Month: September 2011

Taxi Cab Conservatism

Taxi Conservatismby Michael Bayewitch –
I was just recently in Washington D.C. and had an amazing conversation with a taxi driver on the way to the airport. After pointing out some of the many historical sites on the way out of town, the conversation took a surprising turn. She started to complain about people that do not work and live off of welfare and other government assistance programs; virtually all their lives.

To paraphrase, she made the following assertion: “It is a shame. I know many people, even my own family members, that have never held a job. I have one relative that is 31 years old and only held a job temporarily once. They do not feel a need to work because the government takes care of them.”

“Even worse” she explained, “it is becoming a generational thing. [Read more…]

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The ‘Gospel’ of Tolerance: You Must Approve

Tolerance Chesterton GK by Jennifer Hartline –
Judge not me nor anything I say, do, or want, lest ye be judged intolerant

The Gospel of Tolerance really only has one rule: thou shalt tolerate any action, belief, lifestyle, agenda, and person except the person who believes a certain lifestyle, action or agenda is wrong and has the gall to say so out loud. The real goal here is not acceptance but submission. It’s not enough to “get along” or tolerate quietly. You must approve. You don’t dare disapprove publicly. Those who don’t tow the line will be punished. …

Stacy Trasancos is one gutsy Catholic.  Last week she wrote a little blog post about how she’s getting tired of wondering “what in tarnation we’re going to encounter” every time she and her kids leave the house.  Two men ogling each other at the pool?  Two women engaged in public displays of affection in the park?  These are scenes she’d rather her young children not be exposed to every time they go out in public, but it’s become impossible to avoid in her community. [Read more…]

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Yoshida: The Crisis of Socialism

Socialism slavery tyranny communismby Adam Yoshida –
One should not make the mistake of thinking that the pathetic floundering of the Obama administration and the imminent doom of Europe’s spendthrift welfare states spells the end of global socialism. Socialism has rarely attempted to make any claim to being a more efficient or economically creative system. Instead, it has always touted “fairness” and “equality” as its primary virtues. Any and all failures of the system are being — and will be — attributed to its opponents: the “greedy” rich, the distastefully aspirational segment of the middle class, and a “working” class blind to its “interests” as hallucinated by Manhattan-based academics.

Most of its supporters will never be able to confess the defects inherent in their creed, even if the alternative is to embrace extreme and previously unthinkable measures. The crisis of socialism is, like the crisis of communism that preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall over two decades ago, an hour of maximum danger for freedom. [Read more…]

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Dreher: ‘Anti-Bullying’ Another Battle in the Culture War

Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher
by Rod Dreher –
For many years now, the gay movement has been using school bullying as a wedge to work pro-gay teaching into curricula and into the life of public schools, and to marginalize religious students and others who hold a traditional view of the morality of homosexuality.

It goes under the mantra of making schools “safe.”

If you don’t affirm homosexuality explicitly, the argument goes, then you are making your schools unsafe for gay kids. You can well imagine how lawsuit-fearing school administrators hate to hear that.

It’s nonsense, of course.

There is no reason at all why pro-gay instruction, either in classrooms or extracurricular, has to happen for bullying to be opposed effectively. What’s wrong with a school administration saying that bullying will not be tolerated, and making good on that policy by coming down like a ton of bricks on bullies, no matter their target? That would be the most value-neutral way to handle it. [Read more…]

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Abortion Increases Risk of Severe Mental Health Problems by 81%

How to Defend Children in Classroom against Gay Agenda by Thaddeus Baklinski –
A new study published on Sept. 1, 2011 in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that women who underwent an abortion experienced an 81% increased risk of mental health problems. The study also found that almost 10% of all women’s mental health problems are directly linked to abortion.

Conducted by Priscilla K. Coleman, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA, the study was based on an analysis of 22 separate studies and 36 measures of effect, that involved a total of 877,181 participants of whom 163,831 had experienced an abortion. The study took into account pre-existing mental health problems prior to the abortion. [Read more…]

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Obama’s Crony Capitalism

Obama Crony Capitalismby Ed Lasky –
Barack Obama has his own stable of Enrons, companies benefiting from close ties to the president, seemingly able to leverage campaign donations, receiving taxpayer dollars to boost their prospects. They may be unviable on their own (as Solyndra was) or just get an added boost from us to help them against competitors whose investors and executives do not play the game.

The Washington Post have been superb in their coverage of Solyndra; a few months ago they tipped readers to yet another company apparently benefiting from donations to Obama’s campaign. The company is publicly-held Polypore. They own another company called Celgrad that makes a key component of batteries used in the electric cars that Obama touts and spends our taxpayer dollars on developing and producing (for example, grants made to Fisker Automotive, a company that has Al Gore as a major investor).[Read more…]

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Spiritual Warfare: How to Wage that War in the Desert

Jesus Christ Desert Warfare Satan by Katie Peterson –
You will be engaged in spiritual warfare for the rest of your earthly life

Do you ever feel like you are in spiritual warfare? The devil doesn’t usually attack us in such blatant, physical ways as he did St. Anthony, but we must remember that he is always seeking to make war against us. So what are we to do? Arm ourselves, right? But with what? How do we anticipate the devil’s attacks against us, especially when they are so deviously subtle and often approach us in the disguise of seemingly ordinary life situations and decisions?

DENVER, CO (Catholic Online) – He sold everything he owned and he went into the desert to fight demons. He burned with a desire for God, and “the devil, an enemy of the word Christian, could not bear to see such outstanding virtues in a young man and so he attacked him” (from Early Christian Lives, the “Life of Antony by Athanasius”).

Spiritual warfare. We see it lived out to the extreme in the life of St. Anthony, early anchorite monk and fierce warrior of demons, all for the glory of God and the prayerful protection of men. Obviously, most of us are not called to rid ourselves of all our possessions and become hermits in a foreign desert (at least I’m not.), but we all experience spiritual warfare like St. Anthony, though often in different and subtler degrees. [Read more…]

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Canadian Judge: Infanticide Just a Late, Late Abortion?

The sliperry slope of liberal/progressive moral decay reaches rock bottom!

Jonathon Van Maren
Jonathon Van Maren
by Jonathon Van Maren –

On April 13, 2005, 19 year old Katrina Effert secretly gave birth to a baby boy in her parent’s home. She then strangled the child with her underwear, and tossed the corpse over the fence into the yard of one of the neighbours.

On September 9, 2011, CBC reported that Ms. Effert’s conviction for this murder had been ‘downgraded’ by an Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench judge to infanticide, and in lieu of jail time she will merely serve a suspended sentence.

In her argument, the judge stated that “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept, and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”

Translation? Katrina Effert simply engaged in a really, really late-term abortion. Given that we don’t, under Canadian law, value human life a few minutes before birth, why a few minutes after? [Read more…]

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Americans Understand Importance of Prayer on 9/11

Prayer 9/11 America by Jay Sekulow –

Prayer is powerful. Americans have traditionally turned to God in times of crisis and this was no more true than on 9/11. As we are just days away from the 10th anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11th, the American people are taking a stand – sending a powerful message to Mayor Bloomberg that prayer should be included in the memorial service at Ground Zero.

Over 35,000 Americans have signed on to our letter urging New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reverse his decision banning prayer and religious leaders from participating in the 10th anniversary remembrance at Ground Zero.

The decision by the Mayor to prohibit prayer at this most solemn occasion is offensive to millions of Americans and inconsistent with the nation’s long and cherished history of prayer. [Read more…]

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