RIP Recon (2007-2021)

Recon’s 2020 Presidential Campaign Photo

As the commander of the 1st Feline Battalion, it is with great sadness that I report that Recon, the most decorated officer in the history of feline operations, has died from injuries sustained in a brutal rescue mission in North Korea last fall.

He was a faithful warrior up to the very end. But the horrid conditions in North Korea–including a catastrophe that led to him evading capture for an entire week–seriously injured him. He had blown off retirement to take on that mission.

Still, he survived, making it home and even showing signs of healing from his wounds. He even mounted an impressive Presidential campaign, defeating both Trump and Biden in a landslide, only to have his rightful election stolen by Biden and Trump.

He was planning on making a run in 2024, but last week, kidney problems started mounting, and this week he stopped eating and drinking altogether. He even began to experience convulsions. His body weight had dropped 40%.

He died surrounded by Amir and Abigail.

SCOTUS: Barrett Confirmed

As I expected, on Monday night the Senate confirmed federal judge Amy Coney Barrett as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

For those keeping the tallies, we now have six Republican-appointed Justices–Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts–and three Democrat appointees: Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

Of the six Republican appointees, Roberts appears to be wobbly while Kavanaugh has been mostly conservative with some centrist leanings; Barrett, of course, is untested. The other three–Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch–have been conservative.

However, as I said before, whether this means Roe v. Wade is dead, that’s different ballgame.

Without Barrett, it is doubtful that SCOTUS would even take a challenge to Roe. And even if they do, Barrett–while having all the markers of a hard-Catholic conservative in the tradition of Scalia–is not a guaranteed anti-Roe vote. She does have a history of showing respect for precedent. It will take a very strong legal case to go against a precedent that has been in place for nearly 50 years and has been bolstered by one direct case (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) and many peripheral cases.

Having said that, Barrett–at least on paper–is a worthy pick for SCOTUS. If she won’t kill Roe, then Roe will be with us for at least another 50 years, assuming the country does not break up.

As for the upcoming election, it’s anyone’s guess. On one hand, every national poll is showing Biden with a commanding lead, even in “battleground” states that Trump won 4 years ago. On the other hand, we have Vox Day–who predicted that Trump would be a force years before he even entered the 2016 race–predicting that Trump will win the popular vote AND the electoral vote.

4 years ago, I voted against Trump in the primary, but held my nose and voted for him in the general election. My reasons:

  • Court picks. I trusted Trump to make better court picks than Hillary. And I’m not just talking about SCOTUS. On this front, I feel vindicated.
  • Appointments to other government Departments and agencies. I remember how Clinton and Obama used the IRS and FBI to target their political rivals. Egregious abuses of power were never punished. Filegate, anyone? Lois Learner, anyone? Disk drives destroyed, anyone?
  • Hillary was set to use the apparatus of government to expand public indoctrination in critical race theory and intersectionality. And those are increasingly being used as tools to weed out “troublemakers”.
  • In the wake of Obergefell, Christian-owned businesses became targets of Big Gay. Under Hillary, those attacks were set to intensify. What gays want to do in their privacy is one thing, but forcing business owners to recognize gay “weddings” is a different thing.
  • Those of us who remember Hillary’s attempt to hijack the health care system when her husband was President, understood her objective to use ObamaCare as a stepping stone to socialized medicine.

As I said, I would have taken a shotgun blast to the balls before voting for Hillary. I do not regret my vote.

Am I a MAGA? Not by a long shot, although I will concede that Trump has delivered on the key reasons I voted for him. I will definitely NOT vote for Biden. My state is arguably the most pro-Trump state in the union.

What do I think will happen? I don’t know. My gut says this is going to be a LOT closer than anyone thinks. Are the polls so far off that Trump wins? I don’t know. Could he win the popular vote, too? I don’t know. But then again, it’s all about turnout.

I WILL say this much:

In 2016, we supported Rand Paul, a very popular Senator. But by the time the Kentucky Caucus arrived, Rand–polling in single-digits against Trump–had suspended his campaign. Trump was a juggernaut. While there were many Trump bumper stickers that year, we didn’t see many Trunp yard signs.

This year, it’s a different ballgame. At least half the yards in my development have Trump yard signs and there are many Trump flags flying. One flag in my walking route says “TRUMP No More Bullshit”. There are a LOT of angry voters who are extending both middle fingers to the establishment.

In the part of Michigan where MrsLarijani hails, we noticed many Trump signs. Does this mean that Michigan could once again go to Trump? I don’t know. But outside of Detroit, Michigan is a completely different state.

In June, we visited Colorado on family-related business. While we were there, we took #toddler to a very nice park so she could play. There were a lot of families doing the same thing. I saw a lot of angry folks, and let’s just say they were not Antifa. These folks were conservative.

(While Colorado will almost certainly go to Biden, it is entirely likely that what I saw was an indicator of the anger in Middle America.)

I can also tell you that much of Pennsylvania is angry. The shutdowns by the Democrat governor–and the riots in a Democrat-controlled Philadelphia–have made a reliable blue state very much a bubble state. Trump took Pennsylvania in 2016.

Is what I’m telling you an indicator of what is going on nationally? I don’t know that answer. But like I said, my gut tells me the endgame is going to be surprising. Trump could win if the level of energy I’m seeing on the ground is any indication and assuming we don’t get widespread fraud.

If Trump takes Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio–and at least one mainstay state (Pennsylvania or MI or Wisconsin and Iowa), this Tuesday will be very good for him.

And from what I’m seeing, that outcome is not out of the realm of possibilities.

Trump Acquitted; It’s What We Deserve

I’m not surprised that President Donald J. Trump was acquitted, by the Senate, of the two articles of Impeachment. There was no chance that Democrats were going go muster up the 67 votes to remove Trump. It wasn’t going to happen. They knew it wasn’t going to happen. It was all theater. They didn’t even manage to get a simple majority. Both votes were straight party-line, except for Mitt Romney’s defection on the first Article.

As for the charges themselves, I don’t care whose side you’re on–honestly, I had no dog in this fight–the charges were petty and ridiculous. I would have said the same if the President were Obama.

Fact is, every dime of foreign aid we’ve ever given in our entire history has had some strings attached to it, a quid pro quo if you will. If Trump is guilty of abusing his power in the case of Ukraine, then every single one of his Predecessors is guilty of the same.

As for obstruction of justice, that’s bullcrap. If he had ordered the destruction of documents, that would have been a problem. But telling your people not to comply until the court decides the Executive Privilege issues, that’s not Obstruction. Not even Mitt Romney could get behind that charge.

All the Democrats have done is all but guarantee that Trump will win a landslide in November. It’s Trump’s race to lose.

As for whether Trump OUGHT to be the President, I will say this with the following disclaimer: I voted for someone else in the 2016 primary. I did not want Trump to get the GOP nomination. But once he was nominated, I decided to vote for him in the general election. Why? I would have taken a shotgun blast to the balls before voting for Hillary.

Having said that, I’m going to lay the cards on the table: Trump is President because he is the President we deserve.

Why do I say that?

(1) If we wanted a better President, we would have nominated a better slate of candidates. Outside the hard blue states, Americans had no desire for Hillary or the ideaologues she would appoint to run the apparatus of government.

(2) If moral character really mattered, then we would have removed Bill Clinton in 1999.

That second point is huge: the reason we have Trump today is because we did not remove Clinton in 1999.

In Clinton,

  • As a Governor, he whipped out his donger, and told a state employee–Paula Jones–to come over and kiss it.
  • He used the power of his office to deny Paula Jones her day in court when she sued him for sexual harassment. (abuse of power anyone?)
  • As President, he abused his power by accepting sexual gratuities from an INTERN.
  • As President, he lied to a federal grand jury about his abuse of Lewinsky.

What I find interesting is the way that the left and right have switched sides over the years.

(1) When JFK deflowered Mimi Alford–an 18-year-old virgin before she began working in the White House–and then passed her off to “take care of” (perform oral sex on) his associates, character didn’t matter.

(2) When Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) killed one of his staffers, character didn’t matter: Massachusetts voters kept electing him until his death, and Senate leaders made no effort to remove him from the Senate.

(3) When then-Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) whipped out his tallywhacker in front of Paula Jones, a state employee at the time, and told her to “come kiss it”, character didn’t matter.

(4) When then-President Bill Clinton was ejaculating all over Monica Lewinsky, character didn’t matter.

(5) When then-President Bill Clinton lied to the Grand Jury to deny Paula Jones her day in court, character didn’t matter.

(6) When Hillary Clinton commandeered the character assassinations of every woman, including Paula Jones, who came forward to accuse Bill of wrongdoing, character didn’t matter.

They lectured us then:

“It’s only sex!”

“It wasn’t even sex. It was just a blowjob!”

“This doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.”

“It was only in a civil suit.”

Reporter Nina Burleigh summed up the left in one sentence: “I’d give Clinton a blowjob just for keeping abortion legal.”

The worst fallout from Clinton’s scandal: younger folks were paying attention to Clinton’s argument that “oral sex isn’t really sex”, as the percentage of teens engaging in that act soared like a rocket into orbit.

Now that Trump is in office, I’m finally glad to see that liberals have decided that character does indeed matter.

The right, however, is not without their duplicity in this.

Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was well-known for his extramarital sexual conquests. But that didn’t stop the House of Representatives from making him their Speaker.

And make no mistake: that choice of Gingrich for Speaker was indeed fateful, as he was impotent to call out the President during the Monica scandal, as his own baggage was similar to Clinton’s.

Character didn’t matter to Republicans then, so they were in no position to demand that it matter when Clinton’s scandals blew up.

Other prominent Republicans had their affairs and/or perversions come to light: Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID), Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), and later Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in 2006. With few exceptions, Republican leadership failed to crack the whip and force resignations.

Character didn’t matter in their ranks, so they were impotent to demand that it matter for Clinton.

When Gingrich stepped down and Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) took over, we learned of his baggage. While he did the right thing and resigned, the larger issue is why he put himself in that position in the first place?

Even worse was Livingston’s successor: Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL). As Speaker, he fashioned himself as a dealmaker. But I was very suspicious of him for two reasons: (a) he did nothing to oppose the runaway spending during the Bush years, and (b) in 2006, as Speaker, he got CAUGHT attempting to cover up Foleygate. (The fallout from that is why the GOP lost the House in 2006.)

What we didn’t know at the time: Hastert, as Speaker, was two gunshots away from the Oval Office, ALL WHILE CONCEALING HIS PAST INDISCRETIONS AS A CHILD MOLESTER. He is now doing federal prison time for attempting to circumvent banking laws–that he helped write–in order to cover them up.

It is exactly this kind of duplicity among conservatives that has given birth to the alt-right. If they would compromise their marriages for some sex with scantily-clad staffers (or, worse, children), then there it is easy to see why they would compromise on other critical matters, like spending, immigration, abortion, and even anti-terror policies.

Against that backdrop, Trump–for all his baggage–is Mother Teresa.

The same left that covered for Bill Clinton, and even attacked women like Paula Jones–who, according to the record of events, was a victim of sexual harassment–in an attempt to deny them their day in court, has now decided that Trump is unfit for office.

The same right that correctly insisted that Clinton’s offenses rendered him unfit for office, are now insisting that Trump’s known baggage does not render him unfit for office.

My take: Trump is what the GOP deserves. He is where he is because Republican leaders–like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)–have talked a great talk while selling out the country. They have proclaimed their support of conservative moral values, but coddle adulterers and child molesters. And on social issues, they are all talk and no action.

Both parties have handed Trump the stick, and he is now beating them with it.

As for the left, I’m glad they have decided that character does indeed matter.

If both sides would apply that standard and demand better candidates, we’ll get better Presidents.

As for now, America gets what she deserves.

Class dismissed.

Kavanaugh: Who Didn’t See This?

Last year, as Brett Kavanaugh seemed headed toward certain confirmation as a Supreme Court justice, Christine Blasey Ford, a former high school classmate of Kavanaugh’s–came forward and accused him of sexually assaulting her at a party.

Immediately, I was skeptical. Kavanaugh denied not only the assault, but even being at the same party with her. That was a pretty hard denial, as all it would have taken to sink him would have been for someone to corroborate that he was at the same party with Ford.

Not even one of her friends could do that.

During her testimony, she insisted that she had no political motive. But the way she did that told me she was full of it. MrsLarijani also felt this was BS.

In a conversation with someone who was centrist, here is what I said at the time. She asked me what I do to protect women, so I gave her a complete answer.


I promised I’d get back to you on this. So…what do I do on behalf of women regarding their mistreatment? First off, I don’t limit myself to the mere mistreatment of women. I’m opposed to all abusers, and I act in my spheres of influence on behalf of those impacted by them.

I’ve encouraged victims to take appropriate action against their bosses. I’ve helped one of them record a meeting, risking my own job in the process. I’ve helped direct some to shelters and encouraged them to press charges. I’ve been a designated driver at events where there is drinking. I also look for people who might be putting things in drinks.

When I was a youth minister, I immediately realized my pastor was an abuser. Did I resign? No. That would have been the easy way out. Instead, I took him on, even alienating myself with leaders–ladies and gentlemen on the Personnel Committee–who would later seek to fire me for taking on that abusive pastor. It got me several negative references when I went to other churches, and it took me longer to earn the trust of those other churches, but it’s a price I have no regret paying.

As someone who works on the security team at my church, I am LOOKING for bad guys. And not necessarily ones who are armed. I assume the abuser could be someone on ministerial staff, someone I otherwise find likeable.

So the question is, what do I do if a child comes to me and says John Doe asked him (or her) to do something, or touched him (or her) somewhere, or…[name the act]?

While it may not have corroboration, I would still immediately report it to the police and tell the appropriate leaders about it. The accusation could be something, or it could be nothing. It may be indeterminate, but that could change if someone else comes forward.

If a woman tells me she’s being abused, I’m going to direct her to the shelter, and report what I must. I will also encourage her to file the police report. Aside from my own experiences with abusers, I once dated a gal–a former running buddy–who had been physically and sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriends. She is about the same age as LA. It took a while before I realized she was bulimic. Damn-near went broke trying to save her.

So yeah, I do what I can in my sphere of influence. Still, when it comes to #BelieveWomen, I think the question is wrong. I neither believe nor disbelieve accusations; instead, my position is to take them seriously–because their veracity is very possible–and encourage appropriate action. If it’s something criminal in nature, I push them to press the charges, because that is what is likely to start the ball rolling toward real change.

The accusations may be true but unsubstantiable; I believe that, if that is the case, we will one day know the truth, even if that doesn’t happen in a timetable I would prefer.

The accusations may be true, and subsequent investigation–and I’m talking law enforcement, not in-house folks–corroborates it. Then you can take it to the house.

They may also be false. I say that not as a, “Women lie all the time!” line that misogynists use, but rather an acknowledgement that members of both sexes have been known to tell lies, especially when they have motive. And contrary to popular opinions, we humans generally do a horrible job of telling whether someone is truthful or lying.

There are times when the circumstances–which establish a motive–compel me to take accusations seriously while having an understandable skepticism. Being skeptical in those cases hardly makes one a misogynist or one who would shove victims aside. Quite the contrary: the liars are in fact the ones who ruin it for the victims.

That brings me to the case of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford.

I did everything I could to maintain an open mind on that one. But I had serious problems:

(1) No corroboration whatsoever. Everyone she named was unable to so much as place themselves, let alone Kavanaugh and Ford, at a party that she described. Had there been one classmate who would have vouched for that much under oath, it would have been enough to demand explanation.

(2) Not even her friends recalled her mentioning anything about the alleged event at the time.

(3) While her not filing a police report then would have been understandable, that she did not file one recently–even though the police said they would investigate if she did–makes me question her motives. If he is an abuser, then reporting him now would at least trigger an investigation. If there are other victims–and if he is an abuser, there will be many victims–they could be discovered in the process of that investigation.

(4) The way Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) handled the “letter” tells me that this was a political matter, not a criminal one. If she took Ford’s account seriously and wanted to stop what she believed to be an abuser, she would have sent this to the FBI.

(Think about it: if I’m in a church, and someone comes to ME with a story like that, what do you think I’m going to do? Give it to the police, that’s what! I don’t NEED permission from the accuser to do that.)

(5) She has a motive to lie, and that motive is political. When she answered this issue with the, “Anyone who knows me knows I would never…” line, my cynicism meter spiked.

(6) While many found her story to be compelling, I did not. In fact, she came across to me as an actor. And she could do that, given that (a) she’s a PhD in psychology and (b) therefore she would know how to construct a story that would appeal to anyone who knows the first thing about that kind of trauma. I have friends who are in that boat who also weren’t buying it.

Now does this mean I think Kavanaugh is all that and a pound of bourbon-cured honey bacon? Not necessarily. He could turn out to be great, or he could turn out to be horrible. He could be upstanding, or he could be scandalous. Sometimes, God allows time for one’s sin to find him or her out. Could that happen with Kavanaugh? You bet, assuming he’s a psychopath.

In the case of judicial nominees (including SCOTUS), my views on the matter are comparable with Lindsey Graham’s: Presidents ought to have wide latitude in those picks, because elections have consequences. This is why I have no problem with Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan or Sotomayor on the bench, as much as I disagree with their views on almost everything of major importance.

I just see no compelling reason to keep Kavanaugh off the bench, and an uncorroborated accusation from his high school days doesn’t cut the mustard. I found it ridiculous that this devolved into haggling over yearbook comments or who said what about whom.

Fact is, there were gals and guys–during my high school days–with whom I had a hostile relationship at the time, but who are now FB friends of mine today and we get along like we were buddies all along. I have other folks who were good friends back then but, due to a number of factors, are very chilly toward me (and vice versa) today.

There were also a number of things we all joked about–and yes, sex was among those–and that’s all it was: jokes. Locker-room banter. Yes, I confess to having said, “I even wouldn’t put an American flag over so-and-so and do her for Old Glory!” a few times during high school. It was a common joke among us guys, and–while I’m not proud of that–we’re really screwed as a country if those juvenile moments are enough to stop a guy like me from being in a position of public trust today.

The crowd with whom I hung out, a few of whom were in the top 10% of the class–talked a lot of smack about sex, but I can also tell you we weren’t into chasing the gals: we hit our books, got our grades, played sports together, and stayed away from the party scene. But if we’ve reached the point where we’re going to mount character assassinations–based in part on such banter in high school–all because we don’t like a person’s politics, then we have a larger problem in this country.


We are now learning that she indeed had a political motive. Her own attorney said so.

Mass Shooters: Nihilism On The Margins

With the latest mass shootings–in El Paso (22 dead) and Dayton (9 dead, not including the gunman)–we are now getting the obligatory calls for gun control, with new focus on “mental health” issues. We’re getting the same old arguments:

  • We have a white supremacist problem. (The El Paso shooter was a White Nationalist).
  • The El Paso shooter was a Trump lover, so it’s Trump’s fault.
  • Access to firearms is too easy.
  • We must have a better way to keep mentally-ill people from obtaining firearms.
  • We need to ban “assault weapons”.
  • We need “Red Flag” laws: laws which allow for the rollback of Second Amendment rights–even allowing firearm confiscation–from people who might be violent, even if they otherwise have no criminal record.

So far, I have yet to hear anyone–not on the news, not in either political party–take notice of a large elephant in the room: Nihilism.

Let’s get a few things straight:

  • While many “mass shooters” indeed have mental problems–the Sandy Hook and Aurora shooters are perfect case studies–mental illness is not what drove them to kill people. People who are depressed, bipolar, and even schizophrenic function without slaughtering people. When you flip that switch to plan and execute a mass assault, it is not mental illness, but rather a character issue.
  • As abhorrent as racism and white supremacism are, such views alone do not move a person to walk into a store and mow people down. Does such a person have an ideological motive? Sometimes. But killing innocent people at a store or a festival or a concert usually requires more than just a lower view of another race of people.
  • Economics has nothing to do with this. Mass shooters tend to be middle-class.

And here’s the thing: look at the largest mass shootings–Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Charleston, Marjorie Stoneman-Douglas (MSD), Santa Fe, El Paso, Sutherland Springs, Orlando, San Bernardino, Dayton, Pittsburgh (Tree of Life), Wisconsin (Sikh temple)–and you will find a common thread.

It’s not ideology. Two (San Bernardino, Orlando) were Islamist; two were death worshipers with Nazi leanings (Columbine); four were white supremacists (El Paso, Charleston, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh); one was hard-left/Antifa (Dayton); two were mental cases (Sandy Hook, Aurora); two were alleged bullying victims (Santa Fe, MSD).

Nor is it mental illness, as every mass shooter was not mentally ill.

Here’s the commonality: Every single one of them has/had a Nihilistic outlook on life.

What is Nihilism? To put it simply: it’s a line of thought that rejects the premise that life, or anything about life, has meaning. In the mind of a Nihilist, there is no objective morality.

While there are philosophers–most notably Nietzsche–who develop this framework, one does not have to study philosophy to be a nihilist; one only has to reach the conclusion in one’s own mind that life has no meaning and that there is no objective morality.

Can one suffer mental illness and reach that conclusion? Yes. But depression is not a new phenomenon; some of the best people in the Bible suffered from depresssion. No, Nihilism seems to be an epidemic among younger folks.

A friend of mine, a longtime therapist who has counseled mental health patients and trauma survivors for years and who is opposite of me on gun control, puts it this way: “Mentally-ill people barely overcome themselves; to say mass shootings are a mental illness issue ignores the real problem.” He and I don’t agree on the problem–he says it’s the guns–but we agree that it isn’t a mental health issue.

Can one suffer other traumas and flip the Nihilism switch? Yes. But trauma alone doesn’t explain the growth of Nihilism among the general population. Otherwise, our country would have been a big free-fire zone at the end of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.

No, what we are seeing today is a completely different animal.

Even worse, I don’t think there are easy, pat answers to this. I realize that many Christians will point out: “we’ve taken God out of classrooms”, “we’ve rejected God as a society”–and they’ll point to abortion, gay marriage, the whole LGBTQIAWTH brouhaha as examples. And while that may be part of the answer, I don’t think this completely explains the problem.

I would submit that it comes from a number of factors:

  1. Societal trends have taken a large number of people away from meaningful relationships, including with the opposite sex. This includes social media, porn, community structures, and even the degradation of the nuclear family to name a few. As a result, an increasing number of men are growing up to be “incels”: men who are smitten with profound hatred and anger toward women, as they lack even the most basic social skills necessary to have even platonic relationships–let alone any romantic relationships–with women.
  2. The Church is losing her standing in society due to a mountain of scandals and other “own goals”.
  3. As the Church has lost ground in society, other elements have risen to fill the moral void.

Over the last 20 years, America has seen the growth in the “nones”: those identifying as atheists, agnostics, or otherwise having no religious affiliation. As the Church has declined, those identifying with the Head of that Church have declined as well.

No, I’m not suggesting that all mass shooters are atheists–although many of them are.

I am suggesting that in a society in which Atheism and agnosticism are more popular, some of the tangential ideas that come with those outlooks–among them the premise that life, and elements of life, have no meaning–also become increasingly popular.

And no, I am not suggesting that all Nihilists are going to become mass shooters; most, in fact, do not.

I am suggesting, however, that if I have a Nihilistic outlook, then it’s a lot easier for me to rationalize going there. And on the margins, that is exactly what is happening.

How do we fix this problem? There are no pat answers.

I can tell you that it’s not simply about “getting God back into schools”. God isn’t worshiped in most Christian homes. Posting the Ten Commandments on a school wall isn’t going to solve this issue.

How many Christian families read the Bible at home? How many pray with their kids? How many parents teach Biblical principles without making it the death of a thousand dogmas? How many live out their faith with minimal hypocrisy?

I can also tell you that it’s not just a matter of getting more conservative theology in the churches. The evangelical world is largely conservative in her theological outlook. The availability of solid Biblical study information for every American–including Bibles of every translation imaginable, Greek and Hebrew study guides, theological commentary, apologetics resources, Church history, all for free via the Internet–is unprecedented in history.

None of those things can account for a Church stained–in Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical sectors alike–with terrible scandals that span all levels of Church life from the local church body to the highest offices. In a world desperate for a meaning to life, the Church could not be weakened at a worse time.

While the SBC and other conservative sectors have declared Complementarianism as the hill to die on–even as their denomination drowns in sex abuse/coverup scandals–they miss out on a chance to provide a real answer to much larger problems in this world. Youth ministers are often shallow in their Christian walk, lacking the depth to provide substantive answers to teens who search for answers. Single adults are largely ignored by the Church, offering no hope to the incel who will never see the love in the Body of Christ, therefore never appreciating the meaning of that Ironman triathlon known as life.

The liberal denominations are busy offering the world a watered-down version of itself, conservatives are offering a robust theology soiled with abuses by wolves, who in turn get their cover from the masses.

Meanwhile, a significant subset of younger adults are deciding that life has no meaning, joining the ranks of the Nihilists. And while 99% of them are otherwise harmless, that one percent is flipping the mother of all switches.

At this trajectory, we are well on our way toward the breakup of our nation.

Race Relations, Part 1: The Attack on Statues, Monuments

Having lived on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, and having attended both de-facto segregated schools (grades 4, 7-8.5,10-12) and integrated/de-segregted schools (grades 1-3, 5-6,8.5-9), and having worked in environments that included multicultural settings, I’m going to offer my $0.02 on race relations and confederate statues and monuments.

When I was in 3rd grade, we moved from Dayton, Ohio to Albany, Georgia. That May, we did what we had always done: we took Memorial Day off from school. But at that school, they didn’t take that day off.

Other than the accents, that was the first serious difference I noticed about the South. We hadn’t been taught much about the Civil War at that time, but we would get quite the education in the coming years.


In 7th grade, when we moved to Nashville, I attended a private Christian (fundamentalist) school for the first half, and then transitioned to a public school when we moved to nearby Hendersonville. In the former, we learned Tennessee history, and the coverage was fair. We had not, however, reached the coverage of the Civil War. When I moved, we had just covered Andrew Jackson. At the public school–where I finished 7th grade and the first part of 8th grade–nothing was ever addressed. The Civil War was not covered, pro or con.

However, over the years, we traveled between Ohio and Florida. Oftentimes, we would stop in Lookout Mountain. We got to see different perspectives on the Civil War. It was covered fairly.

Over the years, I’ve seen a number of memorials and monuments. Each tells a story. Sometimes those memorials can represent unsavory times in our history; sometimes those memorials celebrate great victories; some of them–Vietnam in particular–represent a painful testament to very bad choices by our leaders.


In America, we have a tendency to memorialize our history for both better and worse. Sometimes we over-romanticize the accounts; other times, we tell the sobering truth. But monuments and memorials provide an opportunity for reflection regarding the person, the event, and the outcomes.

This is why, as much as I HATE the KKK, I have no problem with a statue of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, perhaps one of the most enigmatic military figures in American history. Yes, he was a founder of the KKK. But you know what? If you study about him, you will find that, near the end of his life, he provided the following remarks in a speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God’s earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself. (Immense applause and laughter.) This day is a day that is proud to me, having occupied the position that I did for the past twelve years, and been misunderstood by your race. This is the first opportunity I have had during that time to say that I am your friend. I am here a representative of the southern people, one more slandered and maligned than any man in the nation.
I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have always felt – that I am your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests. We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers? I will say that when the war broke out I felt it my duty to stand by my people. When the time came I did the best I could, and I don’t believe I flickered. I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe that I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to bring about peace. It has always been my motto to elevate every man- to depress none. (Applause.) I want to elevate you to take positions in law offices, in stores, on farms, and wherever you are capable of going.
I have not said anything about politics today. I don’t propose to say anything about politics. You have a right to elect whom you please; vote for the man you think best, and I think, when that is done, that you and I are freemen. Do as you consider right and honest in electing men for office. I did not come here to make you a long speech, although invited to do so by you. I am not much of a speaker, and my business prevented me from preparing myself. I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you to the white people. I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Use your best judgment in selecting men for office and vote as you think right.
Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked me to protect them. I have placed myself between them and the bullets of my men, and told them they should be kept unharmed. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I’ll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand.

Does a statue tell me all of that? No. But statues often leave me wondering about individuals, and give me a note to look that person up and check out the balance of his or her life. I often do the same thing regarding monuments to battles.

Monuments and memorials represent a story. Sometimes that story is sordid and bitter, as every great nation in history has had sordid and bitter periods in their histories. Sometimes that story is glorious. But those are about who we were and how they have shaped who we are today.


Almost every year, MrsLarijani and I flock to Dayton for the Air Force Marathon, which is held at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB. It was a place I frequented during my grade-school days, it is where I did my first marathon. We always tour the museum the day before.

In that museum are aircraft of all types, going back to attempts at flight before the Wright Brothers. It includes aircraft of all types throughout every era of aviation, including World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War, and even the era since the Cold War.

Those aircraft include German WWI aircraft and WWII aircraft, Japanese aircraft from WWII, and even Soviet aircraft from the Cold War era. Among the aircraft on display is a North Korean MiG-15 that was flown by a professor of mine who defected at the end of the Korean War.

The Germans and Japanese–and dare I say the North Koreans in collusion with China and the Soviet Union during the Korean War–killed thousands of Americans. Ditto for North Vietnamese who flew Soviet aircraft.

I have no problem including those in the museum, as they provide a forum that one may learn (a) the history of flight, (b) the history that drove the development of such aircraft, and (c) the state of flight today, for both better and worse, as a result of those factors.

I once believed that the equitable solution here with respect to statues and monuments was to create museums for their inclusion, while opposing their destruction. Having seen what is going on today, however, I am opposed to moving them. Leave the statues and monuments as they are.

Today’s leftist fixation on monuments and memorials is a recent thing and is being driven by mostly Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) who have nothing in common with the movers and shakers of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

I cannot help but question the SJW preoccupation on statues and monuments at this time, given that (a) that war has been over for 150 years and (b) not even the iconoclastic movers and shakers in the Civil Rights movement targeted them. While some could argue that MLK had other irons in the fire at the time, many years have passed between then and now. Race relations had been improving greatly until the push for reparations began circulating in the late 1990s.

The cynic in me suggests that there is a more insidious agenda going on here, and it isn’t simply about race relations, but rather something more totalitarian in nature, with the lure of reparations in the form of “social justice” as bait, as an endgame.

I have some good friends who are totally on-board with removing Confederate statues; at the same time, from what I see from the SJWs, it won’t stop there. In fact, they’re already aiming for statues of our Founders, including Washington, Jefferson, and–ironically enough–even Lincoln.

To that point, those who ask, “When will it end?”, indeed have a legitimate question.

One thing we must remember: SJWs, at their core, are cultural Marxists. The authors of their playbooks are Marx, Mao, and Alinsky, their leanings Communist, and their appeal to the Christian is merely to recruit useful idiots.

And when understanding Communists, we must remember that it is not a political or an economic ideology but rather a militant Atheist religion that seeks to impose itself through political , military, and economic means. They have killed more of their own people in peacetime alone than any system on earth.

There are radical totalitarian groups in the Middle East who are destroying statues and monuments: they are ISIS.

The only difference between ISIS and our SJWs is that the former is motivated by Islam and the latter by communism.

Are SJWs seeking to kill you? I doubt it. They do, however, seek to rule over you and impose their system of law and justice on you. And to do that, they must gaslight you into accepting their narrative about history.

But for that to happen, they must make it more difficult for you to identify with the truth.

What you must remember, however, is this: even if you are a minority, the SJW is not your friend. You are just a means to his end, just as the laborer was to Lenin in the Bolshevik Revolution.

SBC Pastor Robert Jeffress May Have Stepped In It

Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist megachurch pastor and one of President Trump’s “spiritual advisors”, has made a very bold proclamation.

When it comes to how we should deal with evil doers, the Bible, in the book of Romans, is very clear: God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary – including war – to stop evil…In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.

He’s either on-par with the best of the prophets and Apostles, or he is on the same footing as Hananiah.

If he turns out to be wrong–as Hananiah was–then it’s a very big deal, as he will have established himself as a false teacher.

I don’t throw that tag–false teacher–around lightly. There are many folks with whom I have disagreements, but I would not hit them with the “false teacher” tag. That carries huge theological implications.

I reserve that tag for teachers, preachers, and other would-be “church leaders” who, among other things, either (a) preach a false gospel, (b) deny essential doctrines of the Christian faith (e.g. the Fall, the Atonement,  the Resurrection), (c) engage in behaviors that are immoral, malevolent, fraudulent, or otherwise disqualifying and then reject discipline when confronted, or (d) make prophecies that do not come to pass. There are other criteria on that list, but I’d say those four cover most of what qualifies one as a “false teacher”.

Examples of such teachers: Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Rob Bell, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Benny Hinn, the late Jack Hyles, the late Harry Emerson Fosdick, John Shelby Spong, Harold Camping, and Jack Schaap. That is not an exhaustive list, but those are examples of teachers/preachers who would fall under my understanding of “false teachers”.

And if Jeffress is wrong here, then he has earned a spot on that list. This is because he has taken an opinion, and–using Scripture–boldly asserted a word from God.

That’s a heck of a truth claim on his end. And while he could be right, he does not seem to carry the gravitas of Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel. His exegesis of Romans, quite charitably, leaves some room for concern.

Keep in mind that this is no small matter, as Trump could act on Jeffress’ advice and start a war that quickly goes nuclear and leaves millions dead.

If Jeffress is wrong, that will put the SBC will be in the mother of all dilemmas, as they will be under severe pressure to take decisive action against a popular pastor.

Don’t get me wrong: I will cry no tears for Kim Jong-Un. If things go south, it will be the end for the Kim dynasty. Having been good friends with the son of one who escaped that regime, I will drink Guinness…Extra Stout…to the death of Ding Dong IIIKim Jong-Un.

Still, it’s a very bad idea to claim to have some special word from God on these matters. Unless, of course, you actually have such a word.

Having said that, as a recovering Baptist, I’m a tad and a half skeptical of Mr. Jeffress’ truth claim.