Pat and I have recently returned from a trip to Big Sky, Montana, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Parks where we took our two recent high school graduate grandchildren – Logan Elisabeth Denmon and Wilson Luke Von Dohlen. This is a tradition for us as each of our 16 grandchildren accomplish graduation from high school. We feel there is nothing better than to have them see the geographic grandeur of America preserved in our national parks.
With the Coronavirus pandemic and the unrest, demonstrations and violence going on in many of our cities, we were pleasantly surprised to find a community project in Big Sky that is an example of how people of all beliefs in a community can come together for everyone’s good.
This is an interfaith chapel serving Big Sky residents and visitors since 1999. It is home to Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Christian Fellowship, and Jewish congregations. The Chapel hosts Bible studies, Sunday School, Religious Education class, weddings, funerals/memorials, and special congregational activities. It also is a center for community events including musical and artistic performances, Veteran’s Day services, Girl Scouts, Twelve Step meetings and civic gatherings.
I wish every community and city in America would undertake a project to bring the community and its people together to learn, share, and celebrate what they have in common and build unity and civic pride. This is a project worth spending some time on!
What is happening in America?
America is NOT a racist country although we need to strive to make racial harmony a goal and eliminate any racism and discrimination.
I am shocked by the level of rioting and destruction on-going in many cities. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Police must be properly trained and then allowed to do their job. Excessive police force is not acceptable, but defunding the police is dangerous for law-abiding citizens and is a malicious idea.
In fact, cries to defund the police may be the best public example of the leftist radical movement to change America, an under-the-radar drive that has been functioning for nearly 50 years behind the scenes but is now happening openly and more aggressively than ever.
This movement to undermine America has gone by various names over the years, but all with the same single-minded, single-purposed objective to destroy the United States of America as founded and established by the U.S. Constitution that guarantees basic human freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and freedom of speech, religion, and conscience. These rights have slowly and methodically been diminished by the onslaught of litigation reaching the U.S. Supreme Court and seeking to change through the courts what the instigators could not get passed through Congress.
These forces have operated sometimes in concert and other times separately, but it is undeniable that their collective objective is to fundamentally change America.
Remember Obama’s statement of his intent to transform America? The words to describe this “transformation” are: Communism, progressivism, socialism, liberalism, globalism, radicalism, and leftist ideology, including the proposals and principles set forth in Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” (of which Barack Obama was an ardent supporter for community organizing, and about which Hilary Clinton wrote her dissertation.)
The progressive left has created community disruption with the topics of abortion, gay liberation, transgenderism, purposefully created “oppressor groups,” anti-God, and anti-religion groups.
A great example of this community disruption using the trigger topics mentioned above is the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor. These nuns were made out to be part of the “oppressor class” by the Obama Administration because the sisters sought relief from being forced to pay for contraceptives since it would be against their faith, common sense and moral principles to do so.
Hard-working men and women across America suffer the most
I am thinking of the hard-working women and men across America who are just doing all they can during the pandemic to survive — to keep their mortgage current, put food on the table for their families, and to make sure their children will be able to continue going to school.
These hard-working Americans do not have time to study history right now, or to learn about all the individuals and groups that have an agenda to change America for the worse; to destroy our country.
The TV commentators viewed nightly by these same hard-working Americans on their local news channels are not very reliable for correct information. At both the local and national level, most of these TV news commentators, as well as news reporters, fail to objectively or accurately report relevant facts of any news, omitting important facts and highlighting their biased opinion of the facts, without allowing differing perspectives to appear.
Anyone who is pro-life knows this well, by watching the news –or lack of it — regarding the annual Peaceful March for Life numbers in Washington DC and now in San Francisco and elsewhere each January 22nd. Even when exposed for falsifying or omitting facts, as in the case of the horrific, brutal attack at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi in 2012, and the “stand down” orders for troops to defend our U.S. Ambassador and citizens, still the same TV commentators are viewed night after night with no more accuracy than before. And hard-working Americans keep watching.
So, my telling these same good, hard-working men and women that there are well-funded groups wanting to use whatever means necessary to change America to the way they want it, may be hard for these good, law-abiding citizens to believe or accept.
My moral obligation
Nevertheless, I must try to reach these hard-working Americans because there are too many negative forces at work that are making great strides forward to accomplish their unrelenting, destructive goals of fundamentally removing our U.S. Constitutional protections.
In a political contest, to stigmatize one’s opponent is a classical radical tactic.
Saul Alinsky’s 13th Rule for Radicals is to pick what he refers to as “the target,” to then freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Alinsky then instructs followers to cutoff any support network and to isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions, Alinski instructs, because people hurt faster than institutions.
Does this sound familiar?
President Trump is very direct. Love him or not, you know what he thinks most of the time. People may be offended by the language he uses, but what the Democrats and leftists are doing to him and what they are doing to the country is far worse.
The Triumphs of Joseph
I have been reading Robert Woodson, Sr.’s book The Triumphs of Joseph. The author is a black man who shares his views on many of our current problems in America, starting with racism.
Woodson says:
“To continue to focus on racism as the principal enemy of the black community is to travel down a lethal path of self-deception. Our communities are dying from self-inflicted wounds. And the moral free-fall that is taking this tragic toll penetrates beyond all boundaries of race, ethnicity, and income level.” …
“Those whose careers or celebrity status rest on the premise that the greatest single obstacle to black achievement is racism have enforced a gag rule on others who say that self-help and personal responsibility are the keys to progress.”
… “While conditions of low-income blacks have been used in such bait-and-switch games to further an agenda based on racial grievances, poor blacks have also suffered from outright opportunism on the part of many of their purported spokespersons.” …
“The charge of “racism” serves as an escape clause in the informal contracts that exist between the leadership and their low-income constituents” …
“Ironically, while a disproportionate number of blacks are in poverty, a much greater percentage of blacks than whites are employed by the poverty industry where they function as custodians of the poor.”
Thanks to Mr. Woodson for his candor!
National and state leaders who want to find real solutions to the problems in the black communities that spills out to the rest of society should work with Woodson to find innovative ways to make conditions better.
What I’m doing about it and Why
For the next person who says to me, “I can’t believe you would vote for Trump,” I’m going to tell that person, having been an elected representative myself, I look for a person who is not just talk, but a person of action.
Donald Trump was not a politician previously, but he now has been for nearly four years. I know that he has done the best he could under extremely difficult circumstances to keep his campaign promises. He did the things I am going to list despite a corrupt investigation by the Obama Administration and disgusting impeachment efforts.
Despite attempted derailments and character attacks by opponents,
Donald Trump has achieve the following:
- Got Congress to pass criminal reforms.
- Got two new justices appointed to the Supreme Court and over 200 total Federal Judges confirmed.
- Was the first American President to speak at the Rally for Life in Washington D.C.
- Is the most pro-life President, ever!
What can Trump get done in four more years? Here is what I know he supports:
- Protect the Second Amendment.
- Appoint new Supreme Court Justices and other Federal judges who will not legislate from the bench.
- Keep the electoral college and the Republic we live in.
- Keep police protection and law and order.
- Support the military and veterans who fought for, and died for, this country and those today in the military.
- Honor the American flag.
- Keep the right to speak one’s opinion and not be censored.
- Keep our borders secure.
- Keep the right to praise God without fear.
- Protect the right to life for unborn children.
- Keep the American definition of freedom and the American Dream.
Trump’s opponents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, are the most radical leftist ticket in the history of our country.
Biden and Harris both support abortion up to the time of birth. That is despicable. It is inhumane. Actually, it is murder.
Joe Biden has been in elected office for 47 years, including eight years as Vice President. What has he done besides being part of the delivery of over $1 billion cash in the middle of the night to Iran?
Do not expect Biden to do anything with four more years in office. Biden’s cognitive skills are in question, sadly. So, who will really run the country if Biden is elected? Harris and people committed to radical change for America!
In my opinion, it is time to think of the American people first.
That is why my wife and I are voting Trump/Pence.
Please join us.
PRAYER BEFORE AN ELECTION
Lord God, as the election approaches,
We seek to better understand the issues and concerns that confront our city/state/country,
And how the Gospel compels us to respond as faithful citizens in our community.
We ask for eyes that are free from blindness
So that we might see each other as brothers and sisters,
One and equal in dignity,
Especially those who are victims of abuse and violence, deceit, and poverty.
We ask for ears that will hear the cries of children unborn and those abandoned,
Men and women oppressed because of race or creed, religion, or gender.
We ask for minds and hearts that are open to hearing the voice of leaders who will bring us
Closer to your Kingdom.
We pray for discernment
So that we may choose leaders who hear your Word,
Live your love,
And keep in the ways of your truth
As they follow in the steps of Jesus and his Apostles
And guide us to your Kingdom of justice and peace.
We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The Admonition in Ezekiel applies to us, today and in every generation
I want to be a messenger to share what I have learned and to be a help for each of us to heed the admonition in Ezekiel 33:7-9:
“[If] you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die from his guilt, but you shall save yourself.”
The wicked are those who disregard the sanctity of life and participate in an abortion. It is our responsibility to compassionately warn them of their wicked ways and to be there to help them. If they continue in spite of our efforts and prayers, we have done what we could.
We know abortion is an intrinsic evil. No exception.
If someone has an abortion or assists with an abortion it is a mortal sin.
Before you vote for the Biden/Harris ticket that supports abortion, ask yourself this question: What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose her or his eternal soul?
May God guide you in the choice you make for whom to vote!
RELATED RESOURCES:
- The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today’s Community Leaders are Reviving our Streets and Neighborhoods, by Robert Woodson, Sr.
- Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinski
- A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, exceptional documentary on Saul Alinski
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Tim Von Dohlen is not only a sharp business entrepreneur with both legal and pharmacy degrees, having formerly practiced in both fields, and a former elected representative in the state of Texas, but he is most honored to be the founder and president of the St. John Paul II Life Center and Vitae Clinic in Austin, Texas. (www.jpiilifecenter.org). He may be reached at tim@tvdg.com
View Articles If you’ve met Tim, you know that his life was shaped by good values that were imparted to him by his parents and he... MORE »
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