6/5/2018 - Arthur Schaper Townhall.com
The state of California
has descended into a modern-day version of Dante’s Inferno, where treachery of
all kinds occupies the bottom circle. Public sector unions are running (or
rather ruining) the state into bankruptcy, betraying the public trust while
charging the taxpayers for the perverse privilege. Republicans collude with the
supermajority of Democrats to raise taxes, fees, and unrelenting regulatory
burdens.
The public schools
indoctrinate their young charges to hate this country and the rule of law.
Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already
depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and
public safety for all citizens. The federal government has filed lawsuits
against Sanctuary California, and ICE is rounding up illegals in their homes
and in workplaces. However, demonic pro-illegal forces still parade in the
streets and cross our borders, defying American sovereignty. Larger cities have
more homeless than homes for citizens.
The natural disasters
are hitting crisis level, too. The Bible depicts torturous flames with respite
in hell without respite, (Luke 16: 24). So too parched conditions have engulfed
California. Wildfires have become a year-round terror, yet the state’s
leadership refuses to prepare emergency water storage. This past week, two
hundred firefighters had to quell another massive conflagration in south Orange
County, and summer hasn’t even begun yet. To make matters drier, Gov. Brown
signed legislation to make the current drastic water rationing permanent!
Even wealthy coastal
elites have found that the cost of living in California is slowly exceeding its
value. Money can’t create water, and financial gain provided nothing for West
Los Angeles socialites when a few homeless transients set a blaze along the 405
Freeway overpass along the Santa Monica mountains.
All of this is a
testimony to the damage wrought by progressive policies which have transformed
California into a picture of hell. That’s precisely what Evangelical preacher
Franklin Graham called California … or at least that’s what he called the
sanctuary cities. During an interview on the Todd Starnes Show, Graham commented:
"People are
leaving the state. The tax base is eroding. They are turning their once
beautiful cities into sanctuary cities, which are just a little picture of
Hell," Graham said. "Just go to San Francisco and go to this
once-beautiful city and see what has happened to it."
But why did the son of
the renowned Reverend Billy Graham take time to comment on the harrowing
horrors of California? For his latest Gospel Crusade, he visited ten cities in
the once-Golden State. Starting on May 20 in Escondido (one of several cities
to challenge SB 54, aka the Sanctuary State law over the past three month),
Graham is bringing the message of the Good News to the dispirited wasteland
along the Left Coast.
Returning to Pastor
Graham’s signature statement from the Starnes interview, finally a pastor of
stature and renown is condemning sanctuary city policies, and a welcome
response from the all-too-quiet church leadership in California and across the
country. Pastors should be the first to denounce this misnamed, misleading
agenda. The concept of sanctuary comes from the Bible, better known as “cities
of refuge” (cf. Numbers 35:11-28), locations reserved for those who had
accidentally killed someone. To avoid retribution, they would flee to those
cities.
In California,
sanctuary policies bar local and state law enforcement from cooperating with
federal immigration officials to arrest and deport illegal aliens. These cities
are not safeguarding otherwise innocent people, but are protecting criminals
who have broken into the United States and reside illegally to this day.
Pundits left and right contend that these policies actually protect otherwise
law-abiding residents to seek help and report crimes. Nothing could be further
from the truth.
However, is it fair to
tie the long list of hellish outcomes from these left-wing enclaves to their
refusal to enforce federal immigration laws?
Yes.
What has happened to
sanctuary city San Francisco, for example? The progressivism that made God
nothing and man’s “ideas” everything created the s***-hole dystopia that
resides there today. It’s an overpriced progressive utopia, to put it charitably.
For the vast-majority of residents, even for those who can afford it, a salary
of $100,000 a year barely pays the rent. Roommates doubling up is the norm,
especially among the Big Tech interns who take the bus to Silicon Valley to
work all day on the latest app for the Google, Facebook, EBay overlords.
For the price they pay
to live in the city, San Franciscans aren’t getting their money’s worth.
Intravenous drug needles litter the streets everywhere. Homelessness is more
common than homeownership. “S***hole” better describes the streets of the city,
where the feces piles have so overwhelmed the streets, that visitors receive
maps on how best to navigate away from the crap and corruption. Street fights
among transients and the mentally ill have exploded, rampant moral decline has
overshadowed the once great city. Tourists find enough to see, then flee.
Freedom of speech and
freedom of religion have lost their place, even though Graham’s latest crusades
have succeeded in otherwise unfriendly territory, like Berkeley. Last year, the
Patriot Prayer movement, headed by Joey Gibson, attempted to throw two rallies
for freedom of speech and thought. The elected officials of San Francisco
(including Nancy Pelosi) and the now-deceased mayor Ed Lee, smeared the peaceful
program as a “White supremacy rally.” Gibson is half Japanese, by the
way.
Where Gibson had tried
and failed, Graham’s message of hope accomplished peaceful gatherings with a
call to action to California’s Christians. And I say it’s about time. There
have been flickers of hope in spite of the deranged left-wing agenda ravaging
my home state. Californians in general, and Christians in particular, need to
step up. They are called to be light in a dark, hellish world, but nothing good
will happen if they don’t vote for their values, then educate the public how to
fight against the devilish lawlessness foisted upon us by our political leaders
and the cultural elites running—or rather ruining—the state.
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