Understanding Atheism

Those who become agnostic or atheist often say that it was due to an intellectual journey or an intellectually honest re-appraisal of childhood faith. But, as my mentor David L. McMillen used to say, "People rarely understand their own motivations." -- Mike Adams, townhall.com, 10/29/07

Romney Concepts 101

I believe the free market works and government doesn't -- that when government takes over a function which can be effectively managed in the free market, we make a huge mistake. -- Mitt Romney, quoted by Brian M. Carney, opinionjournal.com, 11/12/07

As usual, it boils down to greed

Vouchers are adamantly opposed by the teacher unions, which spent millions persuading Utah voters last week to repeal a voucher law passed by the legislature. No one can say for sure how much vouchers would improve education. But they are "forces of competition," as Greenspan puts it, which we're almost entirely prevented from harnessing because of the power of teacher unions -- the power, more specifically, that they wield in the Democratic Party. ...

The teacher unions are an incredibly important source of money and volunteers for the Democratic Party -- about one in 10 delegates at recent Democratic national conventions have been teacher union members or their spouses. When they snap their fingers, the Democrats jump. Vouchers threaten to dry up dues money, and that is that. -- Michael Barone, Townhall.com, 11/12/07

The greatest scam in history

I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the 'research' to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims.Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus... I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.However, Global Warming, ie Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you 'believe in.' It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise.And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it... There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril... In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. -- John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel

Hillary's forked tongue

Here, boiled down, is what [Hillary Clinton] said [in the recent Democratic debate].

Giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses makes sense because it makes sense, but she may not be for it, but undocumented workers should come out of the shadows, and it makes sense. Maybe she will increase the payroll tax on Social Security beyond its current $97,500 limit, to $200,000. Maybe not. Everybody knows what the possibilities are. She may or may not back a 4% federal surcharge on singles making $150,000 a year and couples making $200,000. She suggested she backed it, said she didn't back it, she then called it a good start, or rather "I support and admire" the person proposing such a tax for his "willingness to take this on."

She has been accused of doubletalk and she has denied it. And she is right. It was triple talk, quadruple talk, Olympic level nonresponsiveness. And it was, even for her, rather heavy and smug. Her husband would have had the sense to look embarrassed as he bobbed and weaved. It was part of his charm. But he was light on his feet. She turns every dance into the polka. And it is that amazing thing, a grim polka.

-- Peggy Noonan, OpinionJournal.com, 11/2/07

Religion *IS* being taught in public schools

Opponents of school vouchers say tax money shouldn't go to support religious schools. Obviously they don't realize just how much religion is being taught in the public schools today: atheism, homosexuality, situational ethics, mental mediocrity, sexual promiscuity. These principles are the foundation of humanism, twice declared by the Supreme Court to be a religion. Why should families with conservative religious beliefs have to pay twice for their children's education? -- Ellen Hindman, The Deseret Morning News, 11/1/07

Atheism's Gift to Humanity

If we look at the history of Western civilization, we find that Christianity has illuminated the greatest achievements of the culture. Read the new atheist books and make a list of the institutions and values that Hitchens and Dawkins and the others cherish the most. They value the idea of the individual, and the right to dissent, and science as an autonomous enterprise, and representative democracy, and human rights, and equal rights for women and racial minorities,and the movement to end slavery, and compassion as a social virtue. But when you examine history you find that all of these values came into the world because of Christianity. If Christianity did not exist, these values would not exist in the form they do now. So there is indeed something great about Christianity, and the honest atheist should be willing to admit this.


By contrast, does it make any sense to say, as Hitchens does in his book's subtitle, that "religion poisons everything"? Religion didn't poison Dante or Milton or Donne or Michelangelo or Raphael or Titian or Bach! Religion didn't poison those unnamed architectural geniuses who built the great Gothic cathedrals. Religion didn't poison the American founders who were for the most part not Deist but Christian. Religion didn't poison the anti-slavery campaigns of William Lloyd Garrison or William Wilberforce, or the civil rights activism of the Reverend Martin Luther King. The real question to ask is, what does atheism offer humanity? In Tonga, as in America, the answer appears to be: Nothing.

-- Dinesh D'Souza, townhall.com, 11/1/07

Republican Hindsight

You know what? Standing on principle is a good idea. Too bad we didn't do it when we were in the majority. -- Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), GOP Debate, 10/09/07

How do you define "hate speech"?

Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener's inability to offer an intelligent response.

Because this inability to offer an intelligent response is due to one of two reasons, there are really two different types of hate speech: 1)Speech that is too dumb to merit an intelligent response, and 2) Speech for which the listener is too dumb to offer an intelligent response. . . .

The similarity between the two principal forms of hate speech is obvious: They both induce anger in the listener, regardless of whether the speaker expressed his view with any feeling of hatred or animosity. . . .

Islamic advocacy of violence is not classified as "hate speech" because it induces fear, not anger.
-- Mike Adams, townhall.com, 10/22/07

Atheist Indoctrination Practices

Philosopher Richard Rorty argued that secular professors in the universities ought "to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own." Rorty noted that students are fortunate to find themselves under the control "of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents." Indeed, parents who send their children to college should recognize that as professors "we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable."

This is how many secular teachers treat the traditional beliefs of students. The strategy is not to argue with religious views or to prove them wrong. Rather, it is to subject them to such scorn that they are pushed outside the bounds of acceptable debate. This strategy is effective because young people who go to good colleges are extremely eager to learn what it means to be an educated Harvard man or Stanford woman. Consequently their teachers can very easily steer them to think a certain way merely by making that point of view seem fashionable and enlightened. Similarly, teachers can pressure students to abandon what their parents taught them simply by labeling those positions as simplistic and unsophisticated.

-- Dinesh D'Souza, townhall.com, 10/22/07

Election Issues for Evangelicals

Here is what I believe is at stake in this election:

• Someone is almost certain to appoint two, three, or four justices to the Supreme Court. Do we want that person to be Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney?
• Someone will cast vision and lead Congress on matters of national security, including securing our borders against illegal immigration. Should that be Hillary, Rudy or Mitt?
• Someone will deal with the definition of marriage in America -- and will either defend and model a faithful marriage and strong family, or not. Who should that person be?
• Someone will either defend unborn life -- or defend those who place THEIR rights and desires above those who can't defend themselves. Would we prefer that Clinton, Giuliani or Romney be in that position?
• Someone will need to deal with radical Islamic Jihadists and the threat they pose to our nation. As evangelicals, do we want to entrust Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney with that critical assignment?
• Finally, someone will either welcome evangelicals and people of faith into the White House and their administration; or shut them out of deliberations and consideration for various appointments. Would Hillary, Rudy or Mitt be most accepting of evangelicals and people of faith?

. . . I concluded that I am more concerned that a candidate shares my values than he shares my theology.

-- Evangelist Mark DeMoss, quoted by Hugh Hewitt, townhall.com, 10/11/07

ECONOMICS 101 STUFF

I don't buy the concept that any reduction in taxes is lost revenue to the government. . . . Generally speaking, lower taxes and lower tax rates grow the economy. It's been proven in the '20s, it was proven during the Kennedy administration, proven during the Reagan administration, and again during this administration.
-- Fred Thompson, GOP Debate, 10/10/07

Do-gooders, Money, and Power

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector. Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always 'against,' never 'for' anything. -- Ronald Reagan

The Gauling Guile of Liberal Politics

"You're outmanned, you're outgunned, you're out equipped. What else have you got?" Worf lamented. Commander Riker's reply: "Guile." ( Star Trek - TNG: "Peak Performance")

The same would be the response of many if not most of our honored politicians. But some (and not a few) take the guileful art to new heights. Enter the Smart People. Orson Scott Card, in his essay, Phony Soldiers and Patriotism, shares an incisive and clear view of those who consider themselves the ultimate benefactors of the Stupid People, justifying all manner of deception that they may save the nation and the world (and their power). Card is my favorite Democrat. Please read this one! -- Kirt

The forgotten reasons for intervention in Iraq

While factions of our society debate the pros and cons of US military intervention in Iraq the facts presented for the initiation of efforts there have always stood clearly defined. They were laid out in no uncertain terms, and in order of priority, by President Bush before the United Nations General Assembly on September 12, 2002:

• Violation of UN Security Council Resolution 688: Human rights violations and the torture, rape and murder of political opponents and ordinary citizens, including the genocide of the Iraqi Kurds.
• Violations of UN Security Council Resolutions 686 and 687: The refusal to release prisoners of war captured during the Gulf War.
• Violations of UN Security Council Resolutions 687 and 1373: The refusal to disassociate with terrorist organizations and the facilitation of terrorist entities within and traveling across Iraq borders.
• Violations of UN Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 678, 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 986 and 1284: Refusal to cease development programs for weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and refusal to allow UN inspectors uninhibited access to any and all weapons development programs.

In summary: genocide, refusal to return prisoners of war, enabling of terrorists and their organizations, refusal to cease WMD development programs and refusal to allow verification of said cessation.

You will notice the obvious absence of the anti-war Progressive-Left’s favorite myth, that the US invaded Iraq because the “neo-cons” said they had stockpiles of WMD. That’s because the WMD argument was manufactured by anti-Bush politicos and spin doctors, disseminated by an agenda-driven media and promoted by the anti-war Progressive-Left. It was always about the issue of WMD development and verifying the successful destruction of not only the existing WMD – WMD that the UN documented and verified Hussein had – but the long-range missiles he had to deploy them. It was always about the programs and the “grave and gathering threat” those programs posed.

That being said, the only reason that should have ever been required by the UN, the American people and/or the free world for deposing Saddam Hussein’s regime was the first reason – human rights violations and mass murder to the point of genocide.

-- Frank Salvato, OpinionEditorials.com, 9/07/07

China is on the move, or haven't you noticed?

China's "smile diplomacy" and its deployment of the "tools of culture" are clearly elements in a purposeful, government-directed campaign to reassure, charm and gain influence. . . .

The hope that China will soon change [to become more Western and democratic], and the assurance that, in the meantime, there is a great deal of money to be made, have helped many in this country into a state of comfortable complacency. . . .

If China stays on its current path, if it continues to grow richer and stronger while remaining autocratic, it will likely become bolder, more assertive, and possibly more aggressive than it is today. If the United States wishes to preserve its present military, diplomatic, and technological advantages, it will have to compete much more vigorously and deliberately than it has been doing in recent years. We are going to have to run faster just to stay in place. But we are unlikely to do so if we cannot even acknowledge to ourselves that we are in a race.

-- Aaron L. Friedberg, CommentaryMagazine.com, October 2007

My Fellow Republicans

If we're going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order. We can't be like Democrats -- a party of big spending. We can't pretend our borders are secure from illegal immigration. We can't have ethical standards that are a punch-line for Jay Leno. When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses. It's time for Republicans to start acting like Republicans. -- Mitt Romney, open letter to the Republican party

Investing in Iranian Democracy

American lawmakers and Iranian-Americans who would eliminate financial support for Iran's democrats need to understand the following: Supporting Iranian civil society and the nonviolent struggle toward democracy and human rights is likely the most cost-effective means to prevent a future conflict with Iran or an armed struggle within its borders. Democracy is difficult to achieve. But with its remarkably young, educated population, and a long-stifled yearning for the fruits of modernity and liberalism, Iran has many of the key ingredients for success. -- Akbar Atri, OpinionJournal.com, 10/15/07

Of Lemmings, Appeasers, Piranhas, and Activists

Like lemmings marching toward a nearby cliff, many business leaders are blindly embracing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the doctrine du jour of activist nannies who are seeking to usurp political authority by setting themselves up as private regulators -- all for the purpose of dictating how the rest of us live our lives. . . .

In addition to the CSR lemmings, there are two other types of business leaders who preach the gospel of corporate socialism. They include those who believe CSR represents a public relations opportunity that companies can exploit for the sake of getting the activists off their backs. They are modern-day Neville Chamberlains; appeasement artists who believe that the Holy Grail of successful business management is good PR. . . .

The third group of business executives who support the CSR movement do so because they can afford to, and they believe their competition either cannot pay the price of admission to the CSR cult, or are unwilling to genuflect to the activists when they show up for tribute. . . . But their real motive is to exploit CSR to achieve an artificial advantage over the competition. They are not lemmings or appeasers. They are good old-fashioned piranhas. . . .

The net-net of this spectacularly undemocratic process called CSR is that the activists are being aided and abetted by some business executives in their efforts to dictate business policies and expenditures based on their vision of what is sustainable, equitable and fair for the rest of us. . . .

Fortunately, there are still some corporate warriors who understand that businesses do not have social responsibilities; only people do.

-- Nick Nichols, townhall.com, 10/4/2007

Liberal Reactions 101

Liberal hysteria about conservative speech always follows the same pattern; I call it "The Five Stages of Conservative Enlightenment." There are public denunciations, demands for apologies, letter-writing campaigns, attacks on the sources of your income, and calls for censorship. There will be lots of wailing, but no facts refuting the point behind your hysteria-inducing statement. Liberals prefer denouncing people with idioms -- over the top, gone too far, crossed the line,beyond the pale -- not substance. Whose line? Whose pale? It almost makes you think they don't want to talk about the substance. -- Ann Coulter, townhall.com, 9/30/07