Month: February 2016

Cliff Sevier – The Conservative Candidate for Precinct One

Posted 29 February 2016 AD

cliff sevier 2016 campaign veterans group shots

One day before Primary Election Day 2016, the name of Clifford Sevier can be found associated with well known names like our long-time Congressman Ralph Hall who flew fighter planes in the South Pacific during WW2, USAF pilot Scott O’Grady who was shot down over Bosnia and State Senator Bob Hall, a former USAF captain.
 
It’s natural to see Sergeant Major Cliff, U.S. Army (retired) alongside other outstanding military veterans. If you understand military rankings, you can readily understand as Sergeant Major (E9), the Army promoted him because of his performance as an administrator in authority over thousands of fellow soldiers.
 
Unlike his opponent, you will not find the name of Cliff Sevier associated with Common Core. When C-SCOPE/Common Core came to Rockwall ISD, Doug Hamilton was school board president.
 
Hamilton’s track record of tax-and-spend big government is unmistakable and undeniable. During Doug’s time on RISD, Superintendent Gene Burton’s salary rose to be third highest in the state of Texas, even higher than the Superintendent of Houston ISD.
 
At the RCRWC forum at Rockwall High School, Doug Hamilton exposed his big-government proclivity when he described how he wanted the county to assume education duties. Obviously, Mr. Hamilton is either unaware or indifferent to the constitutional role of County Commissioner.
 
County Commissioners chiefly administer the funds to carry out state mandates for things like courts, jails, mental health, etc. Commissioner Sevier is a proven conservative administrator, the only conservative candidate for the office of Precinct One Commissioner.
 
I urge Rockwall County Precinct 1 voters to re-elect Clifford Sevier, County Commissioner, Precinct 1.
 
Election day is Tuesday, March 1. Polls open from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Find your polling place via this link: http://www.rockwallvotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/LOCATIONSCHED1.pdf
 
John White
Rockwall, Texas
Rockwall.Conservative@gmail.com

Porn: Agony of the Protagonist(s)

Posted 28 February 2016 AD

America leads the world in the production of pornography. How is a business that in bygone years would put its producers in the slammer now highly regulated and celebrated in California?

Irony of the porn industry in California: Prostitution is unlawful, but when it’s done on a movie set it’s lawful.

One dictionary defines prostitution, “the act or practice of engaging in sexual acts for money“. Excuse me. Is not prostitution central to pornography? Are not the protagonists of steamy sex scenes “engaging in sexual acts for money“?

the-harm-of-pornography-a-victims-view-1427589180_230x230
Available on line

You, my fellow Americans, must not turn a blind eye to the perverse nature of pornography. The deleterious effects on human psyche are well documented. For your edification, these resources are readily available:

Then there are personal testimonies by women who contracted to perform in movies that are shown on the big screens across the country.

Through numerous legal gymnastics and the complicity of federal courts, pornography was allowed to come out into the light. In fact, what was considered “X-rated” fare a few decades ago now appears in major movie productions with R or M ratings. Regardless the industry ratings, pornography is a scourge on America and the world.

The sex trade fuels child exploitation, sexual slavery, kidnappings, and abuse to horrific to describe here.

What to do?

History teaches us we cannot legislate morality. History also teaches us the only recourse is divine intervention. Some call this intervention a “great awakening”, some call it “revival”, still others “national repentance”.

To be sure, if one or the other of the aforementioned spiritual changes do not come to pass, America is doomed.

What about all the victims of pornography? What’s there to do for them?

Scripture taught me there is nothing to difficult for God. One promise found in scripture is this: we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ who loved us. It is through Jesus Christ that we can overcome everything.

We are the point of no return where either a wave of national repentance from sin sweeps across this nation or we shall become  but a footnote to history, as a nation.

What can we do? Repent from our sins, particularly our use of and/or participation in pornography. We must call on the Lord while we can, because the day comes when it will be too late.

 

Significance: Cause to Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment

Posted 28 February 2016 AD

What is the riddle of Esther? I refer to the young woman in the Bible, the book of Esther. The riddle: Who has more power, the king or the one who influences the king?

Truly representative government can best be characterized by the measure of influence the people have on their elected representatives. To bring this idea of influence into focus, I compare the influence of Texans living within Congressional District 4 (CD4).

CD4 map
Texas Congressional District Four (CD4)

Congressman John Ratcliffe represents approximately 700,000 Texans, population typical for all 435 congressional districts. Our two U.S. senators represent over 28, 000,000 Texans. The apportionment is due to the election of Representatives and Senators by popular vote.

Therefore, we in CD4 individually influence our elected representative as one in 700,000, while we individually influence either U.S. senator as one in 28,000,000. Your influence with Senator John Cornyn is less than 1/40th the influence you have with John Ratcliffe.

Our elected representative lives among us, right here in Heath, Texas. Meanwhile, Senator John Cornyn lives in Washington, D.C. John Ratcliffe frequents our communities and political events where you can actually talk with him. When have you ever spoken with John Cornyn?

For a living, breathing case against the Seventeenth Amendment, here are two examples: Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn.

mitch mcconnell and john corynyn with barack obama
Senators McConnell and Cornyn represent the interests of Barack Obama, not the people who elected them.

Under the original construct of our Constitution, the Senate was prescribed to “be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.”

31 members of the Senate and 150 members of the House make up the body of the Texas Legislature. Each Texas House district is home to fewer than 170,000 persons, while each Texas Senate district covers slightly more than 800,000.

Repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment would restore accountability of U.S. Senators to the people of the respective states.

While we are fortunate that Senator Ted Cruz truly represents the broad interests of me and my fellow Texans, such was not always the case and will not be so in the future. We can enjoy true representation if we restore original intent by repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

John White
Rockwall, Texas

Texan to the Core! Why I picked Rick

Posted 27 February 2016 AD

pick rick

It was a pleasure to see Rick Green at our Rockwall County Reagan Day Dinner Friday evening. Rick wasn’t “visiting” the Rockwall area. In the years of his youth he lived nearby, as does his mom Pat Green.

Rick is a 1998 graduate of “Wide Awake Wylie” High School. His hometown now is Dripping Springs. At age 21 Rick was the youngest student in the UT Law School.

Rick served two terms in the Texas House.

Today, he is best known for his work with David Barton of Wallbuilders. Rick and David labor to teach America’s forgotten Christian foundations and history.

I voted early and I voted for Rick Green to be the next Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, place 5.

Early voting continues today, Saturday. Election Day is Tuesday, March 1st.

Want a Rockwall County voter guide? It’s only one click away and you can print it for use while voting. https://rockwallconservative.me/2016/02/15/2016-rockwall-county-state-local-elections-my-recommendations/

God bless America. God bless Texas.

John White
Rockwall, Texas

A Little Bit of Texas History – The Movie Star Texan Who Never Saw Himself On The Big Screen

Posted February 24, 2016 AD

Have you ever felt under-appreciated? Oftentimes, the most important people in our lives go unnoticed, quietly following a sense of duty without public recognition. I thought today is the THE day to bring forth a Texan we’ve all seen at one time or another. We know what he did, where he was when he did it and the scene has been featured in innumerable movies and news stories. How is it we don’t know him? Here’s his story from the TSHA.

Harlon Block

“On this day [February 23] in 1945, Cpl. Harlon Henry Block of Weslaco appeared in one of the most memorable images to come out of World War II. For three days the men of Company E, Second Battalion, Twenty-eighth Marines, had fought their way to the top of Mount Suribachi, a 550-foot-high extinct volcano at the southern end of the island of Iwo Jima. They first raised a small flag to signal their victory to their fellows below, and a larger flag later. In Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal’s picture of the six men raising this second flag, which won the Pulitzer Prize, the twenty-year-old Block was the stooping figure guiding the base of the flagpole into the volcanic ash. He never saw the famous picture, however, as he was killed in action on March 1 as his unit advanced in the direction of Mishi Ridge. Block was buried in the Fifth Marine Division cemetery at the foot of Mount Suribachi, though his body was taken home to Weslaco in 1949.”

Where were you and what were you doing at age 20 years? Harlon Block was laying down his life for you 71 years ago.

We Americans are about to be launched into the most important battle of all American history. It’s the battle for our nation’s soul.

Before young Harlon Block of Weslaco, Texas was sacrificed on Iwo Jima, Jesus Christ willingly forfeited his life through an extremely painful ordeal that began with scorn and spittle on the face to a severe beating that opened his back and finally to be nailed to a cross. Who was this man? He was the sacrificial Lamb of God, slain from the foundations of the world. He, like Harlon, died young. Messiah was and is at the forefront of a global conflict in which the life, the soul, of our nation is at peril of being obliterated, destroyed and forgotten.

Sellers of gold and silver tell us their treasures will save us from the inevitable global economic collapse, but Jesus said,

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

The reality of Jesus Christ isn’t something that comes to us from reading, including the Bible. The reality of Jesus Christ truly comes only by divine revelation, just as it was for the Apostle Peter and for me. (Ref: Matthew 16:13-17 http://ow.ly/YH4cl )

It is my prayer this morning that all who read this great story about unsung hero Harlon Block will experience a personal relationship with the Son of God by divine revelation. Today, even as you read this, Jesus asks you, “…who do you say I am?”

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for the salvation of America.

Soli Deo Gloria

John White

Rockwall, Texas

How Can We Avoid Economic Depression? Answer: Build Wealth

The concept of wealth is many things to many people. If you doubt me, just browse a few dictionary definitions of the word. So it is I suggest this simple idea: to be wealthy is to possess more than what you want or need of whatever it is that you highly value.

We probably agree that the first antonym to wealth that comes to mind is poverty. As such, to be poor is to have significantly less of what you want or need of whatever it is that you highly value.

With respect to material wealth, what creates it? To us Texans, oil perhaps comes first to mind. Would the folks associated with the Texas oil patch think so? Our great state is awash in oil, but folks in the oil patch face a bleak future, short-term and long-term.

If natural resources were the true source of wealth, practically everyone on the African continent would live in mansions.

Looking back to history, England became the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth, an empire, in fact, not because of natural resources, though they were and are abundant, but due to the efficient production of goods of all kinds, including food.

In 1776, Adam Smith published his book titled The Wealth of Nations in which he made a case for free-market principles.Those nations that thereafter operated on these principles prospered mightily.

It was not unnatural for American industrialists and their investors to pursue pecuniary interests. I go so far as to say we should all pursue our own pecuniary interests. Selfishness? No. Common sense.

As the wealth of our nation expanded, government likewise enlarged itself. Lawmakers set up agencies to “protect” citizens from “greedy” industrialists. Yes, those greedy indulstrialists who brought us to the pinnacle of wealth and power such as the world never before saw.

Those agencies created to help us became ever more powerful year by year, creating Thomas-Jeffersons-Quote-on-Tyrannyinnumerable regulations that now threaten our very existence. For examples, look to the Bureau of Land Management that holds control to over half of the western states. President Nixon intend the Environmental Protection Agency to be an agency for the good of our people; instead, it has become a terroristic, militarized federal rule-making and rule-enforcement agency that now undermines wealth building within our borders. Manufacturers increasingly send jobs overseas to countries where they can more freely produce goods.

But, are federal bureaucracies a cause or an effect? I see them as an effect. By this I mean we as a nation have turned from God, forsaken divine mandates and disobey the laws of the Kingdom of God.

Must federal government be downsized by eliminating federal agencies like the EPA, DOE, BLM and the other alphabet-soup bureaucracies? Will such a move restore our prosperity? Only partly and only after we collectively do the main thing which is to repent of our sins before God.

A free-market society cannot exist apart from the Spirit of Liberty. As it is written, 

But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ. Yes, even today when they read Moses’ writings, their hearts are covered with that veil, and they do not understand.

But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Only the presence of the Holy Spirit among us can truly restore liberty by which this humility leads to richesnation prospered as no other. We will not enjoy the fruits of a free-market society without the aid and assistance of the Author of Freedom. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Holy Scripture is replete with the will of God expressed from the first chapter to the last of sixty-six books, written over thousands of years. Scripture says, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”

America faces economic hardships never before experienced by our forebears. To date, we have killed more of our own than the sum of foreign enemies; we are our own worst enemy.

Big government isn’t the cause of our problems; it is the consequence of our unbelief, our disobedience to the commandments of heaven.

Is it not the time to seek the favor of God?

John White
Rockwall, Texas

A Shining Planet NOT Called Earth

February 18, 2016 AD

Another “Shining” Planet?

Look up into the sky! It’s a bird. No, it’s an airplane. No, it’s neither. So, what is it?

 

 

WFIRST NASA looks for another shining planet like Earth
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST)

This is the newest space exploration equipment from NASA. On Facebook, NASA says,

Meet our new space telescope! With a view 100 times bigger than that of our Hubble Space Telescope, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will help unlock secrets of the universe, discover new worlds and advance the search of planets suitable for life. This spacecraft is slated to launch in the mid-2020s.

If old enough to remember that old TV show Battlestar Galactica, you will better appreciate the title of this posting. You see, Battlestar Galactica was an Mormon-inspired odyssey to find a “shining planet called Earth” where a trove of wandering adventurers could settle down.

Reality Check

Are there planets in the solar system that may be able to support human life? Many scientists think this to be true. Why are they even looking? I truly have not a clue.

The nearest Earth-like possibly inhabitable planet is Kepler 452b. John Grunsfeld, the associate administrator for Nasa’s mission directorate, calls 452b “Earth 2.0”. Can I agree?

Kepler 452b has five times the mass of our planet and twice the gravity. If you weigh 165 pounds here, your weight there would be 330 pounds. Where is this “shining” planet? 452b is 1,400 light years distant from our planet. If you could accelerate to the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) and survive the acceleration, your journey to that planet would take you 1,400 years, 14 centuries.

Why?

According to Space.com, “Tens of thousands of people are prepared to leave their families, jobs and lives behind for a one-way trip to Mars.” Applicants so far exceed 165,000 in number.

There are two apparent motivations at play. One wants to escape this dreadful place called Earth. Another anticipates the soon-to-come end of the world.

Another set of folks wants to disprove the existence of God. However, ironically, the more scientists delve into the matter, the more scientists become believers in God. Consider the story of scientist  Francis S. Collins in the following video.

Dr. Collins set out to prove his atheism, but the more he looked, the more he realized the evidence of God.

I became a believer in Jesus Christ August 1974 after five years of marriage and two wonderful sons. I became a new creature, a new man, and God has been hammering me on his divine anvil for over 40 years, working to shape me into the man He wishes me to be.

For now, Earth is my home. Some day, Heaven will be my new address. What about you?

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

John White
Rockwall, Texas