Good morning,

It's just fine to have moral thoughts and take moral actions in the privacy of our homes, but the secular elite doesn't want those ideas influencing our public life and decisions. I end the week reflecting on what I believe to be the appropriate response.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, September 6, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

A Year Since Paxton’s Impeachment Trial Began, Costs Still Unknown

• The Texas House impeached the attorney general in rushed proceedings mere days before the end of the 2023 legislative session. The impeachment charges crumbled under the lightest scrutiny while Ken Paxton was on trial in the Texas Senate. That trial started a year ago this week, as Sydnie Henry notes, but taxpayers still do not know what the House spent in pursuing Speaker Dade Phelan's political vendetta against the attorney general.
         
• The process itself was so flawed that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick—who presided over the impeachment trial as President of the Senate—later requested an audit of both chambers’ expenses to serve as a guidepost for future legislatures.
       
• Now, a year after Paxton’s trial began, the House has yet to disclose the cost of the impeachment proceedings. The Senate spent $435,000 during the two months of preparation and the trial itself. 
       
• "What is Dade Phelan afraid to show the public? Millions upon millions of your money, spent on high-priced private lawyers who lost the case, in addition to his costly state expenses." – Dan Patrick

RELATED NEWS

• Perry campaigned for Phelan earlier this year, saying that the "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) applied to Phelan by Donald Trump and others was "sexy." In recent years, Perry has parlayed his time in office into a lobbying business—most recently for gambling interests.
       
• During the failed impeachment push against Attorney General Ken Paxton, a commentary supporting the Phelan effort was ghost-written for Perry and placed in the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese Infiltration of Higher Education Reaches Texas A&M

• Records show Texas A&M University has allowed China to infiltrate its Engineering Experiment Station, which works on multiple high-profile projects, including those related to national security. Check out the investigative report by Robert Montoya and Luca Cacciatore.
        
• As far back as Fiscal Year 2015 the TAMU leadership allowed visiting scholars from China into the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station. This part of TAMU works on U.S. national security projects like cybersecurity, hypersonic development, and the George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex.
       
• The records prove problematic for Texas A&M, a U.S. defense contractor. The Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence has designated China, under the Chinese Communist Party, as a threat to America.
      
• Chinese law mandates that the nation's citizens engage in espionage for the government while abroad.

Violent Venezuelan Gang Has Infiltrated North Dallas

• Dallas Police now admit the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has infiltrated the city. Emily Medeiros has the story.
    
• In a 2023 video posted to social media, a group of men can be seen beating up a man on the ground, repeatedly kicking and hitting his head as his body goes limp. Gunshots can also be heard in the background.
      
• “We have had gang activity in the north Dallas area linked to the Tren De Aragua gang from Venezuela,” Dallas PD spokeswoman Jennifer Pryor told the Daily Mail.
       
• The gang is best known for its involvement in sex trafficking young girls and women and exploiting other Venezuelans. The group has also been behind a string of crimes stretching from New York to Miami and now Texas.
       
• “Violent illegal alien gangs are taking over American cities. Watch as a group of Venezuelans beat a helpless man in Dallas as gunshots are fired off in the background. This is Kamala’s America.” — Chaya Raichik, Libs of TikTok

26 People Discovered Locked Inside Abandoned Trailer

• Nearly 30 people smuggled illegally into the country were found trapped inside an abandoned trailer in Maverick County. Will Biagini reports several had to be transported to a local hospital for medical attention.
    
• Deputies from the Maverick County Sheriff’s Office discovered that the people had been sealed inside a tanker-trailer that was left in a gas station parking lot. The suspected smugglers reportedly fled the scene before law enforcement could arrive.

School Employee Under Investigation for ‘Improper Conduct’ with Student

• An employee of Kress Independent School District is on administrative leave while law enforcement officials investigate allegations the employee engaged in “improper conduct” with a student. Erin Anderson reports the district “immediately informed” the local sheriff when made aware of the situation.
    
• Neither the name nor position of the employee nor any details about the allegations have been released.
       
• Kress ISD, located north of Lubbock, had 279 students and 54 staff during the 2022-23 school year.

Friday Reflection
An Intolerable Tolerance

As a personal virtue, tolerance can be a tricky attitude to master without becoming morally rudderless. But as a governing practice and a civic virtue, the modern implementation of tolerance is a deadly vice.

We are allowed in the polite company of the ruling elite only when we agree to "tolerate" that which should otherwise be intolerable. To enjoy the peace of the elite, we must stop pursuing public righteousness.

Sure, it is all right in the privacy of your home to do moral things and think moral thoughts … but we are told we must not allow that morality to influence our public life and decisions.

The purveyors of sin and vice demand we "tolerate" their activities. They know that, with time and exposure, the solid mooring of morality can be worn away. Public tolerance becomes acquiescence, which slips neatly into participation.

Think back to God’s command to His people after He freed them from bondage. He told them to conquer the Promised Land, completely destroy the temples and altars of the false gods, and drive out all worshippers of those false gods. To be a self-governing people under His law, God told them they needed to be rid of those things incompatible with His righteousness.

Time and again, the people would start to obey; they wanted those benefits. But then they would capitulate. They would decide it was easier to tolerate the evil in their midst than obey God. Time and again, their tolerance of false gods and false worship led to their enslavement and misery … often by the adherents of the false religions they were tolerating.

"The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord." We find that phrase repeated time and again. And what they did always started with tolerating the presence of evil.

Capitulation to sin begins with a toleration of sinful activity.

We’ve all heard variations of the truism found in 1 Corinthians 15:33: "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company ruins good morals.'" The very next sentence, which is just as true, continues: "Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning."

Any critique of society’s tolerance of "bad company" is usually countered by a variation of "Jesus was so tolerant. Why can’t you be more like Jesus?" It sounds so spiritual.

Do they mean the Jesus who overturned tables outside the temple and ran out the money changers with a whip? The Jesus who called the political leaders of the day a "brood of vipers"?

That Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, isn’t welcome in the 2020s. Nowhere in Scripture do you find a Jesus who coddles unrepentant sinners. Nowhere do you find a Jesus who tolerates sin. You repeatedly find a Jesus who meets sinners where they are and then tells them to "sin no more." Some do and follow Him; others leave.

"Sin no more" is loving the sinner so much as not to tolerate the sin. By tolerating sin, we are condemning people to lives of pain and misery. And perhaps worse.

Self-governance starts with governing ourselves, and helping those around us to do likewise. If we expect to enjoy the benefits of living in a righteous land, we must set aside political tolerance and pursue lives of righteousness.

Quote-Unquote

"In the absence of a biblical morality, a new elite will always come forward to dictate arbitrary absolutes to society."

– Francis Schaeffer