Infantile America

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Collapse of the subprime mortgage market reflects the “don’t trust anybody over 30″ mentality of the Baby Boomers.

From 1605 until the late 1960s, Americans universally subscribed to Benjamin Franklin’s maxim,”A penny saved is a penny earned.” Since the Baby Boomer student anarchism of the late 1960s and 1970s, we have become a nation, on balance, worshiping infantile, instant, hedonistic gratification.

Liberals’ ideas about “values” have to do with the absence of personal restraints and with material goods and services, which is what the welfare state is all about. Values for the colonists were the elements of spiritual morality, the intangible qualities that differentiated humans from other animals.

The values of 1776 preached individual self-restraint, self-reliance, and hard work for the future of one’s family. Liberal values give us what has been called a juvenocracy, a society dominated by the heedless pursuit of instant gratification that is characteristic of inexperienced youth: devil take the hindmost; eat, drink, and be merry.
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Atheistic Desperation

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Atheists thought that God really was dead.

French revolutionary philosophers and the socialist theoreticians who followed them in the early 1800s were captured by what British socialist Graham Wallas called the liberal fallacy: the self-absorbed assumption that whatever their reasoning told them had, by definition, to be the truth and, furthermore, that everyone else on earth would naturally agree with their conclusions. It is a form of tunnel vision that ignores all factors other than what interests liberals.

We see this today in the prescriptions of liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats. They are confident that, because they abhor war, so too does Al Queda. Because liberals are willing to relinquish our national sovereignty to the UN, confident that every dispute can be resolved by rational discussion, they assume Islamic jihadists are wired the same way.
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PBS: Lies Paid for by Your Taxes

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is PBS still making money off a discredited documentary that they know is filled with untruths, misquotes, and lies? It would seem so.

In 2003 PBS aired a show titled “Einstein’s Wife” that attempted to prove that Albert Einstein’s world changing theories of physics were a result of a hidden collaboration with his first wife, Mileva Maric. This documentary claimed that Maric’s work on the theory of relativity was lied about and hidden away all these years by Einstein, his biographies and history. Imagine the implications if the work of what must be the smartest woman on earth was hidden by those evil, greedy men who don’t want to share credit with a woman. It’s a feminist’s dream story promulgated by PBS.

Unfortunately it isn’t true. Not only is it not true, but also so many historians have since complained to PBS that they surely know the real truth by now, even if their original airing was a result of their honestly just not knowing the truth then. Yet, this faux documentary still has a PBS sponsored webpage and was recently aired by Australian broadcasters. PBS is also still selling DVDs and attempting to make money off a film hat has been discredited by dozens of historians and even attacked by the scientists in the film who were misquoted and misrepresented by the film’s producers.
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Germany Ready to Fight Scientology… But What of Islamofascism?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Germans have found the intense, religious issue of the day that they feel must be fought to the hilt. It’s a matter of a deep consequence and a threat to the safety of the German people. This religious order is a “Militant-aggressive” one that is “a dangerous, extremist organization which has declared war on Europe.”

So, which religion do ya think it is that the Germans are all worried about?

Islam?

Uh, no.

It’s Scientology,

It shouldn’t take much more proof than this that Germans in particular and Europeans in general have a complete lack of understanding of the times in which we live. If Scientology is their biggest fear as Islamofascists are cavorting about the world cutting off heads and blowing up tourist spots killing thousands on a daily basis, then it would seem that these people deserve all the damage that Islam will cause them.
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What IS Wrong With Ron Paul?

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have been watching with interest the candidacy of Libertarian Ron Paul. Like many, I’ve been wondering what the heck he is doing in this race in the first place. Let’s face it, even in the GOP field of candidates he doesn’t fit in well. Naturally, he is a whipping boy for the GOP establishment… well, maybe just a laughing stock, would be more accurate. But, there is real substance to Mr. Paul, a substance that is all too easy to gloss over by focusing on his quirks. And he does serve a very important purpose; he helps bring the debate to the right, a necessary pull with Mitt the Malleable and Rudy the lefty in the race.

Being of a libertarian bent myself, I see a lot of merit in Mr. Paul’s focus on taking government out of things as opposed to trying to find new and expansive (not to mention expensive) ways for government to meddle in our lives. His voice is a welcome change in this direction.

However, his chief flaw is his overly simplistic approach to the war — and this is the single most important issue of our day. This is the main reason he is uncredible as a possible president one who, should he be elected, would have to deal far more with foreign threats and diplomacy than that of other, past presidents.

Last Sunday’s debate was a prime example of the unsuitability of his candidacy for our times. From his constant and easily ridiculed use of the word “Neocons” in practically every answer he gave, to his policy suggestion that we “just leave” Iraq as if it were merely a bad movie we could walk out on with no consequences, made him look… well… off his nut.
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Is Immigration Really an “All American” Idea?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty sums up the general assumption most people have about where immigration fits into American principles. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,” the famously inscribed tablet goes. “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

For most people that about settles it. We are a “nation of immigrants.” It’s as American as baseball and apple pie. Not very long ago, I made this very claim in a discussion about the anchor baby issue. It seemed to me that since this was a nation of immigrants, we couldn’t be intellectually honest and exclude people of foreign birth from having their children born on US soil being given automatic citizenship as set forth under the 14th Amendment. It was a natural assumption to make, but not one entirely informed. It was a matter that several letter writers quickly took me to school for seeking to disabuse me of my naive notions.

Since then, and after further study, I have reassessed my view on the matter. I have seen that the issue of immigration is not as cut-and-dried as it might seem, either currently or historically.

Now comes Thomas E. Woods, Jr. to try to simplify the anti-immigration point even further in a new book titled “33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask” (Crown Forum, 2007, $25.95). One of the “33 Questions” Woods asks and then answers is that of the immigration issue as far as the Founding Fathers were concerned with it. Fittingly, since it’s one of today’s most pressing issues, the immigration question starts the book off with chapter one; “Did the Founding Fathers Support Immigration?”

About immigration, Woods says, “… many people still assume that the right of immigration is a hallowed American principle that no loyal citizen can consistently oppose.” He claims, though, that “this assumption is false.” He also says, “The Founding Fathers were generally wary of immigrants, and many of them warned about the consequences for the United States if immigration levels were not limited.”

So, that’s basically a “no” as far as Woods is concerned. The Founders were not for untrammeled immigration and wanted limits to it. Woods focuses on the Founders anti-immigration points and clearly wishes the reader to feel they were generally against it.
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Encroaching Demands from a “Religion of Peace”

By Marie Jon’

America and the world at large are facing a threat that could impact our ways of life in many aspects. In America, the freedoms we enjoy — and our very lives — could well become just a memory in the near future.

Our Judeo-Christian beliefs are up against the tyrannical mindset of extremists within Islam. Some call it radical Islam. However, that is up for debate in the minds of many. Could it be that Islam itself is the inherent problem?

Islam’s holy book, the Koran, puts forth a message of hate and total intolerance. Those who are partakers of the faith of Islam are vehemently taught that all people who are not Muslim are infidels. Some within their differing Islamic faith often suffer at the hands of other practicing Muslims. All one has to do is look at Iraq to see the death toll of citizens come from Islamic people who kill their own — other Muslims — in the name of Jihad.

Who are the people who practice this faith living within our cities and towns? Are we in a state of dangerously naïve denial?

Excerpts from The Christian Science Monitor:

“In Europe, skylines reflect the rise of Islam”
By Isabelle de Pommereau, Correspondent

“After decades of worshiping in basements and courtyards, Muslims are building hundreds of new mosques across the continent.

“Where steeples once reigned: In Germany alone, 184 new mosques are under construction, including this one in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district.

“Wiesbaden, Germany — In the Rhine Valley city of Mannheim, the glittering minaret of Germany’s biggest mosque overshadows what was once the region’s most vibrant church, testifying to Muslims’ new confidence as Christian churches are closing down.

“Years ago, 180 sisters of the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Divine Savior were the pulse of the city. Today, eight remain. Every weekend, roughly 150 Roman Catholics attend mass at the Liebfrauen Church, while up to 3,000 Muslims throng the Yavuz-Sultan-Selim mosque. Since the mosque was opened in 1995, Muslim shops and youth centers have become a magnet for the Muslim community.

“Mannheim is not unique. Across Europe, the Continent’s fastest-growing religion is establishing its public presence after decades in basements and courtyards, changing not only the architectural look of cities, but also their social fabrics.

“Hailed by many as a sign of Muslim integration, the phenomenon is also feared as evidence of a parallel Islamic world threatening Europe’s Christian culture.
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AP Says U.S. Imperialism Cause of ‘World’s Gravest Problems’ – But AP Loves Gorbachev

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again, and engaging in perfect Soviet styled historical revisionism, our glorious MSM presents the “truth” of how failed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was really the one who “helped” the U.S. win the Cold War. AP claims Gorby brought about the fall of the Soviet Union but this “ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism,” which the AP claims is responsible for “many of the world’s gravest problems.” So, according to the AP Gorby helped the U.S. win the Cold War, but his good deed is now the cause of all the world’s ills? How losing the game can equate to an assist to the winners is anyone’s guess.

Every couple of months the left leaning western MSM dusts off this old loser to beat up the United States. And with this one the AP mixes their hero worship of Mikhail Gorbachev with their hatred of the U.S.A. in a crescendo of far left double speak that is just incredible for its cluelessness. The very mind boggling leftist dogma of their first two sentences is head spinning.
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Stalin Lives – In England

-By Thomas E. Brewton

British PC education follows American lead, wipes out Western history.

Read Lisa Fabrizio’s article, Not Their Finest Hour, on the Intellectual Conservative website.

The pull-quote summarizes the thrust of PC education in Britain:

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in Britain has dropped Winston Churchill from its list of key historical figures, in order to make room for “modern” issues.

This is straight out of the Soviet Union, where those out of favor with Stalin were liquidated and all records of their existence were expunged. Documents were destroyed or altered and photographs were retouched to remove individuals who had became non-persons.

Stalin took his cue from V. I. Lenin, who, in 1923, instructed the Commissars of Education:

We must hate — hatred is the basis of Communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not Communists.

More or less the same sort of thing has happened in the United States.
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When Even The Teachers Know Nothing

-By Warner Todd Huston

A short column by Ray Mcallister of the Richmond Times-Dispatch scolded a Virginia Middle School for having a drawing of Karl Marx on their graduation certificate. The school replied that they had thought that the drawing represented Frederick Douglas and didn’t realize they had been using a picture of Karl Marx.

As Mcallister reports:

Richmond schools spokeswoman Felicia Cosby called last night to explain:

“She really thought she was capturing clip art representing Frederick Douglass. She did a search to pull up Frederick Douglass and this is what came up… with the beard and the hair.”

It was all just a big mistake, you see?

OK. Maybe it was. Maybe this uninformed school teacher who helped design the graduation certificate didn’t know what Frederick Douglass looked like and mistook the Marx image for Douglass’. She just didn’t know.

But, if it was a mistake born from a lack of knowledge, does this make it all better? Can we just go on and forget about it? Is there no deeper meaning here?

I say a mistake is one thing, but this whole incident reveals that not only did this uninformed teacher not know what she was doing, but neither did the rest of the school’s design committee, the school board, or even the printer who printed the thing.
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Valenti an LBJ stalwart until the end

-By Michael M. Bates

Jack Valenti’s autobiography, “This Time, This Place,” was published last May. In terms of promoting the book, it was bad timing. He died in April.

Still, it’s always interesting to see Democrats rewrite history. A few months ago I reviewed professional Clinton toady Terry McAuliffe’s book.

In a feat of Herculean proportions, Mr. Valenti’s volume probably outdoes McAuliffe’s book for name dropping. A difference is Mr. Valenti does it much more charmingly than the insufferably boorish McAuliffe. And where Terry drops names such as Yasser Arafat and Oscar de la Renta, Jack makes do with the likes of Gina Lollobrigida, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ann-Margaret and Juliette Binoche.

Jack Valenti served our country with distinction during World War II. The Texan had a successful career at what was later to become Exxon Mobil. Then he and a friend launched a flourishing ad agency.

What he’ll most likely be remembered for, however, is working as a top assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson and then serving nearly 40 years leading the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
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War Between the Head and the Heart – America’s Timidity at War in the 21st Century

-By Warner Todd Huston

There are two kinds of war, when you get right down to it, and the USA has had a little of both. First is the idealistic kind, evinced in that of the American Revolution and WWII, which were both fights to free a continent from despotism. Even Korea and Vietnam can be fitted into the idealistic category because the main goal with each was to stop the evils of communism from spreading further. Then there is the pessimistic kind, like ours with Mexico in the 1840s and most of our various Indian wars from Andrew Jackson’s Seminole excursions in Georgia and Florida to the last major actions against the Nez Perce in the Pacific North West. Few of them were little else than overt land grabs.

One axiom, however, can be applied equally of all our past wars up until recently; war means fighting and fighting means killing. Or, as Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman once unapologetically said, “If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.”

Americans, like other warriors of days past, rarely felt squeamish about killing the enemy, even when they were other Americans — whether they be “native” or Southern. Save for a brief time early in the Civil War as the residents of Virginia were spared too much deprivation by Union forces, or when Lee invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, even civilians were not spared the hard hand of the God of War. The internecine border war in Kansas and Missouri was vicious for its attacks on civilians even as North and South played at their temporary, tender sensibilities in Virginia and the surrounding countryside for that brief moment of mercy.

For the most part, our ancestors knew that war was a hard business and fought it that way. Theirs was a war of the head. A war where one and all accepted the dreaded but necessary fact that people would die, even if some of those people never raised a hand in anger.

But, around the time of the actions in Vietnam, things began to change in the larger perception of the American populace. The idea that only “the enemy”, often an amorphous term, should be harmed in war began to gain cache. Fire bombing of the likes of a Dresden or the A-Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began to take on barbaric overtones until we have, at last, arrived at the ridiculous phrase “collateral damage” to explain unwanted, but unavoidable civilian deaths.
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A Nation of Sleepwalkers — Even Southerners Forget Their History

-By Warner Todd Huston

Many Americans from the north like to scoff that our southern brethren are still fighting the Civil War, treating them as if they are unaware that the war was over nearly 150 years ago. It has been so often repeated that southerners are still “Confederate” that the stereotype of the southerner looking to the past instead of the future is secure in northerner’s minds. Would that it were true that all southerners are so fond of their history because it appears that even one of the most famous Confederate cemeteries in the Confederacy’s very own capitol is being forgotten, uncared for, and repeatedly vandalized.

The bad news is that Oakwood cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, is being forgotten and ignored, and, as mentioned, it is also being increasingly vandalized. The good news is that a community group has not only volunteered to take upon themselves the upkeep and maintenance of the final resting place of 17,000 Confederate solders, but they have already raised $100,000 to do so. They have also gotten the blessing and legislative support of the Commonwealth of Virginia for the effort.

But even as dozens of grave markers are vandalized repeatedly by God knows who, the city of Richmond refuses even to take a meeting with the Sons of Confederate Veterans who are ready to take on the duty.
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July 4th – Independence or Security?

-By Thomas E. Brewton

We have forgotten why the Declaration of Independence was signed.

In 1776, American colonists were willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and their sacred honor to maintain the self-government that they had laboriously established over the preceding century and a half.

Chief among their motivations, and the most common complaint from Georgia in the south to Massachusetts in the northeast, was protection of their private property rights. Hence the most famous of the War of Independence slogans: “No taxation without representation!”

In the succeeding two and a quarter centuries, liberal-Progressive-socialists have led our nation 180 degrees away from that orientation.
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Joe McCarthy: Gone but certainly not forgotten

-By Michael M. Bates

It would be remiss of me not to note that this month marks 50 years since the death of Senator Joe McCarthy. What would Commies, pinkos, socialists, leftists, liberals, and their lackeys and handmaidens have done for the past half century if they didn’t have old Joe to kick around?

Even after all this time, the Wisconsin Republican is in the news. Recently, the Los Angeles Times ran an obituary for Bernard Gordon, described by the newspaper as “one of the younger screenwriters blacklisted during the McCarthy era.” Mr. Gordon, we’re told, was “unable to find work because of the blacklist.”

There was a blacklist, but it existed a long time before McCarthy jumped on the anti-Communist bandwagon. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated Red infiltration in Hollywood and called “the Hollywood Ten” of writers, directors and producers to testify in 1947. McCarthy started his crusade against Communism three years later.

Bernard Gordon was subpoenaed by HUAC in 1952, but was never called to testify. That was also the year of his first produced screenplay. So did he actually find himself out of work because of the blacklist?
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Media Ignores Carter’s Lie in Quote Flap, Focuses on ‘Bush is Worst’ Instead

-By Warner Todd Huston

The left never ceases to amaze and confound an honest man. As we have seen reported on Newsbusters, Jimmy Carter called President George W. Bush the “worst” president in history then lied about it claiming that his words were “careless or misinterpreted.” Carter was seen on the Today Show trying to get the nation to imagine he didn’t really say what he said attempting to make it seem as if the Newspaper that first reported his outrageous, intemperate language had somehow gotten it wrong. In essence, Carter was trying to make it out as if the paper was doing the lying, not him.

The newspaper, however, can prove without the shadow of a doubt that it is Carter who is lying. He did say what was first reported and there is no “carelessness” or “misinterpretation” over his words.

The fact that a former president is caught in a bald faced lie should be big news. You’d think the MSM would be all over the lies of a man who lost his office in one of the biggest landslide elections in history. Yet, here we have Editor & Publisher compounding Carter’s lies by assisting him to avert the subject from his own culpability and to reinforce the “Bush is worst” theme Carter was trying to develop in the first place by obfuscating the fact that Carter was caught in a straight out lie.

So, apparently as far as the MSM is concerned Carter’s lies aren’t the story. That Bush is still evil is. Which begs the question: are there any immoral acts a Democrat can do that will bring condemnation from the MSM?

Obviously not.
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Left Just Likes To Be Mad, No Reason Needed

-By Warner Todd Huston

This story proves once again that the left doesn’t need justification, logic or reality to get a good mad on. They don’t need anything real or important to swarm upon like a hive of unthinking insects, infesting and killing a host, they just need one of their own to head off in that direction so that they can all follow, lemming-like, over that cliff.

The latest cause celebre erupted when Congressman Ted Poe (R, Texas) used a quote from a one time Confederate General in a speech on the floor of Congress. It wasn’t just any Confederate General, though, it was a quote from founder of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, CS Cavalry General in the war’s western theater.

Ooooo. The KKK founder, huh? Sounds ominous. So, what was the quote? Was it one calling blacks a bad name? Was it one dealing with race relations? Was it anything like that?

No. It was a military quote.
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Understanding the Worth of Our Nation

-By Frank Salvato

It is difficult to value something when its worth is unknown. The adage of one child being given a toy only to leave it out in the rain to rust, never understanding the toys worth, while another child made to earn the same toy is found to take care of it, valuing its worth, is a fitting analogy. This basic truth applies to our American heritage and the continued welfare of our nation.

Most of us have never had to take up arms to protect our freedoms, our liberties, our rights as guaranteed under The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, our Charters of Freedom. In most cases these gifts have been bequeathed to us from those of generations past who did have to serve, to protect and defend our nation and by those who valiantly volunteer to serve today. What is asked of us in return for this legacy of freedom is loyalty to the covenant between citizen and government, loyalty to our nation.

Today, our country faces both a threat from abroad and a threat, in the form of ideological conflict, from within. Some among us choose to accentuate the imperfections of our nation. Some condemn our culture. And still others literally champion our nation’s defeat and demise. Those who choose to diminish the significance of the United States’ contributions to the world, do so in ignorance of the intent of the documents that charted the course for this great nation and the ideologies and principles that provided the foundation for the creation of our governmental covenant.
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“Historian” Says Jamestown Celebration ‘Risky’ Because US Founding Responsible For Slavery

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another sad example of self flagellation by western elitists, the Guardian Newspaper in England published a column on how we Americans (and our English cousins) should not celebrate the founding of Jamestown, the first Virginia colony, 400 years ago because of… you guessed it… slavery.

Here we have another elitist congratulating himself that he is “informed” enough to know that slavery makes the founding of the USA a blight on humanity instead of the great event it truly is. Another leftist who cannot bring himself to be proud of anything the west has been responsible for because there were some bad things mixed in with the good. In fact, the bad things make us such hypocrites, goes this type of thinking, that all the good should be discounted over it. (It is always in fashion for Europeans to look down on the US, isn’t it?)
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The “Fifth Columnization” of America

-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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The Paradox of Reason

-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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Are We Experiencing a Constitutional Crisis?

-By Frank Salvato

I have been disappointed to hear that some of the radio personalities and editorialists who usually present a modicum of reason to the American public are having a hard time finding anything wrong with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s recent attempt at promoting rogue foreign policy in the Middle East. To be sure, our Constitution does not vest any member of Congress – speaker or otherwise – with the power to usurp the authority of the Executive Branch where conducting foreign policy is concerned.

This isn’t to say that Congress doesn’t have any authority over the formulation of US foreign policy, it certainly does. Article 2, Section 8 clearly states that Congress shall have the power:

“…To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;…”

Further, in Article 3, Section 2 it clearly states that by their “advice and consent” they authorize the President of the United States:

“…To make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law;…”

In other words, Congress has the authority to regulate business between the United States and foreign nations, to declare war and regulate the spoils of war and to validate and make official any treaties negotiated through the Executive Branch. Article 3, not Congress, empowers the Executive Branch with the ability to appoint ambassadors, ministers, counsels, Supreme Court Justices and all other officers including official representatives of the United States. In essence, Congress has the limited power to legislate the general character and policies comprising American foreign policy.
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Huckleberry Finn, “African-American” Jim, and Academic Achievement Scores

Warren Lee Culpepper

Twain’s 1884 classic opens with a warning to the readers who attempt to find a “motive, a moral, or a plot” to the story. The key word in the sentence is “attempting.” Clearly, those readers who fail to find all three elements are the mentally encumbered morons to whom Twain refers, when he states he would just as well see them “prosecuted, banished, or shot.” To miss these literary elements in the book would require tremendous effort or just sheer idiocy.

In today’s politically correct (PC), multi-cultural, intolerant-tolerant, and over-sensitive climate, children are fortunate if they ever have the opportunity to read this historically controversial book. Today most of the controversy surrounds the repugnance of the word “nigger” (a degrading brand suggesting a human being is not a human being). To defend including the novel in a school curriculum, some suggest looking past the word because of its historical context. Other educators sugarcoat the issue by replacing the word with today’s PC term “African-American.” Their students giggle or grimace and then struggle through the rest of Huck’s funny yet disconcerting narrative. But since the story demonstrates how an uneducated white boy unlearns everything he’s ever been taught about blacks — thanks to a black, truly human character named Nigger Jim — wasn’t Twain’s point to offend us? Do you really think Twain believed the word “nigger” was just contextually accurate? Do you really think Twain approved of its common use during his lifetime? If one character in the entire story seemed incapable of being human it was Pap — the child abusing, drunk racist, and dirty thief (Huck’s white father).
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The MSM’s Willful Ignorance of American History, More Anti-Southernism

-By Warner Todd Huston

A rather small section, one small paragraph, in a pretty straight forward story reveals the sheer absurdity and incomprehension that prevails in the Media today and serves to show the emptiness of what passes for thinking and logic about American history in what some feel are our cultural elites. It also shows the bias against things Southern in certain circles these days.
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Art and Degeneration

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Art historically expressed the highest aspirations of society. In the 20th century art reversed field.

I had the pleasure today of viewing an exhibition of three-dimensional photo collages by Renee Kahn, who has an unerring eye for the artistic aspects of reality. Her subject was “Urban Dreamscapes: Stamford as a Work of Art.”

The occasion was a discussion panel (an artist, an art critic, a film historian-columnist) limning the 20th century setting of art and film as background for Renee’s work.

I was forcibly struck by recurrent themes in their presentations, some intended, some paradoxical.

A dominant theme was art, including movies, as recorder of the degeneration of life quality in the great cities.

What came across, however, was the presenters’ disdain for the source of order that historically had prevented that degeneration before the 20th century.
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Civic Responsibility & The Blame Game

-By Frank Salvato

Our Founders believed in ownership of the Constitution. By that I mean they expected, almost took for granted, that each American citizen would stake a claim of ownership to the principles and tenants set forth in our Founding Documents. But as we watch our elected officials, in Washington DC and in our State Houses, habitually place the political well-being of themselves and their parties above good government for their constituents and our country, we must ask ourselves: Are we doing our part in making sure our government is the best it can be?

The Founding Documents, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, serve as a covenant between the American people and our government, a contract, as it were.

One of the unwritten provisions of this covenant, this contract, was that each American would exercise a certain level of self-prescribed civic responsibility where the role of caretaker, or steward, to the Constitution was concerned. They intended for Americans to engage in the governmental process by continuously questing for the truth and then engaging their representatives in elected office – when need be – on the issues using fact-based knowledge, civil discourse and a patriotic ideology, even when in disagreement.
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AP Going After Guns Again

-By Warner Todd Huston

In their never ending quest to attack the Constitutional right of self defense and gun ownership, the AP has once again published an anti-gun story, this time with a twist. It’s a toy in the hands of a schoolgirl there are gravely alerting us to.

Child Carried Toy Gun ‘For Protection’

Third-Grader Suspended in Upper Darby, Pa., for Carrying Replica Gun ‘For Protection’

UPPER DARBY, Pa. Mar 21, 2007 (AP)— A child who brought a realistic replica of a gun to school told a teacher she needed it “for protection,” police said.

Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said the third-grader took the authentic-looking replica of a German Luger pistol, which she apparently thought was real, with her Monday because she knew her older brother would not be able to walk her home from the bus stop that day. Children told a teacher about the gun, leading to police being called.

It was a toy, folks. A TOY.
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Western States Regulate “Interior Designers”, Where’s the Public Interest?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The State legislature of Nevada wants to be sure your home’s Feng Shui is smooth. New Mexico’s officials want to be sure that your “space” is well arranged. They are all about home decor. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have the Home Improvement channel constantly playing in all state offices so that legislators can keep up on the latest tips. They must be experts, fanatically concerned with interior decorating, after all.

Why, you ask?

Well, because they have wasted the time of the legislature and the money of the State’s treasury to make sure that there is a legal, licensed difference between an “Interior Decorator” and just those lowly, unskilled “decorators”. Worse, there is now the iron boot heel of government standing behind the supposed “professional” status of an “Interior Designer” because if you hire someone who claims to be just a “designer” and he does work of an “Interior Designer”– whatever that is supposed to be — well, the black helicopters swoop down upon you, they unleash the hell hounds to run you to ground, and you’ll end up in the deepest pit the State of Nevada can find for up to a year, not to mention fining you $1,000.

That’s right, folks. The State of Nevada wasted its time defining what interior design “means” and has developed a license and fee schedule to control it all.
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Times Supports Abstract Savagery

-By Thomas E. Brewton

New York Times editorialists equate morality with pagan environmental worship, doing so in the name of an abstraction called “the planet.”

In a New York Times editorial of March 10, 2007, titled Evangelical Environmentalism, the editors wrote, in part:

Whether or not you agree with [the conservative Christian wing of the Republican Party] about, say, homosexuality and abortion — and we emphatically do not — it is antiquated to limit the definition of morality to the way humans behave among humans.

Those days have been over ever since it became apparent that humans — busy thinking only about their own lives — had the power to destroy huge numbers of species, whole landscapes of habitat and, in fact, the balance of life on earth. The greatest moral issue of our time is our responsibility to the planet and to all its inhabitants.
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Boston Globe: Iraq Insurgents Just Like Our Founding Fathers

-By Warner Todd Huston

I wonder if the MSM ever gets tired of trying to make evil look good? And if they aren’t trying to make evil look like good, they are trying to soft peddle evil with a they-are-really-just-like-us analysis of evil’s actions. Such is the case today in the Boston Globe wherein writer H.D.S. Greenway equates Iraqi insurgents to being just like America’s founding revolutionary generation.

In ‘Surge’ doomed to final failure, a badly garbled reading of history is foisted upon an unsuspecting reading public that culminates with H.D.S. Greenway boiling down the entire American Revolution to the claim that British soldiers were a “conquering force” in the Colonies and the Colonists were mad at them for it.

And so conquering foreign soldiers will be resisted in Iraq, as they have always been everywhere down the centuries. In early April 1775, the British governor of Boston sent John Howe out to gather intelligence in that hotbed of insurgency now called the western suburbs, but then the Anbar province of its time. Howe met an old man cleaning his rifle who looked too old to hunt game.

The old man said he expected foreign soldiers — “a flock of redcoats” — would be arriving soon, and he thought they would make good targets. Arrive they did, and with them the American revolution that in many states degenerated into civil war. The British soldiers were mostly of the same race and religion as the people they fought, but they were by then foreigners, and eight years later they were gone.

This simpleminded “gotcha” point that H.D.S.Greenway seems to imagine he has stumbled upon makes a mush of what really happened in 1776 and before to cause the American Revolution. Apparently H.D.S. Greenway is unaware that the British didn’t “conquer” the Colonists because the colonies were part of the territorial possessions of Great Britain in the fist place. Putting down an insurrection is quite different than conquering and the British were not truly “foreigners” – Revolutionary rhetoric aside– even to most American citizens. Unwanted, yes, but “foreign”? Not really. In truth, many U.S. citizens felt they were being truer Englishmen than the Brits were being.
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