FaithWalkers
The FaithWalker’s Daily is a quick review of key news stories of the day from the perspective of a conservative Christ-follower living in, but not of, the world.
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An Inauguration Prayer for President Obama
Rather than offer a ton of links to the many stories covering President Obama’s Inauguration yesterday, I’ll simply share one: An Inauguration Prayer for President Obama. I’m sure I’ll have criticism of his policies in the coming 1,460 days remaining in his second term. But for now, a heart-felt prayer.
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Mexican Vigilante Groups Try to Fight Cartels — without Decent Guns
The Basics —
Mexican citizens are banding together in some areas to fight back against the drug cartels after the government has failed to provide protection for their communities. Because citizens cannot own guns in Mexico, they are doing so with ancient weapons and outdated firearms.
Dig Deeper:
- Via Fox News, Key graph:
The young man at the roadside checkpoint wept softly behind the red bandanna that masked his face. At his side was a relic revolver, and his feet were shod in the muddy, broken boots of a farmer.
Haltingly, he told how his cousin’s body was found in a mass grave with about 40 other victims of a drug gang. Apparently, the cousin had caught a ride with an off-duty soldier and when gunmen stopped the vehicle, they killed everyone on the car.
“There isn’t one of us who hasn’t felt the pain … of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back,” said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as “just another representative of the people of the mountain.”
Now he has joined hundreds of other men in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero who have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings that local police are unable, or unwilling, to stop.
- Some had only machetes, but most had old single-shot, bolt-action rifles.
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Motivation? “The commander of the Las Mesas vigilantes explains their motives. “We are not against those who are distributing drugs. That’s a way for them to earn a living. Let anyone who wants to poison themselves with drugs do it. What we are against is them messing with the local people.” The movement so far seems to be well-accepted by local residents fed up with crime that plagued this stretch of mountain highway. “In less than a month, they have done something that the army and state and federal police haven’t been able to do in years,” said local resident Lorena Morales Castro, who waited in a line of cars at a checkpoint Friday. “They are our anonymous heroes.”
A Few Thoughts…
For those who say citizens would never need firearms, or certainly not any of those nasty “semi-automatic” ones, here’s a good example of citizens needing just that — and not having anything. When we put our trust in government to save us, we run the risk of being in deep trouble if and when government fails to do so. If you’ve ever visited Mexico, you know that even though guns are illegal, you see them everywhere, just not in the hands of the law-abiding citizens most at risk in the conflict. Is it really so hard to imagine a scenario in which citizens might need such weapons to sustain daily life when it is happening not far from our very borders?
No wonder so many are eager to get into the United States where they have the right to keep and bear arms.
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Michigan McDonalds Settles over Islamic Dietary Laws
The Basics —
A Michigan McDonalds that claimed to sell halal food in keeping with Islamic law has settled a lawsuit for $700,000 after someone accused them of occasionally selling non-halal food.
Dig Deeper:
- Via Fox News, Key summary of events and Islamic law:
The lawsuit alleged that Ahmed bought a chicken sandwich in September 2011 at a Dearborn McDonald’s but found it wasn’t halal — meaning it didn’t meet Islamic requirements for preparing food. Islam forbids consumption of pork, and God’s name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.
Dakhlallah said there are only two McDonald’s in the United States that sell halal products and both are in Dearborn, which has one of the nation’s largest Arab and Muslim communities. Overall, the Detroit area is home to about 150,000 Muslims of many different ethnicities.
The locations advertise that they exclusively sell halal Chicken McNuggets and McChicken sandwiches and they have to get those products from an approved halal provider, Dakhlallah said. He said there was no evidence of problems on the production side, but he alleges that the Dearborn location on Ford Road sold non-halal products when it ran out of halal.
- The money would be shared by the gentlemen with the claim and other Detroit area charities.
A Few Thoughts…
My first reaction was to be concerned about the creep of sharia law. I am still concerned about that but this case doesn’t appear to be about Islamic law. Not really. It seems a simple case of false advertising that resulted in someone’s religious faith being violated. In some ways, it would be like my buying a kiddie meal for my children only to discover that they had run out of childrens’ books, so they slipped copy of Playboy in the bag. Although I doubt I could get a $700,000 settlement for that problem. I suspect the settlement is high because it involves a Muslim man in an area of high Muslim population. It seems a lack of integrity on the part of the franchise. It also brought to mind Daniel’s principled stand against the diet being required by the Babylonian king. Though I don’t recall a lawsuit in that story.
If you can’t do what you said you were going to do, admit it. Faking it will likely be a lot more expensive.
A Few More Stories You Might Hear About Today
- Now an investigation into the Australian library that moved Lance Armstrong’s books to the fiction section. Where were they when…. Oh, never mind.
- Iran claiming it will launch “living creatures” into outer space soon. High hopes that Ahmadinejad will be among the first to volunteer.
- Russia cracks down on Homosexual “propaganda.”
- It’s coming. Google Glasses. Or is it already here?
A Little Something to Grow Your Faith….
A holy life would not be so rare and difficult a thing if our devotions were not so short and hurried. ~ E. M. Bounds
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