The Blessings of Living in a Land of Religious Freedom

Tom Sheppard

7/5/2018

This Sunday (July 8, 2018), I will be giving a short talk on the blessings of living in a land of religious freedom. I will be the concluding speaker in a 70 minute meeting that begins at 1pm. All are welcome. The location is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at 1601 Cooper Ave, Kannapolis, NC 28081. The remarks below are not the text of my talk.

For Me, Religious Persecution is First a Family Heritage

My ancestors, on my mother's side of the family, suffered persecution for their religion.  According to family tradition, they were run out of the German states for being Mennonites.  From there, they fled to France where they were run out for being Huguenots.

And, when I say, they were run out, what I mean is that they were beaten, raped, robbed of their property, many were tortured and killed.  Those who survived were forcibly pushed out of the country.

After being forced out of France, they came to the British Isles.  Here, the story of my mother's ancestors becomes less tradition, and more history.

"The Rev. James RENWICK, the last Scottish Presbyterian Martyr to be burned at the stake at the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, 1688, was an only child and unmarried.  His tomb is in Edinburgh and he was an early member of this line.  The inscription and epitaph upon the monument in the Greyfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh reads:

JAMES RENWICK

Halt, passenger, take heed what you do see,

This tomb doth shew, for what some men did die.

Here lies interr’d the dust of those who stood

‘Gainst perjury, resisting unto blood:

Adhering to the covenants, and laws

Establishing the same; which was the cause

Their lives were sacrific’d unto the lust

Of Prelatists abjur’d.  Through here their dust

Lies mixt with murderers, and other crew,

Whom justice did justly to death pursue;

But as for these, no cause in them was found

Worthy of death, but only they were sound,

Constant and steadfast, zealous, witnessing,

For the prerogatives of Christ, their King.

Which truths were seal’d by famous Guthrie’s head,

And all along to Mr. Renwick’s blood.

They did endure the wrath of enemies,

Reproaches, torments, deaths and injuries,

But yet they’re these who from such trouble came,

And now triumph in glory with the Lamb.

"Thereafter follows this prose:
            "From May 27, 1661, that the most noble Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to the 17th February 1688, that Mr. James Renwick suffered, were one way or other murdered and destroyed for the same cause about eighteen thousand, of whom were executed at Edinburgh about an hundred of noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, and others, noble martyrs for Jesus Christ.  The most of them lie here.  (Ref. - Cloud of Witnesses - Wodrow’s, Crookshank’s, and Defoe’s histories of the Church of Scotland, and “Scotch Irish” by Chas. Augustus Hanna, Vol. II, pp. 260-261.)
            "The above monument was first erected by James Currie, merchant, Pentland, and other in 1706; renewed in 1771.
            "Added to the monument at a subsequent date: -

Yes, though the sceptic’s tongue deride

These martyrs who for conscience died -

Though modern history blight their fame,

And sneering courtiers hoot the name

Of men who dared above be free,

Amidst a nation’s slavery; -

Yet long for them the poet’s lyre

Shall wake its notes of heavenly fire;

Their names shall nerve the patriot’s hand

Upraised to save a sinking land;

And piety shall learn to burn

With holier transport’s o’er their urn."

From The Renicks of Greenbrier

Obviously, since Reverend James Renwick was "an only child", my mother is not descended from him.  She is, however, descended from the Rennick (Renwick, Rhinewick) family, and hence, so am I.  This makes the religious martyrdom of the Reverend Renwick, a part of my family history.

For Me, Religious Persecution is Also a Religious Tradition

At the age of 13, I became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, variously known as LDS or Mormons.  When I joined, I had no notion of the history of religious persecution which I was adopting into, but it is extraordinary, the more so because its worst persecutions occurred right here in the United States of America where the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is written expressly to protect freedom of religion.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Today, many people mistakenly believe that this amendment was designed to protect government from religion.  The opposite is much more accurate.  It was designed to protect religion from the government.

In the case of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints the state of Missouri issued a warrant allowing anyone to kill members of the church.  It was Executive Order 44, called the Extermination Order. It was issued by Governor Lilburn Boggs in October 1838.  It was not repealed until June 1976.  President Polk reviewed the facts of the rape and plunder of church members in both Missouri and Illinois and, while acknowledging that their cause was just, refused to help them by enforcing the laws of the land, because to do so would cost him the votes of those who were plundering the church members.  Finally, President Buchanan ordered the US Army to "pacify" the church members in Utah.  Remember that they already had been working hard to "pacify" the Native American nations, so everyone knew that the President meant for them to kill, destroy and pillage the church and its members.  Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the Army was eventually able to peacefully enter the Salt Lake Valley and establish a fort nearby.

Regardless of the fact that the issue was settled peacefully in the end, it is extraordinary to consider that in the nation which stands "as a beacon on a hill" proclaiming liberty to the world, the government declared war and initiated hostilities against a group of its own citizens, based wholly upon the basis of religious bias.

Religious Persecution is the History of Governments

Throughout history, governments have consistently, and repeatedly, adopted one religion or another and turned it into an arm of the state in order to gain greater control over the populace and to forcibly align spiritual salvation with obedience to the dictates of the state, granting those political dictates the semblance of both temporal and eternal powers over both the body and spirit of the people.

Whenever a government has co-opted a church to become the religion of the state, other religions were aggressively persecuted and even exterminated as being inimical to the powers and desires of the political state.  Reverend Renwick was killed because he was a Presbyterian (a protestant) in a time when the state was embracing Episcopalian-ism (another protestant faith) as the official religion with the monarch of England as the supreme religious leader of the British Empire. 

Government use of religion inevitably meant that those with dissenting religious views were almost forced into rebelling and seeking to overthrow the government in order to establish a country where their views could be practiced.

The brilliance of the framers of the Bill of Rights is that they anticipated the despotic push of government into religion and took strong measures to prevent that.  I do not think it is a matter of chance that freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly and redress are all mentioned together and are the very first of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights as the very first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.  They knew that these rights are of paramount importance to protect the rights of the people against the potential tyranny of government.

The day before this post we citizens of the United States of America celebrated the signing of The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.  The truly revolutionary part of The Declaration of Independence lies in the assertion that, governments derive their "just powers from the consent of the governed."  When The Declaration of Independence was published, the governments of all the known world were monarchies.

With a monarchy, all the branches and authority of government are vested in the king or queen.  Anyone within the kingdom exercising authority of any form is only operating under a delegation of authority from the monarch.

In contrast with a monarchy, the authority of the Government of the United States of America is limited to whatever specific authorizations which the people of the United States delegate to the government.  This is why the Tenth Amendment, the last one included in the original Bill of Rights declares that, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."  This means that the people, whose consent is the basis of the authority of the government, are actively retaining to themselves all authorities which they have not expressly granted to the federal government or to the government of the each individual state.

Anti-Religion is Becoming Persecution

But, what happens when some of the people decide that they want their religion, or anti-religion, to become the law of the land?  If the government is reordered, either by the passing of laws, the rulings of the courts, or the orders of the Executive (the President), so that the exercise of religion and conscience is made unlawful, that will effectively establish a state religion.  It may be the religion of anti-religion.  Just because it has no houses of worship or ordained clergy, and has as its only accepted doctrine the hatred and oppression of obedience to deity, that does not mean it is not a religion.  In fact, anti-religion is the worship of humanity.

Anti-religion rejects the notion that there is any creature with supernatural or godly powers that is intervening, for good or ill, in human affairs.  Anti-religion utterly rejects the idea that after this life we will be held accountable for our actions in this life, regardless of whether or not they were discovered by our fellow human beings.  Anti-religion generally rejects the notions of absolute right and absolute wrong (evil).

Three Pillars of Anti-Religion

These three points tend to be the three pillars of anti-religion:

1. There is no such thing as god, or any intelligent power outside of nature (nothing supernatural).
2. There is no life beyond the death of the brain and body.
3. There is no absolute right or absolute wrong, absolute good or absolute evil.

On the last point, there is at least one noted anti-religionist (or atheist), who asserts that there are external, universal, and observable criteria which can be used to categorize certain actions as wrong or right.  The avowed atheist Sam Harris in his book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values makes the case for the existence of absolute right and wrong based upon the unambiguous positive or negative effects of certain actions on humanity, both individually and collectively.  Because of his writings, I have moderate the extent of the third point with the word, "generally."  It is important to understand these three pillars, and why they are a threat, not only to religion, but to humanity.

No Such Thing as God

The rejection of the existence of god, means the rejection of the existence of any higher order of being beyond humanity.  This places humanity at the top of the metaphysical pyramid.  Being the apex of the universe frees humanity from any but self-imposed constraints.  The absence of any being of an higher level of power means that no other being can impose their restrictions on humanity.  So, if humanity decides that there is nothing wrong with murder or theft, then there is no source of opprobrium that can enforce a different view point.  Essentially, the absence of deity puts the intellect of humanity, individually or collectively, in the place of god.  The smartest individual is the most god-like.  And, if you believe that together we are smarter than we are separately, that puts the group as the most god-like being in the universe.

If the group is god, the governments represent the collective will and intelligence of deity.  This is how we move into the realm of Godvernment: Government as God, people looking to government as the source of their spiritual and temporal salvation.

No Life Beyond Death

The second pillar, no existence beyond this mortal life, means that there is no power beyond nature, i.e., the supernatural does not exist.  This denial of the supernatural is essential to anti-religion because the existence of any supernatural power, be it god, ghosts, or the spirits of trees and animals, means that there is some intelligent being which can possibly intervene in the world of nature, either for good or ill and that being is not able to be controlled or exterminated by humanity.  For anti-religion to stand supreme, there can be no powers beyond those of humanity and nature - and humanity believes it can eventually find ways to control all aspects of nature.

No Absolute Right or Wrong

The third pillar, the absence of absolute right and wrong or good and evil, means that humanity decides what is good and what is bad.  We have seen much of this in recent years.  For millennia, with few exceptions, societies deemed homosexual activity to be wrong or evil and religious adherence to be right or good.  In recent years, many societies have removed the stigma on homosexual activities, considering them to be as non-evil as heterosexual activities.  At the same time, some societies have begun to stigmatize religious activity and adherence as anti-social, bad, wrong, or evil behavior because it embodies dissent from the desired view point of those trying to rule the society.  For those who fully embrace Judaeo-Christian traditions, this is a direct fulfillment of the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.

Calling Evil Good and Good Evil

In Chapter 5 of Isaiah is the parable of the vineyard.  In this parable God explains how he took good care of the vineyard and instead of getting good fruit, he got unusable "wild" fruit.  He then goes on to say how the fruit is wild and what the results of this wildness will be.  He notes in verse 20, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" In verse 21 he goes on, "Woe unto those that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight."  In verse 24 he declares their fate, "Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust:"

Godvernment and anti-religion is all about "those who are wise in their own eyes."  If you have no objective standard of measure to gauge your thoughts or conduct, then you are relying wholly upon your own wisdom and if you believe you are doing right, it is no more nor less than being wise in your own eyes, instead of being seen as wise by an absolute, external standard.  That is a much easier standard to measure up to.

The anti-religionists want to make anti-religion the religion of the state.  They will then use the powers of the state to exterminate religion.  They will stigmatize the belief in God and his commandments as anti-social behavior.  Criminal activity is anti-social behavior.  That means religious behavior will become criminalized, not just marginalized.

Religious persecution in the land of the free and the home of the brave is not new, but it is moving toward a much deeper and wider level than has ever before happened in the history of our republic.  It will happen, the only question is will you be on the side of the persecutors or will you be one of those standing up for the freedom of religion and conscience?

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. (c) 

Copyright 2018 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Lessons in the Virtues of Traditional Morality from Communist China?

Tom Sheppard

3/28/2018

In today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Page is an article by Wendy Wang, titled The Sequence is the Secret to Success.

In her article she cites studies in the US and experience in China that pretty authoritatively demonstrate that the formula for rising out of poverty is to go to school, work, get married and then have children, in that order.

The sitcom Murphy Brown glorified the notion of having children out of wedlock, and Dan Quayle foundered on the reef when he, correctly, pointed out that single parenthood is actually a formula for poverty.  The media wouldn't tolerate that story however, and facts notwithstanding, pilloried Quayle for his on-point observations.

Here are a few of Wendy's most powerful facts:

• Among childless and unmarried millenials 28 to 34 who followed the education and work steps, the poverty rate was 8%.

Murphy Brown was a fictional character.  The sitcom writers didn't have to let reality influence the posh lifestyle this single mother enjoyed.  The reality for the overwhelming majority of single parents is constant financial struggle on the edge of poverty and homelessness.

In contrast with those who assert that society and racism hold the keys that keep the poor imprisoned in poverty, Ms. Wang shows that behaviors and choices open the doors out of poverty.

• Among young adults who grew up in low-income families, those who followed all three steps had a poverty rate of only 6%, compared with 35% for their peers who missed one or more steps.

• Eighty percent of those with lower-income backgrounds made it into middle- or upper-income brackets when they followed all three steps, versus only 44% for those who missed one or more steps.

SURPRISE! Following the same old-fashioned notions that were accepted for centuries in the US works to lift people out of poverty, even in the face of those who claim 'the American Dream' is dead.

• Brookings scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill call it the "success sequence": getting at least a high-school diploma, working, and then marrying before having children--again, in that order. ... Following the success sequence is associated with a much lower chance of being poor and much better odds of realizing the American Dream.

One of my personal heroes, Star Parker, has been preaching the solution of personal choice instead of government programs as the path out of poverty for years now.  Her approach flies in the face of the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who never met a government handout they didn't like.  If you are tired of reading the race baiters preach white-guilt, government programs, and income redistribution, you will enjoy her book, Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.

(c) Copyright 2018 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

The Real Problem with DACA

Tom Sheppard

9/6/2017

Today, I saw lots of angst and anger on social media because of President Trump's announcement to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA, AKA The Dream Act).  Many folks have categorized the President's action as racist and anti-immigration.  Actually, it is neither.

The Constitutionally defined role of the Executive Branch of our government is to execute the laws of the land.  The Executive is not to make laws.  Nor is the Executive to determine if laws are just, or unjust, constitutional or unconstitutional.

The role of the Legislative Branch of our government is to make laws.  The role of the Judiciary is to determine the justice or constitutionality of the laws.

In June 2012, when President Barak Obama implemented DACA as an executive order, he was making law.  He was impatient with the Congress and their inability to provide any meaningful action on this important issue.

The issue of people who were brought here illegally as children and have known no other country since their early childhood is one which tugs at both the heartstrings and purse strings of our country.  Statistics reported in connection with this group of about 800,000 people show that they are great contributors, not drains on our country.

Is it any wonder that the overwhelming sentiment regarding these people is that we need to find a way to make them legal residents within our country, preferably with a path toward citizenship?

While I sympathize with President Obama's frustration, when he implemented DACA, he was violating the constitutional separation of powers.  It is for actions like this that he was accused of being Emperor Obama.  In a monarchy, all three branches of government converge in the person of the monarch.  When a US President starts making laws, that president is taking upon his office the powers of the other branches of government.  That violates the US Constitution and is a serious threat to the freedoms we all enjoy.

Rather that ascribing foul motives to the President's actions, which may or may not be true, let's address the facts of the matter.  When President Trump issued an executive order to countermand DACA, he was undoing the unconstitutional act of his predecessor.  In doing this, he strengthened constitutional government in our land and he put the onus for dealing with this issue squarely onto the Congress, where it belongs.

He effectively gave Congress a six month deadline to take action.  If they fail to pass a law to address this issue in the interim, that is their failure, not his.  The fact is, all they really need to do is to adopt the DACA as President Obama put it forward and make it the law of the land.  They will have made a law that many people like, and the Executive will be happy to enforce.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.

Colliding Warships: Tom Clancy and Tom Sheppard

Tom Sheppard

8/23/2017

Tom Clancy had a vivid imagination.  I read and enjoyed his books.  He often wove intricate plots which involved governments or quasi-governments engaging in elaborate schemes to hide their hands in world events until they were ready to make their dramatic, public moves.

To be very blunt, recent headlines from the Pacific read like plot points in a Tom Clancy novel.

In the past year, we have had dramatically escalating conflicts with both China and North Korea.  At the same time, the US Seventh Fleet, our primary military force in that part of the world has experienced an unprecedented series of four mishaps with our warships in that part of the world.

Most recently, the USS John McCain was hit by an oil tanker bearing a Liberian flag.  Before that the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container shipped bearing a Phillipine flag.  In May the USS Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing boat.  In January, the USS Antietam ran aground, hitting an uncharted sandbar outside of Yokosuka Harbor, Japan.

What all of these accidents have in common is that they all involved guided missile ships of the US Navy.  The sort of ships that could effectively do two things, very well:

1. They could shoot down the missiles coming out of North Korea
2. They can project force to deter China's aggressive moves to lay claim to all of the South China Sea.

While the failure on the Antietam is probably nothing more or less than a fluke or a failure of the captain or crew, the other three incidents all leave everyone who is aware of the training and capabilities of these ships wondering how this could happen?

The saber rattling of North Korean President Kim Jong Un has been very much in the national and international headlines because of the dramatic nature of his threats.  Test launching missiles capable of reaching the US and working to mount nuclear warheads on them is no idle threat which can be ignored.  One of the countermeasures the US has deployed is to visibly sail our guided missile ships off the coast of Korea as a clear threat to shoot down whatever the North Koreans put into the air.  And the threat from these ships is no fiction.

With the ability to launch multiple supersonic, guided missiles in seconds, as well as putting nuclear capable cruise missiles into the air, the destructive power of just one of these ships is considerable.  North Korea is right to feel intimidated by them.

The actions of the Chinese, because they are less dramatic, have not received nearly as much attention as those of the North Koreans.  But the danger they represent is more probable than a nuclear launch from North Korea.

For years now, the Chinese have been laying claim to atolls and sandbars in the far reaches of the South China Sea.  They have been building up these tiny islands into places capable of hosting airfields while they have also been mounting shore defenses on them.  Along with each claim they stake, they have been claiming that nearly all the waters of the South China Sea are owned by China.

The dashed red line on the map below shows how far China is trying to extend their reach.  This is a lot farther than the 12-mile limit recognized in international maritime law.  It would effectively make the South China Sea into a Chinese lake.  Much as the Roman's referred to the Mediterranean as the Mar Nostrum, "our sea", the Chinese would be able to refer to the South China Sea as their sea.

Countries much closer to these atolls have protested and made counterclaims.  But what do the Chinese really have to fear from the Philippines or Vietnam?  If either or both of those countries tried to go to war with China over these conflicting claims on the atolls, China would destroy them economically and militarily in a matter of weeks.

Only Japan and US have sufficient presence and power to counter the Chinese ambitions in this area.

So why should we care about what is happening in the South China Sea?  Because, experts estimate that about 1/3rd of all global shipping transits the South China Sea.  It is among the busiest shipping lanes in the world.  If China were to succeed in laying claim to its waters, they could control or prohibit trade through those waters.  This would either drive up the costs of everything, by forcing longer routes around those waters, or put a stranglehold on 42% of  goods going in and out of Japan.

The chart below shows clearly that it is not just Japan that would feel the impact.  Germany, France, the UK, Italy, India, Brazil, Canada and the US would all feel significant impacts if the flow of trade through the South China Sea were restricted or taxed by the Chinese.

All of this brings me back to the intricate plots of Tom Clancy.  In one of his novels, he imagined someone high-jacking a passenger jet and using it as a weapon, crashing it into the US Capitol Building.  Then on 9-11 four passenger jets were high-jacked and used as weapons, crashing them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.  My point here is that whatever an author can imagine in the way of plots and intrigues can also be imagined and implemented by the agents of malice in the world.

To me, when I look at the news coming out of that part of the world, I see signs of a well crafted and cleverly executed plot to dramatically decrease the ability of the US to project power in that part of the world during a very critical time.  Don't be surprised if we see significant escalation in the aggressive moves coming out of China, North Korea or both during the next few months.

Given that North Korea is effectively China's guard dog, it is not at all beyond belief that they are encouraging Kim Jong Un to launch his missiles and taunt the US simply to distract attention away from the more strategic moves China is making a little further south.

Add to this a bit of additional history, from just a bit further back.  When we lost Vietnam, we lost the military use of the deep water port of Cam Rahn Bay, on the West side of the South China Sea.  When the Philippines booted the US out of Subic Bay we lost the military use of a deep water port on the East side of the South China Sea.  Deep water ports are not all that common and they are necessary for the large vessels of the US Navy to dock.  The loss of these two ports means that big US warships, like air craft carriers, would have to come from the ports of Japan or Australia to enforce international law in the South China Sea.  The further we have to stretch to reach the area of contention, the more vulnerable and weaker we are militarily.

If the US is unable to effectively project significant power in the South China Sea, international law won't matter.  China will use its own Navy and its string of air strips, with accompanying military planes, to enforce its control of the area.  If they can set it up, then the only viable alternatives will be to submit to Chinese extortion or for the US to use gunboat diplomacy to force the opening of the shipping lanes.  Getting in a shooting match with China, on their doorstep does not guarantee a positive outcome for the US or the freedom of shipping in international waters.

If an author like Tom Clancy, or me, can imagine it, then the folks in the halls of power have probably already figured out how to make it happen.  Think about that, the next time one of our ships in the Seventh Fleet gets clipped.  The "accident" probably isn't an accident at all.

Some links to related news stories:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-navy-to-relieve-admiral-of-command-after-collisions-1503448987
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/politics/uss-antietam-damaged-japan/index.html
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/us-navy-releases-initial-report-on-fitzgerald-collision
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/asia/us-navy-ship-collision-uss-mccain-search-sailors.html
http://www.newsweek.com/china-south-china-sea-islands-build-military-territory-expand-575161
https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Ranh_Bay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Naval_Base_Subic_Bay
Tom Clancy's Executive Orders

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.

Antifa and the Alt-Right

Tom Sheppard

8/16/2017

In the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville President Trump noted that both sides were to blame for the violence.  His remarks set off a firestorm of righteous indignation in both major political parties.  Most of those excoriating him failed to perform even the most rudimentary examination of the facts to determine if, perhaps he was speaking from a well-informed position, instead of assuming he was shooting from the lip.

The reality of the violence in Charlottesville is that it was the entirely foreseeable result of bringing two avowedly violent groups together: violent white-supremacists and the violent anti-racists known as Antifa (more on both these groups later).  Because both groups are very ready and willing to engage in violent, physical conflict, and are on opposite sides of the topic of racism, for them to come together into the same physical space is like bringing lit matches and gunpowder together. It really doesn’t matter which one you think is which, when they come together, a violent explosion is nearly 100% certain.

Some of President Trumps critics claim that when he pointed out that Antifa charged in with clubs in hand, he was making Antifa and white supremacists morally equivalent.  That is blatantly twisting the facts.  He made no argument for the moral equivalence of the two groups.  Rather, than address the morals of either side, he noted the detestable actions of both sides.  As much as most of us may hate what they say, white supremacists have the same rights to free speech as anyone else.  No one has the right to use violence to silence the free speech of another.  If you start down the road of justifying allowing one group to violently silence another in the name of moral rectitude, soon you will have a society of self-righteous prigs living in an echo chamber where only the views they like will be heard.

So, where do these two groups come from and what does the name Antifa mean?  Antifa characterize themselves as anti-fascists.  The white supremacists commonly wave the NAZI flag and use the symbols of NAZI Germany in their materials along with the Confederate “Stars and Bars” battle flag.  The white supremacists call the Antifa socialists and communists and the Antifa call the white supremacists fascists and the Alt-Right.   The name calling, on both sides, is missing the mark more often than not.

Wikipedia gives a pretty good definition of fascism as “a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce.”  This gives us a four-point checklist to keep in mind as we identify fascism.

1.       Authoritarian Nationalism

2.       Dictatorial Power

3.       Forcible Suppression of Opposition, and

4.       [Governmental] Control of Industry and Commerce

Leading up to the American Civil War, the Northern States were characterized by being a racial melting pot that fueled an emerging industrial economy. They were anti-slavery.  However, that virtue may have been as much of an economic as a moral stance.  Slave labor was a threat to the working poor of the North.

Northern culture was characterized by a work ethic focused on individuals making their own way and eating their bread in the sweat of their brow.  The majority of the norther colonists had come from commoners and religious dissenters who fled Europe to avoid death at the hands of clerics and aristocrats.

Southern culture was oriented more toward the notion of European aristocracy.  Wealthy southerners sent their daughters to Paris for their finishing school.  The European notion of aristocracy eschews manual labor as a sign of poverty and commonality.  The ideal aristocrat does not labor for his money.  Rather, his time is free to hunt, to whore, and to adventure.

This culture of indolence sat at the top of the Southern social model and its values filtered down throughout the society all the way to common men who wore their indolence as a badge of honor.  In spite of their impoverished circumstances, they placed greater esteem on hunting, whoring and adventuring than in hard work.

This cultural conflict is part of the reasons the State of Missouri enacted an extermination order on Mormons.  Mormon converts, coming mostly from the New England area at that time, migrated to Missouri to establish Zion.  Their inherited ethic and regard for hard work directly conflicted with the indolent ethic of the Missourians.  Adding in religious elements to this basic clash of culture and intolerance, misunderstanding, and violence were almost inevitable.

Fast forward to the years just before the Civil War.  You find the Republican Party leaning heavily toward abolition of slavery.  You find Northern states ranging from open hostility toward slavery to tolerance as long as it stays out of their state.

In the South, you find aristocratic Democrats holding the levers of power and doing all in their power to preserve the institution of slavery because of its key role in their agricultural economy and Southern society.  They were ready and willing to use the powers of government to preserve slavery by putting down slave rebellions (individual and collective), and even waging open war on other states which want to abolish slavery in the entire Union.  Their behavior was definitely racist.  They were possessed of violent nationalism, although it was directed to supporting the distinct sovereignty of each state as though it were a nation.  They lacked dictatorial control and lacked the governmental control of commerce and industry that is a hallmark of fascism.  On balance, the Confederate States of America was a racist, but not a fascist government, scoring only two of the four points on the Wikipedia-derived checklist for fascism.

When the Emancipation Proclamation appeared during the Civil War, impoverished Irish in the North, at the bottom of the economic ladder engaged in race riots against the blacks, out of fear that the newly freed slaves will displace them and push them even further down the economic ladder.  This behavior was definitely racist, lacking any clear government support, they little resemblance to fascism.

After the Civil War, the Democratic party continued to support racism and its members filled the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan as the paramilitary arm of the Democratic party, using terror to resist allowing blacks to enjoy all the rights of citizens.  If a dictatorial power existed within their ranks, it was a secret which has never been revealed to the wider world.  So, they continued as racists, but not full-blown fascists.

Fast forward again to the time leading up to World War II.  In Europe, as well as the United States, communism and its younger brother socialism gained substantial political grounds since the emergence of the nation with a communist government (post-Czarist Russia). 

Where the communism strives to establish one world government where government owns all and individuals own nothing, and we are all part of one family of man, its little brother, socialism has a slightly different vision.  Socialists want to apply the governmental principles of communism while retaining the pride and distinctiveness of each nation.  These pre-WWII national-socialists diluted the absolute anti-capitalist communism to embrace some elements of capitalism, as long as it operates under the close control of the government (and can be used as a means of extending the reach of government without all the budgetary and bureaucratic mess inherent in government).  The new national-socialist-psuedo-capitalists gained the name of fascists. The fascists tweaked their nationalism (twisting it would have required greater effort) into a form of racial pride based on their nation, thus incorporating racism into their fascism.

The racist-fascist formula succeeded in gaining a much wider following than communism, and in short order, fascist governments were running Germany, Italy and Spain.  In America, they were openly admired by rich and powerful American Democrats such as John D. Rockefeller, Franklin D.Roosevelt and Henry Ford. 

In the polyglot world of America, the conflation of nation and race is not so intuitive as it was in Europe.  A quick study of European history shows that the nations of Europe arose around concentrations of racially and ethnically distinct groups.  The blond and red haired Aryans of the north were the core of countries such as Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.  The dark haired, white skinned Celts (the Romans called them Gauls) were the primary race in what is now France and the isles of Britain.  The dark haired, olive skinned Latins were the racial core of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.  These racial alignments, reinforced by centuries of racial warfare, pre-disposed the Europeans to embracing racial politics.

When the fascists took power in Germany, they brought with them an overweening pride in their race and asserted that the Aryans represented the only pure race among all the white races and that as such they were the master race which by rights of its purity should rule all the other elements of the human race.  Part of their plan for achieving this world domination involved not only killing off the unfit among themselves, but also in killing off entirely all the “lesser” races of humanity.  If they had succeeded, their slaughter of the Jews would have paled compared to how many of the “brown” races they would have happily destroyed beneath the heel of their racist regime.

Ironically, their Japanese allies on the other side of the world, although they ignored the lures of socialism or communism in favor of their own aristocracy, decided that the nation of Japan and the Japanese race were the embodiment of the master race which owned the right to rule humanity.  They embraced all the hallmarks of fascism and racism.  They happily treated the Koreans, Chinese, Philipinos and whites all as less than human.

An unfortunate side-effect of this nationalistic furor with its racial threads was that racism and fascism became interchangeable terms in the minds of many people.   This is especially true today.  As a result, anyone embracing racism and most especially the notion of a master race is deemed a fascist.  Although this is factually incorrect, many of the racist groups supporting white supremacy further promote this error by embracing the symbols of fascism such as the NAZI flag.  Most of these groups are neither socialists nor truly NAZIs.  They typically embrace the concepts of rugged individualism that permeate the political right.  However, their use of symbols of fascism and the master race rhetoric of the fascists makes it simpler to label them fascists than to give them the more discerning and accurate label of simple racists.

From the time of the Civil War until the middle of the twentieth century, the scions of the Democratic party held the levers of power in the South and used them to disenfranchise the blacks until the Republican party forced the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s and used the power of the Federal Government to break the last vestiges of the Democrats’ use of the powers of government to support their racism.  After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Democrats adroitly changed their roles from would-be masters over the blacks to their would-be protectors.  Many leading black pundits today recognize that the welfare state (of which the Democratic Party is the primary champion) is no more or less than another way to keep blacks dependent upon the Democrats by making them dependent upon the transfer of wealth from successful individualists into the hands of the plantation slaves who, for more than a century, depended upon the generosity of their white masters for the food on their table and clothes on their back (see Star Parker’s book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves the Poor and What We Can Do About It).

Recently, a movement known as Antifa (Anti-fascists) has appeared among the political left in the United States.  Although the Antifa attempt to link themselves to the historical anti-fascist movements in trans-WWII Germany, Italy and Spain, they define themselves as opponents to the likes of the white-supremacists, which they call the Alt-Right.  Because these white-supremacists are actually racists, not fascists, the legacy of the Antifa is not rooted in anti-fascism, rather it is anti-racism and more specifically, it is anti-white-supremacist.  The danger with being anti-white-supremacist is that it is easy to become anti-white, in reality or just perception.  Being anti-white is racism with a swap in roles for oppressor and oppressed.   

Calling the white supremacists fascists and the Alt-Right is inaccurate and misleading.  The reality is that fascism is not a political movement from the right of center.  It is a political movement from the left of center.  Racism too is not a movement from the right of center.  It has historically been used and supported by the Democratic Party.  Labeling Democrats as left and Republicans as right of center is as nuanced as saying that the sky above is blue and the earth beneath is brown.  The characterizations lead to misperceptions and hide the truth.  Although many Democrats embrace the political ambitions of the left, many leading Republicans do likewise.

In the US and most of the world today, the political left is the champion of the rights of groups over the rights of individuals, “authoritarian nationalism”, “dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and [governmental] control of industry and commerce” are the hallmarks of their vision for government.  The political right is the champion of individual rights such as freedom of speech, religion, association, and self-protection, smaller, less-intrusive government, and minimal governmental regulation of industry and commerce.

Government sponsored racism, is not an artifact of the political right.  The political right has its roots in respect for the rights and civic responsibilities of the individual.  It is embodied in such phrases as those found in the Declaration of Independence that, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.  Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  These sentiments and philosophies allow no room for racism and certainly do not support any notion of a master race.  Rather, they point the mind toward the universal brotherhood of humanity as sharing a common creator.

Government sponsored racism, such as that found in the fascist nations of World War II, is only possible where despotism prevails.  It is an aberration when free people choose to unleash the powers of their government against a minority of any sort.  Although an aberration, it is not without precedent in the history of the United States of America.

Before the Civil War, the people of the United States of America supported and encouraged their government to wage open war against the members of the Mormon church.  The Civil War seems to have burnt out of the main of our nation the inclination to use the powers of government to oppress minorities, racial or religious.

I am sure some will argue that the wars against the Native Americans was a racist war that was supported by the people.  While there may be some truth of racism buried in there, the reality is that the Native Americans were (and are) sovereign nations (as well as peoples).  When the United States prevailed against them, the results were not racial cleansing, enslavement or extermination.  Rather, the results were disarmament, subjugation and restriction.

From my view of history, the racist strains of the US were scorched (although not entirely burnt out), root and branch, and the government sponsored racism of the south was broken long before the fascists of Europe arose to take a place on the world stage.  Those in this country with whom fascism resonated most were not Republicans, but old-guard Democrats who hewed to the notions of the Southern Democrats that whites are superior and that blacks can be excluded from the rights delineated in our founding documents because they aren’t actually human, or not fully human.

The scary part of this last point is that black supremacists today embrace the same notion, that whites aren’t really true humans.  The only true humans are those with dark skins.

Today, white supremacists and other racists want to implement government sponsored agendas of racism which are incompatible with the ideals of freedom and individual worth.  Those ideals are the hallmarks of the political right.

This white supremacist fringe is no more an alternate right (Alt-right) than West is an alternate North.  Those who seek to equate racism with the political right are either ignorant of the facts of history, or are selling something.  It behooves every responsible citizen to examine the motives of those who use labels to hide rather than to shed light on the true motives and ideals of others.

ADDED Material
Today's Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece about the Free Speech Rally in Boston.  They noted that Antifa was there trying to suppress free speech with fascist tactics.  There were about two dozen free-speech advocates at the rally and hundreds of Antifa-led counter protesters there to prevent anyone from being heard, except them.  The author notes, "Neo-Nazis and white supremacists may be a continuing American embarrassment and eyesore, but they are not today’s most pressing threat to our civil liberties."

The day before this article, CNN "unmasked" the Antifa as "undocumented immigrants, transgender people, low-wage workers, those who don't conform to the traditional 9-to-5."  They believe somehow that it will work to "use force in the name of eradicating hatred."  Like that will work?  When was the last time having someone punch you in the face made you want to agree with them and embrace love?  For most people violence only makes them want to respond with violence.  And violence inspires hatred, it doesn't eradicate it.

Here are a few more quotes from the CNN article...

"Antifa activists often don't hesitate to destroy property.."

"Antifa members also sometimes launch attacks against people who aren't physically attacking them."

"...members focus on outing people they believe are neo-Nazis, even trying to get them fired and evicted from their homes."

John Morley, in 1874, is credited with saying, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."  President John F. Kennedy repeated nearly the same sentiment many years later.  Antifa's methods lead me to believe that rationality is not at the core of their movement.  It is based wholly on emotion.  They are the leading advocates of mob rule in our country today.  And it was lynch mobs and mob rule that fueled and led the charge for racists throughout the civil rights era of the 60's.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:  I confess I was mildly surprised when mainstream media sources began condemning Antifa actions.  Then, I saw this article where no less a venerable liberal scion than Nancy Pelosi trashed Antifa (follow the link to the WSJ article).  Her statement must have given the green-light to the left-conforming editors and reporters of the mainstream media to decry the actions of their leftist allies who resorted to fascist behavior to violently suppress the free speech of others in the campaign to combat fascism.

Related Links:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-nazi-scare-of-2017-1503440903
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-left/index.html

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.

Trump is a Danger to Our Well Being

Trump is a Danger to Our Well-Being

Death Dealer (C) 1973 Frank Frazetta

Tom Sheppard

8/6/2017

A CNN headline came through my newsfeed today stating that Trump is a danger to our well-being.  This isn’t the first time I have seen similar editorials from CNN and other sources.

• On May 15 of this year CNN trumpeted, “Trump Again Reveals His Dangerous Incompetence”.  

• On June 28 CNN noted “Trump Putting Journalists in Danger.”

• On June 7, the Washington Examiner (washingtonexaminer.com) headline was “Trump’s  Decision on Paris Agreement Poses Great Danger.”

• July 5 and again on July 22 linked Trump to the concept of danger in two separate stories, one about his campaign against fake news and another worrying about his inaction.

• Slate, on August 10 linked Trump’s rhetoric with North Korea to danger for everyone.

• The Washington Post on July 22 referred to Trump as “a Unique Threat to American Democracy.”

And, the consistent linking of Trump to the concept of being a danger isn’t confined solely to US publications.  Das Spiegal (www.spiegel.de/international/) called Trump the most dangerous man in the world.  A piece reported by NPR on June 26 noted that a Pew Research poll of global respondents found a majority think trump is both arrogant and dangerous.

Trump’s critics have been consistently beating this drum that he is dangerous.

My response to all these alarums is this, “So, what's new?   The President of the US is always dangerous.”  The President of the United States (POTUS) has been the most dangerous man in the world since President Harry Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  Add to that, the POTUS has been the biggest single danger to the well-being of Americans since President George Washington.

The powers inherent in the Executive Branch of our government, as delineated both in the US Constitution, laws passed by Congress, and in the rulings of The US Supreme Court position POTUS to have significant impact on our well-being.  POTUS lawfully can:

• Sign treaties with the UN and other foreign powers which give away our Constitutional rights and “become the law of the land.”
• Initiate wars, as long as he doesn’t call them a war, or let them go on too long, as Commander in Chief of our armed forces.
• Throw people in jail or spy on them (DOJ, IRS, Homeland Security, Department of State).
• Direct the DOJ to enforce, or not to enforce, specific laws.
• Direct the IRS to collect, or not collect, particular taxes (for instance the “Individual Mandate” from ObamaCare).
• Create or eliminate regulations that affect almost every area of your life –
• Your lights, heat, air conditioning, stove, oven (DOE),
• your job (OSHA, Commerce Department, Department of Labor),
• your health (CDC, NIH, FDA, Health and Human Services),
• the environment and what you can do with the land you own (EPA),
• what you can say and where (FCC),
• what you can drive (EPA, FTA),
• where many people can live (HUD),
• what you can use to buy things (Treasury),
• what you should be learning in school (Department of Education),
• what crops you can grow and how you can care for them (USDA)
• and the list goes on, and on.

Beyond these clearly established avenues to change our lives, there is the avenue of executive orders which, deservedly, awaken fears of extra-Constitutional actions flowing from the White House into the lives of many.

Regardless of who is POTUS, that person is dangerous to our well-being, as well as the well-being of nearly everyone on this planet (a few exploding nukes could ruin all our lives for generations).

With a list that touches almost everything in your life, it is beyond my comprehension why anyone would approach a presidential election with the level of ignorance that is commonplace in the voting populace of this country. 

President Donald Trump is neither more, or less, dangerous than any president has been since Harry Truman, or even since George Washington.

What all the folks promoting fear of President Trump have in common is that they are all advocates of social agendas which are not aligned with the values promoted by our current POTUS.

When Barak Obama was POTUS, folks to the right of center were just as alarmed by the treaties, regulations and executive orders which he promoted.  If you don’t know this, then you have never been on the mailing list of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and you have filtered out of your news feed sources like Fox News, Breitbart and The Wall Street Journal.

The reason the headlines back then weren’t filled with the same volume of portentous alarms is because the mainstream media sources (MMS) are almost exclusively inclined toward the socialist political agenda of the left of center.  The unfortunate reality is the “watchdogs” of our republic are too busy eating the drugged meat of the socialist-leaning left to bark at the leftist encroachments on freedom and prosperity in the US.  They have been retrained, like a version of Pavlov’s dogs, to bark only when the bell of the right chimes in the public square.

If you reflexively, uncritically, accept the news presented by the “major” news outlets, you have become part of the problem with politics, conflict, and civil debate in the US.

President Trump is dangerous.  He has power at his fingertips which is almost incomprehensible.  He is especially dangerous to the socialist agenda, just as President Obama was dangerous to the agendas of Federalism and Constitutional Conservatist agendas.

If the agenda of POTUS aligns with your own politics, then you will likely welcome his exercise of power to limit the actions of your opponents and increase the efficacy of the actions of your own faction.

The good news for everyone is that the checks and balances built into our government by the framers of the US Constitution are still functioning pretty well, in spite of many attempts by partisans of the left, center and right to cripple or kill them.  Every time I see these checks and balances in action (even when they don’t land in my favor), I thank God for the far-reaching genius of those men.

It is my greatest hope that the recent fear that has ripped through those who find Trump dangerous, will inspire those who feel it to do all in their power, today and tomorrow, to support and strengthen the reliance of our republic on the US Constitution, and help to limit the powers of government to be restricted solely to those specific areas delineated by the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and lawfully adopted amendments to the US Constitution.

The beauty of the US Constitution and the system of government we have built on that, is that it protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority as well as protecting the majority from the tyranny of the minority.

I also hope this unending “crisis”, manufactured by those who oppose the current POTUS, will inspire the members of the “fourth estate” to retreat from advocating any and all political agendas which have the effect (or objective) of disabling the checks and balances built into our government.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.