Foodforthethinkers's Blog

By Doug Newman – email me here.
Here I am on Facebook.
If you would like to publish this elsewhere, please just link to this URL as I update my articles somewhat frequently. Thanks!

Posted at A Call to Paul and Freedom4um.

• SPECIAL THANKS to David J. Bier for providing this list of Trump’s various positions over the last year.
• The 2012 edition of this article.

“Pretend with me that you’re an old German on your deathbed today. Would you rather tell your grandchildren, ‘I voted for the Nazis because they seemed better than the Communists and no other party could win’? Wouldn’t you rather be able to rise up and say, ‘I publicly denounced the Nazis and the Communists? We were a minority – 1 or 2 percent – but we stood up for the truth and we were right! We proved not all Germans were mindless torchbearers for tyranny! We were ridiculed, we were beaten and jailed, but we saved this nation’s soul. Now children, go and live your lives in a way to make me proud’?” – Vin Suprynowicz

“When Christians entangle themselves with the kingdoms of the world, they become worldly in the very worst way.” — Pastor Gregory Boyd

“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” – Galatians 4:16

In every election, American Christians are told that they have a duty to vote for the lesser of two electable evils. The election of 2016 is no different.

There is nothing Christian whatsoever about this way of thinking.

Christians are not to choose between evils:

• “Abhor that which is evil” – Romans 12:9
• “Abstain from all appearance of evil” – I Thessalonians 5:22
• “Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity” – Psalm 141:4
• “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil” – Proverbs 8:13
• “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” – Ephesians 5:11
• “Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil has not seen God.” – III John 2

But what if the only electable candidates are evil? Christians are not to do things just because the majority of the secular world does them.

• “Be not conformed to this world” – Romans 12:2
• “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” – Exodus 23:2
• “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” – Revelation 18:4

A few historical thoughts:

• In Germany, in 1933, the two most “electable” parties were the Nazis and the Communists. For which of these did German Christians have a “duty” to vote?
• In its first few centuries, Christianity was an outlaw religion and Christians were ruthlessly persecuted. Did they take sides in Rome’s politics? Did they get their undies in a bunch over every last secular political squabble? Did they hire attorneys from the Roman Center for Law and Justice every time some petty functionary said they couldn’t pray? No! They forged ahead and lived out their faith in defiance of Roman law. And by relentlessly exhibiting the “fruit of the Spirit”, they spread the Gospel far and wide and Rome eventually fell.
• While not all of the Founders were Christians, many were. Instead of taking sides in British politics, they appealed again and again for King George III to cease and desist from evil.  And when they had finally had enough, they said, far more eloquently than I ever will, “We don’t think so.” They then separated from Britain.

Jesus said that we shall know people “by their fruits“. Donald Trump’s spiritual condition is ultimately, as always, between him and God. However, the fruit on the Trump tree is that of a full frontal moral reprobate. Christians are supposed to be salt in a world of decay. How do you expect to fight moral rot by electing someone who:

• Is an adulterer.
• Brags about his sexual conquests.
• Is a warmongering draft dodger who calls sleeping around and risking STDs his “personal Vietnam“.
• Took several draft deferments, yet says he “always wanted a Purple Heart“.
• Owns a strip club.
• Belittles disabled people.
• Calls his opponents [female reproductive orefices] and compares them to child molesters.
• Calls women disgusting names and talks about them like so many slabs of meat.
• Tells Howard Stern that it is OK to refer to his daughter as a “piece of a**”.
• Brags about groping the genitals of married women – warning: filthy language.
• Is a first rate scam artist who paid Florida’s attorney general $25,000 to refrain from prosecuting him over said scam.
• Abused eminent domain.
• Is the “ultimate crony capitalist”.
• Earned millions from his bankrupt casino ventures in Atlantic City.
• Foams at the mouth against illegal immigration from Mexico, yet hired hundreds of illegal Polish immigrants to build Trump Tower in Manhattan.
• And, yes, failure is part of success. However, consider the toll that Trump’s failures have taken on ordinary people.
• Made a deal with future New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to walk away from $30 million in tax debt.
• Says he could shoot someone in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue and not lose supporters.
• Proclaims that the Colorado Springs fire department is totally incompetent shortly after they rescue him from a broken elevator.
• Absolutely HAS to talk about the size of his, well, you know, in a presidential debate.
• Totally disrespects families of soldiers killed in battle.
• Fought to ban disabled veterans from making a meager living as street vendors in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan.
• Falsely claims he saw thousands of New Jersey Muslims dancing in the streets celebrating the 9/11 attacks.
• Kicks a woman with a crying baby out of a rally.
• Lies repeatedly under oath.
• Has been a party to 3500 lawsuits.
• Tells supporters to “knock the crap” out of protestors and offering to pay any related legal fees.
• Repeatedly advocates violence against protesters.
• Did business with an Iranian bank linked to terror.
• Ejects people from a rally for holding up copies of the Constitution.
• Leaks top secret information … isn’t that one of you-know-who’s crimes?
• Tries to joke about assassinating political opponents.
• Forbids certain campaign volunteers from ever in the future publicly disparaging himself, any of his companies, any of his family members or any of his family member’ companies. Here is the agreement they must sign – see the “disparagement” clause.
• Uses a murder in Chicago to promote his candidacy.
• Provides a totally bogus medical report that was written in 5 minutes.
• Went forever without paying taxes, and then expects us to believe that he will “fix” a tax code that allowed him to benefit so handsomely.
• Tells his supporters to watch porn.
• Appeared in a Playboy video.
• Called for the cancellation of Saturday Night Live after they did a parody of his debate with Hillary.
• Threatened to sue the New York Times for publishing an article claiming he made unwanted sexual advances.
• Warned that his supporters could riot if he did not secure the Republican nomination.
• Falsely claims that Ford will fire all its American employees as part of a plan to build a plant in Mexico.
• Claims he opposed the Iraq war in 2002 when, in fact, he supported it.
• Has been gratuitously cruel to so many people in his life.
• Has a December 13 court date as he has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl.
• Is so biblically clueless that he thinks that winning the presidency “is maybe the only way (he’s) going to get into heaven“.
• Exhibits zero evidence of any Christian influence on his life.
• Is so biblically illiterate that he says “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians”.
• Sees no need to repent of wrongdoing.

As this one blogger so eloquently puts it: “By saying the irresponsible, mean-spirited, ignorant things you say so freely and so frequently, you’ve given other like-minded people license to do the same. You’ve opened up the floodgates for our corporate sewage to flow fully. People no longer conceal their vile mess, they now revel in it, they broadcast it and retweet it.”

Yes, I know that God often uses imperfect people as part of His Plan. He let Obama become president and He just may well let Hillary become president. However, he does not require that Christians support such people.

However, over 75 percent of white evangelical Christians plan on voting for Donald Trump for president.

As if his personal history weren’t vile enough, here are several of his political positions over time:

• Building a wall on the Mexican border and forcing Mexico to pay for it. Such a wall could also very easily be used to keep the American people from leaving. (Why wouldn’t he also build a wall on the Canadian border?)
• Deporting 11 million illegal aliens – thus creating a total domestic police state – and creating a special “deportation force”. (And within a few days of “softening” this stance he vowed to “deport criminal immigrants … within one hour” of assuming the office of president.)
• Donating money to Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
• Printing money – Weimar-style – to pay off the national debt.
• Saying “I am the king of debt. I love debt.” Indeed, his various business enterprises are $650 million in debt.
• Adding to our $20 trillion debt.
• Support for bank bailouts, auto bailouts and stimulus packages.
• Spending twice as much as Hillary on his own economic stimulus package.
• A trillion dollar infrastructure rebuilding package.
• Support for “nearly all of Obama’s economic policy agenda.”
• A 35 percent tariff on cars made in Mexico.
• Single-payer healthcare.
• Continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
• Doing things that were previously “unthinkable” to spy on Muslims.
• Shooting soldiers who desert.
• Prolonging the war in Afghanistan.
• “Bomb(ing) the s**t” out of Syria.
• Closing Mosques in the US.
• Creating a database for Muslims.
• Bypassing the courts on his deportation plan.
• Continuing with warrantless surveillance and metadata collection.
• Banning all Muslim travel to the US.
• Shutting down “parts” of the internet.
• Issuing an executive order mandating the death penalty for killing police.
• Calling for the death penalty for 5 teenagers who were later acquitted of rape.
• A 45 percent tariff on Chinese products.
• Throwing Bowe Bergdahl out of a plane over Afghanistan.
• Using eminent domain to benefit private sector businesses.
• Imposing a special tax on Carrier air conditioners made in Mexico.
• Forcing Apple to hack into iPhones to help the FBI.
• Keeping the Obamacare individual mandate.
• Calling for six weeks’ paid maternity leave.
• Appearing envious that Saddam Hussein could kill terror suspects without due process.
• Criticizing Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev for not being “firm enough” and praising the Communist Chinese government for putting the Tienanmen Square protests down “with strength.”
• Contradicting himself when challenged on minimum wage increases. And then flip-flopping again.
• Barring people on the secret watch lists from buying guns.
• Continuing the vile practice of sexual molestation as a condition of travel.
• Praising “stop and frisk” searches by the New York police.
• Calling for a nationwide “stop and frisk” program.
• Proposing on-the-spot gun confiscation.
• Proposing that guns be taken away from “bad people”. Just who gets to decide who is “bad” and what are the specific criteria?
• Praising the mass executions of captured soldiers with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood – something that never happened.
• Starting trade wars with Mexico and China.
• Tweeting a donor to one of his opponents that they “better be careful.”
• “Opening up” libel laws to make it easier to sue journalists critical of his administration.
• Forcing Apple to make their products in the US.
• Forcing sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines to follow illegal orders.
• Letting illegal immigrants serve in the military, even though he wants to deport them en masse.
• Prosecuting Edward Snowden.
• Stealing Iraq’s oil.
• Bombing Iran and talking its oil.
• Trying American citizens accused of terrorism in military tribunals at Guantanamo.
• Immediately blaming terrorists for the Egyptian airliner crash.
• Killing terrorists’ family members.
• Threatening a judge who is prosecuting a case against him.
• “Pausing” legal immigration.
• Sending 20,000-plus more troops to the Middle East.
• Putting women in combat.
• Praising Vladimir Putin for having “great control over his country”.
• Not ruling out a nuclear first strike.
• Waterboarding and otherwise torturing terror suspects.
• Increasing taxes.
• Greater police presence in black neighborhoods.
• Reneging on tax cut promises.
• Personally calling the CEOs of Pfizer, Carrier, Ford and Nabisco and threatening them with a 35 percent tariff.
• “Going after” Amazon.
• Bombing Libya.
• Loving war … being unpredictable on foreign policy … and knowing more about ISIS than the generals.
• Threatening the PGA after moving golf tournament from his Florida resort to Mexico.
• Banning all immigration from countries with a history of terrorism.
• Biometric tracking of immigrants … why would Uncle Sam stop with immigrants?
• Blaming American gun laws for helping arm Mexican drug cartels.
• Proposing surveillance of mosques.
• Imprisoning people who don’t rat out their neighbors.
• Continuing membership in the  U.N. as well as perpetual war all over the planet..
• Envisioning the Republican Party as a “workers’ party”. Does this mean something like the British Labour Party or the National Socialist German … well, you know?
• Giving military equipment to local police departments.
• Showing absolutely zero regard for the Constitution. Does anyone seriously think he will “pick better judges” than Hillary?
• Calling on Russia to hack Hillary’s emails. If Hillary’s today, then why not yours someday?
• Excluding Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, from the debates. What? Can’t the businessman handle competition?
• Presuming defendants guilty and ridiculing due process.
• Promoting a very deceptive student loan forgiveness plan.
• Changing his position so many times on so many issues that you have no idea what he will do from one day to the next. And here are two more videos full of Trump contradictions.
• Reportedly asking 3 times in a national security briefing “If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them?” And do you want anyone this mentally unstable having his finger on The Button?
• Giving 5 different opinions on abortion in 3 days.
• Saying his radically pro-partial birth abortion sister, who is currently a federal judge, would be a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice.
• Saying he will “absolutely support” Hillary Clinton if she is elected president.

And then there was Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, in which he said, among other things:

• “I am not going to let companies move to other countries … without consequences.” What would that look like in real life other than a whole new level of economic nanomanagement?
• “The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.” How’s that going to happen. Martial law, perhaps? Fighting crime – which, by the way, has fallen in half since 1995 – has always been the duty of state and local authorities. Your local cops cannot prevent someone from holding up a liquor store, so how can one man in one office keep 320 million of us safe?
• “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” This is not the language of a president of a constitutional republic, but rather of an aspiring dictator.

It has been said that supporting Trump because you are angry at the political status quo is like sleeping with a crack whore because you are angry at your wife. It is an exercise in total recklessness.

If you think that the future of this country hinges on putting one person in one office, or keeping another person from holding that office, you are not thinking like an American and you are certainly not thinking like a Christian. If anything, you are thinking like a North Korean.

But he’s not Hillary. Is it humanly possible to set the moral bar any lower? Indeed, this is not a moral standard whatsoever, but rather a total rejection of morality that deems anything permissible as long as “he’s not Hillary”. In 1980, it was “he’s not Jimmy Carter.” In 2016, it is “he’s not Hillary”. In the future it will be “he’s not ______”, with ______ being worse than Hillary.

And if you still don’t get it – and I don’t say this for the wrong reason – go back and read this article again. If you can’t see beyond Trump vs. Hillary, you have absolutely zero discernment. You are being played like a piano. You are not required to choose between arsenic and cyanide when numerous alternatives exist.

Being in total denial about your candidate’s past is not just a liberal’s disease.

If Charles Manson were the GOP nominee, I have zero doubt that millions of professing Christians would rationalize away their support for him  by pointing out the Clinton body count and saying things like “but he was only responsible for seven murders”.

In Acts 1:6-8, the Apostles asked Jesus, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” They wanted Him to restore Israel as a political state and throw off the shackles of Roman oppression. Instead Jesus called on them to preach the Gospel throughout the world. He knew that people needed a Savior far more than they needed a change in political regimes.

The Bible contains the word “king” almost 2000 times. Hence, Christians are to be mindful of worldly political matters. However, our ultimate call as Christians is to build Christ’s Kingdom. When we yoke ourselves unequally with a party or candidate because we are so frantic and desperate to put someone in political office or to keep someone else out of office, we exhibit the worst form of worldliness.

Source: KingJamesBibleOnline.org

If you like the “lesser evil” why don’t you love the greater evil? If you vote for evil again and again, you have zero business complaining about the evil that is so rampant in our world. If you vote for evil again and again – and call it good – you only enable the greater evil. If you vote for evil again and again, you just scream from the mountain tops that evil is what you want. Why wouldn’t God give you evil, and give it to you good and hard?

Is evil what Christians should promote? Is promoting evil Christlike? Can promoting evil bring about good? Does promoting evil reflect the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Shall we trade our birthright for so much political pottage? What shall it profit us if we gain the White House and lose our souls?

As Christians, our call is to serve from the bottom up rather than rule from the top down. We need to remember that our citizenship is in heaven and that our True King rules over a Kingdom that is “not of this world.” More than anything else, we need to look long and hard in the mirror, examine our own sins and hit our knees in repentance – I need to do this more than anybody.

We Christians need to place our faith in God, not politicians. And we need to fear God’s Judgment far more than we fear Hillary.

PRESIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVES EXIST:

• Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party
• Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party
• Jill Stein of the Green Party
• LEAVING IT BLANK. IT IS NEITHER A CRIME NOR A SIN TO NOT VOTE.

And look outside the duopoly at the state and local level as well! There are many great candidates. And if you do nothing else, vote “yay” or “nay” on any ballot initiatives.

Still not convinced?

• Read these 10 reasons why a Christian shouldn’t support Trump.
• What shall it profit the American church if we help elect Trump, but lose sight of our True Mission as Christians?
• And about the whole “we’re electing a president, not a pastor” thing.
• Trumps Follies
• Reconsidering My Opposition to Trump.
• Trump’s “burn it all down” approach is in no way libertarian.
• The Madness of King Donald
• Trump’s Offer to Christians is Same Offer Devil Made to Christ
• Conservatives Really Want Trump to Save the Supreme Court. Instead, He’ll Ruin It.
• Trump Evangelicals Choose Worldly Power over the Gospel.
• At Least He Is Not Hillary
• This Is the Last Spastic Breath from the Religious Right before its Long Overdue Death
• “Apprentice” producer: “Far Worse” Tapes of Trump Will be Released
• Trump and the Apostate Church: Destruction of a Testimony
• Operation Destroy the GOP. Is 2016 the new 1932?
• The Great Compromise – When Good Men Support Trump
• Christian Leaders who endorse Trump are “playing a very dangerous game”.
• If I Lose Friends Over Trump, So Be It
• The Scandal of Election 2016.

Also, is Trump a child rapist, or an accessory to a child rape?

Gotta love New Yorker cartoons.