God Save America

By Robert E. Meyer

The late Christian philosopher and apologist Francis Schaeffer was once asked by a colleague which cultural trend he feared most looking toward the future. Without hesitation, Schaeffer replied "statism."

Our presidential campaign thus far has shown us that Schaeffer's concerns from yesteryear were anything but indulgence in paranoia.

The democratic front runner, Barack Obama, has garnered much political capital on a vague platform template of "change." His swooning crowds of admirers reflexively applauding, or even fainting, at his every statement and gesture. Obama's campaign has been so emotionally hypnotic, that Schaeffer's son Frank is gushing giddily about supporting Barack with his heart. What candidate of the opposition party has ever offered anything unique to the theme of change?

What this "change" really connotes, amounts to more government programs, and increased dependence on government, resulting in greater learned helplessness by individual citizens.

People are now asking government to meet the needs that were once obligations of individuals themselves, family and neighbors, the public charity, church organizations, and Almighty God. A clear recipe for tyranny.

The Democratic platform, and to a lesser degree some Republican politicians, have forsaken individual accountability and initiative, while moving in a direction contrary to the roles of limited government delineated by our Founders. The best government is one that governs least.

Far too many people have stopped asking the question about what limited role in society our government should fulfill, but have hopped aboard the gravy train to paradise, never suspecting it to be the graveyard express to the ideological gulag.

In 1971, the English rock band, The Who, released an album that featured their anthem "Won't Get Fooled Again."

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by David Barton

As a Christian should you vote? Does God give us instructions on what kind of people to vote for? I will attempt to answer these questions in the scope of this article. Should a Christian vote?  Some Christian individuals and in fact some entire denominations believe that Christians shouldn't vote or get involved with politics. They'll say "well I'm waiting for Jesus to return and set up his kingdom" or "The bible says to have no part of the world" and it's true, we are to expect Jesus to return at any time as a thief in the night, but he did give us civil duties as well as spiritual ones. We are not supposed to just bide time and wait until the Lord returns, he told us our job was to occupy until he comes (Luke 19:13). Occupy means more than just take up space,we are to preach the gospel in the entire earth, and that should be our focus, however how will we be able to do that if our government continues getting more and more hostile towards Christianity. Already we have several states trying to ban the church from speaking against homosexuality. The government has no business in the church according to the 1st amendment. Jesus told us specifically to "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. " (Mat 22:21). He expects us to carry out our spiritual duty but also our civil duties. The bible tells us that God appoints all leaders, well in the United States God has set it up so that the government depends on the people's free will to vote. God has people that he desires to be in office , but he won't buck the human spirit. He doesn't buck the human will to save us even though the bible tells us it's His will that all be saved. (2 Peter 3:9). That means that it is up to us to vote in Godly people into office, the kind of people that will stand up for righteousness. They aren't going to make it in if we don't vote because he has given us the power to do so.

Now that we have established the fact that Christians should vote, on what things should we base our votes? Biblicly can we vote for anyone we want? I believe there are 4 major points we should consider when voting, especially for the president. 1. What Kind of Judges will he/she appoint? The bible tells us in Isaiah 1:26 that judges shall restore righteousness to the city of Jerusalem. You may think that doesn't apply to our government today but what we have to realize is that our system of government was set up by the principles laid out in the bible and the position our judges hold now is very much the same as it was then. Think of this it was our judges that deemed abortion was ok and legal, and it was our judges that mis-use the term separation of church and state which is not even in the constitution. If we had been electing righteous judges then we wouldn't have abortions legal in America. As Christians we want judges who will uphold the constitution as it is written and not put their own interpretation onto it. These judges are called strict constructionists.

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By Thomas E. Brewton

The experience of the Soviet Union, Japan, and China should, but will not, cause liberal activists to proceed with caution.

According to the New York Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy, to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration…

Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.

The logical end of Senator Clinton's prescription was first articulated by the followers of Henri de Saint-Simon, who in 1829 addressed the following to the President of the French Chamber of Deputies:

The sole effect of [the free market place] system is to leave the distribution of social advantages to a chance few who are able to lay some pretence to it, and to condemn the numerically superior class to deprivation, ignorance, and misery. [Socialists] ask that all the instruments of production, all lands and capital, the funds now divided among individual proprietors, should be pooled so as to form one central social fund…

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By Daniel Clark

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has decided to postpone the construction of an American missile defense base in his country, a move that news reports have attributed to his being less pro-American than his predecessor, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Tusk’s reason for this change in policy, however, does not indicate an erosion of the Poles’ loyalty to their American allies. Rather, it is based on their concerns about America’s wavering dedication to its own missile defense project.

Tusk wants to delay the deployment of the missile shield until after this year’s U.S. presidential election, and it’s hard to argue with his judgment. Everybody knows that if the Democrats win the presidency, they will mothball our missile defense plan, just as Bill Clinton did for the entire eight years of his administration. Russia, the powerful and cantankerous neighbor to Poland’s east, has protested the U.S. missile shield from the outset. If Tusk proceeds with the project, only to see it abandoned by our next president, he’ll have antagonized the Kremlin for no good reason.

It’s not as if the Poles would have a hard time believing that the Democrats would hang them out to dry. That’s because Poland has been among our most trusted allies in Iraq – you know, the ones that John Kerry slandered as "the coalition of the bribed and coerced." Those allies can’t help but be leery of Kerry’s party, members of which have threatened to cut off funding for the war, demanded a "redeployment" to Okinawa, and refused to accept the delivery of good news from General Petraeus.

With the prospect of a Democrat victory in November, Poland risks angering not only Russia, but also a newly elected, Democrat-controlled government here in the U.S.

The real story out of Poland, then, is that the Democrats have succeeded in deterring an ally from helping the United States. This is important not only insofar as their obstruction of our missile defenses are concerned, but also in serving as a parallel to their effect on another important American ally – the people of Iraq.

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By Christopher Adamo

Thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, "religion" has played a far bigger role than in any recent elections. This does not necessarily translate to actual issues of importance to one religious constituency or another, but rather that the religion of individual candidates themselves is a major topic. And as this pattern continues, a glaring hypocrisy is emerging. In short, all religions are to be beyond criticism or question, with the sole exception of Biblical Christianity.

At the slightest suggestion that a candidate’s religion might call his or her judgment or fitness for office into question, the instant and universal response from across the political spectrum is a chorus of accusations of "religious bigotry" and intolerance. No less an icon of punditry than Robert Novak made essentially that case in his October 4, 2007 column. Unless, of course, the religion in question is Southern Baptist and the principal involved is Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, at which point the preacher becomes fair game.

To be sure, Mike Huckabee has his political liabilities. His record on taxes is abysmal, and past philosophies on border control and illegal immigration are completely out of sync with mainstream America. Yet this is not the basis on which some of his loudest critics assail him, but rather on matters of faith. And the situation is particularly discouraging since such castigation now comes at him from the right.

In his December 11 article, nationally syndicated columnist Rich Lowry, editor of the monumental conservative publication National Review, asserts that primarily as a result of Huckabee’s religious beliefs, Republican support for the Arkansas Governor, would amount to party "suicide." Lowry then proceeds to deride Huckabee on several issues, including his belief in the Biblical account of creation.

It needs to be recalled here that at the recent CNN/Youtube debate, when Republican candidates were asked to explain their views on the significance of the Bible, all who were allowed to answer asserted, in one form or another, that they regarded it as the Word of God.

Apparently, in Lowry’s world, such statements are just fine as long as they are clearly presented only as platitudes for the cameras. But let a candidate suggest that he really meant what he said on the topic, and he is ever after classified as unfit to hold office in modern, secular America.

Lowry goes on to warn that Huckabee’s hayseed religion would be a turn off to those whom he euphemistically describes as "upper income Republicans," a group more accurately termed as northeastern liberals. Moreover, that was precisely the group who were first to rail against Christian conservatives who refused to support Rudy Giuliani when his standing in the polls appeared to make his nomination inevitable.

In other words, if Giuliani gains the nomination, the only appropriate response of Christian conservatives is to abandon every precept of right and wrong that they hold dear, in order to maintain "unity" with the liberal wing of the party.

Yet if Huckabee prevails and Republican liberals flee simply because they disdain the personal views of one man’s belief on the origin of humanity, it would not be their fault but rather the fault of those who hold to such archaic views. No hypocrisy or double standards here to be sure.

Lowry’s ultimate message is simply that while the Republican Party has reaped "an enormous benefit" by its beneficent condescension to the Christians, such people need to understand that their rightful place, in the eyes of the patricians and elitists who make up its real core, will always be at the back of the bus. And keep the noise to an absolute minimum.

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By Alan Caruba

Let’s understand a simple fact. You cannot squeeze any more energy out of a gallon of gasoline than already exists. If you mix it with an additive which itself provides less energy, what you get is less energy.

So, when Congress passed a so-called energy bill in mid-December that demanded more “fuel efficiency” by a measure of forty percent, requiring that automobiles be built to get 35 miles per gallon in 2020 as opposed to the former mandate of 25 mpg, it was essentially telling American auto makers to start making cars out of paper mache or something so lightweight that the driver and passengers will have to be extracted from a crash with a sponge.

Then, too, there’s a strange notion that 300 million Americans, some of whom have been known to drive cars and trucks, are somehow going to be able to “conserve” their way to “energy independence.” You can’t save or conserve the energy in a gallon of gasoline or any other fuel. You either use it or you don’t. If you don’t use it, you better find another way to get to work or anywhere else.

Democrat Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said the energy bill will cut demand for foreign oil and promote non-fossil fuels that will reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming. This is worse than just being stupid, this is dangerous nonsense because (1) there is no global warming and (2) one way to reduce the importation of foreign oil is to encourage the discovery, extraction, and refining of the oil sources that are known to exist in and offshore America.

Does the new “energy bill” permit for drilling and extraction of the millions, perhaps billions, of barrels of oil in Alaska’s ANWR? No. Does the new bill encourage the exploration for oil and natural gas off the nation’s continental shelf on our vast east and west coasts? No. Did it give the oil companies any tax breaks to build the billion-dollar refineries the nation needs? No. Did it encourage the building of nuclear plants? No.

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By Frank Hyland

Food for thought.

Picture this if you will: You are on the way to a soccer game in your car with your kids and the children of neighbors in the back seat. Your SUV has been acting up and again this time the engine falters and sputters. It is running so poorly that you realize clearly that it is destined to wind up on the shoulder of the downhill side of the road, to run no more. The kids sit there disconsolately, staring out the windows, waiting for you to take some action on their behalf so that they can make it to "the game."

Now try to imagine yourself walking around to the rear of the vehicle and pushing it forward, only to realize that you and the children are approaching the edge of a cliff.

Dumb Question # 287: What do you do when you realize that the SUV is picking up speed toward the cliff’s edge? It was a trick question for anyone with more than four functioning brain cells. Of course you would do everything in your power, once you saw the danger ahead, to stop the vehicle before the children were hurt. Why, then, would anyone continue pushing your kids and others’ kids toward and over a cliff, you ask? Why, indeed.

By now you’ve figured out that the "SUV" is the federal and state programs collectively known as "entitlements," chief among them being Social Security and Medicare. Both have been the subject of repeated warnings, followed by repeated creation of commissions to investigate and recommend solutions. I would recommend, for openers, the near-term renaming of both, to become Social Insecurity and Mediscare as a means of getting the attention of those who still hope to become recipients.

In case those pushing the two programs off the cliff haven’t noticed, we’re now in the year 2008. It was one thing for proponents to put things off when we were still in the 20th Century, back in the ‘90s, and insolvency was still more than a decade away. For those who get elected every six, four, and especially for those elected every two years, that’s a lifetime and the problems can safely be "kicked down the road" for others to deal with. Depending on the date of the estimate and the source, the year of impending insolvency swings back and forth by a year or so.

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The Worst Ex-President Ever By Alan Caruba

Historians and others love to make lists of the best and the worst of personalities and events, so permit me to offer a candidate as the Worst Ex-President Ever. I give you Jimmy Carter, anti-Semite, intellectual and moral weakling, and all-around bad person.

I think Jimmy will edge out Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor who made a botch of the Reconstruction after the Civil War and cannot even begin to compare with the largely unknown Harry Truman who succeeded Franklin Delano Roosevelt to see through to a successful conclusion of World War II, the implementation of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, and after other wise decisions, retired to his home in Independence, Missouri. Neither Truman, nor other former Presidents, constantly sought the public spotlight to voice criticism of those who followed him into the Oval Office.

Jimmy Carter, who gained the highest office largely because of the voter’s revulsion against the Watergate scandals and the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, cannot shut up. During his time in office he blamed the American people for a “malaise” that affected the economy that was largely in the dumps. It never occurred to him that cutting taxes and taking other measures might have helped stabilize or jump-start the economy.

He was in office in 1979 when the Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took our diplomats hostage. Other than a poorly planned, failed military mission to extricate them, the voters would have to wait 444 days for Ronald Reagan to take office before their release.

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by Sher Zieve

The Democrat-run Senate has provided We-the-People with yet another example of its aversion to the will of US citizens. Despite the fact that the American people, in overwhelming numbers, told both Houses of Congress that they did not and do not want any Amnesty Bill for any illegal aliens—the Senate is determined to pass one. Now Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and his pro-illegal-invasion bunch are working diligently to push through the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act. This is the same bill that provides the receipt of benefits for illegal aliens’ "children" that are either not provided or are far greater than the benefits provided for US citizens’ children.

Note: It now seems almost impossible to count on our elected officials to actually uphold any laws with which they disagree or those that will not promote their political and personal agenda and ambitions. It is also becoming seemingly hopeless to even remotely believe that either Democrats or RINOs are listening any longer to the majority of the US electorate. This is the same US Congress that still patently refuses to build any fence to protect our US southern borders.

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by Jim Kouri, CPP

(This article is based on a report received by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.)

While the battle over providing illegal aliens with driver's licenses rages in state capitals and Washington, DC, North Carolina created the first "North American Union" driver's license, complete with a hologram of the North American continent on the licenses.

The hologram is a facsimile of the map of North America that is used as the background for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America logo on the SPP website.

Marge Howell, spokeswoman for the North Carolina DMV, told the press that the state was embedding a hologram of North America on the back of their new driver's licenses. "It's a security element that eventually will be on the back of every driver's license in North America," Howell said.

Howell explained the hologram of the North American continent was the creation of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization that, according to the group's website, "develops model programs in motor vehicle administration, law enforcement and highway safety."

Founded in 1933, AAMVA represents state and provincial officials in the United States and Canada who administer and enforce motor vehicle laws. The government of Mexico is also a member, though the individual Mexican states have yet to join.

According to the group's website, AAMVA's programs are designed "to encourage uniformity and reciprocity among the states and provinces."

"The goal is of the North American hologram," Howell explained, "is to get one common element that law enforcement throughout the continent can look at on all driver's licenses and tell that the driver's license is an official document."

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