LARK Program

I received this from my boss and found it to be extremely funny how some people don't get the true nature behind Islamic terrorists. Enjoy!

THE LARK PROGRAM



A Lady libertarian wrote a lot of letters to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive insurgent (terrorist) being held in Guantanamo Bay. She received back the following reply:



The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, D.C. 20016



Dear Concerned Citizen,



Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Quaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.



Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington.
You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short.



In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday.



Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of complaint. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers.



We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are Com- mensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.



Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome these character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling.



Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.



Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except sexually), since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire.
I'm sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka -- over time.



Just remember that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" -- wasn't that how you put it?



Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of Ahmed - and remember..we'll be watching.



Good luck!



Cordially, your friend,

Don Rumsfeld

Constitution Party Responds to Bush's State of the Union

I received this the other week and wanted to post it for your information. This is the response of the Constitution Party to the State of the Union speech by President Bush.

President Bush's 2006 State of the Union address, while undeniably a superb piece of political gamesmanship, highlighted the fundamental disconnect between most of the President's positions and the principles of constitutionally-limited government. This is hardly a new development, since the leadership of both major parties has treated portions of the Constitution as a dead letter for generations. Nevertheless, as the only national party whose platform is 100% constitutional, we are duty-bound to remind the American public of what is really at stake with issues like terrorism, welfare, social security, and other matters attracting attention in Washington.

We agree with President Bush that our strength as a nation flows from the freedoms that we enjoy, and that we must strive, and, if necessary, make sacrifices, in order to protect those freedoms. But love of freedom and love of country are not necessarily the same thing. While we applaud the outpouring of genuine patriotism in the wake of 9-11 and the heartfelt desire to support the men and women serving in America's Armed Forces, we must point out that our freedoms are guaranteed in the final analysis by a United States Constitution that not only safeguards certain God-given rights but also imposes very clear restrictions on the powers of our own federal government. Love of freedom, therefore, must include a reverence for the Constitution and respect for the limits it places on power.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders in Washington have shown that they are willing to use crises to justify extra-constitutional expansion of government powers. Since 9-11, we have witnessed a significant expansion of executive powers to search without warrants, imprison without a trial, and pursue alleged criminals without accountability to due process. We heard President Bush argue for reauthorizing the Patriot Act, a bill that was rushed through Congress without proper scrutiny by lawmakers, and which embodies the old cliche about the devil being in the details. The Bush Administration is also completely unapologetic about authorizing the CIA and NSA to conduct domestic espionage, another extremely dangerous precedent that could become a pretext for further abuse of executive power by future administrations.

We have also become involved in two major overseas wars, neither of which was authorized by a Constitutionally-mandated Congressional declaration. The fact that we have not fought a declared war since World War II is not an excuse for cavalier disregard of this critical limit on the powers of the Executive branch, which was intended, as Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, to ensure that the American President would not possess the power of an Old World monarch to start wars at his own discretion. Nor are the various political arguments in favor of military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan justification for ignoring the Constitution. The power to start wars is easily abused, and has been exploited throughout history by unscrupulous despots to solidify their hold on power. If we continue to grant president after president carte blanche to wage war at his personal whim, we should not be surprised to see greater and greater abuses of this power, and more and more frequent resorts to military action all over the world.

Some in Congress have protested that the Bush Administration doctored the evidence to push America into war in Iraq. But few of those Congressmen were willing to hold President Bush accountable in the first place, by insisting that a Declaration of War be debated and voted upon.

President Bush made it clear that his vision, like that of most of his recent predecessors, is for America to continue to be militarily engaged all over the world, overthrowing hostile governments and waging an open-ended war on terrorism. He derided those who oppose such a course of action as "isolationists." America has never been isolationist, but it was once very sensibly non-interventionist. The Founding Fathers themselves were keenly interested in trade and diplomacy, and many of them were well-educated in foreign languages, culture and history. But they did not want America transformed into some kind of global policeman. They understood that America neither possessed the resources nor the moral authority to impose her will on the entire world.

In 1820, for example, when Greece was fighting a valiant battle for freedom against a cruel and oppressive Ottoman regime, America was pressured to lend her support to the cause. President John Quincy Adams, on July 4th of that year, responded to those who would have involved America in an overseas quarrel by reminding his listeners that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty." This wise counsel is just as applicable today. Incidentally, the Greeks won their independence, fighting against one of the most powerful empires of the day, without American aid money and without American troops.

President Bush also took issue with what he and like-minded internationalists call protectionism. They accuse protectionists of building walls around America and trying to shut out world trade. We do not oppose trade as such. What we oppose are international agreements that deliberately hobble American industry. We also oppose unwise policies that not merely permit trade but throw open our borders, attempts to compromise our sovereignty under the guise of so-called "free trade" agreements like NAFTA and the WTO, and domestic laws that impose such steep taxes and regulatory penalties that American companies are given strong incentives to move their operations overseas.

President Bush rightly stated in his address that America still leads the world in talent. If that is the case, then why are so many talented American workers losing their jobs to overseas competitors? Simply put, it is because our own policies are making it prohibitively expensive to hire domestic workers for many functions. President Bush claims he wants to strengthen American workers and continue to encourage investment, research, and development. He stated "With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker." But his administration has done everything it can to give Mexicans, Indians, and Chinese a competitive advantage over American workers. The president simply cannot be given credit for sincerity in this matter.

The huge unpopularity of our government's immigration policy has forced our politicians to mouth pieties they disbelieve. The President said "Our nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection." The very reason we do not have immigration enforcement and border protection is that there has been a deliberate policy under administrations of both parties not to enforce the laws of the land. The President goes on to reject amnesty which he championed when he thought he could get away with it.

In fact, all our establishment politicians serve corporate interests who would further drive down wages for working Americans and dilute the American national character with Third World immigrants whose tragic national histories too often leave them with no ability to appreciate America's legacy of ordered liberty and the rule of law.

The President correctly pointed out that America has become addicted to foreign oil, especially oil produced in unstable parts of the world. Yet he made no mention of the continual refusal of the federal government to authorize oil and natural gas extraction in places like the Arctic National Wildlife refuge, or of the burdensome regulations that have hamstrung domestic oil extraction for much of the last couple of decades.

President Bush, like almost everyone in Washington these days, believes that there are few problems that cannot be solved by the creative application of government power. In his address he recommended further federal involvement in education, health care, social security, and a host of other concerns. He said, for example, that "Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly." In fact, nowhere is providing health care for the poor and elderly authorized in the U.S. Constitution. That these may be noble ends does not justify using unconstitutional means to attain them. The same may be said for federal government involvement in education, social security, welfare, and so forth.

To many Americans, this may sound cruel and heartless, because we have become so accustomed to demand that government provide for us the things that, in most cases, we can and ought to provide for ourselves. Those of us who champion limited constitutional government will always be at a rhetorical disadvantage to those who, like President Bush, prefer to disregard the Constitution and promise whatever they think will sell to a prime time audience.

But our vision is optimistic. We believe that only by returning to our constitutional roots will we make progress in paying off our colossal national debt, providing for our national security, and stabilizing our economy. We believe that ballooning costs in health care and education are best solved by less government intervention, not more. We expect our elected leaders to adhere strictly to their constitutional oaths of office, and make no apologies for holding them to their obligations. We want a strong America leading the worldwide cause of freedom, but by example, not by military force, unless absolutely necessary. We applaud the growth of marvelous new technologies like the Internet, where the absence of government oversight has allowed unprecedented innovation and wealth creation. We look forward to the day when the blight of abortion is once again illegal. Above all, we hope for a return to the moral values that made America great in the first place, and pray that Almighty God will bless our nation as we move in that direction.

Antinomianism

I am working on a short post of a passage I was thinking on previously, Matthew 12. However, late last night and for several months I have been running across blogs in which there are many Christians who seem to see no purpose at all in the Law. Many will claim that they sound Antinomian, but not to call them that. I am curious how my brothers view this subject. Mainly I am trying to understand the position in regards to passages such as Romans 3:31 and the letter to the Galatians.

Most of the time this particular view comes up in discussions concerning the fourth of the ten commandments. However, my primary concern is this: When the gospel is given, why is it good news? What is the bad news that makes the gospel of grace such good news? How is sin defined? If we call men to repent of their sins and put their faith in God, what would that entail? If we sin, by what standard do we know that we have sinned? It seems to be a pretty important issue as far as I'm concerned.

I am not advocating obedience to the Law as justification before God. The Scripture is clearly against that. It seems the real sticking point of the discussion lies within whether or not those who have been born again are enabled by the Spirit of God to submit to His Law out of love, not obligation.

Spurgeon put it quite well,

I am rather fond of being called an Antinomian, for this reason, that the term generally applied to those who hold truth very firmly and will not let it go. But I should not be fond of being an Antinomian. We are not against the law of God. We believe it is no longer binding on us as the covenant of salvation; but we have nothing to say against the law of God. "The law is holy; we are carnal, sold under sin." None shall charge us truthfully with being Antinomians. We do quarrel with Antinomians; but as for some poor souls, who are so inconsistent as to say the law is not binding, and yet try to keep it with all their might, we do not quarrel with them! they will never do much mischief; but we think they might learn to distinguish between the law as a covenant of life and a direction after we have obtained life.
Well, we do love good works. Do you ask, of what use are they? I reply, first: Good works are useful as evidences of grace. The Antinomian says,—But I do not require evidences; I can live without them. This is unreasonable. Do you see yonder clock? That is the evidence of the time of day. The hour would be precisely the same if we had not that evidence. Still, we find the clock of great use. So we say, good works are the best evidence of spiritual life in the soul. Is it not written, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren?" Loving the brethren is a good work. Again, "If any man abide in me, he shall bring forth fruit." Fruits of righteousness are good works, and they are evidence that we abide in Christ. If I am living in sin day by day, what right have I to conclude I am a child of God? A man comes to this chapel, and while he hears the gospel, he exclaims, "What delicious truth! what heavenly doctrine!" Yet when he leaves the place, you may see him enter one public-house for another, and get intoxicated. Has this man any right to think himself an heir of heaven? The man who comes to God's house, and drinks "wine on the lees, well refined," and then goes away and drinks the cup and enjoys the company of the ungodly, gives no evidence that he is a partaker of divine grace. He says, "I do not like good works." Of course he does not. "I know I shall not be saved by good works." Of this we are certain, for he has none to be saved by. Many are ready enough to say,

"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;"

who believe they are children of God, because, though they have no good works as evidence, they think they have faith. Ah, sir! you have faith, and there is another gentleman quite as respectable as you are, who has faith; I shall not tell you his name this morning, but he is better than you are, for it is said, "He believes and trembles," while you sit unmoved by the most powerful appeals. Yes you who think you are children of God while you live in sin, you are in the most dreadful error. There is no delusion, if you except the delusion of the Pharisee, which is more dreadful than the delusion of a man, who thinks that sin and grace can reign together. The Christian has sins of heart, over which he groans and laments, but as regards his outward life, he is kept, so that the evil one touches him not; the Lord keeps him under the shadow of his wing; he doth not, except in some falls, allow him to turn out of the way. Works are the evidence of our faith; by faith our souls are justified before God; by works our faith is justified before ourselves and fellow-men.

Secondly, we think good works are the witnesses or testimony to other people of the truth of what we believe. Every Christian was sent into the world to be a preacher; and just like every other creature that God has made, he will always be preaching about his Lord. Doth not the whole world preach God? Do not the stars, while they shine, look down from heaven and say there is a God? Do not the winds chaunt God's name in their mighty howling? Do not the waves murmur it upon the shore, or thunder it in the storms? Do not the floods and the fields, the skies and the plains, the mountains and the valleys, the streamlets and the rivers, all speak for God? Assuredly they do; and a new-born creature—the man created in Christ—must preach Jesus Christ wherever he goes. This is the use of good works. He will preach, not with his mouth always, but with his life. The use of good works is, that they are a Christian's sermon. A sermon is not what a man says, but what he does. You who practice are preaching; it is not preaching and practising, but practising is preaching. The sermon that is preached by the mouth is soon forgotten, but what we preach by our lives is never forgotten. There is nothing like faithful practice and holy living, if we would preach to the world. The reason why Christianity does not advance with a mightier stride, is simply this:—that professors are in a large measure a disgrace to religion, and many of those who are joined to the church have no more godliness than those who are out of it. If I preached such a contradictory sermon on a Sunday as some of you have preached the most part of your lives, you would go out and say, "We will not go again till he can be a little more consistent with himself." There is a difference in the very tone of the voice of some people when they are in the chapel engaged in prayer, and when they are in the workshop; you would hardly think them the same persons. Out upon your inconsistency! Professors, take heed lest your inconsistencies should blot your evidence, and some of you should be found manifesting, not inconsistency, but a most fearful consistency, because living in sin and iniquity, and therefore being consistent with yourselves in hypocrisy.
In the third place, good works are of us to a Christian as an adornment. You will all remember that passage in the Scriptures, which tells us how a woman should adorn herself. "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." The adornment of good works, the adornment in which we hope to enter heaven, is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ; but the adornment of a Christian here below, is his holiness, his piety, his consistency. If some people had a little more piety, they would not require such a showy dress; if they had a little more godliness, to set them off, they would have no need whatever to be always decorating themselves. The best ear-rings that a woman can wear, are the ear-rings of hearing the Word with attention. The very best ring that we can have upon our finger is the ring which the father puts upon the finger of the prodigal son, when he is brought back; and the very best dress we can ever wear, is a garment wrought by the Holy Spirit, the garment of a consistent conduct. But it is marvellous, while many are taking all the trouble they can to array this poor body, they have very few ornaments for their soul; they forgot to dress the soul. Oh! no; they are too late at chapel, all because of that other pin, which they might have left out. They come here just when the service is beginning, because, forsooth, they have so much to put on, they could not be expected to be here in time. And there are Christian men and Christian women, who forget what God has written in his word, which is as true now as ever it was, that Christian women should array themselves with modesty. It would be a good thing, perhaps, if we went back to Wesley's rule, to come out from the world in our apparel, and to dress as plainly and neatly as the Quakers, though alas! they have sadly gone from their primitive simplicity. I am obliged to depart a little sometimes, from what we call the high things of the gospel; for really the children of God cannot now be told by outward appearance from the children of the devil, and they really ought to be; there should be some distinction between the one and the other; and although religion allows distinction of rank and dress, yet everything in the Bible cries out against our arraying ourselves, and making ourselves proud, by reason of the goodliness of our apparel. Some will say, "I wish you would leave that alone!" Of course you do, because it applies to yourself. But we let nothing alone which we believe to be in the Scriptures; and while I would not spare any man's soul, honesty to every man's conscience and honesty to myself demands, that I should always speak of that which I see to be an evil breaking out in the Church. We should always take care that in everything we keep as near as possible to the written Word. If you want ornaments here they are. Here are jewels, rings, dresses, and all kinds of ornament; men and women, ye may dress yourselves up till ye shine like angels. How can you do it? By dressing yourselves out in benevolence, in love to the saints, in honesty and integrity, in uprightness, in godliness, in brotherly-kindness, in charity. These are the ornaments which angels themselves admire, and which even the word will admire; for men must give admiration to the man or the woman who is arrayed in the jewels of a holy life and godly conversation. I beseech you, brethren, "adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things."
IV. Thus have I told you the use of good works. Now just a moment or two to tell you that the religion which we profess in this place, and which we preach, is CALCULATED TO PRODUCE GOOD WORKS IN THE CHILD OF GOD.
Some say that what is called Calvinism, which is an alias for the true gospel, is calculated to lead men into sin. Now, we will refute that, just by reminding them, that the holiest people in the world have been those who professed the doctrine which we hold. If you ask who in the dark ages were the great moral lights of the world, the answer will be, such as Athanasius, Ambrose, Chrysostom; and then coming lower still, such men as Wickliffe, Jerome of Prague, and Calvin; and every one of these held the doctrines which we love to proclaim. And just let me remind you, there never were better men in the world than the Puritans, and every one of them held fast the truth we love. I happened to find in a book the other day a statement which pleased me so much, that I thought I would read it to you. The writer says, "The Puritans were the most resolved Protestants in the nation; zealous Calvinists; warm and affectionate preachers. They were the most pious and devout people in the land; men of prayer in secret and in public, as well as in their families. Their manner of devotion was fervent and solemn, depending on the assistance of the Divine Spirit. They had a profound reverence for the holy name of God, and were great enemies not only to profane swearing, but to foolish talking and jesting. They were strict observers of the Lord's day, spending the whole of it in public and private devotion and charity. It was the distinguishing mark of a Puritan, in these times, to see him going to church twice a day, with his Bible under his arm; and while others were at plays and interludes, at revels, or walking in the fields, or at the diversions of bowling, fencing, &c., on the eve of the Sabbath, these with their families were employed in reading the Scriptures, singing psalms, repeating sermons, catechising their children, and prayer. Nor was this the work only of the Lord's day, but they had their hours of family devotion in the week days; they were circumspect, as to all excess in eating and drinking, apparel, and lawful diversions; being frugal, industrious, exact in their dealings, and solicitous to give every one his own." That is a noble testimony to puritanic truth and the power of the gospel. But I have one, which I think will please you, in another part of the book. A learned Infidel says of the modern Calvinists and Jansenists, that "When compared with their antagonists, they have excelled, in no small degree, in the most rigid and respectable virtues; that they have been an honor to their own age, and the best model for imitation to every age succeeding." Only think of an infidel speaking like that. I think it was an infidel that said, "Go the Arminians to hear about good works; but go to the Calvinists to see them exhibited." And even Dr. Priestly, who was a Unitarian, admits that, "They who hold the doctrines of grace, have less apparent conformity to the world, and more of a principle of real religion, than his own followers: and that they who, from a principle of religion, ascribe more to God and less to man than others, have the greatest elevation of piety." --from Spurgeon.Org

For those who may visit and don't know what Antinomianism is, wilkipedia gives a pretty thorough defintion here.

Thinking of an apologetic against evolution using abortion

I hope to be able to post by tomorrow about some things concerning Matthew 12. I told Andrew that I would try to get around to that, but life with 6 busy little ones and one very sweet and pregnant woman has taken up a considerable amount of time as well as work and study. So, apart from simply posting notes, which I would consider completely boring, I will try and give some thinking behind my thoughts.

Also, I didn't put it up, but Hannah had her first run in with stiches about a month ago. She had a shelf fall on her and put a pretty big cut right at her hairline and had to have 3 stitches. This little girl never flinched or moved the entire time she was at the doctor. We are thankful to the Lord that in His providence she healed up nicely and was not hurt terribly, but it was a huge shot to the wallet.........almost $300. I think I need to find a do-it-yourself stitch kit and handle it myself. I think I could do it........really!

I was thinking the other day and would like to develop it. I have been watching the John Ankerberg Show. I let the DVR record it. Over the last three weeks they have had the discussion of whether Genesis is describing literal days or whether they refer to millions of years. Frankly, I think Dr. Hugh Ross is "out to lunch" on the subject. I side with a real day. I know, I know some of you will give me a hard time in regards to my thinking concerning the millenium. However, it seems logical to me that when God created He did so by speaking. I might ask the question, "Exactly how long does it take for God to create?" Did it take him a full day and evening? If God is capable of such incredible power those things that He created were instantaneous! He was not molding and shaping, but simply speaking and those things came to pass.

This leads to some of my thinking concerning the lies spawned by evolution. Many pregnant women go in for an abortion and be told that what they are actually carrying is not a real human being, but is in the process of becoming a human. In fact, I am surprised they have not held up the embryo or the fetus as the "missing link". Yet in very non direct terms they say that a baby in the womb is actually going through the process in 9 months that took humans millions of years to go through just to become human! This is simply born out of the fact that a young baby (embryo) looks very similar early on to other creatures and goes through various other stages where it resembles other creatures at other stages until it becomes human. However, they are never able to determine precisely when this is. Incredible! My point is this: How can both be true? How can it take millions of years for an ameoba in some primordial soup to become a man and yet in 9 months the entire cycle can take place? It can't possibly be the same.

I think this could be developed into a good apologetic against the claims of evolution. Any of you who might have some input I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, I am trying to develop a small web site for hosting tracts of a reformed nature and make them available for download for free. Many of you are incredibly gifted and have written some good material that I would like to use and will give you full credit for. I and others have been looking for something like this and I decided to at least make an attempt to get it up on the web. I am planning also on having various languages. If you are interested, email me.

Monday Morning Quotes

I was competely exhausted yesterday following fellowship with the church. So I thought I would take this morning and post two quotes I ran across this weekend that stood out to me. I hope they will encourage you as well.

“Someone asked, ‘Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?’

It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who

have not, can be saved.” -- Charles Spurgeon

THE LIGHT OFTHE GOSPEL IS NOT AS THE

LIGHT OF THE MOON—TO

SLEEP BY, BUT AS THE LIGHT OF

THE SUN—TO WORK BY!