5/14/2010 – J.R. Dunn –
The Ottomans had an interesting method of assuring political stability. The sprawling empire operated on a system in which “millets,” distinct ethnic and religious groups, were allowed to oversee their own internal affairs while giving absolute loyalty to the sultan and his government. Every now and then a millet would be ordered to pack up and head out for a new home, at times at the opposite end of the imperium, amid new neighbors — sometimes the original residents, sometimes other refugees — of alien origins, ethnicity, and religious belief. Christians among Muslims, Catholics among Orthodox, Bulgarians among Turks, Circassians among Arabs…the variations were nearly endless. [Read more…]
Leftism
Christ: An “Undocumented” Migrant?
5/10/2010 – Mark D. Tooley –
The old Religious Left has long championed virtual open borders and slammed national sovereignty as idolatrous. Now the new Evangelical Left is chiming in with its own sentimentalization of illegal immigration, identifying Jesus Christ Himself as an illegal immigrant.
“We are exiles who follow an alien, undocumented, migrant Messiah,” insisted Debra Dean Murphy, a religion professor at United Methodist affiliated West Virginia Wesleyan College. Her recent column was carried by Jim Wallis’ Sojourners and illustrates the merging thought of old Religious Left and new Evangelical Left. [Read more…]
The Liberal Assault on the Poor
5/7/2010 – Jacob Hornberger –
Liberals say that they love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged. Unfortunately, however, the economic philosophy that liberals favor constitutes a direct assault on the economic well-being of the poor, along with nearly everyone else in society.
Liberals claim to combat poverty in two principal ways.
First, they use the force of government (e.g., income taxes) to take money from those who have earned it in order to give it to the poor.
Second, they restrict people’s use of their property to enable the poor to have access to such property.[Read more…]
Progressive Death
5/2/2010 – Paul Kengor –
Progressivism is all the rage nowadays, with liberals having jettisoned the “liberal” label for the less maligned tag of “progressive.” In truth, “progressive” is a better name, more accurately describing the movement and its extremely broad, precariously unpredictable direction.
Here is the essence of the problem with progressives and their movement, which is a gigantic problem for all of America: One of the only things we really know about progressives, and that they know about themselves and their ideology, is that they favor constant “change,” “reform,” an ever-shifting, ongoing “evolution,” or, yes, progression. [Read more…]
Daily Kos Article Says Number of Abortions is “Too Low”
4/30/2010 – Sarah Knoploh –
April 28 was apparently Abortion Uber Alles day at the liberal Web site Daily Kos. Aimee Thorne-Thomsen of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project stated that the number of women who receive abortions is “too low” in “Keep Abortions Safe and Legal? Yes. Make it Rare? Not the Point.”
A separate article blasted the new law in Oklahoma that makes it mandatory for woman to receive ultrasounds by making crude comparisons and calling it “blackmail.”
Even though 1.21 million abortions were performed in 2005, this was not enough for Thorne-Thomsen. She wrote, “On the other hand, if those 1.21 million abortions represent only the women who could access abortion financially, geographically or otherwise, then that number is too low. Yes, too low.” [Read more…]
Obama’s Greatest Deficit Is Wisdom
4/28/2010 – Tom White –
It is often said, by both supporters and detractors, that President Barack Obama is intelligent, smart, well-educated, and even cerebral. However, President Obama is never described as wise. Wisdom is a special quality reserved for a few rare individuals. And wisdom is the most important characteristic which distinguishes ordinary leaders from extraordinary leaders.
Obama’s wisdom deficit is not necessarily a flaw or defect in his character. It is simply a quality that does not yet exist within the man. The old adage “with age comes wisdom” hints that wisdom takes time to acquire, but not all people become wise. [Read more…]
Why Left Talks about “White” Tea Parties
by Dennis Prager | 4/27/2010
Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration.
But there are two other facts that are far more troubling: The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.
It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong. [Read more…]
America’s Great Divide: Tax Payers vs. Non-Payers
Human Events | by Martha Zoller | 4/23/2010
“So I’ve been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you.”—President Barack Obama, April 15, 2010
Mr. President, with all due respect, you don’t get it. The Tax Day Tea Parties weren’t about taxes alone, they were also about spending.
And the tax cuts the President often talks about are, by and large, one-time checks that will do nothing to protect the taxpayer from future tax hikes. And he is concealing many tax increases in his budget right now. [Read more…]
Cultural Marxism in Education: The Gathering Revolt
American Thinker | by Chuck Rogér | 4/18/2010
For decades now, American schools corrupted by cultural Marxism have been eroding the moral fiber and judgment skills of schoolchildren. Unless sensible parents and teachers put a stop to the indoctrination, today’s free speech-crippling political correctness, tolerance of immorality, and lack of knowledge of our country’s birth will continue to grow until America is no more. To stop the indoctrination, parents and teachers must understand how cultural Marxism came to permeate school curricula. [Read more…]
What the Popes Have to Say About Socialism
TFP.org | by Gustavo Solimeo | 2/24/2010
Anyone who examines the ideology of socialism will see the contrast between the socialist doctrine and the doctrine of the Church. All the same, it is not out of place to review the condemnation of the popes starting with Pius IX and ending with Benedict XVI. Thus, we present what the popes have to say about socialism as they condemn the socialist doctrine thoroughly and entirely. This is not a comprehensive compilation, but just some samples.
“You are aware indeed, that the goal of this most iniquitous plot is to drive people to overthrow the entire order of human affairs and to draw them over to the wicked theories of this Socialism and Communism, by confusing them with perverted teachings.” (Encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849)
“…communism, socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin.” (Encyclical Diuturnum, June 29, 1881)
“… For, the fear of God and reverence for divine laws being taken away, the authority of rulers despised, sedition permitted and approved, and the popular passions urged on to lawlessness, with no restraint save that of punishment, a change and overthrow of all things will necessarily follow. Yea, this change and overthrow is deliberately planned and put forward by many associations of communists and socialists” (Encyclical Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884, n. 27).