Leftism

What Would Jesus Cut?

by Mark Tooley –
After any successful election for Republicans, the Religious Left immediately becomes alarmed about supposedly massive federal budget “cuts,” i.e. some reductions in budget increases, for some social welfare programs. In the Religious Left’s ultimate vision of the Kingdom of God, the federal government spends unlimited sums on the nation’s every supposed social need, regardless of result, while spending nothing on national defense, and only increasing taxes.

In 1981, responding to President Reagan’s budget “cuts,” the Religious Left endorsed a huge “Solidarity Day” protest march in Washington, D.C. to deplore the “transfer of billions of dollars from the social needs of people to the production of massive new weapons and strategic defense systems.” One United Methodist bishop explained: “For us to take out of the mouths of the hungry and the poor and the oppressed the funds that will build bombs and bullets and airplanes seems to be terribly incongruous with our understanding and the quality of life in the world in which we live.” [Read more…]

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Catholic Teaching’s Pro-Union Bias

Rev. Robert A. Sirico
Rev. Robert A. Sirico

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico –

There is a long-standing bias in Catholic social teaching toward unions, and this dates from the long history of labor struggles for fair wages and safe working conditions. There is a romance associated with this history, and it is bound up with strong moral concerns. And it is not just historical. The Catholic Church played a heroic role in the fall of Communism in Poland through its influence on labor unions that were striking against oppression, which is to say state coercion.

Pope John Paul II, who knew something about the social role of labor unions, also warned about their drift into politics. In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, he wrote: “Unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for power; they should not be subjected to the decision of political parties or have too close links with them.”

The reality with all public affairs, however, is that conditions change. Just because something is called a union does not make it automatically good and moral. [Read more…]

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You Christians Can Believe, Just Don’t Act on It

ACLU vs God assault on Christianityby Robert Knight –
Christians, orthodox Jews or anyone with traditional views of sex and marriage should be barred from state university counseling programs unless they agree to violate their beliefs.

That’s the gist of the amicus brief that the ACLU filed on Feb. 11 in a case in which a Christian student is challenging her dismissal from a graduate counseling program at Eastern Michigan University in 2009.

Julea Ward had asked that another student take the case of a homosexual suffering from depression because, being a Christian, she could not affirm the person’s sexual relationships. Miss Ward was dismissed, and filed a lawsuit charging unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, religious discrimination and compelled speech. On July 26, 2010, a U.S. District Court denied her claim, and she appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ACLU’s brief to the appeals court contends that compelling someone to act against her beliefs does not violate her freedoms of religion or speech. They quote the university’s finding that Ward had a “conflict between your values that motivate your behavior and those behaviors expected of your profession.” In other words, you’re a conscientious Christian, so get lost. [Read more…]

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Two-Thirds of WI 8th Graders Can’t Read Proficiently

Wisconsin Union Protest with Students

by Terence P. Jeffrey –
Two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin public schools cannot read proficiently according to the U.S. Department of Education, despite the fact that Wisconsin spends more per pupil in its public schools than any other state in the Midwest.

In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009—the latest year available—only 32% of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned a “proficient” rating while another 2% earned an “advanced” rating. The other 66% of Wisconsin public-school eighth graders earned ratings below “proficient,” including 44% who earned a rating of “basic” and 22 percent who earned a rating of “below basic.” [Read more…]

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Can Truth Prevail in a Culture of Spin?

Truth in Life by Judith Anderson –
The answer is yes. Absolutely! Truth is what is unequivocally true. It is not constrained by ideology, creed, or spin. Crushing debt destroys families and governments. Endless, deceitful war-making destroys republics. U.S. citizens are getting a huge dose of reality as our policies in Egypt are exposed to the light. For years we have borrowed money to prop up despots in the Middle-East who are out of touch with their own people. An insistent, vocal majority of Americans don’t want ObamaCare. They are ignored by politicians who intend to impose it on them against their will. Blatant, naked truth trumps spin.

Specious, false, fraudulent argument by czars, presidents, individuals and speakers for all manner of causes are being swept away in the bright glare of reality. Spin and in some cases outright lies in matters of national security, environmental protection and government spending are failing the smell test for all but the most ardent partisan ideologue. [Read more…]

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The Polygamists Make Their Move

by Peter Heck –
The debate over whether or not those practicing homosexuality should be eligible to obtain the legal status of “married” for their same-sex relationships is persistently mischaracterized by activists on both sides as an attempt to redefine marriage. For those opposing such a move, this is most likely an error of ignorance, while for those favoring, it likely is an intentional tactic of misdirection. To be clear, in order to “redefine” anything, there must be an alternative definition being advocated. To this point, no such proposed substitute has emerged.

In truth then, what is being pursued is not any redefinition of marriage, but rather the “undefinition” of it — an attempt to obliterate any fundamental parameters for what is to be perceived as moral and immoral sexual partnerships. To anyone paying attention over the last several decades, this effort should come as no surprise. [Read more…]

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“Nobody Gets Married Any More, Mister”

Inner City Tragedy by Gerry Garibaldi –

Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch.

My first encounter with teen pregnancy was a girl named Nicole, a pretty 15-year-old who had rings on every finger and great looped earrings and a red pen with fluffy pink feathers and a heart that lit up when she wrote with it. Hearts seemed to be on everything—in her signature, on her binder; there was often a little plastic heart barrette in her hair, which she had dyed in bright hues recalling a Siamese fighting fish. She was enrolled in two of my classes: English and journalism. [Read more…]

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Religious Left Despised Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reaganby Mark Tooley –
Jim Wallis’ Evangelical Left Sojourners has helpfully reminded us, amid all the hagiography about Ronald Reagan on the centennial of his birth, that the Religious Left despised him. Some Religious Leftists doubtless still do.

Sojourners magazine editor Jim Rice recently recalled Sojourners’ 2004 observations about Reagan upon his death. “Reagan’s policies were disastrous and destructive.” After all, “poverty worsened at home and abroad, he spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the largest peacetime military buildup in history, including $80 billion (and counting) for the fantasy of Star Wars and tens of billions for first-strike-capable nuclear weapons.” Reagan also reputedly “ignored” the AIDS epidemic. He instigated “U.S. wars in Central America” that included right-wing “death squads” and killed tens of thousands, including Jesuit priests.

According to Sojourners lore, “Reagan’s policies worked against the interests of the poor and marginalized and further enriched the wealthy and powerful.” His “most destructive legacy could very well be the mania for ‘deregulation’ that he unleashed, starting with his declaration in his first Inaugural address that ‘Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.'” [Read more…]

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The Left and Their ‘Good Victims’

by Robin of Berkeley –
A number of years ago, I was the victim of a brutal street crime. Although I was left with a broken nose and two black eyes, I learned soon thereafter that I wasn’t a “good victim.”

A progressive friend, Fran, clued me in. When I told her what happened, she said, “What you went through wasn’t half as bad as what he has suffered.” Fran was referring to the fact that I am white and the assailant was black. In other words, my suffering didn’t matter.

Fran’s reaction is not at all unique in these parts; here, there are good and bad victims. [Read more…]

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