Autocracies in global ascendancy | Charles Rowley's Blog
Western promoters of democracy have no cause for complacency. The autocrats are now on the march into territories once viewed as entirely safe for democracy.
A little bit classic liberal, a little bit libertarian and a little bit whatever catches my eye.
Autocracies in global ascendancy | Charles Rowley's Blog
Western promoters of democracy have no cause for complacency. The autocrats are now on the march into territories once viewed as entirely safe for democracy.
Moonbattery » The History of Political Correctness
Confused as to why driving the herd into accepting the sick blasphemous farce of homosexual “marriage” is so important to the hardcore leftists who determine the government–media’s agenda? This history of political correctness makes the one-sided Culture War comprehensible. Long but worth watching:
Radio Derb Is On The Air: The Powerball Winner Who Can't Speak English | VDARE.com
Still I have to ask Mr. Quezada: The U.S.A. has been sensationally good to you. Could you not have spoken to us in our own language? After living in this country for 26 years, can it really be the case that you do not know enough of our national language even to say "Thank you"? I also have to ask my own fellow citizens: What kind of country have we become, when you can live for 26 years in an American town, having arrived at age 19 when your mind is still nimble, and yet need to have simple English questions translated for you?
Society is paying a price for the ever escalating war against traditional Christian morality. A price we're paying arguably because too many of us have abandoned the fight. Tragic for our kids... and their kids.
Despite the attempt by government and particularly Democrats, to blame the financial meltdown we’ve endured on banks and unscrupulous investment companies, the buck stops with them according to a new study just released:
A nation suckered - NYPOST.com
In 2009, the Government Accountability Office catalogued examples of waste, fraud and abuse in just about every federal do-gooder program, including school lunches ($1.4 billion), children’s health insurance ($800 million, or roughly 15 percent of the total), the Earned Income Tax Credit ($12 billion), plus housing subsidies, child-care, unemployment insurance . . . You name it, and some sizable chunk of it is a scam. In all, the cost to the taxpayers is estimated at some $100 billion a year.And things are only likely to get worse.
We will be judged by our silence
The Progressive homosexual agenda is a tool of those who are seeking the destruction of America. The activists hypnotized by the illusion of equal rights are nothing more than pawns duped into believing they are fighting for tolerance and inclusion, while the end game scenario leaves no room at the proverbial table for them. What is taking place today is the systematic destruction of a nation from within, and is insidious in nature and effectiveness by its simplicity. It is a tactic that uses the pretext of tolerance to break down our cultural standards of morality. You might be surprised to learn that presenting homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy” was identified as one of the goals of the Communist agenda for the takeover of America as read into the United States Congressional record on January 10, 1963 by Rep. A. S. Herlong of Florida. Of course, the mere mention of such an inconvenient truth will earn you the title of conspiracy nut within the corporate media.
The Captain's Journal » Guns, Shame And Obama
Let’s recast that shame in a more truthful light. Shame on you Obama for surrounding yourself with the props of hurting mothers in order to pass your Fascist measures. Shame on you for lying to the gullible American people and claiming that any measure you take would have changed the outcome of a dedicated person bent on doing harm. Shame on you for deceiving the public into thinking that this has anything to do with school shootings. Shame on you for inferring that any change you make to the laws governing law abiding people has any affect on criminals. Shame on you for pushing measures more suited to communist China (who supports your gun control efforts) than a free America (I can recall such a thing, although many youth today cannot). And finally, shame on you for nurturing a Fascist ideology that would turn our freedoms on their head and focus power in the hands of ruling elites who confiscate not only firearms but wealth too. Shame … shame … shame. God will soon condemn you, and your empty philosophies of liberation theology and warmed over Fabian Socialism won’t be able to save you on that awful day of judgment.
WyBlog -- The real purpose of same-sex "marriage" is to persecute and marginalize Christians
The left now has the cudgel with which they will try to smash religion. Our religious freedom is incompatible with their distorted view of civil rights. Their hostility to religion puts paid the notion that everyone has the right to be treated with respect. In the land of same-sex "marriage," Christians will be exiled. Which of course is the point.
Sultan Knish: The Deconstruction of Marriage
The left's greatest trick is making things mean the opposite of what they do. Stealing is sharing. Crime is justice. Property is theft. Each deconstruction is accompanied by an inversion so that a thing, once examined, comes to seem the opposite of what it is, and once that is done, it no longer has the old innate value, but a new enlightened one. To deconstruct man, you deconstruct his beliefs and then his way of living. You deconstruct freedom until it means slavery. You deconstruct peace until it means war. You deconstruct property until it means theft. And you deconstruct marriage until it means a physical relationship between any group of people for any duration. And that is the opposite of what marriage is. The deconstruction of marriage is part of the deconstruction of gender and family and those are part of the long program of deconstructing man. Once each basic value has been rendered null and void, inverted and revealed to be random and meaningless, then man is likewise revealed to be a random and meaningless creature whose existence requires shaping by those who know better. The final deconstruction eliminates nation, religion, family and even gender to reduce the soul of man to a blank slate waiting to be written on.
Are We Equal? | Right Wing News
Soft-minded and sloppy-thinking academics, lawyers and judges harbor the silly notion that but for the fact of discrimination, we’d be proportionately distributed by race across incomes, education, occupations and other outcomes. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere, at any time, that proportionality is the norm anywhere on earth; however, much of our thinking, many of our laws and much of our public policy are based upon proportionality’s being the norm. Maybe this vision is held because people believe that equality in fact is necessary for equality before the law. But the only requirement for equality before the law is that one is a human being.
The Economist Indicts Corn Ethanol | Via Meadia
Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. The details of this farce can be confusing, but the Economist does an excellent job of clearly and succinctly explaining the story. They get all the facts right, and their recommendation is clear: Kill the corn ethanol mandate. Now.
Sequester And We're Still Funding Planned Parenthood?! | Restoring Liberty
When it comes to the latest round of budget cuts, there’s one big problem that should bother everyone: Washington’s continued funding of Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion chain.
Obama Pursues Royal Prerogative as MSM Remains Silent
The mainstream media's protection of President Obama's budget hypocrisy in denying access to the White House to thousands of American school children while authorizing the latest international vacation for the First Daughters is but the latest example of the most troubling transformation of all--that of the watch dog media into fawning royal courtiers.
In First Diplomatic Address, Pope Francis Decries 'Tyranny Of Relativism' | Restoring Liberty
On Friday, the newly elected pontiff expressed serious concern for the “spiritual poverty” of the world as represented by a rejection of both God and objective standards of morality.
Standing Up for the Conservative Cause
I want to thank the 104 patriots of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) who courageously stood for their “Back to Basics” budget this week. By proposing sweeping entitlement reforms and by limiting Obamacare, the “Back to Basics” budget would have balanced our country’s federal budget in just four years. Washington has an awful spending problem, and those Representatives who voted for the RSC budget truly recognize this fact and are willing to cast the tough votes necessary to deal with it.
Our own Ignorance is destroying us. Mark Twain wrote in his autobiography: “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” That is what has been going on in our Country for a very long time. Our “intellectuals” can’t think; our “scholars” parrot each other; the self-educated fixate on idiotic theories; no one studies original source writings; and The People jump on every bandwagon that rolls by.
The Demise of Congressional Deliberation: Willmoore Kendall - The Imaginative Conservative
The one teaching of Willmoore Kendall’s toward which all his early thought tended and from which radiated all his later thought was this: America’s vindication of the capacity of men for self-government rests upon its devotion to the idea of a virtuous people, under God, determining national policy by the deliberations of a supreme legislature composed of representatives who should reflect the moral beliefs of the people and should deliberate under conditions free, open, rational, and accountable. How does that teaching fare today, and how might it serve to guide us in our present predicament? The time is seasonable for a reassessment of the grounds of our trust in representative democracy for we have cause to feel concern that recent alterations in the way Congress conducts its business have corrupted its ability to deliberate and threaten to erode the very foundations of rule of law.
Both of this nation’s political parties operating at the federal level have far more in common with each other than they do with you and I. The polimedia—the revolving door between the mainstream media, the consultant class, bureaucrats and elected officials—has no more in common with you, than you have with a Moro tribesman, and if your idealism and insistence upon clinging to your Constitutional rights gets in the way of their desire for power and control, they have little moral objection to treating you the same way. Their goal is to exert their influence over you, using laws and regulations in such a way as to bring themselves both power and financial advantage. It is human nature that great power leads inevitably to great corruption, and it is no coincidence that the counties surrounding Washington DC are among the wealthiest in the nation.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The Courage to be Christian - The Imaginative Conservative
In these dark days in which the power of secular fundamentalism appears to be on the rise and in which religious freedom seems to be imperiled, it is easy for Christians to become despondent. The clouds of radical relativism seem to obscure the light of objective truth and it can be difficult to discern any silver lining to help us illumine the future with hope.
Government Is The Liberals Religion | Flopping Aces
They told us if we voted for Romney he would impose his bizarre religious beliefs on us…so why is the left imposing THEIR bizarre religious beliefs on us instead?
On the Monday night broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Mark Levin warned the Republican party will split unless RNC chairman Reince Priebus and House Speaker John Boehner are thrown out.
Mexican, U.S. Media Too Scared To Cover Border Crime | Judicial Watch
Violence along the southern border has gotten so out of control that both Mexican and American journalists have stopped reporting it out of fear that drug cartels will retaliate against them and their families.
Creative Minority Report: Little Girl Stumps Legislature By Asking, "Which Parent Do I Not Need?"
“Since every child needs a mom and a dad to be born, I don’t think we can change that children need a mom and a dad. I believe God made it that way. I know some disagree, but I want to ask you this question: Which parent do I not need – my mom or my dad?”
Brutally Honest: "Pure sophistry is pitted against reason. Reason is losing."
The atmosphere at these events (I’ve also testified elsewhere) seems tinged with unreality—almost a carnival-like surrealism. Natural law, tradition, religion, intellectual curiosity, and free inquiry no longer play a role in deliberations. Same-sex marriage legislation is defended solely on grounds of moral relativism and emotions. Pure sophistry is pitted against reason. Reason is losing.
GOP Post-Mortem Is Largely Defeatist, Conceding Liberal Dominance - Investors.com
It has become crystal clear that a growing number of liberals in positions of power have little or no respect for what remains of the Republican Party and even less fear of its waning power and influence.
Progressive Democrats Gained Control Through The Welfare State - Investors.com
One other pillar of the liberal Democrats' systematic takeover genuinely was a conscious conspiracy — no conspiracy theory — and has even received belated recognition recently. If you are old enough, you can remember Democrats such as Ted Kennedy, in their rare candid moments, rhapsodizing that someday, when they could get 50% of the U.S. population plus one receiving a government check of some kind, they would never again lose a national election! The notorious but true 47% cited by Mitt Romney apparently is close enough.
We Need a Back to the Basics Budget | American Clarion
Never before has the debate in Washington, D.C. been as clear. The choice of whether to continue to grow government under the notion that America is too big to fail, or pull our nation away from a debt cliff that history has proven always ends in economic disaster for the nation that goes over it with catastrophic consequences for the people.
Commonsense & Wonder: Obama's war on America
America has made a grievous error in electing and then reelecting a leader who hates the country he’s leading. Everyone who loves the U.S. — its history, traditions, and a free-market, voluntary exchange economy — is profoundly disheartened by what’s going on before their eyes. Barack Obama is doing profound and long-lasting damage to the United States. He will continue to do so until people finally recognize who the real Obama is.
Today the Christianity, which with Judaism and Greek philosophy are the cornerstones of our civilization, is not only neglected in college courses but as Tim Larsen noted in 2010, it is dangerous for students seeking good grades to even source or quote the Bible.
Corn Ethanol Fuels Riots | Via Meadia
The UN urged the US to cut its ethanol mandates last August to help ease spiking world food prices. The Obama administration needs to end this biofuel boondoggle and consider funding R&D (not subsidies) for alternative biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, as RCE suggests (and as we have suggested too). If not for the sake of emissions, efficiency, or the world’s starving poor, then for a more stable geopolitical landscape.
The Simplicity of Sound Money - Patrick Barron - Mises Daily
In a sound money environment everyone understands monetary theory. Money is like any other desired commodity, except it is not consumed. It is a medium of indirect exchange, which traders accept in order to exchange for something else at a later time. This is easily understood, whether the trader is a child, a parent, a company, or a nation. One either has money or one does not. The money can be a money substitute, a bailment, with which one can demand the redemption of the real money—gold. Money issuers must keep one-hundred-percent reserves against their money substitutes in order to abide by normal commercial and criminal law. No special agencies or monetary authorities are necessary to make the system work. The system emerges naturally and is regulated via the normal commercial and criminal legal system. This is the system that government does not want us to have, because it provides no special favors for enhancing state power. Sound money shackles the government to the will of the people and not vice versa. As Ludwig von Mises stated in The Theory of Money and Credit: It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights.
The Thinking Housewife › A Religion Without Churches or Sunday School
There is nothing improper in making this claim. Every society must have some sort of (at least unofficial) state religion because a religion is primarily a system of thought that describes reality, and leaders must always have a way of thinking to guide their decisions. Furthermore, the majority of the population needs to approve of the reasons the leaders give for their decisions, or at least to find those reasons tolerable. Therefore it is no insult to liberalism to call it a religion. On the contrary, this is to take it seriously. It is not its status as a religion that makes liberalism illegitimate; it is the specific doctrines of liberalism that make it a menace. What is the evidence that liberalism is our state religion? Ask yourself, What system do most teachers, professors and even, God help us, many clergy, teach? What way of thinking is taught as (or assumed to be) true by most journalists? What ideas are portrayed as true, good and beautiful by most artists? What ideas are assumed true by most politicians? If you answered anything other than “liberalism,” you have not been paying attention. You may use another name than liberalism, but the substance is the same. And what system of thought do most of our leaders use to make their important decisions? When the Supreme Court says that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional even though the Constitution says nothing about homosexuality, when the President signs legislation outlawing incandescent light bulbs, and when a state governor signs legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, they are following the dictates of liberalism. And in a sense they have no choice in the matter, at least most of the time: If America’s intellectual leaders mostly say liberalism is true, and if America’s populace mostly agrees (or at least doesn’t openly disagree), then America’s political leaders must generally go along with liberalism or risk the wrath of the people. [cont.]
A great many of our fellow citizens see demands for homosexual marriage as just one more step in the democratic struggle against injustice and discrimination, a continuation of the fight against racism. It is in the name of equality, of open-mindedness, of being progressive and right-thinking that we are asked to accept this challenge to the foundations of our society. It seems, moreover, on the basis of public opinion polls, that this challenge is already accepted by a majority of our fellow citizens and thus the question of its establishment as a matter of law has not provoked a debate worthy of the momentous issues at stake. I believe, on the contrary, that it is a matter of the greatest importance to make clear the true implications of the negation of sexual difference and to debate publicly what is at stake rather than falling back on principles, such as equality, that flatter those who set themselves up as their standard bearers, even though the way these principles are invoked to justify the homosexual-marriage agenda does not stand up to critical scrutiny. This subject deserves better than the court of political correctness, whose authority, advocates of homosexual marriage hope, will prevail until the law is voted on—a tribunal they defend by means of disqualifying caricatures against anyone who dares to question their project and their motives.
Doug Ross @ Journal: What the Democrat Party Told Me
Well, I'm here to tell you: Everything they told me was a lie. Everything they told me was wrong. Intentionally, diabolically, criminally wrong. And if we don't begin to turn back the tide of centralized government, if we don't politically obliterate the Democrat Party, this beautiful Republic, this magnificent country, this bastion of free enterprise and private property rights, this shining city on a hill... well, it will be finished.
For the past four years or so, I’ve written numerous posts condemning the inbred society of Republican “insiders” and “consultants” who tell their candidates that they need to become Democrat light to win elections. These Washington denizens, I’ve argued are more interested in a candidates willingness to spend huge amounts of money for their services than their ideology or electability. That’s why they’ve consistently tried to marginalize real conservatives who see them for what they are: parasitic mercenaries who’ve become rich dispensing bad advice since about the time Reagan left office. They are scared to death by conservatives with core convictions who, thus, don’t need them such as Governor Palin. In a post on the eve of the 2010 mid-term elections, I listed several reasons why it was in their interest to make sure Governor Palin wasn’t the 2012 nominee because they had, in Mitt Romney, the perfect candidate for their narrow self-interest:
Health Insurers: Huge Obamacare Premium Hikes Are Coming - Guy Benson
Throughout the healthcare debate (and his first campaign), President Obama promised that premiums would fall by an average of $2,500 annually per family. He also pledged that overall healthcare costs would decline, not increase. Wrong, and wrong. There's a reason why Republicans are still fighting like hell to repeal and defund this monstrosity. The Associated Press runs through a few of the reasons behind the looming cost spikes:
A vigil for a teenager fatally shot by cops turned into a riot in Brooklyn last night, as a mob of outraged thugs ransacked stores, broke car windows and assaulted residents in East Flatbush.That’s what you get for “acting white” by engaging in capitalism.
The chaos erupted after about 200 people gathered to mourn 16-year-old Kimani “Kiki” Gray, a reputed Bloods gang member who was shot after pulling a gun on police Saturday.
At about 9 p.m., a splinter group broke off from the main ceremony and ran wild, causing havoc in several stores, including a Rite Aid.
“They poured in here, like 40 or 50 of them. They pulled the registers off the counter. They flipped over everything. They punched me in the face, several of them did, not just one. It was insane,” said Lorenzo Evans, 56, manager of the Rite Aid.
Evans also said a guard and two customers were roughed.
The gang also destroyed a bodega, ripped up trash bags, threw fruit and bottles at police officers and even pummeled residents.
They destroyed a CD-DVD store on Church Street.
“They damaged my store,” said Mamadou Bah, 31, owner of Hallmark African Movies.
“They knocked on my door, broke the glass, and ran in. They were throwing the DVDs around.”
Cops reported one arrest for disorderly conduct.Society could put a stop to this. But there isn’t the will even to disapprove of it.
There are so many fallacies about race that it would be hard to say which is the most ridiculous. However, one fallacy behind many other fallacies is the notion that there is something unusual about different races being unequally represented in various institutions, careers or at different income or achievement levels.
Yet some racial or ethnic minorities have owned or directed more than half of whole industries in many nations. These have included the Chinese in Malaysia, Lebanese in West Africa, Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, Britons in Argentina, Indians in Fiji, Jews in Poland, and Spaniards in Chile — among many others.
Not only different racial and ethnic groups, but whole nations and civilizations, have had very different achievements for centuries. China in the 15th century was more advanced than any country in Europe. Eventually Europeans overtook the Chinese — and there is no evidence of changes in the genes of either of them.
Among the many reasons for different levels of achievement is something as simple as age. The median age in Germany and Japan is over 40, while the median age in Afghanistan and Yemen is under 20. Even if the people in all four of these countries had the same mental potential, the same history, the same culture — and the countries themselves had the same geographic features — the fact that people in some countries have 20 years more experience than people in other countries would still be enough to make equal economic and other outcomes virtually impossible.
Add the fact that different races evolved in different geographic settings, presenting very different opportunities and constraints on their development, and the same conclusion follows. Yet the idea that differences in outcomes are odd, if not sinister, has been repeated mindlessly from street corner demagogues to the august chambers of the Supreme Court.
You might think that with Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives there would be no way ANY gun control legislation could reach the floor.So the premise seems to have been accepted by the GOP leadership if this report is accurate. And, if it is accurate, then they’re going to try to fashion some sort of gun control legislation to address a problem that the type of gun control legislation they’ll propose won’t effect. What it will do, however, is create a new law that will put legal gunowners in criminal jeopardy if they desire to sell their firearms and don’t follow the new rules to a ‘t’ (and, my guess is the new rules will likely be mostly unenforceable – they’d only be enforced retroactively if a gun involved in a private sale that wasn’t “background checked” was used in a crime).
But sadly we are already beginning to see so-called “conservative champions” folding to pressure from the anti-gun media to sell-out gun owners.
Former Vice Presidential candidate, Congressman Paul Ryan, has stated that he would support legislation that bans private sales at gun shows.
In the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, along with the help of Rep. Scott Rigell (VA), Patrick Meehan (PA) and others, have stated openly that they will work together with anti-gun Democrats from Maryland and New York to tighten restrictions on private firearms sales and expand background checks.
Possibly even more upsetting has been Senator Tom Coburn’s willingness to work alongside anti-gunner Chuck Schumer (NY) to propose “bi-partisan” anti-gun legislation in the Senate.
Make no mistake, so-called “expansion” of background checks is little more than a blatant attempt by anti-gunners to register all firearms and gun owners in America.
That is why Representatives Steve Stockman (TX-36) and Paul Broun (GA-10) have drafted a letter to Speaker Boehner and the Republican leadership urging them to require the support of the majority of Republican members in the House before bringing any anti-gun bills to the floor.
This so-called “Hastert Rule” would mean that 117 Republicans would have to support a particular bill before it had any chance of getting a floor vote, not just the support of the anti-gun elitist in leadership.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dipped to 7.7%, as 12 million workers were counted as unemployed. The drop was partly because more people said they got jobs, but also because 130,000 people dropped out of the labor force.This is the same kind of genius logic that causes people like Paul Krugman to declare that World War II got us out of the Great Depression. Take your best, most able-bodied workers, and ship them all overseas — millions of them — and voila! they are no longer unemployed! (Problem is, the same phony GDP numbers they cite to show a “recovery” during the war also show a deep depression during the incredibly prosperous year of 1946.) When you can play with your denominators at will, it doesn’t matter so much what your numerators are, does it?
Austerity is the result of countries’ democratic decisions to wait until the last minute before acting, under the pressure of the markets, mainly by raising taxes rather than implementing long-waited reforms. Denying this, by claiming that austerity has been imposed on countries – rather than self-inflicted – and looking for scapegoats, is the biggest threat to democracies going forward.That is from Lorenzo Bini Smaghi. I would put it this way: the higher the “multiplier,” the more we should be asking: why doesn’t the private sector want to reemploy these people?
“The president seems prepared to let the public suffer almost as much as possible, as long as he can blame somebody else. This is not what we expect of presidents,” Hume said. “Presidents, in the end, are supposed to be the people who put their big boy pants and prepare to shoulder the responsibility. And if they’re criticized for using that responsibility, or authority, so be it. But that’s what you expect of presidents.”You know who also needs to put her bog boy pants on? Janet Napolitano.
Hume added that Obama was “more inclined to let the chips fall where they may” as long as he could blame Republicans.
Ms Napolitano said today that major airports were seeing lines “150 to 200 per cent as long as we would normally expect” as result of the federal spending cuts that went into force on Friday.
“We’re already seeing the effects at some of the ports of entry, the big airports, for example. Some of them had very long lines this weekend,” she told a breakfast event organised by Politico.When pressed for specifics she cited Chicago’s O’Hare, Atlanta’s Hartfield-Jackson and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), adding: “I don’t mean to scare, I mean to inform.”However, when contacted by The Daily Telegraph, spokespeople for both O’Hare and LAX, as well as representatives from the travel industry, denied that airports had been hit by delays.
“We haven’t had any slowdowns at all,” said Marshall Lowe, a spokesman for LAX. Mr Lowe said that he had been on duty over the weekend and received no reports of unusual security delays.
Some say the solution for conservatives is either to redouble the attacks on big government per se, or give up and try to build a better welfare state. Neither path is correct. Raging against government debt and tax rates that most Americans don’t pay gets conservatives nowhere, and it will always be an exercise in futility to compete with liberals on government spending and transfers.We don’t think the GOP is going extinct anytime soon, but it will have many more losing elections if it can’t connect voters with the ways its policies can help the vulnerable. Fortunately, the GOP has its share of policy successes to point to, and Brooks offers a strategy to highlight these achievements in a way that will resonate with many who have turned their backs on the party. Read the whole thing here.
Instead, the answer is to make improving the lives of vulnerable people the primary focus of authentically conservative policies. For example, the core problem with out-of-control entitlements is not that they are costly—it is that the impending insolvency of Social Security and Medicare imperils the social safety net for the neediest citizens. Education innovation and school choice are not needed to fight rapacious unions and bureaucrats—too often the most prominent focus of conservative education concerns—but because poor children and their parents deserve better schools. […]
With this moral touchstone, conservative leaders will be able to stand before Americans who are struggling and feel marginalized and say, “We will fight for you and your family, whether you vote for us or not”—and truly mean it. In the end that approach will win. But more important, it is the right thing to do.
(Human Events) Texas is a right-minded red state, where patriotism is still a virtue and political correctness is out of vogue. So how on earth have left-wing educators in public classrooms been allowed to instruct Lone Star students to dress in Islamic garb, call the 9/11 jihadists “freedom fighters” and treat the Boston Tea Party participants as “terrorists”?I have at least two regular readers who live in Texas and are very proud of their state, as they should be. I am very interested in hearing their perspective on this issue. This post is not a slam to Texas, but rather a word of warning to the wise. The liberals have bragged about how they intended to turn Texas from red to blue, or at least purple. Many have laughed at that suggestion, but given that the education system is being taken over by progressives who are as liberal as they come, it may not be so far-fetched. I would urge you to read the entire article by Michelle Malkin. What she reveals is disturbing and troublesome. It should serve as a warning to those of us who believe our states are immune from the disease of liberalism.
Here’s the dirty little secret: Despite the best efforts of vigilant parents, teachers and administrators committed to academic excellence, progressive activists reign supreme in government schools.
That’s because curriculum is king. The liberal monopoly on the modern textbook/curricular market remains unchallenged after a half-century. He who controls the textbooks, teaching guides and tests controls the academic agenda.
That is how the propagandistic outfitting of students in Islamic garb came to pass in the unlikely setting of the conservative Lumberton, Texas, school district. As Fox News reporter Todd Starnes noted this week, a 32-year veteran of the high school led a world geography lesson on Islam in which hijab-wrapped students were banned from using the words “suicide bomber” and “terrorist” to describe Muslim mass murderers in favor of the term “freedom fighter.”
Madelyn LeBlanc, one of the students in the class, “told Fox News that it was clear her teacher was very uncomfortable lecturing the students. ‘I do have a lot of sympathy for her. … At the very beginning, she said she didn’t want to teach it, but it was in the curriculum.’”
But the headline-grabbing injection of moral equivalence into social studies and American history is just the tip of the education iceberg.
I have discussed his repeated, knowing, and deliberately false statements about those budget plans—most notoriously his claim that “Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we’re not adding to the debt anymore; we’re spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.”All false, knowingly and deliberately false. Sessions refused to sit for it. He moved into more philosophical territory, urging the rejection of Lew not only because the man himself is unworthy of the office, but to “defend the integrity of the Senate, to defend the right of our constituents to hear the truth from government officials, and to defend the idea, the very concept, of truth itself.”
The chief weakness of his effort, he said, was that "we weren't effective in taking our message to minorities, to Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans. We did well among the majority population. But that was our failing."
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.ObamaCare also attacks the most basic and instinctive of freedoms: the freedom to buy what one wants, or not buy what one wants.
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