The Incontrovertible Truth

Winston Churchill:

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on [in ignorance].

As a People’s Morality Goes …

Columnist Selwyn Duke:

“Just as with religion, people bring their ideology with them. And unless you think you could talk a Muslim jihadist out of Islam, why suppose you could talk a socialist out of socialism? … As a people’s morality goes, so go its fortunes. You simply cannot be one kind of people but have another kind of government … And what has happened to our sense of virtue in America? So lost it is that even the word has been replaced with ‘values,’ that fixture of the atheistic literary style. For decades we have instilled children with leftism, nihilism, hedonism, relativism, and atheism through academia, the media, and popular culture; we have seduced them into sin and made them, as Ben Franklin wrote, ‘more corrupt and vicious, [so] they have more need of masters.’ For sure, masters will be one’s lot if he has not mastered himself. … There is a strong atheism-statism correlation the world over, which is why it’s no coincidence that ‘conservatives’ in heavily secular Western Europe are simpatico with our liberals. … Without the Christian right, there is no right at all.”

Continue reading here. . . .

Voting and Marriage

Americans have developed the bad habit of voting according to narrow issues without considering the wider repercussions. Voting on the nature of marriage seems somewhat silly in light of the role marriage has played in the history of mankind. Yet, we are reduced to voting on the biological and social nature of marriage (ignoring nature’s law) for the purpose of redefining it according to whatever seems politically correct at the moment. Ryan T. Anderson and Andrew Walker wrote the following article, “How Did Marriage Fare in the 2012 Election?”, explaining the results of the voting which took place on this issue:

Until Tuesday [November 6, 2012], no state had redefined marriage by popular vote. Indeed, 32 out of 32 states that put the issue to a vote defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman.

But in this week’s election, citizens in Maine, Maryland, and Washington State all passed ballot initiatives redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships. Meanwhile, citizens in Minnesota failed to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a man and woman (It remains so defined, however, by statutory law.). . . .

The exit polls also revealed that young Americans are more likely to support gay marriage. This should motivate conservatives to redouble their efforts to explain the nature and public purpose of marriage—what marriage is and why it is such a significant factor in maintaining civil society and limiting government.

Our marriage law should reflect the truth about what marriage is: a pre-political institution springing from human nature itself. Government should not redefine or recreate marriage, nor should it obscure the truth about what marriage is. Recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages would weaken marriage as a social institution. It would redefine marriage as essentially an emotional bond, thus rendering marital norms arbitrary and less intelligible. It would further delink childbearing from marriage and deny, as a matter of law, the importance of a mother or a father in a child’s life. The outcomes associated with such absence are far from promising.

Continue reading this post here. . . .

Facts!

John Adams (1770):

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Stop Looking Backwards!

Ronald Reagan:

“It’s time we stopped looking backward at how we got here. … We must reach out and appeal to the patriotic and fundamental ideals of average Americans who do not consider themselves ‘movement’ people, but who respond to the same American ideals that we do.”

Political Ads

Quoting columnist Michael Reagan:

“We accept the negative ads, name-calling and lies as part of the way the political game is played, then we sit back and gripe about how our politics have gone into the dumpster. But we can’t have it both ways. It’s like going to the Indianapolis 500 hoping to see the accidents — and then complaining about the accidents. It’s like going to a cage fight — and complaining about the violence. Today we no longer have political ads that tell the truth about a candidate or the issues. We have negative ads that spin, distort and take words out of context. … The politicians are giving us exactly what we want. If we really want more truth in politics, if we really want less negativity and fewer lies, we have to make it clear to the politicians that we no longer want to watch their grubby cage fight. Until we do, we’ll be fed the same old dirt.”

Continuing reading. . . .

No 50/50 Americanism!

In the words of President “Teddy” Roosevelt:

“There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”

Jefferson’s Thoughts

Quoting Thomas Jefferson:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?”

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

Honesty and the Media

 

Quoting President Ronald Reagan:

“I’ve come to believe there is little, if any, honesty in the media, and ethic is a word they are totally unfamiliar with.”

Helping People

Quoting Thomas Sowell:

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

Good Conservatives

In the words of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:

“Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other people’s bills.”

Cicero on Government Debt

In the words of Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC):

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” 

America’s Freedom

From the speeches of President Ronald Reagan:

“We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

“The Democrats say that the United States has had its days in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems, that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities. My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view.”

How Will You Pay Your Taxes to Caesar in 2013?

According to The Foundry:

Taxmageddon is approaching closer by the day. Much of the focus has been on the impact Taxmageddon will have on the economy. But just how will this massive tax hike impact America’s most fundamental unit of society?

Families will see their taxes go up by more than $4,100—just in 2013—because of Taxmageddon. How will families pay for this huge tax hike, on top of all the other taxes they already pay, and still make ends meet?

This tax hike is nearly as big as a family’s annual grocery bill, the amount families pay to maintain a car, or the amount families spend on utilities each year. What will families have to cut in order to feed the gluttonous federal government?

Read more here. . . .

Accountability

According to columnist Jonah Goldberg:

“Capitalism is not inherently sinful, capitalists are — but so are socialists, progressives, conservatives, libertarians and every other label we apply to human beings. When I hear people complain about the evils of capitalism, it’s like they think there’s something especially corrupt about capitalistic institutions, as if every other institution — including government itself — isn’t prone to the same basic shortcomings. If you don’t think socialists or bureaucrats are just as likely to rig the rules to their benefit, you’re quite simply ignorant of a lot of history — and current events. You can never eliminate the temptations of sin. But you can create accountability for sinning. That’s one reason why our system of liberal democratic capitalism is superior to other systems: It creates more opportunities to hold wrongdoers — and fools — accountable. Or at least it’s supposed to. … The key to all of this is the rule of law and the minimization of what Edmund Burke called ‘arbitrary power.’ When institutions — any institutions — become immunized against the legitimate forces of accountability, it should be seen as a scandal. The more inured we grow to such stories, the more we come to accept that acceptable behavior is simply whatever we can get away with.”

Continue reading. . . .