Update: Posts like this are incompatible with my goal to place my work in certain secular (and even some Christian) publications. It’s better to have a lower or at least politically correct profile. But still I write posts like this, and the archives are here to stay. (I was edgier back in the day.) I’ll let God sort it out. 
By the way, read Byron York’s latest: “The fact is, since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens in this country to carry, on their person, the documentation proving they are here legally — green card, work visa, etc. That hasn’t changed.”
So how is asking to see the documentation a violation?
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I used to be really angry about the way politicians were running this country. I used to be really angry when people made assumptions about me based on the color of my skin. I used to be really angry when readers and other bloggers said and wrote nasty things about me because I had a different opinion, the incorrect opinion. And nothing made me angrier than when black readers said I should shut up and go away because I was dangerous or self-hating or stupid or ugly or all four.
The anger was fuel that kept me writing, speaking, and going against the grain. It was invigorating. I wasn’t contrary for the sake of being contrary. I truly believe, will always believe, that conservatism is better for the country, and that liberalism degrades.
I’ve mellowed in middle age. Thank you, Lord! I’m not nearly as angry as I once was. Yes, politicians are still ruining the country. People still make assumptions based on the color of my skin. People still say and write nasty things about me. What’s changed?
It’s simple. First, I started trusting God more than men. That’s what Christians are supposed to do, but being fallen human beings, we give other fallen human beings too much credit. These days, instead of keeping my faith in a box and pulling it out when reading and studying the Bible or talking about it with others or attending church, I wear it like a pendant around my neck. Second, I stopped caring so much.
Some Christians are happy about Obama’s election, regardless of his views on child killing, for instance, because he’s black (half, actually). Too sad for words. I used to seethe just thinking about the level of ignorance among people who seem to care nothing about an individual’s values, only his race. But the seething dissipated, thank God.
When I look at a person, politician or regular Joe, the first thing I want to know is whether he’s a Christian, a Bible-believing Christian. (There’s a difference.) Character follows. Is it high or low? (If he’s a Christian, his character is high, yes? Not necessarily, unfortunately. We’re still sinners.) For example, does the person cheat on his/her spouse? If he’s a Christian, does he believe babies born during botched abortions should be left to die? Does the self-labeled Christian call himself pro-choice? Next thing I want to know is whether he’s conservative politically, especially socially. The color of his skin has no part to play in my assessment. If you’re a conservative Christian with high character, you’re golden.
What precipitated this mini-rant? Pat Buchanan. Reading his latest this morning got me riled up a bit. Just a bit. Fully rested from last night’s sleep, lying in bed at pre-dawn and browsing the headlines on the Droid before I got up, I read “Whose country is this?” and felt a twinge of nostalgia. This is one of the reasons I started blogging.
Buchanan writes about Arizona’s new law to deal with illegal aliens, as the federal government has abdicated its constitutional duty to deal with illegal aliens. He writes:
We have a crisis in Arizona because we have a failed state in Washington.
What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?
He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.
He has denounced Arizona as “misguided.” He has called on the Justice Department to ensure that Arizona’s sheriffs and police do not violate anyone’s civil rights. But he has said nothing about the rights of the people of Arizona who must deal with the costs of having hundreds of thousands of lawbreakers in their midst.
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The state has a fiscal crisis caused in part by the burden of providing schooling and social welfare for illegals and their families, who consume far more in services than they pay in taxes and who continue to pour in. Even John McCain is now calling for 3,000 troops on the border.
Police officers and a prominent rancher have been murdered. There have been kidnappings believed to be tied to the Mexican drug cartels. There are nightly high-speed chases through the barrios where innocent people are constantly at risk.
If Arizona does not get control of the border and stop the invasion, U.S. citizens will stop coming to Arizona and will begin to depart, as they are already fleeing California.
What we are talking about here is the Balkanization and breakup of a nation into ethnic enclaves. A country that cannot control its borders isn’t really a country anymore, Ronald Reagan reminded us.
The tasks that Arizonans are themselves undertaking are ones that belong by right, the Constitution and federal law to the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security.
At this point some of you liberals might be wondering why this makes me angry. Conservatives know, because they feel it, too. Here we have Barack Obama, a man who is a duly elected commander in chief of the greatest country on the planet, who swore to uphold the Constitution, which provides for protection of the states from invasion. And what does he have to say about Arizona’s burdened citizens? He called them misguided and announced an intent to protect illegal aliens’ civil rights. What about the constitutional rights of American citizens? Meh.
The implicit message is that Arizona is some kind of fascist state, overwhelmed law enforcement officers, dead rancher and border agents, and frustrated residents be damned. Arizona, Obama doesn’t care about you. He aims to protect the illegal aliens, not the people he actually has a duty to protect.
After the law passed, I watched an evening newscast. I saw an overweight, bespectacled, shirt-and-tie-wearing, office-working, no-accented Hispanic on the news implying, with a straight face, that the cops would stop someone like him and ask to see his papers. Har-har-har. In the old days, I’d have had the urge to throw whatever was in my hand at the TV.
Whose country is this? In our backward society, a taxpaying, law-abiding American citizen who complains about border-jumpers in our midst is branded a xenophobe. We live in a society where people can jump the border or overstay visas, in clear violation of our country’s laws, and our president turns not on the lawbreakers, but on his own people. We elected him to protect us, not the invader. How did this happen?
Whose country is this? In our biblically illiterate society, some Christians imply that others who want illegal aliens to be prosecuted and/or deported are un-Christ-like. Does the same hold for the murderer? The armed robber? The rapist? The tax cheat? Are we reading the same Bible? What if the lawbreaker were a Christian…should the law hold him to a different standard because he’s a Christian? Some illegal aliens call themselves Christians. How do they and their Christian advocates reconcile breaking the law and expecting special treatment with biblical teachings to obey the law?
Are immigration laws unjust? Is it unbiblical for a country to create immigration laws and enforce its own borders? I’m patiently waiting for someone to make the biblical argument. E-mail me.
If I hadn’t witnessed this ignorance firsthand, I would not have believed it.
George Bush lost me on illegal “immigration.” I was deeply disappointed that a man I voted for pushed amnesty for illegal aliens.” “What about the people waiting in line to become citizens the legal way!” I shouted. I took it personally. Bush pushed the bill so hard, despite grumblings from the base, I suspected Mexico’s president had something on him. I still do.
This is the best I can do as a rant these days. God is running this world the way he sees fit, even if it makes little sense to me. Nothing pleases God more than my trust and faith in him. The Bible says so. That doesn’t mean Christians can’t act. We are to act in the world and advance the Kingdom within it. But we don’t need to run ourselves ragged worrying about the world. One thing we know for certain: He wins. Keep that in mind as you read/watch our leaders protect the foreigner and the lawbreaker over the native and the law-abider.
For my sanity, peace of mind, and physical health, I’m off he-said/she-said politics and focused on topics that don’t make me angry*, that I enjoy, and that are pleasing to God.
*I blog about child killing a lot these days, and child killing makes me angry. I have faith it's a God-pleasing, life-saving anger.
“Scott Klusendorf has presented several excellent pro-life arguments in his feature article in this issue of the Journal based upon the hypothetical ‘given’ that Scripture is silent on the issue of abortion. Many scholars, however, believe Scripture does, in fact, address the issue, even if not explicitly. Scripture provides us with principles that, through the exercise of godly wisdom, can be applied to the wide variety of situations we encounter in modern culture. In the realm of human behavior, there is ‘nothing new under the sun,’ and the Bible, written by One who knows the human heart intimately, does indeed speak to every aspect of human life, including our thoughts, our actions, and our beliefs.
While Obamacare may not rise to the level of evil, it’s an expensive and unpopular law. It’s one step closer to socialized medicine, a fate the U.S. so far has managed to avoid. But once insurance companies start going out of business, what’s left? Why, government insurance, of course! If you don’t see the problem with government running the health care system, you’re probably a liberal. Sorry.
