#2145 (11/23) HAPPY THANKSGIVING! "Reset Your Gratitude Meter" / "An Attitude of Thankfulness"

"RESET YOUR GRATITUDE METER" - Daniel Darling, 1 Thess. 5:18; http://www.crosswalkmail.com/ViewMessage.do?m=fjyssrsrgs&r=twlvzjbwjlbm&s=xhgjvsdbjgjdcbmplqnkndschllcgrdnvvm&q=1510912800&a=view

What are you thankful for? We gather, every year at this time, to reflect on the blessings of God over the past year. But in most families, Thanksgiving is less about real gratitude and more about stuffing your face, watching football, and hanging with the family. Some actually dread Thanksgiving, because they're forced to sit in a room with people they really don't enjoy.

Now I'm all in favor of the food and the football. But this year, let's make Thanksgiving about giving and about thanks. This year, more than any, might force us to dig deeper. For many, it will mark a year since they've had employment . For others, Thanksgiving will bring another reminder that they haven't found that significant other. And there are those couples who have to face the family questions of why they still can't have children.

For many, this was a year marked by pain. So how do we summon the gratitude? Well, if you're a Christian, you're basis is not your circumstances, but something greater. Paul tells the people of Thessalonica that they could "give thanks in everything." Why? Because this was the "will of God in Christ."
    In other words, followers of Christ believe that every piece of hardship is a grace gift from the Lord, sent for their growth, sanctification, and further intimacy with the Almighty. We don't believe we're here on this earth all alone. We believe God is firmly in charge. Though life may get hard--and it does--it all falls under God's sovereign will. And so we give thanks.

As Americans, we really have cause for gratitude. I have to periodically remind myself of this and remind my family. We so easily get caught up in the easy lust for more stuff. Bigger house, nicer car, better clothes, newest gadgets. But then I remember my travels to third world countries, where I've seen real poverty--and real gratitude on the part of the Christians there.

Tonight, my kids will go to bed with full stomachs. They'll have a roof over their heads. They will have two parents in the next room. They will ride in a nice car. They will have a future that includes a good education. All of those are things most kids in the world don't have. And so, they should be grateful.

Let's not sit around the table carping about the election, complaining about our job status, whining about injustices from friends. Let's instead reset our gratitude meters and offer genuine, heartfelt thanks to God. For salvation in Christ. For His daily care. And for friends and family He graciously provides. Oh, and for wives that allow us to stuff our faces and watch football.

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Daniel Darling is an author, pastor, and public speaker. His latest book is Crash Course, Forming a Faith Foundation for Life. Visit him on Facebook by clicking here, follow on him on Twitter at twitter.com/dandarling, or check out his website: danieldarling.com. 

"AN ATTITUDE OF THANKFULNESS" - by Jim Burns; Daily Devotionals, http://www.crosswalkmail.com/ViewMessage.do?m=nfdyyjkqqy&r=hnvcqmsnmvsh&s=adbtksmptbtmlpwyzgvrvmsldzzlbhmvkkw&q=1511344800&a=view

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. --1 Thessalonians 5:18

There is always a reason to be thankful. Notice that today’s Scripture doesn’t say to be thankful for all things but to be thankful in all things. Even in the most difficult of circumstances, you can find a reason for a thankful heart. I like the phrase that says, “I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” No matter what your circumstances, I believe there is a reason to be thankful. Your situation may never change, but your attitude can change and that will make all the difference in the world.

Terry Fox was a Canadian distance runner who started a run from one side of Canada to the other. He ran at least 26 miles each day to raise money for cancer research. He was a cancer victim himself. He ran every mile on one leg, since his right leg had been amputated above the knee. Almost every day, a television announcer or radio newscaster would put a microphone in front of Terry and ask him how his run for cancer was going. Often exhausted and losing valuable strength, Terry would say, “I don’t know about tomorrow, but God gave me another day to live and I’m thankful for each day I’m alive.”

Terry didn’t finish his run across Canada because he died of the dreaded disease. Yet even to the end, he remained thankful for each day and considered each one God’s gift to him. With an attitude of thankfulness, he made the most of a difficult situation.

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GOING DEEPER:
1. What is the difference between being thankful for all circumstances and being thankful in all circumstances as prescribed in 1 Thessalonians 5:18?
2. What are your circumstances right now? Is it time for you to begin developing a greater attitude of thankfulness in your life?
FURTHER READING: 1 Chronicles 16:8; Psalms 136:1

#2144 (11/22) "Here’s Why We Should Still Celebrate the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving"

"HERE'S WHY WE SHOULD STILL CELEBRATE THE  PILGRIMS AT THANKSGIVING" - Jarrett Stepman / November 20, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/11/20/heres-still-celebrate-pilgrims-thanksgiving/

America's Thanksgiving tradition dates back to 1621 when the first Pilgrims gave thanks in Plymouth, Massachusetts. (Photo: World History Archive/Newscom)

For most American families, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with loved ones, eat delicious food, and perhaps watch some football. But not everyone is pleased with the celebration of this holiday, and some have taken to maligning its “originators,” the Pilgrims.
     An editorial in Al Jazeera labeled Thanksgiving a “thoroughly nauseating affair,” one that is “saturated with disgrace.” Other articles have called the Pilgrims genocidal toward Native Americans, or argued that the original idea of a Thanksgiving feast is a “myth.” “Debunking” the nature and origin of Thanksgiving seems to be turning into its own cottage industry.

But the Pilgrim Thanksgiving story is based on real events. The small band of religious dissenters who crossed an ocean to a dangerous new world have, rightly, been given special prominence in the origin story of the United States.
    A year after the Pilgrims landed in what is now Massachusetts, Gov. William Bradford called for a day of thanksgiving. As historian Rod Gragg noted:
    "The Pilgrims were not the first Europeans to hold a thanksgiving event in the New World—although they appear to have been the first to do so in New England … It was the Pilgrims of Plymouth, however, who would be credited with establishing America’s distinctive Thanksgiving holiday—thanks to a joyful observance sometime in the autumn of 1621."
    The Pilgrims gathered for a three-day feast with about 90 local Wampanoag Indians to celebrate a bountiful harvest following a year of toil (over half of the Pilgrims had died since they set out for America in 1620). Though the food on the menu excluded modern items like pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce, those who gathered for that Thanksgiving likely ate wild turkey, among other foods common in the area like venison and shellfish.
   While later conflicts would ensue between the Pilgrims’ descendants and the descendants of the Indians who feasted with them, the initial contact between the cultures was positive and beneficial.
    Political misunderstandings unfortunately led to future conflicts—in particular King Phillip’s War—in which atrocities were committed by both sides.

   The Pilgrims would certainly be foreign to the conventions of modern America. They were, after all, a different people who lived in a harsher world than ours. But they don’t deserve to be maligned as genocidal monsters, nor should we dismiss the fact that they set incredibly beneficial norms for a future American culture.
    Though America’s Thanksgiving conventions have morphed and evolved over the years, Thanksgiving has retained a permanent connection to the Pilgrims of New England. Many of the traditions they passed on have become integral to what is now the cultural heritage of the United States.
    
    The Pilgrims came to America as part of a quest to be distinct. They set out to the New World to establish a new religious, social, and political order—to be free from the constraints of the Church of England, and free from what they saw as the corrupting influences of Holland, where they were staying temporarily.
    It wasn’t necessarily religious liberty or pluralism that the Pilgrims sought, but space to create a society based on strict Protestant Christian teachings. As Massachusetts Bay leader John Winthrop once exclaimed in a sermon, the new colonies would be as a “city upon a hill.” The Puritans wanted to be a beacon of light in a fallen world. “The eyes of all people are upon us,” Winthrop said.
    Nearly 400 years later, the idea of America as a kind of promised land continues to resonate.

    The other great legacy the Pilgrims left us was a tradition of political consent and the seeds of republican government. The Mayflower Compact, a relatively simple document, established a kind of covenant between the citizens of the new colony. It was the first such document in the New World creating a “civic body politic” through clear, written guidelines. It was an indirect antecedent to the Constitution of the United States and our tradition of placing laws above men.

Undoubtedly, the modern holiday of Thanksgiving has evolved from being a regional and haphazard holiday to a nationally celebrated one. Notable New England orators, such as Daniel Webster, kept the Pilgrim flame alive in the early 19th century by singing songs of remembrance of their way of life on “Forefathers’ Day,” a Thanksgiving precursor that is still celebrated in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
    But Thanksgiving as we know it never became a formal holiday until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln nationally recognized it. Magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale had advocated a national Thanksgiving holiday for decades.

Thanksgiving has since grown to become a significant part of our nation’s shared cultural inheritance. Though our customs have evolved over the years, Thanksgiving has retained a permanent connection to its origins with the Pilgrims of New England—and for that, we can be thankful.

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Jarrett Stepman is an editor for The Daily Signal.

#2143 (11/21) "When Virtue Carries a Cost"

"WHEN VIRTUE CARRIES A COST" - by David French, November 20, 2017;  http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453905/al-franken-roy-moore-politics-virtue

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 Why it’s so difficult to hold politicians accountable for their misdeeds?
   Over the last few days, I’ve had a number of conversations with both right- and left-leaning friends about the political futures of Al Franken and Roy Moore. Without equating the severity of the alleged offenses (Moore’s are obviously worse), I’ve been struck by the extent to which people across the political spectrum will tolerate misconduct in politicians that they’d never, ever tolerate in their own workplaces. 

    In most functioning corporations, if there’s pictorial evidence that a senior executive groped a woman, then that executive is forced to resign. If there are known, credible allegations that an applicant for a senior position has sexually assaulted teenage girls, then no sane employer gives him a job. 
    In fact, in the post-Weinstein era it’s remarkable to see how quickly corporate Hollywood and corporate media can move, even against some of the biggest names in news and show business. Credible claims have led to swift action. Men have been fired. Entire magazines have been canceled. Television shows have been shut down. All of this is evidence that maybe, just maybe, we’re on the cusp of a culture change. 
    So why do politicians continue to avoid responsibility for the same actions that cost private citizens their jobs? Two of the last four presidents have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct, including sexual assault. We learned last week of congressional sexual-harassment settlements that are still mysterious to the public. And now we face the very real possibility that the world’s greatest deliberative body will feature a man who once abused teenage girls and who will be seated near a man who was caught on camera groping a sleeping model. 

    Why do politicians escape when private citizens face consequences? There are two main answers: an inflated sense of importance and the reality of the binary choice. Politicians and their allies have become very good at communicating their own importance. A senator isn’t just a senator, he’s a “champion” of women’s rights or a “warrior” for the Constitution. Consequently, they convince the public (and themselves) that if they lose their jobs, a great cause will suffer. This argument becomes ever more potent as our body politic relentlessly (and wrongly) elevates politics over culture. Indeed, it sometimes holds even when a political party wouldn’t suffer a net loss by exercising the same level of discipline that’s expected in virtually every other quarter of American life. If Bill Clinton had resigned in 1998, he would have been replaced by Al Gore, and the 2000 election (not to mention everything that followed) might have turned out differently. If Al Franken were forced to resign today, he would be replaced by another progressive Democrat. 

    Are these men really so gifted and important that their survival should trump not just the ascension of their progressive peers but also their negative impact on our culture? Is Franken such a powerful champion of progressive causes that, say, Keith Ellison would be utterly inadequate to fill his progressive shoes? In this environment, standing on principle isn’t seen as a vital act of cultural and moral leadership; it makes you a sucker. 
    Not really, but that brings us to the binary choice. In 1998 the Democrats couldn’t bear to give the Republicans a win. The very thought was repugnant to them, even if a Republican win would still have left the nation with a President Gore. How many Democrats are saying today — when pondering Al Franken — that there is no way they will force out one of their own when the Alabama GOP is rallying around a man credibly accused of terrible sex crimes?

   In this environment, standing on principle isn’t seen as a vital act of cultural and moral leadership; it makes you a sucker, a rube who allows your party to be beaten by a more Machiavellian opponent. Some of this is understandable. After all, in the private sector one rarely faces a situation where forcing out a sexual predator means “My enemies win.” Liberal filmmakers are crawling all over Hollywood. Getting rid of the likes of Harvey Weinstein is in a very real way an ideologically costless exercise — and even that small display of resolve took decades to happen. 
    Every week members of the media are getting caught in scandals, but MSNBC can take action against Mark Halperin or the New York Times can put Glenn Thrush on leave without potentially handing over their institutions to their ideological opponents. If ditching Halperin meant canceling Rachel Maddow’s show and handing her prime-time slot over to, say, Mark Levin, I wonder how many people would have suddenly been willing to accept his apologies and (in the words of a certain progressive activist organization) “Move on.” 

    The bottom line is that virtue — rightly understood — is hard. Defending a culture of integrity, respect, and honor means sometimes taking a short-term loss for the larger win. It means sometimes being willing to sacrifice for the greater good. It means that 51–49 is preferable to 52–48 if that one extra seat would have meant that a likely child abuser was in the Senate. Keith Ellison (or another progressive) is preferable to Al Franken if it means that our political culture is finally getting serious about respecting women. 
    Alabama voters and Democratic senators are in control of an important moral moment. Are they serious enough about character and integrity to make even the smallest political sacrifice to shore up a fraying national culture? It won’t be long before time marches on and the names of Roy Moore and Al Franken are lost to memory. Few people will remember who they were or why anyone worried about their political careers. What will survive, however, is a culture that has been either built, brick by brick, or demolished, brick by brick. The decision now is whether we build or tear down. We’d best choose wisely. 

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#2142 (11/20) "How the P.A. Uses Millions of US Dollars for 'Pay-to-Slay' "

"HOW THE P.A. USES MILLIONS OF US DOLLARS TO 'PAY-TO-SLAY'" - 11-17-2017; http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2017/november/taxpayers-funding-terrorism-how-the-p-a-uses-millions-of-us-dollars-for-pay-to-slay [AS I SEE IT: It makes no sense to be trying to fight terrorism and yet be giving money to those who do acts of terrorism. It's outrageous that this has continued as long as it has. It's time to end this; please sign the petition noted at the end of this article as I have. - Stan]

JERUSALEM, Israel – A House subcommittee unanimously passed a bill that paves the way for cutting U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority if it doesn't stop paying salaries to terrorists who kill Israelis – what some call "pay to slay."

What would you say if you found out your tax dollars were indirectly going to pay Palestinian Arab terrorists to murder Israeli Jews and others? That's just what's happening.

"Since 2003, it has been Palestinian law to reward Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails with a monthly paycheck. Palestinian leadership also pays the families of Palestinian prisoners and suicide bombers. These policies incentivize terrorism," Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., said. The practice is known as #pay-to-slay.

In 2016, Taylor was murdered in a knife attack while on a Vanderbilt University trip to Tel Aviv, Israel. His attacker was a Palestinian man who was paid with U.S. tax dollars by the Palestinian Authority, a known terrorist organization, to murder Taylor. The terrorist was killed by police—but his family was left with a lifelong lucrative financial reward:

*Pension for life that is triple the average salary in the West Bank
*Free tuition for life
*Free health insurance for life
*Free clothing allowance for life
* Free monthly stipend—ALL courtesy of U.S. tax dollars.

Each year, the U.S. government gives $300 million in U.S. taxpayer money to the Palestinian Authority for the promotion of peace in the area—but that’s not how the PA uses it:
In 2016, the PA paid $135 million to terrorists jailed in Israel
And $183 million to family of terrorists and to incentivize future attacks
That adds up to more than $300 million to reward and incentivize acts of murder—in one year alone.

The Taylor Force Act:
     And that's where this current legislation draws the line. Royce says stopping that practice – courtesy of $300 million U.S. tax dollars every year – is what's behind the Taylor Force Act.       
"With this legislation, we are forcing the P.A. to choose between U.S. assistance and these morally reprehensible policies," he said.
    Despite earlier pressure from Congress to stop these payments, the Palestinian Authority has actually raised the amount paid to terrorists whom they consider martyrs. The payments are on a sliding scale. The more successful the attack, the bigger the payout.

In the 2017 P.A. budget, money to convicted terrorists serving time in Israeli prisons increased by 13 percent and 4 percent more went to their families – more than 30,000 recipients in all. This year, direct funding of terrorism has reached $355 million and yet the P.A. is largely funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars. 

"The Palestinian Authority claims to its people that they have a right to kill Israelis, literally, a right to kill Israelis," Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus told CBN News. "Israeli civilians, women, babies and they claim that a U.N. decision from the 1970s, which said the Palestinians have the right to use all means to gain their rights, means they have a right to kill civilians. This is the way the Palestinian Authority interprets it."

Marcus said while Israel has means to crack down on terrorists, the West can play a major role. 
    "The only way this will stop is if the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is forced by the international community to completely change the messaging," he explained. "The international community can force them. The Palestinian Authority is so dependent on foreign aid. The United States gives them foreign aid. The European Union gives them foreign aid. Most of the Western European countries, they have the power to stop this."

The House Foreign Affairs Committee passage of the Taylor Force Act aims to do just that. The measures are expected to pass the full House and move on to the Senate.

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TELL CONGRESS TO STOP 'PAY-TO-SLAY': Click here to have your voice heard:https://www.cbn.com/news/faithinaction/paytoslay.aspx 

#2141 (11/19) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Are Truth and Love in Conflict? - Living as Christians in a Deeply Divided Time"

"ARE TRUTH AND LOVE IN CONFLICT? - LIVING AS CHRISTIANS IN A DEEPLY DIVIDED TIME" - : John Stonestreet &  David Carlson, Breakpoint.org, September 21, 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/09/breakpoint-truth-love-conflict/ [AS I SEE IT: Too many of us - as individuals and as churches - misunderstand the idea of being"peacemakers." We remember Matthew 5 but forget that Jesus also said that He came to cause divisions (Luke 12:51). There will be differences of opinion always and that is not a bad thing. It's a question of engaging with others respectfully and based on the truth of Scripture. We may not change minds by expressing ourselves - but then again we might, esp. as we engage rightly. - Stan]

In the wake of last year’s election, many Americans decided to spend Thanksgiving with friends instead of family. This year, I suspect it will be even worse. After all, once Uncle Bill starts talking about President Trump, or Aunt Sally weighs in on transgenders in the military, or Cousin Phil announces why a Christian baker should or shouldn’t decorate a cake for a gay wedding . . . well, who knows what might happen.

I’m not that old—not nearly as old as Eric Metaxas, in fact—but I can’t remember a time when our country, our communities, and even our families have been so ideologically divided. Not only do we disagree but we tend to see others not only as wrong, but as our enemies. On news outlets, college campuses—certainly on Twitter—civility is out the window. It’s one thing to say “I disagree with you.” It’s another thing to say “I can’t even share a meal or stand the sight of you.” But it’s exactly here that Christians have something unique to offer.

... In my travels around the country, I see more and more that people—especially Christians—feel they have only one of two choices: to avoid important topics altogether, or to err on the side of not offending by compromising or burying the truth.
    But that’s a false choice. The stakes of our cultural debates right now are too high. Too many today, including within the Church, seem to believe that truth and love are somehow incompatible: that if we speak the truth, we’re somehow being unloving.

But truth and love are not mutually exclusive concepts. Why? Because both are fully embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Jn 14:6). And, He is love incarnate (1 Jn 4:8). Christians must ground our arguments, in both substance and in style, on the firm foundation of Scriptural truth.

First, Scripture is clear that each and every human being is made in the image of God and therefore has eternal dignity and value. As C. S. Lewis put it in “The Weight of Glory,” “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal . . .” And of course, we must treat every person with that kind of respect.

Second, we know that God’s established laws include the moral law as well. Though our capacity to fully comprehend and live out what is true and good is bent by the fall, what is true and good remains. As Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote in a recent issue of First Things, “Truth exists, whether we like it or not. We don’t create truth; we find it, and we have no power to change it to our tastes. The truth may not make us comfortable, but it does make us free.”

Exactly. And that is what we want for every human being—to be free to become all that God created them to be. This is what should motivate us in our interactions with everyone—even those who will hate what we stand for.
    This doesn’t mean our approach will always “work” in the sense of avoiding conflict or convincing those who see us as their enemies. But it’s the right thing to do. And so we must engage this moment with courage and conviction.

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RESOURCES
The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and the Making of a World Safe for Diversity - Os Guinness | IVP Books | September 2013; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/Product.asp?sku=9780830837670

#2140 (11/18) PRO-LIFE SAT: "Eugenics and Its Victims - Why Buck v. Bell Still Matters"

"EUGENICS AND ITS VICTIMS - WHY BUCK V. BELL STILL MATTERS" - by: Eric Metaxas &  Roberto Rivera,Breakpoint.org, 

Nov. 17, 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/11/breakpoint-eugenics-and-its-victims/ [AS I SEE IT: I don't know about you, but I was stunned to read about this Supreme Court decision that I suspect most Americans don't know about. The greater tragedy is that it's still being used as the basis of some horrible decisions in regards to our most vulnerable citizens. Let's pray that the present Supreme Court might find a case on which to revisit this insane decision of the past and finally overturn it. - Stan]

2017 is a year of milestone anniversaries for events that shaped our world: the Reformation, the Russian Revolution, and one horrible Supreme Court decision.

As John Stonestreet often says, “ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims.” One such victim was Carrie Buck. She was the “Buck” in Buck v. Bell, the notorious 1927 Supreme Court decision that upheld Virginia’s statute permitting compulsory sterilization for those deemed to be “feebleminded” and “unfit.”
     In his majority decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote that, “It is better for all the world, if . . . society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” He then concluded by saying, “three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
    The “imbeciles” Holmes referred to were Buck, her mother, and Buck’s infant daughter. But as Adam Cohen tells readers in his recent book, “Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck,” there was nothing wrong with Carrie Buck, her mother, or her daughter. The problem lay in bad ideas that can be summed up in one word: eugenics.

Eugenics, a word that combines the Greek words for “well” and “born,” was the creation of Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin. Like many of his Victorian peers, Galton was concerned that the vast majority of children were born to what he regarded as “inferior stock.”
    While Galton’s preferred approach was to create a “highly gifted race of men” through “judicious marriages,” his contemporaries were not so gentle. Many of them opposed charity and even vaccines because they “helped people survive who had been targeted by nature for illness and death.” If that sounds like “survival of the fittest” to you, that’s exactly what it was.
    Darwin, as Cohen tells us, “conceded there might well be practical advantages to abandoning ‘the weak and helpless.’” But he added that to do so would create “an overwhelming present evil.”
    
    Many adherents to Darwin’s ideas were not as squeamish. By the time Carrie Buck was born, much of America’s intellectual elites had embraced eugenics and had decided that the only way to deal with the “manifestly unfit” was coercion, in particular, sterilization.
    One of the most committed and ruthless of these supporters was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. How ruthless? In 1921, in a letter to a friend, he didn’t rule out the possibility of infanticide “to reduce the number of ‘undesirables.’” Carrie Buck never stood a chance. Buck v. Bell was the culmination of seventy-plus years of bad ideas. And the rest is history.

Except that it is isn’t. Buck v. Bell has never been overturned by the Supreme Court.
     In 2001, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, citing Holmes’ decision, ruled that “involuntary sterilization is not always unconstitutional.”
    More recently, 150 inmates were sterilized without their consent in California prisons between 2006 and 2010. 
    Last summer, a Tennessee judge offered inmates reduced jail time in exchange for undergoing vasectomies or receiving contraceptive implants.

Eugenics is a terrible idea that won’t go away. As Cohen points out, the rise of “DNA editing” raises eugenic questions about “whether parents should be allowed to modify the embryos of their future children to whether the government should be allowed to require it.”

If Carrie Buck, who died in 1983, were here today, she would remind us that “manifestly unfit” is in the eye of the beholder. And the beholder usually isn’t squeamish.

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RESOURCES - As Eric points out, eugenics is not new to America’s history. It’s a concept that even now gets consideration–whether in medicine, science,  biology, or law. To find out more on this topic, check out the resources linked below.
"New Technology, Same Old Eugenics: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" - John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | March 10, 2016; http://www.breakpoint.org/2016/03/new-technology-same-old-eugenics/
"Three Generations of Eugenics: Sterilizing California Prisoners" - Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint.org | July 15, 2013; http://www.breakpoint.org/2013/07/three-generations-eugenics/
"War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race" - Adam Cohen | Dialog Press | April 2012; https://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Weak-Eugenics-Americas/dp/0914153293 

#2139 (11/17) "What Hath Kaepernick Wrought?"

"WHAT HATH KAEPERNICK WROUGHT?" - Jerry Newcombe : Oct 26, 2017; https://townhall.com/columnists/jerrynewcombe/2017/10/26/what-hath-kaepernick-wrought-n2400374 [AS I SEE IT: Though this article was posted several weeks ago, I just came across it and thought it appropriate to post it here in light of this player being named by GQ magazine as "The Citizen of the Year." Really?! As this article explains, he is certainly not a citizen who Americans should laud in any way. Sheesh! And he's definitely a reason why I have STOPPED BEING a 49ers fan. - Stan]

I’m so out of touch with some aspects of contemporary culture that some friends have suggested I’m from a different planet. They’ve even created a name for it, the “Planet Newton,” playing off my last time.

I don’t even follow football enough to know all the teams’ names associated with different cities, and I really don’t care. As I recall, just about the only time I sat down to watch a sports game on TV just happened to be in the winter of 1980. I watched some hockey game during the Winter Olympics that year. And everybody said the Russians would smear the Americans, but the Americans surprisingly won. They even made a movie out of it. There, I’ve spent my time watching sports on TV.

Meanwhile, news about the protests against the National Anthem on the part of some football players has reached even Planet Newton. Colin Kaepernick, former quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers, started it all, only about a year ago. His protest specifically was geared toward reports of alleged racist police violence. And now this protest, spreading to other players, is emptying out the stadiums. They kneel rather than stand for the National Anthem.

Note this headline on the Drudge Report (10/23/17): “NFL Stadiums Nearly Empty As Backlash Continues” (an article at gatewaypundit.com). The American people are voting with their feet. The article notes: “If the NFL thought Americans would ease the backlash against the league — they were sadly mistaken. Photos of empty stadiums from around the league show how dire a situation kneelers have spurred. Stadiums were nearly empty in Week 6, as well… The NFL managed to [anger] their core audience by nearly 40 points in the last three weeks. Nearly 60 percent of working class Trump supporters now view the NFL unfavorably.”

About a year ago, I produced a television segment on this for D. James Kennedy Ministries’ nationally syndicated program, "Truths That Transform." In the piece, we quoted Colin Kaepernick: “I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed… If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”
   While we might admire Kaepernick’s willingness to suffer adversity for his convictions, he also appears to be misguided. He regularly wears t-shirts featuring Marxists Fidel Castro and Huey Newton at press conferences.

David Barton, a man who knows very well America’s Christian roots, has noted:  “What Colin Kaepernick is doing is absolutely amazing. Here you have a professional athlete who is being paid millions for something you can’t get paid for in the rest of the world. He’s part of the 1 percent of the American elite, and he’s protesting the country that has given him everything he has.”

Why all the protest? To Barton, it boils down to years and years of faults in our educational system: “What you see with Colin Kaepernick is: This is typical of what we’re teaching in America. We’re teaching kids how to hate America.” Barton noted that children today are, largely, not taught even basics of American history.

Roger Goodell, the embattled NFL commissioner, said about the time the protests first began, “I support our players speaking out on issues that they think need to be changed in society.”
    Barton counters: “But he didn’t hold that position when players spoke out on traditional marriage… [or] when the transgender stuff came out... the NFL is showing itself out of touch with where so many Americans are on some of the other issues.”

Another voice of reason in this NFL kerfuffle is Rev. Paul Blair of Fairview Baptist Church, who used to play with the Chicago Bears in the 1980s and with the Vikings in 1990. He speaks at seminars under the banner of Reclaiming America for Jesus Christ. I attended such a seminar he spoke at for pastors two months ago. It was most illuminating.
    On October 10, Blair wrote an open letter to the NFL, protesting the NFL protests of the National Anthem. He notes: “As a vested NFL veteran, whose pension rests on the solvency of the National Football League, I have watched one misguided athlete infect much of the league with the poison of his false narrative, and it has put all of our financial futures at risk.”
    Blair adds, “America is not perfect, no man-made system ever is, but we are the greatest nation in history because our system is conducive to correcting injustice and providing opportunity. No country has been perfect, but America has always been exceptional when compared to the rest.”
   Blair concludes, “… alienating America is not a winning strategy. You want a winning strategy? Stand for the flag. Save your kneeling for the cross.” Hear, hear.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

"In Rare Interview, Justice Thomas Denounces Anthem Protests" - Kevin Daley / November 02, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/11/02/in-rare-interview-justice-thomas-denounces-anthem-protests
    “When I was a kid, even as we had laws that held us apart there were things that we held dear that we all had in common,” Justice Clarence Thomas says. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas appeared on Fox News for a rare television interview Wednesday night, where he expressed concern about societal cohesion in view of protests staged by professional athletes during the national anthem.“What binds us? What do we all have in common anymore?” Thomas asked.
    The justice suggested that the player protests erode public faith in symbols and shared commitments, exacerbating existing tensions along various social lines.“When I was a kid, even as we had laws that held us apart there were things that we held dear that we all had in common,” he added. Thomas was born in Georgia’s coastal lowlands among Creolite gullah speakers, and was raised by his grandparents in Jim Crow Savannah.
[italics emphasis mine]

"We Hear You: It’s NFL’s Right to Disrespect the Flag. It’s Our Right Not to Watch Games." - 

Ken McIntyre / September 30, 2017; http://dailysignal.com/2017/09/30/we-hear-you-its-nfls-right-to-disrespect-the-flag-its-our-right-to-not-watch-the-teams/