Chalcedon Blog

First Annual Christian History Conference

2009-11-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

The Providence of God in American History
January 30, 2010
8:30 am - 6:30 pm
At Circa History Guild in Alpharetta, GA

Speakers include:
Tom Tarabicos
Gary North
Martin Selbrede
Bill Potter
S. Kelley Henderson

Visit the web site for more information.

The Woman of the House: A Covenantal Voice of Victory

2009-11-16T09:08:00.001-05:00

When I was a young girl, I would spend a lot of time daydreaming about my future. With a bent for acting, I would envision myself as one of the five nominees for an Academy Award. Interestingly, I never pictured myself winning the award for “Best Actress.” Rather, I always was the proud recipient of the “Best Supporting Actress” award. I liked the idea of being in a supporting role, that character that enhanced the main actor’s performance. In the many plays and musicals I participated in during high school, I quickly learned that my greatest satisfaction did not come from holding “center stage.” I was drawn to the role of director or producer—the person who worked behind the scenes to manage and assist others in their performances.

I assumed that these were preferences peculiar to me as an individual. But after becoming a student of the Bible, I realized that these attributes were a major aspect of God’s original design of women in their participation in the dominion mandate. Eve was given to Adam to assist him in his calling under God and to help him in a supportive role, not take center stage. When Adam described Eve as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, he was responding to the most perfect gift he could imagine—a counterpart who completed him and strengthened him in the work God called him to do. Read the rest of this article...

Are We Wise Men?

2009-11-13T07:42:00.002-05:00

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. (Matt. 2:1)

The Enlightenment represented a major shift in man’s thinking about himself. It was a return to a non-Christian view of man as a being controlled by reason. The medieval position was Christian in its view that man was faith-driven: that is, man’s thought is controlled by what he assumes is true.

What man assumes or believes may be true or untrue, but once he believes it to be fact, it is hard for him to let go—his assumption or his belief that something is true causes him to treat it as fact. Once such a fact becomes so widely accepted among many men that it is never doubted, it becomes a “truism.” Read the rest of this article...

Faith Without Justice is Dead

2009-11-11T10:42:00.001-05:00

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.  —Proverbs 21:3

I wish I could report to you today that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is embracing and acting on its primary calling to restore justice to a world pervasively framed in unrighteousness. I cannot. And if my email inbox is any indication, the central questions on the heart of the average Christian still focus on how to celebrate the Sabbath; what church should he attend; can he eat pork; and who was the man of lawlessness in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. Unless we’re talking about unjust taxation, justice and judgment are far from his mind.

Yet Solomon wrote that “to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice,” and this he said hundreds of years prior to the cross of Jesus Christ. In other words, he was still living in the time of sacrifice, priesthood, and holy days, but like his father, David, Solomon saw past the elaborate—and God-commanded—liturgy of his time. He understood that the ultimate expression of worship was a world restored to justice and righteous judgment. Read the rest of this article...

Rushdoony Said that Public Schools Were the Temple for the City of Man. Here's the Proof.

2009-11-10T14:38:00.002-05:00

CNBC: Global Government, Global Currency, and a New World Order. I guess it's not a conspiracy theory anymore.

2009-11-07T18:59:00.001-05:00

Once Upon a Time... When the Big Scare was a Coming Ice Age

2009-11-06T11:15:00.001-05:00

Exposing Michael Baigent's Latest Hit Piece

2009-11-04T07:30:00.002-05:00

Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World by Michael Baigent

(New York: HarperCollins, 2009)

Reviewed by Lee Duigon

“Fundamentalist religions are humanity’s greatest enemy.” –Michael Baigent (p. xx)

This is an intellectually filthy book, the kind of trash that book reviewers read so you don’t have to. We only take notice of it because the author calls into question the good works of Christianity in general and the Chalcedon Foundation in particular.

For those readers who might know someone who has read this book and been deceived by it, we offer this rebuttal. Christians shouldn’t be surprised when pagans slander them. Jesus Himself told us to expect it: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake” (Matt. 5:11). But for the edification of the uninformed, we ought to answer the slanders.

Think of it as a teachable moment.

Baigent’s Straw Man

Baigent commits so many journalistic crimes, it’s hard to decide where to begin. His book’s glaring faults are like a nest of baby birds all squawking at once to be fed a caterpillar. But let’s start here:

He lumps together widely disparate groups and individuals to create a straw man, “fundamentalist religion,” which he then attacks. The target is purely a product of his imagination, but he hopes the reader won’t notice that.

“Fundamentalism is a relentless progression deeper and deeper into intolerance and ignorance,” he asserts (p. xx), offering his personal opinion as an authoritative definition. As proof, he lists all sorts of actual atrocities—suicide bombings, stonings, “honor killings,” and whatnot.

The only problem is that each and every one of those atrocities was committed by Muslims, and no one else. Baigent even admits that Jews and Christians “do not go about blowing themselves up” (p. 4)—a caveat he mentions once and then ignores. So, he says, “Jewish, Christian, and Islamic fundamentalists are all at it” (p. 3)—at what?—and the Mahdi-mongering president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “[l]ike many Christian fundamentalists,” plots a global holocaust against virtually everyone (p. 64). He speaks coyly of a Southern Baptist plot to turn the U. S. military into a violent Christian crusade against the rest of the world (pp. 138–139). Is that the same Southern Baptist Convention that’s too timorous to adopt a resolution in favor of Christian education? Crusaders should be made of sterner stuff.

But it’s not enough for him to lump together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. In addition to believing in such fantasies as global warming and socialism (p. 148), Baigent also believes in the “apparent monolithic and focused nature” (p. 149) of the Christian Right—apparent to him, but not to us. He lumps together all Christians who have problems with “the scientific and secular basis of modern Western culture” (p. xxii) into one grand conspiracy against everything he considers right and true and good.

Demonizing Chalcedon

“Lounging self-importantly in the background of this theocratic aspiration like some fat medieval cardinal,” Baigent writes (p. 157), is … the Chalcedon Foundation! Yep, we’re running the show, says he. Indeed, he devotes a whole chapter (“X. Planet Rushdoony”) to attacking Chalcedon and its founder, R. J. Rushdoony, by name.

Journalistic sloth is another one of Mr. Baigent’s crimes. There is no evidence here that he even tried to interview any of the men and ministries he smears. He does mention paying a visit to the Chalcedon website and reading the “Credo,” but he chooses not to believe anything he read (p. 159). How hard would it have been for him to interview some of the personnel at Chalcedon? Has he any interest at all in getting at the truth?

To attack Chalcedon, he resorts to simple slander. He puts his own words into Chalcedon’s mouth—for instance, “The United States Constitution must be discarded!” and “All transgressors should be publicly stoned to death” (p. 153), and Christian Reconstructionists “would like to see the First Amendment removed” (pp. 171–172)—and then attacks Chalcedon for them. It’s reminiscent of the way employees of the Canadian Human Rights Commission hack into their victims’ websites, post anti-semitic rants there without the owners’ knowledge or consent, and then prosecute the poor devils for “hate speech.” But we mustn’t give Baigent any worse ideas than he already has.

Baigent’s trump card against Chalcedon is Dr. Gary North, R. J. Rushdoony’s son-in-law, a man to whom intemperate rhetorical flourishes come easily. It should be mentioned that Baigent doesn’t seem to have interviewed North, either. Although he tries to set up North as a spokesman for Chalcedon, he only mentions in passing that North broke with Chalcedon (p. 163) many years ago and now has his own ministry, for which he is the spokesman. But for Baigent the lumper, all theonomists are alike.

He simply lumps together all theonomists, Christian Reconstructionists, and religious and political conservatives, and tars them with the same brush. Some of these people don’t even speak to one another, but to Baigent they’re all just one big, happy family, busily fomenting an apocalypse.

“Christian Voodoo”

As you may have guessed from the subtitle of this profoundly silly book, Baigent consistently resorts to sheer hysteria. “Fear is all to these people [fundamentalists],” he writes, “and every opportunity to spread it is taken” (p. xviii). But it is Baigent himself who, short on facts and reason, trades in scare tactics.

He hints darkly of “well-financed groups seeking to change the very constitutional basis of the United States” (p. 140)—although it seems to us that Congress and the president are doing a bang-up job of that without any help from us. He accuses theonomists of “hyperventilated preaching” (p. 154)—when he’s the one who’s hyperventilated—and of demanding “rabid enthusiasm and blind obedience” from zombie-like followers mesmerized by “Christian voodoo” (p. 154).

He puts words into Rushdoony’s mouth—for instance, Christians are to “conquer and convert the world, by the sword if necessary” (pg. 59)—when according to his own footnote, those words are borrowed from a Mother Jones hit piece: not exactly an unbiased source.

“Planet Rushdoony,” he hyperventilates (p. 167), “is a new Salem creeping out of intelligent but demented minds … It is no exaggeration to say that the Reconstructionists want to create hell and call it heaven.” Our activities, he rants, “can result in a North American Christian version of a Taliban state if not checked” (p. 169).

Stifle the Christians!

What does he mean by “checked”? Who would do the checking, and how would they do it?

“All writers from all three traditions [Christian, Muslim, Jewish],” he declares, “are treading a well-worn path, which can only lead to conflict. They all need to be stopped, right now” (p. 207).

Stopped? By whom, and how? We are beginning not to like the sound of this.

Nowhere does the hysterical Mr. Baigent explain how he would like Christians to be silenced. He leaves that to fallen man’s fertile imagination.

We, on the other hand, do not ask for some government goons to silence Mr. Baigent or anyone else who disagrees with us. Let them publish their misbegotten books. We will plod through the muck and answer them. And if we speak the truth, and God is with us, those who hear our answers will be edified.

Baigent’s Double Standard

This leads us to another one of Mr. Baigent’s annoying intellectual delinquencies. Over and over, through his book, he consistently employs a double standard. We’ve already had a taste of this, in his accusing Christians of wanting to erase the First Amendment while he blithely recommends denying us our right to speak.

The double standard first crops up in his attacks on the Bible. “Clearly the Bible cannot be taken literally … It is a collection of myths and hero stories … [I]t is worth seeing just how wrong the Bible is,” he says (p. 45). “And if Genesis can so easily be demonstrated to be mythology rather than fact”—so easily, indeed, that he doesn’t bother actually to do so—“where does this leave those fundamentalists who take every word of the Bible as immutable truth?” (p. 42)

Mr. Baigent, it almost goes without saying, believes whole-heartedly in evolution. After granting the various problems with that point of view, its apparent contradictions, impossibilities, and inanities, he goes on to say, presumably with a straight face, “But we don’t discard the theory of evolution just because of the difficulties understanding it poses”! (p. 43)

Yes, if we have any “difficulties” with the Bible, we are to chuck it out the door. But we must cling to evolution no matter how ridiculous it seems.

Baigent hyperventilates every time a Republican politician alludes to the Bible (p. 141). He thinks it’s wonderful for Democrats and leftists to lobby, create think tanks, organize political action, or even quote the Bible for their own purposes; but if Christians or conservatives do it, the sky is falling (p. 150). He actually condemns Christians for “lobbying to change the law” (p. 171), and attacks Congressman Ron Paul for supporting homeschooling and a pro-life amendment to the Constitution (p. 175).

Is it wrong for citizens to petition their government, or only wrong for Christian citizens? Is it wrong for members of Congress to propose legislation, or only wrong to propose legislation favored by Christians?

Baigent is at his hypocritical worst when applying his double standard to education. Christian homeschooling makes him frantic. Acknowledging Rushdoony as the virtual father of the Christian homeschooling movement, he warns that this “might prove to have the greatest effect of all” of Rushdoony’s efforts (p. 172)—to which we can only say, “We hope so!”

But Baigent doesn’t mean it as a compliment. “Above all,” he writes, “’godly’ homeschooling is a danger to America and perhaps to Western society in general”—it might even produce “Christian terrorists … It seems likely” (p. 178). Homeschooled children might be taught to kill “ungodly Christians … It could happen” (p. 178).

This man is starting to sound like the south end of a northbound horse. Has he forgotten to take his prozac? But here’s where the double standard comes in:

Homeschooling is bad, says Baigent, because it leads to “the manipulation of children’s belief structures”! (pp. 174–175)

What in thunderation does he think goes on in public schools? How is it even remotely possible to “educate” children without “manipulating” their beliefs? But what is wrong and terrifying for Christian parents to do with their own children becomes, in Baigent’s half-baked mind, a shining virtue when done by left-wing, secular teachers’ union members with other people’s children!

His Real Agenda

There’s more, much more, to despise in this book; but we choose not to weary the reader. Let us merely list a few more of the shabby tricks employed by this humbug.

He indulges in frequent name-calling and personal attacks; he grossly overstates the importance and influence of unimportant groups and individuals (how could he have missed Fred Phelps?); he takes the reader’s ignorance for granted; he offers notorious Christian-bashers (e.g., Americans United for Separation of Church and State, p. 136) as objective, credible authorities; he misquotes the Bible several times; he does not know the difference between “piety” and “pietism”—and so on. There is not enough honesty in this book to sell a life preserver to a drowning man. It is, in Sir Walter Raleigh’s words, “in folly ripe, in reason rotten.”

It should be noted that Baigent has long been in the business of trying to discredit Christianity. With Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh, he co-authored Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy, in which he sought to convince readers that the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ were colossal frauds. He tried, unsuccessfully, to sue Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, for allegedly plagiarizing Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Having slandered Christ Himself, it’s no big thing for Baigent to slander Christ’s people.

The real agenda of Racing Toward Armageddon comes out in the end. For Baigent, it’s not enough to silence Christians, take away their right to educate their children, and forbid them to lobby, vote, or serve in public office. For this self-avowed pagan, “We need a new vision of God” (p. 233).

“Is it not time,” he asks, “to accept that the Middle Eastern experiment with one God has failed … And that another path is needed?” (p. 237) Shouldn’t “true Christianity,” whatever that is, be “a journey that was personal, experimental, and mystical,” featuring “a type of toleration whose goal is not truth but peace”? (pp. 228, 230)

So there it is. As long as it breeds “peace,” whatever “peace” may be, we are to cultivate beliefs based on something other than the truth. It seems St. Paul got it right:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness … Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator …” (Rom. 1: 18, 25)

It sounds like Michael Baigent’s job description.

The Plan to Socialize America

2009-11-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

The Progressives’ plan to socialize America required the most thorough and radical reform of American education. To this they applied their extensive knowledge of behavioral psychology. That the goal was socialism was clearly known and understood throughout the educational establishment. That it meant downgrading academics in favor of socialization was also understood, for in a socialist society an elite rules at the top, and the masses below are relegated to the subservient, mindless tasks of an industrial system...

Why did these men believe in socialism? Because, as atheists, they were convinced that socialism offered the only salvation from evil. To them the causes of evil were societal: ignorance, poverty, and social injustice. As evolutionists they rejected such concepts as sin, innate depravity, or the fall of man. They thus attributed the causes of social injustice to capitalism, individualism, and religion. By substituting socialism, collectivism and atheism in their place, they had no doubt that heaven on earth was quite attainable...

The Progressives did their job exceedingly well, and their disciples today, in the highest positions of power in the educational establishment, still press that globalist vision while centralizing all education under state monopoly control. Their political power is enormous, thanks to the NEA, which is convincing more and more legislators to pour more and more tax money down the educational rathole.

Meanwhile, public education has become a moral and academic disaster. But Americans have grown to live with it. They know something is wrong, but they have no idea what to do about it.

Fortunately, there is a growing number of parents who know what is going on and have removed their children from the government schools. This trend will continue to grow despite the determination of the “educators” to crush it...

Americans are now in a position to see quite clearly where the educators want to take us. The goal is a world socialist government in which individual freedom and national independence will be lost forever. Clearly this is not what the American people want. And so, the conflict between the educators and the people will persist indefinitely.

~ Samuel Blumenfeld, Revolution via Education, pp.55ff

Those Hungry and Thirsty for Justice

2009-10-30T17:35:00.004-04:00

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matt. 5:6)

Righteousness is the same word as justice; thus, it is the desire for righteousness or justice which our Lord speaks of here.

Justice must be the desire of God’s covenant people. To despise God’s law is to despise righteousness or justice. Scripture speaks of God’s judgment on a rebellious people, on all iniquity. Of all such, the Lord says:

12. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
13. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed. (Isa. 65:12–13)

A society that moves in terms of self-interest rather than justice is under God’s judgment; even more so, a society that moves in terms of deliberate injustices is certain of radical condemnation and collapse.

God summons men to His covenant justice or righteousness. Justice cannot be found, however much men may seek it, apart from the sovereign God and His law. The summons therefore declares:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isa. 55:1)

The people of salvation are also the people of justice; to separate salvation and righteousness is untenable and evil.

To be the blessed of the Lord means that we hunger and thirst after justice. The image is of intense physical craving, of a passion for righteousness or justice which consumes our being. Apart from justice, God’s justice, for there is none other, we are starved and parched. Only His justice can fill and satisfy us. The promise is that we “shall be filled.”

~ R. J. Rushdoony, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 23f.

Science without Christianity is magic

2009-10-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

On the surface, a myth is the illusion of an age or a culture whereby life and its origins are interpreted. As such, the myth has an axiomatic truth to the age and is its criterion for judging and assessing reality.

But much more is involved in the concept of myth. A myth is the attempt of a culture to overcome history, to negate the forces and ravages of time, and to make the universe amenable and subject to man. The myth reveals a hatred of history. History shows movement in terms of forces beyond man and in judgment over man; history rides heavily over man, is inescapably ethical, shows a continuing conflict between good and evil, and clearly reveals man as the actor, not the playwright and director. And this man hates. To fill a role he never wrote, to enter on stage at a time not of his choosing, this man resents. The purpose man then sets for himself in his myths is to end history, to make man the absolute governor by decreeing an end to the movement that is history. Where his myths acknowledge man's lot in history, man ascribes his sorry role, not to his depravity, but to jealousy of the gods. The goal of the myth, ever more clearly enunciated over time, has become the destruction of history and the enthronement of man as the new governor of the universe.

The means used by man to accomplish the goal of his myth is magic. The purpose of magic is the total control by man over man, nature, and the supernatural. Whatever the form magic takes, this is its goal. The relationship of magic is therefore basically to science rather than to Biblical religion. Under the influence of Christianity, science escaped the constraints of magic. The purpose of science gradually ceased to be an attempt to play god and became rather the exercise of dominion over the earth under God. The redeemed Christian is God's vicegerent over the earth, and science is one of man's tools in establishing and furthering that dominion. For science to overstep that role is to forsake science for magic. The purposes of modern science are increasingly those of magic, the exercise of total control. The essential goal of modern science is knowledge in order to have prediction, planning, and control. Thus magic has again triumphed, and modern science is popular precisely because man today, wedded again to the world of myth, demands magic to overcome history, to eliminate the ethical struggle and to place man beyond good and evil and beyond judgment. On the whole, modern science has taken readily to this new role, and it is enjoying its status as magician in the mind of modern man. Science has become magic and is governed by myth.

Basic to God's nature as sovereign is His omnipotence. It is not only an assertion of the Bible, but also a basic presupposition of every page, that all things are possible with God, and with Him nothing is impossible. It is not surprising that man, having succumbed to the lure of myth and believing himself to be his own god, should proceed on the premise that all things are possible with man, scientific man.

~ R. J. Rushdoony, The Mythology of Science, p.5f

Freud and the All-Powerful State

2009-10-26T09:49:00.000-04:00

Freud again expressed both his pessimism and hope in “Why War?” (1932), an exchange of letters with Albert Einstein (1879-1955) for publication. In answering Einstein on “Right and Might,” Freud pointed out “that right is the might of the community. It is still violence, ready to be directed against any individual who resists it; it works by the same methods and follows the same purposes.” Is there no difference then? One difference, Freud held: “What prevails is no longer the violence of an individual but that of a community.” This transition is psychologically effected when “the union of the majority” is “a stable and lasting one,” thereby assuring the identification of might, right, or law. This community of the majority must be permanent, well-organized, capable of anticipating and suppressing rebellion and executing “legal acts of violence.” It is violence within a community that produces peace. Moreover, wars between nations are “a far from inappropriate means of establishing the eagerly desired reign of ‘everlasting’ peace, since it is in a position to create the larger units within which a powerful central government makes further wars impossible.” The weakness of this method is the lack of cohesiveness between the constituent parts. The answer is some kind of world order stronger than the League of Nations. “Wars will only be prevented with certainty if mankind unites in setting up a central authority to which the right of giving judgment upon all conflicts of interest shall be handed over. There are clearly two separate requirements involved in this: the creation of a supreme authority and its endowment with the necessary power.” Nationalism is hostile to such an order, while Communism is held by many to be congenial to it. In any case, force cannot be replaced by “the force of ideas,” for “law was originally brute violence and that even to-day it cannot do without the support of violence.” For Freud there was no higher law and no right to which power must be subservient. There are only human instincts, and these are of two kinds, Eros, or the sexual in its broadest sense on the one hand, and “the aggressive or destructive instinct” on the other. We have here a polarity, but not a moral one. “We must not be too hasty in introducing ethical judgments of good and evil. Neither of these instincts is any less essential than the other; the phenomena of life arise from the operation of both together, whether acting in concert or in opposition.” Thus, Freud reduced his own preference for a one-world socialist order to a purely non-moral matter of personal taste. The death instinct and the life instinct are equally valid, if value can be used as a criterion. “There is no use in trying to get rid of men’s aggressive inclinations.” Communists are guilty of illusion if such is their hope.

But how can Freud’s own one-world hopes be achieved? “Our mythological theory of instincts makes it easy for us to find a formula for in-direct methods of combating war.” Eros must be encouraged to stand more strongly against Thanatos. Two kinds of ties between men can be encouraged: first, a love of neighbor, and, second, “identification” through a community of interests. This will correct imbalance. The encroachments of Church and State “upon freedom of thought” need to be removed. “The ideal condition of things would of course be a community of men who had subordinated their instinctual life to the dictatorship of reason.” And for Freud this “dictatorship of reason” meant a total power like that of Plato’s philosopher-kings, enlightened rulers of absolute power. “Nothing else could unite men so completely and so tenaciously even if there were no emotional ties between them. But in all probability that is a Utopian expectation.” This last sentence is typical of Freud; his hope is real, but his denial of that hope is equally real. He was ready to make a case for war and yet call himself a pacifist “for organic reasons” and hope that “the rest of mankind become pacifists too.” Thus he hoped, but even in hoping called his pacifism “an idiosyncracy.” The one-world order he hoped for was an order built on violence, and reason itself was no more than a biological aspect of man, a thin veneer over a vast unconscious. Freud had written at length on the nature of dreams as an infallible index to the unconscious forces in man. Could not the dream of reason, including Freud’s own, be dismissed also as a significance only in terms of the unconscious in man, rather than a valid ground for action? Freud could not say.

~ R. J. Rushdoony, Freud, p.49f

Government is the extension of God's moral order

2009-10-23T12:15:00.003-04:00

"Government in every area is God's order, law, and authority asserted over His creation. In the world of men, God's government, whether in church, state, school, business, or family, is the extension of God's moral order over a fallen world, an assertion, to use an old Calvinist battle-cry, of 'The Crown Rights of King Jesus.' To reduce government, whether in the family, the state, or elsewhere, to force is to destroy government. Modern government, having forsaken God's law, is essentially government by force, and its force is a killing, dissecting force, a government by autopsy. The school therefore dissects the student and builds up an extensive file on the child by means of years of dissection and dissecting tests, under the illusion that dissection and autopsy are productive of education and life. The result instead is death. Apart from the restoration of godly government in every sphere of life, man's only possible future is suicide." ~ R. J. Rushdoony, Politics of Guilt and Pity, p. 343.

Do Democracies Last?

2009-10-20T08:05:00.003-04:00

Ames* held that a study of the French Revolution was necessary as an example of the logical course of democracy, and of revolution as well. He recognized how essential revolution was to this faith as a cure-all for all past ills: “Every democrat more or less firmly believes that a revolution is the sure path to liberty; and therefore he believes government of little importance to the people, and a very great impediment to their rights.” Tyranny gains its foothold by appealing to the evil in man; the tyrant cannot function alone; he must interest “a sufficient number of subordinate tyrants in the duration of his power.” The people are enlisted by assaulting property, “the object of the great mass of every faction.” Gradually, not only the propertied but also the masses will be stripped of every private right and privilege. When this happens, “there is no return to liberty. What the fire of faction does not destroy, it will debase.” Slaves of this sort may dislike their slavery, but it is the outcome of their own lusts and demands. Eventually, testing will come to the American people, as it must come to all. It cannot be otherwise. But “we seem to expect a state of felicity before a state of probation. Of our six millions of people there are scarcely six hundred who yet look for liberty anywhere except on paper.”

The Federalists had been seriously in error. They assumed as a natural fact a moral product, character. “Federalism was therefore manifestly founded on a mistake, on the supposed existence of sufficient political virtue, and on the permanency and authority of the public morals. The party now in power committed no such mistake. They acted on the knowledge of what men actually are, not what they ought to be. Instead of enlightening the popular understanding, their business was to bewilder it.” But, “a democracy cannot last.” It will then change “into a military despotism”; imperialism will be the outcome. Moreover, as democracy moves into empire, empire does not stand still. “Experience proves, that in all such governments there is a continual tendency to unity.” “Ought we not then to be convinced, that something more is necessary to preserve liberty than to love it? Ought we riot to see that when the people have destroyed all power but their own, they are the nearest possible to a despotism, the more uncontrolled for being new, and tenfold the more cruel for its hypocrisy?”

Taken from R. J. Rushdoony, The Nature of the American System, p. 35f.
*Fisher Ames

Get Great Books Like "In His Service" During Our Year-End Sale!

2009-10-19T08:55:00.001-04:00

The Christian faith once meant that a believer responded to a dark world by word and by deed. However, a modern, self-centered church has isolated the faith to a pietism that relinquishes charitable responsibility to the state. The end result has been the empowering of a humanistic world order.

In addition, God's great and redeeming power is virtually limited to saving souls from eternal destruction. In Biblical terms, the priority if God's Kingdom first, and all our acts of mercy and benevolence must be in terms of that grand mission. We are God's servants - we dare not expect God to serve our needs ahead of His Kingdom.

It is now difficult for the church to recover the Biblical meaning of words like charity and compassion because post-World War II liberalism has redefined them politically into state welfarism. This redefinition has made charity a political tool to retain social order and made the state the primary agency of compassion. Charity is no longer personal.

But Biblical compassion flows from our having first received the grace of God and then manifesting it to others. Therefore, Biblical charity - which is compassion in action - is personal: it begins with God's mercy towards us, and then the people of God give expression to that at an individual level. It is in His service that we understand out calling to charity.

In this book, Rushdoony elucidates the Christian's calling to charity and its implications for godly dominion. In an age when Christian action is viewed in political terms, a return to Christian works of compassion and Godly service will help usher in a return of the reign of God as no piece of legislation ever could. Buy this book.

White House Communication Director Says Chairman Mao Her Favorite Philosopher

2009-10-15T22:00:00.001-04:00

Socialism as a Perpetual Civil War

2009-10-13T15:57:00.004-04:00

By R. J. Rushdoony

Taken from Law & Liberty 2nd Edition

Socialism and communism presuppose that their system represents the true order of the ages and is the answer to man’s problems. This assumption is one that assumes man’s problems to be not spiritual but material, not sin but environment. Change man’s environment and you will then remake man, it is held. The answer to man’s problems is therefore not the spiritual regeneration of man by Jesus Christ but the reorganization of society by the scientific socialist state.

Basic to the theory of scientific socialism is its infallibility concept. Every system of thought has an infallibility concept, but few are honest enough to admit it. Ultimate, final, and inerrant authority is vested somewhere in the system as the basic and assured arbiter of truth or reality. The scientific socialistic state sees scientific socialism as the infallible truth of history; its application ensures the perfect social order. If failures occur in scientific socialist states, it is not the fault of scientific socialism, which is by definition infallible and true, but of the hostile people, remnants of the capitalistic class, or traitorous members of the party. Because the scientific socialist state cannot blame itself, it must wage civil war against some portion of the state. Thus, first of all, socialism’s answer to every problem is civil war. Someone is guilty, but never socialism itself.

Illustrations of this are many. The Soviet Union has faced a situation of continual purges. The purges of the 1930s stand out merely as being more dramatic than the routine ones. But every crisis in the Soviet Union demands a scapegoat, and war is therefore waged against some portion of the Party, the bureaucracy, or the masses.

In Communist China, according to a news report of Friday, March 24, 1967, pestilence broke out widely, with many contagious diseases spreading across the country. The Communist regime’s answer to an already serious crisis was to threaten the doctors of China with a purge. The doctors were responsible, the Shanghai Radio declared, because they “had ignored Mao’s health policies.”[1] The consequence of such a policy, the purge of doctors in a country with a serious shortage of medical men, only aggravated a serious situation, but anything is preferable to admitting that socialism can make mistakes and be an erroneous theory.

In the United States, inflation is a product of the federal government’s departure from a hard money standard, from gold to paper, and a product of its debt living or deficit financing. The guilt for inflation is essentially the federal government’s guilt. But the blame is instead shifted by federal officials to the private sector: labor is creating inflation by demanding higher wages, and business is inflationary because it demands higher prices for goods, and threats are made of wage and price controls. The demands of capital and labor are, of course, the results of inflation and their steps to protect themselves against it, but the policy of socialism is to ascribe all guilt to the people, and all wisdom to the state, in every crisis.

In these and other cases, the answer always remains the same: the socialist state wages war on the people. Whenever the scientific socialist state makes a mistake, the people suffer.

The second aspect of this socialist civil warfare is that it is perpetual civil war because of perpetual failure. Socialism is incapable of solving any problem it addresses itself to in the economic sphere. Because its premises are unsound and wholly in error, its conclusions are consistently failures. But, since socialism is by definition the scientific answer to problems of society, socialism cannot blame itself. As a result, it wages perpetual civil warfare as its answer to perpetual failure.

Third, the consequence of this perpetual civil warfare is an ever-deepening crisis. Propaganda works to disguise the crisis. We are always told that the Soviet Union is making economic and industrial progress and is becoming a milder dictatorship, but the reality is that it has merely gone from crisis to crisis and has faced a growing food shortage as a tribute to its incompetence. The other socialisms of the world have similar troubles. The little Fabian Socialist State of Great Britain is sinking steadily into the economic consequences of its own policies, and other Fabian states face a growing monetary and economic crisis. Socialism is never the way out for socialism, but simply the guarantee of an economic dead end.

Fourth, this perpetual civil warfare can and will terminate in the death of the state, and possibly of the civilization as well. It is destructive of the public and private resources of the state; the socialist state can sometimes build stone monuments and edifices, but it cannot perpetuate a living social order; it can only kill the order it seizes or inherits. It has often been observed that it is only when a civilization is dying that it begins monumental building constructions. Prior to that time, its concern is more with life than show. We cannot therefore misread socialism’s predisposition for monumental construction as a sign of life; it is tombstone construction.

Fifth, perpetual civil warfare means in some form perpetual violence or repressive force, and as a result, the use of terror is not only accepted but is often justified and exalted. Terror is defended and upheld as necessary to suppress the enemies of the people and to protect the state from destruction. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his Critique of Dialectical Reason, spoke of terror as “the very bond of fraternity.” Terror is made a moral principle and an inevitable requirement of history. As a result, “total terror” is practiced as a necessary and moral requirement of scientific socialism. Incredible brutality, barbarism, savagery, and degeneracy become the products of scientific socialism.[2] Thus, the perpetual civil warfare that the scientific socialist state wages against its people is also a form of total warfare. It is more radical than total warfare, in that normal total warfare is for a stated period of hostilities, whereas the socialistic civil war and its terroristic total warfare have no end. It is a perpetual threat to the people, and, in varying degrees, continuously practiced. The more the state approaches total socialism, to that same degree it also approaches total terror and total civil war. It is this aspect of perpetual and total warfare that has made socialists like George Orwell, author of 1984, turn from socialism in horror, without believing really in anything else. Theirs is not a conversion but simply revulsion from terror.

Such a situation, of course, breaks down the will to work and the will to live of the subject peoples. Hope of escape, or hope that the socialist regime will end, begins to grow weaker, and the result is all the greater slow-down in agricultural and industrial production. This decline in productivity creates a major crisis, and the socialist leaders must give the people some reason to believe that there is hope of a change, a “thaw,” in the socialist terror and oppression. A cow, after all, will finally give no milk if it is not fed, and so the masses, like human cattle, are given enough fodder to make them productive again. Their previous sufferings are blamed on bad underlings, poor managers. Stalin, for example, placed the blame on minor officials who were supposedly too eager to attain perfect socialism overnight. In dealing with enforced collectivization of farms, in a Pravda statement of April 3, 1930, Stalin declared that the policy was a “voluntary one,” but unfortunately some officials were using threats and pressure.[3] It was after this statement that millions were starved to death for resisting collectivization, but Stalin in advance had cleared himself publicly of responsibility and also encouraged those who were hostile to feel freer to make a stand. Khrushchev also gave promises of a thaw, and then launched into the vicious terror in Hungary, and the still-continuing and greatest terror against Christians.

The purposes of these brief thaws and breathers are strategic: they serve to give a despairing populace hope for a change. This, then, is simply a sixth, aspect of socialism’s civil warfare against its people. The thaw creates a deviation from socialist policy only for the purpose of reinforcing that policy.

This points clearly to a seventh aspect of socialism’s perpetual civil war: truth is at all times a central casualty. Since there is no truth apart from the scientific socialist state, any device, any lie, any strategy which will further the socialist experiment is valid. The lie is spoken to delude the masses and the enemy; speech has as its purpose not the communication of truth but utility to the dictatorship of the proletariat as a weapon of warfare. Semantics therefore becomes a major concern of socialism. Language must be used; it is a superb weapon. Certain words have powerful meanings to many men, and one way of using men’s minds against themselves is to misuse the words that have a particular meaning to them. To expect language to have the same content to a socialist as it does to a Christian is a delusion. For the socialist, language is instrumental; it is a tool of revolution. Instead of representing a means of communicating an objective order of truth, language is basically an instrument of power. For the socialist state to neglect to use language as an instrument of power is for it to be guilty of bourgeois sentiments and illusions.

This, then, is the course of action, perpetual civil warfare, required by the scientific socialist state to maintain its delusion of infallibility. This perpetual civil warfare is a consequence of its departure from God and its socialism. It is a suicidal course, one well described by our Lord of old, when He declared, “He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36).

1. Oakland Tribune, “China Hit by Outbreak of Pestilence,” Friday, March 24, 1967, 1.

2. Albert Kalme, Total Terror (New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951), and Harold H. Martinson, Red Dragon Over China (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1956).

3. W. R. Werner, ed., Stalin Kampf (New York, NY: Howell, Soskin, 1940), 252-257.

Global Police: Interpol to help UN

2009-10-12T14:21:00.000-04:00

Interpol, the global police organisation, said Monday it will provide enhanced technical and advisory support to the United Nations in the world body's peacekeeping missions worldwide.

Interpol director of legal affairs Joel Sollier told reporters in Singapore that his organisation "will provide advice and consulting services in the area of policing during peacekeeping operations."

He said Interpol's support will include field information to police officers as well as assistance in areas such as investigation techniques. Read the rest of this article...

Book Review: "Act of Redemption"

2009-10-08T11:51:00.005-04:00

Act of Redemption by C. C. Cole

(Author House, Bloomington, IN: 2009)

Reviewed by Lee Duigon

Summer’s over, the work of education has begun again, and many parents are looking for books for their children to read.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially for Christian parents who are homeschooling. Most of them removed their children from the public schools for two reasons: to give them a real and Christian education, and to rescue them from the shambles of public “education.” Those parents wish to instill in their children a love of reading. They’ll want books that challenge young readers and excite their imaginations.

That’s not enough. If it were, the Harry Potter books would fill the bill. Millions of young readers flipped over them. But Christian parents trying to raise Christian children will want something more—books that are God-honoring, faith-building, truth-telling, and above all, compatible with everything else they’re trying to teach their children.

Idle or Evil

Act of Redemption might look like a good item to put on a young Christian’s reading menu. It’s about “redemption”—we suppose—and Christians are interested in redemption. But as the saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover.

This is a fantasy novel. Some Christians shy away from fantasy altogether. Others think it can be put to use in God’s service, and point to C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia as an excellent example.

We have to deal with fantasy because today’s young readers’ market is chock-full of it. Thanks to the success of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, the market is awash in fantasy. Young readers can’t seem to get enough of it.

A great deal of this fantasy is idle at best and evil at worst. Far too many of these books offer a seductive vision of teenage empowerment via magic, sorcery, becoming a vampire and being cool and sexy forever, etc. The readers are old enough to crave power, but too young to appreciate the responsibilities that go with it.

This vision of power is satanic: “Ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). Unlike adult human beings in the real world, from parents to presidents, gods are not accountable to anyone. They don’t have to work or pay bills, or worry about losing a job because they didn’t do it properly. Miniature gods just wield their power any way they please, and enjoy it.

Christian parents will not want to hand their children books that offer such a vision.

Whose Redemption?

Act of Redemption is about a struggling, post-apocalyptic human race being preyed on by demons who are trying to wipe them out and turn the earth into an extension of Hell. The demons can’t seal the deal because of an immortal, invulnerable teenage superhero, an undersized girl named Shevata who makes the Terminator look like R2D2. She’s more than a match for all the demons put together.

This is the first of a series of four novels “spanning Shevata’s long journey from war-weathered child with a horrific curse to life as a human,” according to the cover blurb. I regret to say that the prose of that sentence is representative of the book as a whole.

The story reads like a video game or a Dungeons & Dragons game written up as a novel. The “demons” are described as legions of hideous scary monsters—but these demons can be killed, physically. In fact, they’re always getting killed, in chapter after chapter.

Real demons are spirits. They cannot be hacked to death with swords. But the book’s theology only gets worse from there.

There is no presence of Christ in this story, under any name; nor is there any sign of God the Father, under any name. Here and there Ms. Cole mentions various “gods,” but they don’t seem to have any power or influence anywhere. Shevata seems to have acquired her special powers through a combination of selective breeding, intensive martial arts training, and a long apprenticeship in Hell.

Where is the “redemption” touted in the title? Apparently the author is thinking of Shevata’s personal redemption. We may infer from the text that this is to be accomplished not by God’s grace, but by works of the flesh: demon-smiting, making human friends, maybe even falling in love somewhere along the way. But as Christians we must not suggest to our children that this is how redemption is achieved! Indeed, it is not “achieved” by us at all: Jesus Christ Himself is our redemption, by the sovereign act of God (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Not One of Our Favorite Books

As literature, Act of Redemption is not the worst fantasy ever written—and bad fantasy is even more revolting than bad science fiction—but it doesn’t even measure up to the rather low bar set by the Harry Potter series. The book stands in need of serious editing, but apparently that’s not available at Author House.

The dialogue, from cover to cover, is a sort of American televisionese, just short of unbearable. We’ve read worse, but that’s not saying much. Given that children learn how to write by reading, and imitating what they read, this book has nothing to offer along those lines.

With the sole exception of Shevata, the protagonist, all of the characters herein are nothing more than names on paper. A good editor might have showed the author how to fix that, but there doesn’t seem to have been one on hand.

Instead of making her characters come alive, Ms. Cole is always telling us what they’re wearing. I do wish she wouldn’t do that, and I can’t imagine why she does.

If this review seems unnecessarily harsh, it’s only because we have made a point of judging the book solely on the text as published. We are not judging the author. The text is all the reader is going to see or know about. We have resisted the temptation to bring in other considerations urged on us by the book’s publicist.

Is ‘Christian Fantasy’ Possible?

In short, Act of Redemption is not likely to contribute anything to the education of young Christian readers.

We will continue to search for fantasy novels that do have something to contribute. There has to be something better than black magic, white magic, broomstick-riding, and vampirism. In our mission to reclaim the culture for Christ, we must not concede even this little square foot of ground to the ungodly.

Why should it not be possible to write fantasy that serves and honors God, and helps readers to know Him better? Certainly that was C. S. Lewis’ objective in writing the Narnia books, and we can see it in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasies, too. God has given us the power to write about imaginary worlds. We must not abuse it.

Meanwhile, parents would do well to read a novel themselves before presenting it to their children. There’s an awful lot of dreck and sleaze out there. Young people need to read, and with encouragement, they will learn to love to read.

Fantasy, which speaks directly to the reader’s imagination—much as poetry does—is powerful. Parents must choose books whose power is harnessed to God’s service.

Could this be a trial run of a coming national police force?

2009-09-30T12:59:00.002-04:00

A mysterious, reportedly unregistered and almost entirely unknown private security firm by the name "American Police Force" is causing a stir in a small Montana town for apparently impersonating local police.

According to a local media report, APF representatives were recently seen in the tiny town of Hardin, Montana, driving black SUV's with a peculiar logo and, inexplicably, "City of Hardin Police Department" stamped on the door.

However, Hardin does not have a police force. Read the rest of this article...

Welcome to Tyranny: Military Arrests in Pittsburgh at the G20

2009-09-25T08:04:00.004-04:00

What is the U.S. military doing engaging in "snatch and grab" tactics on American streets?

WARNING: Some profanity may be heard at the end of this clip. You may view the clip with your volume turned off and still understand its importance.

Reich: "Consumer spending is falling back to 60 to 65 percent of the economy, as government spending expands to fill the gap"

2009-09-24T08:01:00.002-04:00

So how can the Dow be flirting with 10,000 when consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut way back on buying because they have no money? Jobs continue to disappear. One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they're worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save...

...The explanation is simple. The great consumer retreat from the market is being offset by government's advance into the market. Consumer debt is way down from its peak in 2006; government debt is way up. Consumer spending is down, government spending is up. Why have new housing starts begun? Because the Fed is buying up Fannie and Freddie's paper, and government-owned Fannie and Freddie are now just about the only mortgage games remaining in play.

Is Freedom Coming Back to Canada? First Cracks Appear in ‘Human Rights’ Machine

2009-09-23T12:09:00.006-04:00

By Lee Duigon

“Come and see! This is a nasty knock for the Witch! It looks as if her power is already crumbling.”—C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe[1]

Is freedom of speech about to be restored in Canada? Is Canada’s repressive “human rights” regime about to come to an end?

As this summer drew to an end, two unprecedented events seemed to herald change.

For the first time ever, on September 16–17, a victim of a human rights tribunal had his day in a real court of law.

For the first time ever, the week before Labor Day, a human rights tribunal acquitted a defendant.

Boissoin Case in Court

Seven years ago, Rev. Stephen Boissoin wrote a letter to his local newspaper in Alberta, metaphorically declaring war on homosexual activism and blasting the provincial government’s policy of using public education to promote the homosexual lifestyle. In 2008 the Alberta human rights commission levied $7,000 in fines on the preacher, ordered him to publicly recant his beliefs, and ordered him banned for life from ever expressing such beliefs again—even in a private email.

“It is the most revolting order I have ever seen in Canada. Ever,” wrote journalist Ezra Levant, in an article giving the full particulars of the order.

After repeated postponements, Rev. Boissoin has finally appeared in a provincial court to appeal the order. Judge Earl Wilson heard arguments from both sides and “reserved judgment” for a future date, as yet undetermined.

“I have no idea how long I’ll have to wait for his decision,” Boissoin told Chalcedon. “I thought we did a good job of presenting our case, and that the judge was very fair.”

Rev. Boissoin’s lawyer, Gerry Chipeur, argued that the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission exceeded its authority by trying “to limit public debate … and public criticism of government policy.” He also argued that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the hate speech/thought crime provision, is flagrantly unconstitutional.

“They did not just ask for an apology,” Rev. Boissoin said. “They actually asked me to change my view. I think the judge made it quite clear that he considered it ludicrous.”

Whatever the court decides, he added, “The bottom line is this: I’ll never abide by that ruling. I won’t pay the fines, I won’t apologize, and I won’t recant.”

So far, he said, his legal defense has cost “a couple hundred thousand dollars—I’ve lost track of the actual total.” The money has been raised by donations, public fund-raising events, and the assistance of such groups as the Alliance Defense Fund here in the United States. Boissoin said he hopes the judge will order the government to reimburse those costs.

“I don’t believe God owes me anything,” he said. “I hope we have a victory, but it won’t move my faith if I don’t.

“I don’t like to go out there and ask for support. I don’t like to be a public figure. By now that whole side of it turns me off, and I’ll be glad when it’s all over.

“But I wouldn’t change a thing. I would write that article [the letter to the newspaper] again. Those were things that needed to be said, and I will not be bullied into silence.”

In spite of all the hardship, Rev. Boissoin said he does not regret the experience.

“I could never have taken my case this far without so many contributions from so many groups,” he said. “There are no words to thank them.

“But I’m even more thankful for the chance to know the Lord Jesus Christ and to stand firm for my beliefs. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to be a part of this.”

The First Acquittal

Meanwhile the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal—the federal body—for the first time ever has acquitted a defendant.

Wrapping up a case that had dragged on for six years, tribunal “judge”—not a real, law-court judge, but more of a government-appointed hearing officer—Athanasios Hadjis acquitted Marc Lemire of “hate speech” charges.

But Hadjis didn’t stop there. In his written ruling, he declared that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is

“[I]nconsistent with… the Charter [the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s equivalent of the U.S. Constitution], which guarantees the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. The restriction imposed by these provisions is not a reasonable limit within the meaning of the Charter.”

Ezra Levant, one of the “human rights” machine’s intended victims, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending himself against hate speech charges, (see also) until the case against him was suddenly dropped, wrote in his blog:

“As of yesterday, it’s no longer illegal to write politically incorrect things on the Internet. Now it’s illegal to prosecute someone for it.”

Levant explained to Chalcedon, a few days later, “There is nothing to stop a provincial human rights commission from proceeding against Christians, or others. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is not binding on its provincial counterparts.

“As well, the Canadian Human Rights Commission—the kangaroo police or prosecutors here—might themselves choose to continue investigating and harassing people, regardless of whether the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal—the kangaroo court—will uphold their prosecutions. That is, the CHRC itself has ten people in their censorship directorate. I don’t think they’re going to suddenly let everyone they’re investigating go free, unless they’re ordered to do so.”

The “judge” who acquitted Lemire, and called Section 13 unconstitutional, had for years been convicting defendants on Section 13 thought crime charges. Why would this judge suddenly go against his own previous rulings?

“I think Athanasios Hadjis saw that censorship is out of synch with Canadian values,” Levant said. “And I think his reasoning in his ruling was correct—the CHRC is not what it claims to be. It’s an ‘aggressive’ and ‘confrontational’ bully, not a conciliatory civil rights group. It metes out police-like punishments. And it pursues political speech, not true ‘hate.’ So I think Hadjis got it right. It just took a lot of public scrutiny to make him change his old ways—of being an enabler—and to see the light.”

“Don’t Play Along”

Kathy Shaidle, a Canadian blogger who is being sued for libel by a former agent of the CHRC, whose questionable tactics she reported on her website, called the CHRC “a make-believe court with make-believe judges, making up rules to go after make-believe Nazis.”

“They’ve been pretending for twenty years that Section 13 is constitutional,” she said. “Now their own make-believe judge has told them that it isn’t.”

Section 13, without ever defining what it means by “hate,” allows Canadians to be prosecuted by “human rights” tribunals for anything they say or write that might “be likely to expose” anyone to “hatred or contempt” at any time during an indefinite future. The government pays all the plaintiff’s legal fees, but the defendant is responsible for his own costs. Written laws and ordinary rules of evidence and procedure do not apply in a “human rights” hearing. It has also been noticed that the plaintiffs are invariably Muslims, homosexuals, or feminists while the defendants are almost always Christians or religious Jews. We know of no example of a Muslim or a homosexual militant being prosecuted for anti-Christian “hate.”

“There is a way to fight this censorship,” Ms. Shaidle said, “and now our fight will be a lot less hard.

“Don’t play along! If a human rights commission comes after you, ignore it—refuse to appear, refuse to pay fines. Then you might wind up in a real court—and none of these cases has ever gone into a real court. They always drop the case before that happens.”

Waiting for a Precedent

But now a case has been heard in a real court, and we are waiting for the judge’s ruling. By refusing to abide by its order, Rev. Boissoin forced the Alberta commission to allow his case to go to court.

“These human rights guys were never anything more than paper tigers,” Ms. Shaidle said. “The only difference between then and now is that people like Ezra Levant have been making fun of them in public every week, and calling them idiots. They can’t stand public scrutiny.

“We’re winning, It doesn’t matter why. But people do have to stop looking to politicians for answers, because those politicians are only in it for themselves.”

It would take an Act of Parliament, she added, or a Supreme Court decision, to bring a permanent end to the human rights commissions’ censorship campaign.

It remains to be seen whether Stephen Boissoin can get a favorable ruling in his case. If he does, a legal precedent will have been established against Section 13 and the “human rights” machine which it empowers.

The Weak vs. the Mighty

“I think Boissoin will win,” Ezra Levant said. “Hadjis’ decision is not binding on an Alberta court, but it will likely be persuasive. But even in the absence of that decision, the Boissoin case was so over the top, so unconstitutional, so bullying, so outrageous, that any judge would strike it down.”

We pray he’s right. We have for years reported on the excesses of Canada’s “human rights” regime, especially those cases featuring persecution of Christians for their religious beliefs. Until a few weeks ago, not a single defendant had ever been acquitted.

With similar “hate speech” laws on the books in Britain, and pending in the U. S. Congress, we would very much like to see Canada come to its senses in an Alberta courtroom, sometime soon. A formal court ruling that this kind of censorship is blatantly unconstitutional might inspire similar rulings elsewhere. It might even deter the enactment of Section 13-like laws here in America, persuading legislators that such laws will not survive trial in an American court. Canadian commentators like Ezra Levant have said America’s First Amendment protection of free speech and freedom of religion are much stronger than anything in Canadian law. Again, we pray they’re right.

Stephen Boissoin never sought the limelight. He is the kind of defendant who for years has been routinely abused and financially ruined by Canada’s human rights commissions. He has no powerful connections, no public podium at his disposal, no charisma—just an ordinary citizen, probably defenseless. Easy prey.

But this ordinary citizen, upheld by and armored with his faith in God, has not bent the knee to the false god of the state. Perhaps in him we shall soon see again the truth of St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians:

“God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” (1 Cor. 1:27)

1. C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 157.

SJC OK’s secret use of GPS devices - The Boston Globe

2009-09-22T08:27:00.002-04:00

SJC OK’s secret use of GPS devices - The Boston Globe

U.S. to push for new economic world order at G20

2009-09-22T08:22:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will urge world leaders this week to launch a new push in November to rebalance the world economy, but there are doubts national governments will bow to external advice.

A document outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings.

"The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not matched by offsetting adjustments in other parts," said the document, which was obtained by Reuters on Monday.