Drinks All Around Except for the Republican!

The night of the election, a labor union rep walks into a fairly crowded bar that's right across the street from a closed shop factory. He's about to order a drink to celebrate Obama’s victory when he sees a guy sitting near the bar working on his laptop and wearing a Romney for President button. Just seeing the guy ticks him off and he decides to put him in his place. So, he shouts over to the bartender loudly enough that everyone can hear, "Bartender, drinks for everyone in here, except for that %#^&@ Republican!"

Soon after the drinks have been handed out, the Republican gives him a big smile, waves at him and says in an equally loud voice, "Thank you!"

This infuriates the union rep and so he again orders the bartender to pour drinks for everyone in the bar except the %#^&@ Republican. But again, this doesn't seem to bother the Republican at all. Indeed, he continues to smile and again yells out to the union rep, "Thank you!"

The union rep is really getting angry. So for the third time, he loudly orders drinks for everyone except the %#^&@ Republican. But also, for the third time, it seems to cause no consternation for the Republican sitting with his laptop. In fact, his smile is bigger than ever when he again yells over to the union rep a hearty "Thanks you!"

The union man is really steaming by this time and he turns to the bartender. "What's the deal with that Republican? I've ordered three rounds of drinks for every single bum in here except him and yet all he does is smile and thank me. Is he drunk or just plain stupid?"

"Neither one," replies the bartender. "He owns the place."

(Original joke told by Dan Sorkin and passed along by Lee Rodgers. I'm afraid I've played with it a little.)

The Demise of Christian Stewardship

From "Frail Web of Intention" author, Jack Niewold:

The Wall Street Journal reports that a mere 333,000 votes spread among several critical state races might have won the Republicans both the presidency and the Senate. Those of you in states such as Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Missouri could have made a difference—had you voted.

I have never liked the easy evangelical piety that tells me that "God is in Charge." No, He has put us in charge. He has made us the stewards of this world's history, cultures and civilizations. Now, I realize that politics isn't everything, that human laws and governance are, in a sense, downstream from even more fundamental moral and spiritual realities.

But the opposite is also true, as Abraham Kuyper once wrote. He said that good laws and social policies can make the spread of the gospel more effective and pave the way for broader religious consciousness. Law may only be law, but it is still a Teacher of morals and manners.

It seems we are now condemned to another four years of class warfare, incompetent leadership, and ideological, cultural and intellectual impoverishment. America by 2016 will likely be dumber, poorer and meaner than it is today, and that's saying something. And to one degree or another, some of you evangelical pietists out there, the ones telling me that I am too political, too dogmatic, too negative, are responsible for this.

Typically, only a quarter of evangelical Christians even bother to vote. This year it may have been even fewer.

We Christians seem to be polarizing into two camps: wackos completely out of contact with the world, and wannabes completely in love with it. Take your pick: you’re equally irrelevant.

I'm not okay with this sorry state of affairs. I’m not about to get over it.

More News from the "You've Got To Be Kidding" File

* "Is The Obama EPA Running Its Own Black-Ops Program?" at Investor's Business Daily.

* "Planned Parenthood compares an ultrasound to rape and as a rape victim, I’m angry!" by Kelly Clinger at LifeSiteNews.

* "The GOP: A Most Unpopular Majority Party" by David Limbaugh.

* "Report: Obama Coverage Turned More Favorable In Final Week Of Election" by Elizabeth Flock at US News and World Report. (Gee, really?)

*  "Barack Obama Blunders Again on the World Stage" by Nile Gardiner at the Telegraph.

* Forget Barack Obama's gaffes in his Burma speech (even though there were many) and his sophomoric flirtation with Aung San Suu Kyi. The real story is this line from his speech -- “Now, on other hand, as President, I cannot just impose my will on Congress -- the Congress of the United States -- even though sometimes I wish I could.”

Before Politics, It's the Culture War

President Obama won the 2012 presidential election by accumulating some of the most one-sided electoral constituencies in modern political history...

Rather than offer a broad sweeping vision for the country, Democrats played identity politics. Republicans were the culprits, and women, young adults, black, Latinos, etc… were the victims. And voters believed it. Why? For the same reason this litany — gender, race, ethnicity, class — sound so familiar.

Voters believed it, not because it was something new or groundbreaking, but because this has been the template of many of our character-building institutions — our public schools, our colleges, and public universities — for the past 50 years. Go to any major university in America and this is the mindset that is taught, preached, and ingested. It also gets an assist from television drama, from the movies, and from much of the mainstream media.

For decades liberals have succeeded in defining the national discourse, the terms of discussion, and, therefore, the election, in these terms. They have successfully set the parameters and focus of the national and political dialogue as predominantly about gender, race, ethnicity, and class. This is the paradigm, the template through which many Americans, probably a majority, more or less view the world, our country, and the election. It is a divisive strategy and Democrats have targeted and exploited those divides.
 
How else can we explain that more young people now favor socialism to capitalism?...

So while we Republicans opine about election strategies and changing demographics, and appropriately so as that is our immediate order of business, in the long run we must address the problem at its source: the culture.

Politics are downstream from the culture. Plato summarized the two most important questions in a society: Who teaches the young and what do we teach them?

For the past 50 years liberals have had majority control of the character-forming institutions. If the national dialogue stays on their terms — gender, race, ethnicity, class — Republicans will continue to lose.

(From "Republicans Must Win the Culture War to Regain Presidency" by Bill Bennett.)

The Internet -- The Best Alternative to State-Controlled Media

Ninety years after the inauguration of radio in Cuba, Internet, the information superhighway network that is radically transforming conceptions of life, communications, information, space and time, is unavailable to the vast majority of Cubans. As are the thousands of radio stations that broadcast over the Internet, which we cannot listen to in this way because it is necessary to have a computer that supports audio formats and an affordable internet line.

These developments are occurring in Cuba just as the extent of the information highways around the world set the tone in a way, that prevents modern man living outside the new technique, which constitutes a mockery of the Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action adopted at the Summit of the Information Society, held in 2003 in the Swiss city of Geneva and signed by the delegation representing the government of the Island there.

Cuba is the country in the Western Hemisphere with least connectivity to the web. Several studies have shown that the rate of network connectivity is even lower than for countries like Haiti. The number who access the Internet only reaches 1.6 million, a figure that does not exceed 14% of the Cuban population, not to mention that many of them are limited to an account that only allows state-controlled local intranet browsing.

In late 2007 it was reported that Cuba would connect with Venezuela through a fiber optic cable that would multiply by thousands of times the connection capacity. However, nothing has been published in the media about the facility, which was finished about a year ago, demonstrating the willingness of the State to maintain a monopoly on information and making Cubans long for the days when radio began in Cuba.

The above paragraphs are taken from a Dimas Castellano article in Diario de Cuba (via Translating Cuba) and they describe yet another example of how the totalitarian government of Cuba hates and fears the circulation of any information and ideas not under their direct control. The same attitude is present, of course, in Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and in the various Islamic regimes. The case can also be made that the United States under the Obama administration is trying to move in the same direction.

Radio still has an important role in broadcasting freedom, moral reason, and religious truth to many parts of the world. But increasingly, it is the internet that provides the best alternative both to state-controlled media and to the fellow-traveler media which operates in Europe and the U.S. Conservatives (and certainly, Christians) need to work hard to protect, promote and effectively utilize the internet.

Today's Posts

The Napoleon Retreat Was Just In Time

America Ain't Looking So Good

But Timmy, You Can't Borrow Forever!

The Napoleon Retreat Was Just In Time

Last week was a very busy one for Claire and I -- blogging, 5 "When Swing Was King" presentations, correspondence, preparations for sermon, painting the kitchen cabinets, car trouble, workouts at the gym, etc. This one is looking like it will be even more so -- blogging, taking the car in for repair, preparations for sermon and Sunday school, the gym, travel for Thanksgiving, putting the cabinet doors on, putting up Christmas lights and decorations, and 4 "When Swing Was King" presentations.

But shoved in between (mercifully!) was a wonderful 41 hours of refreshment down at the Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast in Nebraska City with the Notting Hill Napoleons, our literary club of 20 years standing. We've been going there every autumn for ten years for the discussion of November's book (always a Charles Dickens novel) and the selection of books for the coming year. Around these two key activities are delicious meals, conversations and games, prayers, and walking around downtown. This year we added a couple of hours around the fire pit which was especially nice.

In last Friday's post, I previewed the weekend retreat and also listed the book suggestions Claire and I were going to submit. Five of them made the final NHN list which was pretty good but I fear we could have a few clunkers in this year's reading since the other six which made the list (the Dickens inclusion is automatic) represent pigs in pokes; that is, they were never actually read by the persons nominating them...or anyone else in the group. But clunky books are not that big a deal. We seem to manage a pretty good discussion even with those. It's a good group.

The retreat was a very welcome respite from the whirl of activity and there were some very special moments (the fun around the fire pit, the early morning talks and prayers with Quint, and the frequent laughter) that I will treasure for a long time.

America Ain't Looking So Good

About That Fiscal Cliff  -- U.S. companies are scaling back investment plans at the fastest pace since the recession, signaling more trouble for the economic recovery.

Half of the nation's 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of securities filings and conference calls...

Homeland Security Kindly Offering Government Programs to New Non-Citizens --  Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your new country can do for you.

“Welcome to USA.gov,” a website maintained by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), bills itself as the “primary gateway for new immigrants to find basic information on how to settle in the United States” — featuring a prominent section for new immigrants about how to access government benefits…

The Crisis in Character and Values -- Throughout this election I discussed with students the differences between ideologies. The majority of them are on federal financial aid. They are fine with more taxes as long as they will be taken care of. It is disturbing to hear that they are willing to spend their own money on tattoos and cell phones but cannot buy the book for class until the financial aid comes in. (An anecdote contained in Star Parker's superb column, "A National Crisis in Character.")

But Timmy, You Can't Borrow Forever!

Elizabeth Harrington reports from CNS News: 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that Congress should stop placing legal limits on the amount of money the government can borrow and effectively lift the debt limit to infinity.

On Bloomberg TV, “Political Capital” host Al Hunt asked Geithner if he believes “we ought to just eliminate the debt ceiling.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Geithner said.

“You do?  Will you propose that?” Hunt asked…

Hunt then asked: “Is now the time to eliminate it?”

“It would have been time a long time ago to eliminate it,” Geithner said. “The sooner the better.”

This administration gets more childish, more ridiculous and more dangerous by the day.

Today's Post --- Ah, The Notting Hill Napoleons Weekend Retreat!

Claire and I have another "When Swing Was King" presentation early this afternoon (our 5th this week!) but from there we will be heading down to the Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast in Nebraska City for our annual autumn retreat with our book club of 20 years standing, the Notting Hill Napoleons.

We always look forward to this weekend but with the fatigue, the stress, and the need to renew our spiritual batteries after the disastrous election results, it may well be the most important retreat we've ever had.

We have a great relationship with the owner of Whispering Pines and she lets us take over the whole place for the weekend. We've been doing it for many years. Our traditions for the weekend include a discussion of that year's Charles Dickens novel, voting on the book selections for the coming year, enjoying memorable meals together, and an awful lot of talking, walking, praying and relaxing.

The general field for our book club is literature classics and so our achievements to date include Shakespeare, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy, Scott, Chesterton, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Cather, Stevenson, Collins, Sabatini, Doyle, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Austen, and many, many more. However, as you might imagine, after 20 plus years of the book club, we've nearly run out of genuine classics and had to delve into more modern stuff -- good stuff (usually) but not necessarily what Claire and I deem classic. We have tried to persuade our fellow Napoleons to include more re-reading but without much success.

We'll keep trying.

Anyhow, in case you're interested in perhaps finding some new books for yourself, here's the list of suggestions we're submitting to the Notting Hill Napoleons this year. (Note: in addition to brief comments about the books suggested, we provide prices, number of pages, availability in the Omaha Public Library system, etc.)

Denny’s & Claire’s NHN Reading Suggestions for 2013

We decided this year to only list books we have already read and thus could personally vouch for. Then we went through the list carefully and eventually cut it in half. So, from the original 20 titles, we present these 10 – plus 5 previous Napoleon suggestions we’re proposing as re-reads.

1) Cimarron by Edna Ferber – This is a rousing novel about Oklahoma's settlement and early history through the eyes of Yancy Cravat, one of the truly "larger than life" characters in American fiction, and his remarkable wife, Sabra. It's all here -- the “Sooners” and the land rush, gunfights, boom towns, Indians, a crusading newspaper, corruption, the development of civilized commerce and institutions, oil strikes, and local politics. Along the way, the reader learns just how critical to the winning of the West were the pioneer women. An exciting, informative read.  312 pages.  (About $4.00 at AbeBooks.  A couple copies in OPL)

2) The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers -- This is a tense and deeply moving novel about the escape of a young Communist from a Nazi concentration camp and his ongoing efforts to avoid recapture. It is a very well written book that illuminates several issues essential to our common humanity. 344 pages.  (Used starting at $1 at AbeBooks.com)

3) The Bridges at Toko-Ri by James Michener  -- This novel tells of young pilots flying off aircraft carriers during the Korean War. It will give us more to talk about than its brief length might suggest. Admiral George Tarrant who bears the burden of command -- Family man Harry Brubaker, fighting resentment and cowardice -- Tough Irishman Mike Forney -- The burly and brave flagman on the deck -- These are some of the characters you'll not soon forget. And we’ll be able to talk also about duty, courage, skill, trust, teamwork, sacrifice, and more.  146 pages.  (Starting at $1 at AbeBooks and copies in OPL)

4) Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas -- Two decades have passed since the famous swordsmen triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and M’lady in The Three Musketeers. Time has weakened their bodies a bit and dispersed them to pursue individual ends. But treason and skullduggery still cry out for justice. So when civil war endangers the throne of France and Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold, the immortal quartet comes out of retirement to cross swords once again with the malevolent forces of history...and time itself.  (880 pages. New: $10.85. Used from $0.48 at Amazon.  Free Kindle edition.  4 copies in OPL.)

5) The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington -- This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel portrays the decline of the wealthy Amberson family, serving as a touching backdrop for the huge social changes America saw in the decades following the Industrial Revolution. Rather than join the modern age, George Amberson insists on remaining a "gentleman" and tries desperately to hang on to his patrician pride. But his town soon becomes a city and the family palace becomes surrounded by industry, destroying the elegant, cloistered lifestyle enjoyed by the family in years gone by. I really enjoyed this novel and have thought an awful lot about its lessons. 276 pages.  (New $13. Used from $.01 Free Kindle edition. 2 in OPL.)

6) Arc de Triomphe by Erich Maria Remarque -- Paris, just before World War II. A skilled, principled physician is caring for patients even though he is a "displaced person" without a passport who must elude the authorities in order to keep from being sent back to Nazi Germany. And yes, the novel has romance, intrigue, a tremendous amount of tension, and inspiring themes. This was quite rightly an international bestseller.  464 pages.  (Used from $.68 at Amazon.)

7) The Return of Don Quixote by GK Chesterton -- This was GK’s last novel and, like all his others, the plot is a bit difficult to describe. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable or provocative.  The action begins with an amateur theatrical but one of the drafted characters, librarian Michael Herne, decides he likes life a lot better in his medieval character’s guise. It is a superb way for GKC to use the past to comment on the present. There’s a lot of classic Chesterton here: politics, history, religion, and human nature – all delightfully and uniquely expressed. 220 pages.  (Used single copies from $11.66 or in Volume 8 of The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton starting at $18 from Amazon.)

8) Run Silent, Run Deep by Commander Edward L. Beach, Jr. -- No, this isn't much like the Clark Gable-Burt Lancaster flick of the same name. The book is different -- and much more interesting and worthwhile. The novel provides a detailed look at submarine service during World War II through the eyes of one crew, but the reader learns a lot about how subs worked, training, strategy, Pearl Harbor, and matters of the human soul. The plot also involves a very daring adventure against a Japanese war genius. Beach himself served on submarines in the Pacific during the war but his writing is terrific too.  343 pages.  (Used from $1 at AbeBooks.)

9) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier -- "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." You loved the movie; I think you’ll love the book – even though you’ll find the ending quite a bit different.  Du Maurier is an incomparable craftsman and in Rebecca she has created one of America’s most intense and intriguing gothic novels.  416 pages.  (Used copies starting at $.01 at Amazon.  10 copies in OPL.)

10) The Card by Arnold Bennett -- I looked for this novel after watching the 1952 Alec Guinness movie of the same name.  I was delightfully surprised to find that I enjoyed the novel as much as the film comedy. The plot involves Denry Machin's use of audacity, luck and inventiveness to rise from a menial job as a collection agent's clerk to Mayor. It's a funny and heartwarming novel, one that may provide us with a few helpful ideas for when we need to go out and scare up living money ourselves.  222 pages.  (Free Kindle edition and used from $1.50 Amazon)

In addition, we propose five books for re-reading: Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago; Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables; Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo; Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace; and Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.

Today's Posts

A Disastrous Election But I'm Still Upbeat

Entering the Bleak Winter

Which Political Party Is Corrupting the Vote? The Same Party That Fought Abolition.

Liberals Mistake Forward for Downward

A Disastrous Election But I'm Still Upbeat

The November LifeSharer letter (Vital Signs Ministries' monthly missive) is out and up -- out in the mails as of Tuesday afternoon and up onto the Vital Signs website right here. The letter was sent out in tandem with a more detailed evaluation of the election, an essay entitled "Entering the Bleak Winter." That essay is also posted on the Vital Signs page.

Below I print a teaser from the LifeSharer letter itself:

The morning after the election Claire and I were in front of Planned Parenthood, praying and sidewalk counseling.  And though it is always frustrating and sad to engage in this ministry, it did seem appropriate on several levels.  First of all, it’s what we’ve done for almost 30 years – taking the truths and mercies of God right to the doors of the death chambers.  No matter who was in the White House or the mayor’s office, we’ve done our best to give voice to God’s unequivocal declaration of the sanctity of human life – in print, in conferences, on the radio, in starting the CPC, in cyberspace, in nursing homes, in audiences large and small all over the world and, yes, at the abortion mills.

It’s never been easy – even when the government powers recognized our rights of free speech.  But, as some of you remember, that hasn’t always been the case.  We had to endure hassles from police and prosecutors (as well as several arrests and court cases) before a successful lawsuit finally brought a recognition of our rights to peacefully, prayerfully gather on a sidewalk.

Will a second Obama term undo these religious liberties?  There’s no doubt the President will try his hardest to make that happen.  But that’s what made our presence at the Planned Parenthood the day after the election particularly appropriate.  It signaled our dedication to our high calling no matter how low the culture goes.  The Lord doesn’t tell us to serve Him only when it’s easy and popular.  We serve Him because it is right to do so…because He is worthy of our best and bravest service…and because He rewards His faithful servants in ways that are more bountiful than we can ever imagine...

The rest of the November LifeSharer letter is right here.

Entering the Bleak Winter

Denny Hartford ponders the 2012 elections.

Entering the Bleak Winter

The failure of the grand experiment which was the American republic cannot be blamed entirely on Barack Obama.  The post-Christian movement which has increasingly exerted its influence in popular culture, academia, the press, and government over the last century or so has had many other key players.  Nevertheless, the re-election of this remarkably arrogant socialist (remarkable because his arrogance is based on so little merit) may well go down in history as the beginning of the end – the November event which ushered in America’s “bleak winter.”  The lighted city on the hill prophesied by John Winthrop, saved by Abraham Lincoln and cherished (though perhaps even then in its twilight glow) by Ronald Reagan is about to go dark.

The election serves as a barometer, a revelation of the current condition of the country by which we can reasonably forecast future events.  And so I begin by suggesting that November 6th blew away the antiquated, wishful thinking held by most conservative pundits that the majority of citizens in the United States were center-right in their political disposition and basically decent, patriotic and intelligent.  They are not.  They are instead a people who have embraced the allure of socialism and the redistribution of wealth despite the abounding (and alarming) evidence of history that such a system is bound to fail.  They are a people to whom economics is a boring abstraction, a problem willingly left to the politicians who make the biggest material promises.  Free college tuition.  Free medical care.  Free food.  Free birth control.  Free insurance.  Free phones.  Free dough.

But who pays for these things?  Half of the Americans who voted last week have no idea.  And they don’t care.  They obviously trust Barack Obama and the Democrats to requisition the money from what they believe are the bottomless pockets of the despised rich.  Fairness and economic facts be damned.  Just give us our stuff.

These post-Christian Americans do not believe in Jesus.  But they do believe in Santa Claus.  However, the Santa Claus of their imagination doesn’t simply provide a toy or two for morally deserving kids.  No, the socialist Santa Claus they believe in doesn’t make anything.    He redistributes.  Before he comes down the chimney to leave stuff under your holiday tree, he’s gone down Donald Trump’s chimney and filled his bag with Trump’s stuff.  And the socialist Santa doesn’t limit his generosity to toys – he hands out everything you’ll need from cradle to grave.  Oh yes; that list of good little boys and girls?  Forget it.  The socialist Santa is a post-Christian elf who has dispensed with those old-fashioned moral qualifications.  He gives to everyone in equal shares – except those “more equal” shares he gives to government workers, union members, students, and undocumented immigrants.  Happy Kwanzaa, folks.

It must also be emphasized that the election results revealed more than a foolish trust in an ever-expanding welfare state.  Our electorate’s post-Christian ideas of morality also became clear.  Examples?  Referenda protecting marriage were defeated.  A woman who had been exposed as an unrepentant liar about her legal career and ancestry was nevertheless elected to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.  An “open lesbian” was elected to the U.S. Senate in Wisconsin.  A felon who was holed up in a mental institution the day of the election was voted back into the Congress for Illinois.  Marijuana for “recreational use” was legalized in two states, for “medicinal use” in another.  Furthermore, several men and women of sterling character, experience, skill and dedication were denied political office principally because they voiced their pro-life, pro-family, and patriotic convictions.

Tuesday night showed us not only how bloated a behemoth the entitlement-oriented Nanny State has become (a monster far bigger than anything FDR or even LBJ dared to envision), it also revealed just how far the decades of revisionist history, self-indulgence, pop culture decadence, government freebies, judicial incompetence, and aggressive secularism have brought us...

Read the rest of "Entering the Bleak Winter," Denny's post-election essay here at the Vital Signs Ministries website.

Which Political Party Is Corrupting the Vote? The Same Party That Fought Abolition.

Greg Richards gives a stimulating (and very enlightening) call to action in an important American Thinker article entitled "Rendezvous with Destiny." I urge you to read it and to use it to spark conversations with fellow conservatives.

I am going to print below, however, passages from Richard's fine essay which deal with two monumentally important points; that is, the need to radically reform the voting process and the need to effectively educate people about the historical distinctives between the two parties on race relations.

On Making the Votes Counted the Same as the Votes Cast --

...An example of just one task: we need to know every detail of the voting process.  Who makes the machines?  How are they initialized?  How do we know they are initialized?  How do we know they are counting correctly?

This will take time.  A key technique of the Democratic Party is stealing elections.  They have done it for two centuries.  They used Jim Crow to steal elections.  They used Tammany Hall in the 19th century.  They used, and still use, big-city machines to steal the vote in the 20th century.  Now they are using false registration, ballot stuffing and count-rigging in tight contests.  The Dems are there ahead of us and they are not going to share the ground. The judges will not support us.  It will not be easy, but it is necessary to assure that the country is getting a fair count...

On the Real Record of Civil Rights --

...We need to get our message out.  We don't have to be obnoxious, but we have to stop trimming in polite society, as we all do.  We need to make our case.  It turns out that all the misrepresentations of the Dems have been absorbed as reality: if you are a Republican you are on the wrong side of history.  We need to tell our story.

For instance, why did it take until the 1960's for the final Civil Rights law to be passed?  Because it took that long for the Dems to throw in the towel on segregation.  They blocked anti-lynching laws in the 1920's and 1930's, they threw blacks off the land in the New Deal, but by the 1950s, the Republicans were able to enforce Brown v. Board of Education (Little Rock) and pass two civil rights laws.

With the movement led by the Rev. Dr. King, the Dems could finally not ignore the developing political power of the African-American community.  So in their own interest of maintaining access to power, they threw in the towel on blocking the advancement of the black community.  It wasn't principle; they didn't do it until their power was challenged. 

And then they came up with welfare as a career to sidetrack black progress.  The African-American family survived 250 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow, but was destroyed by 40 years of liberalism

That is only one story we need to tell.  Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried.  The 20th century is littered with it.  When the wealth is redistributed, without exception it is goes to the redistributors, not to the people.  The nomenklatura in a socialist economy is about 10% of the population.  Everyone else stands in line to shop at bare shelves...

Liberals Mistake Forward for Downward

By every objective measure, America is in decline. But liberals insist that it is moving "forward." The modern philosophy of progress is Darwinian, holding that the latest development, whether of a country or a species, is always the best one. Mutations are assumed to be perfective, not destructive…

"It is dying but it laughs," said the Romans of their collapsing empire. The chortling of the Bill Mahers last week deserves a similar line. The smugness seems to grow in proportion to America's problems and pathologies. Their assertions about Obama's socialism stimulating the economy or gay marriage strengthening the family are on the same level as their claim that pot is good for public health…

Desperate to win in a declining culture, prominent Republicans have already called for a more "modern" party. It only took a couple of days for them to embrace the wisdom of the Democrats and call for a relaxed abortion stance among other "evolutions." But why stop there? If the purpose of politics is not to win on sound principles (so that problems can actually be solved when you do win) but to win through pandering, the Republicans should discard their whole platform. After all, fiscal conservatism didn't fare very well either. America could then move forward even faster toward destruction, with two liberal parties of varying degrees, jostling with each other in a competition to see who can deliver bread and circuses to the mob to greater cheers...

(From "Obama's Smug America" by George Neumayr, The American Spectator)

Today's Posts

"When Swing Was King" -- Back to Back

Are You Hip to These Happenings?

Bad Move, Indeed. America's Youth Voted Against...America's Youth!

It's the Morality, Stupid

"When Swing Was King" -- Back to Back

Yesterday afternoon was a particularly intense (and fun) one for Claire and I as we jammed in two "When Swing Was King" presentations in just three hours. Wow.

Our regular schedule had us going to the theater room of Heritage Point at 2 o'clock to show the newest volume and we had been hustling all morning to be ready. I'd had an early morning meeting and worked on a proposal to resurrect the Omaha Chesterton Society while Claire got the November LifeSharer letter printed up. (She had printed up the return envelopes the day before.) Then we met back at the house to get it folded, stuffed, stamped and sent out, listening to old radio broadcasts of Dragnet that we have on CD as we worked. (As usual, the project was a 3-program affair. Thus, we were able to listen to Joe Friday and Frank Smith catch a crook, solve a murder, and bust up a dope ring -- all in one sitting!)

We barely finished in time for our afternoon presentation and were in the process of packing our equipment when a call came in from the activities director at Brookstone down in Millard, another one of the assisted living facilities that is on our monthly schedule. "Our music act just cancelled and everyone is set up for a big 4 o'clock party. Is there any way you guys could come?" Claire asked, "You mean instead of our regular day?" The AD responded, "Well, I know I'm asking a lot but we'd love you to come that day too!"

Claire yelled out and told me about the request (Janey was still on the phone) and I almost said no. After all, I didn't want to be so hurried that we wouldn't be able to spend the normal amount of time visiting with the residents at Heritage Point after the program. Then I remembered that the time necessary to set up over at Brookstone is minimal -- they set up the room for us and we use their screen and projection system. That made the difference. "Tell her okay. I think we can do it."

And we did.

We had a terrific time at Heritage Point with the room packed and wonderful visiting before and after. One young woman had come to take her mom out for a hamburger but mom wasn't about to miss "When Swing Was King." So, the daughter stayed and they watched and listened to the presentation together and, from where we were sitting, it seemed that the daughter was swaying to the music almost as much as her mom! After the show, the daughter told us how much her mother loves our program and looks forward to it every month. She wanted to take our picture so that other family members would know who her mom was talking about when she talked about "When Swing Was King."

We also got a kick out of the daughter's complements about my narration in the show. "You know so much history and your voice is like listening to someone on the radio." We just laughed and said thank you. But Claire later teased me, "Interesting. Take that love of music that you've had since you were little, add to it a Master's degree is history, and then add all those years on KGBI and what do you get? "When Swing Was King!"

Maybe so.

Anyhow, we did make it to Brookstone and we had a great time there too. The activities staff is one of the best around (Janey, Lynn, Kim, and the rest) and they were deeply grateful for our willingness to fill in. We visited with some of our regular pals (sadly, two of those regular pals have died in recent weeks) but we made a couple of new friendships too. One of them was with a spirited Benson High grad who went to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in the 40s and ended up singing with people like Danny Kaye and Desi Arnaz. Cool, huh? We're really looking forward to hearing a lot more from this gal.

So, it was a splendid afternoon of music, memories and warmhearted fellowship. In short, it was another afternoon of"When Swing Was King." And remember, these were only presentations 2 and 3 out of 5 this week!

Please remember too that this outreach is given free of charge to the residents of 13 different nursing homes and senior living facilities every month. And so your financial contributions to Vital Signs Ministries (as well as your prayers) are really important to help us keep this wonderful ministry going strong. Thanks.

By the way, here is the current playlist for this edition of "When Swing Was King."

1) Glenn Miller Orchestra (vocals by Ray Eberle)
"Moonlight Cocktail"

2) Artie Shaw Orchestra
"I Cover the Waterfront"

3) Count Basie Orchestra (vocals by Jimmy Rushing)
"I'm Gonna' Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter"

4) The Mills Brothers
"You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You"

5) Benny Goodman Orchestra (vocals by Helen Ward)
"These Foolish Things"

6) Ray Anthony Orchestra
"This Love of Mine"

7) Tommy Dorsey Orchestra (vocals by Frank Sinatra & the Pied Pipers)
"There Are Such Things"

8) Hal Kemp Orchestra
"42nd Street"

9) Harry James Orchestra (vocals by Buddy DeVito)
"If I Loved You"

10) Guy Lombardo Orchestra
"How Deep Is the Ocean"

11) Bing Crosby
"Sunday, Monday or Always"

12) Vaughn Monroe Orchestra
"Ghost Riders in the Sky"

13) The Andrews Sisters
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"

Are You Hip to These Happenings?

The LifeSharer letter was sent out yesterday afternoon so those of you on our mailing list will get it today or tomorrow...or pretty quick for those of you in far off places. Enclosed with the letter is an essay responding to the election and its aftermath, "Entering the Bleak Winter."

However, both the letter and the essay will be posted on the Vital Signs Ministries website tomorrow and I will provide a link to them here on the blog.

In the meantime, I pass along these links to articles I found of special interest. I'd probably give you a few more or add some of my own comments to them but time doesn't permit that today. We have a "When Swing Was King" presentation this afternoon (one of five this week!) and we're trying to get ready for the fall retreat this weekend in Nebraska City for the Notting Hill Napoleons, our rather infamous book club. So here are the articles:

 * "The Dirty Little Secret of 2012" by Michael Medved at Town Hall.

* "Are We All Europeans Now?" by Samuel Gregg at NRO.

* "5 Ways To Protect Yourself Against Obamacare" by Paul Hsieh in Forbes.

* "HHS Threat Undiminished" by Kyle Duncan at the National Catholic Register.

* "The Right Isn't Waving A White Flag" by Jonah Goldberg, Town Hall.

* "Re-elected, Obama Takes Aim at Religious Liberty" by Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner.

Bad Move, Indeed. America's Youth Voted Against...America's Youth!

Dancing in Chicago, young voters gleefully celebrated President Obama’s victory. Indeed, voters younger than 30 may well have changed the outcome of the race. They represented 19 percent of all voters, even more than they did in 2008, and they favored President Obama by 60 to 37 percent, according to exit polling.

One college student asked me, "What exactly are they so excited about?"

Dr. Scott Atlas answers that question in this excellent (and pretty scary) article, "A Pyrrhic Victory for America’s Youth" over at NRO.

It's the Morality, Stupid

...I don't hold President Obama completely responsible for his unconstitutional actions. It's the American people who are to blame, for it is we who have lost our morality and our love, knowledge and respect for our Constitution, laying the foundation for Washington tyranny.

It is all part and parcel of "defining deviancy down," which is the term former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined in 1993 to describe how we've switched from moral absolutes to situational morality and from strict constitutional interpretation to the Constitution's being a "living document."

Constitutional principles that do not allow one American to live at the expense of another American are to be held in contempt. Today's Americans have betrayed the values that made us a great nation, and that does not bode well for future generations.

(Walter Williams, "Our Deviant Society," CNS News)

Back to the Blog

After those cataclysmic, highly distressing, but not quite unexpected election results, I took a week's leave from both the blog and Facebook. It was a needed respite from the political maelstrom -- a break in which to rest a bit, to ponder and pray, and to create the November LifeSharer letter which would respond to the election.

It was also a time to plan on action steps relevant to what the election revealed about America...and about the church.

That LifeSharer letter just went in the mail this morning.

If you'd like to receive Vital Signs' monthly letter (at various times a newsletter, action alert, religious essay, or often a combination of all of those) but you're not on the VSM mailing list, just sens us a request via e-mail or FB message. Plus, the LifeSharer letter is always posted on the Vital Signs Ministries website. This one will be there on Friday.

The break from the blog didn't mean I could break from other things, however. So, it's been a full enough week: writing that LifeSharer; creating a new "When Swing Was King" volume; doing a couple of "When Swing Was King" presentations; sidewalk counseling; sermon and Sunday school preparation; planning for this weekend's bed and breakfast stay with our literary club; and a lot of evening reading.

But for now, we're off for another "When Swing Was King" show.

Back on the blog tomorrow.

Today's Posts

Before You Go To The Polls, Please Consider These Items.

For My Principled Friends Who Will Not Vote for Romney

Remembering 1938's New England Hurricane

Before You Go To The Polls, Please Consider These Items.

* The average share of the American debt for every American under the age of 18 is now…take a deep breath, kids…$218,676. And growing more every day.

* "Five hundred retired generals and admirals are running an ad in Monday's editions of The Washington Times calling on the country to elect Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday…The retired admirals and generals said they decided to take this public stand to try to head off 'having to live through four more years of what has been experienced since January 20th, 2009.'"



* The mayor of Somerville, Massachusetts has banned the use of the term “illegal” when referring to…uh, illegal aliens. Added his honor, "We made it clear here that whatever your status is, wherever you’re from, we are your mayor, we’re your aldermen, this is your city and we’re here to service you."

* Here's a report from Katie Pavlic, News Editor for Town Hall, describing the takeover of an entire polling place by Obama backers of the NAACP in Houston, Texas.

* What did you think about that stirring demonstration by black citizens the other night in Chicago, a demonstration against Mayor Emanuel, ACORN, Action Now, intolerant unions, and an unresponsive media? Oh, that's right. You never saw any coverage of that demonstration -- even though it occurred right outside the ABC news station!



* "Perrysburg police arrested four Toledo area men early Friday morning on charges of stealing Mitt Romney campaign signs in Wood and Lucas counties in Northwest Ohio. The signs were found in a pickup truck owned by Sheet Metal Workers International, Union Local 33 in Parma, according to the police report."

* Over 30 major newspapers that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 have decided to spurn him and plump for Mitt Romney instead. They included the New York Daily News, the Nashville Tennessean, the Des Moines Register, and the Orlando Sentinel. The two latest defectors are the Albuquerque Journal and the Wisconsin State Journal, the latter published in that bastion of liberalism, Madison.

For My Principled Friends Who Will Not Vote for Romney

I have a few Christian friends (at least I hope they're still my friends) who plan tomorrow on voting for a third party candidate, or a write-in candidate, or in foregoing altogether the opportunity to vote.

They think I'm wrong to be voting for the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket, let alone actually encouraging others to do the same. They believe that I'm being inconsistent with other values I hold, that I'm adopting an unbliblical utilitarian strategy, that I'm being co-opted by a statist philosophy, that I'm failing to take the long view, and so on.

They may not believe me, but I do understand their feelings. I'm even sympathetic with some of them. I am, after all, a lifelong Independent and Christian pro-life activist who knows a little about spiritual values, courage of conviction, taking unpopular positions, withstanding pressures to compromise, and even sitting in jail for civil disobedience.

But I will be voting Republican tomorrow.

Throughout the campaign, I have provided here various resources to help people make informed, principled decisions about the election -- an election which, because of the prospect of another four years of Barack Obama, will be the most dramatically critical of my long lifetime.

A few of those resources have spoken specifically to that small circle of my Christian friends who believe a vote for Romney is foolish, counter-productive, or even wicked. As another act of friendship (hoping that the friendship survives whatever they decide to do with the issues raised in these various articles), I provide links to some those (as well as a couple of newer items) below.

* Dr. Joel Beeke, author, president of Puritan Reformed Seminary, and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at that same institution has written a very interesting essay, "Why My Conscience Won’t Let Me Not Vote for Romney."

* Christianity & Politics: Some Crucial Questions by Randy Alcorn (Also, since this post, Randy has two more in his series right here at his blog.)

* Why Would a Christian Vote for a Mormon President? (This is my own essay.)

* Famed Christian Apologist Is Voting for Romney

Remembering 1938's New England Hurricane

Charles C. W. Cooke over at NRO's The Corner posted this 10-minute film originally produced by the Works Project Administration's description of the 1938 New England Hurricane and its aftermath. That storm included winds clocked at nearly 200 mph. It was followed by severe flooding in many places. 57,000 homes were damaged and up to 800 people were killed.

The film provides perspective on the recent New England storm and, as Cooke points out, it also provides a reproof on all of the global warming scaremongers who are insisting that Hurricane Sandy "just had to be" caused by man-made climate change.

Today's Posts

Obama's "War on Women" Strategy Backfired Badly

Nebraskans United for Life Endorsements

Hobby Lobby: Fighting For Life and Religious Freedom Against ObamaCare

Will the Left Steal the Election?

The Democrat Ticket Is Flat-Out Lying About Abortion

Nevada's Largest Newspaper: "Obama Unworthy Commander-in-Chief"

Obama's "War on Women" Strategy Backfired Badly

Democrats thought they had a winning campaign theme in the “war on women.” Yet the president’s fall in the polls among women voters shows this strategy isn’t working. This campaign theme’s failure is a big victory for women.

According to a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, Gov. Mitt Romney is pulling even with President Barack Obama among women voters at 47-47. Just a month ago, Mr. Romney was lagging by 16 points, and Mr. Obama seemed destined to repeat his 2008 performance of commanding 56 percent of the female vote...

While Mr. Romney has been offering women a vision of economic freedom, opportunity and prosperity, the Obama campaign has continued to push the tired idea that women are all victims and that anyone who questions further expanding government power is party to a “war on women.”

Such arguments are plainly insulting to women. Rather than treating women as strong, independent individuals, those perpetuating the idea of a “war on women” advocate policies that cast women as helpless without government support. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the other campaign tactic has been to reduce women to their body parts.

The Obama campaign’s troubling depiction of women came into focus earlier this election cycle with the release of the Life of Julia, an infographic detailing how women will supposedly benefit from Mr. Obama’s policies from ages 3 to 67. Website visitors are invited to “take a look at how President Obama’s policies help one woman over her lifetime—and how Mitt Romney would change her story.” In Julia’s life, government is the solution—providing tax credits, student loans, health care, business loans, retirement benefits and more.

This Life of Julia infographic grabbed national headlines because it raised questions about how the Obama campaign viewed women and the relationship between women and the government. At each major stage in her life, Julia is dependent on the government, apparently unable to do things on her own.

Then there was the Obama campaign’s Tumblr, which sought to appeal to women with an image that read, “Vote like your lady parts depend on it.” And most recently, we have a new ad by the Obama campaign, “Lena Dunham: Your First Time,” which compares a young woman’s “first time” with her first time voting.

Is this really what Mr. Obama thinks appeals to women?...

The difference in ads demonstrates the different visions these two candidates offer for women. One candidate offers a vision of women dependent on government who vote based on their body parts, while the other offers a vision of independent women who make their own choices about careers and family. Based on this poll, it looks like more and more women are choosing the latter. That’s not just good news for Mr. Romney, but for all American women.

(Karin Agness, "Obama’s Failed Female Pandering," Washington Times)

Nebraskans United for Life Endorsements

U.S. President & Vice President:
Recommended Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan

U.S. Senate:
Recommended Deb Fischer (Questionnaire not returned)

U.S. Congress:
District 1 Jeff Fortenberry,
District 2 Lee Terry
District 3 Adrian Smith

Nebraska Legislature:
District 2 Bill Kintner
District 9 Erica Fish
Dist 19 William Goodpasture
Dist 49 John Murante
Dist 45 Richard Carter

State BD of Education:
District 3 Tom Schommer

University of Nebraska Board of Regents:
District 4 Larry Bradley

And there's more...

Hobby Lobby: Fighting For Life and Religious Freedom Against ObamaCare

Over at NRO's The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Kyle Duncan, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who is representing Hobby Lobby CEOs, David and Barbara Green, in the company's lawsuit against the religious bigotry of ObamaCare.

Evangelicals, the Greens are opposed to the abortion-inducing drugs included in [the ObamaCare insurance] mandate, joined with Catholics and other people of faith in business, religious institutions, and faith-based social-service organizations (including schools, hospices, hospitals) who have gone to court in recent months in response to the coercive mandate…

Barack Obama’s Department of Justice argues, that religious-liberty rights to not extend to…businessmen. Recall that this is an administration whose posture toward religious liberty was slapped down unanimously earlier this year in the Hosanna-Tabor case involving a Lutheran religious school. And yet the administration continues to work to erode religious liberty…

The Greens do not have a religious objection to contraceptives in general. But they do object to “emergency contraceptives” like the “morning after pill” (Plan B) and the “week after pill” (ella) because those drugs — as the FDA’s own birth control guide explains — can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the womb. For the Greens, like many Christians, that amounts to a chemical abortion. They cannot in good conscience offer those drugs in their health plan because they believe it implicates them in abortion. But the Health and Human Services mandate forces them to cover those drugs for free. If they refuse, they risk fines of about $1.3 million per day. This is an intolerable position, and so the Greens felt they had no other option than filing a lawsuit…

Hobby Lobby is not the first business to sue over the HHS mandate, but it is the largest. When a company this prominent feels compelled to sue its own government, something significant has happened. The lawsuit raises important questions about whether government can force religious believers to give up their faith as a cost of doing business…

The administration’s arguments in this case are shocking. Here’s what they are saying: once someone starts a “secular” business, he categorically loses any right to run that business in accordance with his conscience. The business owner simply leaves her First Amendment rights at home when she goes to work at the business she built…

The administration’s position here — while astonishing — is actually consistent with its overall view of the place of religion in civil society. After all, this is the administration who argued in the Hosanna-Tabor case last year in the Supreme Court that the religion clauses of the First Amendment offered no special protection to a church’s right to choose its ministers — a position that the Court rejected 9-0. This is the administration which has taken to referring to “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion” — suggesting that religious freedom consists in being free to engage in private rituals and prayers, but not in carrying your religious convictions into public life. And this is the administration who crafted a “religious employer” exemption to the HHS mandate so narrow that a Catholic charity does not qualify for conscience protection if it serves non-Catholic poor people.

As you point out, the administration is trying to justify its rigid stance against religious business owners by saying otherwise they would become a “law unto themselves,” and be able to do all sorts of nasty things to their employees — like force them to attend Bible studies, or fire them if they denied the divinity of Christ. Nonsense. Hobby Lobby isn’t arguing for the right to impose the Greens’ religion on employees, nor for the right to fire employees of different religions. There’s already a federal law that protects employees from religious discrimination and that’s a very good thing. This case is about something entirely different:  it’s about stopping the government from coercing religious business owners. The government wants to fine the Greens if they do not violate their own faith by handing out free abortion drugs, and now it’s saying they don’t even have the right to complain in court about it...

Will the Left Steal the Election?

From the "What You Can't Win, You Steal" file….

Imagine you go to the polls and choose Mitt Romney on an electronic machine, but your vote comes up Barack Obama. So you re-enter your choice, but the president's name still stubbornly appears. Then a third try. Ditto.

Innocent malfunction...or something else?

Whatever the case, this has already happened to voters in states such as Nevada, Ohio, Kansas, North Carolina, Missouri, and Colorado -- four of which are swing states…

Selwyn Duke has a provocative, perturbing article over at American Thinker, "Can Democrat-leaning Voting Machines Win Election for Obama?"


Check it out and ponder the death of democracy.

The Democrat Ticket Is Flat-Out Lying About Abortion

Nevada's Largest Newspaper: "Obama Unworthy Commander-in-Chief"

Wow. The editorial in today’s Las Vegas Review-Journal (the largest daily circulation paper in swing state Nevada) not only energetically endorses Mitt Romney, it absolutely excoriates Barack Obama. And it begins with a dramatic headline that brings no small amount of angst to Harry Reid and the White House, "Benghazi Blunder: Obama Unworthy Commander-in-Chief."

Here's a few excerpts:

...The Obama administration sat by doing nothing for seven hours that night, ignoring calls to dispatch help from our bases in Italy, less than two hours away. It has spent the past seven weeks stretching the story out, engaging in misdirection and deception involving supposed indigenous outrage over an obscure anti-Muslim video, confident that with the aid of a docile press corps this infamous climax to four years of misguided foreign policy can be swept under the rug, at least until after Tuesday's election…

Not only did the White House do nothing, there are now reports that a counterterrorism team ready to launch a rescue mission was ordered to stand down.

The official explanation for the inadequate security? This administration didn't want to "offend the sensibilities" of the new radical Islamic regime which American and British arms had so recently helped install in Libya.

The official explanation for why Obama administration officials watched the attack unfold for seven hours, refusing repeated requests to send the air support and relief forces that sat less than two hours away in Italy? Silence...

This administration is an embarrassment on foreign policy and incompetent at best on the economy - though a more careful analysis shows what can only be a perverse and willful attempt to destroy our prosperity. Back in January 2008, Barack Obama told the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan, "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them." He added, "Under my plan ... electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." It was also in 2008 that Mr. Obama's future Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, famously said it would be necessary to "figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" - $9 a gallon…

These behaviors go far beyond "spin." They amount to a pack of lies. To return to office a narcissistic amateur who seeks to ride this nation's economy and international esteem to oblivion, like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb to its target at the end of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," would be disastrous.

Candidate Obama said if he couldn't fix the economy in four years, his would be a one-term presidency.

Mitt Romney is moral, capable and responsible man. Just this once, it's time to hold Barack Obama to his word. Maybe we can all do something about that, come Tuesday.

Today's Posts

Are Liberals Really Tolerant?

Blaming Capitalism: One of the Left's Favorite Games

ObamaCare: A Drastic Increase in Government Power, A Drastic Decrease in Medical Care

Read the Rest of These Important Articles

Are Liberals Really Tolerant?

Liberals are awfully tolerant.

Well, they are always telling us so anyway. And, to give them credit, they are very tolerant with certain things.

They are just fine, for instance, with sexual aberration. And with abortion, profanity, ever-increasing taxes on people besides themselves, physician-assisted euthanasia, comprehensive media bias, leniency with criminals, religion (if it is Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Scientology, or earth worship), global warming, recreational drug use, animal rights, gambling, ethnic pride (unless it involves Anglo/European stock), deadbeat dads, indecency, experimentation on human embryos, judicial activism, labor union coercion, pacifism, the welfare state, civil disobedience, revisionist history, no-fault divorce, government bailouts, the United Nations, and even violence (when performed in the service of Marxism or in other cases where you can effectively "stick it to the Man").

But liberals do draw the line and will declare a striking, even strident, intolerance towards other things. Like an elderly lady peacefully, silently praying outside a Planned Parenthood abortion mill or a preacher daring to teach the Bible's condemnation on homosexual practice.

Oh, boy, Liberals will definitely not tolerate that kind of behavior.

But are there other things where one might catch the liberal practicing intolerance?

Oh, yeah.

Liberals are zealously intolerant of Christianity, parental rights, capitalism, the "military-industrial complex" (especially, the military), students having Bible studies, the NRA, Rush Limbaugh, prayers before high school football games, the Constitution, U.S. borders, the death penalty, Fox News, virginity, Israel, tough drunk-driving laws, Ronald Reagan, corporal punishment, classics-based education, the Chamber of Commerce, tax cuts, and political balance in the media.

Also, liberals are zealously intolerant of crosses, thrift, abstinence-based sex education curricula, voter I.D. laws, Margaret Thatcher, evangelism, business (big and small), three strikes and you're out laws, freedom from foreign dependence on energy, the Drudge Report, home Bible studies, censorship of any kind, pro-life billboards, tax-exempt status for churches, DDT, Ann Coulter, and traditional marriage and family values.

Also, liberals are zealously intolerant of national sovereignty, open shop practices, any limitations to abortion, Oliver North, creationism and intelligent design, a strong national defense, large families, John 3:16 signs, Hollywood conservatives, school choice, budgets, strict constructionists on the bench, pro-life pregnancy help clinics, religious conscience clauses, and a lot more.

That's an awful lot of intolerance, wouldn't you say?

Indeed, I'm afraid that the way liberals use "intolerance" is just the way that Vizzini used the word "inconceivable" in "The Princess Bride."

And that would be -- wrongly.

Blaming Capitalism: One of the Left's Favorite Games

Mitt Romney said President Obama's cronyism isn't about picking winners and losers, it's about picking losers. But what is cronyism? And why are taxpayers the real losers?

ObamaCare: A Drastic Increase in Government Power, A Drastic Decrease in Medical Care

ObamaCare isn't just taking America towards bigger costs for medical care, longer waits for treatment, and dramatically reduced choices in the matter of doctors, hospitals, surgeries and medicines. It is doing that...but it's also taking us towards the same kind of failing "national health" system as that now being endured in Canada.

And, sister…that ain't anywhere you want to go.

Read the Rest of These Important Articles

Obama has come across as an amazingly close approximation of Jimmy Carter, complete with a slow-growth economy and a foreign policy disaster, though one of Obama's empty boasts was he understood the Arab world especially well. His backup team of David Axelrod and David Plouffé serve as second-rate Jody Powells and Ham Jordans...

(Read the rest of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s "Au Revoir, Mr. President" at American Spectator.)

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"I decided to not let cancer overwhelm me, I decided to overwhelm cancer with a shoring up of an attitude that would trust God in the midst of this and not doubt Him." 

(Read the rest of Joni Eareckson Tada's "Breast Cancer Update" in Religion & Ethics)

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What do you call it when a self-proclaimed “Soldier of Allah” shouting “Allahu Akhbar” opens fire on dozens of US citizens — killing and maiming as many innocents as he can? You call it terrorism, if you’re sane. And “workplace violence,” if you’re the Obama administration.

That’s right: Three years after Nidal Malik Hasan’s jihadist shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in which he murdered 13 people and wounded 29 more, the Defense Department still refuses to classify the attack as what it is: an act of terror. Instead, it continues to label the shooting officially a case of “workplace violence.”

(Read the rest of the New York Post editorial, "Fort Hood: Diversity Rules.")

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Same-sex "marriage" may be losing voters, but it still has a commanding lead in one area: corporate support. With their edge slowly slipping away, liberals in Washington State have made a frantic pitch for help from U.S. retail giants. Already, several of them have pitched in with five- and six-figure donations, including the largest check ever--$2.5 million from Amazon.com founders Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos.

Recently, same-sex "marriage" supporters landed another big fish, Costco Warehouse. In a new ad, the wholesale company bulks up its radical agenda by inking its name to the business leaders backing Referendum 74. Nordstrom jumped in next, insisting that employees won't truly feel "welcomed and respected" until Washington redefines marriage for everyone. And while Starbucks, REI, and friends may be cheering marriage out of existence, new polling says the issue is a jump ball in Washington State…

(Read the rest of "Costco Supports Wholesale Changes on Marriage" on this Washington Update page of Family Research Council.)

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Documents uncovered by pro-life activists show that Attorney General Eric Holder is tied to an abortionist who has been accused of defrauding Medicaid, killing a woman during a botched abortion, and allowing another woman’s child to die due to sub-par medical care.

Critics say this apparent conflict of interest may explain his obsession with prosecuting peaceful pro-life activists.

Government documents show that Eric Holder’s wife and sister-in-law rented facilities to abortionist Tyrone Cecil Malloy…

(Read the rest of Ben Johnson's article right here at LifeSiteNews.)