Psalm 19:7-14 (Read the whole Psalm to provide full context)

“7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.”

The Law of the Lord is divine, and final authority. The law of the Lord is so perfect that no man can keep the whole law. If any point is offended in the least, the entirety is broken. The brutal truth is that every man has violated the statutes in ordinance that God has given, your conscience bearing witness against you. It’s why most men won’t read the Holy Bible; it bothers them, and it should. But is that heartless, God pointing to His holiness and your need for Him, or is it merciful?

The law of God is often called a testimony, for its God’s testimony of His righteousness by evidence that we cannot attain unto the perfection that He demands by it. It’s His word to us, that we might finally be made free in Christ Jesus.

We are vile, but the fear of the Lord is clean and, indeed, cleansing. The law binds men over to the damnation of hell for sin. That’s how it saves; it does the necessary first work in our heart, convicting us of our need for a Saviour. For it’s well contended that no man who is not first in necessity will be saved; we’re too prideful and self-centered for that.

Jesus is the master instructor through the Holy Spirit, making the unlearned full of the knowledge of Him and giving wisdom through prayer and Bible study, perhaps with fasting. And He brings low the wise in their own conceit, destroying any who hold to life by other means than salvation through Jesus Christ.

The law makes the simple man wise, in it is the perfect knowledge of God to show us our iniquity, converting the soul of those who, calling upon Jesus Christ in their need, accept that the Lord is correct and that you’ve come short of the glory of God. In studying the law of God, men grow wise to the evil ways of the world, witnessing the power of God, for He is holy. “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” – Psalm 119:130. The law raises men to be ever more desirous of a life with Him. The law teaches men, in all points, the very essence of our nature, full of sin and unrighteousness, with evil thoughts and deeds. Without Christ, there is no fear of God before their eyes. It’s not by the rules, but by your inability to keep the whole law that you learn the work that God does in bringing you to completion; the Spirit of God remakes a man into the image of Christ.

The sanctimonious Christians are a sorry lot. Don’t listen to them; they sin just like you. Only God is perfect. The law was written that it might teach us of our sins, but Jesus Christ came preaching grace and truth. Our defiled, fallen nature under the weight of sin that abounds in the world, in admitting that the statutes of the Lord are convicting to the soul, we come to the knowledge of God’s perfect being; holy, righteous, and just is He.

“8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.”

Most read the law and get angry; it’s pure, convicting the conscience, disturbing the peace of the slumber in blindness to God that all those living in darkness suffer. Some claim they can keep its statutes to bring life. But those who hear the law, dying to self, rejoice that God has made a way to live in His grace and know that works and sacrifices He would not have; a broken and a contrite heart He will not despise.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” – Mark 8:35. The law rejoices the heart because we see a pathway to God through forgiveness in Jesus Christ. The law enlightens the eyes, the best part of which is that each man is taught by God in a peculiar way most fitting for his redemption. A unique and interesting conversion story lives in the resurrected heart of each saved sinner, and every testimony leads to the Christ of God our Saviour.

The law is divine in its quality, authentic to the receiver, constant in nature, and consistent in operation, showing the virtue and permanence of the true religion offered by the one and holy Creator.

If you allow, the law will break you to take the gentle yoke of the Lord Jesus, for He is a gracious and kind Master to all who submit. The fear of the Lord will cleanse the soul of the wicked, turning the vilest evildoer into a man seeking the integrity of God. You can be converted by faith to shine forth, for we are all made in the image of God.

“9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.”

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous; you can’t hide from them, nor can you escape. God is the judge of good and evil; His trials must always find the truth, for He is truth, knows all truth, and nothing can be hidden from His eyes. The law of the LORD is perfect, the statutes of the LORD are straight, and the fear of the LORD is clean. It’s the fear of God that endures forever. When a man’s heart rejects his own corruption, and fears before the Almighty calling upon Christ, this can be the day of salvation so long sought, your soul entering into God’s love.

Believing that Jesus died for your sins, and He was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: and you having a fear of the Almighty through faith in Jesus, your soul can be brought into an allegiance with the Almighty that endures forever, having forgiveness from sin today, and life in heaven forever.

“10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”

The judgments of the Lord are true and amen, better than earthly treasure and sweet on the palette to them that love Him; “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” – Psalm 34:8.

To those who have trusted Christ, in the law are we warned to repent and seek Him always and in all things, for it is He that will never defect nor will He abandon us; treason is not His way; God has never broken a promise. Christ showed us this truth in His own perfect blood. “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” – Hebrews 13:5

Covet not the things of this world as silver, gold, and honey but be content with the love of Jesus Christ. What’s better than forgiveness from transgressions and the removal of the bondage of law through contentedness in Christ Jesus?

“11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. 12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.”

By the law, His servant is warned that keeping faith with Jesus Christ and following His commands produces fruit. It’s nice to know that God provides all, but the rewards are His, for all things, good and right and holy, including the soul of the converted, will be gathered together in Christ, and He will glorify the Father. Seeing your errors, seek God for the cleansing of your soul in the blood of Christ, who is faithful to forgive you once for all; go and sin no more.

“13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.”

The error of our way is that of sin leading to eternal death, none more damaging than those done in secret. That hidden in darkness will be brought to light; God sees your sin, and nothing is disguised from His eyes. And the lawlessness made in presumption, as though you alone declare right from wrong, are the sins of self-righteousness. You are a sinner; God is righteous; His law, His word, and His command are perfect. No man can attain by his own doing; you need the love of God and forgiveness for your sin found only in Jesus Christ. Then will you have a life lived in service of the good for Him, upright, not guilty in the day of great judgment.

The depth of your offenses can’t withhold the enormity of compassion and pardon of God, who loves you. No sin is bigger than God’s grace! Jesus tasted death for every man that you might find mercy by the grace of His eternal gift, which is life everlasting with God Almighty.

The Lord is my strength and my Redeemer.

Confess to Christ that you’re a sinner, and seek, with a contrite spirit, His redemption by faith in the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. Let the words of your mouth and the confession of your soul to God be your meditation unto salvation. God raised Christ from the dead; no deadness of heart and soul cannot be forgiven and raised by Him to new life. Call upon His holy name, come earnestly into the throneroom of His mercy seeking to be made a son of God.

Jesus is the Redeemer; finally, turn yourself to God, asking for salvation. The law of God has found you guilty but points to your redemption in the love of Jesus Christ, which will make you whole.

“14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”

Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

Merry Christmas from me and my family to yours.

He does a nice review of the gun, including reasons for owning one.  I consider the .22 magnum round to be a legitimate self defense round for bipeds, perhaps not for the bush.

There is another reason – in most states, you must dispatch deer with a .22 rimfire pistol, and nothing larger.  This meets the requirement.

Here’s another helpful handgun drill as provided by handgun law us.

Three Target Test,  Ken Hackathorn

I have a simple test I run when checking new trainees or operators. I place three NRA five-yard bullseye centers up at 10 yards. I ask the student to fire six rounds at the first target slow fire, about 2.5 minutes normally). Next I ask them to fire six rounds at the second bullseye in 10 seconds, and finally six rounds at the third in five seconds.

Each string starts with the handgun in hand, at the ready. This is done with both hands on the gun in whatever grip or stance the student prefers. If the student cannot shoot a good slow fire group on the first target, with plenty of time for using good sight alignment and precise trigger control– guess what? The second and third targets are pretty sad.

My key point is that if you cannot fire an accurate group at 10 yards taking your time, you will be in big trouble if you ever expect to do anything well using marksmanship as a goal. Simply put, you had better learn the basics before you plan on being anything serious with a handgun.

This is excellent. I always point out that starting slow and attaining the objective is the first goal. Once rounds are on target to a satisfactory degree, then, and only then, do we increase the rapidity of the training. Don’t drill faster than you can productively hit the target because it’s a waste of time and ammo, teaching inadequate skills. This is especially important in practicing smoothly drawing your weapon to put rounds on target.

Bluff: It doesn’t exist because men are sinners. We know your time is precious. This video is well worth your study.

Here’s a thumbnail of the video as I reviewed it: You must, and you will have a government; however authoritarian or individual, all groups have governing norms by which they operate to achieve common objectives. There are only two government forms; That given by God or one of the many that man has created. The great thing about God’s law-word and His Kingdom is it’s fully scalable from the individual to family, small business, church group, or team. And God’s law-word, as well taught in the video, is the best source to begin building an autonomous parallel trade and governance system, not only within your group but among otherwise separate Christian groups.

This is an important study for Christians and extends to those who don’t consider themselves Christians but already have mutually overlapping connections, agreements, and goals with Christ’s people. Watch the whole thing.

Here at TCJ, we’ve taught the principles Pastor Weaver outlines, but we refer to a national or American Christian perspective.

Source.

New Jersey’s state Senate narrowly passed a new concealed carry gun control legislation Monday, with one Democratic lawmaker joining Republicans in saying it is unconstitutional, according to NJ.com.

The bill would require gun owners who seek a concealed carry permit to purchase liability insurance and take training courses, while also increasing permit fees and restricting guns in “sensitive places” like schools, public parks, courthouses, bars and private property, according to the legislation. The bill received bipartisan criticism, with Republican state Sen. Michael Testa calling the bill “absolutely wrong” and Democratic state Sen. Nicholas Sacco saying it is unconstitutional and will face legal challenges, according to NJ.com.

Litigated it certainly will be.  The liability insurance is simply a way of punishing gun owners.  How do we know that?

It’s simple.  If one is deemed innocent, he will be exonerated in court even if he has to pay for legal expenses.  The NJ senate doesn’t care about this expense and they aren’t demanding that gun owners be prepared to legally defend themselves.

If he’s guilty of a crime, insurance won’t pay anything.  Insurance doesn’t cover what’s termed “torts with intention,” or “intentional acts of liability,” which it will judged to be if the gun owner is found guilty of a crime.

So this is just a way to punish gun owners, while lining the pockets of insurance company executives.

Responding to Bruen, the jerks in New Jersey passed yet another gun control bill.

If you live in New Jersey – why?

I had never really thought of bolt throw in the practical terms he discusses it, i.e., interference with scopes and mounts.  That seems to be basically the only reason it really matters unless you’re really into the mechanics of bolt lugs and how they fit up.  Let me know in the comments if you disagree.

For the record, I could listen to Ryan Muckenhirn discuss tying his shoe for an hour and it would be interesting to me.  But even more interesting would be to get an invitation to a hunt with him.  Any kind of hunt – pronghorn, upland birds, anything.

At All Outdoor they have published a list of reading materials, which is necessary for me at least.  It’ll be a good way to spend a rainy day or four.  The Ham Radio Guide: UV-5R Basic Ham Radio Setup.  It lists four articles on this subject.

• Part 1: Intro to Ham Radio and FAQs
• Part 2: Basic Radio (you’re here!)
• Part 3: Navigating the UV-5R Menu
• Part 4: Basic Radio Programming (Frequencies and Channels)
• Part 5: Advanced Programming (Repeaters and Tones)

It looks fairly comprehensive, and combined with the various videos I have sent to myself, this should keep my busy for a while.

Cowboy State Daily.

A retired Canadian fish and wildlife agent has voiced concern that black bears are “hunting” humans more frequently in Alberta, but that’s not a big concern in Wyoming, some biologists said.

Veteran wildlife agent Murray Bates says he’s noticed a disturbing shift in the pattern of black bear behavior over the course of his 34-year career.

“Grizzlies were protecting their territory, young and food, but certainly, on occasion, killing a human,” he said. “The key word here is hunt. During my tenure I was starting to notice a shift in black bears attacking humans and grizzlies maintaining traditional patterns of attack or kill.

“The records and experts may state otherwise, but I found myself investigating more complaints of black bears tracking humans as prey, then killing and feeding on them,” Bates added.

[ … ]

“I would still rather encounter a predatory black bear than being involved in a surprise encounter with a grizzly bear at a carcass; time is not on your side in the latter whereas with a proper response a predatory black bear can be deterred (first choice is bear spray, followed by standing your ground and fighting with rocks, sticks, and etc.),” he said.

I’m not surprised.  When hunting is discouraged and guns are outlawed, the predators will roam free to do what they want.

Suck it up, Canadians.  There’s more to come with the impending laws against basically any firearm, including hunting with bolt action rifles.  Get used to it, change your government, or carry non-permissively.

And as for his advice to “stand your ground,” that’s not even done in America without a weapon.  The whole notion is legalization of the use of weapons in stand your ground cases rather than having a duty to retreat.

It’s probably not a big concern for Wyoming because they carry guns.

Surprising no one, The New York Times published one of the most insulting commentaries I’ve ever witnessed, directed mainly at Christian gun owners.  It’s a guest commentary written by Peter Manseau, who claims to have published elsewhere, but I’ve never read any of this books, nor will I considering the lack of scholarship displayed here.  We’ll start, lift some commentary out, and I’ll make remarks along the way.

Is our gun problem a God problem?

The AR-15-style rifle used in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month was made by an arms manufacturer that regards selling weapons as part of its Christian mission. In a state where Gov. Greg Abbott declared, six months after an earlier massacre, “The problem is not guns; it’s hearts without God,” the gun’s provenance challenged pious suggestions that declining religiosity might bear some of the blame.

That this paragraph made it through editing is amazing.  Provenance is “the chronology of ownership, custody or location of a historical object.”  In the following paragraphs he takes aim at Daniel Defense and the religious beliefs of Marty Daniel, but no editor worth his salt would have let this paragraph go unmodified.  Presumably the writer is trying to link Daniel’s views with the gun he built, but that case cannot possibly be demonstrated.  I know plenty of irreligious men who own AR-15s, and many more who work on them.

Daniel Defense, the Georgia company whose gun enabled the slaughter at Robb Elementary School, presents its corporate identity in explicitly religious terms. At the time of the shooting, the company’s social media presence included an image of a toddler with a rifle in his lap above the text of Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it”). For Easter, it posted a photograph of a gun and a cross resting on scriptural passages recounting the Resurrection.

So Marty Daniel is a Christian.  What of it?  What does that bring to bear on the case he’s trying to prove?

While some might suggest a Christian firearms company is a contradiction in terms, Daniel Defense is hardly alone. According to a Public Religion Research Institute study, evangelicals have a higher rate of gun ownership than other religious groups. Across the country, they account for a significant share not only of the demand but of the supply.

So now the writer has expanded the sweep of his analysis and is targeting all evangelicals.

In Florida, Spike’s Tactical (“the finest AR-15s on the planet”) makes a line of Crusader weapons adorned with a quote from the Psalms. Missouri-based CMMG (“the leading manufacturer of AR15 rifles, components and small parts”) advertises its employees’ “commitment to meet each and every morning to pray for God’s wisdom in managing the enormous responsibility that comes with this business.” And in Colorado, Cornerstone Arms explains that it is so named because “Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our business, our family and our lives” and the “Second Amendment to our Constitution is the cornerstone of the freedom we enjoy as American citizens.”

For many American Christians, Jesus, guns and the Constitution are stitched together as durably as a Kevlar vest.

“We are in business, we believe, to be a supporter of the Gospel,” Daniel Defense’s founder, Marty Daniel, told Breitbart News in 2017. “And, therefore, a supporter of the Second Amendment.”

He is on the outside looking in.  Most of my readers would say that the constitution (and thus the 2A) only matters the extent to which is comports with Biblical law.  The foundation of our rights is to be found in the Holy Writ, and our philosophical pre-commitments are to the Lord of the universe and His law, not a piece of paper.  The piece of paper is a covenant and contract, null and void upon unfaithfulness.  You don’t have to be a Christian to understand my point of logic.  If the writer is targeting Christians, he’s gotten it exactly backwards.  The constitution isn’t infallible and wasn’t written by God.  Christians don’t turn to the constitution to ascertain rightness and wrongness in their lives.

Entwining faith and firearms this way has a long history. It encompasses the so-called muscular Christianity movement that began in England in the 19th century with a focus on physical fitness as a path to spiritual strength and that in America made exemplars of pastors roaming the frontier armed with Bibles and six-shooters.

More than a hundred years ago, this trope was already so well established that a popular silent western from 1912, “The Two Gun Sermon,” told the story of a minister assigned to a rough-and-tumble outpost; when ruffians menace him, he holds them at gunpoint until they listen to him preach. The film’s message is one with which 21st-century Christian gun enthusiasts would probably agree: Sometimes guns are necessary for the Lord’s work.

It is easy to miss, but this melding of evangelism and the right to bear arms is a step beyond the “natural rights” argument for gun ownership, which holds that self-defense is a law of nature required to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights are often said to be God-given in the sense of being taken for granted, and they are enshrined as such in the Declaration of Independence. As interpreted by many evangelicals, the distant deistic “creator” Thomas Jefferson credited with endowing such rights has become a specific, biblical deity who apparently takes an active interest in the availability of assault rifles.

He has now turned to an irrelevant English movement and a movie to prove his point.  But here he misses so badly that it’s going to take a few moments to sus this out.

If he was a scholar he would have first turned to OT law, where the right of being armed is founded in the Pentateuch.  As I’ve observed so many times before, John Calvin discusses this aspect of the ten commandments and makes it clear that defense of life is not only allowed, but required as a good work by the Godly man.

We do not need to prove that when a good thing is commanded, the evil thing that conflicts with it is forbidden.  There is no one who doesn’t concede this.  That the opposite duties are enjoined when evil things are forbidden will also be willingly admitted in common judgment.  Indeed, it is commonplace that when virtues are commended, their opposing vices are condemned.  But we demand something more than what these phrases commonly signify.  For by the virtue of contrary to the vice, men usually mean abstinence from that vice.  We say that the virtue goes beyond this to contrary duties and deeds.  Therefore in this commandment, “You shall not kill,” men’s common sense will see only that we must abstain from wronging anyone or desiring to do so.  Besides this, it contains, I say, the requirement that we give our neighbor’s life all the help we can … the purpose of the commandment always discloses to us whatever it there enjoins or forbids us to do” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter viii, Part 9).

Calvin has here expressed the Biblical position.  “Thou shall not kill” also means “Thou shall protect life.”  This is of course at least partially why Jesus himself commanded his disciples to sell their robes and buy a sword.  He won’t have His followers being defenseless against the onslaught of ne’er-do-wells.  Any loss of life, trials or tribulations, will be by His hand, in His timing, for purposes that He knows, not by anyone else.

But here it’s important not to miss one of the main points of the command in Luke 22:36 like so many do.  Quite literally, He is commanding the purchase of weapons in spite of strictures against ownership and carry of said weapons at the time.  He is commanding His followers to be law-breakers for the sake of self defense.

… for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons ‘beyond those customary for hunting or for a journey by land or sea’ is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man ‘of full age’ appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen 1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed while in public in Rome, see Cicero’s letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city: To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (§17). Finally we may cite a letter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce. The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926).

Jesus knew the law, and the potential legal troubles He was exposing His disciples to by issuing this command, and yet, that didn’t stop Him.  So going back to the law of Moses, to the command of Christ, and then on to the Crusades which were primarily defensive in nature, the history of armed self defense isn’t traced back to an English movement a few years ago or a silly movie.  It’s in the very nature of the beliefs.

But then the writer can’t stop at merely misunderstanding the subject he purports to analyze.  He then decides to expand his (ill-fated) analysis to insults.  “As interpreted by many evangelicals, the distant deistic “creator” Thomas Jefferson credited with endowing such rights has become a specific, biblical deity who apparently takes an active interest in the availability of assault rifles.”

Christianity has always been about a specific, living being who loves us and redeems us and commands us, not about a distant deity who once interacted with His creation.  If he means that the second amendment would have been written differently if Jefferson was not a deist, that point is unproven at best and misguided and simply historically incorrect at worst.  Jefferson wasn’t responsible for the second amendment.  Maddison wrote the text, but the entirety of the colonies insisted on it, most of the Southern colonies being Presbyterian.  It’s too much to discuss in the present context, but in English circles they knew the basis for the war of independence and called it “The Presbyterian Rebellion.”

Why does this subtle shift in the meaning of “God given” matter? It’s important to understand that for the manufacturer of the Uvalde killer’s rifle, and many others in the business, selling weapons is at once a patriotic and a religious act. For those who hold them to be sacred in this way, the meaning of firearms proceeds from their place at the intersection of American and Christian identities. Proposing limits on what kinds of guns they should be able to buy — or how, when, where and why they can carry them — is akin to proposing limits on who they are and what they should revere.

He’s just making things up now.  Ownership and bearing of arms, if a God-given right, doesn’t depend in the least on where one lives or what system of government obtains.  It didn’t in the case of the Armenian Christians who were slaughtered in the deserts of Turkey by the Muslims, it didn’t to the Christians targeted by Idi Amin of Uganda, and it didn’t to the Russians and Ukrainians starved by Stalin.  He wants a scary boogieman to blame, but the intersection of Christians and America has nothing to do with it except in his imagination.

Since then, despite being debunked by data showing that firearms are more likely to injure their owners or their owners’ families than safeguard them, the protection offered by good guys with guns has emerged as an article of faith, supported with anecdotal evidence passed around like legends of the saints.

I vow never to use that word, debunked.  It has become the wordy-word of progressives trying to prove something wrong and who have run out of ideas.  Guns are only unsafe to those who do not treat them with respect and obey all the rules of gun safety.

As the historian Daniel K. Williams has noted, “Gun rights advocacy is not an intrinsic feature of every brand of evangelicalism.” While recent surveys find that four in 10 white evangelicals own guns, the majority do not, and other denominational affiliations offer examples of religious participation discouraging a fixation on firearms. It is possible that the less one sees oneself as an itinerant loner in a hostile world, like the armed preacher in a silent western, the less one is likely to look to guns as a source of salvation.

Nonetheless, the ways Christian ideas may be contributing to a gun culture that abets our epidemic of mass shootings by helping to keep the nation well armed should inspire reflection. None of the recent mass shootings had explicitly religious motivations, but the religious contexts of our seemingly eternal problem with gun violence — its history, its theology, its myths — are too important to ignore.

Mass shootings are, in a way, assaults on the idea of community itself. They occur where there are people gathered — for entertainment, for learning, for shopping, for worship — in the spaces we create together. Some believe that such attacks are the fault of armed individuals alone and can be addressed only through armed individual response. Others believe they occur within the framework of what we collectively allow and must have communal solutions.

After blaming Christians for mass shootings, he has finally, at long last, divulged his own philosophical pre-commitments, or religion.  He is a collectivist, and says that the solutions to problems are to be found in the collective.

What he doesn’t mention is that in the twentieth century alone there were over 212,000,000 mass murders by governments across the globe.  The writer doesn’t explain how his collectivist solutions would be better than ours, nor do I believe he can.

The New York Times has paid for another loser commentary that wanders and fails to stay on point, refuses to interact with the real scholarship of its intended target, insults a large constituency of Americans, and considers neither the history of the subject nor the failures of its own solutions.

Is it any wonder that they’re constantly begging for money?