THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán offered urgent advice about the future of Belgium to a visiting delegation of Flemish youth patriots, telling them to "awaken" their nation before it's too late.
During a conversation with members of Schild & Vrienden, a prominent group for young Flemish activists in Belgium, PM Orbán encouraged them to "stand up and fight" for their rapidly disappearing culture.
"What would you say to the Belgians who think that they cannot change this massive immigration, this cultural decline in the West, while you with Fidesz [Orban's party] in Hungary, in Central Europe, have shown that change is possible if you are brave enough?" Dries Van Langenhove, head of Schild & Vrienden, asked Orbán.
"May I be direct and honest?" Orbán prefaced. "Awaken. Awaken as soon as possible - otherwise, you will be in trouble."
"Tendencies which are going on are not just unpleasant, not just inconvenient, but changing dramatically, the basis of our civilization. So if you are not awakened in the proper time, Belgium will be different in five or 10 years time. It's about your future."
Orbán clarified that he was merely offering his own opinion to the young men, insisting upon his respect for their "national sovereignty," but added, "It's your future; it's in your hands. Do something. Stand up and fight."
A great honour to be invited by Viktor Orbán, the man who bravely stood against communism back in the day and bravely stands against the EU bureaucrats today. Hungary for the Hungarians. Flanders for the Flemish. Europe for the Europeans. United we stand.
Schild & Vrienden - which translates roughly to "Shield & Friends" - recently made waves across the populist-nationalist sphere when they challenged radical left-wing activists who attempted to 'occupy' ancient Gravesteen Castle to propagandize on behalf of open borders and mass migration.
Compelling video footage of the confrontation went viral across social media, elevating the group's profile and thrusting them into the international spotlight.
Josephine County, Oregon, is set to become a sanctuary for those who value the right to keep and bear arms as protected by the Second Amendment.
An ordinance introduced by County Commissioner Simon Hare and passed unanimously by his colleagues prohibits the use of county funds or personnel for the enforcement of federal firearm regulations.
Specifically, the Josephine County Firearms Ordinance forbids any county resources from being spent “for the purpose of investigating, detecting, apprehending, or incarcerating persons whose only violation of law is that they carry, manufacture, import, possess, purchase, sell or transfer firearms or firearm related items.”
In an extraordinary move, the measure blocks enforcement not only of current federal gun laws and other restrictions, but similar attempts made in the future. State regulations and restrictions on the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms would be voided.
Many detractors claim that efforts like that being made in Josephine County are simply sound and fury signifying nothing. These naysayers point to the fact that states are so financially dependent on federal largesse that when faced with fiscal shortfalls, these laws will be repealed.
While it is true that state governments have sold their citizens into economic slavery to the central government, there is no reason right-thinking lawmakers can’t sever this Gordian knot.
And, as Josephine County is demonstrating, governments on smaller levels can protect their people, regardless of state failure to do so.
With the constant danger to unrestricted gun ownership coming from all corners of government, the county commissioners of Josephine County, Oregon, are to be congratulated on their nullification of all those threats, whether they be from the White House or the state House.
The most effective weapon in the war against small and large tyrannical attacks on liberty is nullification. Nullification occurs when a state, county, city, or other local entity holds as null, void, and of no legal effect any act of any government body that exceeds the boundaries of its constitutional powers.
As Alexander Hamilton explained in The Federalist, No. 78:
There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.
As the newly enacted ordinance demonstrates, the law of agency — correctly summarized by Hamilton — applies when one party gives another party legal authority to act on the first party’s behalf. The first party is called the principal and the second party is called the agent.
The principal may grant the agent as much or as little authority as suits his purpose. That is to say, by simply giving an agent certain powers, that agent is not authorized to act outside of that defined sphere of authority.
Upon its ratification, the states, as principals, gave limited power to the central government to act as their agent in certain matters of common concern: defense, taxation, interstate commerce, and foreign affairs.
The authority of the agent — in this case the federal government — is derived from the agreement that created the principal/agent relationship. Whether the agent is lawfully acting on behalf of the principal is a question of fact. The agent may legally bind the principal only insofar as its actions lie within the contractual boundaries of its power.
Should the agent exceed the scope of its authority, not only is the principal not held accountable for those acts, but the breaching agent is legally liable to the principal (and any affected third parties who acted in reliance on the agent’s authority) for that breach.
Under the law of agency, the principal may revoke the agent’s authority at will. It would be unreasonable to oblige the principals to honor promises of an agent acting outside the boundaries of its authority as set out in the document that created the agency in the first place.
Imagine the chaos that would be created if principals were legally bound by the acts of an agent that “went rogue” and acted prejudicially to the interests of the principals from whom he derived any power in the first place. It is a fundamental tenet of the law of agency that the agent may lawfully act only for the benefit of the principal.
Inexplicably, this is the position taken by those who argue that the states may not nullify unconstitutional federal acts and refuse to be bound by an agent that repeatedly exceeds its authority.
Not only does this agent (the federal government) habitually breach the agency contract, but it does so in a manner that irreparably harms the principal (the states).
Congress is full of lawyers. Many presidents are lawyers. All federal judges are lawyers. Yet somehow when it comes to the relationship between the federal government and the states, they conveniently forget the basic principles of contract and agency law that are understood by second-year law students.
You don’t need a law degree, however, to understand that if the basic principles of the laws of contract and agency are applied to the relationship between states and general government, the states’ right of nullification becomes laughably simple and (to borrow another phrase from Jefferson) “self evident.”
What we do need, however, is a generation of conscientious Americans committed to repairing the barricades our Founders placed around our God-given rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.
What so many voters in this Oregon county and others around the country seem to understand is that of all our fundamental rights, this particular right is under constant assault, likely because those who would rob us of all our liberty understand that it is the key to protecting the continued enjoyment of the others.
Today we need the millions of constitutionally minded Americans to band together in launching a multi-pronged approach to restoring this Republic, specifically the right to keep and bear arms.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
The European Union had a choice between supporting Donald Trump or supporting the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who scream “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” aid international jihad terror groups, and brutally oppress their own people. For the EU, it was a no-brainer.
“EU slaps Trump in the face, urges ‘increased business with Iran,’” Associated Press, August 7, 2018 (thanks to Inexion):
The European Union’s foreign policy chief encouraged companies to do more business with Iran despite new U.S. sanctions, saying Tehran had upheld its commitments under the deal to limit its nuclear program.
Federica Mogherini told reporters Tuesday during her trip to Wellington, New Zealand, that it’s up to Europeans to decide whom they want to trade with.
“We are doing our best to keep Iran in the deal, to keep Iran benefiting from the economic benefits that the agreement brings to the people of Iran because we believe this is in the security interests of not only our region, but also of the world,” she said. “If there is one piece of international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation that is delivering, it has to be maintained.”
The United States reimposed stiff economic sanctions on Iran on Monday, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic despite statements of deep dismay from European allies, three months after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the international accord limiting Iran’s nuclear activities.
Trump declared that the landmark 2015 agreement was “horrible,” leaving the Iranian government flush with cash to fuel conflict in the Middle East. Trump warned that those who don’t wind down their economic ties to Iran “risk severe consequences.”
Business as usual for EU?
German car and truck maker Daimler AG on Tuesday said it was suspending its “very limited” activities in Iran. In early 2016 the company announced plans for local truck production and cooperation with an Iranian partner but those plans had not panned out in a weak market. A representative office “will not be continued,” the company said.
Iran accused the U.S. of reneging on the nuclear agreement, signed by the Obama administration, and of causing recent Iranian economic unrest.
European allies said they “deeply regret” the U.S. action.
Trump said in a statement, “We urge all nations to take such steps to make clear that the Iranian regime faces a choice: either change its threatening, destabilizing behavior and reintegrate with the global economy, or continue down a path of economic isolation.”…
Social-media platforms continue to violate free-speech protections under the guise of prohibiting so-called hate speech and enhancing security. And a Democratic senator is claiming that it is the role of tech companies to engage in such unconstitutional practices and crack down on controversial websites in order to maintain “democracy” in the United States.
Shortly after Facebook, Apple, Spotify, and Google suspended the accounts of Infowars’ Alex Jones and Twitter suspended black conservative Candace Owen, Twitter suspended the accounts of former State Department employee Peter Van Buren, Antiwar editorial director Scott Horton, and executive director of the Ron Paul Institute Daniel McAdams.
According to Zero Hedge, Horton was disciplined for using “improper language” against journalist Jonathan M. Katz, McAdams was suspended for retweeting Horton, and both of them were objecting to a quarrel between Katz and Van Buren that resulted in Van Buren’s suspension.
Media giants such as Google and Twitter are attempting to be more vigilant in regulating speech on their platforms after facing criticism over failing to prevent alleged interference from Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Media platforms are now using that as an excuse to engage in censorship of mostly conservative accounts.
Former U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, who was largely responsible for leading his country to vote to leave the European Union in 2016, criticized the media giants in an op-ed published on Fox News on Tuesday.
“These platforms that claim to be ‘open’ and in favor of ‘free speech’ are now routinely targeting — whether by human intervention or not — the views and expressions of conservatives and anti-globalists,” he wrote.
Farage begrudged the notion that Russian interference hurts “US democracy” and claimed instead that it is interference from powerful corporations such as the media giants that is most concerning.
“The most avowed First Amendment, free speech defenders must surely be on the side of those — like me — who believe it is not within the gift of corporations to decide what is acceptable speech or not,” he continued, “especially when they harvest and sell data about all of us en masse as the underlying business model.”
But according to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut (shown), it is indeed the role of tech companies to engage in this type of behavior, in order to advance the survival of American democracy, the Washington Examiner reported.
Murphy tweeted that private companies “shouldn’t knowingly spread lies and hate.” He used that justification to defend Apple’s, Facebook’s, YouTube’s, Pinterest’s, and Spotify’s decision to remove Alex Jones and his Infowars program from their platforms after citing violations of codes of conduct related to “hate speech.”
“Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it,” Murphy tweeted Monday.
Leaving aside the fact that America is a republic, not a democracy, one big question remains: Who should be responsible for determining what constitutes “hate speech”? In these cases, it is often liberal and leftist organizations labeling conservative or libertarian speech as hate. After all, true libertarians and constitutionalists recognize the sanctity of the First Amendment and refrain from censorship even in the face of truly controversial speech from their leftist counterparts.
The easy answer is that no one should be able to claim this responsibility. There is no proper criteria to determine what constitutes “hate speech” as it all depends on perspective, and it would be supremely unconstitutional to entrust such an impossible responsibility on individuals who will always be skewed by their own bias.
For this reason, the Founding Fathers did not leave us a “democracy” as Senator Murphy claims, since democracies are nothing more than mob rule, in which 51 percent can usurp the rights of the remaining 49 percent. Instead, they entrusted the people with a constitutional republic that relies on the rule of law to ensure that all individual liberties are protected, instead of just the will of the majority.
Unfortunately, too many of today’s liberals have either forgotten or chosen to ignore this reality and instead justify censorship of conservative voices in the war to preserve “democracy.” Somewhere along the way, they decided that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to not be offended rather than the right to free speech, and even worse, they’ve continually applied that fake right inequitably. Conservatives and Christians can be offended regularly but the minute a liberal, non-white, female, non-Christian, non-American is even mildly offended, the gloves come off and the accounts come down.
Farage is proposing a social-media bill of rights in countries throughout the world to prohibit such leftist censorship practices. He encourages all free-speech advocates to take a stance, even if they do not align with “right-wingers.” He contends, “Unless we take a stand now, who knows where it could end.”
LYNCHBURG, Va. —Jerry Falwell, Jr., the president of Liberty University, which hails itself as the world’s largest Christian university, says that he is writing a book with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, the specifics of which have not yet been announced. Carter, who has publicly expressed his support for “gay marriage” and says that he believes in evolution, claims to be a born again Christian and teaches Sunday School in Georgia.
“We just started working on it,” he said. “It’ll take a year, I bet.”
Falwell also shared the report on social media, writing, “I believe a political revolution is underway in our great nation. Instead of conservative v. liberal, the future will be progressive elites (think Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger, @HillaryClinton, Hitler, Soros) v. freedom loving average Americans!”
As previously reported, Carter has raised eyebrows several times in recent years over his statements about Christianity, such as in 2015, when he told the Huffington Post that he believes Jesus would approve of same-sex “marriage,” and really, “any love affair.”
“I believe Jesus would. I don’t have any verse in Scripture,” he said. “I believe Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that’s just my own personal belief. I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.”
“The earth is four billion years old, … but I don’t see a conflict there,” Carter also told reporters in 2016 during a visit to Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter, referring to the conflict between Christianity and evolution. “And as a scientist, I believe in evolution.”
“One of my problems with evangelicalism is that it normally argues that one can be saved only through a personal relationship with Jesus, which seems to consign Gandhi to Hell. Do you believe that?” Kristoff also asked.
“I do not feel qualified to make a judgment. I am inclined to give him (or others) the benefit of any doubt,” Carter replied.
Despite his beliefs, Carter still refers to himself as a born-again Christian and teaches Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. He spoke at a Liberty University Commencement in May, sharing his thoughts about global concerns such as human trafficking and the threat of nuclear war.
As previously reported, Falwell has been a vocal supporter of President Trump since January 2016, repeatedly asserting throughout Trump’s presidential campaign that the then-candidate bears the fruit of one being born again because of his characteristic good deeds.
“I’ve seen his generosity to strangers, to his employees, his warm relationship with his children,” he said on CNN’s “Legal View With Ashleigh Banfield” in February 2016. “I’m convinced he’s a Christian. I believe he has faith in Jesus Christ.”
Falwell contended that those who expressed concerns about Trump’s behavior were violating the “judge not” clause in Matthew 7:1.
“Jesus said, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged. Let’s stop trying to choose the political leaders who we believe are the most godly because, in reality, only God knows people’s hearts. You and I don’t, and we are all sinners,” he said in an interview with the Liberty University newspaper in March 2016.
“Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him,” one student had written in a circulated statement that generated over 1,000 signatures of support from students, faculty and alumni. “… He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose. … We don’t want to champion Donald Trump; we want only to be champions for Christ.”
“This student statement seems to ignore the teachings of Jesus not to judge others, but they are young and still learning,” Falwell stated, in part, in response.
Falwell’s twitter account is predominantly filled with political posts, and on July 21, he retweeted the following remark from vloggers Diamond and Silk regarding allegations that Trump once had an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels: “We don’t give a freakin’ frying flipping fish about something that happened over 10 years ago. We didn’t vote for the pope, a priest or a pastor; we voted for a president. Our president did nothing wrong so leave him D [expletive] alone!”
John Jay, the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once said, “Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
August 7, 2018
Dinesh D'Souza's latest film, "Death of a Nation," is another home run. We saw it this past Saturday in its opening weekend. It is outstanding and current, as all of his films are. In it, Mr. D'Souza presents the truth behind the Big Lies of the commie/fascist/Nazi/Ku Klux Klan/Democrat/"Progressive" collective with his in-depth research, interviews, and high-quality historical reenactments by actors who look impressively like the people they're portraying.
Although I had heard radio audio of many of them, I had not seen most of the video clips he showed of insane Hell's Media in their vicious reactions to Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election. They're quite sobering to watch. The deranged hate from these people is stunning.
During much of the Obama administration, I wrote one or two columns a week, and in many of them I called for prayers that God would give our nation undeserved mercy, a reprieve from the inevitably despotic consequences of our nation's broad embrace of all kinds of wickedness and corruption.
The Lord answered our prayers in a mighty way by preventing all the scheming and fraud of the communist Democrats to shove the criminal harpy, Hillary Clinton, into the presidency. I thank God He did not allow her to win! He gave us President Trump, and all the forces of Hell and its human servants are of one mind, unified in pure, lunatic hatred for him. We have not seen anything like it in our nation's history.
Just as Islam is the photo-negative of Christianity, so was the treatment of Barack Obama (or whatever his name is) by Hell's Media compared to their treatment of President Trump. The entire Left – politicians, media, Hollywood, academia – were all drooling dogs worshiping at Obama's treacherous feet, giving cover to his every lie and lawless, anti-American scandal.
Those same people are now doing their worst to destroy President Trump, a man who has done none of what they falsely accuse him of doing, and certainly none of the corrupt, power-mad things Obama and others in his administration did. The breathtaking depth of corruption and criminality in the Obama intelligence agencies and the ensuing hoax of this seemingly interminable "Russia collusion" investigation are beyond measure. It's clear that this Mueller guy is hell-bent on making a Donald Trump "crime" out of thin air.
In "Death of a Nation," Mr. D'Souza lays bare not only the lies of these people who are baselessly, viciously attacking President Trump, but also the related lies of their comrades in history, including the Third Reich. And he wonders if America will again be saved as it was during the Civil War era.
The film's presentation, its cinematography, sound, all of it, are excellent, and the music is glorious. It's real, and it's uplifting, but also a warning to those with eyes to see. Our nation is in a battle for its freedom and soul, and Mr. D'Souza is trying to impart the critical nature of our situation and the need that we all stand firmly for truth and righteousness in the United States, no matter how dear the cost of standing for what's right and true. As with all of his pictures, you'll applaud at the end. Go see it while it's still on the big screen. _____________________________________________________________
‘Death of a Nation’ Movie Is a Masterful Win for Conservatism
MIKE CERNOVICH REVIEWS THE MOVIE
Prominent Conservatives Attend Screening of
New D'Souza Film
Prominent conservatives attend a screening of Dinesh D'Souza's latest film "Death of a Nation." One America's Jack Posobiec spoke with D'Souza and others about the film, and why Democrat policies have historically been dangerous.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
In most developed societies, technology and its devices are readily available and in use for all who will have them. The benefits of this progress have been many. However, there seems to be a dangerous growing epidemic that has been created as a result.
Every day we see it in stores, restaurants, and on the streets as we walk — people staring vacantly at the screens in their hands instead of interacting with those around them. And all ages seem to have access to the screens that blind them to the real world around them.
What are some of the dangers of this new way of living?
Baroness Susan Greenfield, a British research scientist whose work focuses on brain physiology, cautions that social media and video games may create a society of individuals with grossly underdeveloped mental and emotional capacities.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Greenfield stated, “What I predict is that people are going to be like three-year-olds: emotional, risk-taking, [with] poor social skills, weak self-identity and short attention spans.” The instant gratification of social media and video games, she asserted, would lead them to need “something every moment to distract them so they can’t have their own inner narrative, their own inner thought process.”
As validation of her prediction, the baroness mentioned a recent study by Harvard and Princeton Universities that discovered “students preferred to give themselves an electric shock rather than face 10 minutes alone simply thinking.”
Such startling and abnormal findings raise concern for our youth and should bring about action concerning the problem.
It is not uncommon for kids to have smart phones well before high school. In fact, according to PsychCentral, “56 percent of children between the ages of 10 to 13 own a smartphone. While that fact alone may come as a shock, it is estimated that 25 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 5 have a smartphone.”
The article aptly notes, “It should come as no surprise that smartphones and tablets have now replaced basketballs and baby dolls on a child’s wish list. Elementary school-aged children start asking, or let’s say begging, for these forms of technology before they can even tie their shoes.”
The devices, which are created to appeal to increasingly (and astonishingly) younger ages, and the unmonitored and easy access to the Internet can do unfathomable damage to children. Technology is all around us, and as it typically involves face-to-screen time instead of face-to-face time with real people, it promotes isolation — one of its central dangers. This is especially troubling for children and can cause countless side effects — two of which are the inability to interact with others and the inability to self-regulate.
When screen time is idolized, face-to-face time with other people is devalued. Fresh air drops to the bottom of the priority list, and playing (and therefore learning) becomes a backup preference. The ideal overwhelmingly becomes to stare at a screen to be entertained.
Children are no longer forced to entertain themselves, but are now able to turn off the active parts of their brain to enjoy themselves. By no fault of their own, they’ve lost a huge piece of their ability to deal with boredom.
This cause-and-effect reaction makes learning in the classroom more difficult for kids, which causes frustration, self-doubt, and negative choices. They’re less able to use gained social skills to maintain conversations with their peers. This causes avoidance of peer interaction, inability to express emotion to others, and a desire to escape group activities.
The article then addresses one of the same concerns raised by Baroness Greenfield: that of instant gratification:
The biggest problem with technology in childhood behavior, however, seems to be the learned expectation that every need or want can be (and should be) met immediately. Instant gratification becomes the norm, instead of the treat.
Items can be bought with the click of a button.
Packages can arrive on the doorstep in twenty-four hours.
Entire seasons of TV shows can be watched in one sitting without having to wait each week for their arrival.
Games can be played at faster processing speeds than any toy could compare with.
Delaying gratification is a skill that a lot of children are no longer being forced to learn. When a kid can’t have what they want, or what they’re working for, right away, they become overwhelmed. Frustrated. Sad. Upset.
To counteract these attitudes, Greenfield suggests that children engage in activities with a beginning, middle, and end. Some examples are reading books, playing sports, and gardening in which the plant growth would not be hurried in contrast to “multi-tasking where everything happens all at once and you can go backward and forward in time in games.”
The negative effects of technology on children today are not necessary. If parents take responsibility by gaining knowledge, creating legitimate limitations, and setting right examples, a vibrant childhood does not have to be replaced with a lifeless virtual reality.
