John Calvin Coolidge for President in 2024

President Calvin Coolidge warned in a speech given MAY 15, 1926, at the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia:

“But there is another…recent development… the greatly disproportionate influence of organized minorities.

Artificial propaganda, paid agitators, selfish interests, all impinge upon members of legislative bodies to force them to represent special elements rather than the great body of their constituency.

When they are successful, minority rule is established…

…The result is an extravagance on the part of the Government which is ruinous to the people and a multiplicity of regulations and restrictions for the conduct of all kinds of necessary business, which becomes little less than oppressive…”

Coolidge continued:

“No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.

Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become autocratic…

Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It…sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody…”

Coolidge added:

“We must also recognize that the national administration is not and cannot be adjusted to the needs of local government…

The States should not be induced by coercion or by favor to surrender the management of their own affairs.

The Federal Government ought to resist the tendency to be loaded up with duties which the States should perform.

It does not follow that because something ought to be done the National Government ought to do it…

…I want to see the policy adopted by the States of discharging their public functions so faithfully that instead of an extension on the part of the Federal Government there can be a contraction…

The principles of government have the same need to be fortified, reinforced, and supported that characterize the principles of religion.”

Calvin Coolidge stated at the unveiling of the Equestrian Statue of Bishop Francis Asbury, October 15, 1924, Washington, DC:

“There are only two main theories of government in the world.

One rests on righteousness, the other rests on force. One appeals to reason, the other appeals to the sword. One is exemplified in a republic, the other is represented by a despotism.

The history of government on this earth has been almost entirely a history of the rule of force held in the hands of a few. Under our Constitution, America committed itself to…the power in the hands of the people…

…Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind.

Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.”

A Brief Meditation on Ecclesiastes 7:13

Consider the work of God

For who can make straight what He has made crooked.
Ecclesiastes 7:13

1.) Note that God is ascribed the power of making matters crooked. Clearly a statement of God’s sovereignty.

2.) Christians often are guilty in history of rushing in to make straight what God has decreed to be crooked and as such find themselves to be fighting against God.

3.) Note that God is not absent from the crooked things in the world. Things or matters are not crooked by fate, chance, or any other impersonal abstraction. God is personally present in all things … both crooked and straight

4.) Coming as this does in the context of wisdom, the appeal seems to be for the wise to show their wisdom by being able to discern what in God’s work he has made crooked.

May God give us the wisdom to rightly discern.

On This Day; Potpourri of Quotes and Insights Over The Years From the Pastor’s Study

A.) Memorial Day began in Georgia in 1866 to honor the Confederate dead who gave their lives for their people. Of course, many dead Yankees were mercenaries from Europe who couldn’t possibly give their lives for their people.

B.) Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.  II Chronicles 19:2
Well, doesn’t that just throw a wrench into refugeeism and illegal immigration?

C.) Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?

A. No mere man, since the fall, is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed.
__________
I break God’s commandments every day in thought, word, and deed. Lord Christ… thank you for your Grace and Mercy.

D.)  “We won the war in a military sense; but in a broader sense it seems to me we lost it, for our Western civilization is less respected and secure than it was before. In order to defeat Germany and Japan we supported the still greater menaces of Russia and China – which now confront us in a nuclear-weapon era. Poland was not saved … Much of our Western culture was destroyed. We lost the genetic heredity formed through aeons in many million lives … It is alarmingly possible that World War II marks the beginning of our Western civilization’s breakdown, as it already marks the breakdown of the greatest empire ever built by man.”

Charles Lindbergh
circa 1970

E.) “Neither because Christ is the way to life, is the practice of Christian piety therefore not the way to life. Christ is the way to life…The practice of Christian piety is the way to life…It is certain indeed that the true Christian lives to Christ, that is, to his glory: but it does not follow from thence that he does nothing for his own advantage…In fine, it is not inconsistent to do something from this principle, because we live, and to the end, that we may live…And though he requires us to love him above all, yet he does not command that all love to ourselves be entirely banished.”

Herman Witsius

F.) Whether it was Justinian in the 6th century, Alfred the Great in the 9th Century, William of Salisbury in the 12th century, or William Blackstone in the 18th century — they all pointed to the law of God as that higher law which all men and all government of men are accountable.

G.) I’ve often prayed for awakening. Now having been given the grace to see through the illusion just a wee bit — the illusion that “the yet to be awakened” do not yet see-through — now I pray for Faith to keep the faith, wisdom to know what must be done, and for patience in the face of what seems to be overwhelming resistance to awakening in general.

H.) The War of Northern Aggression was not about slavery. The Spanish American War was not about the sinking of the Maine. WWI was not about making the world safe for Democracy or a war to end all wars. WW II was not about ridding the world of tyrannical governments. Vietnam was not about stopping the Domino effect, and the Gulf War was never about Weapons of Mass destruction. Anybody notice a pattern here?

I.) Understanding history boils down to two basic principles:
1. Whoever controls the past controls the future.
2. Whoever controls the present controls the past.
Did Orwell teach us nothing?

J.) I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

Major General Smedley Butler
Two Time Winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

K.) Learned today from a minister that Genesis doesn’t mean that God actually took a “mud doll” and breathed life into it. It only means that God created. Genesis doesn’t have to do w/ the “How,” but only the “that.” We simply must make room for science if we are to be taken seriously as Christians. Lord, it was easier to be an Ehud or a Phinehas.

Once someone starts down that Deconstructionist path, the Framework Hypothesis, Gap Theory, and every other textual criticism seem perfectly reasonable — a bible devoid of the Christian God.

L.) (2011) My 21 y/o Anna works at Beaners. Recently, she engaged in a conversation w/ a customer. The subject turned to Anna & Homeschool. Many questions followed & Anna handled them deftly & w/ enthusiasm. Finally this retired school teacher, after an extended conversation with my perky interactive daughter said … “But I worry about the lack of socialization that you homeschool children suffer.”

Are these people brain dead?

M.) (2010) You can now look forward to the Government managing your health care the way it is now managing the BP Oil Spill. It never ceases to amaze me that after the constant and repeated failures of government in performing the tasks that they’ve been Constitutionally assigned that idiots still think … “Hey, I know … let’s let the government take over health care.”

Well, they are presently pumping mud cement through a tube under high pressure directly into the oil hole, making your comparison to what the government is doing to us with health care quite apt. My advice when dealing with the government is to remain seated at all times.

Revelation Before Reason

Naked Reason cannot rebuild Christian civilization.

No, there must first be a pre-theoretical revelational commitment that is anchored in the testimony of the Scriptures in order for reason to be reasonable and in order for reason to be of usage in rebuilding Christendom.

Well… it is not only Christians who understand that putatively naked reason cannot provide answers. It is also the case that many non-Christians get that point also. This explains our turn to the non-rational and the irrational. Pagan Intellectuals have for decades now have understood that there is no rational reason for rationality.

As of late, we have been deluged with the philosophy of postmodernism which boldly says things like what was recently said by a Syracuse University philosophy and religion professor Prof. John Caputo who critiqued the notion of pure reason as simply being a “white male Euro-Christian construction.”

Given its emphasis on first principles and abstract thought, it may be tempting to view academic philosophy as a turf where the race of participants matters little, but Caputo says that’s entirely untrue. In fact, race is of central importance, and it’s proven by the mundane phrases philosophers use. Captuo offered that the supposed “reason” underlying philosophy is just another form of white privilege … or something of that nature.

So, academia in many cases is proudly touting that reason and logic are themselves socially constructed, and being socially constructed they (logic and reason) are used by white people to be oppressors. And as this is becoming a watchword among academia it teaches us again that reason alone will not rebuild Christendom.

Three More Facts Regarding the Noble Savage

Fact — Indians were not egalitarian. Indian females were routinely bought and sold as “wives.” Indian females performed all physical labor. including wood gathering, slaughtering of animals, packing up the Teepees for migration, primitive gardening, and food storage. Indian females were packhorses when needed carrying huge loads. In this context, Female Indians became mothers as young as 13 and were responsible for child-rearing. Rarely did Indian females live past 35 years of age.

Fact — American Indians were members of a stone-age culture with no written languages, no written law, no use of the wheel, and no domesticated animals until the Spanish introduced to them horses and sheep. They practiced agriculture w/o the use of a simple wooden plow and until the Spanish introduced wool and the loom in the American Southwest no Indian tribes produced cloth, not even the Navaho and Hopi.
Fact — Most American Indian tribes were exceedingly immoral, buying and swapping wives like so many beads at the slightest whim. Venereal disease was rampant.