The Purpose of Marriage

You said that children have a right to a mother and a father ....

Or did you say more: children have a right to a mother and a father who love one another, and children are a fruit of their love?

In any case, I'd like to know what makes a "right"? We have gay couples saying that they have a right to marry.

Another component of rights are accompanying duties. We see Bush working to form a conscious clause for medical health professionals to refuse abortions, sterilizations, contraceptives. But if abortion is a "right," there ought not be conscious clause, right? Because there is a duty to provide it, with no exceptions because it is a "right"...... yes?

And if children have a right to a mother and a father, why then do we not see more legislation to "cement" this right with accompanying duties? I don't know what that legislations would be, or do we have legislation in place that protects the right of the child to a mother and a father?

Also, what's your take on the gay marriage agenda, and what we can do to protect marriage between a man and a woman?

To answer your questions:
Natural law is what makes a right.
Natural law is not the same as a law of nature.

A law of nature is something like the speed of light in a vacuum or gravity, etc.

A natural law is an honor accorded to a person by God through the fact that the person IS a person.
So, I have the right to exist as a person in my body because God has given me both my personhood and my body.
No one has a right to attempt to deprive me of either, because the gifts did not come from them, these came from God.

So, since no person can come into existence except through the union of sperm and egg, and since sperm and egg are biologically bound to and derive from the persons of the mother and father, every person has a right to a mother and father.

Marriage exists in order to procreate and protect children, and through those actions, to build up society.
It simultaneously serves to sanctify the spouses through sacrificial giving towards the children they conceive and towards one another.
Because of its primary purpose, as long as there is a possibility, however remote, of sperm and egg uniting through the natural coition of the couple, marriage can exist.
A man and a woman who together suffer from some natural defect of fertility have the ability to marry because God has the power to heal natural defects in fertility, thereby granting the gift of children to the couple. Whether or not He will choose to do this in any specific case is not our concern - we know of several cases where He did in Scripture, so that is sufficient.

Homosexuals cannot enter into marriage because men cannot procreate with men under ANY circumstances, nor can women procreate with women.
Thus, they cannot fulfill the primary purpose of marriage even on a theoretical level.

No one has a right to take the life of an innocent.
Indeed, I have a right to be free from the influence of anyone who would attempt to force me to violate an innocent's existence.

Children, especially embryonic children, are innocent.
Thus, abortion - deliberately taking of the life of an innocent - is not a right and never can be a right.

There is a difference between secular (civil) law and natural law.
Secular law is what human persons together puzzle out and agree to abide by, generally with the intent to create an harmonious society.
Natural law, since it honors our personhoods, is what actually will create a harmonious society, if people were to live by it.

Because men are fallen creatures, with darkened intellects and weakened wills, we do not (a) always fully recognize the natural law or (b) even when we know what is the right thing to do (natural law), we cannot always bring ourselves to do it.

So, the actual harmony present in the society depends on how closely civil law matches the natural law.
Civil society often fails to cement natural law because our leaders (and we who elect them) tend to be venal, self-serving creatures who do not wish to fully recognize, much less honor, each others' personhoods.

There is currently no legislation that protects a child's right to a mother and a father.
In vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, cloning and similar technologies all violate this right, and all are perfectly legal in civil society.

In order to safeguard these rights, we must recognize human personhood from the moment of conception and honor that personhood from that moment.
Marriage must be recognized as primarily intended to build up society through the procreation and care of children, not primarily as a journey of personal fulfilment. The law should recognize that personal fulfillment may well happen during marriage, but that this personal fulfillment is not its primary purpose. Consequently, in order to protect children's rights, no-fault or simplified divorce procedures should be abolished, men and women should be counseled strongly on the primary purpose of marriage before entering into it. Each person should recognize that the marriage vow places the person making the vow under obligation to serve (a) the spouse and (b) any/all children engendered by the union, it is NOT an obligation for the spouse to "serve me."

Hospitals exist in order to protect and nurture patients, not to protect or nurture doctors and nurses.
Armies exist in order to protect and nurture nations, not to protect and nurture soldiers or officers.
Governments exist to protect and nurture societies, not to protect and nurture government officials.

Similarly, marriage exists to protect and nurture children, not to protect adults or nurture adults.
Insofar as adults receive protection or nurture through the offices of marriage, those perquisites are the result of the duties the adults have towards children - they enable the adults to carry out their duties towards present and future children. If there (a) are no children and (b) is a definite refusal to permit children to enter, then there is no particular reason to bless married adults with special protections. Marriage is a hospital, a security force and a form of government, all oriented towards children.

The homosexual marriage agenda is a humbug created by a lot of people interested in increasing the general disharmony and violence of society.

Once people realize these things, the rest should be easy. :)

Obama Citizenship Questions

Questions on the Physical Document
Why is his father's race listed as "African" instead of the common 1961 legal appellation "Negro"?

Why are there white and grey pixels between the text letters in the scanned image of Obama's Certificate?

Why is there no second fold line on the document, given that the only fold line visible on the certificate implies it had been folded in thirds?

Why does the document border appear to have been scanned at a lower resolution then the rest of the document?

Why does the border appear to be from a 2007 version of the document format instead of the 2008 version?

Why does the signature and seal date (2008) not appear to match the border style?


Questions about his life
Why does no one seem able to agree which hospital Barack Obama was born in?
If not born in Hawaii, was his 18-year old mother able to pass on citizenship to her son?

Why did the Indonesian school he attended as a child list him as an Indonesian citizen?

How did Barack Obama travel to Pakistan and Indonesia in 1981 to "visit his mother" given that in that year:
(a) his mother was in Hawaii after finalizing a divorce,
(b) Pakistan was under martial law,
(c) there is no record of him having a US passport prior to his first term as a US senator.

Why did Barack Obama register as an Illinois attorney in part by swearing he had never lived under any other name?

Why has he refused to release any of his personal records: certificate of live birth, law school transcripts, medical records, etc.?

Could it be true?
Could it be the case that no one ever actually vetted Barack Obama's birth certificate?

Recall that Barack Obama is a Chicago machine politician. Nothing happens in Chicago unless Mayor Daley allows it. Conversely, if Daley wants it, it happens.

Barack Obama managed to throw at least two opposing candidates off political tickets when sealed divorce papers in both cases were somehow released to the public. If this had happened once, that would be Fortune smiling upon young Barack. But twice? In the same race?

Barack was a made man, bought and paid for by the Daley Machine. Although the Illinois Secretary of State was bound to verify Barack's US citizenship, why would any political hack worth his/her salt go fishing where Mayor Daley had set up an "Off Limits" sign?

Barack could easily have supplied the SoS office the same Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth instead of an actual birth certificate, and no one would have looked twice. It would have been acceptable because the Machine said it was, and the actual vault birth certificate need never have been produced.

Similarly, once a US Senator applies for a passport, who in the machinery of federal government is going to turn him down? He's already been vetted at the state level, right?

As a cog in the federal machine, the last thing you want is an angry Senator breathing down your federal office neck, especially when the junior senator's senior partner is Dick Durbin, Minority Whip in 2001, Majority Whip in 2006, and on the Appropriations Committee.

It's all social engineering, and as every black-hat hacker knows, social engineering works.

If he could snag a Senate seat and US passport based on strength of personality and Machine politics, why not the Presidency?

I'm not saying this necessarily happened.
I'm just pointing out that - given his background, given how he manipulated the political situation in the past and/or had it manipulated for him - it is perfectly plausible.

Soft Realities

I don't normally direct people to this site because
a) I never read the site itself if I can help it
b) the people who run it are slightly crazy,

But in this case, I can't stand it.

Read this essay, if you can stomach it.

I'd love to see which of JP II's writings Fr. Loya would reference to support his weird allegations.
I'd also love to see the reactions from, say, Mary, Queen of the Universe, Queen Isabella of Spain (her cause for canonisation is here), and St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, to name just a few.

Indeed, I'd like to see ANY Magisterial document which says women are not fit to rule.
It looks like Theology of the Body promoters have now reached the level of maturity of, say, your local Baptist congregation.

I especially liked, "It is a world that deals with issues and hard realities." - a child, being kind of squishy, is apparently a soft reality, unfit for man or beast (but for woman, we make an exception and let her deal with it).
Certainly the contents of the diaper are soft realities.
And that's what Fr. Loya's essay reminds me of.

But I'm a man, so I only think from the neck up on these issues.

The Seraphim

The City of Angels is burning.

We remotely watch thousands of people as they watch everything they own in the world
up in flames, completely torched, nothing left but dust and ashes.

Watching the fires burn in the darkness recalls two very strange passages in Scripture,
both of which say the same thing: “Our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29,
Deuteronomy 4:24).

Now, why would St. Paul ask us to think of God in this way?

Worse, how could a Catholic living in Los Angeles, a Christian who just lost everything he owns,
respond with love to a God who depicts Himself like this? Many Catholics in the City of Angels,
faced with those words, might very well join their voices with Peter, “Lord, this is a hard saying.
Who can accept it?” (John 6:60).

Worse, though we may not much like the image, it doesn’t go away: “I indeed baptize you with
water; but there shall come one mightier that I… he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and
with fire!” “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and would that it were already kindled!?” “If
any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as
through fire.”

It gives a different feel to Scripture: “The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light.”
“Christ is the light of the world.” “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not
comprehend it.”

Truly, we often don’t comprehend it. The name “seraphim”, the name borne by the angels
closest to God, means “the burning ones.” Los Angeles has become The Seraphim.

And whether you love it or hate it, think it heaven or hell, it doesn't matter.
Hell is fire, Purgatory is fire, Heaven is, apparently, fire.

What is up with that? What happened to that kind and gentle Jesus Whose arms our children
are always snuggling into?

Scripture tells us.

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing
you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Romans 12:19-21)

When we do kindness to others, we burn up something within them. Either the kindness burns
up their hatred of us, their hatred of God, so that nothing is left of this hatred, or their hatred is
stoked to greater fury. They hate us even more because of the kindness we have shown.

As we stare into the flames, we are enlightened.
Hatred and love both burn up something within us – the first burns away our affections for
others, our charity, the second burns away our affections for ourselves, our selfishness. There
is something in us that needs to be destroyed, and only fire can do it. Deep within our hearts,
Satan’s hatred struggles against God’s love. God fights fire with fire.

So, as we watch the videos of the fire, the answer is before us. What happens to an apple when you cut it and
leave it on the table? Its flesh turns from pearly white to a dark brown – the oxygen in the air burns and darkens
it. What is rust, but the “burning”, the slow oxidation, of metal? The fire that consumes the logs in my fireplace or
the beams of my house is a rapid version of what happens to the apple and the metal.

Fire can rust or burnish.

The things of this world pass away. Nothing in this world lasts forever, for the moth shall eat
them up as a garment: and the grub shall consume them as wool: but, says the Lord, my
salvation shall be for ever, and my justice from generation to generation.

We are not made for a five bedroom, four bath palace with an ocean view.
We are not made for a one bedroom, one bath mobile home in a trailer park.

We are made for God – without Him, nothing makes sense, nothing satisfies. He alone is three
Persons in perfect communion.

We are persons made in His image. Human persons are made for communion with both persons
and Persons.

We cannot commune with flat screen TVs, fast computers or even nature itself. We may see in
each of these, as through a glass, darkly, the image of the persons who created each. It may be
that the television, the computer, even the world, somehow dimly reflect or tell the glory of
their creators, but these are not enough.

We are made for eternity, not for loss. When we experience the loss of created things, we
remember that this was not the original goal anyway.

Though the fire burns through the night, at the rising of the sun, we can look beyond the
smoldering ashes and say, “See! He has made all things new!”

Leave the flickering TV, the glowing computer screen behind.
Light a candle in the darkness.
Visit Jesus in the Eucharist.
He took flesh for you, you were made for Him.
You were made for Fire.

"In this we rejoice, though now for a little while we may have to suffer various trials, so that the
genuineness of our faith, more precious than gold which, though perishable, is tested by fire,
may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

How Barack Obama Got Elected

People who followed the election won't be surprised by this.

The anonymous commenters on this blog undoubtedly will be.

Cardinal Stafford on Obama

Some readers of this blog think I have veered from Catholic commentary on Obama into a desert of pointless vituperation.

In answer to those critics, I give you American Cardinal James Francis Stafford of the Roman Curia.

And to those who wonder why Rome would extend congratulations to Senator Obama so early, keep in mind that the good Senator has promised to flagrantly violate Catholic sensibilities within hours of taking office in January. If Rome were to wait until the inauguration to congratulate Obama on his accomplishment, She would have to enclose a letter of chastisement in the same envelope.

This is generally considered bad form.

Thus, Rome - knowing that She will have to fight this man with every breath in Her Being - builds up what little relationship She can while the building is good, well before the man actually DOES anything. Come January, the tone will shift decidedly, as She uses whatever capital has been gained to try to dissuade him from expanding the American genocide.

BTW, my opinion of Obama is shared not only by officials in the Vatican, but by people who have experience with this kind of man.

Calling All Orthodox Catholics

The new DVD from the FSSP The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, begins shipping in less than two weeks.

Get a copy for your priest.
Get another copy for your parish library.

More information can be found here and - most especially - here.

Here's another review.

Special bulk order pricing is also available for dioceses and re-sellers.
Contact Faye Trgovac at Fraternity Publications for more information:
(570)842-4000 ext. 401 or email: publications@fssp.com

Palling Around With Terrorists

It's wonderful to see how the press is now apologizing to Sarah Palin. Remember, how she mentioned that Barack Obama was "palling around with terrorists"?

Well, it's been verified - Hamas, the terror organization that Barack promised he would not meet with until they renounced terror, is now able to state publicly that Barack has been in talks with them all along, since well before the elections.

Of course, now that this is all over the mainstream news, the numerous front-page apologies to Governor Palin are obviously a sign that journalists realize they failed in their duty to accurately report the news.

You HAVE seen those apologies, haven't you???

UPDATE: Now it turns out that William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist, is definitely STILL unrepentant for the murders his terrorist organization committed. He essentially agrees that every fact John McCain, Sarah Palin and innumerable bloggers brought forward about his relationship with Barack Obama was correct, but insists the portrayal was unfair.

So, the Chicago's Butcher supports murder in several and various forms, and now he is to be our next President.

This is all so comforting.

Education in a nutshell

From the BBC series "Yes, Prime Minister"

Paglia on Palin

I like Camille Paglia.
She's a pro-choice lesbian who is absolutely honest.
She admits that abortion is murder and makes fun of the "pro-choice" crowd for lying about it.

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

She also tells the truth about the problems Obama still has and the reasons Sarah Palin is a superb women who won't go away.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/11/12/palin/index.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/11/12/palin/index1.html

An Obamination

ROME, November 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The head of the Catholic Doctors’ Association of Kenya said last week that the election of Barack Obama as the new president of the US is a direct attack on the families and children of Africa. Dr. Stephen Karanja, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist from Nairobi told LifeSiteNews.com that those in Kenya “who know what is good for their world,” had feared the election of Obama because of his pro-abortion and anti-family positions.

“We in Kenya know him (Obama) as a person who is anti-family,” Dr. Karanja said. “A person who would support abortion. In America they can do all right killing their babies. But they must not associate us with the people who would want our babies to be killed.”

In an interview at an international conference of obstetricians and ethicists in Rome, Dr. Karanja said that Africans are now under threat, with Obama having made his radical support for abortion without restriction a key point of his campaign. “Now we are in big trouble because of these Americans,” Dr. Karanja said.

Dr. Karanja expressed his frustration at the result of the US election: “They have no business electing a person who is going to destroy our countries. And that is what they have done. This is something that a lot of people don’t realise, that what these Americans do affects innocent people thousands and thousands of miles away.”

“The truth is that they have put a bad man in the most powerful office in the whole world. And are putting people outside your borders in danger.”

Africa, he said, has been “saturated” with contraceptives by US-based international aid organisations, pushing an anti-child, anti-family ideology. The anti-family efforts of many international aid organizations, however, were frustrated by the Bush administration, which severely restricted overseas funding for contraceptives and abortion. The election of Obama, on the other hand, has been hailed as a victory for many such organizations, such as International Planned Parenthood, which expect a massive influx of funding and support from an Obama administration.

90 per cent of those in Kenya polled over the last twenty years, said Dr. Karanja, hold abortion to be an “abomination.” “And therefore the people who want abortion in our country, 90 per cent of them would consider them an abomination.

“And that is what Americans are bringing to us: an abomination.”

Read it All

The Butcher Increases Our Security

Welcome to Obama's America.

Combine the Proposition 8 video above with this new information.

As I said before, I am not sure we will have to bother about voting in the 2012 elections.

One thing I am sure of - there will be no arrests in the Proposition 8 incident.

Just as an historical note, Hitler used the homosexuals as his shock troops against the Communists.

Then he had many of them killed in the Night of the Long Knives.

I'm sure that historical aside is of no relevance whatsoever.

Update:

Another county heard from

Encyclicals on socialism

For people who would like to find out more about the Church's stance on socialism:

Leo XIII Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878)
Leo XIII Rerum Novarum (1891)
Pope Pius XI Quadregesimo Anno (1931)

MSM finally getting it right

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

A Harbinger...

...Of things to come.

It seems that raising $600 million through extremely dubious means has resulted in a typically socialist distribution of the wealth.

I'm sure this won't be the last.
They should feel lucky - at least they're getting more than brother George.

The Difference

What is the difference between Bill Clinton, a pro-abort, and Barack Obama, also a pro-abort?
Shakespeare nailed it:

CAESAR

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

ANTONY

Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman and well given.

CAESAR

Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.

Picture American citizens as Caesar.
Kind of interesting, isn't it?

Catholic College Report

The Cardinal Newman Society has just released it's latest report on the quality of Catholic schools.

The title says it all.

If you want a more in-depth analysis than CNS can provide, you can find it here.

Camps and Assassinations

I've had several people tell me that there is a general fear Obama will be assassinated.

Poppycock and balderdash.

Socialists dictators, i.e., men like Obama, don't get assassinated by skinheads.

Socialists assassinate each other to gain political juice, and they don't allow the assassination to take place until they have all their ducks in a row. Consider Trotsky, who got an icepick in the forehead only because Stalin wanted him dead. Stalin needed someone to blame for the economic turmoil in the Soviet Union, and it's easier to blame all your problems on a dead revolutionary. He invoked Trotsky and the Trotskey-ites for years after the man was moldering in the grave. It worked wonderfully. George W. will find himself invoked a lot over the next eight years and for the same reason.

No, if Obama gets killed, it's because Pelosi or Durbin or someone else need him dead for some reason. They'll blame it on the skinheads, they'll set up the racists to take the fall, but the reason for his death will be a maneuver for political ascendancy by one of his current subordinates.

If he gets offed, it's because someone is confident they can control Biden and they want to set Old Joe up as the puppet for the man or woman behind the curtain. Assassination in socialist circles is a Praetorian Guard event. Skinheads don't have the brains to pull something like that off, but Pelosi does.

And speaking of socialists, we should discuss the possibility of internment camps. Poor economies are why socialists love internment camps. If you have an economy which is severely under-producing goods, then you have to do something to reduce the number of consumers in order to avoid riots stemming from the people's inability to eat or clothe themselves.

If the under-production of goods is fairly minor, this problem of too much consumption chasing too few goods can usually be resolved by simply killing the very old and the very young. Nationalized health care is an excellent way out. Euthanize anyone over 60, or simply give them inadequate treatment, then abort 30-70% of the children in the womb, and your production problem goes away - the remaining consumers have enough to eat so that you don't have to worry about riots.

But, if the under-production of goods becomes severe enough, you have to begin random arrests of people on the streets. If a lot of the general population is in prison, you can control their consumption right down to the gram. If they die, it's no big deal because people assume they are in jail for a good reason.

This is why the Soviet Union created and maintained the Gulag Archipelago. They were good economists, they knew they were not producing enough goods and they also knew they couldn't ramp up production in their command-style economy.

What was left? They had to reduce consumption. That was the point of the Gulag.

The United States is currently producing a LOT of stuff, so internment camps for economic reasons here won't be immediately necessary. But, if enough damage is done to the economy, look for a big increase in military-style camps for "troublemakers."

If our economy goes that deeply into the dumper, internment camps will start getting set up in outlying socialist dictatorships first, as the flow of international goods dries up. So, if, for instance, Hugo Chavez starts setting them up, it's time for US citizens to start considering options because that roadshow is likely headed to the United States.

History of the Revolution, Part IV

Let's recap the last few months. We have a new President. Highlights of his promises include guarantees that he will legalize the killing of children at any age up to and even shortly after birth, create a "civilian security force" equal in power to the armed forces, will start the conscription of women, increase taxes (and therefore increase unemployment and drive businesses out of the country or out of business), and will censor most news outlets via the Fairness Doctrine.

He was swept into power by an ongoing economic debacle even though questions about his American citizenship have never been answered. He got into power by laundering campaign contributions through untraceable donations, in direct violation of US law. He is known to show concern for his impoverished brother in a theoretical sense, but his actual relatives continue to live in slums.

In short, he is the quintessential socialist.

Historically, what kinds of precedents are there?

Well, we can look at the French Revolution. It began due to the machinations of Neckar. Appointed to be Director-General of finance by King Louis XVI in the middle of a financial crisis, Neckar was not actually qualified to be director because he was (1) a Protestant and (2) not a native Frenchman. Neckar proposed new taxes on the clergy and the nobles, and was dismissed, but had to be recalled due to popular outrage and massive support from the newspapers and pamphleteers of the day.

Though popular with the people, he believed he had Messiah-like ability and could solve every problem himself. He subsequently fomented a rebellion which drove the nobles it didn't kill out of the country, along with their wealth. As the entire structure of government changed from monarchy to oligarchy, the French Revolution killed hundreds of priests and hundreds of thousands of Catholics, including the legendary massacre of Catholics in the Vendee region, a genocide which wiped out roughly one-third of the population. An official state church was established which took its orders from the government, not from Rome.

The French Revolution created a society built on informants, in which children were expected to inform the authorities if their parents expressed anti-revolutionary ideas. The atrocities of the French Revolution did not end until a dictator, Napoleon Bonoparte, appeared on the scene. The subsequent Napoleanic wars rocked all of Europe for years to come.

The government of France changed from monarchy to oligarchy to dictatorship in the space of a decade.

Then we can look to the Germans. Again, we have a socialist born not in Germany but in Austria, a foreigner who became a fervent German nationalist. After receiving enormous support from the media through moguls like Alfred Hugenberg, he was legally appointed Chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg during yet another period of intense economic turmoil.

He also had a Messiah-complex and likewise proposed crushing laws and taxes on the people he felt were unfairly benefiting from the industry of German citizens. These people, the Jews, were either killed or forced to flee. Shortly after taking power, he used a convenient crisis event - the burning of the Reichstag - to fundamentally change the nature of Germany's government so that he could become a dictator. He killed thousands of Catholic priests, sent hundreds of thousands of Catholics to death camps (six million Jews died in the Holocaust, but so did three million Cahtolics), and committed genocide on a massive scale. Again, an official state church was established that took its orders from the government.

The German government created a society built on informants, in which children were expected to inform the authorities if their parents expressed anti-revolutionary ideas. It took a world war to unseat him.

The government of Germany changed from constitutional monarchy and limited democracy to dictatorship in the space of a decade.

Now, consider the Russians. Here, we have a Russian, Lenin, who took care to associate himself with radicals throughout his youth (his older brother was an anarchist executed for attempting to kill the Tsar). He was a first-class lawyer with a command of several languages, including Latin, Greek, German, French and English. His plan involved subverting the government by taking over the newspapers. Although exiled by the Tsar, he was smuggled into the country by the Germans in order to foment a revolution, which he promptly did.

Although Lenin himself was no small thing as a dictator, his death cut short many of his plans. His successor, Stalin, a foreigner who managed to weasel his way into the heart of the party, taught the world what a really effective dictator could do. Again, he placed crushing laws and taxes on the rich peasants, the kulaks. Thousands of Orthodox priests and bishops were sent to penal death camps, as were hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christians. An official state Church was established, which took its orders from the government.

He created a society built on informants, in which children were expected to inform the authorities if their parents expressed anti-revolutionary ideas. He was never overthrown. The USSR fell only because of the combined efforts of the Pope, the Prime Minister of England and the President of the United States.

The events between 1917 and Stalin's consolidation of power took less than a decade.

It is now 2008.

Start the clock.

Four Horsemen

It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the photograph.

The First Seal—Rider on White Horse

Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

The Second Seal—War

When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.

The Third Seal—Famine

When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

The Fourth Seal—Death

When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

The Fifth Seal—Martyrs

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

The Sixth Seal—Terror

I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”