OrthodoxNet.com Blog

FrontPageMagazine | Dennis Prager | Aug. 19, 2008

We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion — intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of “heretics,” holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion.

What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism — the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution, and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies. Continue Reading »

Human Events | Ann Coulter | Sep. 3, 2008

John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate finally gave Republicans a reason to vote for him — a reason, that is, other than B. Hussein Obama.

The media are hopping mad about McCain’s vice presidential selection, but they’re really furious over at MSNBC. After drawing “Keith (plus) Obama” hearts on their denim notebooks, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews stayed up all night last Thursday, writing jokes about Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the presumed vice presidential pick. Now they can’t use any of them.

So the media are taking it out on our brave Sarah and her 17-year-old daughter. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Thomas Lifson | Sep. 3, 2008

Great analogy from the American Thinker readers posts:

The mass-hysteria phenomenon of Obama worship proves the saying (Reagan’s?): “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Most of the Obamanians are pitiable secularists who are going through their whole lives without a clue as to what life is ABOUT.

It’s as if an aspiring carpenter spent his or her whole life just reading books about woodworking, without ever once actually picking up a hammer, nail or screwdriver. Meanwhile, they TALK endlessly about all the things they’re thinking about building, and they dream and they plan and they think and they talk and they never actually DO anything–and this goes on for years and years and years and then they finally die without ever having finished–or even started–even a single, simple project. How very, very sad.

Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Thomas Lifson | Sep. 3, 2008

Liberals have long lamented the existence of two nations in America. They are right to do so today, but in a way they never meant. It is not the divide between rich and poor which soon will be causing serious pain on the left. Sarah Palin’s pending nomination for Vice President is exposing the depth of the cultural divide between Middle America and the leftists who have taken over the education, media, and cultural establishment of our country.

The announcement of Palin’s selection by Senator McCain last Saturday reportedly triggered outright laughter in newsrooms across the land, a nearly unanimous opinion that she would be a disaster for McCain. To the sort of people who believe themselves sophisticated citizens of the world and feel a sense of pride at saving the planet by purchasing carbon offsets, a woman who has borne five children is incomprehensible. Add in moose-hunting, a champion snowmobiler husband and a pregnant 17 year old daughter, and the phrases “white trash” and “trailer trash” are deployed. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Dennis Prager | Aug. 19, 2008

We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion — intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of “heretics,” holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion.

What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism — the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies.

For all the problems associated with belief in God, the death of God leads to far more of them. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Dennis Prager | Aug. 12, 2008

The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now. Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.

I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Paul Kengor | Aug. 10, 2008

In a tribute I wrote earlier, posted at National Review, I noted that it is impossible to capture in one column what Solzhenitsyn meant, experienced, and how he went about translating it to the West. Professors like me know such frustration well, as we struggle to fully convey the impact of such a man to a classroom of students born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In my earlier piece, I talked about The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn’s shocking firsthand account of the Soviet forced-labor-camp system, where he himself had been held captive, and where tens of millions of innocents perished. In a disturbing way, that book may have made Solzhenitsyn the most significant of all Russian writers, quite a prize when one considers the caliber of the company. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Kyle-Anne Shiver | Aug. 8, 2008

If Barack Obama presents a target-rich environment in his inflated balloon of media hype over one non-accomplishment after another, John McCain presents the opposite. No hype. No hot air. No blathering, bloated claims about ethereal change and meaningless hope in government to save us. None of this Hollywood stuff for McCain.

McCain is scrappy. He’s a scrounger. He’s downright humble. Rather than touting his formidable experience, or the fact that he has had three sons in the military, quietly serving their Country, John McCain presents a true model of decency, self-respect and laudable humility, in the same all-male bundle. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Jamie Glazov | Jun 29, 2008

American Thinker’s guest today is David Klinghoffer, a senior fellow in the Discovery Institute’s program in Religion, Liberty, and Public Life and a former senior editor of National Review. He is the author of The Lord Will Gather Me In, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, and Shattered Tablets. His new book is, How Would God Vote?: Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Christopher Chantrill | Jun 30, 2008

Every now and again our learned scholars in the liberal university come up with a study, financed by taxpayers’ money, that concludes what every liberal already knows. Conservatives are rigid and not very intelligent. In fact, as one study by two Berkeley professors claimed, the the “whiny, insecure kid in nursery school” probably grew up to be a conservative.

Of course two can play at that game, and so conservative Peter Schweizer took a look at the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey and a few other generally available opinion surveys and came to the opposite conclusion in his book Makers and Takers. He found that conservatives are the good guys and liberals are the whiners. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Jonathan D. Strong | May. 15, 2008

Republicans are and should be panicked over the fact that conservative Democrat Travis Childers just defeated Republican Greg Davis by a margin of 54%-46% in the race for a vacant Mississippi congressional seat. That seat is in a conservative district that had given President Bush a 25-point margin of victory over John Kerry in 2004 - it never should have flipped Democrat. This is the third double-digit loss in a row for Republican candidates in conservative districts across the United States. Continue Reading »

HumanEvents | Peggy Noonan | May. 16, 2008

The Democrats aren’t the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they’re finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They’re busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They’re frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Paul Weyrich | May. 12, 2008

It remains to be seen if conservatism can regain the initiative which was lost in the past few years. When there is a vacuum liberals always are prepared to rush in. When President Reagan took office the majority of Americans believed that government was the problem. Today, I am sorry to report, the majority of Americans are convinced that government is the solution. It isn’t, of course, but by time the public again is convinced that government is the problem it may well be too late. Conservatives gave up some of their principles in order to retain power. The public has lost confidence in the conservative movement. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Christopher Chantrill | Apr. 29, 2008

Liberals are right about the “Right-wing Noise Machine.” It really is a wonder to behold, and last week it was performing like a well-tuned NASCAR race car. They say that liberals are all prepared for the inevitable “swift-boating” of Barack Obama. Look behind you, liberals. It already happened and, like last time, it was an own-goal scored by liberals. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Paul Kengor | Apr. 11, 2008

The spiritual mentors of Ronald Reagan shaped his understanding and vision of America’s role in the world. Why would anyone assume the same does not hold true for Barack Obama? Continue Reading »

OrthodoxEurope.org | Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev | Feb. 13, 2008

I would like to draw your attention to the danger of liberal Christianity. The liberalization of moral standards, initiated by some Protestant and Anglican communities several decades ago and developing with ever-increasing speed, has now brought us to a situation where we can no longer preach one and the same code of moral conduct. We can no longer speak about Christian morality, because moral standards promoted by ‘traditional’ and ‘liberal’ Christians are markedly different, and the abyss between these two wings of contemporary Christianity is rapidly growing. Continue Reading »

Human Events | Oliver North | Feb. 15, 2008

When the Washington, D.C. City Council enacted the toughest gun-control law in the nation in 1976, the city fathers — according to what they said at the time — believed they were making our nation’s capital a safer place. The measure failed miserably. Since passage, the murder rate in the District has skyrocketed by more than 200 percent. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has a chance to both make our capital safer — and ensure that the Second Amendment to our Constitution is enshrined as an individual right for every law-abiding American. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Ann Coulter | Feb. 7, 2008

Nominating McCain is the gesture of a desperate party. Republicans are so shell-shocked and demoralized by the success of the Bush Derangement Syndrome, they think they can fool the voters by nominating an open-borders, anti-tax cut, anti-free speech, global-warming hysteric, pro-human experimentation “Republican.” Which is to say, a Democrat. Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Feb. 8, 2008

“(Don’t let) the perfect (be) the enemy of the good.” – Voltaire
I keep hearing conservatives say that if John McCain is the nominee — and barring a miracle, he will be at this point — that they’re going to sit out the election or even vote for the Democratic nominee because of “conservative principles.” Continue Reading »

FrontPage Mag | Tom Purcell | Feb. 5, 2008

Rudy’s gone, and now I’m really depressed. It’s winter, you see, a rough time for the self-employed. It’s rough because our 1099s arrive in the mail.

My 1099s always add up to more than I thought they would — my taxes will be higher than I expected, and that depresses me. And because I’ll have to organize hundreds of receipts that I keep in a giant box — a task that will take countless hours — I get even more depressed. Continue Reading »