Radio broadcast 24 July 05, Talking Points
Series: Is Freedom Christian?

Broadcast – War is biblical
CW – Intro
As usual we are going to give you some updates related
to previous programs before beginning this program on
war.
To start with we are going to give you information
related to the subject of Eminent Domain.

Ford – For years foreigners have been reinvesting some
profits made out of America back into America. Most
people do not know most nations do not allow
foreigners to buy real property, but this is not the
case in the good ol’ USA. There are now more rich
foreign investors than ever before. Thanks to American
industry going overseas and restrictions on our
citizen’s free enterprise, the number of American
millionaires decreased by 100,000, while at the same
time the number of foreign millionaires increased by
200,000.
Foreign investments and upward valuations of property,
with increased property taxes, have caused people on
lower incomes and social security to leave their
former hometowns. They cannot afford to live there
anymore. This is starting to happen right here in our
area. In at least some places increases in property
assessments are also serving to cause the welfare
rolls to increase.
As speculated with the Supreme Court eminent domain
decision, it's starting too look likely "development"
is going to be the next investment choice of
high-income foreign people, those places where private
property is taken from its true owners and awarded to
developers of high-end scheme projects.
Some Americans are helping foreign investors and
people with deep pockets to put the squeeze on their
“fellow Americans.” I for one am disgusted with people
whose greed apparently “knows no bounds.” People who
are profiting of the sale of America would sale their
own mothers for another nickel in their pockets.
Earlier this year, in Miami, real estate marketer
Melissa Rubin took some South American clients to a
party to promote a new condo that developers hoped to
sell before a shovel hit the ground. Even by Miami
standards, the party was exotic. There were tigers,
chimps, human flamethrowers, jumbo TVs, and the usual
red-carpet food and drink. There was also a
bikini-clad woman covered in chocolate.  In many
cases, buyers are trying to get their money into a
dollar-denominated hiding place. A lot of South
American investors are either rich from the drug
business or from the poverty of the people in their
native countries.

CW – A lot of the things done to promote American
property is close to being like old  fashioned
debauchery. That says a lot about the people doing the
selling and buying. 

Ford – Yes it does. A lot of these people are not nice
people and they are looking for retreats if things go
bad in their own countries.
In Miami, some condo buildings have as much as
two-thirds of their units owned by foreigners. Call it
America for Sale. Although there are no numbers
readily available indicating how much foreigners are
pouring into the United States to buy condos, there
are some eye-opening anecdotal signs:
- In Las Vegas, wealthy foreign buyers, mostly from
Mexico, have snapped up 12 percent of the condos at
Icon, twin 48-story towers that are now almost sold
out even though they won't start construction until
next month.
- New York City real estate brokers estimate up to 33
percent of new condos sold in the city are going to
non-Americans, especially Europeans, who one broker
describes as "very aggressive."
- Asian buyers including Vietnamese are jumping in,
too. Real estate agents are flying to Shanghai,
Beijing, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur to talk up the
property market. Several new Miami condos have Asian
names such as Mei, the mythical Chinese symbol for
beauty to appeal to Asian buyers.
Part of the allure of American real estate is the
cost. While prices may seem high to Americans, to
Europeans and others the real estate feels like a
bargain, particularly when figured in euros or pounds
sterling.
Miami has a history of attracting Latin American
investment. The weather reminds them of home, and
they've visited Miami's shops for years, lugging home
everything from appliances to designer sneakers. In
addition, Spanish may be the first language of south
Florida instead of English. And the South American
elite view Miami as a safe place to stockpile
dollar-denominated assets, whether in cash or real
estate. Almost every Latin American who buys a
condominium here has in the back of their mind,
'That's my safe refuge. If I have to leave, that's
where I can go.' "

CW – What you are saying is serious, but you were also
telling me about a link between eminent domain and
euthanasia.

Ford – Yes, it seems almost unreal. But this was not
my idea. I am just sharing what I learned from others.
Michael Arnold Glueck and Robert J. Cihak, known as
The Medicine Men
They claim the Kelo v. New London case strikes at the
heart of our freedoms and, if left unchallenged,
imperils our right to life itself.
Let's look at the conclusions of the court. 
In the Kelo decision, the nine justices on the Supreme
Court voted 5-4 that the city of New London,
Connecticut, could take away Susette Kelo's property,
including her house, and transfer it to the New London
Development Corporation, a private business, for
possible real estate development in the future. 
Their conclusion is a frightening "revision" of the
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which explicitly and plainly limits government in the
prohibition "nor shall private property be taken for
public use, without just compensation." Public use
includes projects such as public roads or public
buildings not private real estate development. 
It may seem a stretch to get from
government-taking-private-land to
government-taking-a-person's-life. 
Yet the attitudes and policy positions used to justify
this taking of personal homes strike us as
transferable to the control of government over
individual life. 
For example, Claire Gaudiani, former president of the
New London Development Corporation, tried to justify
the destruction of Kelo's neighborhood by saying,
"Anything that's working in our great nation is
working because somebody left skin on the sidewalk." 
Obviously, Gaudiani preferred that somebody else's
skin be left on the pavement, not her own. 

CW – There are a lot of people who don’t mind if other
people get hurt just as long as it does not happen to
them.

Ford – That’s right. People being hurt by developers
has been going on awhile. Several movies have been
made that had a theme concerning people being hurt
because urban revitalization and such.
This type of justification began in the 1954 Berman v.
Parker case when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the
social engineering goal of revitalizing "blighted"
urban areas was enough to allow condemnation of
buildings and property for real estate development. 
The Constitution's "public use" requirement was
transmuted into "public purpose." Subsequently, as the
Institute for Justice notes, "public use became public
purpose, which then became public benefit." 
Taking property because it's blighted or could serve
some "better" use has parallels with allowing killing
of some human beings because they are weak and
"marginal" so that others can "get on with their
lives." 
A court condemned Terri Schiavo to death precisely
because her life was deemed too blighted to preserve. 
Mothers are now allowed, nay encouraged, to abort
their unborn children if they are deemed inconvenient.

This latest Supreme Court decision provides new
excuses for taking private property, and potentially
opens the door to another justification for ending
human life. 
Most individual parcels of land provide relatively
little tax money for the government. Our Supreme Court
has now ruled that a local government's quest for more
money is a good reason for allowing them to remove a
private person's property and hand it to another
private entity, based merely on a possibility that it
might make the local government richer. 
Following a similar logic, sick or infirm people whose
needs are "too expensive" could be required to forfeit
their lives in the name of the public benefit. This
concern is not an abstract fear. Poverty and weakness
are already justifications for euthanasia in some
countries. For example, the Netherlands affords few
protections to an individual who is construed to be a
financial burden to the government or a family. 
American state and federal judges and courts are
achieving euthanasia goals through the back door of
the utilitarian judicial thinking used in the Kelo and
Schiavo cases. 
Our courts are becoming agents of the destruction of
our "unalienable rights." If the courts continue to
alter and abolish our Constitution, we, the People,
must "alter or abolish" the courts or suffer further
loss of "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred
Honor." 

CW – What you have told us is kind of scary. Imagine
what it is like for people trying to cope with a world
falling apart without the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ford – Yes, in a world with this kind of mindset, and
which is also full of terrorism, wars and rumors of
wars, a person without Christ must find life a very
insecure experience.

CW – Speaking of wars, the subject of this broadcast.
You had promised to share some things about the
subject of war.

Ford – My pleasure. The business of war was my
business for much of my working life. Needless to say,
I have spent a lot of time not only training for war
but thinking about it. Will Durant, philosopher and
chronicler of philosophy once said: “Science tells us
how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the death rate
in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only
wisdom – desire coordinated in the light of all
experience – can tell us when to heal and when to
kill.” His mistake was that he did not reach for the
source of all wisdom whose book is called the Bible.
There he would have found the true wisdom concerning
the practice of war.

CW – I take it that you are not opposed to war?

Ford – Not at all. War is the necessary evil of a
fallen world. War is not confined to the world of men
either. The Bible tells us that with the rebellion of
one-third of the angels, there was war in heaven.
Scripture teaches us that in the endeavors of men who
would serve God there is a continuing spiritual war
taking place between the evil forces that would keep
men from doing so and God’s holy angels.

CW – Sounds like you have been doing some thinking
about the subject of war. Tell me how you got started
with the process of defining your ideas.

Ford – I was motivated to try to systematize my ideas
about war and what I was doing first by encountering
the war protestors when returning home from overseas.
I had been a supporter of fighting communism before
entering service but their mindless opposition to the
Vietnam War encouraged me to not be as they were.
Doers without understanding of what they had
undertaken.

CW – Yes, I remember you won the VFW Voice of
Democracy award for your High School. I saw it in your
office.

Ford – That was a long time ago, but it was a great
honor. I have tried to be worthy of it.
	Anyway, later I was on a flight to the West Coast to
act as a war games controller. I was in uniform,
quietly reading my Bible. As we traveled with the lady
in the seat beside me engaged me in conversation. She
asked me if I were a Christian? I said that I was.
Then she told me that so was she, but she was a
pacifist because of her faith. I told her that I was a
military man because of mine. This got her curiosity
up and she asked me how that could be? I told her that
the USA was the greatest missionary sending nation in
the world; not only that it was the greatest protector
of religious freedom in the world as well. A nation
like that deserves to be defended. 
	This Kansas farmer’s wife told me the usual line that
goes “if everyone would disarm and lay down their
weapons there would be no more war.” I told her that
people who do evil are not going to disarm and for
that reason neither was I. Then I pointed out that the
only reason she could hold her pacifist notions in
safety was because there were people like me standing
in the way of those who would come and take their
farm, enslave her and her husband or worse, and make
them labor for their pleasure. No nation that ever
depended on the good graces of another has long been
free.

CW - That is interesting. Did you convert her?

Ford – No person who has held emotion laden delusions
ever surrenders them willingly. But when she left the
plane in Chicago she certainly had something to think
about, and we parted amicably.
	
CW – Tell me about the subject of war and how it
relates to the Bible.

Ford – You would think God would have used a warrior
like David to make a fundamental statement about war
in the Scripture, but He did not. Instead, He uses
Solomon, the king whose reign was characterized as one
of peace and construction instead of war and
destruction. Solomon said:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every
purpose under the heaven: 
a time to be born, and a time to die; 
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is
planted; 
a time to kill, and a time to heal; 
a time to break down, and a time to build up; 
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; 
a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather
stones together; 
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing; 
a time to get, and a time to lose; 
a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 
a time to rend, and a time to sew; 
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 
a time to love, and a time to hate; 
a time of war, and a time of peace.
 
CW – Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Some people think that is
a very negative book.

Ford – I think people who hold that opinion are in
error. Ecclesiastes shows me where people go wrong
when they rely on their own understanding instead of
seeking to know and apply the wisdom of God. For many
people the study of this book helps them to put life
into context. It concludes with the words:
 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear
God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole
duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with
every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it
be evil.”
The sureness of righteous judgment is foundational
teaching of Scripture. It is only negative for those
who hate and are at war with the true God.

CW – Do you think that in every war one side hates
God?

Ford – In every war there is a wrong. It does not
follow that in every war there is a right. Remember
Will Durant? He misidentified wisdom as “desire
coordinated in the light of all experience.” Had he
but read the seventh chapter of Ecclesiastes, he would
have found his definition of wisdom severely lacking.

CW – Has America always been involved in just wars,
wars on the side of God?

Ford – No. I think much of America’s wars have served
God’s purpose, and that many have gone to war have
done so with the highest of intentions, but this does
not mean we have always been in the right. I do think
that the first and second World Wars were fought on
the right side, in God’s will, even though the motives
of some of our leaders was questionable. But I think
we are better served talking about the principles for
making war than analyzing specific wars.

CW – Yes, let’s talk about the principles for making
war. 

Ford – First of all, I think we should make it clear
that while people often use their Christian faith as
an excuse for pacifism, God does not present Himself
as a pacifist in the Bible. In Exodus 15:3, you have
recorded their a song of Moses in which he says: 
The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name
One of the titles of God is “the Lord of Hosts.”

CW- Tell the audience what the title “Lord of Hosts”
means.

Ford – It means that He is the commander of armies. In
other words God has His own armies which He commands.
The church is also presented as part of God’s army in
Scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ is the Captain or
commander of the Host. Some people want to make out
Jesus to be a pacifist but the Word of God teaches
that when He comes back in Judgment He is bringing His
hosts with Him, and He is coming as a conqueror.  He
came the first time meek and lowly as the suffering
Savior, the next time He sets foot on the earth it
will be as the conquering King, Messiah Lord Jesus.

CW – So when He comes back there will be a war against
evil.

Ford – Actually it wont be much of a war. Though He is
coming back with the angelic armies and the previously
raptured church, He is going to defeat all the armies
of the world drawn up against Him all by Himself.
CW – Why do you suppose the Lord Jesus is going to do
all the fighting at that time?

Ford – During the ages the angels have been involved
in spiritual warfare with satanic forces, and since
creation men have struggled with evil sometimes at
God’s express command. Sometimes God has intervened
directly such as in the delivery of the Jewish people
from the bondage of Egypt and in the destruction of
Pharaohs army in the Red Sea. But nothing men or
angels could ever do yielded final victory. Wars to
end all wars do no more than restrict evil or set it
back for awhile. The Mystery of Iniquity continues to
work. God has scheduled two direct confrontations with
evil that will settle the matter of evil and sin for
all eternity.

CW – That is an exciting thing to look forward to.
In our previous broadcasts on the subject of Is
Freedom Christian you have said there were parallels
between spiritual principles and things we see in the
world.
I suppose that you are also going to tell me that the
wars of men are a shadow of the spiritual?

Ford – Yes indeed. I think that sometimes the wars of
men are a reflection of spiritual wars, unseen wars
between angels and devils that are taking place at the
same time. I have some evidence that this is true, and
perhaps we can talk about this later if our
conversations take us in that direction. When we open
up the subject of war for discussion, we have broached
no light subject. For instance I do believe that God
has been actively involved in the life of America
since its beginning, which also includes the subject
of America’s wars. I think there are purposes in what
God allows to happen and in what He disallows. We knew
when we first discussed this subject that one thirty
minute period would be inadequate to cover the subject
of war and the fact we have just began to discuss the
very most fundamental principles of war in this
session proves it.

CW – So in this broadcast you have claimed:
1. God is not opposed to war when it suits His
purpose.
2. God is the commander of armies.
3. There are principles on which going to war is based
or justified.
4. Wars can serve God’s eternal purposes.

Ford – Yes, that’s right.

CW – Do you have anything more to offer before I close
out this broadcast?
Ford – Yes,  Government  has one essential
responsibility that it must meet or it is no longer a
viable government and needs to be changed. That is it
must exist to protect the people. It is for this
reason God gives governments the “power of the sword.”
Regarding that Alexander Hamilton said 
"Of all the cares or concerns of government, the
direction of war most peculiarly demands those
qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a
single hand. The direction of war implies the
direction of the common strength; and the power of
directing and employing the common strength, forms a
usual and essential part in the definition of the
executive authority."
- It is because this statement is true that we give
our President the title of the Commander in Chief of
the armed forces.
	George Washington knowing that the battle is the
Lord’s said of the American Revolution:
"Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause,
and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands
Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and
noble Actions - The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now
upon us..." 
	and, Ronald Reagan reminding us of the heritage of
our past with the hand of God upon it said:
"If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. 
I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory
that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the
American spirit.  Let's start with some basics:  more
attention to American history and a greater emphasis
on civic ritual."
-	All of this is important to our discussion of the
subject of war.

CW – concluding remarks.