
News Intelligence Analysis
Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Liberal
(And Vote for Democrats)
By Katherine Yurica
Formerly titled:
Bloodguilty Churches
Why Bushs Agenda Is Immoral and an Abomination to God
January 19, 2005
Updated January 21, 2005
Updated Janurary 25, 2005
Updated August 7, 2005, with a portion of the preface from the
book.
Updated August 23, 2008 with the Foreword
by Dennis Crews and the title change*
Editor's
Note: On June 3, 2008, David Klinghoffer, a senior fellow at
the right-wing Discovery Institute, published a book titled,
How Would God Vote? Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative.
We think Klinghoffer's book deserves to be answered.
Rather than write a new article, however, we decided to rename
this essay because there is an urgent need to quickly tell the
other side of the story. We in fact originally published the
biblical basis for the liberal Christian's view in January of
2005. The book, titled Bloodguilty Churches by Katherine
Yurica is still available
as originally written in paperback. In addition, the Ben
Yehuda Press, a Jewish book publisher has announced that it will
be publishing a response to Klinghoffer in August titled How Would God REALLY Vote? A Jewish Response
to David Klinghoffer by
Larry Yudelson
*Now, for the
first time on August 23, 2008, the entire paperback titled
Bloodguilty Churches by Katherine Yurica is available
here for your reading, free of charge, including the newly added
Foreword by Dennis Crews. Only the title has changed. To read
the foreword and the preface click
here. Otherwise just scroll down.
To those readers
who wish to provide members of congress with a shortened version
of this essay appropriate for helping legislators to know what
the biblical position is on issues they will be voting on, you
may send your Senators or Representatives a link to The Yurica
Report's Congressional
Handbook,
This is a PDF file at 494 kb. The URL address is: https://www.yuricareport.com/Congress/CongressionalHandbook.pdf
Contents
NEW: The
Foreword
by Dennis Crews
From the
Preface to the Book
In the Beginning
Invade
Iraq or What's a Preemptive Strike?
Lies About the Threat of War
What Does the Bible Say About Preemptive
Strikes?
The War
Fairs
What Does the Bible Say About Profiting
from War?
Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo
Do Religious Conservatives Have the Moral
High Ground?
Religious Conservatives Agenda for Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
What Does the Bible Say About How a Nation
Must Treat the Poor and the Sick?
Religious
Conservative's Immigration Plans
Deregulate
Health and Safety and Environmental Laws
What Does the Bible Say About Rigging
Devices?
Mr. Bushs Justice
Versus the Bibles Justice
The Development of the Biblical Justice
System
Be Careful Not to Commit Judicial Murders:
The Texas Clemency Memos
Is Mr. Bush's Tort Reform Biblical?
The Bible's Criminal and Civil Code
System
What Does the Bible Say About Abortions?
GOP Operatives
as Slanderers and Hooligans, Scorner's and Ridiculers
What's Wrong With Today's Churches and
'Christians'?
Profile of the Man God Hates
End Notes
Or just scroll down.
He that hath an ear,
let him hear
what the spirit saith to the churches.
Revelations 2:29
Daniel Belteshazzar
(D.B.) served as an advisor in three administrations, though
his service was extremely brief in his last governmental position
where he was called upon to read the handwriting on the wall.
It was one of those
inexplicable moments: The words had appeared suddenly upon the
plaster of the wall opposite to where the head of state sat during
his huge celebration party.
First a hand appeared,
apparition-like, and then the hand wrote the words that stunned
the great hall. The celebrating ceased. The leaders face
blanched. (It was almost like the inauguration balls for a U.S.
president, where enormous funds are spent to reward the war lords
and corporate lords and ladies, and the
priests and religious leaders, who together form the power base
of a Republican regime and make up the class of nobles who rule
commerce and civilian behavior, and hence the nation.)
The inscription
read, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, which literally
meant, numbered, numbered, weighed, divisions.[1]
Our man, D.B. was
called in to provide an intelligence analysis to the leader after
his closest advisers, including the equivalent of the CIA and
chief of intelligence, admitted their inability to fathom the
meaning.
Then D.B. stepped
up to the plate and told the head of state the following:
Mene,
signifies that God has numbered your government and finished
it.
Tekel, signifies
that you are weighed in the balance and you are found wanting.
Peres, [singular
form, same root as upharsin],[2] signifies that your government
is divided and given to another.[3]
That night the
leaders government fell. A new head of state took the oath
of office and instituted a new government.
George W. Bush, his administration, the
Republican controlled congress as well as the Republican Party
itself, and most of the churches in America (including evangelical,
Southern Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic), stand indictednot
by mennot by this writerbut by the very Holy Scriptures
the religious-right and Mr. Bush profess to uphold.
Weighed against the Bible, the Bush actions
are not only morally corruptthey are unchristian and unbiblical
to the core.
In this essay, the Bush agenda is weighed
on the scale of Gods standards and it is found wanting.
In
the Beginning
In the year 2000, George W. Bush filed an
entirely specious complaint requesting an injunction against
ballots being counted in Florida in the presidential election.
Five Justices of the Supreme Court
of the United States issued an emergency order halting all counting
of ballots as Mr. Bushs lead perilously dropped to only
154 votes. The Court issued its order, having found Mr. Bush
would suffer irreparable harm if the counting proceeded.
What was the irreparable harm? Mr. Bush would have
lost the election if all the votes were counted. Thus five Justices
effectively handed Mr. Bush the presidency of the United States.
The American churches
did not rise up as one, denouncing the wickedness of the arbitrary[4]
court decision. Instead, the churches either remained silent
or they applauded the decision. Comments from the pulpits of
America rang out with, God intervened through the Supreme
Court to take the election out of the hands of the majority to
place Gods manGeorge W. Bushin the White House!
Its the first time I have heard God accused of being a
conniver. (Amazingly the churches were blind to the blasphemous
nature of their pronouncements.)
Yet the statement was met with Amens
and applause, which shows either the degree of ignorance or the
moral degeneracy of the congregations or both!
The situation so closely resembles an event
recorded in the Bible I was stunned by what I read. The churches
need to recall an ancient electionthe first
of its kind in Israels history, which dramatically reveals
Gods dedication to the concept of free-will as expressed
in the peoples choice. Had God been inclined to set aside
public opinion and the preference of the people for a king, Saul
would not have been chosen by the people to replace
Gods man, Samuel.[5]
The significant thing about Samuels
defeat is that it marked the end of a highly advanced if decentralized
system of jurisprudence in Israel, where learned men sat as judges
and interpreted and enunciated the laws of the nation.
Samuels defeat marked a landmark change in Israel; it ended
the rule of law, which was replaced by the spurious rule of men
to the utter peril of the people.
As we shall see, the ascension of George
W. Bush to the seat of power in America has brought its own challenge
to the American system of jurisprudence.
Samuels disappointment was evident
and God responded with words that are applicable to the churches
today. Addressing Samuel, God said:
They have
not rejected youthey have rejected Me that I should not
be King over them. (1 Samuel 8:7 Amplified Version.)
Like the people living in Samuels
time, this essay will reveal that the churches of America today
have rejected the words of God in the Bible to follow and idolatrize
sinners.
We must not forget that the people who chose
Saul over Samuel paid a terrible price. Its worth a review
of the scriptures to read the warning Samuel delivered to the
people. It makes one feel as if we are reliving a page in ancient
history. God instructed Samuel to warn the people of exactly
what would happen to them if they insisted on choosing the handsome,
charming Saul[6] over Gods man. The biblical passage
paraphrased says:
1) This leader
will
take your sons and appoint them to various positions in
his army;
2)
He will make some commanders, and require
others to make his instruments of war and equipment;
3)
He will redistribute the wealth of the nation: he will
confiscate your property and give it to his favorite followers;
he will take your daughters to be cooks and bakers and he will
take your servants for his own service; he will take a tenth
of your grain and vineyards and give it to his officers; he will
take a tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves;
4)
When you cry out against his doingsGod will not
hear youfor you chose the man for yourselves! (Derived
from 1 Samuel 8:11-18 Amplified Version.)
Had we been able to recognize and extrapolate
the truth from the past we might have seen that the scripture
passage accurately warned us what would happen if a man with
the characteristics of George W. Bush ever seized the White House.
Invade
Iraq or Whats a Preemptive Strike?
Even before George W. Bush was selected
president by the U.S. Supreme Courts religious-conservatives,
Mr. Bush supported an invasion of Iraq. [7] The plan
was laid out in one of the key documents titled, Rebuilding
Americas Defenses, which was written in 1998 and was
authored by members of the neo-conservative think tank, Project
for a New American Century (PNAC). Most of the men Mr. Bush chose
for key administration positions were involved in the PNAC projects.[8]
As I wrote in my earlier
article, Fraud Traced to the White House, the
PNAC documents clearly show that before George W. Bush took office,
key officials of his future administration not only listed Iraq,
Iran, and North Korea as adversaries who were characterized
as rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons
as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek
to dominate, but Mr. Bush's neo-con group endorsed an alien
concept. They put forth the doctrine of preemptive strikes against
those nations believed to have hostile intent against
the U.S. before such intent is manifested.[9]
The founders of PNAC wrote:
The history of the 20th Century
should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances
before crises emerge and to meet threats before they become dire.[10]
In fact, on pages 51 and 67 of the institutions intellectual
centerpiece, the PNAC authors lament that the process of transforming
the military would most likely be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing eventlike a new Pearl Harbor.[11]
In addition to the PNAC documents and Mr. Bushs Energy
Policy,[12] we have the eye witness account of Paul
ONeill,[13] who was Secretary of the Treasury at
the time.[14] He reports a National Security Council
meeting was called ten days into Bushs term. Condoleezza
Rice raised the issue of Iraq and the dangers posed by Saddam
Husseins weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush
ordered Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs
of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton to begin preparing options
for the use of U.S. ground forces to bring down Saddam Hussein.[15]
Lies About
the Threat of War
After the tragic events of September
11, 2001, the road to war was made considerably smoother. George
W. Bush still had to convince the American people and Congress
that Saddam Hussein represented a threat to the United States.
He had to justify a preemptive invasion.[16] So Mr.
Bush told Congress and the American people that Saddam Hussein
had weapons of mass destruction when he didnt;[17] Mr. Bush
asserted America was in imminent danger of being attacked by
Iraq when it wasnt.[18] And Mr. Bush repeatedly
linked Iraq to the World Trade Center attack when there was no
connection between Iraq and the September 11th events at all.[19]
Condoleezza Rice spoke of a mushroom cloud over
New York. All these statements were false;[20] moreover,
lying to Congress is a federal felony and is an impeachable offense.[21]
But the American church leaders believed Mr. Bushs statements.
And the congregations believed him. The simpleminded believed
him.[22] And with the churches support,
there were 20,753 combat sorties flown over Iraq, using 18,467
smart bombs and missiles and 9,251 dumb bombs.[23] America
dropped an estimated 4,000 bombs in a 48 hour period and over
27,000 bombs by May 21, 2003. A recent survey reveals the U.S.
killing efficiency. There have been an estimated 100,000 Iraqi
men, women and children killed, excluding the deaths from Falluja.[24]
Some sources believe Iraqi deaths may rise much higher
when the deaths at Falluja are counted.[25]
Looking at the numbers, the American wrought death and destruction
in Iraq is comparable to the tsunami that struck Asia in December
2004.[26] Yet did the churches mourn the loss
of the innocent lives in Iraq? Did they weep? Or did they applaud?
I wrote a little about what happened:
People on talk shows began
touting the war in Iraq as the greatest military victory
in history. A wild national fever of pride burns across
the country. But what justification is there for such arrogance?
Armed Iraqi soldiers were no match for the might of the American
army. Pickup trucks went up against tanks. Rifles competed against
heavy artillery. One U.S. Marine Commander, Lieutenant Colonel
Bryan McCoy told Time magazine (April 14, 2003) reporters:
Lets quit pussyfooting and call it what it is. Its
murder, its slaughter, its clubbing baby harp seals.
McCoys men had just killed 92 Iraqis and taken 44 prisoners,
with no injuries to the American troops. Once the peace came
and protests began with Iraqis shouting, Americans Go Home,
American soldiers fired into crowds of unarmed civilians, killing
many.[27]
This was nothing of which to be proud. It makes me hang my
head and ask, Whatever happened to the church of our fathers?
If the churches do not weep for Iraqi lives, what can explain
their indifference to the American casualties? The United Press
International reported that American casualties are grossly underreported
by the Pentagon, and now stand at over 25,000.[28]
What Does
the Bible Say About Preemptive Strikes?
There are two
biblical passages that deal with preemptive strikes based upon
fear.[29] The first happened in Egypt prior to
the Exodus. The Pharaoh observed that the children of Israel
outnumbered the Egyptians and were physically stronger. Thinking
shrewdly, he said should war befall us the Israelites
might join our enemies, fight against us, and escape out
of the land. His solution was to kill all the male infants
born to the Israelites.
The second instance of a preemptive strike
is often called The Massacre of the Innocents[30] in Matthew
2:1-18. After the three wise men visited King Herod, they told
him the prophecy that a child was to be born in Bethlehem who
would become King of the Jews. Herod, who became
suddenly alarmed, felt threatened at the news and he ordered
the death of all the children in Bethlehem from two years old
and under.
Both these instances reveal the underlying
warped thinking involved in the immoral preemptive murder of
innocents: Lets get them before they get us!
Fear is the motivator for the action. Hatred for anyone who poses
even a remote future threat is the underlying psychosis of the
act. The justification is always Machiavellian: the ends justify
the means. The mindless Bush administration rushed into Iraq
and even proclaimed the war was over before it really began.
Now, according to recent reports from Iraq, the U.S. is fighting
a civil war against an Iraqi army of 200,000. The U.S. is outnumbered.
The
War Fairs
No sooner had Mr. Bush invaded, when trade
fairs and conferences began to pop up, advertising the money
to be made in rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq. One
brochure definitely does not understate the spoils of shedding
blood:
Business
opportunities continue to grow, as evidenced by recent pledges
of U.S. and international aid. Billions of dollars have already
been earmarked for the two countries.[31]
Then on October 29-30, 2003, an event organized
by MFM Trade Meetings of Washington D.C. was billed as the most
important conference on rebuilding yet, To date, no event
has brought together all the players nor has any included involvement
by the leading U.S. and international agencies involved in the
rebuilding of both countries.[32]
The conference scheduled high-ranking
U.S. government agency officials, representatives of international
financial institutions, officials from Afghanistan and Iraq and
other leading authorities.[33]
The names of delegates were kept confidential
to everyone but those who paid substantial amounts for the list
as sponsors. We do know that Carl Kress, Chief of
Staff of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and George P.
Sigalos, Director of Government Relations for Halliburton had
prominent roles in the business fair at the Omni Shoreham Hotel
in Washington D.C.[34] Every issue was
addressed including security, financing and answers to participants
legal questions from Pillsbury Winthrop and several other top
legal firms.[35]
Some very profitable changes occurred following
the preemptive strike against Iraq. Under the old Iraqi law,
according to an international trade news brief by Pillsbury Winthrop,
foreign nationals (other than nationals of Arab countries)
were not permitted to directly invest in an Iraqi company
or an Iraqi project. That all changed when Mr. L. Paul Bremer,
the Administrator of the Iraq Provisional Authority signed Order
Number 39, which not only abolished the old Iraqi law that prohibited
anyone but an Arab national from owning a piece of Iraqi business,
but eradicated the rule that limited the percentage of ownership
by a foreign investor. Paul Bremers order now allows foreign
investors the right to own 100% of an Iraqi entity or project.[36]
Everything was made easy for those who wanted a part of
the booty of the war.
How quickly the
nation forgot that our Shock and Awe techniques of
destruction not only created the opportunities to rebuild
Iraq, but our occupation of the country was a necessity in order
to create the legal grounds for U.S. companies to invest in Iraqi
assets, including the development and processing of the second
largest oil reserves in the world.[37] No wonder
corporate coffers opened to Mr. Bushs campaign drives.
What
Does the Bible Say About Profiting from War?
The question that must be asked is how does
a moral people respond to the acts of the Bush administration?
We know that corporations have profited from the warsome
of them making billions of dollars. The Center for Corporate
Policy lists the top ten war profiteers.[38] Leading
the way are Lockheed Martin, raking in $21.9 billion in Pentagon
contracts and Halliburton, with $10.8 billion. The Center for
Corporate Policy reports Halliburtons performance on their
contracts has led to multiple criminal investigations into
overcharging and kickbacks. According to them, nine different
reports reveal government auditors have found widespread,
systemic problems with almost every aspect of Halliburtons
work in Iraq, from cost estimation and billing systems to cost
control and subcontract management. Six former employees
have come forward, corroborating the auditors concerns.[39]
Bechtel, according to the Center for Corporate
Policy, was literally tasked with repairing much of Iraqs
infrastructure. To get the job done, Bechtel hired over
90 Iraqi subcontractors, but bypassed Iraqi engineers and
managers. The GAO reports that Bechtel was responsible for restoring
electrical service in Iraq, but the electrical system fails to
show any marked improvement over the immediate postwar
levels of May 2003 and in some areas, electrical transmission
has worsened.[40]
Are there any guidelines that reveal what
the Spirit says to the churches? In fact, God speaks as a father
to his son, from the heart of God to
his readers in this passage in Proverbs that links a preemptive
attack on innocent victims with greed and the plunder of war:
My son, if
sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say,
Come with
us, let us lie in wait to shed blood, let us ambush the innocent
without cause [and show that his piety is in vain]; let us swallow
them up alive as does Sheol [the place of the dead], and whole,
as those who go down into the pit [of the dead]; We shall find
and take all precious goods [when our victims are put out of
the way], we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your
lot among us
and be a sworn brother and comrade
My son, do
not walk in the way with them, restrain your foot from their
path; for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed
blood.
For in vain
is the net spread in the sight of any bird; but [when these men
set a trap for others] they are lying in wait for their own blood,
they set an ambush for their own lives. So are the ways of every
one who is greedy of gain; such [greed for plunder] takes away
the life of its possessors. (Proverbs 1:10-19, Amplified
Version.)
The prophet Isaiah describes the nation
who rushed to war this way:
Their works
are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent
blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and
destruction are in their paths and highways.
The way of
peace they know not, and there is no justice or right in their
goings; they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes in them
does not know peace. (Isaiah 59:7-8 Amplified)
Isaiah describes
the man who has led his nation away from Gods way:
Your
iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and
your sins have hid His face from you, so that He will not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.
(Isaiah 59:2-3 Amplified)
Abu
Ghraib and Guantánamo
When ancient Israel needed military intelligence,
they sent spies into the land of their enemies to gather information.[41]
There is not a single instance in the Bible where torture
is authorized or condoned. It is always presented as something
used against the righteous, and the righteous have never resorted
to torturing their enemies. The word is used only once in the
King James Version at Hebrews 11:35:
Others
were tortured to death with clubs, refusing to accept release
[offered on the terms of denying their faith] that they might
be resurrected to a better life. Others had to suffer the trial
of mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They
were stoned to death; they were lured with tempting offers [to
renounce their faith]; they were sawn asunder; they were slaughtered
by the sword; [while they were alive] they had to go about wrapped
in the skins of sheep and goats, utterly destitute, oppressed,
cruelly treated
(Hebrews 11:35-37 Amplified Version)
Yet the United
States, under the leadership of George W. Bush engaged in torture
of the Iraqi people who were often just rounded up at random
from the streets and imprisoned. Investigative reporter Seymour
Hersh stated that on February 7, 2002, Mr. Bush signed a secret
official document authorizing torture.[42] The statement
said:
I
[George
W. Bush] determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply
to our conflict with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout
the world.[43]
He also stated in the document that he had:
[T]he authority
under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the U.S.
and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise the authority at this
time.[44]
In order that his readers clearly understood,
Sy Hersh pointed out that Mr. Bush was determining the detainees
had no inherent protections under the Geneva Conventions
and therefore whatever happened to the detainees, good,
bad, or otherwise, was solely at the discretion of the
President of the United States.[45]
Significantly, Alberto Gonzales, (Mr. Bushs
choice for Attorney General in the Bush second term), made a
false statement to the press and to the American people during
the height of the torture scandal in which he asserted:
The President
had made no formal determination invoking the Geneva
Conventions before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.[46]
Mr. Gonzales falsehood was caught
when his Memorandum for the President surfaced.[47] The memorandum
was dated January 25, 2002, more than a year prior to the invasion
of Iraq. In it, Mr. Gonzales wrote:
On January
18, I advised you that the Department of Justice had issued a
formal legal opinion concluding that the Geneva Convention III
on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (GPW) does not apply to
the conflict with al Qaeda.[48]
Mr. Gonzalez continued:
I understand
that you decided that GPW does not apply and, accordingly, that
al Qaeda and Taliban detainees are not prisoners of war under
the GPW.[49]
In an interview September 14, 2004 with
Terry Gross of National Public Radio (NPR) and transcribed by
the Yurica Report,[50] Hersh described an impatient
Donald Rumsfeld, who wanted to take not only operational control
of the war, but also wanted control of intelligence. Hersh said,
After 9/11,
Rumsfeld had just had it with the notion of going through the
legal process to go after people we believed were very
important inside Al Qaeda.
According to Hersh, Rumsfeld said in a sense,
the hell with it!
So Rumsfeld
set up a secret unit. The secrecy surrounding the unit
was overwhelming. Hersh said the unit is called the Special
Access Program.
Significantly Hersh said, I know there
was a presidential finding for it.
In describing the unit he said,
Everybody
was under cover. They had their own aircraft. They had their
own helicopters. They would hear about somebody they thought
was important in the war on terrorism, somebody to interrogate.
They would just get into the country, get to the guys house
and get him out without going through any formal process. They
were taking these people to Thailand, later they were taken to
Egypt.
Hershs statement that the President
of the United States signed a document relating to the interrogation
and torture of detainees is now verified by documents obtained
by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from the U.S. government
that refer specifically to an executive order that made the methods
of interrogation, which included torture, legal.[51]
In addition, Mr. Bush obviously required
Alberto Gonzales to either directly draft legal briefs or to
seek other legal opinions showing how the Geneva Convention does
not apply to those labeled terrorists, members of
al Qaeda or to enemy combatants.[52] The Presidents
prior decisions in writing (quoted above) regarding torture and
the Geneva Convention appear to be an early effort to insulate
the President from criminal prosecution.[53]
In still another draft that differed very
little from the final document, the Wall Street Journal
revealed a memorandum that claimed the president was not bound
by domestic and international law banning the use of torture
and claimed that the weight of a presidential order acted as
a shield against possible criminal prosecution.[54] The report
states:
In
order to respect the presidents inherent constitutional
authority to manage a military campaign
(the prohibition
against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations
undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority
Sometimes
the greater good for society will be accomplished by violating
the literal language of the criminal law
In particular,
the necessity defense can justify the intentional killing of
one person
so long as the harm avoided is greater.[55]
What American administration has ever wrapped
itself so tightly in the Machiavellian blanket to make torture
the means justified by the desired ends? The memo actually redefined
what degree of pain and suffering must be inflicted upon a victim
before the acts constitute torture. Compare this to the biblical
passage above and visualize Jesus making the same argument
to the Sanhedrin. I promise you the comparison will revolt your
sensibilities. The degree of pain inflicted:
must
be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical
injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function,
or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount
to torture, it must result in significant psychological harm
of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.[56]
At Mr. Gonzales confirmation hearings
in January, 2005, Mr. Gonzales was invited to reject the ruling
that the infliction of pain short of serious physical injury,
organ failure or death did not constitute torture. He answered:
I dont have a disagreement with the conclusions then
reached.[57] Although the Department of Justice has
rewritten and whitewashed this August 2002 memorandum as of December
30, 2004, removing the most objectionable wording (apparently
to benefit Alberto Gonzalezs appointment as their new boss),
the original document remains a heinous testimony against the
Bush regime.[58] Moreover, twelve retired U.S. military
leaders with exceptional credentials and stature have written
an open letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting
that Mr. Gonzales appointment be denied.[59] Never has
an American president and his administration resorted to such
extreme forms of evil and what is worse, that evil is still going
on.
Do
Religious Conservatives Have the Moral High Ground?
The GOP, joined by a chorus from the religious-right
and the neo-conservatives who have sought to advance Mr. Bushs
power have all watched admiringly as he struts across the stage
of Americas political theatre. Lassoing and exaggerating
the importance of three issues highly susceptible to emotion
baiting and a charged current of fear and irrationality, clever
men have hijacked the churches into believing they have taken
the moral high ground in America.[60]
The churches laud Mr. Bush as a moral
man simply because he is against any legal
union between gays, against any abortion and essentially
(for all practical purposes) against stem cell research.
Sadly the churches and Mr. Bush have no
knowledge of God. They are completely ignorant that in the Bible,
the existence of ten righteous people in one of the cities would
have been sufficient to spare Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction,[61]
but ten righteous people are insufficient to spare the nation
that refuses to defend the rights of the needy![62] And
what is perhaps even more significant, God equates the lying
of church leadersthe false prophets of Jeremiahs
day, their adultery, and their encouragement of evil doers to
be no different than the sins of those living in Sodom and Gomorrah.[63]
The problem with todays church leaders is that they
refuse to confess their own adulterous acts while condemning
the most hated and reviled members of American societylike
poor Matthew Shepardheaping vile abuse and death upon others
so the eyes of churchgoers are always directed away from themselves,
insuring that others will always be the scapegoats.[64]
Roman Catholic Bishops, while urging and
even threatening their parishioners to vote only for those candidates
who oppose abortion and gay unions, [65] hid active
pedophiles from discovery and refuse to subject priests to prosecution
for their criminal acts. If that is not enough, the Bishops have
removed the churches auditing program on known pedophiles.[66]
One is forced to ask, which sin is the greateror which
act does the most damagethe pedophiles or the consenting
adult gays? [67]
Nor do the protestant churches have any
excuse; they are shepherds over flocks living in the Bible belt
where the towns, counties and states have the largest number
of divorces in the nation. While Jesus was silent about homosexuals,
he was not silent about divorce. He called divorce a sin unless
adultery was the reason for it.[68]
According to columnist Andrew Sullivan,
the states with the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are
Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North
Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, which just
happen to make up so-called red states which overwhelmingly
support George W. Bush.[69] On the other hand, the
states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island and Vermont. Sullivan points out, Every
single one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The
Bible Belt divorce rate
is roughly 50 percent higher than
the national average.[70]
Sullivan says, A staggering 23 percent
of married born-agains have been divorced twice or more.[71]
And who has the most teen births? In the state where preaching
against teen sex is the strongestteen pregnancies are the
highest: Sullivan says, 16.1 percent of all births are teen births
in Texas, but in liberal Massachusetts, its 7.4 almost
half.[72]
How dare the churchgoers
think of themselves as a moral army, preparing America for their
rule! Yet they protect pastors accused of adultery and homosexuality,[73]
while they condemn without mercy humanists
and liberals in America who follow the teachings
of Jesus and seek to protect and provide for the poor and do
justice.
There's a grave discrepancy between what the Bible says and what
the churches are doing: the Bible makes it clear that Christians
can associate with anyone who lives in this world. And what is
even more significant, a Christian may not judge non-Christians!
Even if Christians are the majority, they may not make laws that
deny civil liberties to people because of alleged sexual sins.
St. Paul makes it clear: a Christian's area of influence in such
matters is restricted to the confines of church membership where
members must expel an immoral offender from their midst: slanderers,
liars, deceivers, the fearful and those involved in adultery
or pedophilia comes to mind. Those members may not keep their
church membership (1 Corinthians 5:9-13). The churches in America,
however, have it just the opposite: they point their accusatory
fingers at everyone outside their churches, and they seek to
deny non-members civil rights, but never even look at their own
hearts and guilty souls.
Religious
Conservative's Agenda for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
Mr.
Bush said in remarks at the State Department in 2001:
It
is a part of our government's desire to support the armies of
compassion. We don't want government to take the good Fathers
place.[74] We want the government to stand side-by-side
with the good people of SOME[75] and programs like
it all around the country. [76] (Emphasis
mine.)
In both criticizing
and equating government as standing in the place of God, Mr.
Bush transfers social assistance programs from national interest
and responsibility to private charities, which do not have the
resources necessary to feed, clothe, shelter and pay for the
medical costs and care for the 35.9 million Americans who live
in poverty.[77] Of the 35.9 million 12.9 million children
now live in poverty. Moreover, the number of people in America
without health insurance grew last year to 45 million. In 2003
the average poverty line was drawn for an individual at $9,393.[78]
Those who earned more were marginally okay, those who
earned less were impoverished. It becomes clearer when one realizes
that the median household income in America is $43,318.
In the face of the overwhelming numbers
of poor and needy in America, Mr. Bush proposes to weaken and
eventually eliminate the only programs that really help the sick,
the elderly, and the poor. Lets look at Mr. Bushs
record and the programs themselves.
For nearly four decades, the Medicare program
in the U.S. has been extending and improving the lives of tens
of millions of older Americans. Congressman Tom Allen of Maine
said, The program has been protecting seniors from impoverishment
due to devastating medical costs and providing peace of mind
to them and their families.[79]
In 2003, the administration forced
through a new Medicare Prescription Drug program that has had
a negative impact upon Americas elderly.[80] Tom Allen
said at the time, The House and Senate Medicare bills offer
the illusion of prescription drug coverage, but both are in fact
riddled with inequality, complexity, uncertainty, gaps in coverage
and hidden costs.[81]
Rep. Allen said, Even more appalling,
the House bill transforms Medicare into a privatized voucher-type
system in 2010, ending the guaranteed benefits Medicare has reliably
provided to seniors since 1956.[82]
It appears now that the congressman was
only too right. Significantly, most religious leaders who support
Mr. Bush in America quietly allowed the passage of the Medicare
Drug law even though the bulk of the benefits were being transferred
to corporations. A study prepared by Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar,
Directors of the Health Reform Program at Boston University showed:
Sixty-one percent of Medicares prescription drug
subsidy is going to the drug companies, [83] while many
of Americas poorest and weakest citizens were allowed to
slip through what researchers have dubbed the doughnut
holes.
Most seniors found they had little or even
less financial relief from the program.[84] Yet the
churches allowed it! One hates to suggest it, but perhaps the
acquiescence of the churches has something to do with the fact
that they have been bought off. For according to documents the
White House provided to the Associated Press, the so-called faith-based
groups, (which include churches) received $1.17 billion in grants
from federal agencies in 2003 alone.[85] And do
note this: congress didnt pass this programMr. Bush
rewrote the federal rules based upon his own self-appointed authority.[86]
Just as senior citizens learned that they
had not gained a penny by the Bush Prescription Drug program,
Mr. Bush announced the largest increase in premiumsa whopping
seventeen percent increasethe largest increase in the programs
40-year history.[87]
The next target was announced by the GOP.
It intends to make drastic cuts in Medicaid (the program that
provides medical attention to the poorest citizens). Medicaid
is being targeted because it has become the largest government
health care program. According to Lawrence ORourke of the
Sacramento Bee, Medicaid serves about 53 million
people. It pays for nearly half of all nursing home care in the
United States. It pays the health-care costs of one in four children
in America and it pays more than forty percent of the cost of
caring for children in hospitals.[88]
Fears that Mr. Bush plans to shift more
Medicaid costs to the states, brought the nations governors
out to mount a bipartisan lobbying effort to stave off new federal
cuts in the program.[89] But Mr. Bush has squeezed
the governments bank accounts like lemons, hoping to drain
the very last drop of excess from them by granting the top one
and two percent of the wealthiest Americans huge tax cuts that
forced the full weight of the tax burden upon the middle class
and harmed the poorest and neediest of Americans.[90]
The President's brother, Jeb Bush has introduced a plan in Florida
to privatize
Medicaid. "It's very radical," said Joan Alker,
senior researcher for the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown
University. "It seems clear that the intent is really based
on the notion that the H.M.O.'s and private insurers will have
substantial flexibility to make a profit at the expense of the
Medicaid beneficiary, who essentially assumes the risk of not
getting the services they need. That's unprecedented in Medicaid,
really."
The persistent attack
by the Bush administration against the poor is revealed in a
report written jointly by the Congressional Black Caucus and
the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which shows how Mr. Bush has
hurt the poor and needy in every aspect of life, including health
care, education, and the creation of jobs. [91]
Do not err, Mr. Bushs programs are
also an indictment against the religious leaders of America who
not only condone the weakening of the entitlement programs, including
Social Security, but some like Pat Robertson, have openly advocated
the destruction of such programs.
It is significant that Mr. Bush is following
Robertsons sketch of how to privatize Social Security.
[92]
Robertson laid it out and went through the motions on
his 700 Club in 1985: First, according to Robertsons
lead, one begins by trying to scare everyone into thinking that
Social Security is running out of money and it must be revamped
in order to save it. Polished to perfection, the technique is
another example of the usefulness of lies that create fear, that
create a stampede, and then work to push the passage of questionable
bills. But if one reads and thinks, one will know that Mr. Bush
is fabricating again. [93] The truth is, Social
Security is in no danger unless Mr. Bush gets his hands on it.[94]
Make no mistake there is an underlying cruelty
that is manifest in Mr. Bushs agenda. The privatizing of
Social Security will be accomplished by transferring material
wealth to Wall Street and to corporations. As Pat Robertson pointed
out on his show in 1985, the funds now going to the elderly will
be transferred into the pockets of corporations.[95] Robertson
exclaimed in glee, Imagine
$100 billion dollars a
year flowing into American industry! It would be marvelous.
[96]
Under the twisted
notions of the Dominionists, Medicare
and Medicaid, along with Social Security are considered to be
programs that rob the rich to help the poor. Religious right
leaders actually label these programs as immoral
and point to them as examples of thievery. Heres
a sample of a portion of an interview I quoted in The Despoiling
of America with an economist, Dr. Walter Williams, professor
of economics at George Mason University who appeared on Pat Robertsons
700 Club in 1985:
What
the government is doing in order to help these older citizens
is not charity at all. It is theft. That is, the government is
using power to confiscate property that belongs to one American
and give, or confiscate their money, and provide services for
another set of Americans to whom it does not belong. That is
the moral question that Christians should face with not only
Medicare, Medicaid. But many other programs as well
.[97]
If one thinks that no one else would make
such statements today, read the comments of David Holcberg, research
associate at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California:
The
wealthiest people on earth are expected to sacrifice (voluntarily
or by force) the wealth they have earned to provide for the needs
of those who did not earn it.[98]
We have lived in a time in the last twenty-five
years when so-called Christian book publishers and
Christian bookstores distribute books written by
people who have devoted their time and resources to dispelling
the truths of the Bible.
One book, Idols for Destruction by
Herbert Schlossberg, (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983) quotes
Irving Kristol, the founder of the neo-conservative movement,
and then goes on to attack the very idea of the existence of
poverty in America, calling it a lie. Schlossberg
asserted that the poor receive medical attention equal
or superior to other groups by claiming for proof that
families earning less than $5,000 annually, accounted for
1,141 days of hospital care per thousand persons in the 1980s
while those earning more than $25,000 annually received only
679 days of hospital care.[99]
After a man has said that, why need anyone
tend to anything else he has to say? The number of days
spent in a hospital is no indicator of the quality of care the
poor receivebut it is a pointer to the fact the poor are
sicker more often than those who can afford to go for checkups
at their physicians offices and receive preventive care
help. (Sadly, most physicians in my town now refuse to accept
Medicare patients.)
Too many Americans have been reduced to
abject poverty. Too many are homelessliving with their
children on the streets of American cities, shivering in the
cold. In a time when Mr. Bush has lost more jobs than any other
president since Herbert Hoover, attitudes have hardened against
the poor and needy. There have been reports and interviews on
Air America Radio that reveal even returning Iraq vets cannot
find worktheir old jobs have been given to others and accounts
are surfacing that returning Iraq war veterans are living on
the streets. Where is the GI Bill from this president who relies
entirely on the charitable works of the churches
who give out free meals, but have no funds to provide income
sufficient for housing and clothing and medical help?
Following the tsunami on December 26, 2004,
President Bush first pledged only $15 million to help the victims.
Then when the U.N. began to complain, Mr. Bush upped Americas
contribution to $35 million. It took an uproar among Americans
and newspaper editorials like the New York Times for Mr.
Bush to express his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, and Indonesia and to speak publicly about the devastation,
[100] and to finally pledge $350 million.[101]
Nicholas Kristof asked in his New York
Times column, Is the U.S. stingy about helping poor
countries? The answer iswe are extremely stingy.
The bottom line is that this month and every month, more
people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000)
than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because
of diarrhea (140,000). Kristof points out that Americans
gave 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance
to poor countries. Compare that to Denmark which gave 84 cents,
the Netherlands which gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents and
France gave 41 cents.[102]
What Does the Bible Say About How a Nation Must
Treat the Poor and the Sick?
But does the Bible say anything about Professor
Williams accusation that Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid are actually immoral programs because they rob from
the rich to give to the poor who havent earned it?
To the contrary, in fact the Bible requires
a portion of the wealth of all the people of a nation to be set
aside and transferred to the poor and needy! Clearly Mr. Bush
and the Republicans in Congress are trying to destroy what God
has established.
Deuteronomy 26:12-13
establishes a holy tax (called a tithe) for the nation of ancient
Israel, which transfers wealth to a group of people who did not
earn it. In this scripture the payments were made every third
year to the Levites, who were our equivalent of civil servants
and to the stranger and the sojourner, the fatherless,
and to the widow, that they may eat within your towns and be
filled. (Amplified.)
Similarly Deuteronomy
24: 19-22 (Amplified) creates both a form of taxation as well
as a transfer of the wealth on an annual basis to the poor: the
stranger and sojourner, the fatherless and the widow. The scripture
requires that a portion of three different crops be left for
the poor and needy: the harvest from the fields, oil from the
olive trees, and the grapes from the vineyard.
Moreover, in the Bible, refusal to defend
the rights of the needy and the widows and orphans (and here
Im thinking of the widows and orphans of the September
11, 2001 tragedy) is a very big deal.[103] For it
was sufficient cause for God to allow that nation to be destroyed
and its people carried away into slavery. The book of Jeremiah
speaks to the issue and God begins to sound more and more like
a good liberal Democrat:
For among
my people are found wicked men; they watch as fowlers do who
lie in wait; they set a trap, they catch men.
As a cage
is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit and treachery;
therefore they have become great and grown rich,
They have
grown fat and sleek. Yes, they surpass in deeds of wickedness.
They do not judge and plead with justice the cause of the
fatherless that it may prosper, and they do not defend the rights
of the needy. (Emphasis mine.)
Shall I not
punish them for these things? Says the Lord. Shall not I avenge
myself on such a nation as this? (Jeremiah 5: 26-29 Amplified
Version.)
Jeremiah goes on in the 2nd Chapter:
Also on your
skirts is found the lifeblood of the persons of the innocent
poor. You did not find them house-breaking, nor have I found
it out by secret search, but it is because of [your lust for
idolatry that you have done] all these things
Behold, I
will bring you to judgment and will plead against you, because
you say, I have not sinned. (Jeremiah. 2: 34-35.
Amplified Version.)
Jeremiah tells the nation what Gods
terms are if they are to be spared from destruction and from
being carried away as captives:
If you thoroughly
amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly and truly
execute justice between every man and his neighbor,
If you do
not oppress the transient and the alien, the fatherless and the
widow, or shed innocent blood [by oppression and by judicial
murders]
Then I will
cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of
old to your fathers
(Jeremiah 7:5-7. Amplified Version.)
Amos the prophet addresses a nation who
continues to mistreat the poor:
Hear this,
O you who would swallow up and trample down the needy, even to
make the poor of the land to fail and come to an end, Saying,
When will
the new moon festival be past, that we may sell grain? And the
Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, making the ephah measure
small, and the shekel measure great, and falsifying the scales
by deceit, that we may buy [into slavery] the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals; yes, and sell the refuse
of the wheat [as if it were good grade]?
The Lord
has sworn by [Himself Who is] the glory and pride of Jacob, Surely
I will never forget any of their
deeds. (Amos
8:4-7. Amplified.)
Amos makes it clear that if a nation places
burdens upon the poor, allows the powerful to take advantage
of them and denies the poor not only their day in court but true
justice and equity, that nation will not partake of its own bounty.
Amos 5:11-12. Other verses in Proverbs extend Gods blessings
to those who help the poor:
He who has
pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and that which he has given
He will repay to him. (Proverbs 19:17. Amplified.)
He who gives
to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes [from their
want] will have many a curse. (Proverbs 28:27. Amplified.)
Here is what God says about medical assistance
through the prophet Ezekiel as God addressed the spiritual shepherds:
The diseased
and weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed,
the hurt and crippled you have not bandaged, those gone astray
you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought to find;
but with force and hardhearted harshness you have ruled them.
(Ezekiel 34:4 Amplified)
And because the churches and the false spiritual
leaders failed in their responsibility to the sick and infirm
of the nation, Ezekiel quotes God:
I am against
the [spiritual] shepherds; and I will require My sheep at their
hand, and cause them to cease feeding the sheep
I will rescue
My sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
(Ezekiel 34:9-10 Amplified)
Another poignant scripture that reveals
Jesus own attitude toward the nations and people who have
ignored the plight of the poor, sick and needy is from the book
of Matthew. Notice that the separation of the people is done
on a national basis. This must be read as an indictment
of national political actions as well as personal actions. The
individuals who supported false leaders and their agenda toward
the poor and needy are clearly going to be held responsible for
their votes:
All nations
shall be gathered before him, and he will separate the people
And
he will cause the sheep to stand at his right hand, but the goats
at his left
.Then he will say to those at his left hand,
Be gone from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared
for the devil and his angels!
For I was
hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me
nothing to drink; I was a stranger and you did not welcome me
I
was naked and you did not clothe me; I was sick and in prison
and you did not visit me with help and ministering care.
Then they
also [in their turn] will answer, Lord, when did we see
you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison,
and did not minister to you?
And he will
reply to them, Solemnly I declare to you, in so far as
you failed to do it for the least of these [in the estimation
of men] you failed to do it for me. (Matthew 25:31-45.
Amplified Version.)
Though evil men may try to obliterate the
words and impact of the Scriptures, they will never succeed.
Their immorality and sins must be overwhelmingly rejected by
all Americans, lest this nation fall under the condemnation of
Godif it is not under condemnation already for the deeds
of Mr. Bush.
Religious
Conservative's Immigration Plans
In January of 2004, George
Bush introduced his Temporary Worker Program.[104] He listed
four points:
First,
America must control its borders
Second,
new immigration laws should serve the economic needs of our country.
If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens
are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country
a person who will fill that job.
Third,
we should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the
citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully,
or hope to do so.
Fourth,
new laws should provide incentives for temporary, foreign
workers to return permanently to their home countries after
their period of work in the United States has expired.[105]
(Emphasis mine.)
However, the key give-a-way
in Mr. Bushs speech was that he identified the program
with the words underlined above, incentives for temporary,
foreign workers to return permanently to their home countries.
In other words after an immigrant worker fulfills his sign-up
periord of three years, he can either re-enlist or he will be
forced to leave the U.S.
It appears Mr. Bush is resurrecting
nothing less than a return to the temporary worker program that
prevailed during World War II. It was called the Bracero
program, which allowed Mexican workers to come to the United
States legally for a specific period of time. This brought in
cheap farm labor, but the workers suffered under cruel and harsh
conditions, frequently not receiving any pay and when their term
was up, they were forced to leave the United States.
The first Bracero program
favored the rich land owners over the poor and needy aliens,
who literally became indentured servants to employers who treated
them as if they were property or prisoners. Mr. Bush is unlikely
to insert regulations into his legislation that will protect
the health, life, and working conditions under which the poor
sojourners will labor. We are about to see that his program violates
the explicit edicts of Scriptures and will bring upon the U.S.
the wrath of God.
In addition to the Hispanics another group
of sojourners have become objects of prejudice, scorn and hate
from Mr. Bush, his Republicans and the churches.
Almost half of America has waged a war of
hatred directed at immigrant and native Muslims living within
Americas borders.[106] A poll taken recently
(December 2004) found highly religious people believe that American
Muslims should be treated differently than the rest of the people
living within the U.S. The poll found nearly half (47%) of Americans
want to curtail the legal and civil rights of Muslims in America
and 42% of Christians with a high level of religiosity believe
that Muslim Americans should register their whereabouts
with the federal government and 65% of the highly religious
believe that Islam is more likely to encourage violence
compared to other religions.[107]
If, as is apparent from the poll, so-called
Christians are exhibiting unwarranted prejudices against
Muslims, it is even a further grief to realize how the Church
in America has transgressed express biblical sanctions regarding
immigrants and temporary residents living within the borders
of this nation. And here I need to make it clear that the biblical
edicts extend to Hispanics and to every color, race, accent,
religion and country of origin.
One of the most fundamental biblical principles
in the Bible deals with how believers must treat outsiders in
their land.
Let those who can hear what the Spirit saith
to the churches weep in repentance:
For the Lord
your God
loves the stranger or temporary resident and gives
him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger and sojourner
(Deuteronomy 10:17-19. Amplified.)
God actually instructs us by making reference
to the forerunner of our tax system that funds are to
be used to feed and clothe the aliens among us as well as the
poor, the orphans and the widows:
and
the stranger or temporary resident, and the fatherless, and the
widow, who are in your towns, shall come and eat and be satisfied;
that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your
hands that you do. (Deuteronomy 14:29. Amplified.)
And if a
stranger dwells temporarily with you in your land, you shall
not suppress and mistreat him.
But
the stranger who dwells with you shall be to you as one born
among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers
in the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 19: 33-34. Amplified Version.)
You shall
not wrong a stranger or oppress him; for you were strangers in
the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21. Amplified.)
In fact, as weve seen, the scriptures
establish that a nation can only escape destruction if it follows
Gods rules, one of which is that it does not oppress
the transient and the alien
(Jeremiah 7: 5-7. Amplified)
The prophet Jeremiah exhorted:
Thus says
the Lord: And do no wrong; do no violence to the stranger or
temporary resident, the fatherless or the widow, nor shed innocent
blood
(Jeremiah 22:3 Amplified.)
God warns that the voices and cries of those
innocents killed, robbed, oppressed, ridiculed and ignored will
rise to the throne of heavenand woe be the nation who caused
it.
Deregulate Health
and Safety and Environmental Laws
Regulation of commerce is one of the issues
addressed by Martin Luthers Sermon on Trade and Usury,
delivered in 1520.[108] Luther stated unequivocally
that business cannot be conducted without government regulation! Luther
argues a benevolent government is necessary to prevent tricks,
defrauding, monopoly, market manipulation and other manifestations
of greed and cupidity. His position was entirely biblical. We
are about to see how George W. Bush trampled upon the biblical
ethics.
From the moment George W. Bush took over
the reins of the presidency, he began to de-regulate every health
and safety measure he had the power to destroy. Here are a few
of the swings of his axe on the road to breaking apart every
protective regulation in sight, beginning on his first day in
office. (The list was compiled by Craig Aaron, Senior Editor
In These Times and his complete list is available.)[109]
January
20, 2001: Chief of Staff Andrew Card issued a sixty-day moratorium
halting all new health, safety, and environmental regulations
issued in the final days of the Clinton administration.
March 7,
2001: Bush urged congress to repeal ergonomic regulations designed
to protect workers from repetitive-stress injuries.
March 14,
2001: Bush abandoned his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide
emissions from power plants.
March 20,
2001: Bush administration moved to overturn a Clinton regulation
reducing the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water.
March 28,
2001: Bush backed out of the Kyoto treaty on global warming.
April 4,
2001: United States Department of Agriculture proposed lifting
a requirement that all beef used in federal school lunch programs
must be tested for salmonella; the proposal was dropped two days
later.
On April
29, 2001 George W. Bush met with California governor Gray Davis
but refused to impose federal price controls to curtail Californias
energy crisis.
May 11, 2001:
Bush administration abandoned international effort to crack down
on offshore tax havens.
July 9, 2001:
Bush administration opposed UN treaty to curb international trafficking
in small arms and light weapons.
July 26,
2001: Bush administration rejected international treaty on germ
warfare and biological weapons.
Here from the Yurica Report collection are
two of the latest swings of the Bush axe that have cost even
more lives:
August 15, 2004: Bush guts tuberculosis regulations. Tuberculosis
was reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States.
The government began writing rules to protect five million people
whose jobs put them in special danger. Bush canceled the rules that would save lives.[110]
September 19, 2004: GOP deregulates every type of gun in D.C.
making it a wide open city. The nation's capital city will soon
suffer a brazen insult at the hands of the House of Representatives
as a legislative majority prepares to vote for the decontrol
of guns in the city - that's right, a majority of lawmakers,
sworn to "insure domestic tranquility" for the nation,
would make D.C. stand for Dodge City.
As is apparent, George W. Bush favors deregulation
of the market place. What a sanitized word! And he favors the
dismantling of environmental controlswhich
is just another way of saying, deregulation. But
those sanitized words have cost Americans a heavy price. Those
who feel nothing at the deaths of the innocent Iraqi civilians
and the people slaughtered by the 2004 tsunami ought to calculate
the cost Americans are paying for their presidents policies.
Scientists estimate
that over 100,000 Americans will die prematurely because Mr.
Bush has deregulated environmental controls.[111] The average
number of life-years lost by individuals dying prematurely from
exposure to the particulate matter Mr. Bush is allowing Americans
to breatheis fourteen years.[112] The estimated
amount that Mr. Bushs Clear Skies-related health problems
will cost taxpayers, per year: $115 billion.[113] The extra
money earned by the polluting corporations has made its way into
the pockets of Republican candidates. During the 2000 election:
it was $8 million.[114]
Senator James
Jeffords of Vermont said, I expect the Bush administration
will go down in history as the greatest disaster for public health
and the environment in the history of the United States.[115]
Let no one think that the Bible has nothing
to say about pollution and premature death due to it in the twenty-first
century. Polluting is one of mans worst sins. And one ignores
the biblical injunctions against it at his own peril. The following
is quoted from, Who Really Wrote the Bible? an unpublished
book by Katherine Yurica:
The
Health and Safety Code of Leviticus was the forerunner of all
modern sanitation laws, and its implementation in 1847 in Vienna
hospital obstetrical wards by Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, cut the death
rate by one-half. One out of every six women died in the maternity
wards prior to the application of the Levitical laws which are
now standard procedure in all hospitals.[116] In the
fourteenth century the Black Death took the lives of one out
of every four persons in Europe. Yet historians tell us that
it was the implementation of the laws of Leviticus: segregation
and quarantine of the victims of infectious diseases that destroyed
the lethal plagues of the Dark Ages.[117]
Sanitation is still the basic issue today.
Just as our hospitals and our homes must be sanitary, our air
and our water must be free of filth that spreads diseases. Bill
Moyers in one of the most powerfully written essays I have read
recently, and which I encourage my readers to read in its entirety,
wrote the following:
the
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment.
This administration wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean
Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant
and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National
Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge
beforehand if actions might damage natural resources. They want
to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe
inspections; and ease pollution standards for cars, sports utility
vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
They want
a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain
information about environmental problems secret from the public.
They want
to drop all of the governments new-source review suits
against polluting coal-fired power plants and weaken consent
decrees reached earlier with coal companies.
.the
Environmental Protection Agency planned
to pay poor families
to continue to use pesticides in their homes, pesticides that
have been linked to neurological damage in children. Instead
of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry
were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder
and childrens clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the
study.[118]
It is very important to realize that the
God of the Bible is concerned with the well being of the entire
world: there are environmental laws in the Bible that affect
the health and well being of mankind. There are laws concerned
with ecology and conservation,[119] protecting
wild life,[120] and legislation
ordering care for animals,[121] and rest for the land.[122]
Believers may not allow others to die or
participate in poisoning the atmosphere and in destroying the
earth without falling under the judgment of God. There is no
authorization in the Bible whatsoever for believers to junk the
biblical standards because of their fallacious reasoning, Were
living in the last days. What pitiful ignorance of the
laws of God and lack of knowledge of the Word! The scriptures
declare that we have been living in the last days
since Luke quoted Peter on the day of Pentecost nearly 2000 years
ago:
This is
what
was spoken through the prophet Joel: And it shall come
to pass in the last days said God, I will pour out my
Spirit upon all flesh
(Acts 2: 16-17 Amplified)
(Emphasis mine.)[123]
It is unbelievable that the churches who
claim to know the Holy Scriptures would endorse a man with Mr.
Bushs agenda. It is unbelievable that a man who leads a
nation would deliberately become an advocate for the spread of
filth in the air and water and dare call himself a Christian,
while the churches of America tape their mouths shut from condemning
what God has already judged as evil.
As we look over the list of the regulations
Mr. Bush has decimated, it is clear his intent is to create an
environment in which the greedy prosper at the expense of the
peopleeven if it means the people will die or be injured
by his actions. For where regulation is absent, wholesale thievery,
injury and death are present.
What
Does the Bible Say About Rigging Devices?
As we are about to see, the God of the Bible
gets involved and concerns himself with fairness in the marketplace
of a nation. One of the most significant areas of regulation
established by the Bible is the regulation of all devices that
measure, weigh and count.
But from 2002 through 2004, Republicans
in Congress refused to investigate allegations that voting machines
were rigged in the 2002 mid-term elections by the unscrupulous.
In fact, Republicans continue to fight any investigation and
to fight attempts of other parties to recount the votes in the
2004 elections. So pervasive is the Republican indifference to
voting fraudthat the New York Times editors call
the partys indifference depressing.[124]
The failure of
new voting machines to accurately count the votes has been well
documented.[125] The problems inaccurate vote counting
devices create are similar to the effects of deregulation. Simply
put, in either case, the public ceases to be protected by its
government. So it is not surprising that the Republican Party
as a whole refuses to create laws that will protect the public
from unscrupulous operators: creating laws that regulate commerce
are diametrically opposed to their agenda.
Bills have been
introduced in Congress by Democrats to investigate and stop the
states from using defectively programmed voting machines or machines
that lend themselves to manipulation. A bill was introduced by
Democrats that requires each voting machine to print out a voting
receipt, listing the voter's choices. These bills have been refused
or ignored by the Republicans, the Christian Right and the churches
of America. The so-called Christian Republicans in
congress have either opposed the bills or remained silent. The
Democrats cannot even get their bills to the floor for a vote.
The churches continue to remain silent over the issue. Yet there
is a strong biblical prohibition against allowing deceptive measuring
devices. The biblical injunctions are so forceful there can be
no doubt that God requires the regulation of commerce! The biblical
injunctions begin in Leviticus:
You shall
do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of length or weight
or quantity. You shall have accurate and just balances,
just weights
and measures. (Leviticus 19:35-36. Amplified
Version) (Emphasis mine.)
In another passage in Proverbs the scripture
declares Gods intense feelings about false measuring devices:
A false balance
is an abomination to the Lord. (Proverbs 11:1, King James
Version)
In still another passage we find a more
comprehensive prohibition:
Diverse weights
[one for buying and another for selling] and diverse measures,
both of them are exceedingly offensive and abhorrent to the Lord.
(Proverbs 20:10, Amplified Version)
This corresponds to a passage in Deuteronomy
that prohibits rigging for some transactions and true results
for others:
You shall
not have in your bag true and false weights, a large and a small.
You shall not have in your house true and false measures, a large
and a small. But you shall have a perfect and just weight, and
a perfect and just measure
(Deut. 25:13-15 Amplified
Version)
Similarly, in the book of Jeremiah, the
prophet demonstrates why regulation of the instruments of commerce
is necessary. The prophet exposes the extent an entire nation
from the prophet even to the priest every one deals falsely.
Jeremiah 6:13 (Amplified Version) The same verse describes the
people: For from the least of them even to the greatest
of them every one is given to covetousnessto greed for
unjust gain.
The prophet Micah also cries out against
unregulated market places and warns of punishment to the nation
that so imbibes:
Are there
not still treasures gained by wickedness in the house of the
wicked, and [a false measure for grain] a scant measure that
is abominable and accursed?
Can I be
pure myself [and acquit the man] with wicked scales and with
a bag of deceitful weights?
For the citys
rich men are full of violence, and her inhabitants have spoken
lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Therefore
I have also smitten you with a deadly wound and made you sick,
laying you desolate, waste and deserted because of your sins.
(Micah 6:10-13. Amplified Version)
Deregulation means removing the legal controls
that protect the public. After reading these verses, there can
be no doubt that the Bible prohibits vote rigging in all its
forms![126]
We need a new Joseph N. Welch to rise among
us and face the McCarthyites of this age and cry, Have
the churches no shame? Have Republicans no shame? Mr. President,
have you no shame? Have you no honor? For what man of honor would
brag that he has a mandate to act on his agenda when any mandate
that he has may have come entirely from false and rigged
machines?[127]
Mr.
Bushs Justice Versus the Bibles Justice
The biblical
system of jurisprudence is built upon the principle that we are
ruled by laws and not by men. But for the first time in the history
of the United States, we are facing an opposing ideology that
seeks dominance over us: the Republican Party and its scorners
teach: we are to be ruled by men and not by laws! This is heresy.
We have already
seen in this essay how Mr. Bush, Mr. Gonzales and the Department
of Justice (DOJ) under Mr. Gonzales direction, reinterpreted
the laws on torture and wrote legal memos that empower the president
to order torture in violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions
which also immunize the torturers from punishment. This is a
clear example of evilmere men placed themselves above the
law. We are about to see why Mr. Bushs attitude is repugnant
to the God of the Bible.
In the books
Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the very foundations of Western
civilization were laid. Here are the codes of law that form the
backbone of the judicial system of our world. Here the adversary
system of justice was established over three millenniums ago,
complete with the cross-examination of witnesses.[128]
Here in the Bible were the beginnings of
our rules of evidence: proofs of fact had to be produced before
the judges in the form of concrete evidence, mere conjecture
was unacceptable.[129] Here was the beginning
of forensic medicine: the examination of the remains of an animal
was required in order to determine whether it was mauled to death
by a wild beast.[130] Here evidence had to
be conclusive. And here there was a presumption of innocence:
for the law required two or three witnesses to establish a charge
against an individual.[131] The word of one witness
was insufficient proof of the existence of a wrong doing. Here
the burden of proof was on the party asserting the affirmative
of the issue.[132] And here too was the forerunner of
the subpoena of witnesses.[133]
When we leave the sacred pages and examine
the path of George W. Bush, we find that he might be completely
ignorant of the biblical standards of justice, but even if he
is fully informed of what the Bible says, he has a peculiar interest
in overriding the Bibles rules on justice. The reason is
this: Mr. Bush wants to appoint base judges who have already
made up their minds on cases before they hear them. This is a
perversion of justice. Mr. Bush, however, is an advocate of the
false way: he wants man to rule and not law. He represents Saul
not Samuel!
As another example of his ideology, he seeks
to appoint judges who will view the world through his eyeshe
sees big business and big corporations as his base.[134]
He pushes the rights of corporations over individuals.[135]
He prefers not to punish corporation executives who have donated
huge sums to Republican coffers even though their companies were
awarded contracts without competitive bidding, or were involved
in rigging prices or mismanagement in Iraq or defrauding Californians
in an energy crisis.[136] He is against regulating
the market place. So he wants the courts to adhere to his
philosophy. In other words, he wants to interject partiality
into the judging process. Hes been granted millions of
dollars from corporations for his campaignsit is a form
of bribery, prohibited by the Bible and he wants judges who will
respect the system of contributions, that are the
equivalent to bribes.
Another example
of his desire to interject partiality into the process of judging
is the fact that he consistently names right-wing
ideologues. Is that not evidence he wants to please the religious
right who are devoted to him? It is only natural for him to want
to appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme
Court decision that essentially legalized abortions that were
of the type hitherto criminalized. In fact, he admitted as much
during the debates with John Kerry, when he made reference to
the Dred Scott decision, which scores of writers have
described to be code
for Roe v. Wade.[137] Peggy Noonan reveals
how the interchangeability of the two decisions works in her
column in January, 2003:
I think,
as many do, that Roe v. Wade was as big a travesty as
the Supreme Court decision on Dred Scott, which in 1857
declared that descendants of slaves could not become U.S. citizens.
All Americans would now see that decision as terribly wrong,
but back then the Court had spoken and Dred Scott was forced
to continue to live in slavery.[138]
If a nominee admits to his Senate questioners
that he will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, he has admitted
that he is prejudiced and partial in advancetherefore he
is not qualified to serve as a judge. So he must be willing to
lie. This is, of course, a most unrighteous quality for a judge
and a sure track toward the perversion of justice itself.
This means Mr. Bush seeks to appoint base
judges who are willing to lie about their own convictions, or
who will put on an indignant show against any attempt to uncover
his or her true judicial prejudices, hoping their performance
will force the questioning Senators to back off. Thus Mr. Bush
makes a circus out of his judicial nominees. And his nominees
have demonstrated not only an ideological bent to the extreme
religious right and toward Dominionism,[139] but they
have lacked the impartiality and search for truth that a righteous
judge must nurture and reach for every day of his or her life
on the bench. In short, Mr. Bushs nominees lack judicial
humility. Moreover, Mr. Bushs nominees are evidence enough
that he wants judges that reflect his philosophynot Gods.
As we shall see, he has set out to appoint judges who will pervert
justice.
The
Development of the Biblical Justice System
Just as we saw that the God of the
Bible has taken a special interest in public health and safety
laws, inspiring the code against pollution, the Bible has a very
special interest in justice. The Bible contains the rules of
evidence and the code of behavior for judges.
The system of jurisprudence in ancient Israel
began as follows:
You shall
appoint judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord
your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall
judge the people with righteous judgment.
You shall
not misinterpret or misapply judgment; you shall not be partial,
or take a bribe; for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and
perverts the words of the righteous. (Deuteronomy 16:18-19.
Amplified.)
Keep far
from a false matter; and [be very careful] not to condemn to
death the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify
and acquit the wicked. (Exodus 23:7. Amplified)
Today, justices of the Supreme Court take
an oath based essentially on the following biblical edict:
You shall
do no injustice in judging a case; you shall not be partial to
the poor or show a preference for the mighty, but in righteousness
and according to the merits of the case judge your neighbors.
(Leviticus 19:15. Amplified Version)
According to Title 28, Chapter I, Part 453
of the United States Code, each Supreme Court Justice takes the
following oath:
I, [NAME],
do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice
without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and
to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge
and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE OF POSITION]
under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help
me God.
Note that under this oath a judge cannot
be pro big business or anti the small
guy. This prohibition is one that Mr. Bush and Republicans in
congress brush aside, often scornfully. Although the oath seems
weak, a study of a judges decisions ought to reveal whether
or not such a bias exists and its presence must disqualify that
judge from his office. (This is why Mr. Bush is most apt to nominate
candidates without a judicial record because they havent
served as judges in the past.)
Once a case is under way, the salient focus
of the scriptures is that justice must not be perverted. The
biblical sanctions cover the acts of witnesses too. A witness
must not follow a crowd or join with a multitude to undermine
the search for truth.[140]
The prophet Jeremiah returns to the overwhelming
theme of biblical justice:
Execute justice
and righteousness, and deliver out of the hand of the oppressor
him who has been robbed. (Jeremiah 22:3. Amplified)
The last question to address is this: What
happens if justice is perverted? The answer is found in
Deuteronomy:
Cursed be
he who perverts the justice due to the sojourner or the stranger,
the fatherless, and the widow. All the people shall say, Amen.
(Deuteronomy 27:19. Amplified.)
Be
Careful Not to Commit Judicial Murders: The Texas Clemency Memos
In the United States there have been 877
executions since 1976. In 2003 there were 57. Each year, approximately
4.5 people are convicted of capital crimes who are actually innocent
and over 100 people have been released since 1972 as a result
of being wrongly convicted.[141] Just months before
George W. Bush became Governor of Texas, the state executed Robert
Nelson Drew. The state refused to give him a new hearingeven
after another man signed an affidavit confessing to the murder.
Drew was executed on August 2, 1994.[142]
Mr. Bush and Alberto Gonzales should have
taped the quoted biblical verses on justice to their desks in
Washington and in Texas. The verse, and [be very careful]
not to condemn to death the innocent and the righteous, for I
will not justify and acquit the wicked,[143] has particular
poignancy because of the number of people Mr. Bush executed as
governor with Mr. Gonzales assistance.
Alberto Gonzales was responsible for drafting the memorandum
that should have reflected a thorough review of each death penalty
case that came before the then Governor Bush. The governor of
each state is often the last hope of catching an injustice before
an innocent man is executed. Governors have the power to issue
clemency if they find a miscarriage of justice. But for the system
to work, the governors office must give each case a thorough
review. However, the memos from Mr. Gonzales to Mr. Bush in Texas
reveal there was a shocking lack of interest in the reviewing
procedure for the 152 death sentence cases the state executed
during Mr. Bushs term.
John Dean, the former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon
wrote, The Gonzales execution memos raise seriousand,
unfortunately uglyquestions, not because of what they say,
rather because of what they fail to say. They also suggest that
President Bush's earlier claims about how he, in fact, handled
clemency requests as Governor of Texas are less than accurate.
[144]
Dean quoted investigative reporter John Berlows assessment
of the memos: No consideration of crucial issues.
Berlow, himself, pointed out that during Bush's six years
as governor, 150 men and two women were executed in Texas. Berlow
reports in the Atlantic Monthly, that the 152 deaths are
a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American
history. [145]
Most knowledgeable
commentators regard the Texas Clemency Memos as evidence
of a careless disregard of Mr. Bushs responsibilities to
make sure no injustice had occurred. The memos can be viewed
via links in the footnote section.[146] I am
inclined to think that the memos and attitudes displayed by both
men are indicative of a deep seated disrespect for the search
for truth and justice. Mr. Bushs mimicry of Karla Faye
Tuckers plea[147] opens a view to the
calloused indifference of the mans soul and is a violation
of Exodus 23:7.[148]
The Amplified Bible introduces a new term
that is fitting to end this section: the shedding of innocent
blood [by oppression and by judicial murders]. Jeremiah
7:6.
Is
Mr. Bushs Tort Reform Biblical?
Does it seem peculiar that a man who would
not lift a finger to make sure that the poor and wretched souls
on Death Row really deserved the death penalty, would now be
campaigning so that corporations can avoid paying their full
and just compensation for the injuries suffered by their victims?
George Bush and Dick Cheney have an agenda
they call, Tort
Reform. Shockingly, their reform is based upon
one ideato minimize the amount of money the rich and powerful
corporations must pay to their victims after
having been found guilty of injuring them.
Bush said in a speech in Madison County,
Illinois, while kicking off his national campaign to change our
nations civil justice systemthat he wants to put
a cap of $250,000 on the amount of damages an injured person
can receive for physical and emotional pain and suffering.[149]
He said, I intend to make this a priority issue,
as I stand before Congress, when I give the State of the Union.
[150]
Mr. Bush was standing in front of a banner
that promised affordable health care, on a stage
filled with dozens of doctors in white coats when he kicked off
his campaign.[151] He told his audience that he now has
a mandate because voters made their position
clear on Election Day.[152]
But the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer
Rights describes Mr. Bushs changes to the countrys
civil justice system differently. They write:
For over
twenty years, powerful forces of greed in our economy -- principally
insurance companies, the manufacturing sector, the medical industry
and Wall Street -- have spent hundreds of millions of dollars
on propaganda, phony studies
to convince you that there
are too many lawyers and too many lawsuits.
What are these giant corporations trying to accomplish?
Lobbyists and PR consultants for these corporations are
pushing legislation to restrict your legal right to hold them
accountable in a court of law. The defendants' lobby
wants to eliminate the right of citizens to hire a lawyer, go
to court and punish companies that steal, maim and kill with
the only kind of lesson big business understands: a substantial
financial whack at the bottom line, in the form of a damage award.
They call their strategy tort reform. A tort
is a legal term for a wrong. The tort law
is composed of state statutes and court decisions that give you
the right to sue someone who causes harm to you, whether it's
a drunk driver, a corporation that manufactures a defective product,
a credit card company that overcharges you, or a government bureaucrat
that breaks the law.[153]
Mr. Bush is fond of repeating that doctors
are being driven out of their profession because
of outrageous amounts being paid to plaintiffs in medical malpractice
suits. The facts contradict him.[154] He says
hes only trying to help the doctors, but in fact, he is
working to take away the right of injured victims to receive
fair and just compensation for their injuries.
One woman said her doctors somehow switched
her test results and mistakenly told her she had breast cancer
before amputating both her breasts.[155] Mr. Bush
wants her to receive a maximum of only $250,000 for the injury
and damage done to her.
While claiming that doctors are being inundated
with frivolous suits, Mr. Bush feigns interest in
Americans receiving the best of medical attention. In fact he
wants to duplicate a 1975 California law that prevents victims
of negligent doctors from receiving full compensation for their
injuries. In the end, he wants to shield bad doctors from justice
in all the other states.
At the end of the day, legal reform
is a way to take money from peoples pockets, said
Doug Heller, director of the California-based Foundation for
Taxpayer & Consumer Rights.[156]
This discussion is really all about
what people are responsible for when they harm others and what
kind of compensation people have access to when they are harmed,
Heller said.[157]
Unfortunately Mr. Bushs damage award
of a maximum of $250,000regardless of the extent of injuries
and regardless of whether or not the victim will suffer pain
for the rest of his or her lifeis so small an amount in
comparison to the wealth of the corporate holdings of those who
most often injure people, that his reform will have a
very natural side effect: it will actually encourage corporations
and medical facilities to become careless. After all,
if there is little or no deterrent for injuring someone, why
take the time and the tedious caution to prevent injury? Time
is money as we have been told by high powered people.
Thus Mr. Bushs so-called reform
marks the end of the victims ability to receive just compensation
for his or her injuries. Mr. Bush also wants to put additional
limitations on filing lawsuits: he wants to establish new rules
for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases,[158] making
it more difficult for the victims to prosecute their cases.
Not only does Mr. Bushs position violate
biblical laws, but it is reprehensible to God: the balance of
power in a courtroom cannot and may not be switched to the defendants
side by edict of the president and his slavish Republican Christians
that sit in the House and Senate!
In fact, Mr. Bush and his congressional
leaders are attempting to undo what God established: the Bible
states unequivocally:
You shall
not deprive the poor man of justice in his suit. (Exodus
23:6. New English Version)
The Amplified version states it this way:
You shall
not pervert the justice due to your poor in his cause.
The
Bibles Criminal and Civil Code System
In order to grasp the magnitude of Mr. Bushs
transgressions, we need to look at the beginning of criminal
and civil law as it appeared in the Bible: There are essentially
six steps in the development of the biblical law that reflect
the basis of our criminal and civil justice system:
1)
Criminal law was examined and defined by the Bible;
2)
Civil torts were introduced with pecuniary damages available.
3)
Civil law was extended to cover acts committed by employees
and by an owners animal.
4)
Civil torts based on the negligence of the defendant were
introduced.
5)
Punitive damages were awarded.
6)
The ascendancy of the Civil Justice system.
First, Criminal Law: In cases where
one person intentionally inflicted physical injury or death to
another, the biblical law was you shall give life for life,
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn
for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.[159]
Second, Civil
Torts: There was an obvious problem with the eye for
an eye law as it was stated. It did not deal with an injury
inflicted by a man upon a woman where the man lacked a corresponding
bodily part. For example, if a man was swinging his sword around
and cut a womans breast offhe had no comparable part
on his body that could be severed to fulfill the eye for an eye
law. What to do? It appears the Bible took the first step toward
pecuniary compensation. Exodus describes a new case: Two men
were fighting and one of them injured a pregnant woman in the
scuffle, causing a miscarriage. The law said the defendant was
required to pay whatever amount was demanded by the womans
husband after assessment by the judges.[160] (Do note
that the Bible does not equate the loss of the fetus to be a
death of a person.[161] For if the fetus had
been considered a person, the defendant, who caused the miscarriage,
would have been put to death or suffered another punishment if
his act was unintentional.[162] More on this below.)
Third, Civil Torts Committed by Employees
or by an owners animal: In the development of tort
law in the Bible, the next issues involved torts committed by
employees and torts committed by the owners animal. Lets
look at the animal problem: if an ox gored a man or a woman to
death, the Bible says, the ox shall be stoned, but the
owner of the ox shall be free. [163]
Fourth, Civil Torts Based on Negligence:
the Bible takes a new turn here and introduces the concept of
negligence into the law, which really expands tort law. The Bible
examines the animal tort again, but this time with a twist: If
the ox in the third example above has gored others before, and
his owner has been warned, but fails to keep the animal closed
in, and then it kills a man or a woman, the Bible says the ox
shall be stoned to death. But this time biblical
law demanded that the man who let it happen had to be accountable
for his negligence. The ox and its owner also shall be
put to death.[164] At this point the Bible
introduces the concept of money damages again: If, however,
the penalty is commuted for a money payment, he shall pay in
redemption of his life whatever is imposed upon him.[165]
Fifth, Punitive Damages: There are
a number of passages that introduce not only the concept of making
full restitution or pecuniary damages for the thing lost or injured,
but also the Bible often requires punitive damages as punishment.
In some instances punitive damages are set at twenty percent
of the damages, which are paid on top of the damages.[166] In other
instances, punitive damages were set at double the damages.[167]
The issue really is how egregious was the act of the guilty
defendant.
Sixth, the Ascendancy of the Civil Justice
System: In the book of Matthew Jesus says,
You have
heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
but I say to you, do not resist the evil man; [who injures you]
but if any one strikes you on the right jaw or cheek, turn to
him the other one too; And if any one wants to sue you and take
your undershirt (tunic), let him have your coat also
(Matthew 5:38-40. Amplified)
Another passage has Jesus encouraging defendants
to settle their cases before trial or face a very harsh reality.[168]
These passages suggest that the old rule
of an eye for an eye had given way to civil suits. The first
quote suggests that guilty defendants should be willing to give
more than what is asked by the plaintiffsand not
less as Mr. Bush is trying to impose by a legal fiat![169]
Mr. Bushs tort reform proposal
violates the letter and spirit of the civil justice system established
in the Bible. For anyone, any president or any congress that
seeks to tip the scales of justice in favor of those who have
injured others, have violated the letter and spirit of the biblical
standard! That nation and those leaders that succumb to tampering
with justice shall receive the full recompense of their reward
in this life!
The Psalmist wrote:
God stands
in the assembly [of the representatives]
in the midst of
the magistrates or judges
How long will you magistrates
or judges judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?
Do justice to the weak (poor) and fatherless; maintain
the right of the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy;
rescue them out of the hand of the wicked. The magistrates and
judges know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in
the darkness [of complacent satisfaction]; all the foundations
of the earth [the fundamental principles upon which rests the
administration of justice] are shaking. (Psalm 82: 1-6.
Amplified Version.)
As Isaiah put it:
Woe to those
judges who issue unrighteous decrees, and to the magistrates
who keep causing unjust and oppressive decisions to be recorded,
to turn aside the needy from justice and to make plunder of the
rightful claim of the poor of My people, that widows may be their
spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
(Isaiah 10:1-2, Amplified.)
What
Does the Bible Say About Abortions?
The abortion issue has caused so many Americans
to vote for Mr. Bush that its inspired a cottage industry in
congressional report card scores. Coalitions of religious
right organizations spend huge amounts of money grading congressional
members voting records on a report card and mailing the
cards all over America, but especially to church members. Abortion
is the hottest grade on the card.
The dominionists have turned abortion into
such an emotional issue that Pentecostal preachers
have either ambushed and murdered doctors who performed legal
abortions or they have supported those who did. The illegality
of abortion has no biblical basis and has been entirely made
up by the religious right to suit their political objectives.
To understand
the biblical view of abortions, one must examine miscarriages
and how the Bible treated them. In fact, the Bible makes no distinction
between a woman who miscarried and a woman who was having her
regular menstrual period: she was unclean until all the bleeding
stopped in either case.[170] In this respect, an
abortion or miscarriage was equal to a womans menstrual
period and the fetus was not ever considered a person.[171]
By reviewing the law regarding punishment,
we can see this even more clearly. As I discussed above, the
eye for an eye law got into trouble because of the
physical differences between men and women. If a woman was injured
in a part not shared by a manthe remedy had to be pecuniary.
But what would happen if the biblical example in the second paragraph
given above was between two pregnant
women? What if one pregnant woman injured the other in some way
that caused the victim to have a miscarriage? Under those circumstances
the eye for an eye law would come back into play.
The defendant would have to undergo an abortion in the same way
she inflicted the abortion on the injured woman. Significantly,
Hosea 9:14 describes abortions as a punishment: Give them
a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
The real topping to this issue that reveals
the hypocrisy of the churches is the fact they have never believed
a miscarried fetus is a sentient human, else they would have
held funerals for them.
There are other aspects of the abortion
debate that should be examined. In order to have made it an overriding
issue for Catholics and many evangelical churches, the anti-abortion
proponents had to lie that a zygote is a sentient human being.
Obviously, the anti-abortion proponents believe that it is moral
to lie because their ends (the bringing to term of all zygotes)
justify their means; that is, lying leads to an allegedly pro-life
end.
But biblically, he who lies hates the one
he lies to. (Proverbs 26:28.) The scriptures then equate hating
to be the moral equivalent of murder. (1 John 3:15.) So the irony
is that biblically the anti-abortion proponents and followers
who repeat the lies are the biblical equivalent to murderers.
Yet there is no biblical injunction or punishment for abortion
in the Bible. The issue of abortions is essentially a phony issue
because humans abortthey miscarry and the God of the Bible
did not label an aborted zygote a sentient human being.
Period. End of story.
GOP
Operatives as Slanderers and Hooligans, Scorners and Ridiculers
Slander is condemned
in the bible.[172] The righteous man is instructed not
to sit in the seat of the scornful.[173] Judgments
are prepared for scoffers.[174] Scorning and scoffing
and ridicule are condemned by the Bible. Yet the GOP operatives
have made slander one of their strongest weapons in their arsenal
against political opponents and they use scorn and ridicule as
if they were honorable tools of honorable men. Not surprisingly,
public figures such as Ann Coulter actually admire the wanton
personal attacks of Joseph McCarthy.[175] Actually,
Coulter uses McCarthy smear techniques and is a marvelously successful
liar.[176] Of course McCarthy was a master at
creating suspicion about loyal honest Americans. People who were
attacked not only lost their jobs or opportunity to work again
in their professions, but they were shunned by everyone else
for fear that association with the victim would unleash the same
forces against themselves.
McCarthyism is defined by Websters
Third New International Dictionary as:
A
political attitude of the mid-twentieth century closely allied
to know-nothingism and characterized chiefly by opposition to
elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving
personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized
indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated
charges. (Emphasis mine.)
The tactics from the McCarthy era have been
adopted with great success in todays American politics.
The words liberal and humanist have become
synonymous for socialism. and anti-Christ.
The churches who accept these words as smears forget that
the Bible promises to bless the liberal heart,[177] and that
God, Himself, is a humanist: For God so loved humanity
that He gave His only begotten son
(my paraphrase
of John 3: 16s pertinent part).
But scoffing and slander continue among
the Republicans. It would not be surprising to find that they
have published a manual on how to slander a Democrat and get
away with it! Smear campaigns have become all too commoneven
to the point of attacks against fellow Republicans like John
McCain.
Yet another quality reigns supreme in Tom
DeLays congress: Todays majority members of the Republican
Party have converted themselves into hooligans. (Websters
Third New International Dictionary defines hooligan
as:
A person
that as a representative of some special interest (as a political
or racial philosophy) attempts to override the legal and human
rights of other people.
Dominionism has proved itself to be hooligan
in nature.[178] It is Machiavellian to the core. Dominionists
take what is not theirs; they grab what belongs to others; they
steal from the poor to give to the rich; they bribe; they punish
with smears and condemnation. And they win elections at any costeven
at the cost of American democracy. In the end, that is the stated
goal of Dominioniststhey desire to establish an American
Theocracy, where every one of them shall reign as Theo.
For the Senators and the Representatives
who call themselves Christians but have done everything
in their power to eradicate the rights of the minority party
in Congressthere hangs a heavy penalty: they that pervert
justice will have to answer to Godif the American people
do not make them accountable first.
Whats
Wrong With Todays Churches and Christians?
First, the churches are fully aware
of the importance of creating an enemy. Jerry Falwell was fond
of telling the story of how he found the key to success.
As a young minister he approached an old pastor and asked, How
can I be successful? The old man put his arm on Jerrys
shoulder and said, Son, if you want to be successful, keep
a good fight going all the time!
In fact, M. Scott Peck, in his book, People
of the Lie, the Hope for Healing Human Evil wrote, There
are profound forces at work within a group to keep its individual
members together and in line.[179] According
to Peck narcissism is at the root of group cohesiveness. In a
milder manifestation, it takes the form of group pride. But a
less benign form of group narcissism is enemy creation.
The group becomes a cliquethose who belong to it hate those
who dont. Peck says, Those who do not belong to the
group
are despised as being inferior or evil or both.[180]
So Jerry Falwells mentor was psychologically
correct. The best way, according to Peck, to cement group cohesiveness
is to foment the groups hatred of an external enemy.[181]
Clearly this message is practiced across America, starting with
Rush Limbaugh, Bill OReilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage,
Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan and scores of other copycats. Theres
money and power in attacking a hated group of people.
This enemy creation technique
is of course an anathema to the teachings of Jesus. Where Jesus
said to turn the other cheek, the Dominionists say,
dominate them; ruin them; run them out of power.
Their philosophy is anti-Christian and anti-Christ to the core.
Secondly, the churches have to create
and condone idolatry, and there is no worse form of it than converting
a mere man into an object of worship. From members of the Senate
like Kay Bailey Hutchison[182] to the poorest of wretches,
you can hear George W. Bush being referred to in hushed tones
as, My President. Heres a letter
to the White House from an older man: Sir,
I would
give my life to defend my President.[183] The problem
is that the ordinary man on the street has no personal relationship
with the president of the United States. Mr.
Bush may be our president collectively, but he is
decidedly not ones own personal president.
To these people, criticism of the president
is unthinkable; its tantamount to treason.
But once again, the religious of this age have no understanding
of the scriptures.
Proverbs says:
Those who
forsake the law [of God and man] praise the wicked, but such
as keep the law [of God and man] contend with them.
(Proverbs 28: 4 Amplified.) (Emphasis mine.)
However, criticism is also essential in
a democracy and the scripture requires that a man be warned if
he is transgressing biblical laws and has slipped into spiritual
error.
He who heeds
instruction and correction is [not only himself] in the way of
life, but is a way of life for others. And he who neglects or
refuses reproof [not only himself] goes astray, but causes to
err and is a path toward ruin for others. (Proverbs 10:17
Amplified.)
But see Ezekiel
3:18-21,[184] in one of the most remarkable passages
in the scriptures that clearly reveals the Bible does not bestow
upon anyone the so-called security of the believer
doctrine, or the once-saved-always-saved heresy.
[185] Ezekiel shows us that the righteous
are required by God to warn the wicked as well as someone who
was righteous and is now in error! If, because the warning was
issued, the person changes his behavior, then he or she escapes
Gods condemnation. But should the righteous fail to warn
the wickedthen the blood of that person is on the head
of the righteous man or woman who failed to issue the warning!
Criticism is viewed as a life-saver in the
Bible. And those who would try to shut the mouths of the criticsdo
so at their own spiritual peril.
Thirdly, the churches have resorted
to deceit. They are forced to lie in order to keep their ignorant
followers believing that their position is the center of truth
and moral values!
If asked, Christians would be forced to
admit that lying is a moral wrong. But because of the strong
biblical edicts against lyingthe faithful usually
deny that George W. Bush lies, lies, and lies. So his lies have
to be spelled out with accurate documentation. Here are a few
with links to the documents that provide the proofs. They were
compiled by The Poor Mans Blog at: http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002849.html
Mr. Bush has lied about his
time in the National Guard, and lied about his
criminal history. He lied about his
relationship with Ken Lay, he lied about who
would benefit from his tax cuts, and he lied about stem
cells. He lied about his
visit to Bob Jones University, he lied about why
he wouldn't meet with Log Cabin Republicans, and he lied
about reading the
EPA report on global warming. He lied about blaming
the Clinton administration for the second intifada, he lies
constantly about how
he pays no attention to polls, he lied about how
he loves New York, and he lied about moving
the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He lied about funding
the fight against AIDS in Africa, he lied about when
the recession started, and he lied about seeing
the first plane hit the WTC. He lied about supporting
the Patient Protection Act, and he lied about his
deficit spending, and now my wrist hurts. The Poor
Man's Blog.
Since God finds liars to be an abomination
(Proverbs 12:22) why would any Christian align himself
with a liar rather than someone who speaks the truth? After all,
biblically, he who votes for a liar becomes a partaker of the
liars evil deeds. (2 John 1:11).
We need to ask the churches the following
central question:
Is it moral
to vote for an evil man (one who lies, who hates others and who
employs coercion to impose his will upon others)because
you expect that individual will vote the way you believe he or
she should vote in office?
If the church elders respond, Yes,
it is moral, then we must ask why that church violates
Christian doctrine and belief. See 2 John 1:9-11 where a Christian
cannot encourage, accept or support someone, who in his actions
is disloyal to what Jesus taught.
If the church elders respond, No,
it is not moral, then we must ask why the members of that
church voted for an evil man for president and evil congressional
candidates as defined in this essay by the Bush administration
agenda.
Profile
of the Man God Hates
Scott Peck defines evil as, The exercise of political
powerthat is, the imposition of ones will upon others
by overt or covert coercionin order to avoid
spiritual
growth.[186] He says lying is both a symptom
as well as one of the causes of evil.[187] There
are several other remarkable facts about evil people revealed
by Scott Pecks book. He wrote in 1983:
Because their
willfulness is so extraordinary and always accompanied by a lust
for powerI suspect that the evil are more likely than most
to politically aggrandize themselves. Yet at the same time, being
unsubmitted, their extreme willfulness is likely to lead them
into political debacles.[188]
Peck reveals the evil can never admit theyve
done anything wrong. They can never say, I made a mistake.
They have to maintain the appearance of perfectionelse
the whole edifice of their personalities will crack. Peck explains,
Because they cannot admit to weakness or imperfection in
themselves, they must appear [not to suffer deeply.] They must
appear to themselves to be continually on top of things, continually
in command. Their narcissism demands it.[189]
Marked by the appearance of
competence, the evil are driven by fear. Peck says, They
are terrified that the pretense will break down and they will
be exposed to the world and to themselves. They are continually
frightened that they will come face-to-face with their own evil.
Of all emotions, fear is the most painful. Regardless of how
well they attempt to appear calm and collected in their daily
dealings, the evil live their lives in fear. It is a terrorand
a sufferingso chronic, so interwoven into the fabric of
their being, that they may not even feel it as such.[190]
If we take Scott Pecks analysis and compare it carefully
with a profile of the evil in the Bible, we can see remarkable
similarities.
There are seven attributes of a man that God hates. God lays
out the psychological profile of those traits he abhors. The
following are from Proverbs 6:16-19 in the Amplified Version:
1.
A proud look [the spirit that makes one overestimate
himself and underestimate others].
2.
A lying tongue,
3.
Hands that shed innocent blood,
4.
A heart that manufactures wicked thoughts and plans,
5.
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
6.
A false witness who breathes out lies [even under
oath],
7.
And he who sows discord among his brethren.
Selah! Pause and think on these things.
End Notes:
Click on the number to take
you back to the text.
[1]
Daniel 5:25, in the Amplified Version of the Bible. In this essay,
I will be using the Amplified Version, which uses brackets for
justified clarifying words or comments not actually expressed
in the immediate original text.
[2]
This is an example of how the Amplified Version uses brackets
for justified clarifying words or comments not actually
expressed in the immediate original text.
[3]
Daniel 5:28. Amplified Version.
[4]
Vincent Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America, Thunders Mouth
Press/ Nations Books, (an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group,
Inc.,) New York, 2001.
[5]
While the scripture clearly states that Samuels sons were
base and did not measure up to the standard of true jurists,
having taken bribes and perverted justice, it is
improbable, given Samuels character, that he would have
passed the leadership to his sons, but certainly he would have
found a worthy successor or several worthy successors as judges.
That option was taken off the table by the elders of the people
who insisted the people wanted a king like the other nations.
1 Samuel 8:1-7. Amplified Version.
[6]
It seems that the people of the ancient Israeli nation were just
as hooked on appearance as the majority of the churchgoers
are in America today! The scripture describes Saul this way:
Kish had a son named Saul, a choice young man and handsome;
among all the Israelites there was not a man more handsome than
he. He was a head taller than any of the people. 1 Samuel
9:2 Amplified Version.
[7]
See Katherine Yuricas articles: Fraud Traced to the
White House, http://www.yuricareport/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm
and Document Reveals Mr. Bush
Took Aim at Iraqi Oil Before the 2000 Election. http://www.yuricareport/Energy/BushWarPlansFoundInEnergyPolicy.htm
[9]
Fraud Traced to the White House, by Katherine Yurica.
http://www.yuricareport/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm
[11]
Ibid. One cannot help asking, Isnt it an amazing
coincidence that the neo-cons prayer was answered?
However, God is not mocked: they that looked at Pearl Harbor
and desired her were already guilty of murder in their hearts
according to the words of Jesus (in reference to adultery) in
Matthew 5:28.
[12]
See Katherine Yuricas articles: Fraud Traced to the
White House, http://www.yuricareport/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm
and Document Reveals Mr. Bush
Took Aim at Iraqi Oil Before the 2000 Election. http://www.yuricareport/Energy/BushWarPlansFoundInEnergyPolicy.htm
[14]
Mr. O'Neill's account of the National Security Council meeting
is from: Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty, Simon &
Shuster, January 13, 2004, 368 pages. Ron Suskind wrote The
Price of Loyalty, which was based on ONeills
notes and recollection of events in the early Bush administration.
[16]
One of the most revealing facts about the U.S. Governments
Department of Defense (DOD) is how a preemptive military attack
is defined. The DODs dictionary defines the term as: An
attack initiated on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that
an enemy attack is imminent. The definition implies moral
rectitude. It leads the reader to believe that any U.S. preemptive
strike is morally warranted. But one way to test this definition
is to place it in a valid syllogism. When we do this, we can
plainly see the definition sets up a false premise. To understand
why this is so we can write it this way:
All U.S. preemptive
strikes are based on incontrovertible evidence of an imminent
attack.
All attacks
on Iraq were preemptive strikes.
Therefore,
all attacks on Iraq were based on incontrovertible evidence of
an imminent attack.
We now know that the conclusion is
false. And if the conclusion is false, then at least one of
the premises is false. The premise that is false is the one
taken from the Department of Defenses dictionary.
[20]
For a comprehensive list of statements made by Mr. Bush see John
Deans article, Missing Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About the Reason for War an Impeachable Offense?
at https://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/John%20Dean%20on%20Impeachment.htm
See David Corns perceptive analysis
of Bush lies at:
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20031013&s=corn
http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=119
http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=124
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=152
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=cornweb2
Robert Sheer, Truth About Iraq
Finally Has Its Pants On, The Nation, June 25, 2004,
at: http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040712&s=scheer0624
Patrick Buchanan, Where Are They
Mr. President? At: https://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/Patrick%20Buchanan%20Where%20Are%20They.html
Eric Alterman, Bush Lies, Media
Swallows, The Nation, November 25, 2002. at: http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20021125&s=alterman
Alterman wrote: To cite just two particularly egregious
examples, Bush tried to frighten Americans by claiming that Iraq
possesses a fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used for
missions targeting the United States. Previously he insisted
that a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed
the Iraqis to be six months away from developing a weapon.
Both of these statements are false, but they are working. Nearly
three-quarters of Americans surveyed think that Saddam is currently
helping Al Qaeda; 71 percent think it is likely he was personally
involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Jonathan Swartz, Business As
Usual at https://www.yuricareport.com/Iraq/WhyFalseStatementsContinue.html
Here are several documented lies from
the Poor Mans blog at:
http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002849.html
Mr. Bush lied about finding
WMD in Iraq. He lied about the
CIA's dismissal of the yellowcake rumors, and he lied about
the
IAEA's assessment of Iraq's nuclear program.
For a whole series of lies, the founder
of the www.whoslying.org,
which is written by Dylan Otto Krider reveals Mr. Bushs
lies:
Perhaps
Bush was merely ignorant when he claimed troop strength was decreasing
in Afghanistan. http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=37
Or when
he said we went to War because Hussein wouldnt let UN inspectors
in.
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=23
Perhaps
he made the same misstatement again because he doesnt
read the newspaper. http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=361
Perhaps
he was simply deluded when he claimed we found the WMD http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=3
And
then that he never said they had any http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=4
Maybe
hes deluded now when he claims we entered Iraq because
he refused to disarm, as he did a few days ago. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040625-2.html
Here Krider
demonstrates how the Bush administration repeatedly manipulates
data in government reports.
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=428
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=452
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=487
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=132&Itemid=26
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=519
http://www.whoslying.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=513
[21]
See John Dean, Why A Special Prosecutors Investigation
Is Needed, published at the Yurica Report at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/Dean%20Why%20a%20Special%20Prosecutor.html
Mr. Dean writes, So egregious
and serious are Bushs misrepresentations that they appear
to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public.
Dean examines Mr. Bushs State of the Union address of January
28, 2003. He found eight major misrepresentations of fact that
constitute making false statements under Title 18,
Chapter 47, Section 1001 of the United States Code. It is a felony
to make false statements to Congress. Since 1955, when the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Bramblet, that section
is applicable to the President. The statute, according to Peter
W. Morgan, an attorney for Robert McFarlane during the Iran Contra
investigation, does not require a specific intent to deceive
the Congress. And it does not require that statements be written,
or that they be sworn. Morgan noted that the false statements
statute even reaches misrepresentations in a presidents
state of the union address. Go to the Yurica Report
link for links to the Federal Statute and the Bramblet
opinion. https://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/Dean%20Why%20a%20Special%20Prosecutor.html
John Dean also examines the lies of
Mr. Bush in his book, Worse Than Watergate, Little Brown
and Company, 2004 at pages 136 with footnotes at 232-233.
With the Bush-Cheney presidency, it appears that mendacity
has become policy. Their lying relates to matters large and small.
Lies are told to hide, to mislead, and to gain political advantage.
Their pervasive lying is remarkably well documented and that
documentation has been ongoing.
[23]
James Dunnigan, The Air Campaign in Iraq, May 21,
2003, can be read at: http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/20030522.asp
[24]
From Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, October
28, 2004, Iraqi Civilian Deaths Increase Dramatically After
Invasion. Excluding the deaths from Falluja, the study
estimates that 100,000 more Iraqis died than would have been
expected had the invasion not occurred. https://www.yuricareport.com/Iraq/IraqiDeaths200,000.html
[26]
Perhaps the difference between the two tragedies is the difference
between the U.S. medias responses. The damage and displacement
in Asia was photographed. The killing and rupture in Iraq has
been hidden from American eyes.
[28] See where
our fallen soldiers are from at the Yurica Reports Where
Have All the Flowers Gone? : https://www.yuricareport.com/Iraq/WhereHaveAllTheFlowersGone.html
Press Reports on U.S. Casualties:
About 17,000 Short, UPI Says U.S. Suffers 25,029 casualties
By Mark Benjamin, UPI, published: September 15, 2004. Read at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Iraq/UPIReportsUSCasualties17,000Short.html
And see David Hackworths article,
Americans suffer more than 14,000 casualties in Iraq
Between 14,000 and 22,000 military
men and women have been medically evacuated from Iraq at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Iraq/Hackworth14000USCasualties.html
[31]
See the Conference Fact Sheet, Rebuilding Afghanistan &
Iraq, Pursuing Opportunities and Managing Risks, by MFM
Trade Meetings, offering Security, Financing, Legal Issues
and Managing Risks At:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Miscellaneous/MFMtrademeetings.pdf
Also see: Bush Sells Indulgences
to Get Into Purgatory, Not to Get Out by Katherine Yurica,
October 29, 2003. The Yurica Report, https://www.yuricareport.com/Iraq/Bush_Sells_Indulgences.htm
[38]
Aegis, a UK firm; Bearing Point; Bechtel; BKSH & Associates;
CACI and Titan; Custer Battles; Halliburton; Lockheed Martin;
Loral Satellite; and Qualcomm.
[39]
From the Center for Corporate Policy, The Top Ten War Profiteers
of 2004. At: http://www.corporatepolicy.org/topics/topten2004list.htm
[41]
See the accounts in the Old Testament: Joshua 6:23; 1 Samuel
26:4.
[52]
See the important role Mr. Gonzales played in obtaining legal
opinions: Bushs Counsel Sought Ruling About Torture,
by David Johnston and Neil Lewis, January 5, 2005, the New
York Times, at: http://www.yuricareort.com/PrisonerTortureDirectory/GonzalesGotTortureRulingFromDOJ.html
[55]
Authorizing Torture, by Nonna Gorilovskaya, June
9, 2004, Mother Jones, (May June 2004 Issue.) See at: https://www.yuricareport.com/PrisonerTortureDirectory/AuthorizingTortureLeakedMemo.html
For the personal sworn statements of
what eight prisoners were subjected to, click on each of the
following PDF files:
Prisoner's
Sworn Statement7787,
Prisoner's
Sworn Statement3077, Prisoner's
Sworn Statement150422, Prisoner's
Sworn Statement150425, Prisoner's
Sworn Statement50542-2, Prisoner's
Sworn Statement151108, Prisoner's
Sworn StatementNameWithheld, Prisoner's
Sworn Statement15427
[57]
Editorial on Mr. Gonzaless Testimony, The Washington
Post, January 7, 2005. But compare the New
York Times editorial, "Mr. Gonzales Speaks," January
7, 2005.
[58]
The Comey Memorandum of December 30, 2004 may be read in its
entirety at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Law%20&%20Legal/DOJTortureMemoComey.pdf
The ideas and concepts contained in
what is being called the August 1, 2002 Department of Justice
Memorandum were rewritten in a memo dated December 30, 2004 for
James B. Comey, Deputy Attorney General. The rewritten legal
opinion specifically refers to the fact that the August memo
included potential defenses to liability for the
President as Commander-in-Chief. The memorandum also states the
following: We have
modified in some important respects
our analysis of the legal standards applicable under 18 U.S.C.
§ 2340-2340A. For example, we disagree with statements in
the August 2002 Memorandum limiting severe pain under
the statute to excruciating and agonizing pain, id.
At 19, or to pain equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying
serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of
bodily function, or even death, id. At 1. There are additional
areas where we disagree with or modify the analysis in the August
2002 Memorandum, as identified in the discussion below.
[61]
See Genesis 18 and particularly verses 20-33. Genesis 19 describes
how the angels, appearing like normal men were able to get Lot,
his wife and two daughters out of Sodom and how all the men of
the town apparently desired to have sex with the angelic
men disguised as mere men. The scripture is not explicit as to
the sins of Sodom, but we do know that Lot offered his two virgin
daughters to the crowd to do with as they pleased. However, Genesis
chapter 18, reveals that Abraham negotiated with God in an effort
to save the cities. His negotiation, after starting with a higher
number, reached the number ten. If God found ten righteous people
in the city would he spare the city? God said yes.
[62]
See Jeremiah 5:26-29 where God asks, Shall I not avenge
myself on such a nation as this? The transgression here
was not sexualit was the practice of deceit, deception,
and fraud that riled God with the final sin to be: They
do not judge and plead with justice the cause of the fatherless
that it may prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the
needy. If we couple that passage with the judgment of Jesus
in Matthew 25: 32-46, where the Lord casts out all those who
failed to care for the needy, clothe them, heal them and minister
to them, these sins are not outweighed by the presence of the
righteous because the righteous become oppressed themselves in
such an environment. See Amos 5:12-13.
[63]
The church leaders commit adultery and walk in lies; they
encourage and strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none
returns from his wickedness. They have all of them become to
Me as Sodom and its inhabitants as Gomorrah. (Jeremiah
23:14)
[64]
People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck, M.D. Simon & Schuster,
New York, 1983 at page 225: A less benign but practically
universal form of group narcissism is what might be called enemy
creation, or hatred of the out-group.
Those
who do not belong to the group
are despised as being inferior
or evil or both. If a group does not already have an enemy, it
will most likely create one in short order.
[67]
There is a novel that compassionately tells the story of a disturbed
personality, a man who struggles to heal himself of pedophilia.
The book may no longer be in print, but if it can be found, it
is worth the reading. The author is Charles E. Israel, the book:
The Mark, published in the 1960s by Macmillan of
Canada.
[68]
Matthew 5:27-28, and 5:31-32.
[74]
Of course, the Good Father is an allusion to God.
Bushs comments remind me very much of Ben Kinchlows
comments on the 700 Club in the 1980s. Kinchlow
was railing against the farmers who according to him were putting
their faith in government instead of putting their faith
in God. They were trusting in government instead
of trusting in God Thus government had become
a false idol to them. The bottom line was that looking to government
for help was and is an anathema to those who accept this cult
doctrine from the religious right.
[75]
So Others Might Eat (SOME), a coalition of religions forming
a charitable organization, which according to the President,
delivers 1,200 meals a day to the homeless. As worthy as it is,
its efforts do not begin to touch the needs of the Washington
D.C. area, where 16.9 percent of the population live in poverty.
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/faith/t112001.htm
See also Poverty Rate Up 3rd
Year In a Row, More Also Lack Health Coverage, by Ceci
Connolly and Griff Witte, Washington Post, August 27,
2004. at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Economy/PovertyRateUp3rdYrInRow2004.html
[76]
President Bush said on November 20, 2001: Today, I am pleased
to announce that the Department of Housing and Urban Development
is distributing more than $1 billion this year in grants to community
charities which serve the homeless. It is the largest such grant
in the history of the country. It is a grant program that will
help provide food and shelter, drug treatment, job training,
and other vital services.
It is a part of our government's
desire to support the armies of compassion. We don't want government
to take the good Father's place. We want the government to stand
side-by-side with the good people of SOME and programs like it
all around the country. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/faith/t112001.htm
[84]
Medicare Law Is Seen Leading to Cuts in Drug Benefits for
Retirees, by Robert Pear, New York Times, July 14, 2004;
plus Truth Emerges About Bush Misleading on Medicare,
at https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/MedicareBillCostsRetireesMore.html
;
Two Holes in the Medicare Drug
Law, By Fred Brock, New York Times, January 11, 2004; at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/TwoHolesinMedicareDrugLaw.html
Bush Misleads Seniors on New
Drug Cards at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/BushMisleadsSeniorsOnNewDrugCards.html
See The New York Times editorial, The
Actuary and the Actor, at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/MedicareOrwellianFraud.html
Prescription Drugs: The Medicare
Savings Mirage, at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/MedicareSavingsMirage.html
The Republican Medicare Bill
Means Suffering and Death for Our Seniors, at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/SurgeonNewMedicareBillwillKill.html
[88]
Medicaid Cuts On the Table for 2005, by Lawrence
M. ORourke, December 11, 2004, Sacramento Bee, at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/MedicaidCutsForNationsPoor.html
Administration Looks to Curb
Growth of Medicaid Spending, by Robert Pear, December 20,
2004, New York Times, at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/BushAdminToCutMedicaid.html
Bush Team Prepares to Swing Budget
Ax, by Joel Havemann, December 26, 2004, Los Angeles Times,
at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/BushSwingsAxOnMedicareMedicaid.html
[93]
Social Security Doing Just Fine, by Mark Weisbrot,
Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Medicare/SocialSecurityDoingFine.html
Stopping the Bums Rush,
by Paul Krugman, January 4, 2005, New York Times, at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Social
Security/SocialSecurityBumsRush_Krugman.html
Buying Into Failure, by
Paul Krugman, December 17, 2004, New York Times, at:
https://www.yuricareport.com/Social%20Security/KrugmanPrivatizingSocialSecurityFailure.html
Bush May Be Borrowing Trouble
With Social Security Plan, by Ronald Browstein, Los Angeles Times,
December 20, 2004, at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Social%20Security/BushDebtTroublesSocialSecurityPlan.html
Social Security Reform, With
One Big Catch, by Edmund L. Andrews, December 12, 2004,
the New York Times. At: https://www.yuricareport.com/Social%20Security/SocialSecurityRevisionWithBigCatch.html
[96]
From the Despoiling of America by Katherine Yurica, at:
https://www.yuricareport.com
Pat Robertsons 700 Club reaches millions of born
again and Pentecostal Christians in America. Where were the protests?
This is one of the most cold-blooded transfers of money from
the poor and the middle classes to the richest corporations in
America ever described:
On August 14, 1985, Pat Robertson unveiled
his ingenious program on how to get rid of Social Security. The
plan amazingly resembles sections of the Bush Administrations
Medicare Prescription Drug bill passed in December of 2003. Robertson,
however, outlined what to do twenty years ago as follows:
1. We
should say to all the elderly, Youre going to be
taken care of. The governments going to pay you. Dont
worry about it. [Youll] get your Social Security like youre
expecting, cause youre counting on it.
2. There
should be a gradual moving [up] of [the retirement] age to reflect
the fact that were healthier and we live longer and people
should have dignity and be allowed to work a little bit longer.
3. The
last thing we should do is to begin to let the younger workers
slowly but surely go into private programs where the money is
tax sheltered and over the years build up their own money and
that would in turn, through the intermediary organizations, banks,
insurance companies, would invest in American industry. They
would buy plants and equipment, put people to work and it would
help a tremendous boom. Imagine
$100 billion dollars a
year flowing into American industry. It would be marvelous.
[97]
The Despoiling of America by Katherine Yurica, at: https://www.yuricareport.com
Pat Robertsons 700 Club reaches millions of born
again and Pentecostal Christians in America. Where were the protests?
The following interview reveals
the deep seated hatred Dominionists have against governmental
medical assistance to the elderly. The interview was conducted
on August 1, 1985 with Dr. Walter Williams, professor of economics
at George Mason University and author of thirty-five books. Danuta
Soderman was a co-host on Pat Robertsons 700 Club.
Williams: [T]he bigger
problem is the whole concept of funding somebodys medical
care by a third party. And I might also mention here, that is,
I saw in the audience many older and senior citizens. Now whose
responsibility is it to take care of those people? I think it
lies with their children and it also lies with themselves. That
is, I think Christians should recognize that charity is good.
I mean charity, when you reach into your pocket to help your
fellow man for medical care or for food or to give them housing.
But what the government is doing in order to help these older
citizens is not charity at all. It is theft. That is, the government
is using power to confiscate property that belongs to one American
and give, or confiscate their money, and provide services for
another set of Americans to whom it does not belong. That is
the moral question that Christians should face with not only
Medicare, Medicaid. But many other programs as well
.Well,
people should have insurance. But I would say if our fellow man
is found in need, does not have enough, well thats a role
for the church, thats a role for the family, thats
a role for private institutions to take care of these things.
Danuta Soderman: I thought
it was interesting you talked about Medicare and Medicaid as
not being a moral issue. A lot of people would think that to
want to eliminate the program is rather uncompassionatethat
there is something immoral about taking away something that people
are relying so heavily upon, but you said that there is no moral
issue here.
Williams: I think the moral
issue runs the other way. That is, we have to ask ourselves,
What is the moral basis of confiscating the property of
one American and giving it to another American to whom it does
not belong for whatever reason? That is, I think we Americans
have to ask ourselves is there something that can justify a legalized
theft? And I think that even if the person is starving in the
street that act, in and of itself, doesnt justify my taking
money from somebody else.
[99]
Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, (Thomas Nelson Publishers),
1983 at page 61.
[100]
Tsunami Aftermath; Are We Stingy? Yes New York
Times Editorial, December 30, 2004, 473 words. Editorial
available only at a fee: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00D13F93C5D0C738FDDAB0994DC404482
President Bush finally roused
himself yesterday from his vacation in Crawford, Tex., to telephone
his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and
Indonesia, and to speak publicly about the devastation of Sundays
tsunamis in Asia.
[103]
All America and the world watched as Mr. Bush brushed off the
petitions for an independent investigation from the families
of those killed at the World Trade Center. When a commission
was grudgingly granted, the government agencies refused to cooperate
with it, and specific questions of the victims relatives
were never answered. One of the most salient questions was: Why
didnt the military scramble their planes when it was known
that three commercial airliners were off their flight plans?
It is also significant that Mr. Bush refused to appear alone
at the commission and he and Condoleezza Rice refused to testify
under oath.
[104]
Remarks of the President on Immigration Policy, at
the White House, January 7, 2004. At: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/print/20040107-3.html
[109]
A Timeline of Failures, by Craig Aaron, October 28,
2004, In These Times, at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/a_timeline_of_failure/
Note: Craig Aaron has written Capitol
Report, a monthly column on Washington politics, for In
These Times since he became a Senior Editor in 2003. As an investigative
reporter for Washington, DCs Public Citizens Congress
Watch.
[111]
No Clear Skies, by Donovan Webster and Michael Scherer,
September/October 2003, Mother Jones, Special Report:
The UnGreening of America: How the Bush administration
is rolling back 30 years of environmental progress, The
Bottom Line, at http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/09/we_531_07.html
Another resource is: Dirty Air,
Dirty Power, Mortality and Health Damage Due to Air Pollution
from Power Plants, published by Clear the Air, June 2004:
at: http://www.cleartheair.org/
and at: http://www.cleartheair.org/dirtypower/docs/dirtyAir.pdf
[116]
S.I. McMillen, None of These Diseases, (New Jersey: Fleming H.
Revell Co., 1975 pp. 13-14.
[118]
Battlefield Earth, by Bill Moyers, December 8, 2004,
AlterNet.org. The full speech of Mr. Moyers is at: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20666/
[119]
See Deuteronomy 20:19-20, which stands for the conservation of
trees; it prohibits the cutting down of fruit trees in an area
outside a city that is under siege. When the people are besieging
a city for a long timethe biblical law points out,
fruit trees will sustain the life of those besieging the city
by providing food. The scripture says clearly, for is the
tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?
A justified extrapolation of the law
is: Trees that are essential to life may not be cut down wantonly.
(Amplified or New English).
[120]
Deuteronomy 22:6-7 stands for the principle of protecting wild
life. If man should come upon a wild birds nest, either
on the ground or in a tree, and a mother is sitting on eggs or
young ones, the biblical rule prohibits the taking of the mother
bird. It allows the eggs or young to be taken. The Bible promises
that if the wildlife conservation is practicedit will bring
long life to the people who practice it. Also see Leviticus 25:
7 where every seven years a field must rest from being tilled
and the crops that grow on the land that year may not be harvested,
but they are to furnish food for the poor, the aliens, and for
not only domestic beasts but wild animals shall be fed by
those crops. (Amplified or New English).
[121]
Proverbs 12: 10, A [consistently] righteous man regards
the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel. (Amplified.) Deuteronomy 25: 4, You shall
not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain. Amplified.
See also 1 Corinthians 9:9-10; 1 Timothy 5:17-18; Exodus 23:4-5
stands for the proposition that God expects man to care for his
animals. It requires man to bring back a lost animal even to
his enemy and requires that a man help his enemy to release his
animal from too heavy a burden. Exodus 23:12 reveals the Sabbatha
day of restwas made so that the ox and donkeythe
beast of burdens could rest. (Amplified or New English)
[122]Exodus
23:10-11 provides rest for the land. (Amplified or New English).
[123]
See also the following references that show conclusively that
the first century Christians believed they were living in the
last days. 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-8; Heb. 1:1-2;
Jas. 5:3; 1 Pet.1:5,20; 2 Pet. 3:8; 1Jn.2:18; Jude 18.
[124]
The New York Times, December 24, 2004. The conviction
that every vote must be counted in a democratic election should
be automatic. But lately, as an extraordinary number of contests
seem to be decided by just a few ballots, it's been depressing
to see how few politicians are willing to simply take their chances
on the fairest possible count.
A State Supreme Court justice
in Washington State, Susan Owens, put it best when she addressed
Republican attempts to disallow more than 700 uncounted ballots
in the photo-finish governor's race there. "You're looking
at it from the point of view of the winner or the loser,"
she said. "Shouldn't we be looking at it from the point
of view of the voter?"
The decision to count those votes,
which had been overlooked or erroneously set aside, should not
have been just an obvious ruling. The question should never have
come up in the first place. The American political culture is
supposed to prize the fairness of the fight more than the outcome.
[126]
I realize, of course, that Mr. Justice Scalia, a most prominent
Roman Catholic Christian, might disagree with my conclusion based
upon his method of interpreting the Constitutionparticularly
in his writings on whether or not the death penalty is a cruel
and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment. His reasoning
asserts: if the punishment was allowed at the time of the drafting
of the amendment,it would be allowed today because the
drafters did not have the death penalty in mind. In fact, Mr.
Scalia would not be against the death penalty for horse stealing
because it existed in 1791. But if we utilize his argument to
determine whether the Bible prohibits vote rigging, his argument
could go this way: If there were no express prohibitions
against vote rigging in the Bible when it was written, then the
scriptures cannot be interpreted to include vote rigging today.
He would, then assert, no doubt, Therefore God allows fraudulently
rigged devices for counting the quantity of votes cast today!
This position shows the absurdity of Mr. Scalias original
thinking. On the other hand, Mr. Scalia might recognize the absurdity
and say that the existence of devices that counted quantities
existed in the Bible, and it was an abomination to God if someone
owned a rigged device thentherefore it would be prohibited
now. Its a matter of how narrowly Mr. Scalia is willing
to construe the biblical text.
As Scalia himself describes it, The
Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead
It
means today not what current society
thinks it ought to
mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.[54] Once the original thinking is determined,
the judge can enforce the Constitution only as a document that
is bound by the time zone in which a particular passage was written.
And Antonin Scalia, Gods Justice and Ours,
in First Things 123 (May 2002): 17-21, http://www.firsthings.com/ftissues/ft0205/articles/scalia.html
) And see http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20021007&s=williams
)
See my essay, The Despoiling
of America by Katherine Yurica, at the Yurica Report.com
on the web. The full address is: https://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm
Also, The Despoiling of America
is published in Toward a New Political Humanism, eds.
Barry F. Seidman and Neil J. Murphy, Prometheus Books, New York,
2004.
[127]
Joseph N. Welch of the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering
Hale and Dorr, LLP represented the U.S. Army pro bono in the
Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. I remember those hearings and
Mr. Welchs words still ring out: Have you no shame
Senator? Have you no shame? http://www.wilmerhale.com/content.aspx?page=probono
[128]
He who states his case first seems right, until his rival
comes and cross-examines him. Proverbs18:17 (Amplified.)
[129]
Deuteronomy 22: 13-17. (Amplified.)
[130]
Exodus 22:13. (Amplified.)
[131]
Deuteronomy 19: 15. (Amplified.)
[132]
Deuteronomy 22:13-17. (Amplified.)
[133]
Leviticus 5:1 (Amplified.)
[134]
Michael Moore captured Bush addressing a group of elites in his
documentary Fahrenheit 911 in which he said, You
are my base.
[136]
See the text above following notes 38-40. Also note that Kenneth
Lay, the former head of Enron hasnt been tried yet. General
Taguba wrote that he believed Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was responsible
for the torture at Abu Ghraib, but there has been no indictment
of the man and he is presently working for the leading intelligence
officer in Iraq.
[137]
Why Bush Opposes Dred Scott: Its Code for Roe v.
Wade by Timothy Noah, Slate.msn.com October 11, 2004. http://slate.msn.com/id/2108083/
Roe=Dred by Katha Pollitt,
October 15, 2004, The Nation at: http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/1015-26.htm
[138]
A Tough Roe: Will the Democratic Party Be Abortions
Final Victim? by Peggy Noonan, January 20, 2003, Opinion
Journal. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110002936
[139] Dominionism
is a new politico/religio cult movement that teaches its adherents
that God wants them to help set up His Kingdom on earth by becoming
the leaders of Gods future theocratic society now. Pat
Robertson uses the term dominion to mean having power
over others: hence to dominate them. This power according to
Robertson belongs only to the Christians. It has become a potent
political ideology. According to Bill Moyers,
Nearly
half the U.S. Congress before the recent election -- 231 legislators
in total -- more since the election -- are backed by the religious
right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress
earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most
influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include: Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair
Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert
and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. From Battle Field Earth,
by Bill Moyers. Click here to go back
to the Social Security Section.
At: https://www.yuricareport.com/Environment/BattleFieldEarthMoyers.html
[140]
You shall not repeat or raise a false report; you shall
not join with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall
not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you bear witness at
a trial so as to side with a multitude to pervert justice.
(Exodus 23:1-2. Amplified.)
[143]
Exodus 23:7 Amplified.
[146]
The URLs are in the endnote just preceding this note.
[148]
[A]nd [be very careful] not to condemn to death the innocent
and the righteous, for I will not justify and acquit the wicked.
[159]
Exodus 21:23-25 (New English Version); Leviticus 24:20, and Deuteronomy
19:21 (Amplified)
[160]
Exodus 21:22 New English Version and compare to the Amplified
Version.
[162]
See Exodus 21:12-13. If a man kills without laying in wait his
fate depended upon the facts revealed at trial. (Amplified Version.)
[163]
Exodus 21:28, Amplified or New English Version.
[164]
Exodus 21: 29. Amplified.
[166]
Leviticus 6:5 (Amplified Version).
[167]
Exodus 22:1-10 (Amplified)
[168]
Again Jesus says, If someone
sues you, come to terms with him promptly while you are both
on your way to court; otherwise he may hand you over to the judge,
and the judge to the constable, and you will be put in jail.
I tell you, once you are there you will not be let out till you
have paid the last farthing. (New English Version.)
[170]
There are three passages that demonstrate this point: First a
womans monthly menstrual cycle is described: And
if a woman has a discharge, her [regular] discharge of blood
of her body, she shall be in her impurity or separation for seven
days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening.
Leviticus 15: 19.
Secondly, a miscarriage or anything
that causes bleeding is dealt with at Leviticus 15: 25: And
if a woman has an issue of blood many days not in the time of
her separation, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of
her [regular] impurity, all the days of the issue of her uncleanness
she shall be as in the days of her impurity; she shall be unclean.
The Bible makes no distinction between the aborted fetus and
the discharged blood--both make her unclean.
Thirdly, the woman cannot have intercourse
during her regular menstrual period or during the period of bleeding
surrounding an abortion. Also you shall not have intercourse
with a woman during her [menstrual period or similar] uncleanness.
Leviticus 18: 19 (Amplified.)
[171]
The difference between an abortion and a miscarriage, according
to Websters Third New International Dictionary is
that while both are defined as the expulsion of a human fetus,
a miscarriage is the expulsion of a human fetus
before it is viable, usually between the 12th and 28th
weeks of gestation and an abortion is the
expulsion of a human fetus before it is viable during the first
12 weeks of gestation.
[172]
Numbers 14:36; Psalm 31:13; Proverbs 10:18; Jeremiah 6:28 and
9:4, 6:28; Psalm 50:20, 101:5; 2 Samuel 19:27.
[177]
God is a liberal! See the following scriptures: The liberal
person shall be enriched, and he who waters shall himself be
watered. Proverbs 11:25 (Amplified); this verse has a cross-reference
to II Corinthians 9:6-10, a magnificent description of Gods
love for the liberal. See James 1:5, Ask of God, that giveth
to all liberally. And see Isaiah 32:5 in the KJV, where
the prophet foresees a time when the vile will no longer be called
liberal.
[179]
From People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck, M.D. Simon &
Schuster, New York, 1983, page 225.
[182]
See Senator Kay Bailey Hutchisons speech in the Senate
at: http://hutchison.senate.gov/speec352.htm
[183]
A letter to the White House from Michael at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/march11/message11.html
[184]
If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, and you do
not give him warning or speak to warn the wicked from his wicked
way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity;
but his blood will I require at your hand.
Yet if you warn the wicked, and
he turn not from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall
die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.
Again, if a righteous man turns
from his righteousnessright doing and right standing with
Godand some gift or providence which I lay before him he
perverts into an occasion to sin, and he commits iniquity, he
shall die; because you have not given him warning, he shall die
in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not
be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand. Nevertheless
if you warn the righteous man not to sin, and he does not sin,
he shall surely live, because he is warned; also you have delivered
yourself from guilt. Ezekiel 3: 18-21 Amplified.
[185]
Regardless of the Scofield notes to the contrary, the word and
common sense tells us that a man cannot intentionally engage
in evil and expect eternal life with a just God. Instead, the
words of Jesus in Matthew 7:22-23 should be taken to heart: Many
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy
name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
[186]
M. Scott Peck, M.D. People of the Lie, The Hope for Healing
Human Evil, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1983, at page
177.
[190]
Ibid. pp. 124-125.
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Katherine Yurica is a news intelligence
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