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"It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty
Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply
every human defect...No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the
affairs of men more than those of the United States."
George Washington
"True religion affords to government its surest support."
George Washington
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis. A conviction in the
minds of the people that these [freedoms] are a gift from God.?"
--Thomas Jefferson
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
~ John Quincy Adams
"A people without a heritage are easily persuaded."
Karl Marx
"We have reached a critical juncture as a nation. If we continue to
allow indecency in our courts, in our schools, entertainment, businesses and in our nation's capitol,
we will go the way of those other civilizations that first rotted and then disappeared. But if we replace this deficit of decency with common sense, compassion, tough love and the truth of God's
word, our example of liberty and freedom will become a beacon throughout the world."
Utilizing the words of American Founder Benjamin Rush, said "it has been assigned to us by Providence."
"There's always an ongoing struggle between liberty and tyranny, between good and evil, and we must
always make a choice between the two."
-Sen. Miller
 
HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.
THE SANDS OF CHRISTMAS
by Michael Marks
I had no Christmas spirit when I breathed a weary sigh,
And looked across the table where the bills were piled too high.
The laundry wasn't finished and the car I had to fix,
My stocks were down another point, the Chargers lost by six.
And so with only minutes till my son got home from school
I gave up on the drudgery and grabbed a wooden stool.
The burdens that I carried were about all I could take,
And so I flipped the TV on to catch a little break.
I came upon a desert scene in shades of tan and rust,
No snowflakes hung upon the wind, just clouds of swirling dust.
And where the reindeer should have stood before a laden sleigh,
Eight Humvees ran a column right behind an M1A.
A group of boys walked past the tank, not one was past his teens
Their eyes were hard as polished flint, their faces drawn and lean.
They walked the street in armor with their rifles shouldered tight,
Their dearest wish for Christmas, just to have a silent night.
Other soldiers gathered, hunkered down against the wind,
To share a scrap of mail and dreams of going home again.
There wasn't much at all to put their lonely hearts at ease,
They had no Christmas turkey, just a pack of MREs.
They didn't have a garland or a stocking I could see,
They didn't need an ornament--they lacked a Christmas tree.
They didn't have a present even though it was tradition,
The only boxes I could see were labeled "ammunition."
I felt a little tug and found my son now by my side,
He asked me what it was I feared, and why it was I cried.
I swept him up into my arms and held him oh so near
And kissed him on the forehead as I whispered in his ear.
"There's nothing wrong, my little son, for safe we sleep tonight
Our heroes stand on foreign land to give us all the right,
To worry on the things in life that mean nothing at all,
Instead of wondering if we will be the next to fall."
He looked at me as children do and said, "it's always right,
To thank the ones who help us and perhaps that we should write."
And so we pushed aside the bills and sat to draft a note,
To thank the many far from home, and this is what we wrote:
"God bless you all and keep you safe, and speed your way back home.
Remember that we love you so, and that you're not alone.
The gift you give you share with all, a present every day,
You give the gift of liberty and that we can't repay."
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
'End of the Spear' Premieres on January 20
A Special Message from Jerry Falwell
It's not often you’ll find me endorsing a Hollywood movie. However, there is a special film premiering on January 20 that I believe Christians across the country should see.
The film is "End of the Spear," an astonishing movie that recounts the story of Mincayani, a Waodani Indian in the Ecuadorian rainforest who leads the killing party that takes the lives of five missionaries: Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming and Roger Youderian. The film follows Mincayani's life over the course of many years, including his unlikely friendship with Steve Saint - Nate’s son - and his ultimate path to redemption.
The release of the film marks the culmination of seven years of prayer, preparation and production by its team of Christian producers.
I am encouraging all my friends to go out and see "End of the Spear," for three reasons:
1. I have seen the movie and it really is excellent. The production is first-class and the acting is superb.
2. The Christian community needs to get behind this film so that Hollywood recognizes that there is an immense audience for these types of movies. (In addition, if the film is successful at the box office, Every Tribe Entertainment - the production company behind it - will be able to produce more inspiring films that touch the heart, mind and soul.
3. The movie is a terrific vehicle for opening avenues of discussion regarding eternal matters with non-believers. I am recommending that Christians take unsaved relatives and friends to see "End of the Spear" so that you may discuss the themes of redemption and salvation with them afterward.
For my friends in the Lynchburg area, "End of the Spear" will be playing at the Carmike 8 (801 Lakeside Drive, behind the Plaza). Hear is a link to Carmike 8 so you can check the show times for the film, beginning on January 20:
Other readers across the nation may check their local listings to see where and when the film is playing, beginning January 20.
In the meantime, you may learn more about "End of the Spear" by visiting this website:
The site includes a trailer and loads of information regarding the cast, the crew, and much more. I am also attaching a review by National Liberty Journal editor J.M. Smith, which recently ran in our newspaper:
Folks, we complain a lot about how Hollywood has become a cesspool of violence and immorality. This is our chance to do something about initiating a change in that situation. Please join me in supporting "End of the Spear" when it premieres on January 20.
Go ahead...I dare ya!
With its sweeping new antiabortion law, South Dakota has 'dared' the Supreme Court, as one scholar puts it, to overturn Roe. Is this a clever legal strategy, or a reckless affront to the Constitution?
By Christopher Shea April 23, 2006
SO IS THIS WHAT a constitutional revolution looks like, when it starts? Americans have grown used to the idea that abortion rights, as established by Roe v. Wade, are getting chipped away at-by parental-consent laws, waiting periods, and the like. But the law signed last month by South Dakota's governor banning virtually all abortions represents a startlingly direct attack on the landmark decision.
Soon after, on the group weblog LawCulture, Jessica Silbey, an assistant law professor at Suffolk University, wondered aloud whether the South Dakota legislators had violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution by passing such a blatantly unconstitutional law. ''Really," Silbey wrote, ''isn't there a constitutional problem when state legislatures openly defy the Supreme Court of the United States in an effort to egg on its newest members to reverse entrenched precedent?"
Silbey even had a clever coinage for her explanation of why South Dakota's frontal attack was dubious: the ''dare doctrine." The state, she noted, made no pretense of playing by the rules the court has laid down in Roe and the several cases upholding it: South Dakota simply dared the court to upend 33 years of precedent-or, looked at another way, dared the court to defend Roe, a decision that quite clearly makes several justices uncomfortable. (Since Roe still has the support of five of nine justices, even with the addition of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, South Dakota's gambit probably depends on the retirement or death of Justice John Paul Stevens, a liberal who is 86.)
To be sure, the move carries at least the whiff of rebellion. If South Dakota legislators are bold enough to flout the Supreme Court's recent decisions, couldn't they possibly be bold enough to ignore the court if and when it strikes down the new law? Could we see an antiabortion president sending troops into a defiantly antiabortion state, along the lines of when President Eisenhower had to send troops into Little Rock to enforce Brown v. Board of Education?
OK, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. Still, Silbey suggests that if a new court took up the dare, it would shake public faith in the institution. ''You want to think that there are some principled rules being made," Silbey says in an interview. For a new court to suddenly say ''never mind" to a decision, and all those that led up to it, would suggest that ''who is on the court determines what the law is all about," she says
The court, for its part, doesn't seem to appreciate being dared. In a decision this term, the court expressed annoyance with the New Hampshire Legislature for passing a parental-consent law that didn't include an exception for instances when the health of the mother is in jeopardy-essentially daring the court to fix the problem or strike down the law.
Silbey's argument, in fact, sounds a lot like one Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter made in 1992, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, the landmark case reaffirming Roe. While abortion was still controversial, they said, and some justices had moral qualms about it, to appear to overturn the decision simply because the court's membership had changed since 1973, ''would subvert the court's legitimacy beyond any question."
Of course, South Dakota legislators would retort (and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would agree with them) that it's Roe that subverts the court's legitimacy-and that the court has survived abrupt about-faces before. In Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, the court famously tossed out the ''separate but equal" doctrine that it had upheld since 1896. And in West Coast Hotel v. Parish, in 1937, the court abandoned its decades-old view that minimum-wage and maximum-hours laws interfered with individual liberty.
But unlike the principles underpinning Roe, hadn't those constitutional doctrines proved clearly unworkable? Certainly conservatives in 1937 and segregationists in 1954-and legal theorists concerned about consistency on the court-didn't think so.
The issue of abortion aside, law professors say, South Dakota's move awakens a notion that has been dormant in recent decades: the idea that it's not just the Supreme Court that decides what the Constitution means. During the second half of the 20th century, liberals complacently came to see the court as the enforcer of rights they held dear. ''Until the 20th century I don't think anyone would have been provoked by the idea the Supreme Court wasn't the last word" when it comes to understanding the Constitution, says Michael J. Klarman, a visiting professor of law at Harvard and author of ''Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality" (2004).
Abraham Lincoln had no qualms about declaring, in 1858, that if he were in Congress, he would vote to ban slavery in the Western territories-even though the Supreme Court had just ruled, in Dred Scott, that to do so would be unconstitutional. (Lincoln won that argument in the end. Not a heartening parallel, if your goal is peaceful resolution of the abortion question.) Less cataclysmically, in the 1930s, Congress kept passing ''unconstitutional" bills regulating the economy, until the Supreme Court caved (for reasons scholars still debate).
More recently, after the court's Miranda v. Arizona decision, in 1966, which declared that police had to read suspects their rights or any confession would be invalid, Congress passed a law essentially undoing the decision when it came to federal crimes. (It said judges should look at each confession case by case.) That law, however, was hardly used, and the Supreme Court didn't take up its constitutionality until 2000. It struck it down.
But in more serious games of constitutional chicken, someone has to blink or the system falls apart. It's become commonplace in legal studies today-thanks to the work of Klarman and others-to say that the court can't get too far out in front of, or lag too far behind, the electorate's view of what is and is not constitutional. Each side nudges and prods the other, and constitutional dares are ways of showing where ''the people" stand. Appropriately, by this logic, liberal South Dakotans are now asserting their own constitutional views through a campaign to undo the new law via referendum.
Martin Lederman, a visiting professor at Georgetown Law Center who debated the ''dare doctrine" with Silbey on LawCulture, says there's only one situation when passing ''unconstitutional" laws is clearly inappropriate: when you have zero chance of persuading the court you're right. ''Then it strikes me as political gamesmanship and grandstanding that violates what I'd call constitutional etiquette," he says.
South Dakota faces long odds. But one suspects that what is most unsettling to some people is not the challenge itself, but that it has at least a prayer of succeeding.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Catherine Crier’s New Book Distorts
Battle Over Judicial Activism
2005-09-22
By Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition
Washington, DC – Court TV’s Catherine Crier has been making the
talk show rounds in recent days to discuss her new book, “Contempt:
How The Right Is Wronging American Justice.”
In reading excerpts from Chapter One of her book, I was stunned by
her paranoid view of Conservative Christians and her obvious contempt
for people of faith who are genuinely concerned about federal
judges who legislate from the bench.
Crier repeatedly refers to Christians as “ultraconservative,” “rightwing,”
“fundamentalists,” “radical,” and claims they’re hell-bent on
converting our nation into a dictatorial theocratic state much like nations
suffering under Islamic Sharia law. Her intemperate book sounds
like it was written by Ted Kennedy or Ralph Neas of People for the
American Way, not a thoughtful former judge.
Crier wrongly claims that Christians want “Born-again Christianity” to
supplant the Constitution and notes, “This is no exaggeration…” Well,
it is.
She’s absolutely wrong in her analysis and her conspiratorial view of
Conservative Christians is offensive to millions of Americans who are
deeply concerned about the direction our federal courts have taken in
recent decades—and the role of judges in overthrowing the will of the
people by judicial edict.
I’ve been involved in political activism for more than 30 years and
have spoken with thousands of pastors and Christian leaders throughout
the United States. I don’t know of one person who wants “Bornagain
Christianity” to supplant the Constitution or wants to establish a
theocratic dictatorship in our nation. She has obviously read materials
from fanatical fringe groups who have no credibility and no power. She
has done very poor research and her conclusions are not based upon facts.
Conservative Christians simply want federal judges to understand their
proper place in our Republican form of government. They are not legislators
nor are they above the executive branch of government. They are to
interpret, not create laws. What Conservative Christians want is for federal
judges to exercise judicial restraint and not act as tyrants unrestrained
by the Constitution. Judge Robert Bork has rightly called renegade federal
judges, “Our Judicial Oligarchy,” who think it is their right to dictate how
we shall live.
Conservative Christians believe that the Constitution is a brilliant document
that guarantees freedom of religion, speech, and association. And,
they’re deeply troubled that federal judges have imposed their own liberal
agenda upon the American people by reinterpreting the Constitution or
redefining words to mean whatever they wish them to mean. This is judicial
tyranny.
Catherine Crier claims Conservative Christians want to “overthrow our
judicial system” and our democratic system of government. This extremist
position is unequivocally wrong. We want to restore our judicial system
to its proper place in our system. Mark Levin, author of “Men in
Black: How The Supreme Court Is Destroying America,” has correctly
observed: “Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes—
contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and
using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In
fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining
our system of government than the judiciary.” It is renegade federal
judges who threaten our democratic system, not Conservative Christians.
Ms. Crier would do well to read Mark Levin’s book to gain a clear understanding
of why Conservative Christians are so concerned about renegade
federal courts—including the Supreme Court—and why we are working
to support the confirmation of Constitutionalists to the federal bench.
Our desire is to defend the Constitution and restore the judicial system—
not overthrow it or create a theocratic dictatorship.
139 C Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003; 202-547-8570
9/05
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES DECRIES
NRLC Commends Veto, Rebukes Lawmakers Who Rejected Alternatives
The following statement was released by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, July 19, 2006, at 6:50 PM EDT. For further information, e-mail
Legfederal@aol.com
National Right to Life Commends Sustained Veto of Funding for Research that Kills Human Embryos, Rebukes 154 House Members for Rejecting Ethical Alternatives
WASHINGTON (July 19, 2006) -- Actions taken by President Bush today will advance ethical forms of stem cell research, while strengthening federal policies against promoting research that requires the killing of humans, said a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).
"President Bush is advancing ethical research, while standing firmly against exploiting living members of the human family as sources of spare parts," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.
President Bush today vetoed H.R. 810, a bill that would have required federal funding of some types of stem cell research that require the killing of human embryos who were created by in vitro fertilization. The House promptly sustained the veto, 235 to 193 (which was 52 votes short of the two-thirds margin necessary to override). The Senate, which passed the bill on July 18 by a vote of 63-37, will not vote on the veto override.
Deplorably, a minority of House members on July 18 blocked approval of a bill (S. 2754), which earlier had passed the Senate unanimously, to encourage federal funding of research into methods of obtaining pluripotent stem cells without harming human embryos. (Pluripotent cells are those that can morph into most types of body tissue.)
House supporters of embryo-killing research, led by Rep. Mike Castle (R-De.), denied S. 2754 the two-thirds majority required to pass on a fast-track procedure. (S. 2754 did receive the support of a 273-154 majority, including 93 percent of House Republicans and 30 percent of House Democrats.)
Johnson commented, "House members who blocked the alternatives bill are interested in funding only the type of stem cell research that kills human embryos. Any scientists who have ideas for non-embryo-killing alternatives need not apply. And they call us ideologues." (To read NRLC's rebuttal of Congressman Castle's attack on S. 2754, click here.)
Lamenting that obstruction, today President Bush directed the National Institutes of Health to support research on "stem cell techniques that advance promising medical science in an ethical and morally responsible way."
In addition, President Bush today signed into law S. 3504, sponsored by Senators Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), to ban some forms of human "fetus farming," meaning the use of tissue and organs from humans gestated for that purpose in a human or animal womb. This NRLC-backed bill passed the Senate 100-0 and the House 425-0 on July 18.
Johnson noted that biotech researchers have already gestated cloned cows for four months and then aborted them to harvest tissues for transplantation. "The biotech firms are not spending money on such research to find a cure for heart disease or liver disease in cows -- they believe that such methods will have application in humans," Johnson commented. "The Santorum bill places a roadblock in the biotech industry's path to human fetus farming."
To read NRLC's letter to the House in support of the veto, click here.
To read or view President Bush's remarks at the White House today, click here.
For more information on human embryo research, human cloning, human fetus farming, and related issues, see:
http://www.nrlc.org/killing_embryos/index.html
andhttp://www.stemcellresearch.org/
WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES DECRIES EU MANDATE AGAINST "HOMOPHOBIA"
PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release: 31 January 2006 , Rockford, Illinois
CONTACT:Larry Jacobs , cell (513) 515-3685, 815-964-5819, 1-800-461-3113,
Larry Jacobs, spokesman for the World Congress of Families and vice president of The Howard Center, today condemned a resolution of the European Union that requires member states to ban what it calls "homophobia."
"This is thought-control at its worst and an attempt to dismantle the vestiges of Judeo-Christian morality on the continent," Jacobs commented on the mandate, -- which passed earlier this week by a vote of 468-149, with 41 abstentions.
The resolution - which outrageously compares "homophobia" to racism and anti-Semitism -- orders member states to pass hate-crimes legislation to stifle dissent on the issue of homosexuality and its social consequences.
By requiring that EU members "ensure that same-sex partners enjoy the same respect, dignity and protection as the rest of society" - it practically mandates gay marriage.
"If Europe falls to the homosexual agenda by bureaucratic fiat, what will that mean for the natural family in America?" Jacobs asked. "Can America maintain adherence to traditional morality in isolation?"
"The EU move will have other dire consequences for America," Jacobs warned. "Justices like Anthony Kennedy and recently-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor have said that U.S. courts should apply European law as precedent in constitutional interpretation," Jacobs added.
The World Congress of Families spokesman called on conservative states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to "summon the moral resolve to resist this perilous enactment."
World Congress of Families IV will be held in Warsaw, Poland on May 11-13, 2007. Among other issues under discussion there, pro-family leaders from around the world will discuss how to counter sexual promiscuity, the homosexual advance, and the danger it poses to the natural family.
For more information go to World Congress of Families IV, and the Congress'
BEWARE! Beware! Read below!
A couple of weeks ago I received the following email from a sister in Illinois. I pass it on to all of you.
If you have children or grandchildren, work with children at church, or you have neighborhood children whose parents you know, please take note of the information below and pass it along to others. Schools are distributing this book to children through the Scholastic Book Club.
The name of the book is Conversations with God.. James Dobson talked about this book twice this week. It is devastating. Parents, churches and Christian schools need to be aware of it. Please pass this information on to church/e-mail addressees, Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, friends.
Please pay special attention not only to what your kids watch on TV, in movie theaters, on the internet, and the music they listen to, but also be alert regarding the books they read.
Two particular books are, Conversations with God and Conversations with God for Teens, written by Neale D. Walsch. They sound harmless enough by their titles alone. The books have been on the New York Times best sellers list for a number of weeks, and they make truth of the statement, ' Don 't judge a book by its cover or title.'
The author purports to answer various questions asked by kids using the 'voice of God'. However, the 'answers' that he gives are not Bible-based and go against the very infallible Word of God. For instance (and I paraphrase), when a girl asks the question 'Why am I a lesbian?' His answer is that she was 'born that way' because of genetics (just as you were born right-handed, with brown eyes, etc.). Then he tells her to go out and 'celebrate' her differences.
Another girls poses the question 'I am living with my boyfriend. My parents say that I should marry him because I am living in sin. Should I marry him?'
His reply is, 'Who are you sinning against? Not me, because you have done nothing wrong.'
Another question asks about God's forgiveness of sin. His reply 'I do not forgive anyone because there is nothing to forgive. There is no such thing as right or wrong and that is what I have been trying to tell everyone, do not judge people. People have chosen to judge one another and this is wrong, because the rule is ''judge not lest ye be judged.' Not only are these books the false doctrine of the devil, but in some instances quote (in error) the Word of God.
And the list goes on. These books (and others like it) are being sold to schoolchildren through (The Scholastic Book Club), and we need to be aware of what is being fed to our children.
Our children are under attack. So I pray that you be sober and vigilant about teaching our children the Word of God, and guarding their exposure to worldly mediums, because our adversary, the devil, roams about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We know that lions usually hunt for the slowest, weakest and YOUNGEST for its prey.
Pass this on to every Believer you know. God bless! And, if you are in doubt, check out the books yourself.
Yours in Christ,
Barbara
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