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Laurence M. Vance

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The Korean War Was a Senseless Waste of American Lives

Wednesday June 7, 2023

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The remains of an American soldier were laid to rest on Memorial Day at the Andersonville National Cemetery in Georgia after a police car with lights flashing escorted the casket to the cemetery. What made this funeral service so unique and so tragic is that Pfc. Luther Herschel Story was killed on September 1, 1950, during the Korean War.  He was just eighteen years old.

Story left high school during his sophomore year and enlisted in the Army. In the summer of 1950, he deployed to Korea with Company A of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment. After he was wounded when his unit came under attack by three divisions of North Korean troops, Story seized a machine gun and killed or wounded about 100 men according to his Medal of Honor citation that his father received at a Pentagon ceremony in 1951. 

“Realizing that his wounds would hamper his comrades, he refused to retire to the next position but remained to cover the company’s withdrawal,” the award citation said. “When last seen, he was firing every weapon available and fighting off another hostile assault.” An unidentified body recovered from the area where Story was last seen fighting was buried in 1950 with other unknown service members at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
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Pray for Ukraine?

Friday September 9, 2022

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The latest empty cliché that one hears out of the mouth of Christians is “Pray for Ukraine.” But do Christians who utter this pious platitude even know what they mean when they say it?

I suppose that it is supposed to mean that we should pray for the people of Ukraine who are suffering because of the unjustified Russian invasion of their country. If only things were that simple.

Some observations are in order.

This appeal is based on the overly simplistic yet false and evil notion of Ukraine, good; Russia, bad.

This trite expression in the form of a prayer request is virtue signaling at its worst.

I think we are at the point now where someone saying “Pray for Ukraine” is the verbal equivalent of someone wearing a face mask.
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The Problem with Marijuana Legalization

Wednesday August 17, 2022

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Although the medical use of marijuana has been legalized in 37 states, its recreational use is legal only in 19 states. (South Dakota voters approved a recreational marijuana initiative in the 2020 election, but it was overturned by a state circuit judge and upheld by the state supreme court.)

That is still a lot of states with legal weed considering that it was not until 2012 that the first two states (Colorado and Washington) legalized the recreational use of marijuana. In just the last two years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana use. 

What is even more amazing is that the states have done this while the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use,” and “a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.”

But the problem with marijuana legalization on the state level is not that it is still illegal under federal law. The problem is that there are so many government rules and regulations on the state and local level that the marijuana market can hardly be considered free at all.

A case in point is the city of Denver — “ home to one of the most mature marijuana markets in the world, with $689 million in sales last year.”
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Why Not Abandon All Foreign Bases?

Thursday October 21, 2021

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Neoconservatives—like Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute (“The One Foreign Base Biden Should Abandon”)—haven’t gotten over President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

But Rubin is also upset that “the Biden administration is determined to hold on to the one base that America should have abandoned a decade ago.” This is Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

Rubin maintains that during the Cold War, Incirlik was crucial. But even though “the base supported U-2 surveillance flights, US operations during the 1958 Lebanon crisis, the 1991 liberation of Kuwait, and, most recently, the fight against the Taliban,” Incirlik—which “also hosts approximately 50 nuclear weapons”—is “now a strategic liability” instead of “a strategic asset.”

Turkey “is as much an enemy as an ally.” President Erdogan cannot be trusted. “Every American serviceman, contractor, and family at Incirlik are potential hostages.” “Incirlik now risks a repeat of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.” An American “departure from Incirlik” would not “affect US operations.” The United States should use the “Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania” or the “Souda Bay Naval Base” in Greece. It would not be “irresponsible” to leave “an obsolete base.”
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Should Christians Just Shut Up When the Government Speaks?

Tuesday April 14, 2020

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I am not on Twitter for the same reason I am not on Facebook: I have too little free time to waste it. However, I do occasionally receive examples of some of the more ridiculous things on Twitter and Facebook from friends and acquaintances who do have more free time than I do.

A case in point is a tweet by a pastor who obviously hangs on every word the mainstream media and the government have to say about the coronavirus since he believes that all churches should shut down during this coronavirus insanity so Christians can practice “social distancing.” Here is a recent tweet of his that a friend send me:
As Americans, our Man-given freedom of speech seems to have overridden our God-commanded fear of authority. We need to repent of this, as complaining against & defying God-given authority is sin (unless they tell us to do something sinful). To be clear, not uncomfortable. Sinful.
Where do I begin?
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A Senseless Sacrifice

Thursday April 4, 2019

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Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins last month posthumously became the fifth US service member to receive the Medal of Honor (the nation’s highest award for combat valor) for his actions during the Iraq War—in 2007.

According to an article in the Washington Post (“Soldier’s posthumous Medal of Honor highlights the Pentagon’s struggles to fully recognize valor in combat”), Atkins and his fellow soldiers rolled up in their Humvee on “two suspicious men in Iraq’s ‘Triangle of Death.’” Atkins “stepped out of the Humvee and walked toward the first stranger” while “an Army medic stepped out of the back seat, moving toward the second.” Atkins unexpectedly “began grappling with the first Iraqi,” “gabbed him in a bear hug,” “slammed him to the ground,” and “pinned him down.”

Then the detonation happened.

Atkins’s son, who was eleven when his father died, “accepted the award on behalf of his late father from President Trump, who highlighted how Atkins, then 31, died June 1, 2007, saving the lives of the three other soldiers by choosing to smother a suicide vest with his own body.” “In his final moments on earth, Travis did not run. He didn’t know what it was to run,” Trump said. “He laid down his life to save the lives of his fellow warriors.”
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Why Not Execute Alcohol and Tobacco Dealers?

Tuesday March 13, 2018

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Although about thirty countries have the death penalty for drug trafficking, only in China, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Vietnam are drug offenders routinely executed. Yet, the worst place to be caught drug trafficking is in the Philippines, where thousands have died in extra-judicial killings.

In the United States, not only can some drug offenses result in life in prison, “the sentence of death can be carried out on a defendant who has been found guilty of manufacturing, importing or distributing a controlled substance if the act was committed as part of a continuing criminal enterprise.”

President Trump has said some outrageous things. He has said some dumb things. And he has said some outrageously dumb things. But talking about the death penalty for drug dealers is one of the most outrageously dumb things he has ever said.
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Are Republicans Libertarians?

Wednesday October 25, 2017

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Our two-party system makes it almost impossible for libertarians to get elected to office, especially on the national level. In order for libertarians to get elected to Congress, their best bet is to run as a Republican. Ron Paul is a perfect example of this. But libertarians should have no illusions about the Republican Party. And they shouldn’t make the Republican Party out to be something it is not.

A former member of the Libertarian Party who is now running for office as a Republican recently said about the Republican Party:
At its core, the Republican Party is supposed to be a liberty party—that’s why it was the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. For a Republican, so long as you are not violating the lives and liberties of other human beings—and that includes the lives of human beings in the womb—the government should give you the freedom to do as you see fit. The party strives to put the trust and the power back in the hands of the people instead of handing it over to unelected bureaucrats.
This almost makes Republicans sound like libertarians. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s first look at some principles of libertarianism followed by an analysis of the above statement.
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