By Nathan Barton

This morning (oh! Good morning!) let us talk about the wars on religions. There are definitely religious wars by government: although it is claimed that Western governments, including the United States, have been waging a “crusade” against Islam, it appears more accurate to say that the FedGov, Her Majesty’s governments (UK, Canada, elsewhere), and various European countries have been waging war against the various types of “christianity” while Islam is “protected.” They attack in a variety of ways, some blatant and some very subtle.  Here are some examples.

Apparently, in New Jersey, storm water management taxes (a common “fee” or “tax” being adopted by more and more local governments to increase revenue) are being charged to churches – unless they agree to “voluntarily” propagandize for the state and EPA by including green, environmental messages in their weekly preaching. Now, The Common Sense Show isn’t the most reliable website in the world, but this seems to be pretty well documented. It is clearly a violation of separation of state and church to even levy the “fees” (although many local governments are getting away with this sort of garbage), but to use it as an excuse to, in essence, coerce the churches into propagandizing for what some can claim is their “true god.”

A Dallas “Pastor’s” explanation for why America Is seemingly so ‘filled With rage’ makes some sense.  But… Mama Liberty says: Then he totally skips the whole idea of personal responsibility and goes right to supporting “the state.”

Nathan: Yes, I think he misses the whole point, but that is typical for “pastors” like this guy.  It is not whether leaders are good, bad, or indifferent, but the fact that we have “leaders” – politicians OR “statesmen” that we dump all this “responsibility” on. Instead of accepting it ourselves.  He complains about being put in groups or classes, but he does the same thing himself, instead of teaching one of the essential messages of the Gospel, that we, INDIVIDUALLY, are responsible to God our Creator for our decisions and actions, and that surrendering that responsibility to a “leader” is NOT going to keep us for answering for what we did/did not do.

He is right that we Americans GAVE the politicians that power, but he does not say the truth: we were wrong in giving them ANY power.  And now that I think about it, maybe the question is the wrong one.  The protesters and rioters are not so much filled with rage as filled with greed for power and a sense that they are not in control of their own lives but want to control others.  Until people (and their organizations, including schools and churches) stop recognizing the state as having any moral or legitimate authority over them, but strictly the “authority” of the gun, club, and fist, and REJECT even that authority, nothing will change, at least not significantly.  But most so-called “christian” churches are beyond hope of doing that.

A commentary on the problem, by the Dissident Dad, “When your church becomes a place of statist worship,” has some good points.  While I don’t agree with everything he says or his underlying assumptions that “patriotism” or ANY form of worship of the state has no business being mingled with worship of God. That is an evil that has been committed over and over again for nearly 6,000 years (or longer): it is found in Egypt and Mesopotamia and around the world.

Countering that trend is another commentary, “Christianity and Anarchy,” which points out that religion – or at least uncorrupted christianity – goes very well with anarchism (at least, what my sons call “rational anarchism”) and free markets.

On to other news:

“Hershey is looking at replacing the high-fructose corn syrup in some of its products with sugar. Will Papa, chief research and development officer at The Hershey Co., told The Associated Press the company uses a mix of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in its products but that it is ‘moving more toward sugar. … We take into account what consumers want. And consumers are telling us between the two, they prefer sugar,’ Papa said. A switch to sugar would make Hershey a high-profile example of the move away from high-fructose corn syrup in the food industry.”  It would also be an affront to government, and might help offset the growing shortage of chocolate worldwide, which is driving the rapid increase in the cost of all products with chocolate, one of the most wonderful of God’s gifts of food to man (IMO).

In Montana, legislators are mulling 85 mph speed limit “Big Sky Country could soon be the land of high speeds. Four Montana lawmakers have proposed raising the state’s maximum speed limit from 75 mph to 80 or 85 mph and are working on bills to introduce during next year’s legislative session, the Missoulian reports. State Senator Scott Sales of Bozeman, who favors an 85 mph limit, told the newspaper he’s been working across the state in the Bakken oil fields near the North Dakota border and that the higher limit would shave an hour off his 400-plus mile trip.” Frankly, Mr. Sales needs to seriously think about relocating, or finding other work, but that is his call, of course.  (I and my family are not ones to throw stones on long distance work travel.)  But this is deja vu. For many years, Montana had NO quantifiable daytime speed limit, the legal instead being “reasonable and prudent for conditions,” but the lack of guts of the legislators and the bullying of the people supposedly working for them (the state patrol) and the people of the state (county sheriffs) got that done away with years ago.  Now, we have this…

As we see the nastiness from Ferguson and then the NYPD chokehold death bouncing back and forth across the country, this is worth looking at. College students ignore real tragedy facing black community. This real inequality of family breakdown comes as an inconvenient fact for the identity politic paradigm of the student protesters. Michael Brown comes from a broken home, for example. Ferguson presented what could have been an honest national conversation about race and politics.  Certainly one can have informed concerns about the militarization of the police, for instance. But students are missing some crucial facts about life for black Americans when they protest. This conversation does not have to be some political football, but only if people get their facts straight can a genuine conversation can begin. College Fix contributor Ryan Shinkel is a student at the University of Michigan.

Ain’t government sweet?  You make a mistake about the fine for not cleaning up dog poop on all the nice signs you had printed, and instead of fixing the signs, you fix the fines: increasing them TEN times from $25 to $250 for each poop!