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The Elusive Case of Oscar Hill IV
John R. Houk
© May 16, 2013
I have been following the Oscar Hill IV story for some time. The story if accurate is repugnant for it is a huge miscarriage of Justice. The email and pdf attachment show a different spelling of Oscar’s last name than previous posts I have made on this subject. In the current email Oscar’s last name is spelled “Hill”. In previous stories the letter “s” was how I came to know the name – “Hills”. This could be the reason I have had such a difficult time researching Hill’s case – I don’t know. Below is the copy of the email I sent to Joshua Spielman relating to the email and pdf document (Only I changed the my email address because I sent him a more personal address):
Mr. Spielman I have actually tried to follow the story of Oscar Hills IV. It has always been a difficult subject to research with a search engine because the Mainstream Media seems to have not found it on their radar. The two stories I have posted are “Oscar Hills IV: Persecuted or Prosecuted?” dated 5/25/11 AND “Gayle: Oscar Hills IV” dated 6/29/12. I am really uncertain how anybody has found my blog (SlantRight 2.0) to send me these elusive updates. Perhaps you can point me to some further information available online that will make me feel good about corroboration even if it is the other side of the story? At any rate I will format the pdf file you sent me and post it.
Thanks
John R. Houk
john@slantright.com
Since I have been writing this post Mr. Spielman has responded that he will keep me up to date.
Now one thing I have noticed about the pdf attributed to Oscar Hill IV is his use the name “Ya” in parentheses following the name “God”. My concern stems from the cult spin-off House of Yahweh (HOY) was founded by another Christian cult Worldwide Church of God from Herbert W. Armstrong.
The HOY cult uses “Ya” for God and Lord. They also use the appellation of Yashua for Jesus. Both names are used like this in Mr. Hill’s pdf document. The HOY take the belief that Jesus was not preexistent to His human birth. Rather Jesus is the Son of God only in the sense he became a follower of Yahweh after arising from the water from the John the Baptist Baptism. Hence the HOY do not believe in ONE God in three unified persons as in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As a Christian I have to state these HOY beliefs are unacceptable.
AGAIN I must reiterate that I do not know if Oscar Hill IV follows the HOY theology. Indeed the First Amendment guarantees the HOY to practice their faith in Freedom. I just have to wonder if the Louisiana part of the Federal Justice system focused on Hill because of Cult-like behavior and thus fabricated evidence that ended in a conviction that had absolutely nothing to do with Hill’s faith.
I give credit to Oscar Hill IV that he is not appealing to religious persecution but utilizes religious terminology as a normal display of his faith whether he follows the basic Christian tenets or HOY-like religious tenets. Under that situation Oscar Hill IV deserves freedom from incarceration and his name must be cleared due criminal conduct from the Prosecutor and the ATFE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – better known as ATF) agent Joseph Gahn.
JRH 5/16/13
***********************
worldwide news network
Contact: Joshua Spielman
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 9 A.M. CST, MAY 14, 2013
Sent: May 16, 2012
Press Release
Another Case of Federal Prosecutorial Misconduct – Middle District of Louisiana
Conviction Unconstitutional
BATON ROUGE: Assistant U.S. Attorney Rene I. Salomon, ATFE special agent Joseph Gahn both in the Middle District of Louisiana, conspiring with State Farm Insurance Company allegedly submitted fabricated evidence subsequently wrongly convicting Oscar Hills IV. The Fifth Circuit of Appeals overturned Hills conviction and the Government conceded that Mr. Hill’s conviction was unconstitutional. Mr. Hills stated, “The Government’s fabricated evidence exonerated him and incriminated them.” Mr. Hills has served two years in federal prison for a crime he did not commit. Hills also announced that he would run for president of the United States in 2016. For more on this story read the press release in its entirety, see attached pdf file.
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Attached PDF formatted to Word Document
CONVICTION UNCONSTITUTIONAL?
Another Case of Federal Prosecutorial Misconduct – Middle District of Louisiana
By Oscar Hills IV
May 14, 2013 9:00 AM
Name on Header:
Brad Heath
USA Today Newspaper
7950 U.S. Today Street Mc Lean, VA 22108
BATON ROUGE: First, I like to thank you for accepting my email request. Let me formally introduce myself. My name is Oscar Hills IV; currently I am federal inmate #05251-095. Since 2011, two-years now, my incarceration has been illegal. On May 23, 2011, I literally drove myself to Texarkana FCI in Texas and self surrendered. After sixteen months there, I was transferred (unsupervised Greyhound Bus furlough) to the federal comp in Pollock, Louisiana. Currently, I am at the halfway house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mr. Heath, after reading your article, “Locked Up But Innocent?” I must say, you nailed it! However, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Mr. Heath, in “Criminal Law” there’s two classifications of innocence, one, “legal innocence,” and two, “actual innocence.” Legal innocence, defined as the absence of one or more procedural or legal bases to support the sentence given to a defendant. You were referring in your article “Locked Up But Innocent” to this innocence. Actual innocence, on the other hand, is a state of affairs in which a defendant in a criminal case is innocent of the charges against them because they did not in fact commit the crime of which her or she have been accused.
ACTUALLY INNOCENT? What if I told you that I am “actually innocent” of the crime I’m currently incarcerated for and the U.S. Government (ATFE agent Joseph Gahn, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rene Salomon) and State Farm Insurance Co. fabricated their evidence to get an illegal indictment which led to my illegal incarceration.
What if I told you that with the same evidence the prosecutors’ produced to the grand jury and the courts’ exonerates me and incriminates them.
Aver of evidence is factual and backed by the U.S. Government’s own fabricated evidence; this is not a conclusional assertion. Furthermore, on June 25, 2012, The Fifth Circuit of Appeals granted me a certificate of appealability (COA). Moreover, on August 20, 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s Office conceded to the fact that my conviction is unconstitutional. Yet, eight-months later, I am still illegally being detained. The prosecutors’ asked the Appeals Court to dismiss my appeal, and remand the case back to the district court for a limited view. Rebutting the prosecutor’s request, petitioning the Appeals Court not to dismiss my appeal, I pleaded that the conviction be completely overturned. One, because I was actually innocent, and two, according to United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S., a denial of counsel during trial proceedings requires automatic reversal of conviction because prejudice presumed. The Appeals Court, denied my request, and totally went against Supreme Court caselaw, subsequently, remanding my case back to the District Court, where just several months prior presiding judge James Brady denied my motion to vacate citing I had no merits. Clearly, I recognized the subterfuge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
April 22, 2013, the deception came full circle when I went for a status conference in the District Court. Out the gate, Judge Brady ridiculed me, stating he was not “going to play this game” with me, he pretty much eluded my actual innocence plea. I reference to the judge that I have done 95% of the time, and my main concern is clearing my name and bringing justice for the outrageous conduct of assistant U.S. Attorney Rene Salomon and ATFE agent Joseph Gahn. Under the Color of Law–these two men, along with others, abused and misused their authority. The court eluded addressing my actual innocence claim. It did not surprise me, I was informed a week before the status conference that my case was the first of its kind. I was also informed that normally the Fed’s are the aggressor, and being that you have substantial evidence of their malfeasance they’re in a peculiar situation. It was explained to me, even though you have the “up’s on them,” the presiding judge was going to still save face for the prosecutor, “it is what it is, especially in the Fed’s,” explained the source. The way the status conference played out, he was right. I being actually innocent of the crime should mean something if not everything, but from the looks of it, it means nothing to the court. Judge Brady scheduled an evidentiary hearing for May 21, 2013, and for the fifth time I will submit to the court the government’s own evidence that exculpates me and inculpates the prosecutor. After 2 years of hell, will I finally see justice, or will this injustice continue? Proverbs 17:15 states: “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord (Ya).”
Prior to going to prison, I presented this overwhelming evidence (certified mail) to the Inspector General, Daniel Levinson, our so-called ombudsman. Following up on my complaint a representative in the civil rights department claimed she forwarded the information to the appropriate people including the ATFE agency. I personally sent the same information (certified mail) to Kenneth Melson, former head of the ATFE agency, to no avail. Mr. Melson has now been demoted, for his mishandling and non-actions in the infamous “Fast & Furious” gun-trafficking sting operation, in which illegal guns from the operation appeared at many crime scenes across the United States and Mexico. One of the stolen guns killed a U.S. border patrol officer. A whistleblower within their own agency brought to light these unlawful acts of the ATFE agency in Arizona. I even reached out to “every member” in congress (Washington DC) prior to coming to prison but my pleas were ignored’.
My situation is not an isolated one by far; there is a reason why 97% of the federal cases result into a guilty plea. Trust me the U.S. Attorneys’ is not that good. Counsel for the defendants’; especially court-appointed counsel, are an extension of the prosecution. Almost immediately in their initial attorney-client meeting, the appointed counsel is pushing a plea deal in the face of the accused. It is all about “VOLUME!” Court-appointed attorneys’ are paid the same amount if they argue the case or get you to take the plea. There is no incentive to exonerate their client, so it’s all based on volume. Picture an assembly line of rubber-stamping plea deals that is all you got going on here. The prosecutors’ get their man and defense attorneys’ are compensated for sending their clients’ up the river without a paddle. All at the expense of the indigent clients’ and taxpayers. There is nothing new up under the sun this is a modern day Sanhedrin Counsel. Yashua (Jesus Christ) called them hypocrites and usurpers.
OLIGARCHY FEDERAL JUDICIAL SYSTEM: National media coverage as your article illuminates what is going on in this “privileged only” federal judicial system. You see, once the tables turn on the “Oligarchs’” they only get reprimanded or excoriated. The “Oligarchs’” do not discriminate though; look at Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska case for example. The malicious prosecutorial misconduct was so great; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder stepped in and asked the judge to dismiss the case after the conviction of the Senator. Stevens’s attorney, Brendan Sullivan spoke out saying: “the illegal verdict of guilty in Stevens’s case had cost the veteran Alaska Republican his seat in the Senate and shifted control of the Senate to the Democrats.” Let us take it even further, if this illegal ordeal had not taken place, Stevens probably would have won his seat back, and would have been in Washington DC, instead of on the plane that crashed and took his life? After the malicious misconduct of the prosecutors’ scheme came to light, one of the prosecutors committed suicide. The others two prosecutors involved in this malevolent act just got an insignificant punishment, losing 40 and 15 days without pay. Then it was back to work as usual.
Recently, just down the road in the Eastern District of Louisiana, specifically, New Orleans, Louisiana, another case of prosecutorial misconduct was revealed. U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s second in command, Jan Mann literally lied to a federal judge. Ms. Mann, in writing, told the court she was not involved with the blogging on several federal cases in litigation. Which was indeed, not true, Jan Mann, was ousted by retired FBI agents that were hired by the defendant Fred Heebe to investigate the U.S. Attorney’s office outrageous conduct, among other things. Subsequently, Jim Letten resigned, claiming he had no idea that his second in command was participating in theses egregious acts. No one in the U.S. Attorneys’ office has been indicted, sorry to say that I suspect no one will be. Yet, there are people in jail for perjury, as I write this letter. Apparently, this does not apply to the prosecutors, just everyone else.
IMMUNITY + IMPUNITY = CORRUPTION: When it comes to federal prosecutors, and agents they “enjoy qualified immunity.” Federal judicial employees have “free will” to do whatever they please and do not suffer any punishment for their mischievous actions, they are practically untouchable. My life my home was invaded because of one agent’s abuse of power, ultimately losing over two years of my freedom. To add insult to injury, at the status conference, there sit the special agent Joseph Gahn. Observing, making sure the court carry out his subterfuge. Will district judge James J. Brady continue to go along with the government’s modus operandi? Will he finally render true justice and overturn my wrongful conviction? Only time will tell, May 21, 2013 at 9:30 a.m. cst.
BANKING ON BONDAGE: Incarcerating folks is a multibillion dollar a year business. Make no mistake about it. The Prison industry creates and maintain jobs–forfeitures of property and assets–which federal employees’ get first dibs–$25k plus annually of taxpayers’ money for housing each inmate–commissary–outrages phone and email rates for inmates produces millions of dollars a month–”their” selected vendors’ get paid top dollars for expired or close to expired food to feed the inmates. Rural towns are surviving off prisons; the prisons have more people in them then the actual town. The United States imprison more people both per-capital and in-absolute term than any other nation in the world. Reading an article by Cindy Chang in the New Orleans Times Picayune newspaper–the state [Louisiana] I am from is the prison capital of the world.
Infer; this is just a compendium of what is taking place in the land of the free and our so-called justice system. I have acquired a wealth of knowledge that I will share with the American people. In the name of justice, they are (the Oligarchs’) acquiring wealth and power through bondage. It is my obligation to God (Ya) and the American people (99%ers’) to fight this injustice and promote peace. I am formally announcing that I will run for the presidency of the United States in the year 2016.
“The energy, faith, the devotion which ‘I’ will bring to this endeavor will light our country and will serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.” (paraphrasing President John F. Kennedy)
Peace be with you!
Oscar Hill IV
33.3
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The Elusive Case of Oscar Hill IV
John R. Houk
© May 16, 2013
_______________
Another Case of Federal Prosecutorial Misconduct – Middle District of Louisiana
SlantRight Editor: Notice in small text there is a name “worldwide news network”. The only thing I could find close to that is this link:
https://worldnewsnetwork7.com/
. I suspect there is no relationship between this info and the news organization of the similar name.
Then on the pdf header is this organization: USA Today Newspaper. Google brings me to this link:
http://www.usatoday.com/
. Again I sense there is no relationship to who put out the email or the pdf document. Perhaps those of you that have the investigative knack can let us know.
Keep Govt. OUT of Church – NOT Church out Govt.
John R. Houk
© June 7, 2012
The disestablishment clause of the First Amendment is a one-way action as far as Separation of Church and State is concerned. That one-way is that government must be separate and out of the religion business AND NOT that the Church be separate from the government.
President Ronald Reagan sets us straight.
JRH 6/7/12 (Hat Tip: Vicki)
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VIDEO: Ronald Reagan Tribute
Annoying Atheists
John R. Houk
© February 4, 2012
I received a comment from a defender of atheism identifying himself as Michael yesterday. There are atheists that have no belief in God and that is fine, we live in America. Then there are atheists that may be described as Militant Atheists that go the next level of an atheist belief system. That next level involves insulting believers in God topping off the insult with some kind of self-aggrandized intellectual superiority complex that all believers in God are stupid and uneducated. Such intellectual supremacism is fraudulent because a truly intellectual person – whether religious or atheistic – would comprehend denigrating someone is a sign of arrogance. An arrogant person is a contemptuous person; i.e. when the arrogance is a defining essence of one’s character. Everyone will have moments of arrogance; however wisdom usually tempers arrogance with time. That is not the case when arrogance is a constant of one’s personality toward individuals because one is more intellectual than another or worse only perceives they are more intellectual than another based on a belief system.
Admittedly there is a tone of arrogance in those devoted to a religion because the devotion means the competing religion is an error; hence when one tells another they must join one’s religion because it is the true religion the essence of arrogance is involved. Nonetheless, when one begins to denigrate another’s intelligence or intellect on a personal level for refusing the perceived truth then the character scale begins to tip a character flaw toward ingrained arrogance.
Honestly I have been guilty of that tipping scale especially when I have been angered by another’s intransigent haughty arrogance. Is temporary arrogance a character flaw? It is my opinion it is not a character flaw unless the temporary transforms into the permanent.
Who judges when temporary arrogance becomes a permanent character flaw? On an individual basis this may be difficult. The judgment call should be by the council of friends and peers. The only problem with friends and peers is the potential for a group affinity of intellectual or religious superiority that desires to break down or harm another for one’s perceived inferiority.
Group Superiority Complexes can only be tempered by the group’s ideology; i.e. whether or not the ideology or the theology has ingrained permanent arrogance that demands the belief that the “other” is an inferiority that must be suppressed or eliminated.
Let’s look at some examples.
Islamic Supremacism demands that the unbeliever (kafir) must convert to Islam or risk living a life of inferiority or face death for insults or outright refusal to accept any form of submission to Islam. This rashness is embedded in Islamic holy writings.
Christian Superiority emanates from two sources. One source can be as brutal as Islamic Supremacism. The other source comes from Biblical Scriptures especially the New Testament as revealed to humans by the Holy Spirit.
The brutal source demands the spreading of Christianity by conquest and force much in the same path as Islam. Hence, Christian history is full of military campaigns of either internecine wars to attempt one single dogmatic opinion or wars of conquest with the primary purpose of exploiting conquered lands and the indigenous people. The subset of conquest by Christian armies was the implementation of forced conversions (although not on the scale of Islam in which millions of non-Muslims died for rejecting the Quran). The best examples of exploitive conquest and conversions are the Spanish conquest of the Americas (Portugal in present day Brazil). The best example internecine Christian wars can be seen between Arians and Catholics and latter between Protestant and Catholics. Subsets of these Christian wars were the persecution of Jews and Muslims especially in present day Spain (the Reconquista and the Inquisition).
The Biblical source for Christian Supremacism focuses on the New Testament. First of all the New Testament proclaims Jesus’ Redemption of humanity has paid the price of the penalties of the Law. Hence the curse of the Law that enabled physical penalties for homosexuality, adultery and other Old Testament capital crimes are paid for by the death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus was all about sharing this Good News of Deliverance from the curse of the Law without force. If a Christian is mistreated for sharing the Gospel, the Christian is to shake the dust off of his/her feet move and on. Hopefully the sharing is a spiritual seed for someone to plant a seed that takes root through the hard ground (human spirit) to grow vines leading the life of Christ as a new creation.
Christian Supremacism in the latter is about doing no harm and hence points to an absence of the character flaw of iniquitous arrogance.
As you can tell it is the arrogance of Michael more than the disagreement with my thoughts on atheism that irked me. I believe the concept of atheism is evil because it is ungodly. An atheist will quite normally tell me that Christianity is evil perhaps because of the thought that humanity is held back by antiquated thoughts that are myths rather than reality.
The problem of arrogance occurs when Michael implies I am stupid and uneducated because of my beliefs or I respond in kind because I am insulted (do not render evil for evil).
Michael concludes his really thought out objections to Christianity (although I highly disagree with statements as facts, for it is the mere revisionism applied by Leftists and atheists) this way:
… The only thing about Christians that drives me nuts is the general lack of education and logic they use when applying it to anything including their own beliefs. I am not worried about the bible, or the schizophrenic whisperings of a “god” telling me what to do. I am sane and free of any delusion of where I will go when I die. If anything I feel sad for you and other Christians. It must be really sad to be under the thrall of such a petty deity, and a book filled with so many contradictions and falsehoods. If you should at any time need counseling or a helpful answer to any question that might lead you out of the Dark Ages, feel free to email me.
I have to admit Michael’s mistaken warping of facts and his beliefs on Church and State irked me. It was when the very end of Michael’s disagreement with me that tipped over being irked to anger for the apparent insult toward me as being a part of the Christian faith. I am guessing I could list more intellectuals with an affinity for religion in global history than Michael can. That alone is a slap in the face of atheism. And I do realize he might come up with a larger list of atheistic intellectuals for one modern year than I, but I bet would be close.
At this point I will simply contradict Michael’s assertions in the same manner of his disagreement with me.
Michael says: Atheism is not a belief system, religion, world-view, or even philosophy. It is merely the opposite of theism. That being said there are ANTI-theists, Pearlists, and agnostics who have a world view you could attack. Either way, to say an atheist believes that humanity is supreme is a fallacy. Evolution proves quite the opposite. Humans, if anything, are just another primate who has developed skills and language.
Response: Atheism is a belief system that acts like a religion and has a philosophy to defend anti-god beliefs. Check this out: I know what an atheist is and I know what a theist is. So it would seem that an “ANTI-theist” would be the same as an atheist. After doing a little Googling the separation between atheism and anti-theism is a very slim divide. The best description of the slim divide that I found is an About.com answer.
On Rational Atheism
When defined broadly as simply the absence of belief in gods, atheism covers territory that isn’t quite compatible with anti-theism. People who are indifferent to the existence of alleged gods are atheists because they don’t believe in the existence of any gods, but at the same time this indifference prevents them from being anti-theists as well. To a degree, this describes many if not most atheists because there are plenty of alleged gods they simply don’t care about and, therefore, also don’t care enough to attack belief in such gods. Atheistic indifference towards not only theism but also religion is relatively common and would probably be standard if religious theists weren’t so active in proselytizing and expecting privileges for themselves, their beliefs, and their institutions.
…
Rational atheism may be based on many things: lack of evidence from theists, arguments which prove that god-concepts are self contradictory, the existence of evil in the world, etc. Rational atheism cannot, however, be based solely on the idea that theism is harmful because even something that’s harmful may be true. Not everything that’s true about the universe is good for us, though.
On Rational Anti-Theism
Anti-theism requires more than either merely disbelieving in gods or even denying the existence of gods. Anti-theism requires a couple of specific and additional beliefs: first, that theism is harmful to the believer, harmful to society, harmful to politics, harmful, to culture, etc.; second, that theism can and should be countered in order to reduce the harm it causes. If a person believes these things, then they will likely be an anti-theist who works against theism by arguing that it be abandoned, promoting alternatives, or perhaps even supporting measures to suppress it.
…
… Rational anti-theism may be based on a belief in one of many possible harms which theism could do; it cannot, however, be based solely on the idea that theism is false. Not all false beliefs are necessarily harmful and even those that are aren’t necessarily worth fighting.
The above atheism/anti-theism fine line is sculpted from: “Atheism & Anti-Theism: What’s the Difference? What is Anti-Theism?” by Austin Cline.
So basically an atheist could care less about religion and an anti-theist militantly works against religion. This kind of sounds like the apologists trying to establish the fine line between Moderate Islam and Radical Islam in which both believe the exact same thing, but the radicals act on their beliefs, right?
In Michael’s original comment of Pearlists, I did not understand the word so I thought it might be “Pear Lists.” After Googling the original I discovered the thought being conveyed is like Pearl-ist. Sorry about that Michael.
Here is the Urban Dictionary definition for Pearlist:
1. Pearlist
1. A person who believes in Physical Evidence And Reasoned Logic, (P.E.A.R.L) the essence of the scientific method.
2. One who uses the scientific method.
2. Pearlist
A person who believes in the use of
Physical
Evidence
And
Reasoned
LogicAs opposed to a FLAWSist.
Sir, Do you believe in god?
Good grief no, I am a pearlist.
So a Pearlist is a specific kind of atheist.
An agnostic is an easy one. That is a person who is uncertain of the existence of God rather than an outright denier of God’s existence.
After reading Michael’s short list of who I should aim my pro-Christian toward, it seems to me that Michael falls into all the categories except agnostic.
Michael stipulates that “…to say an atheist believes that humanity is supreme is a fallacy.” Hmm … If one does not believe in the existence of God he must believe in something. To deny the belief in something is to say an atheist is brain dead. Michael thinks of himself as an informed rational educated intellectual; ergo Michael is not brain dead and I have to assume at least some atheists are as intellectual as Michael. In denying the existence in God an atheist must believe in some form of humanist ideology that elevates itself above religious faith. The conclusion then is that atheists believe humanity in its physical essence is supreme because only humanity has the sentience to measure and draw conclusions from that which is observable. Atheistic Humanistic Supremacism is a concept that is not a fallacy but an unfortunate reality.
Michael says: Science is not a deity so it cannot be worshipped. Science is merely the method by which we can prove things not unlike mathematics. It has a self-examining/reviewing factor to it and its success rate is very high. I am not saying I am a god, as this would be a delusion. Just as belief in an outer presence who controls and watches everything from beyond is a delusion.
Response: Well duh … science is not a deity. Nonetheless, it is on such a high pedestal in which objectivity is nearly deified (rather admitted or not) that science is a religion to godless atheists. Yes it would be a delusion to say you are a god, it would be delusional; however when one sets themselves as the arbiter of truth one makes oneself a god (wittingly or unwittingly). The denial of this self-aggrandizement is a delusion.
Michael says: I would consider myself a center left voter. In this you are right. I am educated. I help my community. I donate to charity. I don’t look down on other people for being gay or of another race. I don’t think women are worth less than a man, and I think they have the right to say what happens to their own bodies.
Response: I will pray for God’s mercy for being a center-left voter. Just teasing. I am certain there are many poor religious souls that vote on the left side of the political spectrum.
Michael you donate to charity. What kind of charities do you donate to? Perhaps Planned Parenthood (Margaret Sanger)? Or the SPLC? Or perhaps some LGBT organization (Good Preaching) that is a 501(3)c organization? I don’t know what your fancy is. I won’t look down on you for supporting baby murderers, Biblical Christian haters or morally ungodly people that have deluded themselves they have been born a homosexual or are confused about their sexuality even the equipment package born with pretty much deciphers the mystery. Perhaps you do not donate to any of these organizations above; nonetheless it is a fair educated guess that an atheist donates to like minded organizations. For an atheist that is fine. For a Biblical Christian it is reprehensible.
Michael says: I just don’t believe in an arcane Middle Eastern desert tribal god from the Bronze Age. I DO want however to keep the religious aspects out of schools. There is no place for this silly superstition in an advanced society. That being said if someone chooses to put on the shackles of faith on their own time and in their own space then they should feel free. It is their right.
Response: Ah, arcane. My God is only mysterious and obscure to hardened hearts that refuse to listen to the Good News to discover Deliverance from this dark age via the Redemptive act of Jesus Christ the Son of God (here’s a mystery: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – three persons are One God and Jesus is fully human and fully God and a Believer is a new creation in Christ Jesus while God is in the Believer). This is only arcane if one’s reason fails to comprehend there is more to existence than the material seen cosmos.
As an atheist you believe God Almighty is a mythical non-entity worshipped occasionally by a bunch of Hebrews that ousted polytheistic Canaanites. As a Christian God Almighty is the entirety of existence that began to reveal Himself through a bloodline that flowed through the Hebrews and then specifically through the Hebrew tribe of Judah and narrower through the bloodline of King David the son of Jesse of which the human part of the incarnated God Jesus came to Redeem humanity from Adam’s folly.
There are no shackles in Christ Jesus. There is life abundantly in Christ Jesus.
Michael says: It is also the right of the rest of the country NOT to be forced to deal with such things on a governmental and educational level.
Response: I completely agree! Religion should never be forced via government or education; however it is the right of individuals to exercise their faith in government and in education on a voluntary basis.
Michael says: As far as the founding fathers are concerned, you are completely mistaken. They did not in fact want Christianity to be the basis of our country. This is a myth propagated by the right and religious. Educated people know that the founding fathers believed that religion [was] not the way to go as the basis of a free and democratic society.
Response: Actually Michael you have been completely propagandized by Leftist revisionism. In case you failed to read the Founding Father quotes on Religion and Christianity here is a review:
George Washington
“I now make it my earnest prayer the God would have you and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field; and, finally, that he would be most graciously pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation.” June 8, 1783 in a letter to the governors of the states on disbanding the army.
Thomas Jefferson
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” 1781, Query XVIII of his Notes on that State of Virginia.
“My views…are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others…” April 21, 1803 in a letter to Dr. Benjamin.
“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus….I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.”
James Madison (Known as the Father of the Constitution)
“Religion is the basis and Foundation of Government.” June 20, 1785
“It is not the talking but the walking and working person that is the true Christian.” In a manuscript on the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, Madison makes this statement.
“We have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being, whose power regulates the destiny of nations.” March 4, 1809 Inaugural Address
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” [1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia]
The sources are cited! You can follow the link and can read some more quotes. Educated people can read the original sources and comprehend just how much the Founding Fathers (even as Deists) valued Christian principles, Christian values and Christian morality.
Michael says: Even looking at European history this makes sense. Why would any group wanting to be free of a king and/or rule of a church want to restart a society with another at the help? That’s the stuff of pure fantasy.
Response: Michael you are demonstrating your religious blinders. Many Christians came to America for Religious Freedom to escape an established Church and the rule of law that forced taxes to support the established Church and to disqualify any non-State Churches from worshipping freely and openly. By the time of the Founding Fathers America had several Christian Denominations and some of these were indeed State Churches representative of each Colony that after victory would be a State within the federation of the USA. The First Amendment guarantees that all the Christian Denomination have Religious Freedom without fear of the Federal government establishing a State Church. As far as faith is concerned the Founding Fathers were concerned a Denomination would exercise more authority over a handful of Denominations and do with this with the sanction of the Federal government. The thinking was to keep government out of Christianity yet with Christianity being an influence on government. The writings and speeches of the Founding Fathers makes this quite clear! To believe otherwise is Leftist/atheist fantasy.
Michael says: The fact is most of the founding fathers were either, agnostic, atheist, members of the Hellfire Club, Free Masons, or any number of other non-Christian church believing groups. One rewrote the bible excluding all supernatural events. One mentioned we needed more lighthouses than churches because they at least served a purpose.
Response: Actually that which you call a fact is a presumption. A minority of the Founding Fathers might fit the Hellfire Club (Benjamin Franklin), agnostic or atheist description. AND it is evident the majority of Founding Fathers that were within the Freemasons believed in Christian Principles, Christian Values and Christian Values. Leftists, Church-State Separatists and atheists love it that a scholar Chris Rodda has refuted the scholarship of David Barton that promotes the history that America has Christian foundations. I find it typical of a Church-State Separatist to forget that the majority of the first colonists to the Americas came as Christians to establish some form of Christian utopia separate from the persecution of State Churches from Europe. Rodda goes right into the controversy of the level of Christianity practiced by the Founding Fathers which led thirteen American colonies to become the United States of America.
Certainly Barton skews his scholarship toward a pro-Christian point of view on the Founding Fathers. Criticizing of this and not realizing that scholars like Chris Rodda are also skewing scholarship to the Leftist point of view is a bit hypocritical. Let’s look at one Rodda’s confident writings skewering Barton on the issue of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship (Tripoli) signed in 1797 by President John Adams.
Article XI of the treaty provides language that at first sight justifies Leftists’ and atheists’ view of absolute secularism in America’s founding:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, … (Bold Emphasis SlantRight)
This is the part that is quoted by the Leftist view of history. Now let’s look at the entire article:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. (Bold Emphasis SlantRight)
The Constitution of the United States of America in the First Amendment forbids Congress to establish a State Church; ergo America is a Secular Nation with a Christian cultural heritage. The treaty was signed with a State that had an established religion in Islam; however note the wording implies the secular USA has no beef with any Muslim (Musselmen) or Mehomitan (Muslim) nation. Article XI merely states that this treaty is not between religious faiths but rather between a non-established Church secular State of the USA and those of the Muslim faith or nations embracing the Muslim faith.
Rodda comes after Barton because he erroneously cited President Washington as the signer of the treaty. So what? It still doesn’t change the fact that the treaty is between the USA where there is no established Christian religion (i.e. Denomination) and a nation (specifically Morocco) or nations wholly devoted to Islam. Adam’s is not repudiating Christianity!
Rodda does not address the obvious of the context of Article XI, rather she diverts attention to scholarly misquotes and to an obscure document found by David Barton. The only Rodda proves is that his scholarly acumen in citing who said what was slipshod, she does not prove the actual quotes in context are wrong. It is amazing that someone said the things quoted by Barton but not to who Barton attributed the quote. Rodda ignores the fact the data is still there. It only means Rodda has a better grasp of what pleases academia than Barton. Rodda shows that Barton would not have gotten his PhD in history because of sloppy mechanics not because of sloppy conclusions.
Michael says: Thomas Paine, the man Tea Partiers tout because of the pamphlet “Common Sense”, also wrote one of the most important books on religion in the last few centuries. This book was called “The Age of Reason”. I urge you to read this.
Response: Thomas Paine was an awesome Pamphleteer and nothing else. He only lived in America one year before his pen inspired Americans to support the Revolution and to break away from Britain. He was a radical even among American Deists. Check this out from The History Guide:
…
Paine settled in Philadelphia where he soon began a new career as a journalist. He contributed articles to the Pennsylvania Magazine on a wide range of topics. Thus on January 10, 1776, he published a short pamphlet, Common Sense, which immediately established his reputation as a revolutionary propagandist. Although he had only been in America less than a year, Paine committed himself to the cause of American independence. He attacked monarchical government and the alleged virtues of the British constitution, opposing any reconciliation with Great Britain. He also urged an immediate declaration of independence and the establishment of a republican constitution.
Paine was convinced that the American Revolution was a crusade for a superior political system and that America was ultimately unconquerable. He did as much as any writer could to encourage resistance and to inspire faith in the Continental Army. I essays published in the Pennsylvania Journal under the heading “Crisis,” Paine attacked the faint-hearted, campaigned for a more efficient federal and state tax system to meet the costs of war, and encouraged the belief that Britain would eventually recognize American independence.
Often tactless, Paine provoked considerable controversy. He was invariable hard-pressed for money and had to depend upon the generosity of his American friends and the occasional reward from the French envoy in America. When the War came to an end, his financial position was so precarious that he had to campaign to obtain recompense from the government. Congress eventually rewarded him $3000. Pennsylvania granted him ?00 in cash, while New York proved more generous and gave him a confiscated Loyalist farm at New Rochelle.
After American independence had been won, Paine played no part in the establishment of the new republic. Instead, he busied himself trying to invent a smokeless candle and devising an iron bridge.
…
… Burke’s resistance to the French Revolution inspired Paine to write his most influential work, the Rights of Man (Part I in 1791, Part II in 1792). In Part I, Paine urged political rights for all men because of their natural equality in the sight of God. All forms of hereditary government, including the British constitution, were condemned because they were based on farce or force. Only a democratic republic could be trusted to protect the equal political rights of all men. Part II was even more radical for Paine argued for a whole program of social legislation to deal with the shocking condition of the poor. His popularity sounded the alarm and he was forced to leave Britain in September 1792. He was condemned in his absence and declared an outlaw.
Paine immediately immersed himself in French affairs for the next ten years although he still hoped to see a revolution in Britain. In his Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation (London, 1792), he rejected the policy of appealing to parliament for reform and instead urged British radicals to call a national convention to establish a republican form of government.
In August 1792, Paine was made a French citizen and a month later was elected to the National Convention. Since he did not speak French, and had to have his speeches read for him, Paine did not make much of an impact on the Convention. His association with the moderate republicans (Girondins) made him suspect in the Jacobin camp. In January 1793, he alienated many extremists by opposing the execution of Louis XVI. When military defeat fanned Jacobinism into hysteria, he fell victim to the Terror. From December 28, 1793, until November 4, 1794, he was incarcerated in Luxembourg prison until the intercession of the new American minister, James Monroe, secured his release.
During his imprisonment, Paine embarked on his third influential work, The Age of Reason (London and Boston, 1794-95). A deist manifesto to the core, Paine acknowledged his debt to Newton and declared that nature was the only form of divine revelation, for God had clearly established a uniform, immutable and eternal order throughout creation. Paine rejected Christianity, denied that the Bible was the revealed word of God, condemned many of the Old Testament stories as immoral and claimed that the Gospels were marred by discrepancies. There was nothing really that new in Paine’s argument, but the bitterness of his attack on the Christian churches and his attempt to preach deism to the masses made him more enemies than before.
After wearing out his welcome in Paris, Paine finally returned to America in October 1802 and was well-received by Thomas Jefferson. Increasingly neglected and ostracized, Paine’s last years were marked by poverty, poor health and alcoholism. When he died in New York on June 8, 1809, he was virtually an outcast. Since he could not be buried in consecrated ground, he was laid to rest n a corner of his small farm in New Rochelle.
Paine never established a political society or organization and was not responsible for a single reforming measure. His achievements were all with his pen so it is difficult to accurately assess his influence. Although he spent more than ten years in France, he had very little influence on the course of the French Revolution. He did not really understand the Revolution and therefore had little impact on its intellectual foundations. Indeed, to the Jacobins on the far left, Paine appeared as too moderate and faint-hearted.
Paine’s political influence was greatest in England. In intellectual terms, his Rights of Man was his greatest political work and was certainly the best-selling radical political tract in late 18th century England. Before Paine, British radicals sought a reform of Parliament which would grant to all men the vote for members of the House of Commons. In his Rights of Man, Paine abandoned this approach and, rejecting the lessons of history, maintained that each age had the right to establish a political system which satisfied its needs. He rested his case on the moral basis of the natural equality of men in the sight of God. Since government is a necessary evil that men accepted as a means of protecting their natural rights (cf. John Locke), the only legitimate government was that established by a contract between all members of society and one in which all men preserved all their natural rights, except the individual right to use force. Paine argued rationally that all men had an equal claim to political rights and that government must rest on the ultimate sovereignty of the people.
Thomas Paine was not so universally liked by the Founding Fathers. Paine was a hero propagandist for the Revolutionary War but his radicalism so intense that he was lucky he had a nation to go to die. There are several links on this The History Guide page of Thomas Paine’s works. If you read The Age of Reason that Michael suggests to read you will discover that Paine had no affinity for organized Christianity; however even Paine’s Deism points to Christianity for principles, values and morals of a nation.
Michael Says: The motto you refer to was made in the 50′s when white Christians were the majority. I don’t believe this motto is very constitutional. It should be struck down and the secularist motto the founders originally created should be reinstated.
Response: I admit “One Nation Under God” is a 1950s act of Congress. I find it interesting that Michael uses the race card as the reason for the passage of the motto. This is fascinated because Black Americans in the 1950s attending religious services were overwhelmingly Christian. I sincerely doubt Black Christians would have condemned the National Motto even during the last days of American segregation. Reverend Martin Luther King was in the nascent days of his ministry. I am convinced King would have supported the National Motto.
At any rate One Nation Under God is not so much the National motto as it is a phrase inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s. The Pledge history is fascinating and evolving. The Pledge was written by a Socialist (aka Leftist) Christian Minister by the name of Francis Bellamy in 1892. The original Pledge looked like this:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1923 The Pledge was amended to this:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1954 WWII hero President Eisenhower was confronted with godless Soviet Communism at the beginnings of the Cold War. Over the objection of Bellamy’s daughter the phrase “Under God” was added to one nation. Leftist activist Judges had not began whittling away the true meaning of the First Amendment yet and Americans as a whole perceived themselves as citizens of a nation of Christians in the 1950s. Radical Left Wing politics of Socialism, Marxism and Communism were and should still be perceived as belief systems that erode American culture rather than enhancing American culture.
Then there is the history of the actual National Motto: In God we Trust.
America declared its independence from Britain in 1776. After the victory of the Revolutionary War the Founding Fathers realized that the liberated Thirteen Colonies needed a bit more cohesion to survive independence from future threats to American Liberty. Hence the Constitutional Convention ratified a constitution in 1787 for the Thirteen former Colonies to say yea or nay. New Hampshire became the ninth State (6-21-1788) to ratify the Constitution thus establishing a Federal Union in which the four last States would eventually join. By 1790 the last hold-out Rhode Island joined the Union.
The time is important because the motto In God we Trust is derived from the National Anthem written at the end of the War of 1812 in the year 1814 a mere 26 years after the Constitution. Francis Scott Key was the author of the National Anthem and the part of the lyrics that became the National Motto are these:
“…And this be our motto: In God is our trust. And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” (Bold emphasis SlantRight)
The Star Spangled Banner became the National Anthem in 1931 by an act of Congress:
“The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially made the national anthem by Congress in 1931, although it already had been adopted as such by the army and the navy.
Even though Congress did not officially institutionalize the National Anthem and the National Motto until the 20th century, both had an unofficial use by taxpayer supported government entities from the early days of the Republic.
In a letter dated 11-20-1861 by Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase to Director of the Mint James Pollock to incorporate a godly motto on American coinage:
“Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins. You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition. It was found that the Act of Congress dated January 18, 1837, prescribed the mottoes and devices that should be placed upon the coins of the United States.” (Bold emphasis SlantRight)
The point is the Federal government within all Branches of Executive, Legislative and even the Judiciary did not challenge the constitutionality of Christian terminology on Federal coins and currency in the earliest days of the American Republic.
Michael writes about what he calls the original National Motto: E Pluribus Unum – Out of many, one. This is one side of the Great Seal of the United States. I am a bit surprised that Michael did not mention the flip side of the Great Seal: Novus Ordo Seclorum – New Order of the Ages. Conspiracy Theorists like New World Order better.
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were assigned the task of developing a design for the Great Seal. Check out the process that ended up being one of the mottos of the Great Seal:
…
In July 1776, almost immediately after signing the Declaration of Independence, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were tasked with designing a seal and motto for the new nation. In August John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that he had proposed the “Choice of Hercules” as the image for the seal. Adams believed that individuals should choose to lead moral personal lives and to devote themselves to civic duty, and he preferred a secular allegory for that moral lesson.
The other two committee members proposed images that drew on Old Testament teachings, but neither shared the beliefs of those today who assert the role of God in our national government. Benjamin Franklin, a deist who did not believe in the divinity of Christ, proposed “Moses lifting up his Wand, and dividing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh, in his Chariot overwhelmed with the Waters.” This motto he believed, captured the principle that “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”
Thomas Jefferson, … envisioned “The Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by day, and a Pillar of Fire by night, and on the other Side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Chiefs, from whom We claim the Honour of being descended and whose Political Principles and Form of Government We have assumed.” …
The three men worked in consultation with an artist, Eugène Pierre Du Simitière, who rejected all of the ideas of the three committee members. His own first attempt was also rejected by Congress. It would take years and several more committees before Congress would approve the final design, still in use today, of an American bald eagle clutching thirteen arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other.
Only the motto “E Pluribus Unum” (“from many, one”) survived from the committee on which Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin had served. All had agreed on that motto from the beginning. (“In God We Trust” or “E Pluribus Unum”? The Founding Fathers Preferred the Latter Motto,” By Thomas A. Foster; HNN 11-8-11)
Note that the Deist concept of Christianity appears to be the emphasis; nonetheless it is Christian symbolism involved in the thought process leading to E Pluribus Unum.
The last part of Michael’s comment is something already addressed in this response which Michael starts utilizing pejorative language toward the intelligence of Christian.
JRH 2/4/12
Stand With Paul Fields August 30
John R. Houk
© August 20, 2011
Attention to those who live around the Tulsa, OK metropolitan area!
ACT for America is sponsoring a rally for Paul Fields a Tulsa Police Department Officer unjustly punished for refusing to attend a Police appreciation day event at the Islamic Society of Tulsa (IST) Mosque. I understand that Fields was suspended without pay and demoted for refusing to attend the Mosque. IST is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood which is a radical Muslim branch of Islam, you know, the kind of Islam that wishes Muslims to follow a purist ideology which is largely responsible for Islamic terrorism today.
KNOWING this about IST and that Chief Chuck Jordan punished Paul Fields for refusing to attend a meeting at a Mosque associated with Radical Islam and knowing that IST was going to embark on a proselytizing Islamic message, Fields was fully within his Constitutional rights inherent in the First Amendment to refuse attendance WITHOUT an expectation of retribution.
WE MUST SHOW SUPPORT for Paul Fields by showing up to this rally in Tulsa, OK sponsored by ACT for America!
JRH 8/20/11
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Action Alert: Help us Mobilize the Largest Crowd Possible
By Kelly Cook, National Field Director
Sent by ACT for America
Sent: 8/19/2011 4:42 PM
Help us Mobilize the Largest Crowd Possible For Police Captain Paul Fields At the Tulsa Rally on August 30
On Tuesday, August 30th, ACT! for America Executive Director Guy Rodgers and National Field Director Kelly Cook will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for our rally calling for the full reinstatement of Captain Paul Fields.
As you are probably aware, Captain Fields has been significantly punished by the Tulsa Police Dept for respectfully declining to attend a mandatory Friday afternoon indoctrination in a local Mosque. There was no call for police protection, only a mandate that the officers attend the Islamic worship service. It only became a mandatory requirement after Fields declined the initial “voluntary” request that he be there!
Can you imagine what would have happened if a Muslim police officer had been required to attend a Sunday morning worship service at a Christian church? The “politically correct” would have come unhinged—and frankly that is why this would never happen. The double standard on display here is breathtaking.
Captain Fields’ First Amendment rights have been violated. We refuse to stand by and let a good man be punished for simply following his personal convictions!
Will you join us in Tulsa to support this great man?
If you live in the area, plan to be in the area, or can travel from where you live, please join us for this important event!
***Action Items***
· If you have friends or family who live in the area, or anyone you can think of who might be interested, please forward this email to them and encourage them to attend.
· Bring a creative but respectful sign! Use your imagination. Here are a few suggestions:
o “Personal Convictions Matter”
o “Reinstate Captain Fields”
o “We’re Standing With You Captain Fields”
o “No More Double Standards”
o “Freedom of Religion is Still in the Bill of Rights”
· Contact your local church and encourage them to bring a busload to the rally!
o Click Here for our press release. Give this to your church and ask that it be posted in the church.
o Forward this email to your local church.
· Bring a car load with you! Call your friends. Bring your kids—show them what it’s like to be an American and that it sometimes costs us time and energy to preserve our precious freedoms! Have fun! See event details below.
· Thoughts on media at the event. If approached by a reporter, we respectfully ask that you refer them to one of the guest speakers at the event. Some in the media are quite adept at molding a “story” to reinforce their pre-conceived narrative.
Thank you for your serious consideration in helping us support Captain Fields. Rest assured the officials of the City of Tulsa (and cities across the nation!) will be watching. It is critical that we have a large show of support. We must send a message that people of conviction will be supported wherever injustice is served.
Here are the details:
WHEN: 10:00 A.M., Tuesday, August 30, 2011
WHERE: Chapman Centennial Green Park, 600 S. Main St, Tulsa
After the rally, we will walk the five blocks to City Hall and deliver the petition to Mayor Dewey Bartlett, who appointed Chuck Jordan to Tulsa Chief of Police last November. At that time Guy Rodgers will take questions from the media.
____________________________
Stand With Paul Fields August 30
John R. Houk
© August 20, 2011
_______________________________
Action Alert: Help us Mobilize the Largest Crowd Possible
ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure.
Tulsa Police Chief Supports Radical Islamic Mosque
John R. Houk
© June 18, 2011
This is outrageous! A Mosque in Tulsa, OK invited members of the Tulsa Police Department to come to a “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day”. The Police Chief Charles Jordan presented this invitation as voluntary to the rank and file. A sign-up form was placed to gage how many TPD Officers would show up.
Hardly anyone signed up to attend.
Apparently the Police Chief felt the pressure of political correctness and – God forbid – that the TPD insult a group of Muslims in a Mosque in Tulsa. Thus Charles Jordan made participation at the Islamic Society of Tulsa “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” mandatory.
Captain Paul Williams chose not to attend based on his religious convictions. Williams is not a Muslim. The Appreciation Day info implied that would be a Friday sermon that would be of a proselytizing nature.
It is one thing to attend Islamic dawa (equivalent to Christian Evangelism) voluntarily and quite the other thing to be forced to go. It is even worse to be forced to go as an agent of the City Government. This is obviously a huge violation of American Civil Rights especially as it pertains to Religious Freedom and the tax payer supported City Government forcing city employees to listen to religious advocacy INVOLUNTARILY.
If you have read any of my writings you would be aware that I am not a big fan of the Courts’ 20th and 21st century interpretation of the First Amendment regarding the State and Religion (with Religion being the practices of Christian sects or Denominations according to Original Intent).
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (From Cornell University Law School)
Since about the middle of the 20th century through the present, the American judiciary has defined “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” to mean all aspects of religion and government cannot intermingle. Thus for example prayer in School or at graduation has been fought by Leftists because religion should not occur on tax payer supported functions or property.
There is NO PLACE in the First Amendment that says Religion and Government should not intermingle for the good of the community. The First Amendment simply relates that the Government (really the Congress of the Federal Government) cannot establish a State Religion in which American citizens must support typically through some sort of taxation.
And another thing! The Original Intent of the Founding Fathers envisioned “religion” to be Christianity. A majority of Americans in the Thirteen Original States were members of various Christian Churches. Religion did not indicate the consideration of other non-Christian religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or the numerous religions that existed at the time the U.S. Constitution was written and then ratified. I should have mentioned Judaism as well; however in my rarified Christian theology, Judaism and Christianity are tightly connected. And I do realize that many Christian Denominations and Jewish sects (Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed etc.) would not agree that there is a close connection between Christianity and Judaism that is just my perspective.
On the other hand the First Amendment would prevent the Tulsa Police Department as an agent of tax payers to force Officers to attend Islamic religious practices in a Mosque or any location for that matter. Now it is the duty of the TPD to protect and serve Muslims, Christians, Secularists, atheists and so on. Protecting and serving is quite different from participating in a religious service.
The Islamic Society of Tulsa “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” took place on March 4, 2011. Captain Paul Fields refused to attend. Police Chief Charles Jordan took disciplinary action against Captain Fields.
Fields endured two weeks suspension without pay, a transfer to another division that is in a part of Tulsa in which drugs and thugs are rampant AND was told an internal investigation would occur. All because Captain Fields exercised his First Amendment rights of Religious Freedom and an unwillingness to attend as a government agent of the tax payers.
I urge your support for the legal battle of Captain Paul Fields. A Civil Suit win means the City Government cannot bully its employees into actions that might be against their religious beliefs. The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) has taken on the legal representation of Paul Fields. You can donate to the Fields cause at the DONATION page. In the comment section at the bottom of the donation page you can leave a comment to specify you are donating for Captain Paul Fields of the Tulsa Police Department.
Deluge the TPD and Police Chief Charles (Chuck) Jordan with protests to this unconstitutional action by mail and email:
Address:
600 Civic Center, Suite 303
Tulsa, OK 74103
Phone:
918-596-9328
Email:
ACT for America emailed the details of Captain Paul Fields plight with the TPD and is calling for Chapter support to raise support for the civil suit and exposing the Islamic Society of Tulsa. I should join a Tulsa chapter but as yet I have not. Regardless on a personal basis I have been a huge supporter of ACT for America and their efforts to educate Americans about the nature of radical Islam in America. This is one of those cases. The Islamic Society of Tulsa is closely aligned to unindicted co-conspirators Council on American-Islamic Relations and Islamic Society of North America as being involved with the convicted terrorist supporting members of the now Holy Land Foundation.
The ACT for America email includes a petition to sign and an excerpt of a WND article (which I will post in its entirety at the end of this post at SlantRight 2.0) detailing how TPD is squelching Paul Fields’ rights and the Islamist nature of the Islamic Society of Tulsa.
JRH 6/18/11
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Tulsa, Oklahoma Outrage
By Kelly Cook
National Field Director
Sent Jun 17, 2011 at 3:26 PM
Chapter Leader and Volunteer Action Alert
Forward Today’s National Email to Your
Chapter/Personal Contact Lists!!
Today’s national email regarding Tulsa Police Captain Paul Fields and his unjust treatment underscores a couple of major reasons as to why ACT! for America exists:
1) If we don’t come to this innocent man’s defense, who will?
2) If the Tulsa Police Department can get away with such an injustice, who’s next
I urge you in the strongest terms possible, please forward today’s national email (see below) to your chapter and/or personal email contact lists. Do not assume there is a significant overlap in names between these email lists. Many will see it for the first time as a result of you forwarding it on!
We are highly impressed with the response rate to this petition so far today! (At least 1,200 names per hour.) It is clearly striking a chord and we need to maximize the exposure it gets. The more names that are generated, the higher the pressure we can exert on the Tulsa Police Department.
If we receive enough signers on the petition, we will schedule a press conference in Tulsa in a couple of weeks, hold a rally for supporters of Captain Fields and publicly demand that he is completely restored to the original status he held before this injustice occurred.
Thanks for accomplishing this simple task for this most deserving police officer!
Cut and paste below this line to your email lists now!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Police Captain Suspended Without Pay
He refused to attend proselytizing event at Muslim Brotherhood-connected Islamic center
Sign our petition calling for his reinstatement!
Dear Friend,
Tulsa Police Captain Paul Fields was recently suspended for two weeks without pay because, according to the WorldNetDaily story below (highlights added), he refused to attend a “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” event at the Islamic Society of Tulsa—an event that was nothing more than Islamic proselytizing.
As you read the story below, we’re sure you’ll feel as outraged as we are by this assault on Captain Fields’ rights!
Please read and sign our petition calling for his reinstatement, and then forward it to everyone you know. Let’s expose to America the unconstitutional and politically correct actions of Captain Fields’ superiors!
At the appropriate time we will hand deliver the petition to the Tulsa police department. If the response to the petition is strong enough, we’ll hold a rally and news conference in front of police headquarters to put the heat on them. So please sign the petition today!
If the Tulsa police department’s leadership can get away with this, what’s next? Requiring all government officials to attend Friday services at a local mosque?
____________________________
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Policeman sues over orders to attend Islamic prayer
City accused of being ‘complicit’ in Muslim Brotherhood jihad plan
By Bob Unruh
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=278589
A Tulsa, Okla., police captain is suing his chief and the city after he was demoted and targeted by an internal investigation for refusing orders to attend an event featuring lessons in Islam, a tour and a prayer service at a mosque linked to an unindicted co-conspirator in a terror financing trial.
The legal action has been brought by attorneys with the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Paul Fields.
Named as defendants are the city, police chief Charles W. Jordan and deputy chief Alvin Daryl Webster. WND requests for comment did not generate a response from the defendants.
The lawsuit focuses on the officer’s constitutional and civil rights, and besides a resolution of Fields’ concerns, it seeks an injunction preventing “enforcement of defendants’ unconstitutional acts, policies, practices, procedures and/or customs.”
At issue is a solicitation by officials in the Tulsa Police Department for officers to attend a “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” organized by the Islamic Society of Tulsa. The invitation said the officers would be given tours of the mosque, meet the mosque’s leadership, be given presentations of “beliefs, human rights, women” and “watch the 2-2:45 weekly congregational prayer service.”
While at first the police administration’s recommendation for attendance at the event appeared to be voluntary – there was a voluntary signup list – the law firm said when officers refused to respond, the managers made it a required event.
The day “had nothing to do with any official police function. It clearly fell outside of the police department’s policy on community policing, and based on comments made by police department officials in a closed door meeting, it was not ‘community outreach’ as it has been previously portrayed,” the law firm explained.
“Rather, it included a mosque tour, meetings with local Muslims and Muslim leadership, observing a ‘weekly prayer service,’ and lectures on Islamic ‘beliefs,’” the Thomas More Law Center explained. “The event was scheduled for Friday, March 4, 20011 – Friday being the ‘holy day’ or ‘Sabbath’ for Islam. In fact, the event was originally voluntary, but when not enough officers were willing to attend, it became mandatory.”
The lawsuit alleges, “The event held by the Islamic Society involved Islamic proselytizing. The Islamic Society event was advertised as including Islamic proselytizing, and it in fact resulted in the proselytizing of city police officers who attended the event.”
The issue of Islamic law, or Shariah, infiltration into the United States is drawing increasing attention. Several state legislative efforts already have developed, including in Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee and Florida, to prevent judges from applying Shariah, which includes penalties such as beheading for leaving Islam, in the government’s court systems.
Last year in Oklahoma, voters with a 70-percent majority approved such a ban, but U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange blocked it after the Council on American-Islamic Relations argued the move was “anti-Islam.”
The issue also is the subject of a lawsuit in Michigan, where city officials in Dearborn are accused of allowing Shariah to be used to block Christians from discussing their faith at the city-sponsored Arab Fest. Under Shariah, it is illegal for a Muslim to convert to another faith.
The March edition of “Whistleblower” magazine, titled “Know Thine Enemy,”
also shows how the Muslim Brotherhood, – “the shadowy, transnational Islamist parent organization of al-Qaida and Hamas – is committed not only to filling the growing leadership vacuum in the Arab world, but also, through its many proxies within the U.S., to impose the Quran and Shariah law right here in America.”
The report reveals details about key U.S. front organizations for Shariah, about the Muslim Brotherhood’s “project” for North America, how Muslim groups are influencing judges, members of Congress and others and how Barack Obama’s “appointments, statements, lawsuits” show “a strong and troubling affinity for Islam.”
According to the new Tulsa lawsuit, images of some police officers appeared later in a publicity photograph used by the mosque to promote “Islam classes for Non-Muslims.”
The Thomas More Law Center, which already is involved in other litigation defending the religious freedom of Christians as well as “countering the infiltration of radical Muslims in America,” said it was working with Tulsa attorney Scott Wood to defend Fields’ “constitutional right not to become a propaganda prop for the local mosque.”
Fields had responded to the order to appear for the tour, prayer and other mosque events with a written notice stating: “Please consider this email my official notification to the Tulsa Police Department and the city of Tulsa that I intend not to follow this directive, nor require any of my subordinates to do so if they share similar religioius convictions.”
Webster then ordered Fields into a meeting where he was handed an order transferring him to the Mingo Valley Division, an area known for drug activity, as well as a notification of an internal investigation of Fields.
The lawsuit explains that the Tulsa Islamic Society is “Shariah-adherent,” meaning that it teaches Islamic law must control “all matters of life, politics, and religious law.”
“Consequently, the religion of Islam is not merely one segment of life; it regulates life completely, from the social and the political to the diplomatic, economic, and military. The combination of religion and politics as a unified, indefeasible whole is the foundation of Islam, an inseparable political/religious doctrine of Islamic governments, and the basis of Muslim loyalties. In this respect, the theo-political doctrine of Islam is contrary to the dictates of the First Amendment’s religion clauses,” the lawsuit explains.
[SlantRight Editor: It is at this point the ACT for America points to the WMD article to read the rest; however I am continuing the rest of the article.]
“In an Islamic context there is no such thing as a separate secular authority and secular law, since religion and state are one. Essentially, the Islamic state as conceived by orthodox Muslims is a religious entity established under divine law.”
The suit notes that under Islam, there are members of the House of Islam and “infidels,” whom it teaches eventually all will submit to Islam.
Thus, the “Appreciation Day” was no more than an opportunity “to promote what Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim Brotherhood have described as ‘civilization jihad,’” the lawsuit said.
The complaint also notes the Tulsa organization is affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America – both “unindicted, co-conspirators and/or joint venturers in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial.”
ISNA, the case explains, is the “largest Muslim brotherhood front in North America.”
And the Tulsa organization has had featured speakers including Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who is “a Shariah-adherent Muslim who promotes the destruction of Western civilization and the creation of an Islamic caliphate,” according to the lawsuit.
“Defendants have never forced under penalty of adverse employment consequences any officer in the police department to attend any event involving Christianity or a Christian church that was not a call for service nor organized by the City Police Department as a function of Community Policing,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants actions … favored the religious beliefs and convictions of Muslims over those of non-Muslims.”
The requirement also created a government sponsorship of Islam, the complaint said.
The suit cites alleged violations of the First Amendment freedom exercise of religion, freedom of association, the establishment clause and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
“The city of Tulsa police department and its highest ranking officials are not only willfully blind to the threat that Shariah (Islamic law) poses in their own community, they are willfully blind to the fundamental rights that our very own Constitution provides to its American citizens, including Capt. Fields,” said Robert Muise, senior trial counsel for the TMLC. “In effect, as the amended complaint sets out in greater detail, the city’s police department and its officials are unwittingly complicit in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘civilization jihadist’ process, to the detriment of one of its most loyal and competent police officers.”
In a recent commentary, David Kupelian, editor of Whistleblower magazine, noted that President Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, recently downplayed the influence and ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood, referring to the “dedicated Islamist group” as “largely secular.”
“Since the Obama administration apparently has such a difficult time thinking logically about anything, let’s reduce the facts of Shariah and the Muslim Brotherhood down to a simple, inescapable, purely logical syllogism: Shariah – Islamic law – is unspeakably cruel, barbaric and inhuman,” he explained. “The Muslim Brotherhood is unalterably dedicated to imposing Shariah on the entire world, with a special emphasis on America. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood is America’s enemy.”
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Tulsa Police Chief Supports Radical Islamic Mosque
John R. Houk
© June 18, 2011
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Tulsa, Oklahoma Outrage
ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure.
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Policeman sues over orders to attend Islamic prayer
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Free Speech Comes to Dearbornistan
John R. Houk
© June 1, 2011
Dearborn, MI was once a powerhouse of automobile and machine building plants in America. I know we call Detroit the Motorcity but a lot of the workers either worked in Detroit suburbs or lived in Detroit suburbs. Auto magnate Henry Ford brought car mass production to Dearborn. Indeed Dearborn is the city Henry Ford died in.
Dearborn is quickly becoming known as a place of growing radical Islamic population. Hence many bloggers including myself have referred to the city as Dearbornistan rather than Dearborn. The Muslim population for Dearborn is immense as this pro-Dearbornistan Muslim article does show.
Recently a Christian from Sudan – George Saieg – was arrested for distributing Christian tracks on the public sidewalks of Dearborn. He sued Dearborn for violating his Free Speech Rights. Saieg lost the suit in Federal Court. The Good News though is this: Saieg won a 2-1 split decision from the Sixth Appellate Court.
Finally, Stealth Jihad via creeping Sharia Law has taken a hit in the Federal Judicial System. The corrupt City Hall and Chief of Police of Dearborn have been validating a nose-thumbing at the U.S. Constitution First Amendment guaranteeing religious freedom and freedom of speech for some time to allow the intolerance of Sharia Law to be practiced.
You can watch an example of the Dearborn Storm Troopers violating the First Amendment HERE.
ACT for America sent a copy of an Andrew Bostom article writing about Saieg’s judicial victory in Appellate Court.
JRH 6/1/11
Repealing DADT Hampers Chaplains’ Religious Freedom
John R. Houk
© October 31, 2010
The Administration of President Barack Hussein Obama is closing in on Secular Humanist and Homosexual Activist dream in the U.S. Military; i.e. the repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).
In a relatively short amount of time in 2010 a Federal Judge repealed DADT as unconstitutional followed closely by a stay of the Federal Judge’s order by the Ninth Circuit Appellate Court until the Appeals process follows its legal rounds. Legally President BHO can DADT by a stroke of a pen; however the President already seeing a Conservative voter tilt, has elected to say Congress has to pass a repeal of DADT.
So DADT is currently in limbo with most of the MSM and American Leftists expecting the repeal as if it is set in stone. Somehow the Dem majority in the Senate did not cooperate with the Dem House’s yea vote to repeal. Those in the military that enforce law and regulations are thus in a quandary to DADT enforcement.
Whatever the reasons DADT has not been repealed and should be enforced until it is officially maintained or repealed. Weighing in the continuing DADT argument are a group of retired military Chaplains who have complained that if DADT is repealed new military regulations could challenge the First Amendment of the Free Exercise of religion among current Chaplains. Also in stating a point these retired Chaplains explain they have sent a letter of petition rather than active duty Chaplains for fear of being Court Marshaled for insubordination.
The retired Chaplains petition to President BHO and to Secretary of Defense Gates is based that on the fear of preaching homosexuality is a Biblical sin message could lead to a Chaplain Court Marshal for either disobeying regulations against speaking out against homosexuality or defying orders not to speak out against homosexuality.
This is a legitimate fear because of the powerful intermingling homosexual activists and Leftists who would jump on a bandwagon of accusing the military of allowing hate-speech and bigotry. After all, Secular Humanist/Leftist ideology had prevented Military Chaplains from paying in the name of Jesus. Navy Chaplain Lt Gordon Klingenschmitt was Court Marshaled for defying Orders forbidding him to pray in the Name of Jesus. Can you imagine if a Chaplain was Court Marshaled by the Military for the basic Christian tenet of “Praying in Jesus’ Name, then imagine what would happen to a Chaplain that followed his conviction preaching on the sin of homosexuality?
Support Retired Chaplains Giving Voice to Active Chaplains
JRH 10/31/10 (Hat Tip: Solid Snake)
