Is the "Trump is Hitler" Meme Fair?

Trump lovers keep busting my chops for comparing the one and only true Messiah, Donald Trump, to Adolph Hitler. They say this is just another meme by a Trump hater.  First off I find the use of the liberal meme "hater" more than a little interesting.  The second interesting thing is that the Donald and his minions use memes more effectively than probably any political candidate since you-know-who. Thirdly, it's not a meme. It's an observation based on some scary parallels between Trump in 2016 and Hitler in 1933. Someone challenged me to say why I believe Trump is like Hitler. Okay, here goes: 

• Hitler motto: "Make Germany Great Again"
• Trump motto: "Make America Great Again."

• Hitler's problem race: The Jews
• Trump's problem race: The Muslims and he's previously said anti-Israel things

• Hitler's solution 1: Mass deportations - Solution 2 death camps
• Trump's solution 1: Mass deportations - Solution 2 kill the families of terrorists

• Hitler's supporters: Angry Germans
• Trump's supporters: Angry Americans

• Hitler's context: 10 years of economic woes under the Weimar Republic and it's vascillating legislature
• Trump's context: 9 years of economic failure under Democrat policies and a vascillating Republican Congress

• Hitler - Told the people what they wanted to hear and then did whatever he wanted (he was beholden to none but himself).
• Trump - Tells the people what they want to hear and promises to be "beholden to none"

• Hitler: Changed his policies and beliefs at will
• Trump: Reserves the right to change his policies and beliefs at will

• Hitler - Encouraged his Brownshirts to commit violence against his opponents.
• Trump - Encourages his followers to rough up protesters and promises to defend them in court.

• Hitler - Opposed communism while espousing socialist notions (claimed he had a better brand of Marxism
• Trump - Opposes the Democratic socialism of Sanders and Clinton (claims his brand of socialist style government programs will work better)

• Hitler - Ran against socialist/communists
• Trump - Running against socialism/communism

• Hitler - Ordered his military to commit war crimes
• Trump - Says the military WILL obey his orders to commit war crimes

• Hitler - Promised to protect the Christian Religion, then turned on them if they didn't fall in line later.
• Trump - Promises to protect Christianity - we'll see how that works out if Christians cross him

• Hitler - Claimed he was a Christian despite evidence to the contrary
• Trump - Claims to be a Christian despite serial adulteries, owning a strip club, casinos and conning old people on shady Mexican land deals

• Hitler - Charismatic demagogue
• Trump - Charismatic demagogue

• HItler - Whipped crowds into a frenzy
• Trump - Whips crowds into a frenzy

• Hitler - Manipulated the press to support his goals, punished newspapers and radio stations that did not fall in line with the party line
• Trump - Manipulates the press for billions in free air time, punishes Fox News for asking him difficult questions

• Hitler - Turned on friends who got too much power
• Trump - Turns on business partners who threaten to become too powerful

• Hitler - Punished those who opposed him
• Trump - Will sue his enemies at the drop of a hat - financially buries them if possible

• Hitler - Made deals to consolidate his power. Made deals with England to stave off war and then ignored them to get what he wanted. Had a history of screwing people he made deals with.
• Trump - Says he will make deals with our enemies - "They'll totally take my calls." Has a history of screwing business partners who had deals with him.

• Hitler - Lots of incendiary rhetoric against "enemies" of Germany
• Trump - Lots of incendiary rhetoric against "enemies" of America

• Hitler - Said one thing; did another if it's expedient.
• Trump - Says one thing; reserves the right to do another if it's expedient.

• Hitler - Lies about his opponents to achieve political gains. Accepted the support of those who submitted.
• Trump - Lies about his opponents and calls it "just politics" and "necessary" (Carson, Christie, Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, Bush, et al). Welcomes them in if they fall in line.

“The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm
of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate
themselves can arouse passion in others.” - A. Hitler

I just see too many parallels between the two and practically no evidence that Donald Trump will be any different than the Fuehrer. I don't believe he'll do what he said he would do if it turns out not to be to his own benefit and plenty of evidence that he'll do the opposite of what he says because what he considers anything he said before was "...just part of the deal-making process."

Power attracts the corruptible like a bloody great magnet and really, when you think about it, do you know of anyone as corrupt as Donald Trump who has been or would be made a better man by giving him the most powerful position in the world? I certainly can't call anyone to mind.

It's the 1933 playbook all over and is it just me or do Trump's supporters spend a lot of time covering up his sins and explaining how bad things about Trump "don't really matter".  It reminds me of the way people explained away the sins of the old Kings and Queens and Emperors as thought they get to live by a different standard than the rest of us.  Donald is pro-abortion, but now he's sort of not and the very people who used to howl about the slightest hint that someone was pro-abortion don't have a problem with the Donald's history on the subject. He says he's a Christian who doesn't need forgiveness; he just makes deals with God to fix it. What Christian would accept that behavior standard in a deacon, much less the pastor? Trump calls on God's name when he's looking to capture the evangelical vote, but I'd be willing to bet that Bible he held up during one memorable speech had "Property of The Gideons" printed on the inside cover.

Oh and let's not forget that his wife will be the first First Lady in history to have nude posters of herself available on the Internet.

Oh, Donald Trump is a winner alright. And he promises us we're going to get downright sick of winning when he's president. But do we really want to win on his terms and lose our souls (not to mention our liberties)in the process? I know that would certainly make me sick.

I know people are getting sick of it and that it's not very effective to compare Donald to Hitler because it's been done to death. Ironically, Hitler himself benefited from too much criticism on the part of his opponents. Eventually, people tuned it all out. As the late Harry Nillson said once, "You see what you wanna see and you hear what you wanna hear. Ya dig?"

We are so doomed.

© 2016 by Tom King

Lying Ted vs Trumptler - Dueling Memes!

Trump's delegate count at the time...............666!

Depending on who you talk to Ted Cruz is a pathological liar and tool of the GOP establishment or Donald Trump is Hitler reincarnate or he's the heroic bane of the GOP establishment. I imagine the GOP's country club Republican establishment is wringing their hands and crying, "What have we done?" And, hey, they brought it on themselves as party leaders do. Remember the Whigs anybody?

I'm going to defend Ted Cruz a little here. "Lying Ted Cruz" is being used as the senator's name now by angry Trump supporters who fear the Texas senator may catch up with their boy and snatch the nomination away from him.  It's amazing how these guys can come up with all these "lies" that Ted Cruz supposedly said (which he didn't if you check them out for yourself)  The Trumpettes distort all sorts of stuff Cruz has said and done and express outrage at stuff that Trump, himself, has supported in the past in many cases and even supports now. 

And yet the minions see no sin in Donald Trump. Why? Because he's rich? Because they don't think he's taking any money from them to fund his campaign. Wow! A freebie champion, right?  Wrong! First off he only gave a paltry 250K to his own campaign. The rest (millions) he's "loaned" to his campaign and can get back with enough interest to cover his cash donations if things go south or if he gets nominated and the donations start rolling in. So in true Trump fashion, everybody else will lose on this deal if it goes bad, but Trump will get it all back with interest. In the meantime, George Soros' attacks on Trump are giving him tons of free publicity (also with a dollar ad value that is far above what Trump has spent and loaned himself and his campaign put together) and pulling together just enough muddle-headed libertarians and disgruntled Rubio supporters to garner Trump the nomination. Why would Soros want to do that? Check the polls. In virtually every one, Trump loses to Hillary and sometimes even Bernie.

Trump is a man who bases his net worth on what he "feels" his brand name is worth (about 7 billion more than Forbes or any other wealth rating organization usually figure).  A consumate BS artist. Stephen Colbert once did a spoof video debate in which Trump argued in video clips against himself - and both Trumps claim they won! He's a serial adulterer, strip club and casino owner and Christian who doesn't ask for forgiveness - he works a deal with God to "take care of it". This is a guy up on racketeering charges (trial should take place during the fall right before the election). I can show you video of Trump lying through his teeth. Even poor old Ben Carson in an interview today said he knew Trump was lying about comparing him to a child molester and saying he (Carson) wasn't very smart, but it that he forgave Trump. It was "just politics", after all and nobody believed it. Don't get me started on how disappointed I was to hear him say that.

How much does Trump have to do before the warning flags go up with these people. Alright, he expresses their anger. So what? Hitler expressed the anger of the German people and they gave him power to "fix it" too.  Literally, Hitler's slogan was, "We Will Make Germany Great Again!"

Sound familiar? Lying Ted? Really? Ted was my senator when I was still in Texas. He has fought for what we elected him to fight for his entire senate career and I've stood up and cheered every time he did it. Ted never lied to the people who elected him. He did what he said he would do.

Goldman Sachs supports Ted Cruz? Well, Ted's wife works there. I suppose they would support one of their outstanding employee's spouse in an important election.  Is that the best you Trumpettes have got. Goldman Sachs supports everybody, donating to both sides on the off-chance someone they support gets elected and GS needs a favor. Why should they donate to Trump. Trump is himself a shareholder in Goldman Sachs, which means he has a direct financial interest in its success. They will already have a friend in the White House with the Donald.

Do Trump's minions realize that George Soros (yes that George Soros) bailed the Donald out when Trump's Chicago Trump Towers was in financial trouble - to the tune of 160 million dollars! Look at the list of people Donald owes money to. He has billions in outstanding loans from Capital One, Deutsche Bank, ISB, UBS, and Merrill Lynch - almost every single Wall Street bank you can think of.  You think Donald isn't going to use the presidency to free up a whole lot of debt once us dim bulbs put him in office? Do you think a lying, egomaniac/demagogue is going to become a better person when you give him all that power?

If you trust Trump, then boy do I have a bridge to sell you. It goes right across the Hudson River. Just throw up a toll gate and watch the money roll in. Only $999,999.99. Today only! Guaranteed by Donald Trump University to be a great deal!

© 2016 by Tom King

The Enemy of my Enemy Ain't Necessarily My Friend

Stalin was Hitler's friend before he was his enemy.
Perhaps FDR should have remembered that.

Someone told me today that the reason I should support Donald Trump is because leftist boogey man, George Soros, was "out to get Trump."  That ought to tell you something, he crowed, as if that proved that Trump was okey-dokey for all conservatives to support.

It does tell me something and again, I didn't sleep through history class so perhaps some of you missed it. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Because Trump is the enemy of George Soros, doesn't mean Trump is my friend. First, George Soros, like Hillary Clinton, has long been friends with the Donald. Soros' company bailed Trump out when he ran into financial trouble building Trump Tower in Chicago. So whatever they're doing, it isn't because Trump and Soros are great enemies. Trump doesn't have enemies. He has current business partners. The public huffing and puffing Donald does is always about free publicity and furthering Trump's goals.

"It's just business," should be tatooed on Trump's butt.

FDR thought he could "handle" Uncle Joe
His arrogance cost us an expensive and
dangerous 40 year long cold war.

 We did the whole enemy of my enemy is my friend thing back in World War II. The Russians were friends at first with Hitler, until Hitler double-crossed them and invaded Russia. Then all of a sudden the Russians were our great friends and we sent them all sorts of weapons. They responded by helping us defeat Hitler and then helping themselves to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Georgia and the rest of Eastern Europe and engaging us in a long and debilitating Cold War. We also "friended" Mao Tse Tung and he did the same thing once the Japanese were defeated.

A snake is a snake is a snake. You may share a common enemy for a time, but in the end, the snake is still not your friend and may, in fact, be deadlier than your previous enemy.

So no. Attacks on Trump by Soros' minions doesn't make Trump my friend. In fact, it may be designed to make me ignore Trump's many frightening character traits, past behaviors and cringe-inducing political positions in order to:

• (A) Put a closet socialist - Trump - in the White House or 

• (B) Cost the Republicans the election by getting them to bunch up behind and nominate an anti-conservative even worse than McCain or Romney ever were and put a closet socialist - Hillary Clinton - in the White House or

• (C)  Cost the Republicans the election by getting them to bunch up behind and nominate an  anti-conservative even worse than McCain or Romney ever were and put an open socialist - Bernie Sanders - in the White House because Clinton is going to be indicted

Either way it turns out badly for conservative Red State Americans. Deliberate blindness is pretty much incurable, so I know I'm singing to the choir here. I do so in hopes that someone who is leaning toward supporting Donald Trump won't make the truly awful choice of supporting him or (worse) doing as Doctor Carson has done, endorsing him.

Trumpism is a kind of madness - a suspension of disbelief of the sort that is required to enjoy a sci-fi or fantasy movie. You know they are lying to you and none of it is real, but you don't care because the story is so entertaining. It is wondrous the lengths to which Trump supporters will go to continue their own suspension of disbelief. First, they defend and exalt this massive egomaniac, blindly supporting his rise to power and then, they ignore the fact that he is not the sort of person they would choose as a friend or even consider a Christian if he were sitting in the next pew at church. He owns strip clubs for heaven's sake and swindles people on land deals. How can we choose someone like that as a church deacon, much less president of the United States. Have we no standards?


Given that we live in the generation raised in front of the tube, it's little wonder so many of us prefer not to actually have to think about things - even things that count. Better to just sweep along with the herd and watch the entertaining story flash by on the screen. We all like thrillers, but it doesn't seem to occur to anyone that what's going on up there on the screen is real and that we are, in fact, busily doing out best to put a sociopath into the White House.

As I've said before, I'm collecting materials for my end-times bunker.


© 2016 by Tom King

An Open Letter to Ruth McCambridge

Deja Vu all over again?

Ruth McCambridge, editor of Nonprofit Quarterly, gets a lot of hate mail, particularly since NPQ stopped talking about Donald Trump. She got this delightful missive the other day from a Trump supporter and shared it on her email newsletter today.

• “Notice Ruth, the writer of this, is a JEW and we know they are rarely honest. They are mad cause they can’t buy or control Trump.”

Since many on the left think conservatives love Trump (and Ruth is unabashedly left-leaning, which I can respect), I decided to respond to her letter.  My own letter is appended below.

Dear Ruth,

I am not surprised that you have been targeted with racist hate-mail from Trump supporters. As a conservative, I find Donald Trump to be appalling, perhaps even more than I find Hillary Clinton's and Bernie Sanders' open socialism objectionable, I find Donald Trump to be even more of a threat to the American ideal of preserving life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As you have discovered, one of the groups Trump appeals most to are the xenophobes of both parties. He is gaining momentum by drawing from the angry fringe groups that drag down both conservatives and liberals. I think there needs to be a coming together among people with good hearts who want the best for America to oppose the extremists that are capturing what Rush Limbaugh calls the "uninformed voter". Limbaugh may make your eyes glaze over, but he does recognize the danger posed by those who refuse to engage in a debate of ideas and instead respond only viscerally without defining what they are angry about or what to do about it.

In Trump we have 1933 revisited. Hitler promised to make Germany great again. Trump promises to make America great again. Hitler tapped into the socialist sentiment and the economic woes of 20s and 30s Germany with a bunch of vague promises to take care of the German people. Trump makes the same kind of vague promises to his own followers and attracts radical right-wingers and left-wingers who hear only the angry words they too would speak if they had his microphone. Most frighteningly, he appeals to the racist tendencies in those outlying groups that accept all kinds of conspiracy theories without critical thought. The far libertarian right has gone so far out there that they have circled the planet and bumped into the loony Marxist left and there Trump has set up camp.

It's no accident that you are getting anti-Semitic hate male. Trump's support comes from a segment of the American population that mirrors the segment of Germany that propelled Hitler to power in 33.  A man like Trump purposely makes his positions so vague and changeable from audience to audience that he gets people to embrace highly-charged emotional ideas that in their cooler moments they would disavow. His "pledge of allegiance to Trump" exercise in Orlando was particularly chilling, but only to someone who actually stayed awake in high school history class.  In college we watched Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will". I have little doubt that, should Trump win, someone is going to produce a film called "Triumph of the Donald". God help us if that happens.

Ruth, we may have political views that are polar opposite, but we share the same country. It would not surprise me if we shared many common beliefs as well. I want smaller, less intrusive government with power divested to the local and state as much as possible and more opportunity for individuals to succeed on their own power. I think it's more effective that way. My friends on the left want larger, more "involved" federal government that provides a universal safety net and something of a utopia on Earth. While I may disagree that any human utopia will ever work (I believe in original sin, so that's part of my intellectual makeup), it is a discussion we can have, so long as we are willing to keep it rational.

As a former community organizer, I was able to create coalitions of liberals and conservatives by focusing our attention on the issues and how to solve them. We all had to agree to leave ideology at the doors. Republicans had to learn to speak Democrat and vice-versa. We were the only initiative to get what we wanted from the newly minted Republican majority in the Texas legislature that year. We got justice by presenting the issue and a solution that worked, not by chaining ourselves to light poles in front of the governor's mansion.

We can solve problems without burning down barns if we focus on what we want to do, rather than on some notion of ideological purity. If we want to help poor people without insurance, for instance, let's do that. That's the issue. Nobody wants poor people to die from neglect of their health. You may believe in universal healthcare as the only solution as part of your ideology, but a whole lot of folk have a problem with that and the results have been uncomfortably similar to what the opponents of nationalized healthcare predicted - higher rates, poorer service. I made an eye appointment to get my free Medicaid glasses - I have to wait a month. If I pay the $78 for my contact exam, I can get an appointment in three days. When my Medicaid was canceled because one month I made some extra money to pay my landlord the back rent I owed, the Washington State Health Exchange gave me the good news that I could get health insurance through them for a mere $1,156 per MONTH. I had been forced to go on Medicaid or pay a large fine to the IRS. Now I'm on their books and either have to stay poor enough to stay on Medicaid or the IRS will force me to buy health insurance that will cost me more than I make most months (I care for a wife who is on full disability and can't be left alone).

I think there's a better way to deal with the problem that is more elegant and doesn't involve supporting a bloated federal bureaucracy and paying bureaucrats to generate paper for each other and to find out more and more personal information about me.

We could be discussing those kinds of solutions and still agree that we should find a way to care for the less fortunate in our society. As one of the "less fortunate", I don't want anyone to carry me. I spent 40 years in the nonprofit sector, started 5 agencies from scratch and discovered that they don't call 'em nonprofits for nothing. I chose that path. At the end of my life I'm scratching to make a living and keep my beloved wife alive. I'd like to do it with some dignity. Let's talk about how we can do that.

Because we have not talked about solutions and because we have spent decades tossing invective and lies back and forth across the ideological aisle at each other, we've reached a tipping point in America. If those of us who are reasonable were to join forces, we might just tip the nation back from the brink of some new brand of national socialism. Replacing Obamacare with Trumpcare is not a solution the sensible folk on either the left or right would like to see.

There is a powerful positive feeling toward Jews and Israel over here on the conservative side of the aisle. Know that we will stand with you. This is not 1933 Germany and a whole lot of us managed to stay awake in history class. We are with you. Please know that these racists are not us and we aren't even a little comfortable with them in our midst. And these folk are in the midst of both schools of thought. Neither the conservatives nor the liberals are free from these snakes crawling around on our ideological home turf. 

God go with you, Ruth.

Sincerely,

Tom King
Puyallup, Washington (late of East Texas)

© 2016

Christians on the Mountaintop - Do We Bow Down?

Robert Jeffress endorses Trump

Whether you believe we are approaching the end of the world or not, things certainly are becoming interesting in a "striking parallels" sort of way. This past week, First Baptist Church of Dallas Pastor, Robert Jeffress, told his congregation that "Christians who do not vote for Donald Trump are fools." Jeffress has become a very loud proponent of Donald Trump as savior of the country of late and he doubled down on that in last week's sermon.

Let's skim right over Jesus's admonition that anyone who calls another person a "fool" will be in danger of "hell fire" (Matt. 5:22) and get right to it. Most Christians are familiar with the story in Matthew 4, ironically found just one chapter in front of the 'no calling people fools" admonition, is the story of the devil's temptation of Christ.

Remember there were three temptations. The first was the temptation for Christ to show off his power by turning stones to bread (remember he was hungry at the time). The second was the temptation to show off his power by engaging in risky behavior (throwing himself off the temple roof) and forcing the angels to catch him. The third was on the mountaintop where Satan offered to give Jesus the world and skip all the uncomfortable flogging and crucifixion business in exchange for him bowing down and acknowledging the prince of this world.

Jesus would have none of it. The takeaway from this story is that you don't give obeisance to the devil in exchange for a promise of power. You probably know where this is going. Donald Trump has made passing remarks about protecting and empowering Christianity, not that he, himself, needs any of the traditional benefits of Christianity like forgiveness of sin or guidance in how he should behave. He promises to make this a "Christian" nation again and to make America great. He promises to drive out the filthy Muslim hordes and give us free government healthcare, to make us rich and to make us powerful.  Sound familiar?

We, as Christians are standing with the devil on the mountaintop. The devil isn't wearing a red suit. He doesn't have a tail and horns and a pitchfork. He's wearing a $3000 suit and a bad red combover. Instead of a pitchfork, he has a fat bank account full of money that he's conned and swindled out of the very sorts of people who shout his name and who apparently will beat up anyone who dares to disagree with their lord and master. We were even treated last week to an eerie group pledge with right hands raised at a Trump rally. 

As Nancy Reagan would have put it, "Just say NO!"  The Donald is promising Christians power, glory and riches in exchange for worship. And he's getting the worship, make no mistake. Throughout history, the devil has used the same tactics over and over to win power for himself and his supporters. He starts with promises to fill their bellies, then to show off their power by doing dangerous things. Finally he asks them to bow down in exchange for all the wealth in the world.  It's always the same.

While Christ offers to change our hearts, Satan only offers to change our circumstances. Hitler did it in 1933. Stalin and Lenin did the same thing in 1917. Mao repeated the process in 1949. The Roman emperors took power by offering "bread and circuses", then the excitement of conquest, then power over the world. It's always the same playbook. Trump offers us "deals" that will make us wealthy and well-fed, a chance to show off our power over our enemies and only asks us to pledge our loyalty to him in exchange for the chance to share Trump's glory.

I find it stunning that Christians, who worry about the rise of the Beast at the end of time, so eagerly flock together to create an Image to the Beast in someone like Trump. Donald Trump may not be the actual anti-Christ any more than they feared Barak Obama was, but like Obama, I think the Donald is working for the anti-Christ. Even he may not know it yet, but the events that Donald Trump threatens to put into motion - war on the families of terrorists, a veritable "Trail of Tears" for Mexican illegals, and the further expansion of government to take care of our "needs" all serve the interest of the Beast or the anti-Christ or the devil or whoever is behind the actual conspiracy against humankind that is taking place right in front of our eyes.

And as the Jews in Jesus' day had the Sanhedrin pitching for Satan's team, we apparently have church leaders doing the same. Prominent clergy like Jeffress, Jerry Falwell Jr., Michael Murdoch, and black evangelical leader Mark Burns are pitching for Trump.  Even Evangelical TV host, Pat Robertson, says, "(Trump) inspires us all." 

Well, this is one Christian who is not "inspired" by Donald Trump. I'm horrified. God help us if we let this serial philanderer, adulterer, swindler, mob-connected racketeer, casino and strip club owner, serial bankruptcy artist and egomaniacal demagogue anywhere near the White House. Some simple trusting Christians like Trump because they say that because he is rich, he will not be corrupted by the corporate oligarchs who buy influence in Washington and secretly control everything in our country. "He doesn't need their money," is the reasoning.

I've got news for you people - Donald Trump IS the corporate oligarchy. He's been buying influence in Washington and everywhere else for his entire career. How do you think he got so rich in the first place?  He's not corruptible?  You could make that argument. Trump is corruption incarnate. He doesn't need God's forgiveness he says. Of course not. Why would a man who sees himself as the Messiah, need to ask God for forgiveness? Sending him to the White House only means he doesn't have to bribe politicians anymore. They have to bribe him!

The fact that Christian "leaders" are falling for this deception only proves to me that we are approaching the last days of Earth's history. They've said it couldn't happen before, but that hasn't stopped the devil from trying again and again and again; each time with more destructive results; each time with more death and destruction. And I believe he will keep at it until he brings the world down around him. Unfortunately, for the first time in history, mankind has the means with which to burn the surface of the planet to ashes. Isn't it interesting that Revelation describes a "lake of fire" being the final end of evil. Me, I'd like to avoid all that.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth:
and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”
- Isaiah 65:17

Whether Trump wins or someone else does, things don't look good for our world. They always promise a utopia - a man-made heaven on Earth. There's no such thing and cannot be so long as men love power and worship themselves. If we do get a reprieve and someone decent does become the most powerful political figure in the world, we should get our affairs in order as soon as we can while there is still time. We should witness to the truth as loudly as possible and to all the Earth, because the end will surely come. Jesus' coming is not an invasion or a conquest. It is a rescue mission and at its conclusion the world will go up in flames and be cleansed that we may start over with a new Earth - pure, pristine and sinless.

The storm's coming. Get ready.

© 2016 by Tom King

The World Hates Us - The Twisted Argument for Isolationism

A friend told me I have to vote for Gary Johnson the Libertarian Candidate if I don't vote for Trump. So, like a good political junkie I go to the Libertarian Party and look at their platform. A lot of it I agree with, but I always stumble when I get to that last plank!

The Libertarian love of isolationism.

Now, my friend tells me that the world hates us and we shouldn't try to be the world's police, because it offends the world and that's why they hate us so much. I always stumble over this one, especially when this same dude tells me immigration is our biggest problem. We need to keep out all those nasty immigrants.

So tell me this, then. If the world hates us so much why are its best and brightest trying so flippin' hard to get here to America. A whole bunch of folks from "the rest of the world" that finds us so offensive, risk life and limb by sneaking over the border. They uproot themselves from their homes and lives and spend years trying to get here? Why would anyone who hates a country so much want to come here so badly.

They don't seem like they hate us all that much.

As to our offending the rest of the world, that doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. I don't deny that we offend some people out there in "the rest of the world".  Many of them are offended by our wealth, our freedom, our movies, music and literature. Many of them are offended because we come to their countries to trade and make money and actually take some of the money we make home for ourselves. I get it that we offend some people in "the rest of the world".

So what? 

I'm offended by Muslims lining up Christians and beheading them. That really offends me. I'm offended by Russian troops invading a sovereign nation and taking their territory. I'm offended by Hutus murdering Tutsis. I'm offended by petty African warlords stealing children and forcing them to be soldiers. I'm offended by Islamic terrorists blowing up things and killing innocent people. I was really offended when they destroyed the World Trade Center and tried to destroy the Pentagon and killed hundreds of innocent people in airplanes and thousands on the ground. I'm offended by the international sex slavery trade going on in North Africa. I'm offended by the Chinese annexing an ocean and threatening to stop ships that sail on it in violation of international law. I'm offended by the murder of Christian tribesmen and women in Malaysia by the government. I'm offended by someone who believes we can build a damned wall around our country and let the evil people of the world just have their way out there when I know all we're doing is giving them time to reload and rearm before they come pouring over the borders from their cesspool countries to muck up ours. 

Am I, as a liberty-loving American not entitled to be offended by the awful things done by "the rest of the world?" Why do Libertarians think everyone else should be allowed to be offended by us but that we shouldn't be offended by what happens to ANYONE ELSE except ourselves. I mean, the other libs (liberals as opposed to libertarians) think we shouldn't be allowed to be offended at all. Yeah, sometimes we play cops around the world. That's not a bad thing. Bill Clinton may have been covering his behind for diddling the White House Interns, but intervening to stop the genocide in Yugoslavia was a righteous mission. Too bad he wasn't serious about that mission when he sent an under-armed, under-manned army into Mogadishu. He could have done a lot of good for the people there who were starving and being murdered. Should we be the world's cops?  You bet. Who else is going to do it?  The Russians?  We already know what kind of strings are attached to Russian "help". Vladamir Putin is a former KGB officer for crying out loud.

The only way to slow terrorism and global bullying down is to fight it at the source. George Bush was absolutely right about that. If someone is draining sewerage onto your property, the thing to do is not to sandbag around your house and hope to stay ahead of it. The thing to do, no matter how many sandbags you may have, is to find the pipe and shut off the valve. Eventually, if you don't, you're going to run out of sandbags.

© 2016 by Tom King

Don't Do It Doctor Carson

A rumor is circulating that Ben Carson is about to endorse Donald Trump. If that happens I am a man without a country. I immediately went on his campaign website and wrote this letter. I encourage you to do the same if you care at all about the integrity of our nation and the message Dr. Carson brought to the campaign.

An Open Letter to Dr. Carson:

DO NOT ENDORSE TRUMP.  That man is a serial adulterer, strip club operator, liar, con man, fraud, racketeer, is pro nationalized healthcare, abortion and a closet socialist. He is Hitler in 1933, Lenin in 1914. He's a racist, a bully and appeals to the worst in people. You, Dr. Carson appeal to the best in people. That was what set you apart from the herd. Tell me they are lying about you again.

If you endorse a monster like Trump, you are betraying everything you said you believed in. I have to believe this is a Trump subterfuge designed to discredit you in advance of your speech on Friday. Please tell me it isn't so.  If they make Trump the nominee, I will leave the Republican party. I was going to write in your name, but if you endorse Trump, you will be part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Stand tall as you have in the past and speak out against the evil that infests the leadership of our nation. PLEASE DO NOT ENDORSE TRUMP. That would be the most discouraging thing next to your withdrawal from the race that could happen this year.

Thank you for your service.
We need you to stand in the breach at this momentous point in history.

Tom & Sheila King