Trump's Rhetoric is Getting People Killed

Given the two recent mass shootings on August 3^rd in El Paso and August 4^th in Dayton (although Trump didn’t pay attention when he was told about it so he said it happened in Toledo), Trump was asked by a reporter outside the White House if in light of these attacks he thought his rhetoric was divisive. Trump immediately claimed “No” that his rhetoric brings people together.

In a way, his rhetoric does bring elements together - El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius wrote in his online posting that he viewed Hispanics in El Paso as invaders because that’s what Trump and his supporting far-right mouthpieces have been calling immigrants for the last four years. So Trump helped him bring together his intended targets, his loaded automatic weapon, his disgust with Latinos, and the motivation to kill. In the case of Dayton shooter Connor Betts, he was motivated by extreme misogyny. He had a pathological hatred of women, even making out a rape list while he was in high school and later a kill list. On August 4^th, he felt he no longer needed to restrain himself. Why should he when we have a president who said of women that he could do whatever he wanted, grab ‘em by the pussy…? When the president, now married to a third wife yet was also having an affair with an adult film star and a Playboy model at the same time, shows no more regard for women than that, Connor Betts decided he didn’t need to show them any regard either. Betts was mad at the world - and the misogynistic man who admitted on tape to acting on his impulses, well, he got elected president – so Betts acted on his.

But Trump is 100% right in that his rhetoric brings people together - the people who think just like Trump. The dishonest, scheming, racist, narrow-minded bigots who think only white people should have rights of any kind in this country. Trump’s verbal attacks on non-whites and/or non-christians bring out the worst in people who think like him. They now feel emboldened to say and do things like Trump suggests. If some of that leads to killing those that Trump railed about as invading our country, well that’s the price we pay for the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Second Amendments. Trump supporters just wish the media would stop reporting it. That, to them, is the problem. There’s too much attention paid to the negative things Trump says and does. Why can’t the media just ignore all that? They approve of the torturing and deaths of little children by ICE agents, by Border Patrol, and DHS. It doesn’t trouble them any more than it troubles Trump so talking about how cruel and un-American it is is a waste of time. Their attitude is “I don't care” because they know Trump doesn't care.

This is what we are up against. The people who defend Donald Trump may not have his wealth and power but they damn sure share his ideas. That includes the evangelicals who defend whatever Trump does by claiming he was anointed by God so who are we to judge. There are even profits...er, prophets…who claim the God of the bible told them Donald Trump was going to be president and you can read about it by buying their book which has been mass-marketed at evangelical churches since 2015. Those evangelicals are required by God to do all they can to protect Trump as president, even when he repeatedly says and does un-godly things. They have sold their souls to defend Donald Trump but deflect attention from it by claiming it is the forces of darkness (Satan, demons, the Deep State, the Never-Trumpers, the Democrats, liberals…) who are trying to usurp God’s chosen one by unconstitutionally taking the presidency away from Trump. It doesn’t matter if he colluded with the Russians, or that he obstructed justice, or that he treats women badly, they want everyone to acknowledge that Trump was hand-picked by God…their God…the God of the Protestant (preferable King James) Bible. If the Russians helped get Trump elected, it’s because God wanted it that way.

It has come down to the people who carry a bible also carry a torch for Trump. They make up about 30% of the population. There is another 5% that claim they are ambivalent about Trump.

The other 65% of us are the people who oppose what Trump is doing to our country and to the image of the United States around the world. When Trump’s actions and language encourage a shooting gallery type atmosphere, travel to this country from anywhere will dry up. When he encourages the use of torture by terrorizing little kids in order to stop their parents from seeking amnesty, looking for safety or work in this country, no one will want to come here anymore. Is that what Trump thinks is best for the United States, complete ostracization from the world? At the rate people are being gunned down from sea to shining sea, most countries prudently list the U.S. as a rather dangerous place in which to travel and the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board reported that from 2018 to 2019 there had been a 17% drop in people seeking to vacation in the U.S. Get ready for that number to plunge dramtically this year.

And it’s Trump’s rhetoric that is accelerating people getting murdered. His words have definitely brought people together: the most violent white people imaginable doing the most violent things imaginable in the most violent way imaginable, and it nurtures an atmosphere of hatred where those violent people cause battlefield-type casualties because the president uses battlefield-type language to describe people he just doesn’t like. Yet Cabinet members are still too afraid to confront Trump, even though his rhetoric and inflammatory language are being quoted by mass murderers because those cabinet members have deluded themselves into thinking Trump hasn’t really done enough to warrant removal from office. So more Americans must needlessly die thanks to cowards in high places.

TRUMP + SAUDI ARABIA + $$$ = MURDER IS A-OKAY

        It’s a great day for murderers! Murder has become tolerable, even chic. According to Donald Trump, murder is acceptable. Not just acceptable, but okay to the point of making money off of it.

Who cares what the Bible’s outdated 6^th Commandment means? Evangelicals who support Trump have to be so pleased that Trump has invalidated “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Whether that means “killing” or more precisely “murder” if you’re a Christian, who needs that kind of restriction or restraint? It’s all for the best that evangelicals encourage Trump to approve of and endorse murder, most especially by a foreign government from which Trump is personally making millions of dollars. White Christians claim God put Trump in the White House. Who are we to question what God does? Sure it throws into question their whole anti-abortion stance, but Trump needs to just be Trump, and if murder is alright, then that’s alright with Christians. They approved of Trump saying “I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes.” And he meant it.

As was predicted in mid-October, when solid evidence established that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman not only knew of Jamal Khashoggi’s torture and murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2nd but actually orchestrated it, Trump would simply ignore it and defend the Saudis. Tuesday, November 20^th, Trump said the U.S. will not levy additional punitive measures at this time against Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. And not just that, in a statement released today claiming that while the U.S. does not condone the killing of the U.S-based Saudi columnist, Trump reiterated that "foolishly" canceling $110 billion in arms sales would only mean that Saudi Arabia would go to other countries to acquire them. See, money is always more important than murder. If Trump stands to lose even a dollar, then murder by necessity must be condoned.

Is any of this really surprising?

Trump, of course, defended Vladimir Putin and validated his interference in the 2016 U.S. election guaranteeing Trump’s victory - even after our intelligence agencies had proof that Putin had ordered the killing of Denis Voronenkov, Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, and Anna Politkovskaya, to name just a few. What are a few murders between bosom buddies?

He’s the same man who defended Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in Charlottesville, Va. in August 2017…even after one of them used his car to kill Heather Heyer and badly injured 19 others.

He also defended Xi Jinping who grabbed absolute power in China by abolishing term limits which now means he can serve as the country’s president for life. So whatever Xi says or does has the authority of supreme law in China. It means anyone challenging Xi can now be charged with committing a political crime. Political crimes in China are considered capital offenses. As recently as April 2018, Trump demanded that White House counsel Don McGahn order the Justice Department to criminally prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey. Is it any wonder why Trump approves of what Xi has done?

Trump’s repeated pissing on the military included him scoffing at retired Admiral William McRaven who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and tracked down Saddam Hussein in the second Gulf War. Why? For not killing them soon enough. Trump clearly has no issue with killing in any form, but he has to be able to make a buck off of it.

Maybe now Trump supporters can come to understand where their willingness to vote him into office - with an extra nudge from Putin - has led us. We have a president who not only mocks the word of the Biblical God’s commandment but thumbs his nose at common sense and decency as well. Approving of the killing of someone gets Trump another “mulligan” from his evangelical base and the Republican Party.

Because ignoring murder = $$$...and GOP votes.

Here is the key question his supporters now have to answer. If Trump says murder is okay, what is NOT okay?

Doomsday...AGAIN!

In September 2015 I posted an End-of-the-World blog at this link: http://warnepiece.blogspot.com/2015/09/end-of-world-september-23-2015.html. It was about Christians saying God has had enough, the end was nigh, and all the proof was pointing to September 23, 2015. They claimed that innumerable cosmic events, news stories, and weather-related phenomenon were the key. But when September 23^rd came to pass the believers were left stunned.

Turns out they just got the last digit wrong; it was supposed to be September 23, 2017. Now we have something to look forward to.

 “We’ll all die then” according to David Meade, author of Planet X: the 2017 Arrival “by the collision with death planet Nibiru which is going to kill us all. It’s written in both the Bible and the Pyramids.” Meade says, ‘It is very strange that Revelations 12 and the Great Pyramid of Giza both point to one precise moment in time – September 20 to 23, 2017.”  Yes…sometime between 12:00 AM September 20^th up to midnight on September 23^rd. How’s that for precision?

To back Meade up, from the website The Catholic Astronomer, comes this: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth … She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.” On September 23, 2017, the sun will be in the zodiac constellation Virgo — “a woman clothed with the sun”. The moon will be at the feet of Virgo — “with the moon under her feet”. The ‘nine’ stars of the zodiac constellation Leo, plus three planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars), will be at the head of Virgo — “on her head a crown of 12 stars”. The planet Jupiter will be in the center of Virgo, and, as the weeks pass after September 23, Jupiter will exit Virgo to the east, past her feet, so to speak — “She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth”. Jupiter is the largest of the planets, the “king” of the planets, so to speak — “She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod”. 
Astrological boogah-boogah should convince everybody!

          Then we have self-professed seer Pamela Banda who wrote in a blog on August 29, 2016, that she saw a vision of Houston the previous May. In it, she said that two floods and two storms would hit the city. Harvey did it starting on August 25, 2017, and Hurricane Katia is forming up in the southern Gulf of Mexico, churning northward as of September 8th. However, Ms. Banda gave no indication of the date this would happen after she had her “vision.” It’s her followers and those who subscribe to her nonsense that came up with the date…right now, they say. Harvey and Katia are the proof. How do we know Ms. Banda is right? Because she said “Since I was a little girl, I have had dreams and visions, so seeing things is not new for me, but hearing words from the Lord is. I first started hearing words from Him in 2011.” Yep, until then, God couldn't be bothered with telling Pamela anything.

But maybe those aren’t the only signs that Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, or Elohim have sent to prove he means it this time. For example, doomsayers claim…

…the solar eclipse that was visible across a broad swath of the US on August 21st was a sign…because the Supreme Being can only let us know of his presence by normal celestial events over the United States. Christian websites claim it was proof of God’s coming judgment. (Hey, thanks for nailing that down for us!)

              By the massive 8.1 earthquake along the Mexican Pacific coast on September 7^th, that killed at least 90 people. It produced strange and eerie bluish-green flashes in the skies offshore as the tremors rocked…literally…western Mexico. End times interpreters were having a field day claiming the lights were another sign of God’s presence.

             The gargantuan solar flares on the sun the past few days…the size of which has never been recorded. Active Region 2673 (AR 2673), seen in the short clip above, blasted out another solar flare early on the morning of Sept. 8th, its sixth intense burst of high-energy radiation since Monday, Sept. 4th. Two of the six recent flares from AR 2673 were X-class — including Wednesday the 6th's monster X9.3, which was the most powerful solar flare since 2005.

             The approaching giant Hurricane Irma that has leveled several small Caribbean island nations including Puerto Rico, and is now heading for Florida. It has Hurricane Jose following in its wake.

             The huge wildfires that have burned hundreds of thousands of acres in the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Montana. They are the worst fires in more than a decade.

So, some God is mad...and rather than show himself or provide concrete evidence of what is the reason is for all this…that Being thought it would be more impressive to continue hiding but use naturally occurring events - just on a bigger, broader scale - to prove His existence. That way, there’d be no doubt who or what we’re dealing with.

And through it all, climate expert Rush Limbaugh, who has a Ph.D. in Meteorology from Trump University, says the global climate change appearing in real time by trendsetting hurricanes, is a liberal hoax that’s being used to advance a socialist agenda, sell products, and whip up negative press toward President Trump. Yet, ironically, even though hurricanes are a liberal hoax, he’s not willing to put his money where his mouth is and stay put in West Palm Beach. No. He headed for the exits so he doesn’t have to face that gigantic bag of hot air bearing down on the state.

          As I stated last time, when September 23^rd comes and goes and the end of the world hasn’t happened, it will just strengthen the Christian and Doomsday proponent’s beliefs…and we’ll be off to the races toward the next end of the world prediction.

          Count on it.

(Update September 27, 2017 - Author David Meade has now clarified that Sept. 23rd was the date of a “historical event” in the skies that would signal the oncoming rapture. He claims it DID happen. It just wasn't Planet X or Nibiru slamming into Earth. But he says doomsday itself will begin on October 15th...or October 21st...or maybe even later. It's fascinating how "precise" Meade's predictions are. And you know you can trust him...because he's gotten it wrong three time in a row now. How did he forget to mention any of this post-Sept.23rd information in his original doomsday prophecy?)

The Republicans and evangelicals are to blame for the Trump presidency

We must never forget how Trump won the 2016 election. Yes, there was Russian interference. Yes, the Clinton campaign was poorly run. Yes, there was acrimony and divisiveness on the part of most of the candidates. Yes, there was fake news slathered across the internet and repeated by the media. Yes, millionaires and billionaires gave Trump boatloads of money to run, even though he claimed at his rallies that he was self-funding so no one would own him. But Trump’s biggest boost came from the far-right fundamentalists who decided Trump represented their core Christian values…which is astounding given all the vulgar, unethical, immoral, and downright unchristian things Trump had said and done on the campaign trail. Then again, maybe those who professed Christian values didn’t really have them, but rather were far, far more closely aligned with Trump’s narrow-mindedness and were easy to manipulate.

They actually yelled "Heil Trump!"

         A 2016 collaborative scientific paper by Edward Dutton of the Ulster Institute for Social Research in the UK and Dimitri Van der Linden of the Rotterdam University in the Netherlands spotlights a reason for this. ‘If religion is indeed an evolved domain…an instinct…then it will become heightened at times of stress when people are inclined to act instinctively…” wrote Dutton. Trump’s campaign was built on stressing people out by scaring them with rapist Mexicans, terrorist Muslims, job-stealing Asians, currency-manipulating Chinese, payment-cheating NATO members, outmaneuvering-trade-partners in NAFTA and TPP, free-loading health care recipients, and a crumbling defeated America. It was a perfect vehicle for enlisting the evangelicals. Their instinct to “circle the wagons” from heightened stress over Trump-manufactured pseudo-problems assured him of their vote. Why think things through rationally when you can just instinctively let an authoritarian bigot do the thinking for you?

 According to Pew, Quinnipiac, and NBC/Wall Street Journal polls, over 80% of white evangelicals turned out to vote for Trump, [no less than 85% of white evangelical men] and that made just enough difference. The Republicans are the reason Trump got the nomination as the Republican candidate in the first place. They could have stopped it, or stepped in and changed the course of his candidacy for over a year. But they all chose party over country. They knew of his tampering with the Republican platform before he got the nomination, changing one item - a provision to deny defensive hardware to Ukraine in their fight against Russia. They knew he had numerous failed businesses that put him in financial jeopardy over and over and in debt to dozens of banks around the world. They knew of the countless multi-million dollar lawsuits against him, many that were still in the courts. They knew he had had repeated interactions with known mob and criminal figures. They knew he was an immoral womanizer and a serial sexual predator because he bragged about it on the Howard Stern show, not once but on three occasions, even infamously on the Access Hollywood tape. They knew of his shady dealings with the Russians because he boasted about his interactions with Putin and Russian government officials in several TV and radio interviews. They knew he lied, and that he lied repeatedly. He even doubled down on his lying over easily verifiable stories. The Republicans and evangelicals KNEW all this…yet they voted him in any way. Because of that, we are now suffering through the Trump presidency. Their support is why we have the chaos in the White House and across the land. It will only get worse and spread around the world until Trump is forced out. But there will be blood in the streets when it happens because he now thinks of the presidency as his legitimate right. No one should be allowed to challenge him thanks to the Republicans and evangelicals.

The Republicans and evangelicals are solely responsible for this catastrophic administration, and they must be held accountable. Every decision Trump makes, decisions that harm this country; whether judicial, legislative, environmental, military, diplomatic, or economic, it is on the hands of the Republicans and the evangelicals. If it was within my power, I would ban the evangelicals from ever voting again. They have shown that their religious view negatively impacts their judgment, meaning they cannot be trusted to vote in the interest of the nation any more than a rabid bear can.

                  The clowns applaud their Clown-in-Chief.

          And voters should be reminded of Republican support for Trump in every election from this point forward...no ifs, ands, or buts. Like when the Republicans dig in their heels and insist that the FBI’s investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia won’t slow down the president’s legislative agenda, or passing a huge tax plan that transfers more wealth to the richest one percent of Americans [of which Trump is a member], when they try to gut healthcare and leave millions of Americans with lesser or poorer quality coverage, when they rescind regulations and laws that harm American workers but put more money into the hands of billionaire CEOs in the nation. The GOP is the new Whig Party.

                               Coming soon to theaters everywhere.

Trump is all about the show, the theatrics, the use of gold paint to cover the cheap wooden frame, and nothing more. He is using the presidency to make himself rich again, even as he fails to make America great again. We wouldn't be in this intolerable position if the GOP had not nominated…and evangelicals had not helped elect…this thoroughly unfit man for the office. This must never be forgotten…or forgiven.

Trump will give them their privileged positions back

I continually wonder why anyone would vote for Trump, baffled by how his supporters can ignore his crude comments about women, where grabbing them by the crotch is somehow considered locker-room-talk-acceptable, where women are simply aesthetically pleasing objects, should be punished for having an abortion, or are dogs, pigs, slobs, and disgusting animals. Where promises made and then broken about Trump releasing his tax records doesn’t upset any of them. Where he demands to know, three times in less than an hour interview, if the U.S. has nuclear weapons, why we don’t use them? (Apparently forgetting we DID in August 1945.) I was still searching Friday night when I happened to have a conversation with a newscaster at one of the radio stations where I work. My co-worker is a reporter for the news/talk station. We had a 15-minute window to discuss the current election and he talked about people he interviewed at a Trump rally last week in Sanford, Florida. What he told me confirmed what I had long suspicioned but had no concrete proof until these Trump supporters out-and-out admitted it.

People are supporting Trump because he is promising them that they can have their privileged positions back.

It doesn’t matter that he can’t deliver on any of it. He verbally soothes their ruffled feathers to let them know that they will once again have those lofty places on pedestals, and receive the preferential treatment they deserve. Just elect him and he will make sure they get it all back.

A white male and two females the reporter talked to identified themselves as evangelical Christians and they were thrilled that Trump has guaranteed them they will have their positions of power and privilege returned. It would make for a better world where biblical law was the law of the land, where other laws would be re-enacted to secure Christianity’s unassailable position above all other religions across the country, where stores closed according to biblical dictates; like no working on Sunday, where school-led prayers would be everyday occurrences, ten commandment monuments and plaques would be commonplace in government buildings, and the Supreme Court would automatically strike down laws that went against biblical teaching, like same-sex marriage and women holding a position of authority over men, like, say, president. (Guess who that was aimed at?).They did say Mormons, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, and others would be free to worship, just out of sight, out of mind… where any Christian could not see them.(Although one woman did say she was not in favor of it because those people worshiped false gods) They were also sick of seeing caucasians pushed to the side. Trump would fix that.

Another man was a former factory worker. He had completed 10^th grade but didn’t need college as he used to have a fairly good paying job on an assembly line in Michigan. He was angered about all the American jobs that were sent overseas and supported Trump because he would bring those jobs back. He was glad Trump would build a wall to keep all the Mexicans out. They were taking American jobs. The reporter asked him if his job was sent to Mexico…would it be returned by Trump…and did he want it back? The guy said his job was still in Michigan, but that his position has been automated. He had been replaced by a computerized machine. He was asked if he went back to get trained to work the machine. “Hell no,” the guy responded, “but we got to get our manufacturing jobs back. Those are American jobs!” What kind of pay would he want to do those old manufacturing jobs? He felt he was worth $25 to $30 an hour. The reporter didn’t mention that very same job in Mexico paid $8.50 an hour, nor was Jose coming here to take a job away.  

Another group holding up anti-gay signs said they were fed up with seeing LGBTQ people get so many rights that they didn’t deserve. They claimed the Pulse shooting in Orlando gave these people national exposure and changed the way they were seen in society. The reporter asked, “Should they be discriminated against?” “Well, they shouldn’t have the same laws and rights we have. It’s not right.” one man was blunt enough to say. Trump will repeal all those liberal laws so that his supporters are once again allowed to be politically incorrect and treat others with disdainful behavior and unethical actions. Hell, they’ve earned the right.

Trump's supporters are quick to condemn Hillary Clinton in the most derogatory and threatening manner possible. It gives them a fallback position. But it is because, like with religion, Trump makes one empty promise after another and his followers don’t need even a hint of evidence that he’ll deliver; he’s the only candidate who is telling them they can have their pedestals back and return to a lofty position of looking down on everyone else like it was meant to be in their dreams.

What a privilege.

God Abandons Holy Land

God has abandoned the Holy Land!

On the front page of the July 20, 2016 edition of the Orlando Sentinel is an article entitled “Holy Land will sell off Items amid financial troubles”. I wonder, why don’t the employees and even TBN honchos who still own the park pray away the debt?  Christians always insist that God listens to, and answers, all prayers…then quickly add the caveat that maybe “God’s answer is no”. But why would the biblical God ignore any appeal to keep Holy Land financially lucrative, especially when the whole purpose of the park is to lend legitimacy to the claim that the Bible is the word of God, that He is the one true heavenly father of Jesus and the actual universe-creating deity? Either the Holy Land promotes the wrong god, or He doesn’t exist.

Begging for dollars

While it may be presumptive to claim God has forsaken his flock at the Disneyesque biblical theme park in Florida’s capital for slightly tacky, money-fleecing pseudo-entertainment venues, the Sentinel reports the Holy Land is drowning in a sea of red ink. And it’s getting worse year by year. 

Jesus and the Holy Land...both are bleeding to death.

One would think Christians, who get hard ons over watching a mock flogging and execution, would flock to the place by the millions and money would never be an issue…on the debit side, that is.

The wisdom of the Profits...uh, Prophets.

The park is being forced to sell off gaudy furniture, costumes, ornate statues, even a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. (I think in the Holy Land Experience version, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem on a bike, not an ass.) And TBN is also closing retail stores selling cheap Holy Land trinkets in Tennessee and California. In the coming months, I suspect they'll have to further auction off anything that's not nailed down. So don't worry, Jesus on the cross is safe for now.

Where the hell did all our money go?

But reading between the lines it’s apparent that, with the death of Jan Crouch last May, the big-haired, gasping gargoyle who was the theme park’s major financial backer, the Holy Land just can’t stay on its feet no matter what they do. There is only so much bullshit you can force on people before they reject it. Just ask the former Soviet Union.  

The rat hole near the mouse hole, south of Orlando.

Paul and Jan Crouch bought the theme park with TBN money in 2007 and propped it up with their cheesy and tasteless telethons until 2012. But even they had to finally admit the park was just a huge vacuum cleaner that sucked away all their money.

Paul Crouch signals his feelings on further financial backing for the Holy Land Experience

So they left it up to God and Jesus to keep it open. In Their infinite wisdom, They had this to say...

...To you too, Paul...and Jan.

Orlando massacre reaction

      

         

          For a Sunday afternoon in Orlando, it is unusually quiet. By now, normally the roads and streets are bustling, lawn mowers are humming, sidewalk joggers rush by in pairs, and there is chatter in the air; from neighborhood grill outs, get togethers, and pool parties. But today, the silence is eerie. The whole area seems to be stunned by the news that 49 people were murdered and even more injured in this morning’s shooting at the Pulse nightclub in downtown Orlando. 49 people dead! These are battlefield numbers. These are casualties that occur when at war. So this isn’t a tragedy. It’s an atrocity.

          The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, called 911 reportedly from within the club around 2 AM with a message of support for ISIS just minutes before he opened fire. He decided, on the basis of his avowed faith in Islam, that killing people was what Allah wanted. A Texas pastor used the occasion this morning to declare the Christian god was in complete agreement. He is saying that Yahweh or Jehovah sides with Allah, and that justifies the slaughter. Would Mateen have killed if not motivated by a religious belief? Would a Christian minister have sided with an Islamic jihadist if not for his religious belief? These men are evil. They are the face of what is wrong when motivated by their holy books. When was the last time someone killed because of what they read in a Harry Potter book?

          Like that Texas preacher, a longtime FORMER friend on Facebook (who will remain nameless as I will never acknowledge them as a member of the human race again) decided to show his love and understanding of the situation this morning by quoting Galatians 6:7 from the bible: “Don't be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap.” When I read that, I went to his Facebook page and was astounded that he had published even more vicious, gay-bashing, and biblically-oriented rantings and ravings all in support of this mass killing. I did not bother sending him a message or ask for clarification. I immediately unfriended him. If I see him at any upcoming national meetings that we have attended together in the past, I will not shake his hand or even nod in his direction.

          This is the face of 21st century Christianity. This is what he really thinks Jesus meant in Luke 19:27 when he supposedly said “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”

          I’ll state my reaction plainly….WHAT HORSESHIT! You, FORMER friend on Facebook, are the reason more and more people find your religion not just stupid, but wicked. And YOU are stupid and wicked for quoting it. You give the word HATE a whole new meaning. The Orlando victims did not sow death and destruction anywhere. They did not reap any godly justice for any sin. It’s like saying because people were buying fatty foods at a San Ysidro California McDonalds that James Huberty has a right to come in and gun them down on July 18, 1984…or that if you watch the movie The Dark Knight Rises, you should expect someone like James Holmes to pop in and open fire as he did in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012, because clearly watching a movie or eating McDonalds food is worthy of death. And now Christian bigot, loudmouth, and homophobe Pat Robertson has claimed that this is God's judgment on our nation because same sex couples are allowed to marry. As I stated at the beginning of this paragraph...WHAT HORSESHIT!

The source of evil.

          Why did it happened? Some are already claiming that it’s the atmosphere of hate created by candidates like Donald Trump. I doubt that. I think it has more to do with holy books and people’s interpretation of what they read that led to this massacre. This is a logical extension of the Huguenot slaughter perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1100s, the wholesale murder of Mormons by Christians in the state of Missouri in 1838, the Cave of Patriarchs massacre by Baruch Goldstein on Muslim worshipers February 25, 1994 near Hebron Israel, or the mass shooting in Peshawar Pakistan by Islamic militants at a school crowded with children on December 16, 2014. The common denominator is religion. In each case, the killers indicated god told them, through their holy books, to kill. Christopher Hitchens had it absolutely right. Religion does poison everything.

Ban all Religions Until the Test Results Come Back Positive

        

        Last week Donald Trump, in his usual inimitable fashion, again made an incendiary comment that aroused great anger, from fellow Republican presidential candidates, and almost everyone to the left of Trump. But not to his supporters; they loved it. They can’t wait to have Trump banning Muslim immigrants...actually anyone they don’t like...and ignoring established U.S. laws, policies and regulations….”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...and turn them away."

         But as wrong as I think Trump is, he may have stumbled onto a very good idea. It just isn’t restrictive enough. Let’s run with his idea of banning a religious group. If I agreed with his position, then we shouldn’t stop there; we should go even further. Let’s not just ban Muslims from entering the U.S., let’s ban ANY religious person. Yes, ban them all… until they’ve passed a test indicating they understand the separation of church and state, that they will uphold and defend that separation, and that our Constitution supersedes ANY law that's in someone’s holy book.

        This ban would not just apply to foreigners hoping to resettle in America, but also to anyone who already lives here. For example, if Christians promote an interpretation of their God’s laws as somehow overriding the Constitution, they need to be removed to another place, say, the Vatican, until such time as they take a test proving they understand this is a secular nation and the Constitution is the ONLY law of the land. They can practice whatever religion they want in their own homes or in a place of worship (that would no longer be tax-exempt), but they cannot claim their God’s law is higher than Constitutional law.

        It doesn’t matter if the believers are Hindu, Mormon, Buddhist, Shinto, Zoroastrian, or they worship of a pile of rocks. They must show, via both written and verbal testing, that they acknowledge their religious laws stop at our border. They do not supplant any U.S. law at any time…period!

         If they are Muslim and disagree; Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, and even ISIS are all trying to implement Sharia. Let them live there and practice their faith. Or if they are Mormon and believe that what Elohim says overrides U.S. law, expel them to one of the uninhabited islands of the Alaska archipelago until testing confirms they fully understand and comply with the Constitution.

         Trump's not the first. Whether anti-British, anti-Chinese, anti-Japanese, anti-black, or anti-Commie...down through history, Americans have loved vilifying and repressing others.

        

         Now, far be it for me to point out to the oh-so-wise and well-informed Trump, who clearly hasn’t studied U.S. history, we already tried banning certain groups…the Chinese in the late 1800s, the Japanese in World War Two, and Communists during the 1950s. It just doesn’t work, and won’t work, even if we turned this nation into a completely fascist dictatorship like, say, Nazi Germany. So rather than banning, the best step is to make sure everyone understands we are not bound by the religious laws of any gods, or any religious sects.  

        Trump’s pandering to squeamish, anxious white xenophobes gets great press, but it won’t get him elected president. However, if he’d go along with a test given to every religious person immigrating here, or living here, so we can get them up to speed on how the Constitution works, then he and I might have some common ground to discuss ideas.

Know your Constitution