Thursday, April 26, 2007
ham sandwich hate crime..
i can't wait til they have pizza day.. damn the pepperoni! (or should it be somali sausage?)
------------------------------
When Ham Sandwiches Attack
Jack Kinsella
Generally speaking, ham sandwiches are quiet and unassuming and don't really seem to have much of an opinion on any given subject.Indeed, a ham sandwich can be a welcome friend, it can be a traveling companion, eventually, it can even be lunch, but there is no recorded incident in which a ham sandwich has ever exhibited any malevolence.
The last time a ham sandwich gave society a major problem was the Mama Cass Affair. When Cass Elliot (Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas -- in case you were out of town for the 70's) died in 1974, her death was popularly ascribed to having choked to death on a ham sandwich.
The ham sandwich was innocent. There was a ham sandwich and a Coke found by her bedside, but the sandwich was untouched. The coroner eventually ruled that Cass Elliot died of a heart attack brought on by obesity.
Blaming the ham sandwich was a bad beef. . .
Actually, the only thing a ham sandwich has ever been guilty of, in my experience, was bad judgment. Who can forget the time that a ham sandwich incorrectly assumed two packages would not get mailed unless somebody took them to the Post Office? Or how humiliated that same ham sandwich was when the Post Office Lady picked the packages up?
(Come to think of it, that particular ham sandwich had a Jewish accent. Hmmmm)
Now, sadly, another ham sandwich is back in the news. This time, however, it isn't charged with murder, or parodied in a TV commercial for its bad judgment.
In this latest incident, the ham sandwich is charged with committing a hate crime.
Once again, however, it appears that the ham sandwich is getting a bum wrap. Allow me to explain. . .
A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by police for a possible hate crime because he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a cafeteria table where Muslim students from Somalia were eating their lunch.
Why Muslims students from Somalia were in a middle school in Maine eating lunch is grist for a different mill. Don't they have cafeterias in Somalia? But I digress.
Anyway, the school superintended took prompt action, ordering the student who brought the ham sandwich to school suspended, and promising more disciplinary action, should the investigation prove the ham sandwich was guilty as charged.
"Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at."
(Images of ham sandwiches running amok with high-powered automatic weapons flash across my mind at this point. No wonder Clinton pulled us out of Somalia in the 1990's.)
Continued Wessler, "No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich."
But wait! Isn't there some other rule about not touching somebody else's lunch in a cafeteria?
Evidently, THAT'S kosher -- provided one isn't actually IN Somalia, where touching somebody else's lunch can be a capital crime punishable by death -- depending on how well-armed the owner of that lunch is at the time.
And what does the guy mean by, "No child, Muslim or NORMAL?" Surely Stephen Wessler, as executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, wasn't suggesting that Muslim children aren't 'normal', was he?
Wessler continued, "Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don't live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities."
"If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?"
To which I reply with a hearty, "Heck, NO!" I can see Wessler's point. First, some kid brings a ham sandwich to school . . . and the next thing you know, Jewish kids in middle schools all over America will be forced by Nazis to eat bacon.
A joke??? I'm not laughing. And neither is the Executive Director of the Ham Sandwich Anti-Defamation League.
According to Porky Pig, "H--h-ham s-s-sandwiches are r-r-r-routinely t-t-t-t-targeted f-f-for m-m-m-m-m-m-mal-l-l-l-icous p-pprosecution. How mmmmany t-t-times have you heard that a prosecutor c--c-can g-get a g-g-g-grand jury to indict a h-h-h-ham s-s-s-sandwich?"
The middle school principle, Leon Levesque, assured Somali parents throughout Maine, "the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs."
You probably think that I'm making this up. (Ok. I admit I made up the Porky Pig quote.) But the story was reported by both Boston. com and the Lewiston Sun-Journal -- it's on the level.
According to the Sun-Journal, its been a rough week for Somalis in Maine.
"A lot of anger and hate has been flying around," said Steve Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. In the days after last Thursday's report of a hate incident at Lewiston Middle School involving a ham steak left at a lunch table to insult Somali students, a Sun Journal newspaper forum was so filled with hostility it was shut down.
Wessler said he received hate e-mail and two phone messages in which a man threatened to commit violence against him." The poor guy. What should be done? That is the question that has Pine Tree Staters all a'twitter.
Noted the Sun-Journal; "For years, Catholics suffered prejudice before being accepted." (But, as everybody knows, it is harder to use a ham sandwich to commit a hate crime against a Catholic. He would be just as likely to eat the weapon, destroying the evidence in the process.)
But change is in the works. Last year, a local man named Brent Matthews rolled a pig's head into a local mosque. Last Saturday, perhaps driven to despair by angry falafels, Matthews committed suicide in the local Marsden's parking lot.
As one local, Edward Boucher, told the paper, "Eventually these things work themselves out."
"But does it make it right?" the Sun-Journal quoted Zamzam Mohamud, 32, the mother of one traumatized victim. "Then does it just keep going? Where does it stop? There isn't much of a community if we don't make a change."
And THAT is where the laughter stops.
America's reputation was built around the concept of the Great American Melting Pot. In happier times, new immigrants would come to America to become Americans. The idea was to melt all the various cultures of all the various immigrants into a single, uniquely American culture.
Under that concept, Americans were not required to adopt the culture of its immigrants, but rather, immigrants were expected to adopt the culture of America. What made it a 'community' was that immigrants made 'the change' to conform to the existing culture.
The concept of "multiculturalism" -- the Holy Grail of the liberal Left -- insists that immigrants refuse to assimilate into American culture, forcing immigrants into cultural 'ghettos' where liberal politicians can pander to concentrated special interest lobbies.
One can't win in Florida without the Cuban vote. One can't win in Texas or California without the Mexican vote. One can't win in the Northeast without the black vote, or in New York without the Jewish vote. And one can't win in certain parts of Michigan without the Muslim vote.
So a liberal need only pander to the demands of the various concentrations of minorities to win public office -- from which he can strengthen his base by bashing America as a whole as a collection of hateful xenophobes.
One can't engage in class warfare without some underprivileged class to champion. And the best way to ensure that is to keep immigrants concentrated in ethnic ghettos as exiles from their home countries, rather than as immigrants to the New World.
Zamzan Mahamud's solution was quoteworthy because her solution fits the liberal agenda -- that America that must change its culture to conform to that of its immigrants.
Since America is made up of immigrants from every country in the world, there will always be more changes to demand, more immigrant groups to pander to, and more elections to be won.
Today, the ham sandwich. Tomorrow, Sharia law. Eventually, pictures of Osama bin Laden festooning American cities and towns.
Sound far-fetched? No more so than the fear of Nazis force-feeding bacon to Jewish kids in American concentration camps -- cleverly disguised as middle-schools.
When a ham sandwich is a hate crime, NOTHING is too far-fetched.
------------------------------
When Ham Sandwiches Attack
Jack Kinsella
Generally speaking, ham sandwiches are quiet and unassuming and don't really seem to have much of an opinion on any given subject.Indeed, a ham sandwich can be a welcome friend, it can be a traveling companion, eventually, it can even be lunch, but there is no recorded incident in which a ham sandwich has ever exhibited any malevolence.
The last time a ham sandwich gave society a major problem was the Mama Cass Affair. When Cass Elliot (Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas -- in case you were out of town for the 70's) died in 1974, her death was popularly ascribed to having choked to death on a ham sandwich.
The ham sandwich was innocent. There was a ham sandwich and a Coke found by her bedside, but the sandwich was untouched. The coroner eventually ruled that Cass Elliot died of a heart attack brought on by obesity.
Blaming the ham sandwich was a bad beef. . .
Actually, the only thing a ham sandwich has ever been guilty of, in my experience, was bad judgment. Who can forget the time that a ham sandwich incorrectly assumed two packages would not get mailed unless somebody took them to the Post Office? Or how humiliated that same ham sandwich was when the Post Office Lady picked the packages up?
(Come to think of it, that particular ham sandwich had a Jewish accent. Hmmmm)
Now, sadly, another ham sandwich is back in the news. This time, however, it isn't charged with murder, or parodied in a TV commercial for its bad judgment.
In this latest incident, the ham sandwich is charged with committing a hate crime.
Once again, however, it appears that the ham sandwich is getting a bum wrap. Allow me to explain. . .
A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by police for a possible hate crime because he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a cafeteria table where Muslim students from Somalia were eating their lunch.
Why Muslims students from Somalia were in a middle school in Maine eating lunch is grist for a different mill. Don't they have cafeterias in Somalia? But I digress.
Anyway, the school superintended took prompt action, ordering the student who brought the ham sandwich to school suspended, and promising more disciplinary action, should the investigation prove the ham sandwich was guilty as charged.
"Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at."
(Images of ham sandwiches running amok with high-powered automatic weapons flash across my mind at this point. No wonder Clinton pulled us out of Somalia in the 1990's.)
Continued Wessler, "No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich."
But wait! Isn't there some other rule about not touching somebody else's lunch in a cafeteria?
Evidently, THAT'S kosher -- provided one isn't actually IN Somalia, where touching somebody else's lunch can be a capital crime punishable by death -- depending on how well-armed the owner of that lunch is at the time.
And what does the guy mean by, "No child, Muslim or NORMAL?" Surely Stephen Wessler, as executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, wasn't suggesting that Muslim children aren't 'normal', was he?
Wessler continued, "Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don't live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities."
"If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?"
To which I reply with a hearty, "Heck, NO!" I can see Wessler's point. First, some kid brings a ham sandwich to school . . . and the next thing you know, Jewish kids in middle schools all over America will be forced by Nazis to eat bacon.
A joke??? I'm not laughing. And neither is the Executive Director of the Ham Sandwich Anti-Defamation League.
According to Porky Pig, "H--h-ham s-s-sandwiches are r-r-r-routinely t-t-t-t-targeted f-f-for m-m-m-m-m-m-mal-l-l-l-icous p-pprosecution. How mmmmany t-t-times have you heard that a prosecutor c--c-can g-get a g-g-g-grand jury to indict a h-h-h-ham s-s-s-sandwich?"
The middle school principle, Leon Levesque, assured Somali parents throughout Maine, "the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs."
You probably think that I'm making this up. (Ok. I admit I made up the Porky Pig quote.) But the story was reported by both Boston. com and the Lewiston Sun-Journal -- it's on the level.
According to the Sun-Journal, its been a rough week for Somalis in Maine.
"A lot of anger and hate has been flying around," said Steve Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. In the days after last Thursday's report of a hate incident at Lewiston Middle School involving a ham steak left at a lunch table to insult Somali students, a Sun Journal newspaper forum was so filled with hostility it was shut down.
Wessler said he received hate e-mail and two phone messages in which a man threatened to commit violence against him." The poor guy. What should be done? That is the question that has Pine Tree Staters all a'twitter.
Noted the Sun-Journal; "For years, Catholics suffered prejudice before being accepted." (But, as everybody knows, it is harder to use a ham sandwich to commit a hate crime against a Catholic. He would be just as likely to eat the weapon, destroying the evidence in the process.)
But change is in the works. Last year, a local man named Brent Matthews rolled a pig's head into a local mosque. Last Saturday, perhaps driven to despair by angry falafels, Matthews committed suicide in the local Marsden's parking lot.
As one local, Edward Boucher, told the paper, "Eventually these things work themselves out."
"But does it make it right?" the Sun-Journal quoted Zamzam Mohamud, 32, the mother of one traumatized victim. "Then does it just keep going? Where does it stop? There isn't much of a community if we don't make a change."
And THAT is where the laughter stops.
America's reputation was built around the concept of the Great American Melting Pot. In happier times, new immigrants would come to America to become Americans. The idea was to melt all the various cultures of all the various immigrants into a single, uniquely American culture.
Under that concept, Americans were not required to adopt the culture of its immigrants, but rather, immigrants were expected to adopt the culture of America. What made it a 'community' was that immigrants made 'the change' to conform to the existing culture.
The concept of "multiculturalism" -- the Holy Grail of the liberal Left -- insists that immigrants refuse to assimilate into American culture, forcing immigrants into cultural 'ghettos' where liberal politicians can pander to concentrated special interest lobbies.
One can't win in Florida without the Cuban vote. One can't win in Texas or California without the Mexican vote. One can't win in the Northeast without the black vote, or in New York without the Jewish vote. And one can't win in certain parts of Michigan without the Muslim vote.
So a liberal need only pander to the demands of the various concentrations of minorities to win public office -- from which he can strengthen his base by bashing America as a whole as a collection of hateful xenophobes.
One can't engage in class warfare without some underprivileged class to champion. And the best way to ensure that is to keep immigrants concentrated in ethnic ghettos as exiles from their home countries, rather than as immigrants to the New World.
Zamzan Mahamud's solution was quoteworthy because her solution fits the liberal agenda -- that America that must change its culture to conform to that of its immigrants.
Since America is made up of immigrants from every country in the world, there will always be more changes to demand, more immigrant groups to pander to, and more elections to be won.
Today, the ham sandwich. Tomorrow, Sharia law. Eventually, pictures of Osama bin Laden festooning American cities and towns.
Sound far-fetched? No more so than the fear of Nazis force-feeding bacon to Jewish kids in American concentration camps -- cleverly disguised as middle-schools.
When a ham sandwich is a hate crime, NOTHING is too far-fetched.
nuts in the crosshairs..
i supposed the right is called right for a reason..
---------------------------------
Nuts in the Crosshairs
By Ann Coulter
For cranky right-wingers who think politicians don't listen to them, this week I give you elected Democrats running like scared schoolgirls from the media's demand that they enact new gun control laws in response to the Virginia Tech shooting.
Instead, Democrats are promoting a mental health exception to the right to bear arms. We've banned mass murder and that hasn't seemed to work. So now we're going to ban mass murderers. Yes, that will do the trick!
This is a feel-good measure that is both wildly under-inclusive (the vast majority of nutcases receive no formal court adjudication of their nuttiness) and wildly over-inclusive (the vast majority of nuts don't kill people). The worst thing most nuts do is irritate everybody else by driving their electric cars on the highway.
As lovely as it would be, we cannot identify mass murderers before they have broken any law, and mass murder is often the first serious crime they commit. No one can be locked up permanently for being potentially dangerous.
Even stalking laws can put away a person known to be dangerous for only a few years – at best – which is generally not worth spending a day sitting in court, facing your stalker and then waiting a month for the court order.
So on one hand, the mental health exception is a feel-good measure that would be largely pointless. But on the other hand, it's no skin off my back. Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. And I think we'd all sleep better knowing that David Brock could not buy a gun.
In fact, I think we should expand the mental illness exception to cover First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights.
I note that before mass murder, the only harassment the Virginia Tech killer was guilty of involved speech: creepy e-mails, creepy short stories, creepy phone calls. Stalkers, too, engage in frightening speech – but that is protected. Revealing a stalking victim's address is "speech" but is little different from being the one to pull the trigger.
This small measure would have taken Dan "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" Rather off the airwaves years ago, preventing him from presenting doctored National Guard documents to the American people to try to throw a presidential election. A mental illness bar would deal a quick blow to Air America and both its remaining listeners. It would also free up about 90 percent of the Internet.
And it would end the public lunacy of Jim Wallis, the Democrats' Christian. Wallis' first remark on the massacre at Virginia Tech last week was to hail the remarkable "diversity" of the victims. True, Cho murdered 32 people in cold blood. But at least he achieved diversity!
Anyone who thinks a single-minded fixation on diversity must be the ultimate goal of every human endeavor, including mass murder, is not the sort of person who should be able to buy a gun or to publish his daft ruminations in public forums.
But just to get this straight: Democrats are saying we should be able to jail "strange" or "angry" people, but we can't deplane imams who demand extra-length seatbelts after boarding?
Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the public expressions of shame and contrition from the Korean-American community after the Virginia Tech shooting? Of course, no one blames this exemplary community for the actions of one nut. The Koreans are manifestly law-abiding and decent – nipping at the heels of Italians as the greatest Americans and tied for second with the Cubans.
Indeed, I believe this marks the first time a Korean has killed anyone in the United States, not involving an automobile. Nonetheless, Korean congregations, community groups and the family members themselves are issuing statements of sorrow. Not "pleas for tolerance." But sorrow. Remorse. Remember those? They were big back in the day.
If the Koreans can do it, why can't the Muslims? What explains the lack of a Muslim guilt impulse – so normal, as seen in the case of the saddened Koreans – after dozens of terrorist attacks on Americans?
How about a Muslim exception to the Second Amendment? That would have prevented the Virginia snipers from killing 10 people within three weeks in 2002. But most important: It would help us achieve "diversity" in our gun law prohibitions.
---------------------------------
Nuts in the Crosshairs
By Ann Coulter
For cranky right-wingers who think politicians don't listen to them, this week I give you elected Democrats running like scared schoolgirls from the media's demand that they enact new gun control laws in response to the Virginia Tech shooting.
Instead, Democrats are promoting a mental health exception to the right to bear arms. We've banned mass murder and that hasn't seemed to work. So now we're going to ban mass murderers. Yes, that will do the trick!
This is a feel-good measure that is both wildly under-inclusive (the vast majority of nutcases receive no formal court adjudication of their nuttiness) and wildly over-inclusive (the vast majority of nuts don't kill people). The worst thing most nuts do is irritate everybody else by driving their electric cars on the highway.
As lovely as it would be, we cannot identify mass murderers before they have broken any law, and mass murder is often the first serious crime they commit. No one can be locked up permanently for being potentially dangerous.
Even stalking laws can put away a person known to be dangerous for only a few years – at best – which is generally not worth spending a day sitting in court, facing your stalker and then waiting a month for the court order.
So on one hand, the mental health exception is a feel-good measure that would be largely pointless. But on the other hand, it's no skin off my back. Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. And I think we'd all sleep better knowing that David Brock could not buy a gun.
In fact, I think we should expand the mental illness exception to cover First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights.
I note that before mass murder, the only harassment the Virginia Tech killer was guilty of involved speech: creepy e-mails, creepy short stories, creepy phone calls. Stalkers, too, engage in frightening speech – but that is protected. Revealing a stalking victim's address is "speech" but is little different from being the one to pull the trigger.
This small measure would have taken Dan "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" Rather off the airwaves years ago, preventing him from presenting doctored National Guard documents to the American people to try to throw a presidential election. A mental illness bar would deal a quick blow to Air America and both its remaining listeners. It would also free up about 90 percent of the Internet.
And it would end the public lunacy of Jim Wallis, the Democrats' Christian. Wallis' first remark on the massacre at Virginia Tech last week was to hail the remarkable "diversity" of the victims. True, Cho murdered 32 people in cold blood. But at least he achieved diversity!
Anyone who thinks a single-minded fixation on diversity must be the ultimate goal of every human endeavor, including mass murder, is not the sort of person who should be able to buy a gun or to publish his daft ruminations in public forums.
But just to get this straight: Democrats are saying we should be able to jail "strange" or "angry" people, but we can't deplane imams who demand extra-length seatbelts after boarding?
Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the public expressions of shame and contrition from the Korean-American community after the Virginia Tech shooting? Of course, no one blames this exemplary community for the actions of one nut. The Koreans are manifestly law-abiding and decent – nipping at the heels of Italians as the greatest Americans and tied for second with the Cubans.
Indeed, I believe this marks the first time a Korean has killed anyone in the United States, not involving an automobile. Nonetheless, Korean congregations, community groups and the family members themselves are issuing statements of sorrow. Not "pleas for tolerance." But sorrow. Remorse. Remember those? They were big back in the day.
If the Koreans can do it, why can't the Muslims? What explains the lack of a Muslim guilt impulse – so normal, as seen in the case of the saddened Koreans – after dozens of terrorist attacks on Americans?
How about a Muslim exception to the Second Amendment? That would have prevented the Virginia snipers from killing 10 people within three weeks in 2002. But most important: It would help us achieve "diversity" in our gun law prohibitions.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
eloquence from the president..
bush isn't the best communicator in the world, but his speech at VA Tech was a highlight.. speaking from the heart, he gets it right.
"People who have never met you are praying for you. They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers. Real power. In times like this we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. "
-- President Bush, at Virginia Tech.
"People who have never met you are praying for you. They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers. Real power. In times like this we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. "
-- President Bush, at Virginia Tech.
democratic victory = american defeat
i'm not sold on Giuliani as the candidate for me, but he sure has it right on the war against islamic terror.. since the dems are invested in our defeat - meaning they lose if we win, it's more and more important people point this out. the dems are so out of bounds and out of touch and power mad.. harry reid is focused on senate seats, not what's best for america. pelosi too busy to meet with the general in charge in iraq, but speaks as if she's the expert on the subject..
----------------------------------------
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win
By: Roger Simon
MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.
“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”
“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”
Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.
“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”
Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”
The crowd thundered its approval.
Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.
“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”
----------------------------------------
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win
By: Roger Simon
MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.
“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”
“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”
Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.
“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”
Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”
The crowd thundered its approval.
Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.
“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”
for the gun control crowd..
a reminder for the bleeding heart do-gooders. while you pay for your armed bodyguards and lobby against the constitutional right of citizens to be armed, you once again ignore the facts and push forward with your self absorbed agenda.
----------------------------------------
They Never Learn
By Robert A. Levy
"What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage." So said the New York Times in its predictable but wrongheaded editorial the day after the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Anti-gun advocates, however noble their motives, help create the environment in which horrors like Virginia Tech occur.
Possession and use of guns on the Tech campus violated state-imposed restrictions. But crazed fanatics, undeterred by laws against murder, will not be dissuaded by laws against guns. More such laws will accomplish nothing. Indeed, liberalized laws might have enabled responsible, armed citizens on campus to defend the hapless victims. It took two hours for the killer methodically to massacre 32 people and injure another 15. Why did nobody intervene sooner to stop the killer?
For one possible explanation, consider this report from a Roanoke Times article: A bill, introduced on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, would have given properly licensed public college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus. The bill died on January 30, 2006 in the Virginia General Assembly. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was pleased with the outcome. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." Tell that to the ill-fated victims of April 16 and their families.
The article goes on to relate that most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security on entering campus. The proposed legislation would have eliminated that requirement for anyone who possessed a valid concealed handgun permit. Ironically, Tech's governing board had approved in June 2005 a violence prevention policy reiterating the school's ban on students, employees, or visitors -- even those properly licensed -- from bringing handguns onto campus.
At the Virginia Tech press conference after the slaughter of 32 defenseless people, the university's president cautioned that it wouldn't be possible to have police guard every classroom and dorm. What he omitted was this cold, hard fact: By making the university a "gun free zone," his administration and the state legislature had fostered a climate in which ubiquitous police would be necessary. Without a means to protect themselves, Virginia Tech students, faculty, and other employees were more likely to be victimized by the only people on campus who had readily available guns: killers and lunatics.
Meanwhile, the New York Times, the Brady Center, and the rest of the usual suspects continue their clamor for more gun regulations -- apparently oblivious to the destructive effects of their own proposals. The evidence is clear: more guns in the hands of responsible owners yield lower rates of violent crime. Gun control does not work. It just prevents weaker people from defending themselves against stronger predators.
Here are the numbers, as summarized by legal scholar Don B. Kates: Over the 30-year period from 1974 to 2003, guns in circulation doubled, but murder rates declined by a third. On a state-by-state basis, a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlates with a 4.1 percent lower rate of violent crime. Each year, approximately 460,000 gun crimes are committed in the United States. But guns are also used to ward off gun criminals. Estimates of defensive gun use range from 1.3 million to 2.5 million times per year -- and usually the weapons are merely brandished, not fired. That means defensive uses occur about 3-to-5 times as often as violent gun crimes. Just as important, armed victims who resist gun criminals get injured less frequently than unarmed victims who submit. In more than 8 out of 10 cases where the victim pulls a gun, the criminal turns and flees, even if he's armed. "So much for the quasi-religious faith that more guns mean more murder."
Finally, two federal government agencies recently examined gun control laws and found no statistically significant evidence to support their effectiveness. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books, and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control measures. The researchers could not identify a single gun-control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide, or accidents. A year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on an independent evaluation of firearms and ammunition bans, restrictions on acquisition, waiting periods, registration, licensing, child access prevention laws, and zero tolerance laws. Conclusion: none of the laws had a meaningful impact on gun violence.
When will the gun controllers learn?
----------------------------------------
They Never Learn
By Robert A. Levy
"What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage." So said the New York Times in its predictable but wrongheaded editorial the day after the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Anti-gun advocates, however noble their motives, help create the environment in which horrors like Virginia Tech occur.
Possession and use of guns on the Tech campus violated state-imposed restrictions. But crazed fanatics, undeterred by laws against murder, will not be dissuaded by laws against guns. More such laws will accomplish nothing. Indeed, liberalized laws might have enabled responsible, armed citizens on campus to defend the hapless victims. It took two hours for the killer methodically to massacre 32 people and injure another 15. Why did nobody intervene sooner to stop the killer?
For one possible explanation, consider this report from a Roanoke Times article: A bill, introduced on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, would have given properly licensed public college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus. The bill died on January 30, 2006 in the Virginia General Assembly. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was pleased with the outcome. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." Tell that to the ill-fated victims of April 16 and their families.
The article goes on to relate that most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security on entering campus. The proposed legislation would have eliminated that requirement for anyone who possessed a valid concealed handgun permit. Ironically, Tech's governing board had approved in June 2005 a violence prevention policy reiterating the school's ban on students, employees, or visitors -- even those properly licensed -- from bringing handguns onto campus.
At the Virginia Tech press conference after the slaughter of 32 defenseless people, the university's president cautioned that it wouldn't be possible to have police guard every classroom and dorm. What he omitted was this cold, hard fact: By making the university a "gun free zone," his administration and the state legislature had fostered a climate in which ubiquitous police would be necessary. Without a means to protect themselves, Virginia Tech students, faculty, and other employees were more likely to be victimized by the only people on campus who had readily available guns: killers and lunatics.
Meanwhile, the New York Times, the Brady Center, and the rest of the usual suspects continue their clamor for more gun regulations -- apparently oblivious to the destructive effects of their own proposals. The evidence is clear: more guns in the hands of responsible owners yield lower rates of violent crime. Gun control does not work. It just prevents weaker people from defending themselves against stronger predators.
Here are the numbers, as summarized by legal scholar Don B. Kates: Over the 30-year period from 1974 to 2003, guns in circulation doubled, but murder rates declined by a third. On a state-by-state basis, a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlates with a 4.1 percent lower rate of violent crime. Each year, approximately 460,000 gun crimes are committed in the United States. But guns are also used to ward off gun criminals. Estimates of defensive gun use range from 1.3 million to 2.5 million times per year -- and usually the weapons are merely brandished, not fired. That means defensive uses occur about 3-to-5 times as often as violent gun crimes. Just as important, armed victims who resist gun criminals get injured less frequently than unarmed victims who submit. In more than 8 out of 10 cases where the victim pulls a gun, the criminal turns and flees, even if he's armed. "So much for the quasi-religious faith that more guns mean more murder."
Finally, two federal government agencies recently examined gun control laws and found no statistically significant evidence to support their effectiveness. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books, and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control measures. The researchers could not identify a single gun-control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide, or accidents. A year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on an independent evaluation of firearms and ammunition bans, restrictions on acquisition, waiting periods, registration, licensing, child access prevention laws, and zero tolerance laws. Conclusion: none of the laws had a meaningful impact on gun violence.
When will the gun controllers learn?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
as in the times of Noah..
i felt this was a well written summary of the last week.. it's overwhelming, really. when you stop to think of the constant senseless bloodshed over issues so small, it reminds you that time is short. these are the birth pangs Jesus mentioned in Matthew 24.. and they will increase in frequency and intensity leading up to the rapture of the church.
as a Christian, it's an exciting time to be alive, the promises to generations of people are unfolding before our very eyes. but we are also reminded that we have friends and neighbors who haven't accepted the pardon Christ provides.. and for that, time is short indeed.
------------------------
The Days of Noe
Jack Kinsella
I was watching Glenn Beck's program on CNN the other day. He said something that bothered me when I first heard it, and it bothers me even more today. He mentioned how devastated he had been following the Columbine shooting in 1999.
But then he noted that the Virginia Tech massacre didn't seem to have such a devastating effect on him. Or, it seemed, on most of America. Not because it wasn't as terrible as Columbine-- the VT massacre claimed more than twice as many lives -- but because it isn't as shocking as it used to be.
Shortly after the crazy little whack-job in Virginia (I refuse to honor him by repeating his name -- he's gotten enough publicity) murdered thirty-two students at Virginia Tech, some guy at NASA shot his boss because he thought he might lose his job.
Afterwards, the guy shot himself in the head while the police 'closed in'. (I set that off in quotes because it seems the police no longer 'close in' until AFTER the gunfire stops.
There was a murder/suicide in Woodland, California (that you probably didn't hear about) where a 54 year-old guy shot his 52 year-old girlfriend and then killed himself.
Fifteen hundred miles away, another guy shot his girlfriend to death and then killed himself in Houston. There was another three days ago in Portland, Texas. Two more the next day, one in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and one in Murrieta, California.
In Queens, NY, Jimmie Dawkins killed his mother, her boyfriend and his health care attendant before putting the barrel of his .40 cal pistol in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
Another murder suicide in Michigan the same day also claimed four lives. And yet another; a man in Lake Havasu City, Arizone killed his girlfriend, his baby, and then himself.
This morning, I heard of a truck bomb that went off in Baghdad that killed 25 Iraqi policemen and wounded 125 Iraqi bystanders. Twenty-one members of a religious minority in Mosul, Iraq were dragged off a bus and shot dead, execution style.
In Laguna Beach, a woman and her husband were shot dead during a confrontation with police. At press time, the police weren't sure if they killed the couple, or if it were yet another murder-suicide.
One week's time. Rivers and rivers of blood.
Seriously, how did the news that 32 students were murdered at VT affect you? Or the news of the 125 people maimed by an Iraqi car bomb? Or the 21 Iraqis in Mosul pulled from a bus and executed? What about the litany of murder-suicides across the US in the past seven days that you just read about?
That list is by no means a comprehensive one -- those were just the murder suicide cases that popped up on Google's first page when I queried it. Are you shocked?
I wish that I were, but I am not. Not particularly. I thought about what Glenn Beck said about it on his program, and I realized that the calluses on my soul were even thicker than his.
The last time I can remember being truly shocked was the OKC bombing of the Murrah Building back in 1995. And I was less troubled by that event than I was the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco two years before that.
I was moved by the horror that must have permeated the Waco compound as the flames claimed the lives of 83 men, women and children. By the time of the OKC bombing, the horror was mixed with a sort of clinical detachment.
By the time the Columbine killers went on their rampage, I had already become desensitized to the evil of children murdering children. Eight blood-soaked years later, I realized my first thought at hearing of the VT shootings wasn't horror.
The first thing that came to my mind was the logistics. How did one guy carrying only two pistols manage to kill that many people? It wasn't until I caught Glenn Beck's program that I realized just how scarred my soul has become.
I used to be shocked by evil. My reaction has morphed from, "How could anybody do such a thing?" to "Not again!" to musing about the logistics involved in the commission of mass murder.
When asked of the signs of His return, among the signs Jesus gave was the "sign of Noe." (Noah)
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:37)
"And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26)
Genesis 6:5-6 give us the Lord's perspective on the 'days of Noah':
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
When we aren't confronting actual evil in the form of crazy little gunmen and rivers of blood on our campuses, we seek it out for entertainment. Television and movies can rightly be called "the imagination of thoughts of our hearts" -- indeed, what is a movie if not our imagination brought to life?
And the more violence and sex a movie contains, the more popular it is. No wonder we are so desensitized to evil.
The most popular video games are also the most violent. I confess that enjoy the WWII action games like "Medal of Honor" and "Call of Duty" and even admit to downloading the latest 'blood patch' to make the game even more gory. What in the world is wrong with ME?
"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)
The more acceptable iniquity and sin becomes, the colder our love of righteousness gets.
The Bible teaches that the Tribulation Period is a period set aside for the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world and to effect the national redemption of Israel. But what of the Church?
In the days of Noah, God decided to judge sinful man, but he saved Noah and his family alive out of the flood by making a way of escape via the ark. Jesus said His return would be like the days of Noah. Wickedness, evil and the promise of judgment.
Genesis 6:8 says that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." The Bible also says that the Church is the recipient of God's grace.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2:8)
"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:" (Romans 3:22)
Noah was found righteous in the eyes of the Lord and he was spared the judgment that came upon the whole earth. Later, when God purposed to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy the cities if even five righteous men could be found within.
Only Lot was found righteous, and a way was made for he and his family to escape the judgment that was reserved for the unrighteous.
Of His return, Jesus also said;
"Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30)
The Church, like Noah and Lot, have found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we are clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. God views the imputed righteousness of Christ as being no different than that of Noah or Lot. (Romans 3:22)
God didn't judge Noah for the sins of his neighbors. Neither did He judge Lot for the sins of his neighbors. And since the Church is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, it follows that He will not judge the Church for the sins of a Christ-rejecting world.
I can find no other understanding of these passages that makes logical sense, apart from the promise that the Lord will return for His Church BEFORE the judgment of the Tribulation Period.
If the Church goes through the Tribulation Period, then the Lord's references to Noah and Lot are puzzling. Why refer to the only two historical instances in which God saved the righteous from being included in mass judgment in conjunction with the events that lead up to His second coming?
The only logical answer is that provided by the Apostle Paul:
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1st Thessalonians 4:16-17)
As we wade through rivers of blood, our souls callused over by a constant barrage of unspeakable evil, it seems only logical that either judgment is due this old world, or God owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Bible promises "there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." (2nd Timothy 4:8)
If His appearing comes at the conclusion of seven years of judgment and death for the Church, then "loving His appearing" is an act of spiritual perfection that is unfortunately a bit above my paygrade. If that is to be the case, I'd prefer that He'd tarry.
And Paul's final words about the Lord's return for those who are 'alive and remain' would seem to make little sense.
"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." (1st Thessalonians 4:18)
as a Christian, it's an exciting time to be alive, the promises to generations of people are unfolding before our very eyes. but we are also reminded that we have friends and neighbors who haven't accepted the pardon Christ provides.. and for that, time is short indeed.
------------------------
The Days of Noe
Jack Kinsella
I was watching Glenn Beck's program on CNN the other day. He said something that bothered me when I first heard it, and it bothers me even more today. He mentioned how devastated he had been following the Columbine shooting in 1999.
But then he noted that the Virginia Tech massacre didn't seem to have such a devastating effect on him. Or, it seemed, on most of America. Not because it wasn't as terrible as Columbine-- the VT massacre claimed more than twice as many lives -- but because it isn't as shocking as it used to be.
Shortly after the crazy little whack-job in Virginia (I refuse to honor him by repeating his name -- he's gotten enough publicity) murdered thirty-two students at Virginia Tech, some guy at NASA shot his boss because he thought he might lose his job.
Afterwards, the guy shot himself in the head while the police 'closed in'. (I set that off in quotes because it seems the police no longer 'close in' until AFTER the gunfire stops.
There was a murder/suicide in Woodland, California (that you probably didn't hear about) where a 54 year-old guy shot his 52 year-old girlfriend and then killed himself.
Fifteen hundred miles away, another guy shot his girlfriend to death and then killed himself in Houston. There was another three days ago in Portland, Texas. Two more the next day, one in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and one in Murrieta, California.
In Queens, NY, Jimmie Dawkins killed his mother, her boyfriend and his health care attendant before putting the barrel of his .40 cal pistol in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
Another murder suicide in Michigan the same day also claimed four lives. And yet another; a man in Lake Havasu City, Arizone killed his girlfriend, his baby, and then himself.
This morning, I heard of a truck bomb that went off in Baghdad that killed 25 Iraqi policemen and wounded 125 Iraqi bystanders. Twenty-one members of a religious minority in Mosul, Iraq were dragged off a bus and shot dead, execution style.
In Laguna Beach, a woman and her husband were shot dead during a confrontation with police. At press time, the police weren't sure if they killed the couple, or if it were yet another murder-suicide.
One week's time. Rivers and rivers of blood.
Seriously, how did the news that 32 students were murdered at VT affect you? Or the news of the 125 people maimed by an Iraqi car bomb? Or the 21 Iraqis in Mosul pulled from a bus and executed? What about the litany of murder-suicides across the US in the past seven days that you just read about?
That list is by no means a comprehensive one -- those were just the murder suicide cases that popped up on Google's first page when I queried it. Are you shocked?
I wish that I were, but I am not. Not particularly. I thought about what Glenn Beck said about it on his program, and I realized that the calluses on my soul were even thicker than his.
The last time I can remember being truly shocked was the OKC bombing of the Murrah Building back in 1995. And I was less troubled by that event than I was the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco two years before that.
I was moved by the horror that must have permeated the Waco compound as the flames claimed the lives of 83 men, women and children. By the time of the OKC bombing, the horror was mixed with a sort of clinical detachment.
By the time the Columbine killers went on their rampage, I had already become desensitized to the evil of children murdering children. Eight blood-soaked years later, I realized my first thought at hearing of the VT shootings wasn't horror.
The first thing that came to my mind was the logistics. How did one guy carrying only two pistols manage to kill that many people? It wasn't until I caught Glenn Beck's program that I realized just how scarred my soul has become.
I used to be shocked by evil. My reaction has morphed from, "How could anybody do such a thing?" to "Not again!" to musing about the logistics involved in the commission of mass murder.
When asked of the signs of His return, among the signs Jesus gave was the "sign of Noe." (Noah)
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:37)
"And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26)
Genesis 6:5-6 give us the Lord's perspective on the 'days of Noah':
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
When we aren't confronting actual evil in the form of crazy little gunmen and rivers of blood on our campuses, we seek it out for entertainment. Television and movies can rightly be called "the imagination of thoughts of our hearts" -- indeed, what is a movie if not our imagination brought to life?
And the more violence and sex a movie contains, the more popular it is. No wonder we are so desensitized to evil.
The most popular video games are also the most violent. I confess that enjoy the WWII action games like "Medal of Honor" and "Call of Duty" and even admit to downloading the latest 'blood patch' to make the game even more gory. What in the world is wrong with ME?
"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)
The more acceptable iniquity and sin becomes, the colder our love of righteousness gets.
The Bible teaches that the Tribulation Period is a period set aside for the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world and to effect the national redemption of Israel. But what of the Church?
In the days of Noah, God decided to judge sinful man, but he saved Noah and his family alive out of the flood by making a way of escape via the ark. Jesus said His return would be like the days of Noah. Wickedness, evil and the promise of judgment.
Genesis 6:8 says that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." The Bible also says that the Church is the recipient of God's grace.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2:8)
"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:" (Romans 3:22)
Noah was found righteous in the eyes of the Lord and he was spared the judgment that came upon the whole earth. Later, when God purposed to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy the cities if even five righteous men could be found within.
Only Lot was found righteous, and a way was made for he and his family to escape the judgment that was reserved for the unrighteous.
Of His return, Jesus also said;
"Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30)
The Church, like Noah and Lot, have found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we are clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. God views the imputed righteousness of Christ as being no different than that of Noah or Lot. (Romans 3:22)
God didn't judge Noah for the sins of his neighbors. Neither did He judge Lot for the sins of his neighbors. And since the Church is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, it follows that He will not judge the Church for the sins of a Christ-rejecting world.
I can find no other understanding of these passages that makes logical sense, apart from the promise that the Lord will return for His Church BEFORE the judgment of the Tribulation Period.
If the Church goes through the Tribulation Period, then the Lord's references to Noah and Lot are puzzling. Why refer to the only two historical instances in which God saved the righteous from being included in mass judgment in conjunction with the events that lead up to His second coming?
The only logical answer is that provided by the Apostle Paul:
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1st Thessalonians 4:16-17)
As we wade through rivers of blood, our souls callused over by a constant barrage of unspeakable evil, it seems only logical that either judgment is due this old world, or God owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Bible promises "there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." (2nd Timothy 4:8)
If His appearing comes at the conclusion of seven years of judgment and death for the Church, then "loving His appearing" is an act of spiritual perfection that is unfortunately a bit above my paygrade. If that is to be the case, I'd prefer that He'd tarry.
And Paul's final words about the Lord's return for those who are 'alive and remain' would seem to make little sense.
"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." (1st Thessalonians 4:18)
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