The Portland Protests

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Civil Unrest—The Portland Protests

22 January 2021

In the city of Portland, Oregon nightly violence, vandalism, and looting have been going on for 79 nights. The violence has spread to other cities around the United States; and protests have even been staged in cities of Europe. All this mayhem was supposedly started as a protest against racism and was sparked by the police killing of George Floyd on May 25^th. However, rioters have included people who are protesting a variety of issues, e.g., immigration rights, homelessness, racism, police accountability, and free speech. The protests have not had any visible leadership—disorganization has prevailed.

 

The violence is being supported by the Black Lives Matter organization and antifa movement. The NAACP and various news sources have been vocal in supporting the movement. Wikipedia reports that as of 5 July 2020, 29 people have been killed—25 were from gunshot wounds. Many lesser injuries have been incurred.

 

City administrators have had varying attitudes toward the violence; and Republicans have been vocal in accusing Democrat mayors and city governments of refusing to quell the violence. President Trump has repeatedly protested the violence, and he recently sent federal law keepers into Portland to protect federal buildings from destruction and fire. His efforts were strongly opposed by Portland’s Democrat mayor, and Democrats around the country have protested federal interference. Presidential candidate Joe Biden has commented on the violence by saying, “There is no reason for the President to send federal troops into a city where people are demanding change peacefully and respectfully.” Well…I would say that I doubt these protests are “peaceful and respectful.”

 

It seems to me that the time is long past when legitimate protesting has been the character of the activity. Anarchy seems to be the guiding principle of these protests; and only destruction of property and destruction of peaceful local government seems to be the general goal.

 

One movement in the protests has been a widespread demand to defund the police departments in order to prevent further police violence against people of color. This movement has caused city governments to pull police patrols off the streets in some very violent neighborhoods; and that regulation has predictably caused an uptick in crime. A Wall Street Journal analysis of crime statistics among the nation’s 50 largest cities found that reported homicides were up 24% so far this year, to 3,612. Shootings and gun violence also rose, even though many other violent crimes such as robbery fell. The homicide rate is up because violent criminals have been emboldened by the sidelining of police and the emptying out of jails and prisons due to the protests and because jurisdictions have been trying to limit the spread of covid-19 infection in crowded prisons according to analysts and law-enforcement officials in several cities. Though many of America’s biggest cities noting this increase in homicide are run by Democrats, the rise in killings is a bipartisan problem. Homicides are rising at a double-digit rate in most of the big cities run by Republicans, also, including Miami, San Diego, Omaha, Tulsa, Okla., and Jacksonville, Fla. Two major cities run by Independents, San Antonio and Las Vegas are also seeing increasing rates of homicide. Much of the increase in homicide is being seen in parts of these cities that are not involved in rioting. In Portland, for instance, the police department did not see any homicides around protests in July, a department spokeswoman said. Through June, its latest crime maps show, all of its homicides happened east and south of the city center.

 

I think the time has passed when simple and nonintrusive means should be used to control the violence. Removal of federal soldiers from Portland does not seem to have helped the situation. Despite pleas from local city officials for the removal of those troops, city resources do not seem able to control the damage.  It seems to me that police protection should be increased—not decreased. There is a time when force is needed to make America’s cities safe and livable. Police departments around the country are noting a decrease in applicants for police service. That is understandable. After all, who wants to work in a police department that is not supported by city governments which do not support police activity in controlling crime and violence?

How to Petition the Federal Government

How to Petition the Federal Government

1)    Go to USA.gov

2)   Click on government agencies and elected officials.

3)   Contact elected officials.

4)   Under Federal Elected Officials, choose the President.

5)   Fill out his online form and write your comment. Keep your comment very brief so that, if necessary, you can send the comment via Twitter. (If you do not have a Twitter account, just go to Twitter.com and sign up—it is free and very easy!) Keep your comments very short, and do not include more than one issue for each message. Always remain polite and nonconfrontational. If you are writing about a bill under consideration, try always to refer to the bill by name and number. If you do not know the number of the bill under question, go to Agencies on USA.gov and choose Library of Congress (LOC). Enter the bill name in the search field, and you will receive the bill number and information about the bill.

6)   Highlight your message to the President and copy it with the control/C command to copy.

7)   Go to U.S. senators on the USA.gov site and go to “choose a senator.” Scroll to your 2 senators and click on “contact.” Then, fill out each senators’ online form. When you get to the comment field, use Control/V to paste your comment. You may have to modify your comment to fit the Senate message.

8)   After you have written to your 2 senators, choose “leadership” and send the same message to each leader in both parties. Do not avoid sending messages to senators with whom you disagree on the issue you are discussing. After all, those are the votes you want to change, anyway. (By using this technique, you can contact any other senator you wish to contact.)

9)   After you have contacted the Senate, go beck to USA.gov and select “U.S. representatives.” You will arrive at “Directory of Representatives:” Click on “By last name,” and enter the last name on the table below. When you find your representative, fill out his/her online contact form and do exactly the same thing you did for the senators. The House of Representatives web site will not allow you to contact leadership or any other representative. They seem to have made that difficult and not available for people other than the representative’s own constituency.

 

Nancy and I are presently petitioning government to support a bill that will be introduced in the House on 6 January by Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama to override the Supreme Court on the election issue. He will ask the legislative branch of the federal government to force objective evaluation of the presidential votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania for three reasons:

1.   Voters cannot be accurately identified in those states.

2.  Voters must be legal residents or green card holders in order to vote.

3.  Legal votes must be submitted within the legal time periods to be counted.

This procedure of legislative override of Supreme Court decisions is legal and has been used several times in recent years.

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Covid Death Rates from the CDC

I would like to draw your attention to the latest report of Covid death rates reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If you could look carefully at the graphs included in the link below, you will see that the death rate for Covid-like illness (CLI) is very near the incidence reported for Influenza-like illness (ILI).

 

This indicates to me that the risk of dying from Covid-19 is about the same as contracting influenza. This makes me wonder if all the hype over Covid-19 is worth it all! After all, most of us Americans don’t worry so much about dying from the flu!

  

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

 

(This data was brought to my attention by my son, Ben.)

 

A Letter to an Atheist

A Letter to an Atheist

I have a very good friend who claims to be an atheist. He lives a life entirely in compliance with Christian morals and ethics, which makes me doubt the sincerity of his atheistic beliefs—but…that is beside the point. What I am hoping to do with this blog post is to show him that his belief in atheism is an impossibility—it can’t be true.

 When I confronted him with the belief that God created the universe, he denied it saying that the whole universe, all the planets, stars, rocks, and trees, etc. have been here forever—they are, in his mind eternal. To him, it seems that God is not at all necessary. At one time, I pointed out to him that many scientists believe that the universe is about 15 billion years old and that the sun is believed to last for another 3-5 billion years. All the stars are in the process of burning out, just as is the sun. He replied that he does believe the scientists.  I asked him “If you believe that, and the scientists are right, how can you believe that the universe is eternal? After all, anything that has a beginning and an end cannot be eternal?” (I don’t think my argument convinced him of his error.) So…I am writing this blog in the hope of convincing him that the universe is not eternal; and that God created it.

 There is one scientific fact that my friend believes; and I, too, believe to be true—that is the truth of the three postulates of thermodynamics:

1)   The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot either be created nor destroyed.

2) The Second law of thermodynamics is that entropy is always increasing. (Entropy is the manifestation of constant deterioration and randomness in the system.)

3) A system's entropy approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero (-459.67º Fahrenheit).

 The energy in the universe is all there is or ever will be. This is the characteristic of a closed system like our universe.

 It can be shown that matter is merely a storage form of energy; and the two are simply two expressions of energy. Energy can be turned into matter, as exemplified by sunlight that is converted into wood, thus showing that energy is temporarily stored in wood. And…that energy can be released in the form of heat and light when the wood is burned. Many other examples of this process can be seen in our universe. We might see this more clearly when we realize that heat will only pass to objects which are cooler. It will never pass spontaneously to an object which is has a higher temperature. Systems are thermodynamically irreversible. The entropy in a system will not work in the opposite direction spontaneously without input from a source outside the closed system.

 The second law of thermodynamics is that entropy is always increasing. Entropy is the same as randomness and disorganization in a closed system, like our universe. This is just another way of saying that all physical systems are running down to lower and lower levels of energy—thus, they are being downgraded into useless heat, which is subsequently diffused into outer space, never to be regained into a useful source. Entropy always moves downwardly; it never moves to higher energy level systems.

 But…one might ask, if that is true, how does one account for the fact that we, ourselves are extremely organized beings. Where did we come from, if energy only moves in one way, e.g., into systems of lower levels of organization. Where on earth did such highly organized systems as the biological systems we see every day come from?

 The answer to that question is that some Outside Force caused energy to move up the scale of existence instead of downward. The only way for highly organized beings or systems to occur is for an Outside Force to act upon energy to make it develop into complicated forms of matter, such as the human body in all its complexity. That Force has to be something or somebody that exists outside of the closed system of our universe and who is able to cause energy to become progressively more organized. Nevertheless, our bodies will eventually follow the inexorable course of deterioration destined for all other forms of matter, i.e., into useless entropy—heat that will disappear into outer space. The laws of thermodynamics cannot be denied for long.

 All that being said, we must finally admit that we are all in the process of increasing entropy. Our world is in the process of becoming useless heat dissipated into outer space. (Please do not get me wrong here. I am only speaking of our physical bodies, ourselves in a material sense. All this has nothing to do with the destiny of our eternal souls—God will take care of that!)

 Remember, I am in the process of proving that the world we live in is not eternal. The whole thing is faithfully following the laws of thermodynamics. And as entropy only increases and does not decrease unless it is acted upon by an outside process or Person, then it will ultimately result in a universe which will be in complete equilibrium and where there is no more matter or localized energy, which we might identify as our universe. At that point the temperature of our universe will be right about absolute zero. Heat will have no other place to go—equilibrium of the thermodynamic system will have been reached. Needless to say, this system modification will take a very long time. But…it will occur eventually. (Unless, of course, God intervenes, again! We have no indication that He will!)

 Now, let’s get back to our original question about the eternality of the universe. It should be obvious from the above text that if the universe were eternal, then there should have been plenty of time for all the material and localized energy in the whole universe to turn into useless entropy. If that were the case, according to the Third Law of Thermodynamics, there would be absolutely no material left in the whole universe, and the ambient temperature would approximate absolute zero. That has certainly not happened, yet; and, thus, we find ourselves in the middle of the process of all material and localized energy turning into entropy. It is, thus, concluded that when the final drop of energy deteriorates in the universe, then that will be the end of the universe, itself. And…as I have said, before, any system with a definite end cannot be eternal. Likewise, the deterioration of a given amount of energy in a definite end presupposes that the energy had to have a beginning. Thus, the universe must have begun at some definite time.

 Now, a parenthetical note from myself: I most certainly do not subscribe to the idea that the universe is billions of years old. I hold the biblical principle to be true that God created the universe, and He did it at a definite time. He very probably did it much later than the scientists say the universe was born. But…that is a different subject for a different time. Again, my purpose in writing this blog is only to show that the universe cannot by any stretch of the imagination be eternal. It had a beginning and it will have an end.

 None of the above is rocket science. King Solomon said essentially the same thing 3000 years ago: “I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere Him.” Ecclesiastes 3:4

 (Several ideas in this blog post came from The Battle for the Beginning by John F. MacArthur.)

Suicide of the Liberals

For this blog post, I am indebted to Professor Gary Saul Morson of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University for his essay of the same name, which appeared in First Things of October 2020. Many of the ideas expressed in the blog come from that essay.

Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russia was wracked by unprecedented social chaos, terror, and violent street protests. The protests were instigated by opposition to the authoritarian regime of Czar Nicholas II.  Between 1905 and 1907, 4500 government officials and private individuals were killed or injured. Between 1908 and 1910, authorities recorded 19,957 terrorist acts which included terrorist robberies, acts of extortion, and murder. Chaos abounded and finally resulted in the 1917 Revolution, which was the culmination of public opposition to Russia’s involvement in World War I.

The rioters were self-identified “intellectuals” from the upper working class. These so-called “intellectuals” were not the kind of people we, in America, usually call intellectuals. Our ideas of intellectual persons are those who understand history and who are educated in fields of literature, culture, and science. This classical definition of intellectuality requires that an intellectual person must practice weighing the pros and cons of various viewpoints and be able to assess each viewpoint by considering its advantages and drawbacks objectively. Truly intellectual thinking examines experimental data whenever possible to know what is right and true.

The Russian revolutionary and rioter was certainly not the kind of intellectual described in the above paragraph. He was, rather one of very limited education who was fully convinced that his own ideas and the ideas of all really worthwhile associates were the same. Those rioters agreed upon the premise that violence was the only way of proper behavior for the true citizen. His mind was absolutely closed like the proverbial “steel bear trap.” No alternative ideas were to be considered! Anyone who disagreed with these “intellectuals” was considered anathema.

Far from regretting the maiming and death of innocent bystanders, terrorists in Russia boasted of killing as many people as possible, either because the victims were likely members of the hated bourgeoisie or because any murder helped bring down the old order. The need to inflict pain was transformed from an abnormal irrational compulsion experienced by unbalanced personalities into a formally verbalized obligation for all committed revolutionaries.

Revolutions like that in Russia do not succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society, which provides the money and the sympathetic control of public opinion changers, e.g., the communication media. Political officials in Russia, provided that necessary support. The Constitutional Democrat Party in the Russian Duma did not engage in terrorism, themselves, but they aided the terrorists in any way they could. They contributed their money and their social influence. Not just lawyers, teachers, doctors, and engineers, but even industrialists and bank directors raised money for the terrorists. Doing so signaled advanced opinion and good manners.

In Russia prior to 1917, social pressure was applied to anyone who was courageous enough to even hint that the terrorist/”intellectual” mantra might be wrong. Compliance with the politically correct viewpoint was the only acceptable way to think. Dissidents were shunned, ignored, and pushed out of expressing their thoughts in print.  Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in his book November 1916 that people were made to fear if they expressed anything even slightly out of the popular thought pattern; and they almost always retreated into the practice of repeating current pieties to keep from being socially punished. He noted that soldiers who had been courageous under fire cowered under progressive opinion. Solzhenitsyn wrote that compliance pressure was like a contagious disease—there was no resisting it if you came too close.  

Radicalism was king during that period in Russia. When Pyotr Stolypin, a member of the Duma, offered to enact the entire radical, “intellectual,” program into law, the dissidents refused to cooperate. Evidently their professed beliefs were less important than their emotional identification with radicalism, and violence of whatever sort.

When the Bolsheviks gained control of the country in 1923, they turned on their erstwhile supporters in the Duma as well as their wealthy supporters in business and industry. Those people were considered to be timid bourgeoisie and deserved to be eliminated. The suicide of the liberals was beginning. All questions were considered to be political. Anyone who dared to challenge public opinion was accused of being “reactionary.”

 It is my opinion that today, in the United States, we are facing an analogous situation marked by street violence, arson, business destruction, even killing. Protesters claim they want to eliminate the police. Our thoughts are even monitored for politically correct tendencies. If we try to swim upstream in this awful thought management system, we are not called “reactionary,” as dissidents were called in Russia. In America we are called “racists.” It is a terrible thing, but in this country Black Lives Matter and Antifa, along with progressive politicians, teachers, the media, and the courts seem to be molding the “acceptable” thought patterns. Chaos, here we come!

I think the time is long overdue when the BLM protests over such killings as that perpetrated on George Floyd in Minneapolis should be stopped. Although that killing was   something that deserved public attention, the protests in Portland, Oregon have now been going on for over 100 nights, and more protests seem to pop up daily! It seems to me that the cause of the protests has long ago devolved into something other than simple racism. I believe these street protests are naked statements calling for downfall of our government and our democratic system. In that vein, it seems to me that the protests in pre-1917 Russia are analogous to the protests in America, today. 

We have had too much poor thinking in our country in places that need clear thinking. Our government must be concerned for all people’s welfare, not just opposing the other side and accruing power. Newspapers should report news accurately and veritably, not simply opinions printed on the front page. Our universities must aim toward actually educating our younger citizens, instead of passing on bad information or no information from a variety of thoughts and over charging for it. If we don’t oppose this kind of action now, we will have lost the greatest governmental design and best way of living history has ever known. Our courts must follow the Constitution and not popular opinion. Most important we must trust and believe in the true Christian God to guide us.

 

Civil Unrest—The Portland Protests

In the city of Portland, Oregon nightly violence, vandalism, and looting have been going on for 79 nights. The violence has spread to other cities around the United States; and protests have even been staged in cities of Europe. All this mayhem was supposedly started as a protest against racism and was sparked by the police killing of George Floyd on May 25^th. However, rioters have included people who are protesting a variety of issues, e.g., immigration rights, homelessness, racism, police accountability, and free speech. The protests have not had any visible leadership—disorganization has prevailed.

 The violence is being supported by the Black Lives Matter organization and the Antifa movement. The NAACP and various news sources have been vocal in supporting the movement. Wikipedia reports that as of 5 July 2020, 29 people have been killed—25 were from gunshot wounds. Many lesser injuries have been incurred.

City administrators have had varying attitudes toward the violence; and Republicans have been vocal in accusing Democrat mayors and city governments of refusing to quell the violence. President Trump has repeatedly protested the violence, and he recently sent federal law keepers into Portland to protect federal buildings from destruction and fire. His efforts were strongly opposed by Portland’s Democrat mayor, and Democrats around the country have protested federal interference. Presidential candidate Joe Biden has commented on the violence by saying, “There is no reason for the President to send federal troops into a city where people are demanding change peacefully and respectfully.” Well…I would say that I doubt these protests are “peaceful and respectful.”

It seems to me that the time is long past when legitimate protesting has been the character of the activity. Anarchy seems to be the guiding principle of these protests; and only destruction of property and destruction of peaceful local government seems to be the general goal.

One movement in the protests has been a widespread demand to defund the police departments in order to prevent further police violence against people of color. This movement has caused city governments to pull police patrols off the streets in some very violent neighborhoods; and that regulation has predictably caused an uptick in crime. A Wall Street Journal analysis of crime statistics among the nation’s 50 largest cities found that reported homicides were up 24% so far this year, to 3,612. Shootings and gun violence also rose, even though many other violent crimes such as robbery fell. The homicide rate is up because violent criminals have been emboldened by the sidelining of police and the emptying out of jails and prisons due to the protests and because jurisdictions have been trying to limit the spread of covid-19 infection in crowded prisons according to analysts and law-enforcement officials in several cities. 

Though many of America’s biggest cities noting this increase in homicide are run by Democrats, the rise in killings is a bipartisan problem. Homicides are rising at a double-digit rate in most of the big cities run by Republicans, also, including Miami, San Diego, Omaha, Tulsa, Okla., and Jacksonville, Fla. Two major cities run by Independents, San Antonio and Las Vegas are also seeing increasing rates of homicide. Much of the increase in homicide is being seen in parts of these cities that are not involved in rioting. In Portland, for instance, the police department did not see any homicides around protests in July, a department spokeswoman said. Through June, its latest crime maps show, all of its homicides happened east and south of the city center.

I think the time has passed when simple and non-intrusive means should be used to control the violence. Removal of federal soldiers from Portland does not seem to have helped the situation. Despite pleas from local city officials for the removal of those troops, city resources do not seem able to control the damage.  It seems to me that police protection should be increased—not decreased. There is a time when force is needed to make America’s cities safe and livable. Police departments around the country are noting a decrease in applicants for police service. That is understandable. After all, who wants to work in a police department that is not supported by city governments which do not support police activity in controlling crime and violence?      

 

   

 

Natural Law—What Is It?

  I have often wondered what “natural law” is. I observe that the idea of natural law, however, was not a mystery to the founders of our nation. As a reminder of that, please refer to the U.S. Declaration of Independence:

  When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

Natural law is a theory in ethics and philosophy that says that human beings possess intrinsic values that govern our reasoning and behavior. Natural law maintains that these rules of right and wrong are inherent in people and are not created by society, government, or court judges. Natural Law is the unwritten body of universal moral principles that underlie the ethical and legal norms by which human conduct is sometimes evaluated and governed. Natural law is often contrasted with positive law, which consists of the written rules and regulations enacted by government.

To solve an ethical dilemma using natural law, the basic belief that everyone is naturally entitled to live their own lives must be considered and respected. For example, acts of violence, like murder, work against people's natural inclination to live a good and innocent life.

 Under the natural law theory, only laws that are just are to be followed, while unjust laws may be ignored. Natural law theorists believe that it is a basic principle of human nature to want to live a good life, and, therefore, human laws should reflect that desire. (I do not have to wonder how legitimate Natural Law theorists would view the practice of abortion!)

Natural law theory posits that some laws are basic and fundamental to human nature and are discoverable by human reason without reference to specific legislative enactments or judicial decisions.

Our purpose, according to natural law theorists, is to live a good, happy life. Therefore, actions that work against that purpose -- that is, actions that would prevent a fellow human from living a good, happy life -- are considered 'unnatural', or 'immoral'. Laws have a purpose too: to provide justice.

The term 'natural law' is derived from the belief that human morality comes from nature. Everything in nature, according to natural law theory, has a purpose, including humans. Our purpose, according to natural law theorists, is to live a good, happy life.

Natural law maintains that rules of right and wrong are inherent in people and are not created by society, government, or court judges.

In summary of the above remarks, one would think that natural law is an instinctive appeal to common sense and human conscience. As far as it goes, I must admit that that is probably correct. However…

It is my belief that for the Christian, there is far more to the “natural” comprehension of law than the human conscience. After all, there are many people who conceive of right and wrong in ways inimical to biblical principles. We see in our society, today, people who believe that abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, divorce, rioting, looting, pillaging, theft, and adverse governmental interventions, among other nefarious things, are perfectly within the purview of good conscience.

I thank God, however, that He has set before us a manual that points us infallibly to better things above and in our world, today. The Bible points out that we, in this life, are traveling through a temporary situation, and we can look forward to better things in the future. Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for better guidance than “natural law,” a good and happy life, only.