Can President Trump Cure the Ills of America?

 

The United States new leader, President Donald J. Trump, promised to “Make America Great Again.” The real question should be can he cure the United States of her illness. This disease has numerous symptoms of which we will cover a few of the most threatening. The first on the list is a sinister little one which hides in plain sight. The current reproductive rate is 1.84 children per woman which is well below the 2.33 reproductive rate necessary for maintaining a nation’s population. This simply means that the United States will have fewer workers to support an aging population and this will only grow more and more serious over time. The only obvious solution is to allow for immigration, eventually massive immigration. From all expectation, any large immigration program will lead to a rebalancing of the predominant population statistics in the favor of whichever groups of foreign nations contribute to the immigration. The most readily available populations are from Central America and South America. This has been the trending for the past decades which is leading to a growing Hispanic population which is rapidly becoming the largest minority population and with time they will become the predominant population. There is a fortunate trait in that the vast majority of such immigrants hold similar religious identities and have a Judeo-Christian ethics and history which will make for a merging of the populations and not as much a shock to the culture or as much a threat for large changes in laws and outlook of the resultant population. Should the United States instead bring in immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) there would be an inevitable confrontation between the emerging culture and the currently existing culture. If history is any indicator, an increasing Islamic minority would at some point lead to an actual confrontation which the aging Judeo-Christian community who would most definitely loses.

 

The Donald-Make America Great Again-Trump

 

This problem has been traced from demographic studies to have a direct relation to the legalization of abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade decision leading to nationally recognizing a legal right for a woman to obtain an abortion. The good news is that the numbers of abortions have steadily decreased over the past few decades. The not so great news is that this has not led to any measurable increase in the reproductive rate as was expected. Demographic studies have shown that couples are waiting until later in life before getting married. This had led to the obvious postponement of starting families and, as in most cases both husband and wife are professionals with careers, they often put off having a family until even later leading to many couples having a single child , or worse, deciding not to have children at all. Societal studies have also seen a trending in millennials for their deciding to forgo marriage, children and even permanent relationships instead settling to have small groups of friends who have open partnerships or some simply leading singular lives dropping in and out of relationships never desiring to become involved in a permanent relationship. Perhaps these individuals will settle down later in life but that will likely lead to a childless relationship as they may wait until past the point of fertility. Whatever the future, the current trends indicate that the only solution to the American childlessness will be through immigration and praying that the new immigrants prove immune to the childless culture as they come from a more reproductive friendly culture.

 

Islamic immigrants would also have a higher reproductive rate than the current American culture. The one catch is that it has been found that as financial wealth of a society increases, reproductive rates plummet. This was what has struck Europe and has been given as one of the reasons the political rulers have been allowing a free import of Syrian and other MENA refugees. Whether such a program was a good idea or a potential allowing for an infiltration leading to an eventual takeover by Islamic policies is something which is still being debated. Time may settle that debate before any conclusions are forthcoming. The one certainty is that many of the existing European populations are not overly excited about the newcomers and may be voting in a whole new and opposing set of leaders as elections sweep across the continent. Should Europe start to become an Islamic based society, then that may play well for solving some of the system shock for the United States as many of the elite, and any others with sufficient means, would flee Europe for the apparent safety of the United States. Much of this future will depend on socioeconomic developments and for the existing confrontations and other dangerous situations not developing into a far broader set of conflicts leading eventually to an all-encompassing conflict. This might actually have the effect of shocking the current Western World out of its self-serving egoism and realizing that there is only a future if there exists a prodigy to which to hand over that future and that depends on having said prodigy. Having such a revelation sweep Western society would be a blessing though it would be preferable for it not to have to be impressed through some horrific conflict as such changes have been initiated in previous eras. Such conflagrations have also brought down empires which not much earlier had been considered a permanent fixture assured forever into the future. The lesson there for the United States is that nothing remains on top forever, not Rome, not the British, not the Spanish, not the Egyptians, not Alexander’s Greeks and not even China, one of the longest continuous empires still existing and asserting a presence in the modern age.

 

Another serious illness striking the United States is the political divide which has not only grown wider this century but has also grown far nastier and more toxic. This past week proved this beyond any shadow of doubt. When President Obama was first elected in 2008 there was disappointment on the Republican side but most Americans hoped for the best. Many were disappointed but still believed there was hope and President Obama was reelected. After the 2012 election there was a smattering of protests which were nonviolent and largely quiet. The media made sure they had a short self-life by largely ignoring their existence. This present Inauguration brought back the protests and cries of foul from 2000 except with far more violence and vitriol. Madonna spoke of dreaming of blowing up the White House. That was quite far overboard as that would be such a waste of the rebuild after the War of 1812 which was finally completed in 1817 and President James Monroe moved into the new and improved White House. The demonstrations were boisterous and somewhat over the top including the burning of President Trump in effigy. The problem was with the violent actors who destroyed property, attacked police, attacked injuring innocent people who were simply attending Inaugural Dances including the insulting, spitting upon and injuring of a Gold Star widow and her sister. Spirited protests and debate are one thing and destruction of property and assaulting people and police is a completely different and unacceptable form of protest and should be considered beyond the pale. People work and depend on those places for their families and futures and the destruction of their workplaces hurt innocents and since a good many of these places were in major cities, especially those in Washington D.C. where over 90% voted for Hillary Clinton, most of the people hurt by these unscrupulous acts were Hillary supporters. Whatever the presumed excuse, such violence, if left unchecked, only grows and eventually leads to the destruction of the society.

 

The other problem with the violence was that it was presumed to be in support of groups which resemble numerous fascist entities of the past such as the infamous Brownshirts which used violence in order to scare the German people into demanding the government do something, anything, just end the violence. Once the people agreed to the government assuming emergency powers giving them absolute power, the Nazis wiped out the Brownshirts replacing them with the SS who became the new enforcers. The possibility that hidden somewhere within the leftist ranks are those seeking a repeat from history, using the rabble to stir up sufficient troubles at some point in the future to takeover and put in place a dictatorial fascist governance is all too possibly the end result. This has been the manner in which virtually every democratic based government has fallen throughout history; so saying it could not happen here is a fool’s gambit. Many of the demonstrations resembled the Red Guard demonstrations at the beginning of the Communist takeover of Russia deposing the Russian Provisional Government which was democratically elected in a limited vote and was presumed to be setting up a democratic form of government when the Communists decided they didn’t need any democracy, they simply desired replacing one dictatorial government with another. Caesar also replaced a democratic republic of Rome relegating the Senate into an echo chamber until they decided to depose him old school. The assassination of Caesar did no good as all it did was immortalize his name making it the title for the reign of dictators until the fall of Rome centuries later. Obviously saying it cannot happen here is a blindness that no democracy can afford. Reportedly, American Abolitionist and liberal activist Wendell Phillips on January 28, 1852 speaking to members of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society stated,

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Will Europeans Answer Call to Salvation

 

Western culture, science, development, priorities and history are on the line and that line is in danger of breaking. Once the last line breaks there will be little possibility of rebirth in not only our time but the times of our children and their children as visited onto four generations are the sins of the father. That is the punishment described in the Bible, in Torah, for bowing to false gods and forsaking Hashem. Whether that sentence upon the generations that follow a civilization which lost their faith and believe that there is no entity that is Hashem or simply is the result due to the morals and the reason for preservation and child rearing falls upon tin ears and being rejected simply lends to the collapse of the civilization due to influx of peoples with completely different beliefs or an invasion by same. It is the reality currently infecting European culture which has led to a destructive form of hedonism which had forsaken religion and replaced it with the cold truths of science. The problem with basing your entire existence solely upon science is this gives no moral conviction for life and the continuation of life through having children. Science alone will lead many, as we have witnessed, to believe that mankind is a blight upon the earth and thus should be sacrificed in all things for Ghia, their new god, replacing Hashem who had preserved their societies in some form for the past five thousand years since the birth of Abraham and the first in the line of peoples following Hashem as described by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Whose laws were transcribed by Moses. These laws guided the greatness which brought society to this point and their protection died just assuredly as the people chased false gods rejecting Hashem because of the commandment of “Be fruitful and multiple.” This was the commandment that gave purpose of each generation to reproduce such that their societies would have the necessary youth to care for the aged and the society would remain viable.

 

 

The Lord’s Stare

 

 

Alexander Hamilton was quoted as having said, “He who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” That could just as easily be the condemnation on modern Western society and culture. All one need do is to study the news cycles and there in plain sight is the result of modern Western public’s rejection of Hashem and any religion which claims to believe in Hashem. Never mind that it provided Europe with the faith in their fellow man to persevere through some of the most tumultuous times the world has ever known, but such is often what drives invention and development. Many will claim that it was just those faithful who almost brought civilization to its knees and the answer is that perhaps one bending one’s knees and returning to Hashem and belief that mankind has a higher purpose than selfish pleasures at the sake of the society. One more reason the Bible may teach us to be fruitful and multiply is so as to have the youths necessary to defend one’s way of life even if it has been corrupted by the sins of the flesh, and trust I know of what I speak. No matter how great and fulfilling one believes living in the moment and only for the moment will give them lasting satisfaction, the proof this is a false belief is in those moments between fulfillment of the moment what feelings are left, what fills the vacuous times between pleasures? The problem is that there is nothing which carries one into the far future, the living beyond one’s self and propagating a legacy which lasts beyond one’s life. The only thing which is capable of doing such is renewal of life. But if we refuse to believe in a higher and better source and implementer of a grander theme in which we are but the functionaries to fulfill a greater destiny, then all is for naught and the self becomes all-important and the serving on oneself becomes a goal in and of itself. Any society which emphasizes the self above all else is a society stricken with a fatal disease similar to the worship of idols. Idolatry does not require a stone or metal figure for one to believe upon as it can just as easily be a false ethic formed around the immediate and holding no finer goal than self-satisfaction above all else.

 

One of the worst nightmares which follow the loss of belief in Hashem is the sacrifice of children. This was something Hashem made clear in the most primitive and brutal of ways bringing His most faithful of servants, Abraham, to the very brink of committing such a sacrifice and only then intervening and forbidding such sacrifice unto forever for those following Hashem and His ways. Modern times have great difficulty understanding this passage because they can only see it through their modern precepts which they claim they do not sacrifice children or other humans to false gods and have not done so for centuries. If only such were the truth. But first to understanding Abraham and the testing and altering of the way life was in the times of Abraham. In those days one of the most prevalent of gods was Ba’al, a vengeful god which often required the sacrifice of children to appease his anger. Ba’al was not the sole god making such demands of their worshipers. We know through the study of anthropology that the Aztecs had human sacrifice and even in modern times there are those who proactive the ritual sacrifices of the wife when her husband dies by her throwing herself upon his burning corps and being consumed in his funeral pyre. This practice was most likely adopted in dire times of scarcity of resources, particularly food and water such that a woman with no man to provide would likely have been too great a strain on her tribe so this was a manner of dealing with this inconvenient person. When Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham would have thought such could very well simply be a test of faith and that this was going to continue as a form of acceptable sacrifice. Making such an offering was not all that unusual in those dark days of idolatry and Abraham had no actual proof that such was not to continue on forever into the future and such would be the requirement of any god, even Hashem. After the redemption and prevented from such a sacrifice, Abraham came to learn that Hashem loved life above death and it is this belief and concept which is vital in any society which follows Hashem.

 

 

Crescent of Arms

 

 

Modern Western society has strayed from Hashem. Even many who believe they follow Hashem and go to services every week, be those services on Sunday or Saturday, Saturday is called Shabbat in places in this world and in certain languages that the day of rest is so important that it became the name of the day so as none could ever forget. Still, there are those today who deal in and accept child sacrifice. We have had a recent series of videos laying out for all to see where the sacrifice of our children leads us to committing, the dividing the portions and selling these portions for silver and gold and other trinkets of trade. Of course we are not so heartless as to call such a child sacrifice; we call it the right to choose. Whatever one names it and how much we sanitize it, an abortion is still the taking of a life and the proof is in our laws. If one murders a pregnant women and by doing so the child she was carrying also dies the murderer is charged with two counts of murder, one receiving special additional punishment as it is listed as committing infanticide, a worse form of murder than murdering a grown person as it is the murder of the most innocent and helpless. But we in a modern society have reached a point where the life and convenience of the young woman takes precedent over the child she carries. The infant under the consideration of the law in almost every other legal definition becomes merely a choice, a lump of cells causing an inconvenience, a threat to the mental health of the adult person, or at least sufficiently adult to have conceived most likely in a consensual engagement. Many will claim that any conception should be brought full term and if still rejected by the mother then given up for adoption and that adoption is always preferable to any form of child sacrifice, of infanticide, abortion, choice. We give it so many different terms and names because we are not completely united on the issue and there still is some amount of stigma on abortion that such was not even discussed in anything approaching polite conversation. With the ‘Planned Parenthood’ videos we have been introduced to the industry that begins with such a choice, with an abortion, a murder, the termination of a precious gift. The abortion has become the safe extraction of the organs for sale to the highest bidder. For this reason there need to be a fetus which has developed to the point that there exist the organs which science wishes to study more closely. That is our new idolatry, science, and all that serves science had benefits for us.

 

Hashem Creating Adam Filling him with Breath and a Soul

 

But who are the ‘us’ that science serves if our small piece of science results in reproductive rates falling below replacement levels, below the level for a healthy society. Europe from the westernmost tip of Ireland and Portugal to the eastern tip of Europe be it in Russia, Finland, Norway, the Ukraine or Georgia; is experiencing the result of being celibate, or at least childless. The result of lower than healthy reproductive rates makes one’s entire society vulnerable to fight off societal threats, today we just yell, scream, stomp our feet and hold our breathe until we turn blue and it still does us no good. Europe is slowly being conquered by Islamic transfer of sufficient youth to be able to take demographic control unless Europeans waken real soon. But far too many in Europe have decided to live their lives to the maximizing of their own personal pleasure whether such pleasures require their climbing the ladder to success like any man does or whether pleasure requires living largely for carnal pleasures or, as was once a popular phrase which sums this all up nicely, whatever floats your boat. This self-centric societal outlook will soon find itself challenged by the followers of Islam which are infiltrating in ever growing numbers and they bring a separate culture and foreign religious beliefs, but beliefs they do bring and those self-same beliefs will be imposed. The only solution which might work, if it is already not too late, would be to return to Hashem; be it Catholic or Protestant or Judaism and through that choice one must from that point onward choose life as life is precious before Hashem.

 

 

Direction Defined

 

 

There are those who will claim that there can be no Hashem, there is only science and in time science will reveal the reason behind everything. Even was this remotely possible, there are always going to be questions we have not yet answered; there will always be the next star, solar system, galaxy or even alternate universes and alternate realities. Simply put, we will always have unknowns and questions and we may even have such a question astrophysicists are asking today, what came before the ‘Big Bang?’ Hashem was before the ‘Big Bang’ and will remain after the cold silence of an emptiness is all that remains of what we once were which has ceased its existence. Meanwhile, those who once used to fight over such things as how was one to best serve Hashem, they now face a greater foe than ever as this foe has its own religious beliefs and claims they supercede Judaism and Christianity and believes it is tasked in converting the entirety of the world to their faith. Their belief in something which defines them will defeat a Europe and an America if both remain guided by faithless people.

 

 

Sistine Chapel Ceiling attempting to give inspirational guidance we would hope entering the White House fills the next President

 

 

Entering the White House has been transformational to many presidents turning or returning them to Hashem and the religion they had lost or forsaken. These types of leaders are needed in Europe and America and real soon. Hopefully the United States will elect one who knows Hashem and believes His prayer which conveys the concept that all things have their proper times and places where they need be to continue testing his believers and them needing to turn to Hashem when the times are tough and that extra strength is needed and I cannot think of any time when such was needed more.

 

The fate of the world may depend on the next American elections though things may proceed such that we may not have the sixteen months left to act. Then we will need to pray that much more fervently for an America to return and play their role as the world’s police. If they fail, then who? Should America fail then the weight falls to the final hope for at the least a quarter of a century, that is the reasoning behind the Bible verse from Exodus 20:5 which reads in part, Hashem will “visit(ing) the iniquity of the fathers upon their sons and their daughters unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate (forsake, forget, depart completely from the teachings and commandments) Me. The generation which diverts near completely from the path of righteousness will bring the end of those peoples as they will fall, as ancient Israel fell when she strayed from the path, and it takes a minimum of three or four generations before they can throw off the yoke of oppressions and reestablish Hashem’s place and order on the world.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel Has Some Wonderful News to Ears Seeking Something Positive

 

There were a few tidbits of news which may have snuck by many of us during the rollercoaster of one’s emotional equilibrium of the last couple of weeks. It happens after Pesach where we have in rapid succession Holocaust Remembrance Day and then the topsy-turvy of Memorial Day immediately followed by Independence Day where we for from the solemn remembrance of those we have lost, both soldier and terror victim, to have brought us to this day and at sundown of this day of remembrance we immediately shift gears, pop the clutch and within a few dizzying hours we fire off fireworks and are celebrating our hearts out in joyous rapture celebrating like tomorrow may never come the anniversary of the rebirth of the nation of Israel. During all of this some lists and reports came along with these days. The first is likely the less critical in importance, but it is still nice that somebody outside of Israel took notice. It turns out that last year Israel rose a couple of more slots towards the top of the list of happiest nation of people on Earth. Such steps are difficult once a nation hits the rarified atmosphere of being within the top twenty. Israel is about to enter an even more exclusive club as she has made it to number eleven happiest nation. This is not an expected slot for Israel to hold when one reads the accountings in the regular news every day about Israel in the mainstream media but then again, many of us have known all along that they had a slight bias against Israel. Apparently being demonized in the media day and night has not taken off the shine of our smiling faces and cheerful outlooks on life. But wait, there is even better news.

 

Believe it or not, the old story about the “demographic time bomb” has also been laid to rest. The birth rates for Israel also were released recently and the news should fill every heart with joy if they are believers in the future of Israel. The predictions of doom and gloom claiming that Israel would soon be overrun by the Arab superior fertility rates have been struck what might be a fatal blow. The significant figure was the fact that Israel has reached a population total of 8.345 million people. This includes the births of the last year which were numbered at 136,000 Jewish births and 40,000 Arab births. Compare those numbers to the 1995 statistics where one finds that there were 80,000 Jewish births and 36,000 Arab births. This means that the Jewish population inside Israel has increased from a ratio of 2:1 to now an ever more respectable ratio of 3:1, imagine that. Further, since 1995 the Israel rate of Arab births has increased by ten percent while Jewish birth rate has increased by over forty percent. That is a rate of change respectably higher than have Arab births. The immediate response from the ever seeking the darkest possible news with which to bludgeon Israelis and their supporters into submission would be that these numbers are for within Green Line Israel and ignore the numbers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

 

OK, let us go look into the reports given on these numbers but instead of using the inflated numbers provided by Abbas to attempt to frighten Jews that their days are numbered, let’s use numbers from World Bank. According to the World Bank, the birthrate in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has declined from as high as 6.5 in 1990 down to about 4.0 today. Quoting Ambassador Yoram Ettinger speaking on the reasons behind the decrease in the Arab women’s rate of births per individual, it is mostly a result of higher levels of education such that, “Instead of having kids as early as 15, they are waiting until their mid-20s and that number is approaching age 30.” Additionally, “family planning has proliferated throughout the Muslim world – possibly because of economic reasons but maybe also the increased standard of living.” Ambassador Ettinger concludes, “The surge in Jewish fertility has to do with communal responsibility, patriotism and roots.” There is an interactive graph where you can plug in any set of greater regions or their individual countries and contrast and compare nearly anything you desire provided by Google. By doing a comparison of the individual groupings of nations Israel was ahead of every grouping with the sole exception of Sub-Saharan Africa. Every area, even that of Sub-Saharan Africa at a birth rate per woman at an astounding 5.11, has shown a serious and marked downturn in their population statistics from their high at 6.79 births per women and with every other national group reaching a reproductive ratio of between thee births per woman and just below 2 births per woman with the highest coming in at 2.75 births per women for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the lowest coming in at 1.72 births per women for Europe and Central Asia. East Asia and Pacific came in at 1.82 births per women followed closely by North America at 1.85 births per women with the next being Latin America and the Caribbean at 2.18 births per women, thus being the first region to be equal to or above replacement rate in reproduction. Continuing we find the World’s average at 2.47 births per women with next being South Saia at 2.59 births per women followed by, as noted above, MENA at 2.75 births per women, and also reported above, Sub-Saharan Africa having by far the highest at 5.11 births per women. Meanwhile, Israel had hit a highpoint of 3.97 births per women in 1960, the first year figures are provided and ending at 3.04 births per women which was a rebound slightly higher than the low of 2.7 births per women in 1992. One can expect that the numbers for Sub-Saharan Africa to drop precipitously at some future date which will be marked by greater levels of education and the industrialization of their societies after which the human population of planet Earth, or if you prefer the population doomsday predictors’ favorite phrase, spaceship Earth will finally reach a steady level of minimal growth with times of feast having a steady if slow increase and times of turmoil and frustrations giving a slow rate of decline.

 

When one looks at the birth rates per woman of the world compared to the individual sectors it becomes readily apparent that it is the high but still dropping rate of births per woman of Sub-Saharan Africa which force the rate for the entire world to a higher than otherwise expected level and once they drop to the range of between 1.7 and 3.3 births per woman then the World replacement rate will fall just under 2.5 births per woman, a steady level of measured and manageable growth ever so slightly above replacement rate numbers. Equally important has been the decline towards replacement rate rather than the far higher rates over the Israeli reproductive rates for Judea, Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza which had buried the demographic time-bomb which has been touted and predicted by those who would seek out any statistic to prove that Israel had no choice but to give the Palestinians anything they demanded if they would only permit the Israeli Jews to survive and keep their ever diminishing numbers against the super-reproductive rate of the Arab Palestinians which promised to drown them in a sea of births. This does not for an instance mean that we will stop hearing the sky is falling doomsayers from touting old data over and over ad nauseum predicting the demographic destruction of Israel because they need to have something to show to back up their demands that Israel completely surrender and beg and grovel for table scraps which the rest of the World including the Arabs who would reproduce Israel into extinction or the Europeans who would end Israel through an embargo if Israel does not comply and surrender or the United Nations will bury Israel in paperwork responding to the human rights charges which would end if only Israel would surrender to the Arab Palestinian human rights demands or any of the plethora of doom and gloom woe is Israel who will be subsumed by whatever calamity that can be found in the statistics if they do not surrender to the Arabs as is their sole chance to survive-mongers. The frustration those who seek ever more diverse ways to attack Israel and claim that Israel is a pariah amongst the nations, the new Apartheid, a genocidal raging, the force behind every calamity, the reason for every ill, the one holdout from a past era, the remaining anachronism amongst the nations and whatever else that can be dreamed up from the furtive minds of conspiracies and intrigues who will borrow through mountains of statistics even to the point of reformatting them in such a manner as to provide the data they require to damn Israel once and for all. It is at this point we must stop and pay homage to the originators of the quotation, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” which many attribute to Mark Twain who himself attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli thus we must conclude that it is insightful, humorous, erudite and witty as both men were long and stood tall in all those areas abilities. The one thing that those who are in love and pay tribute to the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland, you will never run out of reasons to need to defend her nor will you ever reach a period where there are none who seek her destruction until the day arrives that all the Earth finds peace and harmony and are ruled from Jerusalem, not by the Jewish people but ruled by a divine source.

 

Beyond the Cusp