Family

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Family - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Imus’ selective acts of contrition

April 13, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

In terms of media saturation, Don Imus is this month’s Anna Nicole Smith. The radio host has had a good thing going. His program is broadcast on more than 70 radio stations and cable network MSNBC most weekday mornings.

Along with big money, Imus earned standing among politicians and media personalities. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd announced his presidential candidacy on “Imus in the Morning” last January. Senators Lieberman, McCain and Biden appear regularly. Chris Matthews, Tim Russert and Brian Williams frequently check in.

Imus evidently sees himself as a power player; some pols play along. When Senator John Kerry impugned U.S. soldiers in what he called a botched joke right before last fall’s elections, Kerry cancelled his scheduled appearances elsewhere and called into the Imus program to apologize.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Lee Culpepper - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

My Shame in Anger My Value in Humility

April 10, 2007 by

Warren Lee Culpepper

When my dad died in 1993, my friends’ father, Mr. Ripol, drove over an hour one way – after midnight – to pick me up from Marine Corps Officer Candidate School. The Corps had put me on emergency leave to deal with my family’s loss. To articulate just how much I respect Mr. Ripol, I need only one word — awesome. He is a great father, and he recently wrote to me expressing concern about my writing’s undertone of “anger.” Because I admire him, I listened to his wisdom.

Digesting his comments, I realized the anger he uncovered is my contempt for teachers’ unions and teacher-credentialing programs – keep in mind I am a teacher. I see unions like I see bullies. Bullies stir most everyone’s anger by picking on smaller, weaker people. In my rowdier days, I had a bad habit of stepping in, too eager to fight them. The bullies who were bigger than I was, who reveled their size advantage, were the ones I couldn’t wait to knock down a peg or two. Similarly, unions behave in the same arrogant and intimidating manner as bullies. They’re emboldened by their numbers and size. They anger me with all their scams. They claim to benefit teachers, and they boast about looking out for students. However, they actually jeopardize students’ learning and attempt to sedate competitive teachers. Many union members are not competitive people. These individuals fear standing alone. They stir my anger because they should just be thankful to have a job. They often lack ability, and the idea of holding them accountable for their students’ successes or failures causes them heart trouble. (Mr. Ripol’s wits are probably beginning to tingle again.)
Continue reading “My Shame in Anger My Value in Humility”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Family - Media Bias - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Director/Actor Kevin Smith To Attack Christians/Republicans in New ‘Horror’ Movie

April 9, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is the Clerks and Dogma creator next going to attack middle America, Conservatives, Republicans and Christians in an upcoming movie? It certainly seems so with a recent interview he gave that appears on the moviefan website called Rottentomatoes.com.

Smith, known for his irreverent skewering of conventional mores, seems to be in the midst of production on a horror movie based on a “Fred Phelps” styled character.

UK audiences recently saw documentary journalist Louis Theroux spend time with members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, a controversial church group made largely of members of the Phelps family and run by preacher Fred Phelps. Infamous in America for taking a supremely homophobic stance and for picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, the group see media interviews as a platform for airing their views and the word of their founder, Fred Phelps.

“That dude has always fascinated me and he’s really informed the horror movie that I’m working on,” Smith told us, “The movie’s called ‘Red State’ and it’s very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It’s certainly not Phelps himself but it’s very much inspired by a Phelps figure.”

Red State, huh? Can you just guess what that means? “Red” as in Republican, “horror” as in the horror of Conservative ideals? Along with another Smith attack on religion, I can imagine how badly he is going to treat the average American in “flyover” country with this one.

Think I am reading too much into it. Well, read more of director Smith’s interview.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Lee Culpepper - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Linking Fragile Toilet Paper to Teaching Teenage Girls

April 9, 2007 by

Warren Lee Culpepper

Linking Fragile Toilet Paper to Teaching Teenage Girls by Lee Culpepper
With the alarming percentage of ill-advised marriages and their subsequent breakups, I bet you’re asking yourself a reasonable question: “What can male teachers, Marine Corps leadership principles, and high school English classes do to help teenage girls avoid bad relationships and rash decisions to marry in the future? Okay, maybe you’re not, but you should be.

Since I have experience in all those worlds, I have some suggestions. I’ll begin with a few notes concerning fathers. Good fathers teach their daughters how men should treat and respect women. A daughter should also learn from her father about the purity of fatherly love – the love with no selfish expectations concerning her ambitions, her dreams, her looks, or even her understanding of how much he loves her. Good fathers protect their daughters from bad boys who grow up to be bad men. A good father also teaches his daughter how to deal with such jerks on her own.
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00Publius Contributor - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Family - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Savings?

April 9, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

A potentially dangerous definition of savings is being pushed by some economists and investment advisors.

An increase in the market value of your home is not savings in either a practical sense or from the viewpoint of the economy as a whole. Nonetheless this idea appears repeatedly in the media.

An example from the April 16,2007, edition of Forbes magazine is money manager Ken Fisher’s “Portfolio Strategy” column:

American savers, end your guilt trip. You have been told, by economists and by official government statistics, that you are inadequate, that the U.S. savings rate is negative. Wrong! It’s a myth that Americans don’t save.

The official numbers have some big deficiencies. They don’t count capital gains….
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Military - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Wash.Post: Evangelicals Turning Against the War — Offers NO Proof

March 28, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is always interesting to me how a story can be published as if it is serious work, a story that almost seems plausible until you step back from it to realize that not a shred of proof to support the supposition was ever offered. After you’re done reading it you realize that all you ended up with were empty phrases like “some say” or “many are” instead of any statistics, studies or other proof.

Such is the case with the Washington Post’s story titled, “War Causing Split Among Evangelicals”. In fact, writer Julie Sullivan flat out admits that there is no proof for her supposition that “many” evangelical Christians are turning away from the war… but she postulates the premise any way.

No polling data show conclusively that opinion has shifted among conservative evangelicals.

This is only the fourth paragraph (the previous three being one sentence affairs) so you’d think she could just retire the piece right there. But, no we have to start right up with the “some say” routine.

But some national evangelical leaders say debate about — and, in some cases, opposition to — the war is breaking out among Christian conservatives whose support was key to President Bush’s election victories.

Yes and SOME Christians say that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that the end times are here right now. But that doesn’t mean either of those ideas are prevailing sentiments among Christians.

Next Sullivan gives what she imagines are the “reasons” all these evangelicals are suddenly turning against the GOP.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Lee Culpepper - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The Edge

March 28, 2007 by

Warren Lee Culpepper

Every inspirational champion has it. Every genuine leader has it, too. Raw talent has less to do with it because the edge comes from confidence nurtured by two crucial factors: first, our knowing that we have prepared painstakingly for a challenge — physically and mentally; and second, our learning that a competent, respected mentor believes in us. Coddling words of a merely appointed authority figure – the kind who often avoids his obligation to confront our faults – cannot produce this trademark self-assurance.

I think of how much time I invested wrestling, working hard to be good, but never believing that I could be the best. At an Ohio high school, I had one year with a talented mentor, Coach King. The end of my junior year, he announced at an all sports banquet that he thought I was one of the better wrestlers at my weight class that year, despite my failure to achieve every wrestler’s goal to be a champion. His simple comment elevated my self-expectations for the future. His words motivated me to believe in myself and to work harder for him. Under Coach King’s leadership, I started to appreciate the meaning and to develop the qualities of the edge.

However, I moved to Virginia my senior year. Aside from my older brother (whom I saw occasionally) and my father (who was battling depression) I would not encounter another mentor who captured my admiration and confidence until my third year in college. His name was Ken Haselrig, and he was a two-time NCAA all-American. He placed second in the 1987 NCAA Wrestling Championships. Ken was a quiet leader, but he led by example. Just my wrestling against him in practice contributed to my confidence. I knew competing against someone better than I was made me tougher.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Gays - Media Bias - Religion - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

What if Homosexuality is Biological?

March 24, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., recently penned an article that has both fellow evangelicals and homosexual activists feeling none too gay. Mohler raised the ire of the former group by stating that science may very well prove there is a biological basis for homosexuality; he then sent the latter group into a tizzy by reasserting that homosexual behavior is sinful and that modern science may offer prenatal remedies for it.

That homosexuality may have a basis in biology is rejected by many on the right for the same reason it is embraced by homosexuals. The reasoning is that if such feelings are biologically induced, then homosexual behavior is neither sinful nor a choice. Thus, the genesis of same-sex attraction has become a locus of debate in the culture war. The truth is, however, that both sides have fallen victim to a misconception, one I have long wanted to dispel.

Any biological basis for homosexuality would only be relevant insofar as preventing the condition is concerned; it has no bearing on morality. This is for a very simple reason: Biology doesn’t determine morality.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Media Bias - Race - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

PC Roundup – The Foolishness, Absurdities and Cultural Destruction of the Politically Correct

March 22, 2007 by 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

From time to time we all hear stories that reveals the stupidity of a dreaded PCism run amok. We hear the tales, shake our heads in disbelief and go about our day without taking much more notice of it afterward. It seems, as we hear of each case, that they are isolated stories, outrageous yes, but not interrelated. Perhaps, viewed as separate incidents, they really don’t mean much. Unfortunately, such incidents culminate to far more than merely incidental occasions.

Let’s just take a few incidents of the last week as examples to reveal the utterly vacuous nature of the Politically Correct, multiculturalism that has happened in both the US and England. The following are all examples of the kind of consequences of liberalism that damages society. We have one example that even ends up with the kind of unintended consequences that would horrify the very leftists who initiated the PCism in question.

From the silly…
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Religion - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Warriors for God

March 22, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The Old Testament story of David and Goliath offers guidance to living a true Christian life.

Sunday’s sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (non-UCC) in North Stamford, Connecticut, was delivered by Rev. David Smith, who heads the Pivot Ministries.

Pivot Ministries reorient men out of the thralldom of drugs and alcohol by giving them the personal experience of Jesus Christ’s saving love. They do a wonderful job, guiding men of all ages and from all walks of life along an 18-month program.

Pivot’s website is http://www.pivotministries.org/ . They need contributions to carry on. Contact them and give them your support.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Family - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Liberal Theories of Human Nature

March 17, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

If liberal theories are correct, humans are passive bundles of nerves at the mercy of intellectual tyrants.

If only what we can detect and measure with our physical senses is real, then a human being is no more than a mechanism for registering pleasure or pain. This is a fundamental premise of psychology, one of the social sciences created by the French Encyclopedists. Liberals don’t buy the idea that people might be self-governed by their consciences and their moral sense. They presume that people are motivated only by desires for sensual gratification, power, or money.

Hence the extraordinary importance attached to Sigmund Freud’s theories at the beginning of the 20th century.

Psychology reflected this materialism perfectly in its behaviorist school of thought later in the 20th century. J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner went so far as to dismiss, not only the human soul, but even conscious thought as determinants of human behavior. The idea of consciousness, they said, was pre-scientific superstition and witchcraft. Taking materialism to the extreme, they theorized that the only determinants of behavior are external environmental factors, which completely outweigh inherited characteristics.
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00Publius Contributor - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Family - Gays - Media Bias - Military - Patriotism - President - Religion - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized

Mrs. Clinton endorses gay adoption, quietly

March 9, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Struggling with Senator Barack Obama for black votes, Hillary Clinton acquitted herself well in Selma the other day. That Southern drawl she’s suddenly developed assures her a job with any future revival of “Hee Haw” if her presidential ambitions are quashed.

Not so widely covered by the mainstream media was a speech Senator Clinton delivered two days earlier. She spoke before 400 members of the Human Rights Campaign, which boasts it’s the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization. Hillary was gushing with enthusiasm for the HRC: “I love the fact it’s my initials, have you ever noticed that?”

She’s proud to stand with the Human Rights Campaign, she told them. Apparently not, however, proud enough to publicize her address to the group. The Associated Press reported that when she was asked Monday why she didn’t advertise the speech, as is usually done, Mrs. Clinton responded, “You’ll have to ask my campaign.”

The liberal double standard is wondrous to behold. George W. Bush is directly responsible for the misdeeds of any soldier anywhere in the world. Yet when one of their own is challenged, liberals immediately shift into full Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing . . . nothing!” mode. This, despite the fact that Hillary’s campaign isn’t quite as large as the U.S. military. Although it may spend more. Private detectives can be so very expensive.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

What Really Matters?

March 7, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Thomas E. Brewton

With turmoil in our foreign policy, a new Congress in session, and the prospect of higher taxes to finance an expansion of the secular welfare-state, what should be our personal priorities? The Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia refocuses us on the most important things in our lives.

Sunday’s sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (non-UCC) in North Stamford, Connecticut, was delivered by Capt. Brian Thomas, leader of our local Salvation Army mission.

Our nation is beset with enemies. Our government and our society are moving at an accelerating rate further into moral degradation. Most of us can do little about that as individuals.

What we can do is order our lives to embody the Apostle Paul’s desiderata in his letter to the church at Galatia. Living more helpful, more courteous, and less self-centered lives not only makes us feel better, but also brightens the lives of those around us. Living that kind of life is a witness that may bring others to God.
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00Publius Contributor - David Heleniak - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized

Manhattan Prosecutors Declare War on Families

March 2, 2007 by

-By David Heleniak

2006 saw a refreshing increase in the number of commentary pieces tackling the problems with state domestic violence (DV) restraining order systems. Most if not all of these articles focus on civil DV restraining orders. In the October 2006 issue of The Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk exposes a disturbing development that had not been commented upon before. In her eye-opening article “Criminal Law Comes Home,” Suk examines a practice in Manhattan that has become routine in criminal cases involving DV, the imposition of de facto divorces in which the government “initiates and dictates the end of … intimate relationship[s]” by subjecting “the practical and substantive continuation of the relationship[s] to criminal sanction” (10).

The path to de facto divorce begins when a man is arrested for domestic violence. “The arrest may have come at the behest of neighbors rather than the victim herself. Or the victim may have called the police to seek specific intervention in that moment” (59). Whatever led to the arrest, with it, the alleged victim’s marriage to the defendant is very likely over, whether she likes it or not.

In Manhattan, “a leading jurisdiction … considered to be ‘in the forefront of efforts to combat domestic violence,’” domestic violence is defined by the D.A.’s Office as “‘any crime or violation committed by a defendant against … a member of his or her same family or household’” (42). A vast majority of these cases do not involve serious physical injury, and many of the cases charged do not allege any physical injury. But “[e]ven as the ‘violence’ of DV has been defined down,” to the point where harassment is considered violent, these cases “trigger application of a ‘mandatory domestic violence protocol’ different from other crimes” (44). As Suk explains, “[t]he uniform application of a mandatory protocol in every case represents the prosecutorial response to a paradigm story in which DV victims can turn into murder victims overnight. In the oral culture of a prosecutor’s office, a misdemeanor DV defendant has the potential to turn out to be an O.J. Simpson” (44). Indeed, “[r]ookie prosecutors are warned that their DV misdemeanors are the cases that could get their names in the newspaper for failure to prevent something serious” (44-45). In this culture of fear, “every case is treated as a potential prelude to murder” (44). This is despite the fact that “[p]rosecutors generally expect that DV victims will be unwilling to cooperate in prosecution” (46), a fact that speaks volumes about the level of the crimes being charged and the victims’ own take on the likelihood of serious crimes being committed in the future.
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Immigration/Immigrants - Media Bias - Race - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Article Scolding Asian Racist, Misses Key Ingredient

February 28, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

An Asian Writer Copping Jesse Jackson’s Race-baiting Game Attacked By San Francisco Chronicle For ‘Why I Hate Blacks’ Article

There is a saying that is often bandied about by whites feigning what might be ridiculed as an American Black person’s defeatist demeanor. It is used when whites want to make fun of the kind of attitude that assumes everyone in power is somehow out to get you. It goes like this: “I’m tired of the white man keeping me down.” It’s an eye-rolling proclamation, but it is one that many whites assume is inculcated in Black Americans all across the country. Of course it is an unwelcome stereotype.

It is a stereotype, however, that has been adopted as reality in all too real a sense by American Universities and is posited as a raison d’etre for wasting time and money on things like “Black studies” programs. The sentiment is replicated in “Hispanic studies”, “Women’s studies”, and “Gay studies” in equal measures and with as much illegitimacy.

The (insert group here) is keeping you down so rebel against it. Be angry. “Speak truth to power”.

It’s clap-trap, of course.
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00Publius Contributor - Economy/Finances - Family - History - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

How FDR Destroyed the Dollar

February 24, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Until 1933, the U. S. dollar was the among the strongest and most stable currencies in the world. With the stroke of a pen, President Franklin Roosevelt torpedoed it. We are still plagued with the resulting inflation.

All governments lust for taxpayers’ money. The ability to direct the expenditure of large sums of money confers great power upon political leaders. But the spending requirements that President Franklin Roosevelt had in mind upon taking office in 1933 were of extraordinary dimensions. Inflating the currency, in socialist theory, was a way to create more money for that end.

In the 1920s, after the disillusionment of World War I, socialism enjoyed great vogue in the United States. Social Gospel ministers extolled it, intellectuals lauded it, and popular magazines ran many favorable articles about it. In that period, the general public had no awareness of the horrors then being effected in the name of socialism in the USSR, and Hitler’s National Socialism was still in the future.

It was against that background that Franklin Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency in 1932 with the promise to give state-planning a try. Described in that way, it seemed to be no more than a proposal to coordinate government spending more effectively.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Founders - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Britney versus Jefferson: No contest

February 24, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

We’ll start out with a pop quiz. Don’t fret. The results won’t go on your permanent record. Probably.

Here goes. Last Monday the United States celebrated:

  • The biggest white sale of the year.
  • Paris Hilton’s most recent engagement.
  • Presidents Day.
  • Washington’s Birthday.

The correct answer, as aficionados of Section 6103(a) of Title 5 of the U.S. Code know, is Washington’s Birthday. By the way, that’s Washington as in George. Isaiah Washington most likely won’t get his national holiday until he successfully completes his homophobia rehab.
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00Publius Contributor - Congress - Constitution - Family - R. A. Hawkins - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Masque (All Of The King’s Men)

February 21, 2007 by

By R. A. Hawkins

Huey P. Long was once asked if he thought that fascism would ever come to America. He said that if it did it would be called anti-fascism. I noticed that was one of the quotes left out in Sean Penn’s rendition of the Huey P. Long story. I often wondered why they decided to do that movie. I guess it had to do with the fact that he took on a bunch of corrupt corporations and politicians in Louisiana. For those of you that aren’t aware of it, let’s just say the Democrats have always had a very strong grip on Louisiana. They did an awesome job of whining after Hurricane Katrina.

But I said earlier that it wouldn’t take very long before the Democrats would show what they really are all about again. The Pelosicrats will do a fine job of undoing themselves in short order. I bring to you this week a stellar example of what I mean. I’m talking about one Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee.

She has introduced several bills that should really get your attention, the first of which is H.R. 254. This bill is supposedly designed to bring an end to ‘Hate Speech’. It is called …
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00Publius Contributor - Economy/Finances - Education - Entertainment - Family - History - Science - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Vince Johnson

New World Realities!

February 19, 2007 by

-By Vince Johnson

I’m currently in the process of moving from the Coast to Aumsville, Oregon and short on time for writing a REALITY FACTOR. Therefore, this issue is an opportunity to relay some startling information prepared by an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is Director of the UCEA Center for Advanced Study Technological Leadership in Education. The following information was obtained from his web page:

  • If you are 1 in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you!
  • The 25% of the Chinese Population with the highest IQ’s is greater than the total population of North America. Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids!
  • Did you know that China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world?
  • If you took every single job in America and shipped it to China, it would still have a labor surplus!
  • During the time it takes you to read this column, 60 babies will be born in the USA, 244 babies will be born in China, and 351 babies will be born in India.
  • The top ten jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t even exist in 2004!
    Continue reading “New World Realities!”
00Publius Contributor - Economy/Finances - Education - Family - Health - Science - Security/Safety - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The Temperature Also Rises

February 16, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

With the issuing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on February 2, waxing climactic about the climatic is the order of the day. The esteemed, government-funded scientists with no agenda who rendered the study inform us that man is almost certainly responsible for rising temperatures and, furthermore, that dramatic climate change is unstoppable. But, after seeing various luminaries sound the alarm, I think I can confidently say that, hell’s bells, we’re darn well gonna try anyway.

And it’s about time. We’ve long known we were going to die unless we stopped spewing that plant-sustaining CO2 into the air. The thing is, though, my botanical sources tell me the plants are fearful that they’ll die if they don’t stop spewing that human-sustaining oxygen into the air. So our task is clear.

We must beat the plants.
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00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Education - Family - Immigration/Immigrants - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Utah’s Teenage Killer, the Muslim Connection Ignored

February 16, 2007 by 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have been watching the “reportage” on the regrettable incident of a teenaged killer’s rampage in a Utah shopping mall with mounting interest. In nearly every story of this crime the fact that this youngster is from a Muslim background is either muted or ignored altogether.

The AP, for instance, avoids identifying the boy as a Muslim in all their stories that I saw. In one, they merely identify the region in Bosnia in which he lived as the “northeastern enclave where up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995” but do not even speculate as to the boy or his family being Muslims. It is all rather dutifully avoided. In another story, the AP doesn’t even use the word Muslim at all.

Even in the local press, like the Utah Desert News, the issue of his background is ignored or made entirely incidental. The Desert News, in fact, makes just one mention that the “family are Muslims from Bosnia who had lived in the vicinity of Sarajevo” in a rather lengthy and otherwise complete story of the incident.

Worse, the New York Times is making the wild assumption that it is “Bosnian immigrants”, not the rest of America, that should be afraid for their lives in theirs titled “Anti-Bosnian Backlash Feared in Utah”.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Enjoy the Ride

February 16, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

We can trust God completely to see us through adversity.

Sunday’s sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (non-UCC) in North Stamford, Connecticut, was delivered by Reverend David Newberry. His texts, from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, were examples of humans’ weakness and doubt that God would, or could, sustain them in times of peril.

Exodus 3 in the Old Testament is one of the most famous passages in the Bible. A young Moses is shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep on the desert edge, when he sees a bush that is burning, but is not consumed by the flames, symbolizing that God is existence itself, the source of all energy and matter, neither becoming nor ending. From the burning bush God tells Moses:

Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. (Exodus 3:16)

Then God makes a promise:
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Congress - Elections - Family - Media Bias - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Pelosi Hires Soros Associate

February 14, 2007 by

By Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition

February 13, 2007 – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has recently hired Joseph Onek to be her Senior Counsel. Most people have never heard of Onek before, but he was an operative in both the Carter and Clinton White House. While in the Carter Adminstration, Onek served as Deputy Counsel to Jimmy Carter. In the Clinton Administration, Onek was a deputy Associate Attorney General and was the Rule of Law Coordinator with the State Department.

Onek also served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan and served as an Assistant Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But his more recent work as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Open Society Institute (OSI) should be of deep concern to all Americans. The Open Society Institute is a creation of billionaire atheist George Soros. This virulently anti-Christian man operates what some have called a “shadow government” in America – a network of groups and radical individuals who wish to control America’s social and national security policies.

Discoverthenetworks.org monitors the web of leftist organizations that seek to rule our nation. It describes this shadow government as being “conceived and organized principally by George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Harold McEwan Ickes — all identified with the Democratic Party left.”

The OSI funnels millions of dollars into various leftist causes, including euthanasia, open borders, abortion, homosexual activism, marijuana legalization, the undermining of our nation’s war on terrorism and other neo-Marxist visions of social justice. A list of OSI’s grantees (posted on the “discoverthenetworks.org” web site) reads like a phone book of every anti-American, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual group in America.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Political and Moral Dissolution

February 12, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Liberals’ head-in-the-sand urge to pull troops out of Iraq is nothing new. Western democracies, entranced with liberal Progressivism, have failed repeatedly to preserve social and political stability.

In words that apply to public opinion today, Walter Lippmann, in The Public Philosophy (1954), described his dismay in the summer of 1938, when war in Europe seemed inevitable.

…there was no sure prospect that France and Great Britain would be able to withstand the [German] onslaught that was coming. They were unprepared, their people were divided and demoralized. The Americans were far away, were determined to be neutral, and were unarmed….. I began writing, impelled by the need to make more intelligible to myself the alarming failure of the Western liberal democracies to cope with the realities of [the 20th] century.

Today we are armed, albeit at only about half the strength level prevailing when Bill Clinton slashed defense spending to reap the “peace dividend” for new welfare-state spending programs. But we are again disastrously divided and demoralized, just as were Hitler’s adversaries in 1938.
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00Publius Contributor - Education - Family - Founders - History - President - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Martin Luther King, Jr., On Trial for Being a Communist

February 10, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

What was the first thing that ran through your head when you read that headline?

Did it confuse you? Maybe you were shocked? Perhaps you were even angered? I am sure a few even said something like “At last” or “about time”?

It is well known that MLK hung around Communists, even “card carrying” ones. It is also well known that he had some as his close advisors. It is not completely ascertainable if he, himself, was a believer in Communism.

But, in reality, it doesn’t matter a whit if he did because he did not openly speak out for Communism and did not base his position on the ideology of Communism.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Founders - Frederick Meekins - History - Patriotism - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized

Statue Of Liberty Should Be A Liberated Woman

February 10, 2007 by

-By Frederick Meekins

One of the most comic irrationalities to come out of the Vietnam War that a village had to be destroyed in order to save it. Half a world away, the comment has become something of a joke ever since epitomizing government stupidity; however, as similar logic begins to be used here all in the name of national security, such an observation won’t seem as amusing anymore.

Most responding to my column about efforts to permanently bar the American people from the upper reaches of the Statue of Liberty agreed with my position. However, one response reflected the kind of thinking that will not only end up getting the remainder of our freedoms taken away from us but also lecture us why it is our civic duty to have a smile across our face while it is happening.

In the response, the government toady writes that, since the Statue of Liberty is a target because of its symbolic value as an artistic representation of America’s values, any and all measures should be taken to protect the landmark.

However, since Lady Liberty’s function is primarily symbolic, by closing her off aren’t we sending the message to the world that liberty is not an inalienable and immutable but rather contingent upon circumstances and the malleable whims of those holding power.
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00Publius Contributor - Book Reviews - Constitution - Family - Founders - GOP - History - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Patriotism - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Chicago Sun-Times: Warning About Christian Fascists

February 9, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times gave nearly an entire page in their “Controversy” Section to a man who feels America is under attack by a radical, religion that is inseparable from Nazi Fascism. He feels it is a hateful religion that is out to destroy America and everything it stands for and it must be stopped at all costs.

No he did not mean Islamism, amazingly enough, but Christianity.
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00Publius Contributor - Family - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Contentment: God Will Provide

February 9, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Where socialism fails, the Judeo-Christian tradition succeeds.

Sunday’s sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (a non-UCC congregation in North Stamford, Connecticut) was preached by the Reverend Jason Pankow. His principal text was 1 Timothy 6:3-10.

If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. (1 Timothy 6:3-5)

The inverse relationship between wealth and contentment is a frequent theme in literature and theatre. Likewise the sense of emptiness, the lack of fulfillment that characterize so much of our hectic lives today. Hillary Clinton, in an article published in the New York Times Magazine, noted this early in the first Clinton administration. Despite the sincerity of her concern, she was mocking dubbed ‘St. Hillary’ by liberal intellectuals.
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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Family - History - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The Offensiveness of Taking Offense

February 8, 2007 by

By Selwyn Duke

The voicing of the unpopular, being the very soul of free speech, the right to give and take offense shall not be infringed.

Sometimes I think it is time to insert the above into our First Amendment. Whether it’s an off-color joke or colorful commentary, it’s now hard to make anything but the most plain vanilla statements without offending somebody. In fact, so ingrained is the notion of being offended that it has become a topic of satire. Just think about Geico’s famous commercials, wherein stone-age characters take umbrage at the slogan, “So easy a caveman can do it.”

Ironically, associating cavemen with being thin-skinned is quite apropos, since it is a frailty born of the more ignoble aspects of man’s nature. As to this, I think about documentarian Alby Mangels who, while visiting primitives in Papua New Guinea, warned against “knocking back their hospitality.” Prudence dictated he be wary, as those less spiritually and morally evolved are ruled by pride, the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. And, lest we entertain the fancy that it is the superior person who doesn’t give offense, know that it is actually the superior one who doesn’t take it. It’s hard to offend the humble.

In truth, though, our civilization is not as overcome by pride as by duplicity. And this is what is truly offensive (in the way an odor is so) about this offensiveness business: Screaming “That’s offensive!” is nothing but a ploy. Yes, you heard it here first, few who emit that utterance are actually offended.

They just don’t happen to like what you’re saying.
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00Publius Contributor - Crime - Family - Founders - History - Media Bias - Patriotism - Religion - Society/Culture - The Law - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Internet Tattletales — Is it Right to ‘Spy’ on a Neighbor?

February 7, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

A recent Wallstreet Journal editorial by Jennifer Saranow entitled The Snoop Next Door, highlighted some interesting websites that have been taking their slot on the World Wide Web of late… and, no, it isn’t porn.

Apparently these sites are being used to tattle on other people. One site claims to be ready to reveal bad drivers and people who don’t know how to park well, one to uncover the identity of the person who is stealing newspapers in the wee hours of the morning before the neighborhood is awake to get their morning editions, and one to highlight litterbugs. All supposedly feature video or clear photos of the perpetrators of the ill the website’s creators wish to right.

How should we, as freedom loving Americans, react to websites where people are tattled on, spied upon, or “outed” as the bad guy? The libertarian reaction might be to confront the website’s creator and ask them who the heck they think they are by publicly airing other’s dirty laundry? Still others would applaud the website because they get to jeer the “jerks” of society who cannot seem to abide by the rules.

Which is right? Which is the more “American” reaction to these snoop’s websites? Curiously enough, both are.
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