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.