9/11: Let's not forget who did this

"Some people did something" -- the infamous words of Ilhan Omar (Democrat - MN) downplaying the atrocity committed 18 years ago, when over 3000 innocent people died at the hands of... lest we forget... Islamic terrorists.

On this day, 9/11, 18 years ago, 19 Islamic terrorists, members of Al-Qaeda, in addition to killing thousands of people in just a couple of hours, caused billions in dollars of economic damage. In the words of Nicholas Haros Jr., speaking at today's memorial service in New York, "Your relatives and friends were attacked. Our constitutional freedoms were attacked, and our nation's founding on Judeo-Christian principles were attacked. That's what some people did!" The speaker went on to call on Rep. Omar and the other members of the "Squad" to show some respect in honouring those who lost their lives.

The conspirators behind the dastardly attack have kept their lives. The death penalty trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind, and his four partners in orchestrating the deadliest attack ever carried out on American soil, is still pending. Pre-trial hearings resumed this past Monday. And it's all to ensure that Mr Mohammed and his co-conspirators -- Walid Muhammad Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi -- fanatical Muslims, the lot of them -- will receive "justice".

What justice is there, Walt asks, for the 3000+ dead and the families and friends left to mourn them. Is it just that the public revulsion over the 9/11 atrocity, and the great public anger at Islamic terrorists should be used by Ilhan Omar and her fellow Democrats and sympathizers with Islamism, to justify the foundation of the Council on American–Islamic Relations, "a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group", and the sanitization of 9/11? "Some people did something..." Let us not forget who did what, and why. It was Islamic terrorists, of whom 1000s are still out there -- not just in the Middle East and Europe but in America -- and they did it because they want to kill us. Let us not forget.

Further reading: "DID WE LEARN ANYTHING FROM 9/11? Or are we still sleeping?", by (((Dan Greenfield))), on FrontPageMag, 11/9/19.

A timely guide for Catholic voters

A Catholic friend has sent a link to a pastoral letter from Most Rev. Socrates B. Villegas, Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. That country, like the USA, has elections in the offing, for the highest offices in the land. In his letter, the prelate offers some guidance to help voters choose "God-fearing leaders who are also bravely and stubbornly loyal to the flag and to the people."

To know which candidates are God-fearing and deserving of our vote, Archbishop Villegas says we should use the age-old standards of our Judeo-Christian tradition, as set out in the Ten Commandments. Here are the questions we need to ask them, and ourselves. (The Commandments, in a modern translation, follow the numbering in the Catholic Bible, as it has been since 382 AD.)

I. I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. Do not vote for an atheist or for someone who makes fun of the name of God. A Catholic cannot support a candidate who vows to wipe out religion from public life, or whose ideology binds him or her to make of the country a secular state that has no tolerance for religion in its public life.

II. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Do not vote for candidates who have a history of violating oaths they have made. A person commits perjury when he makes a promise under oath with no intention of keeping it, or when after promising on oath he does not keep it. Perjury is a grave lack of respect for the Lord of all speech. Nor should one pledge oneself by oath to commit an evil deed.

III. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day. If the candidate professes to be a Christian, how does he or she look at Sunday worship, Sunday rest especially for the poor, Sunday time with the family? Has the candidate fallen to the pursuit of some sort of "ideology of performance" introducing a harsh, impersonal and self-centered attitude, contributing to the culture of heightened anxiety, hyper-activism and success orientation, without God in public policies?

Archbishop Villegas spoke of the trend to "dynastic politics", which is even more apparent in the Philippines than in the USA, when he wrote:

IV. Honor your father and your mother. Do not vote for family members running for the same positions as family members before them to perpetrate the family's hold on public office. Christian voters should prudently choose others who may have equal if not superior abilities and competencies for the position.

V. You shall not kill. A Catholic voter commits a grave sin in voting for candidates who oppose the Lord's teachings on the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death. Please demand that the candidates state in clear terms their position on issues such as abortion, the return of the death penalty, euthanasia and extra-judicial killings.

VI. You shall not commit adultery. The Church’s position on marriage and human sexuality is positive and uplifting. The Christian view of sexuality and marriage presents the dignity and authentic freedom of single and married life that is truly fulfilling, desirable, and fruitful. How does this candidate view marriage and sexuality? How does this candidate live the marriage commitment? What is his position on divorce? Does he mock the institution of marriage?

VII. You shall not steal. Is the candidate committed to the common good? Has this candidate stolen public money and remains obstinate and stubborn in making the required restitution of stolen goods?

VIII. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Lying is the intentional misrepresentation of the truth by word, gesture, or even silence. To deliberately intend to mislead other persons who have the right to know the truth can do real violence to them. For it denies them the knowledge they need to make their judgments and decisions. Beware of liars. Lying is a devil with many faces. Be wise. Watch out. Do not vote for liars.

IX. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Does the candidate treat women with respect? In providing sex education for children, does the candidate promote healthy interpersonal relationships and proper bodily expressions? Does the candidate promote an adulterous lifestyle by his life example? Does the candidate support or promote the ideology of a homosexual lifestyle without respect for modesty and right conduct?

X. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. What has the candidate done for the poor? Have his programs for the poor led to the liberation of the poor from the shackles of poverty or has this candidate promoted a culture of patronage so that the poor may be perennially dependent and hence easier to manipulate? Do we see signs of unjust craving for victory in elections, envy at the success of others? A candidate who spends his time demolishing the reputation and tarnishing the good name of fellow candidates may have nothing positive to offer, and he debases the level of political discourse by calling attention to the shortcomings of his rivals and competitors.

Archbishop Villegas concludes his exhortation thus: You are called to be authentic Catholic voters who decide from prayer and conscience. You are called to take courage and make moral decisions. Your vote can make heaven come down and make our country beautiful and good as God desires it. Be free from the tyranny and pressure of trends and herds. Do it right! Choose what is right according to the Ten Commandments. Lord guide us with your grace. Amen.

Archbishop of Canterbury speaks out on refugees, Islamic extremism

Unlike the Paranoid States of America, the so-called United Kingdom does not insist on the separation of church and state. Quite the opposite. The Church of English is the "established" (official) church of, errr, England [Duh! Ed.] and the Queen of England is "Fidei Defensor" (Defender of the Faith), etc etc. As well, senior members of the Anglican hierarchy have positions in the British Parliament as "Lords Spiritual". So it is that the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the C of E, occasionally makes public his opinions on matters political.

The incumbent Archbishop, Rt. Rev. Justin Welby, gave a lengthy interview to Politics Home, Parliament’s weekly magazine, in which he called upon Britons to be welcoming to migrants but said that concerns about assimilating them into British society are not racist. "There is a tendency to say 'those people are racist', which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous,>" said Britain's chief cleric. "Fear is a valid emotion at a time of such colossal crisis. This is one of the greatest movements of people in human history. Just enormous. And to be anxious about that is very reasonable."

Archbishop Welby accepts that, politically, the debate around refugees and migrants is deeply divisive, and says concerns about the pressure new arrivals could place on communities and services are entirely legitimate. "In fragile communities particularly – and I’ve worked in many areas with very fragile communities over my time as a clergyman – there is a genuine fear: what happens about housing? What happens about jobs? What happens about access to health services? There is a genuine fear. And it is really important that that fear is listened to and addressed. There have to be resources put in place that address those fears."

Speaking of the jihad being waged by ISIS and other Islamic extremists against the West, Archbishop Welby warned that, "For the first time in centuries in this country ... we find ourselves involved in conflict which has very, very significant theological aspects. Not only in the Middle East but around the world, in all kinds of places, you’re seeing the outworking of that. You’re seeing it in Libya, in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, right across the Levant and Mesopotamia.... And therefore an intelligent response to this must include theological and religious literacy, and an understanding of what drives people when they are caught up in religious ideas."

Internationally, he opines, that means confronting those states, in particular Saudi Arabia, that have aided the development of extremism and violence. "The key thing is, if we are going to deal with extremism, mainstream religious leaders – which within many parts of the Islamic world includes governments – must be very, very clear about taking responsibility for the violence within their own traditions ... and tackling that effectively. That will mean places like Saudi Arabia tackling extremist thinking within their own tradition. Much support has come from within those countries, and they need to be challenged on that. They need to stamp out the support for the extremist views from within their own societies."

In order to be fully successful, the Archbishop said, the struggle against religious violence and extremism must involve a domestic component too. He offered a staunch defence of the UK’s own "Judeo-Christian tradition", and warned against attempts to dilute those values out of a misplaced fear of causing offence.
"I think you’ve got to be very clear about rights and wrongs," he said. "You can’t turn a blind eye, in any way at all."

This, he added, is where secularism too often goes wrong. A successful multi-faith society, he believes, should not view faith as a threat to be pushed to the margins, nor identity as a zero-sum game of exchange, where different groups deny their values to avoid alienating others. "We need to be confident about our own heritage, our Judeo-Christian heritage, whether we’re believers or not," he says. "That is what has shaped our own values, and we need to be confident in that." [My emphasis. Walt]

Western/Judeo-Christian values at stake: Paul Ryan

Reuters reports today on a telephone conversation between Republican veep candidate Paul Ryan and American evangelical voters last night, in which Mr. Ryan said President Barack Hussein Obama’s path for the future of the United States compromises Judeo-Christian values.

Speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a leading group of Christian conservatives, Ryan attacked Obama’s vision in stark terms.

He called Obama's "plan" [Is hope a plan? Ed.] for the USA "a dangerous path... It’s a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty, and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place."

“He was talking about issues like religious liberty and ‘Obamacare’ – topics he has mentioned frequently during the campaign,” said Romney campaign spokesman Michael Steel. During the campaign, Mr. Ryan has said repeatedly that the President's policies, particularly his healthcare restructuring "plan", violate the religious freedoms for which Americans have fought and died for more than two centuries.

In last night's phone call, Mr. Ryan spoke as well of the importance in his life of his Roman Catholic faith. Today he concludes the campaign in his home state of Wisconsin. A rally will be held in Milwaukee late tonight.