Loyal To LibertyBeta

The options for dealing with the national debt presented in the Report mentioned my last post quietly highlighted a hard reality. There is no way to prevent the debt level of the United States from crushing the nation's economic prospects without addressing the public financial burden associated with Social Security and Medicare benefits for the elderly. Such programs are part of our society's efforts to address the age old challenge of all human societies- how to care for children, the infirm and the elderly. However, since the original Report to the President of the Committee on Economic Security transmitted to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, U.S. efforts have been based on the assumption that, "in this man-made world of ours", the God ordained natural family is inadequate to deal with the challenge.

This inadequacy purportedly relates to the fact that in the "man-made world" the family's material sustenance depends on the income individuals derive from participation in an artificial economy, characterized by large scale industrial and other human enterprises. This income dependency has largely replaced reliance on what they can produce by activities such as agriculture that involve direct interaction with elements of the natural world. According to this reasoning, even with the best intentions and cohesiveness, the family unit cannot secure sufficient income to be proof against the vicissitudes of life in the "made-made world." Government therefore has to replace the family as the locus of provision against misfortune.

That original report claimed that the "task of reconstruction" the nation faced as a result of the misfortune we call the 'Great Depression' "does not require the creation of new and strange values." In the American context this was, at the very least, a disingenuous declaration. The United States of America was not founded on the notion of a "man-made world" but that of a world made by the Creator God who endowed all men with certain unalienable rights. The aim of government is to secure these individual rights, not the individual's material welfare. To be sure, the idea of right includes the individual's responsibility to care for God's gift of life, including all that is necessary to sustain the body, which is its material form. But the idea of human welfare was not confined to meeting its material requirements. It involved, above all, the individual's responsibility to do right, i.e., to carry out the actions required to fulfill the natural law, which encompasses all the determinations of the Creator's will that make human existence possible.

The natural family, as defined by the predisposition toward procreation (to be fruitful and multiply) is the primordial focus of this individual responsibility. Though its activities involve actions indispensable for the material security of its members, the bonds of family are not simply ties of material selfish interest. They involve the active acknowledgment of obligations that subordinate material self-interest to the good of other members of the family and the family as such. Given the sacrifice involved in fulfilling these obligations (up to and including giving one's life for their sake) material calculation cannot ultimately be the motive for doing so. Rather it flows from the conformation of the individual's will to the overall will of the Creator as it relates to the life of each family member, but also to human life as such. This conformation of the individual's will to the benevolent will of the Creator, (as well as the feelings or emotions associated with it), is the true essence of family life, which we call love.

As expressed in the life of the natural family love is not simply an emotional connection between individuals, though it cannot exist apart from the determination of the individual will. Nor does it simply involve the reflexive subordination of the individual's will and existence to that of the family as a whole, for that would invalidate the individuality of each person's loving commitment to the family. As the individual accepts and respects what is required for the existence of the family as such (and that of each of its members,) so the family respects what is required for the existence of each individual as such, including its uniqueness. Though somewhat paradoxical, this mutual respect is the essence of true family unity. This unity is a covenant of love constituted and sustained by the will of the Creator. It emerges as all members of the family come together to accept and carry out the Creator's benevolent provisions for the possibility and sustenance of human life.

Love thus informed by respect for the will of the Creator substantiates the culture of voluntary self-sacrifice that contributes to reliable fulfillment of the mutual obligations family life entails. What people do for the sake of love they do of their own free will, even while preserving the natural bondage that defines and characterizes the family as a whole. This unique fusion of bondage and freedom, of individual choice and natural obligation, is the essence of the distinctly human community. Like the distinctive atomic structure that marks the molecules of a material substance, it marks the family as the indispensable building block of all the more extensive communities that, because they respect the prerequisites of humanity, are properly understood to be human communities.

In this sense the natural family is literally the building block of human society. If, as the original Social Security report implies, the "man-made world" strains the family beyond its capacities, then by threatening the family the "man-made world" poses a threat to the humanness of society (i.e., that which is distinctively human about it.) In response to that threat, the "welfare state" (socialist) approach started during the New Deal substitutes the coercion based activity of the man-made institutions of government for the love based actions of the God endowed natural family. That is to say, it simply surrenders to the threat. The surrender is couched in terms of material necessity. But since the necessity is "man-made" it is contingent upon the human choices responsible for what has been made. Those choices therefore give rise to the threat to the family and the consequent dehumanization of society.

In response to a man-made problem the socialists propose reliance on man-made institutions that cast aside the distinctively human basis of the community. The destruction of the family is therefore not an accident of material circumstances, but a purposeful sacrifice of human being as it comes from the hand of God (human nature) to make way for a world of human making. In the "man-made world" humanity is no longer recognized as such because man has superseded himself, asserting God-like responsibility for the nature of all things, including, of course, his own.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote that man is the matter and maker of the state. Though for rhetorical purposes the socialists present the exaltation of the state as a function of compassion, it appears more accurately to be a function of self-idolizing pride. It allows man to believe that he is indebted for what he is to no one but himself. But a debt owed to ourselves is no debt at all. It represents no external constraint upon the will, and involves no acknowledgment of the limits or boundaries of our potential. For the sake of what we will ourselves to be we may therefore expend ourselves without limit, becoming on our own account all that we wish to be, no matter what the cost.

In keeping with this arrogant assumption of limitless potential, socialism dissolves the loving bondage of family life in order to unleash a tidal wave of self-worshipping pride that culminates in hateful bondage and self-destruction. The assumption of human self-sufficiency replaces the acknowledgement of our dependency on God's love for us. Mechanisms of coercion and fear replace the willingness to be the agents of that love toward one another. The self-sacrifice that is naturally the free gift of love becomes instead the coercive imposition of sacrifice, by one human being upon another (abortion, starvation of helpless innocents like Terry Schiavo, etc.); and one generation upon another (abortion, death panels for the elderly, the imposition of livelihood destroying debt upon future generations, etc.)

This prospect of fear and coercion, though desperately tragic, is not without hope because it is of our own making. What we are doing to ourselves, we can yet and still undo. We can turn away from (repent of?) the ideologies, policies and actions responsible for it and let our God-endowed nature once again take its course. In the next and last article of this series, I will offer some thoughts about what this might involve.

 

My last posting ended with the contention that we shall find no solution to the economic crisis America faces unless we are willing to address the foundational moral crisis from which it springs. This has been the analytical basis for my involvement in national politics since I first stepped into the arena. In January 1996, I gave a brief (8 minute) speech at a GOP dinner in New Hampshire that was later featured on James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio show, in which I simply declared "We don't have money problems. We have moral problems." Events since that time have conclusively demonstrated the truth of that statement, culminating in the 2008 financial crisis brought on by a train wreck of unbridled greed, heedless political ambition and individual irresponsibility.

Sadly, that debacle was simply an episodic manifestation of the deeply structural economic vulnerability created by the dissolution of America's moral fiber. I was led to ponder this recently as I read Jerome Corsi's WND article Forecast: Debt to dwarf GDP:

"The debt level of the United States is unsustainable, something has to give," said Rudolph Penner, former head of the CBO and co-chairman of a report issued last week by the National Research Council and the National Academy of Public Administration.

As John Steele Gordon note in his article A Short history of the National Debt, "It was not ever thus."

Though in 1790 Alexander Hamilton called the national debt a national blessing, he understood that the blessing was both the incentive and reward for fiscal responsibility. The Founding generation treated the goal of extinguishing the post-Revolutionary war government debt as an essential part consolidating and defending America's independence. They institutionalized the government's commitment to this goal with the establishment of a sinking fund intended to make sure that in the use of any surplus government revenues, priority would routinely be given to paying down the national debt. Thus despite the cost of
fully funding almost all U.S. governmental debt obligations (including state debt) as the new Federal government was launched, and borrowing to finance the Louisiana purchase, the ratio of debt to GDP under U.S. Presidents who were leaders during the Founding period fell to below 10% from a high of 35% in 1792.

The purpose of setting a strategic goal is to discipline the planning process. The implementation of plans, however, depends on the effective discipline of the people who must carry them out. Thanks to the delusions of socialist (Keynesian) economics, after WWII the U.S. government abandoned the strategic goal of debt reduction. Thanks to a politics based on those same delusions, the American people were encouraged by self-serving political leaders to abandon all semblance of personal discipline as well. This culminated in a "we can have it all" approach to government finance that gradually corrupted the whole financial system.

For the last two generations the American people has behaved like the spendthrift heir of fiscally responsible parents, indulging in a debt financed spending spree. We have squandered the moral capital of international trust and confidence accumulated by the generations before us. This has partly been the result of materialistic self-indulgence. But ironically, it has also partly resulted from the moral impulses of compassion. The problem is that there is a lie at the heart of the supposed good intentions. The lie is revealed in the preference for government as the instrument of compassion. It allows people to bask in the warm glow of doing good while avoiding any real personal involvement or commitment.

For example, the natural plan for social security rests on the simple premise that, as parent are obliged to take care of their children, so children are obliged to take care of their parents. On the one hand, this plan requires parents who work and sacrifice for their children, and children who respect the example and authority of their parents. On the other hand, it requires children who accept the work and sacrifice involved in caring for their aging parents; and parents willing enough to forego the pride that would otherwise prevent them from accepting some degree of dependence upon their children.

Simply by reestablishing this natural and age-old system for mutual self-reliance, we would slow the demand for government entitlement, increase the stock of human and material help available to every individual in need, and alleviate the fearful sense of vulnerability that leaves so many prey to the notion that their personal security depends on the government's authority and largesse. The symbol of the successful acceptance of the sharing and mutual obligations, constraints and sacrifices the natural family system involves is the coming together of the generations under one roof, grandparents and parents, children and grandchildren making room and mutual provision for one another as the givers and receivers of example and care.

How have we become a people for whom the prospect of actually living in such a household subtly offends our sense of personal freedom, aspiration and pride? I'll further explore the ramifications of that question in my next posting.

I can't help but look at Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts in the context of the larger strategy clearly being implemented by the RINO (Republican-In-Name-Only) clique that currently controls the GOP. Sean Hannity is the clique's bellwether media tool. It was no coincidence that he featured Mitt Romney on his program last night to revel in the Scott Brown victory. Scott Brown in Massachusetts is the advance guard for Mitt Romney in the White House (or vice-versa). He becomes the poster child for the RINO clique's archetypal GOP candidate who:

• Has no differences in principle with the socialist minded Democrats;
  
• Embraces the substance of Obama's socialist agenda, but "opposes" Obama by criticizing his implementation of socialism, especially when it comes to fiscal matters;
  
• Agrees in principle with the Democrats on the fundamental issues of justice and morality but employs the deceptive rhetoric of personal opinion to evade the questions of public law and policy they involve. Such issues include child-murder and other abrogations of the unalienable right to life, as well as the rejection of the God endowed rights of the natural family.
  

As long as the RINO clique can gull the conservative base of the GOP into identifying with and celebrating the success of such candidates, principled conservatives will never (or very rarely) win elections; conservative policies will never be implemented; and the tragic decline of America's liberty will continue to its inevitably ruinous conclusion.

The RINO clique pushes the view that only candidates who focus on bread and butter pocketbook issues stand any chance of winning. Money and jobs are all that matters. But money is only a means. It represents the power to procure material effects, including of course the work (jobs) of other people. By insisting that political differences be reduced to disagreements about money and jobs, the RINOs tacitly embrace the notion that human political communities can be formed and maintained on a strictly materialistic basis. But this implies that the individuals who make up the community can also be dealt on a strictly materialistic basis. It further implies that for political purposes, human beings are no better than chattel. Therefore human communities are simply pools of human resources, to be built up or drawn down as administration requires. Like the use of gravel in landscaping, the arrangement and use of these resources involves no moral considerations, and therefore gives rise to no moral conflicts.

Both the RINOs and the socialist Democrats subscribe to these views.  They operate from a common perspective; one that makes politics, legislation and policy-making no more than different aspects of social engineering. By redefining every political contest to focus on money and jobs they encourage people to redefine themselves and their aspirations in terms that conform to their role in the administration of things. Pesky ideas of intrinsic worth and dignity are pushed into the background with a view to eliminating them altogether. Of course, this also eliminates the real basis for self-respect, replacing it with a false sense of self-esteem built upon the possession and enjoyment of things. Instead of identifying themselves with the moral substance of actions for which they can take responsibility, people are content to identify themselves with external things, which are at best empty, perishable symbols of their pride. Made hollow by their preoccupation with these things, their consciousness of the interior source of their dignity grows ever weaker, until it is entirely dependent upon the presence or absence of those external things.

At this stage, people become the ideal subjects of the corporate, socialist administrative state that is the ultimate goal of the RINOs and the socialist Democrats. They become dependency minded, unable to imagine life or action outside the government centered and fabricated framework the social engineers have constructed for their habitation. For them, freedom has no meaning apart from the sense of security they feel when all the government services they depend on seem to be in place. Of course,  they can never really experience this "freedom", as their sense of dependency is continually teased and manipulated to keep them in subjection to the masters of their state. Like drug dealers, the social engineers administer relief only in order to encourage dependency.

For many Americans the prospect of life under the completed dominance of this socialist, administrative state is repugnant. As they understand the Obama faction's open dedication to achieving it, they are rising to oppose such a fate. Sadly for them, the RINO political theatre is showing the same movie, with a less obviously offensive trailer and soundtrack. The RINOs accept the approach that redefines politics to exclude the moral issues that arise from the self-evident truth: human beings are not things. They are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights arising from their responsibility for right and the actions they are obliged to take to fulfill that responsibility. Money and jobs are not the salient issues. The salient issues involve justice, responsibility, and respect for individual rights. The proof of this priority lies in the hard fact we are even now inescapably confronting: we shall find no solution to the economic crisis America faces unless we are willing to address the foundational moral crisis from which it springs. Come back for more on this point in my next posting.

On my Facebook page my article on Scott Brown, and the link I posted to his interview with the Boston Herald got a lively and sometimes intense response.  I was led to post two responses to some of the points being made, which I thought readers here might find interesting.

Response 1:

I've notice that some people praise my stand of faith, God and principle to the skies until I maintain the stand beyond the point where they are willing to compromise the fundamentals. We are just shy of reaping the ultimate, deadly fruit of years of listening to the lesser of evils crowd, yet many still fail to see that the first time we sacrificed what we knew to be right to their expediency we made the triumph of Obama and his minions inevitable.
We can yet turn things around, but it won't be by making the same deadly mistake.
I find it ironic that some people think they're defeating Obamacare by electing someone who embraces its worst aspects. True, Brown promises he won't vote for the bad proposals unless they wear a Republican label ( as they did in Massachusetts), but the only thing the label guarantees is confusion and disarray among the conservative forces that should oppose them no matter what party label they wear.
So let's see: When Obama proposes to destroy liberty, conservatives should rally to oppose him by voting for people who will only support the destructive proposals when a Republican (like Romney) proposes them. We're to believe this constitutes being practical and pragmatic.
Of course, it actually sets things up so that liberty can be destroyed with conservative acquiescence, simply by adorning it with a Republican label. I know that by some convoluted logic there are people who see this result as a victory, but I doubt that our morally deprived and government enslaved grandchildren will live in a world that justifies celebrating it. The only thing I'm sure of is that this is a perfect way to assure that no consistent proponents of liberty (real conservatives) ever get elected, which is precisely what the manipulators of the present sham two party system intend.
I am by the way a fundamentalist, not a purist, when it comes to liberty. Where the house of liberty is concerned, I'm perfectly willing to temporize and compromise when it comes to the color scheme in the rooms, the furniture, the rugs, even the kitchen appliances. But when people propose to blow up the foundations, I won't pretend to see a difference between the people who want to use plastique and those who prefer old fashioned dynamite. Not when our faith tells us that standing firm in God's will is the only way we can expect Him to help us avoid having to live among the ruins of our freedom.
 

Response 2

What point is there in unifying around lies? They started by telling us we should support people who were pro-life but quiet about it; then, it was people who spoke as if they were pro-choice but were really pro-life; then people like McCain, who started out pro-life and changed in order to pursue his Presidential ambitions, running on a pro-life record but acting behind the scenes to prevent pro-life action. Now we're supposed to tout someone who isn't pro-life, but unashamedly "pro-choice" on child murder; who says he's against Obamacare, but supports its most objectionable features; who claims to believe in the people's right to respect the natural, God ordained family but accepts elite dictatorship on gay marriage in his own state as settled law; who openly vaunts his intention to play the bid-for-power game with the Dems.
We're not at the beginning of a process of lies and betrayal. We're in the midst of the crisis brought on by allowing ourselves to be gulled time and again. We let it be known that we would choose the lesser evil, so now it's all that's offered to us. What's worse, it's all some people want to see or hear about. As a result, evil becomes the standard, and anyone not willing to accept that must be driven out.
On the key moral issues there's little daylight between Brown and Scozzafava. So why the enthusiasm is his case? Because the hint of victory wipes out all allegiance to truth?
Like King Lear in the famous Shakespeare play, many people want to reject and drive out the ones who insist on speaking to them truthfully. Lear turns against the daughter who is loyal to his sovereignty, and listens instead to the two who tell him what he wants to hear in order to gain power and then overthrow him.
Over the years since Reagan left office, this has consistently happened with the conservative base of the GOP. People drive out the voices who reason from conservative principles to conservative conclusions in light of the facts. Then they wonder why they have no good choices for leadership. Now it seems that the only way to get support from some conservatives is to advertise your willingness to betray what they profess to believe. I guess they want you to prove you're sly enough for politics- if you call the competition to see whose the cleverest deceiver "politics".  I'm not that clever. I guess faith makes me foolish. So does experience. When I ran against Obama in Illinois, I called him a hard line communist because that's what the facts make clear. Many in the GOP characterized that as intemperate because Obama "sounded so moderate." After years of accepting deceit from lesser evils, they no longer made the facts their guide. Yet truly to defeat Obama we must restore the standard of truth that refutes and defeats the preference for human fabrication (idols) that is the heart of Obamanism. I will go on trying to rally people to that standard whatever it takes.

Tomorrow registered voters in Massachusetts have the opportunity to go to the polls to vote in the special election being held to decide who should replaced recently deceased Senator Edward Kennedy in the United States Senate.  Some polls indicate that Scott Brown, the Republican nominee now has a slight edge over the Democrat Martha Coakley.   I know that people who visit this blog on a regular basis are likely to be deeply concerned about the surrender of liberty that is now far advanced in the U.S.  Some will surely be tempted to join the Hallelujah chorus GOP choir director Michael Steele will surely orchestrate should Brown win the vote.  Before they do, I hope they will consider the following information posted on Brown's campaign site regarding his stand on issues that are critical to the restoration of America's liberty in principle and in fact:

• Abortion
  While this decision should ultimately be made by the woman in consultation with her doctor, I believe we need to reduce the number of abortions in America. I believe government has the responsibility to regulate in this area and I support parental consent and notification requirements and I oppose partial birth abortion. I also believe there are people of good will on both sides of the issue and we ought to work together to support and promote adoption as an alternative to abortion.
• Education
  I am passionate about improving the quality of our public schools. Accountability and high standards are paramount. I support choice through charter schools, as well as the MCAS exam as a graduation requirement. I have worked to ensure that all children have access to a quality education. I am a strong advocate for the METCO program, which provides lower income students with broader educational opportunities.
• Marriage
  I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. States should be free to make their own laws in this area, so long as they reflect the people's will as expressed through them directly, or as expressed through their elected representatives.

This information supports the conclusion that Scott Brown is not pro-life.  Though he pays lip service to choice in education, he gives priority to "accountability and high standards", buzzwords for an approach that leaves control of education in the hands of government, rather than where it belongs, in the hands of those who exercise parental responsibility.  His professed beliefs about marriage ring hollow against the backdrop of actual events in Massachusetts, where he has said "the issue is settled... and he respects the decision to allow gay marriages."

The imposition of gay marriage in Massachusetts was not based on "the people's will as expressed through them directly, or as expressed through their representatives."  It was the result of a judicial opinion thereafter imposed by the fiat order of then Massachusetts Governor Romney.  In doing so Romney ignored the fact, clearly noted in the opinion itself, that it had no force of law unless and until the legislature chose to enact it.

On his site Brown also says that he is "opposed to the health care legislation that is under consideration in the Congress and will vote against it."  Yet in almost the same breath he says that "in Massachusetts, I support the 2006 healthcare law."  Now the 2006 legislation signed into law by then Governor Romney included a provision that required all Massachusetts residents to purchase health issuance, and provided for government funding of abortions (state funded $50 co-pay abortions for those who qualified.)  In both respects, therefore, Scott Brown supports in substance two aspects of Obama's health care proposal that have been most troubling to conservatives.  One casts aside the principle that limits government's power to dictate the economic decisions of the individual.  The other uses government power to implicate all individuals in a practice that for many violates a paramount rule of conscience while overturning the doctrine of unalienable rights that is the basis for republican government (i.e., limited government based upon the consent of the governed.)

As far as I can tell from his campaign site, I agree with Scott Brown on a majority of other issues of major concern to the country.  If I subscribed to Michael Steele's absurd "80-20" approach to voting, I would heartily encourage Massachusetts voters to support him.  Readers of this blog know that I do not agree with Steele.  It makes no sense to trust one's health to a doctor who rightly prescribes remedies 90% of the time, when the remaining 10% includes inevitably fatal drugs or procedures.  Brown errs on key issues that involve just such fatally flawed positions.  Of course the victims of his errors include not just individuals, but the soul and liberty of the nation.

Scott Brown's candidacy typifies the fatal flaw the Republican Party label now represents.  Though in fact opposed to Obama on the details of some policies, on issues essential to the survival of liberty he actually embraces the fatally flawed departure from moral and political principle that clears the way for those who wish to destroy the moral and institutional foundations of constitutional government.  The label promises remedies, but the bottle contains a few sugarcoated poison pills in key areas.

Some people have suggested to me that Joseph Lewis Kennedy (not part of the Kennedy clan, a libertarian running as an independent) offers a better alternative.  Because of his name he may be siphon support from the Democrat among ignorant voters who think they're supporting one of their clan idols.  But this Kennedy appears to embrace the brand of libertarianism that, by failing to defend the moral foundations of liberty, promotes self-destructive licentiousness instead.

Here is my article for this week at WND.com. After you read it you can return here to leave your comments.

In my article today at WND.com I further develop my response to Glenn Beck's unwarranted attack on those who want to see the credentials that prove that Obama is constitutionally eligible for the Presidency.  Please return here and leave your reactions and comments.

I know that by now some of you have seen or heard about Glenn Beck's deceptive tirade on the issue of Obama's constitutional eligibility for the office of President of the United States.  I will respond in my appearance tonight on Stan Solomon's show (cpnlive.com at 7:30 PM EST.)  Join us.

Clausewitz defines war as "an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will." The remarkable thing about terrorist warfare is that, once it has been carried out, even a foiled terrorist attack serves that strategic objective. The terrorist understands that what ultimately compels the will is not just the successful application of force but the fear and demoralization that result from it. Therefore fear and demoralization are the terrorist's strategic weapons. Even when a blow is averted, and the enemy escapes immediate death and destruction, the near miss can be enough to raise his level of apprehension. It can increase the weight of his sense of vulnerability, especially when its deadly effect is forestalled purely by chance, while highlighting the futility of all his precautions. The terror strategist can certainly count on circumstances occasionally to produce such outcomes. But I would assume that the thorough practitioner of terrorism builds them into his strategic thinking, especially when he has at his disposal assets who eagerly welcome the platform and notoriety they will assuredly enjoy if they are taken alive. The December 17 terrorist attack against Northwest Airlines Flight 253 should therefore be considered a successful terrorist assault. This is at least in part because, despite the limited scope of its direct physical effects, the volume of its moral and emotional effect is increased by prominent Americans who, knowingly or not, act as amplifiers, broadening the reach and impact of the act itself.

As Clausewitz also observed, "military activity is never directed against material force alone; it is always aimed simultaneously at the moral forces which give it life, and the two cannot be separated. But moral values can only be perceived by the inner eye... Since danger is the common element in which everything moves in war, courage, the sense of one's own strength, is the principal factor that influences judgment." The morale of an army or of a whole people during war cannot therefore be sustained apart from their moral perception, which necessarily involves their perception of their own moral position relative to the enemy. Sane people do not by and large sustain difficult and dangerous efforts they believe are unjustified. In large scale conventional warfare, the clear and present threat to their survival may be sufficient justification. But in the terror war, individual engagements directly affect only a relative few. For the rest, the threat to their survival as a whole is an abstraction. With the right kind of leadership, it can become a moral and emotional reality. But that requires an intelligent, capable and sustained articulation of the strategic vision that clarifies for the "inner eye" both the physical and moral reality of the threat.

With respect to the terror war Islamic forces have been waging against the United States, G. W. Bush proved incompetent at articulating this strategic vision, but at least he tried. Because his agenda and world view are so consistent with those of the forces brought against us, Obama has never made any attempt to do so. On the contrary, he has consistently slandered the United States with a pose of self-flagellating (as regards the nation) and self-righteous (in regard to himself) apology for supposed American acts of domineering injustice that, he implies, naturally result in hateful acts of carefully planned violence against the American people.

Since he is a wholehearted advocate of the leftist critique of American liberty Obama's conscious validation of the moral position of its enemies comes as no surprise. What surprises some is the fact that a famously staunch conservative like Ron Paul blames U.S. for violence. In a recent TV appearance we find him "blaming terrorism on the U.S. presence around the globe. 'They're terrorists because we're occupiers,' Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said on the Larry King show". Of the motive for the recent terror attack he said "We bombed Yemen 2 weeks ago….He (the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) did it because of the bombing." Ben Stein, also a guest on the show, correctly noted that Paul's statement has no basis in fact since "there is no U.S. occupation of Yemen or Nigeria" and Abdulmutallab "had already been mobilized and had even bought his Northwest ticket before we struck." Moreover, as noted in the WND account of the show, "Reports confirm that there was an air strike by Yemeni jets-and possibly some from Saudi Arabia", not U.S. forces.

Apparently Ron Paul believes that seeking cooperation from other states in striking against terrorist camps makes us "occupiers". In a similar vein, because after repelling Iraq's invasion of Kuwait during the first Gulf War, the U.S. did not invade and occupy Iraq, our role as occupiers somehow explains the 9-11 terror attacks. We are in the wrong because we dare to defend others. We are in the wrong because we dare to ally with others in order to do defend ourselves.

Such illogic cannot rightly be described as reasoning. If we make it the basis for dealing with terror, we end up asking ourselves, as Obama apparently does, what we can do to appease their righteous anger at our misdeeds. We end up looking for ways to do their will. Clausewitz would recognize that as a victory, for them. They could never achieve it without assistance from purblind politicians on both ends of the American political spectrum. Thus, tragically, they overcome their supposed opposition to one another, acting in concert as the mortar and pestle of defeatism, slyly grinding away the morale and safety of the nation.

So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For, as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead...." (Acts 17:22-29)

Conservative reviews of Avatar (e.g. by Movieguide's Dr. Ted Baehr and WND's Drew Zahn) definitely worked to prejudice my mind against James Cameron's reportedly groundbreaking blockbuster. They led me to expect an idol worshipping, anti-American screed calculated to draw impressionable minds into the moat of self-hatred that separates the zombies of the Obama faction from those still loyal to the American creed. Sometimes such reviews would be enough to convince me not to waste time on the glamorous evil of America hating propagandists, or add my resources to the treasury that finances their power.

But since childhood I've been a sucker for cinema fairy tales and science fiction. I've also had a weakness for animated films, inbred during the years when Disney was a name decent parents (including mine) still trusted. My adult years have been marked (or marred?) by a fascination with the new worlds of human expression cyber-technology makes possible. I am also convinced that those of us who fight to preserve America's respect for the authority of the Creator cannot do so with full intelligence if we simply ignore the powerful means this technology offers human fabricators to influence the backdrop of conscience and emotion against which the battle takes place.

The socialist forces seeking to establish an international regime of totalitarian elite domination use scenarios of global ecological collapse to foment the mentality of fearful crisis that serves their political agenda. As we now understand better than ever, this involves fabrications in the disguise of science. It has also routinely involved the use of cinematic fabrications that prepare the soil of human conscience and emotion to accept without question the lies disguised as 'scientific' facts.

Brandon Gray's description of Avatar as "a fantasy or science fiction action-adventure that's not based on pre-established material" may be accurate in the strict sense. But as fantasy melodrama, the film is highly derivative. In fact, this is probably among its most glaring flaws. Drew Zahn rightly describes it as "Ferngully on steroids, only not as subtle". But its predictable storyline seems equally beholden to a range of films from Star Trek: Insurrection (which involved a scheme to move an outwardly simple but morally sophisticated people from their beloved home planet in order to exploit a form of energy uniquely available there) to low grade epics like Sheena or the whole series of Johnny Weissmuller vehicles (e.g., Tarzan's Secret Treasure.) Like Avatar's protagonist, the English Lord gone African native, Tarzan, was known to whistle up a herd of angry elephants or well armored rhinos to crush the enemy's superior firepower. And as in Sheena (a similar plot, also set in Africa, with a nativized American woman as the movie's protagonist and namesake), there are feminist and sensualist touches that mark it, for better or worse, as a contemporary contraption. Avatar basically offers nothing truly original beyond a marriage of 3D, CGI and live action that moves well beyond the not so civil unions of the past.

In this respect the film reminded me of Titanic, the unequaled box office smash for which James Cameron's name is (and probably always will be) best remembered. The technological centerpiece of that film was the enormous set, a meticulous, carefully engineered reproduction of the ill fated passenger liner. Because Cameron invests such enormous money and energy creating the technological backdrop for of his productions he tends to spend way too much film time dwelling with prideful affection on the result. Some of that time would be better spent drawing his audience more deeply into the human and emotional background. That would have meant spending more time drawing the audience into the personal lives and relationships of the immigrants on the "Titanic", going beyond stylized scenes involving their amusements or externally caused travails. It would mean giving the audience a deeper sense of the personal lives and emotions of the alien natives of Avatar's planet Pandora, as well as the rank and file mercenaries who make up the security forces ultimately used to devastate their home.

The 3D technology in Avatar represents an almost seamless blend of living and imaginary elements that marks a new frontier for the cinematic use of animation (in the broadest sense of the term.) Unfortunately, Cameron's presentation of life through his characters is in other, ultimately more important ways, utterly lacking in depth and complexity. The images seem real, but by comparison the words and actions of the characters seem like the stick figures of a child's drawing, so abstract that only the over generous imagination of childhood, or the pristine power of adolescent romantic passion, lend them any semblance of true personality.

I believe this flaw is what keeps the movie from living up to its negative billing as an anti-American rant. Toward the beginning the invalid marine protagonist comments that at home marines fight for freedom, but on Pandora their only incentive is greed. The commander of the corporation's security forces is a one dimensional caricature meant to embody the perfect (and therefore indiscriminately destructive) military instrument of unbridled corporate greed. People who see anything especially "American" in this caricature say more about their own tragically distorted understanding of what it means to be American than they do about the film, whatever its intention.

As a black American I've lived all of my adult life recognizing the need to make a distinction between what America is and the injustice some Americans do. I have no problem cheering for innocent people, whatever their religious persuasion, when they fight back against those (American or otherwise) who disregard the spirit and personality of others in order to treat them as inferior beings to be casually swept aside by the juggernauts of greed and material power. I see nothing anti-American in their fight because the American creed champions the intrinsic, God ordained worth of every person, and condemns those whose pursuit of gold, business success or scientific progress impels them to disregard the lives and rights of innocent individuals or peoples. Throughout our history this has led Americans to support the cause of such peoples,
from 19^th Mexico and Latin and South America, to 20th century Spain and Greece. Such American support was sometimes ignorant, thoughtless or naïve about what constitutes the better alternative to such power mad oppression, but a thoroughly American sense of justice inspired even such errors.

Avatar depicts a race of aliens facing such an unjust assault. They are people who believe that one living being unifies their people with all the living things on their world. A glowing, fern like 'Tree of Life' represents their point of contact with this world being. They believe that in death all who are truly part of the people return to this being. They believe that it is possible to pray to this being and by communion with it to commune with those who have departed this life. They believe that this being commands respect for life, and that healing, even at the brink of death, is possible by the power of this communion.

If we insist we can see in this depiction simply an effort to seduce vulnerable minds with lying semblances of truth. However, there's nothing particularly Christian about dismissing the wholesome elements of pagan belief as somehow inherently evil. The great Christian evangelists who spread the Gospel to the barbarian peoples as they overran the Roman Empire, and converted hearts in Asia, Africa and the Western hemisphere down through the centuries rather used God's word and their own Christ inspired discourse and actions to help people take hold of the little strand of truth contained in such beliefs. They sought to guide them, by dint of the reason and right sentiment God built into us, along the path that confronts mind and heart with the truth revealed by God in Scripture, and especially in the life and ministry of His Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.

The notion that some force in being unites all things is not the whole truth, but it reflects openness to the truth, established by the hand of God in the heart of all creation. The Bible reveals that there is but one God, one being from whom all things arise. Christ particularly emphasized the unifying force of being, which is His love. This oneness of being, in and through the love of God, may not be the same as the unity in nature worshipped by the alien natives in Avatar (or some real tribes and peoples on planet Earth) but it offers a starting point and common ground for the conversation of mind and heart that is the vehicle of conversion. Christians have no reason to fear such depictions of pagan belief, or treat them as inherently hostile or simply wicked. In fact, if we are not willing to look at them and think them through, how can the conversations that might lead to conversion take place?

James Cameron's cinematic work combines technological sophistication with an almost pathetically childish want of moral and spiritual maturity. In this he seems to reproduce the tragic flaw of the society whose people have made his films so profitable. Are the followers of Christ in America so caught up in the conflictual logic of the contemporary moral, social and political struggle that we cannot see that America now represents a mission field, its soil rich and much of it untilled? Are we so busy defending Christianity against attack that we forget our truer vocation, which is to share with all the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Part of this evangelizing work must involve taking seriously the strands of truth contained in works like Avatar; helping people to see the contradictions involved in the flawed human presentation of truth; and introducing them to the deep consistency with which the Gospel reveals what human craftsmen can, by themselves, only dimly see or represent.

In Avatar, for example, the native aliens of planet Pandora profess great respect for life, yet contemn and are moved to slay, with little qualm or introspection, the alien visitors whose blundering seems at first to involve only inadvertent destructiveness. Though their own use of the animals on the planet involves negotiation (symbolized by a form of communication that takes place through the intertwining of hair like strands), they simply dismiss the possibility of negotiation with the humans visiting their world. The oneness of life they revere appears therefore to be localized and to lead to what amounts to bigotry: casual hostility to strangers and even a brutal inclination to kill without compunction what they fear, despise or do not understand. Their concept of being respects oneness, but the one they respect is not the universal one. They revere life as a particular manifestation of wholeness, but seem to have no clear sense of the general manifestation of life that encompasses the whole of all possibilities. They are not open to all the ways of being, including those greatly different from their own, that the one Being brings to life and by so doing endows with a right to live that all are obliged to respect. In this they suffer from a defect of perception and understanding not unlike that which leads the corporate profiteers brutally to assault them.

This fictional instance of self-contradiction parallels the contradiction between the life revering ethic supposedly promoted by the film, and the embrace of the culture of death that today characterizes so much of America's creative elite. In the film, the profit hungry corporate apparatchik hesitates to order an assault when reminded that innocent children will be done to death in the ensuing onslaught. But the elite stars and producers who people the apparatus of the entertainment industry do not hesitate in their support for the legalized and purposeful slaughter of human embryos and infants. Such forms of human life have at least as much claim to be part of the great continuum of living Being as the aliens and animals the film shows being gutted and slain by the heedless abuse of military power. Is life to be respected when its alien appearance is mitigated by stylistic touches of grace and sensuality, but not when a more extreme divergence in appearance simply masks the identity between all humans and their offspring?

Do the entertainment elites sincerely respect the premise of holistic unity suggested by their professed embrace of humanitarianism and global ecological responsibility? If so, they are caught in precisely the web of self-destructive contradiction that Christ, in so many of his parables, sought to reveal and from which the Gospel offers true hope of redemption. Rather than simply reject and condemn the sophomoric creative works that expose this contradiction, Christians seeking to spread the Gospel might do better to do what Christ often did. Sometimes, fallible human contradictions appear as people feel their way toward God. He used them to expose the mind to truth, truth that the God created heart, as through a looking glass however darkly, still has the eyes to see; and by which, through the Grace of God and faith in Jesus Christ, all people may be saved.

Because it is the day on which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas is a time of great joy which we mark with a special spirit of generosity as we seek to honor with our gifts the generous gift of life represented to the world by the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a time when we strive with more than usual intensity to follow the advice of the apostle, to put off all

In this good counsel we see epitomized all that our gifts and ornaments, our special Christmas acts of charity, forgiveness and love are meant to express. We see the Christ in Christmas.

Of course, "the rest of the story" of Christmas includes the account of a very different spirit, one that momentous political events during this Christmas season inevitably bring to mind. In the aftermath of Christ's birth, wise men came in search of him, asking "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" Fearing that this portended both the end of his kingly reign and the removal of the succession from his descendants, Herod, the king of Judaea, sent for these men and "sent them to Bethlehem, saying, 'Go and search diligently for the child and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.'" But after they found the Christ child and honored him with gifts and worship, "warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way."

Though the birth of Christ inspires our goodwill to unite in forgiveness and love, it has a very different effect on those preoccupied with consolidating human power. They know that Christ's birth represents a threat to their vaulting ambition. They respond to that threat with an effort to slay all innocence in order to put down the hope of innocent life Christ offers to all humanity.

In recent weeks America's elected leaders in Congress have been debating what is supposed to be a bill to reform the nation's health care sector. Its proponents pretend that their intent is better to serve life by extending health services to people in need. But their true intent has been revealed by the sly maneuvers and corrupt practices they have used to enforce their insistence that, come what may, the supposed health reform act must include U.S. government funding for child murder. Though, like Herod, they cloak their real intent, this insistence reveals their true priority. Their chief aim is not to assure all America access to health services. It is to make all Americans complicit in the slaughter of the innocents. Though their deceptive slogan speaks of choice, in the moral realm they are insisting that Americans who reject the absurd notion of a right to murder our posterity shall have no choice but to see the fruits of their labor used to reward a practice they rightly regard as an abomination.

This Christmastide I am praying that the true spirit of Christmas will prevail in the counsels of our nation. I am praying that, despite the bribes and threats of those who give top priority to murder, the heart of Christ will truly be born again in the hearts of enough representatives in Congress to put a halt to the charade of evil which claims to serve our nation's health but aims in fact to destroy its healthy conscience and goodwill. With such courage, they will offer their nation a gift truly in keeping with the gift of God we celebrate: the birth of the one whose triumph over death renews, despite all evil human willing, God's offer of more abundant life for all. That's a health care promise to believe in.

Here is my latest article at WND.com.  If you would like to leave a comment after reading it, please return here.

As I wrote my most recent article for WND.com (the subject of my previous posting) I found myself thinking about Christianity's unique effect on our understanding of the justice (and injustice) of human action. The last point made in the article is about the connection between arrogant elitism and the self-inflation the Pharisee derives from comparing himself with other people. In light of this connection we can better understand why the elitist forces that strenuously promote the specious doctrine of the separation of church and state are so often guilty of favoritism. They invoke the doctrine to repress Christian institutions and practices, while treating those of other religions as protected artifacts of "cultural diversity." I think this discrimination has to do with the fact that the words and example of Christ convey an understanding of human authority that supports the sovereignty of the people even as it undermines the assertion of elite predominance (the sovereignty of the wealthy, more intelligent, more talented few.)

However we may characterize it ideologically, the ultimate effect of the present push to overturn the principal of consent as the lawful basis for government is to reestablish the rule of the few, whose assumption of power derives from their Pharisaical claim to be superior to the rest. On the convenient excuse of whatever problem or crisis happens to be handy (the jobs crisis, the health crisis, the environmental crisis, the crises of poverty, hunger, homelessness etc.) they assert the urgent need for approaches that concentrate control of more and more resources and decision-making in the hands of professional and bureaucratic elites. Against the preponderance of evidence and logical reasoning, they pretend that centralized government institutions will deal with the critical challenges we face more effectively than those that respect individual liberty. Of course, as they advocate this view they are not as open as the Pharisee about their assumption of moral superiority. They cloak their assertion of superior righteousness with a fabricated perception of scientific knowledge, global catastrophe and compassionate egalitarian intention. But once the smoke and mirrors of crisis and compassion have served their purpose, we will be left with the reconstructed edifice of unchecked elite domination. The elite promise is that people will enjoy the comfortable dependency of well cared for household pets. But once elite control is consolidated, some will suffer the brutalization and casual destruction of lab rats or noisome vermin while most experience the commingled care and misery once bestowed on work horses or pack animals, valued mainly for the work they perform for their betters.

A discussed in "The Publican's Prayer" Christ's insistence on the perfect standard of God's will ("Be ye therefore perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48) undermines the claim of intrinsic superiority that gives some appearance of justice to this elite consolidation of power. But more radical still is what he says even to the Pharisees: that "the Kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21) In his kingdom, the word of the king is the law. Those who have direct access to the sovereign are therefore privileged to hear at first hand the content of the law. When they pass it on to others they speak with an authority derived from their direct access to the king, and their words cannot be definitively contradicted except by others with the same access. What Christ says to every person is that they have direct and exclusive access to the King of all Creation, the author whose name is the root of authority in every sense. Though common to all, this access is, even so, radically exclusive because it involves the inner being of the individual, to which only that individual has direct access. All the subjects of human kings are thus vessels of God's authority. Made in His image, they have within themselves a model or likeness that accords with His will. The knowledge they derive from this model appears in the natural promptings of conscience, whereby they judge what they do to others in light of their own reaction to what others do to them. ("Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12)

When discussing personal morality, it is common enough in Christian parlance to speak of every individual as a temple of God, i.e., a venue in which the will of God resides. Christ's reference to the Kingdom of God within us also has implications for the just exercise of sovereign power, implications that bear directly on our understanding of lawful government. As a direct and exclusive form of access to the sovereign is available to all individuals, no one person or group of persons can by themselves have an unchallengeable claim to speak with sovereign authority over all the rest. Every other individual is a potential check on their claims, and may in his or her own right claim to be consulted as to the authenticity, content and meaning of the sovereign's will. The understanding of God's rule achieved through Christ thus becomes the basis for limiting the just claims of human rule to governments that respect the individual's right to be consulted, i.e., those "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

This suggests that the political premise of the American Declaration of Independence draws upon and reflects the most basic Christian understanding of the meaning and political consequences of human moral equality (that is, the equality of all people before God.) Christ's American followers face increasing pressure from elitists who seek to drive their exercise of faith from politics, and indeed from all the arenas affected by law and public policy. In dealing with this pressure, we would do well to think through the vital connection between our faith and the principle of government by consent. Christ's teaching does not conflict with the requirements of Constitutional self-government. In truth, government by consent is based on an insight into the nature of political authority that would not have been achieved except through Christ. As Christ's followers are driven, as such, out of the political life of our country, what will become of this insight? It has dim prospects. For some people, that's the whole point; isn't it?

Here is this week's article at WND.com. As always, I would be interest in your reaction, so return here to leave a comment.

Not long ago I received an email that struck me as a thought provoking comment on what it means to be an American. It also goes to the heart of what Obama faction media puppets like Chris Matthews really hate about the American military- i.e., their moral allegiance to liberty and the Constitution meant to incorporate it.

I asked Gary Hallmark, the retired Naval Officer who sent me the email, for permission to share it with the readers of this blog, which he has given. As you read it ask yourself, Is this nation still made up of individuals who, like so many of our fellow citizens in uniform, not only swear allegiance to a "piece of paper", but are willing to die for the moral ideas it represents? I don't know the answer to that question. But soon and very soon we will find out.

Dear Mr. Keyes,
>
> As a retired Naval Officer, one of my assignments while serving on
> active duty was serving as a Military Observer with the United Nations
> in the Middle East. While serving in Egypt in such a capacity, I found
> myself in a conversation one day with a Danish Army Officer who also
> was serving as a Military Observer. The topic of the conversation was
> the United States of America and my loyalty to it. During the
> conversation, the Danish Army Officer stated to me that the rest of
> the world did not understand the United States. When I asked why, he
> explained that the United States was different. He stated that as a
> people we wanted to be liked, and since people in the rest of the
> world knew this, then the rest of the world was not going to like us;
> he stated that the rest of the world would respect us, yes, but “we
> will never like you.” When I asked him why he believed that, he asked
> me, “Gary, who did you swear an oath to?” I told him, “I did not swear
> an oath to anybody, but as a Officer in the United States Military, I
> had sworn an oath to the Constitution of the United States of America.”
>
> The Danish Army Officer replied that was the problem, that was what
> the world did not understand, how an individual or individuals could
> swear an oath to a piece of paper. He went on to explain that as a
> Danish Army Officer he had sworn an oath to his country and his
> countrymen. He went on to say other nations swear an oath to their
> king or to their nation, but “you swore an oath to a piece of paper.”
>
> I replied that the Constitution of the United States of America was
> not a piece of paper, but it was a representation of an ideal that
> incorporates the fundamental principles upon which our nation and its
> government were founded for the people, by the people, and of the
> people and that every military officer I knew was prepared to give
> their lives to defend it and the American people’s right of self-rule.
>
> The Danish Army Office then told me that was the point; that this
> nation is made up of individuals who not only swear to this “piece of
> paper,” but who are willing to die for that ideal; and it is an ideal
> that people leave their home countries for, and those that don’t, are
> envious of those who do so. He went on further and explained that as a
> Dane he could relate to other Danes because of their culture, language,
> heritage, but he said, “Americans are different.” I replied to him,
> “Yes, we are because we are united in freedom. Freedom of self-rule
> and freedom of self-determination, both of which are guaranteed by the
> Constitution of the United States.” His response, I will never forget,
> “And that is what we don’t understand and that is why the rest of the
> world envies the United States.”
>
> Mr. Keyes, during my tour with the United Nations, I was subjected to
> the type of conversation I described above more than once. The one
> above stands out in my memory because it was the first such
> conversation and it was the first time in all my travels that a
> non-citizen of the United States had admitted an envy of our great
> country and the ideal by which we live, an ideal embodied in the
> Constitution of the United States of America. Yes, certain people in
> this country have little to no respect for the Constitution of the
> United States, but the military does. I was a young officer in the
> military when Nixon resigned as President. I remember very well the
> steps the military took to ensure that no one attempted to use the
> military to interfere in what was taking place. Why? Because those
> military individuals then, just as the military individuals now, had
> sworn an oath /to support and defend the Constitution of the United
> States against all enemies, foreign and domestic./ May that always be
> the case.
>
> Respectfully,
> Richard G. Hallmark
>

As I expected, my last post disturbed many who are desperately looking for some reason for hope among the Republicans being built up in the propaganda media as supposed representatives of the intense conservative disaffection that promises to be the decisive force in the 2010 midterm elections.  I suspect that the propagandist are hyping these personalities to serve as "heat sinks" for the vehement tide of anger and dismay against the betrayal of America's moral heart and its constitutional liberty; a betrayal sponsored or tolerated by the leadership in both branches of the sham "two party" system.

Here follows a comment on the article I came across on my Facebook profile page.  I think it typifies the reaction of many goodhearted people who are reluctant to look past the propaganda about her personal views and history to think clearly about Sarah Palin's official actions and public statements on the issue of justice, law and public policy involved in the fight to secure the unalienable right to life of our posterity.     

Anthony Davar Finding enemies in our prolife camp and splitting among strong prolife leaders will only cost us the most important fact: the life of another child. How many abortions were there in United States prior to 1973 vs after? One abortion is too many obviously. Sarah Palin is obviously a strong prolife leader, and with her own life example, has shown without a doubt, where she stands for life! However, as a matter of practical steps to victory, she is smart to go for one step at a time.If the country was on its knees repenting of the evil of abortion, she would be there with us praying for God to turn our hearts to the defense of our children. 

Alan Keyes Anthony Davar: On what grounds do you hold that Sarah Palin is "a strong pro-life leader"? I review both her statements and her actions, and find them in contradiction with the necessary moral logic without which the pro-life position is simply a matter of emotional feeling. Based on this review I conclude that she is not in fact espousing the pro-life public policy position. Without at all addressing the facts and moral reasoning I present, you assert that she is pro-life. Beyond emotional conviction, on what do you base your assertion?
It is obviously not right by law to impose our personal feelings on others, however strongly we feel. This is especially so when dealing with a decision that has deeply personal emotional and other consequences for the individual concerned. So if we reduce the pro-life cause to reliance on personal emotional conviction, we surrender the rational basis for the fight to achieve legal protection for the unalienable right to life of the unborn child.
Sarah Palin's statements and actions are rationally inconsistent with the moral logic of unalienable right which, if true, binds all levels of government and all US public officials to the goal of securing the unalienable rights with which God has endowed our humanity. If we accept her as a pro-life leader we abandon the rational moral basis for the pro-life position. I cannot do this without betraying the principles of liberty, and the will of the Creator God whose authority establishes them as the basis for human justice.
Your rhetoric simply fails to address the facts and reasoning I present. It amounts to saying that she is personally against abortion (about which I have no doubt). But many pro-"abortion rights" politicians say that. The issue before the nation is about law and justice, not personal conviction. Nothing Sarah Palin has said or done supports the view that she is pro-life as a matter of justice, law and public policy. So far as I can tell, she is just a pro-choice politician who turned a laudable personal choice into a seductive, but false pro-life public image. All the choices and statements she has made in her public capacity support this conclusion. If I'm wrong, show me the facts and statements that indicate something beyond the "I'm personally pro-life" position so common among the so-called "pro-choice" promoters of "abortion rights".

Unless Sarah Palin fundamentally alters the views she has enunciated and acted on up to now, I predict that she will disappoint the hope so many sincerely pro-life people are mistakenly investing in her supposed pro-life stand.  I am sure I will pay a price for saying now what others will only realize when it may be too late. I was excoriated starting in 2004 for calling Obama a hard line Marxist bent on destroying America.  That view is not at all so contemned today as it was when facts and reasoning first convinced me of its truth.  Similarly on account of facts and reasoning I and others insist that Obama cease to withhold evidence bearing on whether or not he satisfies the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Office of President of the United States.  For this we are vilified and ridiculed, though many of our fellow Americans now join in this demand.

My view of Sarah Palin's supposed pro-life stance, and the danger involved in following her leadership,  is similarly based on facts and reasoning.  I will hold to it until one or the other clearly compels me to do otherwise.  Experience has taught me that even among those whose pro-life hearts espouse the self-evident truths that make us free, when it  comes to politics the factual standard of truth often gives way to personal feelings and expedient calculation.  Given the crisis we are in, I can only pray that at some point they will realize that this neglect of the requirements of truth is the very reason America's liberty has reached the crisis point.  Before a people finds leaders willing to act in truth, they must become a people willing to submit their own judgments and decisions to its demands.

I was not at all surprised to hear that Rudy Giuliani has lately expressed views that welcome the rising prominence of Sarah Palin in the GOP. Giuliani is the archetype of the politicians who wear the Republican label but staunchly support the pro-abortion agenda. Of course, he imitates the pro-abortion Democrats by using the "pro-choice" label to dress his position in deceptively American garb. The use of that term is one of the most clever rhetorical ploys in the history of American politics. If the slaveholders had thought of it, people like me might still be doing stoop labor for no wages. After all, what could be more American than choice? Isn't that what freedom is all about?

Actually, no; not in the sense of the political liberty the American people have up to now enjoyed. Our liberty is based on the idea of unalienable rights articulated to justify our nation's assertion of independence from Great Britain. "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."

Unalienable rights give rise to opportunities for choice, but in a context that first takes account of the standard of justice from which the claim of right derives. Human life involves certain actions and inclinations that, as a rule, tend to support and preserve it, both for individuals and for the species as a whole. This rule is the result of determinations made by their Creator, whose will thus constitutes the standard for their actions. As they accept the gift of life and perform the actions necessary to sustain it, their respect for the Creator's rule sets the standard for their action. Right action preserves and perpetuates human life. Wrong action damages and destroys it. People are in the right when they act rightly. Should others, without cause or provocation, seek to interfere with their action, they have the right to resist and to defend themselves against that interference.

The concept of unalienable rights thus arises from respect for the rule of the Creator. People acting rightly (i.e., in conformity with the rule) act on the Creator's authority. They may use in defense of their actions whatever powers they possess in consequence of that authority. Their physical, mental and emotional capacities may all be brought to bear to enforce (that is continue with) their right action. These capacities include the ability to discern and choose among different courses of action that achieve the desired result. As they do so, they have a right connected with and arising from their respect for the Creator's rule.

In and of itself, therefore, choice is not a "right". Rather it is a consequence of the conformity to right. Yet the capacity for choice is part of human nature, which is to say the way human beings have been fashioned by the Creator. People have the capacity for choice. But they only have the right to do as they choose when they have used that capacity in accordance with the Creator's rule. Put simply, their choice does not involve a right when what they choose to do is fundamentally wrong.

Government exists because God made humanity with the capacity to do wrong, i.e., envisage and set our sights on a different course than the one that is, on the whole, compatible with the possibility of human existence. In light of this capacity, the purpose of government is to limit and/ or repulse the effective action of wrongdoers, thereby securing the rights (i.e., right courses of action) of those who respect the Creator's will.

This logic is the basis in principle for the pro-life rejection of the superficially potent argument that a woman may do as she chooses when it comes to taking the life of the child in her womb. Her freedom to choose does not extend to violating the Creator's demand of respect for the child's unalienable right to life. God's demand of justice limits individual choice. But it also limits how those entrusted with the powers of government may legitimately (i.e., lawfully) employ them. This is the substantive basis for the concept of limited government. The limitation does not arise from ideological whim, or from social or historical circumstances. It arises from the same determination of the Creator's will that sets the stars on fire and the courses in which planets revolve around them.

Just as the individual's choice is limited by the Creator's determination of what harmonizes with the possibility of human existence, so the use of the powers of government is limited to actions compatible with the aim of securing the unalienable rights of human nature (i.e., those connected with actions and inclinations compatible with the decisions of the Creator that make our existence possible.) No government (including the State governments of the United States) may, in law or action, justly depart from this aim by violating or tolerating the violation of the unalienable rights of anyone subject to its jurisdiction.

Sarah Palin appears to be pro-choice for State governments. (I invite readers to review the arguments I have made in this regard in Sarah Palin: Already Compromised? and Palin's Choice: an Afterword) Yet just as the principle of unalienable right places a limit on the individual choice of the mother it also limits the choice of the community of individuals (civil society) acting by means of the State governments. Except for the just demands of that principle, the intimate, personal consequences of the decision about pregnancy would favor giving moral priority to the mother's choice, not that of State legislators otherwise unaffected by its result. Herein lies the grave danger connected with identifying 'pro-choice for States' politicians as acceptable champions of the pro-life cause. They step away from the solid ground of principle provided by the Declaration of Independence reliance upon unalienable rights. By doing so, they set the stage for the ultimate defeat of the pro-life position. Sadly this also undermines the argument that the consent of the governed is the sine qua non of governmental legitimacy (lawfulness). For unless it respects requirements of right action, government based upon consent contradicts the Creator's rule, and so cuts the ground out from under the just demand it claims to represent.

Here is this week's WND.com article, Let Rev. Manning be heard!   Are the Obama forces now openly seeking to abuse law enforcement powers to intimidate and silence an outspoken opponent?  As always, feel free to return here for comment.

Obama apparently doesn't realize that the occupant of the office he lays claim to is supposed to represent the sovereign people of the United States.  At newsmax.com the following picture accompanied a story reporting his clearly deliberate bow to the Japanese Emperor Akihito.