Can you imagine what would go through the mind of a child upon being told by his parents that he would be unsupervised all day? He could do whatever he wanted! It would be heaven, but no loving parent would ever allow such a thing. The risk to the child would simple be too great. “Anything goes” is a bad idea for any age.  But that is where our culture is being driven by the Left.

Much can be learned about people in general from watching children. Sadly, we often do not learn much from age two to twenty! A two-year-old child is not capable of knowing or understanding the consequences of his choices; and if he is strong-willed, he resists any restrictions on his behavior. His desire is “anything goes!” But we are patient with him as he climbs a ladder or goes where he should not go. We intervene to protect him from his choices. We do not reason with him regarding the physics involved in a four-thousand-pound car striking a forty-pound child, we simply don’t allow him to run into the street. Our goal is to keep him safe until he understands such things for himself.

There are, however, some things that are not so obviously dangerous. And just as the two-year-old believes that he knows everything, unfortunately, if he has not been disabused of the notion, so does the average teen. There are choices that are becoming available to him, the consequences of which are mentally, spiritually, or emotionally, as well as physically harmful, but may not manifest themselves as such the moment a bad choice is made, unlike the immediate injury caused by walking in front of a moving car. How does a person learn such things so as to protect himself from bad choices? And of equal concern, how are we to deal with a culture that covers its collective ears so as not to hear the warnings and, indeed, calls those who sound a warning, “evil?”

The significant social unrest in recent times and the tragic rise in drug use, alcohol abuse, depression, and suicide, have not happened in a vacuum. Nothing occurs without a cause, and such alarming trends can only be traced to a culture that is increasingly rebellious against standards and, if you will, God. We are witnessing a culture collapsing upon itself and are told that it is not those who sell the poisons who are evil, but those of us who warn of the poisoning! In this upside-down world, “anything goes” is good, while God, order, and discipline are bad!

We must protest!

Little children are not wise enough to understand that a parent who is too lenient is undermining their ability to succeed in life. If one parent allows the children to eat whatever they want, run around the neighborhood until the early hours of the morning, and never do chores while the other parent tries to make them get up early, clean their rooms, do their homework, and help with tasks around the house, there will be major problems! An “anything goes, no rules” attitude by a parent, and by the same token community leaders, might make them popular with naïve young people, and politically garner many votes, but it is a mistake as catastrophic for the community as it is for the home. Every healthy organization and organism has and needs order and rules.  Nothing can long survive without them.

In the public arena, when a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court is unwilling to define what a woman is you know that something other than truth is controlling the narrative. Does Ketanji Brown Jackson, recently placed on the U.S. Supreme Court, really not know how to define a woman? Of course she does! But when people as high profile as a judicial nominee express opinions which are patently nonsensical, yet are placed on the Court regardless, the nation is in serious trouble.  Ketanji Jackson does not decline to define what a woman is because “woman” is open to various definitions, but because some powerful people have an insidious objective.

The confusion of language created by the Left is only a small part of the chaos they have created over the last few decades. They have worked tirelessly to sow discord between racial groups and conflict between men and women, young and old, rich and poor, as well as between the public and the police.  Their true nature was revealed when, in the summer of 2020, they did not seek to quell the violence, but rather encouraged it.  And just as their inability to define a woman is a fiction, so are their explanations for the division and chaos they have fomented.

America’s leaders know that the public will tolerate a societal breakdown for only so long before demanding order be restored. Thus, having created the anarchy in the first place, the Leftist elites will ride in as saviors to bring peace and calm, at the expense of liberty and personal rights.

Mrs. Jackson’s unwillingness to define something as obvious as what a woman is, is a manifestation of the Leftists’ assault on truth and against God, Himself. They are not creating conflict and confusion because they believe reality is malleable, but because their goal is to break down America’s cultural stability, incite violence, and create disorder and fear, leading the public to panic and give them, the Leftists, a lock on power from which we will not be able to escape.

As they convince millions of gullible young Americans that concrete realities directly before their eyes are not real and that they cannot trust their own perception of things, the nation experiences a collective vertigo, and the trust necessary for cultural and social cohesion evaporates. Panicked people are more easily led, more easily enslaved. This has only occurred, of course, with a simultaneous destruction of the traditional Christian philosophy and culture which have provided a foundation for the country for centuries. Until recently, Christianity has been the bulwark of truth, clarity, and common ground for Americans, making the nation extraordinarily resistant to irrationality, Marxism, and other errors.

Tragically, the Left’s assault on America, Christianity, and truth have been effective. A large segment of the population now irrationally hates Christ and Christianity not understanding the devastating consequences of discarding them. No culture or nation can long survive where the citizens do not have significant commonality and generally accepted standards of morality. The Left knows this and intends this.  America’s Founders, while differing in some interpretations of Christian theology, were still united in the broad, general tenets of the Faith giving America a strong, foundational, uniting philosophy. For the last sixty years and more the Left has maliciously undermined the nation’s orderly Judeo/Christian culture and has been replacing it with an “anything goes” culture.

As a Christian and a pastor, I understand the appeal of such. It feeds the fallen nature’s desire for autonomy and pleasure. Of course, the “anything goes” licentiousness isn’t new! Long before the Leftists began their assault on America the Bible warned of it. The pseudo liberty that Leftists temptingly hold before the public’s eyes has been around since the beginning of time. It began with the “Hath God said, “ of Genesis 3:1, and progressed to a modern outright denial of God’s existence and authority and offers a consequence-free life to all who heed its siren song.

Modern iterations are worded differently than the Serpent’s lies in the Garden, but the appeal is the same. Satan asked, “Hath God said?” and followed it with “you will not surely die.” Now the Leftists cry, “Don’t let anyone tell you what to do!” and “If it feels good, do it!” Same song, different words. But there is no such thing as consequence free living. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Newton’s Third Law of Motion expresses the principle well.

Imagine a ball game where “anything goes.” It would ruin the game, and probably injure players. Can you imagine a medical school teaching future doctors that “anything goes” or a math professor teaching future aerospace engineers that “anything goes?” In every area of life, even the seemingly inconsequential things like gardening or bike riding, no one with any sense would suggest that “anything goes.”

As an experiment I have taken groups of young people into the gym and told them that we were going to learn a new game, one for which there were no rules, none. They simply looked at me as if I had lost my mind! If it is impossible to play a game without rules, how much more impossible it is to live a good life without rules.

Only a truly evil person bent on destroying people would say that one can live however they like and suffer no consequences. If order and rules are essential for simple things like a ball game or a garden, how much more important are they for things as complex as human life and relationships? In every heart is an awareness that there must be rules to live well.  Many people today just don’t want to hear God’s rules and the Left is making it easy to ignore them!

Fishermen do not catch fish on empty hooks. They must use bait that is attractive to fish, but while being tasty to the fish, the bait leads to its demise. So it is with the bait the Leftists dangle before Americans. How appealing “do whatever you want” sounds, especially to young people who have neither a theological foundation nor life experience to protect them!

The reality is, of course, that a truly “anything goes” culture does not and cannot exist. Someone is deciding what does and what does not “go.” The “anything” they encourage for the moment refers to reckless and evil things such as drugs, immorality, and violence. Calling something wrong, on the other hand, does not go. But when immoral and destructive conduct is encouraged, conflict and suffering  become inevitable as reasonable and normal boundaries are broken down. The suffering and destruction are only magnified as those who see what is coming and try to warn others are denounced as haters and bigots. If the boycott against truth continues long enough, the destruction of the culture and of many lives is practically guaranteed. In an “anything goes” culture, the highest “good” is to do whatever one wants.

Consequences, good or bad, become irrelevant. It is not far from the moronic axiom uttered by someone in the 60s, “Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse!” Adults know that such thinking leads to catastrophe, but we seem to be short on adults these days. Tell a child that habitually eating packets of sugar may lead to diabetes and your words will fall on deaf ears. And so it is with a lawless culture. People’s hearing has dulled; and so, we witness many of our youths, some even into their thirties, displaying the logical skills of children, and tragically suffering and dying as a consequence!

Leftists, who for the moment dominate America’s ruling class, pander to the public’s baser inclinations just like those who through lies, promises, and manipulation entrap young women in lifestyles that may lead to their deaths, or the “coyotes” who make millions off promises to bring people to a better life in the U.S., only to leave many of them dead in the desert or kidnapped by human smugglers. There is no more accurate word for them than “evil.”

If an “anything goes” culture is tolerated too long a cataclysmic failure of the culture and nation will occur and those in power will cement their places, no longer as tolerant, beneficent friends, but as tyrants. The current wanton disregard for God and His morality is frighteningly reminiscent of the early chapters of Genesis which culminated in God’s declaration that, regarding mankind, “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man. . . .”  (Gen. 6:5-6). At that point the Great Flood ensued!  Whether we soon suffer catastrophic judgment as well depends solely upon God’s grace, which should lead every American who has not repented and turned from their sin to do so now!

The confusion currently enveloping America’s culture did not develop organically, it has been artificially produced by wicked people to confuse, weaken, and overcome Americans. The “anything goes” philosophy is mere bait. Once ensnared, the prey, America’s citizens, will no longer have such liberties.

The Biden Administration’s efforts to trample our Second Amendment rights fall into two categories: overt and covert.

In the more overt category is the game of “changing semantics”- the evolution of word usage usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. This trend seems to be happening at an ever quickening pace. Even words once easily defined such as “woman” have the power to stump some of our nation’s most educated–case in point– Ketanji Brown Jackson—President Joe Biden’s recent nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Another word not so easily defined is “terrorist.” Historically considered to be “an individual and/or group committing criminal acts to further ideological goals,” it now is evolving to mean “concerned parents voicing those concerns at a school board meeting.” Recently, parents have had good reason for legitimate concerns. From school policies resulting from the pandemic such as shutdowns and unnecessary masking to abrupt changes in curriculum such as Critical Race Theory and “Comprehensive” Sex Education, parents were showing up at their local school board meeting and demanding to be heard and their views considered.

So last fall, the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to President Biden urging the administration to classify “these heinous actions” of concerned parents as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” quickly prompting U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue his own memo promising “a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” and directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to coordinate with state and local authorities on the matter.

What exactly is going on here? Is the main concern behind the broadening of the term “terrorist” really the safety of school personnel? Or are there more nefarious reasons at work? Gun-control maybe? After all, a terrorist should not be sold a gun. And although Garland testified before Congress: “I do not think that parents getting angry at school boards for whatever reason constitutes domestic terrorism,” FBI whistleblowers revealed that a tag has been created to track “threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers, and staff”–effectively broadening the definition of “terrorist” to now include concerned parents.

Which seems to be a just one arm of a emerging world-wide trend. The United Kingdom just passed a bill declaring that anybody that goes against the official narrative with “propaganda” will be charged criminally even if later information reveals they were correct.” This could be the direction we are headed here in the U.S.

In the more covert and disturbing method of trampling 2nd Amendment rights is a trick as old as the hills–the hiding of gun control measures within the recent $1.5 Trillion Infrastructure Bill which sends $13.6 Billion to Ukraine. The bill passed the U.S. Senate with bi-partisan support (68-31) and was signed by President Biden.

Hidden in the 2207 pages of this omnibus bill is the previously rejected Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA). While its title sounds harmless enough, it originally failed due to its gun-control provisions. The resurrected version contains a major change in current law–the NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022.

Anyone who has purchased a gun or is knowledgeable about the procedure knows that a criminal background check is conducted before someone receives a “green light” on the purchase. This system is utilized literally thousands of times a day across the country and is not without its problems. Would be gun-purchasers often face never-ending delays or, much to their surprise, flat out denials.

According to Gun Owners of America, the FBI itself admits that it’s often wrong on gun-related background check denials. And when an appeal to the denial is filed,  “27.7 percent of [the denials] are overturned”, and the firearm purchase is approved. Yet according to the research published by Professor John R. Lott, these denials are wrong 99 percent of the time!

Now comes the dangerous part. The NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022 passed as part of the Infrastructure Bill will NOW require the criminal investigation of all denials on the National Instant Criminal-Background-Check System (NICS). That’s right. If you happen to be part of the 27.7 percent who are erroneously denied your gun purchase–even when that denial is appealed and corrected–an immediate and mandatory criminal investigation is opened into that person (you!) and sent to not only local authorities but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as well. This gives local authorities and lawyers the Federal authority to create a database on you and snoop into your social media posts, spending habits, etc. The time to be alert is here.

While all of our God-given, Constitutionally protected rights are precious, perhaps the most precious is the Right to Bear Arms for it is the right needed to protect all of the others.

“The beauty of the Second Amendment is
that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”   
~Thomas Jefferson

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson has provided sufficient evidence for the U.S. Senate to vote against her nomination to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat following the full-court press he received from leftists to abdicate his lifelong seat before the 2024 election. That evidence includes her stupefying claim that she is unable to define “woman” because she’s not a biologist. The press has profligately identified Jackson as a “woman.” Has anyone confirmed that with a biologist?

Jackson’s claim was made in response to a line of questioning by U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who began by citing the U.S. Supreme Court Case United States v. Virginia in which the buttinsky U.S. government sued the state of Virginia and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) claiming that the policy limiting VMI admissions to males violated the U.S. Constitution. Blackburn cited Ruth Bader Ginsburg who voted with the majority in overturning VMI’s male-only admission policy:

Supposed inherent differences are no longer accepted as a grounds for race or national origins classifications. Physical differences, however, are enduring. The two sexes are not fungible. A community made up exclusively of one sex is different from a community composed of both.

Blackburn then asked Jackson, “Do you agree with Justice Ginsburg that there are physical differences between men and women that are enduring?”

Jackson, looking like the proverbial headlight-blinded deer, took an awkward beat and then stammered,

Um, Senator, respectfully, I am not familiar with that particular quote or case, so it’s hard for me to comment as to whether or not …

This was a half-truth. While it likely was “hard” for Jackson to comment on the now-incendiary topic of whether there are enduring physical differences between men and women, the reason for that difficulty is not Jackson’s ignorance about the VMI case.

The reason it is hard for her to acknowledge the obvious truth that even children know is that Jackson didn’t want to offend either the rational members of the U.S. Senate who will vote for or agin her nomination or to offend the “trans” cult, which wields inordinate political power in service of their reality-denying disorder.

Blackburn tried again:

Do you interpret Justice Ginsburg’s meaning of “men” and “women” as “male” and “female”?

And again, Jackson bobbed and weaved:

And again, because I don’t know the case, I don’t know how to interpret it. I’d have to read the whole thing.

Surely, the third time would be a charm, particularly because Blackburn omitted reference to the VMI court case. Blackburn asked,

Can you provide a definition of “woman”?

Here came Jackson’s whopper. She replied confidently,

No. I can’t.

Incredulous, Blackburn asked,

You can’t?

Jackson chuckled and responded,

Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.

Surely Jackson knows how biologists define woman. Biologists defined “woman” long before cross-dressers decided to goose-step in their stiletto-accoutered jackboots through America’s institutions trying to convince Americans that biologists know nothing about the phenomena of man and woman.

Transtopians are baffled at the notion that biologists could know what a woman is because in Transtopia, “man” and “woman” have nothing to do with hard science, anatomy, physiology, genetics, or reproduction. Transtopians believe in pseudoscience and metaphysical alchemy.

Transtopia is a solipsistic Wonderland where words mean whatever Transtopians say words mean and where nothing exists outside each individual’s mind—including minds beclouded by sin, confusion, delusion, and deviant desires. If there’s a mismatch between a Transtopian’s mind/feelings and their anatomically healthy, properly functioning bodies, they just know the error is with their healthy, properly functioning bodies. “Treatment,” therefore, means artificially disrupting normal, properly functioning biological processes and excising normal, healthy anatomical parts as if they’re malignant tumors.

For Transtopians, nothing matters but the subjective feelings of the self, and that’s why Transtopians demand everyone ask every person they meet what their pronouns are. While weeping about being “mis-gendered,” they tyrannically demand compulsory mis-sexing.

Transtopians exalt subjective feelings, except for the subjective feelings of those who live and move and have their being outside of Transtopia. Their feelings, beliefs, and values mean nothing in Transtopia. Transtopians hate anyone who refuses to move body, mind, heart, and soul to Transtopia, ironically labeling dissenters hateful, intolerant, bigoted, and non-inclusive.

Jackson’s expansive ignorance of biology accounts too for why she doesn’t know when life begins or when a baby in the womb is viable. Maybe if she spent less time cozying up with Planned Parenthood, she would free up some time to read a basic biology text. Presumably, her husband—a doctor—or the Internet could help her find out the answers to those not-so-vexing questions.

But perhaps Jackson’s most troubling statement was this:

I have a religious view that I set aside when I am ruling on cases.

That claim drips with the anti-constitutional view that a Supreme Court Justice must sever her religious faith from the exercise of her duties. That view, however, is at odds with the spirit and text of the Constitution which prohibits religious tests for holding office and which guarantees the free exercise of religion. For true Christians, their religious faith inheres every aspect of their lives. It shapes their ethics; morality; political values; and their views of government, human nature, and liberty.

To paraphrase Richard John Neuhaus, that which is political is moral and that which is moral, for religious people, is religious. It is no less legitimate to have political or judicial decisions shaped by religion than by psychology, philosophy, “gender ideology,” or self-serving personal desire.

A democratic republic cannot exist without objective normative ethics that render legitimate the preservation or circumscription of individual rights. Historically, the sources of the absolute, transcendent, objective, universal truths that render legitimate our legal system have been “the institutions of religion that make claims of ultimate or transcendent meaning.” Neuhaus explains that this “does not represent an imposition of the private into the public spheres, but rather an expansion or transformation or recollection of what is public.” He argues that when religion is utterly privatized and eliminated as a “source or transcendence that gives legitimate and juridical direction and form, something else will necessarily fill the void, and that force will be the state.”

While Ketanji Brown Jackson may view her silly non-answers as canny political stratagems, many people view them as dishonest, foolish, and cowardly.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SCOTUS-Nominee-Jacksons-Stupefying-Answers.mp3

On January 26th, various news outlets reported that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who was appointed in 1994, planned to announce his retirement. This announcement was followed by multiple reports suggesting that Justice Breyer may have been ushered out by political activists/strategists within the Democratic Party. One report by FoxNews.com claimed that “groups such as Black Lives Matter and Women’s March launched an effort calling for the justice’s retirement.”

With the midterm elections just eight months away and a “red wave” predicted, time was of the essence. U.S. Senate Democrats could not afford to wait to fill the seat occupied by the oldest liberal member of the Court, even if that meant ushering Breyer out before he was ready to go.

Last Friday, President Joe Biden nominated federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Breyer’s seat. According to background information provided by the White House, Judge Jackson, who currently serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Miami, Florida. She earned a BA from Harvard University in 1993 (magna cum laude), and then attended Harvard Law School, graduating cum laude in 1996. Judge Jackson clerked for a variety of judges after earning her JD, and in 1999 clerked for Justice Breyer. She worked in private practice and then as a public defender.

President Barack Obama nominated Judge Jackson as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2009. She was confirmed unanimously for that position by the U.S. Senate in 2010 and served there until she was nominated by President Obama for a position on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was again confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2013. Judge Jackson served on the District Court until 2021, when President Joe Biden nominated her for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The U.S. Senate again confirmed her appointment in 2021 by a 53-44 vote with three Republicans joining all 50 Democrats voting “yea:” Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Judge Jackson is currently visiting Senators as she begins the interview process for the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will commence confirmation hearings. If she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Judge Jackson would be the second youngest justice on the court—behind Justice Amy Coney Barrett—and the first Black woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Of course, President Biden publicly and proudly announced to the nation that the race and gender of his nominee were pre-qualifying conditions for his consideration. (White males need not apply.)

So, what about her judicial philosophy about the U.S. Constitution, the sanctity of life and religious freedom? Well, according to an article by law professor Jonathan Turley,

What is most notable of the statements of support for Judge Jackson is how little is said about her judicial philosophy or approach to the law. The fact is that we have a comparably thin record of opinions in comparison to recent nominees. While she obviously has opinions as a district court judge, there are few opinions that shed light on her judicial philosophy. That is not surprising for a trial judge who issues hundreds of insular decisions on trial issues or outcomes. This is not about the years of experience on the bench, which I have repeatedly noted is a great strength in the nomination. It simply means that we have fewer opinions offering substantive insights into her approach to legal interpretation. The question is whether we will learn substantially more in this confirmation.

We can hope that the confirmation hearings for Judge Jackson, which are scheduled for March 21 through 24, will flesh out more about her views on key issues and her judicial philosophy.

Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute has a different perspective. He isn’t waiting to sound the alarm:

In nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden is selecting a judicial activist for the Supreme Court. Her record from the beginning of her career shows hostility to religious liberty, free speech, and other constitutional rights. The American people do not want a liberal extremist on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Judge Jackson’s judicial activism will place the constitutional rights of all Americans in jeopardy.

Other concerns about Judge Jackson’s positions have been raised by our friends at Family Research Council and Family Policy Alliance.