Quote of the Day
You are angry about the present moment, but you are the one who voted for decades of executive overreach that allowed this regime to grow like a cancer.
You do not get to acquiesce to forty years of executive actions and suddenly discover constitutional outrage only when it fits your partisan narrative.
My heart breaks when I see the city I grew up in flames. But what breaks it even more is knowing that this suffering—borne by generations of Iranians, paid for by American blood and treasure—was compounded by years of your denial about what this regime is.
You cannot stabilize a government whose ideology requires bloodshed. And you cannot postpone confrontation forever without multiplying the eventual cost.
The world is not facing this moment because we finally acted.
The world is facing this moment because for decades many refused to acknowledge the true nature of the Islamic Republic regime.
Tahmineh Dehbozorgi @DeTahmineh
Posted on X, March 5, 2026
There are many people who still refuse to acknowledge the true nature of the Islamic Republic regime. Most of them seem to be affected by TDS. Such mental health cases are probably beyond help and there is no point in having a discussion with them.
There are reasons to consider in opposition to the moral necessity case which I think is well proven as in above.
A more principled opposition would be, the US Constitution does not grant our government the power to be the world’s policeman. Or a practical opposition would be our history of regime change for the last 80 years has been very poor. I keep wondering, was there something fundamentally different about how we handled Germany and Japan post WWII? Those were two extremely different bloodthirsty cultures and yet the U.S. helped them reconstruct their societies into productive and comparatively free nations. More recent efforts have been far from anything approaching satisfactory. Is it that we completely eliminated the toxic cultures in Japan and German? If so, then that may mean the eradication of Islam is required to enable the incubation of national neighbors fit for a civilized world.
This would be the most important acknowledgment of all yet to be realized and the reason we will face this moment again and again until we do realize it.
The question is why did the Obama regime try to let Iran have the bomb? It isn’t as if the likely outcome of giving them nuclear fuel wasn’t obvious, and it isn’t as if they ever do something without an ulterior motive.
The bomb was to make the regime untouchable. But why?
I believe that like the Molotov-Ribbentropf pact, the upfront part of the agreement was bad enough; but there was a secret agreement that was much worse. Specifically, I believe that in exchange for getting the bomb, Iran agreed to launch terrorist attacks in the USA proper, specifically mass shootings.
This is consistent with other actions by the Obama regime, specifically Operation Fast and Furious, except that OFF was not aimed at US public opinion–Americans don’t care what happens in Mexico–but rather at the Bush family, who were thick with the ruling party of Mexico at the time, and who back then were the most powerful group in the GOP.
Operation Plutonium Bullet (my name, I don’t know what they called it), in contrast, was aimed directly at popular opinion in the US.
Why do you think Benghazi happened? It was a classic illegal deal gone wrong.
What was different about Germany and Japan is they knew they were utterly defeated. Millions dead, more millions raped, cities in ruins, industry destroyed country occupied, leaders executed, ideology outlawed so they were more willing to cooperate. They both had an ancient and rather admirable civilization up to the episode of madness starting in the 1920s. So there was something to work with. Iraq not so much and Afghanistan, nothing at all. Iran is somewhere between those poles but we should not mess with how they live. It is in our interest to make sure they don’t threaten us but that is it.
There are many people who still refuse to acknowledge the true nature of Islam.
It’s not just Iran.
“A more principled opposition…”
It’s so tiresome to be constantly able to, off the cuff, give more principled opposition to my own principles than the other side ever publicly runs with. Ugh.
“was there something fundamentally different about how we handled Germany and Japan post WWII?”
Yes, WE CRUSHED THEM, and then spent literally decades remaking them.
We have been unwilling to do either of those things since then. The second step might not be absolutely necessary in every instance, but the first is.
Hegseth is the first in a long time to have the right idea about war. It is HORRIBLE, so actually do it right, break the things, kill the necessary people, and **get it over with**, decisively.
Otherwise, it’s not worth doing at all. You dither, faff about, and get MORE people killed over the years, not less, both ours and theirs. See Afghanistan, for instance.
The irony is thick on this one.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
“Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, is known for his embrace of Christian nationalism. He previously endorsed the doctrine of “sphere sovereignty”, a worldview derived from the extremist beliefs of Christian reconstructionism (CR). The philosophy calls for capital punishment for homosexuality and strictly patriarchal families and churches.
In August 2025, Hegseth reposted a CNN segment on X focusing on pastor Doug Wilson, a Christian nationalist who co-founded the Idaho-based Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). In the segment, Wilson says he does not believe women should hold leadership positions in the military or be able to fill high-profile combat roles.
“I would like to see this nation being a Christian nation, and I would like this world to be a Christian world,” Wilson said.”
Yes, yes, so very ironic, because Christianity is just the same as Islam. Obviously. Totally the same thing. Yep.
Also, wanting the world a certain way and publicly stating so is just the same as brutally murdering and repressing people to MAKE it the way you want it. Yep.
So much irony there. Uh huh. Yep.
“wanting the world a certain way and publicly stating so is just the same as brutally murdering and repressing people to MAKE it the way you want it.”
Seems to me like bombing the shit out of somebody is pretty murder-y and repressive….
““He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’””
Pastor Doug Wilson is offered as an extreme to try and cast suspicion on Pete Hegseth. Wilson’s political and religious views are not mainstream even among Christians.
Please don’t paint every Christian and/or conservative with that brush. That would be like painting every Muslim and/or every liberal with the Hijrah and Jihad brush, and we know you’re not gonna do THAT!
Also, “sphere sovereignty” may have been proposed and developed by a Christian theologian, but it’s conceptually applicable to everyone, including non-Christians and atheists; just leave the “church” sphere out. “Separation of church and state” is a modern example of fundamentally the same thought, and supported by secularists.
It was *Hegseth* that put Wilson front and center because Hegeth is a *member of his church*. There’s no suspicion, there are photographs: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/19/politics/douglas-wilson-pastor-pentagon-service-christian-nationalism
And a simple Google of “Hegseth Christian nationalism” will get you all the quotes you might ever need to demonstrate him as being driven to get rid of “godless” people and return the country to Christians and Christians alone.
As for painting Christians with the same brush as Muslims: I don’t like Islam either, for largely the same reasons. Hindus have been doing violence to Muslims for quite a while, and even some Buddhists are now getting in on the violence (e.g. Myanmar), which is *wild*. Religion in general is based on the notion that one group has “the truth” and everybody else is a heretic. Never in history has that played out where the folks who thought they had “the truth” just left everybody else alone. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but there are no atheists running crusades or jihads either.
You say religion in general is the notion that one group has “the Truth” and everybody else is a heratic. Is that the truth? How do you know that your views in this matter are true? Prove it. Maybe one religion is true. Maybe no religion is true. But one thing is certain: They can’t all be true. That notion is absurd. That’s the truth. And I can prove it.
“Hindus have been doing violence to Muslims for quite a while, and even some Buddhists are now getting in on the violence (e.g. Myanmar), which is *wild*”
Should tell you how absolutely horrible and aggressively violent Islam is that *even people who set themselves on fire as protest* without getting violent to other people will get violent in response to Islam.
Sure. But so is Christianity when allowed to fester like the cognitive wound that it is. Let’s modify the OP: “You are angry about the present moment, but you are the one who voted for decades of [religious] overreach that allowed this regime to grow like a cancer.” That fits nicely with the Trump admin’s attempts to “restore” America to its “proper” historical state of Christian dominance.
John, here is another way to think about it. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Many (most?) Christians, if not all non-Islamic religions and atheists, recognize Islam as a threat. Having them allied rather than fighting amongst themselves is a good thing. Also, “How many beheadings of non-believers have Christians committed in the last 100 years?” Or suicide bombers? Sure, there have been a few bombers and attacks with guns (abortion related). But they are not supported by mainstream Christians and are very rare. 9/11 type events perpetrated by Christians do not exist in the last 125 years (one could argue about native American massacres, certain LDS events, or even some slavery related stuff).
Also note the trend:
I recall, but cannot find the data, that the percentage in the 1970s and before was 95+%. The trend is your friend.
I also believe that before Christianity is a serious threat to freedom in the U.S. there will be significant infighting among the 100s of sects. Even if you just look at very broad categories such as Catholic v. Protestant v. LDS you get a lot of friction.
LDS is “Christian” in the same way that Nation of Islam is “Islamic”.
When you can show government officials attempting to create taxes or other penalties on non-Christians or special advantages for Christians, you will have something of substance. But at the moment, you are grasping at straws. And this is me speaking as an evangelical atheist.
Well, let’s see. Just in the last couple years there’s…
– The Task Force To Eradicate Christian Bias. I’m not seeing the equivalent for any other religion.
– The Religious Liberty Commission, which is (gasp!) entirely focused on Christian liberty
– The expanded travel ban, which is almost exclusively made up of Muslim countries
– The expansion of ICE activity to mosques, which was previously prohibited
– Last year the EEOC issued a new rule “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace” that adds support for proselytizing and at work prayer groups
– The “One Big Beautiful Bill” added a tax credit for Scholarship Granting Organizations, which serves largely as a massive subsidy for Christian parochial education
– For that matter the tax exemption for religions in general that massively subsidizes Christians over secularists.
etc.
We live in a society that’s majority Christian, with lots of people in power like Hegseth who want it to be *entirely* Christian and are using the government to enact policies that support that. I find it bizarre that anyone would even debate that…I’ve been hearing about Christians trying to get prayer in schools my entire life. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas have all put forward laws to require the 10 commandments be posted in schools. Several other states have tried to make the bible required reading on the grounds that it’s “history,” but somehow you don’t need to know anything about the koran or torah or bahagavad gita.
And Christianity and Islam are both “conversion” religions: they assert that non-believers need to be converted by the word or by the sword. Do we need to get into a discussion of the Crusades or the Inquisition? Or Jerry Fallwell, for that matter?
The Religious Liberty Commission attracted a lot of attention through Shabbos Kestenbaum eloquently standing up for the rights of Jews, and ending the tenure of one of its “most Christian” members for doing what you said it was created to do. Just saying.
Yes, we have to get into the Crusades. The Crusades were an attempt to decolonize an area that was largely Christian and Jewish until it was overrun by Muslim Arab colonizers. I’m told decolonization is a good thing. Too bad it didn’t take.
“For that matter the tax exemption for religions in general that massively subsidizes Christians over secularists.”
Right, because we totally don’t have nay problems with NGOs and other “non-profit” groups by the ton. YOU are cherry picking on that one, then complaining about unequal treatment. There are MASSIVE numbers of non-religious non-profit groups, many of whom are directly subsidized by the government, not just tax-exempt.
“The expanded travel ban, which is almost exclusively made up of Muslim countries”
It includes non-Muslim countries and not remotely all Muslim countries. You are upset because you have been taught to reflexively bigotry against Muslims, even when it is obviously not what is going on there.
“The expansion of ICE activity to mosques, which was previously prohibited”
Considering that Islam is *absolutely fine* with using mosques as political structures (as shown by how the people in Iran and BURNING the mosques to attack the regime, as only the most recent of MANY MANY MANY examples), that makes perfect sense.
Of course, compare to the treatment of, say, Catholics by the Autopen administration… did you complain about that?
“Last year the EEOC issued a new rule “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace” that adds support for proselytizing and at work prayer groups”
Considering that you can exactly those same activities at work places, just without the “religious” label on them, that also makes sense. It’s freedom OF religion (which does include “none”), not freedom FROM religion. If the only reason you want it treated differently is because of the religious label on it, YOU are the one with the problem.
“The “One Big Beautiful Bill” added a tax credit for Scholarship Granting Organizations, which serves largely as a massive subsidy for Christian parochial education”
See previous.
“The Religious Liberty Commission, which is (gasp!) entirely focused on Christian liberty”
Considering that that is the group that has been reduced in social standing explicitly and on purpose over the last several decades by (in many cases) targeted action, including by the government excluding explicitly them in some cases, that makes sense – you (as an example) reflexively treat them worse than other groups, as you showed *in that very post*.
Also, on a more global scale, by the numbers, the group doing the oppression in the world is Muslims, and the group being oppressed is Christians. By *percentage*, that second one is Jews (by a LOT), but there just aren’t that many of them.
“I’ve been hearing about Christians trying to get prayer in schools my entire life.”
Yes, because they are *explicitly excluded*, when the same exact activity, just without the religious label, is fine. They aren’t asking for special treatment (well, some are, of course), but simply EQUAL treatment.
“Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas have all put forward laws to require the 10 commandments be posted in schools.”
Considering the historical place of that particular thing, that’s entirely defensible on non-religious grounds. The Code of Hamurabi has also been included in some of those, without complaint, even though it is far less historically significant.
“Several other states have tried to make the bible required reading on the grounds that it’s “history,” but somehow you don’t need to know anything about the koran or torah or bahagavad gita.”
And in western culture, that’s a very easy and factual argument to make. I would suggest studying the koran as well, simply to be an informed person.
Of course, there are also states that have put units in to study the koran but not the bible. Again, where is your complaint about that?
“they assert that non-believers need to be converted by the word or by the sword. Do we need to get into a discussion of the Crusades or the Inquisition?”
No, Christianity is not a “by the sword” religion. It has been done, anyway, of course, in some cases, though usually as an excuse for what people wanted to do, anyway. Islam is *explicitly* a “by the sword” religion.
Also, yes, let’s study the Crusades and the Inquisition, both of which were *direct and explicit* responses to the aggressive military action (“conquest by the sword”) of Islam.
“Seems to me like bombing the shit out of somebody is pretty murder-y and repressive….”
Sure, but bombing them BACK after they have been publicly targeting us (and everybody else in the general vicinity) for 40+ years is not. Not hard to understand.
And when we’re done getting rid of the people trying to kill us for decades, we’ll leave them to government themselves, just like every bloody other time we’ve done that.
I get that the Orange Man is Bad, but this stuff is still really, REALLY easy, even when the Evil Cheeto is at the helm for the moment. When someone repeatedly and aggressively tries to kill you for decades, it doesn’t magically become NOT self defense *even if you are some horribly evil person who wanted to kill them before* they did that (as long as you didn’t try to – as long as THEY are the aggressor).
None of this is hard.
And that’s entirely just believing the reporting on Hegseth, which is quite generous given the history of reporting on the guy (or much of anyone else even vaguely associated with the Bad Orange Man).
And…. it didn’t attach properly. I could have sworn I hit REPLY button on your post, John. Mea culpa.
And thanks, Archer, for engaging with the deceptive reporting portion. It’s so tiresome, I just don’t bother most of the time anymore, at least with people who *want* to believe it for their own convenience (like John).
And the “good for the goose, good for the gander” bit. It’s not fair to unfairly imply nasty things about one side and ignore the other.
Personally, I don’t care that “sphere sovereignty” is derived from “Christian reconstructionism.” The fact it’s “derived” means, by definition, that it’s not the same. Just because one questions the source doesn’t mean the derivation is automatically invalid; not everything is “fruit of the poisoned tree.”
Our modern understanding of genetic inheritance started with Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian-order (i.e. Christian) monk. The Big Bang Theory was — perhaps ironically — proposed by Georges Lamaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest. Does their Christian faith negate their discoveries, or do we recognize their contributions to science anyway?
Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THEM SERIOUSLY WHEN THEY CHANTED DEATH TO AMERICA: The Reason We are Facing