Emancipation Day

Yesterday, I interviewed a young man for work, and as always, in these days of enslavement to addictions of every type, I impressed upon him the fact that I have no tolerance for addictions to drugs, theft, laziness. I have come too far in life myself, the road has been too rough for me to put up with such things. He said, “can you imagine what it is like for your mother to be in prison for drugs? I would not touch such.”

Once, I was at a large eastern North Carolina farm inherited by the wife of my cousin. My cousin said, “have you ever seen a whipping post?” In the area where the large barns were located, where the slave quarters had once been located on the plantation, there was a post where the slaves were whipped. He said, “I wonder if a museum would like this?” I said, “perhaps, some people cannot have enough of hateful things. But my advice is to burn this in your fireplace, can you even imagine the horror story involved in this one post?”

Today is Emancipation Day in Washington DC, it is the day in April of 1862 that President Lincoln freed over 3,000 political prisoners from DC prisons. The larger Emancipation Day comes on January 1^st, first celebrated in 1863, this was the day when all slaves were emancipated. Perhaps there is more slavery in this country now than ever before, not the slavery of one man owning another, but slavery to addictions. Slavery to sinful lust, slavery to Satanic forces of evil engulfing the physical and spiritual areas of the country.

Next to the physical slavery endured by many in the early years of this democratic republic, the next greatest shame in the American experience is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens. Of course, it is impossible for the crippled, deaf, blind to be emancipated from their disabilities but these, the largest minority in the nation, estimated at nearly 30 million, should receive better treatment, not only from the government but their fellow citizens.

Please God, help me understand why those who have worn the uniform of their country, in many cases spent their own hard-earned money, trained so they could better serve their country, and who return from the battlefield spattered and torn, weary and worn have to fight for the help promised them. The most inept agency of government is the Veteran's Administration. One would think that after such a long experience in dealing with veterans the VA would not be such a disaster. The last time this totally blind, 100% disabled veteran was at a VA facility, the doctor said, “your record is flagged, it says that you write letters and articles about veteran's care. You are not very popular with the VA.” Yes, I have written hundreds of letters trying to help other veterans. It is too late for me, but perhaps the young warriors returning from these recent useless conflicts would get better care...at least a modicum of concern.

Please God, help me understand why the descendents of black slaves, in lockstep, 99% vote the Democrat ticket. President Lincoln was a 18^th century Republican, it was 19^th century Republicans who passed the 1964 civil rights legislation, a bitter battle with white Democrats. I have, here in my house, a sign which was found in the front of every public conveyance, passed by white democrats, the North Carolina law ordered blacks to sit in the rear of the bus. The blacks may have been emancipated, but by North Carolina law, a law in most states, they ate at separate facilities, used separate drinking fountains, used separate public bathrooms.

Please God, help me understand why black parents will allow their children to get on a public school bus in the inner city or elsewhere, ride through the more affluent areas to a public school where they are marched off the bus to a cafeteria for food and then into a classroom where Democrat officials think they cannot learn unless surrounded by children with white faces. In North Carolina, for over 100 years, the Democrat owners of state government have deprecated minorities of every type, skin color, disability, economic status. Even to this day, although there are now civil rights laws which prohibit some discrimination, the taint of separation is still so obvious in every area of endeavor.

Please God, help me understand why supposed Christian churches have not risen up as a giant hedge to protect the unborn. Surely, if anything in this world is wrong, it is murder. Yet, until very recently, there has been almost no moral outrage by those who should be most outraged, the black church (52% of all black babies are aborted), the Baptist churches and other evangelical denominations.

It was not until Dr. Francis Shaffer, great preacher and writer, shamed American evangelicals that you never even heard anything about abortion from the pulpit. Baptists considered abortion a Catholic concern, yet in the last presidential election, Catholics who controlled 70% of the American vote, voted 54% for the pro-murder, communist Sunni Muslim, Obama. Baptists have lost all credibility with me, a born-again Christian. I speak of Southern Baptists, Free Will Baptists, National Baptists, and many independent Baptists. Black churches have lost all credibility with me with their liberation theology, nationalistic preaching and their yearning for the benefits of government welfare instead of the blessings of almighty God.

It is strange that human beings will exchange one form of slavery for another...the slavery of drugs, sex, food addiction. The slavery of having been given opportunity in the greatest nation in the world, to not take advantage of the responsibility of that liberty, and it is not just one race, one social class. From the pulpit to the pew, from the legislative hall to the work bench, from the moneychangers on Wall Street to the bankers on your street, everyone trying to get by, pushing the envelope just as far as possible, enslaved by greed, gluttony, lust, pride, anger and envy toward those who perhaps have more than you do, are blessed in some way more than you (ancestry, looks, brain power).

Please God, help me understand why You in the giving of Your Son for the redemption of mankind, for the greatest liberty and freedom one can imagine, we still prefer the shackles of sin and degradation, not wanting the greatest emancipation the human mind can understand.

Citizenship Day

When I was a child, even in a very poor rural school, we had citizenship clubs, and “citizenship day”, on which the outstanding student in each grade received a citizenship medal (I always received the outstanding citizenship medal). Later in life, the Woodman of the World, a fraternal group, gave a county citizenship medal. I still have that medal, along with my military medals in a frame. In another commentary, I have spoken about my being the North Carolina Young Man of the Year. Citizenship, like living the Christian life, is a dual responsibility, you cannot be one and not the other. Christianity compels you to be a good citizen, and I have never known a “real Christian” who is not a good citizen. September 17th, citizenship day, was once called “constitution day”.

Our country is sick today because we have so many sick citizens, sick citizens who have forgotten the magnificence of their constitution. Sick citizens because they have forgotten the sovereignty of the Bible. The system is sick because law enforcement is sick, judiciary is sick. The only salvation for America, the American way of life as dreamed by our founding fathers, is to return to the instructions found in God's Holy Word. The depths and breadths afforded every citizen by the promises of the Constitution. Once, in a group of disabled citizens, a blind man stepped on my foot. He apologized and said, “you know I am blind”. I said, “yes, only the blind know things as they are, and only we can be magnanimous in forgiving others who should know.”

James Cagney, famed actor, said, “there are only three types of people: those who can count, and those who cannot count.” I have experienced one man who told me he was sure that he was going to hell. Most people, regardless of their lives here on earth, think they are going to heaven, and for some strange reason, so does their family. The man told me he was so sure he was going to hell because he could not stand “religious people.”

Only those who have been to war know the horrors of war, and want to escape war. Only those who have lived a life of paganism should want to escape paganism. Even before Christ, there was slavery in the Greco-Roman empires. The first African slaves were taken to Portugal around 1425, but there were centuries of slavery before that: slaves pulling the oars of ancient ships, slaves working the mines of ancient rulers, slave girls and women, forced prostitutes. For centuries, Christians like Wilberforce of England have tried to erase slavery from the face of the earth. Yet, even in the 21st century, like the selling of children, pornography and drug addiction, there is more slavery in the world than ever before. And, even in America, we vote for slavery, slaves to increasing taxation, slaves to a complete loss of privacy, slaves to increased government controls.

On this Citizenship Day, which also happens to be my eightieth birthday, I want to devote the rest of my life, in fervent prayer, for a new day of citizenship in America. Realizing that when American loses the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, that the rest of the world becomes just one big cauldron of enslavement. Because, since America's founding, America has been the one nation on Earth to which people all over the earth have found hope in helping them find freedom, and citizenship. God, in his tender mercy, in his love for every person, from conception to the grave, instills the desire for citizenship, a citizen of the earth.

World's Worst Affliction

When you analyze sin, and depravity you try to estimate which is worse, murder, greed covetousness, pride, gluttony, etc. I truly believe the worst affliction of mankind is the sin of selfishness. This is the first academic trauma you see in a small child. “Mine, mine, mine!” We all want to satisfy self. I have never known a wealthy person who had enough money. “More, more, more.” We are astounded everyday of our lives with news involving selfish acts. A man in California kidnapped a young girl from her school bus stop at the age of 10, keeping her couped up in the inter-courts of his back yard for 18 years, during which time she birthed two children which he fathered. Can you even imagine this horror story, the enslavement of one human being by another? Yet, it goes on in this world, someplace every day. And, some people are stupid enough to believe that an all sovereign God who flung the stars into space, who made man in His very image, is not capable of justice and the judgment of these defectors. You, if you have not submitted to His grace through faith, will spend eternity with such.

Such greed and selfishness is not just a matter of decadent individuals. It extends to entire nations and certainly to cities and countries who sit by and watch the enslavement of human beings. An example which has gnawed at my very inner being most of my life is that of the enslavement of hardworking, God fearing human beings in the slave mills and fields to the advantage of elitists. I speak of the cotton mills, in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the only source of employment, other than the farm for many people. Every town of any size, throughout the southland and most of the northern and western states had a cotton mill or some other comparable industry.

In this town, where I live, there was the Spofford Cotton Mill owned by the Davis family. The Davis family who owned a large gardens by the ocean which they sold to the county for a ridiculous price, had a home so large it had an interior tennis court. The local black population, who were not allowed to go to their gardens or even put their feet in the ocean nearby, walk in lockstep now to vote for this family when they run for political office. One hundred and seventy three houses, called “Mill Hill', surrounded the large cotton mill in the southeastern part of the city. The mill houses did not have inside plumbing. As in most mill towns, the employees were expected to buy their needs from the “company store”. The fathers, mothers and even children were workers in the mills, slaves to the elitist mill owners, such as the Davis family here in Wilmington, the Borden family in Goldsboro, the Cone family in Greensboro, and the Cannons in Kannapolis, etc. There are hundreds, too many to list, Bladenboro, Smithfield, Selma, Clayton, etc. all with the same story, poor struggling white people wearing rags, working on enormous looms, manufacturing cloth for clothing which they could never afford, working under conditions which would embarrass God Himself.

One of my aunts, suffering from severe headaches because of vision required in the mill, went to Mr. Davis, owner of the Spofford Cotton Mills and asked him to wash the windows so they would have more light to see their work. He told her, “If you don't like the windows as they are, you can go out and see if you can find another job somewhere else.” I think about this every time I hear his descendant, now Chairman of the County Commissioners talk about how much he loves the public.

Another one of these disreputable factories here in Wilmington, manufactured shirts, (Block Shirt Factory). When it became too expensive to manufacture the shirts locally, cheap shirts, manufactured by slaves in China, were brought in and the Block label was sewed into them. It is this type of obtrusive and obtuse business practice which gives American commerce such a bad name. After many years of investigation, and some correction, now the same inordinate manufacturers have moved their industries offshore to third world, more populated countries where they can pull their industrial conflagration on other slaves. How many politicians can look at themselves in the mirror, knowing they have participated in this type of debauchery or how spiritual leaders can look in the mirror and know that they have said nothing against this sin, is beyond my humble comprehension.

The sweat shop changes never reached the south. After the 1911, Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, off Washington Square in lower Manhattan killed 146 immigrant workers, most of which were from the workers jumping out of windows, the government cleaned up some of these disreputable practices particularly in employing children.

Next to the cotton mills in the south, particularly in Eastern NC, the very worst form of human slavery was that of the tenant farmer. Poor families lived in unbelievable housing conditions and worked for slave wages as tenant farmers on land holdings of wealthy “land hogs”. These elitist land hogs usually lived in the towns, owned the warehouses (auction markets) where the auctions were held for the tenants' products and treated the tenants like the “serfs” which they were. The “peasant” mentality extended from the tenant farm to the cotton mill and certainly to the court house and the church house.

The churches were strictly segregated. Poor cotton mill workers and tenant farmers would not go to the church where the elitest mill owners and farm owners worshiped. The black families, in town to buy some supplies, always had to park their cars or tie up their mules near the court house. This was the only place in town where blacks and poor people could use the toilets. The school houses were the only possible place that the poor and wealthy ever met. It was not just a matter of the segregation of the races in the south. Much more bigotry and segregation involved the economic strata of the community. Many books have been written about the strife existing not just in the minds but in the actual debilitating actions of the different levels of society and acceptance in these communities. The colleges and universities of the 19^th century were totally different from today's university system, where because of grants and scholarships, the poor and disenfranchised with better preparation now than then, can actually matriculate and expect some future measure of success. Whereas until recently, it was only the rare exception that poor whites and blacks and immigrants could excel.

Starting in 1970, poor whites, blacks and immigrants had a chance in the South. Until then, particularly the blacks always migrated north or west, to fulfill ambition. We cannot believe the ethical and racial inhumanity of the Third Reich, Hitler's great “solution”. Watch carefully! There is a revival of the dastardly, distraught doctrine of Nazism permeating our free enterprise, capitalistic democratic republic. Take a good look at Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and his bioethics philosophy. Take a good look at the philosophies of the czars and academic suckers of the Obama administration.

The world's worst affliction is selfishness. We see this in eugenics. Every sin known to man begins with pride. In the pride of depopulation through eugenics we see Satan's crowing achievement.