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Saturday, January 20, 2018

Godlessness, Leftism, and the World’s Crapholes

One of the least known but most influential characters of early American history is the industrialist Samuel Slater. My book, The Miracle and Magnificence of America, details some of Slater’s industrial exploits. One of my significant resources on Slater’s life and work came from author George S. White who, in 1836, published his book, Memoir of Samuel Slater: The Father of American Manufactures. I found White’s book to be a fascinating account of early industrial America.

In the introduction to Slater’s memoir, while singing the praises of the industrious Slater—he’s known today as the “Father of the American Industrial Revolution,”—Mr. White also speaks against the “Occupy” fools of the early 19th century:
We envy not those self-styled patriots, whose thirst for office and distinction allows them to deceive and cajole their fellow citizens, by prejudicing them against the talented and enterprising part of society. Thus teaching them discontent, and prejudicing them against the necessary arrangements to promote the general welfare, making them the tools of their sordid selfish policy…
Likewise, and no-doubt aware of the “bickering caudillos” (military dictators) who plagued 19th century South America, White contrasts life in the United States with that of South America:
A state of society, not founded the principles of honest industry, must be degraded and low; and like the inhabitants of South America must be wretched miserable. Mankind must be usefully and honourably employed, in order to be virtuous and happy. In proof of this position, compare the condition of South America with the United States, and more especially with that part of the United States manufacturing establishments have come into being and risen eminence. The mighty contrast in the condition and character of the people, is altogether greater than that formed by the hand of nature in the two countries themselves. South America, particularly that part in the neighbourhood of the La Plata, in the hands of New Englanders, would at once become the paradise of world, did they retain their moral and intellectual habits… 
With governments in distraction, and so enfeebled as to exert no force except by the sword and bayonet, vice, disorder, and confusion everywhere prevail. The finest fields in the world for agriculture are suffered to remain barren and desolate, or to be traveled by wandering herds. Indolence and enfeeble the hands and put out the eyes of the inhabitants. Roaming in poverty, filth, and pollution, they are totally blind to their advantages and privileges: they are tossed about by wind of prejudice and passion. Trained to view labour as a degradation, while trampling the most prolific fields and possessing everything requisite, and of the first qualities, for food and clothing, they would be obliged to go naked and starve, were it not for the industry of other nations. As it now is, robbers and assassins fill their streets, and thousands are disappearing by the only species of industry for which they have an adaptation, that of destroying each other.
Sounds like much of South America today! Or, if you prefer, and as President Trump allegedly put it, a “shi*hole” (or “shi*house”). In other words, what makes a society a literal and living craphole hasn’t changed much in nearly two centuries. If you want to find the crapholes of the world, one need look no further than where godlessness or leftism—often found together—dominate.

Of course, the world’s crapholes are often riddled with poverty. According to Business Insider—and as I alluded to years ago—most of the world’s poorest nations are “under authoritarian regimes where corruption is rampant.” Few things are more synonymous with modern leftism than corruption and authoritarianism.

Note as well how many of the poorest and most authoritarian nations are run by Islamists. As I’ve often noted, the godless false religion of Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths. Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward, and thus, has produced many of the world’s crapholes.

Naturally, the world’s crapholes are filled with filth. Along with garbage, human waste, and nasty water, and no matter what list you use, the world’s dirtiest cities are typically also filled with some form of leftism and spiritual darkness. The same goes for the world’s most dangerous countries. And note again that those plagued by Islam dominate the list.

Often accompanying danger and filth is death. Unsurprisingly, the nations with the lowest life expectancy are the same ones showing up on the other craphole lists.

Two craphole-producing products of leftist ideology that, in spite of numerous and horrific failures, still plague the world today are socialism and communism. No matter the specifics of the “ism” or the frequency or the scale of the devastation, modern leftists continue to seek to put so much power in the hands of so few.

If you think I’m being unfair to the rest of the world, fret not. Tragically amazing—given our vast amount of rich natural and human resources—the United States has more than its fair share of crapholes. Almost always these are municipalities where democrats have ruled for decades and where godlessness—typically accompanied by a good dose of hedonism—and leftism—usually called “liberalism” in America—dominate the landscape.

Of course, it’s not the skin color of the people but rather rotten political and religious ideologies that produce toilet-like living conditions. Also, the vast majority of people living in the crapholes of the world are there through little to no fault of their own (except for those who continue to elect democrats) and, in most cases, need the help of others to escape or improve their conditions. The United States can’t import all of those suffering in the world’s crapholes, but we can certainly play a role in exporting what they really need.

The surest way to keep people from living in a craphole is to provide them with liberty, but not liberty alone. As the great Edmund Burke put it when observing the French revolution, “The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.” Liberty should always be accompanied by the “moral chains” provided by Christianity; otherwise you end up with Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, or Baltimore.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Thursday, January 18, 2018

If You're Warming Up Your Car, You Might be Breaking the Law

As we again break records for cold in the southern U.S., while sitting indoors trying to keep warm (and schooling my wife and kids in Trivial Pursuit), I stumbled across this on the AJC.com:

Warm up your car this morning? That could be illegal where you live.

According to the article, 31 states have laws against "idling." Some of these laws are rooted in some measure of common sense--to deter theft and the like--but many are the sad result of governments buying into the myth of man-made global warming. As the author of the AJC piece puts it,
Of course, there's logic behind putting such laws on the books. With scientists around the world regularly warning humanity about the dire and ballooning effects of climate change, cutting down on vehicle emissions is an important, albeit seemingly small, step to address the issue.
Heh: "logic." Actually the earth-worshipping warmists would prefer that you not drive at all. The AJC author continues:
Just last months (sic), a new scientific study revealed that the worst-case predictions regarding climate change are likely the most accurate. The results followed the November publication of an open letter to humanity from more than 15,000 international scientists urging society to address major environmental concerns before it's "too late."
Just "last months"--December 4, 2017 to be precise--an AJC headline read "Snow flurries possible this weekend after cool down." The piece included the following graphic:


December 4, 2017 was a Monday. The winter weather moved in Friday, December 8, during the afternoon. This was the final result:


So what just days earlier was predicted to be from "flurries" with "no accumulation" up to only a couple of inches of snow, turned into one of the largest snowfalls ever seen in Georgia. Several areas got more than 10 inches, including areas very near Atlanta. As it was a wet, heavy snow, hundreds of thousands lost power. It was perhaps the largest ever fall snowfall in Georgia's recorded history--certainly the case in my lifetime (48+ years). And only days earlier the forecast for this "weather event" was woefully inaccurate. 

The inaccuracy in the weather forecast is not what's troubling here. It happens all of the time. In other words, it is a difficult science to predict the weather only days in advance, yet we're supposed to believe climate forecasts that are a century out. As the study from the "15,000 international scientists" puts it, 
Our study indicates that if emissions follow a commonly used business-as-usual scenario, there is a 93 per cent chance that global warming will exceed 4°C by the end of this century.
Sadly, this type of forecast is typical as well. How many times has the man-made global movement predicted such? It's as if every six months or so they feel that the world must be reminded of how bad it's going to get unless we put them in charge. And remember when President Trump tweeted concerning the brutal cold along the eastern U.S. just after Christmas?

Of course, the warmists were totally triggered. Many of them took to reminding us of the difference between climate and weather, specifically how much more complicated is climate than "mere" weather. Given such, these earth-worshippers should be reminded: if a "simple" 5-day weather forecast is often wrong, then a 100-year climate forecast is almost certainly wrong.

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Saturday, January 13, 2018

The Speech Oprah Should’ve Given

Since Oprah Winfrey’s recent speech at the 2018 Golden Globes, giddy liberals have bombarded her with calls of “Run, Oprah, Run!” It seems that all democrats have to do is hear a decent speech from a like-minded liberal and they’re lining up their Superdelegates and their billionaire donors. Remember, Barack Obama’s path to the presidency began with his 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention.

In spite of how well her Globes speech was received, as others have noted, Oprah didn’t quite paint the proper picture when it comes to Hollywood, women, and the truth. I’m here to help. This is the speech Oprah should’ve given:

It is an honor to be here tonight as the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award. As surely almost everyone here well knows, DeMille’s last—and his most successful—film was The Ten Commandments. This 1956 epic is a motion picture classic and one of the most popular films of all time. In the “opening card,” the words of DeMille himself read, 
“Our modern world defined God as a 'religious complex' and laughed at the Ten Commandments as OLD FASHIONED. Then, through the laughter, came the shattering thunder of the World War. And now a blood drenched, bitter world – no longer laughing – cries for a way out. There is but one way out. It existed before it was engraven upon Tablets of Stone. It will exist when stone has crumbled. The Ten Commandments are not rules to obey as a personal favor to God. They are fundamental principles without which mankind cannot live together.” 
Though they have never been more needed, tragically, such opinions—and certainly the values that such a statement reflects—have all but disappeared in today’s Hollywood. As with the “blood drenched,” war-ravaged world of which Mr. DeMille spoke, there is but one way out of the craven, perverse, sex-obsessed, bitter world that now exists in Hollywood. The Ten Commandments help point us to that way. 
In these dark and complicated times, the truth is the most powerful weapon we have. Sadly, we can no longer rely on the media—neither the entertainment media that we represent, nor the news media—to present us with the truth. Like the lies that so permeate the stories that we tell, in order to further a worldview bereft of the notion of absolute truth, the news media rarely hesitates to mislead the public at large. 
Thus, it should come as little surprise that, in a world so steeped in deception, many women in the entertainment and news media have become targets of powerful and brutal men. Abandoning the God of the Commandments, and instead making a god of personal pleasure, has led to decades of sexual abuse and assault against countless women in the entertainment industry. Also, with perhaps the most guarded tenet of our worldview being the idea that people should be able to do whatever they wish in the sexual realm, few should be surprised that there are so many Harvey Weinsteins among us. 
What modern action, dramatic, or comedic film or television series is devoid of depicting—as C.S. Lewis bemoaned—“four bare legs in a bed?” These days, bare legs alarm almost no one. Many supposed “mainstream” Hollywood productions are now filled with graphic nudity and sex—what used to be called “pornography.” Adultery, fornication, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, and virtually every other sexual immorality imaginable has long been promoted and celebrated by our industry. This must stop. 
Taking their cues from Hollywood—revealing the awesome power and responsibility of those who make a career of entertainment—almost every institution in the United States has been infected with those who see other human beings—especially women—as objects to satisfy their lust. Thus, women across America, whether in homes or on farms, in factories, restaurants, academia, engineering, medicine, science, politics, business, and so on, have suffered and continue to suffer. 
What’s more, it makes me very sad to say, many women like myself have been part of the problem. Instead of standing up to the sex-crazed entertainment industry, we have enabled it to continue, and even thrive. Using our bodies to titillate the minds of generations of boys and men, we have debased ourselves and been willing participants in contradicting what God has revealed on sex and marriage. 
In both my personal and professional life I have failed to promote the proper view on sex, gender, marriage, and the family. Foolishly ignoring the heart of the message of our Creator, repeating what is perhaps the most frequent lie in the history of humanity, I have told others to “Live life on your own terms.” After all, “Everybody Wants to Rule Their World.” 
For far too long, those telling the truth on sex, gender, marriage, and the family have not been heard. For far too long, the powerful in media have lied or suppressed the truth on these grave matters. I wish I could say a new day is on the horizon, but all indications are that Hollywood has yet to see the light. 
When that day finally dawns—and I want everyone watching to know, that day is inevitable—it will be because the truth has finally won. Then, referencing the work of the first black man to win this award, I will quote from Sidney Poitier’s performance in "Lilies of the Field," ''Amen, amen. Amen, amen."

Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Saturday, January 6, 2018

How do Liberals Flunk Science? Let Us Count the Ways.

With most of the U.S. currently in the grip of significant cold, and given the proper goading from President Trump, liberals again felt led to lecture us on the difference between weather and climate. Of course, it’s lost on most leftists how they so often fail to apply the same standards to themselves. Whether blizzards, hurricanes, wild fires, tornadoes, record heat, record cold, and so on, with religious-like devotion, liberals almost never fail to link dramatic weather events to their apocalyptic climate narrative.

One of the easiest jobs in the world has to be that of climate doomsayer. No matter the weather, the climate kooks can scream “man-made global warming!” and the faithful will follow with a hearty, “AMEN!” In spite of the folly and the pseudo science behind the man-made global warming movement, time and again the modern left insists that it is conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—who have abandoned science and reason.

Last year, The New York Times went as far as to blame evangelicals for our “post-truth society.” The New York Times lamenting a “post-truth society” is like Satan complaining about sin. In other words, few organizations or individuals in the history of humanity have waged a more enthusiastic war on the truth than has “the newspaper of record.”

Because all sound science—yes, there are plenty of scientific charlatans—always points one to the truth, it is little surprise that those so often opposed to the truth frequently find themselves at odds with what sound science reveals. For those unsure of where they stand on the spectrum of understanding what real science and scientists have revealed, let me take a moment to chronicle some actual “settled science.”

First of all—back when Adam took his first homeschool anatomy course—science long ago revealed there are only two sexes—male and female. There is no such thing as a “gender spectrum.” Any sentient adult telling you that such nonsense exists should have his or her grown-up card revoked and be required to repeat kindergarten at an approved location. What’s more, contrary to LGBT propaganda, basic biology is not “transphobic.

Unlike the modern left’s practice of using a fake problem—man-made climate change—to explain real weather-related catastrophes, tolerating the very real transgender madness of the modern left has led to all sorts of very real human-related catastrophes. Men using women’s restrooms and locker rooms, men competing against (and taking trophies from) women, women occupying the front lines of our military, and so on, are all the direct result of the fake science preached and produced by liberalism.

Just as settled as is the science of who is a male and who is a female is the science of life in the womb. Life in the womb for a child is as well documented as anything in science. With ultrasound and Doppler machines, as well as other technology, one can monitor the life of a baby in the womb from very near the beginning until birth.

Moments after conception (hardly a serious biologist in the world would argue that life does not begin at conception), the resulting single cell contains all 46 chromosomes necessary to grow into an adult human being. Within 48 hours of conception, the mother’s body starts producing a hormone to let her know that she is pregnant. In the beginning of the third week, the baby’s heart begins to beat with a blood type that is often different from its mother’s.

During week five, eyes, legs, and hands have begun to develop. By week six, brain waves are detectable. Week eight has every organ in place, bones begin to replace cartilage, and the baby can begin to hear. By week 12, the baby is nearing the end of the first trimester. She has all the necessary parts to experience pain, including her nerves, spinal cord, and thalamus. She can grasp objects placed in her hand and has fingerprints, a skeletal structure, and circulation.

By week 15, she has an adult’s taste buds. Week 20, the earliest stage at which liberals used to conduct partial-birth abortions, the child can recognize her mother’s voice. She is within one or two weeks of the stage where babies can routinely be saved outside the womb. In spite of all of this, to justify the slaughter of tens of millions of unborn children, abortion apologists have regularly ignored the indisputable science of life in the womb.

Recently, liberals have gone so far as to launch a massive billboard campaign that refers to abortion as “sacred,” “a blessing,” and even “life-saving.” Abortion is so far from the concept of “life-saving” that it’s not too difficult—especially among the government educated—to find individuals who advocate infanticide. We shouldn’t be surprised by this when the last U.S. President—elected twice—basically advocated the same.

And why the devotion to killing the most innocent and defenseless among us? The will to do whatever one wants sexually without the consequences is a powerful force, and those corrupted by liberalism will go to almost any length—including fake science—in order to keep abortion popular and legal.

Speaking of a liberal’s libido, real science does no favors for the homosexual agenda either. As Obama's Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett learned in 2010, even well-established liberals can draw the ire of the homosexual community by simply implying that homosexuality is not innate (meaning genetic), but is rather a “lifestyle choice.” (Of course, Jarrett quickly back-tracked and apologized.) We’ve been told for decades now that homosexuality is a genetic and unchangeable behavior—that people are “born gay.”

In 1993, when the journal Science published a study by Dean Hamer (et al) which strongly suggested there was a gene for homosexuality, an eager and complicit media celebrated. National Public Radio trumpeted the findings. Newsweek’s cover asked, “Gay Gene?” The Wall Street Journal announced, “Research Points Toward a Gay Gene…” The New York Times noted, “Report Suggests Homosexuality Is Linked to Genes.”

However, noted psychiatrist, physicist, and author (Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth) Jeffrey Satinover concluded that “the Hamer study is seriously flawed.” Many genetic researchers also quickly took issue with Hamer’s study. However, the myth grew. Today, it is commonplace for liberals in the media, Hollywood, and like-minded politicians again to ignore the real science and continue to perpetuate the falsehood that homosexuality is strictly genetic.

Dr. Satinover notes that, “The notion that ‘homosexuals’ are in effect a ‘different species’ (different genes) is ludicrous beyond belief. There is not the slightest evidence for that as anyone who actually reads the studies (not reports on the studies) knows.” What science does reveal is that homosexuality is a rather unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle.

And much to the dismay of many on the modern left, homosexual sex doesn’t produce babies—because, you know, science. Thus, we now have fools declaring same-sex couples “infertile” and demanding that health insurance companies foot the bill to remedy this. So along with paying for abortions and “gender reassignment” surgery, liberals want us to foot the bill so that two men can have a baby.

As they foolishly declare their “belief in science,” liberals such as Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren remind us that what liberals are devoted to is not science but scientism. And because of this, their policies will always, ultimately, fail.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com