According to CNS News, Virginians did not turnout in large numbers this last Election Day, November 8, 2011.

According to CNSNews.com’s calculations – based on preliminary state data – turnout in state Senate races averaged 28.19 percent while turnout in House of Delegates races averaged 26.13 percent.

These figures, which will most likely be revised upward in the coming days as election officials count provisional and absentee ballots, are slightly lower than the previous two off-off year elections – elections in which there were no federal candidates and no statewide executive candidates.

Those races – in 2007 and 2003 – saw turnout of 30.2 percent and 30.8 percent, respectively, following a trend of steadily declining voter participation in Virginia. (from here)

If we want to defeat Obamacare and throw out all the other socialist claptrap Liberal Democrats have devised, we have to take the White House and the Senate next year. That means we must turn out at the polls on Election Day. If we want Conservative candidates, we must also turn out for primary elections and, if need be, conventions.

Yet too many regard politics as a dirty business, and they want no part of. Why? Well, politics is a dirty business. In fact, pretty much anything that involves people can be messy.

As a blogger, I express my opinions and my opinions sometimes irk people. When a blog mixes politics and religion, that’s to be expected, but why? Do I intend to offend people? No. The problem is our nature. Because we forget we are not the center of the universe, we can rather easily regard anyone who disagrees with us as broken or evil.

Here is an example. At this post, What the Bible says about illegal immigration, I got a couple of commenters determined to prove I am some kind of bigot. Scout’s subtle accusation went along this line.

Inherent in your comment was the idea that there was something inferior about modern immigration to prior immigration. That implicit thought lurks in your most recent comment. My point before, and now, is that that kind of thinking was prevalent among the English when the Germans came, the English Germans when the Irish came, the Irish-English-Germans when the Mediterranean, Asian, and Eastern European Jews came. But somehow all that immigration created what we are today and largely assimilated, not into the original English mold, but into something that kept changing. (from here)

Tony, on the other hand is more direct.

Fascinating discussion. Tom quotes passages of the Old Testament out of the context of the time and place of its writing and original intent in order to essentially say that God wants us to be ethnocentric in order to preserve the purity of our morally and our religiously superior culture. (Where in the 20th Century have we heard that kind of sentiment before?).

Tom is right to some extent of course. As Scout points out, there is something sadly very American and reoccurring about xenophobia. Scout is right as well though. As a nation of historically very recent immigrants, there is something basically very unamerican about it too. (continued here)

Tony never bothers to explain why my interpretation of the Bible is wrong.  He just goes on to explain something about his own religious beliefs. To avoid being bigots, I guess we all need to adopt Tony’s religious beliefs, right?

Do I consider myself a Biblical scholar? No. However, with the intent of trying to live by its wisdom, I have studied the book with some care. That is what every Christian is required to do as best he or she can. In a land the accepts freedom of religion as righteous, that should be acceptable behavior.

What was What the Bible says about illegal immigration about? The post pointed towards an article that cited Old Testament scripture to show that Jews have an obligation to treat foreigners respectfully but firmly. To preserve their culture and religious beliefs, the Bible requires Jews to place restrictions on foreigners. Similiarly, the New Testament tasks Christians to set themselves apart from unbelievers.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 Amplified Bible (AMP)

14Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers [do not make mismated alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them, inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? Or how can light have fellowship with darkness?

15What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

16What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

17So, come out from among [unbelievers], and separate (sever) yourselves from them, says the Lord, and touch not [any] unclean thing; then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favor,

18And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

Of course, those who do not accept Christ will find the Apostle Paul words a rather harsh indictment, but here is the point. Christians choose to live by the Bible because they think that is what God wants. We consider not doing what God wants us to do wrong.

As a Christian, I want to live in a land that allows my fellow Christians and I to promote Christianity and Christian communities. That requires a capable government that respects freedom of religion. Unfortunately, our current immigration policies promote disorder. Our government actually encourages large number of poorly educated people who speak a different language to immigrate to our country. Yet if anyone complains about this deceitful policy, they get called a bigot by people silly enough to believe all cultures are equally good.  

All cultures are equally good? A religion that approves of human sacrifice is okay then? What about a communist society that arbitrarily throws dissenters into concentration camps? What is this thing we call progress? How come confused Liberals like to refer to themselves as Progressives? Do they have any idea that the supposed progress they are advertising is cultural. If all cultures and beliefs are equally good, then how do they define progress?

To make our government work, we must participate intelligently. On Election Day in 2012 we must ignore the name-calling. We must study the issues and the candidates. We must support the candidates we consider most qualified. Then we must go to the polls. We owe at least that much to our family, friends, and neighbors.

Check out What the Bible says about illegal immigration from PARTNERING WITH EAGLES.

Given the position some Christian churches want to take on illegal immigration, this is a very timely article.

Read this comment from a fellow who calls himself the Declaration of Independence.

Partnering with Eagles,
Perhaps you have me confused with someone else? I haven’t addressed any issue other than Illegal Immigrants Rights. I am a Born-Again Evangelical Christian who believes that offering legal status to undocumented immigrants doesn’t mean the demise of the United States.

Citizen Tom,
All I said was the same argument you made against the current wave of immigrants is the same that has been made historically about many different immigrant groups. Do I believe you have a hatred towards any racial or ethnic group ABSOLUTELY NOT. Do I believe you have an unwarranted fear that somehow America is going to be greatly altered by allowing undocumented immigrants an opportunity to become legalized. YES. Although, I recall you didn’t always have that concern. I personally don’t share that worry because I know of many examples of previously undocumented immigrants becoming GREAT American citizens. (from here)

Now consider this bible passage.

Genesis 11:1-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)

1AND THE whole earth was of one language and of one accent and mode of expression.

2And as they journeyed eastward, they found a plain (valley) in the land of Shinar, and they settled and dwelt there.

3And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. So they had brick for stone, and slime (bitumen) for mortar.

4And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top reaches into the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the whole earth.

5And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

6And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them.

7Come, let Us go down and there confound (mix up, confuse) their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

8So the Lord scattered them abroad from that place upon the face of the whole earth, and they gave up building the city.

9Therefore the name of it was called Babel–because there the Lord confounded the language of all the earth; and from that place the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

Remember when you first heard the story. Even as child didn’t you understand the significance of our Lord’s punishment. Suddenly, a wide chasm separated the people who lived in the land of Shinar (or Babylonia). So they scattered for they had no other true choice.

Since that long ago age, we have seen nothing quite so severe. Nonetheless, from time to time foreign hordes move into a land, and the civilization already there staggers under the strain. When a people does not value its language and culture enough to defend it, it risks losing both.

Consider this story.

Britons pin economic troubles on immigrant policies

LONDON — British political leaders from the left and the right are blaming liberal immigration policies for driving down living standards amid a financial crisis that has prompted the Conservative-led government to cut welfare programs to prevent fiscal collapse.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who said this year that multiculturalism has failed in Britain, is calling on immigrants to learn English fluently, “make a contribution” to the economy and society and avoid being a “burden on the welfare system and the taxpayer.” (continued here)

Britain Launches Crackdown on Illegal Immigration provides more details.

This post continues a debate that began several weeks ago.

• In TONY RESPONDS TO SOME QUESTIONS — PART 1, I posted Tony’s response to questions that I had asked him.
• In TONY RESPONDS TO SOME QUESTIONS — PART 2, I started answering the questions myself. We considered: Is Immigration A Right?
• In TONY RESPONDS TO SOME QUESTIONS — PART 3, we considered What Makes An Ideology Dangerous?

In this post, we consider the following question.

What “People” Do You Think The Framers Were Talking About?

I don’t recall saying that the 1st Amendment explicitly says it applies only to citizens. However, when the 1st Amendment uses the term “People”, what “People” do you think the Framers were talking about?”

When they used the word “people”, can we tell who the Framers of the Constitution were talking about? Did they define the term? No, but they most certainly used it.

Declaration of Independence

The word “people” appears ten times in the Declaration of Independence. That includes specific references to a particular people. The Declaration of Independence spoke of “one people”, “our people”, and the ”People of these Colonies”.

The Articles of Confederation

The word “people” appears only three times in The Articles of Confederation. A less successful document, The Articles of Confederation speak of “the people of the different States in this Union”. With the danger passed, “the people of the different States in this Union” still had half a mind to remain independent of each other.

The United States Constitution

The word “people” appears ten times in The United States Constitution, three times in the original document and seven times in the amendments. Where it appears first is most revealing.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

How can a people that cannot define itself be unified? If there is nothing that binds a people together, what will hold that people together as one? Yet the Framers gave as their first goal the intent to form a more perfect Union. In fact, the Founders expressed an explicit concern that Congress should define citizenship. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution empowered Congress “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”.

Bill of Rights

The term “people” appears in the Bill of Rights five times. Three times the document speaks of “the right of the people”; it does so in the first, second, and the fourth amendments.  In the ninth amendment, the Bill of Rights speaks of rights retained “by the people”, and in the tenth amendment the Bill of Rights speaks of powers reserved “to the people”.

Conclusion

Why the strange contortion? Why are those who want to transmit the dubious blessings of a socialist welfare state to all the world so blind? It is not difficult to find in the Constitution what the term “people” must mean. Yet the rascals would have us believe that it is. Why do they obfuscate the meaning of the word “people”? If our leaders can evolve the Constitution so that we can no longer determine what people the Constitution is talking about, will our people still have any rights? It seems we will not. Perhaps then that explains the recent successes our leaders have had quickly eroding our rights.