Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Right Lane update 5.05.13



The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
To subscribe, see note below
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Helping liberals clear up their confusion by Walter E. Williams

The liberal world vision and reality are often at variance, for example, with equal pay for equal work.
I’ve often watched “Lockup,” a show that features California supermax prisons, including Pelican Bay and Corcoran. Often, a recalcitrant prisoner must be extracted from his cell through brute force. I’ve never seen female guards remove a prisoner. If they are part of the process at all, it’s to videotape the extraction for legal purposes. It’s my bet that female guards receive the same salaries as male guards while not having to risk injury.

Along the same lines, women on aircraft carriers earn as much as their male counterparts, but I have yet to see women hefting a hernia bar to attach a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb to a fighter jet wing.

All of this suggests that liberals are for equal pay for unequal work. Or could it be sex discrimination whereby equally qualified women are denied the opportunity to extract beastly inmates from their cells and load heavy bombs on fighter planes?

Here’s another bit of liberal confusion. Liberals deny that raising labor cost through minimum wages reduces incentives to hire. But if you asked a liberal for advice on how to stop rich people from shirking their tax obligations, they’d say raise the penalty. Ask low-information Harvard University doctors what should be done to stem gun violence and they answer that government should institute “a new, substantial national tax on all firearms and ammunition.”

Ask Illinois’ Cook County Board of Commissioners President Toni Preckwinkle how to reduce purchases of bullets and guns. She’d say levy a nickel tax on each bullet and a $25 tax on each gun. Liberals demonstrate they understand the law of demand – that raising the cost of something lessens the amount taken – but they deny that it applies to labor.

That’s as ludicrous as suggesting that the law of gravity applies to everything in the universe except cute creatures, such as pandas and puppies.

Liberals love political correctness that conceals information. For example, how does one know whether the “chair” of a board of directors or the chair of a city council is a man or woman? This issue arose during my (1995-2001) chairmanship of George Mason University’s distinguished economics department. At a chairman’s meeting or gathering, I was referred to as department chair. I told the speaker that I am a chairman and that I have empirical evidence as proof. Needless to say, it didn’t go over well, but academics don’t like the terms chairwoman or chairperson, either, but puzzlingly, God forbid that people refer to their idol as Chair Mao instead of Chairman Mao.

How liberals identify black people must be confusing to whites. Having been around for 77 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the more polite ones are colored, Negro, AfroAmerican, black and, more recently, African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent. Let’s look at it. To identify their races, suppose I told you that I had a European-American friend, a South America-American friend and a North America-American friend.

You’d probably say, “Williams, that’s stupid. Europe, South America and North America are continents and home to different races, ethnicities and nationalities.” You might suggest that my friend is a German-American instead of European-American. My friend from Brazil is a Brazilian- American rather than a South America-American, and my friend from Canada is a Canadian-American instead of a North America-American. So wouldn’t the same apply to people whose heritage lies on the African continent?

For example, instead of claiming that President Barack Obama is the first African-American president, he’s the first partially Kenyan-American president. Obama is lucky; he knows his national heritage. The closest thing to a national identity for most black Americans is some country along Africa’s Gold Coast. Adding to the confusion, what would you call a white American of Afrikaner or Egyptian descent? Is he an African-American?

Liberals suffer confusion and cognitive dissonance because the rest of us don’t help explain things to them.
~~~~~~
NRA president: Obama ‘motivated by revenge’ By Patrick Howley
Porter, an attorney from Alabama, made his remarks at the annual NRA leadership conference in Houston, Texas, on Saturday. “Last fall just before the elections, as community organizer-in-chief, President Obama demanded that his followers extract [sic] revenge. I can’t remember a president ever publicly using that word against fellow Americans,” Porter said. ”And revenge is what is motivating the president’s unremitting attacks on gun owners today.” “Just look at his reaction to his defeat in the U.S. Senate, with his step-at-a-time gun owner registration under the guise of universal background checks,” Porter said, referring to the president’s inability to get the Manchin-Toomey background checks bill past a Republican filibuster in the Democrat-controlled Senate last month. “He is now threatening Democratic senators who are friends of NRA. He will destroy them if he can,” Porter said. “Obama is meeting and plotting with the who’s who of the gun-ban movement, scheming to create gun control by bureaucracy,” Porter said. The Daily Caller reported in April that anti-gun New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition switched-out ads attacking Republican Pat Toomey in his home state of Pennsylvania with a positive ad after the senator announced his support for background checks. The pro-Obama messaging group Organizing for Action (OFA), meanwhile, sent an email Saturday urging supporters to sign a petition featured on my.barackobama.com to pressure congressmen to support background checks. “We have to keep the pressure on Congress to move on background checks — and only you can hold your members of Congress accountable,” OFA national organizing director Sara El-Amine wrote in the email. “It’s a make-or-break moment for our movement — a real test of our commitment to keep fighting, even when it gets hard, for the things we believe in.” Watch and Listen if you wish
~~~~~~
Jason Collins: Agonizing Comparisons Reveal Misplaced Priorities By Steve Pauwels
Just reported: five more American troops killed in Afghanistan the past day or two. Will they be hailed as “courageous” everywhere you look, will an avalanche of commentators talk about how “proud” they are of them, will high government officials telephone their families to express admiration?  Did any of that happen for the half-dozen U.S. men in uniform who gave all in the same, far away land a week before that? (What about the “Benghazi Four”? Are throngs still talking about them? Drawing attention to them?)  Just wondering — because a professional athlete who “came out” with a fashionable, politically correct admission this past week got that treatment. I think maybe these others, most of whom gave their lives keeping barbarism at bay, deserve, at least, the same.  God, bless their families we pray.
~~~~~~
DHS Seeks Millions More Rounds of Ammunition by Paul Joseph Watson
Market survey asks companies if they can provide 2 million bullets within 30-60 day period. The Department of Homeland Security has released a market survey asking companies if they are able to provide 2 million rounds of ammunition within a short time period, increasing concerns that the federal agency is continuing its arms buildup in preparation for domestic unrest.  With the DHS already having committed to purchasing over 1.6 billion bullets over the course of the last year, a “request for information” on “reduced hazard training ammunition” posted on the FedBizOpps website quizzes bullet manufacturers on how fast they can supply large quantities of ammo;
- Are you capable of producing large quantity orders of any training caliber specified with a short turnaround time of 30-60 days?
- What would your lead time be for an order of 2 million rounds of a single type listed above?
- If you were awarded a contract for some of the calibers listed above, submitted a production lot of one million rounds and that lot or portion of the lot was not accepted, would you be able to replace that order with an additional one million rounds within 60 days?
The DHS’s apparent urge to find companies that can supply them with millions of rounds of ammunition within a short time frame will do little to calm concerns that the federal agency is making contingency plans for riots or some form of social dislocation. The federal agency’s need to find companies that can commit to manufacturing large quantities of bullets quickly also lends credence to claims made by a firearms manufacturer who called into the Michael Savage show in March that the DHS is trying to exhaust ammunition supplies as part of an end run around the Second Amendment.
Ammunition is becoming increasingly scarce, with gun stores across the nation forced to resort to bullet rationing in an attempt to satisfy as many customers as they can, while some police departments are having to barter between themselves to meet demand. The market survey also indicates that the DHS is interested in purchasing ammunition that will safely fragment when fired against an “armor steel plate,” which will only serve to stoke fears that the feds are gearing up to use the ammunition in an offensive manner. Despite official denials backed up by unquestioning media reports that the DHS is buying an abnormal amount of bullets, the Government Accountability Office announced earlier this week that an investigation of the purchases is “just getting underway.”
~~~~~~
If we can’t be proud of Cameron Lyle, how can we be proud of Collins?
But Tim Tebow is a villain for showing his values. Can’t wait for it to come out that Collins isn’t really gay just after attention. So I guess you’ve heard. Fading, 34 year-old NBA free agent Jason Collins has been declared a hero for publicly announcing that he digs dudes. Well, it’s about time! Used to be all a guy had to do was die at Omaha Beach or some other such nonsense. The Imperialist USA is finally seeing some major progress. What callous soul wouldn’t be moved by this youngish man’s gallantry? Who wouldn’t shudder at his sacrifice? Merriam-Webster’s defines courage as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” Think of it. Just as his middling basketball career was coming to a close and he was preparing to fade into relative obscurity – joining millions of others in the Obama unemployment lines – Jason Collins stood tall and said, “No! I will not take the easy road!” This selfless giant of a man put everything on the line and valiantly announced to the world (Optional: may or may not insert theme to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” here) – announced to the world: “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” But then it occurred to me. Collins had a girlfriend of eight years. In fact, they were engaged to be married before he dumped her. This would make him “bisexual,” then, wouldn’t it? So – and bear with me here – if being “gay” makes him a hero, does being “bi” make him a superhero? That. Is. Awesome! I don’t know: “Captain Switch-Hitter”? (Sorry for the mixed metaphor.)  Then again, if he’s “bisexual,” might that actually diminish his heroism? Would it make him only half a hero, or would it just cancel out altogether, making him ordinary again? It’s all so confusing. Who is Cameron Lyle, you ask? Well, little chance you’d know. And why should you? He’s just some attention-grabbing track and field star from the University of New Hampshire who sacrificed his athletic career to undergo the excruciating process of donating bone marrow to a total stranger dying of leukemia. Yeah, I know. What a prima donna. They call that “heroic”? Puhleeze. Sure, like in a 1950s kinda way. We’ve evolved. We’re talking “gay pride” here. So, naturally, Collins gets the call – a little “one-on-one” if you will – while Lyle gets the shaft.
~~~~~~
Abortion: The Evolution Connection by Jake Hebert, Ph.D., and Michael Stamp
Within a consistent evolutionary worldview, there is no logical basis for moral absolutes. If mankind is truly a cosmic accident, then there is no Creator-God to whom we must give an account, and there is no logical and objective basis for claiming that a given action is morally right or wrong. In such an amoral worldview, it’s perfectly “natural” for the strong to prey upon the weak, as often occurs among animals in the wild. And if it’s natural for the animal, it’s also natural for strong humans to discard the weak. An individual might claim that he prefers that a frail human not be harmed, but is one’s mere preference an objective basis from which to make a moral claim that applies to all people? The recent trial of American abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell dramatically illustrates this deep ethical problem with the evolutionary worldview. Gosnell is charged with killing four newborn infants who had apparently been born alive after surviving his attempted abortions. He is also charged with murdering a 41-year-old woman, but the grisly killings may have gone far beyond even this (see references below). Many of those familiar with this case (including evolutionists) have been horrified by it. But if evolution is true, why is Gosnell’s behavior wrong? Some might argue that his behavior is wrong simply because he broke the law—but then why is breaking the law wrong? On what basis can one claim that any behavior is wrong? The essential question is straightforward: Is human life precious and sacred or not? When we witness atrocities like the Gosnell crimes, we recoil in horror because human life has been ravaged. Our collective consciences concur that his acts were wrong and even malicious. At these moments we all agree human life is sacred—it’s uniquely precious—and that sacredness is the objective basis for our determining right and wrong….
~~~~~~
Eric Holder Threatens Kansas Over Gun Control Nullification Bill  by Philip Hodges
Recently, we told you about a rather watered-down version of a nullification bill that Kansas passed and Governor Brownback signed. The gist of it was that federal or state agents attempting to enforce unconstitutional gun laws on Kansas-made firearms would face felony charges and prosecution. It may have been watered down, but it offended Attorney General Eric Holder enough that he had to issue a fast and furious response. Here’s what he wrote in part in a letter to the Kansas Governor:
 “In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, SB102 directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional. … Under the Supremacy Clause…Kansas may not prevent federal employees and officials from carrying out their official responsibilities.  And a state certainly may not criminalize the exercise of federal responsibilities.  Because SB102 conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulations, federal law supersedes this new statute; all provisions of federal laws and their implementing regulations therefore continue to apply.”
 First of all, where does the Constitution give the federal government the authority to regulate firearms at all? It doesn’t, and that’s why anything the feds do with respect to gun control, no matter how well-intentioned, is unconstitutional.
~~~~~~
Hypocrisy on Parade: Obama Tells Mexico Drug Deaths are Americans’ Fault  by Tad Cronn
Talk about the pothead calling the kettle black. … President Obama, in possibly the most solipsistic action by an executive in chief in recent memory, actually dared show his face in Mexico and lecture an audience that Mexico isn’t really to blame for drug-related violence, but it’s the United States’ fault. Not the United States of which he is in charge, mind you. Not the United States of which he is the primary representative, the big honcho, the head cheese. Not the United States whose policies, laws and actions are controlled and enforced by him and his underlings, effectively making him the embodiment of the actual “United States” for all legal purposes. No, he meant the OTHER United States, the country which you and I live in but with which he has no involvement, except for turning in the occasional voucher for a round of golf. Here’s how Reuters reported it:
“Drug-fueled violence in Mexico is not entirely the fault of the Mexican people, he said. Instead, the United States shares the blame because much of the violence is centered around the Americans’ demand for illegal drugs and the fact that guns are smuggled into Mexico from the United States.”
~~~~~~
WH spokesman Jay Carney: “Benghazi happened a long time ago”
 Remember that little Benghazi incident? That’s old news, according to White House press secretary Jay Carney. During his daily press briefing, Carney was asked about rumors that Benghazi whistleblowers are being prevented from testifying about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. The White House spokesman denied the allegations.
Let’s be clear,” Carney said. “Benghazi happened a long time ago. We are unaware of any agency blocking an employee who would like to appear before Congress to provide information related to Benghazi.”
On Tuesday, during a special press conference, President Obama also said he had no knowledge of anyone being blocked from testifying. “I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody’s been blocked from testifying,” he told members of the media. “What I’ll do is find out what exactly you’re referring to.” And while the POTUS doesn’t seem to know much about the Benghazi whistleblowers, he was more than happy to give his opinion on basketball. Watch Carney’s statement
~~~~~~
Will the Real National Socialists Please Own Up?  by Marilyn Assenheim
“Projection.” Psychology defines this term as accusing others of thoughts, intentions or actions that are, in reality, what they themselves, think, intend, or do.
Democrats have accused the right of being Nazis for ages (remember Bush=Hitler?). Last year saw Nikki Haley accused of channeling Eva Braun, Paul Ryan linked with Josef Goebbels’ “big lie” and so on. Pure projection.  Democrats might consider being careful about hollering “Nazism” at others; the “Nazi” shoe appears to fit Democrats better than the glass slipper fit Cinderella.  National Socialism is a charged label. And just like the original Party, it gets traction from the top down.

The time has come to remove our politically correct blinkers and have the honesty to declare who has really adopted the tenets of National Socialism. America’s future depends on it.
National Socialists, for example, relied on unions. Membership was, theoretically, voluntary but union activity was instrumental in cementing National Socialist control of Germany. Mandatory dues raised millions of Deutschmarks, annually, for the National Socialist Party. It became difficult to get a job without being a union member. The blind devotion unions (e.g. SEIU, Teamsters, teachers unions) grant the Democrat party is comparable. Democrats are, in return, staunch advocates of union dominance. Democrat candidates from the top down get enormous amounts of cash and support from unions. Vilification, even physical assault on non-union employees has become depressingly common. Elections are hijacked and state officials are forced into recall elections by union strong-arm tactics. Obamacare promotes unionization of the health care industry (including physicians). Such Brown Shirt tactics aren’t being perpetrated by the GOP; they are the result of escalating Democrat harassment. The irony is, apparently, lost on the true perpetrators. The DAF (German Labor Front) was born biased against capitalism and advocated that large companies be nationalized by the German state. Sound familiar? Think General Motors. Think health care. The Fuhrer-In-Chief isn’t done yet.

A primary doctrine of National Socialism was all about “redistribution of wealth.” National Socialism ascended when Germany’s economy was not just circling the drain but had become solidly lodged in the toilet. “Hope and change” was pledged to revive Germany’s glory. Today’s Democrat Party is systematically destroying the U.S. economy after gaining power. The president is still blaming the GOP for his own, raging profligacy. National Socialism sought national ascendency. The Democrat Party . . . descent. Same methods, different results. Both intentional.

The media was National Socialism’s most powerful, internal tool, fabricating “news” out of whole cloth in support of the Nazi regime. Terrifyingly, no discernible difference exists today. The “mainstream media” was even discovered submitting prospective stories to the White House for approval. The Democrat Party invents whatever fantasies advance their agenda and a collusive media hammers us with them even after the lies are exposed by fact checkers. Reich Minister of Propaganda, Jay Carney, attempts to pass off unpopular elements of the regime’s latest budget as GOP ideas. Concern about journalistic malpractice is non-existent.  So untouchable does the press consider itself that they lie about criminal activity carried out on behalf of the current regime and suppress factual information.
The president adopted “Forward” as a 2012 campaign slogan. “Forward” a Marxist catchphrase in origin. It was also a favorite of Hitler’s. “Vorwartz” (forward) was the name of a National Socialist newspaper, employed by Hitler. The only good news is that there are (still) news sources other than the mainstream media. Without them news that does not fit the regime’s template would have no platform. Serious effort is underway, however, to silence alternative media voices. The president is within inches of taking control of the internet. The Lyin’ King has, time and again, committed unlawful and unconstitutional acts. Yet the media coverage he receives remains reverential.

National Socialism rejected any religion other than a secular, unconditional devotion to the state. We’re getting there. Six million Jews were exterminated. Most people are no longer aware that Catholics, too, were rounded up for a one-way stay at concentration camps during WWII. Remember the Democrat convention? Their agenda was pre-approved by the president. Democrat-sanctioned mentions of G-d had to be shoe-horned in, via amendment to the official agenda, contrary to the very vocal “Nay’s!” from most of the Democrat delegates. After three, unacceptable votes, the mayor of Los Angeles peremptorily ruled a “2/3 majority” in favor of the Almighty’s backhanded invitation to the circus; a pitiable joke. The Supreme Court struck down the federal government’s attempt to select ministers for churches, in 2012. It’s no coincidence the president has deliberately misquoted the Declaration of Independence on several occasions, intentionally excising the word “G-d.” He even demanded that “INRI” (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum/Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews) be covered before agreeing to speak at Georgetown University . . . a Catholic institution.

National Socialism’s allies in the Middle East during WWII were Muslim leaders. Democrats today have made the same choice. Throwing Israel, our only democratic ally in the Middle East, under the bus was just the beginning. The “understandable outrage” on display in dozens of Muslim countries is a perfect example of “the big lie” by which Democrats live. The president and his entire administration lied persistently, shamelessly, about Benghazi. Americans were expected to believe that 27 countries were sparked to “spontaneous” outrage by a ridiculous video simply because the Lyin’ King insisted it was so. Even when evidence contrary to official story surfaced and the narrative flipped 180 degrees the president apparently didn’t get the memo. He mulishly refused to use the word “terrorism.” His United Nations address self-righteously insisted the video was the fire-starter. His then-Secretary-of-State, Hillary Clinton, has been exposed as a duplicitous fraud in the matter. Yet the media is enthusiastically flogging her candidacy for president in 2016.

The precedents for the policies being inflicted on America today were created in WWII Germany. It is clear which party is a replica of National Socialism. It is even more evident which party, despite the lie being big enough and repeated often enough, isn’t.
~~~~~~




Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Right Lane updaate 5.04.13



The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
To subscribe, see note below
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Charles Krauthammer: The embarrassing fall of President Obama By Charles Krauthammer
Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination. And where Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to ride his re-election success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the fiscal cliff, leaving a humiliated John Boehner & Co. with nothing but naked tax hikes. Thus emboldened, Obama turned his inaugural and State of the Union addresses into a left-wing dream factory, from his declaration of war on global warming (on a planet where temperatures are the same as 16 years ago and in a country whose CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low) to the invention of new entitlements -- e.g., universal preschool for 5-year-olds -- for a country already drowning in debt. To realize his dreams, Obama sought to fracture and neutralize the congressional GOP as a prelude to reclaiming the House in 2014. This would enable him to fully enact his agenda in the final two years of his presidency, usually a time of lame-duck paralysis. Hail the Obama juggernaut. Well, that story -- excuse me, narrative -- lasted exactly six months. The Big Mo is gone. It began with the  sequester. Obama never believed the Republicans would call his bluff and let it go into effect. They did. Taken by surprise, Obama cried wolf, predicting the end of everything we hold dear if the sequester was not stopped. It wasn't. Nothing happened. Highly embarrassed, and determined to indeed make (bad) things happen, the White House refused Republican offers to give it more discretion in making cuts. Bureaucrats were instructed to inflict maximum pain from minimal cuts, as revealed by one memo from the Agriculture Department demanding agency cuts that the public would feel. Things began with the near-comical cancellation of White House tours and ended with not-so-comical airline delays. Obama thought furious passengers would blame the GOP. But isn't the executive branch in charge of these agencies? Who thinks that a government spending $3.6 trillion a year can't cut 2 percent without furloughing air traffic controllers?

Looking not just incompetent at managing budgets but cynical for deliberately injuring the public welfare, the administration relented. Congress quickly passed a bill giving Obama reallocation authority to restore air traffic control. Having previously threatened to veto any such bill, Obama caved. He signed. Coming immediately after Obama's spectacular defeat on gun control, it marked an administration that had lost its "juice."  For Obama, gun control was a political disaster. He invested capital and got nothing. An assault-weapons ban lost 60-40 in a Senate where Democrats control 55 seats. Obama failed even to get mere background checks.  All this while appearing passive on the world stage. On Syria, Obama was nervously trying to erase the WMD red line he had so publicly established. On Benghazi, he stonewalled accusations that State Department officials wishing to testify are being blocked. He is even taking heat for the Boston bombings. Every day brings another revelation of signals missed beforehand. Now, the screw will undoubtedly turn again. If immigration reform passes, Obama will be hailed as the comeback kid. This will overlook the fact that immigration reform has little to do with Obama and everything to do with GOP panic about the Hispanic vote. Nonetheless, whatever happens, the screw will surely turn again, if only because of media boredom. But that's the one constant of Washington political life: There are no straight-line graphs. We live from inflection point to inflection point. And we've just experienced one. From king of the world to dead in the water in six months. Quite a ride.
~~~~~~
How Can You Punish an Evolved Criminal?
Left-leaning scientists have never given up on the 19th century notion that criminals are born, not made.  Other evidence suggests “innate tendencies” can be overcome. PhysOrg says, “Evil gene would make punishment a tricky business.”  But is there really a gene for evil?  Someone is making that case again. Are there evil genes or is it only people who can be evil? A recent story in The Age (“Deep Divide of ‘Evil Genes’”) raised the question of whether criminals might evade responsibility for their crimes by blaming their genes.

Acknowledging this is a “troubling notion” because it might excuse the Nazis, PhysOrg nevertheless gave author Julia Llewelyn Smith space to propagate an old view that criminals have genetic tendencies that make them more likely to turn to crime than others.  In this case, the gene in question has a name:
An example of a so-called “evil gene” might be the low activity MAOA gene. MAOA is a neurotransmitter in the brain and some research has suggested that those males who have low levels of the substance are particularly vulnerable to the effects of being maltreated when young.
The article wallowed in notions of criminal law and free will, but made it seem like society has no right to punish those who have genes that incline them toward crime.  Science Daily, similarly, claimed that psychopaths are “not neurally equipped to have concern for others.”  That may be, but if it’s due to a physical cause in the neurons, it is not mental illness. PhysOrg then posted another article by two evolutionists, Jason Roach and Ken Pease, who wrote a book titled Evolution and Crime that tries to use evolutionary theory to explain criminal behavior. An understanding of the evolutionary process – who we are as a species and where we have evolved from – can also explain how and why legal systems have developed, as a means of regulating competition between individuals. Dr Roach has also explored empathy and altruism – unique to human beings – and how they function as protective factors to mitigate anti-social behavior. Another article posted the same day on PhysOrg, however, called into question the models evolutionary behaviorists use to evaluate altruism.  Experiments with human subjects playing games often ignore other factors that bias the results, thus casting doubt on Roach’s confidence about “understanding of the evolutionary process.”

Notions that criminals are born, or that they evolved according to social game theory, fail to acknowledge the power to change.  Science Daily wrote, “Faith in God Positively Influences Treatment for Individuals With Psychiatric Illness.”  If psychiatric illness is innate like the “evil gene,” why would faith in God help?  But it does: “Belief was associated with not only improved psychological wellbeing, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm,” a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School said. Evolutionists need to get out of their ivory towers in academia and visit a church.  If they really want to see the power of God to change lives, they should look into some of the dynamic prison ministries conducted by Bible-believing churches.  The vibrant prison ministry at Grace Baptist of Santa Clarita, California is just one example.  The results of their bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ into minimum– and maximum-security prisons are so astonishing, city officials welcome them into the jails and want their efforts to expand all around Los Angeles.  Guards watch in amazement as former riotous, dangerous inmates turn meek as lambs, truly repentant for their crimes, hungry for the word of God, eagerly listening to the preachers and inviting their fellow inmates to come.  When they get out, most of them stay out, without the high recidivism rates that plague secular programs.  Lives are being transformed by the gospel every day. Even today, April 26, Grace Baptist church is helping reconcile inmate fathers with their children, bring tears of joy to broken families. The late Chuck Colson with his Prison Fellowship ministry saw similar results around the world, in some of the worst prisons.  One particular prison in South America, known as a hopeless death trap, turned into a cathedral of light when the gospel came.  These stories were told by Colson and Nancy Pearcey in How Now Shall We Live?   Need proof of God’s existence?  Watch His power to make saints out of sinners through His gift of salvation and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

What does evolution offer, by contrast?  “Tough Luck.  They can’t help themselves.  They’re genetically conditioned to do what they do, so don’t hold them responsible.  They’re pawns in evolutionary games.  It’s all just a big game anyway.  Turn ‘em all loose.”  Failed evolutionary theories have left a long trail of suffering that blames society, leaves the victims heartbroken and angry, and offers no hope for the perpetrators.  You can read about the history of these useless, harmful, ugly theories and their bitter consequences in Darwin Day in America by John West. Scientists can test physical laws in the lab, but they cannot fathom the human heart.  While evolutionists continue to write useless, speculative books about what they don’t understand, doing no good to anyone, Christian ministers are bringing the power of God into prison and are seeing miraculous results.  It makes sense that the Maker knows what man needs.   Darwin or Christ: choose you this day whom you will serve.
~~~~~~
Here They Go Again: Leftists Victims of Self-Manufactured ‘Hate Crimes’ By Teri O'Brien
Here’s some stunning news. The most recent “hate crime” against a liberal activist, this time against some woman named Meg Lanker-Simons was committed by – wait for it – Meg Lanker-Simons. What are the chances, not only that some lefty wackjob would have one of those goofy hyphenated names, but that she would make stuff up? From the Daily Caller: “A student at the University of Wyoming has been charged with interference with a police investigation after she allegedly posted on an anonymous social media page that she would like to engage in angry sexual intercourse with someone named “Meg Lanker Simons.” It gets better. Also from the Daily Caller:
The Casper Star-Tribune reports that Lanker-Simons and Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers (emphasis mine) sued the University of Wyoming after school officials decided to cancel a speech by Ayers. The same story suggests that Lanker-Simon admitted to pointing a gun at her employer in 2005. A blog apparently belonging to Lanker-Simons, entitled Cognitive Dissonance, received an award nomination from the leftist website ThinkProgress for her work liveblogging the entire GOP primaries. The Pinterest page for Lanker-Simons describes her as “a 28-year-old undergrad at the University of Wyoming.”
Bill Ayers? He’s everywhere! Apparently, Barack’s mentor, the unrepentant domestic terrorist and probable author of Dreams from My Father, has his dirty fingers in every leftist pie in the country. That’s not surprising, of course. He’s a respected “educator,” whose Amerika-hating philosophy has infected virtually every institution of higher learning in the country. One of his cohorts, cop killer Kathy Boudin, was recently rewarded with a teaching post at Columbia University.  But I digress. Why would Ms. Wanker–I mean–Lanker-Simons, so outstanding a liberal that she was nominated for an award for her fabulous activist journalism, perpetuate this silly hoax? That’s really the wrong question. Given liberals’ propensity for faking “hate crimes” against themselves, the real question is what took her so long? Concocting wacky, and sometimes very creative, scenarios in which they are victims of hideous racist, “homophobic,” or sexist “rape culture” – enabling attacks, and then doing their best to present them in a convincing fashion is one of the Left’s favorite plays. It’s as predictable as Joe Biden’s next gaffe, but every time it happens, the drill is the same: the Left’s comrades in the Lame Stream Media, collectively rendered as dumb as a box of rocks by years marinating in mind-destroying political correctness, take each of these incidents seriously, and dutifully recount each horrid detail, only to have to report a few days or weeks later that the whole thing was a crock. Maybe I am giving them too much credit. Maybe they are simply being good little apparatchiks, helping to serve the cause. Usually, these scams are motivated by the irresistible leftist impulse to manufacture evidence for what they “know” to be true. “Everybody knows” America is “racist, sexist, homophobic,” but in the absence of any actual proof, it must be constructed out of whole cloth. Think Dan Rather’s “fake but accurate” documents. Dan and his peeps knew, and still know, that George W. Bush was a draft-dodging, lying chicken hawk. What’s a few forged documents in the service of proving that undeniable fact? Regardless of the reason, these hoaxes happen with a ridiculous degree of regularity. Consider the following list, which is by no means exhaustive, of leftwing loons who claimed to be victims of “hate crimes,” only to be exposed as the perps:
·       Stripper Gate: Duke LaCrosse Case
·       That’s Noose to Me: The Plagiarizing Prof Cries Racism
Professor Madonna Constantine supposedly found a noose on her office door. No, actually, she did. The problem is that she put it there.
·       I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up: Tawana Brawley
Of course no one could forget the case the helped Rev. Al Sharpton make his bones, in which 15 year-old Tawana Brawley was allegedly raped, smeared with feces and covered with racist slogans. Despite the fact that the “crime” was demonstrated to be a hoax,
·       Daddy, I Hate This School! It’s Full of Scary Racists (Like Me)!
Chicago native Alicia Hardin, 19, an African American woman, was charged with a hate crime and disorderly conduct after confessing to sending three letters that contained racial slurs and threats against minority students at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.
~~~~~~
Sex Ed: Education or Indoctrination? By Wes Walker
Whether you think this social experiment has been successful must depend upon what you think their goal was. But taken at face value, Sex Ed has been an abject failure. Wasn’t “clarity” the original argument for Sex Ed?  Clarity, to keep little Mary from believing she’d be “with child” from kissing a boy or using a public restroom?  Clarity, in the cause-effect relationships between coitus, pregnancy and certain diseases; so that someone would understand the stakes before they “get busy”? Wasn’t it supposed to serve as a source of reliable information so that kids don’t rely on schoolyard whispering, bawdy jokes, and contraband magazines if their parents were unwilling (or unable) to properly instruct children concerning sexual maturity and practice.  Don’t forget, these classes began long before a few mouse-clicks on the internet could provide such answers. If the role and extent of “Sex Ed” were to simply teach in a classroom the sorts of facts that any farm kid would already understand, there wouldn’t be much controversy.  But that isn’t really what is happening anymore, is it? In a time when students can barely function in mathematics or language arts, when science is praised, but poorly taught, and when students have a weaker grasp of their founding documents than many naturalized citizens, shouldn’t we be demanding answers about how sex became “the” issue of primary importance in education?

USA has an abortion every 46 seconds; sexually-transmitted infectious diseases are becoming drug resistant. With all the talk about “safe sex”, people are still unaware that condoms are useless against HPV. Teenage moms are neither shocking nor rare.  Many children are raised without a father in the home.  The FBI estimates that nearly 300,000 youths are used in sexual slavery within the United States alone.  In Ottawa, three teenage girls face 74 charges — for forcing nine girls (ages 13-17) into prostitution. What has gone wrong?  Since the implementation of this Education Program, traditional categories of “male” and “female” have derailed, sexual disease and teen pregnancy (born alive, or aborted) is still frequent, massive numbers of youth are victimized by sexual predators.  Even the idea of sex as covenant intimacy between man and wife has been replaced by a cheapened understanding of sex, centered on physical pleasure. Teachers telling children what they “should” believe about sex is a flagrant abuse of their authority and privileged relationship; on par with telling a kid what religion they should or should not practice, without their parents present.  Sex ed has become less an exercise in education, and more an exercise of iconoclastic indoctrination.  Such clarity!  Now kids don’t even know which bathroom to pee in.  With this Sex Ed track record, kids could have better clarity by just watching the animals on a farm.
~~~~~~
Weekly Standard Publishes Benghazi 'Talking Points' Smoking Gun by Joel B. Pollak
The Weekly Standard has obtained "a timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing the heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA’s talking points"--evidence that the talking points used by UN Ambassador Susan Rice were heavily edited by senior members of the Obama administration to hide the role of Al Qaeda in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on the evening of Sep. 11, 2012. Already, the House of Representatives report on the Benghazi attack referred to a series of emails "between top administration and intelligence officials" that were not included in the report itself but that were merely referred to, as part of a deal with the Obama administration to secure the confirmation of new CIA Director John Brennan. The emails reveal that officials "engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments." As Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen F. Hayes notes, the emails are evidence that the administration knew from an early stage--two hours into the attack--that "al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya" was responsible. That information was known throughout various government agencies. And yet, by Sunday, Sep. 16, the story had been transformed into the now-infamous lie about an anti-Islam YouTube video.

Hayes presents three versions of the talking points to show the editing process. The first version, prepared by the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis on Sep. 14, suggested that the attack was a "spontaneous" response to the protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt but added that "we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qa'ida participated in the attack" and mentioned several other recent attacks in Benghazi. The CIA made some modifications to that draft to tone down references to Al Qaeda. Yet a State Department official--who the Weekly Standard claims was spokesperson Victoria Nuland--raised concerns. More changes were made, but Nuland was not satisfied, and White House officials--including presidential adviser Ben Rhoades, according to the Weekly Standard--became directly involved in the editing process. The second draft--prepared on Sep. 15, the Weekly Standard says, by CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell--eliminated the references to "jihadists" and "Islamic extremists," as well as references to previous attacks in Benghazi. The changes removed any hint of the administration's possible failure to ignore previous warnings of the danger in eastern Libya, as well as any sense that the government knew Al Qaeda had been involved. The third and final draft, circulated later that day, suggested that "extremists" had participated in the attack on the consulate but described their involvement solely as a result of protests inspired by the protests in Cairo, leaving no indication that the attack was connected to terror organizations or previous assaults. It was that version, apparently, that allowed the White House to fill in the gap with the false video alibi. Later, Hayes recounts, when the video story began to unravel, the administration issued a statement through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that suggested that new information had come to light about the role of terrorists in the attack. Yet the information was not new; it had been known from the very earliest stages of the attack. The Weekly Standard's report suggests a deliberate attempt to deceive the nation. The Obama administration has not yet made the email record of its discussions of the talking points fully available to Congress. Contrary to the protestations of former Secretary of Defense Hillary Clinton, those emails make a great difference to determining what went wrong on Sep. 11, how to fix it--and whom to hold responsible.
~~~~~~
"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation." --George Washington, circular letter of farewell to the Army, 1783

"[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
--John Adams, Speech on Independence Day to the House of Representatives, 1821

ShareThis