Tag: abortion

The Sky is Falling!  Testing the Predictions of Doom by Democrats

Who remembers the story of Chicken Little?  In the children’s tale, something falls from a tree on Chicken Little, who panics and runs around telling his friends that “the sky is falling!”  Today, the phrase “Chicken Little” is used to describe someone who is a constant worrier or pessimist, or who spreads alarm or baseless reports of danger.

Lately, a lot of Chicken Littles are running around warning us that the sky is falling.  These Chicken Littles are also known as Democrats.  Just turn on your television, check your social media feed, or talk to your Democrat friends and you will hear horrifying predictions of doom. 

Their predictions brought to mind a Bible study that my dad taught a long time ago.  He was trying to show how unlikely it is that all of the prophecies in the Bible come true unless it really is God’s word.  In the New Years Bible study, he got December issues of tabloids that had psychics making predictions about the coming year.  Some said that we would make contact with aliens.  Others tried to predict who would win the World Series or guess celebrity gossip and scandals.  Then at the end of the year he would go back and see how accurate those psychics were as compared to the Bible’s perfect record.  Those predictions were predictably inaccurate.

My dad’s old Bible study was memorable and fun, and it inspired me to similarly test the doomsday prophecies we keep hearing from the left.  This will not only be interesting to watch, but being able to look at information and correctly predict what will happen in the future is important.  If Democrats are consistently wrong, we should not listen to them, and certainly should never vote for them.

Some of their predictions are just policy issues on which they disagree with President Trump.  That is not our main focus.  We are talking about the dire warnings that they pushed throughout the campaign, and still seem to be sticking to.  My guess is that these predictions are about as likely as the psychic predictions from the tabloids in the 90s.  Here are some of the Democrat prophecies that we keep hearing.

President Trump will change or void the Constitution and stay in office after this term. – Shortly after the election, President Trump made a joke about running for a third term.  Some Democrats, who do not understand jokes, have floated the idea that President Trump will try to remain in office after this term, and even introduced a resolution to clarify that the 22nd Amendment does not allow him to do so.  The alien contact predictions are far more likely than Donald Trump remaining in office after inauguration day in 2029.

President Trump will enact a national abortion ban. – Kamala Harris has made this prediction, as have many other Democrats.  Hopefully, this prediction does come true, but President Trump has said he will not.

President Trump is a racist who will persecute minorities. – This prediction is more difficult to define.  Searching through articles and videos, many claim that President Trump will take away the non-white citizens’ rights, but they do not give any examples of what rights are supposedly going away.  The only actual policy that keeps popping up is that President Trump thinks ethnic minorities are smart enough that they are capable of competing for hiring and college admission with whites without DEI policies to handicap the whites.  That is true.  Republicans do think more highly of minorities than Democrats do.  Since this prediction is so vague, the way we will decide if it has come true is if, in four years, whites have any rights that non-white citizens do not have.

President Trump is an “existential threat to democracy.” – We have heard this one too many times to count.  Determining the accuracy of this prophecy is extremely simple.  The Democrats have already told us that they never really believed this and were just lying to scare people, because they are already talking about how to win the next election.  Obviously, if an election occurs in 2028, democracy will have survived.  Not only that, but President Trump would like to strengthen the democratic process and restore faith in our elections by passing a nationwide voter ID requirement.

President Trump is Hitler.  Also known as – Trump is a fascist/dictator/authoritarian who will rule with an iron fist. – This one seems like a strange prediction, considering President Trump has already been the president for a full term and did not act in an authoritarian way.  It is highly doubtful that he will now, all of a sudden, want to act like a dictator.  By definition, a dictator uses his power to dictate (control) what citizens do with their lives, using the force of government.  President Trump, on the other hand, has actually made it a focus to cut regulations and eliminate government intrusion in our lives.  In fact, President Trump is having Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy try to get rid of full government departments, cut the number of government employees, and eliminate regulations and expenses.  In all fairness, he was the president during the most authoritarian time in American history.  However, he was not the perpetrator.  It was state governors who forced lockdowns, mask mandates, and pushed experimental vaccine mandates.  In fact, the Democrat criticism of Trump was that he should have been more authoritarian and taken away more liberties.  My guess is that President Trump will be far less dictatorial and authoritarian than the Democrats are.  If Democrats mean it when they say they fear authoritarian rule, they will help President Trump make government less influential in our lives.  They should vote for things like school choice, tax cuts, and eliminating government departments, employees, spending, and regulations.  My prediction is that their authoritarian tendencies will shine through and they will not.  We will see whose prediction is more accurate.

President Trump will use the military to attack political opponents and media members, or the “enemy from within.” – The Left made this prediction by twisting and combining two different statements by President Trump, so it seems unlikely to come true.  He has said that some terrible people are hurting our country more than foreign enemies.  He has called them “the enemy from within.”  He has mentioned fascists, Marxists, communists, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and members of the media as being in that group.  He also spoke about possible unrest in the streets on election day by groups he called “radical left lunatics” (Presumably meaning groups like Antifa).  He said that the National Guard or the military should easily handle that.  Many on the left have turned that into a prediction that President Trump will unleash the military on the sets of “60 Minutes” and “The View,” or to throw Adam Schiff into prison at Guantanamo Bay.  As entertaining as all that would be, this is likely another prediction that will not happen.

President Trump will have the military bash down shop doors and drag away immigrants. – Joy Reid made this “prophecy” on November 26th, and several others have made similar predictions.  President Trump has said that he will crack down on illegal immigration and finish the wall.  He has also said that his first focus is on deporting criminals who are illegally in our country.  How likely are the predictions of military sweeps of city streets and storefronts to round up law-abiding immigrants to come true?  We shall see!

President Trump will cut Social Security. – A large billboard in Arizona made this claim, which the Harris campaign and the media echoed.  Contrarily, President Trump said that he would propose “no tax on social security.”

President Trump will weaponize the justice system and prosecute political opponents. – This prediction could go a couple of different ways.  We can again look back and see that he did not do this in his first term as president and assume that he will refrain from doing it again.  Yes, there were the “Lock her up” chants, but he obviously did not.  Hillary Clinton was ignored after 2016 and is still free.  This was, of course, before the Democrats actually did politically weaponize the justice system against their political opponents, and especially targeted President Trump himself.  President Trump has good reason to return the favor, and he very well may.  The other way he could react is to reform or dismantle the government mechanisms and agencies that were corruptly used to go after him and other Republicans.  He could gut the Justice Department and the FBI to try to prevent them from being used for political persecution again.  Only time will tell.

This is a solid group of predictions to test whether the left has any idea what they are talking about, or if they are just making up stuff to scare people.  I suppose there really is the possibility that they actually believe what they are saying, like Chicken Little did.  Either way, we will revisit these predictions in four years to see how accurate they were.  Hopefully, the sky is not falling.

But, the Lies!

When President Trump was shot in Pennsylvania, the person next to me had a shocking reaction.  She said, “Good.”  When pushed about why she gave that disgusting response, she said, “You can’t change my mind.  I will never support that man.  Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie.  I can’t stand liars.” 

The irony is, I think that reason is a lie.  If lying disqualified a candidate, there is zero chance that she could vote for Kamala Harris.  I just spent most of October in a swing state, Arizona, where I saw ads on television and billboards, and heard radio advertisements for both candidates.  I can confirm that Kamala Harris is running the most dishonest major presidential campaign of our lifetimes.  It is inconsistent and hypocritical to claim that you support Kamala Harris because President Trump has told lies.

Honesty should matter in a political candidate.  Ideally, a candidate would say what policies they support and follow through once elected.  In that respect, President Trump has actually been the most honest politician in recent memory.  He either followed through, or attempted to and was blocked, on everything from tax cuts and lowering the regulatory burden, to Supreme Court appointments, to moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, to working to secure our border.  Sure, he has lied about some silly things, like crowd sizes.  He exaggerates often, but when it comes to substantive policy, he is more open and honest than most politicians.

Likewise, his commercials and other advertisements playing in Arizona did not lie about his opponent, Kamala Harris’s policy positions.  He doesn’t need to!  Her positions are so crazy and radical that the truth is the best weapon to use against her.  He ran ads of her saying that she wants to ban fracking.  There were ads with her saying that she wants taxpayers to pay for prison inmates to get transgender treatments and that she supports men playing in women’s sports.  One ad highlights the massive increase in illegal border crossings under Harris’s watch.  Another ad showed her saying that she cannot think of anything she would do differently than Joe Biden.  Her own record is enough ammunition to beat her without needing to make stuff up.

Then, there are the Harris ads.  She cannot run ads touting her record, because it is embarrassing.  She cannot honestly attack President Trump’s record in office, because it was mostly successful.  Her only chance is to lie, and her handlers realize it. 

The laundry list of lies was very long.  There were lies about her record and her agenda that were not in the ads.  This includes claiming that the border is secure, when her current administration gave us the biggest influx of illegal border crossings ever.  It includes taking both sides on multiple issues like support for the Green New Deal, cutting police funding, eliminating private health insurance, and mandating electric vehicles whether people can afford it or not.  There was also the lie to the American people that Joe Biden was competent and fit for office, when everyone could see clearly that he was not.

Then, there were the attack ads about President Trump.  There was a big billboard that I passed multiple times near Phoenix that claimed President Trump plans to cut social security.  I was fortunate to be able to attend a Trump rally in Tempe, and I heard with my own ears his actual plan.  He plans to eliminate taxes on social security income.  That sounds far from a cut to me. 

There was also a commercial that claimed President Trump wants to pass a national abortion ban.  Unfortunately, that is an outright lie.  President Trump has said consistently that he does not support a federal ban and is happy with abortion policy being decided on a state-by-state basis.  Another ad lied that President Trump is proposing a four thousand dollar a year sales tax on families.  He is not.  Harris also had an ad running with a whole bunch of lies about President Trump’s agenda.  It claimed that President Trump wants to monitor women’s pregnancies and that he wants to defund K-12 schools.  These lies fall under the umbrella of a greater lie that Harris has been pushing throughout the campaign.  You have probably heard her talk about President Trump’s “Project 2025 agenda.”  She knows that Project 2025 is not connected to President Trump at all, but she does not care what is true.  His actual plan is called “Agenda 47,” and can be seen on his campaign website.

These are just the newer untruths.  She still mentions the Charlottesville lie, which has been debunked many times, even by left-wing sources. 

One of my favorite whoppers is not even about President Trump, but about American businesses.  She says that the inflation caused by her current administration’s policies was actually caused by “price-gouging.”  The businesses that she claims are price-gouging are making razor thin profit margins.  Restaurants are especially hurt by the inflationary policies of the left and the over regulation by the government.  They cannot survive without raising their prices to cover the increased cost of doing business.  Her saying that these businesses are price-gouging is slanderous.

We could keep going for pages, but by now you should get the picture.  Kamala Harris is far more dishonest than President Trump.  If you claim that you are not voting for President Trump because he is a liar, then you should write somebody in.  Kamala Harris is not an option for anybody who cares about truth.

Why Abortion is Hard to Talk About

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion is on everybody’s minds.  While those on the left fret that there will now be a plague of babies across the land, many on the right celebrate that our nation’s greatest evil has ended.  Neither, of course, is what the Supreme Court decided.  The decision simply says that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion, which is obviously correct.  That does not, however, outlaw abortion.  What it does is allows the states to decide their own rules on abortion.  This means that open discussion and persuading people actually matters again.  The question now is, how do we do that?

To many pro-life people, it seems so simple and obviously wrong that they forget to look at the discussion from a pro-abortion person’s worldview.  It is very difficult not to be disgusted and angry with people who think it is alright to murder a baby, but pro-lifers have to remind themselves that without God, murder is not wrong.  People who are pro-abortion do not share biblical values, and without God, those people are logical to think the way that they do.  Trying to convince them is futile because they do not believe there is a God to tell them that murder is wrong.  They do not believe there is a God who will judge them for their murders in the future.  Murder is a perfectly logical thing for them to do if they think it will make their lives better.  If a baby seems like it would be inconvenient, killing the baby makes perfect sense.  In fact, if a neighbor plays their stereo too loud at night, murdering that neighbor makes perfect sense.  If someone is competing for a job you want, murdering that person is logical.  If you find yourself in a love triangle, murdering your romantic competition is rational. 

Without God, people are just animals.  Many on the left will openly push this idea.  You see PETA equating animals with people all the time.  They have equated KFC cooking chickens to the Nazis murdering Jews in the Holocaust.  With that in mind, is it wrong if a lion kills an antelope?  Of course not.  That is just a lion trying to improve its life.  If there is no God, a human killing to improve their life is no different from a lion killing to improve theirs.  Without the shared viewpoint that human life is intrinsically more valuable than an animal’s, attempts to persuade non-believers that abortion is wrong will likely be futile.

Does this mean that we should give up on persuading people that abortion is wrong?  Not at all!  It just means that we must start with the deeper issue of what makes something right or wrong in the first place.  The first chapter of my book, The God Bet, goes into this very issue in depth.  It makes the point that if we do not start from the same foundation of morality, it is very unlikely that we will ever agree on much more than that ice cream is delicious.  There is little chance of convincing someone that abortion is wrong because it is murder if that person has no basis for believing that murder is wrong.  For this reason, the most important and effective way to convince people that abortion is wrong is if we first convince them that God is real and that He created people in His image, with a purpose higher than their own personal pleasure.

Our top priority should be showing God’s love to people so that they want to follow Him, too.  If we successfully do that, we could alleviate most of the problems in our country.  It is obvious to anybody who is honest.  I would wager that weekly church attendees are underrepresented in our criminal population.  When we hear about a string of 7-11 robberies and murders like those that happened here in Southern California last month, a deacon from the local church is probably not the most likely suspect.

This does not, of course, mean that people who believe in God are perfect.  They certainly still do bad things, because by nature everyone wants to do what they feel like doing.  The difference is that people who believe in God have a reason to try to not give in to those urges.  Without God, there is not even a reason to hold back.

This is why when the topic of abortion comes up, we should not automatically jump into the immorality of the practice.  They will see it as pushing our religion on them.  They do not realize that laws against rape, theft, perjury, slander, and murder outside the womb, among others, are also pushing religious values on them.  In fact, this is why we see all these things increasing.  Without the base of our values, God, people have started to decide their own right and wrong.  For example, the rise in violence across the country is not because of guns.  It is due to the weakening of religious values in America.

We need to persuade two groups that abortion is wrong.  The first is the general public, which is necessary to get laws changed to protect the unborn.  For that, I honestly believe that religious revival is the only way to do it.  Arguing that something is wrong with people who decide their own right from wrong is a waste of time. 

Since abortion will still be legal in many places, like where I live, in California, the other group that we need to persuade is women who are pregnant and considering abortion.  This is more immediate because it can directly save lives in the moment, even if it is only one at a time.  Obviously, the best way is again to point that woman to God, but because of the urgency in the situation, where a life is on the line right then, we may have to persuade someone who does not yet believe in God.  Without that belief in God, there is only one other possible way to convince people of something.  You have to appeal to their own self-interest.  I truly believe that God tells us right from wrong not to control us, but because He loves us and doing what He says is ultimately in our own self-interest.  It will make our lives better whether we can see how or not.  Therefore, to convince somebody, we must figure out how making the correct moral decision will also be better for them intrinsically.  When looking at pregnancy, this is easy to see.  I asked on social media if any woman out there regretted their decision not to have an abortion.  Of the over 500 comments, not a single woman regretted having their baby.  So, leaving out the morality issue, we can pretty much guarantee that a woman who has a baby will be glad she did, even on a selfish level.

Remember that we Christians are not of this world.  We do have to live in it.  When we live in a pagan society, we have to keep in mind that other people do not share our values.  When the apostle Paul lived, the society was worse than it is now.  He did not conform to it, but he also did not give up on it.  He did not simply address the symptoms of sin, although he did not shy away from those topics.  He focused on sharing Jesus, because that is how the other problems can be fixed. We should try not to get overly upset with pro-abortion people, because they don’t know any better.  They decide their own right and wrong.  We are on a higher level than them, so expecting them to live at our level is unrealistic.  By all means, keep trying to change the laws, because lives are at stake.  The way to do it is by showing that we have a God who loves us.  Once more people realize that, the rest can be more easily remedied.

We cannot bring people to God by fixing our nation’s problems.  We must fix our nation’s problems by bringing people to God.

Let’s Make a Deal to Save Lives

America is divided and we all know it.  Many people talk about us coming together and finding common ground, but in general, I don’t think that is possible because we no longer share the same values.  There is, however, something that both the left and the right claim to want right now that makes for a great compromise.  Both sides say that they want to save lives. 

Now, a fair compromise gives both sides something that they want.  We should all agree that saving lives is a worthy cause, even if we do not agree on how to do it.  If both sides are sincere about their desire to save lives, they will agree that this is a compromise worth agreeing to.  If not, they never really cared about saving lives and just wanted power and control.

So, how does the left say we can save lives?  They want everybody to get vaccinated from Covid.  For full disclosure, let me explain my position on the vaccinations.  I am not vaccinated.  I am not an anti-vaxxer.  I believe that each individual should have the freedom to choose whether they get vaccinated without having to disclose their vaccination status to anybody.  Some people on my side might not agree with this, but I do not think the vaccine is likely to kill you.  We have to be honest about that.  It likely kills some people, but the odds of that are pretty slim.  If we say that the media should stop exaggerating the dangers of Covid, we should not turn around and exaggerate the dangers of the vaccine. 

That being said, there are two main reasons why I have not partaken.  First, it is a solution in search of a problem.  There is literally a 0.0% chance that Covid will kill me.  You have to go another decimal point for it to even register as a cause of death, and that is using the inflated numbers from the government.  The risk of me dying in a car accident on the way to get the shot is likely higher than the odds of me dying of Covid.  I do not want to take an experimental vaccine if I am fine without it.  Second, it is far too much fun listening to angry leftists flip out because there are people who won’t fall in line and do what they command us to do. 

My thoughts aside, the left says that they want everybody vaccinated because it will save countless lives.  Whether it will or not, they are pulling out all the stops.  They are trying to guilt-trip people into compliance. They are vilifying and shaming people who choose not to get vaccinated.  They are bribing people to get the shot with cash and contest entries.  They want vaccine passports so that they can shun and banish unvaccinated people from society.  They would like vaccinations to be mandated for all Americans.

Here is where my compromise comes in.  Conservatives also claim that they want to save lives.  While the net number of people saved or lost by the Covid vaccines is debatable, conservatives can document how many lives their tradeoff would save.  The number is approximately 62 million lives in the past 48 years.  In fact, since the left supposedly cares about black lives, this compromise would end the leading cause of death among blacks in America.  My proposal is this:  I would gladly volunteer to get the vaccine, and even support mandatory Covid vaccines in exchange for the immediate and irreversible ban of abortions in the United States. 

When you think about it, it’s the perfect compromise.  Both sides claim that the problem they would be solving is a major, existential crisis.  Both sides are even giving up what they perceive to be the same thing; choice in a healthcare decision.  If they truly believe that what they are fighting for will save myriad lives, this would be an easy and heroic deal to make.  If they will not make this tradeoff, they must not really believe that their respective cause will actually save many lives. 

We are not likely to agree on which action actually works, but whether you are on the left or the right, you can be sure that this deal will save lives one way or another.  My sleeve is rolled up and ready.  If you honestly believe that lives will be saved, agree to the compromise.  Otherwise, you know it’s not that important to you.

Give Us the Same Courtesy That We Gave You

The first paragraph of this article is here for a very specific reason. To promote the article on social media I had to make sure that there was no political speech in the first couple of lines so that it wouldn’t be censored. The original started here:

Democrats now control the White House and both chambers of Congress.  They are calling for unity, but what they mean by that is, “Now everybody needs to agree with us.”  That is not going to happen.  I am not saying that in an obstinate way.  I’m just being realistic and honest.  People disagree and that is alright.  Republicans were in charge for the last four years and many people disagreed with them, and I expected that as well because that is how life works. 

This leads me to my one request to Democrats.  Now that you’re in charge please give us the same courtesy that we gave to you when we were.  That courtesy is this:  When people disagree with you, don’t force them to do what you want. 

This may surprise some of you after being told by the media for four years that President Trump was a fascist dictator, but I cannot think of anything that he forced us to do during his term.  If you disagreed with President Trump and the Republicans, they did not make you do anything against your will.  Republicans let people agree to disagree.  

If, for example, you disagreed with the tax cuts that were passed, Republicans did not force you to go along with it.  They implemented no penalties for people who wanted to keep paying the higher tax rates voluntarily.  Yes, you can do that.  Surprisingly, wealthy Democrats who complain that rich people don’t pay their fair share do not opt to pay more themselves when given that choice.  Alright, maybe not so surprisingly.

Ultimately, this is the main thing that Republicans want:  to be left alone.  We want to control our own lives and let others control theirs.  Another example; we may understand that homosexuality is immoral, but we do not block people from the practice.  In fact, the Trump administration started a global effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality.  (In contrast, Democrats kowtow to countries like Iran who put homosexuals to death.)  Republicans also disagree with divisive groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, yet do not want them prevented from speaking or kicked off of social media.  Another Republican belief is that God is central to the American way of life and necessary for our success, but we do not want to require church attendance.  In other words, Republicans would like everybody to act in particular ways but think that people should be free to choose for themselves.

This approach is not a new one.  It is actually one of the principles that our country was established on.  Our Founding Fathers were wise men who understood that people would not always agree as to what should be done.  They also knew that throughout history, when the powerful forced those who disagreed with them to conform to their will it sowed contempt, division and conflict.  Their solution was liberty.  If one group wants to do “A” and another group wants to do “B,” the answer is not to have the group in power force the other group to do what they command.  Instead, the first group can do “A” and the second group can do “B.”  They can try to use persuasion to win the other side over but they should not use coercion.

If Joe Biden really wants unity this is what he should do.  Refrain from taking away our liberty.  Allow people to have free will and do what they think is best for themselves.  He can disagree with our choices but he should not overrule them.  Here are ten great suggestions that the Democrats can do to respect the liberty of Americans:

  1. If you decide to raise taxes, make it optional to pay the old rate like the Republicans did for you. 
  2. If you want people to wear masks, make it optional like the Republicans did.
  3. Let scared restaurant owners who want to shut down do so, and let the ones who want to remain open choose to do that.  If patrons want to show up they can but if they are afraid they should also be free to stay home.
  4. Let churches decide whether to remain open or close down.  If congregants do not want to attend they should not be forced to, but those who do should be allowed in.
  5. President Trump stopped enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which threatens to take away tax-exempt status from churches if the pastor endorses a political candidate.  Continue with that policy and allow pastors to decide for themselves what to say from the pulpit without threat of retaliation from the government.
  6. If somebody wants health insurance that covers pregnancy and drug rehabilitation they should be allowed to purchase it.  If another person wants less expensive insurance that does not cover those things they should be allowed to choose that.  If someone else prefers to pay out of pocket for medical care instead of buying insurance they should be able to do that.
  7. Do not force law abiding citizens to buy guns.  Likewise, do not prohibit them from buying guns.
  8. If someone wants to do a job for $8 per hour, do not prohibit them from doing so and force them out of a job.  Let people decide for themselves what wage to accept.
  9. Do not force people who are against murdering babies to pay for the murder of babies.  Do not use taxpayer money for Planned Parenthood.
  10. Refrain from banning or restricting us from using certain products like incandescent light bulbs, straws, grocery bags, soda, and shower heads with good water pressure.

These are all things that Democrats have tried to dictate in the past.  If they truly want unity this list would be a solid first step.  Instead of using tyrannical power to control those of us who disagree with them, try going back to our founding vision of liberty.  It’s the least they can do after Republicans did it for them the last four years. 

Is President Trump Our King Josiah?

As President Trump leaves the White House I have been contemplating his similarities with another great leader who challenged the status quo and “drained the swamp.”  The biblical king, Josiah, was the last good king of Israel’s southern kingdom of Judah before they were defeated by the Babylonians and taken into captivity. 

Both the United States and Judah had gone downhill quite a ways after some downright bad leaders who “did evil in the sight of the Lord.”  Don’t get me wrong, both nations also had some good leaders, except that they failed to roll back all of the evil policies of the bad rulers.  When reading through the books of Kings and Chronicles you begin to notice a pattern arise where the good kings usually had one fatal flaw mentioned.  It seemed to always be described like it was here with King Jotham:

And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done.  However the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. – 2 Kings 15:34-35

These high places were generally set up in Israel by the bad kings and were used for pagan worship and idolatry.  Even the few kings who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord” failed to remove the high places, with two exceptions:  King Hezekiah and his great-grandson King Josiah. 

It made me wonder why the other good kings allowed the high places even though it was obviously wrong.  Then it struck me.  It’s for the same reason that our good presidents have not reversed the immoral policies of our bad presidents.  They knew that many people would not like it and they lacked the political courage to follow through.  There was probably a lot of political pressure by the people who worshipped and sacrificed at the high places, and even the good kings bowed to that pressure. 

Kings Hezekiah and Josiah did not.  They both had the backbone to stand up for what was right and removed the high places from the land.  In the United States, conservatives have been frustrated because even when we elect good leaders they have lacked the courage to do what is right.  Like Hezekiah and Josiah, President Trump has not.  Here are some of his landmark accomplishments:

  • The first wicked king of Judah was Solomon’s son Reheboam.  When he became king the people came to him and said, “Your father made our yoke heavy; now therefore, lighten the burdensome service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.” (1 Kings 12:4)  In other words, regulations.  The government was forcing them to do too much and interfering with their lives.  Reheboam took the bad advice of his friends and responded, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!” (1 Kings 12:14)  Our bad presidents have greatly increased the bone crushing regulatory burden on the people.  Our good presidents, like George W. Bush and his father, said they were for smaller government but did not actually lessen regulations.  President Trump did.  He made a guideline that for every new regulation, two had to be removed.  This led to a booming economy and record low unemployment.
  • Both good and bad presidents have said that we should recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our embassy there.  None of them had the guts to actually do it.  President Trump did.
  • Speaking of Israel, President Obama greatly damaged our relationship with God’s chosen people and our greatest ally.  He treated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with contempt.  His administration chastised Israel for defending themselves.  He backstabbed them and allowed them to be attacked in the United Nations.  Most notably, he put Israel in grave danger by appeasing Iran and making a deal to remove sanctions against them and give them billions of dollars without even forcing them to end their nuclear program.  President Trump was the most pro-Israel president of my lifetime and maybe ever.  He defended Israel in the United Nations, acknowledged their sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and ended the appeasement of Iran by pulling out of the dangerous Iran Nuclear Deal.  He was even able to broker peace deals between Israel and Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
  • About ten years ago my health insurance started to rise precipitously in price.  President Obama had forced through the government monstrosity now known as Obamacare, which also took away our freedom with regards to our healthcare decisions.  President Trump eliminated the individual mandate, taking the teeth out of Obamacare and giving individuals back more control of their healthcare.
  • After years of weak defense of our nation’s borders, President Trump was able to get over 400 miles of wall built.
  • There is one rule that is repeated in each of the first five books of the Bible; that murderers should be put to death.  The federal government has failed in this responsibility, as only 3 murderers had been executed between 1963 and 2020.  President Trump has enforced the death penalty for murderers again, with 13 federal executions being carried out in the last year.
  • Good presidents and candidates have been lied about and vilified by our biased and corrupt media for decades, frustrating millions of Americans because previous presidents just took the abuse.  President Trump fought back and constantly called out the media for their unfairness and propaganda.
  • One of the great reforms of King Josiah is found in 2 Kings 23:10.  “And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.”  To make your child pass through the fire meant to sacrifice them to the Moabite god Molech.  This evil practice was not only allowed to happen in Israel by the wicked kings, but kings Ahaz and Manasseh actually sacrificed their own sons.  The United States has a similar practice that is protected by the wicked presidents:  abortion.  Unfortunately, even our good presidents have been inept at curtailing this evil act.  President Trump has stepped up to the plate and defended babies.  He was the first president to attend the March for Life.  He has found a way to block funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country.  Most importantly, he has appointed three pro-life Supreme Court Justices.

You may be wondering why I chose Josiah to compare President Trump to instead of Hezekiah since they both stood up against the status quo and removed the high places, and I have two reasons.  First, Hezekiah came earlier and that leads me to compare him to another great president who upset the apple cart, President Reagan.  Second, Josiah was only 8 years old when he became king, and President Trump does tend to speak without much tact like a kid might.  It is disappointing that too many people couldn’t get past that lack of tact, because like King Josiah, he may be the last great president we ever have.  Thank you, President Trump, for making us great again.