By Charlie Johnston
“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”
-Matthew 10:34
The most unified society of the last century was Adolf Hitler’s Germany from 1933-1938. During that period almost all elements of German society (except for its Jewish citizens) supported the little, mustachioed dictator. Oh, some were not particularly impressed with his intellect or prowess, such as the mercantile and politically elite classes – but they thought they could easily control and use this slightly buffoonish figure to accomplish their own aims. In supporting his grasp of authoritarian power, they thought they could manipulate him so it would actually be their authoritarian power. It was a miscalculation, born of ignorant hubris, that cost many of them their lives. It was only in 1938 that the first real doubts started to bubble to the surface. By then it was too late. Whatever his gaping defects in logic, philosophy, morality, and intellect, Hitler had a genius for seizing, consolidating, and ruthlessly executing power.
Some think Hitler’s genius for power was just that of a mob boss: the ruthless application of brute force to accomplish his aims. While that was a big part of it, if it was his only tool, he would have never risen above the level of regional powerbroker. Hitler had a real genius for sensing what timid opponents wanted to hear and telling it to them in a way that would soothe – and neutralize – them while he consolidated power for his next audacious seizure…of another country or of their liberty. This was not just about his many, “last territorial demands.” He did a push-pull in everything. You remember the famous People’s Car – the Volkswagen – that he created so all families could have a car? Part of the deal on that was that workers could agree to a small weekly withholding from their check to pay for one – and then get it with no fuss. It was an immensely popular program. Do you know how many workers actually got their car? ZERO. When it came time to deliver, suddenly war necessities “delayed” your delivery. The only way to get one was to pay for it anew. So the people’s car plan actually made workers who signed up for it pay twice to actually come away with a car.
Hitler had a genius for mesmerizing people – including statesmen – when he was weak, using the time to build his strength, and then striking brutally when the moment was opportune. Yet for five years, mesmerized Germans genuinely supported him with near unanimity. And other heads of state eagerly proclaimed that he was, “a man we can do business with,” even in the aftermath of each new betrayal. Up until about 16 years ago, Nazi Germany was the only modern functionally pagan society.
Unity is not a virtue. It is a useful social tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good or for evil. An angry, irrational mob is very unified. The question must always be, what are we to be unified for? If we are to be unified for the good we can do under God, I am all in. If it is for rank depravity, count me out. In fact, count on me doing my best to break up your pernicious unity.
In an age when we struggle to differentiate propaganda from reason, the weighty from the trivial, and even women from men we have blurred the distinction between good and evil while celebrating mere tools that can accomplish either.
I don’t want anarchy or license described as freedom – when both are a form of slavery. I want ordered liberty – which means I am free to swing my arm, but that freedom stops at the tip of your nose.
I don’t want the sort of equality that requires tearing down the productive and the successful that all might be equally miserable. I don’t want the equality of income redistribution that robs the productive to fund the slothful. Charity is, in fact, a virtue. Government funded entitlement is a destructive vice.
I am less impressed with the tools that can be used to reveal character and virtue than I am with the actual character and virtue. Start from there, then use the tools to reveal and refine character. Focusing on the tools is pure foolishness – like praising the hammer while ignoring the house it helped build. It could be used just as well to smash the house.
I once confronted a Priest in Texas after a Daily Mass in which his homily focused on the virtue of “unity.” He actually said, in his homily, that we shouldn’t disagree with each other over so many things – including abortion – but just be unified. Regular readers here know I am exasperated with gauzy, touchy exhortations for us all to get along, without reference to right or wrong. Nice as it sounds, it is a formula for destruction. Though the Priest was startled, he ended agreeing with me that unity is not, itself, a virtue. God bless him, he fretted that he needed to focus his homily the next day on clarifying what he meant.
Western Civilization was not built by a gauzy unity. It was built by courageous men and women who were courageous enough to stand for the values that Christ taught – who were willing to boldly pick up the sword of truth against the ruling establishments of their day. Many lost their lives in the effort. But the world became progressively freer, more prosperous and nobler by their efforts. Those bold men of faith built unity among their ranks – the unity to stand for what is good and true despite the unity among their antagonists who were determined that what was bad and false should prevail.
God commands – and the devil says, “Let’s be reasonable.” We had two centuries of relative peace and prosperity, born of principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. So committed to the principles of genuinely liberal democracy were we that we went to war with ourselves in 1861 to ensure that the conviction that, “all men are created equal” was a reality, not just words on parchment. The country was more divided than anytime up to today – yet Abraham Lincoln forged a shaky unity among those committed to ordered liberty under God that, “that government, of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” The American founding was the finest, most durable flower of Western Civilization. And the history of Western Civilization is the history of Christianity.
Ah, but in the last century a bunch of credentialed midwits came up with what they thought were new ideas – but were actually very old, failed ideas. They came in various protective suits of clothing. Mindless Gaia-worship was called ‘environmentalism.’ The most vicious racism since the antebellum south, was mounted as ‘social justice.’ (Ironic that social justice is neither social, nor just). The tolerance of freedom of religion was perverted into a push for ‘freedom’ from religion – and every effort was mounted to push it out of the public square, entirely – a push we have largely succumbed to. Freedom of speech, which through long experience had proved the best guarantor of finding truth was replaced by fatwas against ‘misinformation,’ which governments and ruling factions defined with all the incompetence and self-interest they ever had, before we discovered the effectiveness of free speech. I could go on – and often have. Under the reign of Barack Obama, the Judeo-Christian principles that had made America great among the nations and an inspiration to all, gave way to a new paganism. The world shifted on its axis. His followers sometimes called Obama “the Lightbringer.” Alas, in replacing the Christian mentality that impelled us to greatness, he invited a pagan shroud of darkness over us that has spread throughout the world.
Ordinary people abdicated their role of carrying the sword of truth and succumbed to the devil’s siren song of, “Be reasonable.” Oh yes, ordinary folks like the prosperity that rigorous freedom brings, but did not want any trouble as cultural vandals rampaged through all our institutions, destroying the very foundation of that comfort and prosperity. Now we are at the edge of it vanishing for good. And of course, the vandal leaders call for us to be unified with them, not to worry about principles or coherence. If we do so, it will be unity for our own doom. Many in an intentionally dumbed-down populace are cheering on their own doom. Strange to hope such a big cohort of the population is actually stupid rather than intentionally nihilistic.
Thomas Sowell, the great economist and public intellectual, said that, “One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again.”
I will not be unified with the prophets of destruction that I may enjoy the absence of open conflict a bit longer before doom consumes us all. I will not demand, as our opponents do, that they must live by my decree. But I WILL take up the sword of truth, refusing to be dominated by the imperious midwits who demand the right to rule us all. I tell the devil I will NOT be reasonable on matters of liberty, justice, faith and family. I will unite with those great and faithful patriots, under God, who are as determined as I am that this nation built from the people and governed by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth. The only unity I am interested in is unity with God, as best as I can discern it.
May the sword of truth reign in this benighted land once more!
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
A Sign of Hope 
Glorious, Charlie!! This, too, is the stuff of what making our stand with God looks like.
God bless Thomas Sowell.
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Yes, sadly we have bargained away our inheritance by trying to be reasonable with an implacable enemy. The RINO’s have been giving in to the demonrats on their long march to a totalitarian society for decades. Beyond the left/right paradigm the forces of Mordor controlled by the Central Banks of Europe are waging this Godless war throughout the Western world. We are now at the precipice with their sword at our backs. There is no place to run and no place to hide.
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Ditto Charlie!
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My mother’s parents were in Germany in 1936. My mother told me a story about what happened around my grandmother one day while she was out walking through the city they were visiting at the time.
Word had gone out about an hour before, that Hitler would be driving by on the road. Over that hour thousands of Germans came out onto the sidewalks and waited quietly.
And he came.
And as he came by, my grandmother was appalled to see how the Germans on the sidewalks quietly and with complete focus on Hitler, *moved* toward him without a sound or perhaps with a kind of groan or hum or rustling of quiet noise, no speech, no cheers, just a kind of trancelike surge to touch him, touch his car, be a part of him.
Neither my grandmother nor my mother had as part of their image lexicon the concept of a zombie-fied crowd that we now have, but in listening to my mother many years ago, giving this description, it is what comes to my mind.
They were literally in thrall to the man, absolutely unified to *him* and through him with each other. They *needed* him like the strongest of addictions, no room in them at that moment for even their neighbors in the crowd.
And then he was gone down the road, and everyone slowly awoke and returned to their normal everyday lives.
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That’s an amazing observation Steve. Unfortunately, Germans since their premedieval tribal history, always needed a fuhrer to lead them and they would follow instinctively as a collective. Cult of a fuhrer, brute force and their own version of Christianity always led to wars. Even religious Teutonic Knights were attacking already Christian Poland. And today we have an anniversary of the official beginning of WWII, again Germany invading Poland. Now this country wants to lead all the Europe so the question is how is it going to end this time?
How about reparations for Poland from Germany for WWII? Crickets. No reparations for untermenschen.
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Pawel, wow, that is quite a comment. I know little about Wagner’s Ring Cycle opera. However, it would seem to me that it is perhaps not an accident that it came out of German culture and not from, say, Polish culture, nor that Marxism was written by a German, nor that the world’s premier collection of dark folk tales came from the German Brothers Grimm.
It seems to me that Poland’s culture is fundamentally Christian, but I can certainly see your point that German(ic) culture has continued to maintain a strong connection to the dark forces of paganism, making it unusually susceptible to dark fuhrer energy. I see some indications that some German people are waking up to this, so perhaps we will see a change.
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Charlie, once again I wish every American, and even every person on earth, could read your words. They’re so logical and sensible! It is comforting to read on other websites, the comments of those who agree with all of us here. Then on the other hand, I see what some others believe and wonder what planet they are living on, or what happened to their brains.
Come Holy Spirit with your powerful light!
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“They were literally enthralled to the man, absolutely unified to *him* and through him with each other. They *needed* him like the strongest of addictions, no room in them at that moment for even their neighbors in the crowd.”(SteveBC)
“Hitler had a genius for mesmerizing people – including statesmen”(CJ)
“For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect–if that were possible.”(Mathew 24)
No one disputes the reality that Hitler was an antichrist. He wasn’t the first to mass a god-like power over the world for a time. I suspect he won’t be the last. Charlie’s take on “his gaping defects in logic, philosophy, morality, and intellect” didn’t quell his barbarity which was more akin to a soulless demon than a human. Charlie’s point is that even a dolt can capture a large following of people who WANT to be captured by catering to their human weaknesses. “We deceived you, but you wanted to be deceived” is that reality in a nutshell. Hitler catered to those human weaknesses having been left raw and open in the German people after WWl and the great depression that followed. These Germans WANTED to be led by such a man. “Ordo Ab Chao”, order out of chaos is the prep-tool for humanity succumbing to a ruler such as this. Here the warning by Jesus to ” Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” is to be on your guard against this very trick, being offered some consolation at the cost of your very soul.
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More brilliant observations on Western society by Charlie tied to our current events.
Does not the following observation of Charlie, about otherwise intelligent segments of German society tolerating Hitler, fit perfectly to our own American academe, mass media, and big financial players as they approve of Harris with a hidden contemptuous snicker of contempt:
“… they thought they could easily control and use this slightly buffoonish figure to accomplish their own aims. “
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BRAVO, BRAVISSIMO, EXQUISITISSIMO! :
…”Mindless Gaia-worship was called ‘environmentalism.’ The most vicious racism since the antebellum south, was mounted as ‘social justice.’ (Ironic that social justice is neither social, nor just). The tolerance of freedom of religion was perverted into a push for ‘freedom’ from religion – and every effort was mounted to push it out of the public square, entirely – a push we have largely succumbed to. Freedom of speech, which through long experience had proved the best guarantor of finding truth was replaced by fatwas against ‘misinformation,…”
Especially: “‘freedom’ from religion – and every effort was mounted to push it out of the public square, entirely – a push we have largely succumbed to”!!!
(I hope this isn’t blasphemy, no wonder Jesus sweated drops of blood in the agony in the garden)
…”Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”…
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! .. Happy Labor Day! 😉
https://catholicexchange.com/why-work-matters-catholics-and-labor-day/
https://catholicexchange.com/are-we-losing-a-sense-of-the-sacred-as-americans/
https://catholicexchange.com/preparing-for-the-eternal-feast/
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/08/28/law_enforcement_collapse_masks_rising_crime_rates_151529.html
https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/02/can-they-really-reinvent-kamala-harris-in-70-days/
https://dailycaller.com/2024/09/01/harris-campaign-barring-reporter-post-gazette-campaign-coverage/
While DJT is jetting around doing Rallies with tens of thousands and holding interviews daily, KamalBreath is doing a Bus Tour where dozens of supporters (Paid$?) show up @ carefully “groomed” Event Sites whilst having near ZERO Interviews. Nothing less than a variant the Ol’ ChinaJoe Hiding in de basement routine of 2020!
https://redrightupdates.com/the-left-is-so-terrified-of-trump-they-will-stop-at-nothing-to-win
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20916/gaza-ceasefire-hostages
Yep! The DemonRat Party can’t afford to annoy THEIR Hamas-Hezbollah Wing!
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/09/02/is-cnn-serious-with-this-headline-about-the-american-murdered-by-hamas-n2644195
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/tim-walz-walks-away-when-asked-to-comment-on-dead-hostages-found-in-gaza/articleshow/112974438.cms
EVERYTHING Swamp DC & THEIR Media have told US about Ukraine since 2001 ia a LIE!
https://floppingaces.net/2024/09/01/sunday-funnies-810/
https://stream.org/category/us/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
https://www.newsmax.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! … PS 😉
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2024/09/02/is-kamala-very-very-afraid/
“Spanky” @ MILINET – RESPONSE TO: CNN’s Harris/Walz Interview: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cnns-kamala-harris-tim-walz-interview-can-summed-up-just-two-words
“Here is a brief, 21-point biography of Kamala Harris. The following statements are objectively and verifiably true. If you are a Democrat, you cannot deny the factual accuracy of these points:
1. Kamala Harris is the offspring of two foreign-born college professors, and they provided Kamala a prosperous childhood ensconced amidst the Ivory Towers of academia.
2. Kamala Harris’ mother comes from the Indian Brahmin caste, which sits atop India’s horrifically backward and oppressive caste system. Her father comes from a family of wealthy Jamaican slave plantation owners.
3. Kamala Harris’ father was an influential Marxist economist.
4. Kamala Harris spent her formative teen-age years living in Montreal, Canada. At no time in her formative years did Harris ever live what is customarily referred to as “The African-American Experience”; or, for that matter, the American working class experience.
5. Kamala Harris failed the California bar exam.
6. Kamala Harris rose to political prominence in California thanks to the support of a much older, married and influential Democrat pol, Willie Brown, with whom she was having sex while he advanced her career.
7. As California’s Attorney General, Kamala Harris knowingly engaged in numerous unfair and unethical legal practices that wrongfully denied many, many unjustly-incarcerated black men their freedom and liberty.
8. As a Senator from California, Kamala Harris was ranked by many non-partisan political analysts as the most extreme Leftist in the Senate.
9. Running as a Democrat Presidential candidate in 2020, while being incredibly well-funded, Kamala Harris nevertheless polled at the bottom of all major candidates and was one of the very first to withdraw. This was widely perceived to be a function of her unlikeability and her inability to offer cogent campaign positions of substance.
10. Joe Biden explicitly stated that he hired Harris BECAUSE she is a black woman. Thus, it is entirely fair to label her a “DEI hire.”
11. Kamala Harris as Vice President has had an unusually high staff turnover rate exceeding 90%.
12. The media is extremely hard-pressed to recount a single accomplishment of Harris as VP. Quite the opposite, they have white-washed her informal title as “Border Czar” as she failed to do anything to stop the extremely high flow into the USA of illegal immigrants.
13. Prior to becoming the Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris had the lowest VP approval ratings of any VP since Spiro Agnew.
14. Kamala Harris knew that Joe Biden had dementia and was incompetent, and took no actions of any kind to ensure that the USA had a competent President.
15. Kamala Harris, along with Barack Obama and other Democrat luminaries, engaged in some form of extortion to force Joe Biden to step aside as the Democrat Presidential nominee in 2024, so she could assume that mantle herself.
16. Kamala Harris never received a single primary vote in favor of the candidacy she seized from Joe Biden.
17. As the Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris was spurned by most of the Democrat party luminaries to be her VP candidate, and instead she settled for Tim Walz, a VP candidate with an extraordinary amount of negative personal baggage.
18. Kamala Harris has been the Democrat Presidential candidate for approximately six weeks, and has yet to engage in any sort of press interview of any kind.
19. Kamala Harris has never worked in a private business in her adult life.
20. Kamala Harris has stated virtually no campaign positions of any kind, and some major ones that she has stated are exact duplicates of her GOP opponent’s long-standing positions.
21. The most visible components of Kamala Harris’ campaign platform thus far are arguably “brat” and “JOY!” All of the above is objectively true.
These are not opinions, these are facts. So allow me to summarize the above: “Kamala Harris is the privileged child of racist immigrant college professors, she has all but no connection to the American working class experience in her formative years, she rose to prominence by having sex with a much older, powerful Democrat politician, as a government lawyer she engaged in corrupt practices that discriminated against black men in prison, as a Senator she was the most extreme Leftist in the Senate, she got chosen as VP because of her skin color and genitalia, as VP she has had no notable accomplishments other than to ignore the advanced dementia of her boss, she used extortion to grab the Presidential nomination for herself, and her campaign currently consists of hiding from the press while having no verifiable campaign platform.” Vote wisely.”
GOD SAVE ALL HERE!!
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NONE of this matters to the dedicated democrat voter. hence the still high poll numbers. (irrelevent, yes.) Dedicated Dems don’t care. She may be all of the above, she may be not black, she may have slept her way to the top. Doesn’t matter. Only one thing matters – she is not Republican! She is not Trump.
When she fails/falls, and they replace her with MO, we may be in a mess of a hex!
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God Bless! Thank you, Charlie!
Asking for prayers for my eldest daughter and for my sister. Thank you!
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Praying, Becky.
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! .. Happy Day! 😉
https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/statue-of-michael-in-brazil-will-be-tallest-in-world
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/getting-our-spiritual-foundations-right
https://religionclause.blogspot.com/2024/09/11th-circuit-denies-en-banc-rehearing.html
https://catholicexchange.com/an-approach-to-suffering-in-pastoral-care-part-1-pain/
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2024/08/pope-pius-xi-silenced-prophet-peace-joseph-pearce.html
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/bankrupt-dioceses-need-to-fail
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/priests-preaching-politics/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/sep/2/editorial-burying-trump-assassination-plot/
https://sonar21.com/russias-donbass-offensive-picking-up-steam/
https://tldavis.substack.com/p/putins-predicament
https://brownstone.org/articles/why-did-zuckerberg-choose-now-to-confess/
Our USA/EU has become a Land of Cover-Ups ;-(
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13720725/urge-agricultural-research-stop-cancer-crisis.html
https://www.lifenews.com/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
https://links.glennbeck.com/view/55d278157d0973635efe6258lso8b.1uid/c888b4b5
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/
https://floppingaces.net/
https://newsbusters.org/
https://www.wnd.com/category/front-page/
https://www.frontpagemag.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! .. Happy Day! 😉
https://catholicexchange.com/what-does-victory-look-like/
https://catholicexchange.com/the-plan-of-life-prayer-and-the-christian-vocation/
https://www.catholicleague.org/the-myth-of-christian-nationalist-violence/
https://catholicherald.co.uk/catholics-need-to-know-fight-for-unborn-is-shifting-ominously-into-international-law-as-un-scolds-poland/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/yale-divinity-students-forced-to-read-from-witchs-spell-at-orientation/
https://onepeterfive.com/the-new-tlm-suppression-crisis-averted/
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/amazon-alexa-gives-starkly-different-answers-when-asked-why-vote-trump-versus-kamala-harris
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/09/03/new-nashville-trans-shooters-full-manifesto-released-and-its-absolutely-insane-n2178873
https://reclaimthenet.org/former-white-house-official-aggressively-targets-online-misinformation
https://www.declassified.live/p/as-campaign-enters-home-stretch-trump
https://babylonbee.com/news/source-says-kamala-was-promoted-at-mcdonalds-after-having-affair-with-mayor-mccheese
https://catholicvote.org/read
https://www.lifenews.com/
https://www.americanthinker.com/
https://spectator.org/
https://amgreatness.com/
https://townhall.com/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com
https://links.glennbeck.com/view/55d278157d0973635efe6258lsxqo.1sys/b015fee4
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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Great stuff here Charlie!!! I missed this one until today I’ve been babysitting a lot 😂😂😂.
Mike and I talk about you all the time!!! To this day he’s still amazed how you picked up on, “Mike, you’re just here (Jackson mi) to please your wife!” lol 😂
You def have the gift of reading souls!!!
We still love you Charlie we’re just overwhelmed with co-parenting at our old age bracket😂🙏🥳
Took Jaxy to visit Jesus at our adoration chapel last Tuesday he was so funny eating fruit snacks a little too loudly but was all eyes 👀 in that place where Jesus resides🥰👼
He makes crosses everywhere it sort of makes his mom and dad by surprise so I know I’m where God wants me for now!!!
Hope to get to see you in Michigan 🙏🙏🙏 tbd
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You mention “freedom from religion”. What the Dems argue for is more insidious: freedom of worship. This sounds the same as freedom of religion but is fundamentally different. Freedom of worship says you are free to do whatever you like in your church on Sunday just make sure it stays there.
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Oh, I think banning religion in tbe public square is completely insidious Matthew. The ‘Freedom of Worship’ canard is more deceptive, though, because it is an effort to ban religion in the public square while pretending to protect religious freedom.
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