The People Who Play By The Rules Party

by Dan Proft (more by this author)
http://www.humanevents.com/
Posted 10/29/2008 ETUpdated 10/29/2008 ET

During this Presidential cycle, America has truly become the land of short term memory.Both political parties embrace socialism as if the ravages of that failed ideology were never visited upon the 20th Century. On the campus of the University of Chicago, the legacy of Milton Friedman is protested while the presence of Bill Ayers across town at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) is heralded.

Against this backdrop, I am proposing the creation of a new party. Not a party for “working families” or the “middle class”, two categories stretched beyond recognition and rendered meaningless by overuse.

I want to be explicit. All successful political parties define their constituencies and defend them. So today I am launching the People Who Play By The Rules Party.

In this country, one has to accomplish three things to virtually guarantee never living in poverty: get a high school diploma; get married after the age of 20; and get married before having a child.
The People Who Play the Rules Party is their party.

When you hear that 1 in 9 home mortgages are in foreclosure, the political-media establishment complex pay attention to the “1” in foreclosure and treat the other “8” as if they exist only as a source of spare parts to salvage the “1”.

The People Who Play By The Rules Party is for the 88% of American homeowners who, without fanfare, budgeted for the home they bought.

The People Who Play By The Rules Party is for the top 40% of income earners in this country -- which gets all the way down to $55,000 per year -- who pay 99.4% of all federal incomes taxes in the name of “fairness”.

The People Who Play By The Rules Party is for the 99.7% of U.S. employers with fewer than 500 employees, the small businesses that don’t have lobbyists and that don’t get bailed out by their Wall Street friends in government when they make bad strategic decisions. All that these employers do, the true entrepreneurial sector, is create jobs and create wealth.

The People Who Play By The Rules Party is also a compassionate party, a party that recognizes America to be a place of second chances and that desires to help those who veered off course get back on track.

What we are not, however, is Party that believes in the woozy, bipartisan la-la land of socializing the consequences of individual, private choices. If you fit this description, please stand up and be counted. For if the People Who Play By The Rules that made this country great do not, there are those who seek to institute new rules to make this country into something it is not and should never be.

Mr. Proft is a Principal of Urquhart Media LLC, a Chicago-based public affairs firm and political commentator for the Don Wade & Roma Morning Show (5-9 a.m.) on Chicago's number one news talk radio station, WLS-AM 890. He can be reached at dan@urqmedia.com. For other Dan Proft commentaries (radio & print), please visit: http://www.urqmedia.com/proft/

Obama's Not ‘New’

Back to the future.

By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.nationalreview.com/
October 29, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

There’s an old saying: The oldest word in American politics is “new.” Only in that sense is there anything new to Barack Obama.

Obama prefers the word “progressive” to “liberal” because it makes it sound like he’s shedding old liberal ideas. But if he is, it’s only to embrace older ones.

America first encountered the vision Obama espouses under Woodrow Wilson, the first progressive president and the first to openly disparage the U.S. Constitution as a hindrance to enlightened government. His new idea was to replace it with a “living constitution” that empowered government to evolve beyond that document’s constraints. The Bill of Rights, lamented the progressives, inhibited what the government can do to people, but it failed to delineate what it must do for people.

The old conception of individualism needed to be replaced by a new system in which the citizen would “marry his interests to the state,” in Wilson’s words. This would allow the state to fulfill the progressive pledge to “spread the prosperity around.” Obama shares Wilson’s faith in a living constitution and has argued that Supreme Court judges should be confirmed based on their empathy for the downtrodden.

In a vital essay in the current Claremont Review of Books, Charles Kesler notes that Obama mentions Franklin Roosevelt in his book, The Audacity of Hope, more times than any living Democratic politician. That’s not surprising, given that FDR — a veteran of the Wilson administration — carried the progressive vision of government much further than Wilson himself.

In 1944, FDR proposed updating the Bill of Rights with a new “economic bill of rights” that would define freedom not as liberty from government intrusion but as the possession of goodies provided by government. “Necessitous men are not free men,” FDR proclaimed. It’s a statement Obama surely agrees with; his advisor, Cass Sunstein, wrote a book saying FDR’s “second bill of rights” should become the defining principle of American politics.

Wilson, Roosevelt and now Obama — all their ideas sprung forth from the work of John Dewey, the most important liberal philosopher of the 20th century. Dewey held that “natural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology,” and that “organized social control” via a “socialized economy” was the only means to create “free” individuals. Dewey proposed that statism be taught as a kind of civic religion in our schools so that Americans could be raised to see the government as the solution to all of our problems.

Dewey lives on in the education reform ideas espoused by former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, often invokes Dewey when justifying his own dream of indoctrinating public school students in “social justice.” Obama doesn’t condone Ayers’ ’70s-era bombings, but he certainly subscribes to Ayers’ educational vision. In fact, Ayers’ educational work is the primary defense for the candidate’s association with an unrepentant terrorist.

Much has been made of Obama’s comment to “Joe the Plumber” that things are better when we “spread the wealth around.” The Obama campaign has rebuffed charges of “socialism” or “radicalism” with the usual eye-rolling.

But Obama’s words that day in Ohio were consistent with his past statements.

A just-unearthed 2001 interview with Obama on Chicago public radio reveals as much. Then a law school instructor and state legislator, Obama offered an eloquent indictment of the Warren Court for not being radical enough. While the court rightly gave blacks traditional rights, argued Obama, “the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth.” Unfortunately, according to Obama, “it didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.”

Officially, Obama says he is not advocating single-payer health care. That would seem too un-moderate. But in 2003, Obama told the AFL-CIO, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. ... But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

Note: If Obama wins next week, all three of his preconditions will have been met, and his colleagues in the House and Senate are itching like junkies for a new New Deal. Only in a country of amnesiacs could one claim that socialized medicine is a “new idea.”

Blowing away the dust and cobwebs from ancient wares doesn’t make them new. Save for his skin color, Obama doesn’t represent anything novel. Rather, he symbolizes a return to an older vision of the United States that was seen as the “wave of the future” eight decades ago.

I for one have no desire to go back to that future.

Correction: I write above that Woodrow Wilson was the first Progressive president. That was simply a boneheaded misstatement. Teddy Roosevelt was the frst Progressive president.

— Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning and the editor-at-large of National Review Online

Taxing Times

The economy is not a zero-sum game where someone gains what others lose.

By Thomas Sowell
http://www.tsowell.com/
October 29, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

Chief Justice John Marshall said it all in one sentence: “The power to tax is the power to destroy.”

It is not the money that is taxed away that is destroyed. What is destroyed is the wealth that does not get produced in the first place, because high taxes make its production not worthwhile.

Those who are receptive to Senator Barack Obama’s plan to increase taxes on “the rich” seem not to understand that the issue is the nation’s loss of wealth. Today, wealth can leave the country when heavy taxes threaten it — instantly, in an age of electronic financial transfers — and create jobs and economic growth overseas, instead of at home.

The two months between the time of a presidential election and the time when the new president takes office is an eternity in terms of how much money can be transferred out of the country electronically before any new high-tax laws can be enacted.

Like so much that is said glibly by Barack Obama, raising taxes on “the rich” has serious — and potentially disastrous — implications for the whole country that have been ignored amid the political euphoria.

Moreover, like so much that is proposed under the magic mantra of “change,” it is something that has been tried before in many countries and failed before in many countries.

Much wealth from Third World countries flows out to richer countries like Switzerland or the United States, where it is safer from confiscation. Jack up the capital-gains tax rate in the U.S. and more Americans can be expected to send their capital elsewhere.

That means sending jobs elsewhere, so that even people with no capital to invest lose employment opportunities.

Economists have trouble determining how many people are affected by a tax increase because those affected extend far beyond those who write the checks to pay the government.

Taxes on businesses can get passed along to consumers, in whole or in part, even though it is only the business that writes the check to the government.

Payroll taxes or government-mandated employee benefits may be paid for directly by the employer, but these costs reduce the value of an employee to the employer. If these costs add up to $10,000, for example, employers bidding for labor may bid $10,000 less in salary than they would have otherwise.

As in other cases, who writes the checks does not tell you who really pays the costs, since the worker is now $10,000 worse off. The idea that you can single out one segment of society to be taxed or mandated, for the benefit of the rest of society, is reminiscent of a San Francisco automobile dealer’s sign: “We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you.”

The economy is not a zero-sum game where someone gains what others lose. The whole economy can lose when ill-considered policies gain political popularity and stifle economic growth.

People who do not own a single share of corporate stock can still lose big time when capital gains taxes are raised — not only because jobs can follow capital out of the country, but also because millions of working people’s pension plans own corporate stock, and those people’s retirement incomes will depend on the value of those stocks, which is reduced by capital-gains taxes.

One of the biggest taxes is one that is not even called a tax: inflation. When the government spends money that it creates, it is transferring part of the value of your money to themselves. It is quiet taxation but often heavy taxation, falling on everyone, no matter how low their incomes might be.

By the end of the 20th century, a $100 bill could not buy as much as a $20 bill would have bought in the middle of that century. For people who saved cash, inflation amounted to an 80-percent tax. For others, it was an 80-percent tax minus whatever cumulative interest or dividends they received on the money they invested.

Given the staggering cost of the government’s financial bailouts, there is no way that Barack Obama’s grandiose spending plans can be carried out without inflation.

When politicians start talking about taxing “the rich,” remember the old saying: “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Today's Tune: Ryan Adams - Wonderwall

(Click on title to play video)

Music Reviews: Ryan Adams - Cardinology

CD Review: 'Cardinology' by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals

By Eric R. Danton on October 27, 2008 11:51 AM
Hartford Courant
http://www.courant.com/

In a year of momentous political change, there's a lot of focus on legacies, be they the potential doings of would-be statesmen or the chaotic leftovers of departing White House occupants. But never mind politics. Let's talk about Ryan Adams.

How will music listeners 20 or 30 years from now view the New York singer and songwriter? They'll have plenty of examples of his work: Adams, 33, is perhaps the most publicly prolific artist of his generation, having released 10 full-length solo albums since 2000, including "Cardinology" (Lost Highway), his latest with his band, the Cardinals.

Then there's "20:20," the as-yet unreleased boxed set said to comprise an additional five full-length albums. Add to that the three records he made with Whiskeytown, and a collection of tunes from the Finger, his trash-punk side project with Jesse Malin, and we're talking 19 albums since 1995. (Plus, Adams produced and played guitar on Malin's 2003 solo debut and produced a 2006 album by Willie Nelson.)

That's a tremendous outpouring of music. Not all of it is top-notch, of course, but there are more highs than lows, and a shocking amount of his material is flat-out brilliant: the deeply emotional songs on "Heartbreaker," the fractured country-rock of "Jacksonville City Nights" and tunes like "The Rescue Blues" and "La Cienega Just Smiled" from "Gold," and "Hallelujah" and "Dear Chicago" from the stylistic grab-bag b-sides album "Demolition."

It's possible, though, that Adams has only recently hit his stride -- a funny thing to say, given how much he's released. Yet his 2007 album "Easy Tiger" was his most focused and cohesive so far, and the one on which he sounded the most comfortable with himself. "Cardinology" is every bit as good on a dozen compact tunes in the same rootsy vein.

The songs are mostly built around acoustic and electric guitars, with flourishes from steel guitar and piano and even an Allman Bros.-style dual-guitar solo on "Like Yesterday." Adams adds a subtle vintage-soul touch via Memphis on a couple tunes, particularly with the hollow, coppery guitar lick on "Fix It" and the jangling chords and creeping Wurlitzer organ on the mournfully breezy "Let Us Down Easy."

There's a different kind of soul at work on the other songs. Adams has always excelled at wrenching relationship post-mortems, and he contributes some gems here. Bright, bristling electric guitar powers "Go Easy" as he muses on how often he still thinks about an ex, while terse acoustic guitar frames deeper heartache in his plaintive vocals on "Crossed Out Name."

With its poignant beauty and powerful songwriting, Adams' latest is, well, the latest in a string of ever-better sad-bastard records. In fact, with so much material to choose from, the most difficult task for future listeners considering his musical legacy may well be figuring out where to begin. "Cardinology" is as fine a place as any.


(Photo by Jon Graboff)

Ryan Adams - Cardinology

By Will Hermes
http://www.rollingstone.com/
October 30, 2008

Ryan Adams' drug problems and public tantrums have often overshadowed his music. But Cardinology may put an end to that. His first release in a year — notable for a guy who put out three (albeit spotty) full-lengths in 2005 — it's the record he has spent the past few years promising but never quite delivering. Drunk on melody, high on musical history, but all his own, the record throbs with great playing and singing, and thrums with hope without pimping easy platitudes. It's one of the best things he's ever done.

Cardinology is a classic-rock record to the bone, nodding to influences that Adams has conjured before but never so well: the country rock of the Grateful Dead and Gram Parsons, the arena anthems of U2. It begins with four killers in a row: "Born Into a Light" prays for faith amid troubles over a Tex-Mex melody, weepy pedal steel and gospel-tinged vocals; "Go Easy" is a breathless love pledge with heartland-rock hooks; "Fix It" is a plea for psychic repair that meshes a slithery R&B groove with a soaring Bono-style chorus; and "Magick" is pure mindless garage-rock pleasure, notwithstanding the geopolitical apocalypse lurking in its lyrics ("You're like a missile strike/Government goes underground/Warhead on legs/What goes around comes around"). Then things settle down a bit — but despite overcooked nautical metaphors on "Sink Ships," they never slack. Cardinology's riveting finale is "Stop," a fragile piano ballad sung in a shaky voice that slowly gains strength and takes flight. It's clearly about rehab, and while rehab rock may be a bit of an oxymoron, Adams — who has reportedly cleaned up — defines a genre here. If it helps undermine some of the bogus junkie myths about hard drugs and creativity, all the better.

Ryan Adams finds groove with band the Cardinals

Reuters/Billboard
October 25, 2008, 1:05 pm


NEW YORK (Billboard) - Ryan Adams' music is often overshadowed by his eccentric behavior and the pure volume of his recorded output. But on "Cardinology," due Tuesday , his songs take center stage.

In fact, the alt-country/rock singer-songwriter is so happy with the evolution of his band, the Cardinals, over the course of five albums in the past three years that he says he'd be content if his name was dropped entirely from the packaging. "The stuff we do communally is 10 times better than the stuff I come up with," he says.

Adams may be overstating things a little, and such comments should be taken with a grain of salt from a guy who moments earlier was going off on a tangent about '80s pop metal ("Hey, if Def Leppard started a cooking school, they'd be Chef Leppard!"). But there's no question the camaraderie he shares with guitarist Neal Casal, drummer Brad Pemberton, pedal steel player Jon Graboff and bassist Chris Feinstein has helped him create one of the most focused albums of his career.

On "Cardinology," which fulfills Adams' contract with Lost Highway, the label for which he has recorded since 2000, the artist details his battles with substance abuse and his struggles to sustain relationships with remarkable clarity, best heard on the anthemic "Cobwebs," the drumless "Crossed Out Name," the harmony-rich "Natural Ghost" ("You make me feel like I'm not here/But I am/More than you think I am") and the soft, Wilco-esque ballad "Evergreen."

"We did a really great record that sounds totally like the Cardinals," Adams says with pride. "It's pretty much live on the floor. I think we did it in a really brave way. We did it raw, like we were doing a gig."

ALL GROWN UP

Adams' newfound clarity is music to the ears of Lost Highway chairman Luke Lewis. "He's acting grown-up right now," he says with a laugh. "I kind of miss the petulant child occasionally."

Adams offers an amusingly unfiltered look into his life at Cardinology.com, where he posts everything from set lists and live clips to fan mail, rants about his favorite Sonic Youth albums and corny fake hip-hop songs he wrote on the tour bus while bored.

After a Halloween show at Harlem's Apollo Theatre, the band begins a short European tour Nov. 8 in Dublin. Eleven December dates opening for Oasis in North America will close out the year, with more headlining shows on tap for February.

With "Cardinology" ready to hit the market, Lewis is somewhat wistful about the likely end of his often rocky working relationship with Adams. The pair fought frequently over how much music Adams could -- or should -- release. Through it all, though, Lewis remained the musician's "biggest fan."

"We took some pretty harsh criticism for putting out so much music, but we could have put out more," he says. (In 2009, Lost Highway will issue an Adams anthology featuring several new songs.) "As much as we've tried to accommodate him by putting out a lot of records, a major-label deal is probably a bit restrictive for Ryan. My sense is he'd be better served by being independent, and by that I mean totally independent."

Indeed, Adams is already looking past "Cardinology" and dreaming about where he and his bandmates will go next. "S--t's going to get weird and awesome," he says. "Because we're into bands like Oasis and Foo Fighters : big, monolithic rock bands who really explore all those areas. That's what Cardinals is. That's the work I want to do."


Ryan Adams calls his own shots

BY JEFF MIERS
The Buffalo News Pop Music Critic
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/index.html
Updated: 10/24/08 11:19 AM

A few years back — 2005, to be exact — Ryan Adams brought his then-new band, the Cardinals, to the Town Ballroom for a highly anticipated show. At the time, Adams was the “it” boy, a critically lauded uber-auteur whose ability to compose and record new material by the truckload gave new heft to the term “prolific.”

Though he crept in on the red carpet rolled out for the ascendency of “alt-country” — something he helped push to the forefront as a member of Whiskeytown, and even more so with his solo debut, “Heartbreaker” — Adams was preparing to leave such genre definitions behind. His audience, however, didn’t seem to be ready for him to do so, and a backlash against Adams — who’d begun releasing a few albums a year, unlike anyone else in his peer group — was on the upswing.

The Town Ballroom gig found Adams and his band throwing caution (and audience expectations) to the wind. Adams on record was mostly about brevity and concision; he was essentially viewed as a hipster version of the singer-songwriter model, and as such, was expected to come out and play his songs, pretty much as they appeared on the albums those assembled had purchased, copied, digitally downloaded or just plain stolen.

This didn’t happen. Instead, Adams appeared with a big Gibson semi-hollow-body guitar, a pair of nerd specs perched on his nose, his hair a shock of Mad Scientist-like bed-head, and proceeded to lead the band through a three-hour set of songs mostly from the then-new “Cold Roses” double-album. That was bad enough for some. But then Adams and Co. proceeded to do something that the hipster base clearly felt was akin to switching parties mid-term: They jammed.

Oh, the humanity! Improvising, stretching out songs, indulging one’s musicianship and inviting the audience to come along for the trip — this is what jam bands did, not what the new breed of altcountry snob had in mind at all. About halfway through the Town Ballroom show, I began to feel as if I’d stumbled into a time warp, where a crowd of Sex Pistols and Clash fans had stumbled inadvertently into a Grateful Dead concert.

It was, in a word, awesome!

It should be acknowledged that Adams did seem to be out of it that night. His between-song banter was obtuse at best, downright nutty at worst. Whenever the music stopped and he was left to confront the assembled audience, he looked like he was unsure of where he was and why he was there. Adams appeared to be ill at ease. Some among the crowd suggested to me that this was simply a result of him being quite wasted.

I’m not so sure. Musically, the band was in amazing form, blending country, anthemic ’80s alternative, pop, rock and folk, producing a hybrid that echoed Neil Young, the Byrds, Gram Parsons, U2 and — horror of horrors! — the Grateful Dead. It seemed to me that Adams was going through a public birthing process and, naturally, this type of thing can be uncomfortable. It was clear, though, that Adams knew what he was doing.

Skeptics had their worst suspicions confirmed when, a short time after the Town Ballroom show, Adams turned up at the Bay Area Music Awards to jam with a whole bunch of hippies and jam-band types, among them, the Dead’s Phil Lesh. Last year’s “Easy Tiger” even pictured Adams and Lesh sharing a laugh in its liner notes. This was, again, awesome.

Having confounded expectations, gotten sober and managed to shed the strictures of his own skin, Adams now seems to be ready to make peace with his audience and his muse alike. On Wednesday, he began streaming his new album with the Cardinals, “Cardinology,” on the “social music discovery service” iLike. Visitors to the site could listen to the whole album, for free, as many times as they desired, for 48 hours. If they chose to preorder the “Cardinology” album — which gets its official release on Tuesday — they were given a download of one of its songs, “Fix It,” as well as a non-album bonus track. Adams is not the first artist to go this route by any means, but it’s a model that suits his restless artistic nature like a pair of spandex biker shorts.

It’s interesting to ponder what might’ve happened had this sort of technology been available to artists in the latter ’60s. Maybe Bob Dylan would’ve given his “followers” the virtual middle finger by “going electric” via the Web. Would “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” or “Penny Lane” have been made available as bonus tracks for Beatles fans eager to get a preview of a new Beatles album? Maybe the Stones could’ve made “Satanic Majesties” a bonus companion album available only as a download, which might’ve made it a much more palatable exercise in self-indulgence (and drug consumption). Who knows? The good news is, the very technology that sunk the music business in recent years is now beginning to be employed as a tool of expression and communication by the artists themselves. That’s cool.

None of this would matter much if “Cardinology” wasn’t such a fantastic Ryan Adams album. It certainly numbers among his best. And hearing it, legally, a week before its official release reminds me of being a preteen who’d stay awake late on school nights to listen to the “album hour,” when rock DJs would spin an entire new album before listeners could buy it.

It’s all starting to make sense again.•

jmiers@buffnews.com

Obama's First 100 Days—Amnesty Will Just Be The Start

October 27, 2008

By Patrick J. Buchanan
http://www.vdare.com/
Patrick J. Buchanan Archive

Undeniably, a powerful tide is running for the Democratic Party, with one week left to Election Day.

Bush's approval rating is 27 percent, just above Richard Nixon's Watergate nadir and almost down to Carter-Truman lows. After each of those presidents reached their floors—in 1952, 1974, 1980—the opposition party captured the White House.

Moreover, 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans think the nation is on the wrong course, and since mid-September, when McCain was still slightly ahead, the Dow has lost 4,000 points—$5 trillion to $6 trillion in value.

Leading now by eight points in an average of national polls, Barack Obama has other advantages.
Not a single blue state is regarded as imperiled or even a toss-up, while Obama leads in six crucial red states: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri and Colorado. Should McCain lose one of the six, he would have to win Pennsylvania to compensate for the lost electoral votes. But the latest Pennsylvania polls show Barack with a double-digit lead.

Lately moving into the toss-up category are Nevada, North Dakota, Montana and Indiana. All voted twice for George W. Bush.

Not only is Obama ahead in the state and national polls, he has more money, is running far more ads, has a superior organization on the ground, attracts larger crowds, and has greater enthusiasm and more media in camp. And new voter registrations heavily favor the Democrats.

Though Congress is regarded by Americans with a disdain bordering on disgust—five of six Americans think it has done a poor job—Democratic majorities are certain to grow. Indeed, with Democrats favored by 10 points over Republicans, Nancy Pelosi's majority could grow by 25 seats and Harry Reid could find himself with a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators.

Democrats already have 49, plus two independents: Socialist Bernie Sanders and Independent Joe Lieberman. Their challengers are now ahead in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado, with a chance of picking up Georgia, Alaska, Kentucky and Mississippi.

We may be looking at a reverse of 1980, when Reagan won a 10-point victory over Jimmy Carter, and Republicans took the Senate and, working with Boll Weevil Democrats, effective control of the House.

With his tax cuts, defense buildup and rollback policy against the "Evil Empire," Reagan gave us some of the best years of our lives, culminating in America's epochal victory in the Cold War.
What does the triumvirate of Obama-Pelosi-Reid offer?

Rep. Barney Frank is calling for new tax hikes on the most successful and a 25 percent across-the-board slash in national defense. Sen. John Kerry is talking up new and massive federal spending, a la FDR's New Deal. Specifically, we can almost surely expect:

* Swift amnesty for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and a drive to make them citizens and register them, as in the Bill Clinton years. This will mean that Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona will soon move out of reach for GOP presidential candidates, as has California.

* Border security will go on the backburner, and America will have a virtual open border with a Mexico of 110 million.

* Taxes will be raised on the top 5 percent of wage-earners, who now carry 60 percent of the U.S. income tax burden, and tens of millions of checks will be sent out to the 40 percent of wage-earners who pay no federal income tax. Like the man said, redistribute the wealth, spread it around.

* Social Security taxes will be raised on the most successful among us, and capital gains taxes will be raised from 15 percent to 20 percent. The Bush tax cuts will be repealed, and death taxes reimposed.

* Two or three more liberal activists of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg-John Paul Stevens stripe will be named to the Supreme Court. U.S. district and appellate courts will be stacked with "progressives."

* Special protections for homosexuals will be written into all civil rights laws, and gays and lesbians in the military will be invited to come out of the closet. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dead.

* The homosexual marriages that state judges have forced California, Massachusetts and Connecticut to recognize, an Obama Congress or Obama court will require all 50 states to recognize.

* A "Freedom of Choice Act" nullifying all state restrictions on abortions will be enacted. America will become the most pro-abortion nation on earth.

* Affirmative action—hiring and promotions based on race, sex and sexual orientation until specified quotas are reached—will be rigorously enforced throughout the U.S. government and private sector.

* Universal health insurance will be enacted, covering legal and illegal immigrants, providing another powerful magnet for the world to come to America, if necessary by breaching her borders.

* A federal bailout of states and municipalities to keep state and local governments spending up could come in December or early next year.

* The first trillion-dollar deficit will be run in the first year of an Obama presidency. It will be the first of many.

Welcome to Obamaland!

- Patrick J. Buchanan needs no introduction to VDARE.COM readers; his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, can be ordered from Amazon.com. His latest book is Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, reviewed here by Paul Craig Roberts.

Shame, Cubed

October 27, 2008, 7:00 a.m.

Three separate reasons to be appalled, each more disgusting than the last.

By Bill Whittle
http://www.nationalreview.com/

The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack Obama on WBEZ, a Chicago public radio station. And this time, Barack Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off. Speaking on a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American — or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man’s beliefs and affiliations.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Barack Obama, in 2001:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.

A caller then helpfully asks: “The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”

Obama replies:

You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”

THE FIRST CIRCLE OF SHAME

There is nothing vague or ambiguous about this. Nothing.

From the top: “…The Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.”

If the second highlighted phrase had been there without the first, Obama’s defenders would have bent over backwards trying to spin the meaning of “political and economic justice.” We all know what political and economic justice means, because Barack Obama has already made it crystal clear a second earlier: It means redistribution of wealth. Not the creation of wealth and certainly not the creation of opportunity, but simply taking money from the successful and hard-working and distributing it to those whom the government decides “deserve” it.

This redistribution of wealth, he states, “essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.” It is an administrative task. Not suitable for the courts. More suitable for the chief executive.

Now that’s just garden-variety socialism, which apparently is not a big deal to may voters. So I would appeal to any American who claims to love the Constitution and to revere the Founding Fathers… I will not only appeal to you, I will beg you, as one American citizen to another, to consider this next statement with as much care as you can possibly bring to bear: “And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

The United States of America — five percent of the world’s population — leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally — and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due — due entirely — to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States.

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population.

Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but rather as a fatal flaw: “…One of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”

There is no room for wiggle or misunderstanding here. This is not edited copy. There is nothing out of context; for the entire thing is context — the context of what Barack Obama believes. You and I do not have to guess at what he believes or try to interpret what he believes. He says what he believes.

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

If this does not frighten you — regardless of your political affiliation — then you deserve what this man will deliver with both houses of Congress, a filibuster-proof Senate, and, to quote Senator Obama again, “a righteous wind at our backs.”

That a man so clear in his understanding of the Constitution, and so opposed to the basic tenets it provides against tyranny and the abuse of power, can run for president of the United States is shameful enough.

We’re just getting started.

THE SECOND CIRCLE OF SHAME

Mercifully shorter than the first, and simply this: I happen to know the person who found this audio. It is an individual person, with no more resources than a desire to know everything that he or she can about who might be the next president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world.

I know that this person does not have teams of highly paid professionals, does not work out of a corner office in a skyscraper in New York, does not have access to all of the subtle and hidden conduits of information … who possesses no network television stations, owns no satellite time, does not receive billions in advertising dollars, and has a staff of exactly one.

I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now.

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation.

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

There is a special hell for you “journalists” out there, a hell made specifically for you narcissists and elitists who think you have the right to determine which information is passed on to the electorate and which is not.

That hell — your own personal hell — is a fiery lake of irrelevance, blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn. You’ve earned it.

THE THIRD CIRCLE OF SHAME

This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber. What will be left of my friend, and my friend’s family, I wonder, when the press is finished with them?

— Bill Whittle lives in Los Angeles and is an on-air commentator for www.pjtv.com. You can find him online at www.ejectejecteject.com.

The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama’s Khalidi Bash Tape

October 27, 2008, 6:00 a.m.

Obama, Ayers, and PLO supporters toast Edward Said’s successor, but the press doesn’t think it’s quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

http://www.nationalreview.com/

From left to right, Michelle Obama, then Illinois state senator Barack Obama, Columbia University Professor Edward Said and Mariam Said at a May 1998 Arab community event in Chicago at which Edward Said gave the keynote speech. (Image from archives of Ali Abunimah)

Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.

Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.

Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?

Do we really have to ask?

So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat? At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University’s Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.

The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi’s allies, colleagues, and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat’s press agency.

Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?

Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.

Back in April, the Times published a gentle story about the fete. Reporter Peter Wallsten avoided, for example, any mention of the inconvenient fact that the revelers included Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife and fellow Weatherman terrorist. These self-professed revolutionary Leftists are friendly with both Obama and Khalidi — indeed, researcher Stanley Kurtz has noted that Ayers and Khalidi were “best friends.” (And — small world! — it turns out that the Obamas are extremely close to the Khalidis, who have reportedly babysat the Obama children.)

Nor did the Times report the party was thrown by AAAN. Wallsten does tell us that the AAAN received grants from the Leftist Woods Fund when Obama was on its board — but, besides understating the amount (it was $75,000, not $40,000), the Times mentions neither that Ayers was also on the Woods board at the time nor that AAAN is rabidly anti-Israel. (Though the organization regards Israel as illegitimate and has sought to justify Palestinian terrorism, Wallsten describes the AAAN as “a social service group.”)

Perhaps even more inconveniently, the Times also let slip that it had obtained a videotape of the party.

Wallsten’s story is worth excerpting at length:

It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."...[T]he warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.

At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."

One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."

Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than … his opponents for the White House....At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter.

In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel — a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections.

So why is the Times sitting on the videotape of the Khalidi festivities? Given Obama's (preposterous) claims that he didn’t know Ayers that well and was unfamiliar with Ayers’s views, why didn't the Times report that Ayers and Dohrn were at the bash? Was it not worth mentioning the remarkable coincidence that both Obama and Ayers — the “education reform” allies who barely know each other … except to the extent they together doled out tens of millions of dollars to Leftist agitators, attacked the criminal justice system, and raved about each others books — just happen to be intimate friends of the same anti-American Israel-basher? (Despite having watched the videotape, Wallsten told Gateway Pundit he “did not know” whether Ayers was there.)

Why won’t the Times tell us what was said in the various Khalidi testimonials? On that score, Ayers and Dohrn have always had characteristically noxious views on the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. And, true to form, they have always been quite open about them. There is no reason to believe those views have ever changed. Here, for example, is what they had to say in Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground’s 1974 Communist manifesto (emphasis in original):

Palestinian independence is opposed with reactionary schemes by Jordan, completely opposed with military terror by Israel, and manipulated by the U.S. The U.S.-sponsored notion of stability and status-quo in the Mideast is an attempt to preserve U.S. imperialist control of oil, using zionist power as the cat's paw. The Mideast has become a world focus of struggles over oil resources and control of strategic sea and air routes. Yet the Palestinian struggle is at the heart of other conflicts in the Mideast. Only the Palestinians can determine the solution which reflects the aspirations of the Palestinian people. No "settlements" in the Mideast which exclude the Palestinians will resolve the conflict. Palestinian liberation will not be suppressed.

The U.S. people have been seriously deceived about the Palestinians and Israel. This calls for a campaign to educate and focus attention on the true situation: teach-ins, debates, and open clear support for Palestinian liberation; reading about the Palestinian movement—The Disinherited by Fawaz Turki, Enemy of the Sun; opposing U.S. aid to Israel. Our silence or acceptance of pro-zionist policy is a form of complicity with U.S.-backed aggression and terror, and a betrayal of internationalism.

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!

U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST!

END AID TO ISRAEL!

Barack Obama wouldn’t possibly let something like that pass without a spirited defense of the Israel he tells us he so staunchly supports … would he? I guess to answer that question, we’d have to know what was on the tape.

But who has time for such trifles? After all, isn’t Diana Vreeland about to critique Sarah Palin’s sartorial splendor?

— National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy chairs the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’s Center for Law & Counterterrorism and is the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books 2008).

Book Review: "Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life" by Colin Duriez

http://www.outwalking.net/
Sunday, July 27, 2008

Finally, Objectivity: A Review of Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, by Colin Duriez

As an admirer of Francis Schaeffer, one of the saddest things I have witnessed during the last few years is the attempts by both his own son and by other detractors to impugn his integrity or, at least, to redefine him as something he was not. Reading son Frank Schaeffer’s memoir, both father and mother are portrayed negatively, Francis as a reclusive, depressed, sometimes suicidal man and Edith as a perfectionist nut. Well, perhaps the title says it all --- “Crazy for God.” This book by biographer Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, should set the record straight.

Colin Duriez is sympathetic toward the Schaeffers and deeply appreciative of the time he studied under Francis, yet at the same time he is engaged in writing an authentic and carefully researched biography, of telling “true Truth” (to use Schaeffer’s nomenclature) about this extraordinary pastor, author, apologist, and founder of L’Abri, a worldwide ministry to seekers of truth. While noting Frank Schaeffer’s very subjective memoir, and even quoting from it on occasion, he acknowledges that it added little to what he already knew (little, that is, that can be documented, that actually squares with reality). What he takes issue with is Frank’s contention that his father kept up a “facade of conviction” in his latter years, something he says is not borne out by the evidence. And that’s about all we hear of the strange memoir until near the end of the book where, in a footnote, Duriez cannot seem to restrain his feelings, noting that “he [Frank] is at times in error over fact or interpretation . . . in his unashamedly subjective and at times bizarre memoir.” That’s a restrained critique by a historian.

But enough of what the book is not. What it is is the best biographical treatment of the man and his mission that has ever been written --- scholarly, without being pedantic or lifeless; sufficiently nuanced, without chasing every thread of the man’s life and work; sympathetic, and yet not avoiding the truth about the man’s weaknesses and struggles. If you want to feel what animated Francis and Edith Schaeffer, to be caught up in the emotion of what they felt, read Edith’s Tapestry and L’Abri. (Set aside sufficient time for their combined 906 pages, however!) But this is the biography for most to read, as it is concise and yet comprehensive enough not to miss any important detail of their story.

In eight chapters and a total of 208 pages, Duriez covers Schaeffer from birth in 1912 until death in 1984 from cancer. Along the way he speaks of his conversion, his years as a pastor, his involvement with the separatist movement and subsequent divergence from it, the L’Abri years, and the latter years of films and more political involvement. What emerges is a portrait of a man who, like any Christian, matured in faith and whose understanding of scripture and culture developed. And yet, looking at Francis Schaeffer’s whole life, there no sense that he was a wholly different person in 1975 than in 1955. What comes across is his integrity and consistency. And while Duriez acknowledges Schaeffer’s occasional anger or impatience, and even his depression, none of this does anything to damage his reputation. They endear him to us, demonstrating his humanity and his honesty (as these failings and struggles were acknowledged by him to those who knew him).

For most who are familiar with the Schaeffers and who have, perhaps, read Tapestry and L’Abri, much of what is written here will be familiar and unsurprising. What Duriez’s succinct book does, however, is provide a kind of condensation for those much longer stories. I found myself drawn back into memories of some details contained in those books that were not included here, a very helpful effect. But the book is more than a revised Tapestry. It also contains excerpts of fresh interviews with the daughters of Francis and Edith Schaeffer: Priscilla, Susan, and Debbie. Once again, there are no surprises, and yet it is helpful to hear their memories and to hear the respect they had for their parents. Then are many other interviews as well, with L’Abri workers like Os Guinness and Dick and Marti Keyes, and perhaps going back farther than any other, with Hurvey and Dorothy Woodson (who actually had a L’Abri in Italy in the late 1950s). Dorothy said that “When Mr. Schaeffer would talk to you, there was nothing else in the world that was going on. He was totally focused on you and what you were talking about. . . .” Great comment. And that’s how it goes. Real insights are given into the character of the man. Much is there to emulate.

I recommend Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life. If you think you already know him, this summary study of his character will sharpen your appreciation for him. If you don’t know much about him, you’ll meet someone you want to know better. And if all you’ve read is Frank Schaeffer’s Crazy for God, remedy ignorance: get the “true Truth” here.

Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 05:02 PM in Books, The Tapestry Project Permalink


Book Review of Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life

by Terry Delaney on July 21, 2008
http://saidatsouthern.com/
Theology with a Southern accent (Jdg 12:5-6)

Duriez, Colin. Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life.
Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008.
221pp. $24.99.
Buy From Westminster Bookstore

Introduction

Colin Duriez was fortunate enough to not only have studied under Schaeffer when he was younger, but he was also able to interview him about his life when Schaeffer was near the end of his time here on earth. In this authoritative biography of one the great philosophical minds of the 20th century, Duriez writes from much oral history from many around the world who knew Francis Schaeffer. He also used the archives found in the Presbyterian Church of America as well as the many other writings by Francis Schaeffer and other family members. Needless to say, the subject of this book was studied and researched exhaustively before pen was put to paper.

Colin Duriez has written numerous other books ranging from literary works (six books) to biographies (three if you include this one) and a history book entitled AD 33: The Year that Changed the World. When Duriez writes a biography, you get the feeling that he attempted his best to walk a mile in that man’s shoes.

Summary of Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life

The book is a bit different in that it approaches the earlier life and “career” of Francis Schaeffer with much more detail than most other biographies. The chapters are broken down chronologically into eight sections. The first six sections comprise the first forty-eight years of his life (before L’Abri) while the final two chapters blitz one through the last twenty-four years of his pilgrimage.

Colin spends a chapter detailing his childhood leading up to Schaeffer’s role as a pastor and denominationalist in what would later come to be known as the PCA (Presbyterian Church of America). Of interest to some readers may be learning how much J. Gresham Machen influenced the young Schaeffer in his ministry. During this time in his life, he resided in St. Louis, Missouri.

The middle chapters detail the travels of the Schaeffer family from Holland to Switzerland and stops in between. By the end of the book, we wind up in L’Abri where Schaeffer set up a school of sorts to teach people how to wrestle with the culture and to look at situations from another’s point of view.

Perhaps the most poignant part of the book is at the very end where Duriez shares his interview with Schaeffer from 10 September 1980. In this interview, Schaeffer takes a very introspective look back at his life. This conversation is an interesting peek into the person we know as Francis Schaeffer. What is most amazing is to see how Schaeffer lived what he believed and how what he believed impacted his worldview thus changing his life forever.

Critique of Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life

I thought Duriez did a wonderful job of showing the early life of Francis Schaeffer to an audience that may not be aware of how the man came to be the man we know. What I would have liked to have seen is a bit more detail on the final twenty-four years of his life. I realize there is quite a bit of writings regarding this time frame in Schaeffer’s life, but I believe we all would have been blessed all the more to have read it from the detailed mind of Colin Duriez.

The writing style was extremely engaging. I could tell that much of what was written down came through oral history and conversation. Rarely was there a dry paragraph in the book. What I mean by “dry” is that most biographers feel the need to quote extensively from the works of the person about whom they are writing. While Duriez does quote extensively from Schaeffer, he does so strategically and with great care.

Conclusion

This is a must read for anyone who wants to know what made this prophet of the 20th century tick. Not only is this book a quick read, but it could easily serve as a devotional of sorts. Many Christian college students would do themselves a favor if they were to pick this book up and read it from cover to cover and plumb the depths of one of the greatest minds (not limited to just Christianity) in the 20th century.

Francis Schaeffer still helps people understand what they believe and why they believe it even 25 years after his death. We would all do well to sit at his feet and learn how God used this man to reach so many people.

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Power in hands of few replaces liberty for all

By John Kass
Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
October 26, 2008

On those nights when they were young, they smoked pot in the streets and listened to Dylan in the car and dreamed of the risks they'd take.

But now, as Baby Boomers grow old, they welcome those police surveillance cameras on the light poles outside their homes, thinking the cameras make them safe. And they rush toward the warm embrace of big government and promised security.

What happened?

I suppose it's partly a function of age and the caution that comes with it. You see this on the highway. The kid keeps his foot on the gas through the turns. He can't imagine himself as the geezer in the next lane, riding the brakes even when the road runs straight. But age happens, and with it comes uncertainty.

Politically, the needs of the Boomers will be met, as they always have been, given the large numbers that allow Boomers to polish the lens through which America sees itself. In the '70s, the slogan was "Do your own thing." But today's slogan might be "Washington, please save us."

Fear happens. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, and the federal government—always eager to extend its reach—built its massive security bureaucracy, down to those spy cameras installed on the streetlights of so many cities and towns, thrilling America's mayors and the police chiefs. We're told the cameras keep us safe. We've become used to the eyes.

And when the economic crisis happened—when the credit bubble burst and the excesses of Wall Street caught up with us, and so many people lost their jobs and their retirement savings got whacked, and they started losing their homes—naturally people became fearful.

When you're worried about your family, you're not interested in the history of blame. You're interested in keeping a roof over their heads. You're interested in solutions. The solution so many want these days is more government.

Some of that is a proper demand for reasonable regulations on the markets and on lending that were eased during the Clinton years and continued. But today's crisis has also led to the massive federal bailout of the financial industry, with Washington picking who wins and who loses. We're told that this arrangement is only temporary. But partnerships involving almost a trillion dollars that grant even greater leverage to Washington have a way of becoming quite terribly permanent.

So the leviathan grows, and the bureaucrats and the corporate types attached to this bailout deal see the world in strikingly similar terms. They share the same type of mind and they share the common purpose of maintaining the status quo. Why wouldn't they? They're on the inside.

The casualty will be the entrepreneurs, those on the outside, the ones who createthe spark and offer up the products or the ideas that fire the economy. The entrepreneurial mind isn't willing to settle and wants to make more than $250,000 in salary or whatever the federal government deems proper. They don't want proper. What they want is to take risks and reach the American Dream.

Such men and women will be on the outside for decades now. When they get close to victory they'll get whacked with tax increases and the rug will be pulled out from under them. The rich will have their wealth. But new entrepreneurs will be hamstrung and without that creative spark, no government-administered economic system can survive. History has taught us this over and over again.

The bailout happened so quickly we haven't fully considered the effects. Will we recognize America 40 years from now? How long before we understand how fundamentally America has changed? What kind of generational conflicts will this new government market policy instigate? Will our children speak of liberty, as we once did before we forgot?

These days, liberty isn't in vogue. It's so, so olde. We forget to consider liberty as America's founders conceived it—as one of the rights given us by God. Liberty was something an entrepreneur could understand. But even before this economic crisis Americans were given a new word from the corporatist/bureaucrat dictionary: empowerment.

"Empowerment" kinda, sorta evokes liberty but not really, since "empowerment" is something a government confers upon its people (or its serfs) when government decides the serfs (people) are ready.

While writing this I received one of those chain e-mails, but this one wasn't about a politician or the widow of the Nigerian oil minister. It was about how to catch wild pigs. I don't know if you could actually catch wild pigs this way, but it really doesn't matter. In this method, you throw bucketfuls of corn on the forest floor. The pigs eat the corn. A month later you put up one side of a fence and more corn. Eventually, the pigs return, get used to the fence and keep eating. And another side of fence and more corn and so on, until you close the gate and you've caught the pigs. They've lost their freedom. They can't figure out what's happened.

We're not pigs, we're Americans, rightfully worried about the economic future. But the times are changing, and the Boomers should consider the costs and consequences of what they're being offered by our politicians before the last side of the fence goes up.

jskass@tribune.com

Stopping Dr. Statism

By George F. Will
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Sunday, October 26, 2008; B07

On Election Day, Arizonans can give the nation the gift of a good example. They can enact a measure that could shape the health-care debate that will arrest or accelerate the nation's slide into statism. Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, would put the following language into Arizona's Constitution:


Barack Obama holds a press conference at a Chicago restaurant in 2004.

"Because all people should have the right to make decisions about their health care, no law shall be passed that restricts a person's freedom of choice of private health care systems or private plans of any type. No law shall interfere with a person's or entity's right to pay directly for lawful medical services, nor shall any law impose a penalty or fine, of any type, for choosing to obtain or decline health care coverage or for participation in any particular health care system or plan."

What do those people who oppose Proposition 101 favor? Some support legislation sponsored by the Democratic leader in the state House of Representatives. It would establish a severe single-payer system, proscribing private health insurance in the state and requiring almost everyone not on Medicare to enroll in a state health-care program. Under that program, a state commission would stipulate the menu of services and medications and could even decide which hospitals could add which technologies.

A similar bill reached the desk of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed it, partly because it lacked a funding mechanism. Such legislation essentially aims to replicate Canada's system, under which, generally speaking, medically necessary physician and hospital services are available only from the government health insurance system.

Opponents of Proposition 101 are against what it would guarantee, including the right of individuals to pay directly for medical services without needing the permission of a third party. Proposition 101 would emancipate service providers from requirements that they either charge fees set by the state or charge nothing.

Proposition 101 would prevent employer or individual mandates of the sort imposed in Massachusetts. That is, it would prevent "pay or play" systems, under which employers must either pay for employees' health insurance or pay into a state pool that finances insurance for them.

In the name of cost control, but actually in the service of self-serving crony semi-capitalism, some opponents of Proposition 101 want to restrict access to alternative services. These opponents include some government bureaucrats who run Arizona's Medicaid system, and some hospitals, established health insurers and physicians groups that understand that it is easier to lobby for government contracts than it is to persuade individuals to purchase this or that product.

Proposition 101 would protect Arizonans not only against abridgements of their liberties by their state government but also perhaps against comparable actions by the federal government. Clint Bolick, director of the Goldwater Institute's Center for Constitutional Litigation, believes that if Washington were to enact a national health insurance program of prescriptive regulations, Proposition 101 would trigger an epochal constitutional clash "between state sovereignty and national power."

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court said: "The Constitution established a system of 'dual sovereignty.' . . . It is an essential attribute of the states' retained sovereignty that they remain independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of authority." Therefore, says Bolick, any national health insurance scheme would be vulnerable to constitutional challenge because it would impermissibly command actions by state officials. Furthermore, Bolick says: "It is a bedrock principle of constitutional law that the federal Constitution established the floor for the protection of individual liberties; state constitutions may provide additional protections."
Now, Proposition 101's language leaves ample room for litigation about what would constitute an impermissible abridgment of an individual's right to "make decisions" about health care. Still, if Arizonans pass Proposition 101, residents of other states will have a template for resistance to contemporary liberalism's next lunge toward its unvarying goal -- enlargement of government supervision of our lives.

Proposition 101's premise is: "The market is the best mechanism ever invented for efficiently allocating resources to maximize production" and "there is a connection between the freedom of the marketplace and freedom more generally." So the New York Times was told in August by Barack Obama, who, no stickler for consistency, said in 2003, "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan." As an earlier occupant of the Senate seat Obama occupies -- Everett Dirksen -- said: "I live by my principles, and one of my principles is flexibility."

georgewill@washpost.com

Book Review: "Extreme Measures" by Vince Flynn

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
http://www.bookreporter.com/index.asp
October 24, 2008

EXTREME MEASURES
Vince Flynn
Atria Books
Political Thriller
ISBN: 9780743270427

- Read an Excerpt

If I had the mythical wallet of endless wealth, I would buy up a few hundred thousand copies of EXTREME MEASURES, Vince Flynn’s latest Mitch Rapp novel, and start passing them out on street corners. Given that it’s that time again, when the American electorate is about to decide who is going to drive the Lexus for the next four years, one needs to make informed decisions. And if you haven’t considered the issues raised in this book, I would suggest that you really need to take that extra step.

EXTREME MEASURES brings Rapp and his colleague/protégé Mike Nash together for what may well be their ultimate mission. The CIA has detected and captured two terrorist cells; information indicates that yet a third is on a mission that is all but certain to take place in dramatic fashion on U.S. soil. Rapp and Nash are in the midst of a rough but effective interrogation when they are interrupted by agents of their own government --- the government of the country they are sworn to protect --- and, in an almost Orwellian but realistic turn of events, Rapp finds himself subject to arrest for fighting a war in defense of his country.

While focusing on domestic espionage and over-the-shoulder views of terrorist planning, the primary mission of EXTREME MEASURES is to examine the enemy within --- the questionably well-intended members of government who seem to delight in hamstringing military personnel with rules as they fight against an enemy who understands that the main rule of warfare is to win at any cost. While Rapp is brought before the judiciary committee in proceedings that are most generously described as being similar to a kangaroo court, a terrorist cell plots a multifaceted series of events designed to strike at the heart of the government that seems obsessed, against all logic, with protecting their rights while disregarding the health and safety of its own citizens.

As he has before, Flynn demonstrates that he truly understands the psyche of the enemy. To put it in plain terms, these guys are really scary, primarily because they are so realistic. Led by an erratic mastermind whose goal is to become the acknowledged leader of al-Qaeda, the terrorist cell slowly but steadily executes a by-the-numbers plot that will paralyze the country, while Rapp, perhaps the only person who has a prayer of successfully terminating their operation, is short-leashed by a judiciary committee headed by an egocentric chairman in love with the sound of her own voice. As the book races toward a catastrophic, and ironic, conclusion, more than one perfumed prince comes to realize that inaction, as well as action, can result in tragic consequences that reach further than can be anticipated.

Flynn’s latest effort is complete in itself, with a beginning, middle and definite ending. Be forewarned, however: it is only the first half of a story that will not see its climax until 2009. Please don’t vote without reading EXTREME MEASURES.

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.

Mark Steyn: Obama nears the "now what?" moment

If elected, he'll likely, as he has done all his life, take the path of least resistance.

Orange County Register
http://www.ocregister.com/
Friday, October 24, 2008

Across the electric wires, the hum is ceaseless: Give it up, loser. Don't go down with the ship when it's swept away by the Obama tsunami. According to newspaper reports, polls show that most people believe newspaper reports claiming that most people believe polls showing that most people have read newspaper reports agreeing that polls show he's going to win.

In the words of Publishers' Clearing House, he may already have won! The battleground states have all turned blue, the reddest of red states are rapidly purpling. Don't you know, little fool? You never can win. Use your mentality, wake up to reality. Why be the last right-wing pundit to sign up with Small-Government Conservatives For The Liberal Supermajority? We still need pages for the coronation, and there's a pair of velvet knickerbockers with your name on it.

Yes, technically, this is still a two-party state, but one of the parties is like Elton John's post-Oscar bash and the other is a church social in Wasilla. As David Sedaris put it in The New Yorker:

"I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. 'Can I interest you in the chicken?' she asks. 'Or would you prefer the platter of s--t with bits of broken glass in it?'

"To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

Well, to be honest, I've never much cared for chicken.

McCain vs. Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it's not an "ideal world," and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will "heal the planet" and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux. I agree with Thomas Sowell that an Obama-Pelosi supermajority will mark what he calls "a point of no return."

It would not be, as some naysayers scoff, "Jimmy Carter's second term," but something far more transformative. The new president would front the fourth great wave of liberal annexation – the first being FDR's New Deal, the second LBJ's Great Society, and the third the incremental but remorseless cultural advance when Reagan conservatives began winning victories at the ballot box and liberals turned their attention to the other levers of the society, from grade school up. The terrorist educator William Ayers, Obama's patron in Chicago, is an exemplar of that most-recent model: 40 years ago, he was in favor of blowing up public buildings; then he figured out it was easier to get inside and undermine them from within.

All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can't the government sort out my health care? Why can't they pick up my mortgage?

In his first inaugural address, Calvin Coolidge said: "I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people." That's true in a more profound sense than he could have foreseen. In Europe, lavish social-democratic government has transformed citizens into eternal wards of the Nanny State: the bureaucracy's assumption of every adult responsibility has severed Continentals from the most basic survival impulse, to the point where unaffordable entitlements on shriveled birth rates have put a question mark over some of the oldest nation states on Earth. A vote for an Obama-Pelosi-Barney Frank-ACORN supermajority is a vote for a Europeanized domestic policy that is, as the eco-types like to say, "unsustainable."

More to the point, the only reason why Belgium has gotten away this long with being Belgium and Sweden Sweden and Germany Germany is because America's America. The soft comfortable cocoon in which Western Europe has dozed this past half-century is girded by cold hard American power. What happens when the last serious Western nation votes for the same soothing beguiling siren song as its enervated allies?

"People of the world," Sen. Obama declared sonorously at his self-worship service in Germany, "look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

No, sorry. History proved no such thing. In the Cold War, the world did not stand as one. One half of Europe was a prison, and in the other half far too many people – the Barack Obamas of the day – were happy to go along with that division in perpetuity.

And the wall came down not because "the world stood as one," but because a few courageous people stood against the conventional wisdom of the day. Had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan been like Helmut Schmidt and Francois Mitterrand and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter, the Soviet empire (notwithstanding its own incompetence) would have survived, and the wall would still be standing. Sen. Obama's feeble passivity will get you a big round of applause precisely because it's the easy option: Do nothing but hold hands and sing the easy-listening anthems of one-worldism, and the planet will heal.

To govern is to choose. And sometimes the choices are tough ones. When has Barack Obama chosen to take a stand? When he got along to get along with the Chicago machine? When he sat for 20 years in the pews of an ugly neo-segregationist race-baiting grievance-monger? When he voted to deny the surviving "fetuses" of botched abortions medical treatment? When in his short time in national politics he racked up the most liberal – i.e., the most doctrinaire, the most orthodox, the most reflex – voting record in the Senate? Or when, on those many occasions the questions got complex and required a choice, he dodged it and voted merely "present"?

The world rarely stands as one. You can, as Reagan and Thatcher did, stand up. Or, like Obama voting "present," you can stand down.

Nobody denies that, in promoting himself from "community organizer" to the world's president-designate in nothing flat, he has shown an amazing and impressively ruthless single-mindedness. But the path of personal glory has been, in terms of policy and philosophy, the path of least resistance.

Peggy Noonan thinks a President Obama will be like the dog who chases the car and finally catches it: Now what? I think Obama will be content to be King Barack the Benign, Spreader of Wealth and Healer of Planets. His rise is, in many ways, testament to the persistence of the monarchical urge even in a two-century old republic. So the "Now what?" questions will be answered by others, beginning with the liberal supermajority in Congress. And as he has done all his life he will take the path of least resistance. An Obama administration will pitch America toward EU domestic policy and U.N. foreign policy.

Thomas Sowell is right: It would be a "point of no return," the most explicit repudiation of the animating principles of America. For a vigilant republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens, it would be a Declaration of Dependence.

If a majority of Americans want that, we holdouts must respect their choice. But, if you don't want it, vote accordingly.