Two Americas – reblog Victor Davis Hanson

American flag splitby Victor Davis Hanson ~ Commentary Archives, m.townhall.com
August 22nd 2013

Two quite different 21st-century Americas are emerging. The nation is not so much divided by “wars” between the rich and poor, men and women, or white and non-white. Instead, there is the world of reality versus that of triviality.

In the vast plains of the Dakotas and the American West, thousands of men and women of all classes and colors are fracking oil and gas to create new energy for millions of homeowners and commuters — while giving America a second chance at strategic energy independence.

Yet the beneficiaries mostly ignore these elemental efforts. They instead prefer to fixate on the alleged sexual creepiness of big-city political mediocrities like Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner.

As we sleep, 7,000 miles away there are still thousands of American soldiers of all races, ages, classes and genders in godforsaken conditions fighting the Taliban to allow millions in Afghanistan the chance for an alternative to medieval theocracy and to deter terrorists.

Meanwhile, back home, the nation is focused not on such existential struggles but transfixed by racial melodramas.

Was Oprah victimized by racial insensitively in a Swiss boutique when inquiring about purchasing a $38,000 crocodile purse? Were 10 black “American Idol” contestants really victims of “cruel and inhumane” treatment because their arrest records were brought up on the show? Should a rodeo clown — whose stock and trade is humor — be sent to “sensitivity training” for wearing an Obama mask?

At the end of two years of near-record drought in California, the fate of hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated farmlands, which feed millions of Americans and earn billions of dollars in critical foreign exchange, hinges on a snow-filled winter in the Sierra Nevada. You might never know of that razor’s edge from the state legislature. Rather than discussing new dams and canals, it debated whether transgendered youth in public schools could use the bathrooms of their choice and whether residents should need a permit to buy ammunition.

The historic role of government is changing before our eyes. President Obama is making the argument that the executive branch by presidential fiat can pick and choose which laws should and should not be faithfully executed — whether Obamacare, immigration amnesties or No Child Left Behind statutes.

The fate of the entire concept of voluntary tax compliance is currently endangered by the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. Whether the government can monitor the communications of either reporters or average citizens depends on getting to the bottom of the National Security Agency and Justice Department/Associated Press scandals.

Instead, the media seem more interested in whether Obama is playing golf on Martha’s Vineyard.

Why is the country consumed by the trivial while snoozing through the essential?

We have become a nation of instant electronic communications — Twitter, Facebook, cell phones and the Internet — even as reading and math scores plummet in our schools, and newspapers and magazines go broke. We can communicate information at the speed of light but have trouble finding anything meaningful to send back and forth.

In prior times, writers, directors and actors endeavored to present television drama characterized by good acting and engaging scripts. Now, it is more profitable and apparently more entertaining just to film pseudo-celebrities talking, eating and agonizing over the day’s banalities, as with “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

Yet sometimes we get vicarious pleasure from watching oddballs do what most of us won’t or can’t do. Nineteenth-century-style men who cut timber, mine gold, drive big rigs and catch fish on the high seas are now big reality-television hits. Apparently, those who did not go to Ivy League schools or make a pile on Wall Street appear as more genuine Americans — at least in our dreams and fantasies.

Yet part of America’s confusion about what is important and petty begins at the top.

Reggie Love, the erstwhile presidential assistant and “body man” to President Obama recently reported on the critical moments of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. The president apparently was not glued to live video feeds, as the photos from his re-election campaign suggested.

“Most people were like down in the Situation Room,” Love said, “and [the president] was like, ‘I’m not going to be down there, I can’t watch this entire thing.’ So he, myself, Pete Souza, the White House photographer, Marvin [Nicholson], we must have played 15 games of spades.”

The commander in chief was playing cards while Navy Seals risked their lives to kill America’s No. 1 enemy — only later to use photos of himself watching live feeds for his re-election sloganeering: “bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!”

That pretense sums up the growing void between real and trivial America.
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Victor Davis Hanson is a noted historian and social critic whose philosophies are rooted in classicism. An author, contributing editor and professor, Victor Davis Hanson writes a world affairs column syndicated by Tribune Media Services.

Political Correctness Is Cultural Marxism – American Thinker reblog

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Marx’s key concept was “class struggle.” That’s where PC comes in. PC seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior, just like Marxism, on all Americans and is, therefore, quite totalitarian in nature. PC is, in concept, similar to Marxism, but its focus is upon culture, rather than economics, as the class struggle environment.

by W.A. Beatty, americanthinker.com / July 6th 2013

The excellent AT article “Conservatives Pushing Back” by Bruce Walker explored what we conservative thinkers (We are, after all, American Thinkers) have known for quite some time: political correctness (PC) is to culture what Marxism is to economics. To recognize that fact arms us with what we need in order to push back. As Walker says (emphasis added), “[t]hese marketplace ballots are the key not only to the survival of a non-totalitarian America, but also to the final defeat of those whose minds and wills are chained with hard, cold manacles of leftism.”

Walker’s article is (pardon the pun) right on the money. So, in an effort to further understand PC, exploration of its similarities to Marxism is in order.

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was a German socialist. Marx’s social, economic, and political theories proclaimed that societies progress through class struggle. His focus was upon economics, so Marx concentrated on the conflict between an ownership class that controlled production and a proletariat that provided the labor for production. He referred to capitalism as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” The proletariat, the oppressed workers, were supposed to be the beneficiaries of a social revolution that would place them on top of the power structure.

Marx’s key concept was “class struggle.” That’s where PC comes in. PC seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior, just like Marxism, on all Americans and is, therefore, quite totalitarian in nature. PC is, in concept, similar to Marxism, but its focus is upon culture, rather than economics, as the class struggle environment.

PC, just like Marxism, forces people to live a lie by denying reality. PC takes a political philosophy and says that on the basis of the chosen philosophy, certain things must be true, and reality that contradicts its “truth” must be forbidden — eradicated since it disputes PC, exposes as untrue what PC says is true. People are reluctant to live a lie, so they use their eyes and ears to see reality, to say, “Wait a minute. This isn’t true. I can see it isn’t true; the power of the state [PC] must be put behind the demand to live a lie.” Marxism, by denying economic reality, did exactly the same thing.

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Robert Byrd

PC, just like Marxism, has a method of analysis that always provides the answer it wants. For PC, the “answer” is found through deconstruction, which takes any situation, removes all meaning from it, and replaces it with PC’s desired meaning. Walker references this point when he says, “[T]hat her [Paula Deen’s] devout Christian faith is more the real target than past use of an unhappy word which did not keep Robert Byrd from remaining, by election of his fellow Senate Democrats, the most powerful Democrat politician in America.”

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New Black Panther voter intimidation

PC, just like Marxism, depends upon defining what it considers good and bad groups. It defines good groups as “victims” of bad groups. The victims can never be anything but good, regardless of what their actions may be. Witness what the Black Panthers did in Philadelphia, PA in 2008 and 2012. Any group identified as good by PC (homosexuals, blacks, Hispanics, illegal immigrants, feminist women, mentally and/or physically challenged people, the poor, environmentalists, the list goes on and on) must be shown deference, both physically and linguistically. They must not be offended, must not be insulted.

Any group identified as bad by PC, such as white males or any Christian group, can be offended. This offense, PC practitioners say, “makes up” for past offenses certain to have been committed in the past by bad groups. And what’s worse is that the PC practitioners get to define the offenses committed by the bad groups. This situation, by definition, is a “self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Rush Limbaugh, in 2010, said, “Our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult has taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.” The PC crowd labeled Limbaugh’s statement offensive and insulting. Imagine that. Limbaugh was just “calling a spade a spade.” Like it or not, PC cannot prevent mental retardation, cannot alter reality. But that doesn’t stop them from trying.

PC, just like Marxism, depends upon expropriation. PC is literally taking over our language, and woe be unto him/her that dares speak the truth. When Marxists took over Russia, they expropriated the bourgeoisie by confiscating their property. Similarly, when PC takes over our culture, quotas are set. The so-called bourgeoisie are told whom they can and can’t hire, and in what quantities they can hire. As an example, see what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is currently up to. And let’s not forget affirmative action, a system of expropriation if there ever was one, another PC favorite. When a black or Hispanic student (or some other “victim”), who isn’t as well-qualified as a white student, gains university admittance through affirmative action, the white student’s admittance is expropriated.

PC, just like Marxism, has a single factor explanation of all of history. PC says that all history is determined by power, by which groups have power over which other groups. Nothing else matters. Period. PC is all about gaining power for the good groups that it defines. To further that goal, PC literally rewrites history. And PC says that the Bible is actually about race and gender. Nothing is beyond the PC crowd.

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Photo released by George Zimmerman’s defense attorney of his injuries.

As an example of what PC has done and is currently doing, examine the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case/trial. First, always PC, Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama said, “You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Then, ever PC NBC doctored the 911 recording; thus, “NBC created this false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman’s own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create the illusion of statements that Zimmerman never actually made.” Here is what PC tried to do before the trial. “Many viewed the early lack of charges against Zimmerman as unequal justice for a black victim. More than 2 million people signed an online Change.org petition demanding ‘Justice for Trayvon Martin.'” Now, the prosecution is trying to say that Zimmerman is a liar, that his injuries were not life-threatening. I’m quite certain that AT readers can cite numerous other examples.

The U.S. has become an ideological state, a country with an official state ideology and history that has been defined by PC. People convicted of “hate crimes” as defined by PC are currently serving jail sentences for political thoughts contrary to PC. And it’s only getting worse — PC continues to spread.

Marx believed his ideology, his economic system to be true. But, reality contradicted his system. His ideology did not adjust to reality.
Hopefully the PC ideology will soon suffer a similar fate. It is, as Walker points out, a corrupt ideology. The only problem is that we will have no country, will have an economic disaster once people are confronted with reality, when enough people say, “Wait a minute. This isn’t true.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats/Progressives/Liberals who will not adjust to reality continue the PC ideology. And they have convinced the MSM and enough low-information voters to continue to empower them as all three groups continue to ignore reality.

Charlton Heston once said, “Political correctness is tyranny with manners.” Tyranny, yes, but practitioners seem to have forgotten the manners part.

Dr. Warren Beatty (not the liberal actor) earned a Ph.D. in quantitative management and statistics from Florida State University. He was a (very conservative) professor of quantitative management specializing in using statistics to assist/support decision-making. He has been a consultant to many small businesses and is now retired. Dr. Beatty is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 22 years. He blogs at rwno.limewebs.com.

Is there no hope for change? – Cosmocon reblog

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Peanut Gallery: As we approach the celebration of our nation’s birthday,  I am disheartened.  I will fly the flag,  but not with great enthusiasm.  Why? Because,  as Cosmocon points out “the United States is coming apart.”

And I don’t think this is just the sour grapes prognosis of a couple of old white guys. I think we are dealing with something much larger than that… way beyond organizational or political solutions.

This is a heavenly battle being played out on earth before our very eyes.

Please read Cosmocon’s original blog here:

http://cosmoscon.com/2013/07/02/is-there-no-hope-for-change/

And, as the saying goes,  get on your knees and fight like a man.
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Is There No Hope For Change? – Cosmocon

The United States is coming apart and I don’t know how we save it.

We have reached a point where our overreaching Government has become so big that it is out of the control of even those who support it.

IRS, DoJ, NSA, looming Obamacare, Debt greater than our GDP, unsustainable entitlement programs….the list goes on and on.

Even today, the architect of Obamacare realized that he must scale back the employer mandate until after the mid-term elections.  Of course he’s doing this because businesses have been expressing their displeasure to the Administration and the last thing Obama needs is another repeat of the 2010 mid-terms.

We are also seeing massive protests by the Pro-Abortion crowd because the Texas Legislature is trying to pass a bill to outlaw Abortions after 20 weeks.  The vile tweets in the #StandWithWendy and #StandWithTXWomen are enough to make you sick to your stomach and it makes me wonder how we became a nation where many choose to defend the right to kill viable babies just for the sake of birth control.   It’s not enough that we had to read about the evil inside Gosnell’s abortion clinic but there appears to be a large segment of the population that are totally cool with killing babies right up to birth.

@gdthomp01 I support a pregnant persons choice to terminate the pregnancy at any point. #prochoice #abortionondemandwithoutapology—   (@GingerTimeLady) July 01, 2013

It’s enough to make me throw up my hands and wonder how we take this country back.  There is a great PowerPoint presentation showing how Conservatives can be a force multiplier and get involved in precinct activism and it is worth a read by everyone.  While that is good work that we should definitely be involved with, I was left thinking that there was a bigger issue that we have to attack in order to rescue the US from the path we are on which is eerily similar to the Roman Empire.

Then I saw this video of #StandWithTXWomen people chanting “Hail Satan” and I realized what we need.

We aren’t just fighting a political war.  If that were the case, the only thing that would save us would be a revolution.  But a revolution is only successful when the vast majority of the citizens are in opposition to the ruling government and this isn’t the case now.  There are too many people that are opposed to Conservative principles to solve this with a revolution.  Do I have to remind you that Obama just won re-election by a decent margin?  This is not a problem that can be solved by a revolution or a civil war.

We can’t combat the “Hail Satan” crowd, the #STandWithTXWomen crowd or the “Free Government Handout” crowd with blog posts and cute tweets.  Let’s face it; we can’t do it by ourselves.  I just can’t do it.  I have failed.  The chasm is too vast.  America is more polarized now than ever before.  We need help.  I need help.

And when we reach the end of our rope and realize that we can’t do it on our own that is when we turn to a higher power.  And then we find that Jesus has been waiting for us patiently all along.

We are fighting a Spiritual war in America and we just can’t win without help from the Holy Spirit.  Only when we fall to our knees and admit we are powerless against the Prince of Darkness do we get help.  The past few decades may have served the purpose to humble the Church and make us realize that we have neglected the One who could help us.  It’s time to turn to Him.  He’s the only hope we have.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  Ephesians 6:12

USCCB: Fortnight for Freedom – Current Threats To Religious Liberty

Peanut Gallery: We are not living in North Korea or Saudi Arabia… no one in America is being tortured or imprisoned for their Christian beliefs.  Not yet anyways. 

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A bald eagle and U.S. flag are seen in an illustration for religious liberty that was created by photographer Lisa Johnston of the St. Louis Review.

But Religious Freedom in America is intentionally and systematically being dismantled by secular statists in our government… one seemingly small battle at a time. They are moving with the secular tide… sinking one boat at a time.

The USCCB has been in the forefront of the battle to stem the tide. You may, or may not, agree with all their positions… but it doesn’t matter.  Christian believers of every stripe are in this battle together like it or not. It’s time to wake up and join the fray.

See USCCB “Fortnight for Freedom” – everyone can pray. 

Do what you can where God has placed you.  The secularists have not won the war yet. Exercise your right to speak up for what you believe.  Silence is consent. 
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An Overview of Specific Examples

Pope Benedict XVI spoke last year about his worry that religious liberty in the United States is being weakened.  He called religious liberty the “most cherished of American freedoms.”  However, unfortunately, our most cherished freedom is under threat.  

Consider the following:

HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.  The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services forces religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching.  Further, the federal government tries to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit protection of their religious liberty. 

Catholic foster care and adoption services.  Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the State of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit. 

State immigration laws.  Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what they deem as “harboring” of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to these immigrants.

Discrimination against small church congregations.  New York City adopted a policy that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services, even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for many other uses.  Litigation in this case continues. 

Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services.  After years of excellent performance by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require MRS to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. 

Christian students on campus.  In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.

Forcing religious groups to host same-sex “marriage” or civil union ceremonies.  A New Jersey judge recently found that a Methodist ministry violated state law when the ministry declined to allow two women to hold a “civil union” ceremony on its private property.  Further, a civil rights complaint has been filed against the Catholic Church in Hawaii by a person requesting to use a chapel to hold a same-sex “marriage” ceremony. 

Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat?  Yes, Pope Benedict XVI recognized just last year that various attempts to limit the freedom of religion in the U.S. are particularly concerning.  

The threat to religious freedom is larger than any single case or issue and has its roots in secularism in our culture.  The Holy Father has asked for the laity to have courage to counter secularism that would “delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.”

Link to “Fortnight for Freedom” pdf flyer.