In Little Rock on January 21, 2012 in front of 100 pro-choice advocates met next to the Capitol to hear Loretta Ross speak. In that talk she pointed out something about her own experience. (Below is from another speech in which she recounts some of the same details.)
Loretta Ross: Frankly, I’m a woman who at 14, became pregnant through incest. It was not voluntary at all, OK? At the time my son was born, and I had to carry that pregnancy to term, because it was pre-Roe. 1969. I had the option of giving my child up for adoption. I found I couldn’t do it. I took one look at his face and I couldn’t do it. So I ended up parenting that kid and I’m glad I had him. I’m glad I parented him. but at the same time, anyone who acts like it’s just so easy to carry a child to term, give birth and them just hand the baby over to somebody else obviously has never done it. And the women I’ve talked to who have done it, often regret having done it. Even more so than the so-called women who regret having abortions. So it’s a scheme designed to make black women feel guilty, it builds on the fantasy of adoption being easy and it ignores the fact that something like 4 out of 5 children in adoption agencies that are hard to place are African-American.
Notice her words: “I took one look at his face and I couldn’t do it. So I ended up parenting that kid and I’m glad I had him. I’m glad I parented him.” In other words, it was not a blob but a baby!!!
Let me share a similar story. I used to write letters to the editor a whole lot back in the 1990’s. I am pro-life and many times my letters would discuss current political debates, and I got to know several names of people that would often write in response letters to my published letters. One of those individuals was a Dr. William F. Harrison from Fayetteville. Later I found out from reading an article by David Sanders that Dr. Harrison was an abortionist. Dr Harrison died from leukemia on September 24, 2010. Here is a post from Jason Tolbert from July of 2010:
KFSM in Fayetteville is reporting that abortist William Harrison is closing the doors to his abortion clinic in nothwest Arkansas for health reasons. In an ABC News story a few year ago, Harrison said he had performed over 10,000 abortions and was comfortable with the taking of life.
I now write a column for Stephen Media in a spot once held by conservative David J. Sanders who is currently running for the Arkansas House of Representatives. Sanders shadowed Harrison in his abortion clinic and wrote of series of columns on the experience. I think these are prehaps Sanders’ best work…
Harrison is sure that what he does is right, but he confessed to the enormous costs that come in his line of work. There were threats against his wife and children and staff. He commented that if he “had known” everything – the threats, the risks – that would take place over the years, he might not have decided to provide abortions.
Some years ago, a 16-year-old daughter of a close friend of the family had gotten pregnant. “Their Baptist minister had advised her parents that she shouldn’t have an abortion and that (if she did) she would regret it the rest of her life. But had I had the choice, at the time, I would have advised (the mother of the teenager) to have that child aborted,” he said as he stared at his desktop.
“Well, she had her baby. She’s as smart as a whip,” he said. Now, years later, that baby is grown and about to finish her doctorate at the University of California at San Francisco.
I asked him if that sent chills up his spine. His response: “Absolutely.”
Keith Green had a major impact on me back in 1978 when I first heard him. Here is his story below:
Last Days Ministries
In 1978, Last Days Ministries (LDM) began publishing the Last Days Newsletter. Originally printed on a few pages of loose paper, the newsletter grew in content to eventually become a “small, colorful magazine,” and was renamed in mid-1985 as Last Days Magazine. The magazine featured articles by Green and his wife as well as contemporary Christian authors David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill, and Winkie Pratney, all of whom lived in the area. The publication also later included the reprinted works of classic Christian authors such as Charles Finney, John Wesley, and William Booth and his wife Catherine. Most of the articles were reprinted as tracts. At the peak of its popularity, the Last Days Magazine was sent out to over 300,000 people worldwide.
In 1979, the ministry relocated from the San Fernando Valley to a 40-acre (160,000 m2) plot of land in Garden Valley, Texas, a crossroads community about nine miles (14 km) west of Lindale, Texas. Within a few years, Last Days purchased additional land, bringing the total to 140 acres (0.6 km2).
Plane crash
Gravesite at Garden Valley Cemetery
Along with eleven others, Keith Green died on , 1982, when the Cessna 414 leased by Last Days Ministries crashed after takeoff from the private airstrip located on the LDM property. The small two-engine plane was carrying eleven passengers and the pilot, Don Burmeister, for an aerial tour of the LDM property and the surrounding area. Green and two of his children, three year old Josiah, and two year old Bethany, were on board the plane, along with visiting missionaries John and Dede Smalley and their six children.
Among several causes, the NTSB determined that the crash was largely due to aircraft gross weight overload. It was determined that the pilot, should have refused to take five more passengers than there were seats on the plane. As Burmaster was a former United States Marine Corps aviator, the NTSB concluded that since military requirements put weight and balance responsibilities on the loadmaster of the flight and not the pilot, the pilot may have neglected this responsibility by former habit. With eleven passengers on board, the aircraft was overloaded by nearly 450 pounds (202 kg) and laden center of gravity was located 4.5 inches (110 mm) past the maximum aft limit. Also considered in the final ruling was the fact that operator and pilot did not satisfy insurance requirements for aircraft familiarization for operation, and pilot’s failure of several checkrides, leading to the revocation of Burmaster’s license shortly before the accident.
Keith, Josiah, and Bethany Green are interred at Garden Valley Cemetery behind the Garden Valley Baptist Church, less than a half-mile from the LDM property. He was survived by his wife and two daughters, the youngest of whom was born after Green’s death.
Legacy
Two full albums of original Green songs were released posthumously: The Prodigal Son (1983) and Jesus Commands Us to Go! (1984). Another release, I Only Want to See You There (1983) contained mostly previously released material. A complete volume of his work, The Ministry Years, was released in 1987 and 1988, including a few more previously unreleased songs.
Another unreleased Christian song known to have been recorded by Green was “Born Again,” which was finally released in 1999, 17 years after his death, on the First Love compilation video and CD. Both feature a two-song tribute to Green by other Christian artists.
In 2008, Last Days Ministries and Sparrow Records partnered together and released The Live Experience – Special Edition, a CD+DVD combination of 16 live recordings and 4 hours of DVD footage including video of live performances as well as details regarding Green’s life and his passing. A “Greatest Hits” album was also released at the same time, including 17 of Green’s most popular songs and one more previously unreleased Christian song, “Your Love Came Over Me”.
A prolific personal journalist, Green’s writings were published as excerpts in the books A Cry In The Wilderness (Sparrow, 1993), If You Love the Lord (Harvest House, 2000), and Make My Life a Prayer (Harvest House, 2001).
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
GUIDELINE #3: Privatize activities that could be performed better by the private sector.
Over the past two decades, nations across the globe have reaped the benefits of privatization, which empowers the private sector to carry out functions that had been performed by government. In the 1980s, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saved taxpayers billions of dollars and improved the British economy by privatizing utilities, telecommunications, and airports. More recently, the former Soviet republics and China have seen the promise of privatization. The United States, however, has been uncharacteristically timid in recent years.
There is little economic justification for the government to run businesses that the private sector can run itself. Even when there is a compelling reason for government to regulate or subsidize businesses, it can do so without seizing ownership of them. Government failures are often larger than market failures, and anyone who has dealt with the post office, lived in public housing, or visited a local department of motor vehicles understands how wasteful, inefficient, and unresponsive government can be.
Furthermore, government ownership crowds out private companies and encourages protected entities to take unnecessary risks. After promising profits, government-owned businesses frequently lose billions of dollars, leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill.
Entrenched opposition to privatization, which comes mostly from interest groups representing government monopolies, has been overcome elsewhere by (1) working with government unions and relevant interest groups to design privatization proposals, (2) offering low-cost stock options to current employees, and (3) ensuring a transparent, open bidding process.
Candidates for privatization are numerous.4 Congress should:
Sell the remaining Power Marketing Administrations through a stock offering (2004 spending: $155 million, discretionary);5
Require that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting fund itself as all other television networks do ($437 million, discretionary);
Privatize the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation ($14 million, discretionary);
Allow government agencies to accept bids on government printing jobs instead of having to use the Government Printing Office (GPO) ($130 million, discretionary);
Shift the National Agricultural Statistics Service to the private sector ($124 million, discretionary);
Sell Amtrak through a stock offering ($1,334 million, discretionary);
Privatize the next-generation high-speed rail program ($27 million, discretionary);
Turn over the foreign market development program to the assisted industries ($24 million, mandatory);
Privatize ineffective applied research programs for energy conversation research, fossil fuels, and solar and renewable energy ($1,640 million, discretionary);
Sell many of the federal government’s 1,200 civilian aircraft and 380,000 non-tactical, non-postal vehicles;
Shift the Energy Information Agency’s duties to the private sector ($78 million, discretionary);
Privatize the Architect of the Capitol ($534 million, discretionary); and
Privatize-commercialize air traffic control operations and fully fund with user fees.
Government-owned enterprises are not the only candidates for privatization. In 2003, taxpayers were on the hook for the federal government’s $249 billion in outstanding direct loans and $1,184 billion in outstanding guaranteed loans. Government loans typically undercut the financial services industry, which has sufficient resources to provide loans to businesses and
individuals.
Even worse, government often serves as a lender of last resort to organizations that private banks do not consider qualified for loans, and the low-cost nature of government loans encourages recipients to take unnecessary risks with their federal dollars. Consequently, a high percentage of federal loans are in default, and taxpayers were saddled with $17 billion in direct loan write-offs and guaranteed loan terminations in 2003.6
Therefore, Congress should:
Begin selling government direct loan programs and create new agency loan guarantees such as those of the Rural Utilities Service, Small Business Administration, Export-Import Bank, and Rural Housing Service.
Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a brilliant Christian philosopher who died in 1984, gives great insight to the Postmodern crisis we are experiencing within the church today. He explains how Thomas Aquinas opened the door for an Epistemological compromise between the Bible as an authority on one hand and Aristotelian philosophy being an equal viewpoint on the other hand. This mixture, known as Syncretism, led to Christians questioning whether the Bible was needed at all.
This is something we are struggling with in our day. Is the Bible merely “a” source of truth, or is it “the” authoritative source for all moral truth? Is the Bible “a” truth (i.e. Relative Truth), or are there real absolutes that relate to all of life and reality?
If you have never read Dr. Shaeffer’s works, you need to rediscover this man’s amazing contribution to the Christian community. It may change your life, as it did mine nearly 20 years ago.
Mike Masterson is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition and in the paper today he noted:
His favorite number.
To my colleagues in the media who apparently have no concept of why Denver quarterback Tim Tebow takes a knee in brief prayer when he makes an outstanding play on the field, let me assure you he is not thanking his creator for divine intervention for one act, or the outcome of the game. Tebow has never once said or even alluded to that.
God taking sides in a football game? Hard for me to believe even biased commentators would even put that one out there. It sounds like the reasoning of third-graders just to type this.
Instead, it’s evident to me that Tebow, who has prayed and openly expressed his devotion across his high school and All-American, Heisman Trophy college career, is simply expressing appreciation and gratitude to his maker for giving him the ability to perform at all.
The skeptics, naysayers and generally dissatisfied will disagree. Some will claim Tebow’s just hot-dogging or calling attention to himself. They have every right to believe that.
For me, Tebow represents a young man who is living his dream and doing what Christian scripture says is expected: To continually glorify God’s name and creation. He also has for years expressed his innermost self on the football field by wearing those black smudges beneath each eye containing the inscription John 3:16.
And here are some numbers bound to drive Tebow’s critics and nonbelievers (inside and outside the mainstream media) up a goalpost. You may have already seen these widely reported statistics.
In the Broncos’ overtime victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers two weeks back, Tebow averaged 31.6 yards per completion. He also threw for 316 yards. And the overtime television audience rating was 31.6. Pittsburgh’s time of possession? Why, 31 minutes, 6 seconds.
Make of this what you will. Some, of course, will shout coincidence. Perhaps. But that’s a Cowboys Stadium full of coincidences in my book. However, I do believe I can guess with certainty Tebow’s three luckiest numbers.
Tim Tebow is the best. Take a look at this article below: I believe in Tim Tebow Email Print By Rick Reilly ESPN.com Archive Tim Tebow FoundationTim Tebow with Jacob Rainey, one of the many people dealing with health problems Tebow hosted at Broncos games this season. I’ve come to believe in Tim […]
Another good article I found on Tebow: JANUARY 12, 2012 Does God Care Who Wins Football Games? After a moment of devotion, our team would all shout in unison, ‘Now let’s go kill those S.O.B.’s!’ By FRAN TARKENTON On Sunday, when Denver Bronco wide receiver Demaryius Thomas caught a pass from Tim Tebow on the […]
(In this clip above there is an argument concerning who Rodin married, but sorry it is in French.) Interesting article I wanted to pass on. I have written about Rodin’s “The Thinker” myself in the past. It’s official: Everyone on the planet has an opinion on Tim Tebow. By now we’ve heard from everyone from […]
With almost 300,000 hits on youtube: Uploaded by KDVRDenver on Jan 9, 2012 John Parr has updated his 1985 #1 hit “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” to honor Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. Download song at http://www.johnparramerica.com. Lyrics here: http://bit.ly/xHZqvW. Bill Maher is the one who brought Hitler into this. Related posts: Tim Tebow […]
Superbowl commercial with Tim Tebow and Mom. I used to write letters to the editor a whole lot back in the 1990′s. I am pro-life and many times my letters would discuss current political debates, and I got to know several names of people that would often write in response letters to my published letters. […]
The rivalry between the Seattle Sounders and the Vancouver Whitecaps goes back to their days in the old NASL in the 1970s, but the final 10 minutes of their first MLS match against each other on Saturday night might have been the best yet. The Sounders’ Mauro Rosales pulled the score even at 1-1 with a goal in the 81st minute and Osvaldo Alonso put them up 2-1 in the 84th. Just one minute later, Vancoucer’s Eric Hassli equalized with his second goal of the night and it just might prove to be the goal of the season in MLS.
Hassli chipped the ball over the defender and ran around him to volley it into the far side of the net from the edge of the box. The match would end 2-2 and showed exactly why Vancouver made the largely unknown Frenchman their highest paid player.
With six goals and three red cards in 10 matches so far, Hassli has had a strange yet productive season that, to this point, has been highlighted by the fact that he was sent off after celebrating a goal by removing his jersey to reveal the exact same jersey. Now it’s highlighted by that and a pretty great goal.
Yahoo Sports reported: The rivalry between the Seattle Sounders and the Vancouver Whitecaps goes back to their days in the old NASL in the 1970s, but the final 10 minutes of their first MLS match against each other on Saturday night might have been the best yet. The Sounders’ Mauro Rosales pulled the score even […]
Today we are discussing the 7th most controversial game. Everette Hatcher’s choice: I have chosen this game partly because it was a game that the USA won. Sadly Escobar was killed in a bar back in Columbia when he got home. Two of my sons were learning soccer at the time and they were 7 […]
Today we are discussing the 8th most controversial game. Everette Hatcher picks the Germany v. USA game in 2002. 2002 World Cup Quarter Finals: Germany vs United States Close call on hand-ball: In the 49th minute of Friday’s Germany-United States World Cup quarterfinal, a shot by American Gregg Berhalter bounced off German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and […]
Uploaded by TubeCentary on Jun 7, 2011 Goals from the GOLD CUP match. Dempsey and Altidore with the goals. Hilarious American commentary to go with it. The Associated Press reported: Five Mexican players fail test Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Five players on Mexico’s soccer team, including goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa and defender Francisco Rodriguez, have […]
Today we are discussing the best player of all time. Everette Hatcher picks Pele. Pele The Great videosport.jumptv.com – A tribute to history’s greatest soccer player of all time. Wilson Hatcher’s pick: Lionel Messi Lionel Messi 2009 – Top 10 Goals *NEW* This list is based on talent not influence. For Pele would easily be […]
Here is the reason why I lay so much stress in my book on the importance of William of Ockham and his justly celebrated razor. Why on earth—if you excuse the impression—do the faithful spend so much time creating a mystery where none exists? And why do they insist on inserting unwarrantable assumptions?
I take the plain meaning of the passage in Luke (in a section that is clotted with stories about the casting out of devils and other embarrassing sorceries) to be the duty to others in distress. Surely it loses much of its force if the lesson is about discrepant ethnicities of which we cannot in any case be certain? Nothing can “invert” the message to emulate the Samaritan and to go “and do thou likewise.”
You dilute the purity of this—which is morally intelligible to any atheist or humanist—by saying that there is a millennium and a half delay between the “revelation” of this simple act of charity and its anecdotal fulfillment. You also appear to find no distinction between the intelligible injunction to “love thy neighbor” and the impossible order to love another “as thyself.” We are not so made as to love others as ourselves: This may admittedly be a fault in our “design,” but in such a case the irony would be at your expense. The Golden Rule is to be found in the Analects of Confucius and in the motto of the Babylonian Rabbi Hillel, who long predate the Christian era and who sanely state that one should not do to others anything that would be repulsive if done to oneself. (Even this strikes me as either contradictory or tautologous, since surely we agree that sociopaths and psychopaths actually deserve to be treated in ways that would be objectionable to a morally normal person.) When you say that men have never known nor yet understood the essential principle, however, you speak absurdly. Ordinary morality is innate in my view. But if, in yours, it is still not known, then centuries of divine admonition have also gone to waste. You are trapped in a net of your own making. Take a look at the list of actual or potential crimes that you mention. Genocide is not condemned by the Old Testament and neither (as you well know and have lsewhere conceded) is slavery. Rather, these two horrors are often positively recommended by holy writ.
Abortion is denounced in the Oath of Hippocrates, which long predates Christianity. As for capital punishment and unjust war, the secular and the religious are alike at odds on the very definitions that underpin any condemnation. (When you include “stem-cell research,” by the way, I assume that you unintentionally omitted the word “embryonic.”)
To your needlessly convoluted subsequent question: Atheists are by no means “coy” on the question of evil or on the possibility of non-supernatural derivation of ethics. We are simply reluctant to say that, if religious faith falls—as we believe it must and to some extent already has—then the undergirding of decency falls also. And we do not fail to notice that a corollary is in play: The manner in which religion makes people behave worse than they might therwise have done. Take a look at today’s paper if you do not believe me: See what the parties of God are doing in Iraq. Or notice the sordid yet pious tradesmanship of Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, and the late Jerry Falwell. The latter’s bedside is the one at which you should be asking your question—do you dare to say that a follower of Albert Einstein or Bertrand Russell would be gloating in the same way at their last hour? In either case—an atheist boaster and braggart or a hypocritical religious one—I trust that both of us would know enough to be quite “judgmental.” I would differ from you only in not requiring any supernatural sanction or in claiming to be smug enough to possess such a power.
I am sorry to see that you sarcastically refer to Thomas Jefferson as “my” beloved. Do you not respect him also? And why can you not summon enough charity to believe that a non-believer can give blood, say, for no return, out of the sheer satisfaction of doing a service that involves only a benefit and no loss? According to you, my doing this is pointless unless I accept the incredible idea that, after hundreds of thousands of years of human life and suffering, God chose a moment a few thousand years ago to finally mount an intervention. You will have to accept sooner or later that a good person can be born who cannot force his mind to believe such a fantastic thing. At that point, you will see that your strenuous conditions are surplus to requirements.
In closing, I reply to your clumsy observation about my motor vehicle by citing Heine, who said: In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides.
The argument that you have been making was over long before either of us was born. There is no need for revelation to enforce morality, and the idea that good conduct needs a heavenly reward, or that bad conduct merits a hellish punishment, is a degradation of our right and duty to choose for ourselves.
Christopher Hitchens – Against Abortion Uploaded by BritishNeoCon on Dec 2, 2010 An issue Christopher doesn’t seem to have addressed much in his life. He doesn’t explicitly say that he is against abortion in this segment, but that he does believe that the ‘unborn child’ is a real concept. ___________________________ I was suprised when I […]
Max Brantley in the Arkansas Times Blog reports that Ron Paul is leading in Iowa. Maybe it is time to take a closer look at his views. In the above clip you will see Chistopher Hitchens discuss Ron Paul’s views. In the clip below you will find Ron Paul’s latest commercial. Below is a short […]
DEBATE William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens Does God Exist 07 Below are some reactions of evangelical leaders to the news of Christopher Hitchens’ death: Christian leaders react to Hitchens’ death Posted on Dec 16, 2011 | by Michael Foust DEBATE William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens Does God Exist 08 Author and […]
DEBATE William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens Does God Exist 04 Below are some reactions of evangelical leaders to the news of Christopher Hitchens’ death: Christian leaders react to Hitchens’ death Posted on Dec 16, 2011 | by Michael Foust DEBATE William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens Does God Exist 05 Author and speaker Christopher […]
DEBATE William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens Does God Exist 01 Below are some reactions of evangelical leaders to the news of Christopher Hitchens’ death: Christian leaders react to Hitchens’ death Posted on Dec 16, 2011 | by Michael Foust Author and speaker Christopher Hitchens, a leader of an aggressive form of atheism that eventually […]
A big majority of Americans are concerned about growing income inequality and government favor for the rich, and they understand that lower taxes do directly affect federal budget deficits, which Republican orthodoxy for 30 years has denied.
However, I like most Republicans would argue the problem is spending and not taxes. Take a look at this video and article from the Cato Institute concerning Illinios’ recent experience.
I’m mystified, though, why some Republicans are willing to walk into such a trap. If you were playing chess against someone, and that person kept pleading with you to make a certain move, wouldn’t you be a tad bit suspicious that your opponent really wasn’t trying to help you win?
When I talk to the Republicans who are open to tax hikes, they sometimes admit that their party will suffer at the polls for agreeing to the hikes, but they say it’s the right thing to do because of all the government red ink.
I suppose that’s a noble sentiment, though I find that most GOPers who are open to tax hikes also tend to be big spenders, so I question their sincerity (with Senator Coburn being an obvious exception).
But even if we assume that all of them are genuinely motivated by a desire to control deficits and debt, shouldn’t they be asked to provide some evidence that higher taxes are an effective way of fixing the fiscal policy mess?
I’m not trying to score debating points. This is a serious question.
European nations, for instance, have been raising taxes for decades, almost always saying the higher taxes were necessary to balance budgets and control red ink. Yet that obviously hasn’t worked. Europe’s now in the middle of a fiscal crisis.
Run up spending and debt, raise taxes in the naming of balancing the budget, but then watch as deficits rise and your credit-rating falls anyway. That’s been the sad pattern in Europe, and now it’s hitting that mecca of tax-and-spend government known as Illinois.
…Moody’s downgraded Illinois state debt to A2 from A1, the lowest among the 50 states. That’s worse even than California.
…This wasn’t supposed to happen. Only a year ago, Governor Pat Quinn and his fellow Democrats raised individual income taxes by 67% and the corporate tax rate by 46%. They did it to raise $7 billion in revenue, as the Governor put it, to “get Illinois back on fiscal sound footing” and improve the state’s credit rating. So much for that.
…And—no surprise—in part because the tax increases have caused companies to leave Illinois, the state budget office confesses that as of this month the state still has $6.8 billion in unpaid bills and unaddressed obligations.
In other words, higher taxes led to fiscal deterioration in Illinois, just as tax increases in Europe have been followed by bad outcomes.
Whenever any politician argues in favor of a higher tax burden, just keep these two points in mind:
1. Higher taxes encourage more government spending.
The combination of these two factors explains why higher taxes make things worse rather than better. And they explain why Europe is in trouble and why Illinois is in trouble.
The relevant issue is whether the crowd in Washington should copy those failed examples. As this video explains, higher taxes are not the solution.
This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives seven reasons why the political elite are wrong to push for more taxes. If allowed to succeed, the hopelessly misguided pushing to raise taxes would only worsen our fiscal mess while harming the economy.
The seven reasons provided by the video against this approach are as follows:
1) Tax increases are not needed;
2) Tax increases encourage more spending;
3) Tax increases harm economic performance;
4) Tax increases foment social discord;
5) Tax increases almost never raise as much revenue as projected;
6) Tax increases encourage more loopholes; and,
7) Tax increases undermine competitiveness
It pays to remember history. Today I am going to go through some of it and give an outline and quotes from the great Southern Baptist leader Adrian Rogers (1931-2005).
Somehow Newt Gingrich’s righteous indignation over CNN’s debate moderator John King’s questioning Gingrich over his ex-wife’s allegations that Newt Gingrich wanted an “open marriage” with both his then wife, Marianne Gingrich and Gingrich’s present wife Callista, appears to be a simple little temper tantrum by the seemingly cry-baby ex-Speaker.
Gingrich came off a whiner having a hissy fit over what is more than likely “the truth”..
One only need go back to the nineties when Gingrich was outraged over the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. The press and Gingrich went full throttle to paint President Clinton as the lowest form of life possible.
Gingrich had no problem with the Press and cable TV’s trial by media events that took place in what could be described as an incessant level of coverage back then.
Now all of a sudden he chooses to castigate the “elite media” and the debate moderator for reporting the story and in King’s case, for asking about the story. Newt Gingrich appears to be a victim all the time.
Would you like some cheese with that whine Mr. Gingrich?
___________________________
My former pastor Adrian Rogers summed this up best in 1998 during the Clinton scandal (“Does Character Count? A Biblical Treatment,” SBC Life, November 1998, 1):
[Rogers] suggests the comfort of the middle class has larger implications for American society. His concern in the recent presidential intern scandal was with the large number of people who were not particularly upset. “My concern is with the people whose response to a lack of character in our leaders is a roaring, “SO WHAT? LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!” As long as there are people in this country who believe that a leader’s personal character makes no difference in any way, then I tell you that we are in the throes of crisis!”
Does Character Count? A Biblical Treatment by Adrian Rogers
“Vice is a monster of such awful mien, that to be hated needs but to be seen, but seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
Our nation is in crisis and as a minister of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, I feel I must address this matter!
We cannot, we dare not, we must not, and we shall not ignore what is happening in America today. Some terrible and shocking accusations have been made against the President of our beloved republic. It is our duty as Americans and as Christians to pray that truth will be revealed and justice administered.
In this article I want to address not so much the crisis at the highest levels of our government, but the bigger and even more disturbing crisis at the level of everyday American life where most of us live. Let me explain what I mean…
(Some will believe the charges against the President and some will not).
Then there is a third response to serious moral and ethical charges against a person in high office. This is the group I want to talk about, because it is here that America’s shocking, degrading moral crisis rears its ugly head.
This third group of people are those who, instead of saying the accused is guilty or innocent, say, “SO WHAT? Who cares? Guilty, innocent – what difference does it really make so long as he is doing a good job?”
These people argue that there is no connection between a man’s personal life and his political abilities. And according to all indications, this response to scandal and serious charges is the most common response among Americans!
A recent editorial in U.S. News & World Report said: “A majority seem to believe in the President’s programs and politics even if they don’t believe in him. They care far more about the good times. As one wag put it, ‘People say they vote Dow Jones, not Paula Jones.'”
Another editorial writer argued that in the case of the President, “We elected him knowing his propensities. The economy is strong and he has a promising agenda. Tossing him out to keep up appearances would merely match the President’s destructive self-indulgence with our own.”
This man assumes the President has done wrong. But he’s saying that the economy is good and the President’s programs are so good. Why mess up a good thing?
In a newspaper article, a sociologist made this observation: “Character has been slowly bred out of many Americans, especially baby boomers and their children.” He argued that decades of pampering and organized activities and “feel-good” approaches in which participants do not have to take personal responsibility have made character almost passé.
Is character passé in America? A Newsweek magazine poll said that voters tend to believe the President is lying about his adulterous affairs, yet he is enjoying his highest approval rating ever. These sentiments sum up the attitude of this third group and indicate that we are in deep trouble as a nation!
I want you to understand that no matter what has been revealed or what action has been taken by the time this is read, the crisis I want to address will not just go away. My concern is with the people whose response to a lack of character in our leaders is a roaring, “SO WHAT? LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!”
As long as there are people in this country who believe that a leader’s personal character makes no difference in any way, then I tell you that we are in the throes of crisis!
But make no mistake. It makes every difference what a person in leadership believes and does in his personal life. Character counts with God, and it must count with us if we want to stay the judgment of God on this great nation.
The Character God Requires
What does God say about the kind of leadership a nation needs? I want to give you four principles I have ferreted out from the Word of God. Let’s think first of all about the character God requires. The Bible says in Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”
One argument we are hearing these days is that national leaders are like airplane pilots. “We don’t care about a pilot’s morals,” this line goes, “as long as he can fly the airplane. His character doesn’t matter as long as he can get us from point A to point B. We want a safe take-off, a safe trip, and a safe landing. What the pilot does in his personal life behind closed doors is none of our concern.”
This argument about a leader’s character might hold water if we did not need the BLESSING OF GOD on this country. If we are going to say, “God, we don’t need You to bless our leaders or our people,” then this argument may be valid.
But let me use another analogy. Suppose you were going to have open-heart surgery. Would you want the surgeon to come from the restroom and into the operating room without even washing his hands? Would you want him to hold your heart in his hands if they were not sanitary? I want the hands of those who hold the heart of this nation to be clean. Clean hands and a pure heart are necessary for godly leadership and godly leadership is a prerequisite to blessing.
The fact is that America desperately needs the blessing of God! We are ruined without it. But God says, “If you want My blessings, here are some things that are necessary.” Let me give you six biblical characteristics that God requires of leaders before His blessing can rest on a nation.
Below are the verses that should describe our leaders:
“It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness” (Prov. 16:12).
“I wisdom dwell with prudence. … By me [wisdom] kings reign and, princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth” (Prov. 8:12, 15-16).
Proverbs 17:7 tells us, “Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.” According to Proverbs 20:28, “Mercy and truth preserve the king.”
(Avoid bad counselors) Proverbs 29:12 says, “If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.”
“The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him. What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows? Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings” (Prov. 31:1-3).
A Leader Must Be a Man Who Protects the Weak
Here’s a final trait of leadership that God requires. A leader must protect the weak and the helpless.
In Proverbs 31:8-9, God says to King Lemuel, “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”
A president, or any leader, must speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves, those who are about to be destroyed. When a president is inaugurated, he takes a pledge to defend the nation. There are many defenseless people in America today, and they’re depending on the government to defend them. The President should be standing up for the unborn, the most defenseless of all those who cannot speak for themselves.
I once testified in Washington before a Senate committee dealing with abortion. After I left the room there at the Capitol, a female lawyer met me in the hall. “You don’t understand,” she said. “You’re a man, so you don’t understand what a trauma it is to have an unwanted pregnancy.”
I said to her, “Do I understand you to say that if somebody traumatizes you, you can eliminate them? Because you’re traumatizing me right now. What if I were to put both my thumbs on your windpipe and strangle you right now? At least you could scream or run. But a baby in its mother’s womb can’t do either.”
She just turned and walked off. I’m sure she told someone, “That Baptist preacher said he was going to strangle me!” But I only said, “What if?”
It’s the job of a ruler to speak up for the unborn! “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction,” God commands the one in authority. Someone may say, “But Pastor Rogers, abortion is legal.” Then hear these verses: “Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood” (Ps. 94:20-21).
If a throne of iniquity is one that uses the law to commit evil, then what we have in America today is a throne of iniquity! Laws are passed to shed innocent blood. But NOTHING IS POLITICALLY RIGHT THAT IS MORALLY WRONG.
Jeremiah said concerning evil King Jehoiakim, “Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it” (22:17). The prophet Habakkuk warned, “Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!” (2:12).
The king, the prince, the president, must be the protector of the helpless. This is the character that God requires.
Does character count? It does if there is a God in glory – a God who helped our founders establish this nation, and who has sustained this nation and brought us thus far.
But if our people are willing to say, “God, we don’t need You anymore. We don’t want Your rule anymore. We know what we are doing. Our skill and ingenuity will see us through,” then I say God help America! Because God will say, “You don’t need Me? That’s fine. But then don’t call on Me when judgment falls.”
Do you remember what happened when Peter preached his great sermon on the Day of Pentecost? The people of Israel “were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).
This is the question God’s people need to ask today.
________
Newt should have had a steadfast love for his wife!!! Take a look at this clip below:
Some Southern Baptist leaders defended Newt Gingrich’s past moral failings and attempted to explain why the former Speaker of the House could be supported as the Republican standard-bearer. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)
worked pretty well for a whole generation. Now anything that works well for a whole generation isn’t entirely bad. From the fact __ from that fact, and the undeniable fact that things are working poorly now, are we to conclude that the Keynesian sort of mixed regulation was wrong __
FRIEDMAN: Yes.
LEKACHMAN: __ or alternatively that we need still more regulation. That’s my conclusion, I might say.
FRIEDMAN: You want the right people manipulating the leaders. But go back. Memory smooths things out. If you really look at that 25_year period you’re talking about, it was not a period of stability; it was a period that was punctuated by the very sharp inflation of the Korean War. It was a period that was punctuated by three recessions in the course of about eight years in the fifties and early sixties. It was a period in which you had a __ inflation really starting to go from creeping to running, in the latter sixties. It was a period which laid the ground work for the kind of situation in which we are now, where you have both higher unemployment and higher inflation. It was __
TEMIN: I don’t think that followed. I mean there were these movements, as we say, but they weren’t the movements like the 1930s. There was a recession in ’58, yes.
FRIEDMAN: I agree.
TEMIN: We all called it a recession. We all worried about it and so on, but it was a small thing, little potatoes.
FRIEDMAN: The same thing was true in earlier periods between The Great Depression. If you take the area between the great depression in the United States of the 1870s and the 1890s, again you had a period like that. If you take it between The Great Depression of the 1890s and World War I, with a minor __ with one minor exception, it was similar to that. So that what you have, and this is a historical fact, is that except for the great depressions, all of which are linked to monetary collapses and to governmental involvement, in the interim period, the society has been reasonably stable.
MCKENZIE: Haven’t we reached the stage, incidentally, where we need not again see anything like the great depression. You say recessions, yes; but it bears no relationship to what we knew __
FRIEDMAN: No.
MCKENZIE: __ in the thirties. Have we solved that problem now? People are deeply __
JAY: No, we haven’t. Because I think the seeds of it remain there. I don’t agree with Professor Lekachman that everything was __ I don’t want to misparaphrase him __ but did pretty well until 1973 and then it suddenly all went wrong. It seems to me that the seeds of the subsequent instability, stagflation, were there before. That each time round the economic cycle inflation went a little faster. Each time around the economic cycle unemployment tended to be a bit higher. But this brings me to what is my disagreement with Professor Friedman. I agree with him that government has failed to correct, and is bound to fail to correct that instability. I do not agree with him that it is the root cause of that instability or simply removing or containing the government will remove that instability. Because his constitution, and I agree with all the things he wants to put into it, but I want to put more into it, leaves big capital entirely free to operate. Now he doesn’t mind that. In response to big capital, you are bound to get __ as a simple, natural reaction __ big labor. He doesn’t mind that. He’s quite happy with that. But my contention is that once you have big labor, you have a way of setting rewards in society, not only by trade unions, but through all sorts of other processes whereby groups get together in order to exploit the political process and legal rights, and to protect themselves from competition, in which, inevitably, people set rewards above what economists call the “market clearing price” for labor. They set levels of rewards which make it impossible that everybody should be employed and you therefore have a built-in tendency to high unemployment. If governments react to that on the Keynesian pattern by trying to inject spending which will enable these people to be employed, then I agree with Professor Friedman that all you get is faster and faster inflation, and that if you like, is caused by the government. But the government is a proximate cause of an original instability that is already there. And there’s nothing in Professor Friedman’s constitution which would correct that inherent, if you like, contradiction or flaw in classical western political economy.
FRIEDMAN: Do you deny, Peter __
MCKENZIE: Let me get the reaction to that __
FRIEDMAN: __no, I want to ask just one question of Peter. Do you deny that big government plays a large part in the rise of big capital and big labor?
JAY: I think they’re interactive. I once said big capital causes big labor, causes big government, causes big failure. That is the tragic story, in my opinion, of the 20th century.
FRIEDMAN: And what about if you start that __
JAY: We have to unravel that.
FRIEDMAN: __ if you start that route with big government. Will it be wrong? Big government causes big capital, causes big labor, causes big failure?
JAY: I don’t think historically that’s what happened. But you and I are agreed, we don’t want big government.
FRIEDMAN: That’s right.
JAY: What we’re disagreed about is what else we need.
LEKACHMAN: I think something is seriously wrong with a beautiful system which develops this big, clumsy, aggressive government, huge corporations, with more influence over their markets than is desirable from the standpoint of free competitive theory, trade unions, which at least according to some opinions, have a similarly malignant influence on their markets. There must be something radically flawed with the capitalist system which allows these institutional developments. This doesn’t alarm me because I’m a socialist, but I would __ I would readily __
FRIEDMAN: There must be something radically wrong with socialist philosophy which allows the __ extraordinary __ the much worse developments that have occurred, wherever there has been any real significant attempt to put a thoroughgoing socialism into practice.
LEKACHMAN: Socialism is a word of many meanings.
MCKENZIE: Now I think we might easily get into a quite serious debate on that point.
VOICE OFF SCREEN: Right.
JAY: I think it’s possible to note in passing that they may both be right.
MCKENZIE: Yes.
JAY: That conventional capitalism, conventional socialism, as conceived in the 20th century, are both wrong and that the polarization of the debate between those simple two alternatives greatly impoverishes the real range of political-economic choices which modern societies have.
FRIEDMAN: But what has happened? Over and over again one claim after another for the kind of socialism __ this kind of socialism or that kind of socialism __ has turned to ashes. And each time the answer has come, “Oh well, it was a wrong brand of socialism that was adopted, or the wrong people were running it.”
VOICE OFF SCREEN: But you’re saying __
JAY: You’re arguing with yourself when you’re saying __
FRIEDMAN: No I’m not.
JAY: The Federal Reserve in 1929 failed to do the right thing. It was the wrong brand of government.
FRIEDMAN: It was the wrong brand, absolutely, but what I’m saying is something different. I can at least point to examples in history of systems of capitalist systems in which the government had a fairly limited role, not my ideal government. Many things, doing many things I would not want it to do. But I’m going to point to such examples over long stretches of history in __ which have been relatively successful. Where the major achievements of humankind, not merely in economics, but in all other areas, have largely arisen. It is very difficult to point to any similar examples __
TEMIN: But then you are pointing back __
FRIEDMAN: __ of where big government has achieved such success.
TEMIN: But you said before you didn’t like to go back. You’re now talking about going back.
FRIEDMAN: No, no. I didn’t say I didn’t like to go back.
TEMIN: They took place in different times.
FRIEDMAN: What I said is going back or forward is irrelevant. What we want to do is __
TEMIN: But it’s not irrelevant to this discussion __
FRIEDMAN: __ the right thing wherever it comes from.
TEMIN: __ because as Bob Lekachman said earlier, things have increased in scale, and the scale of business and increased, and you were saying just before, big government, big labor, big industry, big firms go together, and you didn’t accept it before, when Bob said you’ll accept it now from here.
FRIEDMAN: No, no. I don’t accept it. What I accept is that big government is a major factor promoting big labor and big capital. I did not accept that in the absence of big government you would have the big capital and big labor that worries him.
“Vice is a monster of such awful mien, that to be hated needs but to be seen, but seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
The Daily Hatch 