The Dependency Agenda

The Dependency Agenda Creating an Entitlement Societyby Kevin D. Williamson –

Each year, the United States spends $65,000 per poor family to “fight poverty” — in a country in which the average family income is just under $50,000. Meanwhile, most of that money goes to middle-class and upper-middle-class families, and the current U.S. poverty rate is higher than it was before the government began spending trillions of dollars on antipoverty programs.

The Dependency Agenda uncovers the hidden politics of the welfare state and documents the historical evidence that proves that Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” was designed to do one thing: maximize the number of Americans dependent upon the government. The welfare state was never meant to eliminate privation; it was created to keep Democrats in power. [Read more…]

What is Wrong with Socialism?

Petty Totalitarian Left - Tyranny by Kyle Becker –
The American Dream used to mean an opportunity to achieve success through hard work, rather than being promised a free ride at others’ expense. Those of us who respect the former, rather than believe in the latter, have an instinctive disdain for “socialism.”

But mention anything untoward about socialist ideals in polite society nowadays, and one is likely to be greeted with the reply:

What is wrong with Socialism?
Socialism is a necessarily totalitarian ideology that seeks to synthesize the political, economic, social, and private life of individuals and places control over it all in the state. Indeed, capitalism makes the separation of life into separate spheres possible, because freedom of choice economically is necessary for freedom of choice in every other sphere. [Read more…]

Tree-rings Prove That World Has Been Cooling for 2,000 Years

Tree-rings Prove World Has Been Cooling by Science Reporter –
How did the Romans grow grapes in northern England? Perhaps because it was warmer than we thought.

A study suggests the Britain of 2,000 years ago experienced a lengthy period of hotter summers than today.

German researchers used data from tree rings – a key indicator of past climate – to claim the world has been on a ‘long-term cooling trend’ for two millennia until the global warming of the twentieth century.

This cooling was punctuated by a couple of warm spells. These are the Medieval Warm Period, which is well known, but also a period during the toga-wearing Roman times when temperatures were apparently 1 deg C warmer than now. [Read more…]

Persecuting Christianity in Europe

Christian persecution, loss of religious liberty by Pravmir –
The case of stewardess of The British Airways Nadia Eweida and nurse Shirley Chaplin is considered to be unprecedented by many people. Ms. Eweida and Ms. Chaplin have appealed to the Strasburg Court, calling their case a violation of freedom of religion.

Earlier, the women tried to defend their rights in a British court. But while their case was being investigated, the UK authorities worked out a draft law which, in fact, allows employers to sack employees who do not conceal that they are Christians. Moreover, the UK authorities are going to defend their position in the European Court of Human Rights.

“It sometimes looks like Europe’s secular authorities are trying to totally expel Christianity from Europe,” a representative of the Russian Patriarch’s Office in the Council of Europe Father Philip Ryabykh said in an interview with the Voice of Russia. “The Russian Orthodox Church cannot watch this without expressing its protest!” [Read more…]

Russian Orthodox Warns on Demonic Roots of Socialism

Karl Marx evil lazy delusional impostor by John Couretas –
In Rome to address a conference sponsored by the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) on June 29, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov [an Orthodox Christian] expressed amazement for the support that socialism gets in some quarters in the West even though it has “never worked in world history.” In an interview with the Zenit news service, Komov pointed to how this ideology had caused such great pain and suffering “all in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.” His criticism was also leveled at the “softer version of socialism” of administrations in the West led by President Barack Obama and recently José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the former prime minister of Spain.

Komov believes that if you “dig deep enough into the ideological roots of these socialist movements, you end up finding satanic roots in them.” And although only a softer version is prevalent now, “it is still very dangerous,” he says. “I would warn all those people fascinated by socialist ideas that they have never worked in human history — never worked.” [Read more…]

Russian Wonders Why West Is Enamored With Socialism

Communist Holocaust Murder Evil Tyranny by Edward Pentin –
Like a fair number of citizens from former Soviet-ruled countries, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov is surprised and disheartened to see the West flirting once again with socialism as a consequence of the global financial situation.

Whether it be in the form of support for the Obama administration, or the backing of other socialist-leaning policies and political parties, he sees the trend as disturbing and irrational.

In Rome to address a conference to launch the Rome office of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) June 29, Komov stressed that socialism has “never worked in world history” and that he found it “really amazing” to see such support when, in the 20th century, the ideology had caused such great pain and suffering “all in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.” [Read more…]

Archbishop Chaput: Christians Must Render Themselves Unto God

Archbishop Charles Chaput by Archbishop Charles Chaput –
Paul Claudel, the French poet and diplomat of the last century, once described the Christian as “a man who knows what he is doing and where he is going in a world [that] no longer [knows] the difference between good and evil, yes and no. He is like a god standing out in a crowd of invalids . . . He alone has liberty in a world of slaves.”

Like most of the great writers of his time, Claudel was a mix of gold and clay, flaws and genius. He had a deep and brilliant Catholic faith, and when he wrote that a man “who no longer believes in God, no longer believes in anything,” he was simply reporting what he saw all around him. He spoke from a lifetime that witnessed two world wars and the rise of atheist ideologies that murdered tens of millions of innocent people using the vocabulary of science. He knew exactly where forgetting God can lead. [Read more…]

The Naked Left 2012

Radical Liberals Leftistsby Bruce Walker –
The left has lost the trust of America. The power which sustains leftism is not based on rational argument, moral purpose, or even enlightened self-interest (how has deconstruction of the nuclear family, for example, helped poor Americans?)

Instead, the left holds power through its pernicious insinuation into every nook and cranny of public life which we have been taught to trust as fair and honorable: the news media; academia; foundations; the public school system; professional organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Library Association, and the American Bar Association; and similar nominally fair and objective referees of public discourse and action. [Read more…]

Independence Day Reflection: Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness

Life Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness by F. K. Bartels –
Man’s natural desire for happiness is of “divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it” (CCC 1718). …

In June of 1776 Thomas Jefferson, seated in the second-floor parlor of a bricklayer’s house in Philadelphia, brilliantly composed the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence. After some revision, the bulk of the document was approved by Congress on 4 July, 1776. While the Declaration would soon become one of the world’s most significant documents, its second sentence is perhaps most famous:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” [Read more…]

Earning Happiness — The Moral Promise of Free Enterprise

Prager University The words “happiness” and “free enterprise” don’t usually appear in the same sentence. Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, explains that the two are intimately and profoundly connected. The free enterprise system not only creates real wealth, it also provides individuals with the best chance to achieve personal satisfaction.

Brooks’ lecture, titled “Earning Happiness: The Moral Promise of Free Enterprise,” makes a strong case that the free market economic system is most conducive to human welfare. Brooks explains

“Free enterprise matters not just because of its unparalleled material benefits but because of its unparalleled moral benefits.”

[Read more…]