“Why have we had such a decline in moral climate? I submit to you that a major factor has been a change in the philosophy which has been dominant, a change from belief in individual responsibility to belief in social responsibility. If you adopt the view that a man is not responsible for his own behavior, that somehow society is responsible, why should he seek to make his behavior good?”
–Milton Friedman.
There is a lot of complaining in our society today. There is a lot of bad behavior in our society today. It is maddening to hear and see it, day in and day out. We are a rather ungrateful, impatient, greedy and envious society. The day after Elon Musk became the world’s 1st trillionaire due to SPACE X public offering, Democrats reacted by vowing to ensure that he would not be a trillionaire long, and that he would be the last trillionaire. Sigh. Sometimes it is hard to remember that we live in the freest, most prosperous society ever to exist.
Today, I am sharing 3 items. The 1st item was provided to me by a dear reader, and focuses on perspective and gratitude. The 2nd item concerns the Left’s willingness to sacrifice religious and property rights to the mob’s desire to express itself. And the 3rd item puts the lie to U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s (D. Tx.) supposed piety and Christian grounding. Enjoy!
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“ WE HAVE A PROBLEM: This is a well written and thought out article written by a 26 yr old college student by the name of Alyssa Ahlgren, who’s in grad school for her MBA. What a GREAT perspective . . .
My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!
I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.
I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it.
Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought.
We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!
Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??
Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [Puddin’head!] recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”
Never saw American prosperity! Let that sink in.
When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.
My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.
Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.
People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.
Why? The answer is this,?? my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War or we didn’t see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.
We don’t know what it’s like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.” #pleaseshare”
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What’s a little mob attack on a church service?
St. Paul city attorney’s case dismissal reassures violent leftists
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (June 7, 2026).
If you are a left-wing activist living in St. Paul, Minnesota, you now have official state sanction to invade a church, scream at parishioners, terrify children and harass people on their way out of worship services.
All that happened at Cities Church on Jan. 18, when a mob invaded the Southern Baptist church during a protest because one of its pastors is an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Protesters reduced children to tears by screaming at them, “Do you know your parents are Nazis? They are going to burn in hell.” Others accused the parishioners of being “rich” and “White.”
On Wednesday, because none of the 39 people arrested had committed physical violence or vandalism, St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao dismissed all state charges.
“This decision should not be interpreted as an endorsement of unlawful behavior or public disorder,” Ms. Kao said. “The right to peacefully protest is protected, as is the right to exercise one’s religious beliefs. Balancing these equally important rights is paramount to our decision today.”
What part of shutting down a worship service and harassing worshippers constitutes “balancing”? Letting the mob get away with it?
“They had stormed into the house of God, a place of peace and refuge, and they defiled it with rage,” Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell wrote in an op-ed in which he offered an olive branch to the protesters, writing that the love of Jesus “is a joy that opens wide its arms to our cities, even to those who raised their fists against us.”
Although the defendants still face charges brought by a federal grand jury, the city attorney’s dismissal of the cases sends a loud signal to heavily subsidized and coordinated left-wing protest networks: “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back, especially here in one of the most progressive sanctuary cities in the nation.”
The church was invaded after days of protests against ICE roundups of thousands of illegal alien criminals in Minneapolis, during which two anti-ICE activists were killed.
One of those in the Cities Church mob in St. Paul was former CNN news anchor Don Lemon, who had conferred with the activists and given them donuts before the church invasion.
Although he insists that he was merely a journalist livestreaming the protest, Mr. Lemon was arrested on charges of violating state and federal civil rights laws. The federal charges include “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference and physical obstruction.”
Still, the church invasion was apparently no big deal to Ms. Kao, a longtime progressive activist who spearheaded diversity, equity and inclusion policies at the Minnesota Bar Association.
In practice, DEI means open discrimination against Whites, males, Christians and conservatives — and, increasingly, against Jews.
Catholic League President Bill Donohue wrote a letter Thursday to Ms. Kao, asking why the church invasion did not constitute a First Amendment violation.
“If someone organized a group of protesters to take over your office, would you find that acceptable?” he wrote. “There would be no violence — just in-your-face invective and intimidation. If this were to happen, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, morally or legally.”
Mr. Donohue also wrote a letter Thursday to acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, asking him to make the Cities Church case a priority.
Noting that he himself had attended a rally a week earlier to protest hatred against Jews in New York City, Mr. Donohue wrote: “Today I am rallying to the side of our Protestant brothers in St. Paul who have been targeted by hate mongers. If people of faith cannot practice their religion without intimidation and interference, it means their First Amendment right to religious liberty means nothing.”
Antisemitic incidents are increasing in places such as New York, London, Paris and Sydney.
Mosques are not immune either. In San Diego on May 18, two radicalized teenagers driven by White supremacist and Nazi ideologies killed three people at an Islamic center. Evidence indicates the two shooters pretty much hate everyone, especially women and Jews, for which they blame even the rise of Islam.
After the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent retaliatory attacks in the Gaza Strip, Jewish students on U.S. college campuses feared for their lives as pro-Hamas demonstrators erected anti-Zionist tent cities and told Jews they were no longer welcome.
College administrators were so worried about not appearing woke that they failed to crack down on the harassers, leading to congressional hearings and several high-ranking college officials forced to step down.
It is important to confront official indifference to attacks on religious liberty and law and order. Otherwise, it just metastasizes.
The same sort of mob that attacked Cities Church, led by paid agitators, has been rioting at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. The agitators are either confident that nothing will happen to them or hoping to trigger another fatality that they can exploit.
As of this writing, law enforcement officers in cities, states and the federal government have managed to avoid such an outcome.
As for the St. Paul prosecutor, Mr. Donohue finished his letter to her this way: “I hasten to add that your workplace does not merit the special protections afforded a house of worship. But that wouldn’t stop you from screaming to high heaven if protesters invaded your space.”
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Pastor’s open letter to Senate candidate James Talarico says it all
BY: Everett Piper, The Washington Times (June 7, 2026).
The list of biblical absurdities from James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, continues to grow.
In addition to his claims that God is “nonbinary,” that “the Bible is silent about abortion” and that there are “six different genders,” we now have his contention that Mary’s consent to the virgin birth is a story about her being “pro-choice.”
How should we respond?
Well, sometimes someone else has already said it better than you ever could. The following is an abbreviated version of an open letter written by Jeff Mullen, a pastor from Nevada, and posted to his social media on May 29.
If you are a faithful Christian (or even someone who is just curious about what the Christian faith is all about), this is the best thing you will read today.
“Dear Representative Talarico,
I do not write as a political opponent, but as a fellow citizen concerned about the growing confusion surrounding faith, truth, and Scripture. Because you frequently speak about Christianity, quote the Bible and present your views as expressions of Christian conviction, [many people] naturally assume they are hearing biblical truth.
My concern is that some of the positions you advocate may lead sincere people away from the clear teaching of Scripture and toward a version of Christianity that reflects the spirit of the age more than the Word of God. …
For that reason, I offer these thoughts — not as an attack, but as a pastoral appeal for biblical clarity and faithfulness.
Concerning your statement that God is nonbinary: Throughout Scripture, God consistently reveals Himself as Father. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, ‘Our Father in heaven’ (Matthew 6:9). Christ is the Son, and the Church is His Bride. These are not accidental descriptions but part of God’s self-revelation.
Every generation faces the temptation to reshape God according to its own values. Ancient cultures carved idols from stone. Modern cultures often carve them from ideology. Faithful Christianity begins by allowing God to define Himself rather than redefining Him according to cultural preferences. We do not improve upon divine revelation; we submit to it.
Concerning your statement that the Bible is silent on abortion: Scripture speaks clearly about life in the womb. David wrote, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). God told Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you’ (Jeremiah 1:5). John the Baptist responded to Christ while still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:41).
The consistent testimony of Scripture is that unborn children are known by God, created by God, and valued by God. The question is not whether the word abortion appears in the Bible.
The question is whether the child in the womb is a human life bearing God’s image.
Scripture answers that question repeatedly and clearly. Christians have historically defended the unborn not because of politics, but because every human life belongs to God.
Concerning your use of Mary’s consent to defend abortion rights: Mary’s response to Gabriel was not an assertion of autonomy but an expression of surrender. When told of God’s plan, she replied, ‘I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38).
The entire story of the incarnation celebrates the acceptance and protection of life within the womb. … Mary’s example is not about the right to end life but the willingness to trust God with it. To use the incarnation as support for abortion requires reversing the very message the story proclaims.
Concerning your statements about biological sex: Scripture teaches that humanity was intentionally created as male and female. Genesis declares, ‘Male and female He created them’ (Genesis 1:27), and Jesus reaffirmed that truth (Matthew 19:4). The Christian understanding of sex is rooted not in cultural tradition but in God’s design. Our identity is not ultimately discovered through self-definition but through submission to the One who created us. … [Mr. Talarico], the deeper concern behind [all] these issues is [what appears to be your attempt to reshape] Christianity so it aligns more comfortably with [your culture’s values rather than God’s]. … Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would seek teachers who tell them what they want to hear rather than what God has said (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
The role of Christian leaders is not to make Scripture acceptable to the culture. It is to faithfully proclaim Scripture, whether the culture applauds or rejects it.
Politics is temporary. Elections are temporary. Legislative victories are temporary. Souls are not. Scripture teaches that those who influence others bear a greater responsibility before God. … Jesus warns against leading others astray. These truths should humble every pastor, teacher … and [politician] who [publicly] speaks in God’s name.
My concern is not your political party, [Mr. Talarico]. My concern is whether the Jesus being presented to the public is the Jesus revealed in Scripture. …
America does not need progressive Christianity or conservative Christianity. America needs biblical Christianity — faithful to God’s Word, centered on Christ, and unafraid to proclaim truth in love.
Respectfully,
Jeff Mullen
Pastor emeritus
Henderson, Nevada”
GFK
Observations From The Fifth Estate 