MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory

UPDATED Saturday 1:10 pm Central Time

Lesbians as Male Impersonators

Schopenbecq’s latest. Excellent as always.

There’s an important article in the Politico , titled, “Obama invokes Jesus more than Bush.” President Barack Obama, says the article, has mentioned Jesus Christ “in a number of high-profile public speeches,” more so than did President George W. Bush, and in much less “innocuous contexts.”

Obama has done so in order to promote certain policies, especially his economic policies, and “to connect with a broader base of supporters.” He does this via various “targeted messages.” Most remarkable, the article considers whether Obama is using the bully pulpit to pursue “an even larger goal” of resurrecting the Christian left, of appealing to disillusioned conservative evangelicals, and to attract “swing Protestants” and “swing Catholics.”

In other words, Obama is doing the things, faith-wise, that Bush was angrily accused of doing.

That’s not surprising. Obama will pursue these goals with the secular-liberal media’s acquiescence, silent approval and encouragement, and warmest appreciation. To cover for this political recruitment by their president, liberals in the press will ignore the activity, and certainly not expose it in their news coverage.

Among the claims in the Politico piece, I was struck by the one that’s most verifiable: the frequency of the mentions of Jesus. Within about a year, we will be able to tabulate these through the Presidential Documents as they become available on-line.

I did those tabulations for George W. Bush compared to Bill Clinton. I ran the data because I sensed that Bush’s references to God—which sent liberal journalists into fits of irrational rage—were less frequent and considerably more benign than anything I heard from Bill Clinton, not to mention a long line of Democratic presidents and politicians. Revisiting those findings here is worthwhile, since they tell us much about how Democratic presidents use faith and, far more important, how the liberal media manipulates public perception.

I searched The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents , which are the exhaustive, official collection of every public presidential statement. I compared the mentions of “Jesus,” or “Jesus Christ,” or “Christ” by Bush and Clinton. (Hereafter referred to as “Christ.”) Clinton, of course, won handily.

Most telling, however, was the how and when. Bush’s biggest year was 2001, when he mentioned Christ in seven statements, typically relating to September 11 memorial services. In 2002, Bush cited Christ five times. Most interesting, in all of 2003, the Presidential Documents display only two statements in which Bush mentioned Christ: Easter and Christmas messages. This downward trend continued, suggesting that the hostile press reaction to Bush’s mentions of Christ pressured him into silence.

Such pressure, naturally, was never placed on Bush’s Democratic predecessor. President Bill Clinton’s biggest year for Christ remarks was 1996—the year of his reelection campaign—when he spoke of Christ in nine separate statements. For a single year, Bush never outdid Clinton in references to Christ.

Generally, Clinton’s biggest years for references to Christ were election years: nine statements in 1996, seven in 1998, six in 2000, and five in 1994. In total, Clinton mentioned Christ 27 times in the four election years, compared to only 14 times in the four non-election years. He mentioned Christ twice as much in election years.

Also, the way in which Clinton employed these references would have scandalized the press if Bush had used them. Clinton openly said that his personal “ministry” as president was “to do the work of God here on Earth” (Temple Hills, Maryland, August 14, 1994); declared that “God’s work must be our own” (Newark, New Jersey, October 20, 1996); cited the teachings of Christ in support of federal legislation (July 26, 2000); said that his attempted impeachment was “in God’s hands” (December 18, 1998); and constantly exhorted congregations to vote for him or Al Gore or other Democrats (Alfred Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, October 29, 2000, and the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in Harlem, October 31, 2000, to cite just two examples).

Never heard this before? Of course, you haven’t. It was never reported. It was left to researchers to dig it out years after the fact.

I could go on and on with examples. Vice President Al Gore sounded like a Baptist preacher on the 2000 campaign trail, and Hillary Clinton obliterated any propriety with her breathtaking statements in dozens of New York City churches during her 2000 Senate campaign. ( See my article, “Rev. Hillary Takes the Pulpit,” National Review , October 4, 2007. )

What I’ve noted here is the tip of an iceberg. I’ve devoted chapters and books to liberal Democrats’ extremely expressive public expressions of faith. A core element of that story is how the press embraces these expressions but then, on a dime, turns and blasts conservative Republicans for much milder statements.

Thus, I fully expect President Obama to talk about God in much stronger terms and far more often than did President Bush. Liberals will not politically crucify him as they did Bush. When the double standard is pointed out—strictly by conservatives—liberals will cover their ears, wink, and move on. At best, when confronted, they will conjure up the usual excuses as to why the reaction is different.

So, be prepared to be greatly frustrated. The press has made it abundantly clear: there are different sets of rules for conservative Christian politicians and liberal Christian politicians.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include God and Ronald Reagan , God and George W. Bush , and God and Hillary Clinton .

A letter from the diaspora

Dear Friends.
‘While the cat’s away the mice will play’ goes the old English proverb. I’m pretty sure there’s a Shona equivalent – something involving the endearing ‘kitsi’ no doubt! But whatever the language, there’s a great deal of truth in the old proverb. As soon as Prime Minister Tsangirai boarded that plane to take him away for three weeks it was clear that the mice – for mice, read rats – would indeed come out to ‘play’. And so they did, though if truth be told, they would probably have done much the same if he had been in the country. These malcontents are out to prove that the only power they respect is the power of the gun, the bullet and the clenched fist. Time and again we have seen that the law means nothing to them; why should it when they know that the police themselves ignore court orders? To hear James Maridadi, the MDC spokesperson, describe Zimbabwe as “a country that respects the rule of law”, you could be forgiven for wondering what country he was talking about.

While the Prime Minister travels the world trying to convince wealthy western democracies that after four months of the GNU, Zimbabwe is already a different country, at home, President Mugabe and his followers continue in their bad old ways. The photograph of Robert Mugabe standing alongside Mwai Kibaki and the Sudanese President al Bashir (see The Zimbabwean 11-17 June) illustrates very clearly the truth that democratic rights mean nothing to Mugabe and his friends. Kibaki rigged the Kenyan election back in 2007 which led to the bloody upheaval that rocked Kenya and resulted in an uneasy power-sharing government with the opposition leader, Raila Odinga. As for Sudan’s al Bashir, he is facing an arrest warrant from the ICC for crimes against humanity involving thousands of victims in the Dafur region. None of this makes any difference to Mugabe; he has never been particular about the ‘friends’ he chooses, as long as they share his anti-western paranoia he will happily disregard their human rights record. It was a North Korean Minister a few weeks back and Mugabe’s mouthpiece The Herald, this week devoted a double page spread in defence of North Korea’s nuclear tests.

It’s hardly surprising then that Morgan Tsvangirai is facing an uphill task trying to convince the west that Zimbabwe has changed for the better. Inside the country there are too many examples that, in the areas of human rights and media freedom, little has changed. Even though they had a High Court order allowing them the right to cover the Comesa Summit on the grounds that they no longer required MIC accreditation, since that body had ceased to exist, four journalists were still refused entry to the Summit. It was a clear slap in the face for the Prime Minister’s authority; he had very clearly stated that MIC accreditation was no longer necessary before he left the country. ‘While the cat’s away…’ Lawyers too, continue to be harassed and charged. The brave Alec Muchadehama, incidentally the lawyer defending Jestina Mukoko and others, himself faces charges of attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice; another clear example of Mugabe’s hand-picked Attorney General seeking to silence independent minded lawyers, especially when the are defending MDC and civil rights activists. The continuing land invasions further exemplify Mugabe’s vice-like grip on power. When an army Brigadier and dozens of uniformed soldiers can march onto a farm, with no paper work, no title deeds and no court decision in their favour, it is very obvious that the rule of law has broken down in Zimbabwe. The farmer in question had been acquitted of charges against him of ‘illegal occupation’. He had every legal right to be there on his own property but it made no difference, the Brigadier went ahead and took what did not belong to him anyway while the police looked the other way.

But it is the identity of another farm invader that has obsessed the media in Zimbabwe all week; the pretty woman who was seen walking with Morgan Tsvangirai at President Zuma’s inauguration. Is she Tsvangirai’s niece or is she not? That’s the question! For myself, I could not care less, in fact I rather agree with James Maridadi on this one: Tsvangirai can hardly be held responsible for the behaviour of a 52 year old relative! All I know is that as soon as I heard the usual anti-white rhetoric coming from her lips in an interview with Violet Gonda on SW Radio, I knew the woman was a product of her thirty years in the States. When she was asked whether the alleged racist language from the white farmer in question justified her taking his farm she replied with the standard Zanu PF justification that land invasions are all about ‘righting colonial injustices’ Anyone who still believes that lie must be totally ignorant of the reality on the ground. As for the behaviour of the white farmer and the racist language he is alleged to have uttered, I find that pretty hard to believe too. Ten years ago it may well have been the norm for white farmers to talk like that – but today, I think not. For the most part, the farmers who thought that way that have long since left the country; most of them, now are too terrified to open their mouths, let alone use racially abusive language of the sort the pretty woman describes. Rumour has it that she has now dropped her claim to the farm in question but to my mind the whole incident was yet another example of Zanu PF dirty tricks to discredit the MDC leader – especially while he was out of the country. ‘While the cat’s away…’
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH.aka Pauline Henson author of Going Home and Countdown, political detective stories set in Zimbabwe and available on Amazon and Lulu.com

This letter is published with kind permission of the author.

Finally got around to making a few videos concerning Samantha Brick’s excellent article, “Catfights over handbags and tears in the toilets. When this producer launched a women-only TV company she thought she’d kissed goodbye to conflict…” which appeared at The Daily Mail in April. LINK.

It is time to proclaim that the “Era of Reagan” is indeed dead, or at least the current “Country Club” version of the great former President, in which he has been completely reinvented. In their world, Ronald Reagan is a metaphor for the total abandonment of principle, under a perverted counterfeit of the “Big Tent.” Nor will those “moderates” let us forget Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not criticize another Republican,” to which they should add, “Unless the criticism is directed at a conservative.”

At this seminal moment in the life of the GOP and the country, party insiders are revealing a total moral and philosophical bankruptcy, and an appalling level of cowardice. Heartland America is desperately looking for someone possessing sufficient wisdom and courage to rise up as the leader who will stridently confront the liberal political machine that is systematically dismantling their beloved nation. Unfortunately, no leading Republican has displayed the necessary spine to take on this battle.

As a result, though the Republican Party could be contrasting its former conservatism against the emerging fiasco of liberal/Democrat statism, and thus redirecting the course of events in Washington, its highest profile members are instead tagging along for the ride, attempting to catch some diffuse reflection off of Barack Obama’s supposed limelight. The Obama Administration is making a mess out of the country, just as it promised. But in response, all the Republicans can offer is a watered down version of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda.

Worse yet, any on the right who dare to step out from the umbrella of this nearly homogenous political class can expect to be as fiercely castigated by the Republican Party insiders as the Democrats. America is all about unity and “ending the partisan rancor,” even though every time Republicans devolve to that miserable level, they are thoroughly rebuked at the polls. Nevertheless, at a June 8 Republican Congressional Campaign fundraiser, keynote speaker Newt Gingrich showed once again how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Though he made a token effort to differentiate himself from Barack Obama, in the end he offered more of the same muddled thinking that neutralized his political momentum fourteen years ago.

Rather than presenting a comprehensive contrast between himself and the treasonous, anti-capitalist governing concept of the left, Gingrich reverted to the seemingly safe notion that a bland and undefined political “opposition,” encompassing so wide a variety of perspectives as to include even those who support Obama, would somehow rally Americans. In one breath, he lauded both former Vice-president Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Colin Powell as worthy “Republicans.”

Cheney and Powell have been publicly at odds with eachother in recent weeks, disputing the very nature of the GOP. And the specifics of their quarrel are central to the character of the party, to the point that the outcome of this debate may very well determine whether or not the Republican Party has any hope for a future. That this debate is even occurring, in the face of such unfettered Democrat extremism, is itself a travesty. A principled conservative opposition party could be ruling the day. Sadly, as a whole, the current GOP is neither principled nor conservative. Sadder still is that someone of the stature of Newt Gingrich would attempt to establish a political and philosophical equivalency between two worldviews as wholly irreconcilable as those of Cheney and Powell.

Cheney, in recent statements, concisely and unmistakably contrasted himself and the conservative movement against the liberalism and flagrant fraud of the Obama agenda, warning in no uncertain terms that such a course will be dangerous for the nation. In the process, he upheld fellow conservative stalwart Rush Limbaugh as a definite asset to the party, and to conservatism itself.

Powell, on the other hand, has made no specific policy statements, while insisting that Republicans must expunge the influence of Cheney, Limbaugh, and their kindred for the good of the party. His most notable “contribution” to the GOP was to endorse the other party’s presidential candidate just prior to last November’s elections. Since that time, Powell has advanced the notion that a policy of bigger and more intrusive government, in essence the Obama agenda, is somehow the only viable future for the Republican Party. And on this basis Gingrich wants to welcome him as a defining force in the party?

Republican “moderates” are adamant that their self-defeating “strategy” was born of devotion to Ronald Reagan, and their theory of his “Big Tent.” This falsehood can be dispelled with a single glimpse past their empty “centrist” rhetoric, to recall what the Gipper actually believed, and how he translated those beliefs into an unparalleled electoral and political victory.

For starters, Reagan was no posturing follower. His “Big Tent” did not result from any pathetic attempts to pander his way into the hearts of the American people. Rather, he unabashedly offered starkly defined conservatism as the best course for the nation, and in so doing convinced many in the “middle” to dispense with their own petty differences, and join him as he sought to better the country. Thus his “Big Tent” was the product of leadership based in undiluted conservative principle.

Most notably, Reagan had no place in his plan for the double minded treachery exhibited by Colin Powell, and was unafraid to alienate such people. The 1980 third-party candidacy of “Republican” Senator John Anderson resulted from just such a disenfranchisement of liberal Republicans. But while Anderson expected to undermine Reagan in that year’s election, in the end he took votes from incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter, thereby amplifying Reagan’s landslide victory.

The Reagan model worked then, and can work just as effectively today. Sadly, after successfully launching the “Gingrich Revolution” on similar premises in 1994, the one-time House Speaker has since embarked on a futile path of attempting to ingratiate himself to the Democrat opposition by watering down the conservatism that once had propelled him to the political forefront. Since leaving public office, his most notable “achievement” was a joint television appearance with Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attempting to raise awareness of “global warming.

Real Republicans can and should make major gains in 2010. But they will only succeed if they blatantly contrast themselves against the miserable failure that is the Obama/Democrat agenda. Unfortunately, they do not yet appear to be up to that task.

The battle for America must first be won within the GOP. Otherwise, it does not matter how thoroughly Obama wrecks the country; “Me Too” Republicanism will never be embraced as an alternative.

Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer and staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He lives in southeastern Wyoming. He has been active in local and state politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets products exclusively made in America. His contact information and archives can be found at www.chrisadamo.com

Life Magazine fabricated a mythical monarchy in the early sixties by applying polish and airbrushing to John and Jacky Kennedy, elevating them into a Camelot. America couldn’t get enough of the magazine, and rewarded its uncommon “access,” to the JFK White House with financial success. The corporate strategy very successfully built an unprecedented, but mutually beneficial, relationship.

This was not the first popularization of an American President, but it was the most successful anointing of an almost-monarch. We all admire true heroes, however, there are many who seem to require more than honored heroes. To satisfy that craving, we create stars and surround them with irrational adoration bordering on veneration. The mainstream media (MSM) plays a role in the process, and has much to gain from it just as Life Magazine solidified itself, and its profits with the creation of the American version Camelot.

Life Magazine presented a glossy veneer of a young President and his family, because it could, and because it would not have been as profitable to have done otherwise. The public reaction was extremely receptive, and the oversized periodical continued to publish its principal stars’ immaculate images.

America has long succumbed to Hollywood’s very adept star manufacturing machine. Studios and production companies very effectively and profitably practiced the art of star production, as well as veneer creation, for a century. Whether the individuals in question believe their own press, matters little to the studios and the machinery that creates them. They are ephemeral creations that have no truth other than that of existence in the percepts of adoring devotees. They scatter nonsense, and often lies, and all utterances are gratefully accepted. Stars step into the light, feigning timidity, as they engage in absorbing gushing adulation. The star making process has been perfected and whether young, old, intelligent, rich, poor, educated or not, it seems that everyone is susceptible to its affects.

In 2009, the MSM has been provided a new President, whose natural tendency is already a well-prepared gleaming image, requiring little visible airbrushing. Obama’s promotional machine has had the added and unabashed advantage of having its subject well versed and practiced in the art of sermon delivery. Obama placed himself on a pedestal, and the MSM has delivered applause and sometimes infatuation. The zeal of this infatuation has translated into an abandonment of any application of journalistic ethics or common sense. The obsession has been transferred onto the population eager to satisfy a yearning for a monarch. Not that America wants a king, because it doesn’t, but there is evidently a vast portion of society that yearns for a personality that it believes will transcend it to a place that Camelots are made of. America doesn’t want to literally revisit the anachronism of royalty, yet the British monarchy is as popular in the U.S. as it is in Great Britain.

In Obama, America found a willing aspirant on whom it consigned the cloak and stature of monarch, the ultimate iteration of star. Modern versions of monarchs however, have no effective power, but they enjoy fulfillment of ceremonial roles. Obama accommodates that role rather effectively and continues his cultivation of the “I,” unabated. As President, he has avoided the thorny details of assiduous analysis on the most critical problems facing America, and has used sweeping, but banal statements of obvious principals, while his appointees actually implement policies and programs inconsistent with the claims of the message.

Obama has filled the ceremonial role of monarch with enchanting voyages across the country and around the world, although the country might wish for more representation of America’s interests, rather than promotion of its leader as internationalist. While the public and the MSM might treat a monarch with reverence, a President should be treated as a politician, and challenged as such.

As President, Obama has yet to demonstrate any proclivity for practical leadership of the free nation envisioned by the unpretentious framers of the Constitution. As he insinuates government into all social and economic fibers of the country, the American taxpayer’s expectations of Obama’s heralded change will rapidly evaporate, the “self-evident truths” will become redefined, and the reality of the costs will become the new, overwhelming burden.

Now that the Congressional Budget Office has notified them that federal spending in 2019 will represent at least 25% of the GDP, all taxpayers should decide that a monarch just will not be injected into their futures in any form, and that their President should be challenged. There are enough stars floating out of Hollywood to satisfy desires of royalty.

James Raider writes The Pacific Gate Post

Pubs and Bars Victimized by Statism.

Thanks to Steve Deluca for alerting me to “Women’s Equality Day” on August 26th. LINK. Download a brochure! Gee, and you can buy a DVD or poster here if you wish.
Oh, you thought March being Women’s History Month was enough? Wrong. Here’s a bit of history: “The public celebration of women’s history in this country began in 1978 as “Women’s History Week” in Sonoma County, California. The week including March 8, International Women’s Day, was selected. In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women’s History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women’s History Month.” Soon we many see “Women’s Equality Years” coming around.

The Male Privilege Checklist

1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. [They are skewed in reverse due to affirmative action. The mangina has not heard of this but AFF-ACT is state sponsored discrimination against men].

2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true. (More). [Why is that the case? Oh, because of affirmative action the existence of which he acknowledges here but not in point 1].

3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex. [Wrong, and I've observed this occur first hand and witnessed many men not get hired due to genitalia. This blogger is probably a college indoctrinee with no work experiences].

4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities. [The complete opposite is true. A man with no job is a worthless man in the eyes of women. A woman without a job can still be hot and possess incredible worth. At this point you know this fellow is as high as a kite.]

5. I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are. (More). [Well, since men don't press charges for that kind of stuff we'll never know. I'm sure the Mangina would though and then attend therapy sessions for 20 years thereafter].

6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. [Why? Oh, that's right for conspiratorial reasons. No proof for such assertions need ever be provided.]

7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low. (More). [lol, everyone's chances of being raped are really low, including women. What rubbish. Practically no one is raped statistically and feminists reconfigured rape to mean "unwanted advances" just to increase the percentages].

8. On average, I am taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces much less than my female counterparts are. [Believe me, this will-o'-the-wisp should fear walking anywhere as he'd blow away before a strong argument, but being vigilant after dark is good advice...for everyone].

9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. [I'm calling his masculinity into question and I don't know a thing about his fertility. Just look at his arguments!]

10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question. [It sure will if he doesn't get a job to support them though as his kids will think he's a deadbeat and women will shun him altogether].

Read the rest for yourself. I’m going to try to do an INFERNO.

In the minds of many, evil is epitomized by Nazi Germany. An embittered Austrian corporal, a racist ideology, and an amoral eugenics movement all came together at the same point in human history, eventually spelling the deaths of six million Jews and others.

Others view Communism as the far greater evil, a godless philosophy that eventually doomed many more millions of souls in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere.

Yet these staggering numbers pale in comparison to the toll of unborn children whose lives are claimed each year by abortion. Each year 42 million of these procedures are performed around the world. As the Alan Guttmacher Institute boasts on its website, “About one in five pregnancies worldwide end in abortion.”

So while Communism consumed 100 million persons over the course of a century, abortion has snuffed out the lives of 420 million innocents in the last 10 years alone.

And as you read this essay, the United Nations is pushing to make abortion even more accessible. Under the cover of its Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights, abortion advocates are now claiming that if you want to reduce maternal mortality, you must offer every pregnant woman the right to abort.

That’s like saying if you want to stop car accidents, we’ll first need to get rid of cars.

Abortion represents more than a moral holocaust. Just last month a woman from Eskilstuna, Sweden who already had two girls learned that her infant in utero was female. She demanded – and received — a state-financed abortion on the grounds that this time she wanted to have a boy.

When similar decisions are made by millions of women, a nation’s sex balance begins to careen out of control. In China, only 832 girls are born for every 1,000 boys, according to UNICEF. A similar problem in China. This has the makings of a demographic disaster.

All this is driven by the relentless march of radical feminism, which views abortion as a central sacrament to its destructive ideology. A woman cannot consider herself a member of the National Organization for Women or any other feminist organization without proclaiming a belief in what is euphemistically called “a woman’s right to choose.” A general right to abortion does not suffice; a feminist must believe in an absolute, state-enforced right to abortion, regardless of the child’s gestational age, age of the mother, or the wishes of the father.

Just as slavery induced moral turpitude in the hearts of slave owners, abortion oppresses the soul of its advocates. If you believe in abortion, the full fabric of human life begins to lose its inherent worth. Children are eventually seen as disposable.

A disturbing example of this moral perversity is the growth of so-called “Safe Haven” laws. These laws were put into place after mothers began to leave their newborns in hospitals or stash them in dumpsters. But rather than punishing the nefarious deed, legislators began to pass laws that say it’s prefectly fine to abandon your infant, just as long as you do so at an approved location. And to relieve you of any lingering guilt, we’ll let you do it anonymously!

By legitimizing the heinous act, Safe Haven laws have only made the problem worse.

Following passage of the 2001 Safe Haven law in in Illinois, 54 mothers have illegally abandoned their babies in non-approved locations. Twenty-seven of those babies died.

In Nebraska, the original law didn’t impose any age limit. This past October a woman drove 12 hours from Detroit to dump off her 13-year-old son at an Omaha hospital. And a 14-year-old Iowa girl was abandoned by her grandparents reportedly to “teach her a lesson.”

And just last month a bill was introduced in the Texas legislature that would lessen the criminal penalty if a mother killed her newborn due to postpartum hormonal shifts. If passed, the measure would re-classify such deeds from a capital murder to a jail felony. Rep. Jessica Farr, sponsor of the proposal, boasted, “I think that we got this far is pretty significant.”

Abortion on demand. Then Safe Haven laws. And now a proposal that trivializes infanticide. It adds up to the victimization of children and a reckless disregard for the sanctity of human life.

What comes next? Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal?

Chivalry justice at its finest. Kid gets nude pics on phone from girl, guy’s friends post them, and police bust guy. What happens to the girl? Absolutely nothing. This story has to be read in order to be believed. Nancy Rommelman tells it all in REASON in her “Anatomy of a Child Pornographer: What happens when adults catch teenagers “sexting” photos of each other? The death of common sense.” LINK.

“The walls of Alex’s room are covered with posters: former Dodgers pitcher Greg Maddux, eight-time NBA All Star Paul Pierce, and a lone shot of Britney Spears. Alex is willing, in the bashful way of a 17-year-old boy talking to a lady he doesn’t know, to discuss what happened.

“I didn’t pressure her into it or anything,” he says. Not that he didn’t appreciate the gesture or didn’t like the photos. “It was all right,” he admits. “It was good.” As for the images themselves, they were not shocking or unusual. His friends frequently show him sexy pictures sent by female friends of theirs. Now, though, he has a policy about looking. “I always ask my friends, how old is she?” he says. “My rule is, 18.”

Around Alex, the supposition that kids who swap naked photos shred social decency while laying waste to their own futures falls apart. If there’s blame to be assigned, he’s ready to take it. “It’s kind of like that for everything,” he says. “Like when I play basketball. If we lose, it feels like I did what I had to do but I still have most of the blame on me. I’ve learned to deal with it.”

And he would have dealt with it, whether it meant going to jail or delaying college (where he plans to study business administration, with the goal of helping run his family’s farms) or apologizing to Laurie’s parents. The latter doesn’t seem to be in the cards. When they see him, it seems to Alex they avoid eye contact, and he hasn’t been sure they want to hear anything from him, including that he’s sorry. “But I think one of these days I will apologize, just for how everything went down,” he says. “I don’t want her family to think I’m that type of kid.”

Alex pauses, broad-shouldered and loose-limbed, wearing sweats on a Saturday morning after winning the big game. While the photos may have been a big deal to the grown-ups, to him and Laurie they weren’t. “I mean, this is my senior year, and I just want to have fun with it,” he says. “I see her. She’s a star cheerleader. We don’t let it faze us.””

“Similarly, when I took a course in the 19th Century English novel, 5 of the 12 authors we read were women, and this was well before the publication of The Feminine Mystique and the beginnings of the so-called “women’s liberation movement,” whose subtext was that men, which would have included my teachers, were their oppressors. It is true that in recent years we have witnessed the appointments of the first three women secretaries of state, and the first two women Supreme Court justices, with a third now on the way. But these are easily understood as a consequence of technological improvements that afford women new freedom to pursue such careers, rather than the overthrow of an oppressive ruling “patriarchy.”

Thus, the Elizabethans I studied in my literature classes were called “Elizabethans” in deference to one of the most powerful monarchs in English history because long before the women’s movement she ruled her era. In sum, as we embark on the 21st Century, women and men are pretty much the familiar genders we encountered in our first days as undergraduates reading in our Humanities sections Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic about Helen of Troy who had the power even then to cause the launching of a thousand ships and the burning of the “topless towers of Illium.”

Of course if you were to enroll today in Columbia’s Department of Women’s Studies you would be taught that we still live in an oppressive patriarchy and that gender differences are “socially constructed” and can be re-constructed, and then eliminated as we reach the highest stage of women’s liberation. But this is ideology not reality. The fact that this ideology is a required creed for students of Women’s Studies reflects not an advance in consciousness but the retrogressive return of American liberal arts colleges to their 19th Century roles as doctrinal institutions, the difference being that this time the doctrines are secular and political rather than religious.”"

“Last week, ten women were the subject of a cyber-rape. That is, without their consent, they were subjected to one misogynist, Guy Cimbalo, and his rape fantasies, which appeared in his Playboy article titled “Ten Conservative Women I’d Like To Hate F***.” (The article has since been taken down.) Perhaps you think “cyber-rape” is extreme. But consider what was said about Mary Katherine Ham: You get this one pregnant, she stays pregnant. Karma’s a b****, isn’t it? Implying that she wouldn’t want a baby resulting from rape, but because of her belief system, she’d have the child. Of course, she would deserve this treatment and fate, because Ham is pro-life. Carrying the baby would be karmic retribution for holding her disagreeable belief. Cimbalo says of Amanda Carpenter: She is also a columnist at TownHall, a website for illiterates who disprove evolution by their very existence. She has been dealing with the fallout all week. Amanda Carpenter shared that on Monday — instead of working — she had to explain the controversy to her male coworkers. She said it was embarrassing and distracting. A friend sent her an excited email: “You made a list of the best conservative blogger women for Playboy!” The friend hadn’t read the article. And now, when someone Googles her name, the Playboy list shows up prominently.”

Self-styled pro-family advocate, Scott Lively, has made a career of drawing parallels from Nazi Germany to modern homosexuality. Director of Abiding Truth Ministries, Lively has gone around the world with the message that homosexuals were responsible for Nazi totalitarianism. On the contrary, my research leads me to believe the more common view that homosexuals were indeed victims of Nazi oppression.

In this post, I point out that anti-gay groups in places like Uganda (encouraged by anAmerican led conference in March, 2009 where Lively was one of the speakers) use rhetoric that is disturbingly akin to rhetoric used by Nazis regarding homosexuality. First, examine these developments in Uganda. From an Ugandan news report Sunday:

‘Investigate homosexuality’
Sunday, 31st May, 2009  KAMPALA – The Peoples Development Party (PDP) wants the Government to establish an independent commission of inquiry on homosexual activities to eliminate the practice.  Addressing journalists on Thursday, party president Abed Bwanika said the evil is spreading to every section of the public and that the Government needed to make critical intervention.

He called upon church leaders to guide the country on the matter and said some NGOs were supporting people involved in the act.

This call for an “independent commission” is similar to the kinds of recommendations made back in March by a group led by Stephen Langa, director of the Christian pro-family group, Family Life Network. At a meeting following up an ex-gay conference in Uganda, sponsored by Langa’s group, and led by Scott Lively, Exodus International board member, Don Schmierer and Caleb Brundidge staffer with both International Healing Foundation and Patricia King’s ministry, Xtreme Prophetic, the following ideas were considered:

• • The laws on homosexuality are weak, hence the need to strengthen these laws.
  • Parents were encouraged to participant in law making decisions in Uganda so that to strengthen the laws on homosexuality.
  • To establish a unit at Police to deal with homosexuality.
  • Homosexuality is an abomination; it is evil and should be dealt with strongly.
  • During the reactions a prominent pastor also said that they have been talking with an ex-gay activist who has given them a five year plan for dealing with the gay agenda in Uganda. And they have submitted this plan to the ministry concerned, that they await reactions.
  • Another participant told the audience that parliament is drafting a new law that will be tough on homosexuals.

The message is clear from these “Christian” anti-gay groups: laws should be passed “that will be tough on homosexuals.” Homosexuality is already a crime in Uganda; these people want to make it even more difficult.

At any rate, there is a disturbing parallel with the Nazis, but it is not with the homosexuals. Rather, it is more apparent with the manner in which the Ugandan government with assistance from Christian ministries is responding to homosexuality. Note the rhetoric, I have cited above, by Ugandan groups to describe the crack down on open homosexuality. Then read this report from The US Holocaust Memorial Museum which describes the Nazi approach to homosexuality.

On June 28, 1935, the Ministry of Justice revised Paragraph 175. The revisions provided a legal basis for extending Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Ministry officials expanded the category of “criminally indecent activities between men” to include any act that could be construed as homosexual. The courts later decided that even intent or thought sufficed.

On October 26, 1936, Himmler formed within the Security Police the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality. Josef Meisinger, executed in 1947 for his brutality in occupied Poland, led the new office. The police had powers to hold in protective custody or preventive arrest those deemed dangerous to Germany’s moral fiber, jailing indefinitely–without trial–anyone they chose. In addition, homosexual prisoners just released from jail were immediately re-arrested and sent to concentration camps if the police thought it likely that they would continue to engage in homosexual acts.

From 1937 to 1939, the peak years of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, the police increasingly raided homosexual meeting places, seized address books, and created networks of informers and undercover agents to identify and arrest suspected homosexuals. On April 4, 1938, the Gestapo issued a directive indicating that men convicted of homosexuality could be incarcerated in concentration camps.

In Uganda, lists of people suspected to be gay have been included in tabloids, various ministers have accused other ministers of being homosexual, and Christian groups are calling for the government to create a commission to eliminate homosexuality – all supported by American Christian ministries. In Nazi Germany, the commission was called “the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality.” What will it be called in Uganda?

The head of the Reich office charged with eliminating homosexuality was war criminal Josef Meisinger. In a speech in 1937, he had this to say about the political reasons to combat homosexuality.

If one is really to appreciate the hidden danger of homosexuality, it is no longer enough to consider it as before from a narrowly criminal viewpoint. Because it is now so enormously widespread, it has actually developed into a phenomenon of the most far-reaching consequence for the survival of the nation and state. For this reason, however, homosexuality can no longer be regarded simply from the viewpoint of criminal investigation; it has become a problem with political importance. This being so, it cannot be the task of the police to investigate homosexuality scientifically. At the most it can take account of scientific conclusions in its work. Their task is to ascertain homosexual trends and their damaging effects, so as to avert the danger that this phenomenon represents for nation and state. No one says to the police: you shouldn’t arrest this thief because he might have acquired kleptomania. Similarly, once we have recognized that a homosexual is an enemy of the state, we shan’t ask the police—and much less the Political Police—whether he has acquired his vice or whether he was born with it. I should mention here that experience has shown beyond doubt that only a vanishingly small number of homosexuals have a truly homosexual inclination, that most of them by far have been quite normally active at one time or another and then turned to this area simply because they were sated with life’s pleasures or for various other reasons such as fear of venereal diseases. I should also say that, with firm education and order, and regulated labor, a great number of homosexuals who have come to the attention of the authorities have been taught to become useful members of the national community.

In Uganda among Christian groups and government leaders, and encouraged by Mr. Lively, homosexuality is considered the root of society’s evils. Two of the American “experts,” Lively and Brundidge supported the notion of toughening laws against homosexuality with compulsory “treatment” considered an option. Treatment protocols are being readied now.

Scott Lively encouraged the Uganda church leaders to view the tiny gay movement in Uganda as related in some way to the same movement that propelled the Nazis to power in Germany. However, if one looks for similarities in rhetoric and policy positions, one can more readily find them by noting how the government in power then in Germany and now in Uganda regarded homosexuality. In The Pink Swastika, Lively discounts the Nazis’ public rhetoric and policies as a means of distracting attention to the homosexuality in the ranks of Nazi leaders. What might the same rhetoric and public policy objectives mean in Uganda?

I think any parallels between Nazi Germany then and homosexuality now will lead to mostly inaccurate conclusions, including the similarities in rhetoric I point out here. Many groups, including gay and Christian activists, have used Holocaust metaphors to frame rhetoric in a way that will sway public sentiment. In truth, gays were not victimized to the same degree that the Jews were, but they were victimized. Christian advocates such as Mr. Lively, who want to make sinister linkages between Nazi Germany and gay people must be prepared to explain why more obvious rhetorical and policy similarities, such as noted above, are not indicative of equally nefarious intents.

This rhetorical sword cuts in two directions.

……

Warren Throckmorton, PhD is Associate Professor of Psychology and Fellow for Psychology and Public Policy at Grove City College (PA). He blogs atwww.wthrockmorton.com.

The human mind and spirit cannot endure for very long the chaotic vacillation of such lawlessness before the individual eventually cries out for answers to the extremes of licentiousness and total control.  Throughout much of the Modern Era, the Christian apologist could appeal to a shared respect for historic and scientific fact common to both Christianity and commonsense realism.  Today, the Christian must first reestablish why anyone ought to believe in anything at all and then assert how the Biblical approach provides the best possible explanation for the condition in which man actually finds himself and the facts as they are rather than how he might like them to be.

The apologist must begin this process by exposing the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Postmodernist system.  James Sire writes in <i>The Universe Next Door</i>, “If we hold that all linguistic utterances are power plays, then that utterance itself is a power play and no more likely to be more proper than any other (187).”

This claim by Postmodernists that all utterances are merely power plays fails the test of systematic consistency where a philosophical proposition must square with the external world as well as logically cohere with the other statements comprising the set of beliefs under consideration.  But more important than the sense of satisfaction resulting from the discovery of this contradiction allowing for a degree of one-upmanship in the battle of ideas is the realization that this contradiction exposes the unlivability of a particular worldview.

Big deal, the Postmodernist might quip in response to this inconsistency since they are not known for their devotion to logical argumentation.  Try as they might to gloss over this oversight with platitudes honoring the glories of relativism and tolerance, Postmodernists still deep down possess that human yearning for a universal justice.  Romans 2:14-15 says, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts…”

It might not be fashionable to contend that there is no such thing as right and wrong and often believing such is even an occupational requirement in certain academic and governmental circles.  But when it comes down to it, no one really wants to be treated as if that was the case.  C.S. Lewis was fond of noting that those among us preaching the loudest in favor of relativism would cry bloody murder just like the rest of us if egregiously wronged.  Just see what happens the next time the faculty nihilist is denied tenure when up for review.

Once it is established by our own existential makeup that there is something to right and wrong beyond the whims of those strong enough to have their way with the weak, it needs to be highlighted where these standards come from.  John Frame in Apologetics To The Glory Of God writes, “Now, where does this authority of the absolute moral principle come from?  Ultimately, only two kinds of answers are possible: the source of absolute moral authority is either personal or impersonal (97).”

This means that the ethical framework of the universe either arose within its own structure on its own or through the conscientious ordering of a higher organizing mind.  Since we ourselves possess consciousness, by default the source of this moral order would have to be aware since it is impossible for the unaware to give rise to the aware or even to establish an ordered universe since that which is not guided and directed is haphazard and random.

If the Christian has been successful up to this point, the Christian has aided the Postmodernist in realizing that there is purpose and direction in life.  The next step in the process involved proving to the Postmodernist that the Christian faith is the correct system of thought and meaning.  Now the Christian can reintroduce a more traditional apologetic since the Postmodernist is now capable of stomaching objective fact.

The task of the Christian Apologist is to show the unbeliever that the Christian faith is the most viable religious option.  This is accomplished by emphasizing the validity of the Biblical account.  The first hurdle to overcome regards the historical legitimacy of the Gospel records.  To accomplish, Winfried Corduan provides the following checklist of questions in <i>No Doubt About It:  The Case For Christianity</i>:  “(1) Are the accounts written by people closely associated with the event? (2) Are our present versions of the Gospels what the original authors wrote? (3) Are the accounts so biased as to be unbelievable? (4) Do the accounts contain impossibilities (186)?”

By answering these questions, it is discovered that the Gospels are remarkably well off.  The Gospels are themselves written by eyewitnesses or contain the testimony of eyewitnesses.  Corduan writes, “Matthew and John were disciples…Mark was a native of Jerusalem and present at the Gospel events…and reported the reminisces of Peter. Luke…was not a disciple…Yet tells of the research he did (189).”

Regarding the quality of the Gospel manuscripts, so many have come down to us in the present day with so few variant readings that there is little chance of some textual huckster committing documentary fraud without someone catching wind of it.  As to the matter of bias, while the Gospels and the Bible were written to advance a certain perspective the same as any other book, it is remarkably blunt in cataloging the shortcomings of its most beloved protagonists.  Most memoirs and autobiographies go out of their way to cast their subjects in the most favorable light possible even at the expense of factual accuracy.

Lastly, as to whether or not the Gospels record impossibilities is a matter of preconception in the mind of the beholder.  One can either maintain the Humean notion that miracles do not occur because miracles do not occur or abide by the canons of historical research and accept these extraordinary events as they come since the rest of the document passes muster.

Since the Gospels are deemed as historically reliable, it would follow that those studying these document should look to those spoken thereof in its pages to provided the content and meaning of these events addressed.  After all, the Founding Fathers are still looked to as important sources for interpreting the U.S. Constitution and for what was intended for the early American republic.

Likewise, to comprehend fully the significance of Jesus, the sincere student of history ought to consider what this historical figure said about himself.  Jesus says in Matthew 12:39-40, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign.  But none will be given except for the prophet Jonah.  For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and nights in the heart of the earth.”  From later passages detailing the Resurrection, we see that he carried through on this promise.

In Matthew 16:13-17, Jesus asks His disciples who they think He is.  Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  Jesus did not chastise Peter for idolatry; instead he ratified the Apostle’s assertion by replying, “Blessed are you, Simeon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”

An apologetic designed to address the concerns raised by Postmodernism presents a number of possibilities as well as challenges to the Christian seeking to reach those trapped by this subtle but pervasive mindset.  Crafting an apologetic addressing the spirit of the age to an extent makes the evangelistic task somewhat easier.

Postmodernism already wrests asunder most metaphysical pretensions as linguistic obfuscations protecting the powerful.  Therefore, the Postmodernist has already done a portion of the Christian’s work by exposing the invalidity of most intellectual systems.  The Christian can therefore rush in and expose the contradictory nature of outright nihilism without first having to tear down incorrect theologies and the faulty ethics arising from them.   As a result, the Christian can then show how the alternatives found in the Bible strike the proper balance between the liberation and conformity tearing at the heart of contemporary culture and individual well-being.

However, these characteristics can also serve as drawbacks when employing an apologetic addressing Postmodernism.  Even though the Apologist does not have to deconstruct (to use a term popular in Postmodernist circles) faulty conceptions of God when dealing with these thinkers, the Christian has to take the time to reestablish why anything matters at all.  With those hovering around the periphery, it might be relatively easy to lure them back onto the solid ground of commonsense founded on Christian absolutes; however, those at the heart of this movement churning out its lies and deceptions will be considerably harder to convince and will continue to ensnare unreflective minds.

It is in the campaign against this ongoing subversion that the Christian waging a defensive action to preserve the remaining shreds of moral sanity can get bogged down and neglect the distinctives of the Christian faith in favor of a less offensive set of principles common to various religions and ideologies shocked by the ethical brutality of the contemporary era.

Of the crop of books over the past few years by figures such as Bill Benet, Robert Bork, and James Q. Wilson that bemoan the decline in social morality, Hugh Hewitt writes in The Embarrassed Believer: Reviving Christian Witness In An Age Of Unbelief,  “But there is no apologetic content to these writings.  And they are mute on the ultimate question, they are ineffective.  In fact, they might actually be harmful (154).”  The Christian accomplishes little of lasting impact if the message is watered down to attract allies or spends inordinate amounts of time addressing the symptoms of the disease rather than the cause.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against spiritual darkness in high places.”  The Christian is involved in a grand spiritual conflict all around him.  As in all wars, weapons and tactics change over time as each side engages in a spiraling exchange of point/counterpoint as each side tries to best the other.

In the Modern era, the Christian utilized an apologetic appealing to a common respect for objective factual knowledge shared with the broader culture.  However, in the change to Postmodernism, the Christian has had to alter the apologetic to show how life without objective truth is unlivable.  From that point the Apologist can go on to show how what Francis Schaeffer  termed “true truth” indelibly points towards Christ.

By Frederick Meekins

(Click above image for TV36 interview of Dr. Wascher)

(Anticipated Publication Date: March 2010)

Health Report:

Diet, Soy & Breast Cancer Risk

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers…”

By, Robert A. Wascher, MD, FACS

Updated: 06/07/2009

The information in this column is intended for informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical advice or recommendations by the author. Please consult with your physician before making any lifestyle or medication changes, or if you have any other concerns regarding your health.

DIET, SOY & BREAST CANCER RISK

Last week’s column reviewed new clinical research findings suggesting that higher levels of soy-derived isoflavones in the diet, and in the blood, may significantly reduce the risk of prostate cancer. This week, I will be discussing a new research study that makes similar claims regarding the prevention of breast cancer.

Breast cancer in women is, in several important ways, analogous to prostate cancer in men. Like prostate cancer, most breast cancer cells are fuelled by the body’s sex hormones (androgens stimulate prostate cancer growth, while estrogen in women stimulates breast cancer growth). Prostate cancer is the number one cause of cancer in men, and breast cancer is the number one cause of cancer in men. Approximately 192,000 cases of each of these cancers will be diagnosed in 2009, with prostate cancer accounting for about one-fourth of all cancers afflicting men, while breast cancer also represents about one-fourth of all cancers that affect women. Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in men, and, analogously, breast cancer is the number two cause of cancer death in women. More than 27,000 men will die of prostate cancer in 2009, while more than 40,000 women will succumb to breast cancer this year.

In last week’s column (Diet & Prostate Cancer Risk), I reviewed an innovative clinical research study that assessed both the dietary intake of soy-derived isoflavones and the concentration of these dietary nutrients in the blood. Isoflavones belong to a larger group of dietary compounds that are, collectively, referred to as phytoestrogens, as these nutrients are able to stimulate (albeit weakly) chemical receptors for the sex hormone estrogen. In a newly published clinical study, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the results of a large prospective Chinese women’s health study add to previous similar research in suggesting that a diet rich in soybean-derived products, especially when consumed before and during adolescence, may be associated with a decreased overall risk of developing breast cancer later in life.

In this prospective public health study, more than 73,000 Chinese adolescent girls and women were followed for an average of 7.4 years. All of the participants in this very large study completed validated dietary surveys, and the incidence of new breast cancers among this very large group of Chinese women was then compared to their self-reported intake of soy-based foods.

The results of this study were rather striking, and were highly statistically significant when comparing the incidence of breast cancer among women with the highest levels of soy intake versus the women with the least soy intake. In this epidemiological study, the women who reported the highest regular dietary intake of soy-based foods were, overall, nearly 60 percent less likely to be diagnosed with premenopausal breast cancer during the course of this clinical research trial. This dramatic reduction in the risk of premenopausal breast cancer was observed in both the women who reported high levels of soy-derived foods in their diet and in the women who frequently consumed foods that were generally rich in isoflavones.

While this particular study did not measure isoflavone levels in the blood, as was done in the prostate cancer study that I reviewed last week, its results, nonetheless, mirror the findings of other similar epidemiological studies.

As with all survey-based disease prevention studies, of course, there is the potential for significant bias in this particular research study, and studies such as these cannot, by themselves, prove a “cause-and-effect” mechanism behind the clinical findings that they reveal. However, such studies, when conducted prospectively and with a high degree of scientific integrity, can still suggest potentially important disease prevention strategies. When the results of studies such as these appear to be especially compelling, they should then be followed-up by large, prospective randomized, placebo-controlled clinical research studies that provide so-called “Level I” clinical evidence.

Previous studies that have supported a role for soy consumption in breast cancer prevention have suggested that the increased consumption of soy-derived isoflavones before and around the time of adolescence is critically important, when the female breast is actively developing, and that this apparent protective effect of soy foods against breast cancer diminishes greatly after breast development is completed in early adulthood. (At the same time, however, the weakly estrogenic effects of dietary isoflavones have raised concerns about soy intake among women with a prior history of breast cancer, although there is no convincing scientific data, yet, showing that dietary isoflavones increase the risk of breast cancer recurrence.)

Another caveat that must be mentioned regarding the findings of this particular study is that the potentially beneficial effects of soy-derived foods, and of dietary isoflavones in general, in preventing breast cancer were observed in a homogeneous population of Asian women. Even if high levels of isoflavones in the diet really are protective against breast cancer, as this epidemiological study strongly suggests, it is still unclear whether or not this putative cancer prevention benefit applies equally to non-Asian women as well. Once again, only well-balanced, prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical studies can confirm or contradict the findings of this very large Chinese public health study. Fortunately, there are several such studies underway at this time.

I will have much more to say, of course, regarding diet and breast cancer prevention, as well as many other evidence-based lifestyle and dietary strategies to reduce your risk of developing all of the top ten cancer killers, in my forthcoming book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” which is expected to be available in the spring of 2010.

Finally, although I don’t, as a rule, include links to other websites within this column, I am making an exception for The Prostate Cancer Charity in the United Kingdom. This cancer awareness charity is competing in an online contest to have their prostate cancer public service announcement displayed on London buses at no charge. Please click the following link, and cast your online vote for this charity’s worthy cause (you can cast a vote for them on a daily basis):

Bluefrog – The Prostate Cancer Charity

Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, a professor of surgery, a widely published author, and a Surgical Oncologist at the Kaiser Permanente healthcare system in Orange County, California

Send your feedback to Dr. Wascher at:rwascher@doctorwascher.net
 

Dr. Wascher’s Biography

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Copyright 2009

Robert A. Wascher, MD, FACS

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 Dr. Wascher’s Archives:

5-24-2009: Diabetes, Glucose Control & Death
5-17-2009: Drug Company Marketing & Physician Prescribing Bias
5-10-2009: Hemorrhoids & Surgery
5-3-2009: Statin Drugs & Blood Clots (Thromboembolism)
4-26-2009: Are We Really Losing the War on Cancer?
4-19-2009: Exercise in Middle Age & Risk of Death
4-12-2009: Can Chronic Stress Harm Your Heart?
4-5-2009: Does PSA Testing for Prostate Cancer Save Lives?
3-22-2009: CABG Surgery vs. PCI in Diabetics with Coronary Artery Disease; Sweetened Beverages and Coronary Artery Disease
3-15-2009: Depression, Stress, Anger & Heart Disease
3-8-2009: Coronary Artery Disease: CABG vs. Stents?; Swimming Lessons & Drowning Risk in Children
3-1-2009: Aspirin & Colorectal Cancer Prevention; Fish Oil & Respiratory Infections in Children
2-22-2009: Health Differences Between Americans & Europeans; Lycopene & Prostate Cancer
2-15-2009: Statin Drugs & Death Rates; Physical Activity, Breast Cancer & Sex Hormones
2-8-2009: Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) & Breast Cancer; Stool DNA Testing & Cancer of the Colon & Rectum
2-1-2009: Obesity and the Complications of Diverticulosis (Diverticulitis & Bleeding); Obesity, Weight Loss & Urinary Incontinence
1-25-2009: Prostate Cancer, Fatigue & Exercise; Does your Surgeon “Warm-up” Before Surgery?
1-18-2009: Cancer and Vitamins; Teenagers, MySpace and Risky Behaviors
1-11-2009: Exercise Reverses Some Effects of Fatty Meals; Vitamin C and Blood Pressure
1-4-2009: Secondhand Smoke & Heart Attack Risk; Poor Physical Fitness During Childhood & Heart Disease Risk During Adulthood
12-28-2008: Stress & Your Risk of Heart Attack; Vitamin D & the Prevention of Colon & Rectal Polyps
12-21-2008: Breast Cancer Incidence & Hormone Replacement Therapy; Circumcision & the Risk of HPV & HIV Infection
12-14-2008: Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Selenium Do Not Prevent Cancer; Postscript: A Possible Cure for Down’s Syndrome
12-7-2008: Generic vs. Brand-Name Drugs, Stress & Breast Cancer Survival
11-30-2008: A Possible Cure for Down’s Syndrome?; Smoking & Cognitive Decline; Calcium & Vitamin D & Breast Cancer Risk
11-23-2008: Breast Cancer & Fish Oil; Lymphedema after Breast Cancer Treatment; Vasectomy & Prostate Cancer Risk
11-16-2008: Vitamin E & Vitamin C: No Impact on Cardiovascular Disease Risk; Does Lack of Sleep Increase Stroke & Heart Attack Risk in Hypertensive Patients?
11-9-2008: Statins Cut Heart Attack Risk Even with Normal Cholesterol Levels; Statins & PSA Level
11-2-2008: Radiation Treatment of Prostate Cancer & Second Cancers; Sexual Content on TV & Teen Pregnancy Risk
10-26-2008: Smoking & Quality of Life
10-19-2008: Agent Orange & Prostate Cancer
10-12-2008: Pomegranate Juice & Prostate Cancer
10-5-2008: Central Obesity & Dementia; Diet, Vitamin D, Calcium, & Colon Cancer
9-28-2008: Publication & Citation Bias in Favor of Industry-Funded Research?
9-21-2008: Does Tylenol® (Acetaminophen) Cause Asthma?
9-14-208: Arthroscopic Knee Surgery- No Better than Placebo?; A Healthy Lifestyle Prevents Stroke
8-23-2008: Alcohol Abuse Before & After Military Deployment; Running & Age; Running & Your Testicles
8-12-2008: Green Tea & Diabetes; Breastfeeding & Adult Cholesterol Levels; Fish Oil & Senile Macular Degeneration
8-3-2008: Exercise & Weight Loss; Green Tea, Folic Acid & Breast Cancer Risk; Foreign Language Interpreters & ICU Patients
7-26-2008: Viagra & Sexual Function in Women; Patient-Reported Adverse Hospital Events; Curcumin & Pancreatic Cancer
7-13-2008: Erectile Dysfunction & Frequency of Sex; Muscle Strength & Mortality in Men; Cryoablation for Prostate Cancer
7-6-2008: Sleep, Melatonin & Breast Cancer Risk; Mediterranean Diet & Cancer Risk; New Treatment for Varicose Veins
6-29-2008: Bone Marrow Stem Cells & Liver Failure; Vitamin D & Colorectal Cancer Survival; Green Tea & Colorectal Cancer
6-22-2008: Obesity, Lifestyle & Heart Disease; Effects of Lifestyle & Nutrition on Prostate Cancer; Ginkgo Biloba, Ulcerative Colitis & Colorectal Cancer
6-15-2008: Preventable Deaths after Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) Surgery; Green Tea & Colorectal Cancer; Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) & St. John’s Wort
6-8-2008: Vitamin D & Prostate Cancer Risk; Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) of Kidney (Renal) Cancer; Antisense Telomerase & Cancer
6-2-2008: Acute Coronary Syndrome- Do You Know the Symptoms?; Green Tea & Lung Cancer; Episiotomy & Subsequent Deliveries- An Unkind Cut
5-25-2008: Early Childhood Screening Predicts Later Behavioral Problems; Psychiatric Disorders Among Parents of Autistic Children; Social & Psychiatric Profiles of Young Adults Born Prematurely
5-18-2008: Can Statins Reverse Coronary Artery Disease?; Does Breast Ultrasound Improve Breast Cancer Detection?; Preventive Care Services at Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Centers
5-11-2008: Smoking Cessation & Risk of Death; Childhood Traumas & Adult Suicide Risk; “White Coat Hypertension” & Risk of Cardiovascular Disease
5-4-2008: Super-Size Me: Fast Food’s Effects on Your Liver; Exercise, Weight & Coronary Artery Disease; Contamination of Surgical Instruments in the Operating Room
4-27-2008: Stents vs. Bypass Surgery for Coronary Artery Disease; The “DASH” Hypertension Diet & Cardiovascular Disease Prevention; Testosterone Therapy for Women with Decreased Sexual Desire & Function
4-20-2008: BRCA Breast Cancer Mutations & MRI Scans; Bladder Cancer Prevention with Broccoli?; Diabetes: Risk of Death Due to Heart Attack & Stroke
4-13-2008: Breast Cancer Recurrence & Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT); Carotid Artery Disease: Surgery vs. Stents?; Statin Drugs & Cancer Prevention
4-6-2008: Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), Pap Smear Results & Cervical Cancer; Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Infection & Oral Cancer; Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) & the Risk of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD)
3-30-2008: Abdominal Obesity & the Risk of Death in Women; Folic Acid Pretreatment & Heart Attacks; Pancreatic Cancer Regression after Injections of Bacteria
3-23-2008: Age of Transfused Blood & Risk of Complications after Surgery; Obesity, Blood Pressure & Heart Size in Children
3-16-2008: Benefits of a Full Drug Coverage Plan for Medicare Patients?; Parent-Teen Conversations about Sex; Soy (Genistein) & Prostate Cancer
3-9-2008: Flat Colorectal Adenomas & Cancer; Health Risks after Stopping Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT); Television, Children & Obesity
3-2-2008: Medication & Risk of Death After Heart Attack; Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) & Mammogram Results; Selenium: Cancer, Heart Disease & Death
2-23-2008: Universal Healthcare Insurance Study; Glucosamine & Arthritis
2-17-2008: Exceptional Longevity in Men; Testosterone & Risk of Prostate Cancer; Smoking & Pre-malignant Colorectal Polyps
2-10-2008: Thrombus Aspiration from Coronary Arteries; Intensive Management of Diabetes & Death; Possible Cure for Down’s Syndrome?
2-3-2008: Vitamin D & Cardiovascular Health; Vitamin D & Breast Cancer; Green Tea & Colorectal Cancer
1-27-2008: Colorectal Cancer, Esophageal Cancer & Pancreatic Cancer: Update from the 2008 American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium
1-20-2008: Testosterone Levels & Risk of Fractures in Elderly Men; Air Pollution & DNA Damage in Sperm; Statins & Trauma Survival in the Elderly
1-12-2008: Statins, Diabetes & Stroke and Obesity; GERD & Esophageal Cancer
1-7-2008: Testosterone Supplements in Elderly Men; Colorectal Cancer– Reasons for Poor Compliance with Screening Recommendations
12-31-2007: Minority Women, Hormone Replacement Therapy & Breast Cancer; Does Health Insurance Improve Health?
12-23-2007: Is Coffee Safe After a Heart Attack?; Impact of Divorce on the Environment; Hypertension & the Risk of Dementia; Emotional Vitality & the Risk of Heart Disease
12-16-2007: Honey vs. Dextromethorphan vs. No Treatment for Kids with Night-Time Cough, Acupuncture & Hot Flashes in Women with Breast Cancer, Physical Activity & the Risk of Death, Mediterranean Diet & Mortality
12-11-2007: Bias in Medical Research; Carbon Nanotubes & Radiofrequency: A New Weapon Against Cancer?; Childhood Obesity & Risk of Adult Heart Disease
12-2-2007: Obesity & Risk of Cancer; Testosterone Level & Risk of Death; Drug Company Funding of Research & Results; Smoking & the Risk of Colon & Rectal Cancer

Dr. Wascher’s Home Page

A few days before “Earth Day” (which happens to be the same day as Lenin’s Birthday), America’s ideological greens and reds received a present they have been desiring for many moons: The Environmental Protection Agency—egged on by the U.S. Supreme Court—officially designated carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. That means that either congress or the EPA is expected to produce a plan for regulating this common gas.

So opens a new chapter in regulatory absurdity, a veritable Pandora’s Box of complications.

A generation ago, it was considered great progress against pollution when catalytic converters were added to automobile engines to change poisonous carbon monoxide to benign carbon dioxide. Now, CO2 has been demonized.

The EPA’s characterization of CO2 as a pollutant brings into question the natural order of things. By the EPA’s logic, either God or Mother Nature (whichever creator you believe in) seriously goofed. After all, CO2 is the base of our food chain. CO2 nourishes plants, plants nourish animals and humans, and plants and animals serve a variety of human needs. “Pollutants” are supposed to be harmful to life, not helpful to it, aren’t they?

Of course, it is true (although greens often ignore it when trying to ban such useful chemicals as pesticides, insecticides, Alar, PCBs, etc.) that “the dose makes the poison.” Too much oxygen, for example, poses danger to human life. So, what is the “right” concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere? There is no right answer to this question. The concentration of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere fluctuated greatly long before humans appeared on earth, and that concentration has fluctuated since then, too.

The current concentration is approximately 385 parts per million. Some scientists maintain that 1,000 parts per million would provide an ideal atmosphere for plant life, accelerating plant growth and multiplying yields, thereby sustaining far more animal and human life than is currently possible. Whatever standard the EPA selects will be purely arbitrary.

“Forget about the plants, Hendrickson,” say the greens. “What we’re trying to control is how warm the earth’s atmosphere gets.” To which I reply, “With all due respect, are you kidding me?”

As with a “right” concentration of CO2, what is the “right” average global temperature? For 7,000 of the last 10,000 years, the earth was cooler than it is now; mankind prospers more in warm climates than cold climates; and the Antarctic icecap was significantly larger during the warmer mid-Holocene period than it is today. Are you sure warmer is bad or wrong?

And how do you propose to regulate the earth’s temperature when as much as 3/4 of the variability is due to variations in solar activity, with the remaining 1/4 due to changes in the earth’s orbit, axis, and albedo (reflectivity)? This truly is “mission impossible.” Mankind can no more regulate earth’s temperature than the tides.

Even if the “greenhouse effect” were greater than it actually is, the EPA and Congress would be powerless to alter it for several reasons:

1. Human activity (according to NASA data) accounts for less than 4 percent of global CO2 emissions.

2. CO2 itself accounts for only 10 or 20 percent of the greenhouse effect. (This discloses the capricious nature of EPA’s decision to classify CO2 as a pollutant, for if CO2 is a pollutant because it is a greenhouse gas, then the most common greenhouse gas of all—water vapor, which accounts for almost 3/4 of the atmosphere’s greenhouse effect—should be regulated, too. The EPA isn’t going after water vapor, of course, because then everyone would realize how absurd climate-control regulation really is.)

3. Even if Americans were to eliminate their CO2 emissions completely, total human emissions of CO2 would still increase as billions of people around the world continue to develop economically.

Clearly, it is beyond the ken of mortals to answer the meta-questions about the right concentration of CO2, or the optimal global average temperature, or to control CO2 levels in the atmosphere. I feel sorry for the professionals at EPA who are now expected to come up with answers for these unanswerable questions.

However, I do not feel sorry for the political appointees, like climate czar Carol Browner, and the whole Al Gore, left-wing political fraternity, because it looks like they are about to get what they want—the power to increase their power over Americans’ lives and pocketbooks via CO2 emission regulations.

The big questions facing us regular citizens is whether Congress or the unelected folks at EPA will decide questions like:

— Who will be forced to drive and fly less often? (If we quit using every gasoline-powered vehicle in the country, we still wouldn’t reduce CO2 emissions as much as Al Gore wants.)

— How much economic pain should be imposed on Americans for heating and cooling their homes? (Your 75-percent-higher electric bill will fund President Obama’s “green jobs” machine.)

— Which businesses will need to move offshore to power their operations at a competitive cost? (This is nothing new. EPA regulations started to off-shore oil-refinery jobs decades ago.)

The impact of CO2 regulations will hurt us far more than CO2 itself ever could. We need a miracle, folks. Let’s hope that someone nails shut the lid on this Pandora’s Box before it swings wide open and infests us with a multitude of plagues.

Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

Check out this response from Argus to a video from some mambi-pambi mangina. Argus is probably the best video man that we’ve got right now.

MND fan Bill W. sent this to me and I agree with his observations about the nefarious Keith-O 100 percent. “The Left just doesn’t get it. They don’t get the Right’s objection to Ms. Sotomayor. There is no better demonstration of what I’m talking about than watching “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on a nightly basis. Keith, being the low-rent eunuch he is, cites every quote he can find from conservative jurists about how one’s life experiences and cultural heritage may affect the way they see the world or construe the law—as though that somehow puts them in league with the unfortunate racist remark from Ms. Sotomayor in her speech at Berkeley in 2001. Keithy specifically likes to cite Samuel Alito and Sandra Day O’Connor, two Republican appointee Justices, as evidence of conservatives “saying the same thing she said.”

Unfortunately for Keith, he’s nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is. We know this to be manifestly true by his repeated and consistent failing to see the difference between the conservative quotes he constantly masturbates to, thinking he’s “got us”, and what Ms. Sotomayor said (I suspect these are the kinds of mental lapses attributable to low testosterone, a condition Keith has been battling since having his testicles removed many, many years ago). The problem, Keith, and the crux of the principled conservative’s argument against Ms. Sotomayor, is NOT about how she sees the world differently as a Latina (which is, in itself, a racist or at least a race-norming view, because it suggests all Latinos or Latinas are one big, monolithic entity incapable of having heterodox views amongst their own), nor about how she said one’s life experiences shape who she is and how she thinks, which will, in turn, affect how she interprets the law. While I don’t believe that “Latinas” see the world any particular way, I would certainly wholeheartedly agree with her sentiment about life experience. The problem is that she used the word “better”. It’s one thing to say you’ll see the world “differently” than someone who grew up in a different culture, but it’s another matter entirely to say you’ll see the world “better”. And “better” was her claim in her speech at Berkeley.

While Keith is busy quoting all the conservative jurists he can find, he never notices that in any of their statements, the word “better” is conspicuously absent. They talk about differences, not racial superiority as Ms. Sotomayor did. Her statement cannot be written away to “context” either, because even when taken in full context (i.e. racial and sex discrimination cases), it is nevertheless racist to say, “… I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Imagine the uproar if she had said “black male”. But, not to digress: again, it’s fine to say “different”; it’s unequivocally racist to say “better”. This (naturally) leads me to believe that Ms. Sotomayor is somewhat of a racist. This is two strikes against her in my book. However, she is clearly a brilliant woman with the academic creds to prove it [I disagree with Bill here. She's an affirmative action zero]. Unfortunately, however, brilliant people can become misguided just like anyone else. Is Ms. Sotomayor? It remains to be seen. She might be a racist. Or she might have just made one unfortunate statement that she worded poorly and would like to have back. Which is the case? As of yet, we do not know. Fortunately, we have the process of the Senate Confirmation Hearings to (hopefully) weed out the truth. Give her her chance to prove she has a sound judicial philosophy. If she does, despite how liberal she may be, she should be confirmed because, frankly, to the victor go the spoils. The Democrats won the Presidency, so their candidate gets to pick who gets nominated for the Court. However, let it be said now, in simple terms even Keith Olbermann can understand: harboring even a shred of racism means, ipso facto, that one cannot have a sound judicial philosophy, for how can a judge apply the law evenly and fairly to all people under it if that judge doesn’t view all people as the same? Racism and justice are mutually exclusive. This is axiomatic. Anyone who tells you otherwise or attempts to nuance the issue is Keith Olbermann.

We have seen literally scores of men’s rights groups pop up globally over the past 40 years. From MEN International to the National Organization for Men to the National Coalition for Free Men, most of these well-intentioned and well-meaning groups were not organized, funded well enough, or politically backed to compete with the rise of the feminists and the National Organization for Women. That said, it is important for everyone – men, women, and children – to ascertain the significance of The Men’s Movement and that men are not just “paychecks and biological necessities.”

We have heard of The Promise Keepers and of the 1995 Million Man March. Even Mel Feit from the National Center for Men recently appeared against feminist love Gloria Allred on Dr. Phil. Now, a brand new college born group from the University of Chicago called Men in Power has surfaced. And the president of the advocacy group, Steve Saltarelli, has just been interviewed on National Public Radio.

Saltarelli’s group is the first men’s group at the University of Chicago compared with nine women’s advocacy groups at the same. Men in Power was started to raise awareness of men, professionally speaking. Saltarelli, who desires to become an attorney, believes men need help with respect to the fields of medicine, law and business. He wants to bring in speakers to address these issues and garner media attention, too. According to Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan in Flint, in April, the national unemployment rate for men was 10 percent compared 7.6 percent for women. In addition, he said women hold three out of every four jobs in health care and education. As a still licensed laboratory medical technologist who worked in hospitals for twenty-odd years, I can tell you firsthand women outnumbered men in the labs big time. And Perry said future employment for men is an issue, too, because since 1981 women hold more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men do.

Perhaps, what Mr. Saltarelli has yet to encounter, are the strident ideological views and divisive forces of opposing feminists. I hope he doesn’t succumb to the catch phrase, “If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.” I, for one, will be rooting for him and hope his idea flourishes and metastasizes like cancer nationwide. Other universities should follow suit and create men’s groups on campuses, nationally. Men need men. Women need men. And children need men to look up to.

Surely, some of these U. Of Chicago Men in Power guys will become dads, too, and Saltarelli may consider forming Fathers in Power. The latter would become far more controversial since they would be dealing with issues such as child abuse, child custody and child support. For example, try telling a radical feminist a recent national study of child abuse reports/investigations found that seventy five percent of the same were unfounded or false. Or, try telling her that women first file for divorce and mothers obtain child custody 85 percent of the time.

My advice to Saltarelli and his colleagues – Stay focused and stay strong. Read Dr. Warren Farrell’s book – The Myth of Male Power and Dick Doyle’s book – Save the Males. Do not contest ideology with ideology, but with facts and empirical data. Connect with experts who teach and publish in men’s studies. You may suggest to collection and development decision makers at your library to stock a few men’s rights books and articles. I presented at the U. Of Chicago a few years ago alongside Michael McCormick from the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. Saltarelli might even query prominent Chicago attorney Jeffery Leving to speak to his organization. After all, Father’s Day is right around the corner.

Dean Tong, MSc.

abuse-excuse.com

UPDATED Sunday, June 7th 2009 at 3:22 Central Time.

Um, this is ah, really bad. Really bad. Why is political correctness evil? Let’s see, a main tenet of PC is that men are evil abusers of…everyone: woman, man, environment, etc. As a result, it’s easy for Air New Zealand to come up with what they did. The article below is a magnificent (and sick) example of societal misandry. Thanks for the heads up gyxx11.

“Air New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination. The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone.

Auckland man Mark Worsley says an air steward approached him after take-off on the Christchurch to Auckland flight and told him to change seats with a women sitting two rows in front. The steward said it was the airline’s policy that only women were allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children. “At the time I was so gobsmacked that I moved. I was so embarrassed and just stewed on it for the entire flight.” The 37-year-old shipping manager, who has 2-year-old twins, followed the incident up with the airline and was told Qantas wanted to err on the side of caution. “I felt that it was totally discriminatory. Besides the point of what the hell was I going to do on a crowded flight.” The incident, which happened a year ago, irked Mr Worsley so much that he recently contacted National Party political correctness eradicator Wayne Mapp.

Dr Mapp told the Herald the airlines’ policy was an example of political correctness that had got out of hand. “I think this is a gross over-reaction by the airlines. What do they think men are going to do that women won’t? It is the same as saying men shouldn’t sit beside children on a bus.” A Qantas spokesman confirmed the Australian airline, which operates domestic flights in New Zealand, does not allow unaccompanied children to sit next to men. The spokesman said the airline believed it was what customers wanted.

Air New Zealand spokeswoman Rosie Paul said the airline had a similar policy to that of Qantas’. “Airlines are temporary guardians of unaccompanied minors so we have preferred seating for them.” Ms Paul said Air New Zealand tried to seat children near a crew area so crew could keep an eye on them and, when possible, children were seated next to an empty seat. “Sometimes this isn’t possible, so the preference is to seat a female passenger next door to an unaccompanied minor.” When the Herald asked her if the airline considered male passengers to be dangerous to children, Ms Paul replied: “That’s not what I said.” When it was put to her that that was the implication of the policy, she repeated: “No, that’s not what I said.” Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro said she commended the airlines for putting thought into the policy and for endeavouring to keep children safe. Dr Kiro said she did not think it was intended to be a slur against men.

Sexual abuse by women rarely gets reported. Victims often don’t understand that what happened to them was abuse until years later when they are adults. The following table identifies why abusive behaviour by female perpetrators is frequently unacknowledged.

Why Abusive Behaviour by Female Offenders Goes Unreported

–Children are reluctant to report the person they depend on.
–Inappropriate sexual behaviour is often masked in bathing, dressing or comforting the victim.
–When boys are the targets of female offenders, they are less likely to disclose.
–There is denial of the existence of sexuality in females.
–Females who sexually abuse undermines feelings about how women should relate to children.
–People find it difficult to understand how women could sexually abuse.

Children and adolescents who disclose sexual abuse by female offenders are often told they are fantasizing.

“One of the central themes of I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican is that we know the left but they don’t know us. For those ensconced in leftist geographic enclaves and/or those who toil in progressive (read: regressive) vocations, we absorb the emotion-based reasoning and gratuitous, anemic observations of the other side as if by osmosis.

However, in juxtaposition, the author notes that “among the many things of which we are frequently reminded is how astonishingly little they know about us. What they think they know, they’ve picked up by innuendo, or, very nearly the same thing, the commentary in their preferred media. It can be boiled down to this: Conservatives are greedy, hard-hearted, evil bastards, and are, by definition, wrong about everything.”

The pseudo-liberal — as a product of his or her dominance in a setting — never has the impetus to examine our ideas or comprehend that conservatives are real people as opposed to caricatures to be summed up with tired riffs involving sexism, racism, and homophobia.

The hypocrisy and self-deception of the leftist is acute. They pretend taxes are patriotic and that government itself is a charity but prove scofflaws if their own IRS returns are examined. Pseudo-liberals contrast themselves with the right by proclaiming a love for minorities and the poor, but curiously choose to live in exclusive suburbs and eschew contact with the general population whenever possible.

Their weltanschauung is entirely Manichean; a mundane discussion turns into a battle between good and evil. Any reduction in the rates of taxation is akin to robbing from the mouths of the poor. Moreover, should one insist that the law treat felons in an equitable manner rather than prosecute them in a politically correct fashion, they will soon find the left accusing them of being in favor of hate crimes.”

I was at the Rotunda at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, June 3, for the dedication of the statue to President Ronald Reagan. I was there because Bill Clark was there. Judge Clark, as readers of my material know, was Reagan’s closest and most important adviser.

Clark is 77 years old. His wife, Joan, died a few weeks ago. He was invited to the ceremony by the good folks at the Reagan Presidential Foundation. He made a rare trip to Washington, flying from San Francisco late the previous night, in a wheelchair.

Clark sat in the front row, where he was a magnet for current political luminaries and old Reaganites. They all came over to shake his hand: Peggy Noonan, Bob Michel, Denny Hastert, Michael Steele, John McCain, Chas Fagan—the sculptor of the statue. McCain made a beeline for Clark, with cameras clicking upon the two.

The ceremony began with a wonderful invocation by Rev. Barry Black, Senate chaplain, who hit the prayerful themes Reagan himself fondly invoked when waxing eloquent about America—about that Shining City on a Hill. Among those providing remarks, Congressman John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell—the Republican leaders in Congress—were excellent. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, aside from a foolish statement on “stem cell research,” was gracious in her “respect, esteem, and admiration” of President Reagan.

It was a moving event, especially with Nancy Reagan’s presence. Frail, small in size but large in stature, she was no longer the walking dartboard that “journalists” once joyously harpooned. They now treated her like an elder stateswoman, a kind of political royalty—America’s preeminent former first lady. The loudest applause was directed at Nancy.

For me, however, the crowning touch came before Nancy spoke, and before the statue unveiling. It was the sole musical selection for the program: the U.S. Army Chorus singing, a cappella, “America, the Beautiful.”

This love-song for the nation captivated the room. It was beautiful. I caught a camerawoman struggling to hold up her long-lens as she wiped tears flowing down her face.

But what struck me was the perfect choice of that patriotic hymn, unwittingly tying together not only the thoughts of Rev. Black and others, but the origins, ends, and legacy that was Ronald Reagan’s career. Indeed, lost to the innumerable books, articles, documentaries and recollections of Reagan is the significance of this particular anthem.

Specifically, it was way back in the summer of 1952 that Ronald Reagan, an actor transitioning from Democrat to Republican, effectively launched his crusade with a commencement speech at a tiny women’s college in the Midwest. The place was William Woods College, in Fulton, Missouri—the same town where Winston Churchill had warned that a Soviet “iron curtain” was closing across Europe.

It was June 2, 1952. Reagan eagerly arrived with a vibrant, pregnant Nancy. The ceremony opened with a rendition of “America, the Beautiful.”

At 10:00 AM, the movie star addressed the 100 soon-to-be graduates. He told them that America is “less of a place than an idea.” It is an idea, he said, that resided deep in the souls of men. Reagan cast this idea against the darkness of the atheistic, murderous communist menace that resided in Moscow, which, sadly, was really nothing new. Said Reagan:

[The idea of America] is nothing but the inherent love of freedom in each one of us, and the great ideological struggle that we find ourselves engaged in today is not a new struggle. It’s the same old battle. We met it under the name of Hitlerism; we met it under the name of Kaiserism; and we have met it back through the ages in the name of every conqueror that has ever set upon a course of establishing his rule over mankind. It is simply the idea, the basis of this country and of our religion, the idea of the dignity of man, the idea that deep within the heart of each one of us is something so God-like and precious that no individual or group has a right to impose his or its will upon the people.

Then came what I believe was Reagan’s first public foray in openly speaking of America as a divinely chosen nation:

I, in my own mind, have thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land…. I believe that God in shedding his grace on this country has always in this divine scheme of things kept an eye on our land and guided it as a promised land.

This Reagan thought became a theme—and a call—for five decades. He closed by issuing a challenge to the young women—to join him in the epic “battle” against “totalitarian darkness” that confronted their nation. He asked that each of them “contribute a little light,” that each “strike a match,” to “help push back the darkness” facing humanity.

“[W]ith your help,” the future president urged, “I am sure we can come much closer to realizing that this land of ours is the last best hope of man on earth. God bless you.”

Thirty years later, in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan ignited the match that would burn down the Iron Curtain.

The title of Reagan’s talk in Fulton, Missouri that day in June 1952?

“America, the Beautiful.”

That was how Ronald Reagan saw America, its place in the world and in history. Its rendezvous with destiny now rests with those in that Rotunda and all across the fruited plain. It is their challenge today to pick up the torch, strike a match, and ensure America shines amid the darkness of humanity, that it remains a Shining City on a Hill.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007) and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007).

Our pal Schopenbecq takes on the subject of Reality TV and whether or not its social acceptance is only a product of its primary viewers being women.

“Translation: It’s not okay to talk about “hatef**king” conservative women…unless they are rowdy, incivil conservative women who don’t behave nicely enough to be on my obscure PBS show. In which case, they deserve all the vulgar misogynist attacks they get! The comments on Erbe’s post are priceless. I’m sure I’ll be blamed for all the “venom” commenters have been “spewing” there before I even linked it. Heh.”

“* Women are told that it’s easy to become pregnant after the age of 35, which can lead to intense regret in women who bought into this myth
* Women are taught that they should never have to worry about rape, regardless of what they wear, where they walk, how they flirt, or even if they bring a stranger back home after a night on the town – which leads to more women being raped. The problem here is that feminism isn’t making the distinction between how things should be and how they actually are. No woman (or man!) should be raped, but since it happens regularly, you need to make wise decisions about how to live your life. (This is similar for every crime there is: it’s not your fault if you’re mugged, but why not try to avoid it by staying clear from dangerous neighbourhoods at night?)
* Women are told that it’s perfectly possible to combine a high-powered career and having toddlers. This leads to lots of mothers being stressed out, and always feeling guilty for not having enough time for the children. The realistic assessment is that one parent, or both parents, will have to slow down their careers.
* Many young women study feminism (a k a gender studies or women studies), and as a result discover that they have a newfound sense of anger and hate towards all men. This anger makes it that much harder to create a loving relationship with a man.
* By spreading factoids about domestic violence and the wage gap, women are made to feel depressed and without hope, since the odds seem to be stacked against them. If the truth was told in the media, then women would see that while there are serious problems in society, both sexes are affected – and all we can do is strive towards a better future.

Since feminism hurts both sexes, it is high time to let go of this ideology, just like the world has let go of communism. The good sides of feminism can easily be included in a gender liberation movement, so we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by allowing feminism to fall by the wayside.”

“Judith Walzer Leavitt describes a small, but telling, part of the evolution of fatherhood in “Make Room for Daddy.”Her study is a narrative history — illuminating and engaging — of what fathers actually did while mothers were giving birth over the past 80 years.

Fathers today are steeped in the fine points of birth coaching and Lamaze, but once upon a time they had, literally, nothing to do with the event other than participating in the kickoff nine months earlier. As late as 1938 half of American women were still giving birth at home and men were, as they had been for thousands of years, unwelcome on the premises. The mother gathered her lady friends around her; the father was sent packing. In one charming bit of correspondence from the period, reproduced by Ms. Leavitt, a letter-writer observes how the womenfolk managed the event: “Mrs. Warren, who was absolute in this season of female despotism, interposed, and the happy father was compelled, with reluctant steps, to quit the spot.”

As birthing increasingly moved to hospitals in the 1940s, fathers became more involved, at first confined to the waiting room, sometimes dubbed the “Stork Club” or, more quaintly, the “Husband Room.” These were the days of chain smoking or ducking out to a bar while the women and doctors did whatever it was they were doing. Ms. Leavitt reports that one hospital sent fathers home and later dispatched a telegram announcing that the blessed event had occurred.”

As the number of Americans who remember the horror of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington almost eight years ago dwindles, the US borders are practically as porous as ever — and the terrorists know it. Even while President Barack Obama is in the Middle East wooing Islamic nations, Islamofascism is taking hold in Central and South America.

According to testimony given to the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee by General Peter Pace, the former US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hamas has joined Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda in the Triple Frontier Zone in Latin America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge.

There the Islamic terror groups train recruits, gather intelligence on targets, launder money and sell drugs. There is evidence that these terrorists and narco-terrorists will soon migrate north into the United States. He cited terrorism reports indicating terrorist groups are active in Canada and Central-South America.

ATTACKS ON US SOVEREIGNTY

Border Patrol agents began to voice what many believed were legitimate concerns about “armed incursions” into the United States from Mexico-based assailants. They reported that heavily armed Mexican army units and federal police, called federales, had infiltrated US territory and fired upon them, in some cases. Mexican drug lords had put prices on the heads of American law-enforcement agents strung out along the border. Where was the outrage by our political leaders and the mainstream media over this blatant violation of our national sovereignty?

Last year I reported on armed Mexicans entering the US causing National Guard troops to retreat because they had limited, if any, rules of engagement. The federal government attempted to suppress the information of this incursion and violation of US sovereignty.

Many of our political leaders and most in the news media ignore these violent attacks on our national sovereignty while more and more Americans are saying, “This has got to stop!”

Some security experts had high hopes that President Bush would bring up the border security problem during his meeting with then Mexican President Vincente Fox. It never happened. Quite the opposite occurred. The two leaders discussed ways of relaxing immigration restrictions including a de facto amnesty program. Now with President Barack Obama and the Democrat Party in charge of two branches of government, observers believe even less will be done to secure our borders.

Putting aside terrorism, the lack of border security contributes to crime. In Los Angeles, a look at outstanding arrest warrants for homicide reveals that over 90% are for illegal aliens. Examination of all LA felony arrest warrants (murder, rape, armed robbery, etc.) shows that 65% are for illegal aliens. The Manhattan Institute estimates that 350 killers managed to escape back into Mexico and the Mexican government refuses to extradite to the US to stand trial. In another study, a sample group of 55,000 criminal aliens committed 700,000 criminal acts.

And our northern border with Canada has many law-enforcement leaders even more concerned. Canadian security experts concede that there are several radical Islamist groups active in their country. In fact, Hezbullah’s largest headquarters is located not in the Middle East but in Toronto. One Canadian intelligence officer claims that his country’s immigration policy is more lax than US policy and their politicos more liberal when it comes to refusing to restrict illegal aliens from entering Canada.

If these killers aren’t afraid to target or kill cops, then who in America is really safe from terrorists, murderers, rapists and other offenders; and anyone wishing to address the problem is labeled a racist or xenophobe. Americans can probably count on one hand the number of congressional leaders who will even debate the issues of illegal immigration or border security.

What sense does it make to inspect shipping containers in New York seaports while ignoring the vulnerabilities existing on our borders?

NUCLEAR SMUGGLING

In a previous column, I reported on how easily it was for undercover investigators to sneak radioactive material — to be used for “dirty bombs” into the US.

The undercovers were successful at both borders 100% of the time. Yet, the White House, Congress and the news media ignored the subsequent report from the Government Accountability Office about the undercover operation that proved we could not prevent weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled into the US.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is on his Middle East apology tour.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he’s the former blog editor for the House Conservatives Fund’s weblog. Recently, the editors at Examiner.com appointed him as their Law Enforcement Examiner. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

If you wish to receive Kouri’s emailed law enforcement and intelligence reports, write to him at COPmagazine@aol.com. Simply write “Free Subscription” on the subject line.

The lamestream media told you:

Tom Krisher, writing for the AP reports: “Obama’s Rules Will Make Small Efficient Cars the Norm”

“Higher mileage and emissions standards set by the Obama administration on Tuesday, which begin to take effect in 2012 and are to be achieved by 2016, will transform the American car and truck fleet. http://tinyurl.com/obrz3l

“Nearly everybody will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity.”

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Tom Krisher of the Associated Press, writing with no independent thought apparent in his “report” of a government edict, effectively sanctified another government power grab over independent business in the United States. He carefully detailed the government proclamation, abandoning the skepticism that is critical to a reporter’s code of ethics.

Missing is the fact that, with no apparent constitutional authority, the current president is dictating manufacturing standards to an entire industry. The media covered the government proclamation unchallenged.

The president cannot legitimately decree what sort of cars Americans can buy, but this has had little effect on the current administration or its complicit “news” media admirers. The media denies such claims.

“Smaller cars, lighter cars, cars with less impact resistance, this equates directly to more dead Americans, but the Obama administration could care less,” says one observer who was not quoted by the press. Radio talk-show hosts have made the point repeatedly, though lamestream reports have failed to make the point at all.

“Green” advocates are reportedly thrilled at the news, effortlessly trading human lives for protection of something called “the environment,” a fantastical representation of the place where all of us live, or die, in small, cheap, lightweight cars, designed to comply with the undocumented president’s unconstitutional wishes.

Congress fell in line to support the president’s edict and could not be reached for comment.

More cars will also be required to run on electricity, under the new government management plan. Surprisingly, the source of that much electricity was not discussed, even though the existing power grid runs near maximum, and browns out during periods of highest demand in winters and summers. It is estimated that cars need considerably more power than rooms with lightbulbs.

Internet-inventor Al Gore, speaking at a congressional hearing televised by C-SPAN, said electric cars could run on the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline. Gasoline, its cost, electrical equivalency, driving habits and various car designs are not directly related. Dollars per mile, which would provide a proper comparison, was not made or questioned.

No new power plants are planned. Mr. Obama has ruled out building the grid’s mainstay coal-fired plants and neighborhoods are reluctant for any kind of plants in their neighborhoods. Some new windmill and sunshine electric generators are being installed however.

If the nation’s fleet is significantly converted to electricity, and insufficient power exists to run the fleet, the only option would be to ration what’s available. Fortunately, this can be achieved easily using “smart meters” currently being installed or retrofitted into homes nationwide. Smart meters can be turned on and off from a central location, controlling the amount of power a homeowner can consume. Constant real-time monitoring and threshold settings can automatically solve the problem of overconsumption. Homeowners would have freedom to choose between charging up their cars, cooking or turning on lights, for example.

An alternative to cutoffs would be steep price hikes to limit usage, applied as people exceed their mandated ration of electrons. These could be easily added to monthly bills, and electricity would continue to flow as long as the surcharges are paid promptly.

In other news, the world seems to have forgotten Mr. Obama’s recent “green” ban on incandescent light bulbs. These have led the world out of abject darkness and had been universally praised previously, but will be eliminated in favor of screwy-shaped bulbs made solely in Communist China. The screwy bulbs, filled with lethal mercury gas, will be required by law in 2012, coincidentally the year Mr. Obama has declared for screwy lightweight less safe cars. A connection between the two acts was unclear at press time. The Communist Chinese politburo was reportedly pleased by the screwy lightbulb law. Hoarding of incandescent bulbs has not been reported.

The lethality of the poison gas in the bulbs has been questioned, since the amount is tiny, it dissipates rapidly upon breakage, and even if you snorted the entire bulb the amount would be too small to cause measurable harm. The government has released a complex technical report on how to dispose of the bulbs and conduct household evacuations if one should break. Compliance with the report is unknown but suspected to be low.

In an estuary the turn of the tide happens every day – when it happens it is difficult to see at first but soon the water starts to run, slowly at first and then like a flood, sweeping all in front of it and even tempering the incoming waves. Are we seeing the first signs in Zimbabwe?

I think Zanu PF now knows that they made some poor choices when they manipulated the final outcome of the GPA and tried to protect their position in the country. MDC ended up with all the Ministries that are concerned with the delivery of the basic needs of ordinary people, health, education, water, sanitation, roads and basic welfare and food requirements. Zanu concentrated on what they saw as controlling the political process – media and information, the security services, the Reserve Bank, the Justice system, foreign affairs and land.

Many of those choices now look like poison chalices. They know now that they will be forced to allow reform of the media – that is just a matter of time and already the media is changing. Their control of the security services without the money to satisfy their need for a liveable wage and decent living and working conditions as well as new toys to play with, is like being tossed a hot coin. This past week the security chiefs gathered to consider what to do with their increasingly restive forces.

The Reserve Bank Governor might still be in his office on the top of that glass and concrete tower, but underneath him are empty vaults and few staff.
What staff he still has wonder how they are going to be paid at the month end. It is rumoured that Gono offered to retire – in return for US$10 million. Cheap at any price in my view but he was given no choice by the State President – “you stay where you are!” MDC attacks on the post were met with a barrage of statements by all sorts of people saying that if necessary, they would “fight” to defend that empty building.

Why they are defending the position of Gono is no mystery, he know all the secrets, who took what and when and where the stuff is held. He has all the bank account numbers and if he was loose on the streets he would be dangerous to all of the beneficiaries.

Even the control of Foreign Affairs is proving an embarrassment. While Mr. Mugabe has no choice as to where he can or cannot go and who will receive him, the Prime Minister takes off on Saturday and his itinerary looks like a trip through the pages of who is who! Starting with Obama and Merkel, going on to Brown and then the leadership the Nordic States, the Netherlands and France. The Foreign Minister – well it was not even clear that he was going to get a visa! If he does, you bet he will get little else except permission to carry the Prime Ministers bag.

Diplomats, almost universally, give little significance to the Foreign Minister, they simply circumvent him and deal direct with the people they regard as being democrats.

Since Zanu PF destroyed the economy, tax receipts have fallen to less than half of what we need to run the country. The rest has to come from the international community – and that group is dominated by the very countries that are demanding change. So when they release resources they make pretty sure they are not being co-opted by the remaining elements of the old regime. They spend their money in those areas where the MDC happens to be in charge – health services, education, services and essential food supplies.

This means that in many instances the MDC is delivering and the people know it. The transformation of the economy is clearly the result of MDC efforts – after all we have now ring-fenced and neutralised Gono who was the sole prop of the previous regime.

It’s not hard to see the continued failures of Zanu PF – they control agriculture and land policy – and both are in a complete shambles. They declared their intention to restore production of basic foods and other agricultural products only to lose what was left of the winter cereals industry. Little wheat and barley has been planted. Now they might lose what is left of the tobacco industry and if that happens then the vast infrastructure that once supported the third largest exporter of tobacco in the world will simple disappear along with tens of thousands of jobs.
Everyone will know who was responsible for that.

As far as land reform is concerned the Courts are about to rule that everything Zanu PF have done since 1998 has been illegal. The thousands of people they have turned off their land in an illegal orgy of theft and pillage are going to be granted full compensation by the Courts and they are then going to have to worry about paying the bills that will ensue. Anyway, the people they allowed to loot the industry have proved to be totally incompetent when it comes to making the assets they stole, productive.

The reality is that the centre of their whole political programme over the past decade is disintegrating. They said they were taking the land to rectify an historical wrong and to restore the rights of the indigenous population, only to compound the injustice and to disable two thirds of the total population. Our surveys told us 10 years ago that land reform was low on the list of the priorities of the ordinary Zimbabwean. That has not changed and the huge investment that Zanu has made in this issue has created a political landmine that now lies in their path to survival.

Zanu tried to keep us out of any transitional administration – they have failed. They have done everything that they can to try to evict us and put us back on the street – they have failed. They are trying to show that we do not have any real power in this new administration only to discover that their own weakness is thereby exposed for all to see. They are being gradually forced to actually live up to the deal they were forced to accept and sign in September last year, as that process unfolds, enforced by the region and South Africa, so they will appreciate, like the hard men in South Africa after 1990, that this tide is not reversible and leads in only one direction.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 4th June 2009

I read not long ago that the English pub was doomed. I failed to understand just how much it was due to socialism and the sick level of regulations endemic to it. This article from Reason tells the whole bureaucratic story in ugly detail.

“Dancing also requires official paperwork. One unlicensed York pub was threatened with a £20,000 fine, after an “impromptu jig by pensioner Mavis Brogden.” There is a license for live music—in addition to which London pubs must fill in a risk-assessment form, giving the names, addresses, aliases, and telephone numbers of all performers, as well as the style of music being performed and the target audience. There is even a “spoken word licence.” One Cambridge pub had to cancel its monthly poetry readings because it lacked specific permission. When the landlord protested that they only wanted “a small number of people to talk quietly,” the council’s “environmental health officer” was firm: “Licences are there to be adhered to and we have them for all sorts of reasons—there need to be checks in place.”

Traditionally pubs have been highly individualized places, distinguished by their eccentric furnishings, varied clientele, and the differing characters of their landlords. Some pubs went in for beer tankards, others for old photos. And while strict landlords kicked everyone out at 11:10 p.m., others let you stick around for an hour or offered “lock-ins.” Now pubs are distinguished by their local council’s brand of regulation. Preston Council banned “vertical drinking” (drinking standing up). Many other pubs have prohibited drinking outside, or will only allow drinking behind a line on the pavement. In a Home Office test-scheme in Yeovil, customers are fingerprinted and photographed at the pub door, and local pubs will “share information” on drinkers.

Indeed, police officers now have unprecedented legal powers over public houses. Under the Licensing Act 2003, police can confiscate drinks and even close down alcohol sales for entire neighborhoods. After young people used Facebook to promote a beach party last summer, officers threatened to ban all pubs in Torbay. Local landlords said that banning alcohol on a busy summer weekend would be “catastrophic.” The police replied that the potential for “disruption and difficulty” was enough to justify blanket prohibition.”

“We human beings, too, are highly selected sexually, but in our case it is women who are the peacocks: the more beautiful they are, the greater the number and quality of the men who court them. This is why, some 75,000 years ago, we made our last two evolutionary advances: we lost our body hair and we invented art.

We know when we lost our body hair because the molecular biologist Mark Stoneking has dated it. One of the problems with being a mammal is that your fur gets infested with lice. When we lost our body hair the lice evolved into three distinct species to adapt to new environments. We now have head lice (the type our children get at school) pubic lice (the type they get soon after leaving school) and body lice (the type soldiers got in the trenches). Using standard DNA techniques, Mr Stoneking showed that the three species diverged about 75,000 years ago.

At the same time, as archaeologists have found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa, the first art appeared, in the shape of engraved chunks of ochre and shells made up as necklaces and bracelets. Art and hairlessness co-evolved because they fed off each other. The girl whose skin was least hairy could paint it, tattoo it, decorate it and clothe it more adventurously than could her furry sisters. So she got more and better men. And in consequence her children – even the males, though to a lesser degree – lost their hair too. We had become the naked ape.”

 As the confirmation ritual of Sonia Sotomayor continues to play out, it is becoming grimly apparent that the only relevant issue, her worthiness (or more accurately, her total lack thereof) as a guardian of the Constitution, will be no more of a consideration for Republicans than it ever was for Barack Obama. Flowery rhetoric and her heart-wrenching biography notwithstanding, if Obama ever had any concern whatsoever for the nation’s founding charter, he never would have nominated a radical judicial activist like Sotomayor in the first place.

Among Republicans, the big controversy on which the fate of the nation (or at least the electoral fortunes of some spineless career politicians) rests, is whether or not it is appropriate to deem Sotomayor’s blatantly racist comments as “racist.” Sadly, Republicans are once again running scared from the honest characterization of Sotomayor as unacceptably skewed in her adjudications as a result of blatant racial prejudices. In this poisoned age of “political correctness,” it is obvious that only conservative white males will ever be assessed on such grounds.

Yet with the integrity of the Constitution likely facing a fatal final assault, supposedly stalwart conservatives such as Senator John Cornyn of Texas believe their time and energy is best spent castigating Rush Limbaugh for focusing on a remark by Sotomayor that clearly would have ended the political career of any white male public figure.

In a 2001 speech at the University of California Berkeley, Sotomayor asserted “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the riches of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” In a later decision that plainly reflects a consistency of such thought, she determined that minorities deserved promotion over white applicants in the New Haven Connecticut Fire Department, based solely on their race.

Sotomayor’s personal beliefs on the topic of race might not seem to directly undermine her ability to uphold her duties as a Supreme Court justice. However, the New Haven Fire Department case, and in particular the flimsy basis of her opinion, indicate beyond any reasonable doubt that she is perfectly willing to mete out grave injustice provided she believes it can advance the race issue. Had her interest in righting racial injustice been at all counterbalanced by a reverence for constitutional principle, she should have run for a position on the city council of New Haven, which would have been a far more appropriate venue to alter its hiring practices.

No Democrats, and appallingly few Republicans, are even willing to contend that this background constitutes ample reason to summarily disqualify her as a Supreme Court nominee. However, it should do precisely that. And any who contend otherwise, rather than being treated as reasoned and temperate in their commentary, ought to ever after be branded as willing to sacrifice the inviolability of the Constitution to the political fads of the moment. One can support true constitutional law or one can remain in the good graces of the liberal media/political cabal. But one cannot do both.

Despite Obama’s brazen effort to frame the Sotomayor nomination strictly in terms of the glory of her personal trials and achievements, or the ostensible “empathy” she possesses as a result of them, such topics are absolutely irrelevant to her fitness for office. Rather, the real nature of the Constitution, and thus its critical importance to the operation of the nation, must be understood. Only then can the current political circus be prevented from degenerating into yet another pathetic argument over racial and gender identity politics, which is where the liberals so desperately need to take it lest they have to face scrutiny of their seditious aspirations.

It is altogether necessary to recall the real nature of this debate, particularly with ignorance of the national heritage running so rampant in recent years. No amount of liberal drivel should be allowed to deflect attention from the enormity of what is at stake for Americans of this generation, and all future generations, if indeed they are to inherit an America bearing any similarity to the greatness it once embodied.

Unlike the many venerated pieces of parchment that sit silently under glass in the nation’s museums, the Constitution is not merely some personal observation from a historic figure, or a collection of profoundly stirring but narrowly purposed oratory. It is the result of an ironclad agreement among the original states, as to how they would empower a federal government to collectively represent them among foreign powers, while assuring an equitable station for each within the nation. Only by universally recognizing it and, most importantly, abiding by it as such could America hope to maintain its national character and cohesiveness.

Capricious departures from that formula, even for seemingly noble goals (such as the forcible advancement of racial “equality” through hiring quotas) critically erode the foundation of that nation, and are thus a threat to all Americans. Judicial impartiality and commitment to constitutional boundaries are not only vitally necessary, they are the essence of what a Supreme Court Justice should be.

The case must be stridently made that nothing less is acceptable. And in the hands of a principled opposition party, this is achievable. It was done in 2005, during the confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts.

When appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Roberts was questioned by the liberal Senator Dick Durbin (D.-Il) as to whether or not he could be counted upon to support the “little guy.” Roberts’ response, while simple and direct enough to be understood by any average citizen, was so powerfully grounded in the real significance of the Constitution that Durbin and many of his other critics were ever after put on defensive.

Roberts simply explained that as a Supreme Court Justice, his purpose was not to favor either the lowly or powerful, but to honestly and impartially apply constitutional principle to their circumstances. Thus, neither could count on a favorable bias from him, but both could expect justice. And the promise of the diligent pursuit of justice for each individual, whether meek or mighty, is the surest guarantee of justice for all. It quickly became evident that by his succinct response, Roberts had completely redirected the debate back to constitutional premises not only for his own confirmation, but also during the confirmation of Samuel Alito, who was subsequently appointed to the court.

In the afterglow of such a commitment to real equality for all Americans, Sotomayor’s twisted perspective, and the undiluted bitterness it reflects (the true consequence of her life circumstances) can be understood in their petty, poisonous, and ultimately dangerous reality. A racist jurist is a problem, but one who brazenly and unabashedly transforms that racism into “policy,” recklessly administered from the bench, and thereafter backed by the full force of the federal government, will ultimately corrupt the character of the nation for every inhabitant.

Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer and staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He lives in southeastern Wyoming. He has been active in local and state politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets products exclusively made in America. His contact information and archives can be found at www.chrisadamo.com.

President Barack Obama plans to call for an improved dialogue with Islam in his upcoming speech in Egypt. All faiths would benefit from greater understanding. Yet no conversation will be complete if it does not address Islam’s persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities.

Western efforts to reach out to Islam are increasing. However, many Muslim states want to end all Western criticism of Islam. At their behest, last November the United Nations General Assembly denounced the “defamation” of religions, complaining that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.” Nations were enjoined “to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs.”

Let us stipulate that some U.S. government policies (many of which I have criticized) offend Muslims. And that most Muslims do not support terrorism.

Nevertheless, rather than promoting religious tolerance, most Islamic governments routinely persecute minority faiths.

For instance, six of the ten top persecutors making up the “Hall of Shame” created by International Christian Concern (ICC) have largely Muslim populations. Of 27 countries targeted for religious persecution by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), 17 had Muslim majorities.

Islamic states are not monolithic, but those which largely leave religious minorities alone are the exception. Of Morocco, reported the State Department last year: “The Government places certain restrictions on non-Islamic religious materials and proselytizing.” State added that “There were reports of societal abuses or discrimination toward those with different religious beliefs, and converts from Islam to other religions.” Moreover, the regime “generally confiscates Arabic-language Bibles and refuses licenses for their importation and sale despite the absence of any law banning such books.”

Last year the State Department reported on Jordan’s declining religious liberty, reflected in “The government’s handling of apostasy cases, expulsion of approximately thirty foreign Christian religious workers, and instances of individual and organizational harassment based on religious affiliation.” Moreover, “Members of unrecognized religious groups and converts from Islam face legal discrimination and risk the loss of civil rights, including threats to their person and/or family.”

Last month President Obama visited Turkey, where two years ago Islamic extremists tortured and murdered three Christians. The State Department warned: “Violent attacks and continued threats against non-Muslims during the reporting period created an atmosphere of pressure and diminished freedom for some non-Muslim communities.” Converts from Islam “sometimes experienced social harassment and violence from relatives and neighbors.”

ICC places Egypt in its Hall of Shame, noting pervasive mistreatment of Coptic Christians, who “are widely discriminated against as a result of the discriminatory policies of the country and the bias of Muslim officials. There have been many instances in which, in some localities, Muslim extremists looted and burned down Christian owned businesses and homes, maiming and killing Christians.”

In Afghanistan discrimination and persecution are increasing. USCIRF warns that “Conditions for freedom of religion or belief in Afghanistan have become increasingly problematic.” Three years ago a Muslim convert to Christianity, Abdul Rahman, barely avoided execution.

Pakistan treats Christians “as second-class citizens,” reports ICC. State said: “Law enforcement personnel abused religious minorities in custody. Security forces and other government agencies did not adequately prevent or address societal abuse against minorities. Discriminatory legislation and the Government’s failure to take action against societal forces hostile to those who practice a different religious belief fostered religious intolerance, acts of violence, and intimidation against religious minorities.”

In Iraq “there have been alarming numbers of religiously-motivated killings, abductions, beatings, rapes, threats, intimidation, forced resettlements, and attacks on religious leaders, pilgrims, and holy sites,” explains the USCIRF. The smallest religious minorities have suffered the most. Roughly half of Christians have been driven from their homes.

As for Iran, the State Department reported that “Government rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-Shi’a religious groups, most notably for Baha’is, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community.” The USCIRF reports on deteriorating religious freedom, “including intensified physical attacks, harassment, detention, arrest, and imprisonment.”

State explained that “There is no legal recognition of, or protection under the law for, freedom of religion, and it is severely restricted in practice” in Saudi Arabia. The Commission says that the Saudi government has been “engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief.”

The list goes on.

Obviously the president cannot center U.S. foreign policy on promoting religious liberty abroad. But the freedoms of conscience and religious faith are critical aspects of human rights. Any genuine dialogue with Islamic states must address the fact that many of them routinely and sometimes savagely repress religious minorities.

Let’s encourage dialogue with Muslim nations. But let’s put all issues on the table, including religious persecution.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is a member of the Economic Theory & Policy Working Group with the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College and the author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life. Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,…our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

That sexist remark, made by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in a 2001 speech, should have triggered a round of red-faced apologies and promises to do endless hours of community service.

But instead of denouncing the comment, this past weekend Democratic pols rushed to the nominee’s defense. Sen. Arlen Specter invoked the diversity mantra, remarking somewhat ungrammatically, “The diversity and the point of view of Latina women is significant.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California claimed to enjoy preternatural mind-reading abilities, saying “I understand what she meant by it.”

And all the media commentators oozed about the jurist’s “compelling personal story.” (Funny, I don’t remember Dan Rather raving about nominee Clarence Thomas’ compelling life story.)

Even President Obama came to Sotomayor’s rescue, saying “I’m sure she would have restated it.” But that clarification only opened another can of worms, because Obama didn’t choose to explain why she would have wanted to say it differently.

Was it because her intemperate remark would become the flashpoint for public outcry following decades of judicial activism? Or was it because the case would underscore the fact that all four finalists for the Supreme Court nomination were women, exposing a plan to conform to an artificial sex quota?

The reason, of course, for all the semantic two-steps is that sexism has become endemic in the Democratic Party. Under the guise of promoting female empowerment, Democratic meetings routinely feature programs with chauvinistic titles like “Women Taking Charge,” “Women in Power,” or “Putting Dead White Males out to Pasture.”

Sadly, Democrats have become sold on the use of anti-male clichés as their short-sighted strategy to ballot-box success.

Here’s Hillary Clinton in 2005: “Research shows the presence of women raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption.” Remember the quip she made about “evil and bad men” made at an Iowa campaign stop? And in New Hampshire, she commented, “I don’t know about you, but I like seeing women in charge.” (Just imagine the ruckus if candidate John McCain had proclaimed, “I don’t know about you, but I like seeing white men in charge.”)

Consider Democratic pols like Nancy Pelosi who express misandrist put-downs that range from the haughty (“I didn’t come to Congress to change the attitudes of men.”) to the imperious (“By electing a woman Speaker, my colleagues turned the old system upside down.”)

Let’s call to mind former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers who tried to resuscitate a stalled career with her book, Why Women Should Rule the World. In the book Myers recalls an incident involving Alexis Herman, former Secretary of Labor, who once grabbed a labor negotiator by the lapels and threated him, “Don’t f_ck with me.” Myers highlights that episode to prove how peace-minded women surpass men in forging sensible compromise.

There’s the famous quip by former Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas, who claimed, “I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which a man structurally does not have…He’s just incapable of it.”
And then the gazillions of liberal women’s organizations that pound the feminist tom-tom, making logic-defying claims like this one from Women’s Action for New Directions: “change will come when women take the lead.”

The reason for all this, of course, is the Democratic Party has morphed into the political arm of the National Organization for Women. Democratic candidates casually make sham claims that paint men as ogres and tyrants: “women in the workplace are victims of wage discrimination,” “wives suffer from an epidemic of domestic violence,” “females were routinely excluded from medical research,” and so forth.

Across the pond in England, Labor Party’s deputy leader Harriet Harman recently ridiculed her nation’s financial institutions as “testosterone-fueled.” Then she vowed to mandate that banks appoint more women on their boards, admitting “Sometimes we have to take scary methods in order to achieve worthwhile results.”

For years, such gender-baiting claims suited the grievance agenda of the feminists to a ‘T’. But now, the liberal orgy of new-school sexism disguised as female empowerment has come back to haunt the Democrats as they work to reshape the High Court.

Amazing article from PJM’s Mary Grabar about “Feminist Chickens Coming Home to Roost” in regards to the appointment of Judge Sodapop Curtis–eh, I mean Sotomayor. This academic knows all about of which she speaks…unfortunately for her. LINK.

“Yes, you are going to get that whacko feminist Latina professor who’d walk her motherly bulk right up to your desk and tell the class how oppression makes one more sympathetic. About “women’s ways of knowing.” About the evils of linear thought (whatever the hell that meant). She’d mix it up with statistics about women’s biological superiority and the “struggle” of her “people.” It made your head hurt. It made you glad you were wearing a baseball cap when she started going on and on about “womb logic” versus “phallic logic.”

And you didn’t want to listen to me when I cornered you at a party and told you about the nonsense I had to go through just to get my Ph.D. I saw you nodding at me in that polite but dismissive way as I prophesized about the end of Western civilization, all due to our educational system. I even named you the four horsepersons: Gilligan, Butler, hooks, and Foucault. I tried to be a witness, but you just said that you needed to take something out of your eye. (But no ash was falling from the sky, yet.) You thought that outside of a few eccentrics in English and sociology, most teachers wore tweed and taught novels with plots, the value of logic, and that 2 + 2 = 4.

I don’t want to say it, but I told you so! What did you expect from a metrosexual president who used to teach critical race theory law? President Obama said he wanted to appoint a Supreme Court justice who combines “empathy and understanding” with legal credentials. Didn’t he say, “I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives”? Didn’t he say “empathy” enough in his speeches to be able to write a master’s thesis on feminist ethics?”

“While watching the assemblage take photos with Ireland and Miss America, proudly clutching awards that almost everybody else had too, one entrepreneur drove home to me how important they were.

Karen Caruso, the white, female founder of Mind Your Business, a company that performs background screenings, just saw her company named one of the top 100 women-owned companies in North Carolina by DiversityBusiness.com. She was inspired to start the company 15 years ago after watching a “Nightmare Nannies” episode of Oprah, and now Mind Your Business does background checks for clients such as the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Caruso stresses, “We’ve never been awarded a contract based on our female status. NEVER. EVER.” Of course, when I ask her how much business she’s gotten since the award was announced, she turns to an employee, asking, “We’ve signed on how many clients in the last four weeks?” Fourteen, it turns out. She says business is up “probably 35 percent” as a result of the publicity during the worst recession in recent memory. And they haven’t even applied for 8(a) status, what Caruso calls “the Maserati of procurement,” though “we’ll have certification by the end of the year.”

I turn to a white, male employee of Caruso’s, named Michael Kaplan. He recently used the award publicity to sign up an energy company in Texas. I ask him, as a white male, what he thinks of such exploitation of Caruso’s woman-owned status. “I think its great!” he says. “From my perspective, it’s wonderful, it’s an opportunity to make a tremendous living.”

I ask Caruso if it’s fair that your average white male Beltway Bandit has to compete with everyone they compete with, but is not allowed to compete for no-bid set-asides. Aren’t white guys essentially playing a game in which they don’t have access to the entire-field? Caruso twists up her face, leans in close to mine, and says, “Wahhhh! Wahhh! Wahhhh! How many years have women and minorities been playing on that same field?” Kaplan laughs and elbows one of his colleagues, motioning at me as if I’d picked a fight with the wrong woman. “He didn’t know,” he says.”

“Women are less happy nowadays despite 40 years of feminism, a new study claims. Despite having more opportunities than ever before, they have a lower sense of well-being and life satisfaction, it found. The study, The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, said the same was true for women of different ages and whether or not they were married or had children.

It said the results appeared surprising given that modern women had been liberated from their traditional 1950s role of housewife. Instead, their earning power has soared, women are doing better than men in education and they are in control of decisions over whether to start a family. The findings were released as Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks & Spencer, claimed that women ‘have never had it so good’.

The authors said there was a possibility women were more ‘direct’ about their levels of happiness than they used to be.

‘Women may now feel more comfortable being honest about their true happiness and have thus deflated their previously inflated responses,’ they said. However, Siobhan Freegard, founder of the website Netmums, whose own survey found levels of ‘baby blues’ have risen sharply compared to 30 years ago, said: ‘We pushed so hard for equal rights, for having the right to work, for having equal status, we pushed so hard to have choice. ‘But what we hear from many mums is: I have no choice, I have to work, I don’t love my career, my childminder is taking half my salary and I’d rather bring up my children myself but I can’t afford to.”

“But my sex drive proved mightier than my hang-ups and spanking became a main course of my sex life—albeit a shameful one—in college. By day, I was a women’s studies minor, wrote a weekly feminist column for the student newspaper, and was president of the National Organization of Women on campus. By night, I really, really, really just wanted to be spanked. And I was, by a few different guys who, to varying degrees, were down with giving me spankings. But I still felt kind of ashamed because they themselves didn’t enjoy it, but they spanked me anyway because they knew it made me happy.”

The lamestream media told you:

The powerful gun lobby attached an amendment to the must-pass credit-card-reform act Mr. Obama had decided to enact without delay. This forced him to approve a gun law he would probably otherwise not, when he signed it into law on May 22.

The last-minute late-night passage of a rule change by the Bush Administration had lifted the long-standing ban on dangerous guns in National Parks, but that was thankfully blocked by a lawsuit arguing the rule change failed to conduct a necessary environmental-impact study. The new law makes the lawsuit moot, and allows people to carry deadly loaded weapons into National Parks and Wildlife Refuges, where people go for peaceful recreation and nature watching.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Routine constitutional firearms carry in National Parks and Refuges remained uninfringed until the 1980s, when it was banned as a way to prevent hunters from hunting in forbidden zones. Because catching poachers was difficult, the much easier route of banning any possession was adopted through “regulations,” by agencies incapable of enforcing their laws. No apparent authority to ban the Second Amendment in National Parks exists, but no arrests of the improper authorities have been made.

The ban was lifted by president Bush II, but only for people with government-issued carry permits, excluding 98% of the public. This was hailed as a great achievement, mainly by the 2% of people who were photographed, fingerprinted, entered in criminal databases, paid the tax, took the tests, went through the background screening, and got their expiration dates on state-issued ID papers (now made of plastic from foreign oil).

Bush’s lifting of the ban (1/9/09) was rapidly overturned however (3/19/09), by a lawsuit with support from a compliant judge, arguing that concealed carry might have an impact on the environment. This conjecture, though preposterous on its face, was no less honored by the judge.

While the appeal worked its way through the courts (and rights remained denied), Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced an amendment (Sec. 512) to an unrelated credit-card bill (HR 627), to restore the right to keep and bear arms for all law-abiding Americans in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges, not just government-permit holders. It passed 67-29 in the Senate, and 279-147 in the House.

The bill’s “findings” section states, after summarizing the shenanigans denying peoples’ rights, that “(7) Congress needs to weigh in on the new regulations to ensure that unelected bureaucrats and judges cannot again override the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens…” and that “(8) The Federal laws should make it clear that the second amendment rights of an individual at a unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System should not be infringed.”

The bill, signed 5/22/09, takes effect in nine months (2/22/10), leaving the public rightless until then. That’s assuming of course no further intervention is made by anti-rights forces who seek to ban the Second Amendment wherever possible. The new law simply states that anyone not banned from possessing a firearm can carry in the parks and refuges under the state laws where the facility is located.

In other news, the president and Congress, in enacting the RKBA reform, have set rules for the operation of the credit card industry, with no explicit constitutional authority to do so. No charges (criminal charges, not financial charges) have been made against them. A superficial review of some of the rules seems they have value, but just because something may have value doesn’t mean Congress has delegated authority to act.

Investors are beginning to look ahead, anticipating surging inflation.

A reader signing himself AmendmentX posted a comment with a link to Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening.

http://tinyurl.com/ktaoej
As he noted, that supports my statement that:

http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/why_the_fed_will_not_be_able_to_prevent_higher_inflation/

As former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan admitted in post-meltdown testimony to Congress, no group of bureaucrats, no matter how intelligent or how well informed, can accurately predict the timing of economic turns or determine the correct theoretical equilibrium rate of interest.

Some readers may not understand that a steepening yield curve (i.e., one in which the spread between short and long term interest rates is a wide one) is generally taken to mean that investors expect rising interest rates. In this case, interest rates are expected to rise because of mounting inflationary pressure, which reduces the present value of future interest and principal payments. Hence investors demand higher interest rates in compensation.

The mechanism is that, when interest rates rise, long-term bonds drop a greater percentage in price than do short-term notes and certificates. Thus, investors expecting rising interest rates swap out of long bonds into short ones, driving up the price (which reduces the yield) of short notes and raises the yield of long ones (because the supply of long bonds becomes greater than the demand, dropping prices and increasing yields).

A few months ago, interest rates were at or below zero on short-term Treasuries, because everyone in the world was seeking the safest available temporary haven to protect the principal value of assets. As recently as last December, 30-year maturity Treasuries yielded only about 2.5%, while tax-exempt municipal bonds were yielding between 4% and 5%, which, after tax, is even higher relative to Treasury yields.

Reflecting the outlook for inflation, 30-year Treasury yields, at last Friday’s close, were 4.3%, almost double the level of last December. This, mind you, is in the face of the Fed’s expectations that it could keep long-termTreasury yields under 3%.

Rising long-term interest rates increase business costs and inhibit recovery from a recession and act as a drag on expansion of economic activity, which is why the Treasury and the Fed struggle to keep interest rates low. Unfortunately the only way they know to do that is to dump more money into the economy. In the short run that does lower interest rates. But experienced hands in the bond market remember the 1970s stagflation and are now looking ahead to the inflationary surge that will come when business begins to revive and people start to spend all those excess dollars in the economy.

Now that the worst of the financial collapse is passing, investors begin to look ahead to reviving business activity. Given the vast increase in dollars courtesy of the Fed’s tripling its balance sheet assets, those investors anticipate surging inflation within the next couple of years and are moving holdings into the short-term end of the yield curve.

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com

Unbelievable article in Russia’s Pravda (Truth). Once, the flagship of Soviet propaganda, now, a defender of capitalism the likes we rarely have here. “American capitalism gone with a whimper.” LINK.

“The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists. Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?”

“I think we can venture a guess as to the “why”. Untrammeled support of female sexual libertinism. A double standard about female rape and the use by older women of female sexual power to seduce and rape disempowered boys (because feminism has tried to quell all discussion of this kind of abuse of female sexual power).

Rape is about taking sex from another person by an abuse of power. When men do this, it generally involves physical power. When women do it to young boys, however, it involves the abuse of their sexual (and sometimes emotional) power. Typically these women do not physically force their targets to have sex, but emotionally and sexually manipulate them to do so, due to their very strong sexual power relative to the hormonal states of these boys. But society still applies the double standard, seeing these boys as having “had fun”, so it should not be considered a crime — resulting in the joke of offenders like Lafave not doing *any* time for her rape conviction. We need to understand that female sexual power can be abused and used as a tool to rape vulnerable young men — and drop the double standard about sex crimes.”

“Few men would ever bother to enter into a romantic heterosexual marriage–much less three, as I have done–were it not for the iron grip of necessity that falls upon us when we are unwise enough to fall in love with a woman other than our mom. There would be very few flowerings of domestic ecstasy were it not for the granite underpinnings of marriage. Gay couples who marry are bound to be disappointed in marriage’s impotence without these ghosts of past authority. Marriage has a lineage more ancient than any divine revelation, and before any system of law existed, kinship crushed our ancestors with complex and pitiless rules about incest, family, tribe, and totem. Gay marriage, which can be created by any passel of state supreme court justices with degrees from middling law schools, lacking the authority and majesty of the kinship system, will be a letdown.

When, in spite of current enthusiasm, gay marriage turns out to disappoint or bore the couples now so eager for its creation, its failure will be utterly irrelevant for gay people. The happiness of gay relationships up to now has had nothing to do with being married or unmarried; nor will they in the future. I suspect that the gay marriage movement will be remembered as a faintly humorous, even embarrassing stage in the liberation saga of the gay minority. The archetypal gay wedding portrait–a pair of middle-aged women or paunchy men looking uncomfortable in rented outfits worn at the wrong time of day–is destined to be hung in the same gallery of dated images of social progress alongside snapshots of flappers defiantly puffing cigarettes and Kodachromes of African Americans wearing dashikis. The freedom of gays to live openly as they please will easily survive the death of gay marriage.

So if the failure of gay marriage will not affect gay people, who will it hurt? Only everybody else. As kinship fails to be relevant to gays, it will become fashionable to discredit it for everyone. The irrelevance of marriage to gay people will create a series of perfectly reasonable, perfectly unanswerable questions: If gays can aim at marriage, yet do without it equally well, who are we to demand it of one another? Who are women to demand it of men? Who are parents to demand it of their children’s lovers–or to prohibit their children from taking lovers until parents decide arbitrarily they are “mature” or “ready”? By what right can government demand that citizens obey arbitrary and culturally specific kinship rules–rules about incest and the age of consent, rules that limit marriage to twosomes?”