Category Archives: Culture War

Unbelievable yet true…

Standing Up For LIFE: Three Crucial Ways to Add Action to Your Faith

Note: this was my WV For Life Treasurer’s Letter for June 2018.

West Virginians For Life welcomes all pro-life people, even pro-life secularists, humanists, and atheists, etc. (yes, there are such people), to join us in advocating for Life. WVFL has no requirement of religious faith for membership. There are no statements of religious faith to sign in order to join. We are a “one-issue” organization—we stand for Life. Even so, the vast majority of pro-life advocates are people of religious faith. Yet for any non-religious readers, please consider: even outside of religion, anyone’s “faith” can refer to what they sincerely believe, their core tenets, the values they hold dear.

One of the most important aspects of faith is to make sure it’s not just “mental gymnastics” or merely “academic ascent,” but that it results in action, i.e. has real-life impact. Adding action to your belief adds meaning to your existence, because you help change bad laws to good laws, save lives, and change eternity. Here are three crucial ways to add action to your faith:

  1. Register to vote, and then vote your values. The majority of pro-life people, even 2 out of 3 pro-life church members, are not even registered to vote. You can fix that right now (fast, easy, and free) on the Secretary of State’s website: sos.wv.gov
  2. Give of your time, talent, and treasure. Join your county’s chapter of WVFL. If your county doesn’t have a chapter yet, start one! Donate $ to help WVFL continue its life-saving work. Start at: wvforlife.org
  3. Talk to family, co-workers, schoolmates, and church members, about the value of Life. Convince them to vote YES on Amendment 1 on November 6, 2018! Repeatedly share your pro-life values on social media. A key link to share now is: YesOn1WV.com [note: that site was hosted only for the time period leading up to successful passage of the amendment. -DJ]

No! The federal government has no power to restrict so-called “military grade” weapons.

The following is an excellent piece of writing regarding the federal government’s supposed power to impose “reasonable restraint” on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This alleged power of limitation/restriction has now become a mantra of many. When I first saw the excerpt (below) today, it was unattributed. So, I went looking for the name of the author(s). It’s apparently excerpted from this book:

The Bill of Rights Does Not Grant You Any Constitutional Rights
By Robert Greenslade and Claude Ellsworth
Published in 2007 by Nitwit Press
https://amzn.to/2EsT8n5

Below is the excerpt, with which I could not agree more. Please see my additional comments below the excerpt.

Supporters of the Amendment claim they have a constitutional or Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Opponents counter that even if that were the case, the federal government was granted the general power to place restraints on the right. Both of these assertions are based on a misconception concerning the intent of the document known as the Bill of Rights.

When the Bill of Rights was submitted to the individual States for ratification, it was prefaced with a preamble. As stated in the preamble, the purpose of the Amendments was to prevent the federal government from “misconstruing or abusing its powers.” To accomplish this, “further declaratory and restrictive clauses” were being recommended. The Amendments, when adopted, did not create any so-called constitutional rights or grant the federal government any power over individual rights; they placed additional restraints and qualifications on the powers of the federal government concerning the rights enumerated in the Amendments.

If the Second Amendment is read through the preamble, we find it was incorporated into the Bill of Rights as a “declaratory and restrictive clause” to prevent the federal government from “misconstruing or abusing its power” to infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.
Another way to understand the original intent of the Second Amendment is re-write it through the preamble:

“Because a well-regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the federal government is expressly denied the power to infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear Arms.”

The preamble and original intent of the Amendments has been suppressed by the institutions of government because it would expose their usurpation of power and perversion of Amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.

By advancing the myth that the Amendments grant the American people their individual rights, the federal government has been able to convert enumerated restraints and qualifications on its power into legislative, executive, judicial and administrative power over individual rights. The federal government claims it was granted the constitutional authority to determine the extent of the individual rights enumerated in the Amendments and/or impose “reasonable restraints” on those rights. This assertion is absurd. The federal government does not have the constitutional authority to ignore, circumvent, modify, negate or remove constitutional restraints placed on its power by the Amendments or convert them into a power over the individual right enumerated in the particular restraint.

A denial of power or an enumerated restraint on the exercise of power is not subject to interpretation or modification by the entity the restraint is being imposed upon. The restraints imposed by the Amendments, which were adopted 4 years after the Constitution was ratified, override the legislative, executive, judicial or administrative powers of the federal government. If this were not the case, then the restraints would be meaningless because the federal government could simply circumvent, modify or remove them. Why would the States have requested and adopted enumerated restraints on federal power, subsequent to their ratification of the Constitution, if the federal government possessed the authority to nullify them?

When the federal government infringes on one of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights it is not violating anyone’s constitutional rights; it is violating the additional restraint or qualification placed on its power by the particular Amendment where the right is enumerated. The distinction between rights and restraints is critical. [The right is not given by the Federal Government. Our rights are given by God and are inalienable. Therefore, they can’t be limited or taken away.]

As stated in the Declaration of Independence, the American people have unalienable rights that come from a higher source than government or a written document. By acknowledging that people have natural rights, which are bestowed by a creator, the Founders laid the foundation for the principle that government does not have the lawful authority to take away or infringe on those rights. This principle was incorporated into the preamble and structure of the Amendments to secure individual rights from government encroachment; that is why they were designed and imposed as restraints on the exercise of power.

If the individual rights of the people had been created by the Constitution or an amendment to the document, then they would cease to be unalienable because the right would depend on the existence of a document. If the document or a provision of the document disappeared, so would the right. The belief that individual rights were created by a written document has opened the door for the federal government to claim the power to define the extent of any right enumerated in an Amendment. This has transformed constitutional restraints placed on federal power into subjective determinations of individual rights by the institutions of government. By failing to understand the difference between amendments that create rights and amendments that impose restraints on government, the American people are watching their individual rights vanish as they are reduced to the status of privileges bestowed by government because the constitutional restraints placed on federal power are being replaced by government decree.

Opponents of the Second Amendment always try to diminish the right enumerated in the Amendment by asserting that rights are not absolute. This is just another straw man argument because the Amendment is about imposing a restraint of the powers of the federal government concerning a right: not granting a right or defining the extent of a right. In addition, a review of the Second Amendment shows that the restraint imposed by the Amendment does not contain any exceptions.

To all the gun grabbers… You got that?

The only things I would add now are:

Given that mass-murder of US civilians by US government agents has happened numerous times already, even with the right to bear arms, it’s clear that law-abiding civilians should have access to the best weapons available to anyone (military or civilian). The primary function of our right is the ability to defend against government gone bad (i.e. not just hunting or sport shooting).

For those so clueless about history that you doubt this fact, here are just a few examples.

In 1993, US Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a brutal assault by federal agents on a religious group’s complex in Waco, Texas. The attack ended a 51-day siege that had started when an earlier raid had led to the deaths of six (6) Branch Davidians and four (4) federal agents. The governmental assault caused a massive fire that led to the horrific deaths of almost all the victims. Many innocent people, including defenseless children, became collateral damage. 

The Waco fiasco was caused by an earlier government assault at Ruby Ridge, when in 1992, agents killed a boy who was hunting with his dog and a government sniper shot an unarmed woman. This assault led to not only the Waco disaster, but also the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building.

Other instances include the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, and the bombing of the headquarters of another religious group, the Philadelphia-based black nationalist MOVE group, in 1985.

Furthermore, historical evidence indicates that in the understanding of the framers of the Constitution, the term “militia” was not a force composed of people “other than civilians” but rather it referred to all able-bodied civilians. “The people” and the “militia” are one and the same. The civilians in general are the people who are to be armed and ready to serve as a militia if needed. To be an effective militia, they would, of course, need to have been able to “keep and bear” so-called “military grade” weapons.

My WV For Life Treasurer’s Letter for March 2018

Dear West Virginia Pro-Lifers:

Our ongoing struggle for life has certainly had its ups and downs recently. Planned Parenthood (the eugenics-spawned abortion giant that illegally sells babies’ body parts) was yet again funded (to the tune of half a billion of the taxpayers’ dollars) in the recent 2,322-page, $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill debacle in Congress. Somehow that “happened” despite having pro-life majorities in the US House and US Senate, and despite having a pro-life president, and amidst multiple calls and pledges to defund the murderous monstrosity.

Meanwhile, here at home, our pro-life majorities in the WV Senate and WV House of Delegates came through on giving West Virginia citizens the chance to regain control of our own state constitution in the upcoming election in November. “Vote YES on Amendment 1” must be our steady mantra from now until then. We are headed straight into one of the most crucial ideological battles of our time. West Virginians are overwhelmingly pro-life, but this will be a war of words & worldviews, pitching our educational efforts for truth against the propaganda, distortion, and lies from the generals and armies of the pro-abortion camp. Abortion money is about to flow into our state, resulting in a media blitz of misinformation. The fact is that ever since the WV State Supreme Court’s baseless, wrongful 1993 Panepinto opinion, claiming that the WV state constitution (which was always neutral on abortion) not only contains a right to abortion for any reason but also supposedly demands an entitlement in which the government must pay for abortions, the floodgates were opened. Some $10,000,000 of our state tax monies have paid for some 35,000 abortions. We’re talking about elective abortions and lots of them. Amendment 1 is the only way to fix the Panepinto ruling and regain control of our constitution.

Churches and nonprofits are permitted by law to advocate for any constitutional amendment they wish to support, and they will not lose their tax-exempt status for doing so. They are also permitted by law to conduct voter registration drives, and will not lose their tax-exempt status for doing so. 501(C)(3) monies may be used to advocate for “Vote YES on Amendment 1.”

Please help. Visit YesOn1WV.com [note: that site was hosted only for the time period leading up to successful passage of the amendment. -DJ] for information resources, to sign up (aka “enlist”) and to help coordinate and ensure LIFE’s success in this crucial effort. We’re not likely to ever get another chance to fix this. Let’s roll!

Become a member of West Virginians For Life.

Donate to West Virginians For Life.

With determination,
Pastor Doug Joseph
WV For Life Treasurer

HMMM

AR doesn’t stand for “Assault Rifle,” it stands for a brand, Armalite, and there’s nothing about an AR that distinguishes it for being unavailable, neither caliber, nor rate of fire, nor capacity, and any standard that would bar it would bar practically all guns, which is the real agenda of those who claim they “only want to ban AR’s.”

HMMM

Why are liberals/elites OK with using guns to protect planes, government buildings,  officials, celebs, themselves,  but not school kids?

Hmmm

If pro-life people tried the same strategy as the left does for guns, we would demand that all surgical instruments be outlawed, since they “cause” the deaths of preborn persons.
If pro-life people tried the same strategy as the left does for guns, we would demand that all surgical instruments be outlawed, since they “cause” the deaths of preborn persons.

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Four Good Reasons Why Every American Should Support Israel

Sincere Pro-Lifer to Sincere Abortion Supporter

A couple of years ago, a pro-life organization in which I serve as a volunteer, West Virginians For Life (the statewide affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee) distributed a mailer regarding a then-upcoming election. A seemingly sincere pro-abortion woman, Amanda, sent her response (regarding the mailer) by way of publicly commenting at one of our pro-life websites.

Here is her brief comment and my open reply follows it:

Dear Pro lifers of West Virginia,

I just got your advertisement in the mail today telling me not to vote for Natalie Tennat [sic]. Not only am I voting for Natalie for Senate, but she is the only reason I am going to vote. Your philosophies seem to govern much around religion and your love for the Constitution, but only in so far that they pertain to you. You do not care about the rights of others. The right to an abortion, freedom of and from religion. You do not care about women and how the right to abortion, sex education and birth control is a matter of Public Health.

I believe in your freedom of speech as much as believe in my own. I do not wish anything less, or any ill will. All I ask is you refrain from making laws that do not pertain to yourself. If you don’t want an abortion than [sic] don’t have one, but when you take the access away from women you are causing harm onto them. Also, please refrain from using laws from the Old Testament to define your purpose when you yourself do not follow all the laws. Thank you.

Note: for several points in my reply (below) scholarly support is available in the “40 Years of Roe” symposium video available here.

Dear Amanda

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to the mailer.
Did you know that every time a woman has an abortion, she significantly increases her risk of breast cancer, and significantly increases her risk of future preterm delivery, and significantly increases her chance of a future baby being afflicted with cerebral palsy? Not only does a baby whose heartbeat and brainwaves are detectable lose its life in every abortion (practically all abortions happen after the baby has already reached such a stage of development), but the mother is a victim as well.

Many studies have demonstrated links to not only breast cancer, preterm births, and cerebral palsy, but also depression, suicide, and divorce, just to list a few. In almost all cases, the abortion is done merely for the sake of convenience. Quite often it is done because the mother or father don’t like the gender of the baby, or because they don’t want to raise a child that might have an imperfection or disability (and often the doctors are wrong in forecasting such things). Furthermore, not only do the aforementioned detriments occur, but there is a “dose effect” in that with each repeated abortion, her odds get exponentially worse for having these issues. To watch a free online, scholarly presentation of these issues, click here: http://harrison.wvforlife.com/2013/04/28/40-years-of-roe-recap/

Also, did you know that America’s infatuation with abortion is a result of the racism of the people who conjured this movement? Do you know the real history behind it? Did you know the abortion industry’s biggest player, Planned Parenthood, was once openly known by its earlier name as an American Eugenics organization? Do you know the history and motives of Eugenics? Check out maafa21.com – you can watch a startling documentary for free on youtube.com here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqLyyIsKyCU (or via the maafa21.com site, to watch there, via a free code).

Are you aware that the abortionists use (and have used) targeting of their placement of clinics, and targeting of ads, etc, to increase the abortion rate among ethnic minorities? Did you know that before they got American women to “want” to kill their own children, they took in hand to get policies in place to sterilize American women, and did so, by the many thousands, at times without the women’s consent and sometimes even without their knowledge? And that it was especially targeted against Blacks and native American Indians?

Did you know that abortions also have noted detrimental effects on the fathers of the aborted babies as well?

You seem VERY sincere. Please consider that your accusation that we (as pro-life people) don’t care about the rights of others is simply a mistaken mindset. We care about the right to life, and right to good health, of both the women, the men, and the babies affected by the terrible blight of abortion.

I hope you will take some time to learn more about this crucial topic.

Sincerely,
Pastor Doug Joseph
Christian Apostolic Church (UPCI)
Clarksburg, WV