Liberal Mantra

Oligarchy Malarkey (Plus Other Democrat Mantras Refuted)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is an update to an older post. Some of it predating 2010 (2006/2009) and much of it refuting the myths in the propaganda when they were fomented. (I did update the “old/young divide” portion when comparing Democrats and Republicans – mainly because I was curious how the demographics have changed. As well as the 2016, 2020, and 2024 election/richest counties stats.) So some of the links may be bad. I apologize.

A VICTOR DAVIS HANSON’S  OLIGARCHY MALARKEY UPDATE:

(This is via TWITCHY and my upload to RUMBLE)

Political commentator Victor Davis Hanson says the Democrats’ anti-oligarchy stance makes no sense. Why? They are the party of the wealthy class. They are the billionaires’ party. Instead, he says the party is using the ‘oligarchy’ term to go after billionaires who have left the Democrat Party. Democrats don’t hate billionaires, they just hate the ones they no longer control and who are no longer on their side.

“They don’t tolerate apostates” | VDH tears the Democrat “Oligarchy” narrative to absolute SHREDS:

“They use this term to castigate the relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”

“The ten wealthiest people in the US until recently were all lavish donors for the Democrats….So why are they so angry at the “oligarchs” when they were synonymous with Democrats?”

“They don’t tolerate apostates, so they are angry. They are angry they don’t have a lock on the oligarchs.”

“They demand absolute loyalty…any defections or apostates causes them to go ballistic…that anyone would doubt their ability to control big money in the United States.”

— WESTERN LENSMAN

RICHEST COUNTIES UPDATE:
(Jump to OBAMA STATS)

2016 ELECTION

… Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election, but won the balloting in regions that generate nearly two-thirds of the American economy, a new analysis shows.

According to the Brookings Institution analysis, the less-than-500 counties Clinton won nationwide combined to generate 64 percent of America’s economic activity in 2015, the Washington Post reported.

The more-than-2,600 counties President-elect Donald Trump won combined to generate 36 percent of the country’s economic activity last year.

With the exceptions of the Phoenix, Ariz., and Fort Worth, Texas, areas, and a large part of Long Island, N.Y., Clinton won every large-sized economic county in the country, the researchers found. ….

(NEWSMAX)

2020 ELECTION

… President Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties across the country that together generate 29% of the American economy, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. President-elect Joe Biden won 477 counties that together generate 70% of U.S. GDP.

Republicans represent a far greater number of smaller counties with less-educated, more-homogenous workforces that, on average, tend to rely on manufacturing, agriculture and mining. …

(CNBC)

2024 ELECTION

… In America’s 15 wealthiest counties by median household income, a total of 3,863,906 people voted for either Trump or Harris. Other candidates, of course, received a handful of votes, but this analysis excludes them.

Of those 3,863,906 voters, 1,368,528 voted for Trump, compared to 2,495,378 who voted for Harris. In other words, voters in America’s 15 wealthiest counties chose the former vice president by a margin of nearly 30 percentage points (64.58-35.42).

As massive as that margin appears, however, it only begins to tell the story.

For instance, the top six counties on that list all have something in common. Namely, they are located either in Silicon Valley (#2 Santa Clara, California; and #3 San Mateo, California) or in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. (#1 Loudoun, Virginia; #4 Falls Church, Virginia; #5 Fairfax, Virginia; and #6 Howard, Maryland).

Of course, Big Tech and connections to the federal government account for concentrations of wealth in those counties.

In 2024, 2,013,974 people in those six wealthiest counties voted for Trump or Harris. The president received 612,587 votes compared to 1,401,387 votes for the former vice president, a margin of nearly 40 percentage points in Harris’ favor (69.58-30.42). …

(WESTERN JOURNAL [ARCHIVE])

OLDER POSTS:
Rich Get Poorer | Poor Get Richer (+More Mantras Destroyed)
May of 2015

A JOHN STOSSEL UPDATE:

I changed the very beginning of this Yahoo News article to include both the headlines of the NYTs:

…The New York Times headline of Oct. 26 even more dubious and deceptive, “Top Earners Doubled Share of Nation’s Income, Study Finds”. The subhead announces “The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades,” but readers must make their way to the sixth paragraph to find that the referenced “report” is actually a historical analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, covering a 28-year span between 1979 and 2007, and pointedly concluding before the economic meltdown of 2008.

Figures from the IRS, however, demonstrate that since the recession began the rich hardly got richer:  the number of Americans earning $1 million or more fell a staggering 40 percent between 2007 and 2009 (declining to 236,883), while their combined incomes fell by nearly 50 percent—a vastly greater loss than the 2 percent drop in total incomes of those making $50,000 or less. Could anyone make a plausible case for how a massive reduction in the number of top earners (with nearly 200,000 fewer million-dollar incomes) could conceivably benefit the economy, or count as good news for anyone?

Nevertheless, the Times chose to stress the inflammatory finding that in the 29 years preceding the Great Recession the top 1 percent of earners (those pesky millionaires and billionaires) boosted their average, inflation-adjusted, after-tax income by 275 percent. 

Surely worried readers might conclude that such “obscene” enrichment by the greediest would inevitably impoverish the neediest, leaving only miserable crumbs for the beleaguered middle class. But the CBO numbers actually showed that big gains for top earners did nothing to prevent simultaneous (if more modest) improvements by every other income group. For instance, the middle class (the 60 percent of the population in the 21st through 80th percentiles), raised their average inflation-adjusted, after-tax household income by a healthy 40 percent. Even the bottom 20 percent of the population moved ahead during the Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush booms, lifting their earnings 18 percent….

…read it all…

Here is another visual help:

This next section shows that when Presidents are in office that support unions, the income disparity gap-widens.

Investors Business Daily makes some key points that are hard to ignore:

Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton

…But it turns out that the rich actually got poorer under President Bush, and the income gap has been climbing under Obama.

What’s more, the biggest increase in income inequality over the past three decades took place when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House.

The wealthiest 5% of U.S. households saw incomes fall 7% after inflation in Bush’s eight years in office, according to an IBD analysis of Census Bureau data. A widely used household income inequality measure, the Gini index, was essentially flat over that span. Another inequality gauge, the Theil index, showed a decline.

In contrast, the Gini index rose — slightly — in Obama’s first two years. Another Census measure of inequality shows it’s climbed 5.7% since he took office.

Meanwhile, during Clinton’s eight years, the wealthiest 5% of American households saw their incomes jump 45% vs. 26% under Reagan. The Gini index shot up 6.7% under Clinton, more than any other president since 1980…

[….]

As University of Michigan economist Mark Perry notes, while the income gap has grown since 1979, almost the entire increase occurred before the mid-1990s: “There is absolutely no statistical support for the commonly held view that income inequality has been rising recently.”

A similar analysis found that income inequality has fallen among individuals since the early 1990s, but risen among households due to factors such as more marriages of people with similar education levels and earnings potential.

Others argue that income mobility matters more than equality.

One study found that more than half of the families who started in the lowest income bracket in 1996 had moved to a higher one by 2005. At the other end of the spectrum, more than 57% of families fell out of the top 1%.

…read more…

Another smaller post points out nearly the same:

BUSTING THE 1% VS. 99% MYTH

…The left says current levels of income inequality echo the late 1920s and the Gilded Age. They’ve zeroed in on the richest 1%, citing Census Bureau data showing these top earners “grabbing” more income than the bottom 90%.

But the census stats are misleading.

For one, they are a snapshot of income distribution at a single point in time. Yet income is not static. It changes over time. Low-paying jobs from early adulthood give way to better-paying jobs later in life.

And income groups in America are not fixed. There’s no caste system here, really no such thing even as a middle “class.” The poor aren’t stuck in poverty. And the rich don’t enjoy lifetime membership in an exclusive club.

A 2007 Treasury Department study bears this out. Nearly 58% of U.S. households in the lowest-income quintile in 1996 moved to a higher level by 2005. The reverse also held true. Of those households that were in the top 1% in income in 1996, more than 57% dropped to a lower-income group by 2005.

Every day in America, the poor join the ranks of the rich, and the rich fall out of comfort.

So even if income equality is increasing, it does not mean income mobility is decreasing. There is still a great deal of movement in and out of the richest and poorest groups in America.

…READ MORE…

The Republicans are the Party of the rich, and run by old, rich white guys who like to say “no” all the time.

Thinking through leftist mantras:

✪ Average age of Democrat’s in the House (average age): 74

“I could run 20 years from now and still be about the same age as the former Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) is right now” ~ Rep. Governor Scott Brown

✪ Average age of House Republicans? 53

Seven of the top ten richest people in Congress are Democrats. The top five donors to unrestricted super PACs reads like a billionaire boys club and are Democratic donors/supporters. Here is more:

(Politifact)

Nor are we the party of “NO”

ERGO:

the Democratic Party are run by old,
rich, white, obstructionist, men.
“Not the Republican Party.

AS AN ASIDE… I wrote the above years ago when these accusations were all the rage. TODAY the stats are pretty even ~ as of January 2025:

  • Overall, the median age of House Democrats is 57.6, while the median age of House Republicans is 57.5.  
  • In the Senate, the median age of all Democrats is 66.0, a bit higher than the median for Republicans (64.5).

In fact, the richest 8-of-10 counties voted for Obama… and consistently when the states are separated by red-and-blue, the most charitable states are red, the most stingy (greedy) are blue states. And the richest Congressmen are typically Democrats.

Here is a partial reproduction of an old series I did on this site… the USPS driver for the warehouse I use to work at was a Leftie but would bring me small articles from a “local” small magazine. He enjoyed reading my rebuttals I presume. The author of the “Concepts” articles has passed away many years ago.

(You can enlarge the article by clicking it.) This is a local, small town magazine, and John Van Huizum writes a regular piece that I will critique here-and-there. Here is my first installment:

I wish to write a response to a recent Concepts article by John Van Huizum, entitled “What Does ‘Free’ Mean?” There are a couple issues worth responding to or in-the-least offering a differing viewpoint on. The first of Mr. Huizum’s positions that needs de”concept”ualizing is the idea of “greed.” Mr. Huizum spoke of history, something Dr. Sowell reminds us of in the telling of Richard Sears ferocious greed in wanting to overtake Montgomery Ward.[1] This type of greed leads to lower prices. Alternatively the Fords, Rockefellers, and the Carnegies found ways to offer goods at lower prices. This type of greed leads to Carnegie — for instance — becoming a “prodigious philanthrop[ist] – building more than 3,000 public libraries in 47 states…, founding Carnegie-Mellon University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (C.I.T.), establishing Carnegie Hall in New York, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and much more.”[2]

In a wonderful response to Donahue’s 1979 challenge to Milton Freidman on the issue of greed and if greed has ever caused Dr. Friedman to doubt capitalism. Milton Friedman responded that “the world runs on individuals pursuing their own interests, the great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory from an order of a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of the grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and free trade.”[3] So I wish to proffer another history that maybe, just possibly Forbes is taking into account and Mr. Huizum is not.

Another point worth politely rejecting is the definition given to Forbes by Mr. Huizum on freedom: “free from ANY government regulation.”[4] This is a fallacy of straw-man.[5] Mr. Huizum does not show a full knowledge of Forbes understanding on this matter. Nor does the facile dealing with this complex issue and the putting forth of a false definition as if-it-were Forbes do this topic justice.

One last point, the most important. Unlike big business when it makes mistakes, big government cannot go out of business. Unlike corrupt government, corrupt business cannot print money and thereby devalue a nation’s currency. Businesses cannot coerce you by force (tax liens, garnishing of wages, or armed IRS officials, etc) into an action. So the “greed” of the corporation pales in comparison to the greed of government.[6] Which is why our Founders stated that, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government” (Patrick Henry); “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master” (George Washington).

Footnotes:

[1] Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004), 361.
[2] Michael Medved, The 10 biggest Lies About America (New York, NY: Crown Forum, 2008), 132; see also, “What Did He Get for That Money?”
[3] youtu.be/RWsx1X8PV_A
[4] John Van Huizum, Agua Dulce/Acton Country Journal, Vol. XXII, Issue 21 (May 26, 2012), 19.
[5] a) Person A has position X; b) Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X); c) Person B attacks position Y; d) Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
[6] Dennis Prager, Still the Best Hope (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2012), 35-36.

Equating Religious Faith To Government Confiscation and Redistribution

Published by Papa Giorgio

Some Carter Flashbacks: Originally posted November 18, 2013
— Some Updated Material at the end —

This is a posted pic from FaceBook, and here is my response to this all too often used mantra:

My (or others smarter than myself) two cents.

Programs initiated as part of the War on Poverty account for roughly 70 percent of all public assistance programs today. Estimates of the total cost of the War on Poverty over fifty years range between $15 trillion and $19.8 trillion in today’s dollars. This substantial investment appears to have yielded minimal benefits for poverty reduction. On the day Johnson introduced the war on poverty, the poverty rate in the US stood at roughly 14 percent. It is now approximately 16 percent and has never fallen below 11 percent. (Cornell University)

Also, this from a very old post of mine back when my blog was on a free site instead of my current .com

If you can remember back to the 2000 election here in the U. S. and the blue state, red state scenario of which voted for Gore and which voted for Bush, I’m sure you do, even if another country. Once in a while stats are done to see which part of the country (which states in fact) give more to charity per-capita than other states. Do you know which of the top twenty states gives the most to charity? You got it, Bush country! Every single one of the red states in that top-twenty are the middle-income fly-over states. Guess how many red-states got the lower twenty of giving? Two. Eighteen States that were in the lowest giving ratio to charity were Gore states. This is even more interesting with a few recent poles. Just under 66-percent republicans go to church one-to-two times a week. Just fewer than 66-percent democrats do not even go to church once a week. DRAT those nasty/greedy religious/conservatives!

So the question becomes this for the ineffable — damn near anti-Semitic — person pictured above… what does he consider Christian? 90% of one’s income to go to the government for redistribution? 80%? 70%? When does one stop being a Christian? Kinda a sliding scale (income giving) for those who define what being a Christian is… I mean, what is “is”?

And a civics 101 lesson, our government was set up to grind to a halt… the whole “checks and balances thingy.” I would hate for the parties to get along.

An after thought.

Keep in mind as well that every dollar given to, say, the Salvation Army, about 82-cents gets to the person in need. The exact opposite it true for government. About 30-cents of every dollar spent makes it to the needy individual.

So, would reducing the charitable giving write-off from 39.6% to what Obama would like to see (28%):

a) hurt the poor,
or b) help the poor?

Using Carter’s formula, then, would you be more of a Christian if you wanted to keep the status-quo, or, less of a Christian if you wanted to drop it to twenty-eight percent?

SOME UPDATES

Was Jesus a Socialist? | 5 Minute Video

Did Jesus support socialism? Do the teachings of Jesus Christ condemn the accumulation of wealth while pushing for the equal distribution of resources? Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, explains the misconceptions surrounding one of history’s greatest figures. (Read his eBook titled, “Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus A Socialist?” — for free)

FEE notes this in an article

  • Jesus did not even suggest a distribution. Instead, he warned against greed while declining to play the busybody.

Some Myths About the Rich and Taxes | Medved

(FLASAHBACK) A caller challenged Michael Medved on the “system” backing the rich… to which Michael responded with some counter-points. The conversation turned to taxes, and I learned a bit about the flat-tax and the “graduated” aspect of even it. Great call and great learning curve of a response.

“The Party of the Rich” (The GOP) | Prager

(FLAHBACK) This is an old audio*. Dennis Prager deals squarely with a mantra you often hear from the left. Enjoy. 

  • *My Vimeo account was terminated, this is a recovered audio from them. To wit, what is nice is that Vimeo — while noting I did not meet their clear marks of content — did send a list of videos with links to download them. With over 1,200 videos though… it will be a task (many are already on YouTube… so I just need to weed through them). But I still think that was VERY NICE of Vimeo. I would still recommend them for church’s who are looking for places to upload sermons and other original content.

Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share? | 5 Minute Video

Do the rich pay their fair share of taxes? It’s not a simple question. First of all, what do you mean by rich? And how much is fair? What are the rich, whoever they are, paying now? Is there any tax rate that would be unfair? UCLA Professor of Economics, Lee Ohanian, has some fascinating and unexpected answers.

See my: “The “Evil” Rich Hide Their Money ~ Mantra“

Women’s Soccer NOT Paid Less Than Male-Counterparts

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder destroys the wide-spread myth regarding the idea that the women’s soccer team is paid less than their male counterparts. The callers point was simple and powerful, in essense he was saying how could someone demand equal pay when they were chasing away viewers — which — lowers revenue. Rapinoe is solely responsible for the women’s soccer ratings to sink by 43% this year. The “Sage” also reads from a couple articles zeroing in on the lie (or myth if you like) of this position (they follow the video):

Here are the articles:

Here is the best comment from my YouTube Channel:

  • Please do a video review on the video what about the gender work place hours gap. The Average crowd for the National Women’s Soccer Leauge was 5,464 The Average Crowd for the Men’s MSL was 21,875. The Women’s season was 49 matches and the Men’s Season was 391 matches. Tickets were cheaper for the Women’s matches. The USA women’s team lost by 5 goals to 2 to an Under 15 boys team. The Australian National Women’s soccer team also lost by 7 goals to 0 to the Newcastle Jets Under 15 boys team.

Older Videos:

Christian Hoff Sommers

MISES INSTITUTE

(MISES) …At Forbes, Mike Ozanian note that generally speaking, men’s soccer generates revenues at much higher levels:

The men’s World Cup in Russia generated over $6 billion in revenue, with the participating teams sharing $400 million , less than 7% of revenue. Meanwhile, the Women’s World Cup is expected to earn $131 million for the full four-year cycle 2019-22 and dole out $30 million to the participating teams.

But what about the US women’s team specifically?

According to the Wall Street Journal:

From 2016 to 2018, women’s games generated about $50.8 million in revenue compared with $49.9 million for the men, according to U.S. soccer’s audited financial statements. In 2016, the year after the World Cup, the women generated $1.9 million more than the men. Game revenues are made up mostly of ticket sales. In the last two years, at least, the men’s tally includes appearance fees that opposing teams pay the U.S. for games.

So, very recently, women have begun to outpace the men in ticket sales. But, as the WSJ admits: “ticket sales are only one revenue stream that the national teams help generate.”

And what about revenues from broadcasts? It seems that “TV ratings for U.S. men’s games tend to be higher than those for U.S. women’s games, according to data collected by U.S. Soccer.”

Moreover, Politifact was unable to confirm that total revenue is, in fact, higher for the women in recent years:

During the three years following the 2015 Women’s World Cup, the women’s team brought in slightly more revenue from games than the men’s team did. While marketing and sponsorships are sold as a bundle, there are anecdotal signs that the women’s brand is surging in popularity.

However, it’s harder to say whether the women are ultimately paid less than the men, due to the lack of transparency and the complicated variables that feed into the compensation. Several experts said the reality may be murkier than a shouted catchphrase [i.e., “equal pay!”] can capture.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the women do bring in more revenue. The fact this is such a recent development would help explain why the pay structure has yet to catch up with revenues. Moreover, if US Soccer is going to risk paying out-sized salaries and benefits, it’s going to have to first be comfortable that the women’s teams are a reliable and sustainable revenue source….

Biology 7 — Sociology 0

The Matildas were missing several established internationals on Wednesday night, including star striker Kyah Simon. They also rotated players more than usual, which contributed to a lack of cohesion. However, there is no denying losing to a team of school boys is far from ideal preparation for the world’s fifth ranked team in their quest for Olympic gold at Rio. The following is with a H/T to GAY PATRIOT [now – sadly – defunt], and is from RACONTEUR REPORT

More proof that no one in the Pentagon or DoD can read:

A team of 14 year old boys kicked the asses of the Oz Women’s Olympic Team, the latter being ranked as one of the Top 5 women’s teams headed to the 2016 Olympics in Rio this summer.

UK Daily Mail article

Australia’s national women’s soccer team have suffered a devastating defeat in the lead up to the Rio Olympics – going down 7-0 to the Newcastle Jets under-15 boys side.

Despite the embarrassing defeat on Wednesday night at Valentine Sports Park in Newcastle, the Australian team will travel to Brazil as one of the gold medal favourites.

While the Matildas played with a rotating squad, there is no denying losing to a team of school boys is far from ideal preparation for the world’s fifth ranked team in their quest for Olympic gold at Rio.

[….]

And I don’t know the IOOC policy on dudes who “identify” as women, but if you can find a dozen or so gender-bender boys about 14-15 years old, and get them entered in Women’s Soccer at this years’ Olympics, they’ll have a pretty easy shot at the medal round.

Just saying.

Icons of Pluralism Examined: Elephants and Geography Fallacies

Published by Papa Giorgio

ORIGINALLY POSTED FEBRUARY 2015, UPDATED TODAY (11/30/2023)

AS A QUICK ASIDE: Christianity was born/founded on the Asian Continent, and more Christians today are residing on said Continent than anyplace in the world. In fact, just in China alone, there is said to be 100-million believers or more. In other words, there have been more Christians on the Asian Continent from the churches founding to this day. Christianity has always been an “Asian religion.” Of course the West has influenced the expression of faith just as other geographical areas have influenced expression of the Christian faith. But Christianity is not “American.”

JOHN PIIPPO has this great insight from Dinesh D’Souza:

Dinesh D’Souza, in his new book Life After Death: The Evidence, talks about the genetic fallacy as used, he feels, by certain atheists. For example, it is a sociological fact that the statement religious diversity exists is true. If you were born in India, as D.Souza was, you would most likely be a Hindu rather than a Christian or a Jew (as D’Souza was). While that sociological statement is true, its truth has (watch closely…) no logical relevance as regards the statements such as The Hindu worldview is true, or Christian theism is true. D’ Souza writes:

“The atheist is simply wrong to assume that religious diversity undermines the truth of religious claims… [T]he fact that you learned your Christianity because you grew up in the Bible Belt [does not] imply anything about whether those beliefs are true or false. The atheist is guilty here of what in logic is called the “genetic fallacy.” The term does not refer to genes; it refers to origins. Think of it this way. If you are raised in New York, you are more likely to believe in Einstein’s theory of relativity than if you are raised in New Guinea. Someone from Oxford, England, is more likely to be an atheist than someone from Oxford, Mississippi. The geographical roots of your beliefs have no bearing on the validity of your beliefs.” (38-39, emphasis mine)

[Dinesh D’Souza, Life After Death: The Evidence (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2009), 38-39.]

In this debate with atheist John Loftus, Dinesh D’Souza demonstrates the multiplicity of religions is no argument against religion as an enterprise.

Here is the transcript of the above:

To address what seems to me the one point, the glimmer of a point that emerged in [John Loftus’]  … opening statement. Essentially, John Loftus said that we “can’t really know if our religion is true because there happen to be many of them. If you happen to be born in Afghanistan, you’d be a Muslim. If you happen to be born in Tibet, you’d be a Buddhist.”

That’s true.

But what on Earth does that prove?

I happen to have been born in Bombay, India, which happens to be a Hindu country, the second largest group is Muslim. Even so, by choice, I am a Christian. Just because the majority religion is one thing doesn’t make it right or wrong.

By the way, what he says about Christianity or Islam, is equally true about beliefs in history or science.

If you are born in Oxford, England, you are more likely to believe the theory of evolution than if you are born in Oxford, Missouri.

If you are born in New Guinea, you are less likely to accept Einstein’s theory of relativity than if you are born in New York City.

What does this say about whether Einstein’s theory of relativity Is true?

Absolutely nothing.

In other words, John Loftus is guilty of what, in logic, is called the genetic fallacy.

It’s the fallacy of confusing the origin of an idea with its veracity, the origin of an idea has absolutely nothing to do with its veracity.

A rational handling of the idea that all religions are basically the same or that all religions are true paths to God. Unfortunately, many people hold to those misconceptions (recently featured in the “Life of Pi”) merely because they haven’t yet though carefully about it.

…and this from THEO-SOPHICAL RUMINATIONS:

Religious pluralists often claim that religious beliefs are culturally relative: the religion you adopt is determined by where you live, not the rationality/truth of the religion itself.  If you live in India you will probably be a Hindu; if you live in the U.S. you will probably be a Christian.  One’s personal religious beliefs are nothing more than a geographic accident, so we should not believe that our religion is true while others are not.

This argument is a double-edged sword.  If the religious pluralist had been born in Saudi Arabia he would have been a Muslim, and Muslims are religious particularists!  His pluralistic view of religion is dependent on his being born in 20th century Western society!

A more pointed critique of this argument, however, comes from the realm of logic.  The line of reasoning employed by the pluralist commits the genetic fallacy (invalidating a view based on how a person came to hold that view).  The fact of the matter is that the truth of a belief is independent of the influences that brought you to believe in it….

(See also GOT QUESTIONS)

Ravi Zacharias responds with “precise language” to a written question. With his patented charm and clarity, Ravi responds to the challenge of exclusivity in Christianity that skeptics challenge us with.

See more at WINTERY KNIGHT and APOLOGETICS INDEX:

(Mainly from Paul Copan’s “True for You, But not for Me“)

People have used this old parable to share their opinion or viewpoint that no one religion is the only route to God (pluralism). Pluralists believe that the road to God is wide. The opposite of this is that only one religion is really true (exclusivism).

What could a thoughtful person say in response?

  • Just because there are many different religious answers and systems doesn’t automatically mean pluralism is correct.
  • Simply because there are many political alternatives in the world (monarchy, fascism, communism, democracy, etc.) doesn’t mean that someone growing up in the midst of them is unable to see that some forms of government are better than others.
  • That kind of evaluation isn’t arrogant or presumptuous. The same is true of grappling with religion.
  • The same line of reasoning applies to the pluralist himself. If the pluralist grew up in Madagascar or medieval France, he would not have been a pluralist!
  • If we are culturally conditioned regarding our religious beliefs, then why should the religious pluralist think his view is less arbitrary or conditioned than the exclusivist’s?
  • If Christian faith is true, then the Christian would be in a better position than the pluralist to assess the status of other religions
  • How does the pluralist know he is correct? Even though he claims others don’t know Ultimate Reality as it really is, he implies that he does. (To say that the Ultimate Reality can’t be known is a statement of knowledge.)
  • If the Christian needs to justify Christianity’s claims, the pluralist’s views need just as much substantiation.

If we can’t know Reality as it really is, why think one exists at all? Why not simply try to explain religions as purely human or cultural manifestations without being anything more?

[….]

If you had been born in another country, is it at all likely that you would be a Christian?

Eric looks back at his family—devoutly Christian for four generations in Europe and America, twelve pastors among his relatives, an inner-city schoolteacher and Christian writer for parents—and readily acknowledges that his environment made it easy for him to become a Christian. Still, his faith was exposed to severe challenges as he rose to the top of his university class and as he lived in Asia as a college student. And he knows it took a conscious series of wrenching decisions in his teens and early adult years for him to choose to remain a Christian. Oddly, one of the biggest influences on his faith came from outside his culture through Chinese Christian friends.

John Hick has asserted that in the vast majority of cases, an individual’s religious beliefs will be the conditioned result of his geographical circumstances.1 Statistically speaking, Hick is correct. But what follows from that scenario? We saw in an earlier chapter that the bare fact that individuals hold different views about a thing doesn’t make relativism the inevitable conclusion. Similarly, the phenomenon of varying religious beliefs hardly entails religious pluralism. Before becoming a religious pluralist, an exclusivist has a few equally reasonable options:

  • One could continue to accept the religion one grew up with because it has the ring of truth.
  • One could reject the view one grew up with and become an adherent to a religion believed to be true.
  • One could opt to embrace a less demanding, more convenient religious view.
  • One could become a religious skeptic, concluding that, because the process of belief-formation is unreliable, no religion appears to really save.

Why should the view of pluralism be chosen instead of these other options?

An analogy from politics is helpful.2 As with the multiple religious alternatives in the world, there are many political alternatives—monarchy, Fascism, Marxism, or democracy. What if we tell a Marxist or a conservative Republican that if he had been raised in Nazi Germany, he would have belonged to the Hitler Youth? He will probably agree but ask what your point is. What is the point of this analogy? Just because a diversity of political options has existed in the history of the world doesn’t obstruct us from evaluating one political system as superior to its rivals. Just because there have been many political systems and we could have grown up in an alternate, inferior political system doesn’t mean we are arrogant for believing one is simply better.3

Furthermore, when a pluralist asks the question about cultural or religious conditioning, the same line of reasoning applies to the pluralist himself. The pluralist has been just as conditioned as his religious exclusivist counterparts have. Alvin Plantinga comments:

Pluralism isn’t and hasn’t been widely popular in the world at large; if the pluralist had been born in Madagascar, or medieval France, he probably wouldn’t have been a pluralist. Does it follow that he shouldn’t be a pluralist or that his pluralistic beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process? I doubt it.4

If all religions are culturally conditioned responses to the Real, can’t we say that someone like Hick himself has been culturally conditioned to hold a pluralistic view rather than that of an exclusivist? If that is the case, why should Hick’s view be any less arbitrary or accidental than another’s? Why should his perspective be taken as having any more authority than the orthodox Christian’s?

There is another problem: The exclusivist likely believes he has better basis for holding to his views than in becoming a religious pluralist; therefore he is not being arbitrary. John Hick holds that the religious exclusivist is arbitrary: “The arbitrariness of [the exclusivist position] is underlined by the consideration that in the vast majority of cases the religion to which a person adheres depends upon the accidents of birth.”5 But the exclusivist believes he is somehow justified in his position—perhaps the internal witness of the Holy Spirit or a conversion experience that has opened his eyes so that now he sees what his dissenters do not—even if he can’t argue against the views of others. Even if the exclusivist is mistaken, he can’t be accused of arbitrariness. Hick wouldn’t think of his own view as arbitrary, and he should not level this charge against the exclusivist.

A third problem emerges: How does the pluralist know that he is correct? Hick says that the Real is impossible to describe with human words; It transcends all language. But how does Hick know this? And what if the Real chose to disclose Itself to human beings in a particular form (i.e., religion) and not another? Why should the claims of that religion not be taken seriously?6 As Christians, who lay claim to the uniqueness of Christ, we are often challenged to justify this claim—and we rightly should. But the pluralist is also making an assertion that stands in just as much need of verification. He makes a claim about God, truth, the nature of reality. We ought to press the pluralist at this very point: “How do you know you are right? Furthermore, how do you know anything at all about the Ultimate Reality, since you think all human attempts to portray It are inadequate?”7

At this point we see cracks in Hick’s edifice.8 Although Hick claims to have drawn his conclusions about religion from the ground up, one wonders how he could arrive at an unknowable Ultimate Reality. In other words, if the Real is truly unknowable and if there is no common thread running through all the world religions so that we could formulate certain positive statements about It (like whether It is a personal being as opposed to an impersonal principle, monotheistic as opposed to polytheistic, or trinitary as opposed to unitary), then why bother positing Its existence at all? If all that the world religions know about God is what they perceive—not what they know of God as he really is, everything can be adequately explained through the human forms of religion. The Ultimate becomes utterly superfluous. And while It could exist, there is no good reason to think that It does. One could even ask Hick what prevents him from going one step further and saying that religion is wholly human.

Furthermore, when Hick begins at the level of human experience, this approach almost inevitably winds up treating all religions alike. The German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg writes, “If everything comes down to human experiences, then the obvious conclusion is to treat them all on the same level.”9

In contrast to Hick, the Christian affirms that the knowledge of God depends on his gracious initiative to reveal himself.10 We read in Scripture that the natural order of creation (what we see) actually reveals the eternal power and nature of the unseen God. He has not left himself without a witness in the natural realm (Rom. 1:20; also Acts 14:15–18; 17:24–29; Ps. 19:1). God’s existence and an array of his attributes can be known through his effects. His fingerprints are all over the universe. The medieval theologian-philosopher Thomas Aquinas, for instance, argued in this way: “Hence the existence of God, insofar as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us.”11 What we know about God and an overarching moral law in light of his creation, in fact, means we are without excuse (Rom. 2:14–15). (We’ll say more about general revelation in Part IV.) So rather than dismissing the observable world as inadequate, why can’t we say that what we see in the world serves as a pointer toward God?

Thus there is a role for Christian apologetics to play in defending the rationality and plausibility of the Christian revelation.12 This role—especially in the face of conflicting worldviews—shouldn’t be underestimated.13 While Christians should be wary of furnishing arguments as “proofs,” which tend to imply a mathematical certainty, a modest and plausible defense of Christianity—carried out in dependence on God’s Spirit—often provides the mental evidence people need to pursue God with heart, soul, and mind.

Deflating “If You Grew Up in India, You’d Be a Hindu.”

The phenomenon of differing religious beliefs doesn’t automatically entail religious pluralism. There are other options.

Simply because there are many political alternatives in the world (monarchy, Fascism, communism, democracy, etc.) doesn’t mean someone growing up in the midst of them is unable to see that some forms of government are better than others. That kind of evaluation isn’t arrogant or presumptuous. The same is true of grappling with religion.

The same line of reasoning applies to the pluralist himself. If the pluralist grew up in Madagascar or medieval France, he would not have been a pluralist!

If we are culturally conditioned regarding our religious beliefs, then why should the religious pluralist think his view is less arbitrary or conditioned than the exclusivist’s?

If Christian faith is true, then the Christian would be in a better position than the pluralist to assess the status of other religions.

How does the pluralist know he is correct? Even though he claims that others don’t know Ultimate Reality as It really is, he implies that he does. (To say that the Ultimate Reality can’t be known is to make at least one statement of knowledge.)

If the Christian needs to justify Christianity’s claims, the pluralist’s views need just as much substantiation.

If we can’t know Reality as It really is, why think one exists at all? Why not simply try to explain religions as purely human or cultural manifestations without being anything more?

NOTES

1. An Interpretation of Religion, 2.

2. Van Inwagen, ”Non Est Hick,” 213-214.

3. John Hick’s reply to this analogy is inadequate, thus leaving the traditional Christian view open to the charge of arrogance: ”The Church’s claim is not about the relative merits of different political systems, but about the eternal fate of the entire human race” (”The Epistemological Challenge of Religious Pluralism,” Faith and Philosophy 14 [July 1997]: 282). Peter van Inwagen responds by saying that Hick’s accusation is irrelevant to the charge of arrogance. Whether in the political or religious realm, I still must figure out which beliefs to hold among a number of options. So if I adopt a certain set of beliefs, then ”I have to believe that I and those who agree with me are right and that the rest of the world is wrong…. What hangs on one’s accepting a certain set of beliefs, or what follows from their truth, doesn’t enter into the question of whether it is arrogant to accept them” (”A Reply to Professor Hick,” Faith and Philosophy 14 [July 1997]: 299-300).

4. ”Pluralism,” 23-24.

5. This citation is from a personal letter from John Hick to Alvin Plantinga. See Alvin Plantinga’s article, ”Ad Hick,” Faith and Philosophy 14 (July 1997): 295. The critique of Hick in this paragraph is taken from Plantinga’s article in Faith and Philosophy (295-302). 

6. D’Costa, “The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religions,” 229.

7. Hick has claimed that he does not know but merely presents a ”hypothesis” (see his rather unilluminating essay ”The Possibility of Religious Pluralism,” Religious Studies 33 [1997]: 161-166). However, his claims that exclusivism is ”arbitrary” or has ”morally or religiously revolting” consequences (in More Than One Way?, 246) betrays his certainty. 

8. This and the following paragraphs are based on Paul R. Eddy’s argument in ”Religious Pluralism and the Divine,” 470-78.

9. ”Religious Pluralism and Conflicting Truth Claims,” in Gavin D’Costa, ed., Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1990), 102.

10. On this point, I draw much from D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God, 182-189. 

11. Summa Theologiae I.2.3c.

12. Two fine popular-level apologetics books are William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1994) and J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1987). A bit more rigorous but rewarding is Stuart C. Hackett, The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation Claim (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1984). Three other apologetics books worth noting are Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994); Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1976); and Winfried Corduan, Reasonable Faith.

13. Some well-meaning Christians have minimized the place of Christian apologetics for a number of reasons. But their reasons, discussed by C. Stephen Evans, tend to be inadequate: (1) ”Human reason has been damaged by sin,” but reason is not worthless, only defective. (2) ”Trying to use general revelation is presumptuous”: Seeking to persuade a person with arguments from general revelation doesn’t assume unassisted and autonomous reason (after all, reason is a gift from God); any such approach ought to rely upon God–just as presenting the gospel message should. (3) ”Natural revelation is unnecessary since special revelation is sufficient”: This argument wrongly assumes that God cannot use the world he created and the reason he gave us to interpret that creation to draw people to himself. (4) ”The arguments for God’s existence aren’t very good”: The Christian apologist should recognize that God has made the world in such a way that if a person is looking for loopholes to avoid God’s existence, he may do so, but it is not due to a lack of evidence. It seems that God would permit evidence for his existence to be resistible and discountable so that humans do not look like utter nitwits if they reject God. There is more to belief than mere intellectual reasons; people often have moral reasons for rejecting God. (See Evans’ fine essay, ”Apologetics in a New Key,” in Craig and McLeod, The Logic of Rational Theism, 65-75.) 

The story of the six blind men and the elephant is one you hear then and again. In this short response you will see how this story collapses under its own weight.

Example of the failure of the Genetic Fallacy:

Even if they are skeptical of their faith, which should be/is a natural human tendency and should be encouraged in an environment where one feels safe. I do wish, before the larger post of studies below, that there was another fallacy presented in the above video. And it deals with the genetic fallacy (WIKI). It was pointed out that some people are born in places where Christianity is the dominant philosophy, and so they are Christian. Others are born in places where they have a Hindu influence, a Buddhist influence, or like in many parts of Europe, a secular influence. This however does nothing to disprove a religious belief as true or not true. I will give an example.

In the West we accept the truth of Einstein relativity as a scientific fact (or close to a fact). In fact, many theories based on this are shown to work out with these assumptions of fact in mind. Fine, we are born into a culture that believes this truth to be true. Now, if you were born in Papua New Guinea, the general populace may reject the truth of this since as a whole their culture is not steeped in this belief or the scientific method. This has or says nothing about the truth of Einstein’s theory. Which is why this is a fallacy and should be rejected.

MORE:

The above is an example of relativism run-amock with young people in downtown Durham after the Pride Festival at Duke University Sept 28th 2013. Another interview here.

(This post is updated, as the video from the “Thrive Apologetics Conference” was deleted. New information was substituted in its place.) Posted below are three presentations. The first presentation (audio) is Dr. Beckwith’s classic presentation where high school and college kids get a 2-week crash course in the Christian worldview.

The following two presentations are by Gregory Koukle. The first is a UCLA presentation, the second is an excellent presentation ay Biola University entitled “The Intolerance of Tolerance.” Enjoy this updated post.

Here is — firstly — a classic presentation by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason.

Moral Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Midair from Veritas [3] on Vimeo.

Below this will be another presentation that is one of Koukl’s best yet, and really is a video update to the excellent book, Relativism: Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-Air… a phrase common to Francis Schaeffer, “feet planted firmly in mid-air.”

To wit, Humanism:

Since present day Humanism vilifies Judeo-Christianity as backward, its goal to assure progress through education necessitates an effort to keep all mention of theism out of the classroom. Here we have the irony of twentieth century Humanism, a belief system recognized by the Supreme Court as a non-theistic religion, foisting upon society the unconstitutional prospect of establishment of a state-sanctioned non-theistic religion which legislates against the expression of a theistic one by arguing separation of church & state. To dwell here in more detail is beyond the scope of this article, but to close, here are some other considerations:

“We should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute” (Schaeffer)

In the earlier spirit of cooperation with the Christian church the ethics or values of the faith were “borrowed” by the humanists. In their secular framework, however, denying the transcendent, they negated the theocentric foundation of those values, (the character of God), while attempting to retain the ethics. So it can be said that the Humanist, then, lives on “borrowed capital”. In describing this situation, Francis Schaeffer observed that: “…the Humanist has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.” His meaning here is that while the Humanist may have noble ideals, there is no rational foundation for them. An anthropocentric view says that mankind is a “cosmic accident”; he comes from nothing, he goes to nothing, but in between he’s a being of supreme dignity. What the Humanist fails to face is that with no ultimate basis, his ideals, virtues and values are mere preferences, not principles. Judging by this standard of “no ultimate standard”, who is to say whose preferences are to be “dignified”, ultimately?

See more quotes HERE

Can You Quantify Our Form of Government Into Simple Equations?

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is an old video, but someone just posted it on a Facebook group — what follows is my Facebook response as well as additional thoughts. Here is the video that prompted the below:

On the surface I can understand how someone would FEEL this describes reality. But our body politic is more complex than the above video would like to prescribe as reality. In fact, the video sets up a straw man [something that does not exist], and then attacks it as if it were the case.

Here is my response on Facebook:

FACEBOOK RESPONSE

Hey, I know our system is corrupted… but the video notes at around the 30-second mark:

  • This axis represents the likelihood of Congress passing a law that reflects any of these ideas from 0% to a 100% chance on this graph, an ideal republic would look like this: if 50% of the public supports an idea, there’s a 50% chance of it becoming law. If 80% of US support something, there’s an 80% chance.

I am sorry. That idea is explaining an ideal Democracy, which our Founders wholeheartedly rejected.

It reminds me of a call of a young black man into the Larry Elder Show where Larry was getting clarification [if he had misheard the young man], or, confirmation [if he had heard the man correctly].

Larry mentioned that “Ferguson is 57% black. What percentage of the arrest should be black people?

The caller responded: “57.”

Larry goes on to make an analogy about the NBA being a majority black players and asks – rhetorically – why the NBA isn’t 70% white? He answers himself by saying that the NBA is based on merit…

Similarly, Larry notes, arrests are based on crime. Not race. Arrests are merit based. So the PERCENTAGES don’t always match population.

Just like in a Republic. You have three forms of “checks and balances” that are supposed to be based in the Constitutional limiting of federal government powers and metering out state control over what is not clearly enumerated for the federal government to act on.

THIS has become corrupted over time, granted, but the “exact percentage” of something “becoming law” [in this video] does not reflect at all – all the variabilities in the struggle to pass something. The Founders didn’t want it easy like 60% says “a” therefore “a” should happen or become law.

In a pure Democracy however, the percentages would match. This video is made during a time where the Dems were [and still believe] pushing for the Electoral College to be abolished. This would effectively be a main driver to getting us to a pure Democracy. Something no one should want:

James Madison (fourth President, co-author of the Federalist Papers and the “father” of the Constitution) – “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general; been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

John Adams (American political philosopher, first vice President and second President) – “Remember, democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration) – “A simple democracy… is one of the greatest of evils.”

Fisher Ames (American political thinker and leader of the federalists [he entered Harvard at twelve and graduated by sixteen], author of the House language for the First Amendment) – “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction.  These will provide an eruption and carry desolation in their way.´ /  “The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.”

Governor Morris(signer and penman of the Constitution) – “We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate… as [it has]  everywhere terminated, in despotism….  Democracy!  Savage and wild.  Thou who wouldst bring down the virtous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.”

John Quincy Adams (sixth President, son of John Adams [see above]) – “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”

Noah Webster (American educator and journalist as well as publishing the first dictionary) – “In democracy… there are commonly tumults and disorders…..  therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government.  It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.”

John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence) – “Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Zephaniah Swift (author of America’s first legal text) – “It may generally be remarked that the more a government [or state] resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.”

(MORE HERE)

Take note that as well Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution reads:

  • “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government…“

Not “republican,” as one “political party, the GOP,” but as a “form” of government. So what is an example of the corruption of the “Consent of the Governed”?

[….]

Having discussed issues FOR YEARS with those on the other side of the aisle, I knew the response would still be similar to the caller into the Larry Elder Show. There is a “disconnect” on the Left that just doesn’t pick up simple underlying ideas. Here is the response as well as me responding…

[….]

…END OF MY FB RESPONSE… adding more info for my reader.

An important phrase in my mind’s eye is the phrase, “Consent of the Governed.” That is found in the Declaration of Independence. Here is an excerpt of the idea/phrase via the Declaration of Independence:

  • We hold 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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

Here are two large excerpts about this from THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION that I wish to share so the reader understands that the topic isn’t as “neat and tidy, or, simple” as the OP video makes it out to be with simple percentages.

[CONSENT]

…Part of the reason for the Constitution’s enduring strength is that it is the complement of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for a government that exercises legitimate power by “the consent of the governed,” and it defined the conditions of a free people, whose rights and liberty are derived from their Creator. The Constitution delineated the structure of government and the rules for its operation, consistent with the creed of human liberty proclaimed in the Declaration.

Justice Joseph Story, in his Familiar Exposition of the Constitution (1840), described our Founding document in these terms:

We shall treat [our Constitution], not as a mere compact, or league, or confederacy, existing at the mere will of any one or more of the States, during their good pleasure; but, (as it purports on its face to be) as a Constitution of Government, framed and adopted by the people of the United States, and obligatory upon all the States, until it is altered, amended, or abolished by the people, in the manner pointed out in the instrument itself.

By the diffusion of power–horizontally among the three separate branches of the federal government, and vertically in the allocation of power between the central government and the states–the Constitution’s Framers devised a structure of government strong enough to ensure the nation’s future strength and prosperity but without sufficient power to threaten the liberty of the people.

The Constitution and the government it establishes “has a just claim to [our] confidence and respect,” George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address (1796), because it is “the offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing, within itself, a provision for its own amendment.”

The Constitution was born in crisis, when the very existence of the new United States was in jeopardy. The Framers understood the gravity of their task. As Alexander Hamilton noted in the general introduction to The Federalist,

[A]fter an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal govern­ment, [the people] are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the Union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.

Several important themes permeated the completed draft of the Constitution. The first, reflecting the mandate of the Declaration of Independence, was the recognition that the ultimate authority of a legitimate government depends on the consent of a free people. Thomas Jefferson had set forth the basic principle in his famous formulation:

We hold 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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That “all men are created equal” means that they are equally endowed with unalienable rights. Nature does not single out who is to govern and who is to be governed; there is no divine right of kings. Nor are rights a matter of legal privilege or the benevolence of some ruling class. Fundamental rights exist by nature, prior to government and conventional laws. It is because these individual rights are left unsecured that governments are instituted among men.

Consent is the means by which equality is made politically operable and whereby arbitrary power is thwarted. The natural standard for judging if a government is legitimate is whether that government rests on the consent of the governed. Any political powers not derived from the consent of the governed are, by the laws of nature, illegitimate and hence unjust.

The “consent of the governed” stands in contrast to “the will of the majority,” a view more current in European democracies. The “consent of the governed” describes a situation where the people are self-governing in their communities, religions, and social institutions, and into which the government may intrude only with the people’s consent. There exists between the people and limited government a vast social space in which men and women, in their individual and corporate capacities, may exercise their self-governing liberty. In Europe, the “will of the majority” signals an idea that all decisions are ultimately political and are routed through the government. Thus, limited government is not just a desirable objective; it is the essential bedrock of the American polity.

[CHECKS AND BALANCES]

A second fundamental element of the Constitution is the concept of checks and balances. As James Madison famously wrote in The Federalist No. 51,

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 controul the governed; and in the next place oblige it to controul itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind necessity of auxiliary precautions.

These “auxiliary precautions” constitute the improved science of politics offered by the Framers and form the basis of their “Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to Republican Government” (The Federalist No. 10).

The “diseases most incident to Republican Government” were basically two: democratic tyranny and democratic ineptitude The first was the problem of majority faction, the abuse of minority or individual rights by an “interested and overbearing” majority. The second was the problem of making a democratic form of government efficient and effective. The goal was limited but energetic government. The constitutional object was, as the late constitutional scholar Herbert Storing said, “a design of government with the powers to act and a structure to make it act wisely and responsibly.”

The particulars of the Framers’ political science were catalogued by Madison’s celebrated collaborator in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton. Those particulars included such devices as representation, bicameralism, independent courts of law, and the “regular distribution of powers into distinct departments;’ as Hamilton put it in The Federalist No. 9; these were “means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.”

Central to their institutional scheme was the principle of separation of powers. As Madison bluntly put it in The Federalist No. 47, the “preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct,” for, as he also wrote, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Madison described in The Federalist No. 51 how structure and human nature could be marshaled to protect liberty:

[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.

Thus, the separation of powers frustrates designs for power and at the same time creates an incentive to collaborate and cooperate, lessening conflict and concretizing a practical community of interest among political leaders.

Equally important to the constitutional design was the concept of federalism. At the Constitutional Convention there was great concern that an overreaction to the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation might produce a tendency toward a single centralized and all-powerful national government. The resolution to such fears was, as Madison described it in The Federalist, a government that was neither wholly federal nor wholly national but a composite of the two. A half-century later, Alexis de Tocqueville would celebrate democracy in America as precisely the result of the political vitality spawned by this “incomplete” national government.

The institutional design was to divide sovereignty between two different levels of political entities, the nation and the states. This would prevent an unhealthy concentration of power in a single government. It would provide, as Madison said in The Federalist No. 51, a “double security. .. to the rights of the people.” Federalism, along with separation of powers, the Framers thought, would be the basic principled matrix of American constitutional liberty. “The different governments;’ Madison concluded, “will controul each other; at the same time that each will be controulled by itself.”

But institutional restraints on power were not all that federalism was about. There was also a deeper understanding–in fact, a far richer understanding–of why federalism mattered. When the delegates at Philadelphia convened in May 1787 to revise the ineffective Articles of Confederation, it was a foregone conclusion that the basic debate would concern the proper role of the states. Those who favored a diminution of state power, the Nationalists, saw unfettered state sovereignty under the Articles as the problem; not only did it allow the states to undermine congressional efforts to govern, it also rendered individual rights insecure in the hands of “interested and overbearing majorities.” Indeed, Madison, defending the Nationalists’ constitutional handiwork, went so far as to suggest in The Federalist No. 51 that only by way of a “judicious modification” of the federal principle was the new Constitution able to remedy the defects of popular, republican government.

The view of those who doubted the political efficacy of the new Constitution was that good popular government depended quite as much on a political community that would promote civic or public virtue as on a set of institutional devices designed to check the selfish impulses of the majority As Herbert Storing has shown, this concern for community and civic virtue tempered and tamed somewhat the Nationalists’ tendency toward simply a large nation. Their reservations, as Storing put it, echo still through our political history.[1]

It is this understanding, that federalism can contribute to a sense of political community and hence to a kind of public spirit, that is too often ignored in our public discussions about federalism. But in a sense, it is this understanding that makes the American experiment in popular government truly the novel undertaking the Framers thought it to be.

At bottom, in the space left by a limited central government, the people could rule themselves by their own moral and social values, and call on local political institutions to assist them. Where the people, through the Constitution, did consent for the central government to have a role, that role would similarly be guided by the people’s sense of what was valuable and good as articulated through the political institutions of the central government. Thus, at its deepest level popular government means a structure of government that rests not only on the consent of the governed, but also on a structure of government wherein the views of the people and their civic associations can be expressed and translated into public law and public policy, subject, of course, to the limits established by the Constitution. Through deliberation, debate, and compromise, a public consensus is formed about what constitutes the public good. It is this consensus on fundamental principles that knits individuals into a community of citizens. And it is the liberty to determine the morality of a community that is an important part of our liberty protected by the Constitution.

The Constitution is our most fundamental law. It is, in its own words, “the supreme Law of the Land.” Its translation into the legal rules under which we live occurs through the actions of all government entities, federal and state. The entity we know as “constitutional law” is the creation not only of the decisions of the Supreme Court, but also of the various Congresses and of the President.

Yet it is the court system, particularly the decisions of the Supreme Court, that most observers identify as providing the basic corpus of “constitutional law.” This body of law, this judicial handiwork, is, in a fundamental way, unique in our scheme, for the Court is charged routinely, day in and day out, with the awesome task of addressing some of the most basic and most enduring political questions that face our nation. The answers the Court gives are very important to the stability of the law so necessary for good government. But as constitutional historian Charles Warren once noted, what is most important to remember is that “however the Court may interpret the provisions of the Constitution, it is still the Constitution which is the law, not the decisions of the Court.”[2]

By this, of course, Warren did not mean that a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court lacks the character of binding law. He meant that the Constitution remains the Constitution and that observers of the Court may fairly consider whether a particular Supreme Court decision was right or wrong. There remains in the country a vibrant and healthy debate among the members of the Supreme Court, as articulated in its opinions, and between the Court and academics, politicians, columnists and commentators, and the people generally, on whether the Court has correctly understood and applied the fundamental law of the Constitution. We have seen throughout our history that when the Supreme Court greatly misconstrues the Constitution, generations of mischief may follow. The result is that, of its own accord or through the mechanism of the appointment process, the Supreme Court may come to revisit some of its doctrines and try, once again, to adjust its pronouncements to the commands of the Constitution.

This recognition of the distinction between constitutional law and the Constitution itself produces the conclusion that constitutional decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, need not be seen as the last words in constitutional construction. A correlative point is that constitutional interpretation is not the business of courts alone but is also, and properly, the business of all branches of government. Each of the three coordinate branches of government created and empowered by the Constitution–the executive and legislative no less than the judicial–has a duty to interpret the Constitution in the performance of its official functions. In fact, every official takes a solemn oath precisely to that effect. Chief Justice John Marshall, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), noted that the Constitution is a limitation on judicial power as well as on that of the executive and legislative branches. He reiterated that view in McCullough v. Maryland (1819) when he cautioned judges never to forget it is a constitution they are expounding.

The Constitution–the original document of 1787 plus its amendments–is and must be understood to be the standard against which all laws, policies, and interpretations should be measured. It is our fundamental law because it represents the settled and deliberate will of the people, against which the actions of government officials must be squared. In the end, the continued success and viability of our democratic Republic depends on our fidelity to, and the faithful exposition and interpretation of, this Constitution, our great charter of liberty.

[1] Herbert J. Storing, “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” in Joseph M. Bessette, ed., Toward a More Perfect Union: Writings of Herbert J. Storing (Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 1995).

[2] Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1922-1924), 3 vols., 470-471.

ALL this plays a role in us getting laws.

As an example of how “judicial activism” changes an outcome of a vote that a stae has a right to vote on (BECUASE the enumerated powers in the Constitution were not clear and thus the states get to decide):

  • The meaning of marriage.

So a slight majority of California voters voted to say marriage is between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. One federal judge [Judge Vaughn Walker — himself a gay man] overturned the will of the California people. I think this judge was acting in an “activist” manner, but there is a way to overrule his decision legally… and the percentages to do so were not present, plus the Supreme Court wrongly interfered in this as well — like with Roe v. Wade.

The above is all arguable of course between out varying views of politics — that is not the point.

The POINT IS that this dynamic interferes with “simple math/percentages” idea of those that wish to have a pure democracy.

By way of another point showing the complexity of outcomes not being easily “mathematized,” take the 9th Circuit Upper Court. In 2012, The U.S Supreme Court reversed 86% of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that it reviewed. WOW. That is a clear sign of something going on — like Judicial activism. (And this was the time-period where the Supreme Court was more left leaning than now.)

Now however, the Court has moved less from a “the Constitution is a living and breathing document” idea (the progressives view); to a more originalist idea based in president and the authors intent (a conservative view).

  • “Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., an appointee of President George W. Bush.

So the outcome of the judicial case regarding such cases like Proposition 8 may end up being much different when in front of the upper courts.

How do you quantify something like that into percentages or fractions?

HINT: You can’t.

So, I noted way up in my Facebook comment that I agree that our form of government is corrupt. I did give an example in my Facebook response that I did not include above — that I will here. And while this example deals with just one aspect, you can apply this to both sides of the aisle in their attempt to distort the will of the people in proper representation in order to aquire power and privilege.

More on this from around the time it was released at REASON.ORG’s post. Here is the video description:

America’s public education system is failing. We’re spending more money on education but not getting better results for our children.

That’s because the machine that runs the K-12 education system isn’t designed to produce better schools. It’s designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians.

For decades, teachers’ unions have been among our nation’s largest political donors. As Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell has noted, the National Education Association (NEA) alone spent $40 million on the 2010 election cycle (source: http://reason.org/news/printer/big-ed…. As the country’s largest teachers union, the NEA is only one cog in the infernal machine that robs parents of their tax dollars and students of their futures.

Students, teachers, parents, and hardworking Americans are all victims of this political machine–a system that takes money out of taxpayers’ wallets and gives it to union bosses, who put it in the pockets of politicians.

Our kids deserve better.

(With all that in play in the above video… how does that make mathematical equations in outcomes of voting an easy course of action?)

An example of how the corruption in education distorts the will of the people. In a recent survey, 79% of Black parents supported vouchers, 74% supported charter schools, and 78% supported open enrollment. Roughly three in four Black parents (78%) support education savings accounts, which are becoming increasingly popular across the country. This percentage is much higher even than the national average of two-thirds (67%).

You would think that we would already have school choice, however, through the bedfellows of interest groups, unions, and Big-Government (Crony Capitalism, or, Crony Corporatism) — we have outcomes that stifle choice.

All that is debatable as well… but again:

  • How do you quantify that?

Socialism Has Never Been Tried (Mantra’s of the Left)

Published by Papa Giorgio

ORIGINALLY POSTED OCT 3, 2013 — JUST UPDATED “DEAD” MEDIA

I wish to post some ideas and thoughts by others here that will allow a framework to reply to such a challenge. Many professors will infect young minds with this idea, which is, “you cannot criticize Marxism, socialism, or the like because its ‘pure form[s]’ have never been implemented on earth.” To which I would reply to said professor that he then would not be able to criticize Christianity, Republicans, Capitalism, etc…. because the ideal they hold has never been purely implemented on earth. [In Christianity I would note that the faith was modeled perfectly in the man of Christ Jesus.]

So if you have a professor who is harping on Capitalism, Bush, Republicans, Reagan, Newt, Ted Cruz, whomever…, you just need to point out that since  FDR’s “New Deal” and Johnson’s “Great Society” all they are really criticizing is regulation and redistribution. Because we are far from a truly free-market.

So, what are some good resources to build a cumulative case or allow deeper — non-sophomoric thinking as the author of The Politically incorrect Guide would say — on this subject? While I responded to the person where I work with the quick answer of, “that is essentially copping out of dealing with what is produced by such beliefs,” my thinking on the matter goes beyond how I could or can express it in the work environment. This frustration of quick interactions has led me partly to blog on various topics so not only myself, but others can access this “nugget” if-you-will for both personal edification and learning or linking to friends, co-workers, and family that you discuss this issue with. Especially young people at university.

I do wish to note that just because I am posting items by others below, it does not imply I fully agree with their position stated or worldview. For instance I use Student of Objectivism’s (SO) video (spliced with a quick “baked in the cake” precursor), while I enjoy and agree with Ayn Rand on many points… on many others I disagree. I CAN recommend wholeheartedly — for the lover of theology that really wishes to understand the political divide — a book by Thomas Sowell entitled, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. While this is a must read for any political junkie, it is all the more powerful for one who believes in The Fall of mankind, objective grounding of ethics, man’s spark of life/creativity as well as mankind’s depravity. So to all the pastors and apologists that read this… add that book into your reading hopper.

Okay, I wanted to begin with this chapter, at least the opening pages of it, the chapter can be seen below.

In it the author notes that “baked into” socialism is serfdom… by violence if necessary. Scott Huber of Brightlight Books comments well on this idea and the book:

Williamson ended Chapter 1 (see that summary here) with the observation (from Hayek) that socialist planners always lead an economy on the “road to serfdom”. This is because socialist economic planning cannot work because the planners cannot have enough information or knowledge to make the proper economic decisions. So, in lieu of having enough knowledge to properly make economic decisions, they opt for varying and escalating levels of coercion to enforce their Plan.

In Chapter 2, he begins by refuting what he calls the high school debater’s trick of claiming that socialism in “theory” is great (and true and just and compassionate, etc.) but it just gets screwed up in practice.

Not so, he says:

In truth, the theory behind socialism is deeply flawed: it is intellectually narrow, inhumane, and deeply irrational in that it fails to account for the ways in which knowledge works in a society. Socialism in theory is every bit as bad as socialism in practice, once you understand the theory and stop mistaking it for the common and humane charitable impulse.

Here is a key question? How is economic value determined? Next, we can ask a slightly different set of questions: How should economic value be determined and, perhaps more importantly, by whom?

Williamson argues that on the issue of determining economic value Marx (and every socialist) is a moralist. How so?

Because for Marx, and every other socialist, the value of economic activity, which is to say the value of any product or service, is (or more precisely should) be objectively related to the labor of the worker who produces it. This contrasts with the subjective approach of the capitalist marketplace which basically says that the value of a product or a service is related to how people in the marketplace subjectively value it.

In other words, let’s say you spend a lot of time, human labor, and other resources to produce something. The socialist approach to value says that your product is, at least roughly, worth the sum of the costs required to produce it especially the labor costs. To price it higher or lower is an injustice.

Marx’s analysis is morally normative [i.e. what should be] in that he insists that, since labor is the measure of value, wages must equal the price of the product. The mere existence of profits – squeezing economic value out of a product beyond what workers are paid – for Marx was proof of capitalist’s exploitation of workers. It was indistinguishable from outright theft.

And, according to Williamson, it’s this moral (and moralizing) context that fuels Marxists’ and other socialists’ revolutionary fervor. Note Marx’s most famous quote: The point of philosophy is not merely to understand the world, but to change it. And at the point of a gun if necessary, which it usually is since free people do not readily cooperate with the revolution.

“Communism is a great idea, it just hasn’t been tried properly.” Leftist fellow travelers rush to embrace every Marxist experiment, champion the system and agitate for it to be copied in their own country. …and then walk away when it inevitably fails; searching once again for the next soon to fail utopia. Communism has been tried over 40 times in the last 100 years and has produced egregious results in every iteration. This video shows every application and deep dives into half a dozen examples, comparing before and after Communism was tried as well as comparing examples directly with free and mixed market neighbors.(Via VOTE NIXON)

And one should note that ALL of the above have a current application to what we are seeing the Democrats implementing. Socialized Medicine. And who better to explain this to us that the Gipper himself:

Walter Williams makes this real for us in a way that should perk the interest of those who love and cherish freedom:

…Mao Zedong has been long admired by academics and leftists across our country, as they often marched around singing the praises of Mao and waving his little red book, “Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung.” President Barack Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, in her June 2009 commencement address to St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral, said Mao was one of her heroes.

Whether it’s the academic community, the media elite, stalwarts of the Democratic Party or organizations such as the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children’s Defense Fund, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism — a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Today’s leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from those of Nazi, Soviet and Maoist mass murderers. One does not have to be in favor of death camps or wars of conquest to be a tyrant. The only requirement is that one has to believe in the primacy of the state over individual rights.

The unspeakable horrors of Nazism didn’t happen overnight. They were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.”…

Social Justice. This social justice always leads to repression, from the NAACP asking the rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask to be investigated, to, Dr. Benjamin Carson being audited after his prayer breakfast speech by the IRS. These are murmurings of the greater end that always ends in violent repression. From pro-lifers being threatened on university campuses, to suppression of free speech, to… eventualy, the outgrowth — naturally — to violent repression. The difference between Marxism, Socialism, Communism, and Fascism, is a matter of degrees, only:

✯ A Marxist will scream at you, argue and fist-fight you down the road to his dream, as he carries your belongings and says, “They belong to the collective”.

✯ A Socialist will grab you by the hand or the hair, and beat you on the head with a stick and drag you along, as they make you carry your own belongings and tell you they, “Belong to the collective”.

✯ A Communist will get behind you and make you carry your own belongings to his dream, as he points a gun to the back of your head, and kicks you in the back and screams at you, “They belong to the State”… as in the collective.

✯ A Fascist will will have your neighbor carry your belongings, and shoot you if you do not agree with his dream of “Centralized Authority, and it all belongs to the State”,… the collective”.

…a matter of degrees.

(I cry every time I watch the beginning of this.) This footage is a great example of how Democrats are joined at the hip with radicals. The example comes by way of the two radical Democrat women making my point:

Question is, which is our temperature to stop this from going further in our country?

And any person should acknowledge why someone should “fear” government more than business. In fact, I made this point on my FB outgrowth of this blog in talking to my liberal friend:

…the point was to show how the Obama admin is stacking the books with GM. You see, when the government chooses winners-and-losers instead of getting contracts with private companies (like Ford, GM, etc.), they are invested to [i.e., forced to] only choose a government run business and stock their fish (so-to-speak) with GM fleets… leaving the non-government company to flounder.

This next audio deals with the differences of the Koch brothers, in comparison to the Left’s version of them, Soros. There are many areas that one can discuss about the two… but let us focus in on the main/foundational difference. One wants a large government that is able to legislate more than just what kind of light-bulbs one can use in the privacy of their own home. Soros wants large government able to control a large portion of the economy (see link to chart below), and he has been very vocal on this goal. The other party always mentioned are the Koch brothers. These rich conservatives want a weak government. A government that cannot effect our daily lives nearly as much (personal, business, etc) as the Soros enterprise wants. And really, if you think about it, what business can really “harm” you, when people come to my door with pistols on their hip… are they a) more likely to be from GM, or, b) from the IRS?

The possibility of them being from the IRS is even more possible with the passing of Obama-Care [i.e., larger government]. So the “fear” (audio in next comment) I think the Left has of “Big-Business” is unfounded, and the problem comes when big-business gets in bed with big-government. Here I am thinking of (like with the penalties that were found to be Constitutional in the recent SCOTUS decision) a government that can penalize you if you do not buy a Chevy Volt, or some other green car in order to save the planet. When this happens, guys coming to my door because of unpaid (hypothetical… but historical examples abound of the tax history of our nation) “fines” are likely to be IRS agents because of a personal choice made in the “free-market.”

Appendix: If the above example didn’t inspire any liberal fear (forced to go green or be penalized), maybe this one will?

…First, the government needs to issue a mandate that all households must own at least one firearm. We will need a federal agency to ensure that people aren’t just buying cheap BB guns or .22 pistols, even though that may be all they need or want. It has to be 9mm or above, with .44 magnums getting a one-time tax credit on their own. Let’s pick an agency known for its aptitude on firearms and home protection to issue required annual certifications each year, without which the government will have to levy hefty fines. Which agency would do the best job? Hmmmm … I know! How about TSA? With their track record of excellence, we should have no problems implementing this mandate.

Don’t want to own a gun? Hey, no worries. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says citizens have the right to refuse to comply with mandates. The government will just seize some of your cash in fines, that’s all. Isn’t choice great? Those fines will go toward federal credits that will fund firearm purchases for the less well off, so that they can protect their homes as adequately as those who can afford guns on their own. Since they generally live in neighborhoods where police response is appreciably worse than their higher-earning fellow Americans, they need them more anyway. Besides — gun ownership is actually mentioned in the Constitution, unlike health care, which isn’t. Obviously, that means that the federal government should be funding gun ownership….

…read more…

(See More)

The Pilgrims could have benefited from sound theology which would have dissuaded their (and should ours) experiment with “communal” activities:

Many Americans believe socialism to be a form of social kindness by the government. But true socialism isn’t a social safety net. It is when the government controls most prices, businesses, property, and other aspects of economic life. The historical record of socialism has been wrecked or stagnating economies and flagrant human rights violations. The truth borne of a hundred years of hard experience is that people do not prosper in socialist countries.

A. PRIVATE PROPERTY

According to the teachings of the Bible, government should both document and protect the ownership of private property in a nation.

The Bible regularly assumes and reinforces a system in which property belongs to individuals, not to the government or to society as a whole.

We see this implied in the Ten Commandments, for example, because the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exod. 20:15), assumes that human beings will own property that belongs to them individually and not to other people. I should not steal my neighbor’s ox or donkey because it belongs to my neighbor, not to me and not to anyone else.

The tenth commandment makes this more explicit when it prohibits not just stealing but also desiring to steal what belongs to my neighbor:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exod. 20:17).

The reason I should not “covet” my neighbor’s house or anything else is that these things belong to my neighbor, not to me and not to the community or the nation.

This assumption of private ownership of property, found in this fundamental moral code of the Bible, puts the Bible in direct opposition to the communist system advocated by Karl Marx. Marx said:

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.

One reason why communism is so incredibly dehumanizing is that when private property is abolished, government controls all economic activity. And when government controls all economic activity, it controls what you can buy, where you will live, and what job you will have (and therefore what job you are allowed to train for, and where you go to school), and how much you will earn. It essentially controls all of life, and human liberty is destroyed. Communism enslaves people and destroys human freedom of choice. The entire nation becomes one huge prison. For this reason, it seems to me that communism is the most dehumanizing economic system ever invented by man.

Other passages of Scripture also support the idea that property should belong to individuals, not to “society” or to the government (except for certain property required for proper government purposes, such as government offices, military bases, and streets and highways). The Bible contains many laws concerning punishments for stealing and appropriate restitution for damage of another person’s farm animals or agricultural fields (for example, see Exod. 21:28-36; 22:1-15; Deut. 22:1-4; 23:24-25). Another com­mandment guaranteed that property boundaries would be protected: “You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess” (Deut. 19:14). To move the landmark was to move the boundaries of the land and thus to steal land that belonged to one’s neighbor (compare Prov. 22:28; 23:10).

Another guarantee of the ownership of private property was the fact that, even if property was sold to someone else, in the Year of Jubilee it had to return to the family that originally owned it:

It shall be a Jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan (Lev. 25:10).

This is why the land could not be sold forever: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev. 25:23).

This last verse emphasizes the fact that private property is never viewed in the Bible as an absolute right, because all that people have is ultimately given to them by God, and people are viewed as God’s “stewards” to manage what he has entrusted to their care.

The earth is the LORD’S and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps. 24:1; compare Ps. 50:10-12; Hag. 2:8).

Yet the fact remains that, under the overall sovereign lordship of God himself, property is regularly said to belong to individuals, not to the government and not to “society” or the nation as a whole.

When Samuel warned the people about the evils that would be imposed upon them by a king, he emphasized the fact that the monarch, with so much government power, would “take” and “take” and “take” from the people and confiscate things for his own use:

So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8:10-18).

This prediction was tragically fulfilled in the story of the theft of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite by Ahab the wicked king and Jezebel, his even more wicked queen (see 1 Kings 21:1-29). The regular tendency of human governments is to seek to take control of more and more of the property of a nation that God intends to be owned and controlled by private individuals.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 261-263.

Biden vs. Biden (“Fine People” Edition)

Published by Papa Giorgio

First of all, this is a remaking of my original video titled: “Fine People On Both Sides (Biden Edition)”  I remove Trump and add “Confederate Biden” into the mix (original file at Trump War Room).

The GRUNGE makes a simple notation to start out their wonderful article on “The United Daughters of the Confederacy,” or, UDC:

Honestly, with a name like “The United Daughters of the Confederacy,” it’s really not all that hard to imagine why in the world this group would be at the center of some pretty controversial stuff.

My post that gives one of the best synopsis, “media-wise”, is here: “The ‘Big Lie’ Biden Continues To Spread“

My main point I bring up in conversation regarding the statues and now the KKK is this,

  • I am enjoying it… you have a radical socialist group on one-side (the KKK) clashing with a radical socialist group on the other (BLM and social justice warriors) — all fighting over DEMOCRATIC history.

Which is why I personally do not like the Confederate flag as many display it. It represents racist slave holding/fighting Democrats who were defeated by Republicans. And who later founded the KKK as the terrorist are of the south to keep blacks and other Republicans from voting.

  • “…virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat.” — Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), ix;
  • “…not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.” — Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 19.

For Republicans to fly the Confederate flag on the back of their truck is a political tragedy.

See More

LIE: Mass Shootings “Tripled” After Assault Weapons Ban Ended

Published by Papa Giorgio

Jesse Watters: “Can you guess who’s running these places? Democrats. Democrats want to disarm you during the crime wave they created”

The FEDERALIST notes:

The following photographs illustrate the point. Here is a pre-“ban” AR-15. On the end of its barrel is a two-inch-long attachment that reduces smoke and flash, and underneath its A-frame front sight is another attachment called a bayonet lug.

Now here is what the 730,000 AR-15s made during the ban looked like.

BREITBART notes the WaPo article Watters mentions above:

….Setting aside the question of what an “assault weapon” is, Biden’s claim has been fact-checked by the Washington Post — hardly a conservative outlet — and found to be lacking.

The Post fact-checked the statement, “When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.” The Post reported:

Biden claimed that mass shooting deaths tripled after the law expired. He appears to be relying on a study of mass shooting data from 1981 to 2017, published in 2019 in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery by a team led by Charles DiMaggio, a professor of surgery at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. That group found that an assault weapons ban would have prevented 314 out of 448, or 70 percent, of the mass shooting deaths during the years when the ban was not in effect. But the data used in that study has come under attack by some analysts.

[….]

The new mass-shooting database shows that there were 31 mass shootings in the decade before the 1994 law, 31 in the 10 years the law was in force (Sept. 13, 1994 to Sept. 12, 2004) and 47 in the 10 years after it expired. As noted, some of that increase stems from population growth.

Earlier, the Post gave “Three Pinocchios” to the claim that the end of the assault weapons ban led to a rise in mass shootings. It has since revised that conclusion, given new data. “The body of research now increasingly suggests the 1994 law was effective in reducing mass-shooting deaths,” the Post concluded. Still, it left the claim “unrated,” because the evidence is inconclusive.

The claim mass shootings “tripled” after the end of the ban is based on one study, and is speculative at best…..

Here is FACT CHECK .ORG for one example:

….President Joe Biden claims the 10-year assault weapons ban that he helped shepherd through the Senate as part of the 1994 crime bill “brought down these mass killings.” But the raw numbers, when adjusted for population and other factors, aren’t so clear on that.

There is, however, growing evidence that bans on large-capacity magazines, in particular, might reduce the number of those killed and injured in mass public shootings.

A day after the Boulder, Colorado, mass shooting, in which 10 people were killed by a gunman in a grocery store on March 22, Biden spoke in support of two House-approved bills that would expand background checks to include private sales. Biden also returned to another campaign promise on gun control: to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country, once again,” Biden said. “I got that done when I was a senator. It passed. It was a law for the longest time and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.”

Biden is referring to his work as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he sponsored and largely shepherded the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law in 1994. That law, among other things, included an “assault weapons” ban, which prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms and large-capacity magazines that could accommodate 10 rounds or more. (Existing weapons on the banned list were “grandfathered,” meaning people could keep them.) A sunset provision, however, meant that the ban expired in 10 years, in 2004.

We wrote about this issue eight years ago, when the gun debate was again raging in Congress. At the time, we found that a three-part study funded by the Department of Justice concluded that the ban’s success in reducing crimes committed with banned guns was “mixed.”

We wrote:

FactCheck.org, Feb. 1, 2013: The final report concluded the ban’s success in reducing crimes committed with banned guns was “mixed.” Gun crimes involving assault weapons declined. However, that decline was “offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns equipped with [large-capacity magazines].”

Ultimately, the research concluded that it was “premature to make definitive assessments of the ban’s impact on gun crime,” largely because the law’s grandfathering of millions of pre-ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines “ensured that the effects of the law would occur only gradually” and were “still unfolding” when the ban expired in 2004.

Recent Research 

Some things haven’t changed much since then. A RAND review of gun studies, updated in 2020, concluded there is “inconclusive evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings.”

“We don’t think there are great studies available yet to state the effectiveness of assault weapons bans,” Andrew Morral, a RAND senior behavioral scientist who led the project, told FactCheck.org in a phone interview. “That’s not to say they aren’t effective. The research we reviewed doesn’t provide compelling evidence one way or the other.”…..

TUCKER

‘Disarming You Is The Point’: Tucker Slams Biden’s Gun Control Speech

MORE LIES THE MSM FEEDS US

(See more at NEWSBUSTERS)

AMMOLAND joins the fray:

Here are the three big TRUTHS the left is lying about.

  • 78% of mass shooting do NOT use an “Assault Rifle”
  • As a Percentage of the population, whites, and Hispanics are the LEAST likely to do a mass shooting.
  • Gun Control laws have NO effect on mass shootings.

Only 15 of the 67 events involved an “AR patterned” firearm; they are used in less than 22% of mass shootings. Only 22% of all mass shooting used AR style rifles.

2018 Excoriated a Bit (RALLY FOR OUR RIGHTS):

…..For the sake of this investigation, we used the definition put forth by the Congressional Research Service.  The CRS’s website explains that it “works exclusively for the United States congress, providing policy and legal analysis to committees and members of both members of the house and senate, regardless of party affiliation.” The website further explains that the CRS  is a “shared staff to congressional committees and members of congress. CRS experts assist at every stage of the legislative process.” 

DEFINITION USED:

Finally we come to the Congressional Research Service’s definition: “The incident takes place in a public area involving four or more deaths—not including the gunman, the shooter selects victims indiscriminately, the violence in these incidents are not a means to an end.”  It should be noted that CRS breaks up shootings involving four or more individuals as public, familial, and felony (robbery, gang activity, etc).  This is because the motives behind each vary greatly.

To put it simply, congress uses the CRS’s research to develop policy and create laws.

THE LIE

Now that we’re “armed” with the facts we need, lets dissect the statistics being pushed by the media.

The stats used in the news sources cited above stating there have been 307 mass shootings thus far in 2018 are from the Gun Violence Archive.  Okay, let’s look a little deeper into the GVA. The mission statement on their website states it is a “non-profit corporation formed in 2013 to provide free online public access to accurate information about gun related violence in the United States.”

We dug into the website’s “mass shooting” report for 2018. We filtered the list by lowest deaths to highest. Immediately 11 out of the 13 pages were disqualified, as there were between 0 and 3 deaths per incident. That means right away, 287 incidents out of 307 do not qualify as a mass shooting by definition. In fact, 155 of these incidents resulted in zero deaths.  This is unbelievable.

That leaves only two pages to dig through. The most common theme with the remaining list of incidents is that they were primarily either family or domestic violence related. Using the definition used by the CRS, that removes all but six shootings that actually count as a public mass shooting. Yes folks, there have only been SIX mass shootings this year in the United States – not 307.

Here are the six qualifying incidents:

  • February 14, 2018, Broward County Florida (Parkland), 17 dead, 17 injured.
  • April 22, 2018, Antioch, Tennessee, 4 dead, 3 injured.
  • May 18, 2018, Santa Fe Texas, 10 dead, 13 injured.
  • June 28, 2018 Annapolis, Maryland, 5 dead, two injured.
  • October 27, 2018, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 11 dead, 7 injured.
  • November 7, 2018, Thousand Oaks, California, 13 dead, 2 injured.

Six mass shootings compared to 307 is a substantial difference. The media easily plays off the ignorance of the public, taking advantage of the fact that there is not a universal definition of “mass shooting”, and blowing up an issue that, although very tragic, is only part of a larger picture of violent crime, most of which does not involve firearms…..

? THREAD ?

And a noteworthy TWITTER THREAD discussing the idea that the United States leads the world in gun violence:

[….]

School Shooting List (Fabrications of a Political Mind)

Published by Papa Giorgio

A list is making its rounds showing a crapload of “school shootings” — I will post the list at the end because it is long. But this is the most recent list shared primarily on Facebook. The version I saw was by Greg Atkinson:

It is a list of 245 school shootings. This is nothing new, per-se, at every similar event some list is trotted out to use a real event to make untrue statements about others. Why? To elicit an emotional response. This was confirmed to me as I went through the comments under the list; one person was even calling for a teacher strike.

Lol.

I thought to myself at the time of reading it (but did not respond),

  • “Yes, please strike… it will chase EVEN MORE parents to choose private and home schooling even more than the last 2-years of masking and ‘at home education. Pretty please’.”

Even NPR admits issues with such lists, this is from August of 2018:

How many times per year does a gun go off in an American school?

We should know. But we don’t.

This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, “nearly 240 schools … reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” The number is far higher than most other estimates.

But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government’s Civil Rights Data Collection.

We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.

In 161 cases, schools or districts attested that no incident took place or couldn’t confirm one. In at least four cases, we found, something did happen, but it didn’t meet the government’s parameters for a shooting. About a quarter of schools didn’t respond to our inquiries.

“When we’re talking about such an important and rare event, [this] amount of data error could be very meaningful,” says Deborah Temkin, a researcher and program director at Child Trends.

NPR goes on to note:

  • This confusion comes at a time when the need for clear data on school violence has never been more pressing.

All lists like the one shared [below] do is add to the confusion. This was my response to a friend sharing the list:

QUOTING MYSELF

Much of this list is not an example of “school shootings” like the one that recently happened. Just to exemplify my broader statement, here is one example pulled from the list to engender emotion rather than reasonable thought on the issue (#200).

Providence Career & Technical Academy

  • William Parsons was shot and killed in this event;
  • He was not a student at Providence Career & Technical Academy, rather, a student at a nearby school, Central High School;
  • He was a bystander to a fight between gang members [also not students at Providence] outside Providence Career & Technical Academy while waiting for his father to pick him up;
  • The school was not targeted, and the violence happened to be near the school.

Much of the list is like this… and has nothing ta do with “mass shootings” like the one that killed those kids and teachers. And as a point in history, the worst school massacre was in 1927 by a school board treasurer in Michigan (Bath School disaster). He killed 38 children. Which falls at #13 in the world’s deadliest.

SIDE NOTE

As an aside: I make it a habit not to post on this person’s Facebook (FB), and this was one of almost zero comments on their FB I have made over time. And my comment was pretty benign (minus facts), which are abrasive to perceived narratives — I get that.  Subsequentially my status was changed so I could not see any posts on their Facebook.

Which reminded me of a recently read article,

  • The digital revolution has shattered that mirror, and now the public inhabits those broken pieces of glass. So the public isn’t one thing; it’s highly fragmented, and it’s basically mutually hostile. It’s mostly people yelling at each other and living in bubbles of one sort or another. (THE ATLANTIC)

It’s the “bubbles” part that interests me.

I simply offered a view unlike any other in the strain; and what did the person do? Shut themselves off to the rare viewpoint that disagreed with the consensus they wish to artificially build around themself.

Another example of regular conversation moving toward censorship of viewpoints that offer even the slightest dissent (in Orwellian fashion) is this: years ago there was a weekly series in the L.A. Times where a column would take an event or position and have a progressive leaning columnist give their thoughts and position; and another column was written by a more conservative columnist giving theirs. I believe it was called, “View from the Left,” and, “View from the Right.”

Often times the writer on the right was Dennis Prager.

The L.A. Times has long nixed thoughtful thinking, comparison, and columns/columnists like this and Dennis.

Another example comes by way of the Executive Editor of the New York Times (the top position in the newsroom), Dean Baquet, who admitted that it is the Left who does not want to hear thoughtful responses to issues from a countering viewpoint.

You see, progressive leaning individuals are far more likely to unfriend or censor opposing political views (see HERE). Here is a snippet of the poll via TOWNHALL shortly after the 2016 election

  • Nearly one-quarter (24%) of Democrats say they blocked, unfriended, or stopped following someone on social media after the election because of their political posts on social media. Fewer than one in ten Republicans (9%) and independents (9%) report eliminating people from their social media circle. Political liberals are also far more likely than conservatives to say they removed someone from their social media circle due to what they shared online (28% vs. 8%, respectively). Eleven percent of moderates say they blocked, unfollowed, or unfriended someone due to what they posted online…Only five percent of Americans say they are planning on spending less time with certain family members because of their political views. Democrats, however, are five times more likely than Republicans to say they are trying to avoid certain family members due to their political views (10% vs. 2%, respectively). The pattern among political independents mirrors the general population.

The least tolerant sub-demographic measured in the poll was Democratic-leaning women…

And this still holds true in large measure. And as you can see from my very reasonable, non-yelling, non-gaslighting comment [in the “Calvin” text box] — this holds true.

BUBBLES

…CONTINUING…

In another 2018 posting, DAILY CALLER catalogs CNN’s use of bad stats as well:

…The list of school shootings used by CNN and other news outlets, however, wildly exaggerates the number by lumping in accidental firearm discharges, domestic disputes, and events that don’t involve students with the active shooter situations that most people don’t lump into the specific category of school shootings.

CNN’s list includes one shooting incident in Alabama where one person was injured at an on-campus apartment building. Another shooting at Savannah State University in Georgia is counted despite the fact that the two people involved were not students.

Many media outlets also pull their numbers from Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit gun control advocacy group, and includes any time “a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds.” Their current count is even higher than CNN’s.

Again, NPR:

  • “When we’re talking about such an important and rare event, [this] amount of data error could be very meaningful,” says Deborah Temkin, a researcher and program director at Child Trends.

PIVOTING A BIT…. REAL WORLD SOLUTIONS

When I found this video I posted it on my Facebook with the following note:

  • Damn. Easy peasy. Should give the teacher extra time to get her or his gun out of the lock box and protect her (or his life) as well as the lives of the kids under her (or his) care.

And that is the key… what will a teacher do, or what length will he or she go in our more secularly violent society to protect his or her own life and thus her children in the classroom? After Sandy Hook some schools offered training and more for teachers that chose to arm themselves.

Some schools in south-central Missouri have created their own measures to stop a mass shooter: arming teachers. The move is not without controversy—but these extremely rural communities say it was their best option for safety.

For many schools, the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, which killed 26 people, was a wake-up call. Aaron Sydow, Superintendent of the K-8 Fairview School District in West Plains, says his community looked to the school board for help.

“When Sandy Hook actually occurred, just after that, we had a lot of public outcry, locally,” Sydow told KSMU. “Parents [asked], ‘How are you going to protect the kids here? We want you to do something.’” 

Fairview board members reached out to a security contractor named Greg Martin. He created a program for school employees, including teachers, to carry concealed firearms in the classroom.

Martin founded Shield Solutions, a firm that trains staff at businesses and schools in firearm skills. Its programs are currently used in more than 35 schools, mostly in south-central Missouri.

Martin says teachers and staff who are recruited for the program go through a series of mental and physical tests before being approved to carry a weapon…..

Here is the training they go through:

….The training consists of 40 hours – five hours of classroom instruction and 35 hours of range time. And the instructors don’t go easy on their pupils either. Although participants may begin their training wet behind the ears, by the end of the course they are required to prove that they can not only handle a gun safely and accurately. Additionally, the training also prepares the class to handle the emotional toil that comes when dealing with a potentially lethal situation. And if they can’t cut it, they’re cut from the program, but the school district has the option of sending another staffer in their stead.

In a recent class there was one elementary school teacher who couldn’t handle the military-style training, complete with running uphill as punishment for making mistakes.

“She’s not going to make it,” said Dan Wehmer, sales manager for Shield Solutions, who was initially told that the idea of armed teachers wouldn’t fly. “She can’t handle the stress. And if she can’t handle it out here, what would she do in a real situation?”

Greg Martin, founder of Shield Solutions and a former Missouri Highway Patrol trooper, believes the physical and emotional strain imposed is a vital part of the training.

They have to know that they won’t crumble under stress and that they can and will pull the trigger during an active shooter scenario to save lives, even if it means that – heaven forbid – the shooter is their own student who has sat in their own classroom.

“It adds to the stress,” Martin said. “But it makes them better. “They can’t fail at this.”

(More at GUNS.COM)

These districts took to heart recommendations made after other school shooting. The Parkland police also failed like the Uvalde school shooting.

So 2 of the 3 deadliest school shootings made it to that gruesome list because of inaction by armed and trained professionals. When my life is about to end by violence, I need to be trained to keep it. And I can rely on myself to do so.

But the Biden Admin doesn’t track with this common sense:

Very…

very…

sad

Politicized School List

  1. Thurston High School.
  2. Columbine High School.
  3. Heritage High School.
  4. Deming Middle School.
  5. Fort Gibson Middle School.
  6. Buell Elementary School.
  7. Lake Worth Middle School.
  8. University of Arkansas.
  9. Junipero Serra High School.
  10. Santana High School.
  11. Bishop Neumann High School.
  12. Pacific Lutheran University.
  13. Granite Hills High School.
  14. Lew Wallace High School.
  15. Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.
  16. Appalachian School of Law.
  17. Washington High School.
  18. Conception Abbey.
  19. Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
  20. University of Arizona.
  21. Lincoln High School.
  22. John McDonogh High School.
  23. Red Lion Area Junior High School.
  24. Case Western Reserve University.
  25. Rocori High School.
  26. Ballou High School.
  27. Randallstown High School.
  28. Bowen High School.
  29. Red Lake Senior High School.
  30. Harlan Community Academy High School.
  31. Campbell County High School.
  32. Milwee Middle School.
  33. Roseburg High School.
  34. Pine Middle School.
  35. Essex Elementary School.
  36. Duquesne University.
  37. Platte Canyon High School.
  38. Weston High School.
  39. West Nickel Mines School.
  40. Joplin Memorial Middle School.
  41. Henry Foss High School.
  42. Compton Centennial High School.
  43. Virginia Tech.
  44. Success Tech Academy.
  45. Miami Carol City Senior High School.
  46. Hamilton High School.
  47. Louisiana Technical College.
  48. Mitchell High School.
  49. O. Green Junior High School.
  50. Northern Illinois University.
  51. Lakota Middle School.
  52. Knoxville Central High School.
  53. Willoughby South High School.
  54. Henry Ford High School.
  55. University of Central Arkansas.
  56. Dillard High School.
  57. Dunbar High School.
  58. Hampton University.
  59. Harvard College.
  60. Larose-Cut Off Middle School.
  61. International Studies Academy.
  62. Skyline College.
  63. Discovery Middle School.
  64. University of Alabama.
  65. DeKalb School.
  66. Deer Creek Middle School.
  67. Ohio State University.
  68. Mumford High School.
  69. University of Texas.
  70. Kelly Elementary School.
  71. Marinette High School.
  72. Aurora Central High School.
  73. Millard South High School.
  74. Martinsville West Middle School.
  75. Worthing High School.
  76. Millard South High School.
  77. Highlands Intermediate School.
  78. Cape Fear High School.
  79. Chardon High School.
  80. Episcopal School of Jacksonville.
  81. Oikos University.
  82. Hamilton High School.
  83. Perry Hall School.
  84. Normal Community High School.
  85. University of South Alabama.
  86. Banner Academy South.
  87. University of Southern California.
  88. Sandy Hook Elementary School.
  89. Apostolic Revival Center Christian School.
  90. Taft Union High School.
  91. Osborn High School.
  92. Stevens Institute of Business and Arts.
  93. Hazard Community and Technical College.
  94. Chicago State University.
  95. Lone Star College-North.
  96. Cesar Chavez High School.
  97. Price Middle School.
  98. University of Central Florida.
  99. New River Community College.
  100. Grambling State University.
  101. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  102. Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School.
  103. Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy.
  104. North Panola High School.
  105. Carver High School.
  106. Agape Christian Academy.
  107. Sparks Middle School.
  108. North Carolina A&T State University.
  109. Stephenson High School.
  110. Brashear High School.
  111. West Orange High School.
  112. Arapahoe High School.
  113. Edison High School.
  114. Liberty Technology Magnet High School.
  115. Hillhouse High School.
  116. Berrendo Middle School.
  117. Purdue University.
  118. South Carolina State University.
  119. Los Angeles Valley College.
  120. Charles F. Brush High School.
  121. University of Southern California.
  122. Georgia Regents University.
  123. Academy of Knowledge Preschool.
  124. Benjamin Banneker High School.
  125. H. Conley High School.
  126. East English Village Preparatory Academy.
  127. Paine College.
  128. Georgia Gwinnett College.
  129. John F. Kennedy High School.
  130. Seattle Pacific University.
  131. Reynolds High School.
  132. Indiana State University.
  133. Albemarle High School.
  134. Fern Creek Traditional High School.
  135. Langston Hughes High School.
  136. Marysville Pilchuck High School.
  137. Florida State University.
  138. Miami Carol City High School.
  139. Rogers State University.
  140. Rosemary Anderson High School.
  141. Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
  142. Frederick High School.
  143. Tenaya Middle School.
  144. Bethune-Cookman University.
  145. Pershing Elementary School.
  146. Wayne Community College.
  147. B. Martin Middle School.
  148. Southwestern Classical Academy.
  149. Savannah State University.
  150. Harrisburg High School.
  151. Umpqua Community College.
  152. Northern Arizona University.
  153. Texas Southern University.
  154. Tennessee State University.
  155. Winston-Salem State University.
  156. Mojave High School.
  157. Lawrence Central High School.
  158. Franklin High School.
  159. Muskegon Heights High School.
  160. Independence High School.
  161. Madison High School.
  162. Antigo High School.
  163. University of California-Los Angeles.
  164. Jeremiah Burke High School.
  165. Alpine High School.
  166. Townville Elementary School.
  167. Vigor High School.
  168. Linden McKinley STEM Academy.
  169. June Jordan High School for Equity.
  170. Union Middle School.
  171. Mueller Park Junior High School.
  172. West Liberty-Salem High School.
  173. University of Washington.
  174. King City High School.
  175. North Park Elementary School.
  176. North Lake College.
  177. Freeman High School.
  178. Mattoon High School.
  179. Rancho Tehama Elementary School.
  180. Aztec High School.
  181. Wake Forest University.
  182. Italy High School.
  183. NET Charter High School.
  184. Marshall County High School.
  185. Sal Castro Middle School.
  186. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
  187. Great Mills High School
  188. Central Michigan University
  189. Huffman High School
  190. Frederick Douglass High School
  191. Forest High School
  192. Highland High School
  193. Dixon High School
  194. Santa Fe High School
  195. Noblesville West Middle School
  196. University of North Carolina Charlotte
  197. STEM School Highlands Ranch
  198. Edgewood High School
  199. Palm Beach Central High School
  200. Providence Career & Technical Academy
  201. Fairley High School (school bus)
  202. Canyon Springs High School
  203. Dennis Intermediate School
  204. Florida International University
  205. Central Elementary School
  206. Cascade Middle School
  207. Davidson High School
  208. Prairie View A & M University
  209. Altascocita High School
  210. Central Academy of Excellence
  211. Cleveland High School
  212. Robert E. Lee High School
  213. Cheyenne South High School
  214. Grambling State University
  215. Blountsville Elementary School
  216. Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)
  217. Prescott High School
  218. College of the Mainland
  219. Wynbrooke Elementary School
  220. UNC Charlotte
  221. Riverview Florida (school bus)
  222. Second Chance High School
  223. Carman-Ainsworth High School
  224. Williwaw Elementary School
  225. Monroe Clark Middle School
  226. Central Catholic High School
  227. Jeanette High School
  228. Eastern Hills High School
  229. DeAnza High School
  230. Ridgway High School
  231. Reginald F. Lewis High School
  232. Saugus High School
  233. Pleasantville High School
  234. Waukesha South High School
  235. Oshkosh High School
  236. Catholic Academy of New Haven
  237. Bellaire High School
  238. North Crowley High School
  239. McAuliffe Elementary School
  240. South Oak Cliff High School
  241. Texas A&M University-Commerce
  242. Sonora High School
  243. Western Illinois University
  244. Oxford High School
  245. Robb Elementary School

Did We “Lose” the Vietnam War?

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted June, 2014)

“The war America never lost, but wasn’t allowed to win” — L. Brent Bozell III

Video description:

Did the United States win or lose the Vietnam War? We are taught that it was a resounding loss for America, one that proves that intervening in the affairs of other nations is usually misguided. The truth is that our military won the war, but our politicians lost it. The Communists in North Vietnam actually signed a peace treaty, effectively surrendering. But the U.S. Congress didn’t hold up its end of the bargain. In just five minutes, learn the truth about who really lost the Vietnam War

Remember, these countries actually fell to the spread of Communism:

➤ Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, and half of Germany, North Korea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Congo-Brazzaville, Benin, Vietnam, on and on.

Here is a great thought experiment from David Mamet:

Let us squint for a moment, to see if we may blur the particulars and perceive a familiar outline in an unfamiliar act. A young wealthy woman puts on vaguely military garb and travels to a far-off, less-developed land to participate in adventure. She meets there the more primitive indigenous people, admires their hunting abilities, and, in fact, poses with one of their large guns, famous for having bagged many trophies.

Q. What is she doing?

A. Going on Safari.

Essentially, yes. The woman, however, would be appalled had the big gun been used to kill an elephant. But it has not. It has been used to kill American fliers.

Jane Fonda’s Adventure Tourism is, then, incorrectly, identified not as a safari but as “Ending the War.”

This was a no-cost, exhilarating adventure, all the more attractive because it took place in the purlieus of danger, but contained no danger; and it could be described as “humanitarianism,” which is an edifying title, rather than “slumming,” which is perhaps less so.

Ms. Fonda did not choose to take her wish for adventure into the veldt, where, after all, the beasts might strike back, but to Hanoi in 1969. At the height of the Vietnam War—to pose with the enemy, secure in the knowledge that her (largely inherited) position would protect her from prosecution for what was, arguably, an act of treason.

In her reliance upon this protection she was, of course, availing herself of that same privilege and culture whose destruction she was endorsing in posing by the gun.

Her pilgrimage, as Mr. Hollander points out, was not unique. Intellectuals through the twentieth century have traveled see the Potemkin Villages of Stalin’s “Workers Miracle,” the happy children of China, and the grinning, sun-drenched Campesinos [peasants] of the Island Paradise. They have believed what they were shown.

From the Webbs, and Bertrand Russell, to Susan Sontag, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and various movie stars of our day, these happy dupes reward themselves for feeling superior to their own country, from which country they were free to travel, and to which they were free to return, while the smiling folk they visited were locked in slave states.

See also the brave actors who endeavored to boycott, and so close, the 2009 Toronto Film Festival because it offended by showing films from Israel.

This “visiting” and political pilgrimage differs from safari in that one does not here toy with danger. It more closely resembles the Victorian practice of “going among the poor.”

It used to be called “passing out tracts.”

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 96-98.

The following is Dennis Prager’s interview of Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, Bruce Herschensohn, about his latest book: An American Amnesia: How the US Congress Forced the Surrenders of South Vietnam and Cambodia. An excellent interview with two calls included.

And here is a longer dealing with myths surrounding Vietnam, via the indomitable Michael Medved:

Michael Medved (in this edited version of this Lie #1) talks to the reasons and history behind us entering the Vietnam war. This can be listened to in whole via iTunes free subscription to American Conservative University’s channel, or on their website: acu.libsyn.com/​

 ✦ Show 51 [Fri, 9 June 2006]

 ✦ Show 52 [Thu, 15 June 2006]

Afterword

Here are three book recommends that re-influenced me (deprogrammed me) on Vietnam after owning and watching many years prior Time-Life’s VHS series on Vietnam:

Bonus Interview:

Phillip E. Jennings served in Vietnam with the United States Marine Corps, flying helicopters, and in Laos as a pilot for Air America. He is the author of Nam-a-Rama and Goodbye Mexico, and won the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society first prize for fiction with his short story, “Train Wreck in a Small Town.” A successful entrepreneur, he is currently CEO of Molecular Resonance Corporation, which is developing technology to detect Improvised Explosive Devices. The book discussed is, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides)”

Are 97% Of Doctors Vaccinated? (Challenging an AMA Survey)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I came across a comment on Facebook that I wish to refute as I am sure it is being widely used in conversations.

  • According to the American Medical Association 97% of all American Doctors have been vaccinated. They want to save lives even their own! We trust them when we’ve been in car accidents, when having babies, when being diagnosed with cancer, when in need of school vaccines, diabetes and any number of things we turn to doctors to fix. Please talk with your physician and save a life… hopefully your own! 

A “FLASHBACK” EXAMPLE: What it is with 97%… climate ACTIVISTS love this number as well. We can see from this early example of Climate activists using the number, it was based on 77 participants:

(CLICK GRAPH TO ENLARGE IN SEPERATE WINDOW)

It looks like 98% of Climate Scientists support the “global warming” positions held by the “professional Left,” however, this is not the case.

This is the point I am making with the “Vaxxed Doctors” survey from the American Medical Association. Which is, there almost 97% was based on 300 physicians who RESPONDED to the survey. In another survey done by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons of 700 physicians shows a different percentage. 

(CLICK GRAPH TO ENLARGE IN SEPERATE WINDOW)

Of the 700 physicians responding to an internet survey by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), nearly 60 percent said they were not “fully vaccinated” against COVID.

This contrasts with the claim by the American Medical Association that 96 percent of practicing physicians are fully vaccinated. This was based on 300 respondents.

Neither survey represents a random sample of all American physicians, but the AAPS survey shows that physician support for the mass injection campaign is far from unanimous.

“It is wrong to call a person who declines a shot an ‘anti-vaxxer,’” states AAPS executive director Jane Orient, M.D. “Virtually no physicians are ‘anti-antibiotics’ or ‘anti-surgery,’ whereas all are opposed to treatments that they think are unnecessary, more likely to harm than to benefit an individual patient, or inadequately tested.”

The AAPS survey also showed that 54 percent of physician respondents were aware of patients suffering a “significant adverse reaction.” Of the unvaccinated physicians, 80 percent said “I believe risk of shots exceeds risk of disease,” and 30% said “I already had COVID.”………

This has to do with as well which doctors belong to which organizations. For instance, I myself belong to AMAC, The Association of Mature American Citizens, and not AARP – American Association of Retired Persons, Why? Because the former uses my money in a way the latter does not that comports to my interests more closely. The former (AMAC) may support Crisis Pregnancy Centers rather than Planned Parenthood (AARP) – as one example.

So too do doctors and physicians belong to certain organizations that better represent their interests – or – respond to surveys from organizations [if they were to receive two “competing” surveys] they admire more.

At any rate, the AMA survey is not by any means the end all in percentages.

Cue an “LOL” here.