Just looking over the yesterday’s news makes me wonder what country I’m living in. It certainly is not the country I grew up in. Each story shows how, incrementally, we are giving up one freedom after another. I say giving them up, because as each abomination is visited upon us, we fuss a bit, then adjust the line backward that we will not permit our government to cross. While the British monarch was rightfully called a tyrant, his impositions were nothing compared to the governmental intrusions we are tolerating today. Let’s look at a few of the stories: Judge Blocks Key Portions of Arizona Illegal Immigration Law
Talking heads will be ranting about this one for weeks as a Clinton appointed judge followed the Democratic put a hold on some key provisions of the bill, such as the portion that recognized the illegality of an illegal alien applying for a job he is not legally entitled to hold. If employers are supposed to be checking on the eligibility of a job applicant, where is the logic of permitting those who do not qualify to apply in the first place?
Sure employers should be held accountable, but should not the other half of the combination be called into account as well? Considering the fact that these are unregistered Democratic voters, the picture becomes a little more clear. In spite of the wishes of the good people of Arizona and the support of most of the rest of the country, an activist judge ignored the law and backed the Obama regime in holding the door open to those who ignore our laws and national well being, yet hold the key to more progressive control. Read more of this article »
In a bizarre ruling that lacks honesty, constitutional reason and plain old common sense, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that a Christian organization (or any organization for that matter) on a public college campus cannot determine its own membership and leadership rules.
You may remember that in April, The Family Foundation hosted a luncheon with attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund who were involved in the case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. This case arose when the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco denied recognition to CLS, including equal meeting space and most means of communicating on campus (the first time in the school’s history that they had denied such recognition to any organization). The reason? Although CLS welcomes everyone to all its activities and events, CLS would not agree to eliminate its Statement of Faith requirement for officers and those who select them, the voting members. Hastings deemed CLS’s Statement of Faith and its interpretation that Christians should not engage in extramarital sexual activity to violate the religion and sexual orientation portions of its nondiscrimination policy. Hastings has since interpreted its rule as prohibiting all groups from excluding anyone from voting membership or leadership on the basis of beliefs of any kind. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Hastings’ decision.
The Supreme Court Monday in a decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg stated that the “accept-all-comers” policy was constitutional. Essentially, Hastings Law School now requires that any club that receives university approval must allow anyone to join – including leaders – even if those individuals are antagonistic to the mission and purpose of the organization! In other words, the College Republicans would have to allow Democrats in their leadership, and visa versa. Read more of this article »
The recent ruling by a Federal judge that the National Day of Prayer is an unconstitutional exercise of the national government should come as a surprise to no one. The courts have been moving in that direction for the last hundred and forty or so years. They have moved from affirming the value of Christianity in maintaining the public good to neutrality to outright hostility at times.
The aptly named US District Judge Barbara Crabb noted that she was not opposed to prayer or that her ruling should not be interpreted as disparaging its value. However she was basing her decision on “case law”… and therein lies the problem. What she is really saying is that she is not looking at the constitution… she is not looking at statutes enacted by legislators… but that she is looking at the decisions of other judges. That somehow these men and women in black robes were equal, if not superior to our founding documents and the elected representatives, at least in their own minds and in the minds of those who choose to accept their self-serving pronouncements.
The rulings she cited came, for the most part, from people hostile to the founding principles and citizen values. These people, were of the opinion that laws and documents did not necessarily mean what their creators intended them to mean, but what the judiciary could decide they meant as whims took hold. For many of us this is called “legislating from the bench”, and is the reason selection of judges is vital. The results of this deification of the judicial branch are self evident. Read more of this article »
Sometimes we see such large numbers, we have trouble comprehending their magnitude and relating them to other massive expenditures. This video puts the current debt and financial commitments of the Obama administration into perspective. Without this perspective, it is impossible to do more than say, “Wow, that’s a lot of money!”
With this perspective, it is possible to see the damage being done to our country. With this perspective, how can one sit back and do nothing as they say the honor our founding fathers. This massive debt, combined with the planned intrusions into our lives dwarfs anything the British monarch did in Patrick Henry’s day.
Look into the eyes of your children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces… then decide what you are going to do about this.
“There’s to be no volunteers!” declared Nick Balzano, president of the Service Employees International Union’s Allentown, PA chapter. The cause of his consternation was a 17 year old Boy Scout from nearby Center Valley who, along with friends and fellow scouts, cleared a 1000 walking path in Allentown’s Kimmets Lock Park.
The scout, Kevin Anderson, a junior at my son’s alma mater, Southern Lehigh High School, was working toward Eagle Scout and was looking to do something to improve the community. The SEIU local, still smarting from recent member layoffs, was looking out for the welfare of its members. The service in the union’s name certainly was not for the benefit of the citizens of Allentown.
Balzno told the city council that he was looking into filing a grievance against the city for allowing volunteers to do work that should have been done by union personnel. Then, showing a little of Tony Soprano persona added, “We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails.” Showing surprising awareness of the damaged public relations, SEIU spokesman Matt Nerzig jumped into the act, telling reporters Balzano’s response was “unauthorized and insensitive“. So young Mr. Anderson may be blessed to continue walking about on unbroken kneecaps. Read more of this article »
[Note: My son, Tim, writes today's column. He is an attorney who received his Juris Doctor degree from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a former felony prosecutor for the Florida State Attorney's Office and now owns his own private law practice. He is the author of a soon-to-be-published new book, entitled FREEDOM FOR A CHANGE.]
September 17, 2009 not only marked the celebrated day of the approval of our Constitution by the Constitutional Congress in 1787 (which had to be ratified by 9 of the 13 STATES–not the majority of the PEOPLE), it also marked another, what I call, LAY case, reflecting the power and control of the federal government over individual, local and state affairs, and the submission of its lowly subjects, We the People.
Some of you may have learned of the principal of Pace High School in Pace, Florida, Frank Lay, who was charged with violation of an order entered by Federal Judge Margaret C. “Casey” Rodgers, prohibiting him, the teachers and the staff of Pace High from praying or holding any religious ceremonies at school or at school functions, which originated out of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU. As you have likely already guessed, sometime after the order entered (and was actually consented to by Lay), Lay had a prayer conducted at a Pace High staff function (a building dedication with no students present). This was deemed a violation of the court’s order and Lay was charged with contempt of court.
Lay had a hearing on the contempt charges on Constitution Day, September 17, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. (CDT). Hundreds of people stood outside the federal courthouse in Pensacola, Florida, showing their support for Lay, their disgust with the federal government, or just their interest to see what would happen. (A few even showed their protest against Lay.) It appeared as though it was a pep rally of sorts with high-school kids chanting, “We Love Jesus, Yes We Do, We Love Jesus, How ‘Bout You!” and other similar chants. Around 11:30 a.m., much of the crowd began marching around the federal courthouse (which sits downtown Pensacola) seven times, to sort of re-enact and metaphorically demonstrate the judgment of God falling on the city of Jericho in the book of Joshua, as if to suggest that they wanted God to condemn Judge Rodgers, or that Judge Rodgers was attacking Lay and she was the sole evil presented in this case, or other similar theories to that effect. Read more of this article »
A recent Rasmussen poll tells us the half all Americans believe hate is growing in our country. This is based, in large part, on recent killing of a notorious abortionist, an American soldier at a recruiting station and the attack on the holocaust museum in Washington. Thirty five percent consider them to be isolated incidents. The rest, just don’t know if or what to think. While it’s difficult to generalize from three incidents, many people are busy doing just that.
It seems those that tend to feel more vulnerable and insecure see greater generalized hatred… women (57%)… unmarried (62%). They seem to be responding more on emotion than actually looking at the details of each incidents. Each killing is unfortunate, the ending of one life and ruination of another… not to mention the families involved. However, was an irrational hatred the driving factor in each case?
It seems that today, we have a difficult time thinking about and overusing the word “hate”. For instance, homosexuals believe that they are the victims of hate crimes whenever anyone opposes them or their goals. If a preacher tells his congregation about the sinful nature of their actions, they say he is preaching hate. They may be disingenuously playing the part of a victim, having realized a little sympathy when they are supposedly harassed by someone who simply disagrees with them or their agenda. In some ways believing that your adversaries irrationally despise you is less damaging to the ego than accepting that they may have good reasons that may actually be correct.
In the case of Dr. Tiller, without getting in the head of the shooter, it’s kind of hard to understand the details of his motivation. However, automatically assigning Scott Roeder’s motive to a blind hatred of Dr. Tiller ignores the fact that, to him, it may well have been just a logical response to a situation where he saw the courts repeatedly thwarting the will of the people and their elected legislatures. We have the situation aptly described by Frederic Bastiat when he said, “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.” Read more of this article »
The death of George Tiller was all over the media eager to show the hypocrisy of the pro-life movement. The same media that tells us that Islamic terrorists are aberrations wants to paint all of us who value the lives of the unborn with the same brush of violence. Most responsible groups have condemned this action saying the taking of human life is always wrong.
The sixth commandment tells us the “Thou shalt not kill.” Dr. Tiller was breaking this commandment every time he put on the garb of a healer and ended the life of an innocent creation of God. The question of whether it was the right thing to do has and will be discussed ad nauseum. On one hand, one has to look at the potential lives that would be saved by stopping this man’s work. On the other hand we have Deuteronomy 32:35 (NIV) which says, “It is mine to avenge I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.”
It is clear we are not to seek to inflict justice upon unjust humanity. That is not our job. We may feel offended by the actions of others, but it is really God whose plan for life is being rejected. The offense to Him is far greater than anything our sensibilities may feel since He is the one who created the tiny beating heart.
Taking a life to save an innocent is something we have to look at as this has been an accepted practice when a police sniper will sometimes take out an armed madman holding a school full of children hostage. Hardly any one quibbles with this action. Moses even killed the Egyptian while protecting a fellow Israelite. These cases both involve immanent danger to someone, and it could even be danger to one’s self that would justify a violent, lethal response. Read more of this article »
Apparently some ideas are only wrong if they are expressed by the wrong people. If George Bush would have said that a white male would make better legal decisions than a Latino female, he would have touched off a firestorm of protest from Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, Keith Olberman and the rest of the usual suspects that would have continued until he left Washington. On the other hand, The One who currently occupies the White House has nominated to the Supreme Court a woman who has said just the opposite… that a Latino woman should be making better decisions than a white male.
Lady Justice
What makes one statement acceptable, even admirable, and the other despicable? Why is discrimination in one direction acceptable and in the other direction unacceptable? It would appear to depend on who is helped and who is hurt by the action. The statue of lady justice seen at various courthouses around the country has a blindfold over her eyes and a scale for weighing arguments on their merits, not on the basis of who is making them.
In appointing an empathetic Associate Justice, the President is loosening, perhaps totally removing, the blindfold, encouraging the judiciary to rule differently depending on the societal group to which they belong and which group would benefit. Can anyone say identity politics? This taking note of the person, not the legal principle, has only one word to describe it… discrimination!
Part of the process of any group integrating itself into American society is gaining the acceptance based on their actions not on their appearance. This is what Dr Martin Luther King Jr sought when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This is an ideal we all can, and should, share. It is the ideal the Sonia Sotomayor soundly rejects. Read more of this article »
Can America Survive? is not just a warning. It is a wake-up call and a rallying cry to Christian citizens everywhere to prevent the next unthinkable American disaster. After all, as Hagee points out, “those who do not remember the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them in the future.”
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By Victoria Cobb
The recent ruling by a Federal judge that the National Day of Prayer is an unconstitutional exercise of the national government should come as a surprise to no one. The courts have been moving in that direction for the last hundred and forty or so years. They have moved from affirming the value of Christianity in maintaining the public good to neutrality to outright hostility at times.
“There’s to be no volunteers!” declared Nick Balzano, president of the Service Employees International Union’s Allentown, PA chapter. The cause of his consternation was a 17 year old Boy Scout from nearby Center Valley who, along with friends and fellow scouts, cleared a 1000 walking path in Allentown’s Kimmets Lock Park.
[Note: My son, Tim, writes today's column. He is an attorney who received his Juris Doctor degree from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a former felony prosecutor for the Florida State Attorney's Office and now owns his own private law practice. He is the author of a soon-to-be-published new book, entitled FREEDOM FOR A CHANGE.]
A recent Rasmussen poll tells us the half all Americans believe hate is growing in our country. This is based, in large part, on recent killing of a notorious abortionist, an American soldier at a recruiting station and the attack on the holocaust museum in Washington. Thirty five percent consider them to be isolated incidents. The rest, just don’t know if or what to think. While it’s difficult to generalize from three incidents, many people are busy doing just that.
