Dear World,
We felt we needed to say something while saying something is still allowed.
We know many of you have lived under malevolent, unhinged Dictators before, but this is new for us. For its history our nation has been led by men who, despite their varying flaws and deficiencies, some of which were quite disturbing—were by and large, normal human beings. Whatever darkness in them, they had at the very least, a baseline of humanity and decency that more often than not insured rational behavior.
This man is not normal.
He is unstable, malignant, devoid of integrity—and he does not speak for us.
Please understand that nearly three million more people voted for his opponent Hillary Clinton than for him. (Yes, we realize this is completely screwed-up). Millions more voted for other candidates, and sadly nearly 90 million of our people did not vote at all. The point is, the vast majority of Americans are not with him. He does not speak for us. His America is not our America.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve watched long erected pillars of our Republic bulldozed in the stroke of a madman’s pen. We’ve seen the very hallmarks of who we are as a nation tossed in the garbage; the celebration of diverse coexistence, the open welcome to the oppressed, the guarantee of unalienable rights for every person, the same access to health and opportunity and safety afforded to everyone, the freedom to speak without censor or restraint. At this moment these are all in great jeopardy.
Things we took for granted in our leadership: things like goodness, wisdom, and basic truthfulness are no longer in play, and as things are eroding quickly we wanted to let you know that we’re sorry.
We’re sorry that our apathy and laziness have yielded such a reckless, impulsive, small man to steward this nation.
We’re sorry for the jagged, bitter ugliness that is characterizing us in these moments.
We’re sorry to those suffering greatly, who have braved such peril to seek refuge here and who’ve now been turned away based on the faith they profess.
We’re sorry to our Mexican neighbors who’ve been fashioned into convenient villains for erecting a grandiose, wasteful display of false protection that we do not want.
We’re sorry to Muslims everywhere who’ve been used as pawns to generate irrational fear among those already susceptible to bigotry and discrimination.
We’re sorry to the leaders of the world, who instead of being met by level-headed, measured, intelligent dialogue, are now greeted with the social media rantings of a furious child.
We’re sorry to those who now experience the Christian faith as a racist, Nationalistic bully pulpit wielded with malice toward the very diverse Humanity Jesus lived and died for.
We’re sorry to people everywhere whose lives are made more tenuous, more violent, less safe, less secure than it has been before.
We want you to know that this is not who we are. It may be who this man is. It may be who those sharing power with him are. It may even be the tens of millions who originally voted for him (though that support is vanishing quickly among those who not among the religious zealots and extremists).
But this is not America. It is not the steady, strong beacon of freedom that it was intended to be. It is not the America our people have fought and died for. It is not the one first formed in the crucible of oppression and cast into the words of our ever-disregarded Constitution.
This is not our America. Our America affirms the inherent, priceless beauty of every human being. Our America declares that no person is ascribed less value because of their skin color, religion, gender, financial means, sexual orientation, nation of origin, or any other variable. Our America is home for those seeking hope and joy and rest.
And we are going to fight for this America. Through political channels and through grassroots activism, through the use of our Press and of our personal voices, we’re going to expose this man’s incompetence, call out his heart sickness, and condemn every violent, reckless, vicious act when it does not reflect our hearts and our will. Please do your best to disregard anything that comes from his mouth or those loudly and continually parroting his propaganda. They have proven themselves mortally allergic to the truth.
And we hope that in whatever way you can, that you will stand with us. We know that we have made this mess ourselves. We understand that you have your own problems to contend with, some far more urgent and pressing than this, but we believe that we are a single community; that we are tethered together in our Humanity, that we are in real-time crafting the life our children and their children will inherit.
Dear World, we’re sorry and we hope you’ll endure these days with us.
With Despair and Hope in equal measure, in Peace and Unity with you,
The American Majority
Yes.
The more time passes by, I begin to wonder if the world of ‘Star Wars’ isn’t more fact than fiction….the President is beginning to resemble the Emperor Palpatine…
Bannon has gone ON RECORD as admiring the power of Dick Cheney, Darth Vadar, and Satan.
We must really amp up our power of Bernie Sanders, Luke Skywalker, and God / The Highest Good of All!
Love this comment!
Ironically, even Dick Cheney isn’t happy. He just said the Muslim Ban is against everything we stand for as Americans.
You know when even Dick Cheney doesn’t agree with you you’re in the lowest circle of Hell.
Danté would agree.
Thank you!!!rogue one walk with God
Danté would agree.
Winston Churchill said, “When your going through Hell……keep going.” So keep going America.
He wrote better English than that. If you’re (not your) going to quote – quote correctly. YOUR is not YOU’RE
We can extend grace on grammar and typos. There are bigger isdues to contend with.
Right on you go tell how it is and dont be ashamed
No grace should be extended for errors on grammar or typos for someone who writes for a living.
Yes, thank you for that comment
thank you.
really? THAT’S all you have to offer? how enlightening!
Really? Bullying people regarding Grammer? That kind of elitism does not help create allies and build solidarity. Surely you’re “your” better than that.
[grammar]
That’s not elitist – that’s shallow and lacking in depth of character. A true intellectual wouldn’t have time or inclination for such trivialities.
Focus on the meaning behind the letter, rather than the grammar Felicity Leith-Ross. Read The Color Purple. Then you’ll get it.
Don’t be petty
You probably know all too well that spellcheck can be a pain in the ass. So, lighten up, the message remains the same if you “read” it.
Quit correcting people. Are you perfect?
Yeah, yuge, bigly, and unpresidented are better English.
No time to be the grammar police…..Winston and God wouldn’t mind.More important things to tend to,that is what they would be interested in.
Let’s hope that’s not optimism speaking.
Best comment I have read in a long long time…
Since has a “Muslim Ban” been put in place? There is a temporary hold on people coming in from a few countries until they can DE properly vetted. Obama did the same for six months and nobody seemed to complain.
Exactly!
All Obama did was halt paperwork. Trump ‘detained’ legal immigrants, and banned ALL refugees for 3 months. Big difference.
True regarding President Obama and halting paperwork. Real facts speaks volumns than altered facts!
He banned a handful of countries for 3 months. 90 days. Not the entire world. The people he’s blocking from coming here, ya know the bad guys, yea they hate us. If it was the other way around they wouldn’t piss on u if you were on fire. Does no one get that?! There NO patriotism anymore. If you hate it go over there and help them. And see how far you get.
That is right, also Carter did the same in 1979. Nobody complained or made a fuss when Obama did it. As always, the media and those narrow minded people are never satisfied. I’m all with you Mr President !
im with TRUMP no one fussed about it
if you are with Trump,you are blind
YAY Trump! My president! But this letter is not from me…
No, this letter is not from you. The person who wrote his letter is not afraid to say his name…not like you!!
Ligia,
I agree with you; The left-liberal “slip” is really showing its—-. The vast majority of Americans did not vote for Billary Clinton. Research by the Pew Insitute recently has shown that in some large cities there were many more votes for Clinton than registered voters.
That’s utter bullshit, but you shitlick stormtroopers will do and say anything to defend the narccisist-in-chief, because you’ve tied your tiny, fragile egos up with his.
Ahh the true intelligentsia of the left gutter snipes.
Living the dream,aren’t you? Everyone else is wrong ,and you and your beloved guy in power are always right.Perhaps you could read the above comments for some insight as to the differences with the presidents you mention.
Carter placed a ban specifically to leverage release of hostages. There is a HUGE difference between his actions and this situation. IMHO the current Executive Order was a deliberate act of malicious intent in order to cause chaos. In the meantime while we were distracted, Mr. Bannon was appointed to the NSC. The POTUS and his ‘team’ are deliberately using “divide and conquer” tactics, and they know that people have a short attention span. If you don’t think YOUR freedom is next, think again.
Oh Lordy…Houston, we have a problem!
No, Obama did not do the same thing. Obama banned access from 1 country as part of sanctions against that country. Not the same at all.
Dear Rob in AK:
President Obama was the Deporter in Chief. No President ever deported more people than Obama. He was attacked by the political right as lax on immigrants NOT to ‘protect’ the state, but to shift immigration politics still more rightward.
Blessings!
What Donald Trump is doing (2017)
Ban entry to the US for people born in seven majority Muslim countries – Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – including holders of legal green cards and visas – for 90 days
• Suspending the Syrian refugee plan indefinitely
• Suspending entire refugee plan for 120 days
• Bans entry to the US for dual-nationality passport holders – meaning citizens of the above countries who also hold, for example, a British passport, are also banned for 90 days.
• Prioritize Christian refugees over Muslims
• Capped refugee total to 50,000
• Did it out of the blue
Trump came up with his Muslim ban following the Orlando nightclub shooting, an attack committed not by refugees or migrants, but by a US citizen who was born in New York.
• Of all the fatal terror attacks carried out on US soil since 9/11, exactly zero have been committed by immigrants from the seven majority Muslim countries targeted by the ban
What Barack Obama did (2011)
• Paused approvals of refugee applications from Iraq for a period of six months after two Iraqi al-Qaeda terrorists were discovered living as refugees in Kentucky.
What he didn’t do
• Base it on religion
Obama’s order – which was done with very little fanfare – selected Iraqi nationals based on geography and a specific event, not religion.
• Do it out of the blue
It was done in response to a specific event, and to allow FBI agents enough to gather fingerprints from captured roadside bombs, which they used to toughen their refugee screening process
What Jimmy Carter did (1979)
• Placed sanctions on Iran after they held 52 American diplomat’s hostages for 444 days
The sanctions included a block on all future visas issued to Iranian citizens
What he didn’t do
• Base it on religion
The block was targeted at Iranian nationals, not Muslims
• Do it out of the blue
Carter’s sanctions were the culmination of a long-running escalation of tensions between the US and Iran.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You are spot on!
Invaluable all this research you did for us, thanks
If I want to see a horror movie, it will cost far less than what I am paying in taxes. I am so angry that my tax money will support these idiots and their malevalent corporate agenda.
Every Muslim thinks it’s a Muslim ban. Every commenter over at Breitbart thinks it’s a Muslim ban. Rudy Gilliani thinks it’s a Muslim Ban. Steve Bannon thinks it’s a Muslim ban. Candidate Trump promised it would be a Muslim ban. I’m inclined to agree with them all.
Rob – If you look it up, you will see the lie being told about Obama and his not letting Muslims in to America. There was a discovery about a couple men from Iraq who managed to enter in 2009 and were plotting terrorist activities. They were watched until 2011 to see how many were in their cell. No other Iraqis were let in until that was cleared up.
Why are the Republicans blaming Trump? I think “Dirty Donald” needs to find someone to point to because of his ignorant signing of poorly written bills which will come back to bite him in the fat butt.
I said “Why are the Republicans blaming Trump”. I meant to say Obama. Sorry.
Wasn’t the same in any way, shape, or form. Do your homework. Then tell your ridiculously power-starved, hateful President Trump to, as well. Even as a Constitutional scholar and professor President Obama did before he (and his equally intelligent and well-prepared team) implemented any such plan.
The existing vetting process was already more than adequate.
Obama did not detain anyone. He placed a temporary ban on new visas but did not revoke the ones in existence. Nor did he deny green card holders entry. If you get stoped by a policeman who asked for your license and he detains you until YOU prove it is valid then you might understand the difference.
Would it appease you hair splitters to call it temporary Muslim ban?
You might be referring to two Iraqi immigrants who were connected with IEDs in Iraq. It took 6 month to finish checking other Iraqis. What is different, is this was a response to a specific incident. Do you think it unreasonable?
Bud it was ok for Obama to do it for 6 months
Dear Anonymous:
Yet Obama was ‘weak’ on immigration…
Blessings!
Lie. No comparison.
Fact check: Measures were taken to ensure the background processing was as thorough as possible under the Obama Administration, given the terrorist threats, which slowed down the process. 6 months was the new “average” time that it took to complete legitimate clearance.
Cheney is a Republican, doesn’t that upset ???? your panty wads?
Good to know that he’s got semblance of a conscience. He still can’t go to Europe though; he’ll be detained and charged with war crimes.
Please do not spread incorrect information. Cheney did not say that recently. He said that in 2015.
Awesome & True!
I’m truly sorry to say it, but this new America is America.
We chose our fate. The brainwashing is complete.
I am afraid the brain washing is just starting. With Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary and her relationship to Neurocore a “Brain Performance Center” the possibilities are endless.
They just have to get rid of those awful unions along with those overpaid over educated teachers. Next after all schools are “for profit” they can easily afford to lower the pay enough to hire anyone who can follow a script.
We could also get rid of all abortions by convincing, at an early age, the sex is not meant for pleasure only for procreation. The pleasure part will be only for the rich and powerful along with free will.
See endless – because I don’t have much of a creative mind.
Try “Using a Damn Contraceptive” and the good part of Sex is all yours! And Abortion, there would be None, if people took “Responsibily And Actively Protected Themselves”…..Unless you are Rich….That you can Afford the Unmeasureable Cost of Raising These Children!! Also, these Refugees don’t just have a couple of children wanting to come over and Ruin the Fabric of What Healthcare we do have….But they Have a Multitude of Children, which Begs the Question “have they Not Discovered Birth Control Already”?!?! Just my thoughts, as you all seem to have your own.
Turns out it was never easy for me to get pregnant. Each child was years in the making. I am not a refugee but I am the granddaughter of three immigrants. I don’t quite understand your response to me post. But, it is all good. I don’t understand a lot of what is going on.
Well said.
Diane, you mean like the Catholics?
This comment about using protection is RIDICULOUS! With my first child I was on a b.c. pill AND we used condoms and STILL had my daughter.
I have a friend who became pregnant the first time while using a condom and spermicidal foam. She became pregnant the second time while on “the pill”. She became pregnant the third time with an IUD in place.
I guess your daughter was meant to be born! What a blessing. BTW I hope she’s not reading your post about how much you didn’t want her.
you really know how to twist someone’s words around – that stupidity on your part really brings out the “judge ” in you. Now go to your bible and learn that part about “judge not lest ye be also judged”. I’m sure she loves her children- she gave birth to them.
who are you Mary? And where did you learn such a warped method of interpreting a statement?
Oh please! My mother didn’t plan on me (62 years ago) and I’ve survived just fine. My little ego did well enough, and my mom did the best job she could to raise me. You’re confusing planning with wanting, and they aren’t the same thing, so don’t you dare condemn Patricia. Since the anti choice people don’t want contraception to be included as routine healthcare for women, that leaves women boxed in very nicely, doesn’t it? No, you can’t have birth control, no , you can’t have abortion, and no, we won’t help you feed, clothe, and educate your children, when the person who couldn’t keep his pants zipped can’t be bothered.
I agree with your words Debra. Thank you
If you’re going to call us “anti choice” I think it’s only fair your kind be called “baby killers.”
Not all are opposed to the immorality of contraception, however.
It would NOT be fair to call them “baby killers” as they are not killing babies. They are killing blastocysts or fetuses, but “blastocyst killer” doesn’t have the same emotional impact does it? So let’s just keep knowingly using a lie . I believe there might be a verse or two in the Bible about the appropriateness of lying, but we can comfortably ignore that because it doesn’t suit our purposes.
When my wife visited our doctors when pregnant the nurse or doctors never said, “How’s that blastocyst doing?” “Or is your fetus kicking you?”
It was always “baby.”
BTW, when does an abortion kill a “blastocyst”? By the time someone aborts it’s a least an embryo with a beating heart, brain waves, hands and feet, etc. etc.
When pregnant Mary met pregnant Elizabeth, the latter’s “babe” leapt in her womb. Did Elizabeth tell a lie for the sake of “emotional impact”?
If someone kills a born baby, do we say he killed a “neonate”? That would be the correct term as is embryo or fetus. These are all phases of human development. The fetus is no less a person than the neonate for simply being in a different location.
I think it’s the abortion promoters who are playing the word games.
“Baby” is an acceptable term that we all use when speaking to a pregnant woman, unless that “baby” happens to be inconvenient. I suppose then we become scientific and refer to her embryo, fetus, or unwanted tissue mass.
Maybe saying “embryo killer” or a “fetus killer” sound reasonable to you, but to me they are just as horrific as “baby killer” because I know it means unjust taking the life of a human person. Those words don’t cover up the evil deed, but maybe they do help for some who don’t want to face the Truth.
You cannot justify saving a fetus if you believe in sending folks off to war when they turn 18. You cannot justify saving ANY fetus if you believe in war. You also can’t justify saving a fetus that isn’t yet a person who can live and breathe on its own- because a fetus ISN’T A PERSON until it can live and breathe without your help- all on its own. We live in an age when many preemies live- but they all use to die- and where children with mental and physical birth defects live- when they all used to die too. All sex not only does not lead to pregnancy- all sex should never lead to pregnancy- because there’s no where to put that many people. Women- and men- who have sex- should take every precaution to not get pregnant if they don’t want to be pregnant. I vote for incredible sex education and preventative pregnancy measures for all- and I vote against religion being the determining factor.
Replying to J. Bruce, I agree with your ideas. I particularly agree with not letting religion have the deciding factor. A two thousand-year-old book can guide our decision making through the application of ethics and principles, but it cannot directly speak to the way things are now. When the command was given to go forth and multiply, and when every child born was needed to secure the continuation of the tribe, those rules about fertility were needed. Now that we have overrun the earth and it is struggling to sustain us, we need a whole lot less multiplying.
Flush
You ate allowed to have your own thoughts, it’s not us trying to decimate the 1st Amendment. B..u..t when the facts you use to verbalize those thoughts are false, you lose the the right for anyone to give 2 s#%ts what your thoughts are. Please cite your source that Refugee Families bring Multitudes of Children. I can’t seem to find anything that backs up your “thoughts” .
Auto correct must be hungry. That would be are not ate.
There is no such thing as 100% effective birth control outside of a surgery or celibacy. My mother had six kids or, as she put it, one for each method of birth control except the pill. She couldn’t take that because of a family history of strokes. However… my sister got pregnant on the pill.
Many of them *had* a multitude of children.
Wow – simple answers to complex problems. We’re all befuddled and stunned that we haven’t solved every world problem by simply asking you first. Foolproof! And all those exclamation points and question marks – I’m convinced. ***throwing all my worthless degrees and original thoughts away***
oh that made me smile! Thank you!
I find the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of the left sadly unsurprising. “Common Core” is simply a mechanism to brainwash our children into believing political correctness is more important than common sense. Outside of the leftist elite bubbles of New York and California, Trump won overwhelmingly. That’s because most Americans ( from both major political parties) were sick of watching their tax dollars squandered on Obama paying off his cronies under the guise of “shovel ready jobs” — none of which materialized, but almost a trillion dollars disappeared with absolutely nothing to show for it in terms of economic benefit or even marginal improvement in the average American’s life. American foreign policy during the Obama administration has resulted in the Middle East becoming a dumpster fire, and a very freshly emboldened radically violent and murderous Islamic terrorist state. Domestic policy under Obama’s term in office has resulted in a more dangerous country (record violent crime in his own adopted home town), the highest debt in history, a hostile environment for American business and a healthcare system that’s gone from the best in the world to an absolute mess in which both premiums and co-pays have dramatically increased. Our military is the weakest it’s been since before World War II, and we are being routinely challenged by third world countries who would never have had the temerity to do so prior to Obama taking office. The radical left, aided by a compliant and equally if not more dishonest media, routinely mischaracterizes practically everything Trump says. If they can’t find a Trump statement or policy to mischaracterize, they’ll simply make something up, e.g., the bust of MLK being removed from the Oval Office — never happened. So, Dear Misinformed, Dishonest and Butt-hurt Libtard, don’t presume to represent America. Your incessant insults and lack of respect for the office of President of the United States of America are tiresome, cliche and boringly predictable. Instead of being a petty and sore loser, try being constructive and contributing to the welfare of others through hard work and charitable altruism. Have a look at the huge delta in charitable contribution between Middle America (over 4% of gross income on average) and the elitist East and West coasts (less than one half of one percent). This should help you pop your head out of your backside, quit whining like an injured puppy and do something constructive to help our country achieve the safety, prosperity, realization of the tremendous potential of every citizen and global respect it deserves.
“a healthcare system that’s gone from the best in the world”
*stares at him*
America’s healthcare system has never been the best in the world, or if not ‘never,’ certainly not anywhere like as recently as 8 years ago. What alternative universe are you in? I could name 10 countries without pausing to think where healthcare is better than in the US.
The sad true 🙁
Yep. I gave up and moved to France. Even Marine Le Pen can’t be as bad as this fool.
Yes, Tracy Sheppard, he did say that. I couldn’t believe it so I looked it up. And now he sits on the National Security Council. Frightening.
Side by side with Michael Flynn – another repeater of conspiracy theories. Doubly frightening!!!!!
Don’t forget the “moderate” Jeff Sessions!
He has actually gone on record to say that he is WORSE than Satan but that it wouldn’t hurt for the American people to FEAR their government and he likes to be feared.. Now what kind of crap is that? No people should have to fear their government ever! With these clowns in the house it is a fear to wake up every day and wonder what he is going to take away or ban today… what a shame and embarrassment he and his crew of ass hats have brought on our country.
Dear Martha Martinez:
Ironically, the right has been saying for years that it fears the government.
Blessings!
Amen
Wonderfully said Tracy!
In GOD the believers shall trust.
This is the end times…Pastors no longer follow the bible and have created their own path.
BS.jana
BS.
Not necessarily.
Thank you! I am ashamed of the madman in the WH who is not making America great, but rather he is destroying it. He is Mussolini reincarnate. He must be removed. He is insane. He is on the wrong side of history. He has no decency. He is shameful.
And Obama was okay? A real patriot? Someone to really rely on?
Bridgwater. You have elected an idiot.
Cry baby loser so is everyone a idiot that not a cry baby like you I’m pretty sure you believe that news flash your a idiot
…says the idiot that does not know how to spell “you’re” and when to use “an.”
You need to learn how to spell and use proper sentence structure before your comments can be taken seriously. Then again, you DO reflect the fan base of trump.
You need to learn how to spell and use proper sentence structure before your comments can be taken seriously. Then again, you DO reflect the fan base of trump.
Yes.
Relevance?
Did anyone say anything about Former President Obama? He is not in office now, let it go. Geez.
No doubt, but to answer his question…yes, Obama was good and decent. He cared about all people, not just a select few. Trump is a train wreck.
BS ,You are truly stupid!
agreed.
obama was still blaming Bush his last few months in office. So I think we can mention obama a week after he has left office.
One word for you. Racist
One word for you. Racist
Because someone doesn’t agree with you then you call them a RACIST. How dare you. If we are all fighting to have freedom of speech then you MUST allow everyone to have their opinion.
Yes he was the greatest president your country ever had in the eyes of the rest of the world. It’s too bad his own country can’t see it. Good luck with this baphoon. America is now a laughing stock to the world.
Are you speaking for me? Would you please ask me. President Trump is my president. If you knew your history you would know he won the election fair and square, from compaigning. This is my 15th election. Some are good and some are bad, but the good old positive Americans make it without any fanfare, foul language , obscenities. Just good old positive thinking and belief in the best country ever????????
America has never had a known criminal elected. America has never had a rapist/molester in the White House. America has had some men who lacked moral judgement Kennedy, Clinton, Eisenhower for a few who all had less then steller morals. However, none of them bought their way out of rape charges, none of them had phony charities for the their own gain. How does being positive change any of these acts to make this man fit to be this nations president? trumps own people are bailing on him, and those that are still hanging on are the worst of what our country is not about. I’m not a cry baby. I am an American, and I am a strong American, and there are Millions like me who are going to be really loud until he and his crew are put down. My family fought in all the wars this country has ever had and I will do the same. I wont need to use a gun to fight this one, Our country is not going to be destroyed by this sick degenerate and his thugs. TRUMP IS NOT MY PRESIDENT. He is a THUG.
Say it loud and say it proud, my friend! God bless your family for its’ service and sacrifice. Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, and I truly wish more people would research that.
Yes actually, Obama was a pretty good president, faced with a congress like NO other president has had to face. He made mistakes, but so does everyone. But Congress’s mission for the entire 8 years Obama was in office was to stop anything at all from happening. Despite the fact that America VOTED for Obama and his goals, TWICE.
This was meant for the commenter below.
Oh , How wrong you all are about OBAMA … https://youtu.be/oeDZIyGkGNM
Actually, Hillary won the popular vote the last election against Obama, and he won by electoral college, but don’t let facts interfere with your imagination. Maybe if Dems had put up someone besides a corrupt political hack DT wouldn’t have won…Then again, after 8 years off scandal, corruption, and crisis we were sick to death of Dems.
At no point was Obama running against Hillary for the electoral college vote. He was against McCain first and then Romney. Obama won the popular vote and the electoral college both times.
Janine said, “But Congress’s mission for the entire 8 years Obama was in office…” The facts, Obama had the majority in both the House and the Senate for the first 2 years. Are you saying that his own party was stopping him for those first 2 years?
Yes, he was
Indeed he was.
Yes.
Yes.
He was sane, intelligent, moral, articulate, cool in the face of adversity, thick-skinned, etc. Of course, he was not perfect, but he had the best interests of this country at heart. Trump has none of these qualities. He is an embarrassment for my country. I am ashamed that he is our president. God help us.
Something that I find significant is that children loved him. Children are very aware of who is good and who is bad.
One thing that I am going to miss a lot is just what a fine comedian Mr. Obama is.
Yes. Absolutely. Rational. Christian. Intelligent. Curious. Knowledgeable.
Obama is not president any more. Get off the “what he did or didn’t do” band wagon and concentrate on what the anti-Christ in the WH is doing to this country along with all his little minions. The man is evil. And he needs to be stopped.
I admired and still do admire President Obama. I do not recognize that bloviating buffoon in the WH as my president. We need to get him AND Pence AND Bannon AND the GOP obstructors and, unfortunately, some Dems with a sad lack of backbone out of there and rebuild a decent government. We HAVE to.
That’s an understatement!
Stop comparing one bad situation with another to justify it, even to your self. Obama may have not been as great a POTUS as the rest of the world (me included) saw him. That’s not the point. Deal with what’s in front of you now, not what bothered you in the past. The past is done, you can only learn from it not change it.
You are morally bankrupt fool! If you did not know, Obama isn’t the President. The fascist you elected signed the executive order that the Nazis Bannon wrote. You’re not an American . You are a Traitor!
Yes!
Well that sounded like something my third grader would say. You must be a trump supporter.
YES! YES! and YES! I have never been so proud of a president. And I have lived through a lot of them. I would have voted Obama in again if given the chance. Trump is nothing but an embarrassment to me and to the majority in our country.
If your so darn pissed off, then maybe go back to the country you came from! I’m sure that Trump won’t mind as i will save him across the board in having to take care of you and “Other’s On Here That Are Embarrassed and Shaken”, that someone Finally is going to put a stop “To Freeloaders” that (Refuse to Fight For their Own Damn Country)! But just wanting to Run to Safety…Really!?!? The Lord “Never said that you would Live in Safety” as I recall, the Bible does make a mention or “Several” to the fact that Humanity will Face Turmoil and Tribulation’s, that you Will have to Endure and Fight Against the Forces of Evil! Hello….they are Not Even Trying to Fight to Save their Own Government, Their Homes, Their Families etc etc etc. It’s downright Disghusting to Run to another Country, to Enslave them to Comp to your every need….when you haven’t in any sense (Joined their own Army, to fight against “Their Own Evil that’s been Thrust Upon Them”)? If they are Not Prepared to Fight For Their Own Country and Freedom’s.. they damn well “Will Not Fight” for Some of you American’s that are in Adoration of them now. Are you Blind? Or are you just choosing to be “Ambivolent”? It begs the Question? Are you willing to Die for these People? And if so, are you willing to Let “Your Families Die for These Syrian Refugees”? If you are, then may I suggest that you “Go With these Refugees, Back to their Country”…and Fight For Them, as they Apparently Don’t Know How or Simply Put – Refuse To!
Diane – from that post I’m concerned for your mental wellbeing, RUOK?
Thank you Diane, Great Post!!!
Wow. “Alternative Grammar”.
Yes he is. Very much so.
Yes!!
Yes. Yes he was.
Yes! Compared with all the right-wing Breitbart lying nutters
Oh Helen, How wrong you are… https://youtu.be/oeDZIyGkGNM
you idiot,
Relatively speaking – when one compares Obama’s Administration to the Trump Regime: Obama is a Saint – Trump is the Devil.
They are not talking about Obama here….
Yes, Obama is someone I trust. Trump supporters who say we did not complain when Obama was elected. Because most people trusted him. Very few trust Trump for good reason.
ahhhhh good point!!! Judy !
And Obama was okay? A real patriot? Someone to really rely on?
100% YES HE DEFINITELY WAS
You need to read his record. Highest debt in the history of America, the only president to be at war EVERYDAY of his Presidency even though he campaigned on getting our troops out, has more soldiers in Afghanistan than we he entered office, has dropped (or ordered) bombs at the rate of 72 a day in 2016. He has deported more than 2.000.000 people under his term, He put into effect a ban saying all citizens coming from Iraq could not enter the US under the refugee status. He is so slick and revered in the press and the country that people won’t see his big catastrophes while in office. He can do no wrong. Don’t speak for me. I am not apologizing to the world for our current President. OR past Presidents. Who do you think you are that you can write a letter to the world claiming that America is so sorry for President Trump. You are and many others are but a huge populous of this country believes that he is just what we need to get this country moving forward. His numbers are going up and will continue to go up. He is not traditional, can be very annoying, rude, crass, and other things, but he is a brilliant business man and is shaking up this dormant government. Do not speak for me. You have no right!
You really need to check your facts….I mean really.
Check these facts >>> https://youtu.be/oeDZIyGkGNM
Fact checking is clearly not your strong suit, but you do a great job of drinking the Kool Aid. And if you think that every single thing that DT has done so far is rational, intelligent and sane, you are clearly in need of a reality check. Try, just try, to open your eyes for 5 minutes.
Good for you Tingers! I for 1 would gladly welcome Trump to take over for this Idiot Magazine Fool we have for PM here in Canada. I think that we must have more of a Young Populous here Than Older Ones, this nut seems to Appeal to these teeny boppers….it’s Atroshious! Now he’s looking to bury Canada in even More Debt. Anyways I like the fact that you are speaking up, as many I’ve seen on here are just Bellyaching the board to death. Diane 🙂
Tingers you voice your opinions well however I’m interested, do you have any compelling evidence when you claim his numbers are going up?
In a single word … yes!
Dear, this is not about former President Obama. Warning: Reptilian brains at work!
Didn’t like the replies when this was first asked? Yes, President Obama was absolutely a real patriot, and yes, someone we could rely on. He was intelligent, decent, and a good man who tried to do the best for all Americans.
Not only ok, a real patriot, and someone to rely on, he is going down in the history books as one of the very best Presidents this country has ever known.
His eulogy at Mother Emmanuel is going to be rated with one fo the best speeches given by a President.
He didn’t do everything right, but then, he is only human. Unlike Trump, Obama is a fundamentally good person.
The only people who dislike Obama are bigoted, racist white supremacists.
you are not seeing the bigger picture. Surely you know that ‘it is impossible to make a great Omelette without breaking a few eggs’. Give the guy a chance to prove himself . http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/you-can-t-make-an-omelette-without-breaking-eggs
If his entire life to date hasn’t proven to you that he is an abuser, authortarian, bigot, fascist, gynophobe, homophobe, isolationist, misogynist, racist, rapist, sexual assaulter and molester of children, transgenderphobic, white supremacist xenophobe, then every action he has taken since the election, every Cabinet nominee, his petty cruelty, his failure to respect and understand the Constitution proves exactly what he is: someone who has embraced evil and those who voted for him also embraced evil.
You are absolutely correct about the Predator in Chief!
Move to Cuba, you imbecile. Trump won because real Americans are sick of libtards like you — people who make ridiculous specious assertions unsubstantiated and completely unsupported by facts. If you’re so convinced our President is evil, move to a country more aligned with your values (or lack thereof). The rest of us — real American patriots who have put ourselves in harm’s way in defense of your right to act like a douchebag — are sick of your spoiled brat, butt hurt, sore loser whining, bitching, moaning and complaining. So man up and either shut your pie hole or get the hell out of our country.
Dear Marine Gunner- I was born here. In SLC UT in 1953. That makes this country- MY COUNTRY. Am I a progressive liberal. Yes I am. I have a brain that I know how to use and my experience suggests we’re all connected. You- however- are a sad little person who thinks everyone is out to get you. I just feel sorry for all of you- who are about to get screwed in ways you can’t even imagine by the very moron you voted for. I guess you needed a president daddy. Someone to tie your bootlaces for you while he screws you blind. Enjoy! This country is mine- TOO- and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. And I’m GAY. And you lose.
Can you even speak properly?
My comment was put in the wrong place. Ignore please.
True
Dear JohnMark:
According to Hebrew 1:2, we’ve been in the last days for the last 2000 years.
Blessings!
or Sauron from The Lord of the Rings…
To the author of this article: Please do not claim to speak for all Americans, because you don’t!! At least half of those that took the time to vote, do not agree with you! And according to the US electoral college by which this country chooses it’s pick for our leader in chief, our president, Donald Trump clearly and overwhelmingly won our Presidental Election!! Your opinion is your opinion, but DO NOT claim to speak for all Americans because that, sir, is an outright lie. You are just following in the steps of today’s fake and corrupt mainstream news!!
As he said, he speaks for the majority of Americans. If you choose to count yourself in the minority that supports these violations against our nation and our humanity…well, that’s up to you. The rest of will ensure that the world knows that the majority of the citizens of this country see these moral offenses for what their are.
How nice it must be for you to live a life unscathed by the ravages of intellect, reason and fact. No one cares what you think, because you’ve made it so obvious you don’t. Repetition of far left libtard talking points is not an effective or worthy argument. That’s why the real majority of Americans voted to abandon the failed policies of the last few decades, and opted to put a non-politician and very successful businessman in charge — along with conservative majorities in both the House and Senate. Your ridiculous (yes, subject to ridicule) assertion regarding “the majority of Americans” doesn’t explain that reality, or the fact that Trump won the Electoral College by an extremely wide margin. The truth is the “majority” to which you refer lives in either New York or California — both places being concentrated bastions of far left wing lunacy and stupidity, and forthwith should be referred to as “Dumbfukistan”. Many of us in the true majority will support your secession from the U.S.
The author of this article definitely speaks for me!
ditto ???? Everyone needs to CHILL. Big time. Please ????
Steve Bannon recently referred to himself as a “Darth Vader” , makes sense thus to infer that D.J. Trump is Emperor Palpatine !
Bannon is no Vader and Palpatine was incredibly intelligent you are insulting the Sith by comparing these asshats to them..the Sith are skilled warriors with high intellect u r giving these bozos waaaaaaay too much credit
I guess you have forgotten that the Dark Side of the Force is evil.
Anyone who admires Satan, as does Bannon, has embraced evil.
less than 2 weeks – look at the mess
Too wordy for words. I disagree with much that you said. Please do not assume you are speaking for the majority. Assumptions like yours got Trump elected. Arrogance like yours got Trump elected, lying and backstabbing, sleezy politics by Hillary ‘s camp got trump elected. Laziness and ignorance got him elected, you forgot about the silent majority, who did not get polled, who were ignored, who were called DEPLORABLES, and still are called racist, stupid, unecducated etc. They are tired of being denigrated. If you and people who speak so eloquently about The poor downtrodden refugees, and Muslims and other non Americans, yet speak with hatred toward Trump and his followers you will sow more hatred and inspire more division. Your self righteous attitude is not helpful or admirable.
I don’t hate you I just think you made a terrible mistake !
Very well said! But sadly, these people that are so filled with hate will not receive or understand the truth anymore…
So true
So unbelievable
So disgusting
Why how what
DO WE Do
Yet with all this rhetoric, all the time you as a people have allowed guns to be bought and used against your own people, killing innocent young lives, I wonder how you can be so judgemental of your new president. Perhaps he will be as bad as some of laws (guns) or perhaps he will surprise you all and be a good man.
Give him a chance and stop being so dogmatic and judgemental.
Considering the example of his entire life, Lyn kincaid, how can you even remotely think he will suddenly become a good man? Yes, people can repent and God will forgive them, but what evidence do you have that this man would ever ask forgiveness when he is on record as saying he would ever ask for it as he has done nothing that needs to be forgiven? Evidently, he believes about the 10 Commandments as he does about the law, it doesn’t apply to him.
And are you really unaware how vigorously progressives have campaigned for gun control laws in the USA? But politicians who owe allegiance to the NRA have opposed this.
Does that make Bannon Darth Vader?
Do you believe Main Stream Media ? It is a pure propaganda machine. You have been owned.
Get a real LIFE!
He’s our president!
It’s people like you all making matters worse!!!
Let the man govern!!!
He won the “presidency”!!!
Now act like upstanding individuals and suck it up!!!
Did you see people act like a bunch of uncaged animals roaming the streets and burning cars and busting glass windows out of businesses!!!
When other “men” won the
Presidency? HELL NO!!!!
You all need to get to work and do good for this country!
Instead of crying like damned babies!!! Apparently you that are protesting must be independently
Wealthy??? Otherwise how can you afford $$$$$$ to be out of work?
Running the streets boo hooing 😢
Lawgivers or revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are either utopian dreamers or charlatans. Goethe
Beware the charlatans on both sides.
and let this comment not erase the awareness that there is one particular one who is a horror
Amen
Amen to that
When push came to shove Goethe sided with the reactionaries-with those who believed in the divine right of kings, the “natural” superiority of the aristocracy, the use of torture, and the confinement of Jews to ghettos.
Love this. Thank you John for these words to ponder how to get our stop his monstrosity.
Hmm, where’d my comment go? Okay, I’ll type it again. I said:
Don’t worry. The rest of us haven’t yet decided to take the suggestion of getting Canada to build a wall too, and having all the other countries chip in to help build the lid. Though it’s still on the table. 😛
John,I look forward to your post and you speak the truth, it breaks my heart to see those who think he was the best person to lead our country what is wrong with this world ?
I suppose since you have no empathy, your only recourse is to look down on them and see them as stupid and/or evil.
I am a Catholic Prolife and I agree with Pope Francis that building a wall is not Christian, neither is denying a visa to a child who is in danger in Syria or other places. I have lots of empathy…Where is Congress on this? How can you call yourself the Lone Catholic?
There is nothing unChristian about building a wall. My house has walls. There are walls in Washington to protect the President (including when Obama was there). There are walls around the Vatican.
The Pope’s words are often taken out of context and distorted by the Left to make their case and to undermine the Catholic Church.
The Pope’s authority lies in faith and morals. He has no political power and I don’t think he chooses to exercise any.
Are you with the Pope and our Church regarding abortion, contraception, and homosexuality?
People like the Lone Catholic are why I’m not a catholic anymore.
Your religion is your wall. A thin, fragile, transparent wall fabricated from a tissue of lies. A nasty, un-Christ like thing, your wall, built on dogmatic rules that some ancient, privileged self-enlightened fool wrote hundreds of years ago. You live life through your rear-view mirror, totally unaware of the lives you mow down in your reckless disregard for those who don’t agree with you.
Your words, Lone Catholic, are the best recruitment tools for the rising secular world. Please keep speaking them.
Amen, Jerry. From a former RC now happily Episcopalian
It’s very hard to be a Catholic, I’ll grant you that. It takes discipline and self denial. But the rewards are great as well.
I don’t see how anyone could leave the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, behind.
The Eucharist is not necessary it is simply a ritual you do to remind yourself of Jesus, it has no power to do anything.
Everything you practice out of discipline has a reward because of the benefits of habitual response.
We receive the actual Body of Christ in Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. It’s not a symbol or an empty ritual.
You may believe that but I don’t and I doubt that happens at all. My faith is in Jesus alone not rituals and buildings and things.
I am okay you get something out of it but don’t push it on others or make it a requirement … it’s a really iffy thing to make people believe in.
Transubstantiation reminds me of heathen superstitions.
Tell me what the rewards are and be specific.
You might leave the priest giving the sacraments, but God remains in your heart and soul and there’s peace with that and nourishment if you are filling your conscience. If you really know your religion, RC, this is a principle it teaches!!!
You do realize that Lutherans also receive the Eucharist, also, right?
They don’t receive it sacramentally as in Catholicism. Their priests don’t have Apostolic Succession and have no power to consecrate the bread and wine.
Lone Joe Catholic, Clement 1 started official apostolic authority and succession, it didn’t start that way. After that the Roman Catholic church was created out of human imagination and will. Much of what you practice is the doctrines and traditions of men. Yet God continues to bless believers despite organized religion.
therefore be blessed !
Amen again!
that was an amen to Jerry!! That Loner just
slipped in between me and sanity.
Well said, Jerry!
Anti-Catholic bigotry is alive and well, and one form of bigotry embraced by the Left.
I see you are up to your old tricks Joe/benny/Loner
Catholic means liberal, wide broad, eclectic, The original church is catholic not the Catholic church is the original Catholic means ALL believers, meaning the influence of Christ in humanity is broad based, not limited to the man made practise of your religion.
I can’t wait until the day your eyes are fully open, rather than this silly squinting you do,
So, stop with this pretending about what is and is not catholic .
You’re playing word games. You know I mean Catholic as in RCC.
Nope not playing word games. Joanne wrote below,
“Even today VP Pence calls himself an Evangical Catholic.”
He doesn’t mean RC he knows the word catholic means broad based.
In many churches they read the Apostles Creed which states:
“…I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints…
The holy catholic church is the true Christian church of all times and all places including me, a believer, who is not RC.
Your rituals make you RC but not catholic- per say- so you are the one using the word incorrectly.
Oh, please…If you are a white, Catholic male living in America, I have to wonder how much discrimination you’ve endured, Lone. I guess I don’t really know how hard it is for you; probably like a refugee fleeing Syria, ha?
No, it is no where near as prevalent or cruel as being a refugee.
But there always has been a sort of discrimination against the Catholic Church, the Mormons and probably others.
Joe of course likes to blame anything and everything on the left. That doesn’t make it true.
How many Catholic Presidents have there been? How many Mormon Presidents have there been?
As a young child a newly converted Mormon told me that Catholicism was the devil.
When President Kennedy ran for President he barely won because the right was almost hysterical in fear of him bringing the Vatican to rule the United States. He ran as a Democrat and as we know did not quite follow all the Commandments.
Still he was loved by many for the short time we knew him. I remember exactly where I was when we heard of his death – my High School typing class. Teachers were crying the whole school was reeling in shock.
Even today VP Pence calls himself an Evangical Catholic. Who better than a Politician to cover all bases.
I think it is probably a fear of the most powerful and wealthy of churches.
Yet I feel in the minority as I am just as afraid of the power of the people who call themselves the “Religious Right” or Evangelicals.
I was referring to anti-Catholic slurs by online liberals. I didn’t compare that with being a refugee. Of course the effects of such bigotry is very small compared to what a refugee is suffering but it doesn’t make it right, does it?
What anti-catholic slurs ?
and be specific
Sir, Do you know the person of Jesus Christ the Son of God on a Personal level or just what you were taught in the Catholic Church. I dare you seek to get to know Him as your own personal Savior through repentance of your sins and acceptance of the fact that He is Christ, the Lord whom all knees shall bow and every tongue will confess. He is returning again soon. Hope He will find you a believer in His redemptive love. Jesus love you as you are,…Accept, Believe, Confess He is Lord. This is my prayer for you.
I converted to Catholicism at age 40. What I was taught about Christ from the Catholic Church is much deeper than anything I had been previously taught as a Protestant.
Every practicing Catholic accepts Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior.
Thats great you have a deep relationship with Christ, great! But, it sounds the same as every other testimony I have heard from very other believer. What works to get you into a deeper relationship with Christ is the RC however to someone else it’s a Baptist church or a Lutheran church or maybe not going to one particular church but visiting many different churches. What you do is a habit, you need that habit to focus yourself on Jesus. I don’t need it I am a free spirit and Jesus is with me everywhere. I make church wherever I go.
Considering Jesus is a brown skinned man from the middle east I don’t think he’s going to be alowed into the US.
ENB: Christianity is the only set of beliefs that transcends one’s culture.
Well said.
Amen Jerry. It was the White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASP) who marginalized the Catholics; hence, Catholic Schools. Read the history of St. John’s University, New York.
Those issues were not part of the discussion regarding whether she as a Catholic is willing to exclude poeple from coming across the border. Please don’t be one of the countless conservatives who resort to baiting people on other sensitive, personal belief, issues as a way to establish what is and isn’t a Good Catholic, or a Good Christian. That is not for you to pick at or attack individuals over, calling them to task based on your own interpretations and beliefs based in your own faith. EVEN in faith, everyone is different.Judging and separating, calling to task and picking arguments, is just more divisive self-righteousness, where we become more judgmental and separate from each other. It is not YOURS to judge, who’s a better or more “right”, Christian. An yet, it has become a major force of division among people, to attack based on religion…or haven’t you been paying attention to world events, the last few thousand years?? The people who castigate you for being religious, are constantly pointing out how so many divisions and tiny demons of judgment have been created by those who practice faith, as a way to judge and put down others, whether atheist or regligious.
That’s how I can tell if she’s really a Catholic or an impostor. If she’s a real Catholic she will proudly proclaim that she believes what the Church teaches regarding these issues.
I understand other people have other opinions, but Catholics are one on issues regarding faith and morals, and I have had many come at me upbraiding me and claiming to be Catholics, but when it comes to actual Catholic beliefs they waiver or don’t respond.
I expect she will not respond to me, and that I will remain “The Lone Catholic.”
I’d be happy to give up that title when another real and practicing Catholic shows up.
You accuse everyone who thinks differently than you of being an imposter.
Yet Jesus never said those who think differently are imposters did he?
No, he said you will know them by how they treat others.
No I did not say that. If someone claims to be a Catholic but goes against what the Catholic Church teaches, then there is good reason to believe that person is an impostor. I’m determining that by an objective standard and not my own opinions.
It doesn’t make them an imposter rather it makes them a critical thinker of the doctrines made by men, voted by men and led by men.
Just because you swallow a camel doesn’t mean we all have to.
Catholicism is not a cafeteria where one gets to just pick out the desserts.
Nobody HAS to be a Catholic, but those who choose to be, accept it all, or they are not accepting Catholicism.
Such a misplaced metaphor.
Cafeterias are good and having a variety of foods to eat is important so that we get the appropriate nourishment .
btw as I said above catholic means liberal, wide, broad, eclectic, The original church is catholic not the Catholic church is the original. You are misusing the word catholic.
Catholic means ALL believers, meaning the influence of Christ in humanity is broad based, not limited to the man made practise of your religion.
Lone, whyare you so narrow minded? I am also a RC since birth. Religion is personal. Please stop ranting and turning people against us! I do NOT believe every single thing the church preaches. I accept the Eucharist every week IN SPITE OF being divorced and other”sins” I choose not to make public. Our God is forgiving and did not make up these “rules” that you say are excluding. This is not about religion. It is about the incompetence and hatefulness of a president the majority of us did not want. Please remember to separate your newfound religion from the decency and morality of all, not just those who believe as you do. That’s the point of the letter!
You should not be receiving Holy Communion in your state. I have to tell you that as a Catholic. You are also misleading others. Our religion is not one of pick and choose. You need to talk to a good priest.
The lone catholic is alone because he is the one misrepresenting the Catholic church. The way you speak to people about the faith is off base. Every single commenter who is catholic has criticized you.
Don’t go to a priest Dml go to Jesus.
Well said. By the way he keeps saying the left is condemning Catholics, not so, I have been on this earth a long time and the most objectionable things said about Catholics has been said by people TLC is playing in the sandbox with. The Fundies have been really nasty, the favorite among them is that it is a cult not a religion and he may like to believe otherwise but they are still selling that nonsense.
DML,
Well said. By the way he keeps saying the left is condemning Catholics, not so, I have been on this earth a long time and the most objectionable things said about Catholics has been said by people TLC is playing in the sandbox with. The Fundies have been really nasty, the favorite among them is that it is a cult not a religion and he may like to believe otherwise but they are still selling that nonsense.
Wwell said!
‘He has no political power’?! The Vatican is a country and the Pope is the Head of State. Research before making these comments, please.
Look at the context please, instead of being anxious to one-up someone. I was referring to our election.
The Republican congresses is not going try to help! They are going to fulfill their agenda that they have been working on for at least 20 years. That agenda is to take as much as they can get by with from the American people.
Did you know there’s an entire book of the Bible about how awesome building a wall is? Not kidding. You should check it out sometime.
This is the worst error anyone can make.
Using Bible scripture to justify their actions.
In case you are wondering, here’s what the Bible says about welcoming the stranger:
Deuteronomy 10: 19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Matthew 5:43-44 You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’. But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
Matthew 25:40 Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.
Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Acts 10:34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.”
3 John 1:5 Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the friends, even though they are strangers to you; they have testified to your love before the church. You do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ, accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people, so that they may become co-workers with the truth.
Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.
Hebrews 13: 1 Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Colossians 3:11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.
Matthew 25: 35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Romans 12:13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Please explain how anyone who says that they take the Bible literally (or even seriously) can in any way, shape, or form agree with Trump on immigration (or the wall for that matter.)
Feel absolutey free to agree with him – but please don’t pretend to be a Bible-believing Christian while you do. And understand why those of us who are trying hard to following Jesus are extremely upset right now.
Would you let a stranger into your house if you think he has intentions to kill you?
There is nothing unbiblical about proper vetting and keeping out terrorists. And we can still do things to help these people.
I agree!
The problem with that is that 99+% of the Muslim terrorists who have successfully committed terrorist acts on American soil since 9/11 were born in the US or were citizens. Also the 9/11 attackers came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, 2 countries NOT covered by the ban.
They are also countries that Trump has business ties with.
Yep! There you go!
The vatican is swimming in piles of money!
Why are there walls around the the Vatican? That’s not very Christian.
Love this. Thank you.
(I am catholic and georgian-orthodox)
what are you even saying with this?
Hi Charissa just ignore lonely Joe all he does is tatty and put down everything John P has for us and that is a gift from God.Thank you John for all your truth!
Hi Charissa just ignore lonely Joe all he does is try and put down everything John P has for us and that is a gift from God.Thank you John for all your truth!
Arian, The intolerance of the rest, made me nervous to make comment. I was forced to attend baptist which is about 157 down from original church of Jesus. Who is this guy, most people my age have gay relatives, we embrace them. Reminds me of Madonna, suddenly after years of freeeeedom(sic), can understand wanting to be relevant after soooo long. BTW, we geriatrics had beyond magic times….then we came home to all the priests that accepted us with out judgement, magic on steroids ( Thank You Father ) ….all should try it…amazing.
Thank You for giving me cover from my kids & grandkids, and the behavior reminiscent of John’s reference…That group wasn’t fond of a lot don’t take it personally.
God Bless all,
Victoria MD
Victoria, I find it hard to understand what you’re saying here. I’m not even sure whether you’re agreeing or disagreeing with my post, which was joking, but with a serious point. Could you clarify your perspective?
Arian, The intolerance of the rest, made me nervous to make comment. I was forced to attend baptist which is about 157 down from original church of Jesus. Who is this guy, most people my age have gay relatives, we embrace them. Reminds me of Madonna, suddenly after years of freeeeedom(sic), can understand wanting to be relevant after soooo long. BTW, we geriatrics had beyond magic times….then we came home to all the priests that accepted us with out judgement, magic on steroids ( Thank You Father ) ….all should try it…amazing.
Thank You for giving me cover from my kids & grandkids, and the behavior reminiscent of John’s reference…That group wasn’t fond of a lot don’t take it personally.
God Bless all,
Victoria MD
Yay!! A “SUPER DOME” that will protect us from “the weather” aka, climate change!!
So well said. The America I knew and loved was always trying to be that beacon of light to the world.
Lady Liberty seems so alone now.
Those of us in Canada are keeping a weather eye trained southward, watching the atrocities, judging how they will affect Americans, Canadians and the rest of the world. The US does not exist in isolation. There is little we can do directly as non-citizens, but we can sign petitions, we can reflect news that carries the truth, we can emotionally support our friends and relatives in the US, we can boycott any company benefitting from or exploiting the situation, and we can pray.
Thank you for your kind words.
<3
Those of us in Canada are keeping a weather eye trained southward, watching the atrocities,
What “atrocities”? What bloody “atrocities” has President Trump committed in his first week of office? Good Lord! You leftists are a hysterical bunch.
You don’t think that banning Muslims on Holocaust Remembrance Day is atrocious?
I assure you that I am quite sane. Painting concern as hysteria shows the fragility of your argument.
beautifully said!!
When did he “ban Muslims”? And what does that have to do with Holocaust Day? Are you aware that Muslims don’t tend to treat Jews well?
And regardless, saying, “No, you may not come here” hardly qualifies as an “atrocity”. But please, continue your hysteria. It drives all sane people further and further from you.
Denying the same safe harbour your ancestors enjoyed to others based on nothing but fear is an atrocity. I’m pretty sure if it was the US being bombed to smithereens, you’d be looking for a safe place for your family. Everything I believed made the US great is disappearing.
If USA was war torn, would you rather take refuge in Canada, Australia, or England? Or ….would you rather take refuge in Bahrain, Saudi, UA Emirates, Chad, Qatar?
I would STAY & FIGHT for MY country!!! And i am an old lady!! Why is it okay for Mexico to have a wall PROTECTING THEIR southern border??? Why don’t refugees/immigrants come through Ellis Island like they USED to?? WHEN did it become okay for everyone to just come in & hey, lets give them FREE healthcare plus welfare, paid for by HARD WORKING Americans!?! I can remember when John Wayne said “press 1 for English? Isn’t this still America?” We used to Pledge Allegiance to the flag every morning at school! We took great pride in being American!! Now low life’s BURN OUR FLAG and claim they are American?!? SICKENING!!!
Truth
Your rant is a cry for help! You are scared and old and seem to be lashing out at the weakest amongst us. Actually, the only ones politically weaker than yourself. If you would acknowledge this one fact you would be free of this fear and be able to focus your outrage at the real perpretrators of this crisis; the military, who ‘lost’ $9T. The Feds who ‘can’t find’ $5T and the super-wealthy, who have off-shored $20T in accounts.
That is our national debt, at the expense of ‘We the People’.
America is a nation of immigrants. Just because you ancestors arrived several generations ago does not mean you are more American than the person who swore an oath of allegiance yesterday.
old woman: It’s simply not true that people who “just come in” get free healthcare and welfare. It’s bizarre that this gets repeated and repeated with no basis whatsoever. Recent immigrants typically work hard, long hours at exhausting jobs. Just like your ancestors and mine. They also pay taxes, while not receiving benefits such as Social Security. They are not taking anything from you. Your fears are misplaced.
This is dire. Pay attention!
This is dire. Pay attention!
Your argument is ripe with vitriol and fallacies.
Go somewhere else if you can’t even address others with a modicum of civility, please.
What vitriol and what fallacies? Be specific, please.
By the way, is calling someone’s religion “heathen superstition” civility?
Lying a lot–about damn near everything!!!
I’m sorry, but lying is not an atrocity. Lying may be used to cover up an atrocity, but it is not an atrocity in itself. If you want to be taken seriously, you should stop sounding so hysterical.
Lying is an atrocity and god considers it to be so because those who lie are bad people, and bad people do very bad things. Read your Bible lately—or just thumping it? Notice one of the key characteristics of the father of ALL ATROCITIES:
Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44).
I rest my case a-hole.
Okay, well if lying is an “atrocity” when is Obama going to pay for the myriad “atrocities” he’s committed? And what about Hillary Clinton being caught on video planning to commit “atrocities” against the American people?
The way you hysterical idiots debase language is disgusting. Words have meanings. There is more to a word than the feelings attached to it.
I think you made a good point, friend, but this is why conservatives need liberals and liberals need conservatives.
Human beings need balance and we have been given a head plus a heart. Together they help us make wise decisions. Without heart we become mean (which is why my friend elephant got a little snarky on the blog, but I have talked to him about it. He will come around because he is cerebral and needs a hug every once and awhile) As well, without the head we go a little loopy which is why I cry sometimes and cannot get up of bed after someone is mean to me, but my friend elephant helps me to put things in perspective. )
I used friend with a feeling of compassion for you as a fellow human.
Zaklog the Adorable – I agree with your words and I thank you for them. I have always felt much more at ease when the sides are each able to counteract each side’s extremism.
But I have to thank you for my first laugh of the day even if it was at myself. When I saw your response I had only registered the name of Zaklog. For a few moments I had thought, once again, I was awakening in a parallel universe and now would have to thank the other Zaklog for his words. Again, thank you.
Ha ha Joanne! Glad I made you chuckle. You are on of my favourite commenters.
Have a good day, 😀
Zaklog the Adorable – I did a double take too. I’ll pay more attention hereafter. 🙂
Iraqi citizens who got green cards for helping the US at grave danger to themselves are stuck at JFK and separated from their families. That is an atrocity. One of many. You ignore this at your own peril. You think you’re safe so it’s ok. You don’t care that Trump excluded from his ban the countries where he does business, where people have come from that actually killed Americans on our soil. Not one person from the banned countries did that. Not one. Ask anyone who survived the Holocaust how it started, how they laughed at people who spoke out early on as hysterical. Those who left early and were laughed at were the ones who survived.
–not to worry. after being fully vetted, they will be sent through in due time.
Ive been pulled aside many times in customs in foreign countries. It’s no picnic. But every country has a right to exercise security practices.
But every country has a right to exercise security practices.
Wrong. Every country except ones historically populated by white people . . . because . . . reasons.
I’m glad to see there are at least a couple of people who haven’t fallen victim of to drinking the kool-aid being handed out by George Soros and his league of left-handed pied pipers. Abortion is not an approved practice of any religion of which I am aware. As for the prohibiting of individuals from Middle East countries from coming to the US, there is no way to properly vete them since these countries have little or no database of them for our review. As for the article that started this dicussion, it’s primary objective appears to be preying on the emotions of frustrated individuals who did not get their way during the election. As in the past, each election results in winners and losers. The reason America has succeeded through the years is that both sides join together to work as one. To do otherwise is to fall into the trap that George Soros has set, in the US, his home country of Hungary, Russia, and other European countries in an effort to cause chaos and disruption. Too bad he doesn’t have anything constructive to do with his billions.
The refusal to work together with people who want to do things you think are wrong is hardly unreasonable. If you want your opponents to work with you to help make things better, first you have to plan to do things that they agree are actually better. Otherwise it’s both their right and their moral duty to go on opposing it.
Ditto.
Well said.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!
You are welcome.
Thank you. At the rate this is going, we who do not support the actions of the current President may need all the help we can get.
I guess the positive thing is that the majority is with you, no matter what lies about numbers come from the White House.
The “majority” is not with him. The majority of Christians are not. And many of those who did not vote for Trump are mature people and not leftwing loons and are willing to give him some slack. It’s just the extremist types like you see here and those who have lost their power who are melting down.
I never lost my power, I didn’t have any to begin with, that’s what you don’t understand.
You don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
I am neither a loon nor am I a left winger. I am a Christian and I am certainly opposed to what President Trump is doing. And if you are a true Catholic, you could not support this lying adulterer or have forgotten that divorce is not accepted in the Catholic faith.
You’re absolutely right. I do not support any of his sins. I don’t support my sins or yours either. I didn’t vote for his sins. That’s between him and God. I voted for his policies.
Similarly, Lone Ranger, we don’t support Hillary or Bill’s sins…because Hillary is not responsible for Bill’s sins, nor yours nor mine. We were not supporting SINS even if a religion supports the ideology/theory that abortion is a sin. A woman’s body is HER body and as you so eloquently put it and I paraphrase…the sin is between HER and HER God” We supported HER policies.
Yes but in this case she is destroying the body of her son or daughter and that’s an injustice we shouldn’t accept as compassionate and just people.
The majority of Christians anywhere but in the US quite definitely *are* astonished and distressed by the election of Mr Trump. The majority of the citizens of every other first-world country thinks the voters of the US must have gone completely insane. Religious or secular, progressive or conservative, we *all* think something really weird is happening over there, and we’re hoping like hell it doesn’t spread. Maybe it would be safest for us to deny all Americans entry into our countries… but then, that would be failing to distinguish those who caused the madness from those who quite reasonably want to get out of the country where it’s happening.
Thank you for such kind hopeful words. We appreciate all the kindness and prayers from Canada! You look southward, we often look northward and wonder if we could ever call it home.
Nancy
I am grateful to live in Canada. I cannot be bankrupted by having a medical issue. I can retire at 65 and not be destitute. Our banks have strong regulations that meant we didn’t follow you in your crash. We have our problems too (a few wingnut politicians and a lingering racism that is so polite it’s hard to root out, an over-dependence on fossil fuels to name a few), but we are working to address them.
Please extend an invitation to the blog host and his followers to move to your utopia and let us get back to work without hearing their constant shrill whining.
I don’t think this board is representative of the US even among those who didn’t vote for Trump. Most of them can take it in stride as normal people do and move on and are not stricken with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Since utopia means “any non-existent society described in considerable detail”, I wish to inform you that Canada really does exist.
If you are using the secondary meaning “a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions”, then I assure you that that is not Canada. If you read my comment again, you will note where I described some issues that we are struggling with.
It is interesting that you hear a shrill whine when reading this blog post. I find that it comes without sound effects.
Are you truly a catholic? Do you really think this person is whineing?!
I am a catholic, I am an American, I am also English living in the most diverse place, London, and I think Trump is a nasty piece of work! As do most British, and the world… the extremists probably love him. Maybe that is who you are!? Read your bible mate and find the many places where we should love, not hate. Trump is a hater and the quicker he gets ousted the better!
PB: Canada is a wonderful country. You have the population of California and the land mass of USA. You can’t compare our countries.
Toronto is going to go CRAZY in a couple of years when the Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup
Of course you can compare them. You can compare apples to oranges and decide that while they are both fruit that grow on trees, their structure and taste, and the methods for their consumption are quite different.
Also, we have a greater land mass than USA. Canada is 2.6 times the size of the USA. California has 3 million more people than Canada.
You also are very careful about who is allowed to enter and stay in your country.
True. But we do not discriminate by nationality or religion. We learned our lesson in 1939 when we turned away the ship St. Louis carrying 907 Jewish refugees that were fleeing Germany. We turned them away because of their religion. They were returned to Germany where 254 of them died in concentration camps.
Thank you, dear friend.
Yes, all of that. And here’s a place to find petitions and other actions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gloriamariesprogressivepetitions/
The Republican congresses is not going try to help! They are going to fulfill their agenda that they have been working on for at least 20 years. That agenda is to take as much as they can get by with from the American people.
Exactly, now they are in a stew because after 8 years of playing armchair quarterback and demonizing Obama they are struggling to unwind from Obamacare while not risking many of their base asking for their heads. Much easier to bitch and moan than do.
Now suddenly the deficit is no big deal. Money is there to spend. They want to spend their time getting their tax and regulation reductions ready to advertise as this wonderful break for the middle class.
We have been through this before. Tax breaks for the middle class is their version of grown-ups patting us on the head and saying amscray – because the grown-ups are going to party like there is no tomorrow. And the band plays on……
Thank you Canada
Easy for you to say. Your country is not being overrun with lawbreakers who come and squat in Canada, demanding driver’s licenses, taxpayer benefits, and the right to stay without permission. I notice that Canada has rules for those wishing to leave their home country and live there. Why not just let ANYONE come in? We can send the illegals your way, no problem. I don’t hear you welcoming them in by the millions, or even hundreds. Put your country and your safety where your sympathies seem to be….
You discount your own argument in your second sentence when you refer to undocumented people as lawbreakers. It is like the past situation with gay people who were told they could only have sex within the bonds of marriage, but marriage was illegal. You cannot have it both ways. Those people are in the US undocumented, not because they are immoral, but because they fled life threatening circumstances, or because they were infants and children brought in those circumstances, and the US does not have a reasonable process for recognizing them.
Thank you, John P, for once again saying what needs to be said.
Anyone who supports what has happened this week is as unhinged and as committed to evil as is the current administration. Diabolical things are taking place in our nation’s capital.
I thank you for your previous comments, as well as this one. I also wonder something about you. I’m 74, and remember Joey Amalfitano. In 1954 or ’55, I think he was a rookie on the NY Giants (I don’t think it was the Dodgers!). He’d be a bit over 80, maybe as much as 85. Is he kin to you? Thanks! Keep supporting John P’s Christian witness!
Brooklyn Greg, I have not been asked this question in a Very Long Time. I believe Joey ended his career as third base coach for the LA Dodgers.
No, we are not related. “Amalfitano” means “man from Amalfi” and there are pockets of Amalfitanos all over the USA who are not related to each other. My own family comes from Ischia, but somewhere back in the distant past, someone had to have moved there from Amalfi. Such is what my grandfather told me.
Thank you for your kind words about my comments.
The Vice-President himself spoke in favor of life at the huge March for Life rally in DC and elsewhere (conveniently ignored by the blog host). Does it get any more diabolical than speaking up for life?
If they were really speaking up for life, it wouldn’t be diabolical, but their sole aim is to make abortion illegal. That doesn’t stop abortions, it just makes them unsafe because hacks are doing them instead of doctors. The result is far more death.
If one was serious about stopping abortions, one would work at stopping men from raping, and insist on those having consensual sex use a condom. We would ensure that birth control was accessible and affordable. We would make sure that all women can access affordable health care so that they can understand their bodies, their risks, how to stay healthy, and how to only have children when they are desired. Men should be encouraged to father the children they create or financially support them at a minimum. The minimum wage needs to be a living wage. Infant health care needs to be available and affordable. Maternity and paternity leaves should be available without loss of employment or seniority. Each of these actions would result in a drop in the need for abortions. Are pro-lifers working to eliminate the need for abortions or is it that they just prefer crabbing at women and feeling holier than thou?
Every word of this.
I think it’s that they don’t like babies being massacred at abortion mills. BTW, 50% of those who abort were using contraception the month that they became pregnant. People DO know about contraception.
Of course everyone behaving properly could reduce need for abortion, and we should all work to that end, but it’s still an injustice to kill the fetus.
You know, Lone Catholic” you sound like someone who can impregnate and leave the impregnated.
What about rape?
What about incest?
What about the mother’s life being in jeopardy in some cases of pregnancy? What about a woman’s choice?
You know, Chung, that was a very nasty thing to say to someone you don’t know and to someone who has been with only one woman in his life and has only “impregnated” a wife and who has taken good care of the results of that “impregnation.”
Why do you feel a need to vilify those who defend the unborn?
What about the baby that the abortion kills? You go first. How do you feel about that? Do you have any compassion for the unborn?
The use of “massacred at abortion mills” tells you just about enough of the mind-set of this person. I wouldn’t expend any energy trying to discuss things in reason. Said person will just use it to rant and rave in the manner of Big Chief Little Hands.
My sentiments exactly.
Here, here!
While I agree with your comment, it unintentionally included a slur against First Peoples. I am sure that they do not claim him as one of their own.
So if they were so pro-life, why aren’t they willing to help the living. Why are they taking away healthcare benefits? We are going to force you to have a child that we know has sever medical disabilities and take away your insurance so you cannot help them. Where is the sense in that?
What’s missing in that statistic is that research has found that many people using contraceptives are not using them properly, and all contraceptives have a failure rate when used properly. There has to be comprehensive education in the use of contraceptives, and there should be more research in improving their reliability.
It should be noted that I myself would never have had an abortion (I’m many years beyond that now), but I can understand why, in certain circumstances, it is a necessity for others.
How do you feel about the baby killed by the abortion?
Are you happy about it? Sad about it? Indifferent?
Why wouldn’t YOU have an abortion?
You said there is a “failure rate” for contraception. So then what? Abortion is “plan b”?
The solution isn’t contraception but moral behavior. Contraception is the doorway to abortion because the contraception mentality makes a pregnancy a disease and a baby in the womb a tumor.
But it’s an imperfect world and people have to learn the hard way. Regardless of alleged “safe-guards” there will be inconvenient pregnancies. Why should the baby pay the price?
To be more precise, it is blastocysts and fetuses that are killed by abortions, not babies. People use the word baby to heighten the emotional anger. Also to be precise, spontaneous abortions (misnomered as miscarriages) also happen much more frequently than abortions. We mourn these losses.
I wouldn’t have had an abortion because I have supportive family and friends, and have always been just wealthy enough to be able to manage an unplanned pregnancy. I also live in a country with a good social safety net if I should have fallen on hard times.
I take issue with the words you use. No one plans to have an abortion or keeps abortion on hand as a Plan B. Failed contraceptives happen, and not every family is in a position to support the birth of a child or another child or a fifth child.
You also frame the need for an abortion as a response to immorality. Married people have abortions for a variety of very difficult reasons such as not being able to provide for another child or the serious illness of the mother. Do you suggest that once child #2 has arrived, married couples should not longer make love?
As for who pays the price, why does it always have to be the mother? It takes two to make a baby. Men walk away. And if they stay, men aren’t shamed when an abortion happens, just the woman is.
There is a joke. “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” I agree that that goes too far, but it is funny because it absolutely has the ring of truth.
What about the embryo or fetus that gets killed by the abortion? Do you have any sympathy for it?
Does the fact that it has brainwaves, a beating heart, and its own unique DNA mean anything to you? Does that fact that many women and men suffer from post abortion syndrome mean anything to you?
Is the reason you are in favor of abortions because you think that that the fetus or embryo with its own DNA, beating heart, brainwaves, developing organs and limbs, etc. is just tissue that can be removed as could a boil or a a mole?
It would be helpful for a respectful conversation if you would actually read and understand what I write. I have said that all pregnancies that do not continue are to be mourned. I have said that I am NOT in favour of abortions. Why do you continue to paint me as a heartless monster?
You call yourself a Lone Catholic, but keep this up and you really will be. If this is what being Catholic is about, I want nothing to do with it, and as I hear from other people here, neither do others. You are personally responsible for driving people away from God.
Why would you mourn the loss of a pregnancy? Because you see the embryo or fetus as a person?
Anyone who mourns the loss of a person who died unexpectedly would have done something to prevent it if they had had the opportunity, yet we have the opportunity to prevent these deaths caused by abortion.
You are not in favor of abortion, but you seem to be resisting any laws that would prevent them.
Do you see it as a good thing or a bad thing that during a Trump administration Roe v Wade could be overturned? If that happens, there will be less abortions to mourn? State laws and a return of the stigma of abortion will be a strong disincentive to abort, and hence less need to mourn those lost by abortion.
An embryo and a fetus are not people yet. It is more about mourning the loss of potential relationship.
I resist laws that prevent abortion because all they do is prevent safe abortions. They force women into unsafe abortions and cause more death. You should consider supporting enacting laws that result in positive outcomes that mean that women would no longer need to seek abortions, except in the case of medical necessity.
Why would you mourn the loss of a potential relationship? That could happen without being pregnant?
Yes they ARE people and we are killing them. That’s why we are pro-life.
Why do people bring up miscarriage to defend abortion? Nobody brings up dying of natural causes to excuse away murder.
My main reason for bringing up spontaneous abortions was because I was responding to unclear language and I wanted to be sure what it was that was being said.
You are clearly not female. I had a spontaneous abortion of a very much desired child. I had a “blighted ovum”. The blastocyst developed enough to signal pregnancy, but a child would never have developed. Some people treated me as if I had done something wrong that caused the death of a baby. There are similarities in the way that women are treated who have spontaneous abortions and those who have chosen abortion, and there is mourning in both cases. That is why I raised it. It doesn’t matter what women do, they are treated disrespectfully.
Well explained. Thanks. I am against abortion but protect a womens rights. Thank you.
How do you feel about the sick person that cannot pay for expensive medical coverage?
How do you feel about the person who lost their job and cannot feed their family?
How do you feel about the person who is judged by the color of their skin and not the color of their heart?
Too bad you cannot have half the compassion for the living that you have for the unborn…
How come you have ZERO compassion for the unborn?
And it doesn’t follow except in pro-abortion land that people who have compassion for the unborn have none for the born.
abortion is legal, asshole!
Abortion is legal, asshole!
Well said. If only your suggestions were followed, there would be very few abortions. Sadly, most Right-to-Lifers lose interest once the birth is accomplished. They prefer to starve the child by cutting holes in the safety net. WWJD seems to only be a slogan, not a way of life.
Thanks Damselfly. I like what you said too.
If I knew how to get a picture showing, it would be a dragonfly. Dragonfly is one of my totems, followed by frog. Both are change agents.
Amen!!
Is there a reason why there should be few abortions? Why would that be a good thing? Do you think it’s a good thing?
Do you mourn the loss of life at Planned Parenthood? Are you sad about the babies they kill?
That’s why we pro-lifers want abortion to end. Why do you?
The reason there should be few abortions is that abortion is a bad thing. No woman should become pregnant who doesn’t want to be, and no woman especially should become pregnant such that it threatens her life or her health or as a result of sexual assault.
The only way we have to improve the situation if any of those bad things does occur is to do another thing that’s also bad, which is why we want it to take place as rarely as possible – namely, the ending of a potential human life. Potential human lives are also valuable, but not as valuable as the lives of those who are not potential but actual human persons.
Is it bad to kill a dog? I think most people would say it was. But if it was a question of either the dog’s right to life or a human being’s, I also think most people would agree that the dog’s rights were subordinate to the human’s
So no, abortion is not a good or desirable thing. But safe, medically supervised abortion is a lesser evil than what would happen if it weren’t available (and used to, before it was available) -unsafe abortions that injured or killed the mother as well as killing the embryo or fetus.
Would I rather one potential human life was ended, or one actual human life plus one potential human life? I’m definitely going to regretfully end the potential human to save the one who’s already a person.
And of the 50,000,000 unjustly killed by abortion since Roe v Wade, how many do you think happened to save the life of the mother?
I just saw a statistic that in NYC 30% or more of pregnancies are being ended by abortion. A tiny fraction of that if any is because the mother’s life is in danger.
You’ve missed my point. Someone who wants to end their pregnancy badly enough will do anything they need to to end it. If they can’t do it legally, they’ll do it illegally. If they can’t do it safely, they’ll do it unsafely. If they can’t do it except at risk of their own death, they will risk their own death. Legal, medically supervised abortion is in and of itself a saver of lives – lives of current actual human beings, which outweigh the lives of potential human beings.
My opinion exactly. Too many fighting for right to life forget about that baby after it is born. Cutting food stamps, welfare, and healthcare means those unplanned babies have to suffer after they are born. A birth is a lifetime commitment.
Thank you again Patricia
Amen!
Brilliant, well said, thank you!
You are right Patricia. They are actually pro birth but not pro life. The republican party only care for the unborn life but soon after birth they could care less about life, hypocrites.
The way he does it, yes it is diabolical. When you simply advocate forcing women to endure unintended or life-threatening pregnancies, there is nothing of grace or the sanctity of life in your intent. Until Pence and his ilk start helping the children of this nation and others, then he is simply forcing women to give birth against their will and that is unconstitutional. And immoral.
How do you feel about the baby who is killed by the abortion?
I completely understand why you have that name, Lone Catholic. No one wants to be around you. You are a sad, lonely, angry man. I will pray for you.
Trump should have been aborted.
The potential baby killed by the abortion should not be born into a family where it is not wanted or where its family cannot afford to feed it or where its birth injures or kills its mother or where it is the result of rape. Ending its life while it is still a potential baby and not yet an actual one is the lesser evil.
ABG:
Less than .5 % of Abortions are due to incest, rape, life of mother, health of mother. (that’s 1/2 of a %).
The #1 reason women give for abortions, is that they want to protect the children that they already have.
45% of women that get abortions have already had one or more abortions.
85% women that abort are unmarried.
Saddest statistic: 37.5% of all pregnancies in NYC end in abortion. [17% Nationwide.]
Most people are against abortion and you turn a blind eye to that.
Statistics are meaningless to prove anything because they are tailored by their questions to produce specific information based on a predetermined theory or postulation. Statistics are meant to reveal trends and guide policy not condemn and prove something right or wrong. Statistics are misused by people in the same way scripture is missed .
To justify actions.
You say a Bible verse proves you can discriminate against LGBT people then you say the Bible should not be used to protect refugees. That is hypocritical !
You Bible thumpers say you stand on the Bible- then turn around and use scientific research that is biased to support your claims while at the same time denying science when it suits your purpose.
Close minded hypocrites! Always grasping at evidence to condemn others rather than finding ways to show grace!
Franklin Graham told the truth. Finally the last nail in the coffin of my respect for him and your hypocritical myopic christianity which does not reflect Jesus at all! Graham said the immigrant situation in America is not a Bible matter. Do you agree with him?
LGBT rights activists have been saying this for years about our own situation. That the Bible does not tell everything about our experience and yet Franklin Graham turns around and uses that very idea to exclude refugees and immigrants who are needy- in a country that was built by immigrants.
Woe to you hypocrites that close your minds and turn a blind eye to the suffering of living breathing human beings!
Many people who call themselves Pro-Life are told what to think and spoon fed information which is why you all say the same thing. You don’t care about what people experience or what their situations is. All you care about is pointing the finger and fantasizing about judgement against the weak and under privileged of this world! . Woe to you for your indifference and condemnation. !
Abortion is a terrible indication of an inhospitable society which includes a false divisive christian religion that shames and excludes people and does little to help those is crisis situations except blame them and condemn them all to hell.
The greatest judgement will fall on those who call themselves christians who do not heed God’s call to love others as yourself and who do not hear the suffering of those they condemn.
March for Life: NY Times covered it on page 8. [Apparently they were non-plussed. ]
They gave it more attention than JP!
Anyone who supports what has happened this week is as unhinged and as committed to evil
Yes, the vandalism and massive property destruction which leftists inflicted in D.C. were truly awful. And inviting a psychopathic murderess like Donna Hylton to speak at your event? What kind of crazies do that.
You’re entirely right. There was a great deal of evil on display this past week.
Zaklog the Great now turned Deplorable
That’s your slanted opinion. The few who vandalized are not part of the peaceful protest, they are another opportunistic group who work independently, most likely anarchists or those with ulterior motives.
You pick out the extremes to prove your point but your hatred of liberals is a hatred of tolerance towards those, like Donna Hylton, who have served their time and been punished, and now are contributing to society.
You spend your whole time avoiding truth rather understanding truth.
That’s your slanted opinion. The few who vandalized are not part of the peaceful protest, they are another opportunistic group who work independently, most likely anarchists or those with ulterior motives.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
Your thought leaders explicitly endorsed and called for riots and violence against Trump supporters. You do not get to pretend that when this violence shows up it has nothing to do with you.
Cease your damned lies.
Pot, kettle. Those who voted for Trump, you do not get to pretend that when this violence shows up, it has nothing to do with you. Not unless you’re out there very loudly deploring it whenever it occurs. But I’m not hearing it if that’s happening. Come on, Republican voters – “No, this is wrong. This is not what we voted for, and not what we as Christians approve of.” Otherwise what are bystanders to conclude except that you don’t see anything wrong with it?
What violence? What violence are you calling us to decry? The only things I’ve heard of are a bunch of leftist hoaxes intended to slander us. So go ahead and add that to your sides ledger of sins, thank you very much.
Zaklog the truly deplorable, if you are referring to the marches of Jan. 21 you cannot find any examples of rioting or destruction because they simply did not happen. If you are speaking of the destruction of Jan. 20, which resulted in 217 arrests in DC, that is obviously a different day and a different event, already proven to have been carried out by an anarchist group and not these scary “leftists”. Yes, you are lying and continue to lie.
Thanks teacher mom!
You speak the truth.
http://Www.brandnewcongress.org
Ummm … Amber, do you realize all the publications supporting this “Brand New Congress” were also the voice boxes for Hillary Clinton and her run for the White House in 2016?
This wouldn’t be a ‘brand new’ anything; just a Progressive Liberal Congress which we have already experienced … back in 2006 ~ House 233 vs. 202 and Senate 49 + 2 Independents who virtually always voted Dem vs. 49.
In 2008 it was 257 vs. 178 and 57 + 2 vs. 41 … which when added to President Obama in the White House gave the Dems total control.
Which the People loved so much we came back with in 2010 with a Republican majority of 242 vs. 193 in the House though you kept the Senate (51+2 vs 47).
In 2012, you regained 8 and 2 respectively.
In 2014, the Republicans gained 13 and 9, which gave them the majority in the Senate as well … without Trump at all.
In 2016, the Dems did manage to pick up 6 in the House and 2 in the Senate though Trump won the Presidency … even though the Republicans garnered more votes for their Representatives (63,153,387) vs. that of the Dems Reps (61,776,218) ~ you know, in the only place in our elected Federal government where population matters one iota.
I was honestly hoping this was an attempt at an effective third party. It isn’t. Oh well.
Thank you. So perfectly stated.
Malignant Cancer. Destroy it- before it destroys you.
I share your fears and concerns! Thanks John.
In today’s New York Times there is an article on a Iraqi translator for the U.S. Army 101st Division, Harmeed Darweesh, who has been detained indefinitely at Kennedy airport.
Mr. Darweesh is in the U.S. legally, on a special immigrant visa.
Army colleagues said he’d put his life on the line to help U.S. troops. Now, he was in danger of being separated from his family and shipped back to Iraq.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html
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Dear World,
This poor Trump-obsessed man who has the nerve to call himself a a Christian pastor, and who cannot face the reality that his left-wing pro-abortion darling was not coronated, does not speak for the entire US, and certainly does not speak for the vast majority of Christians who voted for Trump as being best for our country.
He is better for the World too, but you don’t need to thank us.
Sincerely Yours,
A Proud Trump Voter and Supporter
This guy claims to be “The Lone Catholic”, but he’s obviously Mike Pence in disguise.
There, I just thought I would do A and/or Charlie’s job for them.
This is Joe.
Delightful. Your response gave me the best laugh i’ve had all night. Mike Pense, another fanatic on kool-aid.
Very true. John does not speak for the vast majority of “Christians” who voted for this monster. He speaks for the MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHO DID NOT VOTE FOR THIS HORROR SHOW.
What “HORROR SHOW” are you referring to? Be specific, please.
Allison, tell me one or two things that Trump has done as president that deserve him being called a “monster” or that are part of a “horror show.”
Well put….especially compared to that rambling diatribe that sounded more like Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto.
Yes, when called to name specifics, it’s hard to get anything meaningful out of them, isn’t it?
Nope, your are asking rhetorical questions to make yourself look good and asking for specifics when specifics have been given by others on the blog, countless times. Many of the people you pick in the comments are expressing themselves honestly and rathe than listen to them you step in with a cross examination.
Everything you do “Zaklog the Great” is to frustrate people you disagree with because you are turing a blind eye to what others say. You don’t listen to people. A sign of a young arrogant young man with ambitions. My prayer is that you avoid those pitfalls and grow up soon.
No, you are asking rhetorical questions to make yourself look good and asking for specifics when specifics have been given by others on the blog, countless times.
Many of the people you pick on in the comments are expressing themselves honestly. And rather than listen to them you step in with a cross examination.
Everything you do “Zaklog the Great” is to frustrate people you disagree with because you are turing a blind eye to what others say.
You don’t listen to people. A sign of a young arrogant man with ambitions. My prayer is that you avoid those pitfalls and grow up soon
These are their specifics:
hate
horror
monster
Orange Cheeto
racist
I lost all my rights
the sky is falling
I’m moving to Canada
I’m so ashamed I’m an American
Jesus was a liberal
hug an abortionist
It’s mean to keep out the terrorists
3,000,000 votes
not MY president
I’m melting…
If that’s all you see here you are not listening or observing people at all.
All you do is defend Trump and minimize people’s concerns. Why is Trump so important and people so unimportant to you?
A couple of us have been asking for specifics, but nobody wants to give them.
it’s there but you refuse to see
you are willfully ignorant
That’s because by this point in the on-going discussion we think you’re being disingenuous. Either that, or refusing to accept the validity of any report you don’t want to be true. The last time I responded to a request for examples by posting links, the response was that none of the sites I linked from were trustworthy sources. So it feels as if citing examples is pretty pointless. If a source mentions something against DT, it isn’t one your side is willing to trust, and if a source is one your side is willing to trust, it ignores or denies any negative report. Why go to the effort of finding information that will automatically be discounted?
exactly Arian !
All hail Big Chief Little Hands!
Mr. T. L. Catholic ~ Mr. Pavlovitz is a Christian pastor. He stands up and spreads the Word of Christ, Our Savior. There is no ‘nerve to call himself’ about it. He does not identify with any particular denomination I am aware of. That means nothing. A figure alone can crusade for the truth and the Message.
I may not like some of the things he focuses on, but I deeply respect the centuries of religious conflict and struggle our Nation went through to determine we should allow all people of all faiths the freedom to express their views without fear of persecution.
As a People, we are made great by dissent, not diminished by it. That we are free to mock authority, revile it and call it to accounts is a hallmark of our greatness, not weakness.
I do believe the majority of posters here are wrong both in their views of our President and on the role so government in our lives. That their voices would be stilled would repudiate everything I believe in.
I certainly gave President Obama a rough time (via commentary) over the past 8 years. I also always referred to him as MY President because that was the way I felt ~ I participated thus I had to accept the outcome no matter how unpalatable. I have read the histories of a dozen countries where democracy died because people forgot that principle.
I don’t think we are going there. Not only do I not thing President Trump is, or will become, a dictator, the dissent I see against him offers nothing new ~ no new ideas, leaders, or avenues of success. It is the same old rhetoric heard time and time again.
It also fails to address the reason Trump won a free and fair democratic election in the first place. It fails to galvanize those who didn’t bother to vote at all. It fails to even attempt to change a single person’s mind. Worse, it plays into the mindsets and stereotypes of those who would vote against them … because they have heard it all before … and rejected it for a wide variety of reasons … which aren’t being addressed.
The Women Marched … on a Saturday … in most cases within an hour’s ride of their home … where they could gather with friends and like-minded individuals to participate in a completely safe protest … on a winter weekend’s afternoon.
Sigh …
How many of you go to other sites? I do. The #1 negative female response to the Women’s March is some variation of ~ “they don’t speak for me”.
And that is the problem as I see it. Both at the March and here. If all you do is keep going over the points which were defeated in November, why do you think things will change? If the only people you are appealing to are the people who voted against Trump anyway, why the masturbation?
Playing the ‘Guilt Card’ did not work.
Name calling did not work.
Calling upon racial and gender solidarity and gender-politics did not work.
It wasn’t as if the voices of feminism and LGBTQ weren’t heard before November 8th. They were and loudly. The side which opted to weaponize them lost. And yet you seem utterly incapable of understanding why you lost so are pretending as if you didn’t participate in the ‘first round’ … even though you clearly did.
SMH.
I have yet to see him preach about Christ and salvation.
I have yet to see him say a kind word about Christians who are not in agreement with his left wing politics.
He seems to have made political correctness into a religion and then calls it “Christianity.”
If you can link to evidence that he’s a Christian and is preaching Christianity, I will happily read it. But if I were to make a determination based on his blog posts, if practicing Christianity were a crime, there would not be enough evidence to convict him.
He has preached about Jesus- you don’t read the posts do you? He has referred to scripture, spoke about Jesus, spoke about the Gospel many times but all your do is focus on what you want to focus one. It’s called selective hearing.
He picks and chooses the verses he likes due to his low view of scripture. JP has a presuppositional approach to the Bible. He likes the verses that coincide with his liberal ideology but not the verses dealing with sin, hell, or repentance to name a few. He is very much like Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Tony Jones, or Doug Pagitt.
I’ve read quite a lot from him about sin and repentance. He looks pretty orthodox about those as far as I’ve seen. Certainly more orthodox than Mr Trump who reportedly believes he has nothing to repent of.
I acknowledge I don’t remember anything John has said about hell, but if an ordained person mentioned hell every time they opened their mouth, they’d never have the time to mention anything else.
I read a blog post of his and he said he no longer believed in Hell. He didn’t think God could be that mean. That it had to be an invention of a rich white male. (OK, I made that last one up, but it would be in character for him to say something like that).
Please confirm the blogs where he posted about sin and repentance. I never said anything about Trump being saved. I’ve said numerous times he is an unrepentant sinner.
JP is far from orthodox. If you believe he is then you haven’t read much from him or possibly lack discernment.
I suggest reading this his
http://pastorgabehughes.blogspot.com/2016/01/more-on-continued-false-teachings-of.html?m=1
Except, just like Rev. Keith Ward says, you fundies are actually the VERY BEST at doing precisely what you are accusing John P. of doing. You pick out the parts of the Bible you like—and ignore those you do not like. Hypocrite!!!
When did I pick and choose? If you are going to make an accusation don’t be like JP, use actual examples or cite sources/references.
I responded to this, but J.P. apparently deleted my post.
Please read I John 4:20 and explain what it means
–the reason JP disdains believers, is that he is not in the same family as we are. There is no fellowship.
Exactly!
it was you who disdained him first not the other way around.
and when I say you I mean the christians who hate liberals and progressives.
you started it.
Also, James, how can he preach Christ as “Savior” since he says there is no Hell?
One can be lost and separated from God without there being a Hell as described by Dante.
God is not a torturer.
Jesus spoke quite frequently of hell. I’ll take the words of the Messiah over Dante. Hell is real and we all deserve it because we are sinners.
It is through turning from our sins (i.e. repentance) and placing our faith in Jesus Christine as Lord and Savior that we have eternal life.
Jesus Christ not Christine. My apologies. Auto correct strikes!
God is not a torturer you brainwashed automaton
Who said he was a torturer. People choose he’ll by rejecting Him.
If unrepentant sinners do not go to hell then what happen to their souls?
That was suppose too be “hell” not “he’ll”
do you even know what a soul is
If God is all powerful then logically you are saying he created a hell for humans to suffer in for all eternity. You conclusion is that God intentionally created a torture machine. Nope I don’t believe it. We are flesh and bone for a reason. There is a second death. Final death is the punishment for evil people who have ruined their character and potential and who have harmed others in the process. It will be as if the person never existed.
Mr. T. L. Catholic ~ I never expect any person to provide the totality of anything to me, even the Message. Even if Mr. Pavlovitz simply points people in the right direction for their salvation, he had done what Christ has commanded.
I don’t demand perfection. I respect he has the fortitude to create and maintain this blog for the rest of us to toss words at … which is more than you, or I do, as far as I am aware.
He’s set a higher bar for himself by calling himself a “pastor.” Denying that there is a Hell is hardly an “imperfection.” You said he preaches Salvation. Salvation from WHAT?
In what way is he pointing people in the right direction?
Has he admonished the sinner? The only admonishing he does is of white Christians who don’t accept his political bs. Otherwise many things that are obviously sins for a Christian are acceptable in his world and to question that is to be “hateful” or a “bigot.”
What I see him doing is undermining Christianity and attacking Christians. He has repackaged Christianity. He preaches Liberal Left Wing politics and slaps a “Christian” label on it.
He’s not just not preaching “the totality,” of Christianity that you don’t require–he’s not preaching it at all, and is preaching against it. He’s preaching in favor of behavior that is clearly forbidden in the New Testament, so he is therefore pointing people in the WRONG DIRECTION.
what a load of propaganda !
My apologies if already articulated in any previous posts by could you please state what you believe and the basis for those beliefs? Not looking to start an argument just trying to understand what you believe.
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places
Mr. Dosher – I am not quite understanding what you are trying to say. It may be my lack of sleep last night because you are usually quite clear.
The second part of your comment beginning with – you certainly gave Obama a bad time with your commentary. Well I certainly don’t remember any Republican saying anything good about Obama. Do you? Mostly it was anything he did was bringing the destruction of life as we know it.
But isn’t that what we are doing here – Voicing our reasons why we are unhappy. Is it because we say the same things. But isn’t that why we come here – to be around like minded people.
Whose mind are we trying to change? Surely not the ones who come here to judge us as being judgemental.
Every time you complained about Obama were you attempting to change things? Was the march a bad thing. The “pro life” march has been held every year. (I hate using the words pro life – what a bastarization of those 2 words). Like I said I am obviously not understanding.
As an aside I have a question – What are your thoughts on President Trump’s “pinkie swear” to not speak to his sons about his businesses?
Ms. Musto, I was referring to commentary on other sites. I’m relatively new here.
I was pleased when he finally sent help to the Kurds and Yazidis – people I have advocated for since the 1990’s. I was happy when he took a stronger stand over the PRC’s claims in the South China Sea. I was even happy when he attempted some level of re-engagement with Cuba as the Cuban people have been suffering for a damn long time. Those are the three things which stand out in my mind at the moment.
‘Pinkie swear’? First I’ve heard of it. I’ll look into it tomorrow as it is nearly 11 p.m. where I live and that’s quality writing time in my book.
I don’t mind dissent. I shall dissent against your dissent. One of my dissenting points is and will be for a time is the opposition has never given Trump a chance. They are sounding precisely like those 2nd Amendment Yahoos back in 2008/09 who were preaching Obama was coming for our guns and was going to launch a UN-sponsored coup of the US government.
I reminded them to leave some tinfoil for those of us who liked to cook.
Every time I hear people telling me “he’s evil, he’s Satan, he’s going to become a dictator”, I hear those echoes of 2009. Passion drives these arguments, not rational thought.
As an example: “All Republicans are greedy, capitalist swine.” Seriously? And how did we come to this understanding?
“Republicans hate minorities”.
Please tell me why there are minority Republicans then.
“… hate women.”
Ditto.
By treating Republicans as if they are both “The Enemy” and a monolithic bloc of Evil, you are hampering every single argument you and others make.
I keep hearing “He’s evil and you just won’t see it” yet you never question ‘why’ we don’t see it. Not really. Instead you would rather label nearly 63 million Americans either evil, or morons.
And then you get offended when we feel the same way about you …
Oh yeah … the ‘Muslim Ban’ – the ACLU got it overturned in less than a day. It covered all of … 200 people. Woot?
The countries, like Saudi Arabia, which it didn’t cover … you mean the countries someone in our Homeland Security can call 24/7 and seek information from their top notch security services about … as opposed to Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Somalia who are all in various states of civil disorder so we cannot do that?
Trump did this. Was he ignorant of the existence of the ACLU? In New York City? Or, did he know precisely how things would play out and act accordingly.
You assume the actions of a petulant imbecile when things like long-term friendships and business successes say otherwise.
As for Europeans worrying about us … that is projection in the extreme. The Left thought Brexit would be defeated and it wasn’t. Widespread Muslim immigration plus a half-decade of escalating Islamic terrorism is helping some truly dangerous people in their political arenas gain traction. They should worry; just not about Trump.
“He is better for the World too, but you don’t need to thank us.”
That’s fortunate, seeing just about none of us will. And anyone who does, we’ll do our best to export over to you. From our perspective, this will improve our countries; from yours, it will presumably improve yours, as it will increase the population who agrees with you. A positive outcome all round!
A Christian would never have voted for Trump. Never!
No ‘christian’ voted for Trump.
No ‘christian’ votes for pro-choice candidates. Christians don’t vote to kill babies in the womb, Louise.
you have voted for a pro-choice candidate because politicians lie.
We felt we needed to say something while saying something is still allowed.
Please stop projecting. Anyone with a functioning brain can see that it is the left in America, not the right, which is far more interested in silencing dissent, and which holds the First Amendment in far lower regard.
Someday, you will be held to account for your vile slanders before a judge far higher than you or I. I would suggest you repent before that court date.
If he really believes his own BS then he should be buying some short wave radio equipment.
Since I didn’t receive an answer last time, I will repeat. Does it not bother you that Donna Hylton, a prominent speaker at your Women’s March, was a psychopathic murderess who kidnapped a man and tortured him for an extended period until he died?
Do you ever worry about the kind of people you’re allying with?
You mean like the people Jesus associated with?
Citation from the Gospels of Jesus choosing to associate with an unrepentant murderer, please.
Are you saying Donna Hylton did not serve her time and take her punishment? Are you saying she didn’t repent? What are your sources?
and be specific !
Are you saying she didn’t repent?
As anyone who has spent any time debating knows, it is extremely difficult to prove a negative. So reasonably, in this case, the burden rests on you. Where is your evidence of her repentance? I can present words of hers which strongly suggest otherwise:
“The majority of prisons and jails are crowded with black and brown women, because of the dehumanization. We are criminalized for our color. We are criminalized and sexualized.”
Does this sound like someone who acknowledges the justice of her punishment? Like someone who understands that she committed a grave evil and paid the price? Or does it sound like someone eager to blame all of her failings on others?
So go ahead, show me Donna’s repentance. I’d be happy to learn of it, but I am highly skeptical.
This is silly Zaklog and you are being stubborn. The truth is she went to trial, was convicted and served her time. Now, so far as we know, she is living a better live. What part of repentance do you not understand ?
oh and I loved this comment elephant made below about it.
“Repentance is shown by how we live. Did she even commit murder in the first place? No! There was no forensic proof tying directly to the murder. But, she was convicted because she was there and did not go to the police. Has she committed any crimes since she was out of prison? No. Did she do her time? Yes.
Your opinion of Donna Hylton is only meant to be provocative and misleading to discredit the Womens March because, this time, there were no anarchists destroying property. You argue around the peripheral.”
Good job elephant! Forgiveness and grace is the cornerstone of the christian faith. It is the cross, don’t deny what Jesus did for us.
I’m sorry, but having been to prison does not mean you repented of your crime. Are you genuinely this childish in your thinking? I’m sure she’s sorry she got caught, but that is in no way synonymous with sorrow and rejection of her sin.
I am sorry but you are not the budge and jury of Donna Hylton
Zaklog, God allowed Cain to live but not without a mark. Donna Hylton has a mark on her life because of her participation in the crime. But according to the laws of the land she is permitted to live and contribute to society without further penance or punishment. She has served her time. I agree with the above comments you appear to have other motivations guiding your obsession with Donna Hylton. What is your solution then asking God to condemn her? We are taught by the words of Jesus to bless others. Show them grace and you will show them the Gospel.
Uhm… how about Mary Magdalene. Was she not a prostitute. Last time I checked, prostitution is considered a sin in the eyes of the Lord.
No. Mary Magdalene was not a prostitue. The Catholic Church was so freaked out with the awesomeness of Mary Magdalene, and how women might get uppity if they had such a wonderful role mode, that they conflated her with another Mary in the Bible and convinced everyone that she was a prostitue and therefore not to be emulated. Lying to the public is not a new thing.
Where did you dig this up?
I thought I heard every lie about the Catholic Church, but that’s a new one.
As I previously stated, for the Left, it’s perfectly acceptable to be an anti-Catholic bigot.
what a snake you are !
I didn’t have to dig it up. It is well known to those who understand church history. I am not an anti-Catholic bigot. Understanding what happened in the past and facing it honestly does not a bigot make.
That was not the Church position and the Church doesn’t lie. I would be very interested to see your source and I hope it’s something more substantial than Chick Comics.
Mary Magdalene is a canonized Saint and is revered in the Catholic Church. She might have been a prostitute or might not have been. It doesn’t matter. She is no less revered either way.
Not “Chick Comics” (could you be any more condescending?) but from Biblical Archaeology:
“So how did Mary become a repentant whore in Christian legend?
Critical scholarship has provided the answer to this question: It happened as a conscious attempt on the part of later interpreters of the Gospels to diminish her. They did this by identifying her with other women mentioned in the Gospels, most notably the unnamed sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with ointment and whose sins he forgives (Luke 7:36–50) and the unnamed woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11). This conflation of texts was given sanction in the sixth century by Pope Gregory the Great (540–604) in a famous homily in which he holds Mary up as a model of penitence. Pope Gregory positively identified the unnamed anointer and adulteress as Mary, and suggested that the ointment used on Jesus’ feet was once used to scent Mary’s body. The seven demons Jesus cast out of Mary were, according to Gregory, the seven cardinal sins, which include lust. But, wrote Gregory, when Mary threw herself at Jesus’ feet, “she turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.””
http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/200806/who-framed-mary-magdalene-27585
There’s more, but I trust you are capable of doing your own research.
St. Mary Magdalene is one of the greatest saints of the Bible and a legendary example of God’s mercy and grace. The precise dates of her birth and death are unknown, but we do know she was present with Christ during his public ministry, death and resurrection. She is mentioned at least a dozen times in the Gospels.
Mary Magdalene has long been regarded as a prostitute or sexually immoral in western Christianity, but this is not supported in the scriptures. It is believed she was a Jewish woman who lived among Gentiles, living as they did.
The Gospels agree that Mary was originally a great sinner. Jesus cast seven demons out of her when he met her. After this, she told several women she associated with and these women also became followers.
There is also debate over if Mary Magdalene is the same unnamed women, a sinner, who weeps and washes Jesus’ feet with her hair in the Gospel of John. Scholars are skeptical this is the same person.
Despite the scholarly dispute over her background, what she did in her subsequent life, after meeting Jesus, is much more significant. She was certainly a sinner whom Jesus saved, giving us an example of how no person is beyond the saving grace of God.
During Jesus’ ministry, it is believed that Mary Magdalene followed him, part of a semi-permanent entourage who served Jesus and his Disciples.
Mary likely watched the crucifixion from a distance along with the other women who followed Christ during His ministry. Mary was present when Christ rose from the dead, visiting his tomb to anoint his body only to find the stone rolled away and Christ, very much alive, sitting at the place they laid Him. She was the first witness to His resurrection.
After the death of Christ, a legend states that she remained among the early Christians. After fourteen years, she was allegedly put into a boat by Jews, along with several other saints of the early Church, and set adrift without sails or oars. The boat landed in southern France, where she spent the remaining years of her life living in solitude, in a cave.
St. Mary Magdalene’s feast day is July 22. She is the patroness of converts, repentant sinners, sexual temptation, pharmacists, tanners and women, and many other places and causes.
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=83
I don’t need to research YOUR outrageous assertions. That’s your job. And all your “support” comes from anti-Catholic sources. “Catholic” in the name does not make it Catholic, a la “Catholics for Choice” which is as far from being a Catholic organization as one can be.
There is absolutely no reason that the Church would do what you accused the Church of doing. There is no reason for the Church to minimize the role of any saint. There was and is some dispute about whether this Mary was the same Mary who was the adulterer, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.
She was forgiven of her sins and is now a saint. If the Church wanted to minimize the role of women, she would not place Mary in such a place of prominence and we would not revere her as the Mother of God and the Mother of our Church and the greatest saint.
Of course you don’t want to do the research. It would be pointless as you are absolutely committed to the understanding that you know everything and everyone else is a moron. It is a very convenient way to maintain your ignorance and takes zero effort. Congratulations on a brilliant strategy.
I don’t need to research every attack against our Church. It behooves you to make your case, not me to waste my time researching whether hate speech against Catholicism is true. A link to a biased site proves nothing. I read all the anti-Catholic books before I converted. I know what you posted is hogwash for the reasons I stated. There is absolutely no reason the Catholic Church would denigrate one of her most famous and revered saints.
Interesting that you think that I am making an attack on the church by reporting its history. There are many more sites, research papers, articles, and books that corroborate what I wrote. The two that I referenced were just the top 2 on Google. I am not going to go to any trouble to prove anything to you because you feel that you already know everything so it would be a complete waste of my time. Mostly I reply to you for the benefit of others who may be reading.
To quote you, ““Catholic” in the name does not make it Catholic”. By your own rule, I doubt that you are a Catholic, because if you were you wouldn’t be so intent on driving people away from the church.
I offered to drive my neighbor to Church yesterday.
Do you really believe Catholics are reading my posts and are now saying, “Hmm… because of a guy on the internet making posts on a blog, I think I’ll quite being a Catholic!”
Do you think others had plans to join the Church, but read my posts and said, “Hmmm…If I become a Catholic I might run into that guy, so even though I really wanted to be a Catholic, I guess I won’t be one now.”
I’m doing the best I can to represent my faith. What you and others don’t like is our strong and unwavering moral positions. We water nothing down to be accepted or to be politically correct.
The problem is not your “strong and unwavering moral positions”, it is the venom and maliciousness that you use against other people who do not hold to those positions. It is the fact that you see everything in black and white and cannot accept the possibility of even one shade of grey, never mind that there might also be red. If I were currently seeking for a church, your definitively-stated description of your church as a haven for ill will towards those who are different would have me running in the other direction. You don’t use those words specifically, but this is what the tenor of all of your comments on this post and on others boils down to. Others have pointed this out as well, but you cannot hear them
PB: …i think Mr Catholic’s comments are way more light-hearted than most here. & he doesnt take himself as seriously as many here do.
JP is super dramatic/ serious!
light hearted?
Lone Catholic has a vendetta against the blog host. I would not call that light hearted. I would call it a presumption against the prerogative God has to judge a person’s life.
Thank you Leslie.
One clue that you’re correct might be my logo and my handle?
A) Prostitution is not murder. B) As has elsewhere been pointed out, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. C) An important issue here is repentance, which Hylton has not displayed.
You missed. Try again.
Repentance is shown by how we live. Did she even commit murder in the first place? No! There was no forensic proof tying directly to the murder. But, she was convicted because she was there and did not go to the police. Has she committed any crimes since she was out of prison? No. Did she do her time? Yes.
Your opinion of Donna Hylton is only meant to be provocative and misleading to discredit the Womens March because, this time, there were no anarchists destroying property. You argue around the peripheral.
I agree with the Lone Catholic. Listening to most of the drivel I see posted on this blog makes me happy I voted for Trump.
To quote Emerson: “There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.”
How about a quote from Pope Francis instead:
“The sickness or, you can say the sin, that Jesus condemns most is hypocrisy, which is precisely what is happening when someone claims to be a Christian but does not live according to the teaching of Christ. You cannot be a Christian without living like a Christian,” he said.
“You cannot be a Christian without practicing the Beatitudes. You cannot be a Christian without doing what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 25.”
“It’s hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of help.”
Pope Francis is both great and good. He gives me hope for the future of his Church.
Are you in agreement with the Pope that same-sex marriages and abortion are injustices?
The Pope will not change one scintilla of docrine.
its not up to the Pope we on’t have to follow religious leaders. Leaders should be wise but not control freaks
We don’t have to do what the Pope says.
He is wise but not our lawgiver
But some of you like to cherry pick some of the things you think he said or meant in order to make a case, and I’d like to see some consistency. What about the other things the Pope says?
You cherry pick as well, everyone makes that mistake. It’s a learning process. The Bible has paradoxes and mysteries things we only see dimly and in part. If you were a true Roman Catholic you would be hearing about the mystery of God form you priest !
Do you agree with what the Pope says about abortion and same-sex marriage?
since he said if is forgivable, yes.
since he said it is forgivable
Exactly, elephant, the Pope has said it is forgivable. Thank God for his understanding and generous mercy on all weak and fragile human beings !
Anything is forgivable.
But the Pope says same-sex marriage is a sin and an injustice to those raised in such an unholy union.
So if you’re going to use the Pope to justify a position, be aware of what the Pope stands for in its totality.
Clearly the Pope hasn’t read the recent studies that show that children raised by same gender parents do as well or better socially, medically, and scholastically as children raised by opposite gender parents. If same sex marriages were unholy unions, the fruits would be unhealthy.
Ah, once again Thank you and amen. I hope that the majority has been woke up by this week and will not be silent anymore. This is not ok. My ancestors helped write that Constitution and this is not, I repeat not, what they had in mind. I suspect they are rolling over in their graves. One of them was hung in Boston Common for her religion, and just like the people who talked about freedom of religion and then tried to impose their brand on everyone else and hung a women for wanting a different brand, these people are the same, when these people talk freedom of religion it is a ruse, what they are saying is freedom to impose their beliefs on everyone else. Keep speaking the truth John because I for one need it. Bless you,
You must be talking about the likes of Facebook and Google. In any event, you do not speak for the American Majority.
Thank you.
“We felt we needed to say something while saying something is still allowed.”
While it is STILL ALLOWED!?
Wow, this guy is delusional or he is Chicken Little on steroids.
You are absolutely right, John P. The world needs an deserves an apology. Thank you for this. It certainly is one of the things that needed to be said.
I apologize to the world that here in America we have so many leftwing kooks screwing things up for us and you. We’re trying hard to make things right. We’ve got a good President in office now.
Is that better?
This is Joe
You finally got one right. But please don’t tell anyone you found me out. I wear this mask now for security reasons.
What are you afraid of ? I thought America was so much safer and greater under Trump?
It’s the price I pay for the dangerous work I do.
Fear is your collateral damage?
Too bad because God is love.
I think you revealed yourself.
Why is it that leftwing kooks have no sense of humor?
because you are not funny
and I am a moderate
@Anony
Leftists very rarely own up to being left. They always like to claim they’re just moderates. Conservatives, on the other hand, are generally quite happy to be honest about their own political inclinations.
Not at all. I’m a left-winger and proud of it. Can’t imagine why it should be anything to be ashamed of. I am immoderately in favour of fairness, justice and equity.
I think most people are moderates it’s the fanatic haters like you Zaklog that push people into sides.
Huh. I thought you were wearing it because they’re terribly comfortable. I hear everyone will be wearing them in the future.
No more rhymes now. I mean it!
Christians, don’t be fooled: Trump has deep religious convictions
“Trump’s inauguration address counts as a stunning example of idolatry. His statement — ‘At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country we will recover loyalty to each other’ — is clearly a theological claim that offers a kind of salvation.”
“Christians believe that only God demands ‘total allegiance.’ Otherwise we run the risk, as Trump exemplifies, of making an idol out of some human enterprise.”
“Trump identifies as a Presbyterian. However, he has said he does not need a prayer for confession of sins because he has done nothing that requires forgiveness, one signal that he does not believe in a basic Christian tenet. He has identified with Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote the book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” which does not represent Christian orthodoxy.
Christianity in Peale’s hands was closer to a set of beliefs a follower could make up to suit their desires. Trump has adopted this strategy and applied it to the country. Christians must call his profound and mistaken faith what it is: idolatry.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/01/27/christians-dont-be-fooled-trump-has-deep-religious-convictions/
Your beloved blog host does not believe in Hell.
If you’re in agreement with that, then what does it matter about him confessing his sins?
Hey, everyone, remember when you watched the Lone Ranger and at the end of every episode folks would say “Who is that man?” Well, take your pick. Joe? Zak? benny? The Lone Catholic? Robert Morie? Declan? Yep. All of the above and more. My husband had dementia for a decade while I took care of him and, believe me, you cannot deal with a demented brain, so while I never gave up on him, I am giving up on the troll. He means to just stir up shit.
Charles, I consider it a high compliment the he is striking back by saying that I am you. I wish I had the talent you have with words. I am proud to be a woman who roars, however, the only time I wished to be a man is when I wanted to lift something heavy. Damn! I just can’t do it without putting out my back.
Keep speaking up. We need your voice.
Amen!!
I wish I had the talent you have with words.
Yup, because telling people that nobody gives a s**t [his uncensored] about their opinions or that they are literally damned to Hell for disagreeing with his political opinions takes real eloquence.
Nope, you are just wrong and being called out on your wrongness.
My, you folks are comically good at completely missing the point.
My argument in this case was not that Charles is wrong, but that he is hardly an example of soaring rhetoric.
Do try to keep up, sweetie.
you love your own reflection don’t you ?
now answer my question and be specific!
you love your own reflection don’t you ?
Probably not more than most healthy, physically fit people do.
yeah I bet you are an Adonis with flowing waving hair dark dreamy eyes and a gentle manly voice. But the glasses give you that distinguished air.
Thank you John. You have so many times echoed my own thoughts.
Patricia Brush – Thank you for your words. I agree. Maybe you too grew up over 50 years ago and can remember what it was like. I am saddened that so many repeat the same talking points as people repeated for decades, never realizing that what they are doing isn’t working. It becomes white noise.
Your exchanges with Wayne show you have the patience of a saint. I am so impressed. I have to confess I do not have your patience and have, on more than one occasion, felt major comment regret afterwards. That is something I need to work on.
Hi Joanne, I am 58. We have been through a lot, haven’t we! I am thinking about that quotation: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
I have been working on my comment style for several years. I have found that I have to allow the words that might cause comment regret to be free in my head before I can begin to write. They help to show me what part of the offending comment I wish to reply to and where my discomfort lies. From there I try very hard to address the issue at hand and not attack the person. I will comment on egregious behaviour, but I make sure I am speaking of the behaviour and not the person. Instead of saying “You are a bigot”, I’ll say “You are saying some harmful hateful things about people who are different from you.” Their words are clear on the page, but I cannot see their heart.
I also have the words of a former boss in my head. “Is that a ditch you want to die in?” It gives me the patience to write calmly and the ability to walk away in clear conscience.
Hi Patricia, I am 69 and for the last 41 years have been in permanent mom/gramma mode. No excuse, but I am new at this blog and comment stuff and still finding my way. I am so happy to have found John’s site in December. There are some very interesting people who post here and I do enjoy a exchange of views without name calling of course.
I apologize to the world that there are heretics like John Pavlovitz who deny the inerrancy of God’s Word, proclaim a false gospel, and focus on the temporal rather than preaching the true gospel- repenting of sins and placing faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Amen to that!!!!
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. amen.
Blessed be the Lord God of all people and nations including Muslims who are being singled out and discriminated against by bigoted conservatives.
Amen
How are conservatives singling them out? Please be specific and cite sources/references?
Also, without using Google, do you know what taqiyya is?
Declan. No one owes you a library trip and hundreds of hours of research, because quite frankly, you are not that important in the overall scheme of things.
Folks, this is a classic troll strategy. The troll takes the position that he is the only person on the planet who possesses truth and righteousness—and everyone else but him is wrong. So, if anyone says anything he disagrees with, he demands something that he would never do for you. He demands that you go to the library and spend days researching your brains out—and totally exhausting yourself—to counter him.
This proves that you are a troll Declan because this is classic troll strategy.
Asking people to provide evidence for their unsubstantiated claims makes me a troll?
Hatred and name calling is the only response you have.
Declan you don’t care one bit what someone says and you don’t listen to the answers they give anyway.
The end result you are looking for is a reason to say someone is wrong because they resort to name calling.
Jesus called people snakes and hypocrites get over it !
You whiny little baby
Ditto.
He called people snakes and hypocrites because they were. The name calling here is used inappropriately as is the misuse of verses out of context to appease one’s liberal agenda.
You appear as a snake and a viper to me because you go around spreading misery to those who are trying to grasp the heaviness of their hearts.
You haven’t done anything to show you care about the everyday people commenting on this blog.
If you are so good at obeying the first great commandment you fall short and fail entirely when you neglect the second great commandment.
I apologize to the world for blind guide Declan Garret who believes 5 percent of the Christian faith is the ENTIRE Christian faith while he ignores the other 95 percent of the Christian faith laid out so well in the New Testament—the 95 percent he and his kind have tried to kill off in this world—but that John Pavlovitz is reviving at the command of Jesus so the world will take seriously the 100 percent Christian faith—and not just assent to it in mind alone—but actually go out and do it in the world.
Declan Garret is a LIAR about both John Pavlovitz and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But that comes as no shock because numerous highly visible Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals on the world stage are LIARS. Just check out this post on my blog:
https://faith17983.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/lies-christian-fundamentalists-and-conservative-evangelicals-tell/
Lying is one of their favorite pass times.
Please specify where I am lying and what is the 95% I ignore.
If you actually tested JP’s blogs against God’s Word (which he HATES) you would conclude he is a false teacher.
Unfortunately, you are blinded by hatred towards Christians and loyalty towards JO.
That is my whole point. You are so blind you do not even know what that 95 percent is. Go read the New Testament through and pay close attention to the hard parts that make you feel uncomfortable. The other 95 percent is not about “mental assent.” It is about actively “doing in life” according to the words and deeds of Jesus. But hey, I am not going to waste my time on you because you and your fellow fundies have the same disease that the Scribes and Pharisees had. You know what Jesus said to them: Luke 16:31. This was his way of saying that you people are beyond hope—and I think He was right.
And by the way, I caught that little code word use of the word “Christian” you dropped above. This is no doubt your classic fundie belief that the only “true” Christians anywhere on the face of the Earth are down at the Possum Holler IFB Church. I seriously doubt that Jesus shares in your arrogant and self-righteous opinion of your exclusivity. So, just go “F” yourself Declan.
You can’t substantiate the 95% because you approach the a bible presupposotionally. You take verses out of context in a lame and vain attempt to back up your liberal ideology. No wonder you worship at the feet of false idol/false teacher a John Pavlovitz.
Think about this for a moment… the accusations you imagine about people who read this blog is a reality you are creating. When you do this you alter your perception of people. Therefore if it is your imagination that makes you believe people worship John Pavlovitz and they are not actually doing that you are under a delusion. This is why it is not wise to make up false scenarios in your mind about what people are doing. We have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and be open to them.
We have to stop reading the fake news (both liberal and conservative and other perspectives) Be careful about what you are reading by thinking critically about it, because wrong information is creating a false reality. We should all step back from the deluge of social media every once and a while to refresh our hearts and minds. People seem to get more calloused as they go along we have to leave room for grace and compassion.
You hate Christians and God’s Word because you are in direct rebellion to God. Your issue is with Him yet you project your anger and hate on us. Hence the name calling and foul language.
Your admiration for John is because his writings make you feel good about your hatred for Christians and ultimately God.
You are projecting Declan and the worse thing is- you are bringing God into it. I personally think it is taking the Lords name in vain to use his name to win your petty argument.
You should think about that and repent !
Stop rubber stamping God on your comments.
What you think and what God’s Word says are mutually exclusive.
For the both of you try some humility, as it says in Romans
“For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
It appears that I struck a nerve. Good. You needed it. Now go find Jesus you two-bit viper—and take Leslie with you.
I have no problem with Christians. I love Christians. I am a Christian. I love God. I love Jesus. I love the Holy Spirit. And as the Bible says, anyone who believes in them and and really means it—and I do—is a Christian.
I just believe Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals are modern day Scribes and Pharisees who are desperately lost and need to find Jesus before it is too late. Go find him you two-bit a-hole!!!
You love Christians? Really? Go read I John 4:20. You are hateful and foul mouthed.
Now isn’t that rich—pot Declan calls Charles the kettle black. Tell you what. Go work on your own hatred for every Christian who is not fundie and for every other human being you people so actively hate. Here is a Bible verse that aptly describes you and your kind:
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” (Matthew 15:8)
People like you would give Jesus lip service to people all day long—and then go home at night to work politically to make sure their health insurance is taken from them. Fits you to a “T” Declan, and that is precisely what Jesus is saying about people like you in that verse.
Raise your hand folks. How many people here think Declan is a hate master and this verse fits him like Spandex? Just register your ditto below:
Ditto. I would also register my ditto for a few other people.
ditto!!
LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This administration is but a blip in the grand scheme of life.
There is good in everything and the good here is the opportunity for a grand RESET, this is the wake-up call and know this; we will be stronger more complete and more loving when the violent waves settle.
Bear in mind DJT is but the tiny tip of the iceberg, the entire iceberg must melt and become absorbed in the absolute goodness of life. Melt it will and the ship of the USA will no longer be in danger of ramming into the iceberg.
The America that Trump represents has always been there. “Beacon of freedom” has always been more marketing than reality. The country has gone through fascist-style periods earlier with Japanese internment caps and Mc Carthy communist witch hunts. Because many Americans know nothing of history it is easy to lure them into ideas that clearly have the dark flavor of totalitarianism. They would unknowingly slide into a dictatorship. Maybe they did it this time. It is already a totalitarian mindset to glorify a leader so much. But yes, democracy does not seem to work anymore in the US. We don’t want to cry wolf but anybody with a brain can see disturbing signs like threatening to silence the press, and now banning immigrants of certain countries. How can anyone look the other way on this? Benefit of the doubt stops somewhere does it not? Don’t want to be chicken little so we’ll keep the head cool until the first 100 days are over then re-evaluate. The faithful that voted for the man may remain supportive very long, just because he advocated “Merry Christmas”, I guess that did it. That is kinda how faithful behave in general. Believe in things unseen. If you take the Bible literally, then adding a little dose of Trump alternative facts is not a big stretch. To justify a radical solution you have to of course paint a very bleak reality. That is an old marketing trick. We’ll see how Merry our collective “Christmas” will be under our caudillo, praised be his Name. People , people, I know you thought you made the right choice, that corrupt Hillary was so awful, I do follow your dilemma. You did not want to stay home so you took this big gamble. I hope the Lord is making it all work, people!! Working through our beloved Donald who is called to do great things for our beloved nation, will make it a Christian nation again. I do follow your reasoning. I hope you understand our trepidations too. Let’s talk again in 100 days and check whether we can sleep peacefully at night.
I agree with you, but you cannot know that the majority of Americans do not support Trump when 90 million did not vote. You’re assuming those 90 million are against him, and that is a fallacious assumption. You don’t need to exaggerate or lie to make your point.
I am heart broken..please help..
What makes you heart broken?
People like you.
Amen
Ok JC. Seriously. What has you heartbroken? I am asking because it might be possible that I could offer you some sort of love and comfort. Would you like to talk about it here?
I fought for your right to have an opinion and I totally respect that.
President Trump has done nothing in the past week that he did not promise to do while campaigning. We, the electorate, have duly elected him to be our leader and he is doing perfectly, so far. Your side put forth the weakest and most vile of candidates possible and she, thankfully, lost the election.
Please get over your loss, get onboard with the new and exciting future of America or be really frustrated for the next 8 years – as I have been after being fooled into voting for Obama in 2008. As a conservative Veteran of the U.S. Armed forces in Vietnam, I am pleased to see a President who has the back of our troops. As the grandson of immigrants who came to our shores legally, I am proud that something, however unconventional, is being done to secure our borders and to restore legal immigration and citizenship to those who enter our country legally. I also am pleased to see legislation to make Sharia law, which is against our constitution, made fully unlawful while permitting peace seeking Muslims to enjoy the benefits of our great country.
Sadly for those outside the USA, this was not a surprise as the underpinnings of this monstrous man have been evident for some time. The lid was kept tight by presidents before, but not tight enough. Sadly, the hatred that is now on display has been malignant amongst your citizens for all to see, if we looked! What your citizens do to each other was bound to spill over and now you and the world are subject to a madman who has power. Power to do whatever he likes surrounded by other madmen who egg him on .
I am sad for your America. I am sad for the ramifications of your America as my Australia is a close sister to your madman. Did you know, as I am confident most do not. Our Prime Minister and your previous President had an agreement to resettle Syrian refugees we (Australia) hold prisoners on Manus Island? Yes we keep them prisoners contuining the atrocities they fled their country’s for. Our Dictatorial political system keeps them there indefinitely with no hope of resettlement. The sentiment in my country sadly is mirroring yours, hatred, racism and evil. We too have those rising up to speak for hatred. What we all fail to see is that humanity is no longer a prevailing ideology. It tried, but these cancerous human beings have killed it.
… Rose, that’s true indeed, and something that hadn’t yet occurred to me. Obama giveth and the Trump taketh away… what a farce. 🙁
Unfortunately, Obama supporters just blithely went along with anything Obama laid out. We (Conservatives) wish you would have spoken up & and steered Obama back toward the middle.
Now look what’s happened! Why didn’t you realize what was going on? We did our best to tell you. Trump Presidency was created by you who were asleep in front of the TV (CNN & MSNBC).
Nice try at deflecting the blame.
I don’t buy anything you say leslie
you want it all to be the democrats fault even if Trump goes bad it will never ever be anyone’s fault but the democrats. All your finger printing does is show you to be spineless.
That didn’t take long, “it’s Obama’s fault”. Give me a break.
That didn’t take long, “it’s Obama’s fault”. Give me a break.
Leslie. Why are you not steering Trump toward the middle? I’ll tell you why. It is because of your fundie “all or nothing thinking” that declares that there is no middle. You demand that Obama goes to a middle you think does not exist—but in your rank hypocrisy—you see no reason for Trump to go there.
well said my friend!!
Don- Thank you for serving our country!
Don – Though I disagree completely with your opinion, I will be forever in your debt. Thank you for your service and sacrifice for our country and allowing me and my family to enjoy the freedoms we
Thank you for your service. My husband and many of my classmates including a few women served during Vietnam. Many boys, who I grew up with, who I loved were boots on the ground also. The ones that made it back alive were forever changed. How could they not be?
We may have different political views but you are a hero and always will be.
Actually 7, 114,507 people voted against Trump. In others words more people voted against Trump in the election.
The Popular Vote
Hillary Clinton 65, 844, 954
Donald Trump 62, 979, 879
Gary Johnson 4, 042, 291
Jill Stein 1, 207, 141
Trump is the least popular presidential candidate ever. This is why he is making false claims about election fraud because he knows he needs to cheat in order to win next time. From my perspective your two party/ electoral college system has failed your people.
And more people voted against Hillary than for her as well.
The popular vote by state was the goal, not the overall popular vote. If it had been the latter, campaigning would have been different and Trump still might have won.
I wasn’t talking about Hillary, you sycophant !
Why is it that Leftists almost always resort to ad hominem attacks?
Explain please, Zak.
Because people twist good ideologies- so it is the person who is behaving like a boot licker not the position they hold.
In other words Mr. Alone it doesn’t matter if the belief you hold is right, if your motive is bad, you are personally responsible (not the belief ).
Saul Alinsky rule #5:
‘Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.’ (because there is no defense).
but this is why lone joe catholic so often resorts to mockery because he thinks he is untouchable but the truth is anything is defensible if there is not truth to it.
your rules have holes in them
Saul’s rules are pretty smart, elephant, but ridicule should be used sparingly. It’s not a way of life.
Leslie. You are such an idiot. Do you seriously think people who disagree with you have read Saul Alinsky and carry around some sort of rule book that he wrote? Get a brain. I have never read any Saul Alinsky books and had never even head of the guy until 2008. I do not even know a person who has read any of his books—and no one has ever brought up his books, things he said, or anything about him in any personal, face-to-face conversation I have ever had with anyone. Your fundie ignorance never ceases to amaze me.
This Saul Alinsky sounds like an abuser and a bully. The real teaching about ridicule comes from the Rule of St. Benedict, which is that it does harm to the soul.
I think it is so ironic that you and benny/joe/lone catholic both admire St.Benedict and are so opposed to each other in the comments. Very ironic.
btw Alinsky was a community organizer and a political activist.
This puts into heartbreaking and beautiful words precisely what I have been feeling since the election. Thank you.
Stop calling Trump a “child”.
He is an adult.
Adults put him in power.
Whenever and wherever power-hungry monsters like him take power, they are always, without fail, adults.
Children did not do this and it’s high time we stopped associating evil behavior with youth, because clearly, we grownups are the ones culpable.
An encouraging read. Thank you :-)! Will be sharing.
This needs to go viral! Very, very eloquently said.
Now is time for the world to pick a new “Leader of the Free World”. It is clear that the principals guiding our efforts in the world are being undermined by the current administration. The United States of America is no longer eligible for that post as the integrity of the Office of the President of the United States no longer exists.
Which *is* the next most powerful or influential country in the Free World? It would be rather ironic if it was Germany, but I’m wondering! 🙂 Could we get Canada to volunteer?
We are so polite, we would never say we are the greatest, even if it was true. I will ever so bashfully note that in a recent study, Canada was rated as the most ethical country. I’m not saying it, someone else did.
In many ways we got started the same way as the USA but we followed very different paths.
True that. With the exception of the First Nations, the entire population of both countries is immigrant or a few to several generations immigrant. Both countries treated the inhabitants abysmally. In what was to become Canada, they hunted down every last member of the Beothuk nation. Abraham Lincoln and Sir John A MacDonald conspired to starve out the western First Nations through the massacre of the bison herds. Slaves were held in both countries, although Canada abolished it in 1834 with the US following in 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment of 1863. Our histories are embarrassing. But we learned. Our politics began to differ and our sense of ourselves took divergent paths.
I like Canadians and Canada. They are every best thing the United states hoped to be–but lost somewhere after November 22, 1964.
Excuse me. 1963.
They’re not very good about being warm in the winter. We have Florida for that and they don’t. Except, many of them go to Florida too…
Actually, we’re very good at being warm in the winter. We have learned to build houses to withstand the conditions and heating systems to efficiently keep those houses warm. We have also designed clothing and footwear that keeps us toasty warm. So while it’s cold outside, we’re not cold. And since some Americans think that climate change is either not real or nothing to be worried about, we are warming up. It is January. It should be well below freezing every day. Most days, it has been above freezing and I found mosquitos in my house. This is completely unheard of. If Americans don’t do their part in combatting climate change, you will soon find Canada to be very comfortable. Of course, Florida will be almost completely under water, but maybe that doesn’t matter to climate change deniers.
Your ignorance of why 60 million people voted for him is disturbing. If you’d take the time to talk to some Trump supporters (not the fringe lunatics that all candidates have) you might have a different viewpoint. I suppose that’s too much work though so it’s better just to assume all 60 million voters that made him our American spokesperson (yes, he DOES speak for America) are all women-hating racists. Sure, go with that.
Okay, sure. Why did 60 million people vote for him? Why did you, assuming you did?
“All 60 million voters that made him our American spokesperson” were too arrogant to realize or admit that this misogynistic, temperamental, racist, delusional man is a danger to us all. While many of us were frustrated and angry with our leaders’ seeming lack of concern for the regular person and were unnerved with the rise in terrorism world-wide, the majority of the American people had the sense to use reason: to get those impulses into our cerebrums where we could actually think through the repercussions of a Trump “victory”. Unfortunately, others left their feelings to fester in the most primordial parts of their brains. And voted accordingly.
Dear World:
Please ignore John on all points, as he himself is unstable, weak, and pathetic.
I am sure the whole world is going to listen to a middle school brat statement like yours—NOT.
Charles, you sound like a flaming homosexual!
nothing wrong with that 😀
Sorry. Got a wife, two kids, and an unending love and admiration for women. Jessica Alba is ideal woman outside of my wife—and I love that 160 IQ she has–and she is a lady. Watch this and how she struggles to keep Jim Kimmel in line:
As a Canadian we are frightened in this country because when America sneezes, we catch the cold. Trump’s comments re trade and hate tells us that the US of Trump don’t appreciate this country’s sunny ways.
I can understand your concerns about trade, but not “hate.”
What is the “hate policy” that concerns you?
Lone Joe Catholic why ask questions when you don’t care if they are answered- its rhetorical nonsense. Stop pretending that you are open minded or receptive to some else post of view when you are not.
I see very few specifics. Just words like “monster” and “hate.”
Because you don’t read everything- you gloss over the facts and hunt for weak responses and monopolize on them. Typical predatory bullying behaviour.
you do not embody the iron sharpens iron motto
I would like your post a whole lot more if you would replace the word ‘America’ with the words ‘United States’. America starts in Canada and ends at Tierra del Fuego, Chile.
Dear World, From America
Great piece. Enjoy your work and thoughts.
Beautiful.
Thank you for this!
If all the Trump voters would just stop watching FOX news propaganda and pay attention to real journalism and reporting, they could maybe realize how brainwashed they’ve been and how foolish they look defending him. By Trump telling you over and over again the media are liars and dishonest, you are playing right into his desires to be able to make you believe what is false. Remember when he said he could stand in the middle of the street and shoot someone and not lose any supporters?
This is all because Satan has blinded the Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals who support Trump. They believe the lies are truth and the truths are lies. They have not one ounce of spiritual discernment within them and cannot recognize the truth even when you shove it right under their noses. This is their perpetual condition.
63 yearsvon this planet and the amontu of hatred astounds me and makes me sad but I will do my part to stand because this is not right and it is not who we are.
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Here in Australia we are shocked and horrified by your new president. But mainly we are sorry for the American people and everybody else that Trump’s callous narcissism is hurting right now. We know he doesn’t speak for most of America – but please try to get rid of him quickly!
You are a spokesperson for all the people of Australia?
That’s impressive.
And I as a spokesperson for the vast majority of Christians and conservatives in the US would like you to know that we are thrilled that Trump is our president.
You may keep your shock and horror. Thanks anyway.
Mind your own business, you snake
The person that wrote this diatribe, has no idea what he or she is talking about, especially the issue of the popular vote .Our founding fathers designed the electoral college for a very specific reason. I suggest that any of you folks that believe the nonsense written by this individual, do a little research on the subject. It will enlighten you!!
If you are new to reading these posts be warned that expressions of calm and logical thinking will not go very far with this crowd…
Joe Lone Catholic- do you have a church all by your lonesome, just you and yourself ? So in order words you don’t speak for the Catholic church then, I guess you are the imposter after all.
I apologize for the ridicule 🙁
You are forgiven my child.
Go and ridicule no more.
That was me. The name and email have stopped filling in automatically for me.
I think a hacker is trying to prevent me from posting here and sharing my brilliance and humility, but I’m one step ahead of him (or her).
It’s not enough to be sorry! Do something before it’s too late. Convince the people who think this is the only way to save their America that they are wrong. Maybe you will save the world from the atomic bomb you entrusted this man with!
Dear John: thank you penning these words. I was move tears and sadness reflecting on the leadership we have today. I could not have penned a better letter. I will share with my dear friends abroad who keep asking me to explain. I am at a loss for words to explain. Your letter is of great help inthat department.
Best I the Struggle,
Ralph
Dear John: Thank you for penning these words. I was moved to tears and sadness reflecting on your words about the leadership we have at this moment. There is an urgency to speak up now as we may have a difficult time some time soon. I could not have penned a better letter. I will share your letter with my dear friends abroad who keep asking me to explain. Your letter helps in that department.
Best in the Struggle
I would sign this too… the man is bat-shit crazy.
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Sorry, you are not the majority. You are a spoiled, immature group of people who are not used to not getting your way. As the last president so plainly stated” elections have consequences “.You are the people dividing this country by your hatred and disregard for anyone that you don’t agree with.
The hatred from you is quite palatable.
Do you like looking in the mirror?
Anonymous, how are you helping the division ?
Dear America, you are not the police of the world, and should not have 100’s of military bases around the world enforcing your hegemony. You should not be allowing your leaders to bomb countries without a proper declaration of war. March to stop that, and maybe we will forgive you and take you seriously. In the meantime, the fact that you did not protest when Obama was bombing us, tells us just how concerned you actually are for the welfare of our children. You reap what you sow, and you have been sticking your military noses where they do not belong to steal our resources and impose central banks for decades now. You had no problem when the boot of tyranny was on your feet, and on our necks. You profited from that. There is a karmic debt to be paid, and it has been building for a long time. So America, from the rest of the world, you should know, you deserve this.
So, what country do you live in Rob?
Dear Rob Menard:
Please note that I respond to this here:
http://tinyurl.com/z93r2m6
I’m petrified for this country and my children’s future
Are you a Christian? If so, where is your hope? The temporary resident of the White House or the eternal king?
America is not the true home of Christians and could very well be headed for catastrophe in the future regardless of who is our president. Should economic or a terrorist event occur that proves catastrophic the world is going to need to the Church to bring them hope. Are we going to do that or are we going to have a politically driven mindset that is in line with the world?
Christians have the helmet of salvation. Therefore, our minds should be focused on Jesus Christ and we should not have our minds and emotions dependent on the political state of the country.
Politics is a dirty business. A college friend of mine serves in the House of Representatives for our state. I once asked him if he wanted to be a state senator and he does not because of the political backstabbing and corruption. This is at a state level! Just imagine what D.C. is like.
Well listen up a-hole. You should be the first to take your own advice and abandon that fundie p*ss pot you call a church—and get with the real Jesus program in the mainline American churches.
Does the church you attend encourage the foul language you use or the hatred in your heart?
Declan. Does your church condone your hatred and the hatred that pervades Christian fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism on a daily basis.
I do not accept the American fundie-created litmus test that four letter words are always a sure sign of a nonChristian. Here is my real response fundie a-hole:
You did not really answer my question. Can’t say I’m not surprised.
What is the hate that claim pervades churches? How do you know it is there? Please be specific and provide references that support your position.
Also, just so we are on the same page, what do you consider a “fundie” or “fundamentalist”?
if you want answers be more observant
Oh no you don’t. I do not play such games with trolls like you. If you are actually so puzzled about this, which I sincerely doubt because you people deal in so much lying and deceit, you can go do research and get answers to these questions on your own. You have the Internet, libraries, and all sorts of research tools. You are a big boy, and you can do it on your own just like anyone else who can read. Have fun a-hole!!!
P.S. My daughter, when she was a teenager, participated in a church play at my United Methodist Church one evening. The play focused on showing how silly Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals are. The thing you need to get deep into your noggin is that the mainline Christian churches in the United States are fed up with this war that you fundies declared on them in the early 20th century. The days of rolling over and playing dead while you people pursue your campaigns of hatred in the name of Jesus are over. Get ready for the harsh blowback on the American stage. We are sick and tired of it—and we are coming after you. Capiche?
What “war” did “we” declare? I’m not at war with anyone. However, false teachings have no place in the Church.
You talk about “our” hatred yet all you have towards Bible believing Christians is hatred.
JP gives tacit approval to foul language. [I think he gets a vicarious thrill.]
His facebook has an odd mosaic of a nude woman laying on her side. It’s not art. It’s weird for a Christian Pastor.
His own pastor, Doug Hammack, [North Raleigh Community Church], primary ministry is: ‘Re-thinking Christian Sex Education.’ (strong emphasis on teen sexuality). Listen to podcast: ‘Mom, When should I start having sex?’, or, ‘Pornography: Is it really a Problem?”
What is wrong with nakedness ?
It would not surprise me one bit if he eventual embraces premarital sex and next comes poly amorous relationships, and if he goes down that road and keeps his following, it’s because he’s telling them what they want to hear but not what they need to hear.
He’s very corrupt but by putting a big smiley face on his “teaching” some are fooled into thinking it’s “love.”
You really do talk like a Pharisee gossiping about how one might be sinning and creating innuendo and rumours. Just like the fake news
Wait a sec isn’t poly amorous just another way of saying polygamy? I mean isn’t that how polygamy originated ? I am definitely monogamous, a one gal kinda gal. Even if I could marry two women I wouldn’t want to. 😀
Ahh . . . but if you say polyamorous, you can rightfully claim that it isn’t supported in the Bible and label it is terrible sin. If you call it polygamy, you have to accept it as Biblical marriage. I know many don’t, but they should if they really believe the Scripture they are thumping.
Anything that John Pavlovitz does that contradicts God’s Word does not surprise me. Why? He hates it. He also hates God. The “god” he worships is a false god he created to coincide with his liberal ideology.
John speaks of “love” but it is no Biblical love. His “love” is merely an endorsement of sin. That is why people who live in unrepentant sin (i.e. homosexuality) feel “welcome” here. Why? God’s truth is not proclaimed here. There is no conviction from the Holy Spirit.
Thanks for the recommendation on he sermon. I’ll check it out.
Leslie / Lone Catholic- Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-CHA4Z2FQ
John Pavlovitz is not mentioned but his theology is very much in line with the emergents.
DG: thanks for the excellent resource. I was in the Emergent Church for many years. But when I started bringing my new bible to church, they had a heart
attack. I had a heart to heart talk with the Pastor, and he actually broke down and confessed to me that he had lost his faith in Seminary (Liberal), where they taught him to question everything.
I will check out the video and tell you what I think (it is 3 hours long!). I am open to everyone who gives a reasonable answer.
Declan you said
“He hates it. He also hates God.”
Uhm…. no
you hate John Pavlovtiz.
Dear Charles:
Realize that much of what happens on internet forums deliberately directs attention from class relations.
Blessings!
I know. Thanks.
Dear Declain Garrett:
The problem with your post is that it is more Gnostic than Christian.
At issue here is the extreme likelihood of a new world war leading inevitably to thermonuclear holocaust in which not millions but billions may die. It is no answer to throw up our hands and say, ‘what will be will be…’
Blessings!
You are not the American majority!!!!
what’s your issue? feeling powerless?
You do not speak for the majority of Americans nor do you have the right to claim you do. Your claims are ridiculous & apparently spring from your own selfish fears. You lost an election. Who hasn’t. He is still our president & doing his best to keep the promises he made to protect you & the “rights” you are so worried about. Give him the respect you should give to every one.
You do not speak for the majority of Americans…sorry.
Thank you!
I Greatfull for someone willing to take a stand and support verification and banning the wild influx of people with no accountability.
Yes I support Extreme Vetting.
If You dont like america then get out .
See if those other countries will let you run wild , speak against thier country.
YOU whoever you are should be Very thankfull that trump wants to protect america against those who dont respect life and others values .
Yes I love Jesus, and Love people , but believe you should respect others . Vetting is Right .
Backgrounding is right.
The Right Way .
Not just influx of welfare reciepients
Get A Grip , Take a stand , support those who Protect your ASSSETTT s .
No more Non accountability .
Do the right thing .
You cannot just do your own thing and have a real protected world.
lawless undocumented run on society.
Take a look at germany, france, england , and other s , this will happen here too if you dont have accountability.
And where did you graduate from an American high school? This is my point folks. Near illiterates like this guy who cannot even put a whole sentence together are the Americans who love Trump the most and are most sold out to him.
Just for your information, the Syrian refugees were already being “extreme vetted” before Trump did anything.
Thank you for writing this. It expresses what so many of us are feeling at this moment. Beautiful written…well done.
Edit: “Beautifully” written. 🙂
Writing from Australia, I’m scared & not sure, after the latest cruel act towards Muslim people, that I am able to believe your words any more. Too many people appear to agree the problem is with others. I do hope something changes before there is a world war.
Naomi. All you and your fellow Australians have to know is that the Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals who elected Donald Trump hate Islam and the followers of Islam. They believe Islam is a false religion created by Satan. They believe that Allah is not the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob–as the followers of Islam claim. Instead, they believe Allah is Satan himself. Mohammed was a Satan-duped human who became an anti-Christ figure set up by Satan in a counter role to Jesus Christ. They believe every word in the Koran is a death letter from Satan to the peoples of the Earth—and every word in it is false. They see Islam as an enemy of the One True God and all that is Holy, and you know the old lesson from world history that the fundies have learned all too well, “the enemies of God must be destroyed.” Trump is their knight in shining armor who is going to take care of the “Islam Problem” for them once, finally, and for all.
You said what my heart has longed to speak. Yes. I am a proud American. But, I am also a citizen of our planet with all my human family. May you hearts be filled with strength.
Dear John
First of all, bear with my childish English and long response. English is my second language.
It took me for a while to write you. I needed some courage but Lord is always with me so I decided to do so.
On behalf of non-Americans outside of your country, I heard you loud and clear.
I know that person, I refuse to mention his foul name, and his team don’t represent your country.
We once had a group like them and led us to horrible wars under the imperialism and dictatorships. My grandparents often talked to me about how horrible that time was, when I was young. My grandparents lost 5 kids out of 7 due to those wars. And the whole nation suffered beyond our imagination. It was so terrible that my grandparents couldn’t even shed tears in public. It was recognized as disgrace to our country and unpatriotic gesture, since they dedicated themselves to our country which were honorable duties as citizen.
Now I can see those signs in your country. And I am deeply concerned about your country and about the unstable balance of the power of the world.
What that person and his team are doing are so similar to our dark age. They claim you are facing YUUUGE threats and scream about fears in your country every chance they get. They control medias. And they blame every bad things are caused by other nations. They even manipulate the Greater power too. They claim their acts are missions from God. They start out with small movement but soon they will spread their wings before you notice. So similar.
As a Christian, what that person is saying is everything our Lord is against it. This Presidential transformation, from President Obama to that person, reminds me of Mathew 12:43-45.
The things the former President Obama provided to your country, specifically health care is NOT anything extraordinary in our country and other nations. We, Japanese, are taking for granted everyday. We are provided by equal health care plus pension plan. Off course, they are not perfect but we work out every year to suit current status quo as our economy changes. So I don’t know why advanced country like yours still doesn’t have that. And many people are against it. Everyone can share the same benefits. What is wrong with that?
We also have easier voting system which again the former President Obama was talking about. We don’t have to register to vote. The local government sends your ticket to vote to your home prior to any elections. All we need are just to show up at the designated place to vote. It is a lot easier to vote comparing to your country. I am so surprised to see that the country so advanced and the whole world recognize your country as the world leader are still under very immature voting system.
Your country represents Democracy. It always has to be. That’s the reason why your country was founded.
We all make mistakes sometimes. Our country are facing issues everyday too. But we must not turn our face away from justice and love to our neighbors, even though the new leader of yours might pretend that you will gain small amount of gold in your pocket, if you become followers of them. But it will get rotten before you know it. We need to learn from one and an another. The most important thing is that we must learn from our history. Again thank you, John for not giving up with the power of the people.
Thank you John. I am so with you on this
And we are sorry that the actions of this man will undoubtedly contribute to the radicalization of even more desperate Muslim youths, who now have a clear understanding that America is turning her back on them…
To the lone Catholic, no one leaves behind the Eucharist. We as Christians are to be broken and shared everyday with our fellow human beings. It is what Jesus lived.
It is sad that the fools who voted for Hilary and spew hatred towards those who do not think like them can’t see that if they had just put forth a better candidate, one with less baggage, that candidate would easily have won the election. But this party was so consumed with getting a woman elected, they failed to put forth the right woman or man. Don’t blame the rest of the country for being tired of your rhetoric. 8 years of failed leadership was enough.
Actually you are correct in that within 3 days of the election , Bernie Sanders announced at a Democratic party rally that “there is something decisively wrong with the Democratic party, the party of the people when we lose to the worst candidate in Republican party history.”
As for the previous 8 years please give credit where credit is due “a DO NOTHING repugliccan congress.” How could he do anything when they handcuffed his hands behind his back as for example children in SandyHook were shot and republican investors in the gun business profits rose over 500% in the past 8 years.
Dear John: You are correct!
Dear Mr. Trump: “I fear YOU have awoken a sleeping giant” The American people will crush you and your kind!
Speak for yourself sir. I do not share your same opinion of our new President. I find his approach refreshing after 8 years of stagnation and leading from behind. Good day to you sir.
hi donna.
Time will tell how Mr Trumps presidency goes. He’s an unusual guy. I admire some of his qualities. Despite his many fits & starts…he is able to get his message out. Enforced borders. Citizen safety. Fewer Byzantine regulations. Mutually fair trade.
Despite what people think, I think he is a collaborator. [More so than Obama.]
One thing is for sure –he LOVES America & Americans, and is not ashamed. Nice.
I don’t believe Trump loves America or Americans at all. He is an opportunist con-man with charisma the exact kind of leader all you evangelical types like.
Ditto on that.
Thank you for writing this. It expresses exactly how I feel.
If anybody from another country asks me if this man represents America, I will tell them the truth. I’ll tell them how this country has changed. How the people have grown angrier and more ignorant over time. I’ve traveled all over the country, both recently and in decades past. I have seen the change.
This man definitely represents the worst of us. But he does represent us. I’ll tell anyone from other countries of our growing pathetic inability to think straight. Our silly attraction to celebrity culture. Our willingness to believe anything as long as it pricks our emotion. And mostly our distrust of each other.
He does not represent me and most of my friends, and it’s obvious he doesn’t represent you. But he represents some of my friends and some of my family. He represents enough people distributed evenly throughout the country that he was elected, using a system that has worked and that we have trusted since the beginning. They put him in office, and support every move he makes right now. This is what America has become.
I don’t understand why you would want to lie to people from other countries. They have enough trouble understanding what is going on here. If they are smart they figure there must be some reason he is our president. It’s NOT an accident. It is the result of the decline of Americans. Notice I said Americans not America. The problem with America is not Trump, corporations, the government or politicians. It’s Americans.
I agree. The problem with Americans is millions of people with 10th rate high school educations and less (high school dropouts) who live in little five room houses, and work for $9.00 an hour down at the call center. I grew up with these people and was the son of two of them. They are on the whole good people, but when push comes to shove, just like my mom and dad, they do not know their own ass from a hole in the ground. They wanted their children to grow up, get college educations, and do better in life than they did. We did what they wanted. We got those college degrees. We do know our asses from a whole in the ground. We know where to lead this country. Now our parents and those like them spit on us, tell us we are “elitists,” and tell us we know nothing. I just love it when an auto worker who graduated from high school with a C- average boasts about his life on the assembly line—a life he really does not deserve because he never had to get any significant education, do any real thinking, or work hard to get that high-paying job.
Spit on your elitist children all you like—but when the sun goes down every day—you are still pathetic and brain dead—and your choice of a President demonstrates just how pathetic and brain dead you really are.
Wow Charles – a little harsh. Neither my husband or I graduated from college although we both have some college credits. We both have worked since we were 16.
Our 4 sons worked from the age of 15, bought their own clunker cars and worked through college. They all have BA degrees although it took them longer than 4 years. They have never not had a job.
I am so terribly proud of them and I am happy that they earn more than we ever did. I do not consider them elitist. I consider them hard workers who, like us, worked for everything they have. I am happy they never had to inch by inch work themselves out of debt that was caused by the loss of job or hours worked during Bush I’s recession.
It is the right who say that liberals are either elitis or lazy and stupid or living on the dole. I do not consider myself any of the above. I have always voted Democrat. I am more comfortable in a world that is more balanced between the two parties so each side could counteract the extremes of other side.
We never had the extra money to invest nor did we even aspire to be wealthy. I can’t even pick the right grocery line when I am in a hurry so taking chances is not in my makeup.
You have said a real job is earning $40 or more an hour. Even lower paid worker bees should not be painted with the same “not having a real job” brush.
I am not one of the “majority”
This article lies.
Watch it, Redneck. The only thing that really lies is that butt crack above your jeans when you squat down to fix the pipes.
Thanks for this letter
I absolutely 100% agree!
As a general point, the President hasn’t done anything he didn’t at least discuss doing, has he?
“Awakened a sleeping Giant?”
What are you talking about? This could only be ‘waking you up’ if you have been asleep since August. Odds are you weren’t, we had an election where all of this was out in the open and the American people voted for these policies by not only electing Donald Trump as President, but supplying him with a Congress which could make these policies possible.
One of my biggest problems with Bernie Sanders early on was his campaign promises were utterly unrealistic given the Congress he would most likely be working with. He was essentially lying to everyone. He was a long-standing US Senator and knew precisely what it would take to get his proposed legislation through … and he had NO CHANCE of that. He made those promises anyway.
For the poster who suggest we are getting ‘what’s coming to us’ as if it was bad karma … yeah, you are one of the reasons Americans opted for a Trump-esque Foreign Policy over any continuation of what President Obama attempted. “What’s coming to us” indeed.
We know we have enemies. We know we are not universally loved. We know such a thing is never possible … and we simply don’t care. Plenty of folks have felt they could screw with us from the sanctity of a non-extradition country, fortified bunker, or hidden cave complex … and they were all proven wrong.
We have Fulbright Scholarships and drone strikes. Choose wisely.
As for turning our backs on Muslim countries … have we turned our backs on the World’s Largest Muslim countries? Ya know; India and Indonesia? No, it concentrates on countries which are already screwed up ~ places our former President chose not to deal with over the past 8 years.
It might be noted that when the ACLU went after portions of the ban, they got it lifted on ‘refugees, naturalized citizens, visa holders, and green-card holders’ [thank you, Wikipedia] ~ 200 people.
Which might lead you to wonder what is really going on … such as this being nothing more than ‘smoke and mirrors’. This is Trump corralling the Republicans before serious work on the budget and, more critically, the next Supreme Court Justice, comes up. Having tossed his base their favorite plums, he can move forward with far less radical things, or appointments … because … after handing out these bright, shiny trinkets, the Republicans won’t have the political cohesion to balk.
Muslim Ban – check [effects roughly 200 people and ends in 120 days]
Withdraws from the TPTP – check [but not really since it remains active in the Senate]
Builds the Wall – check [except not a single budgetary bill has moved through Congress and across his desk which would make this monstrosity a reality]
Defunding Abortion – check [nothing he could have done about this anyway with a Republican-dominated Congress, Folks. Precisely why would he fight a battle he couldn’t win, expending minimal political capital for NO GAIN?]
All of this looks real nice, but the Supreme Court is for the next twenty years, not the next 100 days. Now, is Trump going to replace Scalia, or is he going to put forth someone far more moderate? The Dems can’t stop anyone short of Satan, so why isn’t Trump putting forth a nominee already? Now that he’s given all the Republicans these ‘giftees’, can they mount an effective refusal of a Moderate? Why do this? He’s barely a Republican, folks. Barely.
Trump’s legacy isn’t some squabble about the size of his Inauguration crowd. That’s ‘smoke and mirrors’ again. It is the Supreme Court. It might just be another Justice if things work out a certain way.
Dear America from World:
You all were just fine when your government was overthrowing democratically elected and secular governments and replacing them with brutal dictatorships and fundamentalist theocracies to ensure a reliable flow of cheap labor and raw materials required to maintain your comfortable and convenient lifestyle.
Now that a faint echo of what you’ve dished out is reverberating onto your home shores, now, all of a sudden you can’t take it.
And you expect for us to take pity on your poor souls?
What would America do to another country facing similar circumstance?
Uh huh.
But before we go Marcos, know this:
Dear marcos:
Please note that I respond to this here:
http://tinyurl.com/z93r2m6
You don’t speak for me or our government. Your eleatist liberal B.S. Is a self fulfilling organism you’re having all over yourself and a few loyal readers who really know nothing about what’s going on in the world other then they want to save the whale and the planet. Well who doesn’t. There’s more at stake here and you 5 minutes of fame are up. By the way world, We’re not sorry the writer of the blog is. He’s a sorry S.OB.
John P. has many 1000s of loyal readers—just to set the record straight—live with it.
Thank you, from Australia.
I love you, John!
#notmypresident #notmyamerica #resist #impeach #cheetosnowflake
Yes~~ thank you for expressing exactly what I (and many) feel. Let us remind ourselves every day of these words and #resist
Thank you so much for writing this beautiful piece.
You are an idiot, you do not speak for the American majority.
Why weren’t liberals this upset when Obama was bombing Muslims? Kill them, eh. Stop them at the border… My God!
I don’t know why all you people are so upset. The only truth right now is the resignation that nearly everyone who posts here will be dead within 18-24 months in the nuclear fire that is coming as a direct result of Trump’s foibles. This is a time to be getting your final affairs in order and to be preparing for the end. Any creative thing you have ever wanted to do before you die, now is the time to be creative. Now is the time to patch up hurt relationships. Now is the time to attend to all loose ends in your life. Now is the time to find Jesus and reconcile with God. Of course, though, one of the things you will need to remember in your preparations and final doings is that no one will come after you to appreciate what you have done—because the human race will be finished. All your family members will be gone, and it is highly likely that all life on Earth will be gone forever. Therefore, whatever you do in the coming 24 months will necessarily be done for God, for yourself, or for a family member or friend who is still alive in the present to appreciate what you have done.
My only regret is that I live in a place that is a No. 1 prime target for nuclear weapons, which means that I and my family members will be gone within the first 20 minutes after the Russian or Chinese missiles are fired. I will not be a witness to the very short and horrible final history that will ensue. The people starving from lack of food. The masses of horribly burned people. Huge numbers dying from radiation sickness as gamma rays eat their small intestines alive. People desperately searching for even one thimble full of uncontaminated drinking water and unable to find it anywhere. Most survivors will only last three days because of the drinking water problems.
I will miss all of that because of being instantly vaporized. My only regret is that I will not get to see the looks on the faces of the temporarily surviving Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals when their long-hoped-for “rapture” does not come. They will be stumbling about in states of starvation, thirst, and radiation sickness crying out to the heavens:
“Lord!!! Lord!!! Why hast thou not kept thy promise to us—your one, only, and true people? Where was thy Rapture? Why hast thou forsaken us!!!???”
No answer will come until three days later when they all die and stand before the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then the word will come:
“You fools asked for Trump and the inevitable Armageddon that would come with him. You murdered yourselves and every man, woman, and child on Earth as part of your selfishness, personal conceit, and longing for the end. Worst of all with this false “rapture thing,” you so foolishly thought that you could snap your fingers, bring on disaster, and I would come to you. You fools forgot that I run on my schedule—not yours. The Earth and its people were my garden—and all of you have torched it long before its time. You have the deaths of billions on your hands. What do you have to say in your defense—and it had better not be “I had Jesus” because my Son would have never done anything even remotely like what you idiots have done. Speak up and make your defense.”
Doom is coming folks—and Trump will be its ignition switch. Everyone who read this has only 18-24 months left to live. Use that time wisely.
Well, that’s a dramatic prediction. God send you’re wrong. Can’t you hold a revolution? It worked for you guys before. The rest of us could come and help.
No. We mainstream Christians are a peaceful people by and large.
Well, generally speaking, I never met an American I didn’t like. We know this man does not represent most of you.
A concerned Canadian.
Thank you so much for being able to express for me my thoughts and sadness exactly. Please world do not lose faith we will fight. I am transformed from fat and happy to activist.
Please do not speak for all Americans. I do not agree with anything you wrote. You are entitled to your opinion; but, remember, it’s your opinion only.
You all need to get over the fact that Hillary lost. She is not for the American people. You need to read, “Hillary, the other Woman” by Dolly Kyle.
You also need to watch the videos on how abortions are done.
You also need to get your head out of your ass.
He wasn’t speaking for all Americans. He clearly stated that. Just most of us.
Not “most.”
He’s only speaking for extreme left wingers.
Oh, I see you have gone from calling Pavlovitz a liberal to an extreme left winger. Are you saying now the left is good? Boy you are confusing.
You go first on that ass thing.
Thank you so much for writing the words in my heart that just have not been able to come out in the same graceful, truthful way you have written. I’ve tried repeatedly, and like those who are lost to us at the moment, get stifled by emotions. I’m grateful people like you exist to speak when others don’t, or truly cannot.
Stop calling yourselves “America” . America is not a country.
America is MANY countries.
You live in United States of America, U.S.A.
I live in America too, and my country does not even have an army!!!
I am sorry for you all…
I understand what you are saying, but I do not like your attitude. So, here it is coming back to you. You people are proud of saying (seen it so many times):
“I have to study about the United States in my geography textbook here in South America. Well, I wonder why your students are not required to study my country in your geography classes.”
Answer: It is because you country is small and unimportant in the overall scheme of things, and if it were to disappear from existence overnight, no one on Earth would even miss it.
Give BS attitude. Get BS attitude.
Everybody knows when you say ‘America’, it means United States of America.
And everybody knows when you say ‘The United States’, it means USA. (Not Mexico).
So common usage wins.
Everybody knows that some Americans think they are the centre of the universe and nobody else matters, but that doesn’t make it so. Other citizens of the USA use USAmericans to distinguish themselves from the other people who are rightfully named American but are not US citizens. Common does not equate to correct. Especially when you have been informed of the error of common usage.
It’s too late for that. Sorry. American means US citizen.
Thank you for providing the proof for my first sentence.
I think you should start considering that this is more than one man, those around him all seem to be of one group, the actions he has taken have happened so quickly they must have been pre organised, the distractions ‘they’ are using to have people protest over one thing while I am sure if you were to look deeper you would find much worse things happening. I wish you strength, after 4 years, if they stay that long, what strength will people have to fight, the thick layer of lies and ‘untruths’ they are spreading will leave people numb and confuse to what is real. How long and how many repeats of a lie till it becomes accepted truth, long known by dictators. I am curious how many around the world, other than the Russian Oligarchs are going to feed off this. Dark times, good luck. I am from Australia and I can think of one or two here who will think all this is wonderful, or those that will try and hang on to the coat tails of those with money.
Thank you, it makes me feel a little safer knowing you and millions like you are there and feeling what the rest of the world feels.
Thank you John from South Africa. We aren’t sure what to make of Trump but America has done many good things in this part of the world, both under Obama and his predecessor GW Bush.
Our most famous export Trevor Noah said during the early campaign that Trump would be America’s first African President – vain, greedy, easily angered and fundamentally undemocratic. I think Trevor was right.
It took me a long time to scroll down here, I tried to scan all the comments but it’s difficult. Worthwhile thoughtful comments (from either side of the political divide) are constantly diverted and broken up by blatant troll comments that repeat the same thing over and over. Oh well, that is social media I suppose. Perhaps it’s a compliment John that people like “Lone Catholic” spend so much of their apparently limitless time tilting at the windmill of your blog!
Thank you Sally D. Also, I am a fan of Trevor Noah. I like my entertainment with a spoonful of laughter.
I feel a bit bad for Donald Trump, even if he lacks the self-knowledge to realize that he’s vastly exceeded his capabilities in taking this job. The hammering that history is going to give him will not be pretty, barring a miracle. He’ll be remembered with Harding, Buchanan, Nixon and others of that cadre.
Donald Trump’s life has been about seeking affirmation. He’s spent his entire life saying “Look at how special I am! Look! You’re not looking hard enough!” Now, everyone’s looking, and he’s not got the stuff to measure up.
When you look at successful Presidents (no matter how you define “successful”) they all have a few personality traits in common – solid self-belief, an ability to rise above the partisan fray, a gift for uniting disparate people behind them, intellectual curiosity and a wide-ranging interest in the minutiae of government. Ronald Reagan may be an exception to the last one – and insomuch as he lacked it, it was the cause of the not-so-successful parts of his Presidency.
Trump has none of those traits. He is fragile, divisive, incurious and unconcerned with the way government or law works, thinking he can bulldoze his way to what he wants. I would be saddened, but not surprised to find that he thought he could issue an order blocking immigration without the judiciary having a hand in the question.
He is, I’m afraid, destined to be remembered as a less popular, less effective President than George W. Bush. He will damage the nation and his party grievously. And he’ll have to live with that.
It’s classic tragedy – his fatal flaw becoming revealed and overwhelming him when he reaches the pinnacle of his ambition. Coriolanus, McB, Oedipus, Trump. Let’s just hope we don’t get crushed in the collapse.
Although I am in full agreement with the fact that our country is at odd’s. I do not however believe you can summarize ALL CHRISTIANS INTO THIS LUMPED SUM GROUP of horrible people and for this I strongly feel you are so blinded. I pray you can find peace and move forward loving all, including CHRISTIANS in your categories of who all matters. Find forgiveness,peace and love that is the only thing we as a community can do and if we do that we are stronger than ever. Love all and hate no one
Although I am in full agreement with the fact that our country is at odd’s. I do not however believe you can summarize ALL CHRISTIANS INTO THIS LUMPED SUM GROUP of horrible people and for this I strongly feel you are so blinded. I pray you can find peace and move forward loving all, including CHRISTIANS in your categories of who all matters. Find forgiveness,peace and love that is the only thing we as a community can do and if we do that we are stronger than ever. Love all and hate no one
Grow up…your own, as you say “apathy and laziness” has caused your rant, deal with it. We don’t need to apologize to the world for anything, and if so, not anymore…we are finally going to stand up to those of the world who in the last decade (s) have learned how to take advantage of our charitable democracy. We only need to say we are sorry we did not do something sooner if there is anything we are sorry for! And do not speak for the country who by the way followed the constitution and voted the president into office the same way every other president has been elected since the very beginning of our great democracy. To cry sour grapes at this point and poetically portend apology for being less that the greatest country on the planet is simply irresponsible.
Just because Trump was voted into office legally does not mean ALL American citizens are required to support him in everything he does. No such requirement is present anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. You racist cowards went Bat Poop Crazy with nonsupport when one of those you call “n*gger” got elected President in 2008. So, this cry for ALL Americans to unite behind a new President Trump, who is quite likely mentally ill and dangerous, is the very height of right wing extremist hypocrisy.
Do we still not get it? When are we going to stop attacking each other and having a self righteous, holier-than-thou attitude? This is a time for questions and a sincere desire to learn and understand. Let’s find common ground and build bridges of trust and understanding. Only then can we really hope to unify our broken nation and create a meaningful movement towards a peaceful, loving America.
You forgot to say: “Let’s unify behind Trump!!!” That is where you were heading—no?
Well, here is the problem. This is not 1948 where Truman ran against Dewey. In that election, the two major political parties were viewed by the American people as six of one, half a dozen of the other— and not more than a dime’s difference between them. So, no matter who won—all the American people could get behind whoever was elected.
THAT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NO LONGER EXISTS, AND THE AMERICAN CULTURE OF OUR TIMES IS NO LONGER LIKE THAT.
Good, bad , ugly, or indifferent, the two major American political parties hate each other with a perfect hatred. Today they are thousands of miles apart. Neither party trusts anything in the other party. Then the Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals came along circa 1970 to begin whipping up a new narrative that says the Democrat Party is the party of Satan, Sin, and Hell and the Republican Party is the party of God, Holy Purity, and Heaven. Most ordinary people who are not atheists resent being called “enemies of God and all that is Holy.” That is how the fundies have successfully labeled Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, and the members of the historical, mainline American churches like the Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church, etc. What used to be merely political ( six of one, half a dozen of the other—and not a dime’s difference between the parties) in the United States is now deeply personal.
The Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals in the United States—more than any other group of Americans—have created this massive environment of hatred since 1970—and they will be remembered by American history as the group of people that fomented all the hatred they could and destroyed the United States of America in the process—and that is because THEY THINK LIKE THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f0ZHaoSnf0
The fundies have taken this country well into the stage of Rhetorical Fundamentalism with all their hate rhetoric in Christian fundamentalist and conservative evangelical media over the past 44 years. We are getting very close to the Physical Stage of Christian Fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism where these bat crazy religionists and their hyper-conservative friends have started stockpiling guns and ammunition so they can kill Progressive Christians and Liberals while they sit peacefully with their wives and children on their front porches on a cool Autumn Sunday afternoon—when their longed-for New American Revolution begins.
So—if you want unity Buddy—you are going to have to find a way to surmount all of that and pull people together—and personally—I do not believe it is possible to do that anymore because the fundies just keep on HATING day-in and day-out. They ought to start wearing campaign buttons that say: “I HATE YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!”
Let’s try the the “Treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated” button.
Hate just breeds more hate
It may mean stepping away from the conversation because it is very hard to love and treat others the way you wish you were treated when they are so hatefulness to start off with. I began with the best intentions now my view of these conservative evangelical Trump lovers is tarnished by their own hypocritical malicious comments. (I am sure they are going to ask for examples and say be specific…. what a bunch of oblivious indoctrinated pre-programmed puppets) This experience on the blog has been like throwing pearls before swine. There is seriously something malevolent going on in America.
Sure is Mr. Elephant. Feel free to come over to my blog and read about some of it. The great tragedy is that this is just “some” of the nonsense that is going on—and the rest is the iceberg below sea level:
https://faith17983.wordpress.com/
I only read the first paragraph but I had to stop. This guy needs a lesson in history: “this is new to us?” Trump is definitely a step back, but malevolence in this country is not new. He ignores the native Americans decimated, slavery, the war with Mexico, segregation, the Japanese concentration camps, the war in Vietnam, intervention in Chile, Panamá, El Salvador, irán, etc. Fascism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia are definitely not new to America. If we want sympathy we should start with some humility.
Really? Which American President before this one would you describe as a “malevolent unhinged dictator”? I can’t think of another one within my lifetime. It’s the first time I’ve been frightened by what the US voting public might have doomed the rest of us to, anyway.
Americans in the Old South would have said Abraham Lincoln. The Cherokee Indians would have said Andrew Jackson. I guess it is open to question whether Warren G. Harding was merely corrupt or eaten up with syphilis from the many girlfriends he had behind his wife’s back. But on the whole, I know of no one that would really count those three as mentally unstable and unhinged. Trump is really the only one out of 45 Presidents and 241 years—and one is too much. We did way better than the Romans did, but I guess every country or empire, if it stays around long enough, eventually gets its own unique version of Nero or Caligula. We just got ours.
My sentiments and thoughts exactly! Thank you for putting it so eloquently.
I will say this. If HRC had of stepped aside, we would have had one of, if not the finest man of and for this country, and who would have benefitted other countries as well.
We were not all for her. This needs to be said.
I had hope that it would happen, certainly. I just didn’t have much *expectation* that it would happen, as indeed it didn’t. The word “socialist” frightens too many people.
I am with You! Sending all my strength and compassion from Sweden. It is not only in the US populism is rising. Let humanity Win!
Cry baby snowflakes.
Well said.
‘Things we took for granted in our leadership: things like goodness, wisdom, and basic truthfulness are no longer in play, and as things are eroding quickly we wanted to let you know that we’re sorry.”
You’re kidding aren’t you? Tell that to the numerous countries the US has attacked since Vietnam. Tell it to Iraq which was bombed on a lie and a million are dead. Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and more. You’ve set the Middle East on fire and threaten the planet.
You personally may be of good will but you’ll have to stop believing the US is a force for good. It is the opposite; it is a rogue state.
Stop attacking the world in your endless wars.
Trump was inevitable. Your citizens voted for him and his policies. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it.
What a load of bollocks,
Where were you for the last 50 plus years while america was murdering millions across the world.
Where were you on 9/11 when your own dispicable government run by psychopaths did an inside job.
Where were you when your economic hit men destroyed contries and ecosystems and created famin and war.
You have installed despotic dictators far worse than the one you’re pretending to cry about now.
So a man comes to power and he is against the NWO elitist warmongering murderers and because the media tell you you moan.
Where were when the bloody psycho killary was defending her rapist and laughing about it or when her serial rapist husband was in the white house or when they stole billions from haiti or gave money and weapons to isis.
Where were you ehen the murderer killary was stealing the nomination from sanders, you let trump in because you let her steal thd rightful leaderdhip of sanders.
Where were you when millions of illegal immigrants and dead people voted for killary.
Thank god killary didn’t win or we would be in 3rd world war already.
And now you complain and moan and appologise.
You should have appologising every bloody day for the last 50 years for destroying the world.
Long live donald trump
God help us end the American tyranny of the world
I see you are a fan of stupid conspiracy theories. Congratulations, you fit right in with the Trump regime that both generates them and believes in them.
So says the man who predicts the end of the world withing two years…
the world isn’t going to end it’s going to begin.
Yes, elephant ! when he makes all things new !!
Which He will have to do after Trump destroys both everything that is good and everything that is bad—all at the same time.
very well said. thank you for taking the time to speak your heart and put into words much of my own. a world perspective is very much needed as this challenging ‘moment’ continues to unfold. your piece brings to mind a hymn by lloyd stone, “this is my song” –
this is my song, o god of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
my country’s skies are bluer than the ocean.
and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are eferywhere as blue as mine.
o hear my song, thou god of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.
and this verse, added later by georgia harkness if i’m correct –
may truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.
the tune is sibelius’s “finlandia”
Very well put! Said from the heart. I totally stand by you! I stand by all others who suffer oppression and inequality! Not just humans! Bless you and good luck! Don’t let the bastards get you down! I stand by you. ☺????????????????????
Cheryl Fanson, you might like this FB group which is a voice for the oppressed and the voiceless:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gloriamariesprogressivepetitions/
Once again, I thank you for putting my feelings into such eloquent and precise words. Please, God, may the world hear this.
Stephen kinzers book, Overthrow, reports how the US has orchestrated the overthrow of fourteen governments that displeased them for various ideological, political and economic reasons. So, big deal, Trump is more overt and obnoxious about how he says and thinks he will protect American interests!
As a left of the center, Southern believer turned atheist, I have to tell you that you spoke this old lady’s heart. This is NOT. the Jesus I learned about in Sunday School. I’m an old heathen with a temper and I think I love you. Keep writing. We can all join hands, no matter who we are in this great nation of diversity. Right now, the Dominionists are the biggest problem when it comes to wrecking the credibility of believers such as You whose hearts are in the right place. They and their bigoted cohorts need to be shamed back under the rocks where they hid for decades. Help us all out, preach against them and that will help. Hang in there.
I’m not sure what a “Dominionist” is but I’m pretty sure I’m not one, and neither are many who I know who are as delighted as I am that Trump was elected.
I doubt that Dominionists put Trump of the top in PA, WI, and MI. Many of the Trump voters there previously voted for Obama.
They just wanted better lives and to make America Great Again.
Here is the wiki article on dominionism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology
I bet a-hole here knows a lot about Dominionism. See how fast on the draw he was with this. Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and Theonomy are modern day heresies in the universal church. The only people who pay any serious attention to them are those fundies who are like-minded (not with Jesus) but with the two-bit Calvinist monsters and whacko fundie preachers who created these heresies—like Rousas Rushdoony. Now there was one real “sweet guy”:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2009/05/r-j-rushdoony-reconstructionist-and-racist-bigot/
DG: Dominionism, another false teaching that Man is to bring in the ‘Kingdom of God’. As if! 🙂
Anytime a Pastor teaches that there are different levels of knowledge gained via spiritual techniques, new revelations of Truth, special knowledge, or stages of spiritual development that one must master before moving on the the next…. do a 180* and run fast.
I’m predicting Monday’s blog will be about refugees, Muslims “banned”, Trump is evil, and nothing about the March for Life.
The March for Life has been happening for 44 years. It is not “news”.
The March for Life is about saving babies from abortionists. JP has no interest in that. He would lose much of his fan base if he demonstrated concern for the unborn.
He will have to be careful about slinging mud at the Supreme Court nominee. He’s no friend of the unborn, but I don’t think he wants to make that obvious lest he not seem like Mr. Nice Guy, so he’ll have to slam the appointee for being white or something like that.
Thank you for writing this. ❤
This is fantastic. Thank you for voicing this so clearly and effectively. You nailed it.
This is exactly how I feel too. Thank you.
This.
Unfortunately, this.
Thanks for the update America – we need to hear this. But we probably needed to hear it 40 years ago and every year since. Like in 1975 when you helped to topple the Australian Labor Government. Or you worked with Australian to rape and pillage East Timor and PNG. Or when your country killed millions of innocents in the pursuit of oil in Iran and Iraq. How about those that died from starvation because of your trade sanctions. The thousands of farmers throughout the world who committed suicide because you never stuck to your end of the agreement. The millions of small businesses etc that went under because you tied them up with copyright heavies…. The list goes on…. If you’re genuine now how about you get your soldiers and bases out of our countries? How about you insist that your companies stop gouging from our communities and pay for the infrastructure they use in our countries for free while making a killing; both literally and financially. How about we mark this as the beginning of American enlightenment when you all start to see that the real terrorists of this current world are your leaders and corporations. How about this become the beginning of a new and humble American population that stops talking and starts listening and learning. Work with us not over us. Join together as people not nations. Peace
Good response, glad you were’nt afraid to speak the truths of the past. paThis statement made me laugh: “Things we took for granted in our leadership: things like goodness, wisdom, and basic truthfulness are no longer in play, and as things are eroding quickly we wanted to let you know that we’re sorry.” Especially truthfulness, seriously what politician do you know that is truthful??? Having a president who is NOT a politician is a good thing, they are all thieves. Can’t believe a single thing they say… Why not just give this man a chance before all the hateful condemnation? Time enough for that!
I didn’t vote for this man and knew he would cause turmoil in ways I would not like, but I also didn’t vote for his opponent as that was just prolonging the downward spiral of the political system that neither represents the majority of Americans. This article is heartfelt I. Your passion but total BS. You sir are not qualified to represent the American majority and if you look back at history when this nation has been polarized enough to have the popular vote overruled by the electorate. You would see there was alway dissent and turmoil and the nation still survived and somehow became better because of it or perhaps despite it. It’s a wake up call and I hope we answer to it in future elections and not just “swing the other way” to the same tiresome parties that are intent on playing games and not trying to unify a polarized people in a moderate fashion.
Dear John , Shit happens. It’s how you clean it up that matters. xx ‘A citizen of the world’
Get a life. Sick of the popular vote story. You knew the rules before going into the election and because you lose you call it not fare. Cry baby cry
The America that punishes anyone who destroys an eagle’s egg yet praises the murder of human embryo’s. The America that murdered striking miners in Colorado. The America that allowed blacks into the army to give them syphillis. The America that funds the lion’s share of the United Nations and whose radical president tries to give away control to the UN. BHO already did a misguided apology tour 8 years ago. You don’t need to continue that stupidity. As is evidenced , there are judges in place who will make rulings against Donald Trump’s executive orders when necessary.
I am sorry I tends to agree here but you are not a MAJORITY your are a Minority in the eyes of the results of NOV 8th 2016. 55% of Americans voted only! 219M were eligible 146M registered do the math, someone stayed home and by my calculation it is the democrats that did not go vote. Now we are bitchin’ about what Trump is doing well guess what! No surprises here if we did not want him people should have voted. Not a right a duty! Lesson learned I hope now the world need to help you to get out of this bad situation you are in. Democracy works this way it worked in the favour of the democrat sometimes now it worked in the favour of the republican and sadly with Trump at the head of the party! Sitting in the most powerful seat in the world. This is my take on this and I am afraid of the outcome but I am also mad at the democrats that chose NOT to vote Nov 8th!
signed A liberal from Canada!
There were other factors…gerrymandering by the GOP which made it next to impossible for many people to vote, especially people of color. There were the disgruntles extreme left faction that wanted to “teach us a lesson,” and yes, there were members of both parties that sat on their sofas and did nothing. BUT, the final vote count is the kicker. Clinton received almost 3 milllion more popular votes than Orange Thing but that Electoral College was stacked with repubicans and were paid, I am sure, handsomely. Our biggest enemy was ignorance that has been seeded and cultivated since the Nixon “Southern Strategy” days. I have lovely Canadian friends who know we are not like the people with the power and that we are, in fact, the majority. We got snookered, but we tried hard to do the right thing. Please don’t make our grief and worry worse by judging us all by the loud and ignorant minority.
Gerrymandering has zero to do with a presidential election. It doesn’t affect US Senate elections or state governor races either.
The elector college vote was fair and legal.
Please don’t criticize our president because of the color of his skin. That’s racist.
I have to say that you are not only wrong, you are ideologically blind. Trump is a horrible racists who consorts with white supremacists and other purveyors of hate. You are so far off the mark and the sad part is that you don’t see the harm you do with that kind of rhetoric, @LoneCatholic. I feel a deep sorrow for you.
I have to say that you are not only wrong, you are ideologically blind. Trump is a horrible racists who consorts with white supremacists and other purveyors of hate. You are so far off the mark and the sad part is that you don’t see the harm you do with that kind of rhetoric, @LoneCatholic. I feel a deep sorrow for you.
@ Lone Catholic
Denial is what religion fosters because the fanatical position of dogma supports the failure of man to understand God’s unmerited grace and abounding mercy.
In the case of gerrymandering it was created for the purpose you deny, therefore your comment goes against facts.
Please don’t apologize for one man and his cronies, we in Canada watched with horror and disbelief as he was voted in and we realize that the majority of Americans did not want this. We, the rest of the world, stand with you and can only hope that he gets himself impeached. The real terror is that he has access to the nuclear button.
I pledge my resistance
To Donald J. Trump
And his perverted views of America,
To call out his falsehoods,
Stand up for the truth,
And continue to strive for
Liberty and justice for all.
Thanks John.
So good to read that there are a lot of sensible Americans out there!
Thank you!
I pray things can somehow be stopped from going downhill too far before it´s too late!
Well said, thank you Mr. Pavlovitz.
Well said, thank you Mr. Pavlovitz.
Wow! That was so well done, exactly how I feel! Thank you. I have reposted this letter on FB and will do so on any publication I can ( with credit to you of course )
After a sitting politician was nominated to head the Justice Dept. and after a financial predator* was nominated to head the Treasury Dept., the promise to “drain the swamp” was stillborn.
Watching the Inauguration, I saw the Bullfrog-in-Chief outfitted like Gilded Age tycoons with Top Hat and “ribbet, ribbet.”
* – The financial predator left Goldman Sachs, picked up a $1 billion federal subsidy and acquired the failed IndyMac, a residential mortgage mill before the bubble burst. He aggressively and ruthlessly amped up the foreclosures (volume discount for booting people to the curb), quickly pocketed $200 million and washed his hands; a quick strike within the confines of the strengthening crony network in business, government, politics, the media, and any other medium necessary to lay the wood to the 144 million families in the bottom 90% (30 years with a 0% increase in real income; 30 years with their share of national wealth declining from 35% in 1986 to 21% at present**).
** – Actually much worse, only footnoted in an October 2014 report titled “Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax. Data” by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman for the National Bureau of Economic Research is the significant but elusive offshore wealth held by America’s plutocrats.
I believe I speak for the significant (24% in some polls) faction in the U.S. that believes both the Democrats and Republicans are irredeemably corrupt and those who supported Hillary Clinton are as much to blame for this sad state of affairs; what was a choice between a renowned swindler and con artist or a secretive and deceitful inside operator whose Clinton Inc. political machine took the Democratic Party and joined it at the hip with the dark side of Wall Street — those who turned their backs on us to trade value (in ever more dubious ways) rather than work with all of us to create value. Hillary and Trump are two sides of the same coin and it’s past time for the Democrats and Republicans to have their 1853-present ruling duopoly broken up. Just say no to the corrupt parties that poured gas on what was already a Bonfire of the Vanities culture and moved us from the three most egalitarian decades in our history (1956-1986) to the greatest wealth and income inequality in U.S. history.
Thank you for writing this. You should collect signatures. We are the majority, we should all cosign it. Again, thank you.
LOL. Collecting signatures. Did you collect signatures against 8-Year-War Obama?
fake comment
I’ve been wanting to write an apology to the world, but yours says everything I wanted to say. Thank you.
WALKING THE JERICHO ROAD
Field Notes from a Dangerous Faith
A Parable
JANUARY 29, 2017 / SHAUN JEX
There was once a certain wealthy man. At the end of his life, he died and found himself standing before the judgement seat of the Lord. The throne sat empty and the man looked around the room confused, wondering when the Lord would appear.
As he waited a young boy entered the room. He was small of build, his body frail and his eyes sunk deep into his skull. His body was covered with ash and blood. The man felt a rush of pity for the boy and knelt down beside him.
“What happened to you?” the man said.
“There was a war,” the boy replied. “Bombs rained down on our home one night and we were trapped in the rubble. We were trapped there for days. My parents, my brothers and sisters, even my grandparents. I could their cries. I even heard my mother try to sing to comfort my younger sister, and then I could hear nothing. The world went dark. And then I was here.”
“But surely you could have fled?” The man said.
“No one would receive us,” The boy replied. “We wanted to leave, but no one would let us in. Why wouldn’t you help us?”
The man felt a wave of guilt and shame wash over him, but seeking to justify himself he stammered for an answer.
“You have to understand,” The man said. “There were complications. Issues of national security and safety. We were afraid. There are violent people in the world.”
The boy said nothing and so the man continued to talk.
“Of course it was terrible what was happening to you, but what could we do? We had to think of ourselves didn’t we? There were risks to our homes, to our country, and to our way of life. It was a frightening and uncertain time for us.”
Again the boy stood silent and so the man stammered on as his eyes began to brim with tears.
“I was a good man,” he said. “I went to church. I paid my tithe. I cared for my family. I even prayed for you and for all of those like you. I prayed that the fighting would stop and you would be safe. I was a good man but I was afraid.”
The boy walked slowly to the man’s side and took his hand, calling him by name. And the man’s eyes were opened and he found himself standing in the presence of the Lord.
“You were blessed in life to be a blessing to others,” the Lord said. “I came to you in my hour of need and you turned me away.”
“But if I had known it was you…” The man cried.
“Did I not tell you where to look for me?” The Lord replied, “Did I not tell you that what you do for the least of your brothers and sisters you do for me? And what you fail to do for them you failed do for me? Didn’t you have my words with you? Why did you not believe them?”
“But Lord you know I was a good man,” the man plead. “You know me. You know that I loved you.”
“I am sorry,” the Lord replied, “I know you not.”
https://shaunjex.com/2017/01/29/a-parable/
the truth is that those who have not experienced being made the “other” do not understand the fatal flaws of past presidents, which are now very apparent in donald trump. trump belongs to a very narrow billionaire class of people, and — in keeping with that same attitude — to him all of us are now the “other”. we are all now more acutely experiencing that kind of dismissive disrespect and disdain that was once reserved for more “fringe” elements of our world and society. those who placed their faith in trump will soon be made as painfully aware of this as the rest of us. having this same common experience might at least benefit us with some common cause. let’s hope.
That may all be well and true but many of you also voted for Bush twice, condoning the invasion into Iraq etc etc. So who and what is American, difficult to have sympathy and or understanding. All very sad.
Step One: Hitler discredited the media.
Step Two: Silence the scientists and government employees
Step Three: Increase in hate crimes. So many clashes there was an end to civil liberties. Those who opposed Hitler were ridiculed and threatened.
Step Four: Wealthy supporters purchased media outlets, employing only those faithful to the ruling party.
Step Five: Hitler declared the only way the country could be unified was the return to “traditional values”, so miniorites including gays, the disabled, non-Christians, people of color were declared “inferior” and sent to the death camps.
Gloriamarie says, learn from history and do not repeat it.
People who voted for Trump and third-party candidates not only elected a new Hitler but also turned their backs to God, rejecting Jesus and the Gospel and committed apostasy.
What the left doesn’t understand is that the more they try to compare Trump to Hitler, the more people like Hitler.
Which proves the point that the people on the right are committed to apostasy, evil, and hate, living in hell and wanting to create hell on earth.
Excuse me? You are the folks who support the current leadership of Venezuela, and you are accusing us of creating hell on Earth? What, exactly is your criteria here? Where have conservatives created hell on Earth?
fake comment
Now there is an assumption from nowhere!!! I don’t support anything in Venezuela—but their gasoline is pretty good. Anyone ever try CITGO gas? In the old days they called it Cities Service. You thought that was American didn’t you? No, that was Venezuela—and it still is.
Well Fits I understand now thanks for enlightening us.
(Btw not everyone who disagrees with you is on the left)
If you would like to demonstrate that you are on the side of Jesus and the angels, please sign this petition. If you disagree with the petition, then you continue to turn your back on Jesus.
Reverse President Trump’s Executive Order to Ban Refugees
None
The United States has just slammed its doors on the world’s most vulnerable.
On January 27th, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, implementing extreme vetting of refugees who enter the country.
It suspends the entire US refugee program for 120 days as new “extreme vetting” rules are developed, even though America already has the toughest vetting program for refugees in the world.
It halves America’s refugee intake to a maximum of 50,000 annually, with a complete ban on admitting refugees from war-torn Syria.
It stops seven predominantly Muslim nationalities – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – from even visiting America. This includes dual-nationals, green card holders, and most visa-holders.
As Global Citizens, we know that opposing viewpoints are a vital part of any robust political discussion. We work with all sides of politics to ensure that governments continue play a leading role in ending extreme poverty.
However, there are basic values that weave the fabric of the American Democracy – like not discriminating on the basis of religion and nationality.
This policy crosses that line.
Refugees are the most vulnerable fellow citizens on our planet, fleeing unimaginable horrors of conflict, persecution and disaster.
These are fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.
We, as global citizens, stand proudly as supporters of refugee communities and vulnerable populations, regardless of religion or national origin.
We must call President Trump out on his actions and ensure that refugees can have place to call home.
Sign the letter to President Trump calling on him to reverse course.
ttps://www.globalcitizen.org/en/action/set/open-letter-to-reverse-executive-order/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_campaign=iterable_US_JAN_29_2017_President_Trump_Executive_Order&utm_medium=email
No, that is demonstrating your loyalty to Babel, Allah, and Satan.
since Trump admires Satan so much you haven’t a leg to stand on, sorry to crush your paper dreams
The greatest weakness you people have in any argument is the fact that Trump is a nonrepentant sinner who uses God and Jesus for purely political purposes—but he has no use for them at all in his own personal and daily life —and never has had any use for them. He is the epitome of everything the Bible preaches against from Genesis to Revelations—and he is especially anathema to everything in the Bible fundies believe. As long as fundies hitch their horse to the Trump hitching post, they are courting disaster for both themselves and their fundie belief system. When Trump goes down, which will eventually happen under its own weight, all you fundies and your belief system are going down with him in the eyes of the American people. If you fundies thought you were in trouble before the 2016 election, you ain’t seen nothing yet. You will be consumed in the same Holy fire that consumes Trump and his other minions.
You will be consumed in the same Holy fire that consumes Trump and his other minions.
And once again, you are damning people to Hell for having different political opinions than you. But we are the vicious, mean, nasty, intolerant ones, right?
St. Peter will subject Trump, his family, his supporters to “extreme vetting” at the Pearly Gates
Yes, and me, and you. Maybe you should look to your own heart and stop worrying so much about Trump’s. The same goes for Charles, who appears to harbor genuine hatred for anyone who does not share his political opinions.
Thanks Zak and Gloriamarie for the lively comments but I don’t recall Pearly Gates being mentioned in the Bible. Hmmm we do see through a glass darkly makes me ponder quite a bit.
Another way to demonstrate that you have not turned your back on the Gospel Jesus preached:
https://secure2.convio.net/hias/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=00000000.app212a?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=215&NONCE_TOKEN=0069DFD37E2B4E71E13A67AFC756C29C
Don’t Let Donald Trump Slam the Door on Refugees
Share this page
In one of his first acts as President, Donald Trump slammed America’s doors to refugees from war-torn countries including Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia.
We are outraged.
By adding your name you will be sending a message directly to the White House to let the Trump Administration know that these policies contradict American values and history.
SEND A MESSAGE TO PRESIDENT TRUMP NOW
Reject Trump’s Muslim Ban
Petition by Linda Sarsour
To be delivered to The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Targeting people based on their religion is wrong and unconstitutional. Shutting the doors on some of the most vulnerable people in the world—refugees seeking safety—shows a moral bankruptcy that is shocking even for Donald Trump. We demand that you go on record and resoundingly reject Trump’s Muslim ban.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/reject-trumps-muslim
Of course, if you bother informing yourself instead of just being spoon-fed fake news, you understand that these are a very strange group of “refugees”, overwhelmingly young, able-bodied men, and many of them not even from Syria. Or you can just love your ignorance and perpetually virtue-signal. That’s another option.
fake news is your deal
stop projecting
stop projecting Zaklog the Great because you are doing what you most despite haha !!!
stop projecting Zaklog the Great because you are doing what you most despise !!
and you made me misspell something you conservatives are to blame for everything !!!!
LOL, elephant is sarcastic and a poor speller when he loses his mind!
Targeting people based on their religion is wrong and unconstitutional. Shutting the doors on some of the most vulnerable people in the world—refugees seeking safety—shows a moral bankruptcy that is shocking even for Donald Trump. We demand that you go on record to resoundingly reject Trump’s Muslim ban.
Anyone in the world can sign this:
https://act.mpowerchange.org/sign/reject-muslim-ban/
This is an INTERNATIONAL petition. Anyone in the world may sign:
To Congress, mayors and all elected leaders around the world:
We stand united against the racist restrictions on Muslims and refugees entering the United States, and call on you to do all you can to fight this inhuman ban and force its immediate repeal.
https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/muslim_ban_the_resistance/?bhiPcab&v=87452&cl=11749409250&_checksum=ecef382565a030a68ddbb77eddec57f0f425844b7c8dd901188b6997f6060046
Protect Women’s Rights – Tell Trump: Do Not Cut the Office of Violence Against Women!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/939/769/102/protect-womens-rights-tell-trump-do-not-cut-the-office-of-violence-against-women/
Where were you when Obama was bombing Muslims?
The Holy Father speaks “Pope Francis: You cannot reject refugees and call yourself a Christian”
Pope Francis condemned the hypocrisy from Christians who are merciless to refugees and people of other faiths, addressing a gathering of a pilgrimage of Catholics and Lutherans from Germany, reports Catholic News Service.
Francis rebuked “the contradiction of those who want to defend Christianity in the West, and, on the other hand, are against refugees and other religions.”
“This is not something I’ve read in books, but I see in the newspapers and on television every day,” Pope Francis said,”
“The sickness or, you can say the sin, that Jesus condemns most is hypocrisy, which is precisely what is happening when someone claims to be a Christian but does not live according to the teaching of Christ. You cannot be a Christian without living like a Christian,” he said.
“You cannot be a Christian without practicing the Beatitudes. You cannot be a Christian without doing what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 25,” a reference to what is known as the Parable of the Judgment or the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.
The parable is found in Matthew 25:31-46, and reads in part:
“For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, A stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
“I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’
“It’s hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help,” said Pope Francis.
“If I say I am Christian, but do these things, I’m a hypocrite.”
All nations must focus on “service to the poorest, the sick (and) those who have abandoned their homelands in search of a better future for themselves and their families.”
“In putting ourselves at the service of the neediest,” Pope Francis said, “we will experience that we already are united; it is God’s mercy that unites us.”
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/10/13/pope-francis-you-cant-defend-christianity-by-being-against-refugees-and-other-religions/
Why do you call him Holy Father he is just a man, albeit wiser than most Popes. He’s not my father. I like what Francis says but please why continue with these pseudo titles?
It’s not a pseudo-title. It is what Roman Catholics call him. I also refer to the Dalai Lama as “His Holiness” as that is also his title. People have titles in this world. I use them when they have demonstrated they have earned the respect due the title.
okay, thanks for the explanation, maybe I need to learn respect hoity toity titles then
You’re welcome. Tell me, do you refer to your physician as “doctor?” A rabbi as rabbi? A male priest as Father? A pastor as pastor?
Actually to be truthful I called my doctor by his first name last time I saw him. He didn’t say anything but I realized it afterward.
My doctor and I are on a mutually agreed upon first name basis. But then, she is young enough to be my daughter
Years back, when I started working at the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, I noted that the Bishop called everyone by their first name and not their title, while everyone called him “Bishop John” or simply “Bishop”. So I figured that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and decided that I would call him “John”. The first time I did it, he visibly startled, but he didn’t complain. Ever after, I called him John, and he often had a little tinge of a smile on his usually stern face.
#Solidarity from me in Africa – watching from here in horror and knowing many (friends and family) here and in the USA who feel the same way.
dear America,
In answer to that heart felt letter you wrote to the world, let me set the record straight. I do believe you, when you say presidents before this one were more humane and kind. I do believe that this man is not speaking or acting for all of you and I do believe you, when you say America is ment to be more than what he displays.
However, I also believe that America was never the safe and holy wonderland you make it out to be. It has always had it’s problems with racism, inequality, cruelty abroad and in prison cells at home and a harsh social system that condemns millions of people to terrible poverty, but these were hidden under a mantle of strong, decisive lesdership and a certain air of untouchable supremacy in the world.
I don’t mean to say everything about your great country is bad, but rather that things have been pretty dire for a while now and this mad man that showed up to run the show is now making things from bad to worse. In so doing he is making America look bad, the problems however were there before. He is only a manifeststion of everything that has been going wrong in this country for a long time.
I hope now that we, the people of the world and the people of America see eye to eye for the first time in decades, we can come up with a way to deal with all our issues together and not each nation for itself, as has been the norm.
We are all in this together and it is time we f***ing acted like it.
with love
The Rest Of The World
Dear Rest of the World,
Some of us rather like Trump. Please bug off. We’re not interested in your opinion.
Patriotic Americans
mind your own business you obnoxious busy body
I am in solidarity with Zak.
I have no apologies for you and we don’t need your condolences or your shock and horror.
We are going to do fine with Trump.
Of course you and Zak are going to do fine with Trump. Good for you. I am concerned about those who are not doing fine with Trump.
They will do well with him too. Don’t give in to fear-mongering. It’s done for a purpose–for selfish gain.
Speak for yourself !! You have done nothing but pick on people you two faced cyberbully.
I will never forget that it was you who posted that video of the man mocking Hillary voters
You have no credibility at all to speak about how others with fare under Trump when you despise and ridicule people.
You self deluded hypocrite !!
I think elephant has a point Loner, you get to far up into people’s business and if you agree with Trump you can’t see that what he is doing is causing instability in America and around the world…for the purpose of selfish gain.
Excuse me, but what is President Trump doing which is causing instability around the world?
Dear Zaklog the Deplorable:
http://tinyurl.com/hjnz45y
Blessings!
Dear Christine:
Please note that I respond to this here:
http://tinyurl.com/z93r2m6
Thanks, Christine, for a terrific post. I hope that everyone here reads this and makes a thoughtful effort to understand because you’re right, we are all in this together!
Dear America,
You, the arguably most arrogant and self serving nation on the planet, want our sympathy for your own, self-made misery? You want our pity because you thought it would be fun to make an insane person your president and now, you regret it? You think saying “sorry” remedies your behaving like a petulant child?
Let our response sound from the highest mountain top, reverberate with the wind and pierce your stone cold hearts:
We, the rest of the world, hate you.
We don’t give a damn that you’re sorry and remorseful, because you did this. YOU did this. Not only to yourself, but you also did it to the rest of us.
All of your citizens who voted for this intrinsic imbecile (and please, stop moaning about how hardly any of you actually support him when he was allowed to go through the all the motions from an idiot wanting to be president to becoming the Republican candidate to winning the bloody election; you had so many opportunities to stop him and yet you didn’t).
All of your citizens who voted for “someone else”, as if your moronic political system allows anyone other than the candidate from either the Democratic or the Republican party to win (and this, you call “democracy”?). Every single vote given to other candidates was not about “using your voice to oppose the elite”, it was about letting that dimwit become president, full stop.
And all of your citizens who were too complacent and/or lazy to drag their asses out of the sofa and go do their damned duty as citizens of your horrible country, and vote. (And by the way, while you’re lulling yourself with the ridiculous notion that you are the greatest country in the world, the majority of the world would not want to live in America even if you paid us to.)
You did this. You all did this. So do stop complaining, it makes the rest of us sick.
We hate you. We loathe you. We sincerely hope you implode on your own idiocy, because frankly, the world would be better off without you.
You unleashed this ignoramus upon us. And now, you want our sympathy? Now, you think “sorry” is even remotely sufficient?
The day that mindless dingbat decides to push the red button and start WW3 because somebody offended his car on Twitter or laughed at his road kill squirrel toupee, we want you to know that it really is your fault and that we will never forgive you for it. Mind you, by then, he’ll probably have ruined half the world with his hate-mongering, xenophobia and half witted let’s-kill-the-environment nonsense anyway.
To say that you should be ashamed of yourself is the understatement of the entire history of mankind. Also, it’s utterly futile.
So keep your apologies to yourself. We don’t want to hear it. It’s as useless and irresponsible as selling band aids by the guillotine.
You want to regain our respect? Then do something about it. Fix it. Actions speak louder than words.
Dear IC:
Please note that I respond to this here:
http://tinyurl.com/z93r2m6
Thanks for this. Also: all eyes on Steve Bannon. We are being ruled by a madman, and it’s him. Don’t let him stay hidden behind the cheeto. The cheeto is an incompetent narcissist; President Bannon is an incredibly smart Nazi.
One who just graduated in the past 24 hours from Key Trump Advisor (which I suspect he still is) to powerful member of the President’s National Security Council. Now we have a nutjob conspiracy theorist sold out to the worst kinds of evil at the table where key national security decisions are made—like whether to open the football bag and do something with it. Would you have wanted Bannon in the middle of this advising President Trump in October 1962. For those of you too young to remember, this really happened—and I witnessed a lot of it:
We are being judged and weighed on the scales of justice and mercy right now by how we receive each other— especially the least of us, the foreigner and those in need. I don’t care if you are a conservative or a liberal or somewhere in between— how you respond (and we can wade through all the comments to see that response) is critical to your witness. But, whether you use your real name, a pseudonym or remain anonymous, God is the one who sees your heart and knows where the words you wrote came from.
Well, for Biblical reasons, I think we should take in the refugees from Syria and other places because God calls us to do that. You can say that we should take no one in because a couple of terrorists might be sneaking in among them, but risk is inherent in everything we humans do. Jesus commanded us to demonstrate his love to others, and he said that greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his friends. Most of the Syrian refugees and other refugees are our friends and we are their hope. I say we take the risk and being them in—and if anyone gets killed by a terrorist—that is just the laying down of our lives for our friends.
We’re not doing them any favors to bring them here only to have them nuked within 24 months. They’re safer where they are.
Make this a petition/letter to the world an allow us to show our majority by signing it. This will show the sheer numbers of us fighting against Twitler and his Reichstag.
A facebook friend posted on my timeline did I know anything about John P’s blog being suspended. I said I had no proof of such a thing. Seems to be working still.
When the JP blog gets as many comments as lately, it slows down a bit–and a screen comes up that says that the blog can no longer be accessed (or something like that). I have seen it many times, and it means nothing. The blog is always here and doing just fine.
Ah! Thank you. I will tell her that.
I’d only query one claim there ie. that his support is vanishing – remembering how pre-election complacency was underpinned by baseless opinion, what’s the evidence of this?
Also I’d take issue with the line ‘This is not America’ – actually this IS America at the start of 2017. As mentioned it’s time to move from verbal outrage to constructive action. However surely an essential precondition is for the cessation of all remaining denial such as this . . . understandable though it’s been for a period?
A response from a citizen in the world:
While you have my utmost hope in achieving the goals you speak of in this post, and the good will of those in the international community who want to see a U.S. with integrity, this is very much your America- the America now feared by the rest of us. This is very much what America stands for, and to a much too large degree. If that weren’t so, Trump would not now be soiling the Oval Office.
None of what’s happening should be met with a double take by anyone who had eyes to see and ears to hear or, with respect, by weepy apologies to the rest of the world. Your newly empowered, home grown, American fascist (a description no longer extremist, alarmist or hyperbolic) is making fast work of the many things he said he would do, the very promises he was elected on by your fellow Americans, your broken electoral system noted.
Those vast numbers who voted Trump or not at all- this is their America. Like it or not, It’s yours- and it is ours globally, as we’ll all be stuck with the proverbial bill, come what may as Trump continues to destabilize both foreign and domestic relations and economies. It has to be said, the eenie, meenie, minie, moe collection of books we call the bible has many Christians in North America feeling they’re entitled to suppress and make subject those not in the fold, to say that different is not okay, and that’s been done for a very long time.
This has fostered the kind of intolerance and privilege that has people voting for an intolerant, privileged man willing to suppress and subjugate on their behalf. Trump is there largely because Christians put him there. Bibles, preachers, and churches have taught that different is bad, that gay isn’t okay, that other religions- or no religion, isn’t okay, that protecting women with contraception and reproductive choices are wrong, that it’s okay to marginalize and boot-heel others to encourage them to toe the Right line. Christian America had a major role in handing a fascist the keys to the White House sir, and I’m not disposed to accepting its apology until it fulfills it’s role in making the world a place where everyone’s rights and beliefs are protected, whether or not they happen to be considered Christian. If that’s how you hope to redefine faith and country, I sincerely wish you all success.
.
Dear Rob:
A call to repentance! Thank-you!
Blessings!
Yes !
Rob. I would like to be clear on one thing so everyone who lives outside of the United States understands this, including folks in Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. The Trump campaign slogans “Make America Great Again” and “America First” are code language that needs to be properly understood:
1) “Make America Great Again” is code language for restoring the United States to far greater economic strength and military strength than it has ever had in the past—to push it as far up the scale as humanly possible and be No. 1 in the world in everything possible. If people think the United states is a Superpower now, then Trump wants to make it a Super-Super-Super-Super-Superpower—a nation so strong economically and militarily that no nation on the planet would ever dare to challenge it—because it would know that it would get its head rung like a chicken inside 24 hours. This also includes restoring Christian fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism to the great power and influence they once enjoyed in this country circa 1910.
2) The slogan “America First” means several things:
(A) For our European friends and neighbors—and other countries around the world—it can basically be interpreted as “Deutschland Uber Alles.” Translated, this means “Germany Over All”—or in this case—-“The United States of America Over All.” This means over Bolivia, over Indonesia, over Russia, over China, over every nation and every person. Here is the old song from World War II Germany. Most of you are probably too young to remember it, but here it is. It was the official German National Anthem in World War II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHBQfYLY7Ik
(B) The slogan “America First” is also classic Henry Kissinger-based Machiavellian foreign policy, which means that in dealing with the world at large, the United States will henceforth put its own personal interests ahead of the interests of all other nations and peoples on the planet. For example, if the American need for germanium in electronics is great (and we have low natural supplies here as usual), then the United States will find a country with natural supplies to be our supplier. If that government refuses to sell at a low price, the United States will overthrow that government (even if it is a democracy) and install a brutal dictator who will ensure that the germanium is delivered on time and at the right price. This is how Henry Kissinger diplomacy works, and Trump and Bannon have already tapped Kissinger as their elderly foreign policy guru.
(C) This is perhaps the most important thing about the Trump slogan “America First.” The United States of America henceforth takes the position that it does not seek to be either loved or respected by the other nations and peoples of the world. Its sole wish on the world stage from now on is to be FEARED. When we “Make America Great Again” we will be so powerful economically and militarily that every nation on Earth, including Russia and China, will be shaking in their boots for fear of what we might do to them. We are not talking about bluffing fear. We are talking about REAL FEAR generated by real futuristic military technologies that would render us virtually invincible in any war. This may be working even now. Kim Jong Un promised another illegal missile test the weekend Trump was inaugurated. It never happened. I suspect that is because he is shaking in his boots, his fat layers are jiggling, and he suspects that anymore provocations might well end his reign in North Korea. Kim Jong Un and his generals are scared sh*tless of Trump, Bannon, and Mattis—and they should be.
(D) What are the roots of these two slogans? Well, in the minds of American right wing extremists (like the Tea Party and Trumpites), they address reviving a lost opportunity. When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union went down in 1991, it left the United States as the world’s ONLY surviving superpower. Right wing extremists saw this as a perfect—once in a life-time—and rare even in world history—opportunity to use American economic and military strength to impose a worldwide PAX AMERICANA over all the nations and peoples of the Earth. In brief, a “perpetually” (I will explain this term in a minute) right wing extremist President of the United States would essentially reign as Emperor over the entire world and ensure world peace—just like Miss America always wants.
I used the term “perpetually” above because American Republicans have always been intensely jealous of the fact that the U.S. Congress was controlled by Democrats from 1932 to 1994. That is an incredible total of 62 years. The Republicans were sure that their time for such a long run was coming. In their minds, Ronald Reagan was the beginning of a new “forever dynasty” of right wing extremist Presidents. The rare election of George H. W. Bush to succeed him was taken as underlining this dynastic pipe dream. So, the perfect set-up for American domination of the entire world was underway: Dynastic American presidency for right wing extremist Republicans. No Soviet Union. No Warsaw Pact. The road ahead was WIDE OPEN.
Then the American people suddenly elected liberal Democrat Bill Clinton President of the United States—and spoiled their whole little dream of American domination of the world and their PAX AMERICANA. In the American right wing extremist mind, Bill Clinton and the Democrats had dropped the ball on an extremely rare opportunity to achieve something that had never occurred in world history outside of Alexander the Great—a chance for American Presidents to rule in Emperor-like splendor over the entire world—and impose a worldwide PAX AMERICANA.
Just my opinion, I think American right wing extremists like Steve Bannon, Trump, and the Tea Party types see the two above slogans as keys to wining back that lost rare opportunity—and make world domination and PAX AMERICANA a reality.
Those are just my opinions on the overall matter and where we now stand. Take-em or leave’em.
Not everyone believes it was fair campaigning.
It’s important to understand who funded this campaign and who stands to benefit from Trump’s election.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/30/donald-trump-george-monbiot-misinformation?CMP=share_btn_fb
Beautifully said!
And we all saw it coming which is why there was so much grief and a feeling of such devastation after the election.
I have been thinking this for a few days now, that I wanted the rest of the world to know this is not who we are.
And that I know that much of the rest of the world has endured as bad and much much worse. But what you said is so true. We are supposed to be a place that the oppressed can, hopefully, run to for a better life.
And the good lives we live in America and the better lives we aspire to for all of us still fighting for equal civil rights should be the right of all people everywhere.
Yes, we have been spoiled and fortunate. But everyone should be as fortunate. And now we are humbled.
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This was so excellent. As someone else said, this says to much of what I also think and feel. Thank you.
From my Bishop.
We are all Syrian. We are all Muslim.
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
The last nine days have been a disquieting and dizzying display of presidential action in Mr. Trump’s first days in office. It is difficult for us to find focus as he occupies the media space railing about the size of the inauguration crowd and making unsubstantiated claims regarding voter fraud. From a public policy perspective, there is much to worry about: news blackouts from federal departments, possible trade wars, and comments about illegal torture to name a few.
However, Friday’s executive order to halt immigration from seven Muslim countries, including the suspension of refugees from war-ravaged Syria, is an affront to our sense of fairness and equity. Indeed, the president even stated that our nation would give preferential treatment to Christians over Muslims, thereby invoking a religious standard for entry that is anathema to our national creed. Fanning the fears of 9/11 and ISIS, the president wants us to believe that we will be safer because we change who we are as a people who welcome the immigrant and the refugee. But we are the nation of the Marshall Plan, Famine Relief and Tsunami recovery. Our dark chapters of the last century include Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order 9066, which interred Japanese Americans because of their ethnicity. This is too eerily familiar. Surely we have learned from our past and discovered the better angels of our nature.
As a Christian and a bishop, I have struggled with Trump’s quick claims of his own Christian identity, which seem at odds with his sexist behavior, his dishonesty, and his ostentatious consumption and wealth. But I now know what “America First” means to him and I cannot be silent. America First means the exercise of power and selfishness of which I want no part. These actions will give fodder and strength to those who wish to do us harm. We are at our best as a nation when we give. We are strong when we have appropriate boundaries and an open heart. The truth of the Christian life is indeed part of our national story: it is in giving that we receive.
After 9/11, the French paper, La Monde, ran a headline that declared: “Nous sommes tous Americains,” “We are all Americans.” In the spirit of the Confessing Church of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that stood against Nazi Germany, this follower of Jesus Christ can only stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters from other nations and other faiths who are refugees. On this day, we are all Syrian. We are all Muslim.
President Trump’s actions are unacceptable and un-American. They do not represent who we are as a people. We must recover our senses. It is time to speak out in the name of all faiths and our national identity as a people united in our diversity. That is our gift to the world.
Faithfully,
best jim
The Rt. Rev. James R. Mathes
Bishop
What your Bishop has written is pure nonsense! I support President Trump’s temporary ban on the 7 Muslim countries……that were first designated by former President, Obama. I’d rather err on the side of caution than to worry about political correctness.
parrot !
Wayne. You should be aware of something. Not a single American citizen living in the United States has ever been killed by a terrorist that came here from any of those 7 designated Islamic countries—not a single American—ever. Zero. That is a fact.
Not a very pastoral Bishop, is he. He’s very partisan.
He also attacked Trump on a personal level and questioned his faith, and didn’t any prayers for him.
It figures that he also supported changing the definition of marriage and went against the will of the people of California (who know better than a bishop).
I’m not impressed by this bishop.
gloriamarie: This is not about the current refugee issue.
As a Christian, I disagree any solidarity with Islam. Islam is not about God, it’s about Mohammed, a man & his politics. [91 times the Koran says, ‘Imitate Mohammed’. ]
Their trilogy (Koran, Hadith, Sira) are anti-Christian & especially, anti-Jewish. Almost all of the Sira is devoted to how to treat & deal with Kafirs. (not very well.) Almost 1/2 of the Hadith is devoted to how to treat the Kafirs, and a whopping 64% of the Koran is about how to treat Kafirs.
One third of their Trilogy is devoted to how to carry out Jihad against Kafirs (non-Muslims, unbelievers, keepers of the book.)
The Islam Trilogy says Kafirs are to be: hated, mocked, punished, annihilated, beheaded, plotted against, terrorized, killed, crucified, cursed, tortured, raped, lied to, stolen from, warred against.
[Allah’s ‘Doctrine of Women’, ‘Doctrine of Slavery’, and ‘Doctrine of Christians/Jews’ are beyond horrible.]
.
Mohammad’s preaching (Meccan Koran) won 150 converts during his 13-year Meccan Ministry. [That’s an average of 12 per year.] When Mohammad became a Politician & a Warrior (Medinan Koran) he gained over 100,000 followers in 9 years. That’s 10,000+ a year.
[In the last decade of his life, he himself was involved in 100+ violent battles & raids.]
So, what are you saying here Leslie? Are you saying that God might strike you with a lightning bolt if you have lunch with a woman who follows Islam. How are you going to reach her for Christ if you’re always shunning them, separating from them, and running from them. Drive-by pootings of John 3:16?
I stand in solidarity with Muslims because they are human beings the same as us. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity not discriminated against because they have a different religion. They believe in God the Creator just like we do.
If you truly love Jesus Christ and are a believer in the true Gospel ,
You know that letting the false religions into the house is like committing suicide.
The only reason to let the whole world amass is to teach and preach the truth . Jesus Christ the only way , Truth and the life. All others are counterfeit gospels and if you know what the bible says . Then you know that Jesus Call all Christians to convert , preach the true gospel for repentance unto salvation , there are so many false religions that it is hard to tell what is truth.
The True Gospel is to teach , Preach , tell the whole dying world that the only way to heaven is thru the Blood of Jesus christ. Not all the false relegeons . the Foreign relegeons dont beleive in peace. or respect of life, or respect for women, or for Ten commandments .
Jesus said to love all , no matter what the cost. But that mean s telling the truth in love as well .
Thanks for the 5 percent gospel Chris. All Americans have heard it at least 1000 times if not more. Now. Go and find the other 95 percent of Christianity that you fundies ignore so much—put it with that 5 percent—and you fundies will be complete.
Let me tell you something Chris. You fundies love the word “eschew” because you are about the only people on planet earth who ever use it. Here is where that comes from in the Bible:
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (Revelations 3:14-16)
As long as you fundies dwell on the 5 percent alone and neglect the other 95 percent of what Jesus requires of the people in his kingdom, you are in great danger of being spit out—because you are far cooler than just lukewarm in your current condition.
You fundies always conveniently forget the next Bible verse in that series that describes most of you perfectly:
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:” (Revelations 3:17)
Wake up wretched fundies!!! Find the 95 percent that goes with your 5 percent before it is too late!!! Jesus knows how close to empty your cups really are!!!
Please check your spelling! When you said you were quoting Winston Churchill, I trust that you just goofed. I assume that a good Englishman would not use “your” when he should have used “you’re”, meaning you are. (Did he even use the contraction??) Correct spelling and grammar in a post are essential. Without it, your words do not have the same weight.
Get lost Ed. Blogging is informal communication like chatting over a poker game. I work as a professional technical editor, and this mistake does not bother me because we are just chatting here.
Signed,
Oxford Comma Lover
Dear John Pavlovitz Reader:
The Presidency of Donald Trump has failed.
Blessings!
Dear Rob Menard, marcos, Christine and IC:
It is difficult to argue against your assertions concerning the United States. Nor do I intend to try. I feel that your anger needs to be heard full force. That said, this American bi-national citizen notes the following:
1] Mr. Trump’s personal failings [which are neither few nor light] aside, Hillary Clinton’s elevation would not alter substantially the policies now pursued by President Trump. Her utterly inappropriate pledge to impose a ‘no-fly zone’ in Syrian airspace would establish direct war between the US and Russia. In fact Russia is the one country with legitimate grounds to be in Syria at all, since they have been allies for many, many years.
2] The US’ internal condition is far worse than you suppose, and than US citizens themselves suppose. The issue is not that President Trump is corrupt and utterly unfit in any conceivable way for public office. The issue is that the two-party system is destroyed. The issue is that labor unions are destroyed. The issue is that public education is destroyed. The issue is that the judiciary is destroyed. The issue is that academia is destroyed. The issue is that the press is destroyed. The issue is that consumer and environmental protection is destroyed. The issue is that US infrastructure and industrial base is destroyed. The issue is that communities and cities are destroyed. The issue is that scores of millions with no work or living wage, cursed by chronic poverty, or locked in cages in a monstrous system of mass incarceration – see their very lives destroyed. The issue is that the national narrative is destroyed. The issue is that the institutions of liberal democracy are destroyed. The issue is that there is nothing in America to BE redeemed.
America is already finished. All that remains is a military cabal. As Joseph Stalin systematically starved 5 million Ukrainians, US society is subjected to increasingly genocidal social attacks.
Nothing short of nationwide revolt will even slow this. And the state is quite prepared to deploy the full weight of military dissent against any display of dissent. So while your anger most assuredly is justified [not only by the international crimes you name, but many more that you did NOT name], and while is it not my place to ask you NOT to judge us as justice demands, I ask only that you please bear in mind these circumstances WHEN you judge America.
3] Realize that we have a common problem. Your country has a fascistic movement. There are fascistic movements in Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and other countries also. Also know that a major plank of Mr. Trump foreign policy will be to position fascistic movements abroad to exert greater influence in your country.
4] Realize that while responsibility for containing this malevolent nihilism belongs FIRST to the American working class, US workers CANNOT do this alone. Nor can you halt these SAME forces as they work in yourcountry. The ruling class, which Marx called the bourgeois, has an international strategy. The working class, which Marx called the proletariat, must have an international strategic counter-response. It is absolutely imperative that we unite to work together.
WW III will happen NOT because some mindless dolt does something stupid. WW III WILL come because planning and preparation for this have been in the works for decades and now are in very late state of readiness. The ONLY way to prevent this is that workers of the world unite to prevent this on a world-wide basis.
Rob Menard, marcos, Christine and IC — you are absolutely correct to call us on our apathy and indifference. Rolling tanks and aerial bombardment by the US military on US soil notwithstanding, WW III must never happen. We must unite worldwide. Hence …
wsws.org
This writer claims to be speaking for the American Majority, in fact he only speaks for a extremely small minority. While I don’t agree with everything Trump is doing, slowing down immigration and stopping illegals from crossing our borders I support 100%. All Trump has done is temporarily stopped anyone from 7 countries known to be hit beds of radical Islam from entering the United States until a more secure vetting process is put in place. He has not banned immigration just temporarily halted the process because our existing process needs improvement. Liberals need to pull their heads out and actually pay attention to what is being done instead of just responding like chicken little, the sky is not falling people.
Tell that to the women and children who thought they had been saved and now know that their lives are once again in danger. Feel their betrayal. Fell the sadness in a child’s eyes when he sees his mother, brothers, and sisters killed because of this American failure. Feel the anger for Americans he will one day have in his heart—and RIGHTLY SO. Maybe his bomb will kill your child one day.
I suspect the truth of the matter is that you just hate Islamic Arabs because you do not like what you call “sand n*ggers” and you do not like the fact that they adhere to a nonChristian religion. You are angry at 9/11, and you would like to personally get in your 2 cents worth of payback against these people that begged for American help just two years ago—American help that never came. Am I right—or not?
You’re wrong Mr. Race Card Dealer.
Hardly anyone was affected anyway.
Now go back to building your bomb shelter. It might be on you and the damsels you save to repopulate the earth after the coming Trumpacalypse within the next two years, God help the Human Race.
You forgot the part where you’re all sorry that for the past decade you’ve turned a blind eye and said nothing while drone attacks were carried out that killed innocent civilians. That you said and did nothing as your hero Obama allowed arming and funding of extreme groups that destabilized these countries.
Johnny. Sorry to say, but war is a difficult business—and it is not surgical in nature—no matter who is conducting it. American policy is to avoid killing civilians to the maximum extent possible. However, unintended collateral damage that cannot be avoided sometimes does happen in war—all wars. One advantage of near-silent drone strikes is the ability to use extra time to carefully survey the landscape below in real time before making a decision to drop a smart bomb. That extra time saves lives. This guy did not have that extra time. He just got orders and dropped—could not even see the ground below because of the clouds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X848-d3QSzY
Drones are better and safer.
You are misinformed. Progressives protested the use of drones with a loud voice but since you only listen to the fake news, you would not have learned of it. Drones are deplorable and should bever have been invented.
Dear Jon:
This bi-national US citizen is truly sorry for our drone attacks. I would note also that on his last day in office, President Obama authorized the use of 500,000 pounds of laser-guided bombs. Obama had to authorize this because it involved a perimeter significantly larger than has been bombed in the past.
Many US citizens who regard themselves as ‘progressive’ support Obama who they seem to see as a somewhat misguided progressive, or one of their own who lost his way. History will not be so kind. Barak Obama will be remembered as the President who defended extrajudicial assassinations of his own people.
You and others who have spoken from beyond our borders are entirely correct in your assertions against us, and for our failure to protest more loudly. I am truly sorry for what we have done, and for what we have left undone. But I am more angry at my own government which has been at war continuously for generations.
Wherever you are, I truly hope that you and your family are safe. I also hope that this conversation will do some good and that the sleeping giant [the US working class] will awaken and roar.
Blessings to you and all yours!
I am Brazilian, our democracy is very new after many years on the military dictatorship (that is said to have been caused by you Americans), even though we are with you waiting with the heart in your hand that you do not go through what we had to go through For all these years.
Looked this up. I did not find anything about Americans, CIA or otherwise, participating in your late 20th century military regimes in Brazil. Of course, the cry in Latin America has always been that when anything goes right, the people and leaders of the nations of Latin America accept all the accolades for themselves. Whenever anything goes wrong, blame the powerful Americans who are ASSUMED to have their dirty little fingers in everything. It makes for great political theater, and we have intervened on occasion, but I doubt that we are powerful enough to be working your marionette strings in all times and all places. Sometimes a country just screws up and needs no nudging from anyone to get into or out of its messes.
Would you like me to blame Trump on Brazil? Listen up everybody. Trump was put in power by secret agents from Brazil. Nothing that happens in the united states ever happens without Brazilian secret agents pulling our marionette strings. Okay. Happy?
You DO realize that if MOST of america was sorry about this he wouldn’t BE president don’t you?
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John, all due respect (I do enjoy reading what you write) – It’s hard to read this statement of yours without thinking about the way America has treated the indigenous people on this continent, Africans & African Americans, and Japanese Americans. What these people experienced at the hands of American citizens and the American government did not demonstrate a baseline of humanity and decency, nor was it rational: “For its history our nation has been led by men who, despite their varying flaws and deficiencies, some of which were quite disturbing—were by and large, normal human beings. Whatever darkness in them, they had at the very least, a baseline of humanity and decency that more often than not insured rational behavior.”
Africans and African-Americans are not indigenous people in the United States—and neither are white people. The only indigenous peoples are American Indians, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and Eskimoes (who are different from American Indians).
American Indians just sprang into existence in the US? They couldn’t have come from some other country a long time ago?
We all share the earth which belongs to God. No one owns any of it. So what’s your point again?
Thanks for this, John. We know it is not all Americans but reading the comments and the hatred from Republican Jesus Christians leads me to believe America and by default the rest of the world is in very big trouble. We in Ukraine have been thrown under the Russian bus so America can have its theocracy.
Question for you. The former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, James Matlock, who is the father of one of my old school buddies here in Tennessee, says that Crimea and Ukraine are historical “rightful parts” of Russia and that NATO ought to give in on letting Putin take them back. In other words, Just say to Putin, here they are on a silver platter—take them. Matlock is a conservative who was appointed to his post by the Reagan administration. He is famous in diplomatic circles and carries an enormous amount of influence among Republicans in dealing with Russia. If some really difficult issue comes up with Russia, he is sort of a “go to” guy in the Republican Party. I would not be at all surprised to see Trump go straight to Matlock for guidance in dealing with Russia.
How do people in Ukraine feel about the notion that Ukraine is a natural historical part of Russia just like Texas is a natural historical part of the United States—and the Russians ought to have it back? I am not sure how I feel about all of this personally—as an American. However, I do know this. Whenever in my life the word “Kiev” comes up, I always think Russia—never Ukraine. Do you Ukraine natives love Russia, hate Russia—or what? This is just for my education.
That disinformation is a major part of Russian propaganda. Ukraine is not nor is Crimea an integral part of the Russian Federation The Russian Empire under Catherine defeated the Crimean Tatars (remnants of the Golden Horde) and the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century and at the same time destroyed the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks and took both Crimea and the Cossack Hetmanate into the Empire. The USSR was the Russian Empire by another name. and when it broke up in 1991, every part of it that could declared independence, including Ukraine, based on majority ethnicity and historic nationalism.
The history of most of Eastern and Central Europe is that parts of it belonged at one time or another to several different Empires/Kingdoms etc. Ukraine was no different. Ukraine was an independent entity known as Kievian Rus long before Muscovy came into existence and has been briefly independent several times since, including four years after WWI.
Ukrainians hate Russia, not Russians necessarily, and have NO desire to return as a colony of Moscow which starved and murdered them by the millions. Which is why Ukraine is fighting for its life against the low-level Russian invasion in the Donbas. Crimea was NOT given to Ukraine as a gift by Khrushchev in 1954, though the year was propitious as the 300th anniversary of Kmelnitsky signing an agreement with the Tsar against Poland which made the Cossack Hetmanate a protectorate of Muscovy. Crimea was transferred to Ukraine by a decision of the Central Committee of the CPC because it made logistical sense. Ukraine SSR was given the huge task of economic development of Crimea. Virtually any modernization in Crimea is the result of Ukrainian budget dollars and Ukrainian labour.
Do not believe anything from Russia about Ukraine. Do not believe anything from Russia about anything.
If you want to continue this conversation, we have to find a better way than this site. would love to.
Thanks. I did not get any of my information from Russian propaganda—never watch, read, or listen to that stuff. I was just going by what American diplomat James Matlock said.
He was simply repeating Russian propaganda. You will find it in many places coming from many people. I have been dealing with it for over three years now
Getting hysterical is playing right into the same political hands as before: everyone gets worked up so that Trump can funnel more money and deals to himself and his political cohorts. He creates crises as a smokescreen to do the really dirty stuff in the background. That’s politics.
I know this stuff is important, but things like huge corporate deals and erosions of basic rights are what got us here in the first place! People were paying attention to smokescreens instead of the actual issues.
All of the stuff in the article? It’s happened because it’s been happening for a *long time* already. This is just someonee coming out and flaunting it because he can. We’ve had massively authoritarian government for nearly 20 years already, the issues above are nothing new it’s just that people haven’t been talking about it.
We should have cleaned house a long while ago, but it’s going to take a lot to do; I’m not hopeful it can happen.
Dear America,
We get it, we understand. This is nothing new out here in The World, especially in those countries where your military and your CIA worked with so much American know-how and gumption to install exactly the type of authoritarian madmen you are now so surprised to be suffering under. From Afghanistan to Panama, from the Philippines to Saudi Arabia, innocent citizens by the tens of millions have been deprived of their rights, separated from their families, tortured and murdered. All in service of maintaining and promoting the American Way. So, we feel for you, we really do. We love and stand with our American friends, and our American smart people. We really love your American Beyonce. But your eagles have come home to roost, and you are now officially drowning in eagle shit. We have just one question: What did you think was going to happen?
Your friend and soon to be former admirer,
The World
PS-Some Canadians might be looking down our smug, self-satisfied sleeves at our American neighbours right now, but we should not. We have our own crap to deal with, as witnessed by the horrific shootings in a Quebec City mosque last night. We can’t “blame it on Trump.” That is our own black heart and we have to own it. I sympathize with your citizens, but we have been shaking our heads in disbelief at your government(s) since Nixon. Trump is an end game, not something new.
Hey, we did something right for a change.
All the freaking out and protesting are the dying gasps of an elite group has lost power and desperately wants it back. Don’t trust the liberal press. They are on the same side and share their agenda.
Dear Fellow Canadian:
In your place, I would be very concerned with efforts by PM Trudeau’s regime at fawning over our US Prince of … whatever he is. The point is that this will only serve to shift Canada’s ruling elite further rightward and commit your soldiers to doing Uncle Sam’s dirty work.
Sunday’s heinous mass killing is indivisible from the noxious political and social environment created by the capitalist elite through their wars of aggression, gutting of democratic rights, and the promotion of reaction along with anti-Muslim bigotry.
I don’t know how this is getting reported North of the 49th parallel, but after condemning the attack White House spokesperson Sean Spicer neglected to mention that its target was a mosque or that its victims were Muslims. Instead, he proceeded to exchange the lives and limbs of the victims into political capital to support current executive orders regarding immigrants and refugees.
Blessings!
Interesting. I don’t consider Mr. Trudeau’s actions to be “fawning”. There is that expression from The Godfather, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. That is what I see him doing. The only way to have the potential to affect Mr. Trump is if he doesn’t think of you as a loser. And anyone who criticises him is a loser. Canada is playing a delicate game of diplomacy. Now that may not seem manly enough for some, but it takes nerves of steel.
Dear Patricia Brush:
‘Delicate’ fits.
As Trump muses his trade war, discusses ‘seizing Iraqi oil’ and threatening seizure of Chinese-held islands in the South China Sea, Ottawa’s aristocracy considers how further to integrate their armed forces into those of the Prince of Orange.
To avoid mass protests at what they know would be a deeply unpopular move, Canada’s glorious public officials now seek to arrange a meeting on US soil. How very manly of them!
1] Canada is a long-time partner in US imperialist aggression.
2] Since WW II, Ottawa [with London, Berlin] has leaned on Washington to advance its worldwide imperialist interests.
3] Canada played a prominent role in the explosion of US militarism following the dissolution of the USSR.
4] Under Whig and Troy reichadistrations alike, Canada’s military has participated in virtually every US-led war over the past quarter century.
5] Canada has been most supportive of the US military-strategic offensive against Russia, including current “advanced” deployments on Russia’s borders.
6] Trudeau’s 2015 campaign pledged to deepen the economic and military partnership between the two countries.
Most recently, Trudeau’s desire for stepped-up military collaboration with Washington was revealed by key personnel appointments. Ex: former financial journalist and Thomson-Reuters executive Chrystia Freeland is elevated to Foreign Minister; retired lieutenant-general and onetime candidate to lead Canada’s military, Andrew Leslie – Freeland’s parliamentary secretary with special responsibilities for the Canada-US relationship.
Commander of Canada’s forces in the US-led wars ON Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, Leslie has intimate Pentagon ties. He effuses praise for Mattis, whose brutal 2004 assault on Fallujah is a war crime. He is no less supportive of Gen. Flynn.
Canada’s ruling elite is eager to pursue its own predatory lusts by collaborating with the most right-wing reichadistration in US history. That the seditious little sycophant and lesser son of equally unworthy father who masquerades as a Prime Minister now serves up yet another betrayal of Canada is entirely in line with this sordid history.
And they say that we in the Benighted States of Amnesia know nothing about Canada …
Blessings!
PS: Rather than US soil, I think it would be fitting if these luminescent leaders met on a small, ultra-luxury cruise vessel. In addition to vastly simplifying security and preventing demonstrations, this arrangement perfectly pictures the utter disconnect between the bourgeois and proletarian classes.
PPS: Oh yeah – I’m sticking with ‘fawning.’
Nice job on your letter John P. The real TV news media most Americans care about and watch—meaning NOT Fox News—are having a ferocious feeding frenzy on Trumps Muslim travel ban. If this keeps up at the fever pitch it is at now, then Trump’s political epitaph will soon go something like this. Listen to the whole song:
Dear John Pavlovitz Reader:
Reports are that at least 57 people were killed yesterday in a raid in the central province of Baydah, Yemen. Among the dead are 16 civilians and one American soldier.
The failed Presidency of Barak Obama is joined by the failed Presidency of Donald Trump, who now joins the cadre of US war criminal Presidents.
Blessings!
Yeah, but this is our America. We live in a system so gerrymandered that it even allowed someone like Trump to run and win. He won the primaries -he’s their chosen candidate.
It may not be the America you aspire to. But there are a lot of people for whom it is the America they aspire to. People who are saying that Obama enforced restrictions on refugees too. People who are saying that Trump is already bringing jobs back.
This is our America. Pretending otherwise is half the reason we got into this mess. Sticking our fingers in our ears and pretending that 60 million Americans didn’t elect a fascist doesn’t change the fact that they did.
No, gerrymandering did not help Trump. It can’t. The election is based on the popular vote according to each state. State lines are not gerrymandered. Gerrymandering does not affect the presidential election, the election of senators, or of governors. It affects only the US House, and I suspect the effect is minimal.
Gerrymandering certainly does affect the State elections. Why else would it be so important to them? “Voter rights” laws – many judges have deemed them illegal. Koch Brothers spent most of their money on State elections. And, of course, it has been working.
Wouldn’t you squawk if it was going the other way? You do not need to answer that.
I said it doesn’t affect the presidential race, the senate, or governors.
The state elections are just as crucial .
Thank you for so articulately stating what I have been feeling. I enjoy the perspective you share.
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Thank you John Pavlovitz for writing this letter on behalf of so many of us.
Only thing I would add is: we are also this. And each and every one of us will also have to do the introspection needed to find those parts in ourselves and transform them into something more creative and beneficial to mankind.
I’m talking about looking at our own hidden parts.
My greed. My narcissism. My grandiosity. My selfishness. My ignorance.
Because outer transformation has to be built on inner transformation if it is to sustain.
This letter is a load of BS. Where were you when Obama was bombing and droning thousands of innocent civilians and turning millions of Syrians and Libyans into desperate refugees? Where were you when Obama refused to prosecute the Bush era torturers, and instead prosecuted the CIA officer who blew the whistle on the program? Where were you when Obama failed to close our gulag at Guantanamo, or expanded NSA spying, or helped the Saudis brutally put down democratic protests in Bahrain and slaughter thousands of Yemeni civilians?
Trump is the legitimate face of America–and he is YOUR face too, liberals. You, who sat back and did NOTHING in the face of 8 years of wanton slaughter by Obama, aided and abetted by his loathsome first secretary of state– shewho gloated with glee when Ghadaffi was murdered.
Try telling the many millions around the globe from Vietnam to Iraq to Chile to Iran who have been killed and brutalized by America or regimes put in place by America the past 60 years that this isn’t who we are. You make me sick.
Thanks!!! This sounds like one of the old articles I used to read in the English version of Truthda during the Cold War days. You just forgot the parts about aristocratic, capitalist, imperialist pigs and their running dog lackeys in the bourgeoisie.
You obviously need a hug.
Dear Karl Kolchak:
First, you correctly imply that neo-liberal policies are an abject failure. And you correctly note his role as a war criminal. Yet you attack Obama from the right. So where does that leave you?
Trump is the face of American Capitalism; but neither Trump nor Capitalism are for that reason legitimate. In fact, I’m still sorting out in my own mind whether America is legitimate. But that’s not my point.
What I want to know is, why campaign to the right of Obama, yet criticize him when he does the same things you do? Or, are you attacking Obama as I do, from the Marxist pov? Moreover, have you condemned US operations in Vietnam, Iraq, Chile, Iran, and many other countries during both Democratic and Republican Reichadistrations?
As I see it, this is a political attack intending to confuse and disorient an already exhausted American working class. Oh, and Donald Trump’s Presidency has failed.
Blessings!
John, thank you so much for writing this beautiful apology! I felt you were speaking my thoughts and feelings in every word.
I regret that many respondents chose to use this forum to attack others out of fear, apparently believing that only one way – theirs – is right. Perhaps your comments on some of our own fallacies (apathy, laziness) will help others realize that we’re “tethered together in our Humanity” and all of us need to grow in order to make the world a better place.
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I have always told those dearest to me when they ‘apologized’ or said they were ‘sorry’…… I don’t want your apology and I don’t want you to be sorry…what I want is for you to learn from your mistakes, understand the harm your brought to yourself and others, and most important CHANGE your ways….
If I was a person from Iraq reading this I would not give a flying hoot about any proclaimed regrets or sorrow – I would feel that America is having the energy it has spread around the world come home to roost. If I was a Native American I would see what is happening as a fulfillment of prophecy and prayers and a hopeful new beginning after this inevitable collapse is over….. If I was a person living in Yemen who watched my children starve I would say to the “majority of Americans’ well the worst is yet to come if you do not learn how to separate fact from fiction’….. If I was a person from Libya I might think that America is getting what it deserves – and if I was a person from Syria I might advise Americans to ask the Russians for help when things escalate into a Civil War….
Americans truly are experiencing Empire collapse and now is not the time for apologies or sympathy – it is time to envision a new regenerative future and take actions that allow you to live as a historical person in 3D time doing what you know is your path and purpose to CHANGE things.
And understand deeply that it is always darkest before the dawn…..
This is the time of the Great Transition…..
This isn’t who we are? This is exactly who we are. It’s just that we’ve always exported it. From overthrowing Mossedeq in Iran in 1953 (which is the stone that started the avalanche that is the current Middle East mess) to destroying self-determination in Central America in the 70s and 80s to our Iraq invasion (which never would have been necessary had we left Democratic, pro-American Mossedeq in power.), we have been exporting violence, lies, terror, and dictators all across the globe. It’s now come home to roost and we act like somehow we’re so exceptional that the idea that they would turn it on us is unthinkable. The chickens have come home to roost. Welcome to how so much of the rest of the world sees us.
Oh My … POTUS of the US has failed.. Really? What has he been in office a whole 11 days… All you poor little snowflakes out there, who want to allow refugees in unvetted, how many of you are willing to let them come and stay in your home?????? My guess is a very few. So, where do you want to put them? I want my tax money going for the homeless and the veterans who live here, those who served our country.. NOT to people who are here to kill us, or change our way of life to conform to theirs? NO NO NO
Goodness, I wish people would inform themselves before spouting off. Refugees are thoroughly vetted by the UNHCR and then they are vetted again by the country they are emigrating to. They aren’t just kind of wandering in armed to the teeth! Refugees are people who have been displaced by war or famine or civil unrest or oppression. They run carrying their babies and children and little else. All they want is to be safe with their family. If you look at the statistics, there have been no Americans, zero, killed by people from the 7 banned countries. There have been rather a lot of Americans killed by toddlers with guns, but I don’t see Trump banning toddlers or guns.
As for tax money, you could easily house the homeless and care for veterans AND welcome refugees if you made that a priority and stopped putting most of your money into funding war.
I can see you are very upset. I don’t think anyone argues with keeping our country safe. And really, name calling? We haven’t heard that one ever.
Your tax money does go to the homeless and the veterans who live here, whose families may have even immigrated or sought refuge here.
We should worry about our tax money. My husband served during Vietnam and gets upset every time he sees a disabled vet having to go on TV to ask for money.
These men were boots on the ground in war. They served their country and all were willing to die for this country. They went there while the men who ordered them to go sat at their cushy desks sending other people to fight their war. A war that shouldn’t have been started, a war they didn’t know how to fight and they sure didn’t know how to win.
There was a article in the news a while back that said the Department of Defense has lost track of 7 trillion dollars over the last few decades. The Defense Department said the money wasn’t missing they just didn’t have the paperwork to account for it. Obviously it didn’t get down to the people who were actual boots on the ground whose lives were changed forever.
Then they said our military was depleted and Trump is going to spend big money to make the best. Let us hope some of that money trickles down to the actual heroes.
Trump used a heartbroken mother to throw a torpedo at Hillary during the Republican Convention. Yet he couldn’t even muster up the pretense of empathy for another Gold Star family.
I guess we were supposed to believe that the deaths of those heroes in Bengahazi was somehow more tragic , more horrific than the 4600 deaths in Iraq or the thousands more whose life will be never be the same.
All those people, a lot of whom call themselves pro-life, need to learn to treat heroes better than pawns in war games.
Mexico will always be a good friend. Mexico is “amigo”. We are with you citizens of the U.S.A. Let’s resist this evil man. God be with us.
Look at all the stupid comments on here from the losers, the ones who want to flood the country with illegal aliens: Mexicans who take our jobs, moslems who practice taqqiya, lying to promote the cause of islam, and hijirah, conquest by immigration. I would bet that not ten people who have commented here have read any of the kuran. What is the matter with your heads that you want to welcome people who revere a murderous pedophile, and who still kill each other over a petty 1400 year old interpretation of who should succeed their insane prophet. Muslims still follow the kuran. What makes anyone think that Americans are any different than the peoples conquered by muslim hordes in the past? Do ANY of you think that the kuran is irrelevant to muslims today? None of the symp commentors on here have said anything to refute these truths. And now a new Apologist In Chief, John Pavlovitz, has arisen , to refute the ideas that Americans DO have the right who should be in America, and that all of us are not following the pc trail to oblivion. John, I don’t recall you braying about W and his brother Jeb! stealing the election in 2000. W is the only president with a police record and his dad got him into the reserves during VietNam time. He skipped most of the meetings, but had his father to keep him out of the war. Where were you then? I live in Florida and have seen too many job sites with illegal mexicans doing work that Americans could do. As a test, I inquired about a job at some of them. Some of the foremen were interested until I mentioned possible illegals on the site. Suddenly there was no help wanted. I have been behind at least 100 mexicans in grocery lines, and listened to them laughing about free food from stupid Americans. Now Orlando is a big city with big time crime. The perps? 98% hispanics. Four years ago it was a safe tourist town. All of you moonbeams on here who want to welcome would be terrorists and lying job stealing sycophants really need to do some reading. By the time you finish the kuran, you will be ready to join the real Americans who are NOT sorry that a lying self admitted criminal is not president, who are not apologizing that illegal aliens must follow the law, just as citizens do. And the president does have the right to limit foreigners coming to the US. Most of us don’t want to live in the barrio that mexicans will create, or live under sharia law because too many ignorant people forced a change in immigration law. And it will happen. READ your damn history books! John, you strike me as a republican who is unhappy because your favorite, probably Jeb!, failed. So your small mind joins with the rest of the shortsighted to yell about someone who is actually bringing change. I won’t like all of it either, but at least law will be followed again
Your paranoia is almost as bad as your understanding of history. I feel sorry for you.
The other day I was driving home with my daughter and grandson they had picked me up from the hospital I had had eye surgery(cataracts). As we were driving home thru the city the hospital is in( i wont say the name to keep it private) we drove past a very odd looking building sparking in bits of gold with oddly shaped crowns on corners of buildings. I thought to my self..wow, I have never seen a building like that, what is it? My daughter said “Mom, it’s a Mosque” I turned toher and said ‘ A What?” I had heard of them, I just NEVER thought to see one over here in our town. As we drove along down the road, lo and behold..another “Mosque”! Oh this one was bigger, fancier and very defined with gold a and other colorful beams. For a moment my body felt fear.. for a second. I think because the last time I saw one of these was on a documentary on tv and it involved military and mosques being blown to bits. Why was I thinking this in my mind as I looked at these? after all..they are just a place that muslims go to worship their God right? surely bombers and gunmen and the sort would never think of hiding in them for the sake of ambushing innocent, ignorant americans? Surely Not. If that is true, then why in God’s name do I feel so Uncomfortable with those “Mosques” around??
Must just be me, nothing else….
Dear World
Better Pay attention. God the real God of the bible . The one and only one holy God , Jesus Christ Will Judge Your Actions, and YOU will have to pay for your actions against The Holy Scripture , The Ten Commandments
Judge Your Heart. Let Truth Prevail, and Your actions, and deed s be Know for God to Judge.
YOU Had Better Pay attention. When You open your house up for anything and call it love , you let all the garbage in with the good. The Truth Will Set you Free only when you Stand up for the Truth.
Take A stand, Stand up For Truth, NO MORE LIES in the name of religeous immigration.
If you Get Rid of Truth all the lies will fill up the empty void.
I don’t see the Gospel in your comment only vague threats.
God has an open invitation to ALL people, EVERYONE. It says in scripture:
“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.”
and God forgives and has compassion on ALL
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord,
that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Whether we want to forgive others God forgives:
” For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
God will save people no matter what grudges we have against
people, He is merciful when we are judgmental:
“For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
Because God loves his creation.
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It’s nice you realise, but your America hasn’t really existed for centuries now. It’s always been rife with racial struggles and gender discrimination no matter how much some of you proclaim to love everyone. To be honest, it feels like you’re playing the pity card, and while I understand and empathise with your situation, saying isn’t enough. If you really want your America back, get rid of your false ideals and hypocrisy. Actually get to know one another and fully embrace them if you truly want the world to believe that you truly treasure the ideals of equality amongst men and women of all kids. Stop with your racial profiling and actually do something about the bigger problem here.
Till then, the World will be watching, waiting for you to prove yourselves. Again.
So very poignant. Know that we here in Canada have your back.