God’s Providence Teaches Us to Hope
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Fire in the Night Sky—Wisdom and Comfort
In January and February 1967, during the Vietnam War, I was flying combat missions over Laos and North Vietnam. I was assigned to a USAF Air Commando squadron operating out of Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, flying the navigator-copilot position in an A-26K, a twin-prop attack-bomber descended from the World War II Douglas B-26. Nakhon Phanom is on the Laotian border and only 30 minutes by air from the Ho Chi Minh Trial coming out of North Vietnam. Our most used weapon was a set of six .50 caliber machine guns in the nose, but we had four weapon stations on each wing and generally carried two 1,000 pound bombs in the bomb-bay. Our main mission was night-armed-reconnaissance interdicting North Vietnamese supply trucks, but we sometimes attacked enemy anti-aircraft guns or enemy troop concentrations. We were much slower than jet attack-bombers, but we could stay on station much longer and were considerably more accurate in identifying and destroying targets.
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The Civil War and Just War Doctrine
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Beneath the Virtue-signaling Propaganda of Total War
The Nineteenth Century concept of Just War was derived principally from Biblical roots, but both Greek and Roman thought and especially Roman experience undoubtedly influenced Augustine (354-430 AD) in what is generally recognized as the first systematic treatment of Christian doctrine as it applies to the State, its citizens, and its soldiers in time of war. First of all, Augustine recognized that war is often a necessity to defend the State and its citizens from aggressive enemies and that Christians may justly bear arms in that defense. Categorical pacifism is unrealistic, unloving, and unbiblical. Moreover, isolationism is often short-sighted and unwise, and may result in war and excuse callous abandonment of loyal allies to tyranny and tragic human slaughter.
Augustine outlined three main criteria for a just war: it must be initiated by properly constituted authority (Congress, in the case of the United States), it must be for a just cause, and it must be conducted by just means. To Augustine, a just end to war should be a just peace. Who then determines what are proper authority, just cause, and just means? Augustine’s answer: God, as revealed in Scripture. Practically, those who constitute proper authority decide these issues on behalf of the citizenry, but these authorities are also ultimately accountable to God and therefore the teachings of Scripture. Thomas Aquinas and many others since have attempted to flesh out a more comprehensive Just War Theory, but the tragedy of war always generates many ethical loose ends.
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The Real Jim Crow
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
How Northern Jim Crow Laws Moved South
The Original Jim Crow
“Jim Crow” was the stage name of New York actor Thomas D. Rice (1808-1860), who made a career of minstrel performances in blackface and thus popularized that form of entertainment. The name “Jim Crow” came from a popular 1832 song, “Jump Jim Crow,” written and sung by Rice and became a common term referring to African-Americans. Later it became a nick name for legislation restricting the rights of African-Americans. Blackface is not necessarily demeaning. Rice may have based his character on slave folk tales about a clever trickster. Al Jolson (1886-1950), a Russian Jewish immigrant, and the most popular and beloved American entertainer beginning with the movie The Jazz Singer in 1927 and lasting for many decades, was said to be the “king of blackface.” Jolson’s personal feelings and many of his songs were certainly sympathetic to African-Americans. What most people do not know is that Jim Crow laws first originated in Northern States. Northern Jim Crow Laws were the model for Southern States following the ruin, corruption, and oppression of Reconstruction. As author C. Vann Woodward has stated, “Jim Crow has had a strange career.”
- Hits: 1740
Marxist Persecution of Christianity
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Russian History that Americans Must Learn
Marxism is anti-Christian at its very core. Following the failure of Marxism to sweep Europe after World War I and the Russian Revolution, Marxist leadership concluded that Marxism could never dominate and flourish where Christian churches were strong. Hence they have doubled down on undermining, uprooting, and destroying Christianity. The trend toward social Marxism versus the older more purely economic Marxism was thus born. In its strategic path to power, social Marxism undermines every aspect of a target culture, usually leading with control of the media and education establishments, and then government, but ultimately targeting all free speech and even free thought. The ultimate Marxist enemy is truth and especially the spiritual truth of Christianity and divine universal reality.
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The Battle for France
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Has Uncontrolled Migration Brought France to Brink of Civil War?
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Mike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East. 
