Dr. Tony Beam

The 2012 RNC could have been a complete disaster. On Sunday it looked as if Isaac would make a personal appearance forcing at best an abbreviated convention that would greatly inhibit the Romney/Ryan rollout. But Isaac veered west out into Gulf leaving Tampa relatively unscathed. The people of the Gulf coast who were driven from their homes from flooding caused by the torrential rains need our prayers and our physical support. Thankfully, New Orleans was spared a direct hit and the improved levee system combined with the lessons learned from hurricane Katrina kept the loss of life to a minimum.

Security at the RNC resembled a full-blown military state. The combination of Secret Service, Marines, mounted Capitol Police, Homeland Security, and local law enforcement made for an impressive sight. The bay of Tampa Bay was filled with Navy and Coast Guard gunboats. Overhead, military helicopters were a constant presence. Convention goers and members of the press walked around inside a five-block bubble with checkpoints approximately every two hundred yards. I told one of my colleagues on Radio Row that I might drop dead of a heart attack but there was a zero percent chance that I would be taken out by a terrorist. Everyone involved in providing security was courteous and helpful.

Protestors ranged from sparse to non-existent. Tropical storm Isaac kept the planned busing of protestors from becoming a reality so what could have been five thousand anarchists from all over the country turned out to be a few hundred locals waving their typical “Republicans are Nazis” signs.

Day one of the convention wisely was cancelled. Wind gusts and driving rain would have greeted anyone trying to make their way to the Convention Center. I had to walk about five blocks in a driving rain in order do my show but other than that, everything went as planned. The rescheduling of the first day’s speakers actually proved to be an advantage to the RNC since the major networks decided they weren’t going to broadcast the first day anyway. The abbreviated schedule meant the speakers that were moved from Monday to Tuesday actually received some media coverage.

There has been plenty of speech by speech analysis so rather than add to the running commentary on each speaker I want to simply give my impression of the convention as a whole. It was my first to attend in person so I confess I have no model to serve as a template. Having said that I must say I thought the RNC did a brilliant job of rolling out the Romney/Ryan ticket. Some of the people I talked to were disappointed there weren’t more attacks directed squarely at Obama. But those people need to realize that with President Obama, we have a President who is personally popular even though his policies have been patently disastrous. Speakers at the RNC needed to sound more disappointed than angry with President Obama’s performance. They needed to sound optimistic reminding people that America is great country that deserves better than the leadership of the last four years. Because many of the attacks against Republicans are centered on painting them as racists, bigots, homophobes, and women haters the speakers needed to present a diverse, inclusive and positive tone to counter those attacks. In this, the RNC succeeded beyond my expectations.

In my view, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave the best speech of the week. It was delivered from the heart without a teleprompter. It was informative, inspirational, reflective, and powerful. Ann Romney did exactly what she needed to do. She introduced us to her husband as man who loves his family and is deeply involved in the life of his community. The caricature of Romney as a heartless rich guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth and no understanding of the problems of everyday people was erased.

Also erased was the picture of Mitt Romney as a man responsible for causing a woman to die of cancer. The personal testimonies of people Romney has personally cared for were powerful and persuasive. Americans who tuned in will never again allow the Obama attack machine to paint a false picture of Mitt Romney.

For me, the best line of the convention was delivered by Marco Rubio who said, “My father stood behind a bar at the back of the room so that I could stand behind a podium at the front of the room.” That line sums up the American dream. It is what every parent wants for their children…. a better life filled with more opportunity than they had.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan need to stay on offense. They need to continue to pound away at President Obama’s record without attacking him personally. Americans know they are hurting and they know the hope and change they were promised have turned to desperation and despair. Americans want to believe in America again. In his acceptance speech Mitt Romney said, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise…is to help you and your family.” He also said, “When the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American.”

Most Americans want to believe that again. They want America to be a country that celebrates success and sets the right example for the rest of the world. Republicans sent that message in Tampa. I pray that it will be heard and heeded by all Americans on November 6.

I became a Mitt Romney supporter only when the last possibility for Rick Santorum to win the nomination faded into oblivion. In other words, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the Romney camp. Mitt Romney has always appeared to be a bit too northeastern liberal for my taste. Let’s face it…. how conservative can a guy be who can get elected governor of Massachusetts? I thought at least your last name had to be Kennedy or at most, you had to have the endorsement of a Kennedy to even run for office there.

I believed in the beginning and I still believe that RomneyCare looks and sounds like ObamaCare lite. I believe Governor Romney when he says he will lead the charge to repeal The Affordable Healthcare Act and when he says he will allow states to opt out of the plan until a full repeal can be passed and signed into law. But I am still amazed that the same party that cleaned house in the 2010 mid-term elections over ObamaCare would select the candidate whose state run healthcare became the model for what so many Republicans so soundly rejected.

But I have to admit as the campaign rolls on; Mitt Romney is starting to win me over. He is knowledgeable and passionate about the incredibly tough issues we face as a country. His selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate was a bold and brilliant choice. I am sure the folks at “Obama Campaign Central” viewed Romney’s pick of Ryan as a gift. An early reelection present if you will. I have no doubt we will soon be treated to Ryan lookalikes pushing grandma, grandpa, and even aunt Susan off a cliff but Ryan’s articulate defense of his Medicare plan and his clear explanation of how it absolutely will not affect anyone over 55 years old is beginning to be heard. The effectiveness of the fear mongering, class warfare, scorched earth tactics of President Obama and his surrogates is fading. The American people have seen hope and change Obama style. They are ready for an end to campaign slogans and a new beginning of action-oriented solutions that rise from the marketplace rather than roll out from a bloated government bureaucracy.

The real game changer for me might be Mitt Romney the man. Governor Romney sat down for a series of casual questions from Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace. Wallace, never one to offer up softball questions to either side, rounded out his interview by asking Romney what becoming his party’s nominee meant to him personally. Romney’s answer surprised me. He said, “Chris, you may find this hard to believe, but this for me, is not at all about me or about what that means for me or what it means to my family. I mean, I – this is – this is not an ego ride for me. I’m really concerned about America. And I look at this as a responsibility and a privilege. It’s an honor to be the nominee of my party.” Romney went on to talk about “not letting down the millions of people who have endorsed my effort,” and he ended by saying, “If I can, I want to make sure that we get the country back on track.”

One of the great strengths of Ronald Reagan, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, was his laser like focus on the job he was elected to do. He didn’t get caught up in all of the “me, me, me” emphasis that can consume someone who can change the world with a word. The power of the presidency should be worn lightly and the burden of leading the last best hope of freedom in the world should be taken seriously. When Mitt Romney had the chance to turn the spotlight on himself he eschewed the natural inclination of self-aggrandizement and instead, turned the light on the responsibilities of leadership.

Contrast Romney’s answer to Chris Wallace about what his nomination means to him to President Obama’s response to the death of Neil Armstrong. Armstrong will forever be remembered as the man who first walked on the moon. But our memory of his accomplishment will come from the lips of others and not from Armstrong. He shunned the spotlight preferring to allow his accomplishment to shine through the testimony of others and to be judged by the perspective of history.

President Obama offered a written two sentence moving tribute to Armstrong but he couldn’t let it go at that. He also included a silhouette of himself looking up at the moon. How narcissistic do you have to be to take a stock photo of yourself and use it as a tribute to an American hero? It’s time for the President to retire to being a legend in his own mind and for Mitt Romney to step up and actually lead the country.

Romney’s refusal to take the spotlight and his obvious devotion to his wife and family reveal strength of character that is sorely needed for such a time as this. He is winning me over and my hope is, in just over two months, he will win over the vast majority of Americans.

What is hate speech? Does it fall into the category of “I can’t define it but I know when I hear it?” Most thinking Americans can tell the difference between speech that is simply expressing a positive point of view and speech that is poisoned with the venom of hatred.

When I hear people denigrate or demonize someone because of the color of their skin or the cut of their clothes I recoil in disgust. When the crazies from the Westboro Baptist Church bring out their signs wishing eternal judgment on homosexuals it angers me that they have hijacked the name “Baptist” and are using it to promote hate.

When the skinheads, the KKK, or the Nazi’s march, hide behind white sheets and burn crosses, or paint swastikas on the doors of Jewish homes and businesses I know that I am witnessing hatred unleashed. When misguided and mislabeled Christians attack abortion providers in the name of protecting the unborn or when they attack homosexuals with demeaning language or even physical violence there is no doubt hatred has won out over love.

When the New Black Panthers call for violence against white people or line up to intimidate voters to prevent them from exercising their right to peacefully choose their leaders (regardless of their skin color) we know we are witnessing both acts and verbal expressions of hate.

But what if I say that I believe marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman? What if I quote any of the many biblical passages that point to the importance of the family? Am I now considered to be a purveyor of hate simply because I hold a positive view toward the traditional family?

Prior to the late 1990’s most people in our society held to a form of negative tolerance. Under this system, you could be considered tolerant if you respected the person but rejected their view. Tolerance meant a wide range of views could be expressed and defended without the hate card being played.

But today, we are being pushed toward full-blown positive tolerance. Positive tolerance means in order to be considered tolerant you have to not only endure the views of the person expressing them you now have to embrace them. To be tolerant of homosexuality is to defend it as being on par with heterosexuality. It means to speak positively about marriage being exclusively between a man and a woman is to hate. To express a view that says Christianity is based on an exclusive relationship with Jesus Christ and to reject Christ is to choose to be separated from God for all eternity is a form of hate.

That way of thinking explains how the Southern Poverty Law Center can put the New Black Panthers and the Family Research Council on the same list of hate groups based in the District of Columbia. The Family Research Council is on the list because it is accused of being anti-gay. But FRC has never published anything hateful or even disrespectful about homosexuals. What they have done consistently and courageously is defend the traditional family and proclaim God’s Word as salt and light to sick and dark culture.

The whole controversy over Chic-fil-A started in Pennsylvania over Chic-fil-A’s decision to supply free food for a pro-marriage event. There was nothing anti-gay or hateful about the event. It was simply an event designed to extol the virtues of and strengthen the bonds of traditional heterosexual marriage. But for the radical LGBT community that was enough to cause them to accuse Chic-fil-A of sponsoring hate.

If our society embraces this radical interpretation of hate speech it won’t be long before Christianity itself will be considered a religion of hate. The prophet Isaiah warned us, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter”(Isaiah 5:20, NASV). Turning God’s love into hate by vilifying virtue is the ultimate example of turning light into darkness.

Maybe the term slippery slope is on a slippery slope toward obscurity. We generally hear the slippery slope argument when an event happens that serves as a harbinger of ever worsening circumstances that lead ultimately toward some destructive destination.

Many have argued that whole slippery slope concept, along with its first cousin “the camel’s nose under the tent,” are logically flawed and should be discarded from our lexicon. Whether you agree that the slippery slope is a fact of life or a logical fallacy you would have to agree it is one of the most overused phrases in the English language. But I believe the current flap over Chic-fil-A calls for the realization that maybe we have finally reached the bottom of the slippery slope. Attacking a business and threatening to deny that business the opportunity to operate brings us to the final destination at the bottom of the slope.

What terrible crime did Chic-fil-A commit to deserve their descent? Did they deny service to a minority group or declare they would not allow anyone from the LGBT community to darken their door? No, in fact Chic-fil-A as a company didn’t do anything other than treat its employees well and close its doors on Sunday as an observance of the Lord’s Day. Dan Cathy, president of Chic-fil-A merely expressed his views on marriage by answering “guilty as charged” when asked if he backed “the biblical definition of the family.” Cathy went on to say, “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than You as to what constitutes marriage.”’

Immediately, the doorkeepers of tolerance ran to the nearest TV camera or keyboard to express their outrage and reveal their true feelings about the First Amendment. It obviously only applies to those who hold the right views. Everyone else must be censored, shut down, or shamed into silence.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino fired off a letter to Dan Cathy making it clear; “There is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for our company along side it.” He concluded by saying, ‘I urge you to back out of your plans to located in Boston.”

I want to be sure I understood Mayor Menino. There is no freedom for Chic-fil-A on the Freedom Trail. Has there ever been a more glaring example of Left-wing hypocrisy?

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee tweeted, “Closest Chick-fil-A to San Francisco is 40 miles away and I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer.” The tirades of the tolerant continued with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel issuing a statement saying, “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values” and Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray saying he won’t support an expanded presence for Chick-fil-A in the district because of opposition to gay marriage by Dan Cathy. Apparently Chicago alderman Joe Moreno thought Mayor Emanuel didn’t go far enough because he said, “I will now be denying Chick-fil-A’s permit to open a restaurant in the 1st Ward.”

If memory serves me right the last time a government official vowed to use his power as an arm of the state to deny a business the right to exist it was followed closely by goose steeping storm troopers in the streets and the sound of railroad cars being loaded with those who disagreed.

If the mayors of Chicago, Boston, Washington, and San Francisco want to picket, protest, and take out ads against Chic-fil-A in all of their liberal newspapers so be it. It is their right to disagree and to call others to disagree much the same way it is my right to agree; call others to agree, and eat Chic-fil-A sandwiches until they run out my ears.

But if we have arrived at the point where government officials can use the power of the government to prevent a business from expanding simply because they disagree with the religious views of the president of that business we have finally arrived at the bottom of the slippery slope. The camel is all the way inside the tent and we are well on our way to the land freedom forgot.

In the wake of the horrific Aurora, Colorado shooting the words of the Apostle Paul reaches across time to bring a measure of understanding to the madness. In his letter to the church in Rome Paul describes the heart of humankind apart from the grace of God. “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”

When evil rises in such a pervasive and perverse way we are left to ponder its cause. Psychologists will line up to dissect and analyze the life of the shooter, pointing to telltale signs that might have revealed his approaching break with reality. They will lay the blame of this terrible crime at the feet of some kind of mental illness mainly because facing the fact that human beings are capable of such monstrous evil without being sick or under the influence of drugs is too much for us to bear.

Sociologists will point to the shortcomings of culture as the culprit. If only there had been someone for James Holmes to talk to, to share his burdens and bare his soul this could have been avoided. If only his silent cries for help had been heard by a world that rushed by too busy to listen. If only our video games, movies, and other violent forms of entertainment were censored, or saturated with love and not hate society wouldn’t, like a collective Dr. Frankenstein, have created this monster.

Second Amendment opponents will certainly trip over themselves running to the nearest media outlet to call for more laws against guns that, if passed, will merely turn law abiding citizens into outlaws and give outlaws another law to break. Gun control laws sound noble and they appear on the surface to be a quick fix to gun violence but a closer, more thoughtful look will see the obvious flaw in the logic. A law that makes his or her method a crime will hardly deter a person whose ultimate goal is to randomly take the life of innocent people.

Answering the why of James Holmes terrible crime is not difficult. It is the nature of fallen human beings to sink to our lowest passions. It was Paul who also tells us “the wages of sin is death.” If the story ended there we would be a hopeless people left with no choice but to wait for our own personal descent into the darkness of our own sin.

But Paul didn’t stop with the end result of sin. He added, “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). As we mourn with the families of the victims of unbelievable evil we can take comfort in the incredible flipside of evil that we see in every evil act. At Columbine we saw the flipside of evil as young Cassie Bernall proclaimed her belief in God in the face of the evil that took her life.

On 911 we saw evil crash into our twin towers but on the flipside we saw courage running into the building while fear fled the scene. We saw evil hijack a plane and head for the White House or the Capitol intent on bringing more death and destruction. But on the flipside a brave group of passengers lined up behind Todd Beamer as he cried, “Let’s roll.”

In a Tucson, Arizona parking lot Daniel Hernandez became the flipside of evil when, in the middle of utter chaos, he cleared Gabriel Giffords airway and applied pressure to her forehead to prevent her life from draining away into the asphalt.

As snapshots from the theater of horrors in Aurora begin to emerge we again hear and see the flipside of evil. The moment the shooting began three young men; Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves pushed their girlfriends to the floor and offered themselves as human shields. All three died to save the lives of their loved ones. In a moment they became the embodiment of Jesus words in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Thirteen-year-old Kaylan was attending the movie with five other people including six year old Veronica Moser-Sullivan. After the shots rang out Kaylan saw that Veronica was hit and she tried desperately to administer CPR but to no avail. Kaylan became the flipside of evil when she risked her own life to try to save Veronica.

From his hospital bed where he is recovering from three gunshot wounds at the hands of Holmes, Pierce O’ Farrell told nationally syndicated talk radio host Todd Schnitt, “I would like to talk to him (Holmes). I do forgive him.”

Once again we hear the words of Paul. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

When evil strikes we should mourn with and pray for those who are touched and caught up in its wake. But we must not wallow in the whys or wilt in the face of overwhelming grief. Evil always has a flipside that will lead us away from the bondage of bitterness and into the freedom of forgiveness that is found in our Lord Jesus Christ.

On a cold November morning in 1620, one hundred and one British and Dutch Separatists dropped anchor in the hook of Cape Cod just off the coast of what is now Massachusetts. They had braved the dangerous trip from England spending sixty-six days on a ship called the Mayflower. They were adventurers, explorers, and tradesmen who fled the bitter religious persecution of King James IV to make their way in a new world. Their names are forever remembered, not just on the pages of history books, but in the hearts and minds of every freedom-loving patriot.

Their leader, William Bradford, would become their first governor. Captain Miles Standish, the dashing British military officer would become the first commander of the Plymouth militia. William Brewster served as the colony’s religious leader and became Governor Bradford’s closest advisor. These three along with thirty-eight other leaders all signed what is known as the Mayflower Compact. Before John Alden became the first Pilgrim to set foot on Plymouth Rock the leaders wrote and signed this marvelous document which became their first covenant of government.

As we read the opening words there can be no doubt as to the purpose of their voyage. “In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subject of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and the advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant a colony in the northern parts of Virginia….”

They came seeking religious freedom. They came for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Over half of them died that first brutal winter but the survivors sowed the seeds of liberty in a land that would grow into a country that embraced their love of God and respected their right to express that love as they saw fit.

From Plymouth Rock to Bunker Hill to Yorktown, religious freedom has always been one of our most cherished rights and one of our most staunchly defended principles. But today there is a new wind of secularism blowing that threatens to chill the passion Americans have for religious freedom.

This week in Phoenix, Arizona Michael Salman began serving a sixty-day jail sentence for refusing to stop hosting a Bible study in his home. According to Todd Starnes of Fox News Salman is accused of running a church without the required permits. He was at home with his family in the summer of 2009 when close to a dozen police officers and city inspectors descended on his home, confining Salman and his family to the living room while they executed a search warrant allegedly finding 67 code violations. Salman was fined over twelve thousand dollars and sentenced to sixty days in jail.

How could this happen in a country that began with people who were willing to die rather than endure religious persecution?

In this weeks edition of The Weekly Standard Thomas F. Farr, Director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center, has a column titled, “Religious Freedom Under the Gun.” In it Farr writes, “We are today in the midst of a global crisis in religious liberty. In two exhaustive studies, the Pew Research Center recently concluded that 70 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where religious freedom is severely restricted, by either governments or private actors.”

Farr goes on to reveal that of all the religious groups being persecuted, “Christians came out on top.” And the religious persecution is by no means confined to Arab states where Christianity is outlawed. Farr points out that, “Social hostility in the United kingdom has increased so much that that country now stands with Iran and Saudi Arabia in the category of high social hostility to religion. French government restrictions have increased, too, moving it ahead of Cuba in that category.”

Imagine…. England, the land of William Wilberforce and Charles Spurgeon is now operating with the same hostility toward Christianity that you would expect to find in radical parts of the Arab world. France, once our partner in securing liberty and originator of the Statue of Liberty that stands in New York harbor now has to look up to Cuba as an example of religious freedom.

Since 2005 when Canada officially adopted gay marriage there have been “between 200 and 300 proceedings launched against defenders of marriage in courts, human rights commissions, and employment boards.” Farr notes that here at home both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have started using the phrase “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion.” This shift in terminology may appear to be subtle but in truth is it sinister. It implies walling off religious points of view from the larger culture, confining religious expressions to the church house and banning them from the marketplace of ideas.

In other words, Christians are welcome to believe what they will but they are warned not to will what they believe in the political arena. Especially when it comes to the defense of heterosexual marriage and the condemnation of homosexual pseudo marriage.

The rise of the LGBT agenda and its acceptance in mainstream culture will not be fully achieved until the Church is either compromised or silenced. How ironic it would be if that happened in a country that began “for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian religion.”

Not since 1973 and Roe Vs. Wade has a Supreme Court decision been so convoluted or contrived as the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare. In Roe the Supreme Court wanted to find a constitutional reason for a woman to have the right to terminate the life of her unborn baby. Finding none they invented something called a woman’s right to privacy and hung their constitutional reputations on a phantom concept. Since that time, over 50 million babies have been sacrificed on the altar of convenience.

How ironic that the judge many conservatives (including me) believed would provide a strong intellectual argument for overturning Roe actually ran to the left on Obamacare inventing a constitutional concept along the way. Thomas, Alito, Scalia, and even perianal swing voter Kennedy all agreed that Obamacare should be overturned. Apparently, for a while Roberts agreed. According to CBS News reporter Jan Crawford Roberts originally joined the four stalwart conservatives in rejecting the Commerce Clause argument and thus gutting Obamacare by stripping out the individual mandate.

But something happened on the way to the ruling’s release. Evidently Roberts started thinking more about the court’s legacy than the Constitution. He went on a grand quest to find a reason to be reasonable in the eyes of the Washington Press Corp and the rest of the mainstream media. After all, conservatives are supposed to be reluctant to overturn sweeping legislation that has been duly debated and consciencelessly passed by Congress. Roberts, like an NFL receiver hearing the footsteps of a rushing cornerback, knew he and “his court” would take a beating if they overturned Obamacare. So, he decided to lateral the ball and make something out of nothing. He would have been better served to simply acknowledge the nothingness of the team Obama argument and let the Affordable Care Act be stopped in its tracks.

I have read all the arguments coming from the right about how Roberts is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. His ruling has been called brilliant by some and innovative and slick by others. A kind of constitutional rope-a-dope to lure progressives into a corner on this case and then come out swinging with a knockout blow on the next big decision. Some believe the Commerce clause can now never again be used to justify the expansion of government power. Those who believe that underestimate the ability of the Left to disregard legal precedent in favor of their own twisted understanding of a law.

For example, in the Everson vs. the Board of Education case, which became the basis for the modern understanding of the separation of Church and State, the Supreme Court ignored 150 years of precedent against the idea of separation and inserted a sentence from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson into the Constitution. If a bunch of liberals on the court can find a woman’s right to privacy in the Constitution and totally disregard multiple previous court rulings I am sure they will have no trouble ignoring this ruling.

Others say turning the Obamacare mandate penalty into a tax was a brilliant move that will henceforth and forevermore hamper the ability of Congress to pass overwrought legislation because they will have to admit it is a tax. But if the term tax were the automatic red flag it is being portrayed to be we would not be overtaxed, overregulated, and hopelessly in debt. Just as water always seems to find a way around any barrier as it heads for the lowest point Congress will always be able to find and promote another logical sounding reason to impose a tax.

Maybe the silver lining in this dark cloud of constitutional contortion is the provision that will allow the states to reject government mandated Medicaid without incurring a penalty. While a reassertion of federalism is a nice touch it is a poor tradeoff for allowing a program to stand that is clearly unconstitutional and that will, once fully implemented, bankrupt the country.

My favorite commentary on Roberts run to the Left comes from Jonah Goldberg of the National Review. Commenting on all the reasons why Roberts decided to run to the Left Goldberg writes, “What Roberts did is not in his job description. Whatever his motivation…whether it was to defend the Court’s reputation or his own, or if it was to deliver some ingenious slow-acting poison to the Nanny State that’s now hat justices are supposed to prioritize. If he’s the umpire he claims to be, he should be umping.”

I think the problem boils down to this. Instead of umping according to the rules Roberts redefined the strike zone to keep the pitcher who can’t throw strikes from feeling bad. By finding a phantom tax in Obamacare Roberts rewrote the rules and turned the IRS into the 2012 equivalent of the KGB. We are now left with only one recourse. We must elect Mitt Romney president and give him a clear majority in the United States Senate. If we fail, Robert’s run to the left leaves us running for our lives in the face of an all powerful, unrestrained, unconstitutional government.

Christians rallied from one end of the country to the other this past Friday to let Washington hear loud and clear that we will not allow our religious freedoms to be trampled on without a fight. There were at least 160 coordinated rallies held on the anniversary of the introduction of 12 proposed amendments to the United States Constitution. James Madison introduced the amendments on June 8th, 1789 and by December of 1791 ten of the amendments had been ratified by two-thirds of the states and became known as the Bill of Rights.

The first amendment states clearly, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The HHS mandate currently being contested in 12 lawsuits filed by forty-three Catholic groups would require employers to provide employees free abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraceptives through their health plans beginning in August of this year. The mandate flows from President Obama’s landmark 2010 healthcare law, which is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a law that was recklessly rammed through Congress over the objection of a vast majority of Americans and the ramifications of that law now threaten one of our most sacred rights.

But Christians from every walk of life and every religious persuasion are declaring in one voice that we will not be ruled by an out of control, bloated bureaucracy intent on taking our freedom. Christians will not go quietly into the dark night of despotism. We will not cower before government power when, according to our Constitution, “we the people” are the ones who empower the government.

Christians who gathered on June 8 gathered to send the message that the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights was written to protect “we the people” from those who believe they can simply impose their will because they occupy the halls of power. The rallies were an exercise of our constitutional right to resist unconstitutional laws. They reflect the commitment of millions of Americans to work together through the legislative process to set us free from the heavy hand of those in government who do not respect the First Amendment.

In his excellent book, We Still Hold These Truths, Matthew Spalding recalls the dedication of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. The year was 1952 and the speaker was then President Harry S. Truman. Truman’s warning concerning our liberty echoes through time. It reaches our ears today reminding us how precious and how tenuous our liberty truly is. Referring to all of the founding documents housed in the new building Truman said, “Liberty can be lost, and it will be if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded not as the supreme expression of our profound belief, but merely as curiosities in glass cases.”

In his book Now or Never, Senator Jim DeMint defines freedom as, “what occurs when millions of people make their own decisions about what they value and what they do. America began as an experiment in freedom, and it is our characteristic reverence for liberty that has made us great. Returning to decentralized political power and individualism will restore freedom… and this restoration of freedom will help rebuild America’s greatness.” Senator DeMint is right to point out the link between the decline of collectivism and the rise of individualism as the route to a restoration of our freedom. Only God has the power to transform the masses into individuals with the character traits that are essential to self-government. People who want to live free must exhibit personal responsibility, self-restraint, a commitment to family, charity, an ethic of hard work, sacrifice, and delayed gratification. These characteristics must rise from within because they cannot be legislated from any government body.

In 1835, Alexis De Tocqueville wrote, “Despotism can do without faith, but liberty cannot. When a people’s religion is destroyed then not only will they let their freedom be taken from them, but often they will actually hand it over themselves.”
We need to remember that our Founding Fathers were not Atheists, Deists, Taoists, Maoists, Fatalists, or Socialists. They were men of God who realized our form of government would fall if our faith in God failed.

So how do we rescue our Republic as it teeters on the brink of tyranny? I believe we must look to the example of Joshua and Caleb from the book of Deuteronomy. After spying out the land of Canaan with 10 others they returned with a report that the land was plentiful and although giants also occupied it living in great fortresses God had already given them the land.

But the people were afraid. They refused to enter the land and God punished them for their lack of faith and lack of action. God caused them to wander in the wilderness for forty years until the doubting generation died out.

We are faced with a similar situation today. God has given us this great land. He raised it up as a beacon for freedom and as a platform for the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must have the courage and faith of Joshua and Caleb to move forward and take the land by voting our convictions. If we fail to speak up and act in the face of what seems to be impossible odds we will suffer the same fate as those who wondered in the wilderness until their generation died out.

This is our time. It now falls to our generation to rekindle our passion to relearn our history and to protect our heritage of freedom. We must lift the principles of liberty from the glass case of history and enshrine them afresh and anew in our hearts.

If you are a science fiction fan you know that a popular story line in science fiction stories is the alternative universe theory. From Star Trek to Lord of the Rings fiction writers have advanced the idea that there are multiple alternative universes in various time frames that allow for all sorts of fantastic storylines and otherwise implausible and illogical outcomes. In Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Peregrin Took (Pippin) finds the allure of Saruman’s crystal (palantir) to be irresistible. When he takes it from Gandalf he is treated to a vision of what Middle Earth will be like if Sauron’s forces are successful. It is an alternative universe that happily for the Hobbits never comes to pass. In Star Trek The Next Generation it seems the crew of the Enterprise is always messing with the “space/time continuum” creating all kinds of rifts in time that allow those pesky alternative universes to pop up.

I had always assumed these alternative universes were bogus but when I read that the Attorney General of the United States was going to address a council of African American church leaders I immediately thought we must have slipped into one. Can you imagine what would happen in the real universe if a Republican Attorney General addressed a group of Evangelical pastors with tips on how to get their parishioners to turn out on election day? The time/space continuum would rupture and every liberal, leftwing politician and member of the media would spontaneously combust. But Democrat Eric Holder can call a confab with the Council of Black Churches and announce that, “some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang in the balance” and the media watchdogs refuse to bark.

My knowledge of history may be a little fuzzy but I think I would have remembered if the civil rights movement was threatened by legitimate investigations into voter irregularity. State Legislatures in South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and a host of other states have tried to tighten up loose voter laws that have allowed the dead to rise on Election Day. In South Carolina, 953 people who had passed on were listed as having voted in the 2010 election. The South Carolina Election Commission investigated 207 cases and declared all but ten to be the result of “clerical errors, bad data matching, errors in assigning voter participation, or voters dying after being issued an absentee ballot.” Immediately, left wing websites and talk shows published the fiction that “95 percent of the cases” were attributable to something other than fraud. What they don’t say is that it was 95 percent of the 207 cases investigated, not 95 percent of the total number. That leaves us with 746 cases yet to be reviewed.

A strong but fair voter ID law like the one passed in South Carolina that would provide free picture ID’s to all who could not afford one would put to rest most questions of voter irregularity and would pose no unreasonable burden on any voter. If a person were not willing or able to go to the DMV to get a free legitimate picture ID why would they be willing or able to show up at the polls on Election Day?

According to Fox News Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered Florida to “halt its push to remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls.” An initial search by election officials in Florida suggested up to 182,000 voters may be ineligible to vote because they are not American citizens. According to the same Fox News story, “Earlier this year state officials sent to local election officials a much smaller list of more than 2,600 voters and asked supervisors to start the process to remove them from the rolls.” Responding to criticism from the Holder Justice Department Florida Department of State spokesperson Chris Cate said, “Bottom line we are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot.”

If would be nice if the Federal Justice Department would make the same commitment to enforcing existing voting laws instead of sending Attorney General Eric Holder out to accuse Republican led states of attacking civil rights laws.

Joel Gehrke, a staff writer for The Examiner (washingtonexaminer.com) reports that the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus sponsored event for pastors, Emanuel Cleaver said the event was “designed to educate pastors on what they’re allowed to say about politics in church while encouraging them to keep black turnout high.”

I can only imagine what would happen if those words had come from a conservative republican encouraging Christians to turn out and vote their conscience. Maybe we are in an alternate universe after all.