Politics

So what would a conservative Mennonite care about mere earthly politics? And why?

Mennonites and Government Schools

Mennonites may flee Quebec town:

Members of Quebec’s only Mennonite community say they may move to Ontario or New Brunswick so they can keep their children in a private school that suits their religious beliefs.

Fifteen English-speaking Mennonite families in this small community in the Monteregie region say they won’t send their children to government-approved schools, balking at the teaching of evolution, the acceptance of gays and lesbians and low “morality standards.”

They say they are considering relocation out of fear that child-protection officials will seize their children.

Other townspeople here — mostly francophone Catholics — support the primarily English school, deemed illegal by Quebec’s Education Department.

The story continues:

He said about 30 members of the community — young couples and their school-aged children — will have to move before school starts. The others will follow.

News reports last year about unsanctioned schools led to a complaint to the Education Department about the Mennonite school.

Parents were warned they would face legal proceedings if their children aren’t enrolled in sanctioned schools this fall. That could lead to children being taken from families

And this:

In Roxton Falls, the vast majority of non-Mennonites strongly support the school, said the town’s Mayor, Jean-Marie Laplante. This week, he wrote letters to the education department and Education Minister Michelle Courchesne in an effort to save the school.

We’ll see how it all shakes out.

I empathize (or at least sympathize) with my fellow-Mennonites and fellow-parents, but I wonder if Mr. Goosen didn’t overstate his case with this comment:

“It boils down to intolerance to our religion” by education officials, said Ronald Goossen, who in the early 1990s was among the first Mennonites from Manitoba to move to Roxton Falls, a sleepy town on the Riviere Noire, about 100 kilometres east of Montreal.

If they truly fail to meet whatever standards the state has, then change or move or appeal, but please don’t play the intolerance card.

Thanks.

🙂

Lured Kids?

This is amazing:

It matters to the security of people here at home if we don’t work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens.

Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It

Kids, Mr. President?

Lured?

That is stunning to me.

And when it comes to causal conditions, were none of those fellows educated and such?

And what about those other “kids” more recently in trouble in the UK? You know, those doctors?

Amazing.

I really do think Mr. Bush or Tony Snow or somebody at the White House needs to clarify that. (But it probably can’t be done.)

Should I Run for President?

That matches the question that raced through my mind this morning:

Could I be President of the United States?

According to the US Constitution, I have to meet these three requirements:

  • be a natural-born citizen of the United States
  • be at least thirty-five years old
  • be a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.

I meet all three requirements. Easily.

Perhaps in a future post I’ll develop this idea further.

😉

PS: I just read that Mr. Bloomberg de-Republican-ized himself. If he’s considering a run as an independent, maybe this post of mine will give him pause. If it doesn’t, let him spend his billion.

Fencing Fantasies

Waxing Reaganesque — “Mr. Bush, take down this fence!”

Happy talk aside, relations between the two neighbors have worsened since Bush last year signed a law calling for construction of fencing along the long border the two countries share. Calderón has ridiculed the fence, likening it to the Berlin Wall.

Since I’ve already posted on this subject here and here, I’ll not say anything further.

However, there’s also this:

Church groups led marches along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to protest the use of fences to stop migrants.

Nearly 100 members of churches in Arizona and Mexico marched Sunday on either side of a wall near the town of Naco, which straddles the border.

On the Mexico side, Father Guillermo Coronado of La Iglesia San Jose in Naco, Sonora, said more people need to organize similar demonstrations.

“This is a sign of what needs to be done in all the border states rather than rejecting and ignoring other human beings,” he said. “The greatest gift we have is that we are human beings with a mission to love and be happy. God has no borders.”

Señor Coronado, a question, please.

Does your church have any borders?

Also, does your church take any action to stop activity it deems immoral?

And finally, do you see any valid parallels between your answers to the previous questions and what you’re protesting against?

Presidential Perspective

"We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression."

Who said that?

And more importantly, was he right about all that?

Franklin D Roosevelt on anti-Christian aggression

Original source: World Magazine

FDR at Madison Square Garden, 1940

WWIII: Dominos Down

Hamas pushed at the first teetering domino. Hezbollah finished the job.

On June 28 (1914), some guy shot Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand and Missus. I wonder how many years it took for someone to pinpoint that “small” event as the starting point of the cataclysmic event that was World War I.

This afternoon, scant over an hour ago, I stood in our kitchen finishing my piece of homemade fresh strawberry pie. That (c. 1300 Pacific) was the time when it struck me that World War III had begun.

The small event in this case was the Hamas capture and abduction of an Israeli soldier on June 25 (2006).

Israel replied with an air assault on Gaza and a not-so-veiled threat against the Palestinian Prime Minister, himself a Hamas man.

Then last night Hezbollah one-upped Hamas with a from-Lebanon attack that “bagged” two Israeli soldiers.

Israel called that an act of war and held Lebanon responsible.

Israel unleashed a limited-but-punishing sea and air assault on Lebanon, even ruining at least two runways at Beirut International Airport.

So how do I get to WWIII from there?

I think Iran is behind both of those Israeli-soldier abductions.

Reports that Hezbollah wants to send its captives to Iran only add further weight to that.

Fox News has just announced that the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers may be taken to Iran.

It appears to me that Iran hopes to provoke Israel to broaden its attack to include Iran.

Of course, this would explain the efforts against Lebanese military and civilian airfields. The Israelis want to ensure that Goldwasser and Regev do not wind up in Teheran. If they do, however, Iran would have two choices: turn the soldiers over to the International Red Cross/Red Crescent immediately, or assume the role of combatant in the conflict. Unless Iran turned over the soldiers to a neutral party, they will have committed an act of war. Unlike the Carter administration in 1979, the Israelis would not likely allow 444 days to pass before getting them back or responding in kind.

The Israelis may well see this as sufficient provocation to at least take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, especially as they see the US fiddling with UN.

So, with Israel fighting a war on three fronts, it would seem logical that the terrorist kin of the two Hs would join the fray, launching a string of homicide assaults — not just against Israel but against US interests in Iraq, in the homeland, and elsewhere abroad.

With Iran and Israel now duking it out, and Israel over-extended, the US has no choice but to take up the fight that’s been taken to it, unleashing its own assault on Iran.

That sends out the ACTIVATE signal to Iranian and terrorist cells in the US, Mexico, and Canada. They undertake a series of strikes all across the USA.

Meanwhile, the Dear Leader in North Korea sees the US fighting at home as well as on four foreign fronts (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Israel) and figures out its time to unify the Korean peninsula. His first move is to use sleeper agents to decapitate SKorea’s government. Then he shreds Seoul (with conventional or crude nuclear weapons, it makes no difference, the end result is the same). With the government gone and Seoul gone, and American troops pinned down, the South collapses…but gradually, extending America’s distraction there.

The Chinese catch on also, and make their move on Taiwan.

And the Russians aim for Ukraine. At least.

The story goes on, with several countries “going nuclear” in the weapons employed.

Well, there you have it. Just a lot of off-the-cuff speculation. Oh, and off-the-charts, too. Crazy, I know. And preposterous. But I thought I should at least go on record here.

Whatever the case, men and nations pursue peace and will never find it if they continue to insist on factoring out the Prince of Peace.

If you are among those who look at current events and see compelling cause for personal and familial precautionary measures, be sure you stockpile plenty.

And be sure to tend to more than mere physical and financial survival.

See to your soul. It needn’t be destined for utter destruction, even though all else shares that fate.

Disclaimer: I know the above is poorly written and structured, but I have neither time nor interest in tuning up my effort.

Above all, love God!