow.

Just when conservatives thought we’d have fewer progressives to deal with, they declined to follow through with their promises. This is just another case of how liberals are often all bark, no bite.

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Christians who opposed Trump must open their minds to the sovereignty of God

I thoroughly opposed Donald Trump through the primaries. When he was nominated, I searched for a conservative alternative. On election day, I didn’t vote for either of the major party candidates and “wasted” my vote (though I could write a tome about the fact that there’s no such thing as a wasted vote, but now’s not the time). As I posted yesterday, things have changed. He’s now going to be President and we must push him in the right direction.

There’s another angle that I didn’t address yesterday: the conscientious Christian worldview. My opposition to Trump was not based solely on my faith and my view that he doesn’t share it. There were more political reasons that fueled my opposition. Other Christians opposed Trump specifically because of his stated lack of understanding and adherence to a Biblical worldview. To those of you who fall into this category, I now ask you to follow a new direction regarding the President-elect.

You don’t have to like him. You don’t even have to support him (though any American President deserves our respect even if only for the office itself and its role in defending the Constitution). All I’m asking is that you view his presidency with an open mind based upon our understanding of the omnipotence and sovereignty of God.

Do I believe that God “chose” Trump as so many Christians have postulated? Yes, but not for the reasons that people like Michele Bachmann have suggested. Instead of Trump being chosen to make America great again, I believe it’s more likely that he was chosen much in the same way that Saul was chosen. Through the prophets, God warned Israel that they didn’t need a king but they essentially demanded it, so God gave them the reprehensible King Saul. This decision led to David and Solomon, so an argument can be made that Saul was a necessary evil to get to better kings. Unfortunately, Solomon was followed by Rehoboam who effectively split the nation for nearly three millennia.

We must always remember that God is in control. Free will is granted to men, but it is God’s will that brings about our leaders. That’s not to say we have no responsibility for matters. It’s often challenging to reconcile the free will granted to man with the supreme will that enacts God’s plan. I can’t offer a simple explanation other than portions of the Bible that prove it to me, but there’s a long explanation (more like a theory) that I may tackle some day. In the meantime, we simply have to accept the Biblical validity of these apparently contradictory concepts.

God could make Trump a great President. He could turn him into the downfall of the nation. He can use him as a tool to usher in someone else, to take down a system, or to take individual actions that fulfill portions of God’s plan. As Christians, we have to shift from the campaign perspective that Trump isn’t the right man for the job to the post-election perspective that he’s the person we need to watch and even guide at times.

Nothing is impossible for God. If He can free the Hebrews from the clutches of the Egyptians, he can make Trump fulfill whatever role he’s intended to play in God’s plan. That means that we cannot allow our personal distaste or mistrust cloud our own Biblical worldview. We need to watch what happens and react accordingly without the bias we may feel against the President-elect. We don’t have to like him nor trust him, but we should be watchful of his actions and react to where they lead us. When he does well, support him. When he does poorly, we may dissent. It’s the only truly Biblical way to handle any politician.

The difference between Trump and past Presidents is that Trump makes it harder to both support and oppose. That paradox has spread to his supporters. As such, we must remain diligent. Just because we don’t know God’s plan doesn’t mean we ca’t recognize it as it plays out.



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Saturday, December 17, 2016

From #NeverTrump to #StuckWithTrump: Why I now focus solely on the issues

There haven’t been very many times that I praised anything about Donald Trump on this blog. Most of those moments were in relations to Hillary Clinton, the only Democrat so distasteful that she could lose to him. I consider myself the hipster version of #NeverTrumpers; I opposed his liberalism before it became cool.

Things have changed. He’s going to be the President of the United States in a little over a month. There’s no longer anything for me to oppose about him as a person or a candidate. It’s not that those issues disappeared. It’s that opposing them no longer offers any benefit. It’s time to shift gears and focus on the only things that are politically important for the next 2-4 years (depending on how the GOP performs in the 2018 election): the issues.

I’ll be first to admit that some of Trump’s choices for cabinet have been positive. It’s not like I expected to hate all of them, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. James Mattis and Jeff Sessions are both solid choices. Mick Mulvaney could turn out to be an excellent choice and, though I know very little about him, David Friedman seems to have the right perspectives on Israel.

They say when you’re going to say something mean about someone, you should start with the positives. So far, those are all of them.

Before I get to the negatives, it’s important to understand my stance. With Trump and the GOP in charge in Washington DC and in most states, this is a grand opportunity. I go in with low expectations about how they will handle their power because they’ve given very few indications they will use it appropriately. As a proud member of the new Federalist Party, my greatest hope in American government is that Washington DC will dramatically reduce its own powers in all three forms: budget, bureaucracy, and power. That should be the primary long-term goal of the GOP, but so far it seems to be very low on the totem pole. In fact, it seems like most of the talk out of Republicans lately have surrounded measures that will increase budgets while only offering token reductions in bureaucracy and power.

This is why it’s all about the issues for me going forward. If I allow myself to look at the individuals, my low expectations will go even lower. The people in charge, from Trump to Mitch McConnell to Rex Tillerson to Paul Ryan, all seem to be against the concept of reducing government power. They talk about smaller government, but the changes they’re proposing are infinitesimal compared to the actions that are truly necessary.

Briefly, here are the issues that concern me. Each could have their own set of blog posts written about them, but I’ll keep it limited to bullet points. If you don’t recognize that these are problems, it would be hard to convince you even with longer explanations.

  • Carrier’s crony capitalism deal
  • Taking down defense industry stock prices with Tweets that hurt American investors
  • Touting a $50B investment from a “Japanese firm” that gets the vast majority of its funds from Saudi Arabia
  • Reince Priebus
  • Outrageously expensive infrastructure plans (for which Trump is leaning towards the Schumer plan rather than the McConnell plan)
  • Ivanka’s daycare initiative
  • Obamacare uncertainty (this isn’t hard: assess, prepare to replace, repeal, then replace)

There are other potential concerns from the relationship with Vladimir Putin to his softening on illegal immigration and deportations, but those and most other concerns can’t be fully understood until he’s in office. Items in the list above are all already concerning.

When the government does the right things, I’ll cheer regardless of who’s doing it or their party allegiance. When they do the wrong things as most of them are wont to do, I’ll oppose loudly. This is no longer a question of personalities or history. With the election over, it’s all about the issues, so they will become my primary political focus. I encourage everyone else to take a similar approach.



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Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Triggered.


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Saturday, December 10, 2016

No, OSU, Abdul Razak Ali Artan was not killed by police because of race

Fearlessness and lack of discernment are often dangerous bedfellows. As innocuous as it may seem, the dangerous combination has reared its head in a potentially disastrous way at Ohio State University. The Coalition of Black Liberation reads the names of black people killed by police every week. This week, they added the name of Abdul Razak Ali Artan to the list.

For those who don’t remember, Artan is the Ohio State student who went on a car-ramming, knife-wielding rampage on campus. Thankfully, he was unable to kill anyone, but he did injure several and it could have been much worse. He was shot and killed by police.

That’s where the danger of the radical campus group’s decision comes into play. For a while now, these groups have mixed together people who were clearly dangerous and committing crimes with those who shouldn’t have been killed. This type of narrative jamming is typical, but normally there are lines drawn. One such line is that we normally don’t classify the police killing of an attempted murderer and/or terrorists in with people who were killed during traffic stops, but that’s what they’re now doing. The danger: when protests are lodged against clearly righteous kills, it becomes protest/riot-worthy every time someone of a particular race is killed by police.

This should worry us all.

Instead of portraying terrorists and attempted murderers as victims, perhaps these groups should spend more time cheering for law enforcement when they’re defending the lives of innocent people. It would make their other protests much more powerful. Instead, they’ve chosen to make a mockery of their entire movement.

Here’s an excerpt from The Lantern:

“Abudl Razak Ali Artan was a BUCKEYE, a member of our family. If you think it is ok to celebrate his death and/or share pictures of his dead body and I see it in my timeline, I will unfriend you. I pray you find compassion for his life, as troubled as it clearly was. Think of the pain he must have been in to feel that his actions were the only solution. We must come together in this time of tragedy. #BuckeyeStrong #BlackLivesMatter #SayHisName”

Read more on The Lantern.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Dear John Kasich: Sign the “Heartbeat Bill”

How the fight against abortion will be fought for the next 2-4 years can be shaped by one man: Ohio Governor John Kasich. He has the opportunity to sign the “Heartbeat Bill” which would prohibit doctors from committing abortions once a heartbeat is detected. This happens as early as six weeks.

The Governor has expressed some concerns. While he’s pro-life, his views lean towards the moderate end of the spectrum. There are controversial pieces to the bill, most notably the prohibition on abortions even in cases of rape or incest. Kasich has stated that he believes in exceptions for abortions.

There’s another factor that’s being considered: court challenges. If he signs the bill, it will turn Ohio into ground zero for abortion activists. There will be more protests and legal challenges filed in the state than it’s ever seen before. Kasich, considered a pragmatic leader, will use this as the reason to veto the bill if he does. This would be a mistake. It’s time for challenges. It’s time to test the court system to see what it will take to fight this battle in other states. Pragmatic conservatives will say that we need to stack the courts first, but this would be a mistake. Because legal challenges take so long to prepare and moving up the court system is a tedious process, we must start now. If we wait, it’s possible for the courts to already be reversed if Donald Trump loses in 2020.

Assuming that Trump keeps to his promise of nominating a staunchly pro-life Supreme Court justice, this may be the best time in modern history to make an impact in the war on abortion. By the time the Heartbeat Bill reaches the Supreme Court, Trump’s nominee should be confirmed.

By signing the bill, Kasich will stretch the limits and encourage other states to prepare to head in the same direction. They will all be watching to see how it plays out in the courts, but being the “first on the dance floor” gives Ohio the opportunity to set the agenda. Currently, most states have various restrictions on abortion prohibition ranging from “viability” or the third trimester up to 24 weeks. By pushing the limit all the way up to heartbeat status, around 6 or 7 weeks from conception, other states will be able to get their own similar legislation ready.

I’ve never been a big fan of John Kasich, but his stalwart opposition to Donald Trump demonstrated that he’s willing to stick to his guns. This is a time when he needs his guns pointed in the right direction. It will give him pause from a moral perspective to stretch the limits so far and to include rape or incest. It will seem like the impractical move for a practical politician to make. He must push all of those urges aside and act boldly now for the sake of the fight against abortion. Blinking now will allow the opportunity to pass. Millions of future Americans can be saved by a signature. Sign the bill, Governor.



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