Obama's U.N. Mea Culpa, Defending Islam, Christians & Immigration, L'Shanah Tovah

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Obama's U.N. Mea Culpa 

President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly today. With the war against ISIS dominating the headlines, Obama once again insisted that the Islamic State and all the other radical Islamic groups have nothing to do with Islam. He rejected the notion of a "clash of civilizations." But it most certainly is. 

I half expected the president to start singing Kumbaya or quoting Rodney King, who asked, "Can we all get along?" 

Here was a telling moment: Obama appealed to other nations of the world to stop teaching hatred, saying, "No children -- anywhere -- should be educated to hate other people. …That means cutting off the funding that fuels this hate." So, Mr. President, may we now assume that your administration will stop sending U.S. tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority? Sorry, I digress…

In closing his remarks, Obama said, "I realize that America's critics will be quick to point out … that America has plenty of problems within our own borders. … I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri -- where a young man was killed, and a community was divided." 

Think about that, folks. Obama is speaking to a room full of world leaders, about a third of whom routinely deprive their people of civil liberties. They have no credible judicial systems. Some of them have engaged in genocide. Many of the Muslim countries represented there are among the world's worst violators of religious liberty. A viable free press is unheard of in many of these nations. 

Yet in a room full of such thugs and dictators, Barack Obama felt as if he had to apologize for America because of one confrontation between a teenager and a police officer, the facts of which we still do not know. For Obama the impulse is always cultural and moral relativism. 

I don't believe we have ever had an American president whose natural impulse is to grovel in front of the U.N. gang. It's not hard to imagine that many of those in the room were unimpressed by Obama's weakness. 

By the way, Obama also used his U.N. address to question Israel's commitment to peace. On Fox News today, Indiana Governor Mike Pence took issue with the president's remark. You can watch the interviewhere. 

Defending Islam. . . As Christians Die 

This morning we sent out a special request for prayer. As the day wore on, I found myself increasingly angry at the pitiful lack of leadership from the White House and the State Department, not to mention the thundering silence of so many American elites in Hollywood, business and the popular culture. 

Three hundred thousand people marched in New York City over the weekend demanding greater government control over the economy in the name of climate change. CBS last night devoted a whole segment to the need to save the loon from global warming. 

More directly to the point, virtually every day President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and CIA Director John Brennan use the power of their offices to tell the American people that the thousands of acts of evil being conducted in the name of Islam have nothing to do with Islam. 

It is a rare day indeed when they mention the growing carnage of Christians or the oft-repeated promises of Islamists that a second Holocaust of Jews and Christians is coming. 

During his U.N. address today, Obama went on at length about the "great tradition" of Islam. Has Obama ever extolled the virtues and great traditions of Judeo-Christian civilization before such an audience?

Perhaps Obama and Kerry think their praise of Islam is useful in suppressing jihadi recruitment. It doesn't appear to be working. Obama and Kerry seem more interested in saving the reputation of Islam than they are in saving Christians and Jews from beheadings and mass murder. 

Conservative Christians Want Stronger Immigration Stand 

In recent years, some religious leaders have been very vocal in arguing that evangelicals want the Republican Party to adopt a so-called compassionate, tolerant and progressive position on illegal immigration. The leaders of some high profile religious denominations have gone to Capitol Hill and cast their lot with big business demanding that the party support amnesty and even higher levels of immigration. 

The left-wing media, of course, has joyfully written stories highlighting this split. There's just one problem -- that's not what conservative Christians actually believe. 

The most recent Pew Research poll discovered a high degree of dissatisfaction among Republicans toward the Republican Party. For example, a majority of self-identified Republicans (56%) said their party was not doing a good job of representing their views on the issue of illegal immigration. 

Only 12% of white evangelicals, who make up the base of the GOP, said that the party was "too conservative" on the issue, while 35% felt it was "too liberal." The Catholic leadership has weighed in heavily on this issue. But here, too, a plurality of Catholic Republicans (32%) complained that the GOP was "too liberal" on illegal immigration, while 21% of Catholic Republicans said the party was "too conservative."

Some may argue that these Christians do not understand the teachings of Jesus. I would argue that they understand them better than some of their leaders. My reading of the Gospels is that they teach what we should do personally. Nothing in the Gospels says we are supposed to harness the power of big government to take someone else's money and redistribute it to various individuals. But that is exactly what open borders immigration policies require. 

Cultural elites have confused many with their "gospel of social justice." But it is encouraging to see many believers reject that argument. 

L'Shanah Tovah 

To all of our Jewish friends and supporters, Carol and I wish you a happy Rosh Hashanah! 

This year it is worth reminding ourselves, whether Christian or Jew, that Hamas was planning to use its network of terror tunnels to infiltrate hundreds of terrorists into Israeli communities near the border in order to launch a Rosh Hashanah attack this year that could have killed hundreds, if not thousands. That makes this Rosh Hashanah even more precious to Jews and those of us who stand with them in the battle against radical Islamists.