This post originally ran at The Right Sphere on 4/11/2013.

Putting aside for a moment their staggeringly abhorrent vox populi, it’s nonetheless somewhat refreshing when the Left reveals in full clarity the breadth of its intentions.

That is exactly what’s taking place on two related fronts in the war over so-called abortion rights: Planned Parenthood’s oral argument for “post-birth abortion” in Florida, and the continued unveiling of the gruesome details in the Kermit “The Butcher of Philadelphia” Gosnell case.

The first, Planned Parenthood’s plea for “post-birth abortion” is as gut-churning as it is incomprehensibly illogical. While still clinging to the charade of “women’s reproductive rights”, it seems Planned Parenthood is hoping with “post-birth abortion” that the thus-far legal and public acceptance of the last word causes people to somehow skip over the atrociousness of the first two.

Twitter aficionado @hale_razor nailed it with this gem: “They say our right to bear arms ends when it interferes with another person’s right to live. The right to “women’s health” should end at the same place.”

I wrote a piece back in May 2012 pointing out that the pro-aborts have already acknowledged what they’re endorsing ends a human life, but just don’t care. Further evidence is mined from this stunning Slate column entitled, “So What If Abortion Ends Life?” where the author makes an argument in favor of the practice regardless. In what is certainly a removal from the pseudo empathic cajolery of the past, Democrats have exchanged their 1990′s abortion mantra of “safe, legal, and rare” for “as many as you can, at any stage, for any reason.” A removal, yes, but an altogether unsurprising one.

Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, who started the business with the goal of eliminating “inferior races”, believed “Eugenics is the solution of racial, political and social problems.” Sanger would be proud to see her dream of the rampant use of the ultimate “Birth Control” realized. African-Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population but have 30% of the abortions.  Hispanics represent 17% of the population but have a quarter of the abortions. The most dangerous place for a minority in America is a mother’s womb.

And lest you think Planned Parenthood was founded by a Nazi-sympathizing genocidal racist but has since moved past its roots and denounces its original underpinnings, know that in September of last year a Planned Parenthood spokesperson called Margaret Sanger the organization’s “hero.”

As for Kermit Gosnell’s trial, far be it for me to attempt opining on the carnage with more brutal elegance than Mark Steyn.

“This is a remarkable moment in American life: A man is killing actual living, gurgling, bouncing babies on an industrial scale – and it barely makes the papers. Had he plunged his scissors into the spinal cord of a Democrat politician in Arizona, then The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC and everyone else would be linking it to Sarah Palin’s uncivil call for dramatic cuts in government spending. But “Doctor” Kermit Gosnell’s mound of corpses is apparently entirely unconnected to the broader culture.”

You might yet be unaware of the goings on in Pennsylvania, because as Steyn points out, the media is largely turning its blind eye. Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, is on trial for the murder of a woman in 2009 while trying to perform an abortion. He killed the mother while trying to kill her unborn baby. He also faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder for killing numerous newborns. Yes, newborns.

In a scene one of Gosnell’s employees described as “raining fetuses and blood everywhere,” over 100 living, breathing, crying human beings were either stabbed in the skull or had their backs punctured with scissors and their spines severed. Or both, for good measure.

This is not the typical back and forth over appropriate pregnancy termination lines or the clashes of rhetorical superiority of baby versus fetus. There is no gray area here. Whereas most births are followed by a cleaning, check of vitals, and then a return to a relieved and happy mother, Kermit Gosnell and his band of merry executioners ended human life “while the babies where still screaming,” said another employee.

According to the AP’s story, Gosnell is pleading not-guilty, and “insists that he helped many vulnerable women and teens get medical care, including later-stage abortions.” “Later-stage abortions,” as in a stage so late the babies were breathing real air and crying real tears.

Apparently, as long as a child hasn’t teethed and developed motor skills yet, his life is fair game to be destroyed as a blood-thirsty “doctor” sees fit. Or perhaps even later in life than that. Whilst still crusading for third trimester, partial-birth, and “post-birth” abortions, the Left has yet to designate at just what point it is too late. One might guess they’d draw a quick line whenever a person starts to consider voting Republican.

The argument over when life begins (at conception or some point later) is entirely irrelevant when the other side believes you can kill Johnny up until he can catch and throw a ball.

The Left and their media cohorts (pretty much everyone but Fox News) raised a much bigger huff over the North Dakota legislature voting to axe abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy than over the extremely disturbing and coinciding stories about Planned Parenthood and Kermit Gosnell.

It’s almost as if liberals don’t take much offense at the reality of mass infant slaughter.  It’s almost as if they demand taxpayers subsidize it, and run entire campaigns demonizing Republican politicians who wish to, at the very least, withdraw government funding.  It’s almost as if they want more babies dead than alive, as both then-Senator Barack Obama and now Planned Parenthood have argued against laws protecting the lives of babies who survive botched abortions.

Remember, liberals are the ones who want government involved in every aspect of our lives: health and dietary choices, coerced insurance purchases, and promoting “fairness” through progressive taxes and wealth redistribution.  They think banning pet goldfish in San Francisco is for the greater good, but working to prevent the murder of 3,000 lives a day is an infringement on personal freedom.  These are the people who want to outlaw plastic bags and large Cokes, but put their liberty-loving foot down at pre-abortion ultrasounds.

When one is on the side of extensive government oversight in every area except saving babies’ lives, it’s high time for self-reevaluation.

Follow the author on Twitter: @brady_cremeens

This post originally ran at The Right Sphere on 3/27/2013

I wrote in my last piece that the government should not define what constitutes a marriage. This is true, but assuming the government will not divorce itself from defining marriage anytime in the foreseeable future, the Republican Party must have a revival strategy that encompasses its position on this issue.

If America has not yet reached the point where the only stern opposition to same-sex unions comes not from the Right but the religious Right alone, she will soon. This poses a conundrum for the Republican Party, which is trying to ascertain a direction that will expand its voter base rather than shrink it.

It’s foolish to deny both parties are trying to figure out how to navigate this issue without alienating required demographics on election day.  Reflecting their consistent obsession with mandates, Democrats are, of course, crusading for legalized gay marriage at the federal level.

The Republican Party has a much trickier bridge to cross.  Similar to the debate over immigration, its predicament presents two key questions: what is the principled position, and how can the party proceed without endangering a voting base it desperately needs to grow?

The answer lies in the 10th Amendment, in transferring the responsibility from the federal government to the states. The GOP must stave off an inevitable loss battling this issue at the federal. Conservatism is nothing if not based in reality, and the tide of public opinion has already broken on this issue. Recent polls show even a majority of self-identified Republicans support the contested right to same-sex marriage or government-recognized unions.

Principle and policy are not inseparably synonymous, but neither are they mutually exclusive.  Rather, policy is achieved by negotiation and balancing competing principles: in this case, reconciling a limited government approach to a hotbed cultural issue where the ideal solution (governmental abstention) is politically unviable with the imperative need to win elections.

Conservatism is about more than ideological staunchness; it must focus on persuasion.  Arguments must be articulated in a way that broadens the base, not by abandoning timeless beliefs, but by convincing outsiders that conservative ideas and ideals are superior, and why.  Winning elections requires converting voters, or the broad benefits of economic and social conservative principles remain on the shelf collecting dust.

Individual states should be sovereign over the federal government in defining marriage.  While conservatism does not generally lend itself to direct democracy, the Republican Party is able to win this angle of the argument, and this is the hill on which it should fight.

Relegating the decision to the states is the most principled and politically executable option against a federal redefinition of marriage the Republican Party has at its disposal. As columnist Jonah Goldberg is fond of saying, “Federalism is the greatest idea we’ve have had for maximizing human happiness, for it allows as many people as possible to live the way they want.”

This accords the GOP the opportunity to convincingly contend for the eradication of the federal government’s role in defining marriage without alienating large swaths of conservative voters who oppose homosexuality from a religious and/or moral standpoint.  The importance of this sensitive meshing of original principles with political survival cannot be understated.  Conservatives cannot simply abandon all semblance of traditional values in an effort to pick up votes. Trading minor increases in gay community support for perhaps drastic decreases in long-time evangelical support is a losing formula.

What the Republican Party must guard against above all is miscalculating the affect that shifting values will have on the end game.  Misjudging the net gains of “evolving” their position on same-sex marriage (or immigration, for that matter) will serve only to make Republicans more tolerant losers.

It is not bigoted to believe a line should be drawn between what marriage means and what it doe not. After all, humans cannot legally marry animals or multiple humans or humans who don’t want to marry them back. The gay marriage debate is essentially over where to draw the line.

Gay marriage proponents insist the federal government expand the definition previously reserved for consenting heterosexuals to include homosexuals. I’ve yet to hear a satisfactory explanation for why, after marriage between couples of the same sex is state-ordained, the battle for state-permitted polygamy or any number of other non-traditional contracts won’t follow.  Slippery slope arguments are always dismissed until the lone opposition is looking up from the bottom of the hill.

The beauty of the federalism solution for the GOP is in its adherence to the conservative principle of states’ sovereignty while remaining more politically acceptable across a wide spectrum of voters.  The party cannot simply oppose gay marriage at every level outright anymore.  That is a battle it will lose, and lose big.

Republicans can take a lead on the marriage debate by advocating as a matter of official platform the federal government’s remotion from defining marriage and let voters in each state decide for themselves.  In the name of consistency, this should include supporting the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act.

I’ve said for two years that conservatives can be victorious over abortion eventually, but will surely be beaten on the gay marriage debate. That appears to be what is happening right now. I agree with the hypothesis that within a decade this conflict over whether homosexuals may be granted a marriage license from the state will be over, but I disagree that the Republican destiny is doomed because of it.

The pro-life movement wasn’t silenced after Roe won her case, nor will the struggle over marriage conclude with the Supreme Court’s decision this summer. That decision, incidentally, would not grant across-the-board “marriage equality” rights, rather it determines who gets to decide – the federal government or the states.

The latter is where the GOP should aggressively push its support.

This post originally ran on The Right Sphere on 3/26/2013

The political and cultural friction over same-sex marriage in America is both undeniably important and hotly disputed. The divisions, for once, don’t fall strictly between party or ideological lines. Even within conservative factions, same-sex marriage is a wedge issue. So what is the appropriate approach?

While society should be concerned with the growth of strong families, the state should not be an active voice (legislatively intrusive) in this matter. This is why conservatives are right to cry foul when Michael Bloomberg tries to limit sugary drink consumption in New York City or the state of Illinois bans smoking inside privately owned businesses. Even if society might be incrementally healthier were the government able to control its citizens’ decisions, government relinquishes that role in a free society. (Although it’s doubtful that the same government who can’t pass a budget for four years can successfully make me lose my gut.)

The crux of the same-sex marriage quarrel centers on whether the government has the authority to grant social contracts and dictate social behavior.

The answer was no when the Founders drafted the Constitution and remains no today.  When the government oversteps its bounds into matters of societal eudaemonia, it creates consequential political battles where personal responsibility previously prevailed.

Contrary to popular opinion, the individual liberty angle is an argument against federally-recognized same sex-marriage, not for it. The limited government for which conservatives and libertarians pine is far better achieved by its removal from participation in the rhetoric of marriage than by expanding it to include a broader definition.  For this is a debate over language, not equal rights. The argument is not over who one can love, live with, or enjoy a committed relationship with. It’s not even about spousal rights like medical proxy or property partnership.

The current clash is one for a piece of paper acknowledging an institution that should not be within the government’s dominion. The “equal rights” brigade is mostly smoke and mirrors for those who want to subvert the religious liberty and property rights of churches and other religious organizations.

The consistent limited government stance advocates the elimination of state determination of the marriage definition.

This position requires a complete overhaul of the tax structure, which the Right desires anyway. A flat income tax without deductions or credits solves the problem of marriage incentives for both the state and families while returning the tax system to its original purpose: government revenue for essential services.

This path is a win for the state, families, singles, and businesses, as the simplification of the tax system enables economic growth and is inherently fairer to each of the named parties than our current progressive system.

David Harsanyi at Human Events recently wrote well on this very topic:

In the 1500s, a pestering theologian instituted something called the Marriage Ordinance in Geneva, which made “state registration and church consecration” a dual requirement of matrimony.

We have yet to get over this mistake. But isn’t it about time we freed marriage from the state?

Imagine if government had no interest in the definition of marriage. Individuals could commit to each other, head to the local priest or rabbi or shaman — or no one at all — and enter into contractual agreements, call their blissful union whatever they felt it should be called and go about the business of their lives.

I certainly don’t believe that gay marriage will trigger societal instability or undermine traditional marriage — we already have that covered — but mostly I believe your private relationships are none of my business. And without any government role in the institution, it wouldn’t be the business of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, either.

The opposition to this argument sites the political convenience of a stance that was mostly unheralded by anyone on the Right until confronted with the issue of gay marriage. Their contention is that very few conservatives were calling for an end to state involvement in marriage before, and are looking for an easy way out now. This is a fair criticism, but that doesn’t make Harsanyi’s stance invalid.

It’s true, conservatives have been more than happy to accept state involvement in marriage for many years because the state’s definition aligned with their own – that the institution is one between a man and a woman (and Christians maintain, ordained by God).  Liberals have too, until recently when it became politically advantageous to make grandiose announcements to the contrary. Now with that alignment in dispute, it is not hypocritical nor even unreasonable to reevaluate positions. If it is, someone please tell Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and a myriad of other Democrats.

The distinction here resides in intentions.  Both sides are burgeoning positions for political reasons, but only one is proclaiming to be holier-than-thou in doing so. Obama was against same-sex marriage until three months before voters hit the booths for his re-election bid. Please spare us the charade of earnest evolution motivated by self-enlightenment.

Numerous studies have proven beyond reasonable refute that children fare best when raised in a household with both a father and mother. This doesn’t mean the government should require this environment any more than it should mandate children eat a certain amount of broccoli or limit TV consumption. But broadening the state definition of marriage is furthermore unnecessary.  Remove the government’s authority on this issue entirely, and minimize the struggle between traditionalists and progressives.

Conservatives and libertarians are fond of robustly proclaiming that our rights are not government-granted, but are natural, inalienable, and God-given. We should carry this mantra through to its logical conclusion regarding marriage as well.

My favorite Reagan quote:

“Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.”

My favorite Reagan speech, which was actually a televised campaign speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s run for the presidency in 1964:

Reagan was also very funny and witty, which never hurts. It was part of the reason people liked him so much:

“On Christmas Eve 1941, in Washington on a diplomatic mission to organize the support of Britain’s American allies in the efforts to stop the Nazi menace, Winston Churchill was offered the opportunity to address the American people from The White House. America as a nation had been attacked like never before just weeks earlier, and the horrors of Pearl Harbor were on the minds of every patriot. How does one set such concerns aside to celebrate Christmas? Churchill told us how, in words that contain a message which is just as meaningful today for all with family far from home, fighting on the front against America’s enemies half a world away, or facing challenges here which are enough to make you give up hope. His message rang true then, and it rings true now. And so, more than seventy years since he said it, I share it with you.

Best wishes to you all, and to all a Happy Christmas.”

CHURCHILL ON CHRISTMAS EVE:

I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family, yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home. Whether it be the ties of blood on my mother’s side, or the friendships I have developed here over many years of active life, or the commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great peoples who speak the same language, who kneel at the same altars and, to a very large extent, pursue the same ideals, I cannot feel myself a stranger here in the centre and at the summit of the United States. I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association which, added to the kindliness of your welcome, convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.

This is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other. Ill would it be for us this Christmastide if we were not sure that no greed for the land or wealth of any other people, no vulgar ambition, no morbid lust for material gain at the expense of others, had led us to the field. Here, in the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart.

Therefore we may cast aside for this night at least the cares and dangers which beset us, and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm. Here, then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly-lighted island of happiness and peace.

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

And so, in God’s mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.

-Winston Churchill

Carson Holloway at The Witherspoon Institute makes the case that the legendary Frank Capra film is a great example of conservatism, traditional American, and even Christian values:

It’s a Wonderful Country: Pottersville or Bedford Falls?

“…Bailey is not driven to serve his fellow citizens, at the cost of his own ambitious dreams, simply by love for his fellow men. Bailey is certainly a decent and humane person, but his decency and humanity alone cannot overcome his deep desire to escape Bedford Falls, which he regards as a rather insignificant place, and to make his mark on the larger world.

What prompts Bailey to stay and serve his fellow citizens is a most conservative impulse: filial piety. The Building and Loan, the business that allows Bailey to help ordinary people realize their dreams of home-ownership, was built by his father, Peter Bailey. His father asks him to consider taking over the business, explaining to him the importance of its work in the community. George Bailey resists, but changes his mind after his father’s death, especially when the business faces liquidation if he does not stay to administer it. Out of love and respect for his father, the younger Bailey keeps a photograph of him at his desk years after his death to remind him of his motive for maintaining the Building and Loan.

This kind of filial piety—the sense that one should weigh heavily the wishes of a father against one’s own ambitions, and perhaps even sacrifice the latter to the former—is utterly alien to and relentlessly undermined by contemporary liberalism’s cult of individual autonomy, understood as freedom from all traditional authority, even and especially the authority of fathers.”

Read the rest of the argument here.

On Doug Mataconis’ blog, he highlights large sections of Boston Talk Radio Host Michael Graham’s contention that It’s A Wonderful Life is “not only the worst movie ever made, but basically anti-American”:

It’s A Socialist Life?

“The fact is, “It’s A Wonderful Life” is a movie that only an Occupod could love. The story is sweet, but the message is truly awful. Consider George Bailey. In your mind, you see him after a lifetime of poverty, grief and bad luck, running through Bedford Falls shouting “Merry Christmas you old Building and Loan,” just happy to have a family he loves.

Well I agree that having a loving family can help us all get through crises. (Remember the stewardess in the disaster-film spoof “Airplane?” “At least I had a husband . . . ”) But the name of the film is “Wonderful Life,” not, “Well, Things Could Be Worse.” And in George Bailey’s case, things are truly tragic. Smart, ambitious George gets stuck at the modest Building and Loan back in Hickville when his brother marries into a cushy corporate gig and his father dies. After years of dreaming of going off to college, traveling the world and becoming a top engineer or architect, his life is spent scraping by, and helping others do the same. Somehow the movie — like the Occupiers of today — tries to turn that into a virtue. Despite his wife and kids, George turns down $20,000 a year so he won’t have to work for that “evil banker,” Mr. Potter.

Occupy Bedford Falls!

Then disaster strikes. His addled Uncle Billy accidentally drops the daily deposit into Potter’s lap and guess who happens to show up that day but the bank examiner. As usual George is broke and, well, that’s when the movie really falls down.”

Read the rest of the argument here.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” – Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago and President Obama’s former Chief of Staff

In the wake of the murder of 26 innocent people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, it is not surprising that the liberal-led gun control crowd leapt at the opportunity to capitalize on the emotions of well-intentioned people sick of such devastatingly senseless butchery.

The bodies of the dead had not yet begun to cool before the predictably exasperated demands that something must be done began echoing from the microphones of broadcasters and TV hosts across the nation, and rumbling off the keyboards of opinion columnists and bloggers alike.  Each time something dreadfully appalling happens – like the Sandy Hook massacre or the Aurora, Colorado theatre shooting back in August – the nation collectively gasps in horror and abhorrence, and rightly so.  We hug our loved ones, count our blessings, and wonder what may be done to halt such heinous acts.  The appropriate response, at least in terms of governmental initiatives, and while not popular and certainly not satisfying, is usually nothing.

Charles Cooke at National Review Online writes about this reaction in his essay on this very topic:

“It is often glibly asserted that mine is the “easy” response. On the contrary, it is the difficult response. To shout “do something” or “ban guns” is the facile suggestion, and nonchalantly to content oneself that laws passed in a faraway city will fix society’s problems is the comforting conviction. My judgment, by contrast, is the terrifying one: to realize that there is very little than one could have done to stop yesterday’s abomination is to understand that we are sometimes powerless in the face of evil, however much we shout about it.”

This is contra how so many on both sides of the political spectrum react when a crisis is at hand.  The compulsion to do something, anything, feels far better than admitting that bad things happen, and cannot all be prevented.  Taking action is only beneficial if those actions are…beneficial.

While I hope President Obama’s words at Newtown Sunday evening were a comfort to the families and loved ones in that poor little town, there were also vague and void of substance. “As a country, we have been through this too many times. … And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

How might the President define “meaningful action”?  What do pundits mean when they spend weeks of news cycles insisting that “appropriate and necessary steps must be taken” to prevent things like this from happening again?  If history is any indication, it usually involves a hysteria-driven sacrifice of personal freedoms because doing nothing seems so callous and inappropriate in the face of such immense iniquity.

The two supposedly imperative causes that must be advanced are that of mental health awareness and gun control.  While mental health issues are important and should be given due attention (though I think evil acts are more often just that, evil, stemming from broken souls and weak family structures rather than a lack of the proper concoction of pills), it is the perceived gun problem that draws the entire pride of lions’ share of attention from the chattering class.

While the left pines for a “national conversation on guns,” what they truly want is more and more gun restrictions and bans.  Just as there is no line at which liberals would draw at government too big, there is no gun restriction or ban they believe goes too far or impedes on personal rights too greatly if given the chance. It seems always “the time to talk about guns is now” directly after a monstrous crime when emotions are high, passions are at their peak, and calm reason is in short supply.  Jonah Goldberg’s piece at NRO this week warns of the perils of emotionally hasty legislation:

“One piece of advice you often hear in such situations is “don’t make any big decisions” in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. It’s sound advice that is routinely and predictably ignored in the political realm…When politicians say they want to do something regardless of the politics, or that they want to go “above” or “beyond” politics, what they generally mean is they want to do something regardless of the normal rules or what their opponents have to say or, often, the facts…All I’m sure of is that we should be very careful about making big decisions when we are so angry and mourning so deeply.”

When heads are level, the gun grabbers consistently lose that national conversation, as well they should (leaving no wonder why they choose to strike when level heads are few and far between).  Not only does the empirical statistical data contest those who demand harsher gun restrictions, but the rational arguments favor those who advocate even the strictness of our current gun laws be tapered.

The long and short logic of it is this, as Thomas Sowell penned so succinctly for Townhall this week: “The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.”  This reasoning reverberates from an old quote, often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, but whose rightful professor is Cesare Beccaria’s in her Essay on Crimes and Punishments:

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.”

In the U.S., violent crime is far less prevelant in areas where more people are free to bear arms than where they are not. Phoenix, where one may carry a concealed handgun without even a permit, has less than half the murder rate of Chicago, where concealed carry is banned.  According to John Lott, Jr. and Bill Landes’ book More Guns, Less Crime, “States that allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns enjoy a 60 percent decrease in multiple-victim public shootings and a 78 percent decrease in victims per attack.”  From that same book, the authors note that “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

The opposition to us bitter clingers will generally play to the sympathetic side of human nature that sees an atrocity and wants all of society to feel guilty for it.  A recent trend is to blame some ambiguous and ultimately meaningless notion of a rampant and unyielding “gun culture” in America, or to show pictures of the unjustly fallen and say things like “These are YOUR children and MY children, what can WE do to stop this?” Consider CNN’s Don Lemon, who last week worked himself into a near rage proclaiming “…to say that gun violence is down does not make sense. To me, it’s insulting to everyone who lost a loved one here and who was dealing with that. It doesn’t matter if gun violence is down!”  His desired case for legislative construction are anecdotal narratives, not statistical data; emotional panic, not rational evaluations.

This brings us to the subject of gun free zones, the inconceivably careless invitation to all ill-intentioned crazed madmen. Ask yourself this question: Which sign is more likely to prevent a violent intruder at a school full of children – one that says “No guns prohibited on these premises” or “Staff heavily armed and trained, any attempt to harm children will be met with deadly force”? The answer is as obvious as it is ignored by those who believe someone who would kill a slew of blameless little ones would obey gun laws.

The depressed don’t decline suicide because it’s against the law,  and likewise no would-be murderer abstains from slaying  innocent people because he might break a gun free zone rule.  Would you rather defend your home with a gun or with kitchen knives?  Your answer is the former, a thief or killer would prefer you chose the latter.  James Holmes chose the Aurora theatre when seven others were closer to his home because no guns were allowed in the complex.  He knew no one could shoot back.

Restrictive gun control is failed social engineering.  It favors criminals, not law-abiding citizens. It protects the man intent on raping, not the woman trying to defend herself.  Of its own volition, the Second Amendment doesn’t grant us the right to own guns, but rather ensures that the God-given right to self and familial defense through arms cannot be excised by the government or anyone else.

Our system is working, sans calls for further implementation of usually erroneous legislation.  Violent crime, gun violence, and school violence have decreased substantially in the past two decades even as gun ownership has increased markedly.  As conservative writer Michelle Malkin stated on Hannity Wednesday, “We need politicians, for once, to just stop, shut up, and think before they act recklessly again.”

If we really want to do something that will provide a net societal benefit instead of just fulfilling our foolish desires to act in hast regardless of negative ripple effects, if we really want to take the path that might prevent another Sandy Hook, we should support increased gun protection, not decreased.  There is no logically supportable reason to arm pilots and bodyguards but not principals and teachers.  Criminals are less likely to attack a place where they can be met with resistance capable of fighting back.

Let’s stop assuring them that defense won’t come. Let’s stop paving the way for evil.

In the midst of the Civil War (1863), President Abraham Lincoln made this proclamation which eventually led to the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. It is interesting to note that Lincoln’s words came shortly after he became a Christian.

Presidential Proclamation of Thanksgiving:

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

This second piece is from the activist group Liberty Counsel, and draws on some history of the very first American immigrants – the pilgrims.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, we should examine the little known fact that the Pilgrims established a short-lived form of agricultural communism.

The land was owned in common; everyone worked for each other and each received an equal allotment of food no matter how hard they worked. This system quickly failed. The women described the communal chores as a form of slavery, men rapidly lost motivation, and the able-bodied feigned illness to avoid work.

As Governor William Bradford described in Of Plymouth Plantation, “[The] taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth…was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much employment…” The crops dwindled to only providing several kernels of corn per meal. It was so bleak that some Pilgrims sold themselves as workers to the Indians for a few cups of food. Others tried to forage for food, but many died of starvation.

After much debate and prayer, Bradford established a free market system by assigning each family a portion of land and giving them rights to what it produced. He was amazed at the results and credited it with creating the bountiful harvest and the reason the Pilgrims were able to celebrate what we think of as the “First Thanksgiving.”

Think of how happy the Pilgrims were to know that they would not face starvation that winter. This is a poignant lesson as some Americans again look at rewarding laziness with welfare and taking from those who work hard and providing it to those who have worked less, or not at all. Let’s be grateful and learn from the Pilgrims, and not repeat their mistake.

And third, Rush Limbaugh’s presentation of the story of Thanksgiving. Some great history and lessons to be learned here, and not forgotten.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

It’s time for the traditional true story of Thanksgiving, as written by me in my second best seller of 2.5 million copies in hardback: See, I Told You So. “Chapter 6, Dead White Guys, or What the History Books Never Told You: The True Story of Thanksgiving — The story of the Pilgrims begins in the early part of the seventeenth century … The Church of England under King James I was persecuting anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil and spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastical authority and those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down, imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their beliefs. A group of separatists first fled to Holland and established a community.

“After eleven years, about forty of them agreed to make a perilous journey to the New World, where they would certainly face hardships, but could live and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example.

“And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work. But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford’s detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford’s own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure. When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats.

“Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well. They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well.

“Nobody owned anything. They just had a share in it. It was a commune, folks. It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the ’60s and ’70s out in California – and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way.” There’s no question they were organic vegetables. “Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. That’s right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn’t work!” They nearly starved!

“It never has worked! What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild’s history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future,” such as that we’re enduring now. “‘The experience that we had in this common course and condition…’” this is Bradford. “‘The experience that we had in this common course and condition tried sundry years…that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,’ Bradford wrote.

“‘For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense,’” without being paid for it, “‘that was thought injustice.’ Why should you work for other people when you can’t work for yourself?” That’s what he was saying. ” The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford’s community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property.

“Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? ‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford, ‘for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’ … Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? Yes. Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Following Joseph’s suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians to 20% during the ‘seven years of plenty’ and the ‘Earth brought forth in heaps.’ (Gen. 41:47) In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves.

“Now, this is where it gets really good, folks, if you’re laboring under the misconception that I was, as I was taught in school. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the ‘Great Puritan Migration.’ But this story stops when the Indians taught the newly arrived suffering-in-socialism Pilgrims how to plant corn and fish for cod. That’s where the original Thanksgiving story stops, and the story basically doesn’t even begin there. The real story of Thanksgiving is William Bradford giving thanks to God for the guidance and the inspiration to set up a thriving colony. The bounty was shared with the Indians.” They did sit down” and they did have free-range turkey and organic vegetables, “but it was not the Indians who saved the day. It was capitalism and Scripture which saved the day,” as acknowledged by George Washington in his first Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789.

END TRANSCRIPT

Happy Thanksgiving, and may God bless you and your loved ones.

Father, must I go to work?
No, my lucky son.
We’re living now on Easy Street
On dough from Washington.

We’ve left it up to Uncle Sam,
So don’t get exercised,
Nobody has to give a damn-
We’ve all been subsidized.

But if Sam treats us all so well
And feeds us milk and honey,
Please, daddy, tell me what the hell
He’s going to use for money.

Don’t worry, bub, there’s not a hitch
In this here noble plan -
He simply soaks the filthy rich
And helps the common man.

But father, won’t there come a time
When they run out of cash
And we have left them not a dime
When things will go to smash?

My faith in you is shrinking, son,
You nosy little brat:
You do too damn much thinking, son,
To be a Democrat.

First, a quote from Charles W. Cooke at National Review Online, who is fast becoming one of my most preferred political commentators:

“Conservative Americans are not systematically being denied their liberties. They are not facing the might of a British empire determined to crush them. There is no Declaratory Act. There are no unwanted foreign troops stationed in our cities. Instead, we are failing to win the argument. This is a considerable problem, but we have [an] advantage. And it is that our ideas are timeless and they are right. They will win again, whether it is by argument or economic gravity.”

Barack Obama and Democrats deliveredto Romney and his supporters last week the stomach punch of a lifetime; a resounding victory for the left, and a demoralizing defeat for the right.  Conservative author Ann Coulter wallowed Wednesday on Laura Ingraham’s radio show that “If Mitt Romney can’t win in this economy, we’ve reached the tipping point. There are more takers than makers, there is no hope. It’s over.” Indeed, given our dire straits and the implications, there’s not much to be said in the way of silver linings or post-storm rainbows.

Obama won every swing state save North Carolina, and this after the GOP and its surrogate organizations made hundreds of thousands more voter contacts than they managed for John McCain’s campaign. The president won 55% of women, 93% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, and 50% of the religiously affiliated (including 75% of Hispanic Catholics).  He won 60% of the youth vote, which grew a percentage point in 2012 to 19% of the total electorate compared to 18% in 2008.  About the only major demographics Obama didn’t win are the two shrinking more with each cycle: white adult males and married women.

And, yet…

Obama won about nine million fewer votes in 2012 than he did just four years ago.  While he bested Romney, it’s not unreasonable nor irrelevant to note that this was not some grand endorsement by the public at large of his results or, more importantly, his policies.  Rather, this loss revealed great Republican organizational weakness and a thus far ignored necessity to bend its marketing toward a broader base, namely Hispanics and youth.

Romney closed the popular vote gap by 5% (losing 48% to 51%), a full 4.5% better than McCain managed.

To look at it another way, and while perhaps evermore frustrating, Mitt Romney and Republicans lost this election, more than Obama and Democrats won it.  The GOP failed, and that is a good thing.

Good, in the face of the alternative (getting our tails kicked on ideological grounds, which isn’t what happened), for it presents opportunity to reach potential voters that are not necessarily taken in by the twirls and swirls of liberalism’s diatribe.  If Obama had increased his turnout by nine million, conservatives would be better served to buy an island and start anew.  But he didn’t.  Republicans failed to convincingly market their candidate and positions in a trustworthy way, and in a manner that would persuade enough people that conservatism is best for all, not just the affluent. More than Obama’s likeability advantage, that is what impairedthem on election day.  Improved messaging, especially in minority communities, and avoiding get-out-the-vote catastrophes like Project Orca (Ben Domenech quipped: “You’d at least think a Mormon would get door-to-door right”), and Mitt Romney is packing his bags for the White House.

In David Limbaugh’s recent column, he slashes into the naysayers and white flaggers:

“Never mind, you say. The electorate has irreversibly become a taker class, and conservative ideas of self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual liberties will never appeal to a majority again, especially with demographics working against the GOP. We must reject that, or we are as good as surrendering. To accept it, we are confessing our skepticism of the power of ideas, which itself is contrary to the conservative spirit.”

As Jim Geraghty notes, but for 407,000 votes in four swing states – less than 0.5% of all voters – Mitt would have won. We were really close. This is an opportunity.

Contrary to liberals’ cries of a principles and values-driven shellacking, America didn’t beat a resounding liberal drum last Tuesday (nine million fewer votes!).  Instead, she bore a whole lot of frustrated and apathetic evangelicals, libertarians, and conservatives who didn’t like Romney.

The cause for optimism here is that Republican failings this cycle are not solution-less.  It’s easier to make a case to those who simply didn’t like your candidate enough to vote against the other side, than it is convincing voters away from the other contender.  Branding, messaging, organizing, and minority outreach (not pandering, there’s a difference; we have to better articulate why the conservative tide will raise all boats). Broaden the base. Very doable.

Yes, it’s thoroughly disgusting what the American people chose by electing Barack Obama again. Yes, it’s thoroughly disheartening that millions accepted him by default by staying home. Yes, there is work to be done – mountains and mole hills alike – for Republicans to take the Senate in 2014 and the Presidency in 2016. But this wasn’t a wave of liberalism flowing over the country brandishing a bullhorn to pronounce conservatism’s permanent death.  2012 was a staggering blow, but not necessarily a lethal one if we play our cards right. Down, but not out.

Ingraham concluded her segment by disagreeing with Coulter, saying that the country hasn’t had a national leader make an elegant and articulate case for conservatism in two decades.  She’s right.  If we’re able to revamp our messaging to the masses and convince them that it is conservatism, not liberalism, which most improves the maximum number of lives, then all is not yet lost.

Iron sharpens iron, and conservatives must work to ensure that their mill is bigger and more efficient in the very near future.  We carry on the fight. No other option exists.

You can follow the author on Twitter: @brady_cremeens

“[M]ediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country as surely as a war—ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption, and debauchery. Nations enshrine mediocrity as their modus operandi, and create the fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society, by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political, or special-interest group.”

— Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country, 2012.

I’m not yet angry, though I suspect that will come, perhaps even before I finish typing this piece. I’m dumbfounded, disappointed, and disgusted. And terrified for the future of the country I love, which I believe God will only continue blessing for as long as we conduct ourselves and mold our society in a moral and just manner.

Last night was an absolutely devastating blow to…many things. Conservatism, traditional American values, the Republican Party, fiscal sanity, economic growth, American unity, the pro-life movement, free markets, and on and on.  I stated before the election that I not only hoped Romney would win, but that he would do so with more than 300 electoral votes. I believed this would reveal a rejection not just of Obama’s poor results, but of his failed policies and ideology.  My prayer was that a great majority of people understood the mistake they made four years ago, and had wised up enough to realize that while they may not be in love with Mitt Romney, he was a competent leader with a history of success, and a welcome change from the drudgery and divisiveness of Barack Obama. I was wrong, and it hurts.  And so many brilliant conservative minds – who are so very rarely incorrect about anything – were wrong too, almost to a shocking degree.

Obama won every single battleground state (except North Carolina, where no one really expected him to).  Republicans were positive Romney had Florida and Virginia, confident about Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire, optimistic about Wisconsin and Ohio, and hopeful about Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Nevada.  Obama won them all. And it wasn’t just the presidency. Republicans spent an immense amount of time and effort trying to take back a majority in the Senate from Democrats who have held it since 2006.  Democrats increased their seats by two, with Scott Brown’s loss in Massachusetts and Mia Love’s loss in Utah the most upsetting. Typically conservative-opposed state ballot initiatives passed; most notably gay marriage in Maryland, Maine, and Washington, and legalized recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado. Florida rejected banning abortion providers from receiving state funds.

While the GOP kept the House and won a gubernatorial race here and there, it’s hard to find even the dullest of silver linings in this election cycle for the right side of America.

Leaving the bulk of the discussion of the cultural and economic implications of this election for another time, what’s perhaps most frightening is peoples’ embrace of what conservative America sees as the destruction of all things truly American.  In choosing Obama again, voters didn’t just accept the failures of his first term, but the continuation of policies that lead to those failures.

It has been my hypothesis for months that this election was less about either candidate, and more centrally respondent of the culture.  Namely, the entitlement culture versus the production culture.  I feared/fear that once we reach the tipping point where greater than half feel they deserve (any number of things, but for simplicities’ sake, consider “government handouts” an appropriate catch-all) or are at least willing to vote for liberals with entitlement policies, there is no going back.  It is heartbreaking to witness an electorate choose shared and redistributed decline over earned prosperity. As Thomas Sowell rightly asserted, the people were judging themselves this election.  This was a test of our collective principles, our resolve, and our direction.  From this conservative’s point of view, we failed that test in a mighty way last night.

There is never just one reason why a candidate loses while another wins, and the back and forth over Romney’s campaign will be commentated on to death in the following weeks.  I agree with RB’s post that much of it had to do with marketing, but I would also assert that the country is changing, and isn’t as center-right as it used to be.  Conservatives are not wrong in what we believe, but perhaps we are wrong about how many believe it with us.  There is more, of course, but I’ll leave that to those much smarter and more election-assessing mature than me.

So what now? The three essential steps to rectifying this disaster from a purely political stance are, as I see them: continuing to combat the liberal media and largely liberal educational system and their extreme power of influence, winning the Senate in 2014, and nominating and electing a staunch conservative leader as President of the United States in 2016.  My choice is Marco Rubio, but that debate can be had later on.  These are the battles, but the war is over the culture.  Family, integrity, work.

On a sad day, when hope is hard found, I choose to remember Ronald Reagan’s words: “We are never defeated unless we give up on God.” I hope you join me in continuing to fight for this land we love.

You can follow the author on Twitter:@brady_cremeens

As Christians, the basis for internal conscience is garnered from Scripture.

For those who decide there is no supernatural power and thus no basis for a moral standard, it becomes difficult to argue any subject line regarding right from wrong, good or evil. In contrast, as Christians, we abide by certain specific moral standards, revealed and laid out in the Bible.

And as Christians, we must often make real-world decisions based upon those moral standards by which we attempt to adhere.

Hiding the full truth from young children to keep them sheltered from lewd or violent information or climbing over the “No Trespassing” sign in order to save the person drowning in a pond on the other side are both examples of instances where one moral good (not lying, obeying trespassing laws) is easily betrayed in favor of another.

For a politically aware Christian, it could and should be a moral dilemma to pay taxes to a government that, among other wasteful and immoral activity, funds Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of abortions in the United States.

The question becomes: at what point does paying taxes (an accepted moral obligation), become more immoral than refusing to pay them because of what they support?

Consider that Jesus instructed in Mark 12:17 “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” This is generally interpreted and accepted as an order to pay to the government what is asked. In addition, it can be extracted that it coincides with Romans 13:1 as an obligation to submit to the authority that governs over us. Those are, at first notion, rather simple and clear cut. Pay your taxes. Don’t break laws. Obey the governing authorities.

The waters, however, become murky quite rapidly.

Looking at the overriding issue of obeying authority (since taxes necessarily fall under that moniker), several questions arise. There are many authority figures in life – government, police, parents, teachers; what if they contradict each other? And, more importantly, what if their authority contradicts one or more aspects of God’s Word?

The latter question must be split into two sub-questions: Do we continue to obey an immoral authority when the authorities themselves contradict the Bible’s teachings? And, if so, do we continue doing so even if the immoral authority is now requiring us to contradict the Lord’s teachings as well?

The obvious answer to these questions is no, Christians should not blindly obey all authority all of the time. Most would agree that rebellion against Hitler, an immense authority figure, was both noble and necessary. For a biblical precedent, consider the story in Daniel chapters 1-3 of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They would not bow before another god, thus defying the governing authority. They chose to serve God’s will, instead of the will of men who had power over them at that specific time. If nothing else, this at least creates a precedent that decisions must sometimes be made regarding which authorities to obey.

Christians would hold that God is the overriding authority, and His instruction is where we must first bring our moral dilemmas. But, from the “Give unto Caesar” example, we know that sometimes humans are required to violate one of God’s commandments in order to obey another.

For instance, we are called to protect life, but would we lie to do so? Most of us would say yes. We would have no problem lying to the SS Gestapo soldier who proclaimed he would shoot any Jews we were hiding. In so doing, we have made the determination that protecting those lives is a greater moral good than refusing to tell a lie.

The tough question, to which an answer is hard found, is the precise point on which the line lies between usurping authority to maintain moral obligation.

For the most part, American Christians pay their taxes and obey the laws of this nation, so one might consider that the line lies somewhere between our current government and Hitler (assuming we would agree to rebel against Hitler’s requirements).
But where? At what point does paying taxes and funding immensely immoral activities like abortion become less moral than refusing to do so?

The Bible tells us we are to be good stewards of our resources, yet our taxes go to a governing body that is not. Are we disobeying one command to keep another? It would seem that this is indeed the case.

It is a difficult proposition.

The answer may be different for everyone. While that notion walks a fine line with moral relativity, perhaps some grace may be extended in this area. We have all determined that the line is not “I will not have one dime of my money funding abortion!” For we all pay our taxes, thus betraying that commitment.

The question then becomes for each of us: how much is too much? At what point do we, as Christians, put the proverbial foot down and refuse to further aid in the immorality of killing babies and being poor stewards?

Where do we draw the line? When do we say, “No. I cannot, in good conscience, support this activity.” If we lived in 1940′s Germany, when would we say no? When do we say no in 21st century America?

The novel of a new season is but waiting in earnest to be written upon, ready for today’s heroes and tomorrow’s legends to pen their tale and post their claim on historical relevancy. Opening day is where the first line of the first chapter is scribed with the sweat and dirt of digging out grounders and the frustrating hilarity of a pitcher trying to lay down a bunt.

It’s the concluding mark of football season, March Madness, and winter coinciding with the vibrant arrival of spring in all of its glorious opportunity.

It’s the greener grass of outfields and 0-0 records.

It’s finding a balance between statistical advanced metrics and a lucky bounce.

It’s fond remembrances or good riddance’s of those who’ve passed on to rival teams or retirement back into normal life.

It’s the accepted injustice of a blooper falling for a hit and the line-drive being snagged for an out.

It’s the 35 year-old senior citizens of baseball trying to coax their legs into stretching a down-the-line single into a double just a few more times.

It’s the war of a pitcher against a batter, and skilled experience against anxious youth.

It’s Take Me Out to the Ballgame and military jets zooming over the field at a thunderous National Anthem’s perfect crescendo.

It’s the wonderful combination of playing small ball and smashing home runs, of hitting behind the runner and swinging for the lights.

It’s marveling at a once head-bound slider snapping down for a strike as the batter bails out of the way.

It’s the whip-like crack of a wooden Louisville connecting with a 98 mph fastball.

It’s listening to your favorite broadcasters on a radio station that barely comes in.

Opening day is the jumping off point of April’s optimism, July’s realism, and trying to trick the shadow of nagging pessimism into believing that with great trade deadlines comes great re-possibility.

It’s turning two and stealing second.

It’s learning new faces, judging new rosters, and festering new gripes with front office decisions.

It’s the finished product finally being presented from the hot stove.

It’s the first glimpses of the ivy at Wrigley, staring at the beautifully ugly Green Monster at Fenway, and staying up far too late to catch the final innings of a Dodgers game in Chavez Ravine.

It’s seeing a leaping, diving, sprawled out catch and an exaggerated memory reminding you that you once did that very same thing as a kid.

It’s the pure joy of cheering for a winner and the satisfying comeuppance of jeering a loser.

It’s always knowing more than your team’s manager.

It’s seeing the action on the field and heading out the door to imitate it in your back yard.

It’s the tranquil peace of playing catch once again and realizing that, for once, words needn’t be spoken. The smack of the ball in your mitt is serene enough.

Save the Olympics, no other opening sports spectacle can quite top baseball’s opening day. A dozen games on the same day. Watching your team take the field in the bright sunlight or under the beaming spotlights. The thrill of opening day represents a truly American characteristic: that of hope. The hope that this year will be different from last, that long suffering fans will finally find retribution, that the season is long and anything can happen.

It’s a chance to start anew, the shortcomings of the past no longer tugging on the coat tails of the present’s potential.  For a fan, the birth of a new baseball season is one of the most enjoyable days of the year.

Happy Opening Day, and go Cubs go!

The film used active duty United States military to depict a Navy SEAL team conducting several covert missions to rescue a CIA operative from Jihad terrorists, overtake a Somali pirate ship, and prevent a group of 16 Islamic suicide bombers from crossing the U.S. border from Mexico through a series of underground tunnels.

Objectively, the acting had minor limits, but as the main characters are real-life soldiers and not actors, they did remarkably well.  I believe most of it was probably not an extremely difficult transition for the team of eight, for the action/fighting/gunfire/boat/plane/truck scenes were as impressively realistic as someone like me (regular civilian) could imagine them to be.  Indeed, the first rescue scene takes places in a Philippine river and is as breathtakingly intense and remarkable as perhaps any war scene ever, with the only competition being from the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan.

This movie, which refreshingly and appropriately honors our troops instead of degrading them –as Hollywood is all-too-prone to do – depicts numerous acts of true heroism.  The men leave their wives and children, knowing there is a decent chance they might not see them again.  Some give the ultimate sacrifice, their life, while doing literally whatever it takes to ensure the terrorists and their explosives don’t enter the U.S.

It is an incredible tribute to the valiant effort given by those who dedicate their lives to keeping our beloved homeland safe.  As I type this, I cannot help but be quite taken aback by the enormous price that has been paid by so many in order that I may live freely.

Perhaps my tweets directly after leaving the theatre best capture how I felt about the movie:

“Out of Act of Valor. If there’s a better movie exemplifying the American military, I’ve not seen it. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.”

“Audience was silent as they left the theatre. Only other movie I’ve ever been at that where that’s happened was Passion of the Christ.”

“Everyone should see Act of Valor. Thank God for the freedom our fighting men and women have provided us. God bless our troops.”

I am not ashamed to admit that the concluding scene (and credits, including a scrolling list of each Navy officer who has lost their lives in battle since 9/11) caused my eyes to tear up.  The guys I was with mentioned the same thing.   It also created an intense emotion of gratification, as well as some feeling of regret that I had not enlisted to serve our country when I graduated high school.

In my opinion, Act of Valor is an absolute must-see for anyone over the age of 14.  I cannot praise it enough, nor do words fully do justice to the message it rightly sends.  Too often movies involving our fighting men and women do so in a way that portrays them in less than magnificent life.  These heroes deserve nothing but our thankful hearts and appreciative encouragement.  They deserve to be properly represented for the sheer courage and bravery they display every time they lace up their boots.  They deserve to be honored for their service.

Act of Valor does just that.  It is a pleasure to recommend this movie.  As a grateful American, I’m not sure I’ve witnessed anything more powerful.

The propelling mindset driving the vast majority of the Occupy movement is not one of genuine civil service, dedicated to the honest betterment of America as a whole (like, say, the Tea Party), but rather one of entitled victimization from a growing number of those who think other people should be forced to share their success.

This compilation of old hippies pining for revolution amongst college kids who simply don’t want to make their own way is the unsurprising result of liberalism in America today. This is what happens when children are fed faux lessons in self esteem and tolerance from broken family systems and then taught in school that the theory of communism is noble, if only the implementation could be mastered. American students are engulfed in a sea of liberalism from kindergarten through university, often void of any opposing views and without prompting to study the historical precedent and common sense consequences of the ideology with which they’re being indoctrinated.

The protestors, in the beginning, took to the streets against “corporate corruption and greed.” A decent and reasonable cause to be sure, but one that lasted shorter than a New York minute. Unfortunately, any decent and reasonable people quite quickly picked up their corporation made signs and went home the instant they saw these protests for what they really are: A war against traditional American values, including capitalism, and a battle to get as much of somebody else’s money as possible.

Indeed, any reasonable people left at the first Communist Party endorsement and shivered as their leader said “We are marching side by side and with the occupy movement. They want what we want.” He received a resounding ovation.  Any reasonable stragglers willing to give it another try took off when the American NAZI Party backed the cause. With that the anti-American sentiment began piling up.

Spray painting American flags, cries for socialism and income equality, extreme anti-Semitism, signs depicting the decapitation of CEOs, videos wishing for the hanging of George W. Bush. And then, unfathomably, the original Occupy located on Wall Street in New York City created fliers showing how to make paper planes and then threw the planes at buildings.

Anti-American sentiment aside, the list of grievances at these protests expands vastly every day. Thousands of arrests, illegal drugs, dozens of incidents of violence, a growing number of rape and sexual abuse reports (and calls from within the Occupy Wall Street camp not to report the sexual abuse), causing disturbances in area businesses, defecating on the front steps of peoples’ homes, engaging in public nudity and sexual activity, and breaking numerous permit and sanction laws.

“Reasonable” and “occupier” are antonymous.

While the criminal activity and despicable actions are appalling and troublesome, it is the mindset, not the acts, that most frighten me for this country.

It is a lack of common sense that says “Down with evil capitalism!” with no regard for what the alternative really entails. It is a lack of logic that shouts “Corruption must go! Government should take over!”, as if a government takeover would produce less corruption, not eons more.  It is an entitlement culture that makes one believe that they have the right to take from someone else what they please.

Occupy Oakland opined recently, “This will take a complete collapse of our current governing system.”  And Occupy San Diego marched for citizens’ rights to print their own money. All of this while pushing for government takeover of banks, businesses, the housing market, and loan institutions. Marxism by means of anarchy.

This is America, where people have the freedom to work and make their own success. It is our blessed capitalist system that gave us the strongest economy on the globe, and provides the largest percentage of people the best chance to succeed.  It allows for the ebb and flow of free markets to determine what ideas are the best and which aren’t worth the time or money. Capitalism is the fairest system man has created, for it allows every single person an equal opportunity to succeed.

The occupiers want precisely the opposite. They are chanting for government mandated wealth, as if the government is so excellent at doing anything that they should also decide where funds come from and to whom they should be doled out.  The occupiers are ignoring thousands of year’s worth of evidence that says as government is expanded and freedom is stifled, everyone suffers.  This is socialism, and it grants nothing but equality of failure.

They call for the rich to pay their “fair share”, yet are unwilling to determine just what exactly that number is. The occupiers either choose to ignore, or choose not to care, the fact that if everyone in this country making over $250,000 a year was taxed at 100%, the government could fund the socialistic programs Occupy wants for all of six months.  Then what? Who to tax after that?

They complain about Wall Street receiving bailouts, but choose to ignore the real problem: that our government is granting anyone bailouts in the first place. They call for the heads of CEOs while the President they support wasted over 500 million dollars on a “green jobs” scam.

They say, “End the massive amounts of money that control politics.” Yet, when polled, over 70% said they will vote for Obama, who received more Wall Street money than any other Presidential candidate in history. They are hypocrites at every turn. They know not what they want (in any organized, unified manner), nor how to get it, so they turn sharply towards violence and disorder in an effort to prove their relevance.

In a hilariously idiotic display of irony, Occupy Wall Street is experiencing firsthand the failure of the system they are clamoring for. They squabbled over how to properly distribute the over half a million dollars in donations they received.  Some people felt they deserved more because they were doing more activist work, versus those who spent their occupying days playing drum circles or doing, well, nothing. What’s incredible is that the same people arguing over how to redistribute the wealth given them are pushing for a complete American system of wealth redistribution. They see no correlation between their own inability to “fairly” distribute money and that government mandated wealth distribution would just as assuredly fail as well, but on a massive, nation-shaking economic scale.

Similarly, the kitchen staff at Occupy Wall Street ran into problems when they felt they shouldn’t have to prepare food for the “homeless and free loaders”. In summary, the group fighting for a socialist nation where everyone is equal regardless of output refuses to serve those who aren’t doing their share. Apparently, hypocrisy and irony are foreign concepts to the Occupy crowd.

What is perhaps most disconcerting is not that a few college kids and hippies are upset about student loans and mortgages, but that this clearly sordid movement has the complete support of major players in the American political system and media. Elizabeth Warren claims to be the “brains behind Occupy Wall Street” (insert joke here); Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and the President himself have all spoken in support of the protests. If that weren’t bad enough, the liberal media has all but drooled over the occupiers and their plight for more than a month now. Keith Olbermann visited the Wall Street squatters, while Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, and others have essentially plugged Occupy on a nightly basis. This, of course, is to be expected from those who not only agree with the protestors on most of their pleas, but are working to implement them in an official capacity even as we speak. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama isn’t a socialist hasn’t been paying attention.

It is bothersome that our nation’s leaders sympathize with this cause; it is worse still that they fail to distance themselves when any normal person would watch and be disgusted. What kind of culture do we live in when the President of the United States and his minions, along with thousands of others who may not consider themselves radical, yet certainly support much of this movement (some of my loved ones included) see a group such as this and say “Yes, this is what I support.”

These people got a dog to rip apart an American flag amongst a cheering crowd, drew a Swastika on Martin Luther King Junior’s statue, have “solidarity” marches with NAZIs and pedophiles, and hung an effigy of a banker with a noose. Who doesn’t step back and think, “Wait a minute, what am I hitching my wagon to?”

Normal people do not include themselves amongst NAZIs, communists, rapists, and thugs. Normal people run the other direction.

If you woke up from a 6-month coma and saw these two sides - one with the support of American tradition, family values, and good, smart people like Thomas Sowell and the other with the support of NAZIs, Jew-haters, beastiality advocates, and the current President of the United States – which would you gravitate towards?

It is not these protests that must be squelched, although I suspect that will happen eventually, the first time somebody gets shot (it’s coming), but rather the mindset that I deserve the benefits of another person’s success. That idea is dangerous to the very fabric of American freedom, and will forever cripple American prosperity (and consequentially the world’s economy will suffer) if not stomped out with every boot and ballot.  The idea that success should be a mandated right is distinctly anti-American, as is Occupy.

I want an America where hard work and success is celebrated, not shunned. An America where people want to make something of their lives because contributing to society is inherently good. An America more like Reagan’s America, where Communism is a dirty word, not prayed for in the streets of our cities.

Author’s note: If you aren’t sure what to think about the Occupy movement, or want proof of the events taking place, I’ve got dozens of videos and articles documenting the protests.  Just ask.

The Mennonites at Goshen College in Indiana are dead wrong.

This place of higher learning has banned the playing of our National Anthem (substituting it for America the Beautiful) before all sporting events, citing their “pacifist” and “religious” tradition.

This is America, and a college will no longer play the National Anthem. George Washington and Paul Revere are weeping in their graves.

People who hide behind the veil of pacifism have no regard or respect for the freedom we enjoy and cherish in this country. They decry war under any circumstance, no matter how worthy or just. They are the people who say “can’t we all just get along” and opine about world peace while terrorists are abusing women and murdering innocent civilians, even in our homeland.

I am no fan of war. I abhor it and believe it is an awful and appalling way to resolve problems. That does not, however, mean that it is not sometimes necessary and required to restore peace, order, and freedom.  The desire for world peace is admirable, but it is a pipe dream.  Reserved generally for anyone who wishes to watch and do nothing as evil runs rampant through our country and our world.

I would gladly support a “no war” policy, right after the terrorists and tyrants forever stop being terrorists and tyrants.

For the sake of our own blessed nation, as well as the millions of  innocent people all around the world liberated and given a chance at life because of the United States of America, thank God our country is not militarily pacifistic.

As far as the “religious” excuse for clinging to pacifism, this approach clearly ignores thousands of year’s worth of Biblically documented wars used to free and liberate innocent people from the hands of oppressive and enslaving governments.

Renowned Christian scholar C.S. Lewis believed both World War I and World War II were justifiable. He addressed his thoughts on this subject in his most famous work on religious theology, Mere Christianity. He calls pacifism both a theological mistake and a practical one.  Lewis also says pacifism fails on every moral level.

Tell Jews in Nazi Germany or the families of victims of 9/11 you are a pacifist and they would be justified in punching you in the nose (would you punch back?). To adhere to pacifism is to eternally allow the evil in the world prevail.

Pacifists claim war is never justifiable. To them, this means that no matter how bad things get it is morally superior to stay uninvolved. If that’s true, Hitler could have killed 10 million Jews instead of five million.  I wonder if a pacifist would defend his family from an intruder trying to rape his little girls.  Only the worst of naivety would suggest that fighting is never warranted.   Yet, under no circumstance is justified war the correct answer? Please.

It would be nice to dismiss pacifists as well-intentioned, but simply misguided. However, they are not. If they were, they’d fight for the peace they want instead of grandstanding about the evils of war. Yes, war is unpleasant, too bad. As long as there is evil in the world (that is, as long as humankind exists), there will be the need to eradicate it.

When the administration at Goshen College declared it would no longer play the Star Spangled banner, it effectively condemned the very values this country was founded on; to fight and defend freedom, at any and all costs. Someone should tell them that if we toed the pacifist policy line, white Americans would still be enslaving and beating black Americans, Hitler’s Third Reich would never have been brought to demise, and Saddam Hussein would still be torturing and raping as many women as he pleased.

The phrase in the National Anthem that has Goshen College officials up in arms (pun completely, totally intended) is this: “and the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air.” They say it glorifies war. I say it glorifies freedom, justice, and goodness, all things distinctly American.

I have a difficult time tolerating those who denounce the U.S. military and her history while terrorists fly planes into our buildings.

Consider Colonel Jessup’s speech in A Few Good Men:

“I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way.”

They love and utilize their freedom to say and do as they please, yet attack the method in which that freedom is bestowed upon them.

America, the greatest nation in the history of mankind, is the “land of the free and the home of the brave”. It does not take bravery to shun tribute and eliminate the Star Spangled Banner from your campus, but it does take freedom.

How dare they use the freedom provided them by our fighting men and women to condemn our fighting men and women. This is exactly what they are doing by refusing to honor them with singing the National Anthem.  They are kidding themselves to think it’s doing more good than harm for their students and community.  Remember when we use to raise kids to be country-loving patriots?  This act is disgraceful to our troops, our citizens, our country, and our country’s history.

So, Goshen College, I’ll speak on behalf of the thousands of troops who’ve fought and died and continue to do so for your right to be as unpatriotic and un-American as you please by saying: “You’re welcome”.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

For more on C.S. Lewis’ take on pacifism and Christianity, read this article: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-03-045-f