On Friday July 12, pro-illegal immigration supporters protesting outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility pulled down the American flag and replaced it with the Mexican flag. Throughout America’s history, our flag has flown as a symbol of our foundational guiding principles. The American flag—like the flags of every country in the world—stands for its principles—not its flaws. There exists no flawless nation, state, or city because there exist no flawless humans. But there are countries whose guiding principles are nobler than others—countries in which liberty, equality, and justice are more passionately pursued and protected than in others. The United States stands at the pinnacle of such nations.

If national flags did represent a country’s flaws and failures rather than its guiding principles, surely the Mexican flag would stand for egregious institutional corruption and incompetence, making it inexplicable why anyone would replace the American flag with the Mexican flag.

Alternatively, if Mexico is superior to America in most ways, why aren’t Central American emigrants staying in Mexico?

It’s clear that the surge of immigrants applying for asylum are not really asylum-seekers. As a result of their own governments’ incompetence and corruption, impoverished Central Americans are coming to America for the prosperity immigrants throughout our history have seen and sought. They see and seek what Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe cannot see. They desperately desire entrance into the country Kaepernick and Rapinoe detest.

But they are abusing America’s generosity and exploiting the cheap political gamesmanship of conscience-less and incompetent congressmen and congresswomen in both parties whose deliberate inaction has created the conditions on the border that Leftists now blame on the Trump Administration.

The political Left’s sickening exploitation of the huddled masses beggars belief. Cultural regressives encourage hordes of suffering people to flood our border knowing full well the detention facilities cannot accommodate such numbers, and then Leftists use images and descriptions of these overwhelmed facilities to whip Americans into a frenzy of rage directed at ICE agents and Republicans.

No one better typifies the dishonest exploitation of immigrants than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) who in a congressional hearing tried to smear former acting ICE director Tom Homan by accusing him of heartlessly separating children from their parents—a practice started by the Obama Administration and ended by the Trump Administration in June 2018.

In response to AOC’s accusations, Homan responded that anyone who is arrested for committing a crime is separated from his or her children and that crossing the border anywhere except for ports of entry is a crime.

Later in a tweet AOC responded that “the [Trump] admin has practically closed ports to asylees” resulting in migrant “desperation” that leads them to do dangerous things like “what Oscar & Valeria (the father and daughter who drowned) did.”

Very cunning and morally repugnant tactical moves on AOC’s part. First, she encourages masses of migrants to flood our borders, thereby overwhelming detention facilities and resulting in far less than ideal conditions for detained immigrants. Then when the administration places restrictions on ports of entry—which would improve conditions in detention facilities—she criticizes the administration for its efforts and accuses it of causing the deaths of a father and daughter.

AOC’s ignorance and malfeasance was surpassed by that of U.S. Representative Jesus Garcia (D-Chicago), who, in an explosive hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives accused Homan of not caring about migrant children because they aren’t white.

Justifiably outraged, Homan responded in a riveting defense of himself and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in which he also pointed out the ethical implications of the failure to secure the border and identified the group responsible for the border debacle: Congress.

AOC and her allies—who assume no responsibility for the desperation migrants feel or for the detention facilities conditions—are committed to keeping the number of suffering illegals high in order to secure political power.

Ironically, cultural regressives like AOC in government, in the press, and in the streets who so passionately support illegal immigration benefit from the fertile anti-America soil in which so many young Americans have been grown like weeds: that is, government schools. And this anti-America indoctrination starts long before college.

Public schools, long-controlled by Leftists and Leftist organizations, are seed beds of hatred for America and have churned out America-hating, self-identifying “social justice warriors” who mete out injustice to all those who refuse to submit to their ideology.

Government schools advance “progressive” views of America under the banner of “teaching for social justice,” which shares some of the philosophical features of “Critical Pedagogy,” “Critical Race Theory,” and, within theological circles, “Black Liberation Theology.”

In broad outlines, “teaching for social justice” is essentially repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. That is, “social justice” disciples pursue the distinctly un-American goal of equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Social justice theory encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which groups allegedly constitute the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The theory promotes the arguable idea that “institutional racism” and “systemic bias” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals, is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice grievance theory hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings, while diminishing or ignoring the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

Ironically, those who most hate America are those who most vigorously facilitate the illegal immigration of those who desperately want to live in America.

The ideological echo chamber that government schools are and foster is reflected in these words from Megan Rapinoe when asked about going to Washington D.C.:

We’ve always been interested in going to Washington…. So, yes to AOC, yes to Nancy Pelosi, yes to the bipartisan Congress, yes to Chuck Schumer, yes to anyone else… who… believes in the same things we believe in.

Perfect encapsulation of “progressivism’s” view of diversity and tolerance.

American stands for freedom, equality before the law, and justice. While it is profoundly good and noble to choose to tend to the needs of those less fortunate, which Americans—especially Christians—are known around the globe for doing generously, it is unjust of the government to compel Americans to pay, and pay, and pay for those who break our laws. America’s commitment to justice is inseparable from its commitment to law-keeping. If every citizen is permitted to decide which laws must be obeyed and which may be disobeyed, we are no longer a just country and perhaps not even a sovereign nation much longer.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/America-Hating-Social-Justice-Warriors.mp3

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

Three Points to Draw out of the Flag-Kneeling Spectacles in Sports

“Psh … I’m not going to the f***in’ White House,” sneered U.S. Women’s National soccer team co-captain Megan Rapinoe, barely letting the reporter finish his question. “No, I’m not going to the White House,” she said again, just in case there was any doubt.

This took place before the team had won its fourth World Cup championship amid sophomoric Twitter squabbles between Rapinoe, her lesbian girlfriend Sue Bird, and President Trump over Rapinoe’s national anthem protests. In 2016, she’d followed Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the national anthem until the U.S. Soccer Federation adopted a policy requiring players to stand, at which point she complied but stood silently with her arms at her side. She says she does so to draw attention to inequality in the U.S.

Now, for those of us who don’t particularly sympathize with her manner of woke protest, there are a few ways we might respond. One way would be to go tribal and call her some name or insult her as a person. Such ad hominem attacks litter the online world, and although they can be entertaining in a schadenfreude kind of way, they don’t tend to build bridges in ideologically divided times. Another way would be to simply ignore the affront, denying it the attention it surely craves. While more honorable, this deprives the public of alternative points of view.

Here’s another way. It’s peaceable and potentially edifying for all, and it only requires knowing a little political history.

Revolutions, Right and Left

The American Revolution: More accurately called the American War for Independence, historians date the beginning of this conflict to 1765, when Great Britain’s Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonies and the colonists said, “No.” “No taxation without representation,” to be specific. Had Parliament accepted this principled “No,” the conflict would have ended right there.

Instead, Parliament doubled down until, as most of us in America recently celebrated, the colonies put pen to paper and issued a bill of separation. That “putting pen to paper” is highly significant. Make note of what the authors did. They: (1) stated what they were doing, (2) stated why they were doing it, and (3) appealed to God and Natural Law as their witness and judge. England again declined to accept “No,” and war ensued until the new nation prevailed. It is unfortunate that blood was shed, but the Americans deemed their cause noble, and two centuries of their posterity have been its beneficiaries.

The French Revolution: A historical minute later, on July 14, 1789, an unruly mob stormed a military garrison in Paris and seized some 32,000 muskets, along with cannons and munitions. This exercise in “street politics” set in motion a decade of bloodshed and social dissolution ending in absolute dictatorship under Napoleon Bonaparte.

The contrasts between the two could not be more stark. The founders of America drew from Enlightenment ideals while retaining as their grounding the basic principles of the biblical worldview. The Declaration of Independence presupposed the existence of God and Natural Law. The aggressor was King George III, and the Declaration was an attempt to resolve their dispute with him peacefully using principled, rational argumentation.  This is how the political Right works.

The French Revolution was an entirely different animal. It, too, drew from Enlightenment ideals, but its prosecutors summarily rejected God and therefore dispensed with any transcendent foundation for reason or morality. The aggressors were mobs, might made right, and no one came out better for it. This is how the Left operates.

Illuminating the Woke

Here’s how to tie this history to the flag-kneeling and other expression of woke pseudo-virtue. First, to the extent the protest is nonviolent, we should commend the nonviolence. Restraint of expression is consistent with conservative principles and inconsistent with the Left. Point that out.

Second, Ms. Rapinoe’s very act of publicly snubbing her home country and saying “No” (“F*** off!” to be more specific) to its chief executive demonstrates that she does, in fact, enjoy political equality of the highest order. The First Amendment affords her that privilege, which she may exercise without fear of state reprisal. The First Amendment, too, is consistent with the Right and inconsistent with the Left, which observes an “end justifies the means” hierarchy of values. Point that out.

And third, to the extent possible, we should invite people to articulate in words exactly what their grievance is. And it must be defended by reference to some transcendent moral principle. Rapinoe sympathizers, for example, could be invited to explain the criteria by which she (or anyone) has unequal standing under law.

This will pose significant challenges for the benighted woke, because when you drill down to the principles of the grievances du jour, the principles leftists rely on are only traceable to the conservative side of the American equation. It is the Right that seeks to conserve these principles. The Left has no principles, because principles do not exist in a Machiavellian order. It’s only “might makes right.” Look especially for ways to point that out.

Conservatives have to be the ones venturing out these ideological bridges, because the passive-aggressive woke are too busy protesting their non-aggressive opponents, most of whom actually do accept “No” for an answer.

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

One can’t help but contemplate the amazing momentum surrounding the national anthem protests in the National Football League. What started as a lone individual—former San Francisco 49ers back-up quarterback Colin Kaepernick—taking a knee during the anthem has become a flashpoint of conflict that has spread to the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball.

In the latest and most unified moment of the movement on Sunday, more than 200 players across the league knelt for the anthem. In London, members of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens stood for “God Save the Queen” but knelt for the U.S. national anthem. Ironically, the national anthem singer at the Lions-Falcons game took a knee and raised his fist.

Politicians, chief executives, and Hollywood directors have taken sides, with fans and players taking shots at each other through social media. Even pee wee leagues are getting into the act.

Kaepernick, unemployed since opting out of his contract with the 49ers last season, seems to have gotten what he purportedly wanted: a conversation about racism in America:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.’”

To refresh your memory, the “bodies in the street” were black men and the “people getting paid leave and getting away with murder” were, presumably, white law enforcement officers. If we read Kaepernick correctly, the problem here is that people of color are oppressed, white Americans are the oppressors, and deadly encounters with law enforcement are his primary evidence.

Kaepernick’s way of calling attention to the injustice of racism was to kneel during the singing of the national anthem as the entire stadium of fans removed hats, placed hands over hearts, stood facing the American flag, and sang along. His ostensible moral force for doing so was that he would be “selfish” if he didn’t. I infer by that he meant he had made it big and thus had a responsibility to use his platform to call attention to the issue of white cops shooting people of color.

There was immediate blowback from fans, which Kaepernick ignored as he continued kneeling. Other players began doing the same thing, and from there it has spiraled into the full-blown test of wills between players and fans it is today.

The argument seems to go something like this:

NFL players and those defending them argue that the players have a right to protest. That’s what makes this country great.

Fans argue that these multi-millionaire cry-baby players are disrespecting the flag that represents freedom and the men and women in uniform who have bled and died for their right to protest, and that players should protest on their own time because fans just want to enjoy the game.

The protesters’ argument is somewhat disingenuous because Kaepernick and the others who have followed suit aren’t complaining that they’ve been denied a right to protest. They are taking a stand—excuse me, a knee—against racism in this country. That is the claim we should be discussing.

The fans’ argument is only partially correct because, while members of the military have fought, bled, and died defending the flag and the protests are certainly disrespectful of their sacrifice, there’s something else going on.

No reasonable person disputes that some acts of racism occur in some parts of our country. No one disputes that some white people genuinely hate black people. Neither is there any dispute that some lethal police actions involving black men and white officers are possibly influenced by racial bias.

The problem is that Kaepernick and his imitators are imputing racism to the American flag itself, while the majority of white Americans (and many blacks) proudly identify with the stars and stripes. Thus, white Americans in general, and white NFL fans in particular, believe they are being called racist. In other words, it’s personal.

These are the same (white) fans who pay an average of $86 to attend a game to watch large men in armor play a game of catch while they eat $5 hotdogs and drink $5 sodas and $7 beers after paying $49 to park at the stadium. Seriously: the average cost for a family of four to attend an NFL game is $503. Or, if you live where I do, it’s $601.20 to watch the ever-rebuilding Chicago Bears.

And protesters want to know why fans are upset when a 29-year-old, who got wealthy off the very people who made his salary, fame, and product-endorsements possible, shames them as racists?

These players of color fail to appreciate that white fans love them, too. They buy their jerseys, pin their hopes on them, and love being associated with winners and guys at the top of their game. Heck, as a kid I was a huge fan of Mean Joe Green, Franco Harris and (cough) O.J. Simpson. If one of them called me a racist, I’d find someone else to admire.

Players have also failed to appreciate that most of us ordinary Americans are patriotic, and we will choose our country over an ingrate with an overblown sense of self-importance any day. Even more so when you consider that Kaepernick wore socks depicting police as pigs, took questions wearing a t-shirt displaying a photo of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (73,000 dead under his regime) and radical muslim Malcolm X, and that Kaepernick’s Muslim girlfriend, Nessa Diab, has posted some controversial comments of her own.

But perhaps the biggest oversight of all is this: nobody needs the NFL.

If tomorrow you woke up and the NFL had simply disappeared, your life would continue. “All you need,” my dad used to say, “is a little water, a little food, and some air to breathe.” Believe me, I can drop my support of athletes by simply changing the channel or turning off the TV. I like what the NFL sells, but I don’t need the eleven minutes of actual play I get to see out of a three-hour game (HT: Michael Walsh).

The only thing the NFL and its owners and players understand is what the Bible calls a root of all kinds of evil: the love of money. Money is the lifeblood of the NFL and television ratings are the plasma. NFL attendance is down this season, and TV viewership continues to plummet. The way to their heads is through their bank account, and fans have figured that out.

It didn’t have to be this way. It was immediately apparent that Kaepernick’s initial protest was offending a major portion of the NFL audience. The commissioner, Roger Goodell, could have stepped in and stopped the practice, but he’s chosen to double-down on the off-topic “right to protest.” This will not end well for him, the players, or the league because fans now know how at least 200 players feel about the country and, by extension, them.

Colin Kaepernick had (and still has) the right to protest. If current trends hold, however, he may be remembered not as the hero of racial reconciliation but as the man who single-handedly brought down the NFL. And in that scenario, the losses far outweigh any good he might have done.

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Colin Kaepernick, NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, has generated a dust-up over his refusal to stand during the “Star Spangled Banner.” Kaepernick said “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

Read more here…

Colin Kaepernick, NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, has generated a dust-up over his refusal to stand during the “Star Spangled Banner.” Kaepernick said “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

While some “progressives” are defending his stunt, arguing that a verse of the National Anthem that is never sung—anywhere—has a racist message, Kaepernick didn’t mention the National Anthem, he referred to the flag.

For those who don’t know, Colin Kaepernick was adopted by a white family after his destitute, 19-year-old, white birth mother gave him up. His black biological father abandoned him and his mother before his birth. Kaepernick excelled at basketball, baseball, and football in high school and in addition to a football scholarship, he was offered multiple scholarships to play collegiate baseball. He has made millions playing for the NFL since 2011.

So, some questions for Kaepernick:

When you say the country, what exactly do you mean? The government? Every branch of government? Every department? Every elected official? The Constitution? Laws? Which laws? The police? Every police department? Every police officer? Teachers in government schools?

Does your assessment of the unworthiness of America include the sacrifices of soldiers who have given their lives to defend and protect people all around the world? Does it include men like my father who served and suffered during WWII? Does it include missionaries and medical personnel like Jim Elliot and Natalie Bullock who sacrificed the comforts you enjoy and sometimes their lives because they love people of color?

Could it be that the “country” that oppresses people of color is primarily constituted by Democrats?

• After all, it was Democrats who supported Jim Crow laws in the South.

• It was only 23 percent of Democrats in Congress who supported the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, while 100 percent of Republicans supported it.

• It was Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• It’s Democrats who have been promoting policies and laws that have incentivized fatherless families, which has long been known to be the central cause of poverty and anti-social behavior.

• It was Democrats who through their demand that homoerotic unions be legally recognized as “marriages” have now institutionalized fatherless (and motherless) families.

• It’s Democrats who for decades have controlled virtually every major American city where schools are failing people of color and where crime destroys lives.

• It’s Democrats like Barack Obama who, while sending their children to elite, expensive private schools, deny school vouchers for inner city families of color whose children are instead forced into underperforming and dangerous schools. And it’s Democrats who protect teachers unions that enable terrible teachers to keep their jobs.

• It’s Democrats who support Planned Parenthood, the baby-killing machine that profits from the deaths of far more babies of color than colorless babies.

One of the many problems with public schools today is the imbalanced and dishonest way they address the entwined issues of race and American history. Leftist “agents of change” (also known comically as teachers) present a lopsided view of American history, emphasizing the injustices that mar America’s history while de-emphasizing America’s social and political progress and acts of justice and compassion that ignite the imaginations of oppressed peoples around the world. America undeniably has a troubling history with regard to race, but that’s not the whole story.

America also has a remarkable history of racial and ethnic integration and an admirable history of self-correction. Is there a country on the planet that has as successfully integrated as many diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups as America? Is it possible to walk through a mall or a public school in America without seeing interracial couples or interracial, inter-ethnic groups of teenagers chatting and laughing together? Can you enter a church without seeing families that are multiracial by choice through adoption?

This is a country whose founding principles and documents have made possible the kind of social progress that enabled a biracial baby to be adopted by a white family and go on to earn millions. This  is the country Kaepernick sees as “oppressive” and others see as a social and political marvel.

The American flag represents the greatest nation in history. It’s a country that countless people have died to defend or died in the attempt to arrive at its shores. While Kaepernick continues to publicly demonstrate his disappointment with our imperfect union, perhaps he could tell us which country’s flag he finds worthy of respect.

Presenting “Laurie’s Chinwags”

IFI is pleased to announce a new feature we are calling “Laurie’s Chinwags.” In light of changes in the way many Americans prefer to access information, we’re adding podcasts to our articles. Podcasts will accompany both our new articles as well as previous articles that are of particular importance and relevance. As we add podcasts to previous articles, we will republish them for our subscribers’ convenience.

We hope this new feature will serve the needs and desires of IFI subscribers, and we would appreciate any constructive feedback.