Breastfeeding is NOT Immodest

I saw this very interesting story and thought it would go well with my post here.

In my previous post, I tried to make the case that Christians ought to own the idea that openly breastfeeding human children is normal. I know that several of the links in that story are broken now, but the point still stands and there are still some good images remaining.

In this link you will see some photos that I would call precious. Mothers, cherishing their limited time of nourishing their children at their breasts. Don't look if you are too squeamish and are still judging God for His audacious design, that design where He actually caused human milk, food for infants, to be manufactured within breasts. Further, He designed for the milk to be removed from the breast and made available to babies by means of suckling. Scandalous, I know.

Here is the link again, in case you missed it above: Victorian-era Deguerreotypes of Women Breastfeeding


After posting the above, I came across this in the Daily Mail

Questions to Ask About Vaccines

One of the most disturbing things I learned from this article is that people will accept government stats about decreased rates of polio, even if it means ignoring an INCREASE in paralysis and death. I've been saying for years that we have the same rates of paralysis in this country that we've always had, but we just don't call it "polio" so that vaccine companies can make false claims about efficacy and safety.

I hate that we put the agenda of vaccine companies and government fat cats above health and safety. It is evil.

Read this and share it with your friends and family who want to know more.

4 Questions that May Change Your Mind About Vaccines

Identity, Politics, and Culture

Society is one thing and civilization is another. Ants have societies. Bees have societies. They can't build civilizations.

Western civilization was built by white men of European decent. The United States of America was founded and built by white men of European decent. In the United States today, white men of European decent have completely different ideas about how what is left of our civilization should be run compared to the ideas held by nearly every other demographic. (White women, by a slim majority, still side with white men.)

What makes non-whites think that they are entitled to take over what is left of western civilization? Why should white men give up everything they have built and fought to keep just because non-whites and feminists are screeching at them? The principles and ideals of white men gave us what we have. What makes us think we can keep what we have or make progress toward a better future if the reins of power are turned over to people who have NOT built western civilization and who don't even espouse or understand the concepts of private property, liberty, Christianity, and self-government?

Keep shrieking about misogyny and racism. Keep trying to convince sane people that gender is fluid and more than binary. You will forever relegate yourself to the camp of the discivic. Those ideas don't build, they only destroy.

I'm not a Trump supporter. This election was just a snapshot of the state of identity politics in the Untied States right now. God is sovereign. He may choose to use the non-white demographic's political ideals (or lack thereof) to destroy and judge the USA. But if He does, that doesn't mean that God is on that side. He used Babylon to judge Israel; that wasn't God's endorsement of Babylon.

We can't expect to allow the demographics of the USA to continue to change while simultaneously expecting the USA to remain free. The non-white people want something else. They will turn the USA into the image of whatever they came here from. Even if they've been here for 2 or 3 generations.

Vox Day has more to say on his blog.

The Hideous History of Hospitals

Western medicine, also called allopathic medicine, has a dark history. Actually, I think it still remains in darkness in a lot of areas including so-called mental health, maternity care, vaccines, preventive medicine, minor illness treatment and others. Western medicine really shines in trauma care and some serious illness (not including cancer, heart disease or diabetes). I hope that someday we will look back on it as the religion that it really is and stop associating it with science.

Here is an interesting article on the history of mental hospitals and maternity hospitals. Read it and weep.

The Maternity Hospital and the Mental Hospital by Thomas S. Szasz

Model Penal Code - From the Pit of Hell

Because of my support of theonomy, it should come as no surprise that I have an interest in how men form their legal codes. It is frustrating to me that most Americans (including most lawyers) have no real understanding of how the United States arrived at their current catastrophe consisting of federal and state law codes. Government education is so inadequate in teaching this that it hardly bears mentioning, but it is sad beyond measure that private schools and Christian schools don't do it any better.

A brief summary of the history of American law goes something like this:  The colonists brought the English Common Law with them when they settled here. The English Common Law draws much of its precepts from the abuses addressed by the Magna Carta as well as from what is often called "natural law" but was more directly drawn from the Ten Commandments. Law was not enshrined in the form of statutes until later. Instead, judges and juries applied the principles of the Common Law to cases, and if there were appeals, the opinions of the judges in those appeals became precedent for future cases, analyzing the specifics of the cases with the enduring principles of law.

Over time, individual colonies, and then states, began to collect their various ordinances and statutes into books. Legislatures became busy bees, drafting new laws as often as they met. This departure from the Common Law led to the birth of the idea that law evolves. Since law evolves, and man is constantly gaining new understanding of how men should relate, it becomes not only preferred, but necessary to revise the actions defined as criminal and punishments proscribed for their violations. Lawyers and legal scholars began to complain about the differences in laws from state to state. Not because there was something fundamentally wrong with creating new law (which there is) but because the legal elite wanted to be in charge of writing those laws, rather than leaving to mere legislators.

Enter The American Law Institute in 1923.  ALI formed a committee to write the document which would become the Model Penal Code. This document was intended, as the name suggests, to be a model for all of the states to adopt as their own state statutes, thereby creating a more uniform set of laws across the several states. It became the new Ten Commandments for a justice system seeking to rid itself of all relations to religion. The result was a separation of the justice system from all justice.

Unfortunately, this abomination is widely praised, endorsed and nearly worshiped by Christians. People will accept all manner of injustice in order to avoid the Law of God. "Any law but God's!" is their cry. While God's so-called people will give lip service to the Ten Commandments and assert that all modern law flows from God's law, they are incapable of showing any connection when challenged. One of the most common "arguments" I hear is that God's command for people to be held responsible for the damages to persons resulting from a fall from their roof is justification for every modern law from building codes, to speeding tickets, to laws against spitting on the sidewalk. I have heard people argue that the Cities of Refuge are justification for keeping criminals in prison.

Show me any positive reference to prisons in the Scriptures. Show me any place in the Law of God where punishment for a crime involves incarceration. You won't find it because that is an abomination. Holding men, created in the image of God, in a cage without access to other humans, to sunshine, to productive work is the very definition of inhumane. The Law of God doesn't even distinguish between what we call "criminal law" and what is called "tort law" or "civil law." There was no difference because justice is focused on restoration and reconciliation, not punishment, isolation and life-long labels.

The subject is vast and can't really be covered in a blog post, but I needed to get this off my chest. I see that the ALI is now working to re-write the Model Penal Code where it touches sexual assault because man's understanding of this issue has allegedly evolved again. No doubt this new revision will further erode fundamental rights of due process and purposely weigh the law against men in favor of women's perceptions of truth.

The Model Penal Code is anti-marriage, anti-family and anti-Christ. It is injustice codified. It is an idolatrous and godless generation that seeks to make man better by increasing the reach of laws. Submit yourself to the perfect law of liberty and you will have no need for any other. 

Overheard at a Community Meeting...

Our local government school board hosted an informational meeting to explain the upcoming 25 year bond for $5,000,000 which will appear on our election ballots in May. The district business manager said this:

A bond is a loan, taken out by the school board. But the school board doesn't pay it back, the taxpayers pay it back. So it is only fair that the taxpayers get to vote on it.

Either this woman is a complete idiot, or she is purposely misleading people. You see, there is no correlation between being a taxpayer (property tax payer) and being a voter, except by coincidence. The voters are made up of all adults (ages 18 and above) who live in the district and have registered to vote. The taxpayers of this bond, if it should pass, are the individuals and businesses who own property within the district. 

We see that voters who don't own property will get to vote on the bond, even though they have no obligation to pay on it for the next 25 years. We also see that  property owners who don't physically reside in the district do not get to vote and businesses that are not individuals get no votes at all.

If the school district business manager intended to note that it would be fundamentally unfair for anyone but the ones paying back the loan to decide whether to pass the bond, she would be correct, but I don't think she really feels that way, or she would be against the bond for its objective unfairness.

The Bible says:

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children...

The world says leave some debt to your children. It's our duty, after all, to keep those government schools open and then bill the children for it later.  This bond will impose taxes on those with no representation in the matter and it will affect people who aren't even born yet. It is theft. It is evil. It is a bad idea.

Is Taxation Theft?

Thou shalt not steal. 

You may recognize that from Exodus 20:15. It is part of what we call the Ten Commandments, the laws given to God's people, through Moses. I am going to make the case that taxation is a violation of this command.

The reason I'm sort of stirred up about this right now is that our local school board is asking the voters to undertake a 25 year bond in the amount of 5 million dollars which will be paid by adding a levy to what property owners pay every year in property tax. Let's talk about the local school district. 

Current enrollment is 161 students. For the entire district. Kindergarten through grade 12, there are 161 students in the entire district. Including all sources of funding, the spending per student in this district is over $20,000. You read that correctly, $20,000 is being spent per pupil to educate the little crumb crunchers in our district. The state government has awarded a grant (money taken from tax payers all over the state) of 4 million dollars to our local district based upon the fact that we are one of the most impoverished districts in the state. 100% of the students get free breakfast and lunch at school, because our district is so poor. However, the grant comes with strings. The district has to match the grant with at least 4 million dollars from the local taxpayers. (Remember how the state has already determined that we are one of the poorest districts in the state?)

Now, for $20,000 per pupil, I could take charge of the entire district and I would enroll every student at a private school 60 miles away, bus them to school every day, get yearly passes to the zoo and aquarium and science museum (and bus them there twice per year), and provide them with new clothing. That's right, I could arrange for a superior private education for EVERY student in this district for what is being spent to keep them in the local government school. 

So, even if taxation was not theft, which it is, it would still be the height of foolishness to spend one more cent on this over-spending district.

Let's suppose that a man in my town wanted to have relations (of the marital type) with a woman from this town who did not wish to relate to him. Now suppose he took her by force. Would that be rape? Of course it would be. 

Now, let us change the story a bit and say the man in question has the same desire as before, but instead of taking her by force he holds an election. In this election, a majority of town's people vote that the man MAY legally take the woman. The town's enforcers hold her down and the man has his way with her. Is that rape? Why or why not? If the majority of the people vote for the act to occur, does it change from a crime to a legal act? Does it go from being immoral to being moral? Why or why not?

We shall now change the crime from rape to theft. If a man in my town wants a percentage of the value of the property of another man, and he goes to the second man's house with a gun and demands the money, is it not robbery? What if he intends to use the money for a good cause?  Let us now say that the first man holds an election whereat the majority of the people vote that the property owner should turn over a percentage of his property value to the first man. Does it cease to be theft because of an election?

What other crime, besides theft, becomes a non-crime based upon the will of the majority? Murder? Arson?

My conclusion is that theft is theft is theft. My neighbors have no more right to vote on whether my money can be taken and used for a school than they can vote on whether to murder the man who has pink flamingos on his lawn.  

No King But Jesus

I don't know if Christians have always favored statism, or if modern American Christians are just a wonderful example of the success of government schooling. It is a subject I must study further, as I seem to remember reading about certain Christians in the past claiming "No King But King Jesus" and being persecuted for it. Perhaps a reader can enlighten me.

The overwhelming majority of believers with whom I speak and whose stuff I read on the internet and in books seem to think that God wants to rule us through an earthly intermediary, an earthly ruler. I have heard it said countless times that God created 3 institutions, the Church, the family and government. And yet I find no place in Scripture where God instituted government. Romans 13 is used as a proof text, and yet it fails to guide God's people up to the time Paul wrote his letter. Where in God's Law does he ordain governments? Where does He say that His Law is to be executed by governments? To whom was the Law of God given? To His people.

In fact, I see the exact opposite. God wanted to rule His people directly. The book of Judges demonstrates what I believe to be the closest look at how God intended to govern. The Law had been given to Moses, then Joshua led the people of God into the promised land. There is no evidence that they tried to establish a government over all of the land. There are places in Judges where we read of kings within the Israelite lands. These were likely tribal leaders or rulers of cities, but they were not set up to execute God's Laws. The cities also had elders, which is a natural sort of government, if you want to call it that. Elders would hear disputes, represent the city in negotiations with other cities, etc. But they didn't "rule" because the Law of God ruled.

In Judges 8 we see Gideon dealing with city elders who are violating God's command to help their brethren drive out the heathen. After Gideon takes care of that problem and saves Israel from the oppression of foreign kings the people cry out to Gideon to rule over them:

Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son also: for thou has delivered us from the hand of Midian. Judges 8:22

But Gideon, a type of Christ and a deliverer answers this way:

And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you. Judges 8:23

It isn't recorded that the people didn't understand what it meant for God to rule over them without a king. I guess it was clear to them. But we modern people just can't grasp it. We know that we won't go on a spree of murder, mayhem and robbery, but our neighbor might. I guess.  If an earthly government isn't controlling our every move and writing thousands upon thousands of laws we are going to destroy each other and the earth? When did we get such an idea? Not from the Bible. The Bible doesn't even hint that God's Law was a good start, but we really need to legislate every tiny detail. The pharisees did just that, and Jesus did not have kind words for them.

What does God say about a people that demand a king? Has God spoken? Is Jesus the same yesterday, today and forever? Did God intend to rule directly over His people by means of His Law? I say that He did and here is where God said the same:

Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah. And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in the thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.  1 Samuel 8:4-7

 Could it be that it pleases God if, when given the choice, we choose to govern ourselves with the Law of God only and reject an earthly government? Is God inadequate for the job? If not, then why subject ourselves to so much tyranny? We are worse than the fools at Galatia who wanted to earn their salvation by works according to the Law. We want to please God by obeying man's Law.

O foolish (Americans), who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?  Galatians 3:1, my paraphrase

 American Christians will reject any notion that they should obey the Law of God, and those same Christians will assert that disobedience to any of the thousands of local, state and federal laws, plus incorporated laws of other nations is sin because God wants us to "obey every ordinance."

If the laws of man contradict or add to the Law of God, are we obligated to obey them while we ignore the commands of the living God? When we measure our righteousness by the standard of man's laws, are we not idolators?

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15

 How does one know if he has a king?  The borders of a kingdom are determined by where the kingdom's laws are obeyed. All who obey the law of the king are his subjects. Subjecting oneself to the king means subjecting oneself to the law of the king. If his laws are not obeyed, then he is not the sovereign. Obeying the laws of another realm is evidence of loyalty to that realm.

No king but King Jesus!

Identity Abuse? Are You Serious?

There is a young woman in Texas who has rebelled against her parents and left her family against their wishes. I'm not sure exactly what her plans were, other than what she says in the video, that she wants to travel, get an education and get a job. I will let her speak for herself here, then I will provide my opinion on this issue.

This video has, not surprisingly, resulted in a bunch of other rebellious home schooled adults to jump in and shout, "Me, too! Me, too!" and "Her parents just want to control her" and "This is identity abuse!". The young woman herself barely mentions her parents except to say they refuse to help her. They have denied this. I don't know who is telling the truth. My bias is with the parents, because the girl has shown herself to be a deceiver. She conspired with her grandparents to leave her parents' home, purposefully concealing her plans from her parents. Both of her parents have dedicated their lives to raising their children in a way the parents deemed to be proper and that is their right. They have wronged no one.

Also asserted in the video is that she has no medical records and no education records. While her grandparents may have convinced her that this is terrible, I have to say that those are not the sort of records that I have ever been asked to present. Not even when I joined the Army. As a parent of home educated adults, I also know that it is possible -- and not even difficult -- to apply for college admission without a certificate of graduation from high school. Colleges know that most home schoolers don't have them and permit alternative ways to demonstrate readiness for college, such as college entrance exams. 

As to the assertion by some, such as the proprietor of Home Schoolers Annonymous, that her parents have committed the unforgivable crime of  "identity abuse" I say, stop trying to turn every thing you don't like into some sort of crime. Parents have no duty to their children to make sure that the children will be able to comply with every totalitarian government requirement.

What really bothers me about his whole scenario is that I don't hear anyone saying how ridiculous and tyrannical it is that in the "land of the free" a person can't get government permission to drive a car on a public roadway unless the person has fully registered themselves and received the proper government identification number. How is that rationally related to driving? How is the Social Security Act of 1935 related to getting in a car and making it go in an orderly and safe manner?  When did we become such sheep that obtaining employment doing the most menial of tasks is prohibited without your papers?  What interests do colleges have in knowing a person's federal tax identification number? Hint: follow the money. Note also that such identification is NOT required to run for office or to the hold the office of President of the United States.

So this young woman wants to submit herself to the tyranny and get all the proper paperwork. She now needs to provide sufficient proof to a judge as to the circumstances of her birth. He won't accept her sworn affidavit or the affidavits of her grandparents? Their sworn statements would be sufficient in a court to send a man to the electric chair in Texas, but their combined testimonies can't be trusted when they say that they would like to register her birth as having happened on a certain date, at a certain place and to certain parents, who are citizens of the United States?

I have given birth at home several times. I have registered births in two states and in both states I filled out and signed the form. I promised that I was telling the truth and that was enough. In a few weeks, I would receive a copy of the birth certificate in the mail. (After paying the fee and requesting the copy. The copy doesn't come automatically on the basis of registering the birth.) No one ever came to my house to verify if a baby had, in fact, been born. Because we didn't hire a midwife, I believe I also had to provide an affidavit of a person who had seen me pregnant and then saw the baby after its birth and was aware of the date and location of the birth. This information could just as easily be provided the day after the birth as it could 18 years later. The information is no more trustworthy or less trustworthy just because a few years went by. We aren't asking if someone remembers seeing a bear cross the road, we are talking about if they remember the birth of a person who is alive and standing there right now! In one state, there was a box I could check on the form if I wanted the State to register the birth with the Social Security Administration for me. I did NOT check the box, and yet, a few weeks later, her Social Security Card arrived in the mail. She received the mark of the beast, whether she wanted to or not.  That's why we practice paedobaptism. (Not really, that was joke, folks.)

Wouldn't it be great if we had some sort of uprising where masses of people sued their states to able to exercise their right to drive a car without possessing a federal identification number? Since when did moving around on public roads become a privilege granted only when the proper obiesence has been paid? Instead of petitioning a judge to be permitted to register her birth, she should be petitioning to be able to drive without having to a show a document which proves nothing other than her parents filed some paperwork 18 years ago.

There is identity abuse going on this country. And it is being perpetuated by the government, not parents.

Normalize Open Breast Feeding

As with sex in marriage, Christians really ought to own the issue of breastfeeding. We should be the most informed, the most accepting, the most encouraging and we ought to have the least number of hang-ups about feeding a child at the breast than any other group of people on the planet. "Why," you ask? Because we know the Creator. We know the Designer. We know that everything He designed and created was very good. Breast feeding is not some embarrassing part of our family history that needs to be covered up and excused. We don't have to apologize for God having put the life-giving nutrients in the breasts of women which must needs be extracted by children by way of nipples. There, I said it. Nipples. I said it again. Does that make you uncomfortable? Would you prefer that I said "teets?" How about "tits?" Why, exactly, does this make us squirm?

Does it bother us just because it doesn't bother hippies and Hollywood types? I'll be the first to admit that if some Hollywood starlet is endorsing something, I pause to consider whether I'm on the right track if I happen to agree with her. Here is one example I saw this morning

As you can see, this comes from Glamour magazine. This woman (I never heard of her), Olivia Wilde, was photographed breast feeding her baby in a restaurant. It is a posed shot. She said that she wanted to include this in the magazine story about her because being a mother is such an important part of her identity. I say, "Good for her." Secretly, I hope that lots of women see this and will feel more confident about breast feeding their own children. Perhaps they will think, "See, she is sexy and famous, and she does it. I can, too." But beyond breast feeding, I have very little in common with this mother and I actively oppose the civilization-destroying beliefs that she espouses in the article. I don't want her to be the poster child for breast feeding, for mothering, or any other important aspect of Western Civilization.

How can a person be so right about one subject and be so wrong about everything else? I hate to say it, but even a blind hog finds a truffle once in awhile. Here is what she has to say about why she hasn't yet married her bastard child's father:

"We're engaged, but no specific plans yet — we just have to find the time to put it together," she said. "In many ways, a child is more of a commitment. We are fully committed and really happy as a family. And there's no definition of the 'normal family' anymore. Kids today are growing up with so many different definitions of family. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't feel any pressure to do it. But I think it will be really fun."

So, marriage is for when they "find the time to put it together" and she thinks "it will be really fun." I believe she has confused a wedding with a marriage. She exalts illegitimate parenthood to a position higher than marriage by saying that a "child is more of a commitment." Families are not built on the foundation of having children, any savage can pump out babies. Families are built upon the foundation of marriages, and families ARE the foundation of civilizations.  She is also extremely proud that she won't be sacrificing her career now that she is a mother. Of course not. What, with all those nannies and stuff, she is just like all of those other single moms out there working at McDonald's.  And besides, she had a great example in her own "badass working mother" who was "a writer and filmmaker who made documentaries for PBS's Frontline and was a Princeton journalism professor." This gem of a mom taught her daughter what was important. As Olivia puts it, "That inspired me when I was pregnant. I wasn't going to sacrifice myself because I was becoming a mother." Nope. Motherhood should certainly not involve sacrifice. You can have it all, sister!

You can read more about this person here, although I've probably told you all you need to know.

In spite of the immorality and anti-biblical family values of Hollywood starlets, there is nothing about breast feeding, even with a full breast exposed, that violates any recommendation in Scripture to be modest. This neo-Victorian prudishness about breast feeding that is currently reigning in the U.S. is not based upon the Bible. It is new in history. Even common sense will tell us that what we are asking of breast feeding mothers, that they don't feed their children in public, that they completely cover their upper bodies and the heads of their babies, would not only be impractical in most cultures and settings outside of the home, but completely impossible. Even the Victorians didn't treat public breast feeding with the horror feigned by modern Americans at the sight of a breast with a child attached. How do I know this? Well, I didn't appear on the scene of history until fairly recently, so I have to rely on resources such as art. That's right. Paintings, sculptures and drawings of everyday life throughout the past 1000 years have depicted breast feeding. Without covers. In public. The examples I'm going to share are beautiful, but if you find it distasteful, please look away.

This next one is especially interesting, as presumably the family portrait was being painted so that it could be displayed:

One person's interpretation of Jesus blessing the little children: 

 

 This is from a painting by Lucas Kranach, friend of Martin Luther. Apparently the women in this church all sit together, presumably the men are sitting on the other side of the room, not because of breast feeding, though.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. As photography started becoming more widespread in the late 1800's  breast feeding women were being included in snapshots as well as posed portraits.  Clearly our ancestors did not consider a breast exposed for the purpose of feeding a child to be inappropriate, immodest, or undesirable in any way.

What happened? I think what happened was formula feeding. Women, generations of them now, have grown up without any association between breasts and their function in feedings babies. These women only know breasts as objects of sexual pleasure. While there is nothing wrong with using breasts for pleasure, it is wrong to say that body parts which bring sexual pleasure must be hidden in public. Do we say that about our lips? It is a perversion of design to relegate nursing mothers and their babies to public toilets and secret closets. Let Christians lead the way in giving honor to the Creator for his magnificent design.

The Scientific Method Has Fallen Out Of Favor

Full disclosure -- I am not a scientist. I don't pretend to be a scientist and I don't play one on television. Some may describe me as an evangelical fundamentalist Bible-thumper and declare me to be, therefore, anti-science, but that is untrue: at least the "anti-science" part. I love science. I love discovery. I love how science has been used in the development of technologies that make my life better. I hate that under the guise of science certain entities have furthered their agendas and done damage to liberty, public and individual health and the reputation of true science. Of what do I speak, you ask? Vaccines.

If I have to hear one more accusation that I am brain-washed, that I only know one side of the debate or that I just don't "understand the science" I am going to scream. It is particularly irksome to hear these accusations from anyone who has never even read a single article, let alone an entire book, which questions the wisdom of vaccinations and cannot even reasonably state the objections against vaccines. These accusations almost always start with the straw man "I know you think vaccines cause autism, but this has been proven to be false." I have yet to tell a single person that I don't vaccinate my children because I am afraid the vaccines will give them autism. 

Besides being frustrated by the pro-vac crowd always telling me I'm ignorant and that my children live under a continual threat of death from the looming, evil chicken pox, I am also frustrated that almost no one in the anti-vac crowd confronts the underlying theory upon which the entire vaccine house-of-cards is built. I reject that theory and the vaccines that flow from it.

At the risk of having a bunch of scientists tell me I'm an ignoramus, I'm going to talk about the scientific method and why I admire it. I've taken several science classes in both high school and college. In most of those course I had to be able to demonstrate that I understand the basic concept of the method. It is called a method because it is a particular process, a series of steps, used to make discoveries. It isn't so much about proving things as it is about eliminating ideas that are not accurate. This is not how vaccine science works because the very foundation of this method is undermined. Using the scientific method any given hypothesis can be supported by testing or it can be eliminated  by testing. If the hypothesis is not tested (using the rules of the scientific method) or if testing is accepted as valid only when it validates the hypothesis, then whatever is being done is simply not science. It might be technical, it might involve scientific subjects, it might involve studies, but it is not science.

When a hypothesis is presented, a true scientist does not become so invested in the hypothesis being correct that he is unable to design or unwilling to use tests which will lead to the destruction of the hypothesis. For example, I will describe in very simple language the hypothesis behind why vaccines prevent disease. It goes something like this: In nature, if a person is exposed to a disease pathogen such as a bacteria (pertussis, for example) or a virus (chicken pox, for example), this exposure and subsequent disease process in the body cause the body to develop a resistance so that future exposure to the pathogen does not result in illness in that individual. The individual is said to be "immune." A vaccination is a process whereby the disease organism is introduced into the body in a manner that does not cause illness but stimulates the body to create the same or similar immune response as if it had contracted the illness, resulting in the individual becoming immune.

The hypothesis does not need to attempt to describe how the body creates an immune response or what the factors are within the body in order for the hypothesis to be tested. In the case of vaccines, another related hypothesis was developed which says, roughly, that the way the body exercises immunity is by creating antibodies which recognize and attack the disease organism if it should present itself to the body after the original exposure and that the existence of these antibodies is a legitimate test of immunity.  This hypothesis has already been disproved,  although support and belief in this hypothesis remains high within the pro-vac community.

The International Medical Council on Vaccination has posted an article this month dealing with the measles and the measles vaccine which shines a light on what happens when your hypothesis isn't testing out to be true and you persist in using it as a basis for dealing with disease. The information shared in this article has been around for over 50 years, that is, it is dealing with vaccine events that happened as far back as 1963 when the measles vaccine was first introduced in the United States. Reading this article just strengthened my suspicions that the whole vaccine theory is flawed.

My basic objection to the theory behind all vaccines is that the mechanism behind immunity is not fully understood by medical science nor can it be. As the above article points out, even children who have a disorder whereby they cannot produce antibodies are able to become immune to measles (and other diseases) by being naturally exposed to the virus and experiencing some level of illness from the disease, even though they did not produce antibodies against the virus that allegedly causes measles. Without knowing fully the cause of disease or the mechanism of immunity development, how can pharmaceutical companies justify creating and injecting potentially harmful chemicals and disease causing organisms into humans in the attempt to create immunity?  Additionally and also pointed out in the article is the fact that any immunity created through the use of vaccines does not mimic natural immunity and is short-lived at best and non-existent at worst. To date, not a single vaccine has been tested and shown to be as effective in creating immunity as natural exposure and none have been shown to create a life-long immunity as originally promised and as continues to be promised in the case of some vaccines.

Pro-vac folks tell me that double blind studies on humans would be unethical and that is why they are not done. But doesn't that make all humans test subjects who submit to the vaccine? In the case of measles vaccine, we see that a killed measles vaccine was introduced into the U.S. and was used for several years until it became obvious that it didn't work and was dangerous, or rather until another vaccine could be approved for use. That is the way of the vaccine market. Untested products are used on real human subjects until they are shown to be dangerous AND there is a replacement waiting in the wings. We saw the same thing with the live polio virus in the U.S. I was telling my doctor that I didn't want my children to have it because they would be shedding live polio virus for months and I was poo-pooed. 15 years later, it fell out of favor in the U.S. for that very reason, but not until a replacement was ready. If I knew about the dangers in the days before the internet, the medical community knew about it, too. But the agenda said to keep going regardless of what the science says.

So this is my beef, the theory behind vaccinations doesn't pass scientific muster. The hypothesis that injecting pathogenic organisms into humans causes an immune response that is similar to or identical to the natural immune response to actually contracting the disease is flawed. It has not been proven through scientific testing using the scientific method. There is no scientific evidence that vaccines reduce the rates of disease or the rates of death from disease.

This is enough for me. Even if I didn't have genuine concerns about the safety of injecting poisonous chemicals and dangerous disease organisms along with foreign proteins into human bodies and even if I didn't have genuine concerns about the damage these vaccines cause to the immune system and the contributions they make to auto-immune disorders, I wouldn't vaccinate my children because I have no confidence that they do any good whatsoever. Our bodies were not designed to learn to resist disease that enters our bodies by injection, which is not the normal path of infection with the possible exception of tetanus.

The theory behind vaccines also relies heavily on the questionable "germ theory" which states that exposure to pathogenic organisms is the primary mechanism behind disease rather than the theory that the state of the body, its health and vitality, determine whether a body will become diseased and the extent to which it will resist and recover from disease. There is also no consideration in the vaccine industry about whether there is any disease for which the risk of death is so low that the risks of the vaccine are greater than any benefit that could come from avoiding the disease. This is most obvious to those of us who grew up in an age where everyone we knew had the chicken pox with no apparent danger to life and limb. But as the above article documents, this was also true for measles at the time the vaccine was introduced. Not only did very, very few people die or even need to be hospitalized for measles, modern medicine had discovered very effective vitamin treatments which completely cured measles in a matter of days.

I am always open to discussion of this issue as long as there are no ad hominem attacks. I am not afraid of any facts. Scare tactics don't work on me, so keep those to yourself. There are so many more aspects of this issue that are not discussed. Please surprise me with an argument I haven't yet heard.

A Man's Home is His Castle

"A man's home is his castle" is not just a quaint expression. It is an ideal imbedded in the jurisprudence of both Britain and the United States. The authors of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States made sure that man's home as castle remained inviolate. Or rather, they sought to turn the clock back to the days when it was inviolate, before the abuses of the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Here are the words of a prominent colonial attorney, one James Otis:

Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient.

Everyday one can read of another abuse, of a no-knock warrant being served in the middle of the night where someone is shot dead by government agents while attempting to defend his home and family. There is no excuse for this. It has to stop.

Police spokesmen will say that people should not resist the police or point guns at them. Pray tell, how does one know that the people breaking into ones house in the middle of the night are police? Just because a man yells, "POLICE!" does not make it true. Criminals are perfectly capable of shouting, "POLICE!"

To permit the continuance of no-knock warrants is to strip away all pretense that a man has the right to defend his home, his castle.

Another important aspect of many of these searches is that they are not based upon probable cause and they are not supported by oath. But the sheeple know nothing of these principles from their indoctrination education in the government school system. They can't miss what they never knew they had.

Read this fact-filled article by John Whitehead to be enraged at the abuses of government and common sense.

Why Christians Should Oppose the Drug War

"A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police...[h]e who wants to reform his countrymen must take recourse to persuasion. This alone is the democratic way of bringing about changes. If a man fails in his endeavors to convince other people of the soundness of his ideas,he should blame his own disabilities. He should not ask for a law, that is, for compulsion and coercion by the police.” Ludwig von Mises

The failure of the War on Drugs needs to be acknowledged and accepted by Christians. We need to stop supporting this war. Not only does it fail to accomplish its stated goal, it is harmful to liberty.

"The war on drugs is a failure. It has failed to prevent drug abuse. It has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of addicts. It has failed to keep drugs away from teenagers. It has failed to reduce the demand for drugs. It has failed to stop the violence associated with drug trafficking. It has failed to help drug addicts get treatment. It has failed to have an impact on the use or availability of most drugs in the United States." Laurence Vance

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Vance. And here he points out the damage done by the War on Drugs:

"The other mischievous dangers of the drug war that have been let loose are legion. The war on drugs has clogged the judicial system, unnecessarily swelled prison populations, fostered violence, corrupted law enforcement, eroded civil liberties, destroyed financial privacy, encouraged illegal searches and seizures, ruined countless lives, wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, hindered legitimate pain treatment, turned law-abiding people into criminals, and unreasonably inconvenienced retail shopping. The costs of drug prohibition far outweigh any possible benefits."

Certainly it is acceptable to call the abuse of drugs a "vice." And so it is. There is no reason we shouldn't be free to avoid association with drug users if we so choose. But we are wrong to use the government and its monopoly on violence to force others to comply with our preferences. Murder is already a crime. Theft is already a crime. We aren't tolerating murder and thievery when we stop enforcing drug prohibitions or decriminalize possession of drugs.

Read more here:

Laurence Vance Explains the Drug War

Now I Know Why They Fear US

In the past, I have always been mystified by the near panic exhibited by the left when the so called, "Christian Right" gained a little influence within government or within a political party. I would laugh at their claims that if the Christians gain control of the country, all will be lost. There will be no liberty. Everyone will be forced to be a Christian.

My experience within Christendom has always led me to believe that not only can you not force any one to be a Christian, but that all Christians share this belief with me. My mistake was in believing that other Christians shared my understanding that pagans behave like pagans and that forcing them to behave as if they were Christians would be futile at best and counterproductive at worst. How could I have been so silly to have been convinced that those set at liberty, by the Author of liberty, would love and embrace liberty, including freedom of conscience, for all? But silly I was. And terribly mistaken.

Very recently, on a website containing discussion forums, I encountered a disturbing dose of reality about the agenda of many who call themselves Christians. The website was created by Christians and is maintained by Christians. While they don't exclude non-believers from joining the discussion forums, for the most part the participants are born again and claim to be conservative, affirming the Bible to be God's Word and authoritative. The administrators of the forums have an odd way of policing. They have some sort of secret committee that arbitrarily bans participants for alleged infractions of the posting rules. This is done without communication to the "offender" and with no opportunity for the "offender" to challenge the decision. No announcement is made to the other participants about the ban and if the other participants attempt to discuss the banning, those posts are deleted and the participants themselves fall into the danger zone of being banned.

Someone close to me was banned from these forums. One day he attempted to log into his account and found that it was locked. After an email to the admins and a wait of nearly 10 days, he got an apology along the lines of "sorry for the inconvenience", with no explanation of the locked account. Services were restored, but then a few days later he received a notice that his account had been terminated and deleted for the nebulous cause of "trolling".

For those who don't know, trolling usually refers to the act of browsing or reading threads and occasionally posting for the main purpose of stirring up trouble and offense. My friend had never engaged in any such activity. In the threads in which he participated, he attempted to make salient points, on topic, based upon principles gleaned from the Scriptures. He regularly challenged other posters to back up their opinions with Scripture as well. For this, he was hated, particularly by certain of the women who disliked his references to verses dealing with husband/wife relationships as defined and explained in the Word.

After he was banned, an on-line acquaintance created a blog post on the same website, lamenting the ban and some rule changes which were announced at the same time as the ban. Rules which seem to have been created particularly for the purpose of banning individuals who didn't share the common brain cell and opinions of the masses on the forums.

My awakening occurred while reading the responses to this blog post. Several people commented that they were glad that my friend had been banned. Here is an example, "I have been embarrassed, upset and sometimes even a bit shocked at some of (insert name here)'s posts. He had good thoughts and he was a good debater... but if you can't show respect towards others in your language, you shouldn't be posting on this kind of forum."

I see. He should be silenced because he said something that caused her to be "embarrassed", "upset" and, God forbid! "shocked"! He didn't "respect" others.? What does that mean? No one got less "respect" on that forum than my friend. We was accused of being a child molester, a wife beater, and a slew of other nasty things.

Here was another comment, "but anybody willing to defend the position that molested children should stay with their molestor (sic) needs to be dispensed with. " This was a complete mischaracterization of an entire discussion focused on whether Child Protective Services do more harm than good, whether the existence of such agencies violate the Constitution, and whether government social workers violate Biblical spheres of authority along with legal principles of long standing in our culture.

Basically, these "Christians" don't want to be bothered with people of differing opinions. These "Christians" don't feel that they should have their senses bombarded with ideas they don't like. (mind you - no one was forced to read his posts or respond, it was strictly voluntary). The new rules state that there can be no posts which advocate "immoral or illegal activity". Huh? If Christians can't even discuss WHAT constitutes moral behavior (which was the substance of many of my friend's posts) then what is left? The weather? No advocating illegal activity? Regardless of whether it conflicts with Biblical commands? It is illegal to homeschool in Germany, so anyone advocating that would be banned. It is illegal in Canada to speak against sodomy or to characterize it as immoral. Anyone doing that should be banned, even if they only posted Scripture verses?

Silencing those with whom we disagree can never be acceptable to genuine lovers of the truth. We are told in Scripture to testify of the Truth. We are never told to waste our time suppressing lies. It is impossible to suppress every lie and isn't even necessary. It's like trying to suppress darkness instead of just lighting a lamp. Light automatically dispels darkness. It's the same with lies and truth. All that needs to happen for truth to prevail is for the truth to NOT be suppressed. One of the dangers with those attempting to suppress lies is that they make themselves the arbiters of truth and end up suppressing truth about which they weren't yet aware.

As believers, if we ever do get in positions of government control, we must remember that we don't need to waste our time censoring books, magazines and the internet. We don't need to add even one more law to the volumes and volumes already existing. We do not need to create a system whereby everyone spies and tattles on his neighbors and family in order to expose and punish their evil.

The only thing we need to do is good. Do good. Do right. Proclaim the truth. When speech is truly free, then both truth and lies will be spoken. But truth, by its very nature, prevails. There is only one authority on truth. Those of us who would promote ourselves to the "under keepers" of the truth do a disservice to the Truth. Truth is self existent. As individuals we are to seek after it. Not to sit on the pile of it that we have, pointing fingers at others who aren't sitting on the same pile.

If you believe you have truth, then be prepared to give an answer for it. Don't count on being able to always silence those who challenge you.

Oh, and you who would silence others... please don' t be surprised when you are the one silenced. If you embrace, in principle, that those in leadership or even the majority have the right to silence the rest, you have just made a bed that isn't going to be comfortable for you when you are the target.

Am I upset about this attitude? YES! Because ideas have consequences. And the consequences of the censors will be the death (literally) of my children and grandchildren. When proclaiming that "Jesus is LORD!" becomes illegal...