Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

10 REASONS TO VOTE FOR TED CRUZ

David P. Goldman writes:

10. He really knows economics--not the ideologically driven pablum dished out at universities, but the real battlefield of entrenched monopolies against entrepreneurial upstarts. As Asheesh Agarwal and John Delacourt reported in this space, he did a brilliant job at the Federal Trade Commission: "Cruz promoted economic liberty and fought government efforts to rig the marketplace in favor of special interests. Most notably, Cruz launched an initiative to study the government’s role in conspiring with established businesses to suppress e-commerce. This initiative ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to open up an entire industry to small e-tailers." Anyone can propose tax cuts. It takes real know-how to cut through the regulatory kudzu that is strangling America enterprise.

9. He really knows foreign policy. He is a hardline defender of American interests, but wants to keep American politics out of the export business. That's why neo-conservatives like Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post and Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal keep sliming him. The Bushies started attacking Cruz a year ago, when he stated the obvious about the Bush administration's great adventure in "democratic globalism": "I think we stayed too long, and we got far too involved in nation-building….We should not be trying to turn Iraq into Switzerland." He's not beholden to the bunglers of the Bush administration, unlike the hapless Marco Rubio.

8. He really knows the political system. As Texas solicitor general, he argued nine cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and won five of them. How many other lawyers in the United States have gone to the Supreme Court nine times on points of Constitutional law? The best write-up I've seen on his brilliance as a Constitutional lawyer came from the liberal New Yorker--grudging praise, but praise nevertheless. Some of his legal work was brilliant, displaying a refined understanding of separation of powers and federalism. If you want a president who knows the mechanism of American governance from the inside, there's no-one else who comes close to Cruz.

7. He's an outsider, and America needs an outsider. The public thinks that Washington is corrupt, and it IS corrupt. The banks are corrupt, the defense industries (with their $1.5 trillion budget for a new fighter plane that won't fly) are corrupt, the tech companies (run by patent trolls rather than engineers) are corrupt, the public utilities are corrupt. The American people want a new broom. But it helps to put it in the hands of someone who knows his way around the broom closet.

6. Trump and Carson aren't serious candidates. Carson is an endearing fellow who has no business running for president: apart from his medical specialty, his knowledge of the world is an autodidact's jumble of fact and fantasy. Donald Trump inherited money and ran a family business: never in his life did he have to persuade shareholders, investors, directors, or anyone else to work with him. At best, he knew how to cajole and threaten. It's been his way or the highway since he was a kid, and that's the worst possible training for a U.S. president.

5. Cruz is in but not of the system. The distinguished conservative scholar Robert P. George mentored him at Princeton and the flamboyant (but effective) liberal Alan Dershowitz taught him at Harvard Law School. Both agree he was the smartest student they ever had. An Ivy League education isn't important unless, of course, you don't have one: to run the United States, it helps to have dwelt in the belly of the beast. Cruz came through the elite university mill with his principles intact, and a keen understanding of the liberal mentality.

4. He's got real grit--call it fire in the belly, but Cruz wants to be president and wants us to want him to be president. Determination is a lot more important than charm, where Cruz won't win first prize. When it comes down to it, Americans don't want a charming president, but a smart, tough and decent one. Marco Rubio, the Establishment's last hope after Jeb Bush's belly-flop, is instantly recognizable as the tough-guy hero's cute younger brother. Either Cruz or Fiorina would fill out the ticket.

3. He knows how to run a real campaign as opposed to a flash-in-the-pan media event. Cruz has boots on the ground, an organization of people who believe in him and raise money at twice the rate of Rubio--with an averge $66 donation.

2. He's a true believer in the United States of America. His love for his country and belief in its prospects are impassioned and unfeigned. He's ambitious, but his ambition stems from a desire to serve, where he believes that he is uniquely qualified to serve.

And the top reason to vote for Ted Cruz is:

He can beat Hillary Clinton. Not just beat her, but beat her by a landslide. Mrs. Clinton isn't that smart. She looks sort of smart when the media toss her softballs, but in a series of one-to-one, nowhere-to-hide presidential debates, Cruz would shred her. Cruz was the top college debater in the country. He knows how to assemble facts, stay on message, anticipate his opponent's moves and neutralize them. He's a quarter-century younger than Mrs. Clinton, smarter, sharper, and better prepared. He's also clean as a whistle in personal life and finances, while the Clintons could reasonably be understood to constitute a criminal enterprise.

THE MEANING OF ADVENT - THE BOOKENDS OF OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH

I found Eric Metaxas' short introduction helpful:

Listen to the commentary

Text:

It’s been a rough few weeks. It seems virtually all of the news is bad. Whether it’s ISIS, Boko Haram, the refugee crisis, or, here at home, the troubling trends in American culture, depression, if not outright despair, seems like a reasonable response.

Thankfully, God has provided a remedy for this temptation, and it’s as close as your nearest Church calendar. I’m speaking of Advent, which begins this Sunday.

Relatively few Americans, including many Christians, understand what Advent is really about. Here’s a hint, it’s more than just a countdown to Christmas.

For nearly two millennia, Advent has been the season in which Christians reflect on the bookends of God’s redemptive acts in Christ: His Incarnation and His coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

These bookends are arguably best described in the hymns associated with Advent. They express the human longing for God to set everything aright, to wipe every tear from our eyes.

Take the hymn “Creator of the Stars of Night.” It was written, probably in England, sometime between 600 and 800 A.D., in the midst of what is commonly known as the “Dark Ages.” Life was unimaginably hard for those living back then: war was endemic, as was destitution, disease, and hunger.

This reality is reflected in the hymn’s opening stanza: “Creator of the stars of night, Thy people's everlasting light, Jesu, Redeemer, save us all, and hear Thy servants when they call.”

But it doesn’t stop there. The hymn then recalls the first bookend of God’s great redemptive act: “Thou, grieving that the ancient curse should doom to death a universe, hast found the medicine, full of grace, to save and heal a ruined race.”

It then looks forward to the second bookend: “O Thou whose coming is with dread, to judge and doom the quick and dead, preserve us, while we dwell below, from every insult of the foe.”

Now, talk of a dread coming and judging the quick and the dead no doubt sounds jarring to modern ears, but it’s a reminder that in Advent, we not only recall Jesus’ first coming, we look forward to Jesus’ second coming. And part of that looking forward is examining our lives.

That’s why Gospel passages like the parable of the wise and foolish virgins are associated with Advent. We’re called to be about our Lord’s business as we await His return.

But the word that best expresses the spirit of Advent is the refrain from the best-known Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”: Rejoice!

We are to rejoice even when all the news is bad because all the news that really matters is the “Good News.” God, in Christ, has decisively dealt with sin and evil. At his first coming, as Paul told the Philippians, he took on “human form, [and] humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even on a cross.”

This resulted in his being given the “dread name” to whom “all knees must bend,” and “hearts must bow.”

To paraphrase Linus van Pelt, this is what Advent is all about, Charlie Brown. . . 

 

PEGGY NOONAN - THE IRRELEVANCE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA

Peggy Noonan writes:

 . . . I feel certain that in the days after the [Paris] attack people were thinking: This isn’t going to stop. These primitive, ferocious young men will not stop until we stop them. The question is how. That’s the only discussion.

Last week’s Paris attack was . . . about radical, violent Islam’s hatred of the West and desire to kill and terrorize its people. They will not be appeased; we won’t talk them out of it at a negotiating table or by pulling out of Iraq or staying out of Syria. They will have their caliphate, and they will hit Europe again, as they will surely hit us again, to get it.

So again, the only question: What to do?

On this issue the American president is, amazingly, barely relevant. The leaders and people of Europe and America will not be looking to him for wisdom, will, insight or resolve. No commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces can be wholly irrelevant, but to the extent one can be, Mr. Obama is. He has misjudged ISIS from the beginning—they were not, actually, the junior varsity—to the end. He claimed last week, to George Stephanopoulos, that ISIS has been “contained.” “I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” he said just before Paris blew.  [more. . . ]

QUICK TAKES

John McWhorter - English is weirder than pretty much any other language

Jim Geraghty - Bobby Jindal's amazing accomplishments in Louisiana.  Why didn't people pay attention?

Victor Davis Hanson - The Debacle that is the contemporary American university

Hillsdale College offering:  A free 9 week online lecture series on C.S. Lewis

The Atlantic - What ISIS really wants   

RESETTLEMENT AGENCIES POSSESS FINANCIAL INCENTIVES TO KEEP THE REFUGEES COMING

I had no idea that refugee agencies like Church World Service, World Relief, and others were taxpayer-funded to the extent that they are!  Nor did I know the agencies were paid "by the head" thus creating an incentive to keep the refugees (and money) coming.  I hope the piece below proves somewhat inaccurate.

Mark Krikorian writes in National Review Online.  [The emphases are my own]

The paid agents of the State Department – the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (52 percent taxpayer-funded), Church World Service (57 percent taxpayer-funded), World Relief (70 percent taxpayer-funded), Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services (92 percent taxpayer-funded), and others – decide on their own, in secret, where they will send the refugees they’re paid to “sponsor,” whether the local schools and other institutions can handle them or not. I use scare quotes because sponsoring a refugee does not mean what you think it does – it consists of little more than signing the refugees up for welfare and then moving on to the next revenue-generating warm body (the agencies are paid by the head).

For states and localities, refugee resettlement can be a huge unfunded mandate.  This heavy use of state and local welfare and other services, combined with the imperious attitude of the State Department and its minions, has generated resistance across the country, from Idaho to South Carolina and many places in between. They’ve gotten nowhere in pointing to the law’s all-but-meaningless requirement for consultation with state and local governments. Tennessee even passed a law in 2011 to try to force the State Department to consult with local communities – to little effect.

Faced with this week’s high-profile rebellion in the wake of the Paris atrocities, maybe things will change. But don’t count on it; the refugee resettlement industry is a committed, relentless lobby and will protect its access to taxpayer funds as tenaciously as Planned Parenthood or the sugar lobby.

** 11/18/15  Update: World Relief lobbies for more refugees.  So do other refugee organizations.

 

'GOD WILL FORGIVE': USING GRACE TO DEFEND ABORTION - ANATOMY OF A 'CHRISTIAN' MURDER

 Rolley Haggard writes:

 

Ask any sidewalk counselor. Odds are he or she has heard some version of this from those heading into the abortion clinic: “I know it's wrong. But I'm a Christian and I've prayed about it and I know God will forgive. His grace is greater than all my sin.”

What's wrong with this picture? (Other than the fact that a baby is about to be deliberately put to death.) Most Christians instinctively sense something's desperately out of whack here. But what?

Sadly, few seem able to put their finger on it. Sadder still is that after they sift through their own thoughts on the matter, nine times out of 10 they wind up less sure that, from a biblical standpoint, there really is anything substantially wrong with such statements. They know murder is wrong, but they also know the Bible teaches that God can forgive any sin.* Their reasoning often runs along these lines:

“It is true God can forgive any sin. And it's true Christ died for all sins, past, present, and future. And it's true God will forgive anyone who truly repents and asks for forgiveness. And this person really does seem to be a Christian who's in a difficult situation. So, even though it's terribly tragic that they feel the need to abort their child, technically they are correct: God will forgive them.”

Armed with such considerations, believers often succumb to the notion that since grace is waiting on the other side, even though God very plainly says “thou shalt not murder,” His commandments must be optional. Why else would He indirectly embolden sin with guarantees of subsequent forgiveness?

But does He? Can grace really be used this way, seemingly to magnify God, but actually to defend abortion? Is the above reasoning complete and sound?

What the Question Is Not

Just so we're clear: The question is not whether God will forgive the post-abortiveparent who turns to him in genuine repentance and faith. He most assuredly will. There is no sin, including abortion, that God cannot or will not forgive. God is more eager to forgive than we are to seek forgiveness. That's true regardless of whether we've sinned little or greatly.

Recall, for example, that King David committed both adultery and murder. Yet after the fact, when the prophet Nathan confronted him, David repented and God forgave him. As if to underscore His grace, God even had Nathan call David's second son by Bathsheba “Jedidiah,” which means “beloved of God.” Other examples could be multiplied.

The question is not, will the Father lavish grace upon all who turn to Him in true repentance and faith? Unequivocally, yes, He will.

What the Question Is

The question is, does God give to pre-abortive parents assurance He will forgive the murder of their child if, despite many dire warnings, they go through with it? More to the point, can they who are willing to deliberately ignore the clear moral commands of God be assured their heart will not be hardened to a degree where they will never even want to truly repent?

I submit that neither conscience (God's law written on the heart) nor Scripture gives any such assurance, and that to suppose otherwise is to confuse faith with presumption and grace with license. It is not “faith” that assumes one can deliberately sin without dire consequence; it is presumption. And it is not “grace” that holds forth the promise of consequence-free sin; it is license.

Sinning to the Glory of God?

Those who believe God's grace effectively means “obedience is optional” are likely not true Christians at all. Their thinking is desperately, diabolically wrongheaded. The theological import of it could be paraphrased thus: “Our yet-to-be-committed sins aren't that big a deal to God. Christ died for our sins, so we don't have to break a sweat to avoid them. When tempted to do something wrong, even something as serious as aborting a child, we just need to remember God's grace takes the worry out of sinning. No matter what we do, God will forgive. His grace is greater than our sin. Indeed, because our sin magnifies His grace, when we sin we do so to the glory of God.”

Reaping What We Sow

“Christians” holding to such ideas have far more in common with those who “turn the grace of God into licentiousness,” “suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” and “do evil that good may come.” They have no Scriptural basis to expect things will end well for them. They run the very real risk of being given up to a hardened heart. Indeed, their saying such things gives strong evidence that hardening has already begun. We reap what we sow.

Think about it: If I am so sure that, after I kill one of my children, I absolutely will repent to receive God's forgiveness, then why won't I repent before I kill the child? I have apparently already deceived myself into thinking I can order up my own repentance “on demand.” Yet if that were the case, wouldn't I be repenting now, before I kill my child, rather than after? No one is physically forcing me to kill my child.** If I refuse to repent now before the act, what makes me so sure I will truly repent later? What will have changed? And if I have another child, what assurance do I have I won't do it again? And if I do, did I ever truly repent after the first time?

Unless one is under the delusion that “repentance” is something done only when it's easy to obey God's commands, one can never be sure one ever did truly repent. Anyone can “repent” when there's no great cost involved. It's when the price of turning from sin is high that we discover whether our repentance is real.

It is a dangerous thing to presume upon the grace of God and say, before deliberately sinning, “God will forgive." Even if I am a genuine Christian, I am almost certainly going to be plagued, perhaps for the rest of my life, with unshakable feelings of guilt and doubt as to whether my repentance and faith was real and whether I am, indeed, a genuine Christian.

Grace never assures us beforehand that if we deliberately sin we will be forgiven. Grace only assures us that there is no sin, sincerely repented of, that God cannot or will not forgive through Christ. It is a crucial distinction.

God's willingness to forgive is never in doubt. But His forgiveness is always predicated upon the genuineness of our repentance. And the genuineness of our repentance is severely suspect if, before we go through with it, we can say in our heart, “I know it's wrong, but since God is going to forgive me anyway, I'm going to go ahead and do it.”

Those who say such things aren't looking for grace, but for permission to sin. They assuredly will not receive the latter, and it is fearfully doubtful they will receive the former, either. Not because God is unwilling to give it, but because they clearly aren't seeking it.

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* A discussion of Matthew 12:31 and the “unforgivable sin” is outside the scope of this article.

** I recognize there is often tremendous pressure to abort, but few in this country are literally forced.

Image copyright David Castillo Dominici.

Rolley Haggard is a feature writer for BreakPoint.

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Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

COMMENTS:

Abortion and God's forgiveness

I have heard this and counseled others in the post abortive healing ministry I facilitate, who have said and thought it! True repentance does not include justifying sin. Though one can be forgiven for this sin of abortion, there must also be a broken repentance and not just an "I'm sorry I got caught in my sin" mentality and state of heart. Broken repentance means you turn away from sin, not enter into it! True repentance sees the ugliness of sin and is repulsed by it. God is not ever ok with us doing something that is clearly marked out as sin in the Scriptures, when it goes directly against God's character. Justification is not the same thing as permission. God would not give us permission to abort children just because we didn't want them for one reason or another. And just because true Christians have the Grace of God does NOT mean we are free from sin's consequences, or permitted to do as we so please. If you call yourself a true Christian, and are desiring to commit murder, and follow through with it, you might need to reevaluate if you are truly saved...because sin such as abortion, is repulsive and unthinkable to a true Christian when you realize what abortion really is and does!! I know this all, FIRSTHAND from my own life story which includes abortion, the "I'm sorry" mentality, repentance and God's Grace. Abortion is NEVER ok, I know this now after years of consequences!

Posted By: Paula Ellefson on June 10, 2015 1:32 PM

MICHAEL GOODWIN: "IT'S TIME FOR OBAMA TO MAKE A CHOICE: LEAD US OR RESIGN

Michael Goodwin writes appropriately in the New York Post: "IT'S TIME FOR OBAMA TO MAKE A CHOICE: LEAD US OR RESIGN  (HT: Drudge)

In an accident of timing that captures his cluelessness, the president actually declared on Friday morning that Islamic State had been “contained,” practically boasting in a TV interview that, “They have not gained ground in Iraq and in Syria.”

What gall. What folly.

Paris is the final straw. Obama’s exemption from reality has expired. He must either commit to leading the free world to victory, or step aside so someone else can.

There is no more time to avoid the truth of war. America must organize the combined forces of the civilized world before Islamic State makes good on its vow to “taste” more American blood.

In any time and place, war is fiendishly simple. It is the ultimate zero-sum contest — you win or you lose.

That eternal truth is so obvious that it should not need to be said. Yet even after the horrific slaughter in Paris, there remains a distressing doubt about whether America’s commander in chief gets it.

President Obama has spent the last seven years trying to avoid the world as it is. He has put his intellect and rhetorical skills into the dishonorable service of assigning blame and fudging failure. If nuances were bombs, Islamic State would have been destroyed years ago.

He refuses to say “Islamic terrorism,” as if that would offend the peaceful Muslims who make up the vast bulk of victims. He rejects the word “war,” even as jihadists carry out bloodthirsty attacks against Americans and innocent peoples around the world.

He shuns the mantle of global leadership that comes with the Oval Office, with an aide advancing the preposterous concept that Obama is “leading from behind.” He snubs important partners like Egypt, showers concessions on the apocalyptic mullahs of Iran, and called the Islamic State the “jayvee team” even as it was beginning to create a caliphate.

Having long ago identified American power as a problem, he continues to slash the military as the enemy expands its reach. In a globalized era, the Obama doctrine smacks of cowardly retreat and fanciful isolation.   [much more. . . ]

JOEL ROSENBERG'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE RUSSIAN-IRANIAN ALLIANCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Joel Rosenberg offers a sobering assessment of the significance of the Russian - Iranian alliance and America's withdrawal from active influence in the Middle East.  The interviewer is Chris Mitchell of CBN News.  ( 5 minutes)