The EU Supporting Anti-Semites

by Don Hank


US lawmakers need a crash course in geopolitics.









Are you listening, Ukraine?

Greece did not have a crisis until it joined the Euro!


Well, after all, Europe is home to the lemming.






Someone recently asked me:











The Wiesenthal Centre’s web site confirms this:





Don Hank is a Guest Contributor for The Bold Pursuit

When Self-Esteem Becomes Self-Destruction

by Robert Arvay, Contributing Writer

When the Founding fathers designed our nation, they knew that they were forming a government, not of angels, but of sinners. Their wisdom, founded in the Bible, has made all the difference in the world. It made the difference between liberty and tyranny, between a nation devoted to justice, and one devoted to evil. No, we are not a nation of angels, but rather, a nation guided by Biblical principles, ideas that guide us toward a more perfect union. Our progress toward this more perfect union is faltering and stumbling, but historically, we have been stumbling in the right direction.

There is a contrary world view. In that view, people are basically good. All it takes is but a wise and benevolent government to permit that goodness to express itself. In this view, the so-called “thin veneer of civilization” that keeps us civilized, is instead a thick wall of inherent virtue.

Which view is correct? Are we basically good creatures, or as the Bible tells us, is our every inclination toward sin? (Genesis 8:21)

Years ago, educators noted that children with low self-esteem did not perform well in school or in life in general. Low self-esteem led to low expectations, and in the worst cases, to despair and even suicide.

That problem has largely been solved, only to be replaced by the opposite one—high self-esteem. People today seem to think very highly of themselves. This has led to—here is the irony—poor performance in school, and in life in general. It leads to a false sense of entitlement, and to expectations that are unrealistic. When those expectations are not met by reality, then anger and resentment begin their fatal journey through a person’s life.

When we have unrealistically high self-esteem, we may begin to think like this: “Why does that person over there have more than I do, when I deserve it just as much, or more?” How did they get it, when I did not? They must have cheated. They must have some unfair advantage. It must be racism, or “lookism,” or their rich daddy. It must have been anything except my lack of talent, fortune and hard work.

Therefore, I have a right to take it from them.
To be sure, life is unfair, sometimes cruelly so. It’s not fair that I am too short to play basketball, too stupid to be a mathematician, too untalented to be a movie star, and too—you get the idea. Many people say of themselves, I could have had so much more if only I had been born rich, or been taller, or had more talent—or had beige skin instead of brown.

Few people say to themselves, I could have been so much more—not had more, but been more—if only I had worked harder, been more disciplined, less self-indulgent, and not felt entitled to the fruits of other peoples’ labors. The key to this is to focus not on what one has, but on what he or she is. A large portion of what we are depends on what we make of ourselves, what we do, and with what attitude we live our daily lives.

Here is why the Biblical world view of the Founding Fathers is so critical. The Founders had a healthy mistrust of powerful, centralized government. Such a government’s every inclination would be to more power, and that power would be exercised not to the benefit of the people, but of those in power. They knew that any viable Constitution must restrain the government and empower the people.

It is why the present president’s anti-Christian views are so damaging to the nation. He has openly stated that the Constitution is wrong, in that it says what the government cannot do to us. It should, he says, require the government to do more for us. This of course means more power for the government, less power to the people.

The Founders foresaw the tyranny that must arise from such a world view. They knew that when half (plus one) of the voters could tax the other half to support them, they would tax them ruinously. We are not, after all, angels.

The Founders did not design a system of fairness. They designed a system of laws. They did not design a government to give people happiness, but rather, to enable us to pursue happiness for ourselves, within those laws.

The failure to understand this world view, and to live accordingly, is what is wrong with the world. It explains why the nice little old lady shoplifts, and why entire nations of civilized people embark on genocide. At the heart of both of these crimes is the same feeling of entitlement, of having been cheated.

If we do not return to our founding principles, our Biblical principles, and soon, then we will go the way of other nations, nations that have brought themselves to ruin.

Can it happen here? It will. Are we too good to let that happen? We are not. Let us then, as a nation, and as individuals, abandon high self-esteem, and instead humble ourselves. Let us ask God for forgiveness, and rely not on our virtue, but on His mercy.

North Korea: The Next “Good” War?

by Robert Arvay

There is a principle in law that allows us to use deadly force when necessary to save the life of an innocent person who is in imminent danger of being killed by a criminal attacker. That is very cut and dried. It brings to mind the image of a criminal with a gun, shooting at his would-be victim. Before he gets off the next and fatal shot, the good guy, having warned the bad guy to drop his gun, and seeing that the bad guy is determined to commit murder—well, you get the idea. We’ve all seen that movie, and it ends well. It is indeed, an open-and-shut case of justifiable homicide. At least it is in the movies.

In the real world, it is rarely that clear cut. When the man next door is beating his wife, you might call the police, but what happens while you are waiting for them to arrive? Do you try to stop the beating, or do you let her suffer a few more blows to the head, hoping that they are not fatal? Do you step in to help her? What if he has a weapon? What if he threatens you and your family? Worst of all, what if this has happened before, and it’s getting worse all the time? How badly will you allow him to beat her while the police are supposedly on the way? What if the police still have not arrived?

If you do step in, you may be in danger yourself. Indeed, you may even be the one who gets arrested and/or sued. That is real life. This movie does not always end well.

Our neighbor in North Korea is beating his citizens. Worse yet, he is inflicting inconceivable torture on them. He kills them without qualm, and does so in numbers that stagger the imagination. Vast numbers of North Koreans have been quarantined in regions of their nation without food, intentionally starved to death by the dictator, by the hundreds of thousands. Would-be escapees are gunned down, or worse. A few survive to tell the story, but only a very few, and their stories are rarely given wide coverage.

Is help on the way? The United Nations has been called. It says is getting concerned. The UN might consider doing something about it. Someday. Maybe.

This kind of situation is, sadly, not unprecedented in history, including recent history. Saddam Hussein tormented the people of Iraq for years, while the world did nothing. The Taliban savaged the people of Afghanistan while the world did nothing. Josef Stalin systematically starved twenty million Ukrainians to death by confiscating all their food at harvest time. The world did nothing.

In decades past, during centuries past, there was little or nothing that could be done. Today, much can be done, but even now, the world stands by and does nothing.

The cynic might say, why should we help? Look at all the people whom we have helped escape oppression, and then look at how, a very short time later, they are burning our flag and cursing us. Let them help themselves.

Another might say, yes, we should help them, but at what cost? We invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and lost thousands of our people killed, tens of thousands grievously wounded, and gutted our own economy in the process. Was it worth it? Is it worth losing your son or daughter, even for a good cause? Is it worth populating our nation with widows, orphans and amputees, in order to release another nation from its ordeal?

The cynic might say that we cannot police the world. Tyrants have always trampled their people, and as soon as we stop one, up pops another. The torture business continues to thrive.

Cynics say that wars should never be fought based on emotion. The only war worth fighting is the one that defends us against actual or imminent attack, and even then, only with enough force to repel the clear and present danger, nothing more.

I have no answer. What good am I? Had I the power, I would stop the horror. I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.

In response to the cynics, I can say only this:  evil is not an abstraction. It is real. Its victims are real. Their abject suffering is real. One day, we will stand in judgment. We will be asked, was there nothing, nothing at all that you could have done? Nothing?

I will hang my head in shame. I will fear and tremble. I will have no answer.

Robert Arvay is a Contributing Writer for The Patriot’s Notepad

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What good is a street that does not lead to a church?

by Don Hank

A recent article by William S. Lind in American Conservative points out the obvious: Vladimir Putin’s Russia is now the world’s foremost defender of conservatism, having replaced in that role the United States that once seemed to protect and defend traditional values everywhere.

Lind starts his commentary with a reminder whose significance many Americans have not yet apprehended.


“An unfortunate legacy of the Cold War is the negative attitude some American conservatives yet harbor toward Russia.”

I had once translated a letter from Alexander Solzhenitsyn to President Reagan that provides some insight into the American right’s mistrust not of Soviet communism but of Russia itself.

While you may take umbrage with Putin for his KGB past and hence attribute ulterior motives to him that are alien to any love of traditional Russian culture, it is hard to impute ulterior motives to patriot Solzhenitsyn, who was willing to go to Stalin’s gulag in the name of truth and justice for his Mother Russia. This mistrust of Solzhenitsyn reflected in this letter shows that anti-Russian “conservatives” are not necessarily motivated by objectivity, although some have ready arguments resting solely on statements of Golitsyn, a man who left Russia in 1962 and could therefore have known nothing about what was transpiring in the Russian power structure for 30 years prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.

In fact, 1962 was 52 years ago! The Soviet Union only lasted 69 years so that time span is almost the duration of that entity itself, during which no Westerner was privy to the twists and turns of policy decisions in the Kremlin. But if we can judge by the vast changes from the Stalin era to Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, then we can easily see that anything can happen in the Russian power center, including abrupt reversals. How then can we presume to know that nothing has changed? A lack of change would indicate a change in itself compared to the tumultuous past.

During my study tour at the U of Leningrad in the early 1970s, I noticed something rather peculiar: The “atheistic” Soviet authorities were spending countless millions of rubles and time to lovingly restore churches bombed by Germany in WWII. Artists could then major in architectural restoration, a very popular course of study. This struck me as strange, and it was, if you consider how the Soviets’ fellow communist Mao, by contrast, deliberately destroyed ancient artifacts and temples throughout China.

In other words, the Soviets could easily have done the same as Mao and not lost their power. I firmly believe that their decision to preserve Russian cultural monuments was due not as much to considerations of political expediency but to something hardwired inside these men. Something they may or may not have been aware of themselves.

It was not until Putin spoke and wrote in defense of traditional Russian values that I fully understood these anomalies. I believe that underneath that atheistic exterior were currents of doubt in the worth of cultural suppression and a recognition, at the highest levels, that the Russian people would never — nay, could never — abandon their traditions, including the centerpiece thereof, the church.

When I was working on my Master’s degree in Russian language and literature, I discovered how much the Soviets honored their traditional poets and writers, including those who like Dostoevsky and the early Tolstoy wrote in defense of the Russian Orthodox religion. It seems that the decision makers in academe decided that they could not simply bury these writers and their works. They continued to publish and sell them as before in large bulk printings. 

All of these things were unmistakable clues as to the thinking of the Politburo and Congress.

As if to tie all these clues together, in the nineties I saw a Soviet movie made during the last days of the Soviet Union titled Repentance. It was filmed in the Georgian language (unrelated to Russian) and is a delightful work of cinematic art. I urge anyone interested in knowing the real truth about Russia and its love for its Christian traditions to see it. It can be viewed here with subtitles.

If you don’t have time to see it all, then at least go to 2:21:37, showing an encounter between an old woman — whose husband died at the hands of a cruel Stalinist town mayor named Varlam, who had murdered a restoration artist and church caretaker and destroyed his church – and a middle aged woman, a stranger whom she is asking for directions.

This final dialogue goes roughly as follows:

Old Woman (carrying a dilapidated suitcase and speaking to a middle aged woman through an open window in the latter’s home): Does this street lead to a church? [She is referring to the church that her defunct husband had cared for as a restoration artist but that was destroyed by Varlam]

Middle Aged Woman: This is Varlam Street. It does not lead to a church.

Old Woman: Then why do you need it? What good is a street that does not lead to a church?


Don Hank is a Guest Contributor for The Bold Pursuit







Russia’s Right Turn

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Cap Black – Interview Alert

The Bold Pursuit’s contributing writer, Nadra Enzi, aka “Cap Black,” will be a guest on the Denny Shafer Show tomorrow, February 19 at 7:20am CT/8:20am ET.

Cap Black and Shafer will discuss suspected “knockout game” attacks in the New Orleans area. The attackers use baseball bats and target bicyclists.

The show airs on 99.5 WRNO – check out the website for more details:

We hope our readers will support Cap Black, an increasingly influential and insightful conservative voice, by tuning in tomorrow morning or visiting the online site.

Break a leg, Cap!

Clio, Publisher


by Robert Arvay, Contributing Writer

It is better to be ruled by bad laws than by good men. Bad laws can be changed. Good men can become bad men, after which, it is difficult to displace them.

Throughout its history, the United States has survived as a nation ruled by law, not by men. The Founders of our nation designed our system to ensure that principle. Now it is becoming undone.

Dr. Ben Carson has been excoriated by liberals for his recent assertion that there are parallels between Barack Obama’s rule by edict, and the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany —but the principle Carson enunciates is valid. When I marched with the TEA Party in Washington DC in 2009, one of my fellow protesters wore a sign that simply read, “Germany 1933.” Enough said. That was the year that proved to be the beginning of the end, of what had formerly been a civilized and democratic republic. It was the beginning of mass murders, genocide, concentration camps, millions upon millions of dead, and the skeletonization of once beautiful cities across Europe and elsewhere.

It can happen here.

Indeed, Dr. Carson is warning us of this very real danger. We have a president who openly flouts the law, and who boasts of doing so. Even Jonathan Turley, a prominent liberal, a Constitutional professor and attorney at George Washington University Law School, and a supporter of Barack Obama, stated on Fox News, “You have a president who is claiming the right to basically rewrite, or ignore, or negate federal laws. That is a dangerous thing.”

In other words, even if you agree with Obama’s policies, Turley warns us that no policy, however praiseworthy, can succeed if its methods are unconstitutional. The ends do not justify the means. Breaking eggs is fine for making omelets, but not for instituting public policy.

I hope that Turley’s wise and welcome outspokenness does not come too late. Many people, long before Turley’s present warning, recognized that Obama, even from before the beginning of his national prominence, has been associated with Chicago thugs (Tony Rezko), domestic terrorists (Bill Ayers), and anti-American spokesmen (Jeremiah Wright.)

Yes, these associations are old news, but these references are not merely part of Obama’s past, they remain formative influences in his present outlook. Even during his presidency, Obama used the language of street thugs to encourage his followers to intimidate political opponents. When he instructed his minions to “get in their face,” he was not being symbolic. He meant exactly that, and that was what his thugs did, from the lowest level “town hall” appearances by congressmen, to the highest level of the Internal Revenue Service (Lois Lerner).

Obama’s pen is proving mightier than the proverbial sword. With it, he signs executive orders that the Founders would have abhorred. With a compliant senate, and a timid federal court system, Obama is engineering his rise to power from a mere president, to a dictator.

Let us not seek comfort in the seemingly small power of that pen. It is the prelude to much greater power. Already powerful and corrupt, Barack Obama seeks total power—and as we already know, the result of that is absolute corruption.

As Jonathan Turley is warning us, we will eventually loathe our present silence. Carpe diem.

Atheism and the Future

by Robert Arvay

Atheism fails on every level. It fails philosophically, morally, politically, and even in the area often considered its strongest suit, scientifically. 

According to atheist philosophy, there is no objective purpose in life, unless one considers metabolism to be a lofty purpose.  According to atheism, when we die, we are extinguished into an oblivion in which we are neither rewarded for our good deeds, nor held accountable for our sins.  Indeed, according to atheist reasoning, there is no such thing as objective good, nor is anything actually evil.  Such concepts are considered to be mere opinions, not facts. 

Morally, atheism cannot debunk the argument made for sociopathy, absurd as that argument is.  The sociopath argues that if his hideous deeds need any justification, his own selfishness is more than justification enough. Atheism has no sufficient answer to that. 

Politically, atheism has been embraced by sociopathic, totalitarian dictators who have murdered millions, enslaved countless more, and condemned their populations to lives of hardship, dominated by brutal suppression of their freedoms. Political systems based in Christian and Jewish teachings, long ago discarded brutality as a substitute for representative government as inconsistent. No degree of brutality is inconsistent with the belief that there is no God. 

Finally, atheism falls back on its final stronghold, science, to demonstrate its supremacy over religious belief. Examined more closely, however, science not only fails to debunk the God of the Bible, it affirms Him. Indeed, recent theories in science are unwittingly acknowledging that physical reality cannot be explained by physical reality alone. The “many universes hypothesis” is a step in that direction, borne of desperation by atheists to find a naturalist material explanation for the divinely fine-tuned nature of our universe.

Ironically, while atheism is bankrupt as a philosophy, those who believe in it can be ordinary, decent people of good will. The irony in this is that benevolent atheists get their benevolence not from atheism, but from traditions that are rooted in religious belief. They may be unconscious of this fact, because Judeo-Christian traditions have permeated our social customs for a very long time.

The danger in atheism is that while our religious traditions are eroding, atheism has increasing influence, displacing much of the social influence of our religious traditions.

As religious teachings continue to decline in influence, atheism will increasingly dominate. This will result in the inevitable implementation of a social utility principle, which is more a form of financial accounting than of justice. Such a principle in turn gives rise to a society that incorporates both the welfare state, and its necessary enabler, the despotic state. Such a state, ever more devoid of conscience, gives rise to massive levels of abortion, euthanasia, and finally, to elimination from society of anyone and everyone who is deemed inconvenient, that is to say, inferior or without utility. In such a society, personal liberties will vanish for the common man. Under the ruse of “the greater good,” individuals will exist only for the state, meaning that they will exist only for the benefit of those at the uppermost levels of power.

Can such a condition actually become a reality? We have already entered its first stage. 

To appearances, the United States is a constitutional republic with democratic values. At least on paper it is. Anyone who actually believes that the ordinary citizen enjoys the rights and powers recognized by the Constitution is woefully misinformed.

Rights explicitly guaranteed to the people and the states under the Constitution are routinely violated by those in power, while so-called rights that are nowhere to be found in the Constitution have been invented based on anything but the explicit pronouncements of that document. Your explicitly stated right to free speech can be selectively taxed out of any meaningful practice (just ask Lois Lerner), while politicians confiscate your hard-earned money and give it to people who have no right to it at all. These people then vote for more of this corruption, as you and your children are saddled with debt, and deprived of your inalienable right to liberty.

This condition could not arise in a culture governed by the Judeo-Christian ethic. It can arise only in a society where citizens have been deceived into trusting that the people in government are wiser and more benevolent than the ordinary citizen. Government is becoming a god, the false god, of secularism.

Excessive power has corrupted the federal government. As its influence continues to increase, its power will become not merely excessive, but absolute—and so will its corruption. 

Robert Arvay is a Contributing Writer to The Patriot’s Notepad