“The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us and the Middle East ablaze, we need [new leadership] to restore life to the global war against terrorism.“- Jimmy Carter
Funny how those words ring so true, but at the wrong time. The sad reality is that those words, uttered by Jimmy Carter, were said in 2004 in the Presidential campaign of John Kerry, and designed as an attack on then-President George W. Bush.
It was slightly more than a year after the start of the Iraq War and an insinuation of the myth that America waged that war unilaterally, which is not true despite the breathless claims of leftist politicians and pundits. At its inception, the campaign in Iraq – and its predecessor in Afghanistan – was waged by more than sixty nations, all of which were cavalierly dismissed by the Democrats. Read more of this article »
[A few days ago, I received this from Congressman Forbes and thought I was worth passing on.]
Fifty-five years ago, the House Judiciary Committee considered a bill that would affirm one of the cornerstones upon which our nation was built. Although opposed by a small minority of the American public at the time, the bill received overwhelming support by Americans and members of Congress. The bill passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee, unanimously in the House of Representatives, and unanimously in the Senate before it went on to be signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The legislation was H.J.Res.396 and it declared the official motto of the United States to be “In God We Trust.” Read more of this article »
[The late Francis Schaeffer often cited Rutherford's work, Lex, Rex, translated "The Law and the Prince", as one of the earliest arguments for the right of the people to reject and replace an unjust government. Written in 1644 it came more than a century before American patriots threw off the chains of the British monarch. It goes beyond the simplistic, compliant interpretation of Romans 13 popular in many ineffective churches and takes a big picture view of the relationship between people and their government.]
For the lawfulness of resistance in the matter of the king’s unjust invasion of life and religion, we offer these arguments.
Arg. 1: That power which is obliged to command and rule justly and religiously for the good of the subjects, and is only set over the people on these conditions, and not absolutely, cannot tie the people to subjection without resistance, when the power is abused to the destruction of laws, religion, and the subjects. But all power of the law is thus obliged, (Rom. xiii. 4 ; Deut. xvii. 18-20 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6 ; Ps. cxxxii. 11, 12 ; lxxxix. 30, 31; 2 Sam. vii. 12 ; Jer. xvii. 24, 25,) and hath, and may be, abused by kings, to the destruction of laws, religion, and subjects. The proposition is clear. 1. For the powers that tie us to subjection only are of God. 2. Because to resist them, is to resist the ordinance of God. 3. Because they are not a terror to good works, but to evil. 4. Because they are God’s ministers for our good, but abused powers are not of God, but of men, or not ordinances of God ; they are a terror to good works, not to evil ; they are not God’s ministers for our good. Read more of this article »
Some shy away from Rand Paul because traditional Republicans get nervous around people that actually believe something and speak up about it… going after the prevaricating bureaucrats rather than treating them with the deference of fellow club members. To my thinking, even his approach was tepid when measured against the damage done to our country.
Yet Paul is setting the pace as the new legislators move into the seats of power inside the beltway. They have been sent to Washington to rock the boat and turn the government back into an organization working for the people who pay taxes and suffer from excessive and unrestrained regulation and interference. This hearing was one small skirmish in the battle to regain our freedom. Rand Paul cannot this win the battle alone. Read more of this article »
The Old World method of measuring human value was, and still is, by the group. Whether tribe, clan, city-state, color, ethnic, or gender, the Old World, ancient and modern, measures by the plural unit. Individuals had and have no value of themselves but only as they were and are part of a collective.
When Y’shua Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the Temple at the Holy of Holies parted from the top down. The individual believer in the congregation had, for the first time, a face-to-face, one-on-one relation with his Creator. The Creator, Himself, had validated each individual for the first time. Thus, the Individual became the cornerstone for later human value measuring systems: socio-political, philosophical, religious, educational, economic, etc., henceforth and forever. Western Civilization, America, English Law, civil Rights, the ‘democratic’ process, etc., all sprang from that single event. (Greco-Roman ‘democracies’ were 95% slave throughout their entire histories.) Biblical principles are still today the foundation under Western Civilization and the American way of life.
Many social systems attempt to borrow ideas of “democracy” without the basic premise in The Individual. Such a system is only superficially and temporarily ‘democratic.’ The cornerstone of the democratic process is The Individual and the cornerstone of the value of The Individual is Y’shua Jesus! It is not possible to have one without the other. There is only One Source – there is no other. Read more of this article »
“This is a saaad day for the women of Virginia” was the sound bite that was played and replayed on radio and television stations around the Commonwealth of Virginia on the day that the General Assembly voted to require abortion clinics to adhere to much the same standards as hospitals. Forget the fact that women have died because facilities were not adequate to handle the emergencies of an abortion gone wrong… that was a small price to pay for the convenience of easily killing one’s offspring.
In some ways, it is kind of useless trying to make such places safer, since, by definition half the people who come onto the premises die before they leave. Yet, it is a step in the right direction. How, one would ask, is making abortions safer a step in the right direction. The pro-death crowd understood immediately – mourning the fact that the new regulations would cause more than half the of Virginia’s clinics to close their doors.
This may be the first time that the progressive left recognized the reality that heavy regulations close business and increase unemployment. We can hope that the lesson, that put the squeeze on one of their sacred cows, will carry over to other areas of government action. We can also hope that they care about business and workers who are not about perpetuating this American holocaust. Read more of this article »
The recent CPAC conference in the nation’s capitol made a brief splash and now it’s gone. Many opponents of the President’s policies were present to stir the crowd with firey rhetoric heard from few elected public servants anywhere, and even fewer inside the beltway. It was, perhaps, cathartic for those who attended. And many attended… but many did not.
The newly influential presence of the group that bills itself as “homosexual conservative” was a stumbling block to many. A great many well known political figures skipped this year’s event because of the highly visible involvement of GOProud.
Objections came on two levels. The first, and the one most expected, was based on the concept that homosexuality is wrong, as described in various scriptures, such as Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” (NIV) Read more of this article »
To a packed out crowd of over 500 Montanans who had assembled in minus zero weather to hear me speak, I made the statement, “Not all Christians are our friends, and not all non-Christians are our enemies.” Indeed, being able to identify our friends is more than half the battle.
When I spoke of identifying friends or enemies, I was talking about one’s overall positive or negative contribution to the principles of liberty. I will say it again, not all Christians are our friends, and not all non-Christians are our enemies. This is difficult for many Christians to wrap their brains around, I know.
I will go one step further: in America today, claiming a new birth Christian experience means absolutely nothing when it comes to defending liberty principles. After traveling more than 60,000 miles over the past two years to virtually every crack and corner of this vast country, my studied observation is that the ratio of Christians to non-Christians who are true freedom fighters is probably no better than 50%. I will further say that often times Christians are actually greater enemies to freedom than are non-Christians. I never thought I would hear myself say that, but, today, I really believe it. Read more of this article »
Those who have been paying attention have noticed the fascination European style socialism holds for members of today’s ruling class. They admire the expensive, inefficient state run health “care” programs. They seek to unionize business out of competitive advantages like many on the continent. They simply adore the way European live revolves around the edicts and machinations of the ruling class… and they want the US to be like the Europe!
There are various reasons for this. The European people know their place. They have been bought and paid for with “free” benefits from the government. As a result, many Europeans have been weaned away from recognition of, and dependence on, their creator. Like Esau, they have given up their generous inheritance for a “free” bowl of stew. All this has turned our cousins across the sea into nations of sheep who are struggling to hold on to their culture and heritage from the onslaught of Islamic invaders with no intention of assimilating. And they want the US to be like Europe!
The ideas of individual responsibility, reward and achievement have proven too much for some. These ideas have also proven to be a hindrance to those who would rule rather than serve. A nation of sheep is easier to control than a country populated by free men and free women. Unlike our European cousins, there is still a remnant among us who remember America’s greatness and want to see it restored. They remember the uniqueness that made the USA the envy of the world – a position that many on the progressive left find most distasteful. Read more of this article »
A bedrock principle of Natural Law (the Law upon which Western Civilization rests) is the primacy of truth. Without a desire for, and appreciation of, truth, society cannot sustain itself. Lies, deceit, duplicity, etc., are more than moral evils; they are the bane of freedom and liberty. Take away truth, and one is left without honor, justice, or decency. Truth is the cement that holds the bricks and stones of a sane and civilized society together. Remove the former and the latter will crumble.
Truth also demands courage and honesty, because sometimes it can be very painful to look at! It takes an honest man to desire truth, as truth will often reveal the character flaws in his own soul. It also takes courage to appreciate truth, as truth will often demand that one change his own opinion or conduct. Unfortunately, it does appear that the desire for truth has been replaced with a desire for deceit.
Years ago, a great, old preacher-warrior told my former church congregation, “People today love being lied to.” How right he was! For the most part, even professing Christian people today love being lied to. It would seem that many people find deceit easier to digest than truth. Maybe it’s because these people lack the aforementioned virtues of honesty and courage.
Truth demands the virtue of honesty, because honesty requires that information be objectively analyzed and studied; it requires that personal prejudices and proclivities be set aside; it requires that humility replace pride, which allows one’s opinions and conduct to change in the face of truth.
Truth also demands courage, as courage is the active response to honesty. To know what is right to do is great (many people do not even know this much), but to act upon what one knows to be right is even greater–and also harder! Courage gives men the fortitude and conviction to suffer personal loss in order to be faithful to their own honesty. Courage places more value on honesty and truth than on personal prosperity or aggrandizement. Courage propelled Daniel into the lion’s den; it drove Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the burning fiery furnace; it placed a youthful David onto the battlefield alone against a fierce and ferocious adversary; it gathered Pastor Jonas Clark’s congregants (mostly farmers and merchants) onto Lexington Green to face Britain’s highly trained, professional soldiers. Read more of this article »
It’s difficult to watch a newscast on any channel these days where the word “sustainability” is not batted about as the ruling class attempts to tell us what we are, and are not capable of doing. We are told that our lifestyles are not sustainable. We are told that our leadership in the world is not sustainable. We are told that our consumption of resources is not sustainable. We are told these things by members of the party that has been pretty much in charge for the past fifty plus years. One has to wonder how they let us get into this fix in the first place.
The whole argument about the whether our path through the world is sustainable or not revolves around the question of whether the American genius that made this country the superpower in the world is capable of maintaining our position. To say that our lifestyle and position in the world is not sustainable is to say that Americans have lost their ability to create new products, concepts and energy sources. To say America is not sustainable, the speaker shows his lack of faith in the American people, the free market system that has carried us to the pinnacle of the global economy and the “divine providence” that guided our nation into existence is unreliable.
These naysayers, even when they recognize the historical significance of these factors, are telling us our time has run out and the individualism that has built our nation and made it prosper must give way to the collective approach driven by leaders with little real world experience who have sheltered themselves behind the ivy covered walls of academia, theorizing about all sorts of things, we, the little people, should be doing. Read more of this article »
As we approach the celebration of Christ’s birth, I am reminded of the words of John Quincy Adams. On July 4, 1837, he spoke these words:
“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? … Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth. That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?”
Adams was exactly right: America’s birth is directly linked to the birth of our Savior. In fact, the United States of America is the only nation established by Christian people, upon Biblical principles, and dedicated to the purpose of religious liberty. This truth is easily observed within America’s earliest history.
America’s forebears first established a written covenant with God as early as November 11, 1620, when they penned The Mayflower Compact. It states in part: Read more of this article »
Orlando, FL – Between his campaign against President Gerald Ford in 1975-76 and his race against Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan delivered more than 1,000 radio broadcasts, running about three minutes each, writing nearly all of them himself. In one broadcast during the Christmas season, Mr. Reagan told a story about Christmas in the Ukraine before and after Communism.
In an effort to resist Christians, Communist leaders secularized a favorite Ukrainian Christmas carol, “Nova Radist Stala” (Joyous News Has Come to Us). The original song began with these words: “The joyous news has come which never was before. Over a cave above a manger a bright star has lit the world, where Jesus was born from a virgin maiden, …” Communists feared the public outcry that would follow a complete ban on Christmas, so they began to slowly secularize the holiday. The first rewrite of the song began: “The joyous news has come which never was before, a red star with five tails has brightly lit the world.” The second rewrite went further: “The joyous news has come which never was before. Long-awaited star of freedom lit the skies in October [the month of the Revolution]. Where formerly lived the kings and had the roots their nobles, there today with simple folks, Lenin’s glory hovers.”
The former Soviet Union eventually began banning Christmas commemorations. St. Nicholas was replaced with “Did Moroz,” or Grandfather Frost. This Stalinist creation wears a red cap and long white beard of Santa Claus, but he delivers gifts to children on New Year’s Eve. Christmas trees were also banned, but people continued to trim their New Year’s trees. Communism folded all Christmas celebrations into a New Year celebration. Read more of this article »
Let me ask readers a question. What’s more important: freedom and its undergirding principles, or the entity meant to protect it? A word of caution: be careful how you answer that question, because the way you answer marks your understanding (or lack thereof) of both freedom and the purpose of government.
Thomas Jefferson–and the rest of America’s founders–believed that freedom was the principal possession, because liberty is a divine—not human–gift. Listen to Jefferson:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” (Declaration of Independence)
Jefferson could not be clearer: America’s founders desired a land in which men might live in liberty. By declaring independence from the government of Great Britain (and instituting new government), Jefferson, et al., did not intend to erect an idol (government) that men would worship. They created a mechanism designed to protect that which they considered to be their most precious possession: liberty. In other words, the government they created by the Constitution of 1787 was not the object; freedom’s protection was the object. Read more of this article »
It has been an interesting evening watching the election returns and trying to make some sense of them. Political prognosticators are something like economists in that if you would lay them all end to end, they still would not reach a conclusion. It appears that we, in the US, have a double minded electorate.
As this is written there are a few things that we can see. Some are positive and some negative for our country, but nonetheless, this is the world we have to live with for the next two years. While we cannot go back and correct mistakes made this cycle, we can learn from them… and it is essential that we learn from them.
At the top of many people’s list is looking at what happened in Delaware. In what was a disappointment for many tea partiers, Christine O’Donnell came up short in her attempt to defeat the “bearded socialist”. Many of us look at Karl Rove and say “shame on you” as his rant against O’Donnell on the night she won the primary was not only ill advised, but dishonest as he, at the time, did not reveal that he was consulting her liberal, defeated opponent, Mike Castle. Other pundits, attempting to show themselves to be above the common folks who make up the tea party, followed suit.
In spite of the fact that these poor unwashed masses were expected to fall in line and back their establishment candidate, they were given permission to vote for the Democrat or sit out the entire process by this behavior. According to FoxNews polling 18% of the Republicans did not vote for their party’s candidate. Given the minority in voter registration in the state, this softened support most likely did not make the entire difference… but it certainly didn’t help. Read more of this article »
In early February 2009, I responded to a request for video from Senate Republicans about what they should do about the financial crisis. My prescription was to return to commerce, charity and the individual their rights and responsibilities and reset Government as “honest brokers” in regulation, tax and oversight of competitive markets.
Shortly thereafter, I created Tea Party WDC and combined efforts with another group for a Tea Party at the U.S. Capital for the Fourth of July. Three thousand came on that beautiful day to amplify our call for fiscal responsibility, constitutional limited government and free enterprise.
My recommendations are based on the least amount of public money and regulatory manipulation, funded and executed at the lowest possible level of government or by the individual. For instance, States should fully fund Medicaid and unemployment benefits. Entitlements should be reformed to reflect its end of life purpose, to make it actuarially sound and private options should be permitted. States should fund the majority of their transportation projects and municipalities should finance the waste management. Wealthy individuals should pay for their rights and responsibilities such as educating their children, payng for healthcare and retirment. Beyond enumerated powers, taxpayers should only be responsible for minimal mean-tested, fully portable safety net benefits at the State and local level. Read more of this article »
When I lived in north Jersey, long before the good citizens had the common sense to elect someone like Chris Cristie, we used to joke about the folks in Bergen County voting early and often. This was even before ACORN raised voter fraud to an art form, a mass produced art form. However, much of the technique involved resurrecting the dead, divining how they would have voted and then go into the voting booth and do it for them… or maybe they skipped most of the process and took the personal information that came with the “walkin’ around money” and followed their orders to vote for everyone with a “D” beside their name.
This sort of thing has been an open secret for years in many urban areas. Unfortunately, the ones charged with maintaining the integrity of the voting system are the very same ones who benefit from the from the dishonest practice. Far be it from me to accuse the party that controls the major densely populated centers as being corrupt. I’ll leave that for the readers to decide.
Many have decided that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Some people are trying to do something about this. In much the same was as Ryan Buell leads several Penn State students in tracking down disembodied spirits on A&E’s Paranormal State, the folks at the Tea Party Paranormal are attempting to help these disembodied voters remain in whatever eternal destination their lives have led them to. Read more of this article »
Only the most willingly ignorant people (most of whom are educated beyond their intelligence, as my dad used to say) would argue with the fact that the generation who founded this great country believed that God had providentially established and protected what became known as the United States of America. The public sentiments in this regard are irrefutable.
In his first inaugural address, President George Washington said, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.”
In Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Address (1789), he said, “That we then may all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war.” Read more of this article »
George W. Bush enthusiastically promoted the idea of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan with the idea of exporting American style “democracy” to these troubled countries. Most of us, including myself, were thrilled by election turnouts that exceeded those in our homeland. Who could not share the joy of the oppressed minorities as they displayed their ink stained fingers having braved threats of violence, and even death, to obtain them? Yet, the question is not whether Bush’s plan could get the job done, but whether any such plan is possible at all?
In some ways, even the effort, as noble as it was, shows a lack of understanding of the factors that made our country great and a denial of the concept of American exceptionalism in an almost Obamesque fashion. To consider this, let’s look at what some leaders from our history said about their enterprise in freedom, then compare their world with the one our soldiers are fighting make free.
Patrick Henry told us, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” This is the thinking that led to the concept that all of us are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is not an expectation of universal salvation, but a respect for all people, not because of position or accomplishment, but because of who created them. Read more of this article »
The elections of 2008 (and the early elections of 2010) produced two significant phenomena: the “Ron Paul Revolution,” and the “Tea Party Movement.” And, mark it down: both of them will have profound effects upon the upcoming November elections–and upon the 2012 elections as well. Call them what you want, however, America doesn’t need another movement; it needs a genuine revolution.
The Tea Party movement, while still a force with which to be contended, has already been diluted and compromised. The primary elections plainly reveal the reality of this fact. The high spots so far are the defeats of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Bob Bennett in Utah. The low spots so far are the reelection of John McCain in Arizona and the election of Dan Coats in Indiana.
John McCain’s election, in particular, demonstrates how many conservatives and “revolutionaries” still don’t get it. If any State in the union should have an up-close-and-personal look at what we are up against, it would be the people of Arizona. After all, they are on the front lines in the fight of one of the most important battles currently being waged in our country: illegal immigration. And John McCain is one of the worst offenders in terms of facilitating and encouraging this illegal invasion. Yet the people of Arizona reelected McCain to the US Senate. (It would interesting to know how many illegal aliens voted for McCain, would it not?) Read more of this article »
The Monday, July 19, 2010, edition of The Washington Post featured an investigative report entitled “Top Secret America,” with the subtitle, “A hidden world, growing beyond control.” The report begins, “The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
“These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
“The investigation’s other findings include:
*Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. Read more of this article »
Among the scariest words ever heard are, “We are from the federal government, and we are here to help you.” Shiver me timbers, matey! When you hear those words, pick up your peg leg and RUN, because you are about to get hammered. And that is exactly what is fixing to happen to the American people when the new Obama national healthcare law is fully implemented: we are going to get hammered.
Anyone who believes that the federal government can manage anything efficiently is 8 years old, rationally challenged, or in the business of profiting from the federal government’s inefficiency. The only thing the federal government can do with precision is destroy things (and people). That is the one thing the feds can do with complete and total proficiency. Our first and greatest President, George Washington, understood this reality. He said, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Amen.
A recent AP report should serve as another illustration as to the folly of trusting the federal government with the supervision and care of anything beyond those narrowly limited responsibilities defined in the US Constitution. The July 27, 2010, report said, “A U.S. audit has found that the Pentagon cannot account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money, spotlighting Iraqi complaints that there is little to show for the massive funds pumped into their cash-strapped, war-ravaged nation.” Read more of this article »
The GOP is frantically searching for the person who will lead them to the Promised Land (translate: White House) in 2012. Barack Obama is leaving a death stench so heavy that even most of the political allies in his own party are asking him to stay away from their reelection campaigns. You gotta give it to Obama: he has done in one term what most Presidents cannot accomplish until their second (lame duck) term. The problem is, the GOP just can’t seem to find their Moses (or even their Ronald Reagan). That means, as far fetched as it sounds now, Obama has a good chance of being reelected. And, once again, when any Democrat candidate for President wins, the GOP will have no one to blame but themselves. 2012 could be another example.
You see, the GOP (including their lackeys at Fox News) either really don’t know what a constitutional conservative looks like, or they do know what he or she looks like and don’t want them leading the party. I believe the answer is the latter, but in either case, the GOP continually does nothing to groom constitutionalist conservatives for leadership. Just the opposite: such people are routinely ignored, shunned, besmirched, or impugned. (Can anyone say, “Ron Paul”?) Is it any wonder that by the time the general election comes around, the GOP candidate for President is usually nothing more than a Democrat-lite, or a “Democrat in Drag” to borrow from Steve Farrell.
That brings me to one of the people that the talking heads at Fox News and other GOP propaganda centers are routinely discussing as their 2012 Presidential hopeful: former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Read more of this article »
“Our own government has become our enemy.” So said Pinal County (Arizona) Sheriff Paul Babeu.
“Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.
“‘What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU.’ Babeu said.” Read more of this article »
The recent layoff of 80 Oakland, California police officers is representative of the way many governments at all levels are responding to the financial pinch all are feeling. While many Golden State public service unions appear to believe that gold is what the taxpayers are made of, this may not be the wisest choice… but certainly it is the most predictable.
The process of eliminating public protection in the city with the fourth highest crime rate the country shows the city fathers (and mothers) are following the old political practice of funding the lowest priorities first. Then, when the money is gone and the public still had needs, it is much easier to come back and ask for more money. For some reason, up to this point, people believed that the elected representatives were really working for the good of the public. How many citizens would accept a tax increase for extra flowers for the park across town? Yet, these things are often already bought and paid for when weeping and wailing is heard in the halls of power because some essential services will have to be cut. Here’s a helpful hint – don’t believe a word of it!
The idea is to create the maximum inconvenience for the maximum number of people. Oakland residents will have to make do with less police protection. This can have life and death consequences for those who find themselves in need. Cutbacks like this hit voters at the gut level as they see the criminal element taking over more and more of their city – and they become an easy touch as their representatives work to pry open their wallets. While the unions need to be reigned in, cutting down on public protection is not the way to make their city a better place to live. Read more of this article »
Don’t you get tired of people pussyfooting around about the nonsense taking place in Washington and around our country? Many speak of their “concern” about freedom destroying trends in hushed tones. Words that come from pastors like Rev. Swaggart are said to be inflammatory and not very helpful in our multi-cultural, diversity worshiping world. These people don’t want to rock the boat or are afraid to be seen as extremists. They are afraid of what others will think. They wring their hands and wonder, “what can we do?” All this, just like the Jews in Germany during the 1930s.
Compartmentalized Christians who split their lives between Sunday morning, and their own time, won’t like or even comprehend what the preacher in the video was saying. Those who understand that life cannot be split into segments with conflicting loyalties know exactly what Brother Swaggart is talking about. Those without even a claim to the Christian faith will see him as foolish, ridiculous and even dangerous. However without this understanding and passion, our efforts will turn out to be half hearted and futile. Read more of this article »
Highway 40 runs the width of Tennessee and beyond. This ribbon of asphalt gives truth to the saying that in the volunteer state they have two seasons, winter and highway construction. Anyone who has made the run in or out of Nashville can attest to the fact that the smooth high speed run across the state is invariably broken by periods of restful pause as one sits in line waiting to get through yet another construction zone.
Pennsylvanians living along Route 22 that runs through the Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, especially the last few miles before crossing the Deleware, can tell tales of constant construction repairing this or that section of road. It’s been rumored that some PennDot employees have spent their entire careers on this stretch of road. While we all recognize the need to keep up our infrastructure and hate bouncing our cars over the pot holes that never seem to go away, it is often easy to relate to the frustrations of the Michael Douglas character in the 1993 movie Falling Down.
I just completed a ten day swing up through the northeast for a graduation and wedding along with a little family vacation time. We spent far too much time on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, which surprisingly enough, were about the only roads that had no shovel ready projects ready to absorb the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds congress borrowed from the Chinese in an attempt to undo the damage to our economy done by previous federal interventions. Read more of this article »
The true essence of the 4th Amendment, that is, probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, found by the Framers, as the best, and only, reason for depriving a citizen of his, or her, fundamental God-given right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, was changed, without constitutional amendment by eight justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in the decision Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968) to reasonable suspicion. Terry v. Ohio (1968), the will of the Earl Warren Court, essentially threw out “probable cause” from the 4th Amendment and made it much easier for all police officers to deprive a citizen of a basic constitutional right that the writers of the U.S. Constitution saw as sacrosanct.
From what we know about the almost unanimous 1968 decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren carefully courted the vote of each of the justices, just as he had done in Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), in order to produce a, hopefully, unanimous vote. To change the letter of the U.S. Constitution, without amendment, the Court had to show unanimity, because the decision, in and of itself, was basically illegal, if it had been subsequently challenged by the U.S. Congress. The only vote Warren was unable to acquire in 1968 was that of the Justice William O. Douglas, who vehemently wrote in his dissenting opinion, “To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a long step down the totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is desirable to cope with modern forms of lawlessness. But if it is taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through a constitutional amendment.” (392 U.S. 1, at 38). A few days after the decision was rended, Justice Douglas supposedly quipped to a reporter off-the-cuff that “if the Court can arbitrarily change the 4th Amendment, to read as it wants it to read, what is next, changing the word “respecting” to “denying” in the 1st Amendment?” What amazes me is the immediate, or latent, lack of opposition to the decision by the American people, when a section of the Bill of Rights was altered by the collective whim of eight of the Brethren, instead of by decree of the American electorate through the amendment process. Read more of this article »
Politicians in Washington, D.C., love to manufacture a crisis. The crisis generates fear within the citizenry, thereby allowing the federal government to centralize more and more power. During a crisis, the citizenry becomes much more forgiving of federal abuses and accommodating of federal encroachments than it otherwise would be without a crisis. Hence, we have a federal “war on drugs,” and a “war on poverty,” and a “war on terror,” and an “oil crisis,” and an “energy crisis,” and a “domestic terrorism crisis,” and an “education crisis,” and a “border crisis,” and an “economic crisis”–Blah! Blah! Blah!
You can mark it down: every major crisis that America has faced over the last several decades has been either manufactured or facilitated by policies and activities originating in Washington, D.C. But at the same time that DC is creating these crises, it categorizes any ideological group it finds distasteful as a convenient scapegoat. These convenient scapegoats can include “angry white guys,” “tea party extremists,” “a vast right-wing conspiracy,” Constitution Party or Libertarian Party “extremists,” “Second Amendment extremists” (gun owners), “pro-life extremists,” ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Yet, while DC’s elitists are plotting America’s next crisis and figuring out whom to categorize as America’s next “extremist,” some real enemies are waging war against the freedoms and liberties of our once-great republic. And, ladies and gentlemen, these enemies are much more subtle, a lot closer, and much more dangerous than almost anything you are being told about. Read more of this article »
The Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 A.D.) wrote regarding the way latter-day Roman emperors retained power and control over the masses that were seemingly more than happy to obsess themselves with trivialities and self-indulgences while their once-great-and-powerful empire collapsed before their very eyes. He wrote:
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions–everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”
I submit that a good many in America are, like Rome of old, carelessly frittering away their God-given liberties, foolishly clamoring for nothing more than government handouts and never-ending entertainment. Millions and millions of Americans (especially males) are literally intoxicated with sports. Sports are no longer a great American pastime; they are now a great American obsession. Read more of this article »
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Be the First to Comment 
By Daniel James Wood
By Congressman Randy Forbes
by Samuel Rutherford (1644)
by James Fletcher Baxter
“This is a saaad day for the women of Virginia” was the sound bite that was played and replayed on radio and television stations around the Commonwealth of Virginia on the day that the General Assembly voted to require abortion clinics to adhere to much the same standards as hospitals. Forget the fact that women have died because facilities were not adequate to handle the emergencies of an abortion gone wrong… that was a small price to pay for the convenience of easily killing one’s offspring.
The recent CPAC conference in the nation’s capitol made a brief splash and now it’s gone. Many opponents of the President’s policies were present to stir the crowd with firey rhetoric heard from few elected public servants anywhere, and even fewer inside the beltway. It was, perhaps, cathartic for those who attended. And many attended… but many did not.
To a packed out crowd of over 500 Montanans who had assembled in minus zero weather to hear me speak, I made the statement, “Not all Christians are our friends, and not all non-Christians are our enemies.” Indeed, being able to identify our friends is more than half the battle.
A bedrock principle of Natural Law (the Law upon which Western Civilization rests) is the primacy of truth. Without a desire for, and appreciation of, truth, society cannot sustain itself. Lies, deceit, duplicity, etc., are more than moral evils; they are the bane of freedom and liberty. Take away truth, and one is left without honor, justice, or decency. Truth is the cement that holds the bricks and stones of a sane and civilized society together. Remove the former and the latter will crumble.
It’s difficult to watch a newscast on any channel these days where the word “sustainability” is not batted about as the ruling class attempts to tell us what we are, and are not capable of doing. We are told that our lifestyles are not sustainable. We are told that our leadership in the world is not sustainable. We are told that our consumption of resources is not sustainable. We are told these things by members of the party that has been pretty much in charge for the past fifty plus years. One has to wonder how they let us get into this fix in the first place.
As we approach the celebration of Christ’s birth, I am reminded of the words of John Quincy Adams. On July 4, 1837, he spoke these words:
Courtesy of 
Let me ask readers a question. What’s more important: freedom and its undergirding principles, or the entity meant to protect it? A word of caution: be careful how you answer that question, because the way you answer marks your understanding (or lack thereof) of both freedom and the purpose of government.
It has been an interesting evening watching the election returns and trying to make some sense of them. Political prognosticators are something like economists in that if you would lay them all end to end, they still would not reach a conclusion. It appears that we, in the US, have a double minded electorate.
In early February 2009, I responded to a request for video from Senate Republicans about what they should do about the financial crisis. My prescription was to return to commerce, charity and the individual their rights and responsibilities and reset Government as “honest brokers” in regulation, tax and oversight of competitive markets.
When I lived in north Jersey, long before the good citizens had the common sense to elect someone like Chris Cristie, we used to joke about the folks in Bergen County voting early and often. This was even before ACORN raised voter fraud to an art form, a mass produced art form. However, much of the technique involved resurrecting the dead, divining how they would have voted and then go into the voting booth and do it for them… or maybe they skipped most of the process and took the personal information that came with the “walkin’ around money” and followed their orders to vote for everyone with a “D” beside their name.
Only the most willingly ignorant people (most of whom are educated beyond their intelligence, as my dad used to say) would argue with the fact that the generation who founded this great country believed that God had providentially established and protected what became known as the United States of America. The public sentiments in this regard are irrefutable.
George W. Bush enthusiastically promoted the idea of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan with the idea of exporting American style “democracy” to these troubled countries. Most of us, including myself, were thrilled by election turnouts that exceeded those in our homeland. Who could not share the joy of the oppressed minorities as they displayed their ink stained fingers having braved threats of violence, and even death, to obtain them? Yet, the question is not whether Bush’s plan could get the job done, but whether any such plan is possible at all?
The elections of 2008 (and the early elections of 2010) produced two significant phenomena: the “Ron Paul Revolution,” and the “Tea Party Movement.” And, mark it down: both of them will have profound effects upon the upcoming November elections–and upon the 2012 elections as well. Call them what you want, however, America doesn’t need another movement; it needs a genuine revolution.
The Monday, July 19, 2010, edition of The Washington Post featured an investigative report entitled “Top Secret America,” with the subtitle, “A hidden world, growing beyond control.” The report begins, “The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
Among the scariest words ever heard are, “We are from the federal government, and we are here to help you.” Shiver me timbers, matey! When you hear those words, pick up your peg leg and RUN, because you are about to get hammered. And that is exactly what is fixing to happen to the American people when the new Obama national healthcare law is fully implemented: we are going to get hammered.
The GOP is frantically searching for the person who will lead them to the Promised Land (translate: White House) in 2012. Barack Obama is leaving a death stench so heavy that even most of the political allies in his own party are asking him to stay away from their reelection campaigns. You gotta give it to Obama: he has done in one term what most Presidents cannot accomplish until their second (lame duck) term. The problem is, the GOP just can’t seem to find their Moses (or even their Ronald Reagan). That means, as far fetched as it sounds now, Obama has a good chance of being reelected. And, once again, when any Democrat candidate for President wins, the GOP will have no one to blame but themselves. 2012 could be another example.
“Our own government has become our enemy.” So said Pinal County (Arizona) Sheriff Paul Babeu.
The recent layoff of 80 Oakland, California police officers is representative of the way many governments at all levels are responding to the financial pinch all are feeling. While many Golden State public service unions appear to believe that gold is what the taxpayers are made of, this may not be the wisest choice… but certainly it is the most predictable.
By Norton R Nowlin
Politicians in Washington, D.C., love to manufacture a crisis. The crisis generates fear within the citizenry, thereby allowing the federal government to centralize more and more power. During a crisis, the citizenry becomes much more forgiving of federal abuses and accommodating of federal encroachments than it otherwise would be without a crisis. Hence, we have a federal “war on drugs,” and a “war on poverty,” and a “war on terror,” and an “oil crisis,” and an “energy crisis,” and a “domestic terrorism crisis,” and an “education crisis,” and a “border crisis,” and an “economic crisis”–Blah! Blah! Blah!
The Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 A.D.) wrote regarding the way latter-day Roman emperors retained power and control over the masses that were seemingly more than happy to obsess themselves with trivialities and self-indulgences while their once-great-and-powerful empire collapsed before their very eyes. He wrote:
