Family

00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Signs and Assignments

August 1, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

For those with ears to hear, God gives intuitions of what we should do to help others.

Captain Brian Thomas, leader of the Stamford Salvation Army unit, preached Sunday’s sermon at the Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church in North Stamford, Connecticut. His subject was Signs and Assignments.

In the Old Testament God frequently provided signs to the Israelites to confirm his commands. One such is recorded in the Book of Judges, which chronicles the period between gaining the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership and the Israelites’ first king, Saul.

As all too frequently happened, the Israelites periodically became too wealthy and contented, shifting their worship from God to pursuit of worldly goods and pagan gods.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Taking Risks

July 27, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

To become messengers of the Gospel, we have to move outside our comfort zones.

Eric Lubbert, one of our church’s Elders, preached the sermon Sunday at the Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church, in North Stamford, Connecticut.

Speaking of his own experience, Mr. Lubbert noted that it’s too easy in our Christian lives to become comfortable, to settle into a routine of going to church on Sunday, and going little farther than that. If, however, we are to heed Jesus’s command, we must break out of those comfort zones and take risks to bring the Good News to our family, friends, and co-workers.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Making a Difference

July 20, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

If Christianity hasn’t made a positive difference in your life, you haven’t fully embraced it.

The question posed by Sunday’s sermon at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was “How Can I Be a New Creation?”

Rev. Josh Feay’s main text was:

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:11-17)
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Islam - Islamofascism - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Professing the “Faith” of Musli-Piscopalianism?

July 16, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Janet Tu, religion reporter for the Seattle Times, recently came out with a mind-boggling story. She chronicles the odd pronouncement of the Reverend Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopalian priest from Seattle, who has decided that she is both an Episcopalian and a Muslim.

Incongruously, Redding who is the director of faith formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, a priest for more than 20 years Tu reports, is “ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she’s also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.”

This is yet another outrage against the Episcopal Church, as hard as it is to rise to the level of outrage for a Church with so many such instances constantly coming to the fore. After all, the Episcopal Church has lurched from one upheaval to another for these many years. From the fight over ordaining female priests, to allowing avowedly and unapologetically homosexual priests to take the pulpit, not to mention their many decades of “progressive” ministries, the Episcopal Church has seen falling numbers in their congregations and splinters over doctrine as a result of the constant reevaluating of its tenets and practices. It’s no wonder that the joke about them seems too true for comfort; Episcopalians are just agnostics who can’t shake that need to go somewhere on a Sunday morning.

This latest instance does not help belie the claims from another, more cynical, religious perspective, that of radical Islamists, who claim the west in general is in relative cultural and religious decay. Islamists see endemic in western societies an unwillingness or inability to uphold their own religious convictions and sees a west constantly warping and tearing down their own practices. Certainly I won’t substantiate that view, but it sure is hard to dismiss it out of hand when stories like this come up.

It is patently absurd, of course, to be both a Muslim and an Episcopalian, even for the gruel thin creed that is Episcopalianism. Not because being Episcopalian is so incompatible with Islam, but because Islam is entirely intolerant of any other religion and is, therefore, entirely incompatible with Episcopalians.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Lee Culpepper - Race - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

My Diversity Disorder

July 15, 2007 by

-By Lee Culpepper

I felt sick when my doctor informed me that I am her only patient who vomits each time he hears the words “multiculturalism” and “diversity.” In fact, political correctness in general makes me queasy. Perhaps I’m a hypochondriac — anxiety over this possibility depresses me. Though my doctor did not prescribe a cure for my disorder, the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 decision – which struck down programs that considered race to make school assignments – may provide the remedy I need. In light of the justices’ ruling, ethnic realities appear so much clearer now.

With my family visiting over the Independence Day weekend, I realized that a white family — my white family — is made up of peculiar white individuals. No one in my family shares exactly the same views about anything. Our religious beliefs (while Christian) are not identical; our political interests are not the same; and our hobbies are different. We also pursued separate areas of education and have dissimilar careers. When all these obvious realities hit me at once, I started feeling dizzy.

I sat down to compose myself, but a heated debate that my brother, sister, and mom were having after dinner livened up the evening’s mood. I then realized something else — my white family is quite different than my wife’s white family. These kinds of debates never occur when her side of the family visits. Suddenly, I was lost in thought about how different most white families can be from other white families and how individuals within those families can be so different, too. I started worrying that diversity peddlers purposely ignore such obvious facts. Now, my lips were numb and I felt feverish.
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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Society/Culture - The Law - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

School Discipline

July 9, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Enforcing proper behavior is anathema to liberals, but essential to learning.

The recent Supreme Court decision in the MORSE ET AL. v. FREDERICK case, better known as the “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” case, has generated controversy, both because of the Court’s decision, and because of the concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Facts of the case were the following:

At a school-sanctioned and school-supervised event, petitioner Morse, the high school principal, saw students unfurl a banner stating “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS,” which she regarded as promoting illegal drug use. Consistent with established school policy prohibiting such messages at school events, Morse directed the students to take down the banner. When one of the students who had brought the banner to the event—respondent Frederick—refused, Morse confiscated the banner and later suspended him.

The Court’s ruling, expressed in the opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts, was:

Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Frederick…. Our cases make clear that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969). At the same time, we have held that “the constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings,” Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986), and that the rights of students “must be ‘applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.’
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Stay the Race to the Finish Line

July 7, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The Apostle Paul defines the goal of the Christian life.

Sunday’s sermon at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was delivered by Rev. Ted Fiorito. His text was taken from Philippians, chapter 3.

In his letter to the church at Philippi, Paul describes the goal, the bull’s eye that is the aim of Christian life:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Download Your FREE Gun Facts book – Fight Anti-Gun Propaganda

July 2, 2007 by

Gun Facts Version 4.2

Gun Facts is a free e-book that debunks common myths about gun control. It is intended as a reference guide for journalists, activists, politicians, and other people interested in restoring honesty to the debate about guns, crime, and the 2nd Amendment.

Gun Facts has 89 pages of information. Divided into chapters based on gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, etc.), finding information is quick and easy.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Seeing God

June 30, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Atheists, agnostics, and those simply unchurched perceive God in a very different way from Christians.

Sunday’s sermon at the Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was delivered by Rev. Dan McCandless. His text was Matthew, Chapter 6.

The picture Jesus gives us of God and His relationship with us is far removed from the impression held by too many people.

Some people imagine God as a sort of accountant who spends His time keeping a ledger of our good deeds and our misdeeds. Others see Him as an iron-fisted lawgiver who vents His anger to force us to submit. Still others see Him as a detached Creator who is no longer interested in us as individuals.

Others envision Him as a genial, white haired grandfatherly type, who is just a nice fellow who no longer has any real power to affect our lives. A sort of agnostic, scientific view has God as an impersonal force whom we can’t explain and can’t understand, but who is obviously there because of the orderly nature of the universe.

That is not what Jesus had to say in the Sermon on the Mount, in which God is depicted sixteen times as a father who cares deeply about each of us.

God sees us:
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Health - Media Bias - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Dr. Death

June 15, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s recent release from prison prompts a couple of thoughts.

Dr. Kervorkian became known as “Dr. Death” by assisting suicides of more than 100 people. In all such cases, we are given to understand, the suicides were at the request of the people committing suicide, people who may have been in pain from incurable cancer and similar maladies.

Nonetheless, under the law of the state of Michigan, Dr. Kevorkian was convicted and imprisoned in 1999 on the charge of second-degree murder for the crime of assisting suicide.

The first and most obvious aspect of Dr. Kevorkian’s case is its contrast with the so-called Constitutional “right” to abortion (found by the Supreme Court in the shadows of the penumbras of the Constitution, which is to say, in the personal ideas of the Supreme Court majority about what the law ought to be).
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

For Such a Time as This

June 8, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Each of us must take individual responsibility for answering God’s call to help others, even at mortal peril to ourselves.

Our liberal, socialistic welfare state impels us to selfish indifference toward the needs of individuals in our midst. Benefits entitlements paid for by high taxes foster an attitude of “I gave at the office.” We shrug and walk on when we are asked to help needy individuals in our own backyards.

We become concerned only when a problem affects us directly. Our instinctive response then is to demand that the government do something about it.

There is nothing new about this. It became evident in the earliest days of socialism. Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1856 The Old Regime and the French Revolution observed that the French, after several decades of socialism, were concerned with one thing only — socialistic equality of status. Each person focused greedily upon what he demanded as his share of public largesse and was indifferent even to his own neighbors.

Under the secularity of socialism, only material things are regarded as valuable. And only the state, liberals presume, can provide the requisite material things. Spiritual matters are dismissed as unscientific ignorance.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Unexpected Benefits of Adversity

May 30, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

What seems to be a disaster may be God’s way of prodding us into action to accomplish larger goals.

Sunday’s sermon at the Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was delivered by Rev. Kevin Butterfield. His message was the need to let go, to move out of our comfort zones and become witnesses to the unchurched, secular members of society.

It is not enough to hear and understand the Gospel; we must act upon it. We must lead kind, respectful, loving lives, and we must seek opportunities to serve those in need. People, particularly the young, must see us walk the talk. Hypocritical lip service will poison evangelical progress.

After the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, Christianity made rapid gains in Jerusalem. Then disaster struck. Stephen was stoned to death. Christians were scattered to Judea and Samaria. Rather than the end of the church, however, this proved to be its great beginning.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Frederick Meekins - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Nephilim Army This Year’s Smallville Finale McGuffian

May 22, 2007 by

-By Frederick Meekins

Many works of speculative fiction employ a story element known as a MacGuffin device around which the plot develops. Usually this happens to be some kind of weapon of mass destruction.

However, the 2007 season finale of Smallville decided to take the concept in a decidedly different direction with interesting parallels to current biotechnical developments.

In the episode, Lex Luthor is bent on creating an army of enhanced soldiers to combat the growing menace of superpowered humans (as well as to no doubt line his own pockets and enhance his own political status).

Yet what makes this episode stand out is that it is revealed that the success of these experiments is linked to capturing a disembodied entity (a demon if you will) that escaped from the Phantom Zone, the netherworld utilized by the people of Krypton as a workaround of their stance against the death penalty for the planet’s worst criminals. For you see, the entity alters the genetic code of the human host it possesses and Luthor believes the alterations can be mass produced.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Family - Frederick Meekins - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Middle Class An Endangered Species In Maryland

May 21, 2007 by

-By Frederick Meekins

With the reassertion of the monopoly of the Democratic Party over Maryland politics which for the previous four years had been what amounted to a party-and-a-half system, the jurisdiction jokingly referred to as “the Free State” is well on its way to becoming a socialist nightmare where only the hyper-rich or the fashionably impoverished having suppressed their own dignity to enjoy a life of entitlement program luxury will be able to eke out an existence there.

In my column “People’s Republic Of Maryland Taxing Its Subjects Into Submission”, I wrote about plans to enact legislation that will end up costing motorists about $2000 more just to purchase an automobile so that new vehicles in the state will be in compliance with California emission standards Now plans are being announced to sock residents even harder in the gut all in the name of protecting the environment.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Lee Culpepper - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Taking the “Bull” out of Bullying

May 19, 2007 by

Lee Culpepper

Two years ago during a teachers’ staff meeting, the speaker caught my attention revealing that bullying causes over 150,000 student absences every day. She also reported the obvious as if it were profound — most kids eventually experience some form of bulling. When she stated bullying had become an epidemic in America, I started sensing the force behind this seminar.

Finally, the speaker described an incident that she witnessed at another school. Apparently, a teacher had been reprimanding a student in the hallway. She said this teacher had hovered too closely to the student while pointing his finger at the student’s chest. She accused the teacher of bullying – describing the actions as intimidating. Having no clue what this student had done, she claimed such reprimands are unacceptable.

Today, it takes guts to disregard political correctness. Teachers and administrators who dare to discipline firmly can face hysteria from hopeless supervisors, touchy-feely colleagues, permissive parents, and melodramatic headlines. The criticism seems more about appearing compassionate and understanding than actually confronting and correcting a child’s issues. Advocating friendship skills and nurturing skills makes such critics feel sophisticated, but pampering words alone don’t solve low self-esteem or behavior problems – two traits that some bullies and their victims often share. Even teenagers resent obvious con-jobs meant to manipulate better behavior. However, teaching self-discipline and how to overcome challenges does help.
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00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Family - Media Bias - Race - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Oprah Invites Accused Rapist to Show Premier, Media Celebrates

May 6, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Chicago media were all agush on May 4th over the opening of Oprah Winfrey’s musical treatment of The Color Purple. Breathless were the reports of who was in attendance and star struck was the celeb watching as the limos pulled up in front of the Cadillac Palace Theatre in downtown Chicago.

But one “celebrity” that was invited by Oprah to attend the opening performance should raise eyebrows and should have spawned condemnation of Oprah Winfrey for his invitation; yet, the media was strangely silent about the impropriety of the invite.
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00Publius Contributor - Budget - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Family - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Americans are ‘Cheapskates’ over Lack of Foreign Aid Spending?

May 4, 2007 by 8 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Leave it to a liberal to claim that Americans are “cheapskates” because our government does not spend enough money on foreign aid. In the L.A.Times for April 13th, that is just what we are treated to with Rosa Brooks’ screed titled, “To the rest of the world, we’re cheapskates” and subtitled, “The U.S. international affairs budget — which helps fight AIDS, poverty and more — is just 1% of total spending.” But, by attacking our country over its record on charity and foreign aid spending, Brooks proves that she neither understands the nature of American generosity, nor the American character.

So why is it that Brooks contends that we are “cheapskates”? How is it that we supposedly show that we don’t care about the rest of the world? Brooks contends that it is because we don’t have enough government spending on the international affairs budget.
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00Publius Contributor - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - Family - Frank Salvato - History - Media Bias - Patriotism - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The “Fifth Columnization” of America

May 4, 2007 by

-By Frank Salvato

The Progressive-Left’s American Fifth Column is most often epitomized by the militant, bullhorn toting activist who, when not examined thoroughly, seems to be advocating for one “civil right” or another. We see them at the pro-illegal immigration protests, the anti-gun protests, the anti-war protests, anywhere a group of people can lay blame at the feet of government and especially the Bush Administration. But the American Fifth Column’s tentacles spread much wider and delve much deeper into our history and our society and recent events illustrate this as fact, rather than fiction.

The American Fifth Column is born out of Socialist/Communist ideology where the citizenry grows dependent on the government while the government increasingly legislates itself more control over the people.

In the perfect Fifth Column world, everyone is equal and possesses an artificially elevated sense of self-worth, the competitive spirit is equalized through taxes and legislated oversight of private business and societal boundaries including boundaries in speech and action are enforced through a shadow set of laws known as political correctness, a set of laws that undermine the authority of the Constitution.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Health - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Packing heat can save lives

May 3, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Michael M. Bates

If only Virginia Tech’s mass murderer had read the school’s policy handbook. He would have learned the college was a gun-free zone. So then he wouldn’t have brought any guns on campus and the tragedy could have been averted.

That’s roughly the logic used by many proponents of gun control. Adding more laws, rules and regulations to the thousands already on the books will somehow stop the violence.

A sad irony is a statement made last year when the state legislature let die a bill permitting licensed students and employees to carry handguns at public colleges. A Virginia Tech vice president applauded the development, saying it “will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.” Regrettably, feeling safe isn’t the same as being safe. One must speculate if an armed student or college employee could have ended the murder spree.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Toledo Blade Columnist: ‘Special Squads of Police’ Should Disarm Americans

April 28, 2007 by 9 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since the VT shootings in Blacksburg, Virginia, we have seen all manner of wild-eyed, anti-gunners come out of the woodwork to cynically use this crime as a chance to beat their gun grabbing drums. But, proposing that we send government Stormtroopers to smash down the doors of every home with a gun in it to confiscate their Constitutionally legal firearms is a step I haven’t seen in a purportedly responsible newspaper. That is, until the Toledo Blade published a proposal for taking away our right to self-protection that included "Special squads of police" with unlimited powers to confiscate all guns. A hit squad that would traipse about the country invading homes at will and accosting peaceful citizens everywhere.

The author of this tyrannical proposal is Dan Simpson, who is described as "a retired Ambassador" and a "member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. " He is a former US Ambassador to various African states… which can easily be read to mean one who thinks government knows best, darn the citizen’s rights, apparently.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Security/Safety - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Success in God’s Eyes

April 26, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Real success is following God’s will, not making lots of money.

Sunday’s sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (non-UCC) in North Stamford, Connecticut, was delivered by Rev. Steve Treash. His message dealt with success in the things that really matter.

While confidence is, by some measures, thought to be the best predictor of academic and business success, it too easily becomes exclusively self-confidence. As with Peter’s wanting to walk across the water to meet Jesus, that sort of confidence falters the moment we take our eyes off Jesus as our savior. We begin to sink and can be saved only by calling for the Lord’s help.

True success in this life is doing God’s will to the best of our abilities.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Family - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Rosie’s Vulgar Act at Awards for Teen Girls– Is She FINALLY off The View?

April 25, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barbara Walters used to have a reputation as a serious journalist. That was before the bull-in-the-china-shop that is Rosie O’Donnell came bellowing into her life. Could Walters finnaly have reached her last straw with O’Donnell, though? If rumors of Rosie leaving the daytime TV talker “The View” after a blue and vulgar performance at an award ceremony for teen girls in New York is any indication, we might soon be seeing the end of the wild-eyed, late morning rants of this uninformed wind-bag, O’Donnell.

The New York Post reported on the 24th that Barbara “lowered her head on the dais and covered her face with her hand” as Rosie spoke. During her now boring schtick, Rosie unleashed the “F” word and a slew of vulgar sexual references as she spoke before the collected elite of the female movers and shakers of the news biz as well as a bevy of teen-aged girls who were on hand to receive awards for their own efforts to enter the field of communications.

Rosie spoke before the annual luncheon of N.Y. Women in Communications. In attendance were such luminaries as “Judith Giuliani, her predecessor Donna Hanover, Judge Judy Sheindlin, Helen Gurley Brown, Sue Simmons, Geri Laybourne of Oxygen Media, Jane Friedman of HarperCollins, and Hearst president Cathie Black.”

Naturally, Rosie didn’t care much about propriety and used the occasion to wallow in her normal low-brow behavior.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Lee Culpepper - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized

Judgment, Tolerance, and Virginia Tech

April 25, 2007 by

Lee Culpepper

Monday I watched in disgust the wickedness that throttled the Virginia Tech campus that I once roamed. I was carefree and brash in those days, but since then I have developed a humble appreciation for the education Tech provided me. My heart mourns for Hokies everywhere, but more so for the students and faculty gunned down by evil. I cannot imagine the grief those thirty-two devastated families are feeling. I also mourn for the family of the murderer; they are most likely victims, as well. On the other hand, I recognize that my sympathy for his parents could change as facts are revealed. Regardless, Virginia Tech, like the University of Texas and Columbine High School, will ultimately endure the evil that surfaced, but those thirty-two Hokies’ lives were stolen forever.

I wondered immediately how much the “don’t-judge-me, you-don’t-know-me climate” factors into Tech’s horror. What’s the point in having a brain when America’s “climate of tolerance” pressures us not to use it? Our ability to reason is a responsibility, not a luxury, but the don’t-judge-me establishment shackles common sense and maims critical thinking. The mindless chant of tolerance promotes an idea that feelings are equal to rational thought. Furthermore, to disapprove of someone else’s queer behaviors – which today are passing deceptively as “misunderstood cultures” – reflects negatively on us if we show the courage to express our honest thinking. Consequently, we “feel” we better stay quiet, particularly if judging harshly any culture except traditional American culture. Nevertheless, we make ourselves vulnerable to danger and evil when we suppress reason because we feel obligated to tolerate inappropriate behavior – which again is often just cleverly excused as one’s culture or unique eccentricity.

Having taught analytical writing, I used the “don’t-judge-me issue” to strike a nerve with my students. The drumbeat of tolerance that resonates in public schools has conditioned many young minds not to think and certainly not to judge. However, my point during these discussions focused on the need to use facts to formulate meaningful arguments and logical judgments. I tried to emphasize how simply feeling a certain way exposes us to danger, whether that danger is common ignorance or physical harm. Many students don’t appreciate the difference between reasoned arguments and flaky opinions. I asserted that we have to analyze available facts and to act on them, not to trust or to act on impulsive emotions or mushy feelings. We have to differentiate between our brains and our hearts when we are thinking.
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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Islam - Islamofascism - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Suicide Bombers and Abortion

April 24, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Training Islamic children to become suicide bombers has much in common with abortion.

For an excellent analysis of the Supreme Court’s recent Carhart decision on partial-birth abortion, see The Supreme Court and Reasonable Hope by Richard John Neuhaus on the First Things website.

Reactions to Carhart raise the question whether our hedonistic, pro-choice liberals have any better claim to rectitude than Islamic jihadists.

Even liberals who blame the United States for Islamic aggression profess distress at the horrific phenomenon of Islamic families proudly urging their children to blow themselves up in order to kill infidels.

Those same liberals strenuously uphold the “right” of any woman, without the slightest recourse to due process of law, to murder her unborn infant. No tears are shed for the innocent life butchered in the abortion process.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Robber Killed By Victim, Reported as ‘Tragic’, Robber a ‘Good Person’

April 23, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

One would think the writers of The Onion satirical newspaper snuck into the offices of The San Francisco Chronicle after reading a report about a Pizza shop owner who saved the lives of his family by killing a gun wielding robber that was attempting to rob his store, a store with the owner’s whole family inside. The Chronicle calls the meeting of the thief and would be killer and the innocent Pizza shop owner “tragic” and the report is filed as if the whole story was all just some unfortunate accident instead of a crime stopped cold.

The lives of the two men intersected tragically at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday when Hicks, armed with a pistol and joined by two other men, tried to rob Piedra inside the popular pizzeria at 89th Avenue and International Boulevard. Fearful that the assailants might hurt him, his wife and three children — all of whom were inside the restaurant — Piedra pulled out his 9mm semiautomatic pistol and opened fire, killing Hicks, police said.

The Chronicle made the story as an excuse at a morality play revealing how friends are remembering the robber as one who “…always had a smile on his face”, that the shop owner “took no satisfaction in taking Hicks’ life”, and the police “…by no stretch of the imagination” were they “agreeing with or justifying what the owner did.” We are even treated to a telling of our “tragic” robber’s happy little “rap artist” name; “Boonie”.

Obviously the San Francisco Chronicle has decided that this story is going to be their platform to show how guns “traumatize” everyone when the real focus of the story should be on how a shop owner protected himself and his family inside the shop from an armed criminal.

This is no “tragic” incident, but a crime stopped by a man protecting his family!
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Frederick Meekins - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Virginia School Alma Mater Of Multiple Mass Murderers

April 23, 2007 by

-By Frederick Meekins

Westfield High School in Chantilly, VA is developing an infamous reputation.

Not only is it the alma mater of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui but also of Michael Kennedy, who shot up a Fairfax Virginia police station in May 2006 where he murdered two officers in a shooting rampage.

Before dismissing these incidents as disturbing coincidences, we owe it to both the families who lost loved ones in these massacres as well as the broader frightened public to look into what role this institution might have had in shaping the warped worldviews of these deranged gunmen.

Such a line of investigation might prove more than grasping at straws if it comes to be learned that Westfield High had a death education curriculum.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Frank Salvato - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Virginia Tech Slaughter Raises Many Questions

April 22, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Frank Salvato

I like to think of myself as someone who gathers all of the facts, along with some educated opinions, before I formulate my stance on things. It is for that reason that I read publications from both sides of the aisle on a daily basis when it comes to politics and from publications around the world when examining world events. The barbaric slaughter at Virginia Tech did not – and does not – escape this approach. In the end, the examination of the facts surrounding the senseless deaths of 32 and the suicide of the shooter have left me with more questions than answers and dredged up still unanswered questions about past events.

Admittedly, my examination of the events that took place on Virginia Tech’s campus may be influenced by terrorism. I spend a good portion of my work day researching terrorism for two non-profit groups, Basics Project and America’s Truth Forum, whose missions are to, among other things, focus on the threat posed by radical Islam. Through researching first-source, fact-based information from credible think tanks, organizations and advocacy groups on both sides of the issue I am now keenly aware of the subtleties presented in news items.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Family - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The New Lynching: Why I Must Defend Don Imus

April 21, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

So Don Imus has been fired from his radio show, and all is well in the world. We all know about the maelstrom that developed around the aging shock jock, who has found out how loose lips sink ships, in this case his own. But even though his is a vessel I never would have christened, I find a certain conclusion inescapable here. I must defend Don Imus.

Lest I be misunderstood, I have no use for the man nor any for the rest of his ilk. I know him to be a poster boy for our cultural decay, a man who, along with innumerable fellow babblers, disgorges cultural effluent on a daily basis. He has been a willing participant in the defining of deviancy downwards and I normally would not lament his departure.

I also would criticize his comments. It’s most uncharitable to make sport of relatively anonymous college kids and mock their appearance. So, one may wonder, given my thorough condemnation of the man, in what way do I defend him?
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Family - Frank Salvato - Media Bias - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

You Either Abide by the First Amendment or You Don’t

April 13, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Frank Salvato

It really doesn’t matter whether you find radio shock jock Don Imus’s description of the women on Rutgers’ basketball team offensive or not. In an age when you can turn on any popular urban radio station and hear most of the words used in George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” comedy routine the term, “nappy-headed hos” can hardly be deemed offensive, especially coming from a shock jock. What is at issue is whether or not the politically correct have used bullying tactics to infringed upon the guaranteed right of free speech under the First Amendment.

I can’t say that I am a fan of Don Imus but then I can’t say I dislike him either. I have never taken the time to listen to his radio show nor have I viewed his broadcast on MSNBC. Being from Chicago, I grew up listening to Larry Lujack, Dan Walker – the governor of Rock ‘n Roll – and later on Jonathon Brandmeir and Steve Dahl. Imus wasn’t a Chicago staple.

Of course, Chicago had its fair share of FCC imposed and special interest group inflicted radio personality suspensions but those seemed to work more in the favor of the radio show being yanked from the air than for the government or advocacy group. I predict that Imus’s suspension will work to his advantage in the long run as well. Such is the animal of America’s “car accident” curiosity and sitcom attention span.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - History - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

The Paradox of Reason

April 13, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Liberal rationality leads to chaos, thence to tyranny.

The foundation of liberal-Progressive-socialism, beginning with the pre-Revolutionary French Encyclopedists, has been belief in the supremacy of human reason as the sole guide to social order. In practice it turns out to be a foundation of sand, always washed away in the deluge of political tyranny.

Reason as the only source of wisdom was almost immediately stripped of such pretense and revealed as naked savagery in the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, instituted to compel conformity to the revolutionists’ political aims.
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