I’m in a Facebook group advocating for eliminating property taxes in Texas. I’m a pig in slop in that group, and it’s a large group. So many people are decrying the evils of government stealing via taxation and threats of confiscation. It’s awesome.
I don’t really know how they hope to fund things after eliminating property taxes. I’m in favor of not funding them at all. All government programs funded by theft should be eliminated, and if there is a demand for those services, there will be people who will fill the demand in the free market.
There is one woman in the group who thinks only people who send their kids to public school should be forced to pay property tax. I agree. However, it takes about $10-15,000 to educate a child in public school for a year. You could send a kid to a very nice private school for that amount. There are very few Texans with 2 kids paying $20,000 or more per year to their school district in property tax. Parents sending their kids to public school are receiving more in benefits from public school then they are paying.
I pointed out her hypocritical mooching and she is not my fan. Here’s the conversation.
Over and over on this blog, I’ve asked myself and you, dear reader, whether a cop is stupid or lying when he breaks the law. I think the question has been largely settled by this video. This cop is just so stupid. I don’t think he’s the stupidest cop ever. I think he’s of average intelligence for a cop. Of course, average cop intelligence is far below intelligence for society as a whole.
You can see in this video, the morbidly obese cop say someone taught him the law, and he’s since reviewed the law. When quizzed on the law, he fails horribly. He abused a citizen, cost the city $125,000 and still doesn’t know the law. When cops bluster and talk big, you might think they’re lying, but they’re actually retarded. I’ve seen this over and over, and it has to be that the average cop is just amazingly stupid rather than lying.
The number one cause of the current price of oil is covid lockdowns. In April 2020, the price of oil went to negative $40, because there was a fraction of the normal economic activity. People were paying others to take the oil off their hands. Oil field workers were laid off and companies shut down their equipment. These are things that can’t be turned back on with the flip of a switch. Several of the larger companies have said they won’t increase drilling no matter how high the price of oil goes. See an article about that here.
I think oil companies are out of favor with environmentalists. This makes it tougher for them to get credit and deal with government. I’ve heard that there are even environmentalists on the boards of some of these big companies. But now, even environmentalists are calling for more drilling. Apparently even environmentalists are dreading the fuel bill for their private jet trip to the next European environmental conference.
Due to Covid, Trump and Biden, Republicans and Democrats have cranked up the printing press. About 40% of all U.S. dollars have been created since 2020. Inflation is around 8% even according to government propaganda. The report a couple days ago of 7.9% inflation didn’t take into account the recent jump in the price of oil. U.S. dollars are worth less than a couple years ago due to government manipulation of the currency carried out by both parties. Your U.S. currency just buys less than it did in 2019.
On 2/23, the day before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, WTI oil closed at $92. The price is currently at $108, and has been as high as $130. That price is probably an overreaction. Just as much Russian oil and gas is still flowing through the pipelines. It’s just that it stopped flowing to the U.S. a few days ago when Biden stopped its importation.
The lesson to take away is that both parties are to blame for policies that have been in place for 100 years, and were put into overdrive due to covid. Will we ever get an apology for the moronic lockdown policies? These evil policies were implemented by orders of governors of both parties, and carried out by local people who will betray their fellow citizens and apparently do whatever evil thing they’re told for a paycheck. They should be ashamed to show their face. The first generation of Americans would have tarred and feathered them. Rather than pointing fingers at the other party, reject any attempt by government to control us or force us to do anthing. Those individuals, who may be our friends and family and neighbors are to blame for high oil prices.
When AHA started doing “Church Repent” several years ago, I thought, “How can they go to a church they’ve never been to and pick on them?” Over the years, I’ve realized that you can go to any random church and exhort them and it is a great way to tell whether they are good or bad.
When confronting an American church with abortion apathy and IVF information, the typical, bad church will say, “Why are you picking on us? Have you listened to a sermon? We love the Bible!” A good church says, “What can we do to help? We want to repent of our apathy. We want to do something.”
If they’re a good church, you can go to them. If they’re a bad church you can go to them. The object is to raise awareness of the abortion holocaust and stand up for orphans. Not to please people. Here’s an example of a typical, worthless, wicked church and pastor. Maybe you can hold out hope that they were caught off guard or need more time to consider the situation, but I don’t think so, based on my analysis. I would hold out hope that if they were humble and studied the Bible a lot more, God could change them but their errors are just so basic and egregious.
It starts out with an off-duty cop working security for the church. That’s the first problem. Cops are contrary to Scripture in many ways, which I’ve gone over in the past many times. I don’t have a problem with someone trained with the ability to use a gun roaming around the church property to protect people who are to a certain extent sitting ducks for a random gunman, but I do have a problem with hiring a cop, but that’s just a minor point so far.
A huge problem is that the cop, as is typical, doesn’t have any idea that a sidewalk is a traditional public forum for free speech. Anyone can stand on a sidewalk in any neighborhood with a sidewalk running along a public street and hold any kind of sign, pass out literature and speak loudly any message they want, even if it’s offensive. I think this cop is stupid and ignorant rather than knowing the law and intending to deceive. This indicates that he is poorly trained, and also that Christians aren’t out spreading their message. There may be limitations to sound amplification, and that would depend on local ordinances.
The cop doubles down on the stupidity saying that if anyone is offended by the message, it is disorderly conduct. I don’t want to be too critical of Matt, but I want to point out a couple things that he could have done better (from my armchair quarterback, 20/20 hindisight position), so that we can all do better next time. Matt should have said he was offended by the cop and by the guy that walked up on him saying he doesn’t want Matt to mess with his kids and eventually the pastor. Would the cop have written himself and those other guys tickets? No, he’d be put to shame for saying that if anyone offends someone, they can be cited for disorderly conduct.
When the cop says the church has asked him to leave, so he has to leave, I kind of suspect that he’s lying. Can anyone be that stupid? Surely he’s deceiving, but maybe he actually is that stupid. You can tell he’s quite stupid, but is he that stupid? I don’t know. You decide whether he’s extremely stupid or just that evil.
Starting at 3:12, the cop says he has to provide ID, because he’s being detained. Over and over again, there are copious examples of Texas cops demanding IDs. They can ask and they can demand all they want. No one has to provide an ID unless they’re under arrest per Texas Penal Code 38.02. In a couple of videos I’ve seen Matt, while in Texas, identify himself even though he wasn’t under arrest. Every state is different, so look up the law in your state, and generally, I’d recommend obeying the law because police, lawyers and judges are psychopaths and unpredictable. You can sue them later. But, don’t identify if you’re not required by law, either.
At 3:56, the jackass in the blue plaid shirt says, “Your rights end where mine begin.” This is just absurd retardation. No one has the right to not be offended. This is just shocking stupidity. How did we get to this point in America where people can be this stupid?
As they go on making fools of themselves, the biggest fool walks up. While the lame-brain “pastor” talks, the disorderly conduct talk is put on the back burner. I would bet that if the pastor had stood up for common sense and Scripture and said that it’s the cop’s job to protect everyone’s right to free speech, the whole thing would have been over.
If you look at this church’s website, you’ll see that this is Doug, the senior pastor. If you read his bio, you might even be impressed. He has a pretty good pedigree, suggesting he may even be reformed, which would put him in the top 10% of pastors as far as I’m concerned. The website of the church looks very good and biblical. But the shocking stupidity that comes out of his mouth in this interaction is just such basic false teaching.
As soon as the “pastor” starts talking, it’s all about him and what he’s doing and there is zero humility. Matt is there about IVF. I’d bet $10,000 right now that that church has members who have taken part in IVF and those people currently have babies frozen in test tubes, and the “pastor” knows about it and can name their names. Even if they don’t, I would bet $10,000 that he’s never preached a sermon against IVF. I’d bet another $10,000 that they are doing nothing more to fight abortion than maybe an occasional sermon and maybe donating to a crisis pregnancy center. But no one will take those bets.
One million babies are murdered by abortion every year. NO ONE has a strategy to fight abortion that is 100% effective at this point. Abolition is a glimmer of hope that the vast majority of Christians know nothing about. It is at least Scripturally correct, even if it hasn’t produced a lot of results yet. Our hearts should break and we should humbly receive any ideas or correction on this issue. Orphans are being murdered among us and no American Christian at any church has any room to receive Matt’s exhortation with the conceit this guy has. The way we treat unborn babies is heartbreaking. Keep that in mind while listening to this pompous, lost (lost as in, unregenerate, unbelieving, dead in his sin and headed to hell) “pastor”.
At 6:35, this evil “pastor” says Matt should respect the dirty, ignorant cop. He would have told Jesus to stop calling Herod a fox. He takes the Hitler hermeneutic in his interpretation of Romans 13. That is the typical, but wrong, approach towards Romans 13 among most Christians.
At 7:29, he says that he’ll call out Matt’s sin of judging. This is absolutely moronic. There’s no way this guy has read the Bible in decades. The Bible teaches that judging is good. Hypocritical judging is bad, but one of the main goals in Christianity is to mature to the point that you can judge properly (John 7:24, 1 Cor. 2:15, Hebrews 5:14, etc.). And, if he thinks it’s a sin to judge, then when he tells Matt that it’s a sin to judge, he’s committing the type of hypocritical judging that is forbidden in Matthew 7. I feel like I learned this stuff so long ago and I cannot believe that someone who has read the New Testament once in the last 10 years could say anything this stupid. I’m shocked.
Furthermore, the “pastor” has obviously NEVER done any type of public evangelism. If you do any type of literature distribution or public evangelism more than a couple hours, you will have the cops called on you. You will learn very quick what the law says. You will learn to stand up for your right to preach the gospel publicly. So this idiot “pastor” turns Matt over to the state. Rather than being wronged (which he wasn’t being wronged) he turns the matter over to laws created by unbelievers.
At that point, the dirty cop asks for Matt’s ID. What I would have done at this point, were I Matt, is to tell him that I’m not required to identify. As I said earlier, I would generally recommend, if there is any doubt about the legality of the situation is to avoid arrest or citation and deal with the misunderstanding via lawyers. I’d pay a lawyer if needed or I’m sure Matt has a pro-bono Christian civil liberties lawyer. I’ve had two situations where I’ve needed a lawyer, and both times Liberty Counsel helped for free, and I later made a donation. There is no shortage of lawyers who will take a case like this. In this situation where Matt was obviously right, I’d ask for the dumb cop to call a supervisor. And if the supervisor is just as idiotic, which is a real possibility, I’d be tempted to take the ticket or even be arrested. If you’re arrested, you will sue and win a lot of money quite easily. The only gray area in this case was the use of amplification, which wasn’t in the video.
I hope Matt did something about this, but he could spend a lot of time on these types of situations at the detriment of preaching the gospel as well, so I don’t blame him if he didn’t.
What’s the lesson? As far as you could tell by looking at the website, or attending the service, this would appear to be a good church. You could attend for years and be content that the Bible is being preached. Matt comes along and exposes the idolatry and stupidity in a few minutes. I support Matt and Church Repent Project in general. I oppose ministry industrial complex businesses like this one.
There are good churches out there. They would respond humbly and with sorrow for the orphans who are being led to the slaughter in our country. But you can’t tell whether the church is good or bad by looking at their website or even attending their services for years. One way you can tell is by standing in front with a graphic abortion sign. You will find out what kind of church they are very quickly.
This is a good video with a lot of good points. I agree with his point that the drug war just needs to come to an end at this point. Coors and Budweiser don’t have shootouts.
A random dude on Facebook (probably a baby boomer) says Mexico is dangerous for Americans. I found an article on Forbes talking about just how dangerous it is. It will scare you and make you never want to go to Mexico. In 2016, 31 million Americans visited Mexico and 75 were murdered.
Now, we don’t know what those 75 were doing. Were they getting involved in the drug business? I don’t know. Let’s assume they’re all just innocent little, white people hanging out on the beach. We want to know the murder rate for American tourists per 100,000. So 31 million tourists is 310 x 100,000. And so, we divide 75 by 310 100,000s, and we get a murder rate of American tourists in Mexico of 0.24/100,000. I’m not minimizing the seriousness of that. That’s 75 too many. But, the murder rate of American tourists in all other countries, according to the article is 0.14/100,000. That’s not a huge difference.
What’s the murder rate in America? Well, let’s just say you’re much better off in Mexico than in some notoriously dangerous cities like Chicago, Baltimore and St. Louis. The murder rates in those cities is 18.26, 58.27 and 64.5/100,000 respectively. So, you’re about 268 times safer in Mexico than in St. Louis. Here’s a good list of American murder rates.
But surely those examples are of extremely dangerous American cities, right? It’s true that it’s not that dangerous everywhere. Cities like Fort Lauderdale, Florida or Oklahoma City can’t be that much worse than Mexico, right? Sorry, both of those cities are over 11 murders per 100,000 people. Much more dangerous than Mexico.
Why would the US State Department try to falsely scare Americans about Mexico? If the government can convince us that this is the freest and safest country, we’ll be much more likely to put up with their abuse before trying to get out of our dysfunctional relationship.
You probably just shuddered at the thought of ending your relationship with the USSA. But it needs to be an option on the table for more people or they really will just keep abusing us more and more. Some people leave the country to become “perpetual travelers”. Foreign countries treat them with more respect as foreigners. And you’re out of the range of the abuse of your own country where they look at you as just a tax slave.
Listening to the State Department criticize Mexico is like listening to the marketing department at Target talk about Wal-Mart. If Target can bad mouth Wal-Mart and make their own customers a little more loyal, maybe they can raise their prices a little and get away with it before their customers jump ship.
I first recommended Bitcoin on this website in November 2015. The price was less than $400. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about it, and a lot has changed. Bitcoin is currently at $43,000 and has been as high as $69,000. It is extremely reliable, and much easier to purchase than in 2015. It was a bit of a challenge to purchase it at the time, but it was also anonymous.
I purchased my first BTC by depositing cash into a company’s bank account and emailing them a picture of the receipt from the bank. I gave them my wallet address and they sent it to me. No one asked for my name. I bought more by meeting a guy at a convenience store and gave him cash. That is still a valid method for maintaining privacy, and I’d still do that, but it’s not quite as worry-free as it was at the time. I even had a Coinbase account where I linked my bank account, but gave a false name. Not sure how privacy-minded it is to link your bank account and give a false name, but it’s an indication of where Bitcoin was at the time.
At some point, Bitcoin decided they wanted to please the government so you can’t buy it on any decent exchange without KYC (know your customer) and providing all your information. You can’t buy very much at a Bitcoin ATM (which are a huge ripoff) without KYC. Americans are banned from many exchanges because they don’t want to comply with whatever the US government is requiring. Bitcoin is government’s bitch.
That’s not all. Something I didn’t realize until recently is that from the beginning, every wallet balance and every transaction is completely public and will be public information as long as Bitcoin lasts. At first it was pseudonymous, as I pointed out. But now, the government can track everything and for the most part can know every penny you spend. It is a government dream-come-true. It is not even close to being as private as a bank.
Bitcoin may still be useful and may still go up in value. However, since most people don’t realize how public it is, they aren’t being careful about how they use it.
Furthermore, when I first got into Bitcoin, its purpose was to work as a currency. Now, they say it’s digital gold. You’re not supposed to ever sell it. It would be foolish to sell it or use it as a currency, because it is going to go to $100,000 or $1 million or whatever. It was supposed to be a way to phase out dollars. You can’t use it to phase out dollars if you’re only supposed to hold it.
There are alternatives that I can recommend. I can’t guarantee they’ll go up in value like Bitcoin, but I think they will. However, they aren’t to be horded but they are to be used and traded. They aren’t digital gold; they are currency to be used.
Monero and Pirate Chain are two completely private currencies. No amount of government spying on the block chain will yield any results for them. Pirate has the best technology, while Monero is older but definitely good. We need to be using these and developing businesses with them. They aren’t to be horded but used to destroy the monopoly of incredibly depreciating US dollars.
I’ve posted about this many times in the past, but here it is again as this Youtube video raised the question again. You can ask someone, even a police supporter, “What percentage of cops are bad?” If they say 1%, you can show them a video like the video below or many others (go to Youtube and look up “Operation Rescue LAPD” for a great example).
If one cop does something bad, he could just be one of the 1% of bad cops. But what are the odds that 2 cops are bad and you witness those 2 cops being bad together? It would be 1% squared, or 1 in 10,000 that those cops would be in the same place at the same time. That you witness them or catch them on camera actually being bad together would be hard to calculate. It would be nearly infinitesimal. Most of the time 2 bad cops are just eating doughnuts, not actually carrying out evil deeds. What are the odds that 3 bad cops are together? It would be 1% cubed, or 1 in a million. The odds of 4 bad cops would be 1 in 100 million. The odds of 50 bad cops in one place would be like the odds of a monkey sitting down at a typewriter and randomly typing out War and Peace.
The bigger the bootlicker the police supporter is, the smaller the percentage of bad cops he gives you, the more crazy the numbers become. The only way to make sense of some of these videos is if 100% of cops are bad. Here’s another example of a bad cop and several other bad cops coming to his aid.
This meme comes from a progressive Christian facebook group, which I’m not a member of. There are true and false items on both lists, and I wanted to provide some biblical references where I can. We’ll keep score and see which side wins in the end. The contest is between hipster Progressive team and Bible belt Nominal Christian team.
• Was Jesus white? I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time in a Mormon church recently during some homeschool events. They have pictures all over their church of the guy on the left. It is annoying when people depict Jesus as a blonde or darker blonde white guy. He was clearly Jewish. I’m sure he looked a lot more like the guy on the right. See Matthew 1, for the genealogy of Jesus and it says he’s a descendant of Abraham and David. He’s of Jewish lineage, clearly. One point for Progressive side.
• Was Jesus a Christian? This is a confusing point. Not sure what they’re going for, but it’s technically true. Christian means follower of Christ. He gave us Christiantity. Two to zip Progressives.
• Was Jesus patriotic? Not in the way we think of it with pledging to Chinese-manufactured fabric. I believe Jesus gave us the basis for theocratic anarchy–no rulers, but justice according to His law. That is the system of the Old Testament and Christ taught that as well. The greatest among you will be a servant–not some elected official that has his finger on the nuclear button (Matt 23:11). Three to zip Progressives.
• Justice through retribution or restoration? I’m not sure what they mean. The Old Testament law gives the proper punishments for various sins, including the death penalty. Jesus endorsed the death penalty for rebellious sons (Mark 7:10). The penalty for stealing was for the thief to repay his victims plus an additional amount. No point awarded to either team as they both are terrible on this point.
• Died for your sins? This one is true. (Romans 5:8: “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”) Point for Nominal team.
• Send sinners to hell? This one is true. (Matt 23:41ff: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”) Make it 3-2: point for Nominals.
• Condemns sinners? This one is true. See the above. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). He didn’t come to condemn sinners, because they’re condemned already (John 3:16-18). The Nominals win, score is tied.
• Endorses church and state? I’ve already said that Jesus was a theocratic anarchist, so He didn’t endorse the state. Did He endorse the church? The church is believers, so He endorsed that. However, I think “church” as we think of it today is apostate, and so far gone that we’d be better off without it, so I see the point of Progressives here. They take back the lead 4 to 3.
• Is Jesus a king? Not only is He a king, He’s the King of kings (Revelation 19:16). Easy point for the Nominals. Tied back up at 4.
• Upholds traditional family unit? He does, big time. He forbids homosexuality and expects husbands and wife to remain faithful. Mark 10:6-9 says, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Another easy point for the Nominals, who take the lead for the first time at 5 to 4.
• Endorses holy war? I think the Nominals actually do believe this, as I did at one point, especially after 9/11. But, war is to be defensive as was the teaching in the Old Testament. No one can be compelled to fight in a war they don’t believe in, and there are rules for how wars can be fought. Point for the progressives. Tied back up at 5 to 5.
• The first 3 items on the historical Jesus side have been covered, and are true, and therefore go to Progressives. It’s now 8 to 5.
• Justice through restoration? I’ve covered this as well and I’m not sure exactly what they mean, but knowing progressives, they are opposed to the type of justice Jesus taught, and the Nominals are also opposed, so I’m awarding no points here.
• Killed by church and state? The church is the body of Christ, which didn’t really exist at the time of Jesus’ death, but I know what they mean. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to them and change “church” to “organized religion”, and give the Progressives this point. He was clearly killed by the state at the insistence of the Jewish authorities. 9 to 5 Progressives.
• Friend of sinners and outcasts? Yes. Jesus came for the sick, not for the healthy (Mark 2:17). Again, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. We’re all sinners, but it’s the proud sinner who is self-righteous that God opposes. I’d say progressives fit the proud sinner description better than the Nominals. Even though this point is technically true, and is on the Historical Jesus side, it’s the Progressives who need to examine themselves on this, so I’m giving this point to the Nominals, making the score 9 to 6.
• Liberates the oppressed? Absolutely He does. He liberates us not only spiritually, but as His Kingdom grows, we have been and will continue to be liberated physically. It is those who help orphans, widows, the sick and imprisoned who will go to heaven (Matt 25:34-40). 10 to 6 Progressives.
• Critiques religious people? Yes. Matthew 23 and Revelation 2-4. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord. 11 to 6 Progressives.
• Subverts Empire? Yes. Jesus was an anarchist. The Pharisees would try to trick Him, but He would give parables that were subversive, even though not outright subversive. The Christian system will undermine empire and tyrannical government. Romans 13:3-4 is dynamite laid at the foundation of tyrannical government. 12 to 6 Progressives.
• Homeless man and child refugee? Yes. Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20). And Matthew 2:13ff talk about Jesus’ family fleeing to Egypt. All humans ought to be able to relocate to where they are safe, and where they can best fulfill the dominion mandate. Make it 13 to 6 Progressives.
• Had half-siblings? I don’t think this is right. Did Jesus’ body have Joseph’s DNA? I don’t know. Did He have Mary’s DNA? I don’t know. But Jesus’ genealogy lists His physical father as Joseph (Matthew 1:16). I don’t think I’d call his siblings half siblings. Point for the Nominals: 13 to 7.
• Was Jesus non-violent? I’m going to give this one to the Nominals, but when you say someone is violent, you’re usually talking about a crazy person or at least out-of-control person. God is definitely not out-of-control. He sends people to hell. He sent the Israelites to kill entire cultures. And Jesus Himself overturned the tables of the money changers. But He also said whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword. As individuals, we are to be generally non-violent, but with the potential to be violent in a defensive manner. Meekness is power under control. Meekness isn’t a rejection of power or violence, but having the power and ability under control.
Final score is 13 to 8 for the Progressives. But that is just because the American church is in desperate need of help and restoration. Progressives are generally slightly worse off than Nominals, but they can definitely make some arguments against the Nominals. The problem is they don’t really believe Scripture is God’s Word, so they have serious epistemology problems.
If you care to find out what the Bible says about the Ahmed Arbery case, the case of Michael Brown from several years ago is a good comparison. Bojidar Marinov gave an excellent, and thorough application of biblical case laws to that situation. Here’s the article in pdf format. You can download it and read it in whatever format you prefer.
