Tag Archives: Refugees

News

UK leftists ban Christian evangelist Franklin Graham because he takes the Bible seriously

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Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are dead in the UK
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are dead in the UK

My UK Christian friends are always tell me how weird it is that American Christians insist that government operate within Constitutional limits. Why not let government ban self-defense? Why not let government to run education and healthcare? Why not let government to control energy production and consumption? Why not let government open the borders for multiculturalism?

Here’s an example of what happens in a country where Christians decide to abdicate law and policy to secular leftists.

The Daily Signal reports:

Evangelist and missionary Franklin Graham’s seven-city tour of the United Kingdom is now a trial, as all seven venues have dropped him.

Graham’s canceled dates likely are due to an “an outcry over his homophobic and Islamophobic comments,” CNN reports.

[…]Graham has been outspoken about other cultural issues, including gay rights and radical Islam, both hot topics in the U.K., where Islam is the fastest growing religion. Graham has said gays should go to “conversion therapy” to change, and once called Islam “evil.”

Interestingly, although multiple venues canceled Graham this year, this isn’t the first time the U.K. has had enough of the evangelist. In 2017, several members of Parliament moved to ban Graham from the U.K. for “hate speech” regarding gays and Muslims.

At the time, a “petition against Graham being granted a visa” had gathered 4,600 signatures. Nina Parker, pastor of Liberty Church in Blackpool, who organized the petition, said Graham’s presence would be “extremely destructive.”

Parker told The Guardian: “As a Christian and as a leader of a church that particularly welcomes LGBT people, I’m horrified that other local churches are inviting someone with this record of hate speech.”

Censorship of free speech, discourse, and individual autonomy in the United Kingdom has increased in the past several years.

British officials have cracked down on internet freedom. Even though several groups have pushed back against the government’s flagship internet regulation policy—which is so vague it covers nearly every kind of speech existent—it’s been an uphill battle.

In several dramatic cases, parents have lost their rights to their sick children as the U.K.’s court system usurped them and decided what care was best—typically, a removal of life support against the parents’ wishes.

Of course, any discourse offering a different perspective on LGBT groups or anything that might be seen as anti-transgender receives the most censorship—including being fired from one’s job…

I’ve blogged before about how the police in the UK occupy themselves with monitoring the Internet to punish citizens who dissent from the UK’s promotion of LGBT rights. If you disagree with LGBT rights, you’re sure to get a visit from armed policemen. On the other hand, the police officers don’t have any interest in investigating multiple sex-trafficking rings in multiple UK cities being run by immigrants from Middle Eastern countries. They don’t care about the gang-raping of fatherless teen girls – the important thing is to not look Islamophobic. That’s how they keep their jobs – they attack critics of the government’s LGBT and open borders policies so the government can be re-elected. When they’re not suppressing dissent from the government, they’re blocking off parents from taking their child home from a government-run hospitals that decided that the child (e.g. – Alfie) is beyond medical treatment.

That’s big government in the UK, and it’s supported by many, many conservative Christian pastors, who think that the free and open practice of Christianity is somehow compatible with an overpowered secular left centralized government. So, the conservative Christians in the UK love to mock the gun rights and low tax rates of American Christians, even as they can’t even safeguard their own freedom of speech and religious liberty. American Christians knew that big government and widespread dependency on welfare programs would destroy our religious liberty, so we fought it. They capitulated.

I’ve spoken to several prominent Christians in the UK, and even some who are deeply involved in apologetics and pro-life causes. I just want to be really clear. These people are so bad at Christian worldview, that they literally vote in the secular leftists who then turn around and enact government-funded abortion, LGBT fascism and sex-trafficking rings run by unskilled immigrants from the Middle East. Then they have the temerity to COMPLAIN about the policies of the leaders they voted for.

News

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Jesus was a refugee: is she right?

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This meme provides a good quick response to the challenge
This meme provides a good quick response to the challenge

I keep hearing that Jesus was a refugee from people on the left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, things have gotten so bad, that even my Southern Baptist pastor told us the same thing in a recent Wednesday night Bible study! I think we better take a look at this, in case anyone else needs a response.

Fox News reports on the tweet:

U.S. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. wished her Twitter followers a Merry Christmas Tuesday by referring to the newborn Jesus as a “refugee.”

“Joy to the World!” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Merry Christmas everyone – here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)”

And here is the response, in the same article:

Mary and Joseph are not depicted as refugees in the Nativity story. According to the Gospel of Luke, Joseph brings the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem so that he may enroll in a census ordered by the Roman emperor Agustus. The couple are forced to take shelter in the stable where Jesus is born due to a lack of room at the inn.

However, in the Gospel of Matthew, Mary and Joseph flee into Egypt with the infant Jesus after King Herod of Judea orders the murder of every boy aged two and under in Bethlehem after the Magi ask him where to find the newborn “King of the Jews.” The Holy Family escape the slaughter and are told by an angel to return to Israel once Herod is dead.

The second part seems to be more like a refugee situation, until you remember that both Judea and Egypt were different states of the same Roman Empire. The strict definition of a refugee from the United Nations, recognizes persons as refugees:

“who are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence and unable to return there owing to serious and indiscriminate threats to life, physical integrity or freedom resulting from generalized violence or events seriously disturbing public order.”

Did Joseph and Mary cross national boundaries by moving from one Roman-ruled province to another? Did they cross national boundaries illegally? Did they intend to remain permanently? The answers to those questions are NO, NO and NO. So they were not refugees according to the standard meaning of the word.

People try to make the Jesus-birth narrative into an immigration situation because they want Jews and Christians to support open borders. The problem is that the Bible has a lot to say about immigration, and it doesn’t support the left’s open borders agenda.

I always find it funny when atheists on the political left want to misuse the Bible to try to get political support from Jews and Christians. It makes me wonder whether the secular leftists take the Bible seriously as an auhtority on any other issue.

Is Ocasio-Cortez willing to take Jesus seriously on marriage being defined as a commitment between one woman and one man? How about Jesus’ rejection of no-fault divorce? How about Jesus’ view of the exclusivity of salvation? I think you know where what the secular leftists would say about Jesus as an authority on those issues. Most secular leftists don’t take Jesus seriously on any issue. Many don’t even think he existed as a historical figure. But that doesn’t stop secular leftists from trying to win over religious Jews and Christians by appealing to their emotions.

What concerns me about this promotion of illegal immigration and refugees, though, is that people forget who pays the bills for all of this compassion. Ocasio-Cortez isn’t tell you what she’s going to do with HER OWN money when she promotes illegal immigration and refugees. She’s telling you what she’s going to do with YOUR money. And she’s telling you that so that you will think that she’s a very generous, compassionate person. The truth is that her supporters who click retweet and like on her stuff do that in order to communicate that they are also good and generous people.

Everyone is doing what feels good, and what makes them look good to others, but are they willing to pay for it? If Democrats had to PAY FOR the things they claim to want, then would they be in favor of those things? You need only look at the French leftists who voted for Emmanuel Macron to stop global warming, and then they rioted when he passed a gas tax that would stop global warming. Leftists shouldn’t be seen as rational people. They vote in order to feel good and look good to others. When they get what they voted for, they riot in order to get out of it. The same people who elected Ocasio-Cortez will riot against her policies once they realize that they are the ones who have to pay for what they voted for.

News

Trump takes action on unemployment, healthcare, environment, refugees, adoption

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I have a Canadian friend named McKenzie who sometimes reviews my blog post drafts. She usually says the same two things: 1) this post should be one third as long as it is, and 2) don’t tell me any more about why Democrats are bad, tell me why Republicans are good. So, in this post, I will tell you 5 reasons why Republicans are good, all from news stories about events from the last week alone.

Let’s start with healthcare. I’ve been bashing Elizabeth Warren on healthcare for a couple of posts. What are the Republicans going to do about healthcare?

Here’s Daily Signal:

The White House is making a strong push against Democrats’ “Medicare for All” proposal, laying out a “Health Care for You” agenda to boost competition and transparency, lower prescription prices, and produce greater affordability in health-related costs.

[…]The White House also has touted $6 billion spent over two years to target opioid addiction. This has contributed to a decrease in opioid deaths for the first time in almost two decades, officials say.

[…]Prescription prices are declining to levels not seen since the 1960s, according to the White House.

The Trump administration reduced approval times for medicines regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Trump signed into law Right-to-Try legislation to allow critically ill patients to access potentially lifesaving medicines that haven’t yet been fully approved by the FDA.

Trump also signed a $1 billion increase in funding for researching Alzheimer’s disease and launched the End HIV/AIDS in America Initiative to stop transmission of the AIDS virus in the nation by 2030.

The president last year signed the VA MISSION Act, which reforms existing programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide more care for veterans in the communities where they live, with the aim of minimizing travel. The measure includes paying for veterans to get medical care outside VA facilities and also established walk-in community clinics for veterans.

Are Republicans doing anything to earn the votes of black Americans in 2020?

Breitbart reports:

The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 5.4 percent in October, the lowest level on record.
This is the third consecutive month of record-low unemployment. September’s 5.5 percent matched the record set in August.

The unemployment rate for black men hit a record low of 5.1 percent, down three-tenths from the month prior. That was lower than the previous record low of 5.2 set in December 1973.

OK, I have white Democrat co-workers who think that this is proof of Trump’s racism. Not kidding. But I think it’s good.

But what about restrictions on energy production? We don’t want to end up with blackouts like those Democrats in California, do we?

The Daily Signal reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose easing rules on disposal of coal ash, the residue from burning coal, to make it less likely the federal government would shutter a coal-fired utility plant, in an announcement set for Monday.

The move is part of what has been a larger deregulation push by the Trump administration to roll back strict Obama-era regulations that the industry viewed as the previous administration’s “war on coal,” that pushed to shut down many coal-fired power plants.

[…]Coal ash is frequently recycled, and used as material for wallboard and concrete. Thus, according to the EPA, the rule could provide more resources for building the nation’s highways and for agricultural purposes. Coal ash reuse also conserves natural resources and provides viable alternatives to disposal, the agency contends.

“This demonstrates our support for reuse of coal ash,” Wright said.

More than 500 units at approximately 260 coal-fired facilities may be impacted by Monday’s proposed rule, according to the EPA.

More coal means lower energy costs, and recycling coal by-products to build and repair highways sounds good.

But what about life issues? What is Trump doing about abortion?

The Daily Signal reports:

Under a proposed new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday, the federal government no longer will withhold federal grant money from faith-based adoption providers that won’t compromise their views on same-sex marriage.

[…]The proposed HHS rule clarifies that the federal government won’t discriminate against charitable organizations that don’t handle adoptions for same-sex couples when it comes to allocating federal grants. The proposed rule clarifies all federal nondiscrimination laws enacted by Congress will be enforced in awarding grants. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not currently covered under nondiscrimination laws enacted by Congress.

OK, it’s hard to deny that more adoption means less abortions. It certainly won’t hurt to make it easier for adoption agencies to place unwanted children in loving homes.

OK, fine, but what about the refugees? There is a crime epidemic going on in Europe, because they keep welcoming in low-skilled non-English-speakers into their country, without checking them properly for risk factors.

Daily Wire reports:

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the administration was restricting the intake of refugees into the United States to the lowest-level on record under the current refugee system.

In a memo to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump announced that he was setting the refugee cap at 18,000 refugees for Fiscal Year 2020 — 12,000 lower than Trump’s cap for Fiscal Year 2019, and “the lowest number since the modern refugee system was created nearly 40 years ago,” The Washington Times reported.

The Trump administration reportedly considered going even lower when they first entertained the idea over the summer, cutting the number all the way down to nearly zero.

I remember when Obama wanted the cap set to 110,000 refugees. But he didn’t want them to live in his mansion or pay with him with his own money. He wanted them to live next to your children’s school, and pay for them with your money. So compassionate! Refugees are a problem for private voluntary charities, not for government, paid for by taxpayers who can barely make ends meet already.

Well, so I guess we do have reasons for wanting to elect Republicans in 2020! If you agree, then share the post! We can’t ALWAYS be relying on attacking Democrats to reach the people in the middle who decide elections. We have to tell them what Republicans will do that is different from what Democrats will do.