Let’s Keep Christmas Commercialized

Merry Christmas Defend Christ in Christmas by David Chilton –
Every year about this time, there rises a hue and cry about the “commercialization” of Christmas, accompanied by impassioned pleas to get back to the “real meaning” of the celebration. Too much time and money, we hear, are spent on the public side of the holiday — the hustle and bustle of shopping, the lavish decorations, and the often insincere displays of seasonal piety. Meanwhile, the true spirit of Christmas gets left behind. Some even argue that all public displays of Christmas are inappropriate.

Every Christmas season seems to spawn a new series of lawsuits charging that the First Amendment is imperiled by the appearance of manger scenes on civic property, or by the singing of carols by the local high school choir. I recall hearing a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union claim that the very message of Christmas itself was being violated by any public recognition of its existence. What we need, he said, is to remove Christmas from public life completely, and allow it to become once again a private, personal expression of religious sentiment and family values. [Read more…]

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Even Christians taking Christ out of Christmas

War on Christmas, Christmas and Christ Censoredby Mark Steyn –
Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions – the sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular “holiday” tree; the ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman; the familiar strains of every hack columnist’s “war on Christmas” column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing “Winter Wonderland”…

This year has been a choice year. A crucified skeleton Santa Claus was erected as part of the “holiday” display outside the Loudoun County courthouse in Virginia – because, let’s face it, nothing cheers the hearts of moppets in the Old Dominion like telling them, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – and he’s hanging lifeless in the town square.” Alas, a week ago, some local burghers failed to get into the ecumenical spirit and decapitated him. Who are these killjoys? [Read more…]

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They Mean Well. Really?

Road to Hell Good Intentions Liberals Leftists by Victor Volsky –
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why conservative pundits, even such stalwarts as Rush Limbaugh, when discussing the virtually inexhaustible supply of liberal follies and blunders, hasten to express their confidence that the perpetrators are “well-intentioned.” Why do conservatives hew mindlessly to the conventional line that far-left radicals are necessarily high-minded and motivated by the best of intentions? Why aren’t liberals challenged when they generously absolve themselves of any wrongdoing on the grounds of their good intentions?

“Good intentions cannot compensate for evil works,” advises the Torah (Hebrew Matthew 3:1); “[b]y their fruits ye shall know them,” avers Scripture (Matt. 7:16). St. Francis de Sales warned that “Hell is full of good intentions or desires.” Shakespeare wrote, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Sir Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain, in his writings discusses “the tragedy of good intentions.” [Read more…]

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Obama: Our Marxist Wizard of Oz

Obama Marxist Wizard of Oz by Peter Ferrara –
His mother was an unabashed hippie from 1960s central casting. His father was an openly avowed Communist from Kenya. While his father wasn’t around much, his devoutly progressive grandparents arranged for him to be mentored during his adolescent years by a dues paying member of the U.S. Communist Party, Frank Marshall Davis.

When he went to college, he was attracted to the Marxist professors and student activists, according to his own published memoirs. When he graduated, he moved to Chicago and became an instructor for the left-wing extremist organization ACORN in the social manipulation methods of radical Marxist agitator Saul Alinsky. He attended for close to two decades the Trinity United Church of Christ, which practiced neo-Marxist Black Liberation Theology. That church was headed during those years by the openly socialist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who declared that the 9/11 terrorist attack on America was “America’s chickens coming home to roost.” He also famously preached from his pulpit, “Not God bless America, God damn America….” [Read more…]

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The Rich Are Not Conservative

The Rich Are Not Conservative by Bruce Walker –

The latest Gallup Poll confirms what most of us had suspected all along:  the rich — that top one percent, the folks whom radical leftists like OWS rail against — are not as conservative as the rest of us.  The greater conservatism of the 99% rest of us is slight — one percentage point — but it does bring home the fact that many of those with wealth are rather happy with the struggling middle class keeping to its place.

Wealth is not income.  The income of the middle class comes from hardworking folks; often husband and wife both hold full-time jobs, trying to reach a level of security, comfort, and leisure which people like leftist Senator Jay Rockefeller or Senator John Kerry have always taken for granted.  These leftists do not need to earn money.  They simply preserve their acquired wealth. [Read more…]

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Democrat Economic Illiteracy Has Consequences

Democrats Socialists Democrats Communists Economic Illiterate by David Catron –
The Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, visited Capitol Hill last week and claimed that the unemployment rate will increase if Congress fails to extend the eligibility period for federal unemployment benefits. My first reaction to this Orwellian assertion was a quiet chuckle. Then it dawned on me that most Democrats will believe this nonsense. These are, after all, people who believed that health care would be made cheaper by a law that increases demand for medical services while reducing the supply of health care providers. Most would agree with the claim, made by journalist-cum-cheerleader Jonathan Alter, that Obama’s economic stimulus package “prevented another Great Depression.” I realized, in other words, that ignorance about economics is so pervasive among Democrats that it is less funny than dangerous.

That Democrats are generally illiterate about basic economics is not a matter of mere conjecture. In 2010, Daniel B. Klein and Zeljka Buturovic analyzed answers provided by a random sample of 4,835 Americans to a list of eight questions about economics. The results, which noted the party affiliation of the respondents, were not flattering to our friends on the left. [Read more…]

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Scientists in Revolt against Global Warming

Global Warming fraud myth hoax by Karin McQuillan –

Global warming became a cause to save life on earth before it had a chance to become good science.  The belief that fossil fuel use is an emergency destroying our planet by CO2 emissions took over the media and political arena by storm.  The issue was politicized so quickly that the normal scientific process was stunted.  We have never had a full, honest national debate on either the science or government policy issues.

Everyone “knows” that global warming is true.  The public has no idea of the number of scientists — precisely one thousand at last count of a congressional committee — who believe that global warming is benign and natural, and that it ended in 1998.  We have not been informed of the costs to our economy of discouraging fossil fuel development and promoting alternatives.  The public need to know the choices being made on their behalf, and to have a say in the matter.  We are constantly told that the scientific and policy debate on global warming is over.  It has just begun. [Read more…]

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Obama’s Disastrous Energy Record

Obama No Energy for America by Chad Stafko –
The energy policies of the Obama administration have made America less safe and have significantly contributed to our nation’s high unemployment rate and lackluster economic growth. At the same time, President Obama’s failure to expand our oil resources has led to higher prices at the gas pump for all Americans. In short, the Obama administration has been an utter failure in managing the energy sources of the United States.

The U.S. State Department recently delayed approval of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline until at least early 2013. This pipeline was to have run from Western Canada’s Alberta province all the way down to the U.S. Gulf Coast. It would have provided for 500,000-700,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada, one of our closest allies. But the Obama administration cowered to some protests of extremist environmentalists in Nebraska and thus decided to punt the decision until after the 2012 elections. [Read more…]

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Socialism’s Fundamental Flaws

Obama communist socialist democrats by Andy Logar –
The official, ultimate demise of the greatest socialist experiment in history, that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, occurred, ironically, on Christmas Day 1991, but only after it had dispossessed, imprisoned, tortured and murdered untold millions of its own citizen in the quest for the workers’ chimerical paradise of equality and fairness, where each was projected to produce according to his ability and receive according to his needs. After 69 years of unremitting misery for the overwhelming majority of its people — the socialist Nirvana never coming even remotely within sight — the inevitable economic collapse took place, leaving hapless millions in grinding poverty.

However, Westernized socialism, as practiced in European social democracies and to a lesser extent in the U.S., is still alive, no matter how unwell. What salient faults brought down Soviet socialism and what lessons can be drawn? Are fault lines emerging in socialism’s Western iterations which, if addressed, may prevent disaster? [Read more…]

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No Representation without Taxation

No Representation without Taxation by Bruce Walker –
The recent Occupy Wall Street ruckus and the drumbeat rhetoric of Democrats in Washington that the rich pay too little shows the dangers of placing power in the hands of those who have no real interest beyond self-interest in the governance of the nation. One rallying cry of our forefathers when the British Crown sought to impose taxes — really, very modest taxes — on the colonies without the consent of us colonials was “No taxation without representation!”

The logic of that slogan ran something like this: if I have no say in who passes taxes that I must pay, then what prevents the officials from imposing unfair taxes on me? On the other hand, if both the burden of taxation and the voice in tax-making are roughly equal, then taxes passed will be just and sensible. [Read more…]

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