Posted on 05/15/2016 4:17:17 PM PDT by Beautiful_Gracious_Skies
No Third-Party Candidate: Every four years there is political chatter about trying to run a third-party candidate who will supposedly be more conservative than the Republican nominee. The lesson is the same every time this is tried: third-party candidates do not win because the United States is a two-party country.
The grumblings we hear about Donald Trump are mostly because of his strong stand against illegal immigration. Party bosses know that if Trump wins and then shuts down illegal immigration and so-called free trade, it will cost the Democratic Party millions of future votes and cost Republican businessmen lucrative deals for themselves with foreign countries.
Despite how current immigration heavily favors Democrats, many church leaders who usually lean Republican dislike Trump’s strong stance against illegal immigration. They oppose Trump’s plan to build a wall and deport illegal aliens.
They assume that more immigration puts more people in their pews, and most churches have a mission to bring the faith to people of all nations. Trump’s nationalistic tone, to make America great again, is not something likely to be heard from a church pulpit.
Yet rank-and-file churchgoers overwhelmingly support Trump’s views against current levels of immigration and trade. Evangelical voters, in particular, preferred Trump over his rivals in the Republican primaries, and they will surely vote heavily in favor of Trump rather than Hillary in the general election.
Despite the opposition of their members, some church leaders persist in supporting permissive immigration and opposing Trump. In sharp contrast with their congregations, they are more likely to agree with Obama on immigration than with Donald Trump.
Two years ago, officials from several conservative Christian denominations met with President Obama in the Oval Office and gushed their support of his “immigration reform.” Obama’s phony “reform” means legislation that would grant citizenship to illegal aliens and do little to stem the flood of illegal immigrants into our nation.
The immigration issue may be preventing some church leaders from siding with Donald Trump now. While opposition to Trump is expressed in moral terms – even though they had no trouble supporting the divorced Ronald Reagan in 1980 – a real motivation is that church leaders do not want Trump’s criticism of immigration.
The prior Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney, stridently criticized Donald Trump earlier this year, and still refuses to endorse him. This should not be a surprise, because Romney had harshly criticized Trump’s statements about immigration during the campaign.
Rev. Luis Cortes, as president of an Hispanic Christian network and nonprofit legal organization that helps immigrants, declared after the White House meeting that “the entire religious community” supports an Obama-style immigration reform package. “For the first time … all the major denominations and churches and religious bodies of this country believe that it is a moral imperative that we get immigration reform done,” he asserted.
But churchgoing voters indicated otherwise during the Republican primaries, by nominating Donald Trump. Now is the time for church leaders to listen to their own flock on the important issue of immigration.
The amount of immigration allowed by a nation is a political matter, not a religious one, and this issue has become the elephant in the room impossible to overlook. The stunning election results in Austria two weeks ago demonstrate that those who try to duck or downplay the immigration issue are headed for defeat.
As in the United States, the leaders of both major political parties in Austria ignored the problems caused by immigration. A candidate emerged there named Norbert Hofer, who campaigned on “putting Austria first” despite the media giving him little chance of winning.
On April 24th Austrians voted with a large turnout, and the candidate opposed to permissive immigration won the first round in a stunning double-digit landslide. The two major parties that had echoed failed immigration policies, as Democrats and Republicans here have done, fared so poorly that they failed even to qualify for the upcoming runoff, which the Trump-like Austrian candidate is also expected to win.
Church leaders should recognize that responsibility is just as important as charity. No church would urge people to unlock their doors at night in order to allow anyone in, and we should not persist with open borders to welcome hordes of illegal aliens who include many hardened criminals.
When an unwelcome “neighbor” comes into our home, we “deport” him out of our house, and Trump’s leadership on the immigration issue has earned him the support of millions of Democrats and Republicans alike. Loving our neighbor does not mean unlocking our doors to any and all comers.
There will not be a third-party candidate who is as good as Trump on immigration. There will be only two viable candidates to choose from this fall, only one of whom will safeguard our country against immigration, and Jesus will not be on the ballot.
Refugee resettlement has become very lucrative for voluntary agencies that now receive government $$$$$. Some 17 private refugee bureaus received about $37 million in government money in FY 2011.
Before taxpayers were tapped, these organizations appeared true to the biblical imperatives to love your neighbor as yourself. Now taxpayer money has skewed the focus and perspective. Rather than maintaining pure motives and focusing on the charitable work, there is a temptation to preserve government funding sources and build organizations with taxpayers monies.
There is a great deal of financial interest vested with increasing the refugees admitted for USA resettlement. More refugees = more free money. Some programs resemble decadent charities that spend inordinately on fund raising and administration rather than actually helping their cause.
Refugee resettlement policy and programs are ripe for auditing and are overdue for congressional scrutiny and reform. Organizations receiving federal monies deserve close assessment. iIt is high time religious refugee bureaus look introspectively. Is it possible to serve both God and money (Luke 16:13). Their efforts have become harmful to their fellow countrymen and communities when they sponsor criminal murderers, rapists, and those who steal American's possessions and American jobs. Churches need to forced back to reliance on private funding and many of the problems will disappear when greed is removed from the equation.
If you took a national survey asking if Americans knew what a VOLAG was, I guarantee you that less than 3% would respond affirmatively.
There are usually plenty of other choices beyond the Dems and Repubs - here is a list of 2012 election results for all the candidates (Romney, you loser, you never even ran to win).
2012 Presidential General Election final vote (with 95% of precincts reported) – from Wikipedia and Google Elections:
-Barack Obama (Democratic Party) – 65,909,451 – 51.02%
-Mitt Romney (Republican Party) – 60,932,176 – 47.16%
-Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) – 1,275,950 – 0.99%
-Jill Stein (Green Party) – 469,572 – 0.36%
-Virgil Goode (Constitution Party) - 122,378 - 0.09%
-Roseanne Barr (Peace & Freedom Party) – 67,359 – 0.05%
-Rocky Anderson (Justice Party) – 42,995 – 0.03%
-Tom Hoefling (America’s Party) – 40,609 – 0.03%
-Jerry Litzel (independent) – 12,895 – 0.01%
-Jeff Boss (independent) – 12,895 – 0.01%
-Randall Terry (independent) – 12,895 – 0.01%
-Merlin Miller (American Third Position Party) – 12,895 – 0.01%
-Jill Reed (Twelve Visions Party) – 12,032 – 0.01%
-Richard Duncan (independent) – 12,032 – 0.01%
We don’t need a third party with Donald!! We just took theirs away from them. > YAHOO!!
Yep. And the religious leaders promoting immigration would be well advised by their parishioners that more money is likely to flow to the collection plates when said parishioners are gainfully employed. And such immigrants can best get assistance through missionary work in their homelands rather than importing them into the United States where their knee-jerk reaction of the majority of them is to vote to make the United States more like the $#*+hole countries they ran away from and where religious liberty is curtailed.
My comment #1 and oddlane’s.. Unfortunately speak to the real issue. It seems its all about the Benjamins and not Jesus Christ.
Church leaders are getting rich!!
Churches could care less about immigrant souls or the harm illegals do to America.
Follow da money.
Just saying that surely there is someone running for POTUS who still believes in the Rule of Law.
To your point - Specific religious charities are getting rich (Catholic, Lutheran, and Baptist charity services to name the big ones along with the Jewish contingency). Pastors have their marching orders to speak positively of ALL immigrants to their congregations. Very dangerous indeed let alone how much $$$$$$$$$ the traitors are making.
This is beyond political solutions now, and Mrs. Schlafly knows it.
Hopefully that person is Donald Trump and he moves very quickly to prove that once he is in the WH.
which brings up the question, will the Reform Party be running a second candidate on the ballot this election year?
It is howlingly funny that Hofer will face the Green Party candidate in the Austrian runoff. The regular ‘conservative’ finished 3rd, and the Social Democrat finished 4th.
Yes, follow the money. I suspect some of the specific titled organizations have little to do with the actual church organizations. They may be front organizations.
I think that this idea or scam may have been prototyped under the Bush administration with brother Jeb in Florida under the guises of prison ministries.
Once they get the money flowing, it pours from FedGov unchecked.
Government + Churches ripping off the taxpayers! Really stinks!
Bttt.
Phyllis Schlafly is a true American treasure.
BUMP!
I want to add to your analyses. These are “Professional” Christians. They are defined as those who take money intended for God. -=- In the name of God. Run away from these people.
The word “church” was not in the Bible until 1611. You probably haven’t known that until just now. That was 1578 years after the Resurrection!! The original text was the Greek word “Ekklesia”. That did not mean “assembly” or “gathering”!!! The word meant “The called out” or believers. The entire concept of a mortgaged building with a man paying his house mortgage from temple tax ( tithing is NOT in the new testament)standing behind a pulpit speaking the sheeple— Is a fraud!! By the way Jesus was crucified for attacking the TEMPLE TAX COLLECTORS!! ( 4 days later!!) Can I have an AMEN??
I see Shafley is back in charge of Eagle Forum. Good for her.
She is 91 years old and still sharp as a tack. I am 67 and I have to use an alarm on my iPhone to tell me when to take my medications. My wife, 3 years my younger, tells me that I am very intelligent, but I am thinking that she might be nuts. ;>)
Amen brother, very well done.
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