This site has been maintained as an archive and not an active blog. That may changing soon, as I no longer think I am preaching to the choir. For all those who visited through the years, my thanks to you, and well wishes for your endeavors in your current and future projects.
May God richly bless you all.
JMT
For evangelical Christians, the issue of abortion is a hot topic, especially in regards to politics. Knowing a candidate's record on the issue can be either supportive or damning for the candidate when they try to move from one level of office to another.
There is an ongoing debate about when life begins. For some, there is no question that life begins at conception; for others, life begins at birth, and for others still, life begins somewhere in between. So what about a baby that has been through the abortion procedure and was able to survive outside the womb? Can there be any doubt that once a breathing, pulse bearing infant is out in the air that it's alive? If you're Senator Barack Obama, there is obviously some question to that state.
Looking back over Obama's record, there is one significant case that comes to bear from his days in the Illinois state senate, such a long, long time ago (2002), and his challenging of a bill that would protect the lives of infants who had survived the abortion procedure, called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. The legislation was created after Illinois nurse Jill Stanek had held a baby for 45 minutes that had been left to die after surviving a late term abortion procedure, and her subsequent reporting of the incident to the Illinois Department of Human Services, who determined that no laws had been broken in the incident (see her commentary here).
So — and again, I’m — I’m not going to prolong this, but I just want to be clear because I think this was the source of the objections of the Medical Society. As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child — however way you want to describe it — is now outside the mother’s womb and the doctor continues to think that it’s nonviable but there’s, let’s say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved. Is that correct?
"Not coming out limp and dead?" Would "limp and dead" not imply that there had been life to begin with? Apparently the Senator from Illinois believes that it is more important to protect the physician performing the abortion than the life of the child, it would seem. Is this a position that Christians, evangelical or otherwise, are willing to support and promote out of a candidate?
Personal note: I'm sure that there are going to be those who come out with the tired old "separation of church and state argument" on this issue. Let me make one clear little reminder before that is bandied about on here: there is absolutely no wording in the United States Constitution that proclaims such a thing. The Constitution clearly states that there shall be no laws enacted that protect or promote any one religion as being a state institution.
It's been a difficult pill for them to swallow, but conservative Christian leaders have united together and decided to put their support behind John McCain.
The conservative right has long been considered a very important base for the Republican party. The advent of the McCain lead in the party has led to a hard decision for this important voting bloc. With a great number of the members of this branch of the party having put their support behind Mike Huckabee, many were highly disappointed at his withdrawal from the race, leaving a lack, to the conservative way of thinking, of a viable conservative front runner in the Republican race.
Given the option of either supporting McCain or withholding support in light of the presumed nomination of Barack Obama for the Democratic party, however, the conservative Christian leadership has met and decided to make their stand with McCain.
At a Tuesday meeting in Denver, around 100 leaders met, traveling in from around the country, to discuss and ultimately agree to support John McCain, despite their initial distrust of him as a candidate for the Presidency. With this backing finally achieved, McCain has achieved a much needed support for his bid for the White House, and has significantly improved his chances of winning come November.
"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," said Mat Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal advocacy group, who previously supported Mike Huckabee's candidacy.
"There are people who came through the primary with very mixed emotions of the candidate," Staver continued, noting that many in the group had been in Denver to attend a separate meeting for pastors. "This event was to put those aside."
The group included leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, the long-time leader of Eagle Forum; Steve Strang, the publisher of Charisma magazine; Phil Burress, a prominent Ohio marriage and anti-pornography activist; David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders and Donald Hodel, a former secretary of the Interior, who previously served on the board of Focus on the Family. Jim Dobson, the head of Focus and an outspoken critic of McCain, did not attend. The McCain campaign was also not directly represented at the meeting.
One attendee of the conference summed up the main reason for the decision to support McCain as being, "None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn't do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president. You've got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That's the perspective. That that's the whole discussion." The reason? Despite his claim of Christianity, the conservative Christian movement doesn't see eye - to - eye with Obama on certain key issues such as gay marriage and abortion, and find themselves, especially in recent weeks with McCain making his own stands against these issues, more in line with McCain.
Initially, there was much speculation that the religious right would sit out this election, leading to much speculation and prognosticating as to what their absence would mean both to the Republicans as well as to the Democrats. With the exit of Huckabee, a number of Christian leaders expressed their disillusionment with the Republican party. Faced with the prospect of an Obama Presidency, it seems that the disillusion was quickly replaced with resolve, a situation that bodes well for McCain.
I'm going to start this out with three quotes, three little statements, made by a historical figure not too long ago, historically speaking. While reading what follows the quotes, I want you to keep firmly in mind each quote, and at the end, I'll tell you who said them. No fair peeking ahead, either, it spoils the surprise...
"Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future."
"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
"Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction."
I think, personally, that that last one is the most poignant in regards to what we're going to discuss here today. As I've mentioned before, I was a teacher for a time, circumstances led me back down the path of communications contracting. I fit in well with my colleagues in education, that is to say, I fit in as well as any square peg ever fits into a round hole. Most of the people that I met were, suffice to say, quite liberal, many very left leaning, and mostly democrats. And I have to say, many of them were (are) very snobbish (read elitist)...
I'll let ya'll decide from here.
Banning Legos And building a world where “all structures will be standard sizes.”
By John J. Miller
Perhaps you’ve heard about the schools that have banned tag. Or dodgeball. Or stories about pigs.
If so, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Hilltop Children’s Center in Seattle has banned Legos.
A pair of teachers at the center, which provides afterschool activities for elementary-school kids, recently described their policy in a Rethinking Schools cover story called “Why We Banned Legos.”
It has something to do with “social justice learning.”
My vision of social justice for children of elementary-school age is as follows: If you’re tagged, you’re it; if the ball hits you, you’re out; and pig stories are fun, especially when told over microwaveable hot dogs.
But I try to keep an open mind, so I read the article on why Hilltop banned Legos.
As most aficionados know, Legos are made by a Danish company. The company name comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means play well. “Lego became a national treasure and one of the strongest brands in the toy industry,” wrote The Economist last year. “Its colorful bricks are sold in over 130 countries: everyone on earth has, on average, 52 of them.”
"NO, little Johnny, you can't build any more castles, because didn't you know that Knights and Chivarly are not sensitive concepts to people who don't believe in what Knights stand for?"
Here's one the dinosaur media isn't covering at all...
The head of a national, Texas-based pro-family group says a recent hostage drill at a New Jersey high school, which portrayed conservative Christians as terrorists, is reflective of a dangerous philosophy that has become prevalent in many parts of America, where it is having negative effects on education.
A local paper reports that a drill at Burlington Township High School in New Jersey involved police portraying mock gunmen, described as "members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the 'New Crusaders' who don't believe in the separation of church and state." The fake gunmen were said to have been "seeking justice because the daughter of one [member] had been expelled for praying before class."
Historian and constitutional expert David Barton is president of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization that distributes historical, legal, and statistical information and helps citizens become active in their local schools and communities. He says the stereotyping used in the high school's drill is an accurate indicator of what is being taught in public schools in the Northeast region of the country.
Commentary on my thoughts on THAT one after THIS one, which in my mind, as a historian, is tantamount to heresy and sacrilege...
Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.
The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.
Yes, by all means, let's not offend the Muslims. By the way, have you heard the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the Southern Baptist preacher...
Are our schools trying to instill liberal values on our children? Are they subtly brainwashing our children? Are they teaching them things that go against what the children's families believe? Here's one more, just in case those past three aren't enough evidence of what's going on in our schools today...
Officials at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Ill., have ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar, after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.
"This is unbelievable," said Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues for Concerned Women for America. "It's not enough that students at Deerfield High are being exposed to improper and offensive material relative to unhealthy and high-risk homosexual behavior, but they've essentially been told by teachers to lie to their parents about it."
In what CWA called a "shocking and brazen act of government abuse of parental rights," the school's officials required the 14-year-olds to attend a "Gay Straight Alliance Network" panel discussion led by "gay" and "lesbian" upperclassmen during a "freshman advisory" class which "secretively featured inappropriate discussions of a sexual nature in promotion of high-risk homosexual behaviors."
FIND OUT what your kids are being taught in school. There is NO LEGALLY BINDING DOCUMENT that a child under the age of eighteen can sign that will hold them to a non-disclosure agreement. Take the cue of the atheist, call your school board's hand on brainwashing our children. If it is a clear cut violation of your constitutional rights and your beliefs as Christians or Jews, or if you THINK it is, contact the ACLJ, NOT the ACLU. They are leading the fight in the courts to oppose the ACLU in their attempts to undermine the American structure.
Oh, and those three quotes at the beginning of this posting? Those were the words of a man who used hatred and mistrust as his tools to rise to power and become one of the most dangerous men who ever lived, one who was responsible for the deaths of millions. Some considered him to be a madman, I'm not so sure. The insane generally don't rise to lead their nation and to inspire a following that nearly conquers an entire continent, the driven do that.
