The day of celebration of the independence of our great country is once again at hand… for those of us who can remember what it’s all about, that is. As former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, William Bennett, has commented, this country is on the verge of a national amnesia about our own history. He warns that we are becoming a country whose citizens are born as aliens a fact that will, in the end, make it impossible for our young Americans to sign up and fight for our country. After all, they won’t understand why this country is a “way of life worthy of their own lives” if they do not know its history. And that is a dangerous thing.
But it isn’t just the young that are in danger of losing touch with the greatness of our country. In a day when we barely stopped our own Senate from signing away our national sovereignty and making citizenship a hallow convention, far too many Americans seem to have no idea what makes the USA special or deserving of any devotion.
Our Founders, of course, realized how important the light of liberty is that they sacrificed so much to ignite. They well understood that it’s not just important to their fellow Americans but to all of humanity. As James Madison said, “the origin and outset of the American Republic contain lessons of which posterity ought not to be deprived.” But today we are not only depriving humanity of those lessons, we are even depriving our own people from such revelations.
Unfortunately, today we haven’t the luxury to be so thoughtless of our national charge as the light of liberty. There are forces in this world that wish to deprive not only Americans of our liberty, but all mankind of theirs. To that threat we must apply Samuel Adams’ assertion that “our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” Continue reading “July 4th, Independence Day… For Those Who Actually Remember It”
Today America enjoys the celebration of 248 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy. Continue reading “248 Independence Day Celebrations and Counting: But What Does it all Mean?”
July 4th. It brings about thoughts of picnics, fireworks, days off work and family get-togethers. But, all too often these days, many forget what the holiday is supposed to celebrate. The birth of our nation, forged in the crucible of fire and cooled by the hard work of her people. Created by some of the smartest men of their age, pondering some of the highest concepts upon which any nation was ever conceived, the USA has endured for 248 years today.
As Thomas Paine said, “The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” So has the USA has been a beacon of liberty and not just one selfishly sitting on that shinning city on a hill (as Ronald Reagan famously quoted John Winthrop), but one willing to advocate and work for it among all the peoples of the world. George Washington knew that our cause was the cause of future generations of man. “Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!”, he said.
And Americans have always given generously of themselves and their treasure for such causes around the globe. John Adams put it perfectly when he said, “I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.” Continue reading “What IS This ‘July 4th’ Holiday, Anyway?”
Today we celebrate Independence Day, the day we stepped out on our own and formally declared our intention to become our own nation and not a vassal state of England. Unfortunately, too many people keep calling this day “the July Fourth holiday.” But, we don’t celebrate a number or a month. We celebrate our independence as a nation. So, I urge everyone to stop disrespecting our nation’s birthday by calling it “July Fourth” and here is why…
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King of England declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Not only that but celebrations on July fourth weren’t even that common for quite some time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had only recently happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes. Continue reading “We Need to Stop Calling This The ‘July Fourth Holiday” — Here’s Why…”
(The following article was written by radio icon Rush Limbaugh’s father and was often read around the Independence Day holiday on the air by the talk show host.)
By Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr,
It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the Southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.
Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.
The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that “the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them.” All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks. Continue reading “The American Founders: Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor”
Well, it is a long story. The place I was hosting at sort of disappeared and along with it my ability to get at my archives of this site so that I could get it transferred to a working service.
Lots of other troubles on top of it, but suffice to say,. I finally got all the tech issues straightened out and I now have access to this site once again.
And there was great rejoicing…
So, I am not sure what I am doing here yet, but at least I now have access to it all once again.
It has been 19 years since that horrible day in 2001 when terrorism hit America with a vengeance. But many want to forget and pretend it never happened and we already have a generation of kids just about to, or soon to enter into their young adult years who can’t remember what happened on September 11, 2001. It is up to us to keep the memory of that day alive lest we allow it to be repeated.
But how do we approach that remembrance? But looking at an empty word document sitting ready to be filled with my 9/11 memorial finds words coming slowly, and I find it so hard to start this piece.
But I realized why it is so hard for me to start this piece. I am still furious, and feelings are still too raw, I still well up in tears when I see video of the towers falling, my heart still stops when I see that heart-wrenching image of bodies falling from windows hundreds of feet in the air. I still get that dark feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same one I felt that morning in 2001.
It’s all still too emotional to write a mere memorial. Words fail me.
I sat there wondering why it was that some 11 years on I still feel this anger, these emotions of loss?
I mean, let’s face it, we have come a long way from those terrible days of vulnerability on September 11, 2001. We’ve killed many hundreds of al Qaeda’s operatives–including the evil bin Laden himself. We’ve seriously hurt that enemy.
We’ve had a healthy dose of revenge on al Qaeda so that should go a long way toward easing the emotions of 9/11.
But that isn’t the problem. The problem is that a large number of Americans still have not learned the lesson that 9/11 should have so easily taught us.
We are now mired in idiotic, politically correct arguments about whether or not Christian ministers will be allowed at any memorial events in New York. We are told that our intelligence officials are being forced to attend Islamic services at mosques so that they can prove we “care” about Muslims. Worse, we still see a large sector of the American political arena saying Tea Partiers and Christians–our own citizens–are somehow “just like” or “just as bad” as the Islamist monsters that cut off people’s heads and throw acid on young girls that supposedly break Islamic traditions.
We have not learned that this enemy is not going to be swayed by our pitiful attempts to show them that we “like” them. They aren’t mad because we don’t like them. They are mad because they don’t rule us and their goal is to either kill us all or subjugate us. There is no black and white here, but too many of our own are fooling themselves into believing that we can “lead from behind” with “soft power.”
It is so bad, in fact, that on the tenth anniversary we still hadn’t been able to come together long enough to build a memorial to the attack, or anything else for that matter, at Ground Zero. Various governments and groups were still arguing over it all even after a decade. Ground Zero was still a barely-started construction site.
Consequently, I find it hard to write a mere memorial as if this is an event long in our past. It is not. Worse, our own people are making sure that we cannot put this behind us because they are not allowing us to beat this enemy.
So, even eighteen years out the wounds are still raw, the enemy still strong, and traitors in our midst are lending them succor.
These words don’t come easily. Nor do they come with relief. They are hard, cold facts. We are still in danger. We can’t “forget,” nor can we start mere memorials as if it is all long over.
It isn’t over.
Today we face the Islamic State, or ISIS, an Islamic terror that is surging back into Iraq and Syria, an infestation of murderous “religion” that Obama ha allowed to grow unchecked and only now is saying we might want to do something about. These people are targeting the United States. They’ve murdered several American citizens specifically to prove they can do it.
Mostly our president does nothing.
So, no. It isn’t over.
____________ “The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
We are taking this grand holiday off to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Today we celebrate Independence Day, the day we stepped out on our own and formally declared our intention to become our own nation and not a vassal state of England. Unfortunately, too many people keep calling this day “the July Fourth holiday.” But, we don’t celebrate a number or a month. We celebrate our independence as a nation. So, I urge everyone to stop disrespecting our nation’s birthday by calling it “July Fourth” and here is why…
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King of England declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Not only that but celebrations on July fourth weren’t even that common for quite some time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had only recently happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.
Then again, not many Americans had much interest in the Declaration itself until the 1790s when the emerging parties began to vie for bragging rights over who wrote it. The Democratic Republicans proudly held that their leader, Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the document while the Federalists reminded everyone that their leader, John Adams, was also a member of the committee that drafted the document and that he, as much as Jefferson, had his stamp on the Declaration of Independence. Continue reading “Dear America, Stop Calling This The ‘July Fourth Holiday.” Here’s Why…”
Today America enjoys the celebration of 244 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy. Continue reading “244 Independence Day Celebrations and Counting: But What Does it all Mean?”
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation. Continue reading “Our Second President, John Adams, Recalls the First Independence Day”
The latest calumny against our country spewed by the historically illiterate left that our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” is “racist.” It is a charge that further proves that liberals are disingenuous, hysterics that only parrot the garbage that they hear from others even as they don’t take any time to research the matter themselves.
This time the nonsense is being peddled by the California chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which has not only passed a “resolution” that the national anthem is “racist,” but has announced that it wants to pursue congressional sponsors to rescind the status of “The Star Spangled Banner” as our national theme song.
Why are they doing this? What else but raaaaacism?
Firstly, the move was an effort by the California NAACP to pass a resolution in support of anti-American protester and former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, according to the Sacramento Bee.
“We owe a lot of it to Kaepernick,” California NAACP President Alice Huffman during the group’s state meeting this week. “I think all this controversy about the knee will go away once the song is removed.”
To honor our troops for Memorial Day this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman. Continue reading “Memorial Day Special: Never Forget What American Troops Are Made Of”
“From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day to pause in thanks for the sacrifices made by millions of Americans who died while fighting to preserve freedom, a documentary called “These Hallowed Grounds” reminds us that our war dead are not just interred here at home, but are spread across the world on battlefields almost lost to the memory of far too many of us.
When we think of our military cemeteries, those final resting places of so many American heroes, we usually think of Arlington National Cemetery, certainly. But do we think of the hundreds of American military cemeteries in such places as France, the Philippines, and other nations across the world? Sadly, not many of us do.
If you are like many of us, you may not be very well informed about all the many American cemeteries erected to memorialize our legions of war dead. To correct that deficit the PBS documentary “These Hallowed Grounds” is an excellent way to learn about these bucolic and solemn memorials.
Most Americans know of the World War Two cemetery at Omaha Beach, Normandy, site of one of the 1944 D-Day landings. But there are some twenty-one other cemeteries in eight other countries memorializing our dead from World Wars One and Two and the documentary tells the powerful tale of many of them.
Our many war cemeteries are maintained by the U.S. government’s American Battle Monuments Commission and contain monuments to some 125,000 American war dead. The names of another 94,000 missing soldiers are inscribed into the Walls Of The Missing at these locations and this film takes viewers on an important journey across the world to see and learn about them. Continue reading “Thousands of American Soldiers Lie Buried in U.S. Military Cemeteries Across the World”
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.
General Logan was a Senator from Illinois and eventually became a candidate for Vice President on the 1884 Republican ticket, losing to Grover Cleveland and another Illinoisan, Vice President Adlai Stevenson. But before all that Logan was instrumental in creating Decoration Day, the celebration of the nation’s war dead that eventually became Memorial Day.
The following is the general order that Logan issued in 1868.
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
Liberals went wild on Monday rehashing a decades-old lie about how President Lyndon Johnson was seen in a 1968 White House photo being “overcome” by the loss of life during the Vietnam War.
The image went viral on Monday as historically illiterate liberals began posting the photo they claimed showed LBJ being overcome with emotion about the loss of American lives. Naturally, it went viral because liberals were using it to claim President Donald Trump is heartless in the face of the death of Americans who have died from the coronavirus.
A typical tweet juxtaposing the falsified photo of LBJ with the supposed heartlessness of Trump was posted by lying liberal Ben LaBolt who moaned that today we don’t have a president with “empathy” like that wonderful LBJ.
The claim that the photo depicts well-known racist, and foul-mouthed ass Lyndon Baines Johnson as crumbling in the face of the toll of American deaths during the Vietnam war has been around for as long as that photo has been in the public eye.
But that characterization is a lie. That photo simply was not snapped when LBJ was hearing about the death toll in Vietnam.
As we take the day off to be with our families, we here at Publius Forum wish you and yours a very happy Easter Sunday.
6 “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
—Matthew 28: 6-10 NIV
It’s a two-hour extravaganza, as we celebrate 100 months spent celebrating the Golden Age of entertainment– with the help of Patty (The Bad Seed) McCormack and Rich (Svengoolie) Koz!
This so-called “President’s Day” is an affront to every American and it should be ended.
I don’t celebrate “President’s Day.” I celebrate the presidents individually, not the whole gaggle of them at once. But I most certainly don’t celebrate George Washington, the father of our country, as just any old president. These days, George Washington has been relegated to that “truth telling guy” to be seen on the dollar bill and on TV commercials at the end of February. Or he is that guy lumped in with Lincoln on “President’s Day.” And that is a shame, indeed, for, without George Washington, our presidency and nation might have become far different things.
What made Washington such a giant for our times as well as his? For one thing, he knew how to act in public.
Back in the 1700’s
In the year 1759 a man named William Robertson wrote a book called The History of Emperor Charles V. It was a book that some claim was the standard after which modern historical study and writing has come to be patterned. Mr. Robertson, who became Principle of the University of Edinburgh in later years, introduced a salient point into the era of the Scottish Enlightenment. That idea was that “Politeness” in society would result in becoming a civilized nation. And it was a politeness perpetuated and spread through capitalism that was the best avenue to achieving that civilized level. Continue reading “End ‘President’s Day’ NOW! Where Have you Gone George Washington?”
It has been more than 60 years since the plane carrying rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Jiles Perry “The Big Bopper” Richardson crashed into an Iowa cornfield on Feb. 3, 1959. It was memorialized as “The day the music died,” but the story has been a life-long event that haunted the world of the Big Bopper’s son, a boy who never met his famous father. But that total estrangement ended 50 years after the crash when that meeting finally took place in a strange but beautiful way.
The boy who was born two months after his famous father died in a tragic plane crash on the “Day The Music Died,” saw his father’s face for the first time, fifty years after the fatal day that stole the elder from our world.
How is this, you ask? This all may seem like one of those riddles or some exercise in logic but, no, I assure you it’s quite a true story. And the truth of the matter makes for a fascinating, if unlikely, story.
Jay Perry Richardson was born the same year his father died in a plane accident that was mourned around the world. In fact, Jay was still peacefully floating in his mother’s womb when that fatal day in 1959 came to take the life of his vital and well-known father. Young Jay never laughed with his father, never touched his dad’s face, never learned to ride a bike by his dad’s side and were it not for the heavily thumbed and faded photographs his family all so cherished, young Jay wouldn’t even know what his father looked like.
Unless… unless he looked in the mirror. Yes, that face he wore, he has been told, is the spitting image of his father’s. The thought likely always warmed Jay’s heart.
He may not have known his father in person, but Jay was always fascinated by his father’s legacy and felt close to him despite the distance between them. Jay spent those fifty years of his life studying his father, talking to the many admirers who knew him, writing of him, and traveling the country to keep his father’s memory alive. Even emulating what he knew of the man whose hand he never held, a man with whom he was never able to toss around a football, a man who missed being able to beam with pride at the many successes of a boy he would never know. Continue reading “50 Years After ‘The Day The Music Died,’ This Boy Finally Met His Long, Lost Father”
“And unto you a child is born.” With that promise Earth was given the promise of a light unto all men, a light that will lead us to our salvation if only we choose to accept that path.
Even if you are not a Christian, even if you’re not especially religious, if you claim another religion or none at all, the path that Christ walked when he was born into this world is a path from which we can all learn. It is one worthy of study and acceptance even if only as an example of the best way to live. Christ’s path is, indeed, a philosophy worthy of consideration for it is one based on service to your fellows, love for all, and a suppression of one’s selfishness in order to pursue a higher calling.
What could be a better path, even for the non-religious?
So, as we celebrate this Christmas Day, the day meant to memorialize the birth of Christ, and as we head into 2017 let us all strive to work harder to be of service to our fellows. Let us engage in those random acts of kindness that makes everyone’s lives so much more fulfilling–not to mention easier. Let us remember to say thank you to those who have done something for us and let us offer our own actions for others without expecting immediate repayment.
Let’s try and leave this place a bit better off than we found it.
I want to thank each and every one of you for having been such wonderfully loyal readers and for you folks that have only been recent visitors, may you find a home here for the upcoming days. We hope to give you a Christmas gift that never stops giving here at Publius Forum.
May God Bless you all and enjoy the day with your family and friends.
Merry Christmas and, if you don’t visit again before the end of the year, may you have a Happy New Year
So, what is the true meaning of Christmas? Linus knows…
“I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn’t have picked this
little tree,” said Charlie Brown. “Everything I do turns into
a disaster. I guess I don’t really know what Christmas is
all about. Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas
is all about?”
“Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about,”
said Linus. [Linus walks to center stage.]
“Lights, please.”
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding
in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:
and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the
heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will toward men.
–Book 42, Luke (002:08-14)
The Bible, King James Version
[Linus picks up his blanket and shuffles off-stage.]
In 1982 NBC started broadcasting its “Christmas in Washington” program and would do so for several years afterward. But in its inaugural broadcast, the network featured a heartwarming clip of President Ronald Reagan reading a Christmas story to a group of children.
President Reagan chose to read A Solitary Life, which is a parable of the life of Jesus Christ.
In the clip, Reagan says that after nearly 2,000 years, Jesus today is “the centerpiece of much of the human race.” Reagan went on to note that all the armies, governments, and powers this world has created have not affected the world as powerfully as this “one solitary life.”
“I’ve always believed that the story of that young man, of Jesus, is a story of hope,” Reagan continued.
“If we live our lives for truth and for love — because that’s what He told us to do — and for God, we never have to be afraid. God will be with us. He’ll be a part of something much larger, much stronger, much more enduring than any force that has ever existed on this Earth.”
“God bless you, and Merry Christmas,” Reagan said.
The story Reagan read was written by Dr. James Allen Francis.
Dr. James Allan Francis was born in Nova Scotia, Canada. He became a pastor at age twenty-one and served in ministry for the remainder of his life. His first pastorate was in New York City at the Riverside Baptist Church, and after serving in other varied pastorates in the East, he came to Los Angeles in 1914.1
Though he had a busy life as a pastor, Francis was able to publish a handful of books: Drops from a Living Fountain (1895), Christ’s Mould of Prayer (1924), and Christ is All And Other Sermons (1928). His publications are full of passionate encouragement for Christians to know their Lord, to rely on him, and to follow his example.
Francis’ most famous words, now known as “One Solitary Life,” originated as part of a sermon that he delivered on July 11, 1926 to the Baptist Young People’s Union at a Los Angeles Convention.2 A friend transcribed the message titled “Arise, Sir Knight,” and Dr. Francis published it that same year in a collection called The Real Jesus and Other Sermons.
Here is the text of the story:
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village.
He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never owned a home.
He never had a family.
He never went to college.
He never put his foot inside a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood.
While still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
One of them denied him.
Another betrayed him.
He was turned over to his enemies.
He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves.
His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was
dying, and that was his coat.
When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.
It is that time of year again when left-wingers try to warp the Bible to support their anti-American ideals, and this time of year, they often abuse the birth of Christ by saying that Christ’s earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were either homeless, were refugees, or were immigrants. But in truth, they were NONE of those things.
A few years ago, ABC chief political analyst Matthew Dowd jumped to his Twitter account to make the shop-worn and false liberal claim that Jesus Christ’s parents, Joseph and Mary, were “two immigrants” in Bethlehem in the tale of the first Christmas. It all amounts to fake news that is over 2,000 years old.
Going back thousands of years for his Christmas Eve fake news, Dowd skewed the Christmas nativity story by saying Joseph and Mary were “immigrants” who were turned away by many in the town. “Let us remember today,” Dowd wrote, “2 immigrants, a man, and his very pregnant wife, sought shelter & were turned away by many. She gave birth in a manger.”
This claim that Joseph and Mary were “immigrants” is a mischaracterization long used to push a modern-day policy of immigration amnesty. The left’s argument goes: If even Jesus Christ’s parents were “immigrants,” how can today’s American Christians be against open borders and amnesty?
Every year I post a piece about the shocking truth about the scam that is Kwanzaa. It is a racist holiday created by a rapist and torturer who has posed as a “professor.” This year will be no exception.
Kwanzaa, the purported “African” holiday celebrated only in the United States, is the ultimate politically correct holiday. It is little observed, even by our own African American community, of course, but those that do celebrate it are wholly unaware that this faux holiday was created in 1965 by a man with a very troubled past. For Kwanzaa’s creator, Maulana Karenga, has a violent, racist criminal record, and is even a rapist who was convicted of torturing his victims.
Each year we are treated to one gauzy, fluff piece after another about how great Kwanzaa is by one PC spewing columnist or the other. This year, for instance, a “scholar” who claims to study the “oppression” of blacks in America today insisted in a piece for the Associated Press that Kwanzaa is an “important” holiday that is a wondrous time for “communal self-affirmation.” Then there was 2015’s Dallas Morning News piece titled “Look forward to Kwanzaa celebrations with storytelling, music and more.” We even find such helpful sites as TeacherPlanet.com’s, “Kwanzaa Resources for Teachers.” And last year we got the happy talk from Illinois with City Plans Kwanzaa Celebration December 26. Yes, the world is filled with celebratory lionization of Kwanzaa.
But about a half dozen years ago, the Houston Chronicle got in the act with a piece by Leslie Casimir titled “Learning about Kwanzaa from the holiday’s creator.” This one, though, was a bit different than the usual how-great-is-Kwanzaa theme because this particular piece celebrated the inventor of the faux holiday, Maulana Karenga, himself. So, instead of merely celebrating the manufactured holiday, Casimir amazingly made a hero of the rapist, race monger and violent thug who created it! To Casimir, Kwanzaa creator “Maulana Karenga” was a hero.
Or you get large public corporations like ebay selling its users on Kwanza as happened in 2014.Here is a screen shot of an ebay user’s panel where Kwanza was pushed by the online auction giant.
To further the story about how wonderful Karenga was, Casimir also found a gullible parent who, with kid in tow, went to see the great man at a local community center.
Thomasine Johnson needed to get the record straight about Kwanzaa, a cultural holiday steeped in African traditions that celebrates family, ethnic pride and community.
With her 11-year-old grandson in tow, the Missouri City interior designer on Saturday brought her video camera to S.H.A.P.E. community center to hear from Father Kwanzaa “Maulana Karenga” in the flesh.”
But just like the manufactured holiday he invented out of whole cloth, this “Maulana Karenga” is also a false front created out of fluff and nonsense. As it happens his real name is not “Maulana Karenga,” but is instead Ronald McKinley Everett, AKA Maulana Ron Karenga, AKA Maulana Karenga. We’ll soon see that subterfuge, reinvention and smoke-and-mirrors are Karenga’s stock in trade.
In her piece, Casimir gave us her version of the history of this “holiday.” And the artifice has but a short history, at that.
Created in 1966 by Karenga, a professor of black studies at California State University at Long Beach, Kwanzaa was born out of the black freedom movement of the 1960s, when the Watts riots rocked Los Angeles. It starts the day after Christmas and ends on the first day of the new year.
Interestingly, Casimir employed the euphemism “black freedom movement” to describe the ideology of the group that Ronald McKinley Everett “Karenga” belonged to when he created Kwanzaa. In the 60s, Karenga was in an organization called US (as in “us” — blacks — against “them” — whites). US was a black power militant group that he founded, one that frequently clashed in violence with police and even other black power groups. Members of his group even killed two Black Panthers in 1969.
Yes, kindly professor Maulana Karenga, the murder-touting, segregationist, racist. What a role model for the kiddies he is, eh?
Casimir seemed not to understand why people would doubt this man, though.
Still, many people don’t know much about Kwanzaa or the elusive Karenga, who shuns giving interviews to the mainstream press.
Well, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t want to give too many interviews what with his record as a violent felon, and sexual criminal. And Karenga has a long criminal record. In 1971, for instance, Everett served time in jail for assault. By then Everett had changed his name to Maulana Ron Karenga and began to affect a pseudo African costume and act the part of a native African — even though he had been born in the USA.
Ron Karenga stands outside courtroom in Los Angeles, CA in May 29, 1971. The typewritten caption on the negative’s paper wrapper reads: “Ron Karenga enters courtroom where he was found guilty on four counts. On September 17, 1971, Karenga was sentenced to one to ten years in prison on counts of felonious assault and false imprisonment.”
It wasn’t mere assault Karenga was convicted of, either. It was the sexual assault and even torture that he perpetrated against some of his own female followers. At the time, The L.A. Times reported that he placed a hot soldering iron in one woman’s mouth and used a vise to crush another’s toe, of all things.
As writer Lynn Woolley wrote of Professor Karenga:
And so this is Kwanzaa. The militant past of the creator is now ignored in favor of the so-called seven principles of Nguza Saba, principles such as unity, family and self-determination that could have come from Bill Bennett’s Book of Virtues. The word “Kwanzaa” is Swahili, meaning something like “fresh fruits of harvest.”
No one remembers the part about “re-Africanization” or the sevenfold path of blackness that Dr. Karenga once espoused. Hardly anyone remembers the shootings, the beatings, the tortures and the prison terms that were once the center of his life. It’s just not PC to bring that sort of stuff up now that Kwanzaa is commercialized and making big bucks.
But Casimir offers us Karenga’s prattle, anyway, treating it as the advice of a sage:
“As part of the black freedom movement, we were using this to return to our history and culture,” Karenga said.
He spoke to a crowd of about 100 people ” young and old ” at the Third Ward community center, headed by Deloyd Parker, an avid promoter of Kwanzaa’s Afrocentric traditions and beliefs.
“We have to wake up that history, we have to remember ourselves in a more expansive way,” Karenga said. “To liberate ourselves as ghetto dwellers.”
In a day when the black middle class numbers in the millions and when more whites than blacks voted for a black man for president, for “Karenga” to claim that blacks are still relegated to the “ghettos” smacks of race baiting and trying to “keep hope alive” so that he can continue to cause hatred between whites and blacks. And each year the Old Media is all too happy to assist him in his faux “holiday” endeavor.
Happy Kwanzaa, indeed!
But maybe not everyone is fooled by a faux holiday created by a criminal? In 2015, for instance, Kalamazoo, Michigan decided to dispense with its public Kwanzaa celebration. In fact, few cities worry over much about this holiday these days, though some still do.
Even some African Americans are not fooled into accepting Kwanzaa. As Jenice Armstrong from Philadelphia wrote in 2010, the “truth is that Kwanzaa has never caught on with the majority of black Americans.”
Of course, if it wasn’t for an Old Media establishment that has given Karenga’s criminality a wholesale whitewashing, this faux holiday could never have gained as little traction it has. Put it this way; imagine if famed Ku Klux Klan member David Duke had created a holiday. Do you think the Old Media would have happily sold his creation to a misinformed public without mentioning Duke’s personal history? Not a chance, and rightfully so.
____________ “The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
On Dec. 9th, 1941, the Japanese launched a sneak attack on our forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As a result, America formally joined the war against the Axis powers.
2,402 American servicemen were killed and 1,282 were wounded.
As we all take the day off to be with family and friends, let us also remember to pray for and thank those Americans overseas in dangerous lands who cannot be home for the holiday.
May you all have a wonderful, relaxing day filled with the comfort of friends and family.
Also, please do take some time to look over our past work in the archives her at Publius. In the meantime, God bless you and have a Happy Thanksgiving and see you tomorrow. And we are thankful for your readership.
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
It has been more than 60 years since the plane carrying rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Jiles Perry “The Big Bopper” Richardson crashed into an Iowa cornfield on Feb. 3, 1959. It was memorialized as “The day the music died,” but the story has been a life-long event that haunted the world of the Big Bopper’s son, a boy who never met his famous father. But that total estrangement ended 50 years after the crash when that meeting finally took place in a strange but beautiful way.
In 1982 NBC started broadcasting its “Christmas in Washington” program and would do so for several years afterward. But in its inaugural broadcast, the network featured a heartwarming clip of President Ronald Reagan reading a Christmas story to a group of children.
It is that time of year again when left-wingers try to warp the Bible to support their anti-American ideals, and this time of year, they often abuse the birth of Christ by saying that Christ’s earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were either homeless, were refugees, or were immigrants. But in truth, they were NONE of those things.
Kwanzaa, the purported “African” holiday celebrated only in the United States, is the ultimate politically correct holiday. It is little observed, even by our own African American community, of course, but those that do celebrate it are wholly unaware that this faux holiday was created in 1965 by a man with a very troubled past. For Kwanzaa’s creator, Maulana Karenga, has a violent, racist criminal record, and is even a rapist who was convicted of torturing his victims.
