Category: Political
Political articles by Robert W. Peck
Back to Warsaw: It’s 1940 All Over Again
It took 85 years, but it appears we’ve come full circle, back to the Warsaw Ghetto, where an occupying force rounds up an ethnic group, imprisons them in a sealed-off district, and then proceeds to exterminate or expel them in an attempt to cleanse the land of the disfavored. In 1940 it was Nazis imprisoning and exterminating Jews. This time it’s Israeli Zionists killing and starving Palestinians by the tens of thousands.
How quickly we forget and fail to recognize the same story playing out before our eyes with only the names being changed to protect the guilty. Yet Satan, the sin nature, and human nature remain the same, so history surely will repeat itself to the degree we forget and fail to guard against it.
Continue reading “Back to Warsaw: It’s 1940 All Over Again”The Lesser of Two Evils
The following is a guest post by my friend Riley J. Hood. The subject of voting for the lessor of two evils has been a constant theme since I began to be politically active in the 1990s. Riley addresses the matter well, so I will post his comments as representing my own views on the matter.
The Lesser of Two Evils
“Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.” I Chronicles 21:10
By Riley J. Hood
I was watching a DVD made by Christians in 2016. They had a question-and-answer session, where a poorly worded question about choosing the lesser of two evils was read. “As a Christian, my conscience is deeply conflicted in this election. I don’t feel right voting for the lesser of two evils. How do I participate in the election without violating my Christian conscience?” I don’t know of any real person who makes that argument in such airy-fairy terms. The question is an obvious straw man.
It was answered by Dr. Ben Carson, “It is a very appropriate question for me, because I’m a brain surgeon, and the reason God gave us a brain is so that we could make decisions. You know every day when you get out of bed and you get dressed and you walk out that door, until that time you get back in that bed you are making choices between the lesser of evils because we live in an evil world. If you are unable to do that then you really can’t exist. So that’s a cop-out quite frankly.” He continued his answer by comparing choosing a paper cut versus having both your legs amputated. Then he appeals to the audience to be concerned about the nation. His argument has some truths in it, such as living in a fallen world, and God giving us a brain.
But quite frankly the cop-out is “choosing the lesser of two evils,” if and when you didn’t have to. What Dr. Carson leaves out is that a healthy person doesn’t have to give himself a paper cut, because he is more afraid of amputation. It is kind of like a person with a crummy job thinking his only two choices are being worked to death for substandard pay, or to break his pinky with a ball-peen hammer so he can collect disability. All the while ignoring his options to find a better company to work for.
Continue reading “The Lesser of Two Evils”Rolling the Dice on Republicans: Has the Right Become Delusional?
Conservatives in my state are currently abuzz with talk of gubernatorial primary candidates. One candidate seems favored by activists on the right, partly because he’s saying key things they want to hear but also because he’s the best-funded and deemed most able to beat the Democrat in November.
Upon hearing that this candidate previously served in Congress, I decided to put the matter into perspective by looking up his score in the respected Freedom Index. The index grades representatives on their adherence to the U.S. Constitution, principles of liberty, and fiscal responsibility. During his six terms in the U.S. House, this individual, now proffered as the gubernatorial champion of the right, scored an average of 33 percent adherence to traditional conservative values–worse than simply guessing on a true/false quiz.
Rolling the Dice
I did a little more research and discovered that during the same period, the Republican delegation in the U.S. House as a whole scored a whopping 50 percent adherence to the constitutional rule of law. That’s a 50/50 chance that on any given day, Republicans might protect our God-given rights or give them away. We could get the same results if we just sent a pair of dice to Congress and said, “Give ’em a roll and let’s see which way the country goes.”
Continue reading “Rolling the Dice on Republicans: Has the Right Become Delusional?”An American Covenant
When the expedition that founded Jamestown, Virginia, landed at Cape Henry, expedition chaplain Robert Hunt offered this prayer.
“We do hereby dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this earth remains, and may this Land, along with England, be Evangelist to the World. May all who see this Cross, remember what we have done here, and may those who come here to inhabit join us in this Covenant and in this most noble work that the Holy Scriptures may be fulfilled.”
As I heard that prayer read aloud in church this past Sunday, it occurred to me that God honored it. Most of the Bible printing, evangelizing, and mission work that has gone out around the world has come from America.
However, one may be tempted to look at America’s current political, moral, and spiritual ills and think Chaplain Hunt’s prayer has failed us and become a mere relic of history. I say quite the opposite.
The continued fulfillment of that prayer does not depend upon who is in the White House, the general morality of society, or even a majority of the population. The continued fulfillment of that prayer depends upon each of us who is willing to take it up and make it our own, praying:
“Lord, I join myself with Chaplain Hunt and those of his expedition in the covenant they made with you over 400 years ago. Regardless what others may do, as for me, with the resources of the land that you put in my hand and under my power, I will mark this land deep and wide with the gospel of Jesus Christ and take the Kingdom of God to all the earth.”
Gorsuch Condemns COVID Policies for Violating Civil Liberties: Where Are the Rest?
In a statement relating to the case of Arizona v. Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of Homeland Security), US Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, condemned government-imposed COVID policies that turned the legal and legislative process on its head and violated civil liberties. The justice’s review of actions taken by local, state, and federal governments over the past three years reads like a report on human rights abuses from the socialist Soviet Union era. Previous generations of Americans would have thought the justice’s statements were from a dystopian novel, not current events.
Here are some key passages from Justice Gorsuch’s statement.
Continue reading “Gorsuch Condemns COVID Policies for Violating Civil Liberties: Where Are the Rest?”An Open Letter to My U.S. Senator Re Abortion, Rights, and Our Own Bodies
Dear Senator Murray:
In a recent email to your constituents addressing what you call the “right to abortion,” you ask, “do you support a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own body?” I regret that I cannot answer that question with the simple “yes” or “no” requested as the way it is presented constitutes a false premise.
The trouble is that we’re not talking about the woman’s “own” body, but another body that happens to be inside the woman at the time. This is a body with its own unique DNA that is distinctly different from that of the woman and therefore is clearly not the woman’s “own” body. The body we’re discussing aborting has its own genetic markers that distinguish it from the woman’s body as certainly as if a car parked in my driveway had a VIN number different from the one I hold title to – even if it happens to be in my driveway, it’s not my car and not mine to dispose of.
Whether a body is inhabited by a person at conception as some believe, or at birth as others might believe, it is nevertheless a unique human body that is clearly not that of either the mother or the father as it has DNA that is distinct from each. A human body can only be the possession of the one to inhabit it and no one not inhabiting that body may rightly claim it as their own.
Continue reading “An Open Letter to My U.S. Senator Re Abortion, Rights, and Our Own Bodies”Why COVID Orders Are Not Law and the Many Ways They Could Be Stopped
When news of COVID lockdown orders began to be reported back in early 2020, my immediate concern was not over the virus but the lawfulness of the orders. Yes, the virus matters and should be researched by doctors so they can advise their patients as to the best methods of prevention and/or treatment. However, without the rule of law, we have no protection of our God-given rights, including the right to life. Therefore, rights and the rule of law are paramount, even above COVID.
I quickly observed that the lockdown and shutdown orders being issued violated God-given rights, were not constitutionally authorized, and therefore lacked the force of law. As the orders that were promised to be for only a few weeks dragged on into months, it became clear we’d been lied to and that action needed to be taken to restore the rule of law.
I had already been pondering the many ways such violations could and should be stopped and how the usurpation of power by governors could be put in check. However, neither elected officials, political leaders, political parties, nor the big-name organizations of the right seemed ready to step up to the plate and provide the bold and decisive action needed. Without such leadership, the rank and file were effectively sheep without a shepherd, able only to bleat out a modicum of disapproval at their rights being violated by executive orders.
Before discussing the actions that could and should have been taken to put an immediate stop to the violations, there needs to be an understanding of God-given rights and the rule of law that lie at the foundation of this matter.
Continue reading “Why COVID Orders Are Not Law and the Many Ways They Could Be Stopped”An Open Letter to My U.S. Representative – Hypocrisy is Not a Virtue
Dear Representative McMorris Rodgers:
I am taken aback by the hypocrisy of your July 21 newsletter entitled, “Inflation Hits Home in Eastern Washington.”
In the newsletter, you rightly point out that, “Hardworking families in Eastern Washington and across the country are being crippled by widespread inflation.”
Yes, inflation is harming hardworking families. Prices always increase whenever deficit spending necessitates creating new money at a rate greater than the increase in real goods and services in the economy. That inflating of the money supply always decreases the value of the dollar and diminishes its purchasing power for American workers, families, and the elderly on fixed incomes.
You go on to state that, “President Joe Biden and the Democrats’ out-of-control spending has caused prices on everyday goods to skyrocket, and our families are paying the price.”
Yes, this is true, but you fail to mention that prices began to skyrocket in the spring and summer of 2020 as the result of out-of-control spending under Donald Trump. In fact, debt actually increased more under the last six months of President Trump than the first six months of President Biden.
Continue reading “An Open Letter to My U.S. Representative – Hypocrisy is Not a Virtue”Socialism and a Tale of Two Countries – What Will We Do?
In his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump said, “America was founded on liberty and independence – not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free… America will never be a socialist country.” Republicans in the chamber cheered the remarks and the political right lauded the President for weeks after as the confirmed, and now certified, champion of conservative values they had already told us he was.
Around that same time, Americans were being shown pictures of empty store shelves in Venezuela and told it was the result of socialism. Threats of possible military intervention were being made as a means by which the U.S. might rescue the people of Venezuela from the horrors of socialism and the deprivation resulting from its draconian, totalitarian, central control. Continue reading “Socialism and a Tale of Two Countries – What Will We Do?”
Perspective 