Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 167

Merle Haggard as Christian & as evangelist

The late, great Merle Haggard lived a pretty wild life, but he turned more and more to faith, especially as he struggled in his last illnesses.  Not only that, at least one writer says that he became a Christian because of Haggard’s music. From Merle Haggard turned to God more and more as he aged | [Read More...]

The new Clinton, not like the old Clinton

When Bill Clinton ran for president, you might remember, he was the leader of “the new Democrats,” a group that rejected old style Democratic liberalism in favor of centrist, pragmatic policies.  Among his accomplishments as president were welfare reform, the NAFTA free trade agreement, and a tough anti-crime bill. Also, Bill Clinton signed the Religious [Read More...]

IRS allows fake social security numbers for illegal immigrants

Fake social security numbers are against the law, but the IRS tolerates them when used for employment purposes.   This is true even when the Social Security administration notifies them about the fraud.  This is so that the U.S. government can tax the earnings of illegal immigrants. When called on this breach of the law, [Read More...]

Applying what the Bible says about slavery

Jordan Cooper has an excellent discussion of what the Bible says about slavery. You need to read it all, but I’ll quote six points that he makes. I then want to propose a way to apply these passages–not just to their historical context–but to the slavery of sin. From Jordan Cooper, Does the Bible Support Slavery?, [Read More...]

Saudi Arabia threatens U.S. economy over 9/11 charges

There is reportedly evidence–censored pages of the official 9/11 report–that some of the 9/11 terrorists received funding from Saudi Arabia, possibly including Saudi officials.    A bill in Congress would allow Saudi Arabia to be held liable in any court proceedings.  Now Saudi Arabia is saying that if that bill passes, it will sell off its [Read More...]

Trump threatens delegates

So Donald Trump, being ignorant of how delegates are selected and not bothering to try to get his supporters chosen, thinks he is being cheated.  So now he is threatening delegates who try to “steal” the nomination from him.  His campaign is saying that they will reveal their hotels and room numbers and send people to [Read More...]

Correction to the Battle of Princeton post

In regards to my recent post, Princeton University tells me that the Institute for Advanced Study, which seeks to build faculty housing on the site of the Battle of Princeton, is an independent entity and is not part of Princeton University.  My apologies.  I’ll change the post to make that clear.

Happiness vs. Freedom?

In a description of his new book, The Intolerable God, author Christopher J. Insole tells about a central struggle in the philosopher Immanuel Kant:  the conflict between happiness and freedom. Now this sounds strange to American ears.  Surely, freedom is essential to happiness.  But Kant relates the issue to God.  Here is how Insole describes [Read More...]

Transparency vs. privacy

The shady revelations of the Panama Papers are sparking new demands for “transparency” in businesses and in financial transactions, including identifying exactly who owns particular assets.  To the point that efforts are being made to establish an international registry to keep track of exactly who owns what. But some say that anonymity can be important, [Read More...]

Trump’s charitable giving

Donald Trump has claimed that he gave over $102 million to charity over the past five years.  But a look at the records shows that this counts free golf games and land that he agrees not to develop.  He actually donated not a penny of actual money.  Nothing, of course, to church.  (He did recently [Read More...]