About Face :: By Steve Schmutzer

Published on: by RR10 Category:General Articles, Steve Schmutzer

I knew a man once. He was my friend.

He was a PhD scientist, a successful investor, and an avid hiker. He was a family man. By the measures of THIS life, he was well-rounded and accomplished.

He was also a staunch atheist. It would be better to call him a ‘proud’ atheist. He esteemed the various accomplishments of his mind, and he catalogued his spiritual convictions as part of those.

While I had several talks with him about his spiritual views, there was little I could say or do to get him to reevaluate his position. He was convinced of his choices. His mind was set like hardened concrete.

Because this man dismissed ALL evidence of God in physics, creation, history, and the Word of God, he didn’t believe in sin. He believed instead in the “inherent goodness of mankind.”

With that came his affections for open borders, gun control, lenient jail sentences, and all forms of government assistance and control. He blamed most of society’s problems on “a lack of education” – and so he was always distraught whenever educated people made bad choices. For him, that didn’t add up.

No surprise, he was also a radical environmentalist, and that’s an understatement. By his assessment, this earth was IT! There was nothing more to come. The fate of all humans was tied to this whirling celestial ball.

He fawned over all creatures great and small. He labored to raise alarm against any policy or situation which he perceived as harming or threatening the environment, and he wrote multiple checks to various environmental causes. He applauded the “peaceful” tactics of the radical Greenpeace, and he “respected” the baseless climate warnings of illiterate, attention-seeking, and patently obvious fools like AOC and Greta Thunberg.

His environmental views made him acutely intolerant. He absolutely loathed people and policies that didn’t align with his specific passions. Reusable grocery bags, cloth diapers, EVs, and bicycles were a big deal to him. As he saw it, ALL matters about the welfare of planet Earth were humanity’s top priority.

When I first met him, he talked incessantly about the problems of “global warming,” but even he admitted that term was misleading. He became more comfortable with referring to the issue as “climate change” instead. It was much more permissive and accommodating.

He blamed all notable weather events and natural disasters on “climate change” – even though historical records and documented weather patterns showed these things had happened multiple times before. By all accounts, he was a fanatical zealot for this planet.

I caught him reading a book one day that challenged his “climate change” notions, and so I asked him about it. He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips as he pontificated on the “responsibilities of being a scientist.” In a more lucid moment, he acknowledged his own views needed to be subordinate to real data points and studies. I don’t think I hid my smile.

One book led to another like it – and then a few more. I noticed he became quieter on this matter. He pored over volumes of academic research, and he wrote to various qualified people with his questions. I must admit, his due diligence was impressive!

He came to me after a while, and he dropped a bombshell. He said, “I no longer believe in climate change. The data does not support it. It’s a lie – it’s a complete fabrication. It has become a false religion for many people. The true agenda of climate change is social re-engineering and total economic control.”

It was his turn to smile as he added, “I’ve converted.” He knew I’d see the humor there.

I had to respect this man for what had happened. He’d moved from one position he’d been extremely passionate about to an opposite position he’d become just as firm on. The facts had found a toehold, and they’d won him over.

What prompted his change? I think it was several things.

First, he chose to exercise objectivity. It wasn’t easy for him; he really WANTED to believe certain things. His personal agenda and his emotional and subjective side WANTED to believe in ‘climate change’ – but his scientific, professional, and objective constitution KNEW the data didn’t support it.

Being as he was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, he had embraced good-sounding ideals and language without applying any common sense or discipline of thought. It had been so much easier for him to float downstream with all the other dead fish than fight against their pressures to ‘stay in step.’

But, in the end, he was a proud scientist – VERY proud! He was afraid of falling victim to the clammy clutches of emotional, senseless thinking. Properly assessing the data ultimately became a higher priority for him than conforming to a particular view.

Second, he realized he didn’t have a true dog in the fight. He didn’t have any personal agenda except to get to the bottom of the truth.

Other than the fact he had a huge ego and he loved being regarded as “knowledgeable” by others, he would figure out how to fit the truth – whatever it was – into all the other notions he still obstinately wished to cling to.

Third – and this is a big one – he got weary of the sham. As is often the case with folks like him, he’d always reacted with hostility when he was presented with the facts.

His tensions were a byproduct of his conscience being at war with his decisions. The clear evidence constantly reminded him that his chosen views were suspect, and every day he’d struggled to keep clear principles. He’d worn his anger and frustrations on his sleeve.

That took a lot of energy. He was exhausted from his self-inflicted wounds, and he had finally decided this was a battle he could no longer fight.

And fourth, he approached the truth like a therapeutic salve and not a poison. This permitted a much-needed ray of humility to break through his obstinance. Tiny glimmers of truth had illuminated those dark corners of his mind where cobwebs of arrogance, deception, foolishness, and pride were most tangled.

Wherever he let the truth in, it healed him. His recovery was proportionate to his exercise of personal humility.

When I most recently spoke to him, this man still clung to other ridiculous fallacies and foolish ideas that are the direct by-product of his spiritual poverty. After all, if you don’t believe in an all-powerful Creator – or if you choose to put a sovereign and infinite God into a box which is more palatable to your preferences – then you will not respect those laws, truths, and values which find their source in God’s Word.

For that matter, common sense and logic will completely elude you if you refuse to have a right relationship with God.

Even if you THINK you and God are on good terms – but you’re really keeping Him and HIS terms at arm’s length instead – then your choices will be shot full of holes. You’ll maintain double standards, you’ll believe in lies, you’ll look stupid with the things you support – and you’ll be just fine with all of that.

You’ll rage against truth of all forms, and you’ll embrace deceptions instead. All of this will be necessary for you to keep up your pretenses. You’ll ignore the things your conscience is instructing you to pay attention to because your chosen identity is sewn up in the poor and indefensible decisions you’ve made.

If this feels close to where you’re at, then let me tell you a few more things about YOU.

Your mind has become dangerously conformed to the world’s ideas (Romans 12:2). You lack discernment, but you think you have it instead. You are inclined to profess yourself as wise, but if those you esteem told you 2+2 does not equal 4, you’d agree. You are starting to show in so many ways that you are foolish (Romans 1:22).

This is not hard to understand because you’ve REFUSED to give God His rightful place in your life. This is your choice. And that’s why God has given you over to a ‘depraved mind’ (Romans 1:28). That basically means your brain no longer works like it’s supposed to, and this is something you’ve done to yourself.

Your agenda ‘goose steps’ with the world’s agenda. You keep shouting “Resist!” even as you do whatever is necessary to conform to the crowd you’ve chosen to run with.

That crowd’s talking points are now yours, and its political ideals are the altar you bow down to. Just like them, you’re prepared to fight – and to become violent – to protect what you most WANT to believe.

Underneath it all, you are afraid.  You fear the truth will expose you. And so, in a pathetic self-defense effort, you mock anyone who chooses to engage in the hard work of due diligence that your own fears, prejudices, and insecurities keep YOU from doing.

Your close-mindedness is clear to everyone. You believe America’s present leadership came to power unlawfully – and you think our previous President was legally voted into office.

You think BLM and Antifa are the good guys. You feel wearing a red cap with a patriotic slogan is wrong – but wearing a black hoodie and facemask with fascistic and antisemitic symbols is just fine.

You see nothing wrong with clamping down on this nation’s law-abiding citizens and removing their rights while encouraging multiple thousands of criminals and illegals to pour into this country.

If you don’t already think capitalism is bad, you’re less inclined to defend it than you defend the principles of socialism. You think law enforcement should be defunded, college should be free, reparations should be distributed, tampon dispensers should be in boys’ bathrooms, and SUVs should be heavily taxed.

You thought the jab was really a true vaccine. You still don’t see any cover-ups or corruption at the CDC and the NIH. You still think the ‘good’ doctors were the ones who condemned Ivermectin and HCQ and the ‘bad’ doctors were the ones who supported those treatments. You believe that masks work, that you need to wear them in your car when you’re driving alone, and that folks who are vaccinated are protected.

You support men using women’s bathrooms and women using men’s bathrooms. You’re fine with drag queens reading gender-bending stories to your kids at libraries the same way you’re OK with lousy and insecure male athletes competing as ‘transgenders’ in women’s sports.

If you’re honest, you’re uncomfortable with the absurd and comedic claim that men can become pregnant. But since you’re running with all the other dumb lemmings – well, yeah, you’ll just go ahead and say you believe that too.

I could go on and on here. If any of this even partly describes you, then the examples of your soggy ‘vital signs’ are many. But my point is already clear, so saying more doesn’t bring it into better focus.

If you are truly honest with yourself the way my friend was with himself, you’d do a little digging here. You’d test your convictions, you’d drink upstream from the herd a little bit, and you’d open yourself up to the facts.

Make no mistake – procuring insight and wisdom is hard work according to Proverbs 2:3-4. It’s like hunting for hidden treasure. But these qualities are available to the common person if that person is willing to take on the task of gaining them (Proverbs 1:20).

The goal of moving from a biased, foolish view to an unbiased, wise view means one must make personal changes. A person like that needs to be Tenacious, Resilient, Unbiased, Mature, and Proactive.

In other words: “TRUMP.” That should be easy for you to remember.

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The Quarter-Millennial :: By Travis A Karnes

Published on: by RR10 Category:General Articles

The Constitutional Imperative for Absolute Abolition at America’s 250th Year

I. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CREATOR AND THE DELUSION OF REPUBLICS

America stands at a catastrophic precipice as she prepares to mark 250 years of independent existence. We plan to ignite fireworks, display banners, and chant hollow anthems of liberty. Yet, a silent, pervasive, and terrifying blood guilt saturates the very soil of our continent.

National survival is never a guarantee forged by military hardware, fiscal policy, or political legacy; it is a spiritual lease granted strictly by Almighty God. We have forgotten the foundational premise of our national existence—that our rights are a direct endowment from the Creator. Jefferson famously trembled for his country when reflecting that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever. Today, that divine justice hangs like a sharpened blade over a nation that has codified the slaughter of its offspring.

Scripture leaves no room for ambiguity regarding the status of the unborn child or the consequences of hands that shed innocent blood:

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…” (Jeremiah 1:5).

“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood…” (Proverbs 6:16-17).

We cannot mock the living God by celebrating two and a half centuries of “liberty” while maintaining a state-sanctioned network of human dismemberment. True national survival requires an immediate, unconditional cessation of this wickedness. It requires national repentance.

II. THE FOUNDATIONAL WARNINGS OF THE FRAMERS

Our founders possessed an unyielding clarity regarding the moral framework required to sustain a free republic. They understood that liberty divorced from the moral law of God rapidly degenerates into anarchy and tyranny.

John Adams, writing to the military in 1798, issued a warning that pierces through to our current generation with prophetic precision:

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

When a nation codifies the destruction of its own children, it destroys its claim to be a moral people. We break the very cords of the Constitution. Similarly, Samuel Adams reminded his contemporaries of the true source of national security:

“He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”

To elect leaders who permit, fund, or defend the killing of the pre-born is an act of political treason against the Republic. Furthermore, George Washington, in his timeless Farewell Address, explicitly dismantled the secular fiction that a nation can remain prosperous while discarding divine commands:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”

By slaughtering the unborn, America has systematically kicked out the indispensable supports of her own house. We are witnessing the structural collapse that Washington foretold.

III. THE SUPREMACY OF NATURAL LAW VS. THE TYRANNY OF THE STATE

The political establishment treats the right to life as a negotiable policy plank, a fundraising tool, or a matter of shifting consensus. This is a fatal apostasy. The right to life does not originate in legislative chambers, judicial robes, or the popular ballot.

Sir William Blackstone, whose legal treatises formed the bedrock of American jurisprudence, made this explicitly clear in his Commentaries on the Laws of England:

“Life is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual; and it begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother’s womb… For any defense, use, or action, which a stranger is capable of doing to the infant as an embryo in the womb, is justifiable by the law.”

When civil government presumes to license the destruction of innocent human life, it abdicates its legitimate authority and degenerates into an illicit cartel. Any human edict that contradicts the immutable moral law of God is not law at all; it is a raw act of lawless tyranny. We have traded the eternal rock of absolute truth for the shifting sands of judicial supremacy and legislative pragmatism. To compromise on the absolute duty to protect every unborn child—from the absolute moment of biological conception—is an act of open insurrection against the Ruler of the Nations.

IV. THE ONTOLOGY OF CONSTITUTIONAL PERSONHOOD

The crux of our constitutional degradation lies in the willful, textually fraudulent denial of the personhood of the pre-born child. Secular jurists and compromised politicians have asserted that the word “person” is a flexible, political construct to be defined by legislative caprice or judicial fiat. This is a profound subversion of both language and original intent.

When the framers of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments utilized the term “person,” they did not use it as a political honorific reserved only for those who have drawn breath. They used it as a direct legal synonym for a living human being.

To understand the absolute, unyielding definition of personhood, we must return to Blackstone, who explicitly divided the subjects of law into “natural persons” and “artificial persons.” A natural person is not created by the state; a natural person is created by God. Blackstone wrote:

“Natural persons are such as the God of nature fashioned us…”

This definition was universally understood by the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment. During the congressional debates of 1866, the sponsors of the amendment repeatedly declared that its purpose was to secure the absolute, foundational rights of humanity to every individual who possesses a human nature. To be a human being is to be a person.

The pre-born child is a distinct, living, whole human individual from the moment of fertilization. They possess a unique genetic architecture. They possess a heartbeat. They possess a soul. To argue that a human child is not a “person” under the law until they reach a certain stage of development or location is to resurrect the exact demonic logic of the Dred Scott decision, which sought to strip personhood from an entire class of human beings based on their status and utility.

V. THE COMPLICITY OF INCREMENTALISM AND THE TWOFOLD CONSTITUTIONAL BULWARK

The greatest failure of the modern conservative movement has been its addiction to incrementalism, regulatory compromise, and the cowardice of the “states’ rights” retreat. We have been told to settle for regulations that merely manage the slaughter rather than abolish it. We have been urged to accept exceptions, to compromise with evil, and to remain silent for tactical electoral advantage.

This political pragmatism is an abomination. You cannot regulate murder. You cannot negotiate terms with the shedding of innocent blood. To assert that a child’s right to live depends on the geographic boundary of a state or the circumstances of conception is a total betrayal of both the Christian faith and the American Republic.

The supreme law of the land provides an explicit, dual-layered barrier against this slaughter:

  • The Fifth Amendment: Explicitly decrees that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Because the pre-born child is a natural person fashioned by God, their deprivation of life by abortion is a direct violation of this sacred restriction on federal power.
  • The Fourteenth Amendment: Commands that no State shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Therefore, any politician, judge, governor, or President who refuses to demand the immediate, total, and equal protection of the law for the unborn child is violating their solemn oath of office. They are acting in direct defiance of the Constitution they swore to defend. If the law protects the born adult from murder, the Fourteenth Amendment demands it must equally protect the pre-born child. Anything less is a declaration of lawlessness.

VI. THE LINCOLNIAN PRECEDENT: THE FRUITS OF MORAL COMPROMISE

We must look to our past to understand the precise nature of our current peril. President Abraham Lincoln, standing on the blood-soaked ground of Gettysburg, recalled that our nation was:

“…conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Lincoln understood with terrifying clarity that a nation cannot long endure if it attempts to institutionalize the denial of God-given personhood. In his Second Inaugural Address, as the fields of America ran red with the blood of her own sons, Lincoln acknowledged the terrible, righteous judgments of the Almighty:

“Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'”

If God exacted such a terrible price for the sin of human bondage, what will He demand from a nation that has sacrificed tens of millions of its own children upon the altar of secular convenience? The timeline is chillingly parallel. We are arriving at our own “two hundred and fifty years.” If we do not repent of this national holocaust, we cannot escape the matching fury of a just and holy God.

VII. A PROPHECY TO THE PULPITS: AN UNCOMPROMISING REMNANT

The primary blame for America’s advanced moral decay does not rest in the halls of secular governance, but in the pulpits of our churches. Too many pastors have traded the prophetic, unyielding Word of God for political access, social acceptance, and tax-exempt comfort. They have remained silent while the defenseless are led to the slaughter, completely forgetting that judgment begins at the house of God.

National survival requires an uncompromising remnant to rise. We must demand nothing less than the total, immediate, and unconditional abolition of human abortion. We must hold our leaders to a strict standard of biblical righteousness and constitutional fidelity.

If our current political parties, legislative bodies, and judicial systems refuse to uphold the primary purpose of government—which is the security of the God-given right to life—then those structures have lost their moral legitimacy. They must be peacefully, legally, but completely bypassed and replaced by men and women of unyielding principle.

VIII. THE MANDATE FOR THE NEXT CENTURY

As the clock ticks toward our 250th year, the choice before America is stark: Total Abolition or Total Destruction.

We cannot continue to butcher our posterity and expect to remain a free, prosperous, and secure people. God will not be mocked. True patriotism is not found in blind allegiance to a corrupted political apparatus, but in an unshakeable allegiance to truth, justice, and the supreme law of God.

Let us mark this historic milestone not with hollow boasts of liberty, but with sackcloth, ashes, and an unwavering commitment to restore the foundational right to life for every single image-bearer of God. Only then can we look to the future, praying that God might yet grant our land mercy, revival, and survival.

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Travis is a dedicated constitutional abolitionist who was the FMR lead editor of the Peace Through Strength Institute.