While I’m disturbed by the possibilities of abuse, especially under an administration like the current one, I nevertheless agree that finding out who is wanting to attack you, and being able to stop it, is a legitimate government action. I am not in agreement with the perspective that says we inherently have more to fear from our own government than from those who seek to destroy us through terrorism. That doesn’t mean, though, that the threat from our own government is to be ignored; I write often enough about the threat to religious liberty via Obamacare and other pernicious acts. Yet we’re not Communist China or North Korea. Not yet. Edward Snowden doesn’t seem to understand that distinction. Fleeing to a Chinese-ruled city betrays a certain foolishness and/or lack of understanding on his part:

To me, the scandal that is the most dangerous to American liberty is the IRS’s attempt to stifle conservative groups’ political speech. I don’t watch a lot of news from the usual suspects—CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC—but I’ve followed the analysis of their coverage of this scandal. The bottom line seems to be “what coverage?” After an initial burst of interest, they have gone on to other, more important, things. You know, like the baby born to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Now there’s real news of the highest significance for every American.

In my opinion, the mainstream media doesn’t want to dig deeper; they’re afraid they may find that this scandal goes to the very top:

In fact, I think they’re concerned that if they do their job well, they may topple an entire regime, one to which they are committed ideologically:

Perhaps they fear the picture will become increasingly clear:

If that were to happen, they would be forced to admit they’ve been wrong all along:

The truth can be hard to face, particularly when you place all your hopes on a false political messiah.

After the revealed horror of abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s practices, there’s an opening to push for more restrictions on abortion. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee last week successfully advanced a bill to the whole House that would outlaw nearly all abortions after the 22nd week of pregnancy. This is designed to terminate the actions of those who terminate life in a late-term abortion. The full name of the bill is the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. One of the goals is to show that these children in the womb actually experience pain during the abortion. These representatives are trying to awaken the general public to the humanness of each unborn child.

Awakening the general public is not as difficult as sparking interest in Democrat lawmakers, though. The bill passed on a purely party-line vote—not even one Democrat on the committee supported sending the proposed law to the full House. Prediction: it will pass the House since Republicans are in the majority; it will then die in the Democrat-controlled Senate. If, by some minor miracle, the Senate should pass it, President Obama is on record saying he will veto it. No surprise there. This is the president who spoke to Planned Parenthood and asked God’s blessing on their activities, which include more than 330,000 abortions each year. Neither Planned Parenthood nor President Obama care one bit for the lives of the unborn. Instead, they concentrate their efforts on making sure that any young girl, with no age restrictions, can get a morning-after pill.

As for the issue of religious liberty, Republicans in both the House and Senate have put forward amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would protect the rights of conscience for members of the military, allowing them to express their religious faith without discrimination or retaliation. The amendments also call for investigation of reports of religious discrimination and the influence of outside groups in creating Pentagon policy. This is in response to the earlier repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the now total acceptance of homosexuality in the military. Ever since the repeal, Christians in the armed forces have been pressured to be silent or even promote homosexuality, although they believe it to be immoral behavior.

None of this should be necessary; we have something called the First Amendment. It should be a given that soldiers don’t lay aside their Christian faith upon entering the military. But here’s another non-surprise. Once again, as with the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, President Obama has vowed to veto any bill with this amendment, thereby showing he has no genuine regard for religious liberty. It also reveals his basic anti-Christian worldview. He and his party are devoted to promoting immorality, although selectively applied:

Our president seeks to impose his worldview on the nation. When he said he wanted to transform America, he meant it. I’ve often commented on the palpable arrogance of President Obama. You can see it in his poses, his facial expressions, and his actions. One gets the impression he considers himself somehow above mere mortals:

Although the Republicans’ attempts to protect unborn children and ensure liberty of conscience will not succeed with this man in the White House, it’s important to continue to make the attempts. Each time, it’s an opportunity to bring understanding to the public. With enough understanding, perhaps we can avoid in 2016 the mistakes we made in 2008 and 2012.

On the issue of cost, we’re seeing projections that premiums may rise astronomically in the next few years:

Those “exchanges” that are supposed to be set up aren’t going too well either. The whole thing is turning into a bureaucratic morass—but then is that so unusual? Don’t the words “bureaucratic” and “morass” go together normally?

And remember that big promise the president made a few years ago? What of that?

In the shady tradition of all snake-oil salesmen, that was another whopper. Just today, I heard that Aetna is dropping all personal health insurance policies in California. That’s the first snowball in the coming avalanche. If the administration has its way, everyone will eventually be forced onto the government plan. Interestingly, some of Obama’s biggest supporters in his campaigns are now shrinking back from this healthcare nightmare as they see its tentacles begin to reach out and touch them:

When Sarah Palin referred to the coming government review of each person’s medical needs, the mainstream media laughed at her “death panels” rhetoric. Yet we’ve now seen a glimpse of what is coming. That ten-year-old girl who needed a lung transplant was denied by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who said the rules cannot be changed. She also said she didn’t have the authority to change them, which was not true. In fact, she simply became the ultimate bureaucrat, dictating who can live and who will die:

Fortunately, in the case of this little girl, a court overruled Sebelius and the transplant occurred without her approval. We can’t always rely on a court doing that, however. If Obamacare is ever fully implemented, it won’t be only healthcare that will be nationalized; we will also suffer a national trauma.

Moral law is no respecter of persons—knows no privileged classes. . . . That which the precept demands must be possible to the subject. That which demands a natural impossibility is not, and cannot be, moral law. The true definition of law excludes the supposition that it can, under any circumstances, demand an absolute impossibility. Such a demand could not be in accordance with the nature and the relations of moral agents [i.e., human beings with free will], and therefore practicability must always be an attribute of moral law. To talk of inability to obey moral law is to talk nonsense [emphasis mine].

I realize this disturbs some people, but think: if you are incapable of doing what God says, you are also not accountable for your actions. There would be no reason to feel guilt or shame; we would all simply be victims. There’s enough victimology in our society already; Christians should never contribute to it. “Inability” undercuts the whole idea of man being responsible for his sins. I believe all real Christians understand, in their hearts, that they are accountable for their actions. Why don’t we allow our theology to support that obvious fact? Why don’t we line up our theory with what we know to be true in practice?

Never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.

Even among genuine Christians, we often disappoint one another. The warning is to remember Who is your real cornerstone in life.

Then there is this reminder about the nature of sinfulness:

They [human beings] wanted, as we say, to “call their own souls their own.” But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not, in fact, our own. They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner.

He fills every corner; there’s no escaping His presence. But once you’ve laid aside your rebellion, that’s not a troubling statement; rather, it’s inspiring. As the apostle Paul once told his audience, “For in Him we live and move and exist.” Thank God.

I share that concern. I believe in liberty. However, this controversy has also helped highlight two very different definitions of liberty, one I believe to be true and the other false. My worldview is Biblical, so I want to view everything through that prism. There is a Biblical basis for liberty, properly understood, that is not the same thing as modern libertarianism. In fact, I consider that movement, however right it may be on some points, to be destructive of true Biblical liberty.

Here’s the difference: pure libertarians put the concept of liberty on a pedestal as the highest virtue. They are devoted to the idea that everyone should be able to do whatever they choose without any government telling them what is right or wrong. That is not liberty; it is license, and there’s a big difference. Now, the best libertarians do say that one’s actions can’t bring harm to another; I realize that. Yet what is their standard for determining “harm”? Pure libertarianism doesn’t think there’s a place for government to legislate on matters such as abortion, homosexual behavior, or anything else they deem private morality. Man is free to do as he wishes.

Again, I am a great believer in free will; that’s one of my theological cornerstones. But freedom—liberty, if you will—exists only within a framework of eternal right and wrong, and it is always attached to personal responsibility. Yes, I am “free” to sin, but there will be consequences. My sins, and those of others, don’t affect me alone; they ripple out into society and damage others, even those sins that some think are purely private. What you are in private will eventually show up in public. What you do in the privacy of your home will affect your character adversely over time, and that will be detrimental to society as a whole.

For many libertarians, civil government is no better than a necessary evil. I understand how one may come to that opinion even apart from libertarianism just by watching the actions of an administration such as the one under which we currently suffer. Yet government is not an evil, not if I truly comprehend the Biblical explanation of its source and purpose.

The most basic passage in the Bible about government is Romans, chapter 13. If you read it carefully, here is what you learn:

• God is the one who has established civil government authority.
• We are supposed to obey legitimate authority.
• Government is a minister of God for good.
• Government officials bear the “sword” to bring judgment upon evildoers.
• We are obliged to pay taxes for the maintenance of that government [sorry about that one].

Implicit in the passage is the opposite: if government doesn’t carry out its God-given authority and becomes an enemy of the good, promoting evil instead, one’s obligation to obey everything it says is modified. Otherwise, we would be making government our god; but government is accountable to the One who established it and set up its boundaries.

Consequently, there is nothing unchristian about criticizing a government that oversteps its legitimate authority and/or advocates evil behavior. When the IRS unfairly singles out conservatives, abridging their freedom of speech, we can resist that and call for remedy. When the DOJ attempts to criminalize journalism, we can demand a redress of this grievance. When the NSA chooses to collect phone records and e-mail communications from the entire population, we can remind them that the innocent are not to be treated as if guilty without due process of law. When an administration covers up a botched operation in Benghazi that led to loss of life, it needs to be called to account for its actions and inactions, and those involved hardly should be promoted.

So, in those instances, from my Biblical foundation, I fully support genuine liberty. But that’s not the same as having a predisposition against all authority and harboring a view that all government is inherently evil. What bothers me most, I think, is the tendency of libertarianism to morph into a kind of semi-anarchy. Yes, the collectivism of Marxist ideology is perverse, but a state of near-anarchy is not the solution. It is an evil in the opposite direction. Further, the unforeseen consequence of throwing off most civil government and societal regulations will be an unwitting return to heavy-handed rule via the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest. Neither option is the Biblical way.

Therefore, while we should voice our concerns over violations of civil liberties, let’s avoid the temptation to dismiss all the proper functions of government: protection of its citizens from attacks both foreign and domestic, and the administration of justice by rewarding those who mirror Biblical morality and by meting out punishment to those who undermine that morality through murder, theft, and all other forms of evil.

Civil government comes from God. Now, let’s just make sure it does what God intended.

Well, let’s be serious now. For a war to be over, both sides must agree it is over:

Anyone who believes that Muslim radicalism is a spent force has little connection to reality. That’s why it is imperative that we have at the highest levels of our government individuals who have shown a remarkable ability to be clear-sighted and not easily duped. People like, well . . .

In case you have Benghazi amnesia, Rice went on five Sunday talk shows the week four of our people were killed in a terrorist attack in Libya. Her message? This was all backlash from an anti-Muslim YouTube video. That fiction continued for a couple more weeks, with the president propping up the story all along. Sorry, but Susan Rice as National Security Advisor doesn’t make me feel the least bit secure.

A few journalists have asked a very significant question in light of the NSA revelations. If that War on Terror is really over, why are we so obsessed with massive data collection?

Another question that has been raised is if we are so adept at data-mining for the purpose of thwarting terrorism, how did the Boston Marathon bombers so easily pass inspection? Where was the scrutiny? Could this failure be traced back perhaps to political correctness, our over-sensitivity to offending Muslims?  I also picked up on another problem with the captured Boston terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. After he was apprehended, a segment of our population developed a rather unhealthy fascination with him:

Can a nation that is rapidly losing its spiritual/moral basis stand in the face of an enemy that is fanatically devoted to its false ideology? It’s my conviction that our only hope is that those who know the One who is Truth will be faithful to their calling. As we’re told repeatedly in Scripture, we must be steadfast in the faith. We don’t have to be the majority. God works through the dedicated remnant.

Another concern is that the newest scandal, that of the NSA data-mining, will dwarf the others for media attention. As troubling as the NSA situation may be, even with some of the complexities that might not make it as bad as it seems, we shouldn’t allow it to shove the other problems to one side.

We’ve heard little about Benghazi lately. Yet four people died as a result of bad decisions, and it was followed by a major misdirection, blaming it all on a YouTube video. That has proven to be a lie. I’m hoping the congressional committees responsible for following up on this won’t let it languish and disappear from the public view. Justice has not been served.

The DOJ interference with the free press, and in particular the attempt to make James Rosen of Fox into a co-conspirator in a crime, deserves our continued attention also. This is a direct threat to freedom of the press.

Even the IRS attack on conservative groups is losing coverage. The only discipline for the government employees involved thus far is the false firing of Steven Miller and the administrative leave for Lois Lerner. I say false firing because Miller was scheduled to step down anyway. As for that administrative leave, well, I suspect a lot of workers wouldn’t mind that:

When representatives of conservative groups showed up for a congressional hearing last week to detail the abuses they have suffered under IRS scrutiny, neither ABC nor CNN had even one minute of coverage of that testimony. CBS and NBC weren’t much better—they came in at three minutes each. When you consider that CNN is a twenty-four-hour news channel, that’s particularly appalling. They apparently don’t care when conservatives receive such treatment:

If there’s any way to shift blame from the IRS to conservatives, the mainstream media will concoct it:

Meanwhile, more video has surfaced of IRS employees enjoying themselves by virtue of the taxpayers. This time they put on a Star Trek skit. We’re paying for this?

We’re being so inundated with scandals, the federal government might have to change its phone messages:

While I’m hopeful some measure of justice will come out of all this, there’s one result that can’t be changed at this point:

If only we had a media that would do its job.

Is Snowden a traitor or a hero? That’s the question being asked in all the news reports. What do I think of his actions? I’ll get back to that shortly.

The issues are complicated for this burgeoning scandal. Of all the scandals that have surfaced over the past month—Benghazi, IRS, DOJ—this one has caused more division. Most people, even Democrat politicians, seem to grasp the damage done by those other scandals, but there is no consensus on this one. Here are some solid principles to start our thinking:

• One of the primary purposes of the American government, as outlined in the Constitution, is to protect its citizens. Under the Bush administration, the Patriot Act was signed into law to open up the channels of communication between national security agencies such as the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA. Bush realized, legitimately, that the lack of openness created by laws that set up barriers, helped create a climate of ignorance that led to the attacks on 9/11.
• In our attempts to discover threats to national security, it is necessary to gather as much intelligence as we can to avoid another terrorist attack on American soil.
• As we do this, we cannot throw constitutional guarantees under the bus. We must not abridge the First Amendment right to free political speech and free exercise of religion; we must resist all efforts to disarm a populace that may need those arms for personal protection; we should never allow government snooping that disregards the Fourth Amendment’s assurance against general search warrants. One of the opening salvos in the colonists’ resistance to Great Britain in our early days was the tyranny of general search warrants, whereby the government could come into one’s home and look for whatever, without a specific court order for a specific item. It amounted to the total loss of one’s security in one’s home.

The NSA program’s objective in its search for phone records, e-mails, etc., is to find the links that could lead to terror. I understand that. It is essential to stop those plans to save lives. Yet, what Snowden is saying is that the search has become so all-inclusive that we have potentially lost all rights to privacy—that the government can know about everyone we’ve called and can read all our e-mails. Yes, that is a scary scenario. Why? First, because of the violation that would be of the Fourth Amendment [and the First, if prosecution should follow]. Second, because we’ve already seen how this particular administration has no regard whatsoever for constitutional guarantees.

Those other ongoing scandals have revealed a desire by this government to curtail freedom of speech and religion, and to pursue reporters who even dare to ask significant questions about administration policy. You’ll have to forgive me if Obama’s assurances leave me cold:

So, while there are legitimate reasons to data-mine, to some extent, the rub is the extensive nature of the mining. When you throw a net over all phone calls, that’s potentially the same as a general search warrant. If the government really can read all our e-mails—still a disputable point, at least considering the magnitude of the task—that is a clear and present danger to freedom of political speech, especially in an atmosphere that relishes the targeting of perceived political “enemies.”

That brings us back to Snowden. Is he a hero or a traitor? For those who take the first view, he has bravely put his life on the line to reveal the extent of the program. Life for him will no longer be the same. He has uncovered a threat to American liberty. I understand that, and certainly have sympathies in that direction.

For those who take the second view, he has endangered national security, fled his responsibilities, decided to reside in an area ruled by Communist China, which is already doing its best to undermine our cyber-security, and should be brought to justice. Some have openly declared him a defector and traitor whose actions have put lives at risk; therefore, he should receive the death penalty for what he has done.

 My position, at this point, and until I can digest more information, is that this data-mining does require the greatest of scrutiny. There are intelligence committees in both houses of Congress that already are overseeing the program. I would like to know if they have been doing their job adequately. Have they permitted this to get out of hand? The original intent of the Patriot Act was not to gather this kind of intrusive information from all American citizens. The FISA court, which allows the searching, is supposed to guarantee that the focus of the searches is on foreign individuals, not Americans. Is the court doing its job?

For those reasons, I am glad for the exposure. We need to be aware of what our government is doing, and if it has crossed the line. That’s not a paranoid delusion, given this administration’s track record and its overall ideology.

However, I do not support the manner in which the exposure occurred. As I read about Snowden and listen to him, I don’t come away convinced he is this paragon of virtue that many have claimed. It’s too soon to erect a statue in his honor. He went outside the channels whereby he could have raised the issues. Other whistleblowers have taken their evidence directly to Congress. I saw an interview the other day with one former government employee who followed those channels and accomplished his goals. He was just as outraged by the exposure of the data-mining as Snowden, yet he condemned Snowden’s actions.

Frankly—and I know many will disagree—I sense that Snowden is on the immature side, with a flair for the grandiose. His method of exposure is exactly what I would expect from someone seeking the limelight. It’s a rash action, with little thought to the consequences, his supposed cautions notwithstanding. I have little confidence in his character.

Therefore, let the scrutiny proceed; it’s necessary to ensure our liberties. But let’s not set up a pedestal and place Edward Snowden’s likeness on it.

The one real beneficiary of all these scandals?

I didn’t take this photo, obviously, and was kept from taking any on the outside by the torrential rain we endured while walking in Richmond last Friday, thanks to the tropical storm that blanketed the east coast. But the rain couldn’t dampen the historical significance of this place.

This capitol building opened for business in 1788, only seven years after Virginia’s capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond. In its rotunda is a one-of-a-kind sculpture of George Washington. In 1785, renowned French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon arrived in the new United States for the express purpose of fashioning a lifelike statue of Washington. Houdon spent two weeks at Mt. Vernon where he measured Washington meticulously and made a life mask of his face. He then searched for the best white marble he could find, without any streaks of gray, and completed the statue, which was installed in the rotunda in 1796. This is the only life-sized statue of Washington in existence made directly from those measurements and life mask. When you look at this masterpiece, you are seeing the genuine George Washington in a way that no portrait can convey.

We toured all the historic rooms on the main floor. One had a full wall painting of the storming of Redoubt #10 at Yorktown, the decisive assault that led to the victory there and the end of the American War for Continued Self-Government [a.k.a., the American Revolution for those who are unaware of my renaming fetish]. Then we entered the Jefferson room—pictured here—which is fitting, since Thomas Jefferson was the brains behind the Capitol’s architecture. What I didn’t realize until this tour is that the Virginia Capitol served as the site for the recent Steven Spielberg film Lincoln. I’ve seen the film but wasn’t aware this building was used for it. The guide said it took three months of filming; it also took a lot of work to cover up all modern additions—electric lights, newer portraits, etc., to give it the 1865 look and feel.

The old House of Delegates chamber is now used primarily for tours, but it has seen its lion’s share of historic moments. Nearly every Virginian associated with the first century of the state’s history has passed through this room. There are busts of Patrick Henry, John Marshall, George Wythe, and many others. At the center of the room, seen here on the left, is a large statue of Robert E. Lee, who refused Lincoln’s offer to command the Union armies and instead took control of Virginia’s state militia. The statue stands on the spot where he accepted that command. While I’m not a fan of the Confederate cause, one can still have respect for a man such as Lee, who was no advocate of slavery and acted as his conscience led him. I disagree with his decision, but cannot condemn the man himself.

Our final stop was in the current House chamber, which was used in the Lincoln movie as the stand-in for the U.S. House chamber. It’s kind of amazing how they were able to hide all the modern aspects such as microphones and buttons on the desks, as well as the electronic voting screens on the front wall. This is a beautiful room also. I really need to see Lincoln again to try to identify all the scenes that took place in the Capitol. It would be a nice exercise for me in particular since my first degree was in radio, tv, and film production—a marriage, in a sense, of that degree with my history doctorate.

We also visited the Museum of the Confederacy and the Confederate White House. At the museum, we listened to a fascinating account of how people in the Civil War era handled death and mourning, and all the beliefs and rituals associated with the loss of loved ones. At the White House, I could picture in my mind not only the reality of Jefferson Davis living there, but also the day Lincoln was able to walk into that house and rejoice that the long war he had overseen was about to conclude.

I always enjoy my trips back to the Old Dominion; the history is palpable everywhere. My students on this trip are not history majors, but I hope this time together sparked a lifelong interest in our American heritage.