America? It’s Become a Silly Little Place

-By Warner Todd Huston

The United States of America used to be a fearsome power but one with a soft touch. Peoples of the world looked to this great nation as that “shining city on a hill” and came here by the millions to become the next new American citizen. Producing its greatness were great men and in memory of those great men landmarks, and worthy institutions were named after them by a proud and thankful people.

We had Washington City named for the father of our country. We had schools and libraries named after the first man of the people, Andrew Jackson. We had more schools and later highways named after the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Yet more schools and highways were named after the man that won WWII for us, Dwight Eisenhower. An Airport was named after the great communicator, Ronald Reagan.

These great men helped build this country and contributed to its greatness in their own special ways. Their contributions can neither be slighted nor forgotten. These were important men, great men that led this wondrous nation.

So, what do we have today? What great men are finding an adoring public choosing to name important facilities, places of learning, or great veins of transportation after them? What great men are following in the footsteps of these past great men? Who else has done things like won a terrible war, became our first president, freed the slaves, saved the country from elitists, or helped bring the masses into political power?
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America? It’s Become a Silly Little Place”


A New Declaration of Independence for a New Revolution

-By Warner Todd Huston

America is fast coming to a crossroads from which there will be no return if we take the wrong path. Do we take the road that leads away from America and toward a Euro-esque way of governing? Do we cast aside our American character and bury our great nation in a grave of socialist-styled authority? Do we damn our progeny to a failed superstate that violate every tenet of our original ideals?

I say we do not. I say we reject the democrat’s Euro-esque ideas and refocus ourselves on American exceptionalism. Our federal system has strayed far from our founding ideals and we may soon find that its time for a new Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical government that has usurped power from proper authority.

Since it is Independence Day this weekend, I offer this new Declaration as a rallying cry to all those willing to return to our true American character…
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A New Declaration of Independence for a New Revolution”


Disclosure Act: Another Example of Unconstitutional Obamaism

-By Warner Todd Huston

On June 24 the House of Representatives passed by a bare minimum number of votes the DISCLOSE Act, a law that is supposed to be a new effort to get around the recent US Supreme Court decision that struck down parts of Congress’ campaign finance law. Bare minimum or no there is no doubt that this new law is an unconstitutional mess that unfairly limits the free political speech of some Americans while giving an unfair advantage to unions and certain lobbyists — lobbyists including the National Rifle Association and Big Labor groups such as the AFL-CIO and the SEIU.

The DISCLOSE Act (full name, Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act) was passed through the House by a 219 to 206 vote with only two Republicans voting in favor and 36 Democrats voting against. The two Republicans that voted in favor were Mike Castle of Delaware and Joseph Cao of Louisiana.

So what is this law supposed to do? For one thing the law would require “special interest group officials to physically appear at the end of campaign ads they sponsor, acknowledging their campaign contributions.” It would also require that advocacy groups detail on their public websites every campaign they’ve donated to.
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Disclosure Act: Another Example of Unconstitutional Obamaism”


Atlanta Journal Columnist Tucker Says USA is ‘The Enemy’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Columnist Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner, has found the enemy and he is us. During a recent episode of the Chris Matthews show, Tucker decided that because we are “addicted to petroleum” we are our own enemy just as much as communism was our enemy during the Cold War.

Tucker characterizes our “addiction” to oil as an “external threat” — just like communism was — and presents oil as an enemy that we should defeat. Tucker also makes excuses for Obama saying that it’s “harder” for him to call on Americans to sacrifice because of this addiction.

Leave it to a member of the Old Media to construe capitalism, progress, a growing standard of living, and even our own fellow citizens to be as great an enemy as an antithetical foreign system that was sponsored by those that promised to destroy us. Leave it to a member of the Old Media to pinpoint our own system as the enemy.
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Atlanta Journal Columnist Tucker Says USA is ‘The Enemy’”


Petition to Remove Statue of Murderer Stalin from D-Day Memorial

-By Warner Todd Huston

There has been a lot of anger over the inclusion of a statue of Joseph Stalin, Russia’s murderous WWII dictator, in our National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia.As a result of that anger a petition has been started to remove the Stalin celebration from the National D-Day Memorial.

Thousands of Americans feel that including a statue celebrating the life of this monster is the wrong way to go about memorializing Russia’s sacrifice during WWII and they want the statue pulled down.

Others, though, say that if we pull down the statue we are whitewashing history. After all, they say, we have statues to the other Allied leaders and excluding Stalin just makes no sense.

I disagree with those that think we must memorialize Stalin in order to be true to a valid accounting of history. What should have been done to memorialize Russia’s dear sacrifice during WWII was to recognize the nation’s effort without building a statue to one of the worst murderers in human history. The statue should have been of Russia itself, not Stalin.
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Petition to Remove Statue of Murderer Stalin from D-Day Memorial”


Despite Misconception, We Conservatives DO Want Some Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

Leftists love to purposefully misconstrue what sort of government conservatives want. Certainly whenever some new big government boondoggle erupts in the typical corruption and waste that is government, conservatives rail against the misappropriation of powers that such boondoggles invariably mean. But when government isn’t doing something they want it to do and conservatives kvetch with equal vitriol, the first attack left-wingers charge them with is hypocrisy. The left’s taunt, however, is a willful misread of what it is that conservatives are saying in their critique of government.

Unfortunately, many conservatives make this taunt all the easier to level because it seems that they are a bit hazy themselves on just what they should think about the role of government.

Conservatives come by this problem honestly, though. What conservative worth his salt is unaware of Ronald Reagan’s famous small government quote: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Reagan’s first inaugural address)
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Despite Misconception, We Conservatives DO Want Some Government”


1929 Radio Broadcast Audio Featuring Thomas Edison Recovered

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is absolutely cool, a 1929 recording of a radio broadcast of Thomas Edison has been recovered from a recording made on a machine that no longer exists. (CLICK HERE to hear audio)

Audio experts had to recreate the early sound recording device based only on old photos and descriptions of the machine. Called the “pallophotophone,” the machine recorded onto movie film light emissions made from sound.

It is simply amazing to hear this recording, but even more amazing that it is so clear and precise. I was ready to hear scratchy, hard to understand muddle, but the sound is incredibly clear.

The whole interesting story can be seen at the timesunion.com


Publisher’s Warning Label: That Constitution and Declaration is No Longer Valid Thinking

-By Warner Todd Huston

A Virginia-based publisher has decided that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and other founding books are likely offensive and they want their readers to understand that these old documents are no longer valid ways of thinking. And so the publisher, Wilder Publications, has put a warning label on its reprints of America’s founding documents and books to shield American’s delicate sensibilities.

The warning label reads, “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

The warning labels appear on copies of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, as well as other founding books and documents the company reprints.
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Publisher’s Warning Label: That Constitution and Declaration is No Longer Valid Thinking”


Why Can’t Old Media Get History Right Part 2: Boston Herald Muffs Rev War

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week I posted a deconstruction of the muffed WWII history as penned by NPR commentator Cokie Roberts. Today I have another example of muddled history in the Old Media. This one is misconstrued Revolutionary War history as published by the Boston Herald. Hard to believe that the Boston Herald, a paper that sits in the cradle of the Revolutionary War, can get Revolutionary War history wrong but such is the degraded state of the Old Media.

In Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19, 2010, reenactors of the Rev War celebrated the 235th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. The Boston Herald reported on the event later that morning and made a mash of its allusions to history.

Re-enactors took to Lexington Green today to recreate the opening moments of the Revolutionary War in front of a crowd of thousands, who gathered for the early-morning ritual.

…The battle that produced the “shot heard ’round the world” was the result of a confrontation between Lexington militia men and British “red coats” on Lexington Green, which escalated into a daylong fight involving 3,500 militia men and 1,500 red coats.

Notice that the Herald called the battle at Lexington between Patriot militiamen and the British Red Coats as the one that, “produced the ‘shot heard ’round the world.'” As any first year history student knows, however, the battle that is identified as the one that produced the “shot heard ’round the world” was the Battle at Concord, not the Battle of Lexington.

The phrase comes from the famous poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote the lines for the 1836 unveiling of the Obelisk erected in Concord, Massachusetts commemorating the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
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Why Can’t Old Media Get History Right Part 2: Boston Herald Muffs Rev War”


NJ Grade Schools Makes Kids Dress as Women for Woman’s History Month — Yes Even Boys

-By Warner Todd Huston


To celebrate women’s history month this year, grade school boys are being forced to dress up like women at the Maple Shade School District in Burlington County, New Jersey and some parents are none too happy about it.

According to Beth F. Norcia, Principal of the Maude Wilkins Elementary School, the cross-dressing scheme was set up as a contest to celebrate women’s history month among the Burlington County schools.

The idea, says Principal Norcia, is for the kids to dress up as women through various periods of American history. When a nonplussed parent called the school to inquire about the dress-up day, the Principal seemed unperturbed by it all saying that women wear jeans, too, so boys didn’t have to wear a dress unless they wanted to.
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NJ Grade Schools Makes Kids Dress as Women for Woman’s History Month — Yes Even Boys”


This Congressman Doesn’t Know the Constitution

-By Warner Todd Huston

What the heck is that old Constitution thingie, anyway? Does anyone in Congress know? Of course we’ve been railing about those leftist members of Congress who both don’t know anything about the Constitution, nor care a whit about it. But it isn’t just the lefties that don’t know anything about the Constitution.

Here we have a patriotic American schooling Congressman Frank A. LoBiondo (2nd District, New Jersey) on what is contained in Article One of the Constitution. LoBiondo is a Republican.

Sad as it is, it is sort of grimly amusing that LoBiondo started out sounding like a 5th grade child trying to wrack his brain after being asked a question by the schoolmarm. It’s the old, “The Constitution is a particular piece of paper with Constitutiony things in it, intended to act as a Constitution” sort of answer that Congressman LoBiondo started out with.
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This Congressman Doesn’t Know the Constitution”


Anti-War Hiroshima A-Bomb Book Caught With Multiple Fictions

-By Warner Todd Huston

When it debuted the left instantly hailed it as an anti-war masterpiece. The book “The Last Train from Hiroshima,” a popular history of the WWII A-Bomb drops on Japan, quickly accumulated much acclaim. This was “gleaming” wartime history according to The New York Times. It was so poignant and solemn that moviemaker James Camereon was said to be considering making a movie based on the book. It wasn’t long, though, before major questions about the veracity of the tale were raised.

The author of the book, Charles Pellegrino, used the experiences of at least three participants in the bombings at important junctures in the book. He reported the experiences of one of the U.S. airmen that was aboard the Enola Gay as well as two European Jesuit priests that were living in Hiroshima during the bombing.

But now comes the admission from the author that two of these three people don’t even exist, and a third lied about his service on the Enloa Gay casting doubt on Pellegrino’s whole endeavor.
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Anti-War Hiroshima A-Bomb Book Caught With Multiple Fictions”


Using the System FOR Us: The Freedom Force Strategy

The National Precinct Alliance is an effort to give tea party folks the guidance to make a difference at home, within their own local political system. This is the only way that we conservatives can influence what is happening in our state government and what is happening in Washington. All our tea party protests are great, but if they aren’t followed up with real political activism — as opposed to mere bombast and carping — we will find that politics will move on without incorporating our ideas, we will stay marginal in the actual power plays in our governments.

So, with that said, here is some info from the National Precinct Alliance:

The Freedom Force Strategy

The American people find themselves in the very difficult position of having to reform their government from the bottom up, after decades of public neglect which allowed politicians from both political parties to behave as though the U.S. Constitution doesn’t exist any longer.

State legislatures have been forced by over-reaching federal policies, to restate, reclaim and reassert Tenth Amendment rights just to defend the citizens of their states from oppressive policies coming out of Washington DC.
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Using the System FOR Us: The Freedom Force Strategy”


Where Have you Gone George Washington?

-By Warner Todd Huston

I don’t celebrate “President’s Day.” I celebrate the presidents individually, not the whole gaggle of them at once. But I most certainly don’t celebrate George Washington, the father of our country, as just another president. These days, George Washington has been relegated to that “truth telling guy” to be seen on the one dollar bill and on TV commercials at the end of February or that guy lumped in with Lincoln on “President’s Day.” And that is a shame, indeed, for, without George Washington, our presidency and nation might have had a far different attitude.

But, what made Washington such a giant for our times as well as his? For one thing, he knew how to act in public.

Back in the 1700’s

In the year 1759 a man named William Robertson wrote a book called The History of Emperor Charles V, a book some claim was the standard after which modern historical study and writing has come to be patterned. Mr. Robertson, who became Principle of the University of Edinburgh in later years, introduced a salient point into the era of the Scottish Enlightenment. That idea was that “Politeness” in society would result in becoming a civilized nation. And it was a politeness perpetuated and spread through capitalism that was the best avenue to achieving that civilized level.

He wrote “In proportion as commerce made its way into the different countries of Europe they successively … adopted those manners, which occupy and distinguish polished nations.” So, as the theory goes, man by his very nature craves material possession and property. To get that property he must work for it with his best skills. To make use of these skills he must rely on neighbors to get supplies to employ such skills as well as to become customers for his skills. This leads man to act in a solicitous manner of his neighbors so that they will be disposed to employ him and his abilities. This “politeness” employed by the individual inculcates the action in society at large which, in turn, enlarges that field of involved persons to counties and then the country in general, neighboring countries and, ultimately, the world and the governments they create.
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Where Have you Gone George Washington?”


The Lincoln We Need

-By Warner Todd Huston

For Lincoln’s birthday, I repost this from a year ago…

These last 20 or so years has seen a bifurcated treatment of Abraham Lincoln. There are the enthusiasts and hagiographers that still revere him as the best that America has to offer — the proverbial great emancipator, Father Abraham. Then there is a second stream, enthusiasts of another sort, viewing the Civil War president in the opposite manner. That second group are the Lincoln haters. Those such as Thomas DiLorenzo, the sort that calls Lincoln a criminal and despot, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the sort that castigates Honest Abe as an unremitting racist, have been joined by a small group of Lincoln detractors trying to convince America that Lincoln is to be discounted, even hated by history.

So, which Lincoln is the Lincoln? Is he the Lincoln of “the great emancipator” or the Lincoln of the “great despot” and which Lincoln is the one we as Americans should know?

In truth he is all and neither of the two views in current, popular memory. He is neither the vision of the Constitution destroying, negro hating man the detractors wish to foster, nor the spotless demi-god that the hagiographers want to claim as theirs. Yes he did single things that pulled out of context to the whole of the man are both racist and despotic. He was a man, flawed and imperfect to be sure, but he was also one so singularly radical and ahead of his time that I believe we should lean towards reverence as opposed to despising the 16th president.

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The Lincoln We Need”


Be Part of This Online ‘Reviving the Constitution’ Event

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here is an interesting event being put on by that famous bastion of conservative thought Hillsdale College that you might find interesting to become a part of…

An Online Town Hall
January 30, 2010
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM – (online or in person)

The Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship of Hillsdale College cordially invites you to participate in an online town hall on Saturday, January 30, 2010.

There are two ways to participate in this event–in person or by viewing a live video stream (“webcast”). Advance registration is required for both forms of participation.

Please spread the word to friends and family about this day-long town hall, which will feature presentations and interactive Q&A sessions led by Kirby Center faculty and Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry P. Arnn. The event will run from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and will be broadcast from the offices of TVWorldwide.com in Chantilly , VA.

More info – http://www.hillsdale.edu/KirbyCenter/programs/townhall/default.asp
Registration – http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/hillsdale/100130/
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Be Part of This Online ‘Reviving the Constitution’ Event”


Professor: Say, Let’s Pardon a Domestic Terrorist

-By Warner Todd Huston

CUNY Graduate Center professor David S. Reynolds has an idea. He wants to pardon an American criminal that is a known murderer and fanatic and who led a life that was steadily radicalized by an extreme religious ideology. This domestic terrorist even went so far as to attempt to start a war inside the USA and advocated for American citizens to be killed in their homes for not seeing things his way.

No, Reynolds is not hoping to pardon Islamic terrorist Nidal Hasan, though being a professor of one of our wonderful universities it would not be surprising if he should. No, the domestic terrorist that Reynolds wants pardoned is abolitionist hero John Brown, he of pre-Civil War history.

For those that may not remember their civil war era history, John Brown tried to incite a slave insurrection in Virginia but ended up corralled in a firehouse at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. At the time, Harper’s Ferry housed a federal weapons arsenal that Brown hoped to use to arm his insurrectionists. His plan failed and he was eventually captured, tried, and hanged for his crimes by Virginia’s authorities in 1859.
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Professor: Say, Let’s Pardon a Domestic Terrorist”


New Rule of Thumb: History Only Happens in Our Lifetime

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s a new rule of thumb, apparently, that history doesn’t matter. Fall of Rome? Who cares? WWII? What’s it matter? The Great Depression? Just a blip. It’s NOW that we care about, man. All that history stuff? Pffft. If it isn’t happening now, it doesn’t matter.

This notion that history is for the stuffed shirts of academe and that it doesn’t mean anything to modern, common folks always screams out when these woeful “Top Ten” lists start showing up in the media.

Today we have another example of this historically illiterate sort of list at Time Magazine’s website. There you’ll see history’s “Top 10 Mistresses,” but if you have even a cursory knowledge of history, you’ll also see that there is no sense of history in this list of “history’s famous mistresses.”
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New Rule of Thumb: History Only Happens in Our Lifetime”


The End of History or a History of the End?

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few years ago, Francis Fukuyama was widely criticized for his book claiming that mankind had seen “The End of History.” Fukuyama contended that liberal democracy had won the debate over which system was best and, therefore, there was necessary no more “moving forward” for man’s social order. While Fukuyama might have thought the question of the best system was settled — that being the Western democratic system — what good does a great system do if no one is aware of it? Unfortunately, we are quickly nearing a time in our schools where any knowledge of our political system or western history is going untaught. It’s so bad that most standard history courses are disappearing from our universities to be replaced by specialties about minorities or single subjects like “genocide” or “homosexual studies.”

Of course, much of the criticism of Fukuyama’s premise was based on a mistaken reading of what he said, but with this failure to teach proper history to our students we might be seeing at least one reason to doubt that liberal democracy is strong enough to stay as top dog, regardless of its efficacy. The liberal democracy as being practiced in the U.S., for instance, is weakening to the point of frivolity, one prone to a breakdown from within, and this lack of a useful education is just another example of this societal crash. Dangerously, proper history is being taught less and less in our universities.

Not long ago, an ominous article in the New York Times reported that specialty courses and professors now far outnumber standard history.
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The End of History or a History of the End?”


Where is THIS Republican Party?

-By Warner Todd Huston

An excerpt of the 1924 Republican Party Platform:

The prosperity of the American nation rests on the vigor of private initiative which has bred a spirit of independence and self-reliance. The republican party stands now, as always, against all attempts to put the government into business.

American industry should not be compelled to struggle against government competition. The right of the government to regulate, supervise and control public utilities and public interests, we believe, should be strengthened, but we are firmly opposed to the nationalization or government ownership of public utilities.

In 1924 the GOP ran Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge for president. And he won on this platform.

Even then Democrats were trying to tun this country into a less powerful version of Europe by emulating its socialist systems. A proud Republican Party repudiated these socialist tendencies and reiterated its pride in the American way. These principles appealed to the true American spirit and also won elections.

Unfortunately, the very next president, himself a Republican, turned toward socialist, collectivist concepts and set the stage for what later became Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal destruction of the American economic system that compounded a market correction and turned it into “The Great Depression.” And save for a brief time under Ronald Reagan, it appears that the GOP has never recovered its principles as espoused in its 1924 platform.
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Where is THIS Republican Party?”


ISI Conference Part Three: More British Than the British!

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is the final installment my three part report on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s one day conference on The Roots of American Order. So here is part two of mine titled Lift a Glass to the Past: America Rooted in Tradition or a New Covenant? (Click for parts one and two)

After a break for lunch, Mark C. Henrie took up America’s Britishness. Henrie wrote the ISI’s A Student’s Guide to the Core Curriculum that explains the value of a traditional core of studies in Western civilization and his session reflected that study.

Capitalizing on Birzer’s citation of Edmund Burke who praised the colonist’s essential Britishness, Henrie made the point that America is best understood not as a break from tradition but as the culmination of a long series of continuous ideals that range back through Western history, specifically through England.

Henrie says that we get four essentials from England.

  • The English language and literature
  • The common law and a respect for the rule of law
  • A desire for self government
  • Manners and a social order

One of the questions that researchers have often wondered is why American English and British English are essentially the same? Why didn’t America reinvent English for its own purposes in the same way the Dutch altered German, for instance? Henrie says that the reason is that the focal point of language in the colonies was contained in the King James Bible and that pervasive reliance on a single source of language arrested any development of a widely diverging American version of English. We Americans inherited the English language through the Bible.
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ISI Conference Part Three: More British Than the British!”


ISI Conference Part Two: Christ in Our Soul

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is part two of my three part report on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s one day conference on The Roots of American Order. So here is part two of mine titled Lift a Glass to the Past: America Rooted in Tradition or a New Covenant? (Part one can be seen here)

The second speaker of the day was Brad Birzer who regaled us on America’s Judeo-Christian History.

Bizer began his session by noting that historian Donald Lutz discovered that the founders used Christian references in their pre-war writing far more than any other source. St. Paul was the most referenced New Testament figure with Micah 4:4 being the most referenced Old Testament verse.

But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.

On this Lutz quotation, though, I want to clarify something. Many have bandied about the claim that Donald Lutz said that 34 percent of the founder’s writing contain direct Biblical citations. This claim is not altogether true. On the other hand, it is not something to quickly dismiss as fans of the Enlightenment influence want to do, either.
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ISI Conference Part Two: Christ in Our Soul”


Lift a Glass to the Past: America Rooted in Tradition or a New Covenant?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is the United States a grand experiment, a new covenant invented out of whole cloth by the fertile minds of the founders from never before seen ideas or is it a nation spawned from deeply rooted traditions of western thought? This was the question posited in a one-day-long conference on classicism in America’s founding sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and held in Skokie, Illinois, a near northern suburb of Chicago.

The short answer is that the liberal mindset that holds that we should invent the USA anew with each succeeding generation is an erroneous conception of what the United States was meant to be when it was founded. Sure America has some ideas never before seen by political man, but at heart, America is rationalism informed by tradition, not some amorphous mélange of constantly changing ideas.

The founders created a new nation based heavily on Western ideas through British tradition, not one based solely on rationalist thinking. As they struggled to set their new nation on its new Constitutional course, for instance, the words of Founder John Dickinson of Delaware served as their benchmark.

Let experience be our only guide. Reason may lead us astray.

An intimate crowd of 60 some participants enjoyed four separate addresses by lecturers associated with ISI. Appearing behind the lectern were Bruce Thornton, Professor of Classics at Fresno State University; Brad Birzer, Professor of History at Hillsdale College; Mark C. Henrie, Senior VP and Chief Academic Officer of ISI; and E. Christian Kopff, Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In these three installments, I will lay out what we talked about at this interesting one-day conference.

Part One: How it all Began
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Lift a Glass to the Past: America Rooted in Tradition or a New Covenant?”


Do YOU Believe in the Constitution?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Sam Adams Alliance, a conservative, free market think tank out of Chicago (right in the belly of the liberal beast) has launched a new site today called “I Believe in the Constitution” as a great way to celebrate Constitution day.

So, if YOU believe in the greatest governing document ever conceived by the mind of man, go on over and sig the petition. Then post about it on your blogs and message boards. Put it on your FaceBook, Twitter or MySpace pages.

September 17, 1787, the delegates to the United States Constitutional Convention gathered for the last time in Philadelphia to put their names at the bottom of a very important document: the Constitution of the United States. After long months filled with some of the most important discussions on the role of government in world history, the document which survives, to this day, as a monument to freedom was born. A year later, on September 13, 1788, the same group of delegates would vote to put the Constitution in operation, and the United States of America, as we know it, was born. Over the two centuries since the Philadelphia delegates signed off on it, the Constitution has undergone several changes, notably the addition of the Bill of Rights and the 27 Amendments, which guarantee the basic freedoms all Americans have come to cherish, and which cannot be taken away.

The Founding Fathers, in creating the Constitution, charged Americans with a very important task: to ensure that their values — those of individual liberty and limited government — apparent in the Constitution, be preserved for all generations of Americans. Over the years, these values of liberty and democracy have begun to fray and our Constitution has been neglected.

So what can you do?

Well, for starters, you can pledge your support for the Constitution by going to IBelieveintheConstitution.com, and signing the petition in support of our founding document as it was written and as the Founders intended. You can also re-educate yourself and your family on the Constitution, its history, and its legacy by visiting any of these sites: the U. S. National Archives and the National Archive’s Constitutional Workshop, Congress for Kids, the Department of Education’s U.S. Constitution Teaching Guide, and the National Constitution Center.

And Happy Constitution Day!
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Do YOU Believe in the Constitution?”


Congress is Taxation Without Representation

-By Warner Todd Huston

We are speeding headlong toward a time when our Congress will have become just like Mad King George’s Parliament, that body from which in 1776 the American colonists separated with the rallying cry of “no taxation without representation.” Our national government is fast becoming just as unrepresentative of the people as far off Briton was when we went to war to become the United States of America.

Does that seem like a hyperbolic statement to you? At first blush, it might. But a considered look at the direction in which we are quickly heading will prove that, compared to the British Parliament that raised the ire of our forefathers so long ago, today’s Congress shows many signs of the same, oppressive, haughty, disinterested politicians that considered their national government more important than the local’s interests and needs.

Representation is the key word, here. What does it mean? What did it mean then? Of course, the problem was that it meant two different things to the opposing sides of the Revolutionary era, hence the conflict. In England, representation meant that Parliament “represented” the whole of the country and that each member of that body was elected from their home to go forth and become a member of the whole. British politicians generally did not imagine that they were representing their hometown when they went to Parliament.

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Congress is Taxation Without Representation”


A Conservative High School in Idaho?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Idaho is about to get its first conservative high school, Nampa Classical Academy, to be opened next semester in Nampa, Idaho. Founder Isaac Moffett has organized the school as a public charter school.

It’s about time that a school based on American exceptionalism again grace the land and Moffett aims to fulfill that very goal.

Nampa Classical will teach Latin and Western classics, including the Bible. The school will not teach “certain sex ed,” will eschew anti-American rhetoric and troop bashing and will impart the “good of America, the good of Western civilization,” Moffett said.

Moffett has modeled his curriculum on that of Hillside Academy, a private Christian prep school in Michigan which is part of Hillside College.

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A Conservative High School in Idaho?”


Let’s Not Celebrate July 4th

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.

So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Additionally, celebrations on July fourth weren’t that common for a time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.

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Let’s Not Celebrate July 4th”