Can Someone Be Glad for God’s Non-Existence?

  • May I say that as our country was more religious, free speech was always understood well. Today, as society becomes more secular/atheistic… students need safe spaces to have a place to display their infantilization and routinely shut down dissenting ideas/speech. Religion (esp. the Judeo-Christian faith) creates courage in character expressed in community… secularism/atheism creates selfish ideals of a reality lived in a bubble. Even Richard Dawkins (famed atheist) said this of Christianity: “I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.” 

After someone posted this meme, a person said:

  • “Amen! There is no God!”

(He meant no Christian God specifically as it is a predominately Christian Facebook group).

Now, I realize the original poster of the meme was not aware that this cuts both ways… and the atheist was merely pointing this out humorously. But this serves as a lesson EVEN FOR ATHEISTS.

So I replied:

I don’t know how someone could say “amen” to there not being a Judeo-Christian God? When comparing it to other worldview (say, pantheism, panentheism, finite godism, polytheism, etc), they have done almost zip for their respective societies.

Healthcare (nurses, hospitals, and is still the largest healthcare provider in the world), tackling the illiteracy problems as well as drunkeness (for instance the YMCA and Salvation ARMY and AA), education (all the leading universities like: Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, Princeton, Cambridge, and Westminster, etc… were founded as seminaries — so-to-speak — same goes for the medieval universities: University of Bologna, Oxford, University of Paris, etc.), languages unified in many nations across the globe by missionaries (Bengali is one example, other indigenous languages were preserved by [one example] William Carey, who because he unified the languages in India… the government formed for the first time a language that could include the general population in being involved), Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protections to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.

Etc., etc., etc….

There was also strong influence from Christian ideas and influential Christians in the formulation of the Magna Carta in England (1215) and of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) in the United States. These are three of the most significant documents in the history of governments on the earth, and all three show the marks of significant Christian influence in the foundational ideas of how governments should function.

This is important because….

The World Forum on Democracy reports that in 1950 there were 22 democracies accounting for 31% of the world population and a further 21 states with restricted democratic practices, accounting for 11.9% of the globe’s population. Since the turn of the century, electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2% of the world’s population.

The impact of this Christian founded nation and Christians on Democracy and the ending of slavery for the first time in world history is nothing short of miraculous.

What have non-God [atheistic worldview] type governments done????????

They have done in one century what all of the worlds religions could not accomplish in the previous 19-centuries… kill a record number of people.

[Yes, that includes the newest and most deadly religion in the stats — Islam. Out of all the religious wars in written world history… Islam claims almost 2/3rds of them. But this can be expected from it’s founder who slit the throats of men, women, and children.]

THREE Books To Read:

✦ How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity, by Rodney Stark;
✦ How Christianity Changed the World, by Alvin Schmidt;
✦ The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, by Vishal Mangalwadi.

The above was my quick response on Facebook… here is another great short list from Life Coach for Coach:

  1. Hospitals, which essentially began during the Middle Ages.
  2. Universities, which also began during the Middle Ages. In addition, most of the world’s greatest universities were started for Christian purposes.
  3. Literacy and education for the masses.
  4. Capitalism and free enterprise.
  5. Representative government, particularly as it has been seen in the American experiment.
  6. The separation of political powers.
  7. Civil liberties.
  8. The abolition of slavery, both in antiquity and in more modern times.
  9. Modern science.
  10. The discovery of the New World by Columbus.
  11. The elevation of women.
  12. Benevolence and charity; the good Samaritan ethic.
  13. Higher standards of justice.
  14. The elevation of common man.
  15. The condemnation of adultery, homosexuality, and other sexual perversions. This has helped to preserve the human race, and it has spared many from heartache.
  16. High regard for human life.
  17. The civilizing of many barbarian and primitive cultures.
  18. The codifying and setting to writing of many of the world’s languages.
  19. Greater development of art and music. The inspiration for the greatest works of art.
  20. The countless changed lives transformed from liabilities into assets to society because of the gospel.

[And Twenty-One:]

The eternal salvation of countless souls.

The last one mentioned, the salvation of souls, is the primary goal of the spread of Christianity. All the other benefits listed are basically just by-products of what Christianity has often brought when applied to daily living.

When Jesus Christ took upon Himself the form of a man, He imbued mankind with dignity and inherent value that had never been dreamed of before. Whatever Jesus touched or whatever He did transformed that aspect of human life.

Many are familiar with the 1946 film classic It’s a Wonderful Life, wherein the character played by Jimmy Stewart gets a chance to see what life would be like had he never been born. The main point of the film is that each person’s life has an impact on everybody else’s life. Had they never been born, there would be gaping holes left by their absence. Jesus has had an enormous impact—more than anybody else—in history. Had he never come, the hole would be a canyon about the size of a continent.

Another great (downloadable in PDF or .DOC) can be found at Journey of Cross and Quill. Here is one paragraph as an example of the excellent post:

Schmidt quotes Lynn White, historian of medieval science, as saying “From the thirteenth century onward into the eighteenth every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms” (222). William Occam (1280-1349) had a great influence on the development of modern science. His concept known as “Occam’s Razor” was the scientific principle that states that what can be done or explained with the fewest assumptions should be used. It is the principle of parsimony. As was common with almost all medieval natural philosophers, Occam did not confine himself to scientific matters and wrote two theological treatises, one dealing with the Lord’s Supper and the other with the body of Christ, both of which had a tremendous impact on Martin Luther’s thinking (Schmidt 222). Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), while a great artist and painter was also a scientific genius who analyzed and theorized in the areas of botany, optics, physics, hydraulics, and aeronautics. However, his greatest benefit to science was in the study of physiology in which he produced meticulous drawings of the human body (Schmidt 223). Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) followed in Da Vinci’s footsteps. In his famous work, De humani corpis fabrica (Fabric of the Human Body), published in 1543, he corrects over two hundred errors in Galen’s physiological writings. (Galen was a Greek physician of the second century) The errors were largely found by dissecting cadavers (Schmidt 223). The branch of genetics flourished under the work of Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian monk, who after studying Darwin’s theory of evolution rejected it (Schmidt 224). In the field of astronomy great advances were made under devout Christian men Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo. In physics we encounter Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Blaise Pascal (1623-62), Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Georg Simon Ohm (1787-1854), Andre Ampere (1775-1836), Michael Faraday (1791-1867), and William Thompson Kelvin (1824-1907). These men held to a strong Christian faith as evidenced by their writings. Before he died, Kepler was asked by an attending Lutheran pastor where he placed his faith. Kepler replied, “Solely and alone in the work of our redeemer Jesus Christ.” Kepler, who only tried “thinking God’s thoughts after him,” died with the Christian faith planted firmly in his mind and heart. His epitaph, penned four months before his death stated:

I used to measure the heavens,

Now I must measure the earth.

Though sky-bound was my spirit,

My earthly body rests here (Schmidt 230).


A Few Lectures


Rodney Stark on the Dennis Prager Show:

A LONG lecture by historian Alvin Schmidt:

Vishal Mangalwadi on the Bible’s Influence of India (1st video) and the West (2nd):

Michael Medved Opines Well on Cruz/Fiorina and the Donald

Video Description:

Medved fields some calls both from Trump supporters as well as those who are not rooting for Trump. He brings some historical context (as usual) to the calls (Taft v. Roosevelt; Humphrey, etc).

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY he distinguishes the nonsense of Trump compared to “Republican ideals.” It amazes me that many of the same people that accused “Dubya” of being a “neo-con” are today rooting for someone far more entrenched in expanding government’s role as well as getting us involved in military operations. Here is a commentary by yours truly on my FaceBook:

I still do not understand what people do not like about Cruz’s positions as compared to Trump’s mess of positions. I would be happy if Rand Paul was put in on the third ballot, because he and Cruz are closest to the Founders idealism. I would be less happy but still pleased if Rubio were put in on the third ticket. Why? Because most ppl that ran were truly Republicans that leaned right in their ideology (except Kasich and more-so Trump).

So I view it as maybe being desperate, but only because many today do not think through these basic (101) delineations today. All the people that complained about Bush being a neo-con and who now like Trump (a crony-capitalist’s capitalists) are stuck between a rock and a hard place. He is more about large government than “Dubya” ever was.

For more clear thinking like this from Michael Medved… I invite you to visit: http://www.michaelmedved.com/

Negative Returns of Investment — Alternative Energy Fail!

Hot Air has this wonderful story with it’s said humorous point at the end of my excerpt of the Hot Air excerpt:

This week’s installment of how renewable energy will save America is brought to you by Watts Up With That. It’s the heartwarming tale of Lake Land College in Illinois, where the administration decided to save some money and strike a blow for clean energy back in 2012 by installing a pair of wind turbines to produce clean, renewable power for the school. Putting up equipment like that isn’t cheap, though, so they arranged for some help from Uncle Sam (read: you the taxpayers) in the form of a $987,697.20 grant. The towers went up and the blades began turning.

That, however, was when the story (unexpectedly!) took a turn…

The turbines were funded by a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, but the turbines lasted for less than four years and were incredibly costly to maintain.

“Since the installation in 2012, the college has spent $240,000 in parts and labor to maintain the turbines,” Kelly Allee, Director of Public Relations at Lake Land College, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The college estimates it would take another $100,000 in repairs to make the turbines function again after one of them was struck by lightning and likely suffered electrical damage last summer. School officials’ original estimates found the turbine would save it $44,000 in electricity annually, far more than the $8,500 they actually generated. Under the original optimistic scenario, the turbines would have to last for 22.5 years just to recoup the costs, not accounting for inflation. If viewed as an investment, the turbines had a return of negative 99.14 percent.

[….]

It’s reminiscent of another story from the same part of the country. Going back roughly six years we learned that their neighbors in Minnesota put up a major wind turbine installation only to find out that the bearings in the turbines froze up in the winter and were similarly taken out of service. For the slower readers in the green energy movement, allow me to spell that out a bit more clearly.

The wind turbines were essentially destroyed because they froze

In the winter

…In Minnesota….

While these parts can be used for future engineering classes and the like… the whole venture is better suited for the econ classes to use as an example that without the government confiscating money and propping up ventures that do not work… they would be (in a free-market) thrown into the heap-bin of history. See my post: Government Investing A Recipe for Failure

A Republican Icon to Grace the $20-Bill

(As usual, all pics are linked to articles)

Our money is changing… get ready to know all about many of these ladies to be up on history and that they were VERY faithful.

A list of early pro-life [1st wave] feminists can be found here at Feminists for Life:

…A passage in Susan B. Anthony’s newspaper states:

★ Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime! [see also Faith Street]

Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president (in 1872), concurred. In her own newspaper, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, Woodhull wrote: “The rights of children, then, as individuals, begin while they yet remain the foetus.” Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, declared, “Pregnancy is not a disease, but a beautiful office of nature.”…

(America Magazine)

Many of these ladies grew up in the church and had careers started by the church and their gracious funding ~ like Union Baptist Church of Marian Anderson… again, the church led the way in breaking barriers. Some, like Sojourner Truth, had to learn the hard way what true faith is (see Christianity Today).

Even Martin Luther King, Jr. does not fit the leftist viewpoint. He was VERY pro-Second Amendment… when reporters would come into his home they would “sit” on guns. While MLK chose to not carry a gun while marching in places like Selma, he had them in his home. MLK also foresaw the racist movements involved in black nationalism (like the kind taught at Obama’s church during the entire 20-years he attended).

Martin Luther King Jr. shortly before he dies saw this stuff coming and spoke out against it:

King’s influence was tempered by the increasingly caustic tone of black militancy of the period after 1965. Black radicals increasingly turned away from the Gandhian precepts of King toward the Black Nationalism of Malcolm X, whose posthumously published autobiography and speeches reached large audiences after his assassination in February 1965. King refused to abandon his firmly rooted beliefs about racial integration and nonviolence.

In his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, King dismissed the claim of Black Power advocates “to be the most revolutionary wing of the social revolution taking place in the United States,” but he acknowledged that they responded to a psychological need among African Americans he had not previously addressed. “Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery,” King wrote. “The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation.”

(see the most racist cult eva)

MLK also believed in a literal Adam and Eve

So learn American history and use these people in honor of their past — to enlighten the future generations.

SOME BOOKS

✦ Great Women in American History, by Rebecca Price Janney;
✦ Harriet Tubman (Women of Faith), by Rebecca Price Janney;
✦ Sojourner Truth (Heroes of the Faith), by W. Terry Whalin;

  • Ashley Herzog, Feminism vs. Women (Xulon Press, 2008), 85-91.

“They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t \want to have an abortion.” – Abortion doctor quoted in New Dimensions magazine, 1990

Invariably, the feminist position on abortion is portrayed as the “pro-woman” position—mostly because feminist leaders have convinced their followers that this procedure is essential to women’s liberty. As Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned Parenthood, said, “‘abortion’ became a symbol of our independence, because reproductive freedom is fundamental to a woman’s aspirations.”

This is also known as the “pro-choice” position. But how do feminists feel about women who don’t choose abortion—and, more importantly, the women who assist them in making that choice?

Don’t be fooled by the deceptive labels and euphemisms. When it comes to “reproductive rights,” feminists have a very specific agenda—one that involves a lot more abortions, but not necessarily more choice.

At Temple University in Philadelphia, Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, faced a tough crowd. As Crisis magazine described the scene, “The 40 or so students gathered to hear Foster are mostly women. Not even the pro-lifers are smiling. The student who introduced her asked those with differing opinions to be respectful. It set an ominous tone. Would they start chanting soon? Blowing whistles? Would they get violent?”

But then, somehow, Foster performed a miracle. She threw the cover off “the dirty little secret of women’s studies departments” — America’s earliest feminists were anti-abortion. In the words of coura­geous suffragette Susan B. Anthony, abortion was “child murder,” and “no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”

Foster then asked the crowd, “If women were fighting for the right not to be considered property, what gives them the right to consider their baby property?”

It was something to think about. From that moment on, even students who had showed up to protest couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

That night, Foster raised a point that feminists dare not discuss: before the women’s movement was hijacked by leftists in the 1960s, abortion was never viewed as a good thing for women. In fact, the prac­tice was unthinkable to individuals like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the mastermind behind the historic Seneca Falls Convention and mother of seven chil­dren. (If Stanton applied for a teaching position in a women’s studies department today, she would be labeled a “Jesus freak” and promptly dismissed.)

“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit,” Stanton wrote to her friend Julia Ward Howe in 1873.

She wasn’t the only one.

Victoria Woodhull, the first female stockbroker on Wall Street, also became the first woman to run for President in 1870. An early suffragette with a flair for the outrageous, Woodhull epitomized the modern feminist slogan “well-behaved women rarely make history.” (She was repeatedly arrested for her polit­ical activities.) And she too hated abortion.

“A human life is a human life and equally to be held sacred whether it be a day or a century old,” Woodhull wrote. “Wives…to prevent becoming mothers…deliberately murder [children] while yet in their wombs. Can there be a more demoralized condition than this? “

Alice Paul, who authored the original Equal Rights Amendment, was willing to face arrests, harassment, and physical assaults in order to win the right to vote. Later, when 1960s feminists began advocating the repeal of abortion laws, Paul asked, “How can one protect and help women by killing them as babies?” She considered abortion “the ulti­mate exploitation of women.”

Who are the modern descendents of Anthony, Stanton, Woodhull, and Paul? They can be found at Feminists for Life of America, whose founder, Pat Goltz, was kicked out of NOW for her anti-abortion views. On its website, FFL issues a challenge: “If you believe in the strength of women and the poten­tial for every human life…If you refuse to choose between women and children…If you reject violence and exploitation, join us in challenging the status quo. There is a better way.”

FFL reaches out to women facing crisis pregnan­cies and opposes any legislation that might make it harder for them to keep their children—much of which has been proposed by Republicans, proving that FFL hardly deserves the “right- wing” label assigned to it by pro-abortion feminists. In 1996, FFL attempted to dissuade President Clinton from signing a Republican-backed welfare reform bill that elimi­nated additional assistance for babies born to girls under 18. Their rationale? If a pregnant girl couldn’t afford to raise her child, she would have no choice but to abort.

FFL also pressures universities to provide special resources for pregnant and parenting students, a move opposed by many conservatives on the principle that pregnant women aren’t entitled to handouts. But FFL refuses to compromise its mission: to make moth­erhood a viable option for women facing unwanted pregnancies.

FFL is not actively involved in efforts to outlaw abortion. Instead, the group is interested in “system­atically eliminating the root causes that drive women to abortion — primarily lack of practical resources and support — through holistic, woman-centered solutions.”

This is a truly “pro-choice” position—the one that groups like NOW and NARAL claim to uphold. But evidently a lot of feminists do not believe that women deserve better than abortion.

“Who are the Feminists for Life? In a word, dangerous,” began an article in the online magazine Nerve.

“Feminists for what?” the author gasped. “Not a typo: Feminists for Life. As in, against abortion.” The horror!

As the article explained, the women of FFL “aren’t really feminists—a feminist could not force another woman to bear a child.”

Feminist hysteria over FFL indicates that the only “choice” they deem acceptable is the decision to terminate a pregnancy. The way FFL was treated by the Lilith Fair, a feminist music festival organized by singer Sarah McLachlan in the late 90’s, proved that different views on abortion will not be tolerated.

“Women are everywhere. Walking in groups, laughing and talking. Sitting on the grass. Playing the guitar. Reading pamphlets on women’s issues picked up from booths in the Village area,” a reporter described Lilith Fair’s stop in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. “There is also a woman with a gag in her mouth standing in front of one of the booths, wearing a T-shirt reading, ‘Peace begins in the womb, Sarah.’

That woman was Marilyn Kopp, the director of Ohio Feminists for Life. Lilith Fair, despite its stated mission of “raising consciousness of women’s issues,” denied booth space to any group that did not wholeheartedly support abortion as the ultimate cata­lyst of gender equality.

Naturally, Lilith Fair’s feminist organizers were outraged that FFL had the gall to show up at their concert.

“This isn’t a democracy. This is a tyranny,” fumed singer Sheryl  Crow, justifying Lilith’s ban on pro-life groups.

However, some ordinary concertgoers were unimpressed with the notion of tyranny in the name of women’s advancement.

“As Kopp’s friend Denise Mackura stands gagged in front of the NOW booth, a group of teenage girls walk up to her. When they find out what’s going on, they’re shocked,” reporter Laura Demarco wrote. “They see the situation as a violation of civil rights, not a defense of women’s rights. ‘This is wrong,’ says Casey Patton, 17.”

The sight of FFL members standing in front of NOW’s booth with gags in their mouths spoke volumes about the authoritarian nature of the modern feminist movement. As DeMarco observed, “It’s hard to miss the hypocrisy of feminists censoring other women like this… they patronizingly assume women aren’t smart enough to hear all sides on an issue and decide for themselves.”

The prospect of women deciding for themselves is terribly threatening to the feminist establishment—which might also explain their fanatical opposition to Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

Government Investing A Recipe for Failure

  • “A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge” ~ George Gilder

Interview by Dennis Prager {Editors note: this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” (things made that it could not use or people did not want) no one needed in the real world. This economic law enforcers George Gilder’s contention that when government supports a venture from failing, no information is gained in knowing if the program actually works. Only the free-market can do this.}

From transportation to energy, and everything in between, should the government invest money in as many promising projects as possible? Or would that actually doom many of those ventures to failure? Burt Folsom, historian and professor at Hillsdale College, answers those questions by drawing on the fascinating history of the race to build America’s railroads and airplanes.

Steven Crowder vs. Social Justice Warriors (Updated w/ SJW Meltdown)

CAUTION, strong language… if you are easily offended, do not watch:

(Louder with Crowder’s Description) Our own Steven Crowder headed to the University of Massachusetts (UMass) yesterday to co-panel an event called “The Triggering” with Christina Hoff Sommers and Milo Yiannopoulos. Steven had hopes of telling a few jokes. You know, those words that form sentences with punchlines at the end? Well as bad luck would have it, a leftist protester, or social justice warrior (SJW) was having none of that. Crowder put him through the figurative meat grinder. Yeah, the bad luck wasn’t for Crowder so much of the formerly standing SJW who’s now vacuumed sealed. Buy him at your local deli.

The entire event can be viewed HERE

Some commentary from Young Cons seems appropriate:

Trigglypuff 5 gif

It seems wherever conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos goes, he causes delicate little snowflakes to melt into puddles of leaky goo looking feverishly for their safe space after being confronted by views contrary to their own.

The most recent example of this phenomenon comes from Massachusetts where a feminist student completely lost her mind after Yiannopoulos said feminism is a cancer.

[….]

This woman is absolutely the poster child for the radical feminist movement. She has put the kind of silly nonsense they participate in on full display for the world to see.

I tend to agree with Yiannopoulos’ statement here. Look how much radical feminism has destroyed the family unit, and by extension, our whole culture and society.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think women should work outside of the home or some such nonsense. It means I feel that God made men and women different and those differences are beautiful.

When we function in our God given roles, our families and societies thrive. When we don’t, they fall apart.

Anyway, I foresee many memes in this woman’s future.

Trigglypuff 2 gif

I foresee this woman hurting herself because all her efforts at “self-worth” by throwing everything she has into “worldly systems” will crumble… unless she gives her life to the greatest cause ever to grace this planet of ours — Jesus of Nazareth’s cause. The Good News.

The founder of Gospel for Life mentioned this truism (or Truism I should say):

  • …because this world is ruled by Almighty God, ideologies built upon a lie will necessarily be accompanied by paranoia and frequently violence. When Christ sets free by the truth as it is in Him, only then is that person un-threatened by dissent. No wonder religious freedom is a Biblical idea, and with it the historic definition of tolerance.

Now… returning to Young Cons less-important point on MEMES, here is the first spoof ~ Udder Madness:

Baseball and American Culture

40-years ago this week:

Baseball MLB Rick Monday Saves Flag 695 Color

Rick Monday was honored by throwing out the first pitch at Monday’s game at Chavez Ravine for arguably the greatest save in Dodgers Stadium history.

What, you say, Monday was an outfielder? And why would he be credited with a save?

Forty years ago on April 25, Monday was playing centerfield for the Cubs in a game against the Dodgers.

The game turned from an ordinary early season game into one with high drama when two people suddenly appeared in the outfield at Dodger Stadium.

Legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully said, “”It looks like he’s going to burn a flag!”

One had an American flag. The other, lighter fluid and was planning on burning Old Glory. This was an act Monday, who served in the Marine Corps, was not about to let happen….

The scoreboard operator was swift at the button, punching up: “Rick Monday — €”You Made a Great Play.”…

Are “Hyphenated” Americans Doing Their Part? (E Pluribus Pluribus)

If you listen closely, Dr. Williams refuses to use the term “African American” in a simple discussion of the issues facing Americans:

In fact, in an old article, Dr. Williams spells out his thinking clearly… one post sums up Walter Williams main points well:

First it devalues the diversity within Africa – Africa is filled with nations and regions with diverse histories, peoples, ethnicities and leaders. Second, it perpetuates the whole trend that Americans and Europeans need to help them poor AFRICANS. So we devise buy a water bottle and feed a African child campaign – or consumeristic ploys that convince you to buy products to that .00000001% goes to some African AID/HIV fund where the marketing costs more than what is donated.  Third – using the term African American is retarded b.c it takes away from the concept that Blacks ARE Americans – they are more American than anyone else who claims to be  American because they built this country – they built up our profits, our surplus – they literally built Wall Street in NYC! They gave America culture – and all along dominant America stole their bodies, their labor, their minds and their rhythms – so this time around can we at least not try to steal their identities? If Blacks are telling us the term “african-American” doesn’t make sense -we should listen!  Wouldn’t it sound retarded to call white Ameircans “European Americans”? It non-sensical to add a pre-fix to their “Americaness” because doing so takes away their Americaness. Fourth – Blacks whose ancestry date back to slavery are not from all over the African continent – mostly they were captured and sold from African’s gold coast  – Western Africa fight – the label “African-American” is very inappropriate because many blacks trace their ancestory to the Carribeans – or to Brazil – or to Mexico.

While I am not a fan of Woodrow Wilson at all, he makes a great point in this WIKI article:

The term “hyphenated American” was published by 1889, and was common as a derogatory term by 1904. During World War I the issue arose of the primary political loyalty of ethnic groups with close ties to Europe, especially German Americans and also Irish Americans. Former President Theodore Roosevelt in speaking to the largely Irish Catholic Knights of Columbus at Carnegie Hall on Columbus Day 1915, asserted that,

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

President Woodrow Wilson regarded “hyphenated Americans” with suspicion, saying, “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.”

The modern Left is all about division. Separating people. And by separating [dividing], a culture is conquered:

….Most black families in the United States today have been here longer than most white families. No one except the American Indians can claim to have been on American soil longer. Why then call blacks in the United States “African-Americans” when not even their great-great-great-grandparents ever laid eyes on Africa?

It is certainly understandable that activists, politicians and others who wish to divide Americans for their own purposes would push the notion of “African-Americans.” They also push such things as the “African” holiday Kwanzaa – which originated in Los Angeles – and “black English” or “ebonics,” which originated centuries ago in particular localities in Britain, and is wholly unknown in Africa.

It is certainly understandable that activists, politicians and others who wish to divide Americans for their own purposes would push the notion of “African-Americans.” They also push such things as the “African” holiday Kwanzaa – which originated in Los Angeles – and “black English” or “ebonics,” which originated centuries ago in particular localities in Britain, and is wholly unknown in Africa.

Names are just part of the process of creating wholesale frauds about the past in order to advance special agendas in the present. Personal names are also part of that fraud.

[….]

Of all the reactions against the supposed “slave names” among blacks, the most painfully ironic has been the taking of Arab names instead. The Arabs engaged in massive enslavement of Africans before the Europeans began to and continued long after the Europeans stopped.

One of the many reasons for studying history is to prevent history from being misused for current hidden agendas. Names are just one of the things being misused in this way.

(Thomas Sowell)

What prompted this post was a fellow I know — J. Giordano — excerpting a bit from the following book by Theodore Roosevelt. I excerpt more of it here for those who love history:


  • Theodore Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Own Part (New York, NY: George H. Doran, 1916), 17-28; the book is online for reading HERE.

But in addition to fearing God, it is necessary that we should be able and ready to take our own part. The man who cannot take his own part is a nuisance in the community, a source of weakness, an encouragement to wrongdoers and an added burden to the men who wish to do what is right. If he cannot take his own part, then somebody else has to take it for him; and this means that his weakness and cowardice and inefficiency place an added burden on some other man and make that other man’s strength by just so much of less avail to the community as a whole. No man can take the part of any one else unless he is able to take his own part. This is just as true of nations as of men. A nation that cannot take its own part is at times almost as fertile a source of mischief in the world at large as is a nation which does wrong to others, for its very existence puts a premium on such wrongdoing. Therefore, a nation must fit itself to defend its honor and interest against outside aggression; and this necessarily means that in a free democracy every man fit for citizenship must be trained so that he can do his full duty to the nation in war no less than in peace.

Unless we are thorough-going Americans and unless our patriotism is part of the very fiber of our being, we can neither serve God nor take our own part. Whatever may be the case in an infinitely remote future, at present no people can render any service to humanity unless as a people they feel an intense sense of national cohesion and solidarity. The man who loves other nations as much as he does his own, stands on a par with the man who loves other women as much as he does his own wife. The United States can ac­complish little for mankind, save in so far as within its borders it develops an intense spirit of Americanism. A flabby cosmopolitanism, es­pecially if it expresses itself through a flabby pa­cifism, is not only silly, but degrading. It rep­resents national emasculation. The professors of every form of hyphenated Americanism are as truly the foes of this country as if they dwelled outside its borders and made active war against it. This is not a figure of speech, or a hyperbolic statement. The leaders of the hyphenated-American movement in this country (who dur­ing the last eighteen months have been the pro­fessional German-Americans and Austro-Americans) are also leaders in the movement against preparedness. I have before me a little pamphlet, circulated by a “German-American” organiza­tion, consisting of articles written by a German-American for a paper which claims to be the lead­ing German paper in Illinois. This pamphlet is a bitter attack upon the policy of preparedness for the United States, and a slanderous assault on those advocating this American policy. It is, therefore, an effort in the interest of Germany to turn the United States into a larger Belgium—an easy prey for Germany whenever Germany desires to seize it. These professional German-Americans and Pro-Germans are Anti-American to the core. They play the part of traitors, pure and simple. Once it was true that this country could not endure half free and half slave. To­day it is true that it can not endure half Ameri­can and half foreign. The hyphen is incompati­ble with patriotism.

Patriotism should be an integral part of our every feeling at all times, for it is merely another name for those qualities of soul which make a man in peace or in war, by day or by night, think of his duty to his fellows, and of his duty to the nation through which their and his loftiest aspi­rations must find their fitting expression. After the Lusitania was sunk, Mr. Wilson stated in effect that such a time was not the right time to stir up patriotism. This statement is entirely incompatible with having a feeling of deep pa­triotism at any time. It might just as appropri­ately have been made by George Washington im­mediately after his defeat at the Brandywine, or by Abraham Lincoln immediately after the surrender of Fort Sumter; and if in either of these crises our leaders had acted on any such principle we would not now have any country at all. Patriotism is as much a duty in time of war as in time of peace, and it is most of all a duty in any and every great crisis. To commit folly or do evil, to act inconsiderately and hastily or wantonly and viciously, in the name of patriot­ism, represents not patriotism at all, but a use of the name to cloak an attack upon the thing. Such baseness or folly is wrong, at every time and on every occasion. But patriotism itself is not only in place on every occasion and at every time, but is peculiarly the feeling which should be stirred to its deepest depths at every serious crisis. The duty of a leader is to lead; and it is a dreadful thing that any man chosen to lead his fellow-countrymen should himself show, not merely so profound a lack of patriotism, but such misun­derstanding of patriotism, as to be willing to say in a great crisis what President Wilson thus said at the time of the sinking of the Lusitania. This statement, coupled with his statement made about the same time as to being “too proud to fight,” furnishes the clue to the Administration’s policy both before and since. This policy made our great democratic commonwealth false to its duties and its ideals in a tremendous world crisis, at the very time when, if properly led, it could have rendered an inestimable service to all man­kind, and could have placed itself on a higher pinnacle of worthy achievement than ever before.

Patriotism, so far from being incompatible with performance of duty to other nations, is an indispensable prerequisite to doing one’s duty toward other nations. Fear God; and take your own part! If this nation had feared God it would have stood up for the Belgians and Armenians; if it had been able and willing to take its own part there would have been no murderous assault on the Lusitania, no outrages on our men and women in Mexico. True patriotism carries with it not hostility to other nations but a quickened sense of responsible good-will towards other na­tions, a good-will of acts and not merely of words. I stand for a nationalism of duty, to oneself and to others; and, therefore, for a na­tionalism which is a means to internationalism. World peace must rest on the willingness of na­tions with courage, cool foresight, and readiness for self-sacrifice to defend the fabric of interna­tional law. No nation can help in securing an organized, peaceful and justice-doing world com­munity until it is willing to run risks and make efforts in order to secure and maintain such a community.

The nation that in actual practice fears God is the nation which does not wrong its neigh­bors, which does so far as possible help its neighbors, and which never promises what it cannot or will not or ought not to perform. The professional pacifists in and out of office who at peace congresses pass silly resolutions which can­not be, and ought not to be, lived up to, and enter into silly treaties which ought not to be, and can­not be, kept, are not serving God, but Baal. They are not doing anything for anybody.[1] If in addition these people, when the concrete case arises, as in Belgium or Armenia, fear concretely to denounce and antagonize the wrongdoer, they become not merely passive, but active agents of the devil. The professional pacifists who ap­plauded universal arbitration treaties and disar­mament proposals prior to the war, since the war have held meetings and parades in this country on behalf of peace, and have gone on silly mis­sions to Europe on behalf of peace—and the peace they sought to impose on heroes who were battling against infamy was a peace conceived in the interest of the authors of the infamy. They did not dare to say that they stood only for a peace that should right the wrongs of Belgium. They did not dare to denounce the war of aggres­sion by Germany against Belgium. Their souls were too small, their timidity too great. They were even afraid to applaud the war waged by Belgium in its own defence. These pacifists have served morality, have shown that they feared God, exactly as the Pharisees did, when they made broad their philacteries and uttered long prayers in public, but did not lift a finger to lighten the load of the oppressed. When Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan made this nation shirk its duty towards Belgium, they made us false to all our high ideals; for they acted and caused this government to act in that spirit of commer­cial opportunism which refuses to do duty to oth­ers unless there is in it pecuniary profit for one‑self. This combination of mean timidity and mean commercial opportunism is peculiarly odi­ous because those practising it have sought to hide it by profuse outbursts of wordy sentimen­tality and loud professions of attachment to im­possible and undesirable ideals. One of the be­setting sins of many of our public servants (and of not a few of our professional moralists, lay and clerical) is to cloak weakness or baseness of action behind insincere oratory on behalf of im­practical ideals. The true servant of the people is the man who preaches realizable ideals; and who then practises what he has preached.

Moreover, even as regards the pacifists who genuinely desire that this nation should fear God, it is to be remembered that if the nation cannot take its own part, the fact that it fears God will be of no practical consequence to any one. No­body cares whether or not the feeling of the Chi­nese people is against international wrongdoing; for, as China is helplessly unable to take her own part, she is in practise even more helpless to take the part of any one else and to secure justice and mercy for any one else. The pacifists who are seeking to Chinafy the United States are not only seeking to bring the United States to ruin, but are also seeking to render it abso­lutely impotent to help upright and well-behaved nations which are oppressed by the military power of unscrupulous neighbors of greater strength.

The professional pacifists, the leaders in the pacifist movement in the United States, do par­ticular harm by giving well-meaning but unin­formed people who do not think deeply what seems to them a convincing excuse for failure to show courage and resolution. Those who preach sloth and cowardice under the high-sounding name of “peace” give people a word with which to cloak, even to themselves, their failure to perform unpleasant duty. For a man to stand up for his own rights, or especially for the rights of somebody else, means that he must have virile qualities: courage, foresight, willing­ness to face risk and undergo effort. It is much easier to be timid and lazy. The average man does not like to face death and endure hard­ship and labor. He can be roused to do so if a leader of the right type, a Washington or Lincoln, appeals to the higher qualities, includ­ing the stern qualities, of his soul. But a leader, or at least a man who holds a leader’s place, earns praise and profit unworthily if he uses his gift of words to lull well-meaning men to sleep, if he assures them that it is their duty to do the easy and selfish thing, and furnishes them high-sounding phrases with which to cover ignoble failure to perform hard and disagreeable duties.

Peace is not the end. Righteousness is the end. When the Saviour saw the money-changers in the Temple he broke the peace by driving them out. At that moment peace could have been obtained readily enough by the simple proc­ess of keeping quiet in the presence of wrong. But instead of preserving peace at the expense of righteousness, the Saviour armed himself with a scourge of cords and drove the money­changers from the Temple. Righteousness is the end, and peace a means to the end, and some­times it is not peace, but war which is the proper means to achieve the end. Righteousness should breed valor and strength. When it does breed them, it is triumphant; and when triumphant, it necessarily brings peace. But peace does not nec­essarily bring righteousness.

As for neutrality, it is well to remember that it is never moral, and may be a particularly mean and hideous form of immorality. It is in itself merely unmoral ; that is, neither moral nor im­moral ; and at times it may be wise and expedi­ent. But it is never anything of which to be proud; and it may be something of which to be heartily ashamed. It is a wicked thing to be neutral between right and wrong. Impartiality does not mean neutrality. Impartial justice con­sists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and uphold ing it, wherever found, against the wrong. Moreover, submission to an initial wrong means that all protests against subsequent and lesser wrongs are hypocritical and ineffective. Had we protested, in such fashion that our protest was effective, against what was done in Belgium by Germany, and against the sinking of the Lusitania by Germany, we could have (and in such case we ought to have) protested against all sub­sequent and minor infractions of international law and morals, including those which interfered with our commerce or with any other neutral rights. But failure to protest against the first and worst offences of the strongest wrongdoer made it contemptible, and an act of bad faith, to protest against subsequent and smaller mis­deeds; and failure to act (not merely speak or write notes) when our women and children were murdered made protests against interference with American business profits both offensive and ludicrous.

The pacifists have used all kinds of argu­ments in favor of peaceful submission to, or refusal to prepare against, international violence and wrongdoing, and among others the very an­cient arguments based upon the supposed teach­ing of the New Testament against war. In the first place, as I have already pointed out, this argument is quite incompatible with accepting the lesson taught by the action of the Saviour in driving the money-changers from the Temple; not to mention, incidentally, that the duty of pre­paredness has rarely been put in stronger form than by St. Luke in the direction that “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.”

[1] See the excellent little book called “Is War Diminishing?” by Woods and Baltzly. The authors deal, as they necessarily must if truthful deal, with the mischievous activities of those professional pacifists among whom Mr. Andrew Carnegie has attained an unhappy prominence: activities which in this country for the last five years have worked nothing but evil, and very serious evil, to our nation and to humanity at large, and to all genuine movements for the promotion of the peace of righteous­ness. The writers instance Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler as presenting in typical manner the shams and perversions of fact upon which the professional pacifists rely for their propaganda, and remark that these pacifists, “who pride themselves on having the superior moral point of view, openly disregard the truth,” and ask “these professors of ethics, law and justice, these presi­dents of colleges, these moral educators, if morality is not neces­sarily bound up with truth.” The pacifist movement in this country has not only been one of extreme folly and immorality, but has been bolstered by consistent and unwearied falsification of the fads, laudation of shallow and unprincipled demagogues, and condemnation of the upright public servants who fearlessly tell the truth.

Correcting Grammar is Racist You Know

Dennis Prager notes that this is merely a larger part of disdain for Western values by the progressive left. In only a generation we can see many foundational aspects of this great experiment. Mona Chalabi merely inserts into a respectable viewpoint the “liberal trinity” (cultural Marxism: race-class-gender). (See NEWSBUSTERS for more)