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It is my firm belief that there is not “A” conspiracy to worry about.  There are many conspiracies.  The major motivations are greed and lust for power with obsessions based on self image, good or bad, sometimes playing a part.  All too often ignorance and superstition play major roles.  All factors are present in the health care conspiracies.  Please allow me to give you a couple of examples.  Seasonal hives were a long time affliction for me.  When I first experienced this distraction about twenty years ago a cortisone shot once a year for a couple of years gave me seasonal relief.  After that I used antihistamines occasionally.  Starting about fifteen years ago a progressive neuropathy and severe fatigue was causing me so much pain that I was ignoring the almost constant hives and the half inch wide welt under my belt all the way around my midriff.  Recently, an allergy specialist was unable to discover the cause of my hives.  I picked up a copy of Eat Right For Your Type and made the suggested changes for my blood type to my eating habits.  Within two or three weeks the hives and welts were gone.  Also, I found it easy to lose thirty five pounds within a few months.

 This reinforced my lack of respect for traditional medicine with its propensity for treating patients with dangerous drugs and ignoring the benefits of vitamins, minerals, herbal remedies and proper diet.  We all vary in our ability to benefit from the various therapies and regimen proscribed by practitioners of the several schools of healing arts.  Traditional thinking about health is far too unlikely to recognize the differences in individuals.

 

Traditional medicines approach to cardiovascular health is a travesty.  If LDL cholesterol is high the immediate answer is to prescribe one of the statin family of drugs.  Statins are hard on the liver and the body’s production of coenzyme Q-10.  Traditional medicine wants to keep LDL cholesterol within certain limits because of the part it plays in plaque formations and in atherosclerosis.  Have you ever had a doctor who is concerned about your cardiovascular health suggest taking vitamin C?  Most animals produce all the vitamin C they need.  Most mammals produce the human equivalent of 2,000 to 13,000 milligrams daily.  And guess what?  Vitamin C is one of the body’s main ingredients for repairing damage to arteries.  A damaged site on the epithelium (the inner wall) of an artery when repaired with vitamin C and other essential ingredients is left smooth and stronger.  Vitamin C is also used in the production of bone, cartilage, and skin.  If there is insufficient vitamin C, then lipoprotein (a) will form a patch over the site.  However, the lipoprotein (a) forms a sticky patch which can grow larger.  If the proper organism is present it will pull calcium out of the blood stream and form a hard brittle cap over the plaque formation.  If the damaged site is not repaired by vitamin C or lipoprotein (a) and provides access to the space between the inner and outer walls of the artery, then LDL pattern B can enter and when oxidized initiates inflammatory processes and eventually the formation of full blown atherosclerosis.  As unwanted cholesterol within the arterial wall is scavenged, foam cells are formed inside the arterial walls causing a bulge which interferes with blood flow.  Eventually, plaque may form over the site including the hard, brittle top layer.   

 

The real kicker here is the fact that cholesterol levels are not the prime marker of cardiovascular disease.  Some physicians like to point out that half of those suffering heart attacks don’t even have a history of cholesterol problems.  Others point out that the most used cholesterol tests don’t even check for LDL pattern B or lipoprotein (a).  LDL and HDL cholesterol represent ranges of particle sizes and densities.  There is also an intermediate range, IDL cholesterol.  LDL pattern B is the smallest and densest LDL particle.  The favorite test for cholesterol measures HDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and then uses a formula to come up with LDL levels.  In other words, unless they test for LDL pattern B and Lipoprotein (a) the prescribing of dangerous statin drugs is based merely on an educated guess that the patient’s cholesterol levels are dangerous.  Cholesterol is essential to the health of the body.  It provides a building block for the production of essential hormones and about two thirds of the energy for heart muscles.  With proper diet the liver will dispose of excess cholesterol, but statins, while reducing cholesterol production, weaken the liver.

 

The huge amount of ignorance and greed involved in the healthcare industry leaves plenty of room for members of both political parties to vote for legislation which would limit personal choice in healthcare decisions.  There have been efforts to make chiropractic illegal, limit the availability of harmless food supplements and other alternative therapies. The effort to see that everyone gets the same healthcare is not a worthy objective.  Medicare regulations and the complicity of private insurance health care providers are subjecting the public to very expensive and sometimes dangerous procedures without telling the patient how much it is going to cost Medicare and/or the insurance company and whether or not there are alternatives.  

 

The promotion of embryonic stem cell research has become largely a liberal obsession.  There has been so much success with other kinds of stem cells and little or no success with embryonic stem cells that it is difficult to obtain private funding for the embryonic variety.  This has made the taxpayer support of embryonic stem cell research essential if it is to be able to compete with the more successful types of stem cell procedures for scientists to work in embryonic stem cell research.  Just what is the attraction of embryonic stem cells?  The only argument I’ve come across favoring the embryonic variety deals with programed cell death and that is only relevant with regard to adult stem cells versus embryonic stem cells for experiments with tissue growth in the laboratory and maintaining a permanent line to work with.  Tissue growth in the lab has its own obstacles.  There are so many stem cells available in the umbilical cord and the placenta that the procuring of embryonic stem cells seems ridiculous.  

 

No matter how insurmountable the obstacles to success with embryonic stem cells are the liberals will never quit trying for taxpayer support for it because it is such a divisive issue.  Besides, they may want to make it even more divisive by setting up clinics to strip the embryos from women making them infertile because I suspect that the Zero Population Growth crowd is influencing this controversy.   The liberals are more likely to promote an alternative therapy if it is something which will anger conservatives or the Christian part of the conservative base.  They are desperate for success with embryonic stem cells so they can point a crooked finger at pro-life people and say “Shame on you for trying to keep this wonderful cure from us.”  They showed their willingness to use embryonic stem cell research as a political club in the recent mid-term elections.  The willful ignorance of the partisan press and public allowed it to be used quite successfully.  

 

Global warming is being used as a partisan political club for beating up on conservatives.  I believe in global warming.  I also believe in global cooling.  Since we are about 150 years from the last cooling period called the Little Ice Age it is no wonder that glaciers are retreating.  The history of the earth’s climate is represented by lots of spikes in temperature.  Within the large scale cycles there are smaller cycles severe enough to have affected populated areas of the earth in the last several thousand years.  Warmer weather leads to more surface water and more snow and ice.  Water, snow, and ice leads to global cooling.  During the Climatic Optimum seven thousand years ago when conditions were warmer and wetter than today CO2 levels were little more than half of what they are today.  Since then we have had global cooling that maxed out at between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago and again from a little before to a little after three thousand years ago, with a significant warming spell in between.  Changes in the Gulf Stream are blamed on these 1,500 year cycles.  More recently the little ice age running from about 1400A.D. to about 1850 A.D. had serious effects on human centers of civilization.  Viking activity in Greenland and Iceland was seriously affected in the mid 1300s leading to eventual withdrawal from those areas.  We are only 150 or so years out of the Little Ice Age so it is no wonder that we see evidence of glacier retreat.  A natural result of the warming that marked the end of the little ice age is not only the retreat of some glaciers, but also an increase of snow fall in some places such as the polar areas.  As natural and expected as it should be the retreating of glaciers is announced with great wonder, awe, and fear with little publicity for the extra snowfall.

 

The Kyoto Protocol is a grab for power and tax dollars, a threat to our freedom of movement and our economy, and a way of distracting us from the war on terrorism.  Contrary to what the global warming alarmists are saying, the debate is far from over as to whether or not CO2 is responsible for it.  A few months ago I purchased five new books on the environment and read them and took notes on them.  You need to know that there is disagreement in the scientific community as to whether the increase in CO2 levels follows or precedes climate change.  One Kyoto Protocol advocate proclaimed that since life was established on earth the intensity of the sun’s rays have increased by 30% while surface temperatures on our planet have remained fairly constant.  There are reasons for that and reading half a dozen books failed to give answers to my satisfaction.  There appears to me to be an effort to ignore the mechanisms which moderate climate, perhaps because they don’t fully understand them.

 

Water in its various forms is a key factor for the many reasons that the earth has the ability to provide an environment suitable for carbon based life.  The latent heat of fusion and transformation was more often ignored than mentioned and then not in detail and often as not, inaccurately.  The latent heat of transformation or fusion comes into play during a change of state.  When H2O molecules have a change of state the need to transfer energy or accept energy arises.  H2O must obey the laws of temperature and pressure.  Being under considerably less pressure as vapor and less densely packed than in the liquid state, the water molecules immediately attain a lower temperature when they evaporate.  Thus H2O serves as a temperature moderator resisting warming and cooling.  The small droplets which form clouds have a cooling effect in the day time as they reflect sunlight back into space.  At night clouds  prevent some of the infrared heat from escaping into space thus limiting night time cooling.  A couple of the books acknowledged that water vapor is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than is CO2, but they did not say how much greater.  One or two of the books reported that water vapor retains about two thirds of the heat trapped by greenhouse gasses.    Since water only reflects 5 - 10% of the sunlight when the sun is directly overhead, the amount of heat retained by our oceans must be hugely greater than the heat trapped by carbon dioxide and all the greenhouse gasses combined, but I’m only guessing because the promoters of the Kyoto Protocol don’t give us all the pertinent facts.  One of the authors actually admitted that the effects of H2O were an enigma because of the complexity of it’s contributions to climate.

 

One book mentioned an experiment relating to the quantum connection to global warming.   CO2 was added without a resulting rise in temperature, but no details were given.  Greenhouse gasses cannot trap more energy than is radiated, so for any given amount of radiation there is a maximum concentration beyond which any added greenhouse gas will not result in an increase in trapped heat.  Each type of greenhouse gas traps a different range of the infrared spectrum as each gas needs a different quantum packet of infra red energy to absorb or release in order to affect the electron orbital shift associated with a change in energy.  The greenhouse gasses, like other gasses in the lower atmosphere are not affected by the sun’s rays.  The sun’s rays heat up things on the surface which give off infra red radiation.  The gasses which trap infrared energy are called greenhouse gasses.  The infrared radiation warms up the greenhouse gasses which also increases their kinetic energy allowing them to warm up the other gasses through their vibrations.  Orbital shifts of the electrons are not stable so the greenhouse gasses give off infra red energy warming up things around them or the infrared energy leaves our atmosphere as orbits degrade.  But, how cold does it have to get before CO2 has only kinetic energy to share?

 

When you consider the difference in temperatures between western U.S. desert areas and areas to the east with high humidity, you have high temperatures from 110 to 125 plus in the former and eighty to 100 degrees in the latter.  Even with water vapor as a much more potent greenhouse gas the areas of high humidity are actually about thirty degrees cooler than the arid areas because the lush vegetation radiates much less infrared energy than do desert areas.  Assume the temperature to be 113 degrees with ten percent relative humidity in an arid area.  That would place the actual percentage of water vapor in the air at slightly over one percent which calculates to 100 parts per 10,000 while CO2 is only about 3 parts per 10,000.  Add to that the fact that water vapor is much more effective at trapping energy than is CO2 then guess which greenhouse gas is the most responsible for high temperatures in arid areas.  If relative humidity was only one percent and actual water vapor in the atmosphere was about .12 percent then CO2 would be at one fourth the concentration of the water vapor.  

 

The  Kyoto Protocol advocates are not telling us at what concentration adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not result in the trapping of more heat.  They are blaming increased CO2 levels for a .5 to 1.0 degree F increase in temperature during the latter part of the 20th century and predicting about 3.6 degree F increase in temperature by 2100.  That increase has been in temperature lows.  

Wind and ocean currents, and variations in solar radiation create the cycles in climate.  Some of the differences in solar radiation are the result of sun spot activity, and some are the result of changes in the earth’s orbit and axis in cycles that change slowly over many thousands of years.  In the very short term there are 11 year cycles in sun spot activity which can affect climate.  CO2 can increase the trapping of infrared heat and aerosols (dust and certain smoke stack emissions) can reflect solar radiation back into space causing global dimming, but they cannot guarantee what changes will come to the wind and ocean currents which actually bring about severe changes in climate.

 

Environmentalists can look at the past and see patterns, but those patterns do not translate into certainty about future patterns or what will trigger them when they do come. Judging by the last 100,000 years are we at the end of a 10,000 year warming period, or near the end of a 12,000 year warming period?  On the other hand if we look back 400,000 years are we 10,000 years into a 25,000 year warming period?  And what about unpredictable events?  When our solar system inters a region of space with more space dust will the dust cause our sun to shine brighter or will the dust interfere with the solar radiation reaching the earth?  What about volcanic activity or a hit by a large meteor or a comet?  There is too much uncertainty surrounding changes in climate to allow that fear to be a reason for destroying our economy by adopting the Kyoto Protocol.

 

Evidence is only now coming to light suggesting that methane is given off in significant quantities by living plants.  Since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide this has serious implications for the promoters of the Kyoto Protocol.  Will they want us to cut down all the rain forests?  Environmentalists are also concerned about soil depletion.  Perhaps the alternating cycles of global warming and ice ages are meant to bring about environmental renewal.  If so, perhaps we should accept the inevitable global warming knowing it will bring about another cooling period, or perhaps a little ice age if not a large one.  On the other hand, we may on the verge of the extreme heat and red tides forecast as part of the great destructions prior to the second coming of the Lord.  The puny hand of man will not thwart God’s purposes.

 

Speaking personally as one who considers himself a Christian, I prefer to think that God can influence the weather so we ought to be concerned about pleasing Him.  God prepared the earth for our occupancy so we ought to be grateful and use our natural resources wisely instead of recklessly on the one hand or on the other hand foolishly trying to maintain everything in its current state as though it can stay that way forever.  Folks whose homes can be threatened by forest fires know all too well how much more dangerous such fires are when environmentalists insist that woodlands be left alone to become too overgrown with brush and trees growing too densely.  How many millions have died in Africa alone because DDT was banned allowing the proliferation of insects to bring disease and death?

 

Several years ago Charlton Heston narrated a television special about scientists who found archeological and geological evidence which went against current understanding of the history of life on earth.  These scientists testified as to the problems this caused them with regard to funding and advancement.  One of those scientists reported finding human footprints beside dinosaur footprints in Texas.  A book entitled “The Body Electric”, by Robert O. Becker, M.D. and Gary Selden reveals problems faced in the world of Government grants for scientific study as well as providing some very interesting reading on bioelectromagnetism and tissue regeneration.

 

Liberals are not interested in pleasing God.  They want to play God.  They have been so successful at pushing a new morality that the old morality is considered suitable only for religious fanatics.  While not enough elected Liberals will vote against “God” on our currency  or against Christmas to pass such legislation, they will vote for bills which attack family values and they will help support the appointing of judges who are quite willing to destroy the constitution and interfere with religion.  They have weakened our system of justice and turned it into a soft on crime institution.  At the very core of Liberalism is an overabundance of sympathy for selfish behavior, instant gratification, and criminal behavior.  They will try to popularize almost anything if it will embarrass Conservatives or harm family values.   More than anything else they want to destroy the influence of religion so that they can be the unchallenged primary influence in society and they are willing to take humanity into the gutter to accomplish that.  Although Liberals are found in every political party, the Democrat Party has been controlled by the most extreme liberals for many decades, especially at the Federal level.

 

A close look at America will reveal selfishness and corruption struggling against compassion and morality in every area of human endeavor.  It’s a matter of degree, but I believe that things are much better here than most other places.  Judging by the number people who want to immigrate here I’d say that most of the world believes that too.  

 

It has been a struggle to try and figure out how to typify the liberals who scare me the most.  Bill O’Reilly is politely calling them Secular Progressives.  If you want some very informative reading about the culture war they are waging, you ought to read Bill’s Bill O’Reilly Culture Warrior.  He has personal confrontations with the SP’s on a regular basis and some of the more notable ones are recounted in detail in his book.

 

The history of culture war goes back to the beginning of human society.  If you believe that evolution is responsible for the existence of the current life forms on our planet, then you probably believe that it took hundreds of thousands of years of social evolution for the development of family values as have become popular in recent history.  Liberals are attempting to destroy that progress and turn us into creatures of the state by trying to legislate fairness and sameness while promoting the destruction of family values and protecting pornography and criminals.

  

As a Christian since the age of twelve I have avoided fornication and adultery through my faith in Jesus Christ even though fornication and adultery are the natural inclination of the human male.  The lack of a strong instinct for heterosexual mating can leave men or women open to sexual arousal by members of the same sex.  You might say that sexual arousal is not gender specific for some.  Because the politically correct definition of homosexuality insists that homosexuality is gender specific for the same sex instead of the opposite sex many become part of the gay community because the first time they feel romantic love for a member of the same sex they imagine that they have no choice but to establish homosexual relationships.  In the meantime, those among the gay community who don’t accept that definition of homosexuality go both ways with impunity.  Dennis Prager, a popular commentator on social issues, suggests that sexual behavior is influenced by society.  I very much enjoy his radio talk show and look forward to finding the time to read some of his books.  

 

Several years ago it came to my attention that three of California’s school districts promote the politically correct definition of homosexuality and teach grades K through 12 that all sexual lifestyles are equally acceptable.  I believe it was in the 60s that college dorms became coeducational.  Now some colleges are allowing individual rooms to be coeducational.  This at a time when “Friendship with benefits (Sexual benefits)” is being popularized.  Mid century the effort was to pronounce marriage as a detriment to true love.  That effort failed to destroy the family so now marriage is promoted as being so important that same sex marriage is being pushed as essential to the happiness of homosexuals.  The ACLU is protecting the Man/boy Love Association in their efforts to teach grown men how to seduce young boys and how to get away with it.  We are slipping fast down that slippery slope that leads to rampant hedonism, perversion and eventually destruction.

 

If your world view is similar to mine, you believe that the culture war started with Cain.  Liberals have managed to make certain that our public schools teach that the Biblical account of the creation is mythology.  Biology classes will not even mention Intelligent Creation as a possibility.  Darwinism is taught as fact and students are expected to believe that we are no more than the result of millions of years of struggle for sexual success by the fittest.

 

 The lack of detail in the Biblical account of the creation has given liberal scholars support for their claims that it is fiction.  That same lack of detail has provided Bible thumpers with an excuse for some very narrow specificity with regards to the details of the genesis of mankind.  In my copy of the Bible above Genesis it reads “The First Book of Moses”.  The scribes who recorded the account of Moses leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness included a brief account of his ancestors back to Adam and Eve.  Josephus writing in the first century A.D. credits Moses with writing the account of the creation found in Genesis.  There were  other books written which contained more detailed accounts of Adam and Eve and their posterity and when Josephus wrote about the antiquities of the Jews some of them were available to him.  

 

The first chapter of Genesis gives the six day account of the creation and the seventh day as a day of rest.  The second chapter of Genesis deals specifically with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden  and the naming of animals.  Josephus refers to the Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden account as philosophical talk.  A Slavonic text claiming to be the writings of Enoch tells of an eighth day after the day of rest as an endless day without years, months, days or hours.  If there was such a day before the history of mortal Adam and Eve and their posterity began on the earth it certainly would allow time for God to prepare the earth with the raw materials so important to modern industry.

 

Josephus gave more detail than is found in the Book of Genesis about the evils of Cain and his posterity, then went on to describe Cain’s brother Seth and his posterity.   Josephus explained that Adam had many other children he could write about, but it would be too tedious.  Josephus, in  describing the evils perpetrated by Cain and those who succumbed to his influence listed murder, rapine, and robbery.  The Book of Jasher recounts their crimes as simply breaking the commandments and adds an extra little detail; that they gave their wives potions to drink that made them barren thus breaking the commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth.  The evil men then spent their time with the barren wives who thereby kept their figures and those who had born children became as widows because some of their beauty had faded with childbearing.

 

The Book of Jasher, which is referred to in the Bible in Joshua and Second Samuel, gives a more detailed account of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, and his efforts to stem the tide of evil spreading among the descendants of Adam and Eve.  While Genesis takes only six rather short verses to tell about Enoch, the Book of Jasher uses nearly three pages in describing his life.  Of Enoch’s passing, the Bible merely says that God took him, but the Book of Jasher describes his ascent via chariots of fire in a whirlwind.  According to the book of Jasher Enoch had quite a following and the account of his ascension leaves room to think that some of his followers may have ascended with him.  By the time that Noah had been commanded to build the Ark the righteous followers of Enoch had died.  After the destruction of the wicked in the flood it took only a few generations for some of the descendants of Noah to go astray.  Nimrod is mentioned as a mighty hunter in the Bible, but other books go into more detail telling how he attempted to kill Abraham and was the mighty king who attempted to build a huge tower as a place of refuge from future floods that might be sent because of their wickedness.  Seeing what a great threat Nimrod’s followers were to His believers, the Lord scattered them and confounded their language so that they would present less danger to the righteous.

  

Added to the lusts of the flesh, selfishness and greed present a huge threat to civilized society.  By the time Abraham was well up in years two cities of Noah’s descendants became so wicked that the Lord destroyed them with fire and brimstone.  Whereas homosexuality is usually a small percentage of any given population, societal influences can cause it to greatly increase as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Once they had so completely given in to urges of the flesh, it should not be surprising to find out that they also refused to feed the poor and corrupted their laws.  The Book of Jasher tells that Abraham’s wife Sarah sent her servant Eliezer to Sodom to see how Lot was doing.  When Eliezer intervened on behalf of a poor man who was being abused by a citizen of Sodom the citizen hit Eliezer with a rock which caused him to bleed.  The citizen insisted that Eliezer owed him money to pay him for the service rendered in ridding Eliezer of bad blood as that was the law of Sodom.  When Eliezer and his assailant went before a judge to settle the matter the judge ruled in favor of the assailant whereupon Eliezer struck the judge causing him to bleed and told the judge to pay his (Eliezer’s) assailant what was owed him by Eliezer.  There are a few scattered reports of similar stupidity in the courts of our land.  Criminals who get hurt in perpetrating a crime occasionally sue their victims and win.

 

The Lord’s objection to sex has always been about activity, not orientation.  Acceptable sexual activity has always been about man and wife being willing to create babies for the propagation of the species.  The world at the time of the Israelite departure from Egypt was very corrupt.  The worship of Baal was popular throughout much of the area surrounding their promised land.  Local differences in worship varied from diverse forms of organized sexual orgies to the sacrifice of children.  The Law of Moses signaled a return to the righteous society of believers as in the days of Enoch, but with a much more complex ritual to keep the Israelites in constant remembrance of their relationship to God who was to visit them in the Holy of Holies.  The Children of Israel were to be a chosen people, an example to the world of the Lord’s willingness to bless righteousness and to punish wickedness.  They received plenty of both, blessings and punishment.  This was God’s gift to the world in order to encourage the rest of the world to give up their evil ways.  The destruction of the wicked who were in the way of their entrance into their promised land was not attributed to the righteousness of the Children of Israel for the Lord told them that had they, the Children of Israel, been righteous He would have driven their enemies out with hornets.

 

The anti-Christ have popularized the idea that the Old Testament reveals a harsh vengeful God while the New Testament reveals a forgiving passionate God.  This was done so that they could turn God into a grandfather figure Who forgives us without the need for our repentance and change.  God has given us so many gifts.  First he gave us the gift of a mortal existence so that we could learn to overcome temptation.  Then He gave us a whole people, his chosen people, to abide in his presence while in this mortal existence and give God the opportunity to bestow His blessings upon the obedient and His wrath upon the disobedient.  Next He gave us Jesus Christ to show us the way and receive God’s punishment for all the sins of those who would repent and follow his example.   

 

When the Kingdom of Israel was subject to the Romans, Jesus came to offer forgiveness of sins to the Jews, and made the announcement that his Gospel would be preached to the world at large.  His Gospel would be for entrance into his Kingdom in Heaven.  “My Kingdom is not of this world,”  He stated.  If you will have it this was a pronouncement of the end of theocratic judgement as to earthly punishment for sin.  Judgement pertaining to the Kingdom of God was to be postponed until death.  Because of Jesus we enjoy a probationary state with regard to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Earthly punishment would only be administered by civil authority for crimes against society and individuals, not for sin against God.

 

When Jesus had arisen from the dead, he declared his intentions to visit others of different folds.  Several hundred years later Muhammad, living amid wicked idol worshiping descendants of Abraham, received visions in a cave.  Just as the name for God changed between Genesis chapter one and chapter two according to Josephus, so there are two names for God in the Koran.  The most specific name is “Allah” and the other is merely translated as “God”.  Sometimes “We” is used denoting that other messengers were sent in Allah’s place, Gabriel and Michael are mentioned specifically.  Islam was not told that Muhammad was visited by Jesus.  There was no attempt to join the Arab Moslems and the Christians though sometimes they fought side by side to protect each other.  They were told (Chapter 5 verse 48), after stipulating that the Gospel was bestowed upon Jesus, “Had Allah willed He could have made you one community.  But that He may try you by that which he hath given you (He hath made you as you are).  So vie one with another in good works.  Unto Allah ye will all return, and He will then inform you of that wherein ye differ”.  But Jesus is to merely be considered a prophet in the Koran though He is sometimes referred to as the Savior.

 

Though Jesus is referred to as The Savior in at least one place in the Koran, Islam does not recognize His suffering for our sins.  The Kurds do not mix politics and religion.  Whether or not there are other groups of the Islamic faith who likewise keep them separate, I don’t know.  Where they are able most Moslems prefer to institute a state religion with Islamic Law in control.  However, it is a much harsher law than is described in the Koran.  Adultery, for instance, demands death by stoning under Islamic Law, while the Koran only calls for a beating of 100 stripes.  There are many differences between Islamic Law and the Koran, but I am not so well studied in them that I dare attempt to list them.

 

Similar to God’s dealings with the Children of Israel the Koran mentions no special blessing or righteousness connected with the killing of enemies.  It appears to me that Muhammad’s followers, fearing that they needed more help than they could get from the righteous, made  promises not in keeping with the Koran so that the wicked would be willing to fight for Islam in return for  virgins in the next life if they  killed enemies of Islam.  I am certain Muhammad never said it for when speaking of wedded bliss the Koran stipulates that (Chapter 20 verse 131), “The provision of thy Lord is better and more lasting.”  Islamic jihadists have hijacked the religion of the Moslems.  They have turned the God of the Koran into a bloodthirsty tyrant.  They have remade Allah after their own image.  The Koran introduced a gospel of peace, not the gospel of move in, take over, and kill or convert them, or send in your children as suicide bombers.  The Koran says (Chapter 4 verse 94 and 97), “Say not unto one who offereth you peace, ‘Thou art not a believer,’” and a little further on to Moslems who complained of mistreatment, “Was not Allah’s earth spacious that ye could have migrated therein?”

 

Liberals make a big point of blaming religion as the major source of anti-social behavior.  While it is true that much of the world’s violence is perpetrated by people who go against their religion, others distort and pervert religion in order to justify violence and get approval and support from the religious folks around them.  Shortly after the days of Adam and Eve some of the world’s tyrants claimed to be gods or representatives of lusty, bloodthirsty gods.  With regard to atheists, some of them become civilized and compassionate without the benefit of religious training.  Others  like Pol Pot were the epitome of evil.  He was a fanatical environmentalist and a Communist.  When our military pulled out of Vietnam and the Democrats withdrew aid from South Vietnam, Pol Pot was emboldened and decided to show the world how Communism should work.  He was highly anti-technology, so he drove millions of city dwellers out into the countryside.  Of the two million who died the ones who didn’t die from the unfamiliar hardships they faced were murdered for having an item of technology with them.  Others were killed for trying to help someone in need.  Stalin, another atheist, behaved so evilly after he took control of the Soviet Union that even some American Socialists hate him.  But when it comes to the killing of innocent victims the worlds tyrants are pikers compared to the death and destruction caused by well meaning environmentalists.  Ann Coulter (In Godless p.4) refers to Africans dying in droves because Rachael Carson in Silent Spring (The original environmental hoax), “Brainwashed an entire generation into imagining a world without birds, killed by DDT.”  Environmentalists would rather save the birds than the African people, so DDT was outlawed because of a fear of DDT spread by a hoax.

 

Liberals have a long standing fascination with Communism and a history of interfering with the effort to help nations which were having trouble with an attempted communist takeover.  When John Kerry’s service in Vietnam as the commander of a Swift Boat was over, he conferred with the Communist North Vietnamese and went before our Congress where he testified that he and the rest of the American military were all war criminals.  Quite the contrary, by 1961 Bill Yarborough had taken over responsibility for the Special Forces and changed them considerably.  Whereas the Rangers, and Special Forces had been dead end classifications, training was broadened, and standards were raised to exclude the more unruly blood thirsty types.  They became experts at going into backward areas and supporting the indigenous peoples against Communist guerrillas.  They moved in with the Montagnards in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam where they helped them fortify their villages, provided emergency medical care, and helped with their food and water supplies etc.  They were anything but war criminals.  John Kerry played a major role in making returning Vietnam veterans unpopular when they returned home after serving their country with honor.  They were spit upon and derided as baby killers because of Kerry’s lies in support of withdrawing from Vietnam.  He also played a major role in turning the American public against the war with the resulting withdrawal and the withholding of funds from the South Vietnamese by the Democrats in congress.

 

The Culture War has both open-above-board and clandestine features.  According to Right Turns by Michael Medved, in his first year at Yale he wasn’t aware of anyone using marijuana.  It was his observation that during the school year of 1966-1967 a sudden explosion of drug use resulted in over 90% of college students becoming first time users.  It is well known that Elvis Presley was concerned about drug use at Hollywood parties.  He reported that the typical scenario resulted in the appearance of drugs once the party was going well, then shortly afterwards the anti-American talk would begin.  The self inflicted sleep deprivation experienced by college students produces a susceptibility to brainwashing and adding drugs to the mix increases it.  The need for teenagers to discover themselves lends itself to general trends which have been termed the “Generation Gap”.  I recall a lot of talk about the “Generation Gap” in the late 50s and early 60s.  It was a phenomenon that Liberals chose to take advantage of and expand on as much as possible.  A decade or so later they were telling young children that their parents had no right to intrude upon their privacy or say anything about their friends, and had only very limited rights to discipline their own children.

 

Liberals have taken over our public colleges and universities and have a major presence in elementary and high schools.  A large majority of journalists are liberals.  The strength of their influence makes it very difficult to obtain punishment for liberal politicians.  President Clinton accepted bribes in the form of campaign contributions which bordered on treason.  On just one of Clinton’s scandals several of Clinton’s closest friends and close associates were testifying against him.  Webb Hubble was testifying against him but he  stopped when friends of Clinton’s bribed him right under the noses of the prosecutors.  Another of Clinton’s friends died in the middle of his testifying.  Yet another one took the fifth when asked a simple yes  or no question “Did Clinton know...”.And yes, the press made her sound like Joan of Arc.  

 

When Clinton was being indicted for lying about his fling with Monica he told his adversaries that they would go down with him.  Larry Flint came forward saying that his private investigators had unearthed some dirt on them, but with all the illegal access Clinton had to FBI files it hardly seems necessary for Flint’s P.I.s to have dug up dirt on Clinton’s enemies.  And why did the Clintons think that they could get away with the misappropriating of a thousand FBI files.  Hillary Clinton took part in the prosecution of Richard Nixon over the coverup of the break in at the Watergate Building to sneak a look at a few private files so she knew very well where the much more serious misappropriating of FBI files could lead.  Why did she think that they were immune to paying the price for their misdeeds?  It was political realities that emboldened the Clintons and kept them from paying a big price for their many illegal activities, not lack of evidence.  The unrelenting attack on Nixon was an act of revenge for Nixon’s prosecution of Communists.  The attack on the Clintons may have seemed unrelenting, but that was only because there were so many scandals and they kept jumping from one to another.  When the smoke had cleared from the impeachment proceedings, several members of the committee that brought the charges had enough class to resign when the news of their cheating on their wives came out as Larry Flint’s P.I.s supposedly broke the news of their cheating ways.  No big surprise that the Senate Republicans wanted none of that, so when it came time for them to convict Clinton they washed their hands of it in a hurry, adulterous cowards that they were.  

 

When you think to judge President Bush harshly for his failure to hit hard at the traitors who have been leaking information which made it more difficult to track down terrorists, you need to remember the realities of political life today.  Not only do Liberals get off easy, but Conservatives don’t, and they don’t get off easy for prosecuting Liberals.  Then remember the lies and the forged document they came after Bush with and all the talk of impeaching him.  They were a bunch of ravenous wolves on a blood trail.  The blood lust really took off when the Democrats tried to steal the election of 2000.  The Democrat’s liberal cohorts in the press called the Florida race a democratic win before the polls were closed in western Florida in order to discourage the potentially large republican vote there.  Then the Democrats hired a public relations firm to call up a lot of folks in a largely Democrat county and tell them that their votes weren’t being counted.  They also tried to prevent the counting of military absentee ballots.  All the heat from this fiasco fell on Bush’s shoulders because he dared to stand up to the Democrat assault on the Florida vote and he won.  The least of Liberal bad qualities is that they are very bad sports and very spiteful.  

 

Not even Conservatives give President Bush much of a break.  Everyone knows that both private and government spending grow the economy.  President Bush lowered taxes and indulged in deficit spending so that the economy would grow from both methods.  It didn’t result in an overheated economy so perhaps both were needed.  Deficit spending is commonly used to overcome problems with our personal budgets.  The prudent only use it for emergencies.  Well, the failing economy Bush inherited plus the hit on our economy resulting from the attack of September 11 created emergency conditions.  Get over it you hardliners.  And you hardliners on immigration, I’m certain that there are some illegal immigrants who haven’t stolen anyone’s identity.  Some of them are victims.  Owners of large farms, ranches, and businesses, politicians, and some of our municipalities have all but issued engraved invitations for illegal immigrants to come into the country yet you hardliners want to brand every illegal immigrant as a felon and forget about those who lured them here and broke the law by hiring them.  

 

Shortly after our attack on Iraq things changed in the Middle East.  The Lebonese kicked out the Syrians, the Lybians gave up their support of terrorism and Iran was very quiet.  As the anti war rhetoric was stepped up things changed for the worse.  Will the anti war and anti Bush crowd ever admit to their culpability?  The anti Vietnam War crowd hasn’t owned up to their responsibility for the millions who died in Cambodia because they made it necessary for us to get out of Vietnam.

 

The culture war rages on.  If you are concerned about the credibility of life long Conservatives such as I am and many of the popular Conservative icons are, I suggest you read some of the excellent books written by former Liberals.  David Horowitz was an early convert from liberalism, but I don’t remember the titles of any of his books.  Michael Medved’s Right Turns is excellent.  Tammy Bruce’s The death of Right and Wrong is another good one.  I eagerly listen to Dennis Prager, but haven’t yet read any of his books.  He says, and I’m paraphrasing, “I’m a liberal but the rhetoric has changed so much that I had to become a Republican to be with those who believe what I have always believed.”  While you’re looking around the radio dial give a listen to Bill Bennet’s Morning in America very early in the morning and Hugh Hewett late in the afternoon.  On one station I get Bill Bennet, then Laura Engram from 6-9, Dennis Prager from 9-noon, Michael Medved from noon-3, and Hugh Hewett from 3-6.  The sad thing is it doesn’t leave much room for Rush Limbaugh, Tom Sullivan, or Dr. Laura Schlesinger.

 

Oft times when I’ve done something nice and friends hear about it and tell me what a great guy I am I sometimes facetiously say “No need to make a fuss about it, I can’t help it, I was born that way.”  I’d like to share something with you about that.  While most folks are merely followers, the exceptional and highly motivated can find themselves among the highly tempted.  When I was a child I was very athletic.  Before my hormones kicked in, about the age of ten, I had been attending the Baptist Church and was very impressed by the characters in the Bible.  I loved Jesus, Peter, and Paul, etc.  One night in bed I was thinking about things my Sunday School teacher said about King Solomon being blessed for wanting wisdom.  Believing that God could hear my prayer I told Him that I wanted enough wisdom to serve Him properly more than I wanted physical strength, wealth, or power.  Let me tell you, when my hormones did kick in it took a lot of being beaten down by adversity to prevent me from becoming the kind of person I did not admire at the tender age of ten.  By the time I was twelve I had lost my athletic abilities along with my physical strength and endurance.  By the time I was thirty the first symptoms of my progressive neuropathy were revealing themselves.  When I was about thirty five I started taking enough vitamins to fend off the colds and flu which frequently wore me down and started developing muscle for a few years.  By the time I was sixty five I was nearly a couch potato with little strength and no stamina.  Last year I found out that I had been misdiagnosed with regard to my neuropathy.  For nearly twenty years I thought that I had CMT for which there is no known treatment.  Once I discovered that I did not have CMT I dove into the information I had been collecting on health and decided on a regimen of essential fatty acids, amino acids, and powerful antioxidants.  It took only a few weeks to get back a significant amount of stamina and I believe I am starting to grow muscle once again.  

 

I have met people who are exceptional in their athletic abilities, their academic achievements and successful in their business and private lives, and who never succumbed to the temptations to go the way of the world.  I know that is possible, but I don’t believe it would have been the case with me, so I don’t regret having suffered the many things which have kept me from serious sin.  The tendency for some to engage in behavior that is harmful to our God given right to life , liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is part of the nature of the human species.  That tendency needs to be restrained by law, by law enforcement agencies and by the influence of family and religion.  Liberals have done serious damage to our system of justice.  They are succeeding in destroying the influence of parents, our traditional morals and have infiltrated our churches.  They have replaced old fashioned morality and family values with the fairness doctrine.  The rearing of children brings an added dimension to the lives of parents.  The challenge associated with child rearing can bring parents closer to God and can be an uplifting influence on them and on society at large.  God placed us here to get experience and to learn to be kind and helpful on our own volition.  Liberals want to create a nanny society which will guarantee that we don’t need to volunteer help and kindness.  The government will take from the producers and give to those who won’t or can’t so that we can have a forced sameness and equality.

 

During the Vietnam War era, escape to Canada was not the only way of evading the draft.  Some went to religious seminaries and entered the priesthood.  I recall studies of the orthodoxy of seminary students back then.  There was a high percentage of seminary students who did not believe many of the basic teachings of the Bible.  Decades earlier Will Durant (an atheist and a socialist), in the dual autobiography he and Ariel had published, admitted to attending a seminary for the purpose of entering the priesthood and having a socialist influence on the Catholic Church.  Were it not for some lectures he gave on sex he might have been referred to as Monsignor Durant.

 

The defining principle of our form of government is the idea that our equality before the law and our freedom to enjoy life, liberty and to pursue happiness is inalienable and comes from God.  They come directly from God with no need for theocratic intervention.  We can respect Judaism for the insights it provided into God’s willingness to bless good behavior and punish bad behavior, but it was meant for a time when God literally dwelt among men.  We can respect the Koran for supplanting the idolatry which preceded it.  We should be eternally grateful that Jesus not only showed us the way, but He left us free to choose when he said “My Kingdom is not of this world.”  The God of Abraham does not want forced obedience as the liberals do with their fairness doctrines and environmental issues.

 

The Liberal Jihad is a view of reality, a doctrine which fears or does not believe in life after death with its eternal rewards and punishments.  It is a contagion which we attract to ourselves by our own doubts and fears.  It is pressed upon us by the intimidating influence of tyrants and the everyday challenges of life.  In that sense it is deeply embedded in most of us to some extent, but it is also groups of conspirators who wish to take advantage of us.  Liberals push for so many things which would destroy everything we as Conservatives and as Christians hold dear.  Call them Liberals or Social Progressives, whatever they are they promote the priorities of a militant version of atheism.  Atheists do not believe in the Creation or a hereafter so the liberal variety believes in the principle of “Might makes right”, the end justifies the means, and the rejection of harsh punishment or judgements.  They reject harsh punishment because they don’t like to be restrained in their activities by the force of law.  They don’t want to be restrained by force of law because this life is all they have to look forward to.  They believe in treaties and agreements with rational types and in standing back and letting the rest of us kill each other off.  Rational types are like minded people, and the rest of us are irrelevant.  They hate the idea of one man sacrificing his life for another for that is the principle by which war is fought so they don’t believe in war or heroes.  They believe in zero population growth because they don’t like to share any more than is necessary.  They don’t believe capitalism because it allows humankind to become free and independent of their control and more than anything else they want to be in control.