Abortion is Murder November 2, 7-10

Formerly Stop the Killing of Young People (skyp) and soon, perhaps, Stop Killing Preemies

November 2, 2009 Vol. 7 No. 10
PO Box 7424, Reading, PA 19603
Phone – cell—484-706-4375, machine -- 610-396-0332
Email – johndunk@ptd.net
Web – skyp1.blogspot.com
Circulation – 61
John Dunkle, Editor

Abortion is Murder, a weak, pathetic response to baby murder, is sent out at least once a month. If the gestapo hasn’t jailed you for defending the innocent realistically, you either have to tell me you want it or go the website. Faxes and emails are free but snail-mail is free only for POC’s, $100 for others.
Because I believe we should use every legitimate means, including force, in our attempt to protect those being tortured to death, I want to hear from people who’ve been forceful. I’d also like to hear from those who disagree with me.

Prisoners of Christ:
1. Evans, Paul Ross 83230-180, USP McCreary, P.O. Box 3000, Pine Knot, KY 42635
2. Gibbons, Linda - Vanier WDC, 655 Martin St., P.O. Box 1040, Milton, ON, Canada L9T 5E6
3. Griffin, Michael 310249, Okaloosa Correctional Institution, Crestview FL 32539-6708 9/11
4. Howard, Peter Andrew 57760-097, FCI, Box 900, Safford, AZ 85546
5. Jordi, Stephen 70309-004, FCI P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute IN 47802 6/30
6 Knight, Peter CRN 158589, Port Philip Prison, P.O. Box 376, Laverton, Victoria, Australia
7. Kopp, James 11761-055, USP Canaan, 3057 Easton Tpk., Waymart, PA 18472
8. McMenemy, David Robert 08168-030, FCI Elkton, P.O. Box 10, Lisbon OH 44432
9. Richardson, Alonzo Lee 12898-021, PO Box 474701, Des Moines, IA 5094
10. Roeder, Scott, Sedgewick County Jail, 141 West Elm, Wichita, KS 67203
11. Rudolph, Eric 18282-058 US Pen. Max, Box 8500, Florence CO 81226-8500
12. Shannon, Rachelle 59755-065, FCI Waseca, Unit A, P.O. Box 1731, Waseca, MN 56093 3/31
13. Waagner, Clayton Lee 17258-039, United States Penitentiary, P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg PA 17837 8/25
14. Weiler Jr., Robert F. 39385-037, FCC - Delaware Hall, Box 1000, Petersburg VA 23804 (new)
15. Whitaker, Vincent , FCI, Box 699, Estill SC 29918

The Lord has asked people to make sacrifices related to opposing abortion which all but a handful have had too weak a heart to make. And they’ve looked for any pretense they could conjure up to claim that the sacrifice wasn’t required. They even deluded themselves, as people often do, into “believing” the pretense was real . . . When they get what they’ll get, they’ll fully deserve it. Peter Knight
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Abortion: The Irrepressible Conflict Chapter 3, The Debate
By Eric R. Rudolph

In the 1850’s the conflict over slavery came to a head. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was revamped. Among other things, the law required free-state authorities to return runaway slaves to their masters down South. In response, several Northern states passed so-called Liberty Laws, which in effect nullified the Fugitive Slave Law, and thereby challenged the authority of the federal government.
Then came the Kansas Nebraska Act (1854), a law that nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In the famous Compromise, slavery was banned north of the 36° 30’ line. Now, under the new act, slavery in the territories was to be contingent on “popular sovereignty.” If a majority of any new territory’s residents wanted slavery, they could have it, regardless of whether the territory was north or south of the 36 degrees and 30 minutes line.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott (1857) case was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The decision capped off a decade of defeat for anti-slavery forces. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Taney ruled that Congress and the territorial governments had no power to exclude slavery from the territories, popular sovereignty notwithstanding. Property in slaves was protected under the Fifth Amendment and neither Congress, nor the territorial governments could deprive any U.S. citizen of his property, said Taney. Nor could they prohibit a man carrying his property (slaves) across state lines. In effect, Dred Scott said that all Congressional action limiting the expansion of slavery in the past seventy years, including the Northwest Ordinance of 1786, were null and void. Abolitionism was no longer a viable movement.
For abolitionists, who had worked for half a century to limit the expansion of slavery, these measures were not simply temporary set backs; they were a declaration of war on the anti-slavery cause. Henry Clay’s dream of a compromise between the North and South was dead. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery folks could not live together under the same system. Abraham Lincoln captured the significance of Dred Scott: “It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no state under the Constitution can exclude it [slavery], just as they have already decided that. . .neither Congress nor the territorial legislatures can do it. . ..” If, therefore, the Constitution protects “the right of property in slaves,” then “nothing in the Constitution or laws of any state can destroy the right of property in slaves.” The next step, said Lincoln, was to nullify all the free-state constitutions that had outlawed slavery. Lincoln understood that the Constitution could no longer serve these two irreconcilable positions. He used a Biblical metaphor to drive home this point: “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot long endure permanently half slave and half free.” 1
Constitutional efforts to outlaw or limit the expansion of slavery had failed. Unless the anti-slavery folks intended to permanently back down, they would have to devise a new strategy. The slavery debate was over. The only option left was a naked struggle for power. The winner of the struggle would impose his system with respect to slavery. In a famous speech (1858) Lincoln’s future Secretary of State William H. Seward called the impending collision of the two Americas “the irrepressible conflict.”2
There are limits to diversity within one system of laws. In the 1850s, those limits were reached over slavery. In 1973 the limitsof diversity were reached again, this time over abortion. There are, however, significant differences between the conflict over slavery and the present one over abortion. In the 1850s the underlying differences between the people of the North and the people of the South were slight. Although North and South developed sectional identities, both shared the same culture, both shared the same Western Christian Culture identity. The differences between North and South were issue-based, not identity-based. Slavery and race were those issues. Once the slave system was destroyed and Reconstruction ended, the South was easily woven back into the fabric of American society. When slavery and race were put aside, the Northern and Southern people were the same.
On the other hand, the differences between the typical San Francisco pro-choice liberal and the average Alabama pro-life conservative are vast. Every year the differences increase. Even though both are children of the West, their differences do not center on one or two issues, like slavery and race—their differences are fundamental.
Since Roe v Wade much has been written on abortion. Whether conservative or egalitarian, most arguments stick pretty close to the classical liberal concepts found in the U.S. Constitution. Classical liberalism is the name given to that body of political thought found in the writings of such philosophers as Locke and Montesquieu. Classical liberalism was a response to the religious and political upheavals in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Reformation pitted Protestants against Catholics; Nationalism was eroding the former connections between the kingdoms of Europe; money and the new middle class were challenging the landed nobility; science was questioning the authority of the Church. The unity of Western Christendom that had existed for 1,000 years was coming unraveled.
Using reason as their guide, classical liberals tried to redefine the individual’s relationship to society. All the old definitions seemed uncertain and based on the arbitrary claims of the nobility and the Church. Feudal society was full of inconsistencies and unfairness. Classical liberals would try to create a formula for a rational objective society. John Locke's “Second Treatise On Government” is the most influential statement of classical liberalism.
First, Locke asked what was the origin of society. Before formal societies existed, so the theory goes, men were sovereign independent beings, living in a “state of perfect freedom,” and could “order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they thought fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.” In this “state of Nature” every man obeys the “law of Nature. . .which obliges everyone. . .that all being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. . .” Man had no prior social obligations. But because this state of Nature was inherently unstable and dangerous to his interests, he entered into a voluntary social contract with other sovereign men. Society begins “by common consent,” and the only “reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property. . .” Instead of each man acting as his own little country, “the community becomes an umpire, and by understanding in different rules and men authorized by the community for their execution, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of society. . .”3 Thus men traded a bit of their sovereignty for the protections of social organization. But a man’s most important rights—life, liberty, property—were retained as inherent, with society having limited power to infringe upon them.
Since society is man’s creature, it serves his interests. If at any time the state threatens inherent rights, especially property rights, “the people have a right to remove it by force,”4 and set up another government to their liking. Thus government receives it power from the voluntary consent of the governed. Classical liberalism influenced most educated men of that era, including the authors of the U.S. Constitution.
Classical liberalism was an idea within the Western Culture. It was a noble attempt to protect the individual from the arbitrary abuses frequently encountered in the social context. Feudal society was rife with arbitrariness based on the prerogatives of birth, wealth, and class. Classical liberals wanted to substitute the rule of laws for the rule of men. They didn’t want to destroy the organic culture and the existing inequalities that were based on birth, wealth, and class. What they wanted was a legal-political context that was free of arbitrariness, where natural abilities could allow a man to move up the social ladder -- they wanted equality of opportunity. A social contract, however, can’t exist apart from a particular cultural context. And culture identity is the actual basis of the social contract, not the voluntary consent of sovereign individuals. (tbc)

Thank U John for continuing to publish Eric's chapters. We visited with him in Sept and he wants U to know how much he appreciates your help in getting the history of Abortion to all the prolifers. Most of them seem to be taking a different slant today towards liberal left and race, ex: Life Dynamic recent news letter (Maafa 21 video). No doubt black women have suffered under Roe vs. Wade but far more white women so why play the race card.??? Look at the facts, not the current world agenda. I will send U a copy of his book as soon as I can get it from Amazon. Patricia
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Dear John, The Rosetta Stone of Roe is found at page 159. With the subterfuge removed, it reads, "The situation therefore is inherently different from ... Skinner," meaning, the situation presented by abortion. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973). Contrary to popular belief, in Roe the Court specifically and unequivocally rejected a woman's right to choose. Instead, "the Court reaffirmed its initial decision in Buck v. Bell." San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 100-101 (1973).
Giving women a chance to choose abortions voluntarily on their own was only Plan A. As a backup the Court also reserved Plan B: forcing women to abort.
In 1905, the Court ruled that states have the authority to conduct biological abatement programs against the will of individuals, starting with forced vaccination in a case called Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11. For example, some people (like activist Jenny McCarthy) might be opposed to vaccination. But in Jacobson the Court ruled that states can do it by force anyway. In 1927, the Court added pregnancy abatement to the list of biological abatement programs that states could forcibly conduct, beginning with forced sterilization in a case called Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200.
In handing down Buck v. Bell, the Court relied on Jacobson, saying, "The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes" with an aim "to prevent our being swamped with [female sexual] incompetence." Buck v. Bell, id., at 207. In 1973, swamped with the sexual incompetence of women running around on the loose in the hippie craze, the Court relied on the forced abatement policies of Jacobson and Buck in handing down Roe, saying that "the abortion decision" cannot be left to "the woman's sole
determination" in view of the "important state interests" reflected by "Jacobson v. Massachusetts (vaccination)" and "Buck v. Bell (sterilization)." Roe v. Wade, id., at 153-154 (citations omitted). Meaning, in Roe the Court extended its 1927 policy on pregnancy abatement to include abortion.
But the Court had a problem. Back in 1942, in a case called Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, the Court modified its initial decision in Buck v. Bell, to prevent states from applying forced procedures to control reproduction in arbitrary connection with the punishment for crimes. But after witnessing the drug-related pregnancy epidemics of the hippie craze, the Court worried that if women refused to abort, or were too spaced out on drugs to get to an abortion clinic, states would be powerless to crack down on such epidemics with Skinner in the way, because under Skinner they would not be allowed to force women to abort in arbitrary connection with illicit drug use.
To remove this limitation, the Court in Roe abandoned Skinner and instead returned to "its initial decision in Buck v. Bell." San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, ibid. Meaning, when it came to using abortion for pregnancy abatement, the Court abandoned the protections of Skinner v. Oklahoma, saying, "The situation therefore is inherently different from ... Skinner." Roe v. Wade, id., at 159. Indeed, in his concurring opinion in Roe, despite having written the decision in Skinner for a unanimous Court back in 1942, even Justice Douglas threw in his support for the Court's reliance on Jacobson and Buck when handing down Roe. Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 215 (1973).
In other words, the Court in Roe specifically and unequivocally rejected any substantive constitutional guarantee of a woman's right to choose. Instead, the Court literally ruled in favor of pregnancy abatement by whatever means necessary. Plan A was to give women a voluntary option first. But in case voluntary efforts were not enough to abate epidemics, the Court quietly reserved involuntary abortion as Plan B. Sincerely, Cal.
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Dear John, I hope this letter finds you supremely blessed and safe. Things with me here are mostly the same. I am finishing up a 100 page text called “The Militant Christian”; this is a body of text I’ve been working on while here in Kentucky, for a while. It outlines Theocratic Law, Criminal Law, Moral Law, as well as having a section covering some of my endeavors targeting anti-Christian agendas, a section of sacred prayers (some of which I created), and also a section covering Rules of Engagement. Surely much of it will be featured on the ArmyofGod.com webpage.
I was curious, are there any attorneys in “our realm” who would be interested in corresponding with me, lending me some advice over my present unfortunate legal situation? My public shaming never bothered me in the least; however, I feel that there are things that could be done in order to shorten the length of time of my inconvenient incarceration.

Originally, I was charged with:
- 2332 (a) Use of a weapon of Mass Destruction (punishable, as defined, by life or any number of years) (or if death occurs – by death)
- 844 (i) Manufacture of Explosive Material (punishable, as defined, by 5-20 years.)
- 248 (a) (3) Freedom of access to clinic entrances (punishable, as defined, on first offense by 1 year)

Later, the 844 (i) (Manufacture) was dropped, and substituted was 924 (c) Using or carrying a destructive device during a crime of violence.
This charge carried a maximum mandatory 30 year sentence, which added to my guideline 29-31 years for the use of a weapon of Mass Destruction charge gave me 59-61 years total. In turn I pled guilty and took a 40 year sentence.
The main problem I have are these excessive charges. First of all, the bomb was detonated by the ATF bomb squad. There was a malfunctioning detonator. Not only did I not kill anyone but since little-to-no structural damage occurred at the Austin women’s abortion mill that day, I feel that the accusation I “used a weapon of mass destruction” is exaggerated. After all, Saddam Hussein didn’t even have one, right? In all of Iraq, under his regime, there was no one with a pipe bomb? I find that laughable.
Second, the charge that led to my ultimate acceptance of the plea – the 924 (c) – is defined as “any person who, during and in relation of any crime of violence, uses or carries a firearm, in addition to the punishment for the crime of violence .... (B) (ii) like a machine gun or destructive device, shall be sentenced to a term not less than 30 years.”
In plain English I was charged with (pay attention here) using the bomb to destroy the clinic and also carrying the bomb as a “defensive” weapon to the clinic, to put it at the clinic. Yea, I know, I’m confused too.
Especially when I hear Tyrone Johnson talk in the dayroom (of my housing unit at a Maximum Security Federal Prison where I am serving 35 flat years – more than most murderers receive in the State system by 3 fold), talk about how much crack he’s going to sell again when they let him out again after his (latest) 2 year sentence for selling crack to 100 other of his fellow “community” members.
But these above matters are simply the tip of the iceberg, and there are other matters that could be brought up too, if I were to have any knowledgeable attorney to help me (ANY/EVER). I don’t have a problem with my guilty plea, or doing some time. But 35 flat years on a 40, at age 27 (when looked up), well that is a hard pill to swallow. Frankly, I don’t see most people ever do that, here where I live, without a) ratting their way back out, or b) using millions of dollars on attorneys’ fees (which I don’t have) in battling the case with the government. Truth be told, when I went to court and accepted the plea, I hadn’t even spoken to any member of the pro-life community, ever. So, now that I am “in touch” and now that people have “reached out,” I do ask for legal help from any who care.
From what I understand I am pretty much the youngest (one of us) with some of the most time, other than an actual life sentence with no parole. My out date right now is 2042.
Don’t get me wrong, I am determined, and I am not regretting a single decision I made for the unborn child. But it would be nice if someone could offer me some guidance and/or advice . . . if so inclined.
I don’t know much about legal time-bars, etc., either . . . so that might be something to keep in mind also.
With Love and Respect, Paul Ross Evans

Any ideas, anyone? Let me know.
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Reverend Donald strikes again: Letter criticizes church for allowing George Tiller to serve as an usher by Judy L. Thomas The Kansas City Star

A Virginia anti-abortion activist has sent a scathing letter to the church of slain Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, telling pastors they “brought damnation” onto themselves for failing to rebuke the “babykilling.”
The Rev. Donald Spitz, a longtime advocate of the belief that killing abortion doctors is an act of justifiable homicide, said he also mailed a letter to College Hill United Methodist Church, which offered its larger sanctuary to Tiller’s family for his funeral.
Tiller was shot to death in his church on May 31 while serving as an usher. Scott Roeder of Kansas City awaits a Jan. 11 trial on a charge of first-degree murder.
Spitz, who is the head of Pro-Life Virginia, runs a Web site called the Army of God. He has praised Roeder’s actions and calls him a “true American hero.”
“If Reformation Lutheran Church had done its job and brought George Tiller to repentance, he would be alive and the babies he killed would be alive,” Spitz said in a phone interview. “But George Tiller received his just reward, and Reformation Lutheran Church is to blame for his blood, and the blood of the children he murdered is on their hands.”

Abortion-rights advocates condemned the letters.

“Unbelievable,” said Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “After they vilified Dr. Tiller, after they viciously attacked him in writing and in person and tortured him for years, it’s beyond the pale.”

In his letter to the pastors of Reformation Lutheran Church, Spitz wrote: “Why would you allow a babykilling abortionist like George Tiller to serve as an usher in your church without informing him his eternal soul was at stake for the sins he was committing?” You “have failed in your responsibility towards the position He has placed you in and have brought damnation onto yourselves,” Spitz told the pastors.
The Rev. Lowell Michelson, senior pastor at Reformation Lutheran Church, confirmed receiving the letter. He said he didn’t intend to respond. “We have received several letters like that, and I was encouraged by our attorneys not to fuss with them,” he said. “You can tell by reading the Scriptures that he quotes that he has a certain slant, and everything about it is militaristic. They’re just fueling the fire.”
Michelson acknowledged that church members aren’t in agreement on the abortion issue.
“But churches gather for a variety of different reasons,” he said. “The reason we gather together isn’t because we all think the same, but because we are children of God. So we come from our different lives and different thoughts. For many folks, the only thing we have in common is faith in Jesus.”

In his letter to the pastor of College Hill United Methodist Church, Spitz berated the Rev. John Martin for allowing Tiller’s funeral to be held there. “Instead of standing up as a servant of the Lord and speaking out against this mass murderer, you have praised him as being a Christian, which is blasphemous,” Spitz wrote.
Martin was unavailable for comment, but a woman who said she opens most of the mail at the church said she did not see a letter from Spitz. She said, however, that it wasn’t unheard of for the church to receive hate mail. One of its former pastors was a friend of Tiller’s.
Roeder told The Kansas City Star on Thursday that Spitz had sent him copies of the letters. He said he was pleased Spitz mailed the letters to the churches. “You’re supposed to bring your brother to repentance, not accept what he’s doing,” he said. “It’d be no different than if you knew someone was a thief in your congregation and you just welcomed him in and didn’t say anything to him whatsoever.”

Ludicrous, isn’t it, when kayhaitchers like Kathy Spiller accuse us of “torturing” Killer, a man who got rich torturing young people to death.
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Another example of the ludicrous: these words of Judge Lee Smith to Neal Horsley admonishing Neal for displaying a picture of the head of a baby who had been tortured to death:

Who is this child? Do you know who this child is? . . . .Do you have permission to use that child in your political campaign? Is it not an indecent act to display this child? With, uh, against the parents of this child, the grandparents of this child? And the child itself? The child itself is the ultimate indignity and you come along and leap, and heap on top of that . . . ..
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Dear Friends, On our Via Dolorosa through Michigan is a 5 year old "Assault" case in Escanaba; I am being arraigned on it October 7th.
On a 2004 Michigan Tour, I restrained a female vandal, Karl Kimberley, who was spray painting the signs on Ron Brock's motor home. The women in the UP tend to be horsy, and Karl put up a fight. I restrained her until the police arrived.
Michigan has no "Citizen's Arrest" law, but the sympathetic police let me go. They warned me that I might have a warrant for my arrest in the future. On October 18, 2004, Karl Kimberley was sentenced for Malicious Destruction of Property.
Escanaba, Michigan is in the Upper Peninsula; it is some 450 miles from Pontiac, Michigan. I am somewhat wary of being held hostage in Escanaba along with my vehicle. I contacted a local church for permission to park my car should I be snagged into their “just us” system.
A local Michigan man gave me his take on the Oakland County legal system. His story is similar to my experience, and to what I have heard from Oakland County inmates. Michigan is a foreign
country within our nation, and Oakland County, and the Upper Peninsula are foreign nations within Michigan. Outsiders are something they have for lunch.
God is still on the throne, and He watches over us. He has guided Donna and me through all of this and much more; He has provided for every step of the way.
Continue to pray for us as we make this next “Station of the Cross.” Dan Holman
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You subscribers know that Jim Kopp has two books going in these pages, one about the adventures of Stacey & Hutch, and one about avoiding college, working in the trades, and really learning something. Here’s another section of the latter:

Neo Trades III Shade Tree Safety Lessons

Shade Tree (noun): what you sit under when you’re eating lunch on a job site.
Shade Tree Horror Stories (noun): construction disasters and near-misses you hear about under the Shade Tree so you won’t get “so old, so soon, so late, so smart.”
Actually Shade Tree Horror Stories are good to help bring you to the point where you can grow old, whether you get smart or not. And in a world of mechanization, tools, gadgets, trucks, and backhoes that can hurt you worse than a smashed thumb in the middle ages, well, let the Shade Tree Safety Lessons begin! And not to worry, by God’s grace your kids will hear more as they go along. Construction sites are safe, especially when compared to offices where workers kill or VD themselves to death with boredom or isolation . . . so what is the most dangerous part of a chainsaw? Well, I’d be remiss in my duties as a Shade Tree Safety guy if I didn’t tell you at least some ways in which the blade can hurt you. Like the guy who sees a pro undercut a branch. Tell me you haven’t seen this one before: A guy in a tree is about to cut off a branch, but he knows that if he cuts it top to bottom, like you think would be the simplest way to do it, a couple of problems come up. One problem is a little one that amateurs might not care about: as the weight of the branch breaks through the last inch or so of itself, below the almost-finished cut, it will peel or pull of the intact fibers that run axially along the branch, along the branch stump that is going to remain on the tree. So you think, well, big deal, right? So what if the remaining stump has a little section of the peeled bark on it – can’t you just paint that with some roof patch and we’re done? And besides, if you’re working for yourself or a friend for beer and pizza what’s the big deal if there’s a little section of bark peeled back? So what? What’s the big deal?
Oh, thou amateur/novice construction guy, fear and tremble. That little inch of branch as it falls off can spell the difference between life and death, in a way that you might not be readily aware of.
When a branch is cut, as it starts to fall, for that instant there, it is effectively weightless, or at least it acts as if it is weightless, like an astronaut in space.
An astronaut in space still has to deal with the intrinsic inertial of his mass, in moving around, in such a way that he has to push off the edge of a rocket ship to get around. But, because he’s weightless, it’s easier to get around and just a delicate little nudge will spin him around or send him where he wants to go. He has to be careful because if he pushes too hard, he could go caroming off into space.
What does this have to do with undercutting tree branches? Gentle Reader, I thought you’d never ask.
When that branch has been cut almost all the way through, and it starts to fall, it is essentially weightless, even if just for a moment. Imagine that!
Kind of a shocker, after so many years of being attached to a nice sturdy trunk and then one day, all of a sudden, YOW! There you are falling through space.
*Phew*! It’s enough to make you mindful of John 15 (if not Zech. 7:13, too) . . . And tremble! As Keith Green said once, “We are the branches, and He is Divine!” (I love it. You know it, you survivors, you really are deprived. If you’ve never heard Keith Green singing, you will come to find out later that all of your life in this Vale of Tears was divided into the part B4 you heard Green singing, and the part after. And if you still are in the part B4, don’t let it go another day!
Take your piggy bank and a hammer and get Mom to drive you down to the Christian bookstore today. OK? Today is before 5 p.m. Greenwich local time. Quick! And tell them a born-again Byzantine Catholic sent you! That’ll make Keith laugh his head off, something he was prone to do. OK? Go! Drop this skyp, it can wait. And turn it up till the windows rattle and the cops beat on the door. You will never be the same, you will never look at life the same and that’s a promise from me to you.) (tbc)
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To the editor: Abortion is sin, a violation of the 6th Commandment “You shall not murder.” Sin has consequences! I could write much on the consequences of abortion. I will share a few thoughts on the corporate economic consequences of abortion.
More than 50 million Americans have been aborted since 1973. This equates to over 200 million pairs of shoes and many other commodities that will not be bought or sold this year. There are also lost investments, revenue, taxes, services, production, and entertainment (children can be very entertaining).
No matter what your business, people are needed as customers, investors, producers, management, and sales. In order for your economy to survive and flourish there must be people to manufacture, purchase, and service your product.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. They receive hundreds of millions of tax dollars every year to promote childlessness through condoms, birth control, and human pesticides that decrease our population.
Death, sterility, and a barren womb are the products of Planned Parenthood.
Is Planned Parenthood killing your business? Donna Holman
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The Eighth Day
By Brad Miner

Was there ever a more ambitious or successful book than St. Augustine of Hippo’s De Civitate Dei? Written in the aftermath of the Visigoths’ early fifth-century sack of Rome, The City of God was the great convert’s demolition of both the lively vestiges of paganism and the emerging Christian heresies of his time. More than that: he sought to construct a sturdy Catholic
orthodoxy. All this he accomplished with stunning erudition and élan; sometimes with generosity to those he corrects; and occasionally with withering wit. (The warrior-scholar Marcus Terentius Varro was for centuries Rome’s leading light, and there’s a reason he’s not much read today: Augustine.)
I don’t know how anybody who sneaks a look at a newspaper horoscope could read Augustine on the subject of astrology and not blush. Indeed, I picture some bright young pagan, who – like so many Augustine describes – may have attributed Rome’s collapse to the overthrow of the state’s traditional pantheon by the upstart notion of the one, true, and triune God of Christianity, realizing that in De Civitate Dei was refutation not only of the treasured zodiac but of every false god, from the innumerable domestic deities to the great Jove himself. (I love Augustine’s sarcastic exposition on the proliferation of Rome’s corn gods and goddesses.) It was hard to argue with Augustine, since he knew all the lore and legend of the pagans, having been one himself – and something of a heretic too. And a hedonist. The future bishop even fathered a child out of wedlock. Although Monica, his long-suffering Catholic mother, never gave up on him (John Paul II said of her that she implored her son with “supplications and abundant tears”), she must have wondered if he’d ever see the light. He finally did when he was thirty-three.
As he wrote in his other great book, Confessions:

It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong . . . I preferred to excuse myself . . . . The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.

Christianity had been the official religion for some time as Augustine began writing his great book, but the transit of Rome up from paganism was an astonishing and ongoing transformation: from active persecution of Christians – most notably by Diocletian, ending in 311 – to Constantine’s embrace of the faith just one year later. Think about it: You’re, say, a twenty-year-old soldier and are ordered to hunt down the followers of Jesus as treasonous revolutionaries worthy of death; you celebrate your twenty-first birthday by fighting alongside
Constantine at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, a Chi-Rho – one of the earliest Christian symbols – now emblazoned on your shield!
Of course, there were Christians in military ranks and throughout the empire before Constantine saw a cross in the sky, but there were plenty of polytheists too, and the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christ didn’t happen in a lightning flash – old habits of the heart die hard. The people of that reeling worldly kingdom were all but punch-drunk, and it took a sober fellow such as Augustine to throw the icy water of faith in their faces: your old gods failed you because they were a fiction; the one, true God’s kingdom is not of this world; the sins and failures of Rome are the sins and failures of Romans; you are free, even though God knows your actions before you act; you are sinners after the Fall; your happiness in the Earthly City is always and only as it mirrors the happiness of angels and saints in the City of God.

On earth we are happy, after a fashion, when we enjoy the peace, little as it is, which a good life brings; but such happiness compared with the beatitude which is our end in eternity is, in point of fact, misery.

And what is the City of God? Well, it’s not the Church, since some Catholics may not be saved. It is the holy dwelling (it may be in our hearts and it is certainly in heaven) where we “shall have no greater joy than the celebration of the grace of Christ . . .” Augustine says that true Christians will become like the seventh day of creation:

[W]hen we are restored by Him, and perfected with greater grace, we shall have eternal leisure to see that He is God, for we shall be full of Him when He shall be all in all. For even our good works, when they are understood to be rather His than ours, are imputed to us that we may enjoy this Sabbath rest.

And yet there will be more: an eighth and eternal day, when history will end, and “we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise.”

The City of God is a long book. It soars, but it also plods. It is worth every effort of patient attention, because Saint Augustine shows – as few writers have been able to – how the history we’re living is always a drama defined by the eternal destiny for which we should all still be striving.