Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal:

“The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character.”

Katy Abram, “This is about the systematic dismantling of this country.

…You have awakened a sleeping giant.”

Kyle-Anne Shiver, The American Thinker:

It takes neither a genius, nor a shrink, to see why Alinskyite Democrat pols are so confused by all this 1776 Redux confronting them in their home-district townhalls….They’ve become so immersed in the Alinsky Way that they’ve nearly…forgotten the American Way, folks.

Andy McCarthy, NRO’s The Corner:

“This is gut-check time about whether we are going to maintain the bedrock American relationship between the citizen and the state. We are in the battle against ruthless, radical ideologues who have the media and the daunting numbers on their side.”

Val Preito, Babalu Blog:

WE do not work for YOU. YOU work for US.

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H/T: Gadsden Flag: Gadsden.info, Hot Air, WSJ, KnightHawk, Breitbart.tv, The American Thinker, The Corner, Babalu Blog.

Crossposted to Be John Galt.

Pelosi and Hoyer have written that Americans protesting against the health care bill are acting “Un-american”, but will they allow an unconstitutional census to proceed?

From John S. Baker and Elliott Stonecipher in the August 9, 2009, Wall Street Journal:

Our Unconstitutional Census
California could get nine House seats it doesn’t deserve because illegal aliens will be counted in 2010.

Next year’s census will determine the apportionment of House members and Electoral College votes for each state. To accomplish these vital constitutional purposes, the enumeration should count only citizens and persons who are legal, permanent residents. But it won’t.

Instead, the U.S. Census Bureau is set to count all persons physically present in the country—including large numbers who are here illegally. The result will unconstitutionally increase the number of representatives in some states and deprive some other states of their rightful political representation. Citizens of “loser” states should be outraged. Yet few are even aware of what’s going on….

The census has drifted far from its constitutional roots, and the 2010 enumeration will result in a malapportionment of Congress.

WSJ background on the authors:

Mr. Baker teaches constitutional law at Louisiana State University. Mr. Stonecipher is a Louisiana pollster and demographic analyst.

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette and in a modified format to Be John Galt.

Obama will be speaking to the Islamic world from Cairo, Egypt.  The Washington Times reported on some of the spin and the criticism surrounding this speech in Obama’s speech in Egypt to reach out to Muslims.  Elliott Abrams’ concerns regarding the struggle of some Egyptians for freedom are important to note.  Ayman Nour has refused to attend the speech.

On May 9th, I read this post by Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs in which other concerns are presented; concerns that should never be lost or forgotten in the vortex of spin:  Obama, Make One Stop Before the Muslim Capital.  In it she linked to a column written by Andrew Bostom for The American Thinker on February 8th:

Mr. Obama, Speak First at Touro

At the time of Mr. Bostom’s column, Cairo had already been discussed as a possible venue for this speech.

In the article he discusses and documents the hatred of Jews taught and fomented in Egypt. He closes by presenting a contrasting visit–that of George Washington to the Touro Synagogue and the subsequent correspondence.  He then writes:

Contemporary American Jewry has expressed with even greater intensity the “fervent wishes” for President Obama’s “felicity,” as their forebears did in praise of President George Washington. Will President Obama exhibit George Washington’s moral clarity and reassure contemporary Jews he is committed to their liberty and security, which is now gravely threatened by global jihadism?

Mr. Obama, before your planned speech in a Muslim capital, I urge you to address the world’s Jewish community, and condemn the jihad-inspired antisemitic violence fomented by esteemed Islamic religious institutions, including notably, Cairo’s Al Azhar University. And I can suggest the ideal venue-redolent with American history-where you should make this statement: Touro, America’s first Jewish synagogue, located in Newport, in my beloved home state of Rhode Island.

We know now that Obama will not be speaking first at Touro.  Ironically, although the speech will be given at Cairo University, Al Azhar University is a co-host.

Mr. Bostom also includes this information:

(i.e., recent Pew Data indicating the number of US Muslims are half, or less, the number of US Jews)

Related to this post, Power Line has a preview by Ronald and Allis Radosh of their new book released on May 12th:

A Safe Haven:  Harry S. Truman and The Founding of Israel.

If you are not familiar with the history of Touro Synagogue, please read these links from Andrew Bostom:

George Washington’s lasting gift to generations of Jews

Address to the President from the Hebrew Congregation

GW’s Reply to the Hebrew Congregation

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H/T:  The Washington Times, The Spectator, Atlas Shrugs, The American Thinker, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Sun-Times, The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Power Line, The Papers of George Washington.

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette and previously in a modified format to Be John Galt.

There is a fine line between realism and pessimism, between facing a situation with courage or facing a situation with gloom.  I know as well as anyone else that things are difficult.  Our family has already been directly and badly hit by D.C. policies.

Our heritage as Americans is one of resolve and fortitude and perseverance in the face of all odds.  It is one of advancing when we can and holding ground when we must.

Earlier this year Hot Air linked to an article by Thomas L. Friedman that discussed the demise of leadership, Are We Home Alone? I want to focus in on one quote from his opinion editorial:  (My emphasis in all of the quotes below).

“There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause,” said Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book “How.” What makes a company or a government “sustainable,” he added, is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors. “It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things, no matter how difficult the situation,” said Seidman. “Laws tell you what you can do. Values inspire in you what you should do. It’s a leader’s job to inspire in us those values.”

Leaders inspire by words and by example.  Their values and principles have been inculcated within their minds and hearts and they hold fast to them.  They may know moments of despair, but they continue on steadfastly.  I think of Washington at Valley Forge and Churchill at the beginning of World War II.  We forget as we look back on history that these men and others did not know the outcome when they persevered in the midst of an outlook that was bleak.

Read More →

Duty Calls

(Been there, done that!!!)

Thanks to xkcd – A Webcomic

Books, to the reading child, are so much more than books — they are dreams and knowledge, they are a future, and a past.
~ Esther Meynell ~

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader C. S. Lewis describes Eustace Scrubb, the insufferable cousin of the Pevensies, as a child who hadn’t read “the right sort of books”.

As a child I was fortunate enough to read those sort of books!  These are the books that capture the imagination and build a world in which a child can delight and roam.  As they do so, the very best of the right sort of books touch a child’s heart–-they touched my heart–-because integral to the story were the deep truths of goodness, love, friends, home, reunion, courage and perseverance in failure and the overcoming of evil.

Tolkien in his essay, “On Fairy-Stories”, wrote (The Tolkien Reader; 85-86, 87, 88):

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn”…does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe , of sorrow and failure:  the possibility of those is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy.  Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

…In such stories, when the sudden “turn” comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart’s desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.

…in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater–it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.

In a letter to his son Tolkien explains his term eucatastrophe (Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien,  100):

I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary ‘truth’ on the second plane (for which see the essay) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made.

C. S. Lewis and Tolkien are the masters at this. I read Lewis as a child although I discovered Tolkien as an adult. However, there were numerous other authors I read growing up that also interwove their stories with pictures of truth, ranging from P. L. Travers and her Mary Poppins books to Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Little House books and Louisa May Alcott.

Why were these books important and profound? I knew enough sorrow and evil as a child and these books placed that pain within a larger context of joy and truth. They saved my mind and heart and strengthened the kindness and goodness that I did see and know.

I became a Christian the summer after my freshman year in college. I found I knew God in a relationship that was a reality grounded in reason.

I met the One who is Truth. I met the One who is Joy.

The evangelium gleam I had only glimpsed before, I met in the person of Jesus Christ.

It was then that I realized, as Tolkien had written (The Tolkien Reader, 88-89):

The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation.  This story begins and ends in joy.

There is only one book that I have ever seen simply referred to The Book.   The Bible is the center of my world view. Other books have brought insight and discernment and refreshment to me–but none like God’s Word because it is the Living Word of the Living God.  It is the one book in which every time you read it, you can meet the Author heart to heart and discuss the pages with Him.

I wrote this post as a labour of love and gratitude to C. S. Lewis and to the other authors of my childhood who gave me many hours of happiness and hope as their words unknowingly prepared my heart for the lasting Hope of the Gospel.

I thank the Author who gave them talents and inspiration through which they gave a glimpse of joy to a little girl.
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Meynell quote from the Richmond Public Schools’ Reading Quotes webpage.

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette.

A few weeks ago phineas gage commented at Be John Galt,

Conservatism does not need to be reinvented.

It needs to be remembered.

Well, today I am excited to introduce to you the American Principles Project, launched Thursday, May 28th, at a press conference by Robert P. George, J.D., D.Phil., the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Founder and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.  He is the founder of the American Principles Project.  (He was also busy debating Doug Kmiec on Thursday!).

From the APP About the Project page, Foundations of the American Principles Project:

The United States of America does not need new principles.  It needs renewed fidelity to the principles set forth in our Delcaration of Independence and the Constitution…

If these timeless principles are to be restored and our national commitment to them renewed, then a new voice is needed in American politics, a voice that is unafraid to stand up for what is right and speak out against what is wrong…

The American Principles Project has been created to help every citizen who truly wishes to be part of what our founding fathers called this great, “experiement in ordered liberty,” to be an informed citizen, and thus someone empowered to make a difference.

Are we conservatives? You bet we are, if by a “conservative” one means a believer in the rule of law, democracy, limited government and respect for civil liberties, private property and the free market, equality of opportunity, the sanctity of human life, the protection of marriage and the family, and the defense of our nation’s sovereignty and security. For us, these convictions are not platitudes. We are convinced that the renewal of our nation and the flourishing of our people vitally depend on making these historic ideals and commitments once again operative in the laws and policies by which we govern ourselves.

Their Resources page contains what is sure to be a growing list of articles and links to offer some discerning thinking and to give assistance in fighting propaganda.  Thomas Peters, who just received a graduate degree, will begin work as their Communications Director on June 1st.   His blog, American Papist, has already won recognition.  He has provided a link to the APP twitter feed.

Fred Barnes has more information: The Principled Opposition Princeton’s Robert George sets up a conservative activist group with intellectual heft.

For those of you not familiar with George, I think you’ll enjoy reading this article from 2003 about him in action as a professor that also includes some fascinating biographical material:

Conservative Heavyweight: The Remarkable Mind of Robert P. George

The American Principles Project states:

Across the country, Americans are looking for men and women of firm conviction and sound principles to lead our nation into the future.  A conservatism that is true to the political and moral principles that made America great will win, and will do so for the best of all possible reasons:  because it deserves to win.

John Adams’ words still hold true:

The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people;…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

Godspeed to Robby George; may he be one of many who will remind and reinvigorate the people of our nation through advocating and expounding our founding principles.

__________

Quotes:  phineas gage, American Principles Project, John Adams (via TeachingAmericanHistory.org).

Crossposted to J’s Cafe Nette and in a modified format to Be John Galt.

Thursday, May 7th, is the 58th Annual Observance of the National Day of Prayer.

The theme, “Prayer…America’s Hope”, is derived from Psalm 33:22:

“May your unfailing love rest upon us,

O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.”

John Page, writing to Thomas Jefferson, July 20, 1776, on the signing of The Declaration of Independence:

God preserve the United States. We know the Race is not to the Swift nor the Battle to the Strong. Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?

Benjamin Franklin, Speech to the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787:

“The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other—our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.”

From the National Day of Prayer Official Website:

The History Of National Day Of Prayer

Why We Pray:  This is a brief statement of the importance of prayer at significant times in our nation’s history.

What to Pray For:  The National Day of Prayer Task Force is suggesting 7 points of prayer x 7 days a week:

7×7 involves praying for seven centers of power seven days a week:

Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family.

If you click on the embedded links, each will take you to a page with reflections, suggested prayers and Bible verses for that point of power.  If you would like to pray with others in your area they have a map that will take you to local gatherings.

May we remember and ponder these words of the Lord to Solomon:

“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (NASB)

This is perhaps the most important National Day of Prayer in our lifetime.  Pray for our country.

Crossposted to Be John Galt and J’s Cafe Nette.
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H/T:  The National Day of Prayer Official Website, The Congressional Prayer Caucus, The Sheila Variations.

Benjamin Franklin’s speech:  Holograph manuscript copy, from Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

Vladimir Bukovsky, the great anti-Soviet dissident, once reproved me for quoting the old joke about the two main official Soviet newspapers: “There’s no truth in Pravda [Truth] and no news in Izvestia [News.]” He pointed out that you could learn a great deal of truthful news from both papers if you read them with proper care.

In particular, they often denounced “anti-Soviet lies.” These lies had never previously been reported by them. Nor were they lies. And their exposure as such was the first that readers had been told of them. By reading the denunciation carefully, however, intelligent readers could decipher what the original story must have been. It was a roundabout way of getting information — but it worked.

John O’Sullivan wrote that in his article, The Song of the Kerry Boatmen, in National Review in the fall of 2004, a few months before the presidential election. (…Ah, good times, good times).

Bukovsky’s words offer insight to us as the Obamachination of the news ramps up to hype the “First 100 Days”.

From Politico: 100 days: What Obama wants you to read

In working on their own “100 days” story they report:

For that story, we spoke to top White House officials. So it’s with some authority that we can offer this user’s guide to 100 days stories.

Here are seven things the White House wants reporters to write:

Obama is a promise keeper…

[Hmm...don't read Jim Geraghty much, eh?, author of the Obama Axiom!]

Obama is a game changer…

[I think they mean that in a positive way.]

Obama is the decider…

[The Chicago Way v. Mr. Present]

Obama’s not in the bubble…

[Wagyu steak, anyone?]

Obama is not FDR…

[redefining expectations]

Obama is FDR…

[er..wait...]

Obama is one cool cucumber

[the tabloid president comes to your local grocery store]

Politico also gives their observations on how well each talking points is going over with the media.

Most of the press is living in Looking Glass land.

It remains to be seen how many of these Six Seven Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast will go over with the public.

Fisk away, my friends, fisk away!

Crossposted to BeJohnGalt and J‘s Cafe Nette.

And fired the shot heard round the world…

April 19, 1775

What made the farmers fight in 1775?

Read More →

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

With these words the American colonies declared their foundational understanding of God, man and natural law; God is acknowledged as both Creator and giver of rights to man who is set forth as equal in receiving them. These rights are therefore unalienable-inseparable from each person-and cannot be arbitrarily usurped by other men.

Our Founders knew well the tendency within each of us to encroach upon these rights; in framing the Constitution they sought to limit and define the extent of government, because they understood the role of government was to secure these rights and not to grant them.

Thomas Sowell calls this recognition of our fallen nature the “constrained vision” of man, a belief which conflicts with the “unconstrained vision” of man which sets forth man’s nature as something which can continually improve. Ironically, those holding to the unconstrained vision are inevitably vulnerable to totalitarianism because they rapidly discover their goal of achieving a perfect society is trumped by reality.  There is no recognition that any rights are unalienable because all rights must be subject and conform to the notion of perfection set by those in power; this inevitably leads to the abrogation of rights in order to change society by coercion.

The foundational unalienable right is life.  However, the beginning of each new life can be greeted with joy or dismay and can take place within the happiest of circumstances or the most tragic.  An undesired pregnancy is a reality that forces a choice between these two views at a personal level as an inevitable and binding decision is made by the mother and father regarding the life of the child.  In abortion the unalienable right of life is arbitrarily taken from the child.

By endorsing the parents’ authority to decide if the unborn child shall live or die, the right to live is removed as an unalienable right to be secured by the government and instead becomes a right which the government can grant or remove at will.  The focus is on the choice of the abortion rather than on the morality of abortion.

The parents also step into a worldview.  If they recognize the child has a right to live, they realize, however unwittingly, that this right is not theirs to take.  If they will not concede the right of the child to live, they acknowledge there is no right to live and it may be peremptorily stripped at will.

G. K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy uses the analogy of a shipwreck to describe our world.  He begins the comparison in the essay, “The Ethics of Elfland,” in which he compares the good we see in the world to Robinson Crusoe’s salvaged items from his shipwreck.

…Crusoe is a man on a small rock with a few comforts just snatched from the sea: the best thing in the book is simply the list of things saved from the wreck.

The greatest of poems is an inventory. Every kitchen tool becomes ideal because Crusoe might have dropped it in the sea…

An undesired pregnancy may occur in circumstances that seem like a wreck at sea.  However, the life of the child is something good that can be salvaged.  The recognition that his life is unalienable is something good that can be salvaged.  If we drop both in the sea, we lose the very tools we need to keep our own boat from foundering.  Because by doing so we state our belief that the right to life is alienable, even to our very selves, and that government has the willful authority to grant or annul this right.

Crossposted to Be John Galt and to J’s Cafe Nette.