Friday, March 23, 2018

Corrupt and Vicious in their Debauchery

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

Benjamin Franklin said, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

After a young man, Michael Smalanskas, a senior and Resident Assistant at a Catholic college, put up a poster reading, "Marriage: The Way God Intended It, One Man One Woman," due to the threats against him he had to be escorted from his dorm to a secure location by campus police.

The poster the student put up in his dormitory at Providence College in Rhode Island, also included a photo of a bride and groom in a church, a Bible verse that reads “And they shall become one flesh…,” and a quote from Pope Francis: “We must reaffirm the right of children to grow up with a mother and a father.”

The argument against him by the threatening mob?  Promoting traditional marriage is hate speech.

The poster was ripped down, and a mob formed outside his room.  Campus police grew concerned for the student's safety and offered to move him to another location for the night.

Besides the threatening mob, he also received an anonymous threat of rape.

Police informed Smalanskas that they found a cartoon in a restroom depicting him being anally raped by another male student. “Mike, what did I say about putting your sign up?” the attacker in the cartoon is depicted as saying.

Reminds me of the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, where two strangers came to Lot's home, and after he welcomed them into his home the men in the city gathered outside his door, demanding that Lot allow them to rape them.  Lot pleaded with his neighbors not to do such an evil thing. In a despicable act, he even offered them his virgin daughters instead, but the men persisted.  Their lustful desires had led them to great wickedness, and they were even willing to demand the release of the Angels violently in order to pursue their sexual passions.

While Providence is a Catholic college, the administrators and leadership of the college have not come to Smalanskas’ defense for espousing the traditional Catholic view of marriage.  In fact, not even the school’s chaplain as been willing to come to Smalanskas's defense.

On March 12, Smalanskas and his faculty adviser Dr. James Keating met with Vice President of Student Affairs Kristine Goodwin, Vice President of Mission and Ministry Fr. R. Gabriel Pivarnik, O.P., and the school’s attorney.

Smalanskas asked for help, and instead Goodwin sent student leaders an email encouraging them to attend a pro-LGBT march being organized in response to Smalanskas’ poster on his dormitory hall's bulletin board.

On the related transgender front, a man with a violent criminal record is suing a battered women's shelter for refusing to take him in.

He was kicked out of a shelter in Alaska after getting drunk and becoming belligerent. So he went to a battered women's shelter and demanded entry, claiming he identified as a woman. The battered women's shelter is a faith based organization and it denied him entry.

He is now suing the battered women's shelter for not taking him in, claiming discrimination.

In pursuit of moral defiance, America is being divided.  Families are being devastated.  The sexual sins of a few have emerged from the shadows, and now roar like a jet engine that is prepared to rip through the soul of our once godly way of life.  A culture war has been declared, but the real goal is to kill God, and plummet America into the very chaos that Benjamin Franklin warned against.

Franklin recognized that with freedom comes responsibility.  If a country does not properly maintain the moral character of their culture, the Blessings of Liberty will become difficult to maintain.  If, in the process, those liberties become elusive, in the name of safety, both become endangered.  Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

"The best security for maintaining our liberties: A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins...it is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.  Where liberty dwells, there is my country...a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles...is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free.  Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.  Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

The freeness of speech for Michael Smalanskas was under attack by a raging mob.  To protect him, local campus law enforcement had to intervene and escort him to safety.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

"Men will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.  Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."

"God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country."

Your rights only extend as far as the next person's rights.  What the mob attacking Mr. Smalanskas at the college in Rhode Island didn't seem to understand is that if they are going to claim to have a right to homosexuality, then Smalanskas has a right to disagree.  This is why I know that the homosexual agenda is not about rights as much as it is about power, control, and redefining society.

The rights of someone like Smalanskas do not extend so far as to allow those who agrees with him to pass laws to outlaw any particular kind of behavior unless such activity is a direct harmful crime against individuals (and disagreeing, or hurting someone's feelings don't fit the bill of the definition of "harmful").  On the same token, the rights of those who oppose him cannot, and do not, extend so far as to allow them to bring harm to him because he dares to disagree with their "lifestyle" or support of such.

While I have a right to swing my arms, that right stops at the tip of your nose, because you have a right not to be punched in the face.

That all said, our rights are Natural Rights, which means they were endowed upon us by our Creator.  Rights are directly connected to the moral character of a people.  Our rights are not few in number, and limited to ten amendments to the Constitution.  They are numerous and extensive.  The question, however, is not how many rights we have, or even the definition of those rights, as much as it is regarding understanding the nature of our rights.

The Declaration of Independence explains that while we have a right to life and liberty, happiness in and of itself is not a right.  We have a right not to happiness, but to pursue happiness.

We must ask, "Is health care a right?"

Democrats say, "yes," and Republicans say, "no, health care is a purchased service, and a privilege."

If I break my leg, do I have a right to get it fixed?  Is it government's job to guarantee that right, and to subsidize it if I cannot monetarily afford to fix my leg; or do I simply have a right to pursue the health care required to repair my wounded appendage?

Do I have a right to force a particular doctor to fix my leg the way I demand it?  Does government have the authority to force taxpayers to relinquish funds from their wages so that it may be redistributed to my leg for repair?

If a right must be guaranteed and subsidized by government, does the same apply to my right to keep and bear arms?

At what point can demanding cakes to be baked a certain way, or mob violence over an opinion regarding marriage, or ignoring biological science for the purpose of furthering a political agenda be considered too far, and be exposed for what it really is . . . corruption, viciousness, and debauchery?

Without a moral compass, a free society simply cannot survive, or remain in the good graces of the Blessings of Liberty.  Without a moral compass, we are doomed to bondage under the tyranny of a ruling class of masters.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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