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.”

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Paganism

 writes:

“Paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. Very different is the Christian ideal. Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.” (Christianity and Liberalism)

Without God

Dostoevsky is credited with saying that “Without God, everything is permitted.” So without God, doing something immoral would be an illusion – even nonsense, or something merely unfashionable. All moral statements would be arbitrary. Atheists cannot escape the problem that without God, whoever has the most political power determines what is moral. As put by William Lane Craig, “Thus, if atheism is true, it becomes impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, or love as good.”

The New Holy Days

Christmas is rapidly becoming an entirely secular holiday. There is a revolution taking over the minds and hearts of Americans which is pushing Christianity out of Christmas. Dr. Benjamin Wiker writes:

Admit it. Christmastime has been taken over, co-opted and transformed into something entirely different. We all know it. We crab about it. We dread the coming of Christmas. We shudder to watch video snatches of vulgar mobs in Walmart on Black Friday crushing, slamming, pushing, cursing, and trampling each other for cell phones or big screen TVs.

Christmas does not bring peace to our earth. Stories on the internet report that almost half of us would rather we skipped the whole thing. By the time the very day of Christmas rolls around, we are dead sick of it, our only consolation being that we won’t have to hear “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” or “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” until…October? September? Perhaps it will be August next year.

How could this happen to the time that Christians had so carefully marked out for preparing the faithful to celebrate the birth of Christ, the incarnation of God, all that the soul longs for? How could this preparation time have been so thoroughly transformed that we are sick of Christmas on the very day of its arrival?

Again, we crab about it. But this year, we really need to think deeply about it because a whole lot, indeed everything, is at stake. . . .

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God and Politics

 

Perhaps they thought it was a mistake not to include God in the Democratic Party Platform. However, following two unsuccessful votes, it took a third vote to finally reinsert God into the party platform. But – why did half of the convention boo? Dr. Benjamin Wiker of tothesource comments on the Democratic Party convention and the God debate:

What could be more embarrassing—and telling—than half the democratic convention delegates booing God? Not just booing the democratic chairman himself for so obviously overriding the wishes of (at least) half the delegates. But booing God Himself, Whom the disappointed delegates so passionately wanted to exclude from the platform—and from our culture. . . .

The secular-minded half of the Democratic Convention delegates therefore … want the Democratic Party to be the secular party, the party that, once in power, can more effectively use federal power to continue booing God out of our culture.

But is the Democratic Party really the secular party? No. Don’t forget the half that cheered their “yay” when God was let back in. They don’t want God booed out of our culture, and they resent the attempt to boo God out of their party. Those who cheered God’s inclusion include the pro-life Democrats whom the party has shut out.

In short, the Democratic Party is divided. For a variety of complex historical and cultural reasons, the radical secularists have chosen the Democratic Party as the one they want to take over so that they can gain control of the country. . . .

The yays and nays, the cheers and boos we heard at the Democratic Convention are not friendly disagreements. They represent different universes. That should be clear enough from the passion each displayed. In representing two entirely opposed views of the universe, one with God included and one with God excluded, they represent two entirely different foundations for common life, two entirely different and opposing moral views, and hence two entirely different ways that governmental power should be used.

Continue reading this interesting article. . . .

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.”

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.”

The Loss of Humanity

From the desk of columnist Jonah Goldberg:

“[D]oes anyone doubt that there’s something about the legal regime in this country that’s creating a headwind against basic human decency? And I’m not just talking about trial lawyers and the politicians who love them. Last year, in Alameda, Calif., a man walked into the chilly — but not exactly freezing — waters of the Bay Area to commit suicide. It was a slow affair. The police and firefighters got there in plenty of time. But, due to union-backed rules, they simply declined to save the man’s life. They just stood on the beach and watched. Fire Chief Ricci Zombeck was asked what he would have done if it were a child, rather than a suicidal adult, slowly drowning out there. He responded that if he were on duty he’d have let the kid drown, but if he was off duty he would have saved him. These are the symptoms of a sick culture.”

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The Power to Destroy

According to Chief Justice John Marshall:

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

The Moral Right

Quoting the Heritage Foundation‘s David Weinberger:

“Consider why shrinking government is moral. The more the federal government provides for people, the more it deprives them not only of their dignity, but of one of the most sacred rights, penned by Thomas Jefferson: the right to pursue happiness. Why? Because fulfilling happiness comes from earned success, not from unearned handouts. Think about the person we all knew growing up whose parents spoiled him or her. Even if that person wasn’t unhappy at the time (though chances are he or she was unhappy), it teaches that individual to expect handouts, which will likely result in an unhappy adulthood. … Private charities are able to make distinctions between people who truly need help and those who do not, as well as between those who need material assistance and those who need moral refocus, personal counseling, relationship repair or spiritual commitment. … Though well-intentioned, leftism’s commitment to government undermines both the individual pursuit of happiness … and private charity of families and communities who can best provide it to those experiencing hardship. Conservatism, on the other hand, is committed to both, and is precisely why moving the country to the right is moral.”

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The Power of the Common Man

Quoting economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973):

“The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.”

The Fair Distribution of Misery

Quoting Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965):

“The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.”

Shameless Liars

Quoting economist Thomas Sowell:

“The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them; it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run. The current outbreaks of riots in Europe show what happens when the truth catches up with both the politicians and the people in the long run. Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government.”

Crimes Committed by Big Governments

In the words of radio talk-show host Dennis Prager:

“Who killed the 20-30 million Soviet citizens in the Gulag Archipelago — big government or big business? … Who deliberately caused 75 million Chinese to starve to death — big government or big business? … Would there have been a Holocaust without the huge Nazi state? Whatever bad big corporations have done is dwarfed by the monstrous crimes … committed by big governments.”