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Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2021

National Defense Headline Archives (2021)

For the most part, the articles/columns linked below appear in chronological order, beginning with the earliest. 


2021:
Previous National Defense headline archives are contained in a post at the end of each year and linked below:

20202019201820172016201520142009-2013

Monday, December 31, 2018

National Defense Headline Archives (2018)

For the most part, the articles/columns linked below appear in chronological order, beginning with the earliest. 

2018:
Previous National Defense headline archives are contained in a post at the end of each year and linked below:

20172016201520142009-2013

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

Sunday, December 31, 2017

National Defense Headline Archives (2017)

For the most part, the articles/columns linked below appear in chronological order, beginning with the earliest. 


2017:


Saturday, November 11, 2017

It’s the Worldview, Stupid

If we want to defeat or change those who are wickedly determined to take the lives of other human beings unjustly, it should go without saying that we must look far beyond the killers’ chosen instrument of death. This is why the pro-life community doesn’t put any effort into attempting to ban suction curettes or forceps—which have killed far more people in the U.S. than have guns.

Nevertheless—and seemingly inevitably—whenever a mass murderer goes on a killing spree in the U.S., those who are terrified of the notion of absolute truth (who are determined to rule their own world)—and especially terrified of the Author of truth—ignore the real problems with homicidal deviants and almost always ignorantly insist that the solution is legislation that restricts access to weapons.

This is the case even if the weapon is a truck. Again, Satan laughs. Tragically, with those corrupted by liberalism, we see this time and again. Whether the problem is poverty, hunger, bad schools, gun violence, crime in general, or even the spread of disease, the liberal answer is always the same: more government. Because most of them have made a god of government, liberals are almost always looking for a political solution to whatever ails us.

Thus, virtually everything in our culture is politicized, and the public at large is subjected to never-ending campaigns. For liberals, nearly any solution to our cultural tribulations that will drive people to vote for democrats is most preferable. Sadly, far too many people are willing to cast their votes for those who promise to “protect” them—from the climate, from corporations, criminals, Christians, disease, pregnancy, and especially from the consequences of their own bad decisions. “Pajama Boy” and “Julia” are the poster children here.

In other words—whether through legislation, executive orders, or rulings from the bench—to cure societies’ ills, liberals insist that we heed the words of “enlightened” man instead of the Word of the eternal God. This is why, after a mass shooting with multiple deaths, the idea of prayer is so offensive to liberals. Even the benign “moment of silence” or “thoughts and prayers” (you can keep your thoughts, but I’ll take your prayers!) are now so often derided, mocked, and ignored.

However, in spite of liberal trepidations, prayer brings us to the heart of the matter when dealing with the likes of Sayfullo Saipov, Devin Kelley, Omar Mateen, Dylan Roof, and so on. As C.S. Lewis taught us, prayer reveals our “bankruptcy,” or, put another way, our powerlessness. Prayer helps us understand who we really are and who God really is. (Note how the Lord’s Prayer begins: “Our Father in heaven, holy is your name…”) And when necessary, prayer leads us up to the vital moment at which we “turn to God and say, ‘You must do this. I can’t.’”

Only the power of God can change the heart of a human. Good government should always remind us of and be rooted in the truth, but we will never be able to legislate away evil. Men like Sayfullo Saipov and Devin Kelley did what they did because they ignored God and decided truth for themselves.

Such a self-centered attitude is at the heart of liberalism. This is another reason why liberals want to focus on guns instead of what motivates men to do evil. The perverse worldview of angry atheists and murderous Islamists shares much in common with the godless worldview of modern liberalism. Again, the most common shared element is a rabid disdain for all things Christian.

Meanwhile, the search for the ever-elusive gun- and religion-clinging “Christian terrorist” continues.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is a mathematics teacher and the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Guns Don’t Kill People, Liberalism and Radical Islam Do

After the recent attack on Manchester by Islamic terrorists, British author and journalist Douglas Murray provided a simple two-word suggestion for what help prevent future such violence in Great Britain: “less Islam.” To bolster his point, Murray pointed out that, “countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have very little Islam and very little Islamic terror. By contrast, France has a great amount of Islam and a great amount of Islamic terror.” Of course, Islamic apologists “promptly went bananas” (Murray’s words).

As we have seen for years now, and as recent events again demonstrate, “Islamic apologists” include not only those deceived by Islam, but also includes those deceived by liberalism as well. I say again, there are few greater threats to life, limb, and liberty in the world today than liberalism and Islam. Radical Islamists drive the vans, pull the triggers, slash the knives, strap on the bombs, cut off the heads, and so on, while radical liberals in the media and the state houses—among other dastardly and deadly things—provide the political cover for the slaughter to continue.

In spite of the obvious differences in their worldviews—the “Do What Thou Wilt” godless philosophy that dominates in modern liberalism vs. a rigid, uncompromising (and man-designed) religious code that dominates radical Islam—both share a common trait that deceives one (liberals) into thinking that the other (radical Islam) can be “tolerated:” a disdain for Christianity.

Millions of Christians and other such “apostates” (tens of millions by some estimates) continue to die at the hands of Islamists. For one of the worst examples (one the media often ignores), according to Africa: The Holocausts of Rwanda and Sudan,
Well over two million southern black Christians, Muslims, and animists in the Sudan have died, the great majority civilians, in a genocide that few in the world have heard about. Since 1983, ethnic cleansing and a religious holy jihad (since 1992) have created a holocaust that rival the two great genocides in Europe (the Holocaust and Stalin’s Gulag)…In the Nuba Mountains the Arab Muslim fundamentalists practiced an age-old custom of taking blacks into slavery, forcing conversion of many to Islam, and then decided to wipe out the fifty tribes by genocide, similar to the situation in Darfur in the west.
Tragically, modern liberals are so desperate to rid the world of Christians and Christianity that they will tolerate almost anything, except authentic Christianity. What’s more, as the violence from radical Islamists rages on (and on, and on), time and again, liberal pundits and politicians, as they are forced to address the bloodshed—and after even their own are murdered—go to absurd lengths to avoid even the hint of a mention of Islam. As Daniel Greenfield put it after knife-wielding Muslims rampaged London, “Islamic terrorism has no religion even when it’s shouting, ‘This is for Islam.’”

Of course, after yet another round of killing in the name of Islam, godless liberals also give us the obligatory—and lazily idiotic assertion that—when it comes to “violence in the name of religion” the “Christians did it too!” To liberals, all religious extremists are equal, though, when one honestly compares radical Christianity with radical Islam, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, when it comes to killing the innocent, violent religious extremists of any flavor could learn a thing or two from the violent anti-religious extremists that dominate the modern left. The greatest murderers in the history of humanity were the godless socialists and communists of the 20th century. As renowned scholar, educator, and author Walter E. Williams notes,
Between 1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and their successors murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, China’s communists, led by Mao Zedong and his successors, murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. The most authoritative tally of history’s most murderous regimes is documented on University of Hawaii professor Rudolph J. Rummel’s website and in his book “Death by Government.”
Multiple sources, including professor Rummel, conclude that, in the past century, atheistic regimes worldwide have led to the deaths of tens-of-millions, with some sound estimates putting the total number of deaths at more than 250,000,000!

Very often, the drive to kill was an effort to purge religion—especially Christianity—from the state. Even Wikipedia notes that the slaughter in the Soviet Union started with multiple “anti-religious” campaigns that began in the early 1920s, where “new legislation…severely prohibited religious activities and called for a heightened attack on religion in order to further disseminate atheism.” In 1937 alone, more than 85,000 Russian Orthodox priests were executed.

Though there are certainly distinctions between the godless socialists and communists of the 20th century and the European and North American liberals of today, there are also very scary similarities. In his mid-19th century Critique of Socialism, Alexis de Tocqueville summarized well the ideology of socialism when he wrote,
They unceasingly attempt to mutilate, to curtail, to obstruct personal freedom in any and all ways. They hold that the State must not only act as the director of society, but must further be master of each man, and not only master, but keeper and trainer. For fear of allowing him to err, the State must place itself forever by his side, above him, around him, better to guide him, to maintain him, in a word, to confine him. They call, in fact, for the forfeiture, to a greater or less degree, of human liberty, to the point where, were I to attempt to sum up what socialism is, I would say that it was simply a new system of serfdom [a medieval form of bondage].
Sounds much like the efforts of modern liberals doesn’t it? And even when they claim to be champions of “personal freedom”—as is often their cry when it comes to everything to do with matters in the sexual realm—modern liberalism is still filled with violence and bondage. With nearly 60 million unborn children killed since 1973, U.S. abortion-supporting liberals must be the envy of genocidal maniacs the world over. American abortionists have managed to turn what should be one of the safest places in the universe—a mother’s womb—into a killing field. Worldwide, since 1980, a staggering 1.5 billion children have been aborted.

In addition, guided by the false belief that “Do What Thou Wilt” (especially in the sexual realm) frees us from the shackles of the “antiquated” ideas on morality and personal ethical behavior, liberalism has set about to discredit and abandon many of the eternal and inescapable absolute truths set down by our Creator that should be the cornerstones of all good government. Thus, almost any sexual perversion imaginable is, in the U.S. today, a “right.” And instead of being free, tens of millions of Americans are now slaves to their sexual desires. As a result, STD rates in the U.S. have reached record, epidemic rates.

Of course, just as there are many Muslims who are not terrorists, there are many liberals who are not Christian-hating, terrorist-tolerating, sex-crazed abortionists. However, just as the world’s greatest problem with violent terrorism lies within Islam, the world’s biggest problem with godless, pleasure-peddling statists lies within liberalism.

(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

Saturday, December 31, 2016

National Defense Headline Archives (2016)

For the most part, the articles/columns linked below appear in chronological order, beginning with the earliest. 

2016:

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Benghazi is What Happens When the Liberal Narrative on Islam Prevails

The final Benghazi Report is out, and it is a revealing and thorough indictment of the actions of President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and many within the Obama administration.

After Benghazi, where four Americans were killed as the result of a coordinated attack by radical Islamists upon an American embassy, the Obama administration--including Hillary Clinton--immediately put forth the narrative that the attack was the result of a YouTube video, Innocence of Muslims, that was critical of Islam. Of course, the liberal mainstream American media--the same media we're suppose to trust to fairly cover the final Benghazi Report--played right along and helped further the lie that the attack was the result of a video.

In her deceit over the video, days after the attack, and after she had already declared that she knew the attack was not the result of any video, Hillary Clinton went so far as to shake the hand of Charles Wood, father of Benghazi hero Ty Woods, and told him, "We are going to have the filmmaker arrested." The efforts of Clinton, Obama, and others within the Obama administration and the media who aided and abetted the false video narrative, were so effective in their lies that the creator of the video, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested.

Of course, we now know that the Obama administration repeatedly lied to and misled the American public about the Benghazi attack. Then, four years later, the Orlando massacre happens, and the Islamic apologists within the Obama administration again attempt to cover-up what really happened when a radical Islamist kills 49 inside a nightclub.

As if it needed to be said again, liberals simply cannot be trusted when it comes to Islam, radical Islam, and the safety of Americans. Marco Rubio could not have been more right when he declared,
Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States," Rubio said at the Jan. 14 debate. "Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander-in-chief, and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi cannot be president of the United States."
Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Monday, June 27, 2016

Mateen's Motivations, in His Own Words (UPDATE)

Because we live in a world where truth is relative, where the oldest institution in the history of humanity (marriage) can be redefined to mean whatever we want it to mean, where biological sex has no meaning--where males are females and females are males--where a child in the womb is not really a human being worthy of protection, it should come as no surprise that the clear motivations of a radical Islamist who killed 49 Americans at an Orlando nightclub are called into question.

I know, let's let the killer, Omar Mateen tell us why he murdered over four dozen of his fellow citizens. Here's Mateen's own words from his 911 call:
In the name of Allah the Merciful, the beneficent [said in Arabic]. Praise be to Allah, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of Allah [said in Arabic]. I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings. My name is--I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State. I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may Allah protect him [said in Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.
Later, on three separate occasions, Mateen spoke with police negotiators. The transcripts of those calls have yet to be released, but a summary by the FBI declares,
In these calls, the shooter, who identified himself as an Islamic soldier, told the crisis negotiator that he was the person who pledged his allegiance to [omitted], and told the negotiator to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq and that is why he was “out here right now.”
During the Orlando massacre, Mateen posted the following on Facebook:
"I pledge my alliance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi...may Allah accept me," Mateen wrote in one post. "The real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west....You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes...now taste the Islamic state vengeance."
In addition to Mateen's own words, we now now know that Mateen's father was a longtime Taliban sympathizer. According to reports, "Mateen attended a mosque with a Florida man who would later become a suicide bomber in Syria. In part because of that connection, the FBI investigated Mateen twice as a possible jihadist threat." 

In other words, we know Mateen's motivations. He killed in the name of Islam. Perhaps there were other mitigating factors (there's evidence Mateen was involved in the homosexual lifestyle) in Mateen's massacre, but to ignore the clear role of Islam is dangerous, and the height of foolishness.

UPDATE: Several news outlets, along with columnists not corrupted by liberalism, are now reporting that Omar Mateen was not a homosexual. Some of this information was out several days before I first posted this piece. Admittedly, and tellingly, I had not heard this information. It's no surprise that the mainstream media would not want to draw too much attention to the facts that contradicted their preferred narrative (that Mateen was a self-loathing homosexual). 

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Thursday, December 31, 2015

National Defense Headline Archives (2015)

For the most part, the articles/columns linked below appear in chronological order, beginning with the earliest. 

2015: