Breaking out.

I'll speak with proper respect for other nations and their peoples' right to choose their own leaders. So this is not an out of order comment on the U.S. and its people.  It's an observation about politics in the Western world, which some of us dare to call the 'free' world.
One of our columnists in Australia wrote recently that 'the left made Donald Trump'. Her reasoning seems quite sound to me, and what she wrote worth considering. It's a fabulous irony, spiced with poetic justice, if it's true. If anyone reads this, I'd be glad to know what you think.
The argument goes that the left movement, collectively, has set itself up as some kind of thought police, out to squash any commentary or movement they do not approve of; and in their determination NOT to be gagged, the usually silent majority go to the other extreme and support whatever the left hates most, whatever it really is trying to suppress. Donald Trump says the things a lot of people try to stop anyone saying. He proposes things that make the politically correct flinch and gasp with pretentious displays of horror. He dares. He will not be intimidated. And I am happy to say that I admire it. Someone who can't be gagged by the self appointed umpires of the debate, the wanna be mind controllers who think they can mess with other peoples' heads and tell them what to think. We had a phenomenon in Australia something like it when Pauline Hanson launched the One Nation Party. She rejected multiculturalism and all the other pet projects of the self proclaimed progressives. She gained a huge vote, more than the Greens and one other small party put together, and rattled a few cages in the process. She said what people are not supposed to, such as that too much migration might be bad for Australia, especially when it came from cultures unlike our own. Mr Trump dares speak critically about migration from non English speaking places, and as with Hanson, he provokes howls of sanctimonious condemnation from people who claim the right to tell us what we can and cannot say. Someone I know well who is living in the U.S. at the moment said that if he was voting he would vote for Trump. The first reason: no one owns him. He is self financing, so he's beholden to none and can take whatever position he chooses. Myself, I love seeing the loud mouth, self righteous left getting told, the rest of us do not have to think what you want us to. We do not have to accept your standards of political correctness. We do not have to agree with you about how a country should be governed or its people should live. We can think what we think and if you don't agree you will be reminded that freedom of belief goes for everybody, not just whoever the left approve of.

Where does the Western world go from here?  Those who called themselves free thinkers did all they could to eliminate the influence of Christianity but did not have something better to replace it with. They told us they did, and let the show down badly. Will the people of the free world return to what gave them so much good in their society? Christianity teaches respect for all, altruism and peace among people, and that is where we get individual rights from and civic sense in communities. Will we go back to it or keep following the braggarts and jackals in sheep's clothing who tell us their political ideas are better. I look at some people who think they know how we should all live and recall the teaching, "Believing themselves wise they made themselves into fools."  (Parapharasing).
God be with us. Jesus forbear with us. Perhaps the Second Coming is near. Only He knows.

A new outlook.
I'm glad I never had to go to war, but if I ever had to, or if I ever do find myself in combat, I hope it is against a group like ISIS (Daesh). I could fight them with resolve! If I'd been at war against Germans, Italians, Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans or any other nation Australia has fought against I might have been in combat with individual people I had nothing against at all. But if I fought against the Islamist terrorist calling themselves ISIS then I would know: they really are BADDIES. They chose to be where they are, they personally chose this war. They have done what is abominable, in the murder or children and the persecution of Christians, or any other religious group for that matter. If my nerve did not fail me, if I did not prove to be a coward, I could fight against them with certainty that this is a just fight. Stopping them from doing the vile things they do is a just cause. I pray that God gives victory to all who take up arms against them. I pray that if they are ever a threat to my family or friends God will give me the means to fight them effectively, and not fail to withstand them. Just as the world has faced Nazis, Fascists, Communist terrorists and other monstrosities, so it now faces the renegade Islamists who want to oppress the entire human race. God give us victory against them. The mass murder attacks in France have brought it home to Europe: they can't dissimulate any more or hide behind sanctimonies about conciliating with Islamist grievances. We have to stand up to it. May the only true God be with us all.

When will we ever learn?

When you're under twenty one, or so, it can be really annoying to see older people dismissing your views as if you know nothing at all. And sometimes the oldsters who dismiss you can overlook something they need to know. Their rude disrespect or arrogant sense of superiority can blind them and cost them. But having said that, I'm old enough myself to see why it happens sometimes.
The same old things go around and come around.
I'm a nineteen fifties model. I was born in 1953, the same year the Korean War ended. I can remember newsreaders talking about President Eisenhower. And I can remember one of the catch cries from the time: "Ban the bomb." That was the anti nuclear activism of the day.
I can't recall the exact order or the times when the different politico-social fads went round, but in the sixties and seventies the Western world went through phases of concern about global crowding and famine, then pollution, especially in the very late sixties with acid rain. There was concern about heavy metal poisoning of soils, of water ways, all legitimate concerns, but the point is: these themes came and went, and then came again. There was even a global warming alarm sometime in the sixties. People were afraid the number of humans would generate so much body heat that they would raise the planet's temperature and it would start killing crops and causing starvation.
If you live long enough, you see the same things come and go and then come again. If it's the first time someone's heard it, they think it is new. They don't understand why older people are less impressed. To them (us!) it's a case of 'here we go again.'
I'm convinced the world will end, when Jesus Christ comes again. It will end when God decides the time has come. Nothing humans can do will stop that, nor should it if they only knew what was right. Nor will that day come any sooner than God decides, no matter how much humans think their behaviour changes things. So we have a finite span on this planet, no doubt; but it is rather vain for people to think it all depends on them.
How long before people get it?

It tells you something!
Thousands of refugees heading to Europe, trying to get a new life, are heading straight into the homeland of their supposed enemy - Christendom! It tells you something, doesn't it? If they wanted to live in an Islamic society, there are stable Moslem nations like Saudi Arabia which are closer. Many of them are living in Turkey after fleeing Syria, or other Islamic nations racked by war, and Turkey is a peaceful Moslem country. So why the West?
Could it be because Christian societies, or even societies with a Christian past, seem to be better places to live. Human rights are better protected. Toleration of belief and opinion are observed. The individual cannot be killed for changing religions, or stoned for (alleged) adultery. Women have the same legal rights as men and are not forced to cover their heads in public, or even their faces. In short, the West with its centuries of Christian tradition is a much safer and happier place to be. It's a cruel irony that so many westerners become jaded and depressed, amidst all that they have. They don't know how bad it can be. And they have been deluded by 'intellectuals' into rejecting the creed that gave us all so much, Christianity. But even so, the West attracts people from nations like Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as some countries in Africa. Seeing all this, wealthy Moslems promise funding to build mosques for them in Europe. Not help where they are and rehoming, but mosques in the heartland of the enemy, Christian lands. And here's some news I found really heartening, reporting in one Australian newspaper. There are a number of Moslem immigrants in the West, notably Germany, attending Christian churches and wanting to become Christians. So the Islamic nations could not only lose some of the people they will need to rebuild their war-mangled countries, they could see some of those they call theirs becoming Christians instead. I pray it's true. I would rejoice in seeing new brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus redeemed for those who want to overthrow and enslave us, forcing us to bow to their religion and attacking ours. How marvellous if that all backfired, and instead of Islam colonising and invading Europe, Christianity took people from the Islamic world.  Some of the leaders of the Moslem world could do with asking themselves why it should be that their people want to move to the West, why Moslem style government does not appeal to those they need to populate what they think are the lands of the faithful.
God will be glorified, no matter how His foes try to bring down Him and His.
Come again, Lord Jesus.

Getting it said.

Donald Trump seems to be doing the same thing in the U.S. that a lady named Pauline Hanson did in Australia a few years ago. He's putting things on the agenda that some people try to avoid. He says things that some people won't say, even if they think them. I believe  western democracy is the best system of government available in this world but one of its limitations is that it's hard to escape 'political correctness', a reluctance to discuss certain issues because the moral blackmailers start jumping up and down throwing accusations at whoever dares speak. Then once in a while we find someone who won't be scared, who says the things others won't say. Whatever you think of them, it seems to me they serve one important purpose. They get subjects out into the public domain and stop the gagging of personal expression. There is a place for that, provided it does not lapse into slander and dishonesty.
It's not my place to say who should win the U.S. presidency because I'm not an American and the citizens of America should decide that for themselves. We in Australia don't like non-Australians telling us how to run our country so we should not tell others how to run their nations. But this I will say: it's good to see someone speaking out about the issues that others try to avoid or try to be so polite about that they end up being less than frank. Donald Trump could be going too far in his comments on migrants from Mexico but the concern about illegal and uncontrolled migration is there. It won't go away because the goody-goodies don't like things said about it. A country has a right to control its borders. In Australia, Pauline Hanson complained about large scale migration changing the culture and nature of Australia, without the agreement of all Australians. She was right, too. Whatever the race issues, Australian people saw our movement into the country on a scale that could change it without that issue being properly considered or publicly debated, but no-one wanted to say so publicly - until Pauline Hanson got up.
There is a place for this, I believe. Say what you think, and let others remember that you don't need their approval to think what you do. If people genuinely respect freedom of speech, then they know of the need to agree to disagree sometimes. That's a test of how real they are, when they claim to support freedom of speech. As well as that, in principle, public opinion matters in a democracy because the views and wishes of the people are part of how they govern themselves. So let them speak. There is a need to stop the pernicious stifling of debate on some issues because the self-styled censors and thought police don't like hearing it. I can talk. I hear things said that strike me as quite appalling, but it's not for me to deny others the right to say what they think. And it's not for them to try silencing me either. So if "The Donald" as "I'm told they call him gets up and says things that others might want to hear said, more power to that. When it's all been said, then the vote. Then people can decide who they want to elect as leader. But let's hear it all said first. That is real democracy.

Wrong approach.

A study reported in the Australian press yesterday said that homosexual people  report lower levels of happiness in life than heterosexuals. The professor running the study said that this reflects on society, because, he says, it treats homosexuals badly. That was predictable, and I think honestly it shows the same blindness that people often do when trying to alleviate a problem. It could be that homosexuals are unhappy not because society makes them unhappy but because they are doing something that God did not intend when He made the human race. I know some people would attack me furiously for this but that's in God's hands.
Homosexuality is forbidden by God. The Bible says that. So to try living that way is to depart from the way of life God intended His children to live. Apparently there is no such thing as a homosexual type brain.
People want society to change to accommodate them. Society does not decree essential human nature and how life is supposed to be lived. The Divine did and does that. Flying in the face of it is futile. You can't reinvent the universe to suit a doctrine.
We need to seek God's way, not invent new ways to be and say it's about being modern. Some things are timeless.

They don't deserve to be here.

Like millions of others, I'm disgusted by the actions of a migrant to the United States who launched a coward terrorist attack and killed four U.S. marines. That person chose to enter the U.S. seeking permission to live there. The U.S. government accepted them, on behalf of the people of the nation, and in response this migrant turns on the place. They probably expect they will be welcome in Paradise as a hero. It is contemptible, not brave. If they were genuinely brave and heroic they could join an armed conflict and fight, not pretend to be a civilian non combatant and launch an ambush. It is pathetic hypocrisy to ask to live in a country and then turn on it. I can hear the usual sanctimonious do-gooders making their excuses, and I think that's all humbug. This was the act of a punk wanting to get a life by cheating, looking for a cheap and tinny way of being a hero. It is also treachery. When two other wanna-be heroes detonated the bomb at the Boston Marathon, a newspaper in Australia published a cartoon which I thought was worth keeping and framing. It showed the Statue of Liberty holding up the torch and calling on people to come to the new land, and two rats scampering in, taking the chance to get something they did not deserve. Well said! It is quite literally like asking for someone's help, getting into their home and then turning on them. I can see no excuse, nothing to be said in defence of those who do such a thing. We have the same problem in Australia. Migrants who needed Australia, it did not need them; and on being allowed to come here and take out citizenship they turn on the people of the country that gave them what it did not owe them. I wish the United States well in upholding the traditions that Western civilization is rightly acclaimed for, and that the world should be glad of: personal freedom, the rule of law not despots, and humanity towards others. I wish for the thwarting of those who would undermine the West with addle-headed stupidity and applaud those who attack it in the name of a doctrine that oppresses people. Like Australia and Britain, my two parent countries, the U.S. is not perfect and like other Western nations it has suffered through political correctness and left wing thinking compromising natural justice and common sense; but it still stands, and the tide might turn soon. God bless us all.