Diplomacy Won't Save Us

Whether you are religious or not, it is important to understand where Islam and Christianity intersect, the beliefs of the Imami Muslims in Iran, and why neither diplomacy nor Israel's nuclear deterrent will keep a nuclear missile from leaving Iran's borders.

The Intersection

Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Bahá'í comprise the Abrahamic religions - meaning that they all trace their beginning back to a covenant God made with Abraham. Islam had it's start in 610AD, when Muhammad began preaching the revelations he believed were from God. These revelations are captured in the Qur'an, regarded as Muhammad's main miracle, and evidence of his prophet-hood. Islam considers Jesus a prophet, along with  Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, while Christianity believes Jesus to be God.

Christians believe that Christ will one day return, saving the world from complete destruction (Matthew 24:22-29). This same prophesy is presented in Daniel 7:13, "I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, the clouds of heaven. One like the Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him." But before Christ's return, 1 John speaks of an Antichrist who will come to deceive and deny that Jesus is the Christ (anointed one, or Messiah). He will even exalt himself as being God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Revelation 19 speaks of a false prophet who performed signs and deceived the people into believing that the Antichrist was God. The Antichrist will emerge, and with the help of the false prophet, he will deceive the people into believing he is God. This period of time is referred to by Christians as the tribulation period, and ends after 7 years with Christ's return.

Islam also believes in a second coming of Jesus. But before Jesus' return, the Mahdi (redeemer, guided one) rules for a time period which some believe to be 7 years, and works to rid the world of evil. Jesus returns to help the Mahdi defeat Masih ad-Dajjal (false messiah) and his followers (Sahih Muslim, 41:7023).

In both accounts, a man rises to power and rules for some time period before the return of Jesus. Christians believe this to be the Antichrist, where as Islam believes him to be the Mahdi.

Imami Muslims And Iran

Imami Muslims are also known as Twelvers. Twelvers believe that the coming Mahdi is the Twelfth Imam that went into occultation in 873AD. An Imam is a political and religious leader of the Ummah, or world Islamic community. He is to reappear at the end of the current age, which signals the countdown to the return of Jesus.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the UN on September 26th, in 2012. He opened with a prayer, asking God to "Hasten the Emergence of [the] Chosen Beloved, Grant Him Good Health and Victory, Make us His Best Companions, and all those who attest to His Rightfulness." Later, he identifies the 'Chosen Beloved': "God Almighty has promised us a man of kindness, a man who loves people and loves absolute justice, a man who is a perfect human being and is named Imam Al-Mahdi, a man who will come in the company of Jesus Christ  (PBUH) and the righteous."

Ahmadinejad Addressing the UN, September 26, 2012

In 2006, Ahmadinejad spoke at the second annual International Conference of Mahdism Doctrine. At this conference, it was determined that the return of the Mahdi could be accelerated through human intervention.

Does Ahmadinejad speak for all Iranians? Quite possibly, most. 99% of all Iranians are Muslim, and 90-95% of the Muslims are Shia. Add to this that 85% of Shia are Twelvers, and we find that approximately 80% of all Iranians are Twelvers. Ahmadinejad was replaced by Hasan Rouhani on August 3rd of this year. Rouhani is considered to be a moderate, yet this does not change Tehran's Twelver ambitions under the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei. Preceding  his inauguration, Rouhani was quoted by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) as stating, "The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for years and the wound should be removed." A goal of nuclear arms under Ahmadinejad is no different under Rouhani.

In March, 2011 Iran's government released a film titled, The Coming is Near:

According [to] the film, Jewish control would last “until the time that the Arabs rid themselves of the influence of others, take back control of their affairs, and once again have strong determination. At that time, they shall conquer the land of Palestine and the Arabs will be victorious and united.” The destruction of Israel is the most important event marking the Mahdi’s return.

This is precisely why many fear a nuclear Iran. Equipped with the belief that the time is near, and that Israel must be destroyed before the Mahdi's return, a nuclear Iran is a danger to the world. Religious belief is not the issue. The issue is what the Twelver's in Iran believe, and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to usher in their redeemer, Imam Mahdi.

Democracy A La Carte

Democracy is not enough. It is a cornerstone, but democracy itself is not what creates a free nation. Freedom does that. Majority rule can lead to tyranny just as minority rule can. In February of 2011, we saw Egypt's dictator step-down after 18 days of civil unrest, demonstration and violence. One year after Morsi was democratically elected, Egypt is still not free. Freedom of religion and speech - the first two freedoms provisioned in the United States Constitution's First Amendment are absent in Egypt. Without freedom, democracy is simply a tool for the majority to control the minority. Tyranny cloaked with a democratic shield.

Update: On July 3rd, Morsi was forced out of control through a military coup d'eta. The Egyptian constitution was subsequently suspended, removing any freedoms promised through it. Certainly, Mubarak was a dictator, and he used a "growing presence of torture and corruption" to quell his enemies. Nonetheless, the minority religious sect of Coptic Christians were safer under Mubarak than Morsi. Where does Egypt go from here? Will democracy be scrapped? Will Egypt elect a secular leader, or once again a theocrat? The Muslim Brotherhood was voted in by a slim majority. It would seem democracy chooses theocracy in Egypt, yet the minority is protected by the military. And as Mao once noted, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

US Declaration of Independence Preamble

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The United States suffered severely by not granting all men equality. The Confederation declared secession from the United States in 1861, and the ensuing civil war claimed over 600,000 lives. The slaves were freed at a devastating cost, yet it took another 100 years before equality of all men was granted with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Martin Luther King - I Have a Dream

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"






Morsi's constitution was signed into law on December 26, 2012. Article 2 establishes Islam as the state religion and that Shari'a is the foundation of legislation. Article 45 provisions freedom of speech, yet insulting someone is prohibited in Article 31. Article 44 prohibits insulting religious messengers and prophets. Article 48 guarantees freedom of the press, as long as it is "in accordance with the basic principles of the State and society." Given that Shari'a is the state's foundation of legislation, the freedom to publish is quarantined by religious law. Women are not equal in Egypt and harassment is becoming an epidemic. 
Freedom without exception is the only way to inspire people, and grow a nation. Insulting someone or their religion is poor form, but for a government to regulate it as well as not grant women equality, seeds the future for continued strife and unrest.
I am confident the United States is suffering in a similar manner. The Patriot Act of 2001 traded away half of the Bill of Rights for safety. Amendments 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are violated every day by the federal government. By creating a DHS police force and deploying them, the United States has now trounced the tenth amendment - State's Rights - as well as created the foundation of a police state. Is it still reasonable to consider America free? I believe so, but something very important happened on 9/11. The United States lost 3000 people to terrorism. We also saw the beginning of our loss of freedom. We began trading it away for security, and the world is only getting more dangerous.

I'm Running For President

My political association has traditionally been Republican, yet as many Americans, I have become disenfranchised, disappointed, and left disillusioned in the 21st century.

Our economy has not recovered from the 2008 recession. Innovation is hindered by our stumbling economy, rendering the US without a new product to lead it's growth. Capitalism seems to be failing us. Yet the reality is, Capitalism is receding, and taking with it, economic growth and job creation. Our foreign policy has been shortsighted from when we entered into the 20th century. After WWI, the world taxed Germany into an inflationary condition it could not recover from, and eventually presented us with WWII. Territory lines drawn after both wars have done nothing but create new wars in the years that followed. I submit that the two world wars of the 20th Century did not provide solutions, only more problems delayed for another generation. We either trivialize and ignore what is before us, or take up arms of responsibility.

I am proud to be an American. I live in a country founded on freedom. A land where others flock to for the promise of liberty and the absence of tyranny. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He also recognized that, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." I ask you, do you fear your government, or does it fear you?

I believe freedom and empowerment fuel innovation. I believe love of mankind should be our greatest social export in order to provide a leadership other countries respect.

I'm running for President. Not because I want to, but because I feel I need to. Our leaders are shortsighted and seemingly lead for personal gain, rather than for the love those that they lead. In the following paragraphs, I attempt to paint an accurate picture of what is ahead of us in the very near future. It is imperative we move quickly to overt collapse and repeat the history of the 20th century.

I see a 16 Trillion dollar debt drowning our country, with no option but to raise it another 1.2 Trillion in 2013 simply to pay our year's obligations. And this rising of the debt waterline is only a backdrop to the fiscal cliff, set to increase taxes an average of $3,500/year for 88% of the US taxpayers at a time when our country is still struggling to establish a multi-quarter growth. Forging forward, dangerously deep into the US economic undercurrent is the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) policy of Quantitative Easing. Starting in 2008, the central bank began purchasing bonds and other assets from financial institutions in order to increase money supply, and thereby encourage banks to lend money. In order to increase the money supply, the FED prints dollars.

The fourth round of Quantitative Easing (QE4) is slated to begin in 2013 at the clip of 85 Billion dollars per month. This will equate to over 1 Trillion dollars for the year, continuing until the unemployment reaches a target of 6.5%, which is expected by 2015. That's 3 Trillion dollars. To be clear, this is the process of printing money at the clip of approximately $32,000/second. The danger of such steep increases in money supply, is inflation. One of two scenarios could possibly occur: Prices begin to increase too rapidly, and inflation turns into hyperinflation. The second possibility is stagflation - inflation coupled with high unemployment. This is what happened in the 70's, and pushed mortgage rates to a peak of just over 18%. Hyperinflation, is loosely defined as a monthly inflation rate of 50%. This is what devastated the Weimar Republic (Germany) economy post WWI, and is widely believed to usher in the Nazi party bringing Adolf Hitler into power.

While our country steadfastly approaches the real possibility of economic collapse, Nuclear capability is being born out of the embers of past wars and has triggered a new era of global instability.

North Korea's arming in the 21st century has been ignored, except for the occasional news report, and seemingly useless UN sanctions. North Korea has successfully detonated two nuclear devices. It is estimated that North Korea currently has 6 nuclear weapons, increasing to 48 by 2015. On December 12th of this year, North Korea successfully launched a 3 stage rocket into space, putting a satellite into orbit, demonstrating intercontinental capability. North Korea's provocative arming seems to be driven by its desire to reunify with South Korea, dating back to 1973. In addition, UN sanctions 1718 and 1874 imposed after North Korea's two nuclear tests, have only acted to encourage North Korea's arming. An official newspaper stated new sanctions would be considered as a "declaration of war." Escalation is assured. North Korea argues that the US has failed in it's disarmament, since it hasn't removed North Korea from its "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list. The US will not remove North Korea until it moves forward with disarmament. Stalemate. China is an ally to North Korea, and the US is an ally to South Korea. Conflict must not happen.

The Middle East is evolving in a manner we cannot ignore. The fall of Mubarak in Egypt ushered in the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011, and with it, an al Qaeda-like radical Muslim movement operating in the Sinai Peninsula. This Sinai movement eventually led to an attack on Israel in August of 2012. Egypt's response was to violate the Camp David Accords of 1979, and militarize the Sinai.

North of Israel, Syria is entrenched in a civil war, inspired by the same Arab Spring that started in Tuninsia, and fueled Morsi into power in Egypt. Uprisings have erupted all across the Middle East, including Jordan, which along with Egypt, is one of only two Middle Eastern countries holding peace agreements with Israel. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is divided on accepting Israel's right to exist, putting future peace at risk. Iran's Ahmadinejad denies Iran wants nuclear weapons, but this is the same man that dismisses the Holocaust as a myth. Israel is once again, quickly becoming a target by those on each of it's borders and beyond. In an era of nuclear capability, peace in the Middle East is more important now than ever. The World has miss-understood the Middle-East for centuries, and unknowingly created a design for the unrest we see now through the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Neither the United States, Europe, or the world can ignore the unrest in the Middle East, else we risk another World War.

Our Country is divided across social, economic and foreign policy. It is my intention to address all of these with respectful debate, research, and unequalled ambition. I don't believe the answer is possible in today's Republican party. Nor do I believe the Democrats, or Libertarians will be able to address the long haul to world peace and economic stability. All three parties are weighted down by idealism. It is what provides them initial direction, yet it blinds them of perspective. There is no one in the crows-nest  to provide vision. Instead, our leaders attempt to captain our ship into an unknown direction. Nonetheless, I'm convinced we all have something to contribute. It's time to fold the best of our ideals into a clairvoyant and pragmatic platform. In the coming weeks, with your help, I will detail a platform that the leaders of freedom can embrace, and that which will ensure the United States remains strong, and true to the world evolving around us.

Who is Jesus?

This is an introductory post to frame my quest to determine who Jesus was, and if I should pay more attention to the red letters in my bible.

Within my Christian upbringing, I was taught that Jesus was the Messiah of the old testament prophesies. In the new testament, Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, Son of God, and in John 8:24, refers to himself as "I am he". Jesus' reference to "I am" is believed to refer back to the name that God told Moses (Exodus 3:14) to use when referring to him, "This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."" Although Jesus never plainly states he is God, he does say he is God's son, and in John 14:9, tells Philip, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father". If Jesus and God are not the same, they certainly behold a tethered and representative relationship.

In order to answer the question of who Jesus is, it seems prudent to first determine who God is. My resources are the Old Testament, New Testament, and several books written by past and contemporary authors.

My first foray will be into the beginning - Creationism, Big Bang, or their hybrid. Do they have something in common? The Big Bang Theory hypothesizes that the universe began as heat and dense matter, giving way to a rapid expansion, a la, big bang. The first line in Genesis states, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Logically, before "the beginning", there was God. My question for either case, is where did the matter come from? In the former case, it was just there, building up heat. In the latter case, God created it. I imagine it's possible to marry the two ideas in which God creates the conditions for the Big Bang. In either case, we either vest our faith into heat and matter's ability to create itself, or that a supreme being took nothing and created something.

A concept useful in mathematics, physics, as well as theology, or atheism, is infinity. In geometry, the equation y=1/x creates an asymptotic graph. No matter how big x becomes, y never reaches zero. Close becomes relative, it would seem. In order to partially resolve this difficult concept, we consider that y=1/∞ is basically zero. We trust that infinity exists, at least in theory so we can get on with the mathematics of Calculus and building bridges, dams, radios, and cell phones.

In the same manner that we regard infinity in mathematics, we must use it to accept our theological beginning. Deuteronomy 33:27 refers to God as being eternal, which is another way of saying he has and always will be, or that his existence is infinite. Considering the beginning as characterized by the Big Bang, we could presumably estimate the beginning by the speed of which galaxies are moving apart. Nonetheless, that doesn't allow us to duck acceptance of an infinite universe. Even if we do not believe in a supreme being, we must accept that time and space are infinite. By regarding the beginning as exemplified by the 'bang', we ignore the infinite time before, used to create the correct conditions of the expansion.

Infinity is the one thing man cannot fully grasp, since the very nature of the concept is itself not containable. We cannot produce a finite value for 1/∞, nor can we comprehend a true starting point for time. We must have faith in infinity, for it produces answers if we do.