Show me your religion of peace

A 7 year old blind child was beat to death by his Muslim teacher for not learning the Koran at a school in Pakistan this week. I honestly don't know what to say.

Sorry, Obama's no JFK

by: R.J. Moeller

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more.”

-John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration Speech (January 20th, 1961)

These were the courageous words of a man who understood the solemn duty an American President accepts every four years. In the midst of a Cold War against a world-wide movement of totalitarianism that lasted nearly half a century, that had few (if any) easily recognizable “victories,” a former junior Senator from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected the 35th Commander-in-Chief of these States United. At the time he was the youngest person ever to hold that position and many questioned whether or not the handsome, energetic, engaging Kennedy had enough substance behind his style to do the job the American voters had commissioned him for.

JFK was and is an icon of the Democratic Party, but without a doubt the man would be ostracized by, and banished from, that same Party had he been a candidate in this year’s primaries. And as badly as Senator Barack Obama, his campaign staff subordinates, his hapless minions in the mainstream media, and adoring fans on “the stump” would like the rhetorical comparisons between Barack and the likes of JFK, FDR, and Abraham Lincoln to be accurate (or even plausible) --- the reality is something vastly different.

President Kennedy reminded the American people and their elected representatives that, “…The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God,” and then promptly enacted something unthinkable to modern Democrats: the biggest tax cut in U.S. history. The worldview expressed not only in his words, but more importantly his actions, revealed that Kennedy actually believed in the Founding Fathers’ vision of a largely hands-off federal government. Obama now claims that he does as well, but has lived, walked, talked, voted to the contrary.

JFK, like Thomas Jefferson before him, countered his largely de-centralized view of governmental authority in America with the republican ideals of both personal responsibility and civic duty. His legendary, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” remains the rallying cry for all sober-minded, appreciative citizens who see through the deceptively alluring calls for Nanny-state policies by Collectivistic politicians. We occasionally need a “hand up” from Uncle Sam but never do we desire a “hand out” at the forced expense of our neighbor.

For some odd reason, when it comes to the most important, Constitutionally-mandated roles for our government to play in matters of foreign policy and national defense, modern Democrats seek to put more trust (power) in the ineffective hands of impotent global organizations like the United Nations so they won’t have to be bothered with trivial things like combating evil and defeating our self-proclaimed enemies.

John F. Kennedy’s stance towards the evil of his time, the USSR? “We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

Meanwhile, Senator Obama insists that his plan (depending on the day and audience) to negotiate with any ist that has good enough cable reception and internet connection in his cave to hear Barack’s misguided offer is analogous to JFK and Ronald Reagan’s meetings with Russian Communist leaders during their respective times in office. Let’s put aside the fact that Barack is naively insinuating that the only problem in the world currently is American’s unwillingness to sit down for a Memorial Day barbecue with Iranian or North Korean despots. More pertinent to the point is Obama’s daily exposing of the Left’s same appeasement-induced Achilles heel since Vietnam (a war Kennedy got us in to, ironically) when he castigates neo-Conservatives, President Bush, and religion-clinging gun owners more harshly than he does madmen like Mahmoud Ahmadienjad who promise the and destruction of Israel and the United States within the next two years.

The willingness of Roosevelt’s Democrats to stand up to m in the 1940’s, and Kennedy’s to stare down communism in the 1960’s, has been replaced with the kind of toothless, self-congratulatory “bravery” exhibited by modern liberals Democrats when they put a “No for oil” bumper sticker on their hybrid. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” has been exchanged for weather-obsessed fear-mongers with Nobel Peace Prize-winning power point presentations on the climate-change-formerly-known-as-global-warming. Anyone inspired?

The result is a once legitimate and plausible Party option in the voting booth for the American electorate has rendered itself incapable of being trusted with the power “we the people” lend our elected representatives. Democratic party leaders and standard-bearers have yielded their traditional beliefs, values, and convictions for the morally ambiguous, dangerously collectivistic, self-defeating brand of European Socialism that the likes of Hillary Clinton have identified as “Progressive.”

The question for Democrats becomes: Is progress, or better yet, “change,” really worth pursuing when it abandons the very precepts your ideology and movement is based upon, and honorable men like 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman are banished from the Party for simply being willing to confront Islamo- m?

JFK was a voice of optimism, tempered with prudent caution. Think of how much more we have today in terms of wealth, technology, medicine, and power yet all we hear from Democrats in Washington is pessimism laced with disdain for anyone who doesn’t buy in to their neo-Marxist bloated bureaucratic vision. It’s not that either Party is perfect, or that John McCain is the answer to all our problems, but a good reason to vote turn Conservative and/or vote GOP in 2008 is precisely because we on the Right acknowledge both of those very facts.

Our nation, like life, can seem like a series of contradictions. We cherish and prize our free-market economic system, but compassion compels us to set aside even public funds to take care of those in need. We are a nation of citizen-soldiers who despise war. The fierce loyalty and pride we feel for our country is balanced with an appropriate sense of duty to help those in need around the globe. John F. Kennedy understood, voiced, and embodied these realities. All that Barack Obama has voiced and proven is that he does not even understand what he will never embody.

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”

–JFK, 1961

For more from men who were ready to answer their nation's call to lead, read here and here.

Church of England at a crossroads

I am pretty sure the most important part of "Christianity" is "Christ", but then again I didn't attend an Anglican seminary in England either. There is a rift in the Church of England over whether or not they should actively pursue converts from other religions, specifically Islam. Hmm...wonder if it's cause they're scared that they'll end up on the wrong end of a "religion of peace" demonstration???

The overall purpose of the Christian's life is to live in real relationship with God, and to tell others about Him. Even if you're not religious, hearing about such cowardice has to make you wince.

What ever happened to Lebanon?

Since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's problems have only increased. The Shiite-run Hezbollah is holding the government literally at gun-point and setting the formerly Christian nation up to be another puppet of the Iranian Islamo-fascistic regime in Tehran. Please read more here from National Review.

Defending public defenders

Thomas Sowell, the wisest sage around, goes to bat for the policemen and women who are lambasted by the press every time they are forced to use their guns.

Good news means no news from Iraq

by: R.J. Moeller


“Iraqi troops welcomed in Sadr City,” read the Washington Post headline this week, bringing with it yet even more ammunition for depressed Conservatives in this election year. The lead paragraph in the same devastatingly optimistic piece read as follows:


“Iraqi soldiers moved unhindered through Baghdad's vast Sadr City district on Wednesday as Shiite militiamen who have long controlled the area faded from view and schools and businesses began to reopen after weeks of strife.”


From the beginning, I have been a staunch supporter of the mission President George W. Bush, our House of Representatives, and our Senate sanctioned and launched a little more than 5 years ago. At that time, the American people and their elected representatives in Washington D.C. decided the threat Saddam Hussein posed as an unremittingly defiant and genocidal dictator could no longer be tolerated. Regime change became compulsory after Saddam’s 12 years of broken promises to weapons inspectors, brazen breaches of all 17 U.N. Resolutions and sanctions levied against him, and the realities of a post-9/11 world began to sink into the minds of the historically vigilant and discerning American people.


Amidst the undeniably cumbersome and clumsy prosecution of the war between 2004-2006 (after our initial ringing success in deposing Saddam’s regime) what has been both lost and purposely confused in the minds of those same vigilant and discerning Americans is this: the mission to remove the threat Hussein posed, the mission to free more than 25 million human beings from tyranny, and to establish a beach-head of representative democracy (the kind of which no two nations that employ it have ever attacked one another) is not only still alive and well --- it’s working.


“The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is pursuing an increasingly successful effort to contain the militias of his Shiite rivals and to exercise authority over areas where Iraqi forces were once unwelcome. The strategy has won Maliki admiration from Sunni politicians and from U.S. and British officials, who credit him with exerting some of the political will necessary to achieve reconciliation.”


The Democrats’ strategy in the 2006 mid-term elections was to focus their criticisms of the entire GOP on two things: corruption and the mess Iraq was turning out to be. On the corruption front, with the help of names such as Jack Abrahamoff and Mark Foley, Nancy Pelosi and her merry band of equally-indicted Democrats effectively made the case that Republicans had to go and picked up seats in both Houses and momentum for 2008’s presidential election.


The other crutch leaned on by liberals, really since 2004, and even by vocal, initial proponents of the war such as Senators John Edwards, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, has been that Iraq = Vietnam.


When the military “surge” implemented by President Bush began to succeed, and both General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified under oath that things continuing to get better in Iraq politically were directly dependent on the continued strides American and Iraqi forces were taking militarily. It was then that Democrats did what they always do: move the end-zone. Suddenly all anyone with a “D” in front of their name cared about was that an Iraqi parliament, under intense sectarian pressure and threat to their own lives, be forced to work quicker and with more success than our own governing bodies in America do.


Somehow Democrats found time from their busy schedule of raising our taxes and increasing their own salaries for doing so to learn, internalize, and understand the inner-workings of Iraqi politics better than Iraqi politicians and on-the-ground American commanders. Everyone on the Left, from Barack Obama to former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, has agreed: “There is no military solution in Iraq.”


Oh really?


Leave it to Democrats to take an obvious, subtle truism and make it the hard-and-fastened bedrock of their inane argument. (This only after their initial argument that we could not win militarily in Iraq was proven to be decisively untrue). Of course the political progress is an integral part of any nation’s foundation and sustained existence. It took our own country from a declaration in 1776 to a ratification of the constitution in 1789, some 13 years, to have an “official” working government.There were people at the time, such as John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who were convinced that a political solution was all that was needed for peace, safety and freedom in America.


Then there were others, John Adams for one, who wisely saw that in their current predicament, only when military victory had been achieved was it even possible for political discussion to begin. Benjamin Franklin agreed and went a step further in pointing out that even military victory does not guarantee political success and stability when he famously said: “It’s a republic; if you can keep it.”


What this Washington Post story, and the dozens like it that are buried every day in the same American newspapers that give lead-billing to any mistake or unfortunate incident coming out of Iraq, does is help to highlight the fact that Democrats aren’t just against President Bush in these matters. They are also against facts, statistics, and the realities on-the-ground in a war 4,000 American soldiers volunteered to meet their Maker to be a part of. Our men and women in uniform have sacrificed and suffered in unimaginable ways so that, plainly speaking, the people of Iraq would have this window of opportunity to seize their own destiny from the clutches of totalitarianism the rest of the Muslim world suffers under.


On Basra's al-Jazaar Street, Akeel al-Asadi, 38, gave a haircut in his brightly lighted barbershop. "The presence of the Iraqi army has made people safe, not 100 percent, but 90 percent," he said.


This story should be front-page news. This article and these snippets of hope and optimism in a country and in a war that has known so little of it deserves to be read in classrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms from Berkley to Boston.


Why don’t we hear about these positive developments? Why is it that stories of hope and honor such as the most recent Medal of Honor recipient are buried in the back pages of the same publications that insist this fight has none of either?


Americans and their elected officials must not allow “the better” to become the enemy of the “the best.” Things have been turning around in Iraq for nearly a year now, yet all we hear from the Democratic leadership and the Party’s presidential front-runners are pessimistic, bumper-sticker lines and promises for time-tabled withdrawal from Iraq. The Left has invested in defeat, and has chosen to spin the issue six ways to Sunday rather than concede that they were in any way wrong. (Something even President Bush has been willing to admit in regards to failed strategies in Iraq.)


Don’t succumb to intellectual dishonesty simply because you hate eating crow. There’s plenty of room on this common sense bandwagon known as conservatism for all of you, and I promise, we won’t rub it in.

A little dose of optimism for Conservatives

Everyone, save Tony Blankley of the Washington Times, seems to be reserved to the GOP's disastrous fate in 2008. Read his take on the state of affairs here and be encouraged.

Unintended Consequences

George Mason University economist Walter E. Williams explains why it is so ironic/pathetic that the same politicians who clamor the loudest for change and a break from the past are the culprits of bringing about what needs fixing and changing.

CA Supreme Court over-rules the people

A decision by four judges to over-turn an amendment (that CA voters voted on banning gay marriage) has the potential to change the American cultural and societal landscape forever. The two most insightful takes on this issue are from Dennis Prager and Dr. Albert Mohler. Please read them both.

Confronting evil: Actions or words?

President Bush has taken a lot of flack from the courageous Democrats who identified themselves as the cowards who appease to terrorists the President was referring to in his speech in Israel last weak. In case you are wondering what this all means, and why it is important not to vote for Barack Obama in November....read Steyn here.

Holiday from reality

Why the "Gas Tax Holiday" is a sham (and a horrible idea)

by: R.J. Moeller

Gas was $4 a gallon this past weekend at the local filling station near my house in the suburbs of Chicago. What a bummer, right? It wasn’t long ago that $3 seemed unthinkable, and now we are hearing the likelihood that we’ve yet to see the ceiling with $4. These admittedly high prices are going to continue their less-than-positive-impact on both the individual consumer’s pocketbook as well as the overall economy’s fiscal health for the foreseeable future.

Wishing things were cheaper is not a bad thing. Wanting them forcibly made cheaper by the federal government, on the other hand, is a very, very bad thing. The reason we have succeeded where other nations have failed (or have been forced to join together in Unions to compete with us) is our tradition of insisting that Uncle Sam keeps his Constitutionally-constrained hands out of the market in favor of Adam Smith’s “invisible” ones.

As I’ve watched and listened to politicians on both sides of the political aisle wring their hands and drone on and on about how the solution to our gas price woes can be readily solved by increasing the already staggering tax burden placed on the companies who find, drill, refine, transport, and keep the local pumps full enough for our despised SUV's and feel-good hybrids, what comes to my mind is the Bible story of two brothers named Jacob and Esau.

The book of Genesis, chapter 25, tells how in a fit of shortsighted madness the elder brother Esau traded his sacred birthright for a bowl of stew that the younger brother Jacob cunningly provided at just the right moment in a successful attempt to trade for something he didn’t deserve. Esau’s craving for and caving to instant gratification was his downfall. Jacob’s devious, yet effective, plot didn’t cause his older brother’s misjudgment; it only exposed a weakness Esau had in him all along.

Our weakness as a nation is twofold: an insatiable sense of entitlement and the sin of covetousness. We feel we are owed more than we have, and want to take it from those we feel are keeping it from us. The systems and policies that got us to the point where publishing companies can afford to pay Hillary Clinton $10 million before she wrote a single word for her last book; that enable American citizens to privately give 3 times as much in aid to the victims of a Tsunami in Southeast Asia than the next closest nation; that provides for the highest standard of living the world has ever known; those systems and policies are foolishly dismissed in the minds of millions who daily and directly reap the prolific rewards of them.

Gas prices go up and instead of demanding of Congress that the Congressionally-imposed taxes be revoked, American citizens actually nod and clap in approval while everyone from Senator Clinton to (sadly) Senator McCain proposes as a solution to punish the American corporations that provide the oil in the limos and private jets those same politicians use to go and make the speech in the first place. Ask any supporter of the recently proposed “Gas Tax Holiday” why they are in favor of such a shortsighted, economically-crippling idea and you hear the same thing again and again: “I don’t mind those rich oil companies being taxed because they have enough money already.”

Economics 101: When you place further burdens on the producers of a product already rising in price, the producer will simply make less of the product (due to a lack of incentive) and there will be a shortage of that product causing further increases in the price.

Ethics 101: If someone is making their money legally, and providing a service that millions employ, then it's small and petty of you to resent their successes.

The literal foundation of the American nation, our free market economy, is under attack from people and politicians who are either under-educated, disingenuous, or both.

If it were just ungrateful and self-loathing college kids from the suburbs complaining about how unfair it is that corporations actually make profits for the products they sell, I’d sleep much sounder at night. Those same kids will soon get a job, have a family, and generally accept the fact that while their liberal professors’ ideas sounded nice around a table at the campus coffee shop, the rest of the country is forced to (in spite of people like their Professor Marx-admirer) live in a world of economic realities where having A take from B to give to C no longer seems as fair and tolerant.

When you feel (because you’ve been told or led to believe) that you are owed cheap gas, it becomes morally reprehensible not to complain about the $4 per gallon price tag. Forget the fact that we pay less for gas than any 1st world nation on the planet. Forget that Exxon alone paid more in taxes ($28 billion) last year than did the bottom half (that’s 50% for my fellow products of the public school system) of income earners in the United States. Forget the fact that the primary plan being touted (Gas Tax Holiday) to “fix” the price increases will ensure further fuel-related economic woes.

The truth is that candidates need votes, voters have been taught to value the “stuff” their government gives them over its being run efficiently and competently, and Hollywood doesn’t make any poignant flicks about the Fortune 500 Company that couldn’t afford to hire more employees or invest in more Research & Development due to increased tax burden. (They just make movies about the evil corporations that move to another country after the movie's liberal director’s presidential candidate-of-choice’s policies force them to relocate.)

Now I’m not inhuman, nor am I a blind follower of the often arbitrarily defined Free Market. I know first-hand how tough life can be when your family struggles to make ends meet. Something as seemingly inconsequential as a 50-cent increase in the cost of a gallon of gas can have real and difficult consequences for American families.

But where are the necessary calls for Americans to possibly sacrifice a little? Where are the optimistic assurances from our leaders and media that the will, ingenuity, and patience of the American people can overcome the current economic lull and temporary price increases?

Gas prices will remain high all summer. The price of crude oil is through the roof. Alternative energy sources are a long-term solution. Winning the war in Iraq and establishing a foothold for democracy (and the peaceful and more effective trading that occurs between democratic nations) is a long-term solution. In the short term we can either allow and encourage oil companies to drill in locations in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska we know contain deposits, use less gas ourselves, or re-prioritize our spending to accommodate the on-the-ground realities.

The government that has the power to give you everything you want has the power to take everything you have. Many of us say we believe this, but do we actually live that ethos out (even when times are "tough")?

Japan's baby crisis

It seems the people who gave us plasma televisions and funny little robot dogs has spent too much time in the lab and not enough "being fruitful and multiplying." Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Theological Seminary, on his thoroughly insightful blog, discusses the matter. Declining birth-rates in Europe, as well as Japan, should serve as a warning to this greatest nation on God's green earth.

Economic Blues

Tony Blankley of the Washington Times discusses the economic issues involved in this year's election campaign season. Maybe things aren't as bad as we all thought?

Even liberals are disturbed

Christopher Hitchens is a name most conservatives do not care to hear due to his adamant position as a leading advocate for the abolition of all formalized religion in America...but the dude's got some great points on why we ought to be worried not only about Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright, but the Senator's controversial wife.

How free was my health care?

Debra Saunder of the San Francisco Chronicle explains why "free" should be a four-letter word to Americans when they hear politicians peddling it. The problems and rising costs of health care will not diminish, but increase under both Obama and Clinton's proposals. Don't believe me? Read on.

Steyn on Obama

The master is at it again. Mark Steyn breaks down the Obama-Wright controversy better than most could ever dare dream. Enjoy.