In Case Anyone is Wondering . . .

Neither Romney nor Obama are in any way defenders of the Church or even the common good.

Romney pretends to care about unborn babies but then immediately turns around and brags about supporting contraception and abortion in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life may be threatened. Because women must have “options” when it comes to whether or not they can kill their unborn children. Romney has also made it very clear that there exists absolutely zero abortion legislation that he would consider making a part of his agenda. Also, during the last presidential debate, instead of calling Obama out on violations to religious liberties Romney instead vouched for employing the exact same kind of class warfare, war against women rhetoric that Obama himself has used in support of infringements against religious liberties, stating: “I don’t believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives.” Employers shouldn’t force people to buy or not buy contraceptives. But that’s not what the HHS Mandate is about and that is not what was being discussed before Romney threw this red herring out to distract from the real issue of religious liberties and freedom of conscience.

Obama on the other hand, is hell bent on forcing anyone who disagrees with him to do things that they find morally repugnant or pay astronomical, prohibitionary fines if they don’t. Obama has even explicitly stated that the HHS Mandate which provides “free” contraceptives as well as sterilization and abortifacients at the expense of people morally opposed to such practices is “why we passed this law.” The Evangelical family that owns Hobby Lobby is suing over the HHS Mandate and, as a result of their defiance, the Oklahoma outfit faces fines of $1.3 million a day simply because they do not want to pay and provide for a practice that is irreconcilable with their religious beliefs and code of ethics.

At the end of the day, the sad truth is that no matter how much either candidate talks about how they care about children, or women, or the poor their actions instead suggest that all either candidate really cares about is himself and how to expand his own power. Anyone who gets in the way of that can expect to be trampled.

13 Quotes from Men of Recent History on Government Welfare

When one adds the 107 million Americans already receiving some form of means-tested government welfare, to the 46 million seniors collecting Medicare and 22 million government employees at the federal, state and local level suddenly, over 165 million people, a clear majority of the 308 million Americans counted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010, are at least partially dependents of the state.

We clearly live in a welfare state based, not on the production of wealth, but on the redistribution of wealth. Here are thirteen quotes from men of recent history on government welfare:

1

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.” – Thomas Jefferson

2

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Ben Franklin.

3

“There are two ways to enslave a nation. One is by arms. The other is by debt.” – John Adams

4

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams

5

“Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence.” – Abraham Lincoln

6

“This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:  (1) The few plunder the many.  (2) Everybody plunders everybody.  (3) Nobody plunders anybody.” – Frederic Bastiat

7

“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

8

“Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.” – Lysander Spooner

9

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” – Mark Twain

10

“Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.” – Ludwig von Mises

11

“Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom.” – Friedrich August von Hayek

12

“It is easy to be conspicuously ‘compassionate’ if others are being forced to pay the cost.” — Murray N. Rothbard

13

“Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions.” – Milton Friedman

Does Your Vote Really Matter? What You Can Do to Make a Difference.

According to a Mises Daily article entitled Why Vote? your vote does not matter. The chance of a single vote affecting the outcome of the election would be about one millionth of one percent. In fact, if the entire state of Michigan had voted for John McCain, Barrack Obama would still have won the 2008 election. If the votes of an entire state do not matter how much less so does your individual vote? The Ludwig von Mises Institute argues that, in terms of affecting the outcome of an election, it does not.

And they are right.

Voting is only the first step in exercising your voice.

What your vote does affect, however, is you. This is because voting is a moral act. What matters is not so much whether or not we vote but how we vote. Our vote should always be ordered towards the common good: to promote what is good as much as possible and to minimize evil to the greatest extent. Unfortunately, the contemporary American two-party system, through its strict limitation of the voter’s options to two very similar and (in my opinion) equally bad choices, makes this very difficult. However, since we’ve already established that your vote is statistically insignificant, we should not limit ourselves only to the two traditional, “electable” candidates. Certainly we can vote for what we believe to be the “lesser of two evils” if we have an appropriate proportional reason for doing so but the best candidate may be third-party or even independent. In fact, if every candidate on the ballot is unsatisfactory to you then you can always write someone in. To do so might not “matter” as far as the numbers are concerned but the act does stand for something: no matter how marginalized your principles are you stood up for them anyway and that is a noble endeavor that transcends the nihilistic utilitarianism of the political machine. Also, if you find every candidate unsatisfactory then you could simply just not vote: but only because there are other ways, better ways, to fulfill our duty as citizens to promote the common good.

If you are more interested in making an impact beyond the fate of your own soul, one that impacts the society to which you belong, there are other ways, political and non-political, of getting involved. From participating at the grassroots level, in support of solid local candidates or organizations, to frequently writing congressmen, actively involving yourself in the social arena does far more good than your statistically insignificant vote ever could. College campuses should really ditch the “you should vote” campaigns  and replace them with a “write your congressmen” campaign. Their votes actually are statistically significant and they represent you regardless of whether or not you voted for them: so demand that they represent you accurately and hold them accountable for their actions.

What happens when voting is all we do.

Furthermore, as people become less satisfied with their options, more and more people use their vote to vote against a candidate and not for someone. Overwhelmingly, people today use their vote to support the lesser of two evils in order to block the greater evil, but the lesser evil, if elected, then becomes the new standard and the quality of our politicians just continues to degrade from there. What a poverty that we now define every act of voting entirely in terms of evil. In contrast, when you write your congressmen you are not standing against a candidate but for a principle, and that is a breath of fresh air. In fact, you can write them on any issue, at any time, as much as you want. You pick and choose precisely what stances you want to support and you are not forced into choosing a package deal as you are with your vote. Certainly, a politician can ignore your letter but then, when your vote has only a one millionth of one percent chance of making a difference that hardly seems worse.

But while political activism is even more important than voting, what you do in your non-political life is perhaps most vital of all. We must forget everything progressivism and relativism have taught us: how we live our personal lives matter. The way we present ourselves to the world makes an impact and what we do with our time, talents and resources has a far greater effect on our communities than our vote ever could. It thus becomes vitally important how we live, not just for ourselves but because our actions influence others. We must always strive in all that we do to promote what is good and reduce what is evil: to live our lives in accordance with the natural and eternal laws, to love good and hate evil, and to obey and respect just human law. To have a free and virtuous society we must first be virtuous ourselves. We must be vigilant and inform ourselves daily and share our knowledge with others.

Most importantly, we must be charitable. We must not be like Satan and declare “I will not serve!” no matter how loudly our hedonistic culture shouts “me, me, me!” Instead, we must exhibit charity starting with the little things like smiling when we don’t feel like it or withholding a biting remark, and then work towards the greater things: giving back to our communities; serving the weak, the tired, the poor; helping those who cannot help themselves. We must put others before ourselves and no where is this more important than in the family. Children really are the future and they must be raised in love and taught the moral code so that they may surpass us in virtue.

The reality is that we vote every day and the vote at the ballot box, of little importance except to the voter, is perhaps the most overrated method of doing so. To do nothing beyond voting is to render our liberty insecure and invite slavery. To effect positive change requires political and non-political activism. Such methods require far more of us but the payoff will be much higher, for our society but also for ourselves. After all, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Fair is Fair: Or is It?

In politics we hear a lot of talk about “fairness”. We can have free trade but only so long as it is “fair” trade, instead of “cut-throat” competition we need a “fair” market, we must always play “fair.” Fairness is an important concept in a society but what we actually mean when we say that something should be “fair” can differ and that difference, even if its subtle, can mean the difference between justice and injustice in a society.

Fairness may refer to the idea that everyone should be treated equally. Everyone is treated the same under the law, justice is blind etc. But, often, fairness is also used to mean granting everyone the same probability of success. Often, politicians and others have both definitions in mind when they talk about fairness. The reality, however, is that we cannot treat everyone the same and grant everyone identical probabilities of success in life. These two definitions of fairness are mutually exclusive to one another, the reason being that we are not created equal, we are not raised equal and we simply can’t be given equal opportunities in all things over the course of our entire lives.

This view may seem contradictory to our very own Declaration of Independence which states that “all men are created equal.” However, to understand what those words mean we must understand it in its context: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Our founders never made such an asinine claim as that we are all created equal in regards to our biology: our physical health, our mental capacity and everything else that determines our talents and ability. No, we are created equal in regards to our rights. We are indeed very different in terms of utility but our souls are of infinite, and therefore equal, value, and that is why justice must be blind, that is why we all share the same universal rights.

Classical liberalist Ludwig von Mises recognized man’s natural inequality and pointed out that Karl Marx, a man on the complete opposite end of the political spectrum from himself, did as well: “Some surpass their fellow men in health and vigor, in brain and aptitudes, in energy and resolution and are therefore better fitted for the pursuit of earthly affairs than the rest of mankind — a fact that has also been admitted by Marx. He spoke of ‘the inequality of individual endowment and therefore productive capacity (Leistungsfähigkeit)’ as ‘natural privileges’ and of ‘the unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal).’”

Pope Leo XIII also readily recognized the inherent inequality between men: “There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition.” Here, Pope Leo XIII goes a step further and draws the logical conclusion from the observation that men are created unequal: that inequality of wealth among men is in accordance with Natural Law.

Our second definition of fairness, that all human beings be given an equal opportunity, with equal probabilities of success, is incompatible with this simple human reality of natural inequality. Some men are smarter, stronger or even just more fortunate than others. To attempt to “level the playing field” can only be accomplished by treating these men unequally as well: to prevent the fitter man from reaching his potential, by forcibly taking from him greater wealth and giving it to the less equipped man. Thus, by punishing people simply for being better endowed in life and rewarding others for their mediocrity does “fairness” become injustice and does tyranny ensue.

Conversely, treating all people equally under the law necessarily results in inequality. Believe it or not this is fair. It is fair because it is just: some men are more productive than others and, under a legal system that respects everyone’s rights equally and does not favor any special interest above the interests of everyone else, they will be rewarded according to their contributions. This actually ends up benefiting everyone. Mises put it thus, ”Under capitalism the more gifted and more able have no means to profit from their superiority other than to serve to the best of their abilities the wishes of the majority of the less gifted.” When public policy is driven by Natural Law, when men are treated equally and rewarded according to their accomplishments, people are able to capitalize fully on their natural talents, to their benefit but also to the benefit of society as a whole. That is fair; that is justice.

On the “Charity” of Collectivism

According to Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Libertas the freedom that really matters is that which allows us to follow the natural law. That is, that freedom which opens the path to doing good. Freedom is a means to an end and that end is virtue.

There is no virtue in doing good with property that you forcibly took from others and there is no virtue in being forced to give up your property for the benefit of others. Virtue requires freedom as its prerequisite: our society can only be virtuous if it chooses to act virtuously. The bigger the government, the harder that becomes and the harder that becomes the less reason that society will have to continue. Eliminate virtue and society will find that it has very little to live for: hedonism fills the void left by charity and that bloodless creed degrades into nihilism. And, once society believes nothing (or everything) that is the moment in which society must inevitably collapse. You may ask, but what about the poor? Eliminate virtue and its only a matter of time before everyone is poor. Our greatest weapon against poverty is Christian love, not government; let us remember that before it is too late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m Sure They All Deserved It

And even if they don’t that’s just the cost of keeping us safe. After all, they’re mostly dangerous illegal immigrants and cannabis users.

The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population and 23% of the world’s prison population.

Some interesting facts about the US prison system courtesy of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy:

Compared to its democratic, advanced market economy counterparts, the United States has more people in prison by several orders of magnitude.

Although crime rates have decreased since 1990, the rate of imprisonment has continued to increase.

Many criminal justice experts have found that the increase in the incarceration rate is the product of changes in penal policy and practice, not changes in crime rates.

Changes in drug policy have had the single greatest impact on criminal justice policy.

Mandatory minimum sentences for low level crack-cocaine users are comparable (and harsher in certain cases) to sentences for major drug dealers.

In 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession and one out of five were for sales. The crime history for three-quarters of drug offenders in state prisons involved non-violent or drug offenses.

African Americans, who make-up 12.4 percent of the population, represent more than half of all prison inmates, compared to one-third twenty years ago.

Although African Americans constitute 14 percent of regular drug users, they are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses, and 56 percent of persons in state prisons for drug crimes.

African Americans serve nearly as much time in federal prisons for drug offenses as whites do for violent crimes.

In 2006, states spent an estimated $2 billion on prison construction, three times the amount they were spending fifteen years earlier.

The combined expenditures of local governments, state governments, and the federal government for law enforcement and corrections total over $200 billion annually.

The incarceration rate has significant costs associated with the productivity of both prisoners and ex-offenders. The
economic output of prisoners is mostly lost to society while they are imprisoned.

Negative productivity effects continue after release. This wage penalty grows with time, as previous imprisonment can reduce the wage growth of young men by some 30 percent.

Prisons are absorbing the cost of housing the nation’s mentally ill. The number of mentally ill in prison is nearly five times the number in inpatient mental hospitals.

On average, two out of every three released prisoners will be rearrested and one in two will return to prison within three years of release.

The American prison system does not concern itself with protecting people’s rights. Its about punishing people. What was once meant to protect society from violent criminals now deals mainly in inflicting punishment on people for disobeying the law with complete disregard for how out-of-proportion that punishment may be or how absurd the law. And don’t even try to suggest replacing punishment with rehabilitation for non-violent drug users. You’ll just be accused of being a bleeding heart liberal or an anarchist. We have to have law and order, after all – just don’t stop to ask what it is exactly that those laws accomplish or what it is that we have ordered ourselves towards. You may have to be punished.

Pope Leo XIII on Capitalism and Socialism

In response to attacks against religious freedom the American Catholic bishops have risen in defense of the church. However, many of the bishops, and many Catholics, have come to accept along the road the basic socialist principles that it is the government’s role to feed, clothe, house and provide medical care to its citizens. Thus, much of the Catholic community talks about how Obamacare’s attacks on religious freedom are wrong, but there’s some really good things in there too! Much of this sentiment is a reaction to our unfortunate corporatist system (which, sadly, too many Catholics – like Paul Ryan – support as well) in which the rich and the government cooperate to take from the poor and benefit the wealthy. The problem, however, is that the only way the government can provide services to the have-nots, either directly or indirectly, is through coercion, plunder and the destruction of liberty. This view is not in defense of the rich; socialism is not wrong primarily because it takes from the rich but because, like corporatism, it brings down society at large and harms the underprivileged most of all.

In The Law, 19th century political economist Frederic Bastiat explains that, if the privileged classes use the government for “legalized plunder”, this will encourage the lower classes to revolt or use socialist “legalized plunder” and that the correct response to both the socialists and the corporatists is to cease all “legalized plunder”. Bastiat also explains that the law cannot defend life, liberty, and property if it promotes socialist policies. When used to obtain “legalized plunder” for any group, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the very thing it is supposed to defend.

While many Catholics embrace socialist principles thinking that “capitalism has failed” they fail to recognize what capitalism even is. I think that many of our bishops make the same mistake and its not scandalous to say so. After all, they are priests – not economists – and while we would do well to always respect their authority we must also recognize their limitations. Those are the areas, not for rebellion, but for discussion. “Capitalism” is a broad term that refers to any economic model based in the individual ownership of property, a non-capitalist economy in contrast finds its basis in collective (that is, government) ownership of property. “Capitalism” may refer to both “good” and “bad” economic models: there’s corporatism mentioned above which probably best describes the United States (it is also the worst form of capitalism, combining the worst aspects of capitalism with the worst aspects of collectivism) but there’s also a hundred other variations like the classical liberal economic model embraced by Bastiat and even Chesterton’s distributism is fundamentally capitalist even though some distributism beg to differ (in fact, I would argue that distributism is even more capitalist in nature than many other capitalist models like corporatism in that property rights are more jealously protected for everyone, whereas corporatism demands systematic government seizure of property from the non-privileged).

So, while we must defend capitalism for the sake of our rights, we need not defend our nation’s particular model of capitalism. This idea, however, that we must embrace capitalism and reject collectivist models like socialism (or corporatism which is a rather special case, combining both capitalist and collectivist aspects) is not purely secular, it is not amoral and it certainly is not immoral or in any way contrary to Catholicism. While the American bishops have suggested that capitalism may be at least in part contrary to Catholic social justice teaching, Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum, had the following to say on capitalism:

“Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.”

“Man’s needs do not die out, but forever recur; although satisfied today, they demand fresh supplies for tomorrow. Nature accordingly must have given to man a source that is stable and remaining always with him, from which he might look to draw continual supplies. And this stable condition of things he finds solely in the earth and its fruits. There is no need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.”

“Private ownership is in accordance with the law of nature.”

“They assert that it is right for private persons to have the use of the soil and its various fruits, but that it is unjust for any one to possess outright either the land on which he has built or the estate which he has brought under cultivation. But those who deny these rights do not perceive that they are defrauding man of what his own labor has produced.”

“As effects follow their cause, so is it just and right that the results of labor should belong to those who have bestowed their labor.”

“The laws of nature, the foundations of the division of property, and the practice of all ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquillity of human existence.”

“Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State.”

“Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity.”

“”It is lawful,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “for a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human existence.”"

And here’s what he had to say on socialism:

“the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community. “

“The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.”

“The sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the levelling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation.”

“Class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth.”

“At the present day many there are who, like the heathen of old, seek to blame and condemn the Church for such eminent charity. They would substitute in its stead a system of relief organized by the State. But no human expedients will ever make up for the devotedness and self sacrifice of Christian charity. Charity, as a virtue, pertains to the Church.”

Corporatism has failed. Every flavor of centrally planned government around the world has failed. Capitalism remains largely untried.

What do Mosque Burnings have to do with the Religious Freedom of Christians? Everything.

American Catholics are up in arms over the infringement of our religious liberty due to the HHS mandate forcing us to buy services we find morally reprehensible. The Obama administration has offered, not just Catholics, but anyone morally opposed to contraception, abortifacients or sterilization, an ultimatum: abandon your faith or abandon your business. With more than 68.5 million registered members, the Catholic church is the largest single religious denomination in the United States, comprising about 22 percent of the population so how did it come to this? Well, targeting groups based on religious affiliation in the United States did not start with a group as large and ingrained into our society as the Catholic church. Before Catholics our government’s target was, and still is, Muslims. The War on Terror was, and ever will be, a war against Muslims. This isn’t because most terrorists are Muslims (it would probably be better stated that most terrorists are Arabs, and most Muslims are not Arab) but because the War on Terror is really a war of revenge. After 9/11 our country was hurting – and we overreacted. The result was a nearly decade-long war in Iraq, condemned as unjust by the Pope, in which we killed anywhere from 400,000 to 1.2 million civilians in a war of no strategic value. The mantra of the never-ending War on Terror seems to have become “hate thy enemies” as our politicians embrace the use of vindictive and useless means like torture and literally demonizing our enemies by likening the Iraq War to fighting Mordor.

I remember watching a “documentary” called The Third Jihad which warned of Muslims trying to impose Sharia Law on Americans through an apparently evil scheme to “vote for” and “elect” Muslim extremists to places of political power in the United States. This “documentary” implied that it was the patriotic duty of true Americans to block these Muslims from participating in our democratic process, all in the name of “protecting our liberties” from the fascist Muslims.

The Third Jihad expresses fear at the thought of “non-violent”  muslims within the United States who are further labeled “radical” despite admittance to their non-violence. What the movie blatantly ignores is that the United States is a democracy and if muslims want to engage in US politics through non-violent means that is their constitutional right as US citizens. US citizenship is not, and never has been, dependent on a person’s religious status – after all, freedom of religion is one of the central tenets of American democracy.

Furthermore, this movie demonizes muslims for answering to a power higher than government, condemning British muslims for wanting their government to reflect their values – which is absurd. The video cites that 81% of British muslims consider themselves muslims first and British second. I consider myself Catholic first and American second and all Christians should consider their loyalty first to their faith and not their country. Both Catholicism and Islam predate British and American government, and faith in God supersedes loyalty to government. We live in a country in which our constitution recognizes that our rights are granted to us not by the government but by God and thus it is to God to whom our first loyalty should lie. Can we really blame Muslims for doing the same? These are not the radical Islamists that promote terror, these are men and women trying to be faithful to their religion and there is nothing wrong with that. To undermine their faith serves only to push them towards radicalism.

Additionally, there has been expansive political pressure opposing the construction of muslim schools and mosques in the United States for fear of the muslim practice to “Aslim” the land, which means to buy up land to make it muslim ground. However, I will never protest muslims buying land in America no matter what their intent. To oppose that would be to oppose their property rights. I may refuse to sell my land to muslims and I will certainly oppose any kind of special treatment from our government to muslims (as I oppose special treatment of any group by the law) but I will recognize and respect them for what they are: human beings and therefore our brothers and sisters in Christ. They have the same exact rights as you and I and when I defend those rights I sure as hell will defend them for everyone, muslims included.  There are muslim fascists, even here in the US, but the threat they pose is small compared to the threat that we pose to ourselves. By rationalizing away the religious liberty of muslims we open up the door for our government to take away everyone’s freedoms. We are already far down that road. We see it today as Catholic “extremists” are forced to pay for other people’s birth control; this is rationalized by labeling us right-wing fascists who hate women just for practicing our freedoms. Ironically it is the same label given to the very muslims that the propaganda machine has declared that we as Christians must oppose with violence and draconian measures. Now we are beginning to feel the sting of those very same abuses.

In response to efforts by Christians to work with muslims instead of against them in order to stop abortion, Big Peace writer Diana West stated the following (Bigpeace.com seems to have removed the original article but a response article on Big Peace can still be found here):

Making “common cause” with muslim states to vote down pro-abortion law at the UN becomes dangerous if and when it means constructing a Trojan Horse by which proponents of sharia make their stealthy advance into regions of respectability in the West that would otherwise be closed to them as sworn enemies of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Apparently, maintaining ethnic purity within the United States is more important than the lives of 52 million children. Its no wonder that in a recent statement Pope Benedict XVI said that America is “increasingly hostile to Christianity.” Opposing muslims and maintaining our “respectability” is more important than re-establishing Christian values in society.

The Islamophobic attitude of the War on Terror has saturated our culture to the point that we’re afraid of what preposterous evil muslims might be up to in the voting booth, or when they buy land. The fruit of the war on terror is that we’re now more terrified than ever – and our terror has bred nothing but hate. But to target them for their faith and to oppose their right to vote or buy land or build a school is to destroy religious liberty, not just their own, but everyone’s. A truly free society can only be free if everyone’s rights are protected. To merely defend some people’s rights some of the time is to tread the road to tyranny.

That’s why, in response to America’s epidemic of mosque burnings we must protest, not in defense of Islam, but in defense of our fellow Americans who happen to be muslim and, also, in defense of ourselves. We cannot deny the religious freedom of others, even through seemingly benign inaction, and still expect our own religious freedom to be protected. Because, as America becomes increasingly hostile towards Christians it becomes ever more plausible that, next time, it won’t be a mosque but a church that gets burned to the ground. We must not accept the unacceptable; we must not let such abnormal acts becomes normalized in our society; and we cannot give credibility to such wicked acts of religious persecution. Instead, we must defend the rights of all human beings and find solidarity with our brothers and sisters of all creeds now before it is too late. This is a fight that do not want to fight alone.

How the War on Drugs Became a War on Milk

Extending for four decades now, the war on drugs has ingrained a certain ideology into society. What was sold as an initiative to get dangerous drugs off the streets has conceived a totalitarian mindset that government has the authority to control everything you eat and drink and, if you disobey, the state can fine you, destroy your property, raid your home and throw you in jail. I’m not talking about cocaine or meth. I’m not even talking about marijuana. I’m talking about milk.

Its Satan’s drink.

Here’s an excerpt from an article from Info Wars on a “raw food raid” where armed agents bust milk and cheese sellers:

(NaturalNews) The raid on Rawesome Foods by a combined force of agents from the FDA, Dept of Agriculture, CDC and the LA County Sheriff’s office wasn’t the only SWAT-style armed raid that took place today. Sharon Palmer, a mom and owner of Healthy Family Farms was also arrested and taken to jail. A third woman, Victoria Bloch, the LA County liaison for the Weston A Price Foundation (www.WestonaPrice.org) , was also reportedly arrested, NaturalNews has learned.

All three are reportedly being charged with conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime? The “crime” of advocating raw milk for consumers!

As NaturalNews previously reported (http://www.naturalnews.com/033220_R…), the SWAT-style raid was conducted like a terrorist operation, where the cops immediately went after Rawesome’s cash and then began vandalizing and destroying the store’s entire inventory.

This is exactly the kind of behavior now taken for granted in the War on Drugs, in which multiple government agencies collaborate and perform raids armed to the teeth and then proceed to destroy the illegal goods. Except that these aren’t armed and dangerous drug cartels; these are farmers. In fact, these farmers produce a product, dairy, that is consumed, legally and without government harassment, by virtually the entire United States population every day. The only difference is that this milk wasn’t heated to 161 degrees for 15 seconds and, therefore, has been deemed by many states to be too dangerous for there to be any legitimate use for it at all and therefore it has been categorically prohibited and is now treated much the same way as hard drugs like cocaine and meth.

Everyone should find such circumstances appalling, but not because we treat raw milk much the same way we treat drugs. After all, it really is more risky to drink raw milk than processed milk. What’s appalling is the fact that we subject people to raids, fines and incarceration based on what they put in their bodies, all “for their own good.” As if subjecting people who get caught with marijuana to prison rape “helps” them.

Drug abuse and addiction are serious problems. Some people also think that raw milk is a serious problem. However, in neither case is coercion the answer. Not only is such use of force wrong but it is counter-productive. When you push people they tend to push back and if we want to live in a more virtuous society unfortunately that means allowing people to make irresponsible decisions sometimes.

Subjecting people to raids, destruction of their property and harsh penalties and prison sentences, however, will never aid in the formation of a better society – especially if its over something as benign as raw milk.

Another Reason to End the War on Drugs

Ron Paul is perhaps one of the greatest opponents to the drug war and he’s been called every name in the book, including “crazy”, as a result. However, facts are fickle things and, time and again, the facts are on Ron Paul’s side. In the latest example experts validate Paul’s claim that the drug war is “very biased against minorities.”

Experts told Politic365.com that Paul’s claim that minorities are disproportionally affected by the “war on drugs” is basically correct.

“But the most important thing that we also know is that African Americans are not the majority of users of crack cocaine,” McCurdy said. “Although they are the majority of people who are sentenced under these unfair crack cocaine laws…White and Hispanics are the majority of users of crack cocaine.”

Additionally, McCurdy explained that in the federal system 51 percent of the people that are in federal prison today are in federal prison for drug charges and 40 percent of those are people of color.

“And often what happens is, African Americans are assumed to be drug dealers and whites are assumed to be drug users, and therefore whites often get drug treatment where Africans Americans get incarceration,” she said.

Statistics compiled by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition from the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, and U.S. Census Bureau show in 2010, African-Americans comprised 14.3 percent of drug users in the United States, but were 31.8 percent of those arrested for drug law violations.

“Another way to state the data is that black drug users are more than twice as likely to be arrested as white drug users,” said LEAP media director Tom Angell in an email.

Some experts like economist Walter Williams assert that the war on drugs is the only major reason that racism is still even an issue today in the United States. The evidence certainly supports his claim.