DEMOCRATS BEING HONEST

 

DEMOCRATS BEING HONEST

"Americans are too small-minded to govern their own affairs and must surrender their individual rights to the world order." Barack Obama

"No ordinary American cares about constitutional rights." Joe Biden

"This liberal will be all about socializing... about basically taking over and the government running all of your companies." Maxine Waters

"If you have $20, and I have $1, then I have $21." Elizabeth Warren

"We are not entitled to the fruits of our labor, we are only entitled to the labor itself." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 2018

"One day the American people will know their place, and they will stop thinking they deserve the same privileges as us." Dianne Feinstein

"Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids." Joe Biden

"We cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security." Barack Obama, 2006

"Candidates with deeply held Christian beliefs are unfit and disqualified from serving as a federal judge." Chuck Schumer

"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Barack Obama, from his book Audacity of Hope

"I think Sharia law will be a powerful new direction of freedom..."
Hillary Clinton

The War on the United States of America

 

The War on the United States of America is the most illogical conflict in Human History.

We are living in a strange era where anti-Americanism is the cheapest currency for popularity. Whether in Asia, the Middle East, or the Sahel, the fastest way to win a crowd is to burn a flag or blame Washington.

But past the rhetoric, the obsession with seeing America fail isn't just misguided, it's completely illogical.

People love to trash the U.S, but they trust its systems with their lives. Name another superpower where a former President can be held accountable in a court of law.

The world's money flows through New York because the rules are transparent. Even the most vocal anti-imperialist dictators keep their personal wealth in USD. They know it's the only currency backed by a system that won't vanish overnight.

While other nations cycle through coups, juntas, and eternal leaders every few decades, America has maintained peaceful handovers of power for a quarter of a millennium. That institutional stability is the foundation for everything else, the wealth, the innovation, and the freedom.

The world's anti-Americans are currently using American tech iPhone/Android on American platforms X, Meta, Google to post their anti-American views.

From NASA touching the stars to Silicon Valley defining the future of AI, America remains decades ahead. The energy spent hating this progress is energy wasted avoiding the truth that, America is the engine of human milestone.

Everyone poses as anti-American until the music starts or the movie plays. The icons, the films, the NBA, the NFL, American pop culture is the global tongue. It is the only place where the American Dream isn't just a slogan, but a reality for the millions of immigrants who continue to flock there.

The most tragic irony is almost every anti-American figure in history has a secret link to the West. They send their children to Ivy League schools, use American medicine, and consume American luxury. They sell "The West is Evil" to their citizens while enjoying the fruits of the West in private.

Organizations are being formed and billions spent with one goal which is, to beat America.

Imagine if that energy was spent on building domestic systems that actually worked. Imagine if the focus was on innovation instead of imitation and resentment. You cannot defeat a system that you are simultaneously dependent on.

The world loves the fruits of America but hates the tree. Hating the U.S. doesn't make a nation stronger, it just makes it blind to why its own systems are failing.

America isn't just a country, it's the most successful experiment in human history. The results speak for themselves.

Jesus Christ – Bridge Over Troubled Water

 

Jesus Christ – Bridge Over Troubled Water

In 1970, the popular singing duet of Simon and Garfunkel released their biggest all-time hit. “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. It is still popular today.

Bridge Over Troubled Water is one of those rare songs that feels like scripture set to melody—an anthem of presence, compassion, and unwavering loyalty.

When you place that theme next to the Infinite Atonement, the parallel becomes profound.

Watch

Jesus Christ as Our Righteous Judge

 

Jesus Christ as Our Righteous Judge

When thinking about why I can trust Jesus to be my righteous judge, I considered the question posed by the lesson material: “Imagine that you have a friend who has been charged with a serious crime. You also know the victim of the crime. You love both people.”  This was a great mental exercise as I considered that question in my own life. It also helped me see a current news story differently. There is a woman in this exact predicament. Her husband was the perpetrator of the crime, and her sister was the victim of the crime. I considered the crime only and judged the mother harshly for still supporting her husband. She faced an incredibly difficult situation, and I learned that I was not a good judge.  Studying this lesson helped me to have a deep appreciation for my Savior as my judge.

When someone is found guilty of a crime, there needs to be a punishment so that justice may be served. They may also need to be put in jail as a protection to the public. Justice serves the victims, because they were innocent and may have lost something because of the crime. They may even need protection from the perpetrator. Justice and separation provide those things.

That said, judges matter. You would want a judge who is fair, truthful, compassionate, knowledgeable, and just.  I enjoyed the part of the lesson that had me list the attributes of Jesus that make Him a trustworthy and righteous judge. Jesus was merciful to sinners, the suffering, the downtrodden. He was kind, gentle and empathetic. He was clear- eyed, truthful, nuanced, thoughtful, and fair. Above all, He was loving. Those are just a few of the mortal examples.  I liked what the Psalmist said:

Psalm 96:11–13

11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof.

12 Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice

13 Before the Lord: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.

The last line stood out to me - that he shall judge the people with his truth. His truth. We have a popular phrase in our culture where people can make all kinds of outlandish claims and then call it “My Truth”. As if to say, well, that’s how I experienced it, so it’s my truth - and cannot be argued against. I am comforted to know that we will be judged righteously by His truth.  We cannot always see ourselves or others clearly, but Jesus can. He sees our heart and knows our intent. He knows who we really are. He will know where mental illness or chemical imbalance marred someone’s ability to make right choices, He will know where oppression, inequality, neglect, or abuse played a role. He will see the whole picture and His truth will guide the judgement.

Lastly, the testimony of the prophets in the scriptures give me faith in his ability to be a righteous judge.

“Therefore, let us come boldly to the throne of grace.”

“Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly - Then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of the Lord.”

“Oh, wretched man that I am… Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.”

And Doctrine and Covenants 45:

3 Listen to him who is the advocate to an external site. with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—

4 Saying: Father, behold the sufferings to an external site, and death to an external site, of him who did no sin to an external site, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified to an external site;

5 Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren to an external site. that believe to an external site. on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life to an external site.

Until that day, I am going to work on letting Jesus be the judge here in mortality too. I am not a good judge, and I want to work refining and developing more Christlike attributes instead of judging others.

Good Friday

 

Tonight is the night during Holy Week when we remember the night in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Savior stepped into the deepest part of His redeeming work. Luke records that “being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Modern revelation adds that this suffering caused Him “to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore” (D&C 19:18). What happened there is so sacred that, as Bruce R. McConkie taught, “We do not know, we cannot tell, no mortal mind can conceive the full import of what Christ did in Gethsemane. We know he sweat great gouts of blood from every pore as he drained the dregs of that bitter cup his Father had given him.” “The Purifying Power of Gethsemane,” General Conference, April 1985”

And yet, what we do know is enough to change everything. McConkie declared that “it was in Gethsemane that the infinite and eternal atonement began” (The Mortal Messiah, 4:127), and that there the Savior “took upon himself the sins of all men on condition of repentance” (The Purifying Power of Gethsemane*, Apr. 1985). In that garden, before any arrest, before any cross, the Son of God willingly began to bear what justice required. As the Lord Himself revealed, “I… have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent” (D&C 19:16).

Gethsemane was not only about satisfying justice; it was also about entering the full depth of the human condition. Alma taught that Christ would suffer “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind… that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people” (Alma 7:11–12). In that suffering, He did not become sinful, but He came to know perfectly what sin does to us. As Jeffrey R. Holland testified, “He who had never known sin would come to know how the rest of us would feel when we did sin.” (*None Were with Him*, Apr. 2009).

Gethsemane’s toll was not abstract or distant. It was personal. Russell M. Nelson taught that “in Gethsemane, the Savior took upon Himself the weight of the sins of all mankind, bearing its massive load that caused Him to bleed from every pore,” and then added this remarkable truth: “And yet it was also personal” (*The Atonement*, Oct. 1996). Gethsemane not just for the world in general, for sin in general, it was for each of us individually.

Today, as we remember Gethsemane, we remember that Christ did something both for us and with us. He suffered “that they might not suffer” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16), satisfying the demands of justice. And He suffered “pains and afflictions… that he may know… how to succor his people” (Alma 7:11–12), entering fully into our experience so He can heal us. He bore both our sins and our sorrows.

He did it willingly. In that same garden, He prayed, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Before any soldier came, before any cross was raised, He chose to stay. He chose to drink the cup.

Because of what happened in Gethsemane, no burden you carry is unfamiliar to Him. No sin you struggle with is beyond His reach. No sorrow you feel is something He has not, in some way, already borne.  Indeed, because of Gethsemane, Jesus knows exactly what it is like to be you. And because He went there, because He knelt, and suffered, and stayed, and then went forward to the cross, you are not alone. As Jeffrey R. Holland taught, because He walked that “long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so.” “None Were with Him,” April 2009. 

Tonight, as we remember Gethsemane, if we do that remembering with spiritual eyes, we will see that He is not distant from us and our suffering.  We will find that the power of Gethsemane is, and always will be, right here.

Art: Walter Rane, Not My Will But Thine

Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride

 

Strait of Hormuz

by James E. Thorne

Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride 

For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.

The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.

Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.

In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines.

In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure,or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive.

A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent.

By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right.

In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.

 

Jesus Christ in Gethsemane

 

"This sacred spot, like Eden where Adam dwelt, like Sinai from whence Jehovah gave His laws, like Calvary where the Son of God gave His life a ransom for many, this holy ground is where the sinless Son of the Everlasting Father took upon Himself the sins of all men on condition of repentance.

We do not know, we cannot tell, no mortal mind can conceive the full import of what Christ did in Gethsemane.

We know He sweat great gouts of blood from every pore as He drained the dregs of that bitter cup His Father had given Him.

We know He suffered, both body and spirit, more than it is possible for man to suffer, except it be unto death.

We know that in some way, incomprehensible to us, His suffering satisfied the demands of justice, ransomed penitent souls from the pains and penalties of sin and made mercy available to those who believe in His holy name.

We know that He lay prostrate upon the ground as the pains and agonies of an infinite burden caused Him to tremble and would that He might not drink the bitter cup.

We know that an angel came from the courts of glory to strengthen Him in His ordeal, and we suppose it was mighty Michael, who foremost fell that mortal man might be.

As near as we can judge, these infinite agonies—this suffering beyond compare—continued for some three or four hours."

Bruce R McConkie