Short Bio: I started blogging about politics in 2006, as a populist, skeptical left of center type, with a blog called simply, "The Populist."I suspect, but cannot prove; that my blog might have been hacked by some evil neoconservatives. I cannot prove that at all and also too, around the same time. Hackers from China where attacking wordpress blogs. I believe either the Neocons or the Chinese got my site. I don't know honestly know which.Either way, by 2007, I began to see that I really did not fit within the Democrat Party and liberal circles and after my blog was hacked; I created a blog called "Political Byline" and I kept writing; first as a Centrist and then as a Conservative PopulistFor my long bio, see the "About Me" section on this blog.
The New York Times offers a rare Anonymous Op-Ed from someone in Trump’s Administration. A quote that stands out.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright – Source: Opinion | I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration – The New York Times
Shocked? No. Surprised? Nope. It became painfully clear to me, early on, that Trump was just playing the part.
No one around has the prestige or media following of McCain.
And the cause he championed, compulsive intervention in foreign quarrels to face down dictators and bring democrats to power, appears to be a cause whose time has passed.
When 9/11 occurred, America was united in crushing the al-Qaida terrorists who perpetrated the atrocities. John McCain then backed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, which had no role in the attacks.
During Barack Obama’s presidency, he slipped into northern Syria to cheer rebels who had arisen to overthrow President Bashar Assad, an insurgency that led to a seven-year civil war and one of the great humanitarian disasters of our time.
McCain supported the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and the Baltic, right up to Russia’s border. When Georgia invaded South Ossetia in 2008, and was expelled by the Russian army, McCain roared, “We are all Georgians now!”
He urged intervention. But Bush, his approval rating scraping bottom, had had enough of the neocon crusades for democracy.
McCain’s contempt for Vladimir Putin was unconstrained. When crowds gathered in Maidan Square in Kiev to overthrow an elected pro-Russian president, McCain was there, cheering them on.
He supported sending arms to the Ukrainian army to fight pro-Russian rebels in the Donbass. He backed U.S. support for Saudi intervention in Yemen. And this war, too, proved to be a humanitarian disaster.
John McCain was a war hawk, and proud of it. But by 2006, the wars he had championed had cost the Republican Party both houses of Congress.
In 2008, when he was on the ballot, those wars helped cost him the presidency.
By 2016, the Republican majority would turn its back on McCain and his protege, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and nominate Donald Trump, who said he would seek to get along with Russia and extricate America from the wars into which McCain had helped plunge the country.
Yet, while interventionism now has no great champion and has proven unable to rally an American majority, it retains a residual momentum. This compulsion is pushing us to continue backing the Saudi war in Yemen and to seek regime change in Iran.
Yet if either of these enterprises holds any prospect of bringing about a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East, no one has made the case.
While the foreign policy that won the Cold War, containment, was articulated by George Kennan and pursued by presidents from Truman to Bush I, no grand strategy for the post-Cold War era has ever been embraced by a majority of Americans.
Bush I’s “New World Order” was rejected by Ross Perot’s economic patriots and Bill Clinton’s baby boomers who wanted to spend America’s peace dividend from our Cold War victory on America’s homefront.
As for the Bush II crusades for democracy “to end tyranny in our world,” the fruits of that Wilsonian idealism turned into ashes in our mouths.
But if the foreign policy agendas of Bush I and Bush II, along with McCain’s interventionism, have been tried and found wanting, what is America’s grand strategy?
What are the great goals of U.S. foreign policy? What are the vital interests for which all, or almost all Americans, believe we should fight?
“Take away this pudding; it has no theme,” said Churchill. Britain has lost an empire, but not yet found a role, was the crushing comment of Dean Acheson in 1962.
Both statements appear to apply to U.S. foreign policy in 2018.
John S. McCain, the proud naval aviator who climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to pinnacles of power as a Republican congressman and senator from Arizona and a two-time contender for the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Arizona. He was 81.
According to a statement from his office, Mr. McCain died at 4:28 p.m. local time. He had suffered from a malignant brain tumor, called a glioblastoma, for which he had been treated periodically with radiation and chemotherapy since its discovery in 2017.
I’ve disagreed with him at times; But, I did respect the man. God-speed John.
Healthline has claimed health disparities and higher rates of HIV and STIs observed in LGBTQIA communities are due to discrimination in the sex ed world. So, the California based health information provider has adopted the gender-inclusive term “front hole” in place of the medical term, “vagina” in their latest LGBTQIA safe sex guide.“For the purpose of this guide, we’ll refer to the vagina as the ‘front hole’ instead of solely using the medical term ‘vagina,’” the document explains. “This is gender-inclusive language that’s considerate of the fact that some trans people don’t identify with the labels the medical community attaches to their genitals.”“For example, some trans and nonbinary-identified people assigned female at birth may enjoy being the receptors of penetrative sex, but experience gender dysphoria when that part of their body is referred to using a word that society and professional communities often associate with femaleness. An alternative that’s becoming increasingly popular in trans and queer communities is front hole.”The document went on to claim, lack of representation and anti-LGBTQIA bias in standard safe sex guides stigmatizes certain sexual behaviours and identities and is directly related to higher rates of HIV and STIs reported within LGBTQIA communities.The guide goes on to suggest, “it’s imperative for safe sex guides to become more inclusive of LGBTQIA and nonbinary people and their experiences. This will help address barriers to accessing care and effective educational tools, while simultaneously normalizing and acknowledging the true diversity that exists with regard to gender and sexuality. – Source: Healthline says, using the medical term ‘vagina’ is not gender-inclusive language, uses ‘front hole’ instead. · Caldron Pool
They finally admit it, that Anti-White racism exists, David French writes:
But this argument confuses the gravity of an offense with the existence of the offense. A powerless person’s hate may not harm the powerful, but it is still hate. A powerless person’s hate may even be grounded in specific experiences, but it is still hate. The essence of bigotry is to look at the color of a person’s skin and, on that basis alone, make malignant judgments about his character or worth.Moreover, it is simply false to excuse anti-white racism on the grounds that people of color lack power. There are certainly many millions of vulnerable and marginalized individuals in this nation, and they are disproportionately (though not entirely) black and brown. But when anti-white sentiment is embedded in the New York Times editorial board, it’s no longer “powerless” in any meaningful sense. Similarly, when it reaches the heights of government, the academy, or the bestseller lists, it’s no longer remotely “powerless.”None of this should be taken as an argument that power doesn’t matter. Of course it does. Power matters. And so does purpose. That’s why no one should compare Jeong’s comments to the racism you see on Stormfront or to the racism we saw on display in Charlottesville last year. Racism married to violence or violent intent is categorically different from the anti-white racism you see in certain quarters of the elite identity-politics Left. Similarly, racism married to state policies — especially state policies of the relatively recent American past, which continue to have malignant effects on poor and disadvantaged Americans — is categorically different from the anti-white racism that exists in parts of the academy or in segments of American media.- Source: Sarah Jeong’s Twitter Controversy: Anti-White Racism Exists | National Review
It sounds to me, like he is trying to excuse it. Perhaps not, but it sounds like he is trying to walk on eggshells a bit. However, I must say that the point here is not lost on this writer. That batting back real racism, with anti-white racism is not the smart route to take. I have seen Conservative sites out there, that are ignoring that the fact that this young lady was being racially attacked. I’ve seen the tweets directed at her and they ware terrible, as were her responses. Satire or not, it was not a smart way to do battle with the haters.
Also too, it is sad that it has come to this point; where this sort of thing has gotten this bad.
First of all, let me say this, this isn’t a “Christian Blog” or even a “Fundamental Baptist Blog.” It is a political one, which happens to be owned by a Fundamental Baptist Christian. Albeit, not a very good one, or one that’s active in Church at the moment. In fact, a while back, I removed all the Christian stuff from this blog. I explained it at the time here:
Here are the reasons why I have removed all that stuff. First of all, why I have removed the Christianity part of this blog is this right here: for one, I don’t believe I am even remotely qualified to sit and talk about Christianity in any sort of depth anymore. I am so far removed from the Church world anymore, that it isn’t even really funny. I am also not exactly lined up with the independent fundamental Baptist Church anymore. I have not attended one of those churches since 2006. Don’t misunderstand me I still love the King James Bible and I still am a fundamental Baptist doctrinally and only doctrinally.
I haven’t attended one of those churches in a long time and I’m not exactly enamored with the church world anymore. Some people would say that I am a backslidden Christian. I disagree. I don’t take any illegal drugs ,I do not drink, I do vape instead of smoke. But, I don’t go to church anymore. So, having that sort of section on my blog here; is kind of hypocritical in my book.
So, now that I have gotten that out of the way, I was looking at my RSS reader and I happened across an article at the Christian Post, the original is here and I felt the need to comment on it. A one Greg Stier seems to have a warped idea about Christianity and Salvation, and even Spirituality:
Traditionally, most Christian schools (in my opinion) tend to produce little legalists or hell-bent hedonists. Students either buy off on the rules of said Christian school (and begin to gauge their spirituality by adherence to the list of do’s and don’ts) or they rebel against the list and, often times, the Lord.
I experienced this personally in the small Christian high school I graduated from in the 1980’s.
My school had a lot of rules that the students were expected to keep. The guys had to have their hair super short and the girls had to have their dresses super long. Even the cheerleaders had full length skirts (but the weird double-standard was that the guys on the basketball team wore shorts that were so short they would make George Michael of Wham! fame blush.)
While these words were never said out loud it felt like they were constantly being preached, “If you keep our rules, read daily from the King James version of the Bible, memorize verses of Scripture word for word (as well as the verse references), go to church every time the doors are open, don’t have sex before you’re married and share Christ at least once a week then you’ll be holy…like us.”
I kept the rules, memorized the verses, shared the Gospel weekly, was there every time the doors were open, and just said “no” to drugs, drink and sex. My ability to adhere to the list was how I gauged my spirituality.
Down deep inside I had turned into a little legalist.
This legalism led to a consistent struggle with pride and lust in the deep dark crevices of my soul. It was a constant battle with the flesh, fueled by the aphrodisiac of legalism. As Colossians 2:23 reminds us, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom…but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”
And many of my fellow Christian schoolmates didn’t even try to fake a facade. They just gave into the flesh. They cut sail and turned into hedonists. They mocked the rules. They drank and partied. They rebelled against the list as well as the Lord.
Not much has changed since the 80’s. I still believe that, for the most part, Christian schools tend to produce legalists or hedonists.
Oh, where to begin with this bunch of nonsense! First of all, I have a problem, with a so-called “Spiritual Leader” who refers to serving The Lord Jesus Christ as “gauging one’s Spirituality.” You are either Saved by the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ or you are not. There is no gauge, there is no good works versus Salvation. That is false doctrine.
Furthermore, I take offense to someone who mocks the King James Bible and those who happen to believe that it is the Word of God and mocks those who think that memorizing it, is a good idea. This man’s view of Christianity, the Bible, and Holy Living has become distorted and he is, as far as I can see it, an apostate. Now, is it the fault of that Christian School that those kids decided to rebel against the Word of God and the Lord? I think not. Is it the King James Bible’s fault that this kids decided to walk away from what they knew to be right? I think not. The truth is these kids CHOSE THEMSELVES to rebel and go their own way. Just like I did, when I backslide in 1992, after becoming bitter at a “Worship Leader” at Grace Assembly of God. I made that choice and nobody else.
Therefore, I make this statement, this man is blaming the wrong things and is attempting to promote a new, and possibly flawed way of promoting the gospel. There’s nothing new under the sun and this man’s attempt to place blame at the feet of King James believing Christians speaks of itself and him.
Firstly, Click here to go read the article, it will open in a new window, I’ll wait.
Secondly, for all of the bad things I might have said about now former President Obama, I will say this. President Obama is doing the precise thing that he should be doing. Like his predecessor, George W. Bush, he is not going to second guess the current President. After the election of President Obama, President George W. Bush went back to Texas, returned to Private life and refused, even the most ardent requests to even remotely criticize his successor. This is precisely how these sort of affairs should be handled. President Obama had his chance, did his job and now it is someone Else’s job. This is how it works in a Constitutional Republic, a President serves his four year term, if he is lucky and does a good job, he gets a second term by an election; after that he becomes a private citizen by a peaceful transfer of power. I comment President Obama for keeping with that tradition.
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Secondly, for all of the bad things I might have said about now former President Obama, I will say this. President Obama is doing the precise thing that he should be doing. Like his predecessor, George W. Bush, he is not going to second guess the current President. After the election of President Obama, President George W. Bush went back to Texas, returned to Private life and refused, even the most ardent requests to even remotely criticize his successor. This is precisely how these sort of affairs should be handled. President Obama had his chance, did his job and now it is someone Else’s job. This is how it works in a Constitutional Republic, a President serves his four year term, if he is lucky and does a good job, he gets a second term by an election; after that he becomes a private citizen by a peaceful transfer of power. I comment President Obama for keeping with that tradition.