Wild At Heart

Recently I read a book by John Eldredge called, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul.  The author describes authentic masculinity as adventurous, risk taking, ready for any challenge.  Men, created in the image of God, are “wild, dangerous, unfettered and free.”  Men have an inherent desire to be the hero, to carry the day, to rescue the damsel.  Too often men fail to be what they are called to be because they succumb to wounds given them by other men who are too cowardly to play the hero.

Liberty is adventurous; it is not safe.  With liberty comes risk.  Liberty does not suffer feckless, flagitious fools.  Only those morally brave enough are man enough to be free.  Benjamin Franklin captured that principle when he stated “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

Our Founders chose to be real men despite the risk.  They chose the path of liberty over the security of monarchy.  They yearned to be free and to break the yoke of tyranny.  That yearning is the pursuit of happiness.  Happiness is not found in prosperity.  It is not found in bipartisanship.  Happiness is the pursuit of liberty.  So many real men gave their last full measure of devotion so their children can live in freedom. 

In a twist of irony, conservatism is wild at heart.  The word “conservative” can mean “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.”  “Preserving existing conditions” appears cautious. “Limiting change” does not seem to be adventurous.  However, in the current political climate, “change” has come to mean government bailouts, government health care, government regulation, wealth redistribution.  “Change” means tyranny.  Conservatism’s wild nature seeks to preserve the adventures of liberty from a timid subservience to liberalism’s march toward a world without risks.

Choosing liberalism or progressivism is not adventurous.  It is wimpy.  It is gutless.  Statist liberals and progressives trade the pursuit of happiness for an irrational hope of absolute security and government subsistence.  That liberal transaction is why they push for health care reform and seek the approval of dictators.  Rush Limbaugh constantly states that liberalism is “not an intellectual pursuit.  Liberalism is basically the most gutless choice you can make.  It’s nothing but emotion and feeling.” 

The wimpy liberal chooses government health care, government welfare, social security, minimum wage hikes because he wants to feel safe more than he wants to be free.  As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

The statist liberal is too timid to play the hero.  He masks his cowardice in causes that “raise awareness.”  “Raising awareness” requires nothing of him.  The liberal coward lashes out against the hero with slogans and bromides.  “Bush lied. People died.”  Liberals called Ronald Reagan a warmonger, a cowboy, an idiot.  “Violence leads to more violence” was the chant as Reagan ended the Cold War by extending the arms race so far the Soviets couldn’t keep up and feed their people at the same time.

Bromides require no intellectual pursuit.  Bromides, in fact, prevent thinking.  They stifle debate.  After all, “the science is settled,” right?  The statist liberal tries to discourage the hero so as to hide his own pusillanimity.  If the hero succeeds, the liberal will be exposed as a “chickenheart.”  A liberal prefers the destiny of masters rather than to master his own destiny.

In a speech at a Hillsdale College Churchill Dinner, Rush Limbaugh contrasted liberalism and conservatism.  He stated “liberalism is the most gutless choice you can make.  Liberalism’s following a cult figure.  Liberalism is following a demagogue.”  Liberalism is not about thinking.  Thinking is hard.  It takes effort.  Liberalism is about feelings and following.  Feelings are easy.  Feelings just happen.  Following is safe.  Liberals feel comfortable when looking for a master.

In contrast “Conservatism sees Americans, sees potential, sees great opportunity, sees an opportunity for people to be the best they can be using whatever ambition and desire they have.  Reaganism conservatism does not need to be adapted to issues of the day.  There’s no such thing as the conservative version of Big Government.  That is a sellout of conservatism.”  Conservatism is about taking the lead, seizing the opportunities, facing the challenges, rising to the occasion, risking all for liberty. 

Conservatives love the adventure of freedom.  Self-sufficient, rugged individualism is his mark.  He would rather see his business fail than take a government bailout.  In tough times he prefers to accept the generosity of family and friends than rely on the forced charity of strangers.

In the gladiatorial arena of modern politics, Conservatism’s Maximus will always confront Liberalism’s Commodus.  Not because he wants to, but because he has to.  Maximus believes in freedom.  He wants to live in peace, but he is not afraid of the tyrant.  He is loved and honored.  Commodus is controlling, manipulative, despised.  He seeks the public favor, not by principled leadership, but by giving handouts and providing distractions.  The liberal mob can be counted on to stand there idly with their hands out.

Not the Conservative.  The Conservative is adventurous.  He is wild at heart.  He loves liberty more than life.  He is dangerous.  He is a real man.  He is the hero.

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Suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has unveiled its ad campaign: Vegetarians make better lovers.  Part of this ad campaign features a live demonstration of a blow-up bed with two scantily-clad, attractive women embracing in a passionate kiss.  Earlier this year NBC refused to show PETA’s Super Bowl commercial where women rubbed themselves with vegetables in a sexually provocative way.  That PETA’s science about a link between vegetarianism and better love making is junk science is really not the issue.  The real issue is this ad campaign has nothing to do with the treatment of animals.  It has everything to do with slowly mainstreaming sexual perversion.

Katy Perry’s song “I Kissed a Girl” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2008.  In her song she insists

Us girls we are so magical
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist so touchable
Too good to deny it
Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it

This number one Billboard hit preaches that sexual experimentation is natural and innocent.  “It felt so wrong.  It felt so right.  Don’t mean I’m in love tonight.”  Our conscience is telling us it is wrong, but our passions tell us it feels right.  Pop culture advises we ignore our conscience because it “ain’t no big deal.  It’s innocent.”  This sexual experiment isn’t even about love because kissing a girl “don’t mean she’s in love tonight.”

The more nefarious component of this song is that it deliberately attempts to normalize the sexuality of our youth.  Through this song Katy Perry is inviting young, cherry chap stick-wearing girls to experiment with their sexuality.  Follow her example; it wasn’t so bad.  She kind of liked it, and after all, it didn’t really mean anything anyway.  Maybe her boyfriend won’t mind it.  In fact her boyfriend would probably encourage it.

In the 90s’ hit sitcom Mad About You, Paul Reiser’s character answers a question from his wife played by Helen Hunt.  She asked him why men are so interested in lesbian scenes.  He answered “Because it’s naked, it’s fun, and I agree with both of them.”  Men are attracted to such scenes when both women look like the “girlfriend” in the relationship.  Interest in such scenes wanes when both women look like the “boyfriend.”

Slowly these images of attractive women engaging in homosexual conduct have softened the natural repulsion to homosexuality.  This inveiglement is by design, paving the broad way towards downtown Sodom.  Though we are not inclined to engage in homosexual conduct ourselves, our pop culture demands we accept it as an equally valuable lifestyle.  Labels of “homophobic” from homosexual rights activists pressure us to live quietly in the suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah.

FoxNews.com resident “Sexpert” Dr. Yvonne Fulbright states “If you’re going to explore everything your sexuality has to offer, you can’t get hung up on the labels and categories society has constructed around sexual orientation. Seeing your sexuality as fluid can open you up to a whole other world of erotic intimacy and connection.” I wonder if she would allow those with a Judeo-Christian ethic to ignore the socially constructed “homophobe” label.

She continues: “Whether bi-curious or able to embrace their sexual fluidity, they know more pleasures and electrifying experiences than the rest of us will ever fathom. They have opened themselves up to a whole other playground, which can fuel their libido and capacity for arousal.”  Where are these “whole other playgrounds?”  Does “sexual fluidity” have to be limited to the same species?  Her philosophy assumes no rules in a search for sexual gratification.  We are not allowed to make value judgments on where someone fuels his capacity for arousal, whether it is with the opposite sex, same sex, plants, animals or elsewhere.

Dr. Fulbright states “Yet sexual behaviors don’t always reflect your sexual orientation.  And your sexual orientation doesn’t necessarily determine your sexual behaviors.”  She makes her point by anecdotally pointing to all-male prisons, same-sex schools and “an elderly facility with slim male pickings,” whatever that means.

“In seeking sexual gratification, people have learned to work with what they’ve got.”  I guess she would tell the sheep of lonely farmers that if it’s inevitable, like the weather, they might as well lie back and enjoy it.  Someone ought to get PETA involved in protecting these sheep.

We are constantly told that “homosexuals” are born that way.  They can’t help their sexual feelings for people of their own sex.  They are identified by this sexual orientation.  The point of Dr. Fulbright’s article is that it doesn’t matter where you get your sexual gratification.  Sexual orientation doesn’t determine your sexual behavior.

If one can visit other sexual playgrounds, then sexual orientation has no significance unless it means “where someone initially looks for sexual gratification.”  Sexual orientation then does not have anything to do with people’s identity, but with people’s behavior.  If sexual orientation doesn’t naturally shackle one to a specific sexual playground, then providing special protections based on orientation is merely about affirming certain behaviors.  The fact that there are no “homosexuals” but people acting homosexually should clearly change the policy debate.

Philosophies have consequences.  The logical extension of Dr. Fulbright’s, PETA’s, and the rest of pop culture’s sexual philosophy would lead beyond seeking arousal from the adults of the human species to sexual gratification found from contact with animals, dead bodies, vegetables and children.  That philosophy believes prohibitions are harmful to one’s sexual fulfillment.  Prohibitions define people and restrict them from reaching their sexual fluidity.  This descent into sexual depravity will wage war on all laws restricting the access to any sexual playground.

PETA’s ad campaign and pop culture use their seductive, soft-core images to titillate the lustful passions of men and, more recently, women.  This philosophy encourages a mad dash to your preferred sexual playground without fear of labels or consequences.  Meanwhile, using labels to derail value judgments, pop culture has tried to silence opposition.  Pop culture’s lascivious, licentious march to perversion has left many living silently in the suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Separation of Church and Science

President Barack Obama assured the scientific community that he has erected a wall of separation between Church and science.  “It is about ensuring . . . we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,” President Obama lectured as he signed his executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  He can’t have scientists constrained or manipulated by Christian ideologues.  Society, according to Obama, should be listening to scientists not limiting them.

Funding embryonic stem cell research, said our president, will restore “scientific integrity to government decision-making to ensure that in this new administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science….”  But, are we basing our scientific discoveries on the soundest policy?

Is it wise policy to allow scientists to make ethical decisions without a robust moral debate?  As a person of faith, Obama insisted “we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering.”  I suppose in his Orwellian double-speak, Obama is trying to pacify those who have moral qualms about scientific experiments unfettered by moral restraints.  But, what exactly is this faith he believes?

Easing human suffering sounds like a Christian tenet.  In fact, Jesus said if you feed the hungry, clothe the naked or visit the sick it’s as if you are doing those things for him.  But, would Jesus have advocated starving your children to feed the hungry, or stripping your neighbor to clothe to the naked, or killing human embryos to research a cure for paralysis?  His example was about sacrificing himself for an unfit world, not about sacrificing some for the benefit of others.

Secular humanism, on the other hand, does promote such a self-serving approach.  Secular Humanism is the doctrine emphasizing a person’s capacity for self-realization through reason without regard to religion or the supernatural.  This ethical theory and practice embraces scientific inquiry and human fulfillment in the natural world and repudiates the importance of a belief in God.  There are no rewards or punishments in a “next life.”  In other words, what we do in life will not echo in eternity.  This humanist “truth” does not provide an inner moral restraint.

Humanism, however, borrows some Christian moral values.  Humanists see easing human suffering as a goal of its faith.  This laudable humanitarianism (concern for human welfare) should not be confused with self-serving humanism.  The trouble with humanistic humanitarianism is its utilitarian ethos– the ends justify the means.  A person’s value, to a humanist, is wrapped up in his utility.  A person who is aware of his own existence is more valuable than an infant or embryo.  That paralyzed people will walk one day is an end that justifies the killing of embryonic humans today.

Obama didn’t divorce ideology from the embryonic stem cell debate as he claims.  He merely replaced the Bush administration’s Judeo-Christian ideology with a secular humanist one.  In order for him to protect his policy choice from criticism, President Obama has erected this wall between Church and science.  Using platitudes and the moral authority of a “consensus,”  Obama has insisted science should be free from ideology.  But what he means is science should be free from a Judeo-Christian ideology.  He wants to use science in a utilitarian manner without the shackles of Christian conscience.

Like bricklayers, humanist ideologues reinforce this wall.  When liberals want to ramrod a morally repugnant policy while appearing to have weighed the moral consequences, they parade liberal theologians who parrot the liberal positions.  Reverend Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, said federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is “good policy for a religiously pluralistic society that cares about . . . the relief of human suffering.”  A humanist utilitarian, not a Christian, can believe it to be good policy to relieve human suffering by making other less useful humans suffer.

White House advisor Rev. Joel Hunter believes that it is “moral to use embryonic stem cells that are destined for destruction for research for helping people.”  According to his logic, it would be “moral” to experiment on death-row inmates because they are scheduled to die anyway.  We might as well glean some value out of their lives before we execute them.  Also, Rev. Hunter’s view would encourage the production of more embryos to be “destined for destruction.”  It’s morally imperative that we produce more death-row embryos to “research for helping people.”

The late Francis Schaeffer, a Christian theologian, stated in A Christian Manifesto that liberal theology is nothing more than secular humanism in religious terms.  Schaeffer affirmed that liberal theologians will invariably come down on the side of the secular humanist.  Liberal theologians have done so with abortion, social welfare, homosexual marriage and now, embryonic stem cell research.

Taking the humanist philosophy logically further, what utility is there in handicapped people?  Right now, humanists use the handicapped as a useful propaganda tool to further a liberal agenda.  “Under President John F. Kennedy we were the first to walk on the moon. Under President Barack Obama the paralyzed will be the first to walk on earth.”  Roman Reed, a paraplegic, pronounced that vision from his wheelchair while on hand to see President Obama reverse the Bush administration’s ban on federal stem cell funding.

Now, despite that Mr. Reed misspoke, since Nixon was president when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and Jesus has already made the lame to walk on earth, we can understand his expression of hope in the supposed miracles to be harnessed from embryonic stem cell research.  Our would-be messiah president, however, shamelessly uses the emotions that envelop this issue to make us believe his new stem cell policy will heal the sick.

What happens when people like Roman Reed are no longer considered useful to humanist propagandists?  History gives us examples of science under the influence of secular humanism.  The early 20th century science of eugenics forcibly sterilized undesirables.  The science of Social Darwinism’s euthanasia eliminated the handicapped in “mercy killings.”  Margaret Sanger, who gave birth to Planned Parenthood, aimed the science of abortion and birth control at the unfit poor and racial minorities.  Millions of people worldwide have been the victims of such “scientific integrity” for the benefit of humanity.  Science without moral restraint is in reality the Frankenstein monster come to life.  

Obama hasn’t prevented science from being influenced by ideology.  He just erected a wall of separation to protect it from certain ideologies.  Obama’s wall of separation between Church and science leaves science vulnerable to the whims of the humanists who have no inner moral restraints.  In the end, his wall of separation will harm those whom he claims it helps.

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Revisions of the Truth

When congressmen give speeches from the floor of the House, they often say “Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.”  Congressmen, under a time limit on the floor, request this courtesy so that the official record reflects a more thorough articulation of their position on a particular bill.  It also gives them an opportunity to correct any misstatements.

What Obama has done with Sonia Sotomayor’s controversial statements is to ask unanimous consent for her to revise and extend her remarks.  His otherwise “brilliant” choice for Supreme Court Justice has merely had a bout of inarticulateness.  The problem is not a deep rooted animosity toward white males.  It isn’t even her socialist philosophy the remarks betray.  She just had a problem with expressing herself. 

While lecturing at the University of California, Berkley Law School she stated: “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.”  Obama insists “I’m sure she would have restated it.”

How would she have restated that?  “I would hope that an intelligent Hispanic female with the wealth of her background would be able to reach sounder opinions than a Caucasian man who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

Maybe “I would think that a female Latina sage with a marxist upbringing would be able to redistribute wealth to racial minorities better than racist white trash who believe in capitalism.”  Obama hasn’t explained how he knows that she wasn’t saying exactly what she meant.

This statement is not the Supreme Court nominee’s only “misstatement.”  She insisted that the Court of Appeals is where policy is made.  Everyone who went to high school when they still taught the three branches of government knows that policy making belongs to the representative branches.  The judicial branch only has the authority to say what the law is, not what it ought to be.  To the Statist the judiciary must take authority to make law from the bench because Statist policies usually don’t win popular support, i.e. same-sex marriage, tax increases, gun control. 

Alexander Hamilton affirmed in Federalist 78, the judiciary will be the least dangerous branch.  “The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.”  Our Founding Fathers understood that the judiciary does not and must not have authority to make policy.  After betraying her hidden Statist judicial philosophy, Sotomayor immediately requested to revise and extend her remarks.  “And I know . . . this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know.  Um, uh . . . I’m not promoting it and I’m not advocating it.  Ya’ know.”  She revised and extended her remarks with a “wink-wink” to the audience and other panel members, generating a smattering of laughter from the audience.

The impression the listener gets when hearing Sotomayor’s revision is that she is merely revising her remarks because she can’t publicly advocate policy making from the bench.  With her stuttering and her “ums” and “ahs” and “ya’ knows” she let the audience know her revised remarks that she does not advocate judicial policy making is contrary to her actual philosophy.  She shouldn’t publicly state what she does behind the bench when no one is looking.  How could a Latina judge use the richness of her experience to make better decisions than white males if she can’t resort to policy making?  White males are the ones who made these pernicious policies in the first place.  To a Statist, social justice requires a judge to change disagreeable policies.

Even though the consent isn’t unanimous for Sotomayor to revise and extend her remarks, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insists she ought to be able to correct her “poor” word choice.  He then threatened those who are not giving their consent when he warned “I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation.”

Let’s try a comparison with another notable “racist” comment.  In December 2002, during a 100th birthday and retirement celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond, Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott stated “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”  At face value you would be hard pressed to find any racist meaning in his words.  But to the Statist, Republicans never mean what they say.  Statists have to scrutinize comments by Republicans for code language.  So in analyzing Sen. Lott’s words, Statists were “stunned” by the racist comment since everyone knew Strom Thurmond ran on the Dixiecrat ticket and favored segregation.  Obviously Sen. Lott meant to say that the country would have been better off with keeping racial segregation.  In the end Sen. Lott was forced to step down as Majority Leader for an innocuous statement without given the chance to revise and extend his remarks.

On the other hand, Sotomayor’s statement was overtly racist and sexist.  The import of her words was that Hispanic women will usually make better decisions than white males.  There is no need to find the code language.  Obama, however, insists that opposition to her for her word choice is nonsense.  We must look beyond her overt racist words to find the hidden meaning and the correct context in which “Latina women are better than white males” is not racist.  So when a white Republican male makes a jejune comment about a retiring colleague, we are required to look for the hidden racist meaning.  When we find it, we are all required to force him to step down from his leadership position. But when a Statist racial minority makes an overt racist statement, calls for her withdrawal are “nonsense.” 

Sotomayor’s statements reveal an animus toward a certain racial group.  This animus might have played a part in her decision in denying white fire fighters their day in court.  Ruling that a municipality discriminated against white fire fighters in denying their promotions over minorities wouldn’t promote her social redistributive justice belief.  Her comments also reveal her Statist judicial philosophy: A judge must abrogate authority to make policy from the bench to ensure the poor and minorities get “justice.” 

To Statists, the public relations problem arising from their statements is never about the anti-American or anti-constitutional principles they hold.  It is always about how they expressed themselves.  Misstatements by Statists actually expose the truth about what they believe.  The solution to the outcry their true expressions cause is to revise their remarks, not to change their anti-American dogma.

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Price of Ignorance

One of Rush Limbaugh’s favorite sayings is “Ignorance is our most expensive commodity.”  I thought that saying curious when looking at it through market principles.  Typically in the market where there is a commodity in high supply, the price drops.  So, in observing the abject ignorance on display in America, I was wondering why the price of ignorance is so high.  I then realized the expense of ignorance isn’t that it costs so much to get, but that it costs so much to have.

Next week we will see this ignorance on display on the Left Coast as the California Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case to overturn an amendment to the constitution.  Through the state’s constitutional amendment process, Californians voted in November to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

I believe as a policy matter that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman.  However, the issue to me really isn’t the substance of the amendment.  The issue is there is a loud minority that wants their government to step outside its constitutional authority to declare the constitution itself unconstitutional.  That is ignorance.  The cost of this ignorance will restructure our entire view of constitutional government.

In his brief to the California Supreme Court, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr. reneged on his promise to uphold the amendment.  In liberal-like fashion, Attorney General Brown attempted to have it both ways on the issue.  The first part of his brief argued in favor of Proposition 8 that the process to bring the initiative to a vote was proper.  He, however, devoted the remaining pages to a quasi-natural law argument to invalidate the amendment.  “At bottom, the question is whether rights secured under the state Constitution’s safeguard of liberty as an ‘inalienable’ right may intentionally be withdrawn from a class of persons by an initiative amendment.”

In an argument that would make secular humanists proud, Attorney General Brown doesn’t think the way our Founders thought when it came to inalienable rights.  Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration of Independence held “these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (emphasis added). 

What Attorney General Brown wants is the California Supreme Court to be the final arbiter as to what is an inalienable right.  “Accordingly, respondent proposes a means of preserving a clear distinction between amendment and revision, while at the same time giving appropriate weight to rights that the Supreme Court has deemed to be a fundamental.” (emphasis added). 

He gives lip service to the notion that Californians owe their freedoms to God.  His “Enlightenment” sentiments clearly come through when he argues “While the Respondent does not suggest that the Framers contemplated that liberty interests included a right to marry that extended to same-sex couples, the scope of liberty evolves over time as determined by the Supreme Court.” (emphasis added).  By reading between the lines we can interpret his words.  He means that when we write our constitutions we recognize God as the source of our liberty.  However, over time when we no longer owe our allegiance to God, we need the Supreme Court to evolve our rights.  What the Supreme Court decrees to be fundamental, let no man tear asunder.

Often debates over “rights” like who can marry are policy choices.  As soon as liberals get a sympathetic court to label a right “fundamental” the policy debate ends.  As the understanding of what is a “fundamental right” evolves, the label of fundamental then prevents the understanding of the right to devolve.  What these liberal quasi-natural law arguments do is to deify the courts and make their decrees the new permanent natural law.

I oppose the validation of sin in public policy, but I will defend one’s right to lobby for policy change through the proper constitutional channels.  What AG Brown is asking the California Supreme Court to do is not to make a change in policy.  He is demanding government abuse its authority in order to make a favorable policy choice for a vocal minority.  What he is asking for is tyranny.  What he will get is revolution.

I know that we should suffer evils while evils are sufferable.  We shouldn’t change our government for light and transient causes, but what is happening in California is nothing less than an assault on the very nature of constitutional government.  Ignorance may very well cost Californians their liberty.  To that I say, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

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Political Orientation

Setbacks in recent elections have left some self-proclaimed conservatives announcing the era of Reagan is over.  David Frum thinks conservatives need to be less aggressive and move to the center to win.  David Brooks suggests that Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s conservatism is stale.  Possibly, the Kathleen Parkers, Peggy Noonans, Christopher Buckleys of “conservatism” are just embarrassed by the NASCAR watching, Wal-Mart shopping, Jesus-loving conservative base.

In a survival of the fittest, these political pundits have tried to spontaneously generate an evolving definition of conservatism.  They then try to put conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin in a closet of political extinction.  However, these and many other conservative Neanderthals refuse to go quietly into the political closet despite ridicule.

Let me follow these conservative examples and come out of the closet by announcing my political orientation.  I am a conservative and I am proud of it.  Furthermore, I was born this way.  Some might say “No, you weren’t.  You were indoctrinated to be conservative by heartless, authoritarian parents.  You chose to be conservative because you are mean-spirited.” 

Why would I choose to be a conservative?  Why would I choose the persecution?  I am constantly ridiculed for my beliefs.  I have been compared to Nazis.  Liberals call me a sexist, racist, bigoted homophobe.  My intentions are mischaracterized, and then I am judged by those mischaracterized intentions.  For example, because I favor policies to help get everyone off of welfare to succeed on their own, my intentions are characterized as trying to keep blacks and minorities poor.  These liberals then brand me a racist because they perceive my intentions are to keep blacks poor. 

You would think I would choose to be a liberal.  Liberals worldwide are hailed as compassionate for merely “raising awareness” of the plight of the poor.  Forget that the poor don’t see a dime from the “awareness” raised.  Despite poverty winning the war we waged on it, liberals get judged by their intentions rather than the results of their policies.

I was born a conservative.  I was born with the yearning to be free.  My love of liberty has been an inherent part of me as much as my blond hair and blue eyes.  God gave me a conscience to know what is right and wrong.  He gave me the desire to follow my conscience rather than the dictates of politically correct tolerance.  But, even if I weren’t born this way, I’d still choose to be a conservative despite the name calling and lies about me.

Conservatives believe that right principles drive right policy choices.  Policy choices must yield to the proper principles.  As a conservative I will not change my conservative principles to mirror popular or progressive policies.  These conservative principles stand in antithesis to principles held by modern liberals.  Here is a sampling of conservative foundational principles:

1. Our liberties come from our Creator, not from our government.  As a self-evident truth, we owe our allegiance to God for making us free and equal, not to our government.  Our inherent, God-given rights include life, liberty and private property.  No government has the authority to take our lives, liberty or property unless we forfeit those rights.
2. The authority to govern comes from God through the people.  Our charter document, our legal authority to exist as a nation is our Declaration of Independence, not our Constitution.  In our Declaration we told a candid world the source of our authority to govern ourselves.  The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled us to “assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station….” 

To secure the blessings of our God-given liberty, we, the people, established our Constitution.  We chose a representative republic to best secure our liberties from anarchy and tyranny.  Government must obey the people even as we obligate ourselves to obey the laws of our government.  

Conservatives actually believe that the words of our founding documents have meaning today.  Our humble allegiance is to a higher authority than ourselves.  In relying on the protection of Divine Providence, as our Founders did, we can pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

3.  Human nature tends toward evil and not toward good.  James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51 “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?  If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  John Adams stated “[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

The problem today is that the predominant philosophy in America, secular humanism, does not allow for an inner moral restraint.  People without moral restraint need an external force to restrain them.  Benjamin Franklin said “[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Conservatives believe an inner restraint on human nature is preferable to an external one.

4.  Government, being obligated to restrain human nature, must be obliged to restrain itself.  “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”  Federalist No. 51.  Our Constitution is a document of enumerated powers.  This document gives our federal government only such powers necessary to protect our liberty from an unruly mob.  To control itself, government must be small and government authority must be separated and restrained by checks and balances.  The bigger our government grows and the more centralized government authority gets the more we lose our liberty.

Reagan conservatism is not dead and does not need to evolve with the times.  Conservative principles are as true today as they were at the time of our founding.  After reading americanthinker.com and other conservative websites, clearly intelligent, thinking, politically-oriented conservatives are far from extinction.  We simply need politicians to articulate and postulate today what our Founders believed.

When it comes to foundational principles, I prefer to align myself with the conservative political orientation of the Founders.  Although I was born this way, anyone can choose this conservative political orientation.

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Yahweh: The Original Women’s Liberator

Throughout the Sixties, people complained, especially men, about the sexual suppression of women.  The “Free Love” counter-culture demanded we “Make Love. Not war.”  Author Elaine Tyler May in Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era juxtaposed the American foreign policy of containing communism abroad with the domestic containment policy of social roles within the home.  With this domestic “containment” came the suppression of female sexuality. 

FoxNews.com “Sexpert” Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright is complaining in her column “Easy or Empowered? The Female Double Standard” on 2 February 2009 that society is containing female sexuality and repressing their sexual identities.  How horrible is it that people, especially other women, use labels such as “whore,” “slut,” “tramp,” for promiscuous women.  Dr. Fulbright laments that many women now feel uncomfortable in asking for what they want sexually. 

With these labels tossed around, women can’t be open with their sexuality like the fictional character Samantha from “Sex and the City.”  I understand that sex is Dr. Fulbright’s career choice.  Maybe she sees herself as a “temple priestess,” providing sexual empowerment to women.  But, I find it ridiculous that there are women waiting to be freed sexually in order to imitate Samantha.  I have never met a woman that talks or acts like Samantha.  Women just don’t act like that regardless of whether they fear being labeled a slut.

Dr. Fulbright dreams of returning to the romantic notion of temple priestesses who were “artists in the sacred act of using sexuality as a spiritual, healing force.”  These goddesses, after all, played an important role in instructing virgins in the ancient art of making love.  Her romanticism of the role of these temple prostitutes is a revision of history.  Greek historian Herodotus writes that “The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger once in her life.” Herodotus, The Histories 1.199, tr A.D. Godley (1920). 

A woman could not choose and could not refuse the first paying stranger.

Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, “I invite you in the name of Mylitta” (that is the Assyrian name for Aphrodite).  It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely have long to wait because they cannot fulfill the law; for some of them remain for three years, or four.  There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.

This forced prostitution was also practiced in Canaan, ancient Palestine, Sicily, Greece, India, among other places.  Forced prostitution is not a romantic notion even in today’s morass of moral relativism.  The romantic period Dr. Fulbright describes is not sexual freedom.  It is sexual slavery.

Dr. Fulbright assails Christianity for ruining the sexual utopia.  Now these “Watchers of the Stars,” these “goddess ambassadors” can no longer spread love and healing.  The labels Christians put on sexually active females control women by shaming and humiliating them.  Women can no longer be open about their sexuality.  People will spread rumors about women who pursue their sexual freedom. 

However, the Hebrew and Christian God did not suppress women.  He liberated them and demonstrated that they had value and are not merely tools for male sexuality.  Deuteronomy 23:17-18.  God’s design in forbidding the practice of temple prostitution was to protect the sexuality of women.  God did that by actually suppressing men’s deviant sexuality.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the original women’s liberator.  God gave women their sexual freedom.  Dr. Fulbright should be gushing about with romantic feelings for the God who cares so much for women that He promulgated a law forbidding forced temple prostitution.  Yet, for some reason she would rather make a maudlin appeal for a return to a chimerical, idyllic time of sexual oracles and healers. 

That fanciful place she seeks is fantasy.  It never existed.  What did exist was a hell on earth for women forced to yield their bodies and their sexual identities to the brute force of male sexuality.  The fact of the matter is the only safe place for women to find and express their sexual identities is within the commitment of marriage to one man who is as committed to her.  Until then, sexually “empowered” women will not be revered as anything more than temple prostitutes.

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The Face That Changes Everything

With the filing of a lawsuit in the baby Shanice case, the issue of babies born alive after an attempted abortion is once again in the spotlight.  In 2006, eighteen year-old Sycloria Williams determined that she didn’t have the resources or the maturity to rear a child.  After she scheduled the abortion, Williams was given medication to dilate her cervix.  She arrived at the clinic the next day.  When the doctor failed to show up, Sycloria Williams delivered a baby girl.  At that point, her attorney said, “She came face to face with a human being, and that changed everything.” 

Sycloria Williams, the child’s mother, named her baby girl Shanice.  I hope that if everyone who favors abortion comes face to face with a baby Shanice shortly after an attempted abortion their opinion on abortion would change.  Although hopeful, I am not naïve.  I know that evil exists and resides in the hearts of people.

What happened next is unforgivable.  According to the lawsuit, a clinic worker, not licensed to practice medicine, knocked the baby onto the floor, cut the child’s unclamped umbilical cord, allowing the baby to bleed out.  The clinic worker tossed the baby, placenta and everything else into a biohazard bag and threw it out.  An autopsy revealed little Shanice had filled her lungs with air, evidence that she was born alive. 

This scenario happens more often than pro-abortion supporters would like to admit.  In April 2005 it happened to Angele Taylor in Orlando, Florida.  Clinic workers at the misnamed Every Person’s Own Choice abortion clinic ignored Angele Taylor’s pleas for help after her son Rowan was born alive.  After she saw her son struggling for life, she made a choice to save her son.  Unfortunately, Every Person’s Own Choice clinic guarantees a dead baby every time someone buys an abortion.  “Every Person’s Own Choice” apparently does not include Angele’s choice.

Taking a page from the Holocaust deniers, a liberal blogger, Jane Hamsher categorically denies that babies are killed after having survived abortions.  In a debate with Mona Charen on C-Span’s Washington Journal during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Jane Hamsher insisted that babies being left to die in hospital linen closets is a ridiculous Right Wing fantasy.  She matter-of-factly contends “There’s no baby born that they try to kill.  That’s ridiculous.” 

In parsing words that liberals so like to do, she is technically correct, at least in most cases.  I guess tossing a crying newborn infant into a bucket and placing him, unattended, in a linen closet for hours until his crying stops is more “allowing the child to die” rather than “trying to kill” him.  After all, it’s not like they partially delivered the baby, jammed scissors in its skull and removed the child’s brain.  In the end, through omission or commission, there is still a dead baby.  

We are constantly subjected to bromides and trite arguments that good people disagree on this issue.  Even then-candidate George W. Bush in his 3 August 2000 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention stated “I know good people disagree on this issue, but surely we can agree on ways to value life….”  

President Bush might as well have convinced us after 9/11 that Islam is a religion of peace.  Oh, wait.  He did try to do that.  I guess calling those who support abortion “good people” is like calling Muhammad Atta and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “peaceful Muslims.”  If you think that is not an appropriate comparison, try this one: Calling pro-abortionists “good people” is like calling the Taliban, who supported, gave comfort and shelter to al-Qaeda, “good neighbors.”

Saying “good people disagree on abortion” is meant to keep the debate civilized.  Meanwhile children are butchered by doctors with their mothers’ permission or left to die in a linen closet while we have our civilized debate.  Now, I prefer debates that produce more light than heat.  The trouble with debating liberals is that they try to turn the lights out.  They will categorically deny facts like Jane Hamsher does, or throw out strawmen like “you just want women to die.” 

Mona Charen tried to have an honest debate with Jane Hamsher.  But Jane Hamsher just kept harping on her statistics that most Americans support Roe v. Wade.  Most people do not think beyond the “Every Person’s Own Choice” rhetoric to see the actual implications of Roe v. Wade.  Jane Hamsher refused to acknowledge the fact, when Mona Charen pointed it out, that when people are given the specifics, support for abortion drops.  But, Jane Hamsher would rather have the debate in the dark.

An honest debate is nearly impossible when one side refuses to debate honestly.  While we are at it, we should be honest, too.  Good people do not disagree on the issue of abortion.  Good people come face to face with a human infant and that changes everything.

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American Idle

President Obama is auditioning American Idle contestants.  These non-producers of our society stole the show at his town meeting in Fort Meyers, Florida on February 10, 2009.  It was like watching a Saturday Night Live skit when a parade of sad sacks asked for handouts.  Henrietta Hughes tearfully begged the President for a car, a kitchen and a bathroom.  Julio Osegueda, overcome in spontaneous euphoria, asked the president what his plans are for giving him better benefits at his job for McDonald’s.  A man, who was recently laid off and receiving the forced generosity of the American people through his unemployment check, ungratefully asked why the government did not compensate him for his entire salary.

It’s as if these losers of life’s lottery were expecting the president to turn water into wine or to take five loaves and two small fish and feed the entire nation.  These examples are just the loudest illustrations of people in America growing up with a mentality of entitlement to their every desires.

Where are all the exposés and investigative reports on these characters like there were on Joe the Plumber?  The problem with Joe the Plumber is that he is a producer who dared expose the liberal Marxist, redistributionist agenda.  This agenda punishes the successful producers to give to the non-producers, the idle.  These idle hands are expecting handouts.

Michele Malkin did some digging and discovered that in 2004 Henrietta Hughes and her son, Corey, were living off the charity of others in Rochester, New York.  Corey was able to “take comfort” in the free medical services provided by a doctor.  Rochester’s newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, described Corey as an out-of-work computer programmer.  He graduated from Monroe Community College, but, sadly, could not even get a job at Wendy’s.

Now, as an MCC graduate myself, I find it hard to believe that someone with an associate’s degree cannot find a job at a fast food restaurant.  I suspect there is more to the story than Corey being denied a job after having applied more than once.   It reminds me of the dialogue between Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne in “Dumb and Dumber.” Harry: “I can’t believe we drove around all day and there’s not a single job in this town; there’s nothing, nada, zip.” Lloyd: “Yeah, unless you wanna work 40 hours a week.”

WINK News of Fort Myers, Florida also looked into Henrietta Hughes’ story.  They learned that a local faith-based charity gave Henrietta and her son money, food and offered to house them for free for three months.  Henrietta refused because they required a $400 security deposit.  Corey also refused the free job training courses the charity offered.  Apparently in America, beggars can be choosy.

Nineteen-year-old Julio Osegueda, Edison State College student, and McDonald’s employee, wanted to know what the federal government can do to force his employer to give him better benefits.  He has been indoctrinated into thinking that, at 19, he is entitled to be free from want.  He is entitled to this “natural right” no matter that he receives it from the blood, sweat and tears of others.  Because he sees this as his “fundamental right” he does not have to earn it.  It is an inherent right at age 19.

Who do we blame that this nineteen-year-old believes his employer is in business to provide him with benefits?  Who do we hold accountable that he believes his government, using the threat of violence, exists to ensure his employer provides those benefits?  His little euphoric, whining rant landed him a dream opportunity: the color commentator spot for Fort Myers Miracle baseball team’s home opener.  Of this whole situation, Julio exclaimed “I’ve never felt so good in my life. The last time I felt somewhat this good was when I received a Playstation 3 for Christmas.”  That would make sense since it is probably the last time someone gave him a handout.

So many are to blame for this mentality where, in the midst of hard circumstances, people stand around idly asking for handouts.  We can blame an ideology, but an ideology is merely words on a page unless someone believes it.  The first people we should blame are people like Henrietta, Corey, and Julio.  Not necessarily for the circumstances they find themselves in, but for the attitude of entitlement they unashamedly maintain.  Instead, we reward people who bought too much house with paying their mortgages.  We reward a nineteen-year old with a dream opportunity.

So, in reinforcing these bad behaviors, we can expect more of the same.  That dynamic is the way of operation for the Democratic Party.  Over the next two years we can expect more of these contestants who want to be the next “American Idle.”  Take heart.  In 2010, we’ll have the opportunity to cancel this program.

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