A Society That Persecutes Christ is Heading for Terrible Trouble

Christian Persecution in the West by Charles Moore –
Politicians in the West – and atheists – ignore at their peril the benefits and power of organised religion.

This week before Easter, I chanced upon the following two quotations. The first says: “Not for 2,000 years has it been possible for society to exclude or eliminate Christ from its social or political life without a terrible social or political consequence.” The second says: “Religion taught by a prophet or by a preacher of the truth is the only foundation on which to build a great and powerful empire.”

The first is by Margaret Thatcher, opening her foreword to a book called Christianity and Conservatism, which appeared in 1990. The second appears in Tom Holland’s outstanding new book In the Shadow of the Sword (Little, Brown), which traces the rise of Islam from the ruins of the Roman and Persian empires. It comes from Ibn Khaldun, the great Muslim historian and political counsellor of the 14th century. [Read more…]

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Religion in the Public Square: Russia Yes, America No!

Russian Orthodox Church Education by Eric Metaxas –
Two years ago, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced a pilot program in which Russian public school students would be required to take classes in either religion or ethics. The plan is part of an effort to re-moralize Russia after seventy-plus years of atheistic Communist rule.

Under the plan, students would study the history of one of the four religions termed “traditional”: Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Or they could take a course in secular ethics.

The two-year trial involving twenty percent of Russia’s schools went so well that, according the Asia News, Vladimir Putin, the next president of Russia, plans to expand the program to every Russian school later this year. [Read more…]

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Time to Stop Being Intimidated by the Left

Fight the Left, Anti-Communism by Steve McCann –
Over the past twenty years, the American left has been largely successful in intimidating much of the conservative movement and creating the impression that leftists are much smarter and thus able to stay one step ahead. Things have evolved to the point where every utterance or action by the current titular leader of the left, Barack Obama, is analyzed and dissected by many conservatives as if they were part and parcel of some grand strategy.

In fact, those on the left, including Barack Obama, are not as intelligent as they perceive themselves to be (and often are perceived to be by others), and oftentimes their actions and words are not part of a master plan, but rather symptomatic of either their personal failings or being mind-numbed robots promoting the left-wing agenda. [Read more…]

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Christianity or Thoughtcrime?

Thoughtpolice Christian Persecution by Cindy Simpson –
“Thoughtcrimes” — opinions and ideas that oppose the status quo — were pursued and punished by the Thought Police in the future world described by George Orwell in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Could politically incorrect thought be declared illegal — a type of “hate” crime against individuals or the State — someday in America?  Since much of Christian thought seems to be considered politically incorrect these days, might it also be declared hate speech?

Although such notions may seem the stuff of futuristic science fiction, just last week, Big Journalism ran a column with the subtitle “Shorter Ann Curry: Your religious beliefs represent hate speech!”  The column by John Nolte described Curry’s recent NBC Today interview with Christian actor Kirk Cameron.

What did Cameron say to deserve Curry’s “attack”?  When, a couple of weeks earlier, the actor was asked his views on gay marriage by CNN’s Piers Morgan, Cameron, within a much longer answer, made these particular statements: “I think that it’s unnatural.  I think that it’s detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of our civilization.” [Read more…]

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On Restoring American Individualism

America Liberty Individualism Freedom by Daren Jonescu –
Much of the political crisis facing America today stems from a disintegration of the ethical basis of the free society. That is why the core of the 2012 election fight is not tax rates, job growth, or the national debt. These issues, though of enormous practical importance, are merely the policy manifestations of underlying moral sentiments. The fundamental battle to be waged concerns nothing less than the nature of man, and the moral implications of that nature. If public disapproval of particular Obama policies is to become a lasting movement toward societal renewal, then the conservative’s primary objective must be the restoration of American individualism.

The problem is that the warm quilt of entitlement and dependency which the left has so cozily tucked around American society not only restricts freedom of movement; it also effectively reinforces the anti-individualist morality that makes the left’s advances possible. In the doublethink names of “fairness” and “security,” soft despotism of the modern leftist sort produces a siren-song promise of carefree mother’s love forever — with its corresponding appeal to a toddler’s moral myopia, the inability to concretize and respect the wishes and wills of other people. Thus, creeping socialism ushers in a hitherto unknown ethic, which we might dub “collectivist self-absorption.” [Read more…]

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Pity the Poor Working Chump

Working Taxpayer Punished by Anthony W. Hager –

Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there’s an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life’s essentials at another person’s expense.

Fifty years’ worth of war on poverty has produced little benefit, save for a few valuable lessons.  For instance, we’ve learned about the valiant struggle the disadvantaged wage against capitalist oppression.  The homeless, the hungry, and the downtrodden are victims of free-market greed.  But there’s one participant in Washington’s war on poverty who’s routinely ignored, one whose plight the pointy-headed elites never champion: the working chump. [Read more…]

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The Terrible Truth Told by Obama’s Open Mic Slip

Obama Fraud Liar Traitor Hates America by Christian Whiton –
President Obama just gave the world a glimpse into his future foreign policy plans this week, should he win a second term. On tap for Obama II: more faith in our adversaries, more betrayal of our traditional allies and more unilateral indulgence in nuclear abolition fantasies.

Monday, President Obama told Russian President Medvedev that “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Medvedev responded that he would dutifully report that tidbit to Vladimir Putin back in the Kremlin. The men apparently did not realize their discussion was being caught by a live microphone.

Given that the two were talking about missile defense, the implication was clear enough. In order to please Russia, President Obama will use a second term to weaken further the peaceful, purely defensive systems that can defend the U.S. and our allies from missile attacks. [Read more…]

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Progressive Inhumanity, Part One: The State against the Family

The State against the Family by Anthony Esolen –
The family is that natural society where individual liberty and the common good are most nearly reconciled. To deprive it of its rights is to rob people of a great part of what it is to be human.

The beauty and the divine order of the family is the very soul of his social teaching, because it is there, within the walls of the home, that society begins.  Thus we hear him declare, against the statists of his time, that by the command of God “we have the family; the society of a man’s house — a society limited indeed in numbers, but no less a true society, anterior to every kind of State or nation, invested with rights and duties of its own, totally independent of the civil community.”  This is the doctrine of subsidiarity at its core. 

The Pope does not justify the family on utilitarian grounds.  He does not affirm (what is true in any case) that there are many things the family can do that the State cannot do as well, or cannot do at all.  Instead he founds the rights of the family in nature, and the God of nature.  It is a society both human and divine.  It is within those bonds of love or duty that children and parents both put faces upon law that would otherwise remain abstract, distant, sometimes threatening, sometimes impotent, but always extrinsic, and therefore not quite real.  It is there, and only there, that law and love may be found growing together. [Read more…]

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Why Is Observing Obama as a Marxist Verboten?

Obama Marxist Despot Communism
Obama is a Marxist
by Bill Flax –
The recent release of a tape by Andrew Breitbart’s outfit sparked renewed interest in President Obama’s murky past. In anticipation, conservatives were elated that the president might finally be exposed. The tape showed Obama, then at Harvard Law, orchestrating a protest on behalf of Derrick Bell.
 
Without providing any background on just how radical is Professor Bell, the compliant liberal media derisively dismissed it all as conservative paranoia, even proclaiming presidential vindication. It still appears preposterous to purport that America elected a communist ideologue. The world’s greatest beneficiary of capitalist bounty would never willingly empower a radical socialist to “fundamentally transform America.”

Unfortunately, we did, even if Americans loathe admitting it. And this ought to have been obvious even before Mr. Breitbart’s valiant efforts.

Obama exploits the citizenry’s concerted blindness, cloaking his views under veneers of “social justice,” “fairness,” and “progress.” Unadulterated Marxism attracts few votes. In rare candor, sans teleprompter, Obama lectured Joe the Plumber that his prescription for widespread prosperity is “spreading the wealth around.” [Read more…]

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