February 1, 2021 Honorable Vice President Kamala Harris c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mrs. Vice President,
Let me encourage you to read this article below:
I must say I share your love for the LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C.S. Lewis. Sadly he died on the same day as two other notable gentleman (JFK and Aldous Huxley). Just like you I have a love for books!
Calling for stimulus spending in response to COVID-19, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., stated on Jan. 28, “The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it.” (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images)
The combination of unified control of the federal government along with the COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly caused some elected officials to think there are no consequences to new spending proposals. However, they must wake up to the dangers posed by recklessly adding to the national debt.
On Thursday, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., exemplified this mindset by saying, “The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it. We should have learned the lesson, from 2008 and 2009, when Congress was too timid and constrained in its response to the global financial crisis.”
>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.
This is wrong on several fronts.
The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>
First, the stimulus spending that took place in the wake of the Great Recession was ineffective at creating jobs, and in some ways slowed the economy by creating perverse incentives and crowding out private activity.
Second, despite the difficulties associated with the pandemic, the economy is currently in much better shape than it was during the last recession.
The national unemployment rate hit 10% in October 2009 and stayed above 8% through August 2012. In contrast, the COVID-19 recession caused unemployment to spike to 14.8% in April 2020, but it fell below 7% by October.
Third, Congress has already approved over $4 trillion in response to the pandemic, much of which is still available or in the process of being distributed. The idea that Congress has been “undershooting” the response is ridiculous.
Most importantly, Schumer and other leftists in Congress are ignoring the very real danger posed by adding to the $27.8 trillion federal debt, which is over $210,000 for every U.S. household.
Even after the pandemic is over and the economy returns to normal, we will face serious problems as a result of the federal government’s broken finances.
Over $21 trillion worth of federal debt obligations are traded on the open market. While interest rates are low today, Congress has no control over what those rates will be as the debt turns over and requires refinancing.
Credit rating agencies are growing concernedabout the sustainability of America’s finances. If demand for our debt goes down, that will force the Treasury to offer higher interest rates.
Higher interest rates on so much debt would add up very quickly, which makes this a serious risk to economic growth and future prosperity. That means we need to put an end to massive deficits and eventually shrink the debt, either in absolute terms or in relation to the size of the economy, to reduce the risk to current and future generations.
This will be impossible unless legislators address the driving force behind long-term debt and deficits: unsustainable benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Major trust funds will run dry all too soon. Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) goes broke in 2024, Social Security Disability Insurance in 2026, and the Social Security retirement fund in 2031. These are programs that tens of millions of people rely on, and trust fund insolvency would cause serious upheaval, especially for Social Security.
Annual deficits for the federal government and these major benefit programs are too large to close overnight. Deficits were already high during the years of strong economic growth prior to the pandemic, and then exploded in 2020.
Reforms aiming to slow the growth of spending on Social Security and Medicare can have a significant effect, but only if those reforms are in place several years before the trust funds run out. The longer we wait, the more drastic the necessary changes become.
Besides reforming large benefit programs, there are many other ways for Congress to improve the nation’s financial health. These include refocusing the federal government on core priorities, eliminating wasteful spending, returning to a regular budget process, and strengthening economic growth.
What would not help this massive and growing problem is spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on more “relief” legislation that would do little to help the economy. Hopefully Congress will come to its senses and recognize that it has a responsibility to use taxpayer dollars wisely.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
—-
Thank you so much for your time.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
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Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., seen here speaking at a campaign rally at the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, Montana, Nov. 3, 2018, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain his top policy priorities. (Photo: William Campbell/Corbis/Getty Images)
Freshman Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., has entered the House with a bold plan to develop America’s natural resources and push back on the agenda of the far left.
Rosendale joined “The Daily Signal Podcast” during a recent trip to the U.S.- Mexico border to discuss why he ran for Congress, his former service in the Montana Legislature, the divisive moment the country finds itself in, and much more.
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Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript.
Rachel del Guidice: Hi, everyone. This is Rachel del Guidice with The Daily Signal Podcast. I am here joined by Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana. He is a new congressmen in this new Congress. And I’m just so happy to have you with us today.
Rep. Matt Rosendale: Good to be here. Thank you for having me, Rachel.
Del Guidice:Well, it’s great to have you with us. I want to start off talking about your service in Montana before running for Congress, so tell us a little bit about that and then also what led you to run for Congress.
Rosendale: Actually, 10 years ago, I was riding my horse four or five days a week and chasing cows around the ranch, and I really didn’t expect that I would be in this position right now.
I’ve been very engaged in politics my entire life, but I was building a business, I’m raising a family, and so I never really had the time that was necessary, what I felt, to dedicate to public service.
Once my boys were out of college and the community really came to me, and I found myself as chairman of the local AG association and president of the parish council at the Catholic church.
I’m very active in the church and they said, “Look, we are not getting proper representation in Eastern Montana in the Legislature,” and so folks recruited me to run for the Legislature, and I entered in 2010. I was elected to the [state] House. In 2012, I was elected to the [state] Senate. And in 2014, my colleagues elected me as the Senate majority leader.
It just really happened very quickly. And I’ve always said that I just want to serve where I can be the most effective for my community, and my community means my county, my state, or my nation.
Then the folks encouraged me to run for the open U.S. House seat because Greg Gianforte had disclosed that he was not seeking reelection. He was going to run for governor. And I obviously ran for the House seat and was able to win it.
Del Guidice: Well, congratulations. Before talking about going into Congress, what are some of the issues that you worked on in the Montana State House that you really saw [are] important to Montanans and really affected what you did on day to day there?
Rosendale: Sure. Really, the things that I focused on [were] trying to really lower the regulatory and tax burden on our businesses and put people in a better position to either start or expand businesses and grow job opportunities.
Then the last four years, I have been serving as the state auditor, which in Montana means I was the commissioner of securities and insurance. I’ve really focused the bulk of my efforts on trying to do something about the cost and the access to health care.
It has not been addressed. We still are dealing with these problems, but I was able to make some great strides to reduce the calls, to expand access, to guarantee coverage for preexisting conditions, and actually, in many cases, improve the quality of health care that people were receiving and start beginning to bend the cost curve down. Health care is a really big deal.
I sat on the state land board. We were responsible for managing 5.2 million acres of state school trust lands. Any agricultural lease, any mineral lease, any pipeline easement that protects harvesting of timber, all of those agreements were run through the state land board, and we would approve those.
We were generating somewhere between $40 and $45 million a year to put toward the K-12 education system for the state of Montana.
Del Guidice: Before we get to Congress, I have to ask you, you have a ranch out in Montana. Tell us about the ranch and what you do there.
Rosendale: I miss it a lot is what I do. People often ask me, “Do you get back to the ranch that often?” I said, “Yes, every night, just as soon as I close my eyes.”
It’s a wonderful place. It is about 20 miles north of a little town by the name of Glendive. It is on the Yellowstone River. By the time the Yellowstone River gets to me and my property, it’s been flowing about 600 miles, so it’s a big river. It’s not just a little trout stream.
And I’m very blessed, my wife Jean and I are very blessed to have the ranch and our sons. I have three sons. We have enjoyed every moment that we’ve been there.
Del Guidice: That’s awesome. I want to switch talking a little bit about Congress. You’re a new member there. What have been your reflections, before we get started talking about what you want to do? What have your reflections been on starting off at such a turbulent time in history right now?
Rosendale: It is and I will tell you my initial thought was that I was disappointed on swearing-in day. I have to tell you.
After going through swearing-in at the state Legislature, where we convene every other year, and you haven’t seen your colleagues from across the aisle. Your colleagues that are of the same party, you haven’t seen each other regularly for quite some time. We would come together and people would embrace, and they would greet each other.
The speaker, regardless of who they were, gave a very, very positive message to try to set the tone on trying to get work done.
Complete opposite, Day One, United States Congress, and I was disappointed. I thought that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi delivered a very divisive message, and it was just not the same tone and tenor that I had hoped that we were going to start off with.
You deal with that, and you can’t let that one unfortunate day affect the work that you want to accomplish as you go forward.
Then, obviously, we’ve had a tumultuous time over the last three weeks, and we have gotten through that. We are beyond that and now, finally, I was told what committees I’m going to serve on.
I’m going to be on [the] Natural Resources and Veterans’ Affairs [committees], two committees that are going to be extremely important to the state of Montana. I’m looking forward to getting to work, quite frankly. I mean, this is what the people elected me for, and this is what I want to do.
Del Guidice: You talk about getting to work. What are some of the things that are top-line on your heart and mind as issues that you want to work on in Congress as you go forward?
Rosendale: Sure. On natural resources, there are so many natural resources that are located within our state that I want to make sure that they can be developed and utilized in a safe and environmentally sound method, and we can do that.
We’ve seen the practices have changed over the last several years and whether we’re talking about the new copper mine that has been permitted near White Sulphur Spring or whether we’re talking about a better management of our public lands where our national forests are located, so that we don’t have to watch them burn thousands and thousands of acres in the summer, we can actually harvest that timber and put it to good use.
Certainly, we want to make sure that our oil and gas resources are developed. That is a place where we’re going to have conflict with the new administration.
President [Joe] Biden has demonstrated by revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and revoking, at least for a stated period of time, any leases or drilling on public lands, that’s a problem. …
We have four refineries located in our state and in addition to having four refineries located in our state, we have a lot of people that work for those refineries and the ancillary businesses that feed them. The development of those energy resources not only drives a pretty good segment of our economy, but it also contributes dramatically to our national security.
This is something that we’ve seen over the last just four years under the previous administration, where we were able to go from being dependent upon other countries that were not friendly to the United States, to actually being not only energy independent, but energy dominant, so that we can start looking to our allies and helping them with their energy needs, so that they’re not dependent on some of these unfriendly nations either.
Del Guidice: Let’s talk a little bit too about the state of play where things are at. As you mentioned, we have a Democrat in the White House. President Biden is there. Now the House and Senate are both in Democrat control.
As you look forward into the coming weeks and months and years, we’ve heard talk of possibly Democrats voting to make D.C. and Puerto Rico a state; different policies like the Green New Deal—talk of that being implemented—the Equality Act.
In your perspective, where do you think and how do you think conservatives should work so that that type of policy is responded to in an adequate way?
Rosendale: That is [a] very good question. Obviously, in the House, the majority rules anything and so that is all it takes.
I hope that all my friends that are out there listening right now recognize when they were calling for the end to the filibuster, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea because, obviously, we’re going to end up being in the minority sometime or another, which is right now, where that could work against us.
Quite frankly, thank goodness there is still a filibuster in place because what I’m hoping is that the most damaging of those agenda items will be able to be stopped in the Senate, because they won’t have a 60-vote majority to be able to start pushing any of those issues forward onto the floor.
However, the Democrats do have control over the reconciliation process through budget, and it’s my understanding that they have not only this year’s budget, but they have ’21, ’22, and ’23 fiscal years that they’re able to utilize for reconciliation.
I also understand that right now, none of those most damaging agenda items can be attached to reconciliation to be pushed through.
I’m thinking that the Biden administration is going to try to use their executive powers to implement some of these things and fortunately then, it’s going to fall to our attorneys general across the country to be able to file lawsuits and keep these things from being implemented upon the states.
I have a very good relationship with my state attorney general. We came into the state Legislature as freshmen together in 2010. We’re very good friends. And I’ve already had a meeting, sat down and talked with him, and said, “We need to make sure that we are working together to push back on some of these most damaging issues.”
Del Guidice: Well, we were just on a trip to the border, got to see a bunch of different things.
One of the things that stood out to me was in different areas, since President Biden’s administration has stopped construction on the border wall, there’s these big areas of border wall that had been completed, but there’s so many different spots where they still need to finish and all of that’s being halted.
Congressman, can you tell me a little bit about your reflections from what you’ve seen and also just your thoughts on what else needs to happen here?
Rosendale: A couple of points that I took away from the border trip were, No. 1, as you said, to have just an immediate halt to all that construction was unfortunate.
On Day One, President Biden started killing jobs. And this isn’t rhetoric. These are just plain, simple facts—whether we’re talking about the closure of the Keystone pipeline, whether we’re talking about the halting of oil and gas permits on public properties. I mean, all of this started killing jobs immediately.
What we also saw was it was killing jobs immediately as we went down to the border, and we saw equipment parked and, like you say, construction on the wall halted and construction sites that were not complete. They hadn’t even finished the work that they were doing.
In the conversations with the different law enforcement people, the Border Patrol security and the local residents, they have major, major concerns about how this is going to impact the area going forward.
It was interesting to hear them say that the populations of people that are coming across the border on different areas are different types of people that they’re dealing with.
You have more of a criminal element in the mountainous, more isolated areas, as opposed to more of people that are just trying to seek an improvement in their life that are closer to the urban areas, as they are trying to come across the border.
I think one of the takeaways that everybody in our country needs to understand is that the people that I spoke to down at the border—whether we were talking about Border Patrol, whether we were talking about the local ranchers or the local authorities, the sheriff’s departments, and things like that—were very compassionate and cognizant of what was going on with these people that were coming in illegally to enter our country, and they felt bad for the ones that were being so harshly treated by this criminal element that was helping get them into our country.
They want to see the suffering, the human suffering stop. And the best way for us to keep that human suffering from taking place is to stop providing an incentive and a free pass for people to enter into our country.
Once they’ve recognize that they cannot just walk in and the deterrent is there, you won’t have this wall of humanity that’s trying to attack the border.
Del Guidice:Well, as we wrap up, we talked a little bit about how divisive everything is right now and as a man of faith, also as a leader in your community, and now in your country, what are some parting words you’d like to leave, not only to your constituents in Montana, … but the rest of the country, and what our outlook should be as we just try to move on and move up?
Rosendale: I think that, again, as a man of faith, I do place my faith in God and I pray daily that we can improve what is taking place here.
My hope is that I will be able to connect with enough other like-minded individuals in Congress, regardless of what side of the aisle that they’re sitting on, that we can basically take personalities and set them aside and look at what has proven to work to benefit our country in the past.
Because, look, you can talk about personalities all day long, but if we are really focused on improving the economy, expanding jobs, trying to make sure that we do something about health care, then let’s talk about those things and get everything else off of the table. And that’s what’s going to put our country in a better position, which means that the lives will be better for the people that we serve.
Del Guidice:Congressman Rosendale, thank you so much for joining us on “The Daily Signal Podcast.” It’s been great having you with us.
Rosendale: Thank you so much, Rachel. Good to see you.
Joe Biden is old. He has been in politics since 1970 and holds antiquated views. On the campaign trail, he used expressions such as “malarkey” and said that kids should listen to the “record player.”
President Biden’s views on labor unions are similarly archaic. Unions appear to be central to his view of the economy, yet few private‐sector workers are in unions today. This Biden campaign statement, which is ostensibly about clean energy, promotes labor unions 32 times. Biden wants to “create millions of good, union jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure,” wants to “ensure these investments create good, union jobs that expand the middle class,” and so on. Spending on cars, energy, manufacturing, railroads, airports, broadband, and everything else in Biden’s plan is about union jobs, over and over ad nauseam.
The focus is pathological. I say that because union members account for just 6 percent of private‐sector employment today, yet Biden’s statement reads as if unions dominate the workforce, are the bulwark of the middle class, and are central to the economy. They are not and will not be going forward. The economy is too dynamic and competitive, and Americans have increasingly rejected unions in the private sector, as shown in the chart below.
The Biden statement repeatedly stresses “choice.” Biden wants to “provide workers with the choice to join a union and bargain collectively.” But “collective bargaining” is a euphemism for monopoly unionism and the denial of choice. It violates freedom of association, as Charles Baird explains here. The frequent use of the word “choice” is an attempt to mask the reality of coercive labor unionism under current federal law.
Even if collective bargaining was reasonable in theory, frequent corruption scandals reveal that labor union leaders abuse their special privileges. Most recently, the
Justice Department reached a civil settlement with the United Auto Workers union, marking a major turning point in a multiyear corruption investigation that has sent several former labor leaders to prison. The sprawling probe, led by the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, has penetrated the UAW’s top ranks and exposed what federal prosecutors described as a culture of corruption among its leadership built around kickback schemes, embezzlement and other illicit activities.
Why would any policymaker want to strengthen such organizations? Yet that is the direction of President Biden. His proposals would move backwards by reinforcing the coercive nature of federal labor union law, which is incompatible with personal freedom and the modern economy.
The chart shows that private‐sector union membership has fallen from 32 percent of the workforce in 1960 to just 6 percent today.
With a $15 federal minimum wage, any jobs that don’t produce at least $36,000 per year in goods and services will eventually be eliminated—either because businesses close their doors, outsource their labor, or automate low-skilled jobs. (Photo: Moyo Studio/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden has proposed a nationwide $15 minimum wage as part of his so-called “American Rescue Plan.” Talk about bad timing: Raising labor prices on businesses that are struggling to stay afloat is like throwing them a load of bricks instead of a life preserver.
State and local governments raising their minimum wages is one thing, but to more than double the federal minimum, from $7.25 to $15 per hour?
Nearly one in every five restaurants permanently closed their doors in 2020 as 30 large retail and restaurant companies filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, employment in food services (restaurants and bars) fell 19% in 2020 as retail clothing jobs dropped 24% and accommodations (hotels) jobs plummeted 32%.
The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>
Although very few people—only about 1% of all workers and 0.1% of single parents—make the $7.25 minimum wage, a good portion of restaurant, retail, and hotel jobs pay less than $15 per hour.
No one would suggest raising the rent on households who are months behind on their payments, so how could raising labor prices help businesses?
For a restaurant with five full-time workers making minimum wage, a doubling of the federal minimum wage would mean an extra $85,800 in wages and employment taxes. With restaurant profit margins of about 5%, that could require an extra $1.7 million in food sales ($4,700 more per day)—a seemingly impossible feat in normal times, let alone in the middle of a global pandemic.
Higher wages are a great thing—especially when the gains accrue to lower-income workers. But the only way to achieve actual wage increases—that is, lasting wage increases that don’t take jobs and incomes from others—is for workers to become more productive.
To that end, government mandates are powerless. A $15 minimum wage won’t help workers gain education and experience or provide them with technology that will enable them to produce more value and earn larger incomes. In fact, it could cause the opposite, by shifting employers’ resources away from training and investments to wages instead.
Moreover, raising wages by government fiat hurts many workers in the short and long run by cutting off the bottom rungs of the career ladder.
A $15 federal minimum wage translates into over $36,000 per year in wages and mandated taxes and benefits paid by employers. That means that any jobs that don’t produce at least $36,000 per year in goods and services will eventually be eliminated—either because businesses close their doors, outsource their labor, or automate low-skilled jobs.
That’s why even liberal economists and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office caution that a $15 federal minimum wage would lead to a survival-of-the-fittest labor market, reduce future incomes, and disproportionately harm African Americans and women.
The former chair of President Barack Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Krueger, warned in 2015, “Research suggests that a minimum wage set as high as $12 an hour will do more good than harm for low-wage workers, but a $15-an-hour national minimum wage would put us in uncharted waters, and risk undesirable and unintended consequences.”
Those consequences would be unequal across the country. Large cities with high costs of living—many of which already have or are on the path to a $15 minimum wage—may not experience huge consequences. But non-urban areas and places with lower costs of living could be devastated.
Imagine if policymakers were proposing a minimum wage hike to nearly $36—ensuring that all full-time workers earned at least $74,000 per year.
Most people would say that’s too much, realizing that such a high minimum wage would have massive consequences in terms of lost jobs, increased prices, and a complete and utter disruption of the American labor market and economy.
Yet, $15 per hour in Mississippi would be equivalent to $35.74 per hour in D.C., where federal lawmakers seek to impose a national standard across the U.S.
Minimum wages are best left to local governments, where decisions can be made based on economic conditions and the cost of living.
If a local government sets its minimum wage above the market wage, at least workers and business owners who lose their jobs and businesses can move to places where it’s still possible for them to earn a living.
But if policymakers impose an excessively high nationwide minimum wage across 50 very diverse states and more than 3,000 counties, there will be nowhere else for the harmed to go.
Instead of mandating policies that irrefutably harm some people to the benefit of others, policymakers should focus on opening doors to income opportunities for all workers.
Reducing barriers to jobs and income gains is what helped contribute to the 14.6% increase in wages for workers at the 10th percentile of earners (those earning about $10 per hour) between 2016 and 2019.
Lawmakers at all levels should be seeking to help Americans recover and gain new opportunities instead of permanently wiping out existing ones.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
February 9, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country.
I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views!Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!
All too often, the policy debates of today are simply refights of the battles of yesteryear. As a result, old arguments often retain a striking relevance.
In February 1973, economist Milton Friedman gave an interview to Playboy magazine. It was a wide ranging interview, covering topics from monetary policy to political philosophy. Friedman was an economist with a rare gift for translating technical arguments into clear prose (as you will find in his books Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose). His remarks on the minimum wage, as given in that interview, are startlingly contemporary.
PLAYBOY: But you prefer the laissez-faire—free-enterprise—approach. FRIEDMAN: Generally. Because I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse. Take, for example, the minimum wage, which has the effect of making the poor people at the bottom of the wage scale—those it was designed to help—worse off than before.
PLAYBOY: How so? FRIEDMAN: If you really want to get a feeling about the minimum wage, there’s nothing more instructive than going to the Congressional documents to read the proposals to raise the minimum wage and see who testifies. You very seldom find poor people testifying in favor of the minimum wage. The people who do are those who receive or pay wages much higher than the minimum. Frequently Northern textile manufacturers. John F. Kennedy, when he was in Congress, said explicitly that he was testifying in favor of a rise in the minimum wage because he wanted protection for the New England textile industry against competition from the so-called cheap labor of the South. But now look at it from the point of that cheap labor. If a high minimum wage makes unfeasible an otherwise feasible venture in the South, are people in the South benefited or harmed? Clearly harmed, because jobs otherwise available for them are no longer available. A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.
PLAYBOY: Isn’t it, rather, a law that requires employers to pay a fair and livable wage? FRIEDMAN: How is a person better off unemployed at a dollar sixty an hour than employed at a dollar fifty? No hours a week at a dollar sixty comes to nothing. Let’s suppose there’s a teenager whom you as an employer would be perfectly willing to hire for a dollar fifty an hour. But the law says, no, it’s illegal for you to hire him at a dollar fifty an hour. You must hire him at a dollar sixty. Now, if you hire him at a dollar sixty, you’re really engaging in an act of charity. You’re paying a dollar fifty for his services and you’re giving him a gift of 10 cents. That’s something few employers, quite naturally, are willing to do or can afford to do without being put out of business by less generous competitors. As a result, the effect of a minimum-wage law is to produce unemployment among people with low skills. And who are the people with low skills? In the main, they tend to be teenagers and blacks, and women who have no special skills or have been out of the labor force and are coming back. This is why there are abnormally high unemployment rates among these groups.
_____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The story of how this postwar consensus broke down—starting with LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his prediction that it would lead to the South’s wholesale abandonment of the Democratic Party—has been told many times before. The realignment Johnson foresaw ended up taking longer than he had expected. But steadily, year by year—through Vietnam, riots… and Nixon’s southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority, union busting, and Robert Bork; through assault weapons bans and the rise of Newt Gingrich…and the Clinton impeachment—America’s voters and their representatives became more and more polarized.
BUSING AND WHITE FLIGHT ARE ISSUES YOU ARE CONCERNED WITH WHEN IT SHOULD BE PROVIDING SCHOOL VOUCHERS TO HELP INNER CITY KIDS GET A GOOD EDUCATION!
I have put many posts up on my blog about school vouchers and how they would lower the cost of good education and give inner city children the chance to go to better schools since their parents would have real school choice!!! Why do you think inner city schools have the worst schools? The answer is those kids are trapped in schools where those educators know their students are trapped!
But that’s an exception to my general feeling that we’re moving in the right direction on public policy. I’ve shared a list of reasons to be optimistic, even on issues such as Obamacare and the Laffer Curve.
Education is another area where we should be hopeful. Simply stated, it’s increasingly difficult for defenders of the status quo to rationalize pouring more money into the failed government education monopoly. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never has so much been spent so recklessly with such meager results.
Fortunately, a growing number of people are realizing that the answer is markets and competition. That’s one of the reasons why we’re seeing progress all over the country. Policy makers have implemented varying degrees of school choice in states such as Indiana, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and even California.
Is this having a positive impact on educational outcomes and other key variables? The answer, not surprisingly, is yes.
Here are some of the details from a new study published by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.
This report surveys the empirical research on school choice. …the empirical evidence consistently shows that choice improves academic outcomes for participants and public schools, saves taxpayer money, moves students into more integrated classrooms, and strengthens the shared civic values and practices essential to American democracy.
The data on academic outcomes surely is the most important bit of information, so let’s specifically review those findings.
Twelve empirical studies have examined academic outcomes for school choice participants using random assignment, the “gold standard” of social science. Of these, 11 find that choice improves student outcomes—six that all students benefit and five that some benefit and some are not affected. One study finds no visible impact. No empirical study has found a negative impact.
And since I want to reduce the burden of government spending, let’s see whether school choice is good news for taxpayers.
Six empirical studies have examined school choice’s fiscal impact on taxpayers. All six find that school choice saves money for taxpayers. No empirical study has found a negative fiscal impact.
Here’s the breakdown of the studies for all the variables.
Some of the tax research was inconclusive, but not a single study supported the notion that higher tax rates are good for growth, much as this new research from the Friedman Foundation didn’t uncover a single study that found negative results from school choice.
So with lots of positive research and no negative research, why would anybody oppose school choice? Unfortunately, politicians like Barack Obama and groups such as the NAACP side with teacher unions, putting political power ahead of progress and opportunity for kids.
P.S. Here’s a video explaining why school choice is better than a government-run monopoly.
P.P.S. There’s also strong evidence for school choice from nations such as Sweden, Chile, and the Netherlands.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
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I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. TEMIN: We don’t think the big capital arose before the government did? VON HOFFMAN: Listen, what are we doing here? I mean __ defending big government is like defending death and taxes. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen 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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
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I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 4 of 7 The massive growth of central government that started after the depression has continued ever since. If anything, it has even speeded up in recent years. Each year there […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
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PETERSON: Well, let me ask you how you would cope with this problem, Dr. Friedman. The people decided that they wanted cool air, and there was tremendous need, and so we built a huge industry, the air conditioning industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous earnings opportunities and nearly all of us now have air […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Part 5 Milton Friedman: I do not believe it’s proper to put the situation in terms of industrialist versus government. On the contrary, one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
The fundamental principal of the free society is voluntary cooperation. The economic market, buying and selling, is one example. But it’s only one example. Voluntary cooperation is far broader than that. To take an example that at first sight seems about as far away as you can get __ the language we speak; the words […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
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Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
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What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 2 of 2 Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 26, 2011 2nd half of 1994 interview. ________________ I have a lot of respect for the Friedmans.Two Lucky People by Milton and Rose Friedman reviewed by David Frum — October 1998. However, I liked this review below better. It […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 1 of 2 Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 25, 2011 Says Federal Reserve should be abolished, criticizes Keynes. One of Friedman’s best interviews, discussion spans Friedman’s career and his view of numerous political figures and public policy issues. ___________________ Here is a review of “Two Lucky People.” […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
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Joe Biden is old. He has been in politics since 1970 and holds antiquated views. On the campaign trail, he used expressions such as “malarkey” and said that kids should listen to the “record player.”
President Biden’s views on labor unions are similarly archaic. Unions appear to be central to his view of the economy, yet few private‐sector workers are in unions today. This Biden campaign statement, which is ostensibly about clean energy, promotes labor unions 32 times. Biden wants to “create millions of good, union jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure,” wants to “ensure these investments create good, union jobs that expand the middle class,” and so on. Spending on cars, energy, manufacturing, railroads, airports, broadband, and everything else in Biden’s plan is about union jobs, over and over ad nauseam.
The focus is pathological. I say that because union members account for just 6 percent of private‐sector employment today, yet Biden’s statement reads as if unions dominate the workforce, are the bulwark of the middle class, and are central to the economy. They are not and will not be going forward. The economy is too dynamic and competitive, and Americans have increasingly rejected unions in the private sector, as shown in the chart below.
The Biden statement repeatedly stresses “choice.” Biden wants to “provide workers with the choice to join a union and bargain collectively.” But “collective bargaining” is a euphemism for monopoly unionism and the denial of choice. It violates freedom of association, as Charles Baird explains here. The frequent use of the word “choice” is an attempt to mask the reality of coercive labor unionism under current federal law.
Even if collective bargaining was reasonable in theory, frequent corruption scandals reveal that labor union leaders abuse their special privileges. Most recently, the
Justice Department reached a civil settlement with the United Auto Workers union, marking a major turning point in a multiyear corruption investigation that has sent several former labor leaders to prison. The sprawling probe, led by the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, has penetrated the UAW’s top ranks and exposed what federal prosecutors described as a culture of corruption among its leadership built around kickback schemes, embezzlement and other illicit activities.
Why would any policymaker want to strengthen such organizations? Yet that is the direction of President Biden. His proposals would move backwards by reinforcing the coercive nature of federal labor union law, which is incompatible with personal freedom and the modern economy.
The chart shows that private‐sector union membership has fallen from 32 percent of the workforce in 1960 to just 6 percent today.
With a $15 federal minimum wage, any jobs that don’t produce at least $36,000 per year in goods and services will eventually be eliminated—either because businesses close their doors, outsource their labor, or automate low-skilled jobs. (Photo: Moyo Studio/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden has proposed a nationwide $15 minimum wage as part of his so-called “American Rescue Plan.” Talk about bad timing: Raising labor prices on businesses that are struggling to stay afloat is like throwing them a load of bricks instead of a life preserver.
State and local governments raising their minimum wages is one thing, but to more than double the federal minimum, from $7.25 to $15 per hour?
Nearly one in every five restaurants permanently closed their doors in 2020 as 30 large retail and restaurant companies filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, employment in food services (restaurants and bars) fell 19% in 2020 as retail clothing jobs dropped 24% and accommodations (hotels) jobs plummeted 32%.
The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>
Although very few people—only about 1% of all workers and 0.1% of single parents—make the $7.25 minimum wage, a good portion of restaurant, retail, and hotel jobs pay less than $15 per hour.
No one would suggest raising the rent on households who are months behind on their payments, so how could raising labor prices help businesses?
For a restaurant with five full-time workers making minimum wage, a doubling of the federal minimum wage would mean an extra $85,800 in wages and employment taxes. With restaurant profit margins of about 5%, that could require an extra $1.7 million in food sales ($4,700 more per day)—a seemingly impossible feat in normal times, let alone in the middle of a global pandemic.
Higher wages are a great thing—especially when the gains accrue to lower-income workers. But the only way to achieve actual wage increases—that is, lasting wage increases that don’t take jobs and incomes from others—is for workers to become more productive.
To that end, government mandates are powerless. A $15 minimum wage won’t help workers gain education and experience or provide them with technology that will enable them to produce more value and earn larger incomes. In fact, it could cause the opposite, by shifting employers’ resources away from training and investments to wages instead.
Moreover, raising wages by government fiat hurts many workers in the short and long run by cutting off the bottom rungs of the career ladder.
A $15 federal minimum wage translates into over $36,000 per year in wages and mandated taxes and benefits paid by employers. That means that any jobs that don’t produce at least $36,000 per year in goods and services will eventually be eliminated—either because businesses close their doors, outsource their labor, or automate low-skilled jobs.
That’s why even liberal economists and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office caution that a $15 federal minimum wage would lead to a survival-of-the-fittest labor market, reduce future incomes, and disproportionately harm African Americans and women.
The former chair of President Barack Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Krueger, warned in 2015, “Research suggests that a minimum wage set as high as $12 an hour will do more good than harm for low-wage workers, but a $15-an-hour national minimum wage would put us in uncharted waters, and risk undesirable and unintended consequences.”
Those consequences would be unequal across the country. Large cities with high costs of living—many of which already have or are on the path to a $15 minimum wage—may not experience huge consequences. But non-urban areas and places with lower costs of living could be devastated.
Imagine if policymakers were proposing a minimum wage hike to nearly $36—ensuring that all full-time workers earned at least $74,000 per year.
Most people would say that’s too much, realizing that such a high minimum wage would have massive consequences in terms of lost jobs, increased prices, and a complete and utter disruption of the American labor market and economy.
Yet, $15 per hour in Mississippi would be equivalent to $35.74 per hour in D.C., where federal lawmakers seek to impose a national standard across the U.S.
Minimum wages are best left to local governments, where decisions can be made based on economic conditions and the cost of living.
If a local government sets its minimum wage above the market wage, at least workers and business owners who lose their jobs and businesses can move to places where it’s still possible for them to earn a living.
But if policymakers impose an excessively high nationwide minimum wage across 50 very diverse states and more than 3,000 counties, there will be nowhere else for the harmed to go.
Instead of mandating policies that irrefutably harm some people to the benefit of others, policymakers should focus on opening doors to income opportunities for all workers.
Reducing barriers to jobs and income gains is what helped contribute to the 14.6% increase in wages for workers at the 10th percentile of earners (those earning about $10 per hour) between 2016 and 2019.
Lawmakers at all levels should be seeking to help Americans recover and gain new opportunities instead of permanently wiping out existing ones.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
February 9, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country.
I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views!Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!
All too often, the policy debates of today are simply refights of the battles of yesteryear. As a result, old arguments often retain a striking relevance.
In February 1973, economist Milton Friedman gave an interview to Playboy magazine. It was a wide ranging interview, covering topics from monetary policy to political philosophy. Friedman was an economist with a rare gift for translating technical arguments into clear prose (as you will find in his books Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose). His remarks on the minimum wage, as given in that interview, are startlingly contemporary.
PLAYBOY: But you prefer the laissez-faire—free-enterprise—approach. FRIEDMAN: Generally. Because I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse. Take, for example, the minimum wage, which has the effect of making the poor people at the bottom of the wage scale—those it was designed to help—worse off than before.
PLAYBOY: How so? FRIEDMAN: If you really want to get a feeling about the minimum wage, there’s nothing more instructive than going to the Congressional documents to read the proposals to raise the minimum wage and see who testifies. You very seldom find poor people testifying in favor of the minimum wage. The people who do are those who receive or pay wages much higher than the minimum. Frequently Northern textile manufacturers. John F. Kennedy, when he was in Congress, said explicitly that he was testifying in favor of a rise in the minimum wage because he wanted protection for the New England textile industry against competition from the so-called cheap labor of the South. But now look at it from the point of that cheap labor. If a high minimum wage makes unfeasible an otherwise feasible venture in the South, are people in the South benefited or harmed? Clearly harmed, because jobs otherwise available for them are no longer available. A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.
PLAYBOY: Isn’t it, rather, a law that requires employers to pay a fair and livable wage? FRIEDMAN: How is a person better off unemployed at a dollar sixty an hour than employed at a dollar fifty? No hours a week at a dollar sixty comes to nothing. Let’s suppose there’s a teenager whom you as an employer would be perfectly willing to hire for a dollar fifty an hour. But the law says, no, it’s illegal for you to hire him at a dollar fifty an hour. You must hire him at a dollar sixty. Now, if you hire him at a dollar sixty, you’re really engaging in an act of charity. You’re paying a dollar fifty for his services and you’re giving him a gift of 10 cents. That’s something few employers, quite naturally, are willing to do or can afford to do without being put out of business by less generous competitors. As a result, the effect of a minimum-wage law is to produce unemployment among people with low skills. And who are the people with low skills? In the main, they tend to be teenagers and blacks, and women who have no special skills or have been out of the labor force and are coming back. This is why there are abnormally high unemployment rates among these groups.
_____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
Horace Barlow, one of the greatest thinkers in Neuroscience, died yesterday at the age of 99. His papers are a pleasure to read.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Ba…
—-
October 2, 2019
Dr. Horace Barlow, Cambridge CB3 9AX, England
Dear Dr. Barlow,
I am looking forward to reading Richard Dawkins’ latest book OUTGROWING GOD. As you know that doesn’t always happen, and Sir Bertrand Russell’s own Lady Katharine Tait is a prime example. Did you ever have a chance to hear Russell speak in person? Did you ever get to meet Lady Tait?
Let me share a portion of an article with you concerning Russell and his daughter.
Katharine’s TestimonySeveral years ago, while browsing in a bookshop in the east, a volume with Russell’s photograph on the dust cover caught my eye. The title was, My Father—Bertrand Russell, by Katharine Tait.Katharine Tait was Russell’s only daughter. She was born in London in 1923 and was educated at her parents’ innovative school, Beacon Hill. It was a small academy dedicated to the promotion of “free thought”; in other words, atheistic humanism.In this fascinating book the author attempts to explain what it was like having Bertrand Russell for a father. It is not a lovely picture. The following glimpses into Russell’s life and teachings come from one who loved him with devotion, though not always agreeing with him. It could not be more objective.MarriageTait is very candid about her father’s adulterous adventures. “Once my father had freed himself of his original Puritanism, he was never again a one-woman man, though each new love might seem to be the ideal, he did not want to be irrevocably committed” (101-102).“Having given up strict monogamy with the end of his first marriage, he no longer felt any need to restrict his affections, which he distributed most liberally throughout the rest of his life” (46).When he was once asked, “if it wasn’t unkind of him to love and leave so many women,” he replied: “Why? Surely they can find other men” (106).The celebrated figure lived on the “alley cat” level, but such never bothered his skeptical fans; with them, there is no moral code. Or, as Russell himself once put it, “Outside human desire there is no moral standard” (1957, 62).
Man’s Origin He taught his children that “mankind was no more than an accident of evolution” (178). When he traveled with his family, his daughter recalls, “he suggested that we might lean out the windows when we passed other cars and shout out: ‘Your grandfather was a monkey.’ This was to convince them of the correctness of Darwin’s theory of evolution” (4).Tait charged: “When he wanted to attack religion, he sought out its most egregious errors and held them up to ridicule, while avoiding serious discussion of the basic message” (188)..MoralityRussell believed that a parent must teach his child “with its very first breath that it has entered into a moral world” (59).
And yet, as with all atheists, he had a most difficult time explaining why, if man is simply the produce of natural forces, children should be taught morality. Ms. Tait recalled various conversations relative to moral matters in which she and her father engaged when she was a youngster.“I don’t want to! Why should I?” she pressed. She noted that a conventional parent might reply: “Because I say so … your father says so … God says so….” Russell, however, would say to his children: “Because more people will be happy if you do than if you don’t.”“So what?”, she would respond, “I don’t care about other people.”
“But you should,” her father would retort.In her innocence she would exclaim: “But why?” To her question the redundant rejoinder would be: “Because more people will be happy if you do than if you don’t.”Tait observed: “We felt the heavy pressure of his rectitude and obeyed, but the reason was not convincing—neither to us nor to him” (184-185).The confused celebrity could hardly impress his children with any kind of moral sense of responsibility when, as noted above, he himself taught: “Outside human desire there is no moral standard” (1957, 62).A Vain Search for PeaceAs mentioned earlier, Professor Russell once said that “human affection” was but “an attempt to escape the vain search for God.” His daughter declared:“I believe myself that his whole life was a search for God…. Indeed, he had first taken up philosophy in hope of finding proof of the evidence of the existence of God … Somewhere at the back of my father’s mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul there was an empty space that had once been filled by God, and he never found anything else to put in it” (185).That statement is not quite correct.
When God was banished from his heart, he replaced the vacuum with frustration, anger, and atheistic attempts to destroy the faith that flourished in the hearts of others. Such an evil disposition compounds one’s culpability considerably.The wretchedness of his emotional state at times reached depths of great pathos. In a letter penned in 1920, he wrote:“But I do know the despair in my soul. I know the great loneliness, as I wander through the world like a ghost, speaking in tones that are not heard, lost as if I had fallen from some other planet” (1968, I, 145).Ray Monk is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. In his highly acclaimed book, Bertrand Russell—The Spirit of Solitude 1872-1921 (xix), he records the words of a poem composed by Russell, and addressed, “To Edith.”Through the long years
I have sought peace,
I found ecstasy,
I found anguish,
I found madness,
I found loneliness.
I found the solitary pain
that gnaws the heart,
But peace I did not find.Such was a fitting epitaph for a tragic life.
Lady Tait said her father Bertrand Russell “had first taken up philosophy in hope of finding proof of the evidence of the existence of God” Would you like to examine some evidence that demonstrates the Bible is true and accurate?
Charles Darwin wrote in his autobiography that he was seeking for such evidence. You Here below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)We looked earlier at the city of Lachish. Let us return to the same period in Israel’s history when Lachich was besieged and captured by the Assyrian King Sennacherib. The king of Judah at the time was Hezekiah.Perhaps you remember the story of how Jesus healed a blind man and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. It is the same place known by King Hezekiah, approximately 700 years earlier. One of the remarkable things about the flow of the Bible is that historical events separated by hundreds of years took place in the same geographic spots, and standing in these places today, we can feel that flow of history about us. The crucial archaeological discovery which relates the Pool of Siloam is the tunnel which lies behind it.One day in 1880 a small Arab boy was playing with his friend and fell into the pool. When he clambered out, he found a small opening about two feet wide and five feet high. On examination, it turned out to be a tunnel reaching back into the rock. But that was not all. On the side of the tunnel an inscribed stone (now kept in the museum in Istanbul) was discovered, which told how the tunnel had been built originally. The inscription in classical Hebrew reads as follows:The boring through is completed. And this is the story of the boring: while yet they plied the pick, each toward his fellow, and while there were yet three cubits [4 14 feet] to be bored through, there was heard the voice of one calling to the other that there was a hole in the rock on the right hand and on the left hand. And on the day of the boring through the workers on the tunnel struck each to meet his fellow, pick upon pick. Then the water poured from the source to the Pool 1,200 cubits [about 600 yards] and a 100 cubits was the height of the rock above the heads of the workers in the tunnel.
We know this as Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The Bible tells us how Hezekiah made provision for a better water supply to the city:Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?(II Kings 20:20). We know here three things: the biblical account, the tunnel itself of which the Bible speaks, and the original stone with its inscription in classical Hebrew.From the Assyrian side, there is additional confirmation of the incidents mentioned in the Bible. There is a clay prism in the British Museum called the Taylor Prism (British Museum, Ref. 91032). It is only fifteen inches high and was discovered in the Assyrian palace at Nineveh. This particular prism dates from about 691 B.C. and tells about Sennacherib’s exploits. A section from the prism reads, “As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong walled cities, as well as small cities in their neighborhood I have besieged and took…himself like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. Earthworks I threw up against him,” Thus, there is a three-way confirmation concerning Hezekiah’s tunnel from the Hebrew side and this amazing confirmation from the Assyrian side.
I found Dr. Barlow to be a true gentleman and he was very kind to take the time to answer the questions that I submitted to him. In the upcoming months I will take time once a week to pay tribute to his life and reveal our correspondence. In the first week I noted:
Today I am posting my first letter to him in February of 2015 which discussed Charles Darwin lamenting his loss of aesthetic tastes which he blamed on Darwin’s own dedication to the study of evolution. In a later return letter, Dr. Barlow agreed that Darwin did in fact lose his aesthetic tastes at the end of his life.
In the third week, I look at the life of Brandon Burlsworth in the November 28, 2016 letter and the movie GREATER and the problem of evil which Charles Darwin definitely had a problem with once his daughter died.
On the 4th letter to Dr. Barlow looks at Darwin’s admission that he at times thinks that creation appears to look like the expression of a mind. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words in 1968 sermon at this link.
My Fifth Letter concerning Charles Darwin’s views on MORAL MOTIONS Which was mailed on March 1, 2017. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning moral motions in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
6th letter on May 1, 2017 in which Charles Darwin’s hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would show that Christ existed! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning the possible manuscript finds in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link
7th letter on Darwin discussing DETERMINISM dated 7-1-17 . Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning determinism in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
8th letter responds to Dr. Barlow’s letter to me concerning Francis Schaeffer discussing Darwin’s own words concerning chance in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
9th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 1-2-18 and included Charles Darwin’s comments on William Paley. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning William Paley in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
10th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 2-2-18 and includes Darwin’s comments asking for archaeological evidence for the Bible! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning His desire to see archaeological evidence supporting the Bible’s accuracy in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
11th letterI mailed on 3-2-18 in response to 11-22-17 letter from Barlow that asserted: It is also sometimes asked whether chance, even together with selection, can define a “MORAL CODE,” which the religiously inclined say is defined by their God. I think the answer is “Yes, it certainly can…” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning A MORAL CODE in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
12th letter on March 26, 2018 breaks down song DUST IN THE WIND “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
In 13th letter I respond to Barlow’s November 22, 2017 letter and assertion “He {Darwin} clearly did not lose his sense of the VALUE of TRUTH, and of the importance of FOREVER SEARCHING it out.”
In 14th letter to Dr. Barlow on 10-2-18, I assert: “Let me demonstrate how the Bible’s view of the origin of life fits better with the evidence we have from archaeology than that of gradual evolution.”
In 15th letter in November 2, 2018 to Dr. Barlow I quote his relative Randal Keynes Who in the Richard Dawkins special “The Genius of Darwin” makes this point concerning Darwin, “he was, at different times, enormously confident in it,
and at other times, he was utterly uncertain.”
In 16th Letter on 12-2-18 to Dr. Barlow I respond to his letter that stated, If I am pressed to say whether I think belief in God helps people to make wise and beneficial decisions I am bound to say (and I fear this will cause you pain) “No, it is often very disastrous, leading to violence, death and vile behaviour…Muslim terrorists…violence within the Christian church itself”
17th letter sent on January 2, 2019 shows the great advantage we have over Charles Darwin when examining the archaeological record concerning the accuracy of the Bible
In the 18th letter I respond to the comment by Charles Darwin: “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive….The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words on his loss of aesthetic tastes in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 19th letter on 2-2-19 I discuss Steven Weinberg’s words, But if language is to be of any use to us, we ought to try to preserve the meanings of words, and “God” historically has not meant the laws of nature. It has meant an interested personality.
In the 20th letter on 3-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s comment, “At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning his former belief in God in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 21st letter on May 15, 2019 to Dr Barlow I discuss the writings of Francis Schaeffer who passed away the 35 years earlier on May 15, 1985. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words at length in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 22nd letter I respond to Charles Darwin’s words, “I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe…will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words about hell in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 23rd postcard sent on 7-2-19 I asked Dr Barlow if he was a humanist. Sir Julian Huxley, founder of the American Humanist Association noted, “I use the word ‘humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or plant; that his body, mind and soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being.”
In my 24th letter on 8-2-19 I quote Jerry Bergman who noted Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. A founding father of the modern American scientific establishment, Agassiz was also a lifelong opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Agassiz “ruled in professorial majesty at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
In my 25th letter on 9-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s assertion, “This argument would be a valid one if all men of ALL RACES had the SAME INWARD CONVICTION of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning MORAL MOTIONS in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In my 26th letteron 10-2-19 I quoted Bertrand Russell’s daughter’s statement, “I believe myself that his whole life was a search for God…. Indeed, he had first taken up philosophy in hope of finding proof of the evidence of the existence of God … Somewhere at the back of my father’s mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul there was an empty space that had once been filled by God, and he never found anything else to put in it”
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
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There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Horace Basil BarlowFRS was a British visual neuroscientist.
In 1953 Barlow discovered that the frog brain has neurons which fire in response to specific visual stimuli. This was a precursor to the work of Hubel and Wiesel on visual receptive fields in the visual cortex. He has made a long study of visual inhibition, the process whereby a neuron firing in response to one group of retinal cells can inhibit the firing of another neuron; this allows perception of relative contrast.
In 1961 Barlow wrote a seminal article where he asked what the computational aims of the visual system are. He concluded that one of the main aims of visual processing is the reduction of redundancy. While the brightnesses of neighbouring points in images are usually very similar, the retina reduces this redundancy. His work thus was central to the field of statistics of natural scenes that relates the statistics of images of real world scenes to the properties of the nervous system.
Barlow and his co-workers also did substantial work in the field of factorial codes. The goal was to encode images with statistically redundant components or pixels such that the code components are statistically independent. Such codes are hard to find but highly useful for purposes of image classification etc.
His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 128th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 1
Published on Jun 18, 2014
Interviewed and filmed by Alan Macfarlane on 5 March 2012
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 2
Horace Barlow’s quote taken from interview with Alan Macfarlane:
HAS RELIGION EVER BEEN IMPORTANT TO YOU? IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU? No, it is not important to me. Saying you don’t believe in God is a very foolish thing to say as it doesn’t explain why so many people talk about it, there has got to be more to it than that; also I think one has to respect what some godly people say and some of the things they do; I wish one could make more sense of it but I don’t think the godly people have done a very good job; I was never baptized or confirmed so have never been a practitioner, and I don’t miss it; DO YOU THINK THAT SCIENCE HAS DIS-PROVEN RELIGION AS DAWKINS ARGUES? I think it [science] provides some hope of acting rationally to handle the social and political problems we have to deal with on a personal level and one a worldwide level. Religion is a way of perpetuating a way of thought that might have otherwise been lost, and I imagine that is fine.
Dr. Barlow’s only three solid claims in this response to Alan Macfarlane is that science is #1 the best help today with our social problems,(which is in the original clip), #2 Saying you don’t believe in God (position of atheism) is foolish, and #3 we need an explanation for why so many people talk about [God.]
My response to #1 is to look at how the secular humanists have messed up so many things in the past and I include Barlow’s personal family friend Margaret Mead in that. My responses to #2 and #3 were both covered in my earlier response to Roald Hoffmann.
(Roald Hoffmann is a Nobel Prize winner who I have had the honor of corresponding with in the past. Pictured below)
(This July 1933 photo shows [left to right] anthropologist Gregory Bateson with Margaret Mead)
Horace Barlow’s words from interview conducted by Alan Macfarlane:
I don’t ever remember going to Bateson’s house in Granchester as a child; William Bateson’s wife was a friend of my mother’s; when Gregory Bateson was out in Bali he met Margaret Mead; Beatrice Bateson, his mother, felt she was too old to go out and inspect her so she sent my mother instead; she flew off in an Imperial Airlines plane and we saw her off from Hendon; that must have been 1937-8; my mother got on very well with Margaret Mead – she was not altogether convinced by her, but very impressed by her breadth of knowledge and energy; she came and stayed with us many times; I was even more sceptical than my mother and thought she was a very impressive person; Gregory was born 1904 and my mother, in 1886, so there was quite a big age difference between them; I never got on close intellectual terms with Gregory even though we were to some extent interested in the same sort of thing, both in cybernetics and psychology, and his ideas were always interesting; however, my model of a scientist was taken from my mother and not from Gregory; my mother was interested in genetics and the paper for which she was famous was on the reproductive system in plants like cowslips; my mother reasoned like a scientist whereas Gregory was a guru – he liked to think things out for himself; he obviously influenced many others too; I saw him once or twice when I went to Berkeley
Postscript:
I was sad to see that Jon Stewart is stepping down from the DAILY SHOW so I wanted to include one of the best clips I have ever seen on his show and it is a short debate between the brilliant scientists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and then he threw in a nutball in for laughs, Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist). Dembski gives several great examples of design and it reminded me of many of the words of Darwin show above in my letter to Horace Barlow.
William Dembski on The Jon Stewart Show
Wednesday September 14, 2005 – Jon Stewart’s “Evolution, Schmevolution” segment with panelists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist).
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
Assuming they behave ethically and earn money honestly, I applaud big companies and their wealthy owners.
That’s why I recently defended Jeff Bezos’ large fortune. The owner of Amazon mostly (but not entirely) became rich by providing value to the rest of us.
Today, though, I’m very disappointed in Bezos and Amazon. Why? Because the company wants to use the coercive power of government to screw over its competitors in the small business community.
But it’s utterly despicable to then climb in bed with politicians and urge a costly mandate on small-business competitors.
And it’s utterly callous for the company to take such a step when it will means unemployment for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of workers with marginal skills.
P.S. Don’t forget that many state governments already screwed over small businesses by mandating their closure while not imposing the same pandemic-related restrictions on Amazon and big box stores.
P.P.S. It is possible that Amazon is also motivated by a desire to appease the Biden Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress. In other words, the company openly endorses statist policies such as the higher minimum wage in hopes that it won’t be targeted with other actions (antitrust, wealth tax, etc). Or maybe Amazon has a deal to support the higher minimum wage in exchange for the Biden Administration opposing the European Union’s tax raid on American tech companies. But those excuses don’t justify screwing over small businesses and low-skill workers.
Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage FREE TO CHOOSE
January 27, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
I was campaigning to push the country in the opposite direction. I didn’t think America could roll back automation or sever the global supply chain (though I did think we could negotiate stronger labor and environmental provisions in our trade agreements). But I was certain we could adapt our laws and institutions, just as we’d done in the past, to make sure that folks willing to work could get a fair shake. At every stop I made, in every city and small town, my message was the same. I promised to raise taxes on high-income Americans to pay for vital investments in education, research, and infrastructure. I promised to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage as well as to deliver universal healthcare and make college more affordable. I wanted people to understand that there was a precedent for bold government action. FDR had saved capitalism from itself, laying the foundation for a post–World War II boom.
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The minimum wage has hurt young people as they seek to enter the job market and prove themselves and start heading up the financial ladder of opportunity and by cutting the bottom of the ladder off it is difficult for the most unskilled and disadvantaged to compete!
It’s very frustrating to write about the minimum wage. How often can you make the elementary observation, after all, that you’ll get more unemployment if you try to make businesses pay some workers more than they’re worth?
Heck, just about everything sensible that needs to be said about the topic is contained in this short video narrated by Orphe Divougny
But I guess I’m the Sisyphus of the free-market movement because once again I’m going to try to talk some sense into those who think emotion can trump real-world economics.
Let’s start by citing some new reasearch.
States are allowed to increase minimum wages above the federal level. This creates interesting opportunities to measure what happens to employment when the national minimum wage is increased, since the change presumably doesn’t impact states that already are at or above that level.
Two economists from the University of California at San Diego took advantage of this natural experiment and examined employment changes in states that were “bound” and “unbound” by the law.
…we find that minimum wage increases significantly reduced the employment of low-skilled workers. By the second year following the $7.25 minimum’s implementation, we estimate that targeted workers’ employment rates had fallen by 6 percentage points (8%) more in ‘bound’ states than in ‘unbound’ states. …Over the late 2000s the average effective minimum wage rate rose by nearly 30% across the United States. Our best estimate is that these minimum wage increases reduced the employment of working-age adults by 0.7 percentage points. This accounts for 14% of the employment rate’s total decline over this time period and amounts to 1.4 million workers. A disproportionate 45% of the affected workers were young adults (aged 15 to 24).
Gee, what a surprise. Fewer jobs.
But the mandated hike in wages didn’t just reduce employment.
There were also negative effects on income.
We find that binding minimum wage increases reduced low-skilled individuals’ average monthly incomes. Targeted workers’ average incomes fell by an average of $100 over the first year and by an additional $50 over the following two years. …We provide direct evidence that such losses translate into meaningful reductions in upward economic mobility. Two years following the minimum wage increases we study, low-skilled workers had become significantly less likely to transition into higher-wage employment in bound states than in unbound states.
This evidence on income is particularly important because some statists make a rather utilitarian argument that it’s okay for some people to lose jobs because others will benefit.
Jared Bernstein is Exhibit A, as you can see in this debate we had for CNBC.
But let’s not just focus on numbers. There are painful human costs when low-skilled workers are priced out of the labor market.
Here are some excerpts from a column in the Wall Street Journalabout a real-world example of people losing their jobs.
It’s well-established in the economic literature, if not in the minds of proponents of these laws, that the result will be job losses. Yet this empirical reality fails to capture the emotional reality of the employees who are let go, or of the business owners who had no choice but to let them go. …Michigan’s minimum wage rose in September to $8.15 an hour from $7.40 (the minimum wage for tipped employees rose 17%, to $3.10 an hour). The wage will rise to $9.25 by January 2018.
Now let’s look at the impact on a non-profit restaurant that helped disadvantaged people.
The staff at Tastes of Life was made up of recovering addicts, recently incarcerated individuals and others who would have a hard time landing a job elsewhere. Mr. Mosley explained that on-the-job offenses for which an employee would have been “gone that day” in a traditional work setting were instead used as training opportunities at Tastes of Life. …Mr. Mosley’s financial goal was to break even and use any excess funds to subsidize Life Challenge participants. After more than two years of operation on Beck Road, 2½ miles from the center of town, Tastes of Life had a steady flow of loyal customers, but rising food costs presented a challenge. …Mr. Mosley and Ms. Tucker had planned to print new menus with higher prices to cover the food costs, but the September wage hike complicated those plans, in particular because the increase covered both tipped and non-tipped employees. …“If we had a $10 menu item, it would have to be $14,” Mr. Mosley said. The restaurant’s customer base of seniors on a fixed income and Hillsdale locals made this option a nonstarter. The restaurant also had to find roughly 250 new customers a month, unrealistic in a small town of about 8,300.
So the inevitable happened.
The increased minimum wage, he told me, was “the straw that broke that camel’s back,” forcing him to close his doors and lay off his 12-person staff. …with the higher wage costs, the arrangement was no longer feasible, and Tastes of Life closed on Sept. 28. …Four former employees have been able to leverage their restaurant experience to find new employment, but Mr. Mosley told me that eight are still out of work. …the loss of Tastes of Life cuts deep, because the benefit for Life Challenge participants was both valuable and is not easily attained elsewhere. These unintended consequences of a minimum wage hike aren’t unique to small towns in south-central Michigan. Tragically, they repeat themselves in locales small and large each time legislators heed the populist call to “raise the wage.”
Understanding “unintended consequences” is a key characteristic of a good economist.
Today, the goal is simply to understand that it is pointlessly destructive to make low-skilled labor less affordable.
P.S. Given all the evidence that minimum-wage laws destroy jobs, why do some people persist in supporting such a destructive policy? In this post, I provide six possible reasons.
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr Kate Storrs @katestorrs
One of the great privileges of living in Cambridge was getting to see Horace speak several times. He even came to one of my talks once…and gave me my harshest review, by falling asleep halfway through I’m sure I deserved it.
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Keisuke Yonehara @keisukeYonehara
Our research is heavily based on retinal DS cells discovered by Horace Barlow.
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September 2, 2019
September 2, 2019
Dr. Horace Barlow, Cambridge CB3 9AX, England
Dear Dr. Barlow,
I want to thank you again for this opportunity to write you every month about your great grandfather Charles Darwin. Today we are going to look at where our moral motions come from and this is a subject that Darwin talked about a great deal.
On August 28, 2019 on You Tube Richard Dawkins stated in an interview about his book OUTGROWING GOD:
Jesus was obviously a nice person if he lived. Either Jesus was a nice person or whoever wrote his lines was a nice person….The SERMON ON THE MOUNT is classically regarded as a very wonderful set of rules for living and indeed it is….Taken as a whole the Bible is a terrible set of rules for living….[Instead], live our lives by moral philosophers and by the general progress we see in morality as we look from decades to decades.
In your November 22, 2017 you asserted:
If I declare my an atheist, I cannot help asking myself “Who am I to set at naught a concept that has guided the life of so many people, some of whom I hold the very deepest respect?”
On the other hand, if I am pressed to say whether I think belief in God helps people to make wise and beneficial decisions I am bound to say (and I fear this will cause you pain) No, it is often very disastrous…
Let us pause for a moment and look at what Humanist autonomous philosophers have given us.
The history of the nonchristian Philosophers up until the 18th century went like this:Here is a circle which stands for what the unified and true knowledge of the universe is. The next man would say “No,” and cross out the circle. He then would say “Here is the circle.” Then the next man would say “No,”and cross out that circle. Then he would make his circle and the next man would cross it out and make his circle. This continued through the centuries. They never found the circle, but they optimistically thought someone would beginning with man himself and on the basis of man’s reasoning alone.Then the endless rows of circles through the and the crossing out were broken and a drastic shift came because the humanist ideal had failed. Humanist man gave up his optimism for pessimism. He gave up the hope of an unified answer and this makes modern man who he is.
But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blindand the UNIVERSAL belief by men of the existence of redness makes my present loss of perception of not the least value as evidence. This argument would be a valid one if all men of ALL RACES had the SAME INWARD CONVICTION of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists. The state of mind which grand scenes formerly excited in me, and which was intimately connected with a belief in God, did not essentially differ from that which is often called the sense of sublimity; and however difficult it may be to explain the genesis of this sense, it can hardly be advanced as an argument for the existence of God, any more than the powerful though vague and similar feelings excited by music.
Francis Schaeffer observed:
You notice that Darwin had already said he had lost his sense of music [appreciation]. However, he brings forth what I think is a false argument. I usually use it in the area of morality. I mention that materialistic anthropologists point out that different people have different moral [systems] and this is perfectly true, but what the materialist anthropologist can never point out is why man has a sense of MORAL MOTION and that is the problem here. Therefore, it is perfectly true that men have different concepts of God and different concepts of moral motion, but Darwin himself is not satisfied in his own position and WHERE DO THEY [MORAL MOTIONS] COME FROM AT ALL? So you are wrestling with the same dilemma here in this reference as you do in the area of all things human. For these men it is not the distinction that raises the problem, but it is the overwhelming factor of the existence of the humanness of man, the mannishness of man. The simple fact is he saw that you are shut up to either God or chance, and he said basically “I don’t see how it could be chance” and at the same time he looks at a mountain or listens to a piece of music it is a testimony that really chance isn’t sufficient enough. So gradually with the sensitivity of his own inborn self conscience he kills it. He deliberately kills the beauty so it doesn’t argue with his theory. Maybe I am being false to Darwin here. Who can say about Darwin’s subconscious thoughts? It seems to me though this is exactly the case. What you find is a man who can’t stand the argument of the external beauty and the mannishness of man so he just gives it up in this particular place.
_________________
Let make 2 points here. First, the Bible teaches that everyone knows in their heart that God exists because of the beauty of God’s creation and the conscience that God has planted in everyone’s heart (Romans 1).
“[in Christianity] there is a sufficient basis for morals. Nobody has ever discovered a way of having real “morals” without a moral absolute. If there is no moral absolute, we are left with hedonism (doing what I like) or some form of the social contract theory (what is best for society as a a hole is right). However, neither of these alternative corresponds to the moral motions that men have. Talk to people long enough and deeply enough, and you will find that they consider some things are really right and something are really wrong. Without absolutes, morals as morals cease to exist, and humanistic man starting from himself is unable to find the absolute he needs. But because the God of the Bible is there, real morals exist. Within this framework I can say one action is right and another wrong, without talking nonsense.” 117
Romans 1:18-19 (Amplified Bible) ” For God’s wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness REPRESS and HINDER the truth and make it inoperative. For that which is KNOWN about God is EVIDENT to them and MADE PLAIN IN THEIR INNER CONSCIOUSNESS, because God has SHOWN IT TO THEM,”(emphasis mine). At the 37 minute mark on the CD that I sent you today Adrian Rogers noted, “”There is no such thing anywhere on earth as a true atheist. If a man says he doesn’t believe in God, then he is lying. God has put his moral consciousness into every man’s heart, and a man has to try to kick his conscience to death to say he doesn’t believe in God.”
ROMANS CHAPTER ONE IS RIGHT WHEN IT SAYS THAT GOD PUT THAT CONSCIENCE IN EVERYONE’S HEART THAT BEARS WITNESS THAT HE CREATED THEM FOR A PURPOSE AND THAT IS WHY THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD ARE ATTEMPTING TO SEEK OUT GOD!!!!
I found Dr. Barlow to be a true gentleman and he was very kind to take the time to answer the questions that I submitted to him. In the upcoming months I will take time once a week to pay tribute to his life and reveal our correspondence. In the first week I noted:
Today I am posting my first letter to him in February of 2015 which discussed Charles Darwin lamenting his loss of aesthetic tastes which he blamed on Darwin’s own dedication to the study of evolution. In a later return letter, Dr. Barlow agreed that Darwin did in fact lose his aesthetic tastes at the end of his life.
In the third week, I look at the life of Brandon Burlsworth in the November 28, 2016 letter and the movie GREATER and the problem of evil which Charles Darwin definitely had a problem with once his daughter died.
On the 4th letter to Dr. Barlow looks at Darwin’s admission that he at times thinks that creation appears to look like the expression of a mind. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words in 1968 sermon at this link.
My Fifth Letter concerning Charles Darwin’s views on MORAL MOTIONS Which was mailed on March 1, 2017. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning moral motions in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
6th letter on May 1, 2017 in which Charles Darwin’s hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would show that Christ existed! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning the possible manuscript finds in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link
7th letter on Darwin discussing DETERMINISM dated 7-1-17 . Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning determinism in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
8th letter responds to Dr. Barlow’s letter to me concerning Francis Schaeffer discussing Darwin’s own words concerning chance in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
9th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 1-2-18 and included Charles Darwin’s comments on William Paley. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning William Paley in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
10th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 2-2-18 and includes Darwin’s comments asking for archaeological evidence for the Bible! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning His desire to see archaeological evidence supporting the Bible’s accuracy in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
11th letterI mailed on 3-2-18 in response to 11-22-17 letter from Barlow that asserted: It is also sometimes asked whether chance, even together with selection, can define a “MORAL CODE,” which the religiously inclined say is defined by their God. I think the answer is “Yes, it certainly can…” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning A MORAL CODE in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
12th letter on March 26, 2018 breaks down song DUST IN THE WIND “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
In 13th letter I respond to Barlow’s November 22, 2017 letter and assertion “He {Darwin} clearly did not lose his sense of the VALUE of TRUTH, and of the importance of FOREVER SEARCHING it out.”
In 14th letter to Dr. Barlow on 10-2-18, I assert: “Let me demonstrate how the Bible’s view of the origin of life fits better with the evidence we have from archaeology than that of gradual evolution.”
In 15th letter in November 2, 2018 to Dr. Barlow I quote his relative Randal Keynes Who in the Richard Dawkins special “The Genius of Darwin” makes this point concerning Darwin, “he was, at different times, enormously confident in it,
and at other times, he was utterly uncertain.”
In 16th Letter on 12-2-18 to Dr. Barlow I respond to his letter that stated, If I am pressed to say whether I think belief in God helps people to make wise and beneficial decisions I am bound to say (and I fear this will cause you pain) “No, it is often very disastrous, leading to violence, death and vile behaviour…Muslim terrorists…violence within the Christian church itself”
17th letter sent on January 2, 2019 shows the great advantage we have over Charles Darwin when examining the archaeological record concerning the accuracy of the Bible
In the 18th letter I respond to the comment by Charles Darwin: “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive….The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words on his loss of aesthetic tastes in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 19th letter on 2-2-19 I discuss Steven Weinberg’s words, But if language is to be of any use to us, we ought to try to preserve the meanings of words, and “God” historically has not meant the laws of nature. It has meant an interested personality.
In the 20th letter on 3-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s comment, “At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning his former belief in God in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 21st letter on May 15, 2019 to Dr Barlow I discuss the writings of Francis Schaeffer who passed away the 35 years earlier on May 15, 1985. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words at length in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 22nd letter I respond to Charles Darwin’s words, “I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe…will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words about hell in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 23rd postcard sent on 7-2-19 I asked Dr Barlow if he was a humanist. Sir Julian Huxley, founder of the American Humanist Association noted, “I use the word ‘humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or plant; that his body, mind and soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being.”
In my 24th letter on 8-2-19 I quote Jerry Bergman who noted Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. A founding father of the modern American scientific establishment, Agassiz was also a lifelong opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Agassiz “ruled in professorial majesty at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
In my 25th letter on 9-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s assertion, “This argument would be a valid one if all men of ALL RACES had the SAME INWARD CONVICTION of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning MORAL MOTIONS in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
__________________________
There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Horace Basil BarlowFRS was a British visual neuroscientist.
In 1953 Barlow discovered that the frog brain has neurons which fire in response to specific visual stimuli. This was a precursor to the work of Hubel and Wiesel on visual receptive fields in the visual cortex. He has made a long study of visual inhibition, the process whereby a neuron firing in response to one group of retinal cells can inhibit the firing of another neuron; this allows perception of relative contrast.
In 1961 Barlow wrote a seminal article where he asked what the computational aims of the visual system are. He concluded that one of the main aims of visual processing is the reduction of redundancy. While the brightnesses of neighbouring points in images are usually very similar, the retina reduces this redundancy. His work thus was central to the field of statistics of natural scenes that relates the statistics of images of real world scenes to the properties of the nervous system.
Barlow and his co-workers also did substantial work in the field of factorial codes. The goal was to encode images with statistically redundant components or pixels such that the code components are statistically independent. Such codes are hard to find but highly useful for purposes of image classification etc.
His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 128th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_______________
Interview of Horace Barlow – part 1
Published on Jun 18, 2014
Interviewed and filmed by Alan Macfarlane on 5 March 2012
______________________
Interview of Horace Barlow – part 2
Horace Barlow’s quote taken from interview with Alan Macfarlane:
HAS RELIGION EVER BEEN IMPORTANT TO YOU? IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU? No, it is not important to me. Saying you don’t believe in God is a very foolish thing to say as it doesn’t explain why so many people talk about it, there has got to be more to it than that; also I think one has to respect what some godly people say and some of the things they do; I wish one could make more sense of it but I don’t think the godly people have done a very good job; I was never baptized or confirmed so have never been a practitioner, and I don’t miss it; DO YOU THINK THAT SCIENCE HAS DIS-PROVEN RELIGION AS DAWKINS ARGUES? I think it [science] provides some hope of acting rationally to handle the social and political problems we have to deal with on a personal level and one a worldwide level. Religion is a way of perpetuating a way of thought that might have otherwise been lost, and I imagine that is fine.
Dr. Barlow’s only three solid claims in this response to Alan Macfarlane is that science is #1 the best help today with our social problems,(which is in the original clip), #2 Saying you don’t believe in God (position of atheism) is foolish, and #3 we need an explanation for why so many people talk about [God.]
My response to #1 is to look at how the secular humanists have messed up so many things in the past and I include Barlow’s personal family friend Margaret Mead in that. My responses to #2 and #3 were both covered in my earlier response to Roald Hoffmann.
(Roald Hoffmann is a Nobel Prize winner who I have had the honor of corresponding with in the past. Pictured below)
(This July 1933 photo shows [left to right] anthropologist Gregory Bateson with Margaret Mead)
Horace Barlow’s words from interview conducted by Alan Macfarlane:
I don’t ever remember going to Bateson’s house in Granchester as a child; William Bateson’s wife was a friend of my mother’s; when Gregory Bateson was out in Bali he met Margaret Mead; Beatrice Bateson, his mother, felt she was too old to go out and inspect her so she sent my mother instead; she flew off in an Imperial Airlines plane and we saw her off from Hendon; that must have been 1937-8; my mother got on very well with Margaret Mead – she was not altogether convinced by her, but very impressed by her breadth of knowledge and energy; she came and stayed with us many times; I was even more sceptical than my mother and thought she was a very impressive person; Gregory was born 1904 and my mother, in 1886, so there was quite a big age difference between them; I never got on close intellectual terms with Gregory even though we were to some extent interested in the same sort of thing, both in cybernetics and psychology, and his ideas were always interesting; however, my model of a scientist was taken from my mother and not from Gregory; my mother was interested in genetics and the paper for which she was famous was on the reproductive system in plants like cowslips; my mother reasoned like a scientist whereas Gregory was a guru – he liked to think things out for himself; he obviously influenced many others too; I saw him once or twice when I went to Berkeley
Postscript:
I was sad to see that Jon Stewart is stepping down from the DAILY SHOW so I wanted to include one of the best clips I have ever seen on his show and it is a short debate between the brilliant scientists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and then he threw in a nutball in for laughs, Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist). Dembski gives several great examples of design and it reminded me of many of the words of Darwin show above in my letter to Horace Barlow.
William Dembski on The Jon Stewart Show
Uploaded on Nov 15, 2010
Wednesday September 14, 2005 – Jon Stewart’s “Evolution, Schmevolution” segment with panelists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist).
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
All voters nationwide should be required to validate his or her identity with a government-issued photo ID to vote in person or by absentee ballot. Pictured: Signs greet voters arriving at the Ruckersville Volunteer Fire Company polling station in Ruckersville, Va., on Election Day, Nov. 3. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.
Election fraud is real.
The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database, which has chronicled more than 1,300 cases of election fraud, proves that election fraud does occur in American elections.
Errors and omissions by election officials and careless, shoddy election practices and procedures or lack of training can also cause and have caused problems for voters and candidates alike.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. States can, and should, take action to restore integrity to our elections.
The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>
Here’s a list of best practices states should adopt for elections.
Verify the accuracy of voter registration lists. Computerized statewide voter-registration lists should be designed to be interoperable so that they can communicate seamlessly with other state record databases to allow frequent exchanges and comparisons of information.
For example, when an individual changes the residence address on his or her driver’s license, that information should be sent to state election officials so that the voter-registration address of the individual is also changed to his or her new Department of Motor Vehicles residence address.
2. Verify citizenship of voters. Only lawful citizens can vote in federal elections. States should, therefore, require proof of citizenship to register to vote, as well as verify the citizenship of registered voters with the records of the Department of Homeland Security, including access to the E-Verify system.
3. Require voter ID. A voter should be required to validate his or her identity with government-issued photo ID to vote in-person or by absentee ballot (as states such as Alabama and Kansas require). Government-issued IDs should be free for those who cannot afford one.
4. Limit absentee ballots.Absentee ballotsshould be reserved for those individuals who are too disabled to vote in person or who will be out of town on Election Day and all early-voting days.
5. Prevent vote trafficking. Vote-trafficking (also called “vote harvesting”) by third parties should be banned. That would ensure that candidates, campaign staffers, party activists, and political consultants are prohibited from picking up and potentially mishandling or changing absentee ballots and pressuring or coercing vulnerable voters in their homes. In other words, a political group can’t offer to pick up ballots and then bring them to the polling place and/or mail them, with no third party supervising that group’s behavior in the interim.
6. Allow election observers complete access to the election process. Political parties, candidates, and third-party organizations should all be allowed to have observers in every aspect of the election process, because transparency is essential to a fair and secure system. The only limitation on such observers is that they cannot interfere with the voting and counting process.
However, a representative of the election office should be present to answer the questions of the observers. They should be legally allowed to be in a position—exactly like election officials—to observe everything going on, other than the actual voting by individuals. Election officials should be prohibited from stationing observers so far away that they cannot observe the process, including such procedures as the opening of absentee ballots and the verification process.
7. Provide voting assistance. Any individuals providing assistance to a voter in a voting booth because the voter is illiterate, disabled, or otherwise requires assistance should be required to complete a form, to be filed with poll election officials, providing their name, address, contact information, and the reason they are providing assistance. They should also be required to provide a photo ID.
8. Prohibit early vote counting. To avoid premature release of election results, the counting of ballots, including absentee and early votes, should not begin until the polls close at the end of Election Day. However, if a state insists on beginning the count before Election Day, it should ban the release of results until the evening of Election Day, subject to criminal penalties.
9. Provide state legislatures with legal standing. State legislatures must ensure that they have legal standing—either through a specific state law or through a constitutional amendment if that is required—to sue other state officials, such as governors or secretaries of state, who make or attempt to make unauthorized changes in state election laws.
For example, if a secretary of state extends the deadline set by state law for the receipt of absentee ballots, legislatures should have legal standing to contest that unilateral change that overrides state law. They should be classified as a necessary party in any lawsuit. And voters should be provided by state law with the ability to file a writ of mandamus against any state or local official who fails to abide by, or enforce, a state election-law requirement.
In 2020, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar made changes to election law unilaterally. We need to ensure that can’t happen again in other states or in future elections.
Along with these nine (and other) reforms, there are specific measures states shouldn’t take.
For instance, there should be no same-day registration for voting. Registration should be required before Election Day to give election officials sufficient time to verify the accuracy of the registration information contained on a registration form and to confirm the eligibility of the potential voter.
There also shouldn’t be automatic voter registration. States should comply with the National Voter Registration Act and provide registration opportunities at state agencies. However, all individuals should be asked at the time of the state agency transaction, such as the application for a driver’s license, whether they want to register to vote.
No one should be automatically registered without their consent or knowledge, since this can lead to multiple registrations by the same individual, as well as the registration of ineligible individuals, such as noncitizens.
As we all know, elections have consequences. That’s why it’s crucial to ensure that every vote counts and isn’t diluted by election fraud and other problems. It’s time for states to implement these reforms to ensure voters will have faith in our elections.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
DECEMBER 9, 2020
Bridget Hill
Attorney General
2320 Capitol Avenue
Cheyenne, WY 82002
Dear Ms. Hill,
I noticed your state voted for Donald Trump for President but yet you haven’t joined the Texas suit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin in order to protect the integrity of our elections. WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE SO?
Missouri led a group of 17 states that Wednesday afternoon filed a brief with the Supreme Courtsupporting the Texas lawsuit aimed at delaying the appointment of presidential electors from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The brief mirrors the argument of the Texas suit in saying that the states acted unconstitutionally when either their judiciaries or executive branches changed their elections laws. The Texas suit, and the states that support it, say that only state legislatures may set laws regarding how states appoint their presidential electors.
“The integrity of our elections is of critical importance to maintaining our republic, both today and in future elections,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement. “The stakes of protecting our Constitution, defending our liberty and ensuring that all votes are counted fairly couldn’t be higher. With this brief, we are joining the fight.”
The Trump campaign also filed a brief asking to join on the Texas suit on Wednesday.
“The illegal suspension or violation of state law thus calls directly into question the certification of the results of the elections in Defendant States for Vice President Joe Biden, Proposed Plaintiff in Intervention’s opponent in the election,” its brief said. “President Trump’s interest in the outcome of this litigation could therefore not be more acute.”
The brief filed by Missouri and the other states, which is officially a motion for leave to file a bill of complaint, also warns that the changes enacted by the state executives and judicial branches opened the states’ elections up to potential fraud.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt led a group of 17 state attorneys general Wednesday in supporting the Texas lawsuit which aims to block electors from Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. (Reuters)
“The Bill of Complaint alleges that non-legislative actors in each Defendant State unconstitutionally abolished or diluted statutory safeguards against fraud enacted by their state Legislatures, in violation of the Presidential Electors Clause,” the brief states.
It continues: “All the unconstitutional changes to election procedures identified in the Bill of Complaint have two common features: (1) They abrogated statutory safeguards against fraud that responsible observers have long recommended for voting by mail, and (2) they did so in a way that predictably conferred partisan advantage on one candidate in the Presidential election.”
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If we don’t make every attempt to stop fraud now then what do you think will happen in the Georgia Senate races? We will be turning our government over to the radical portion of the Democratic Party and they will pack the Supreme Court and make Washington D.C. a state along with several other liberal causes of theirs being crammed through Congress with Biden. and Harris being all to willing to push our country over the cliff!!!
Thank you for your time and I appreciate the good work you are doing!!!
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
—
Former abortion supporter who became pro-life leader, has died at 84
December 9, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
So far so good. Except I then added, “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” I can provide the exact quote here, because in the audience that night was a freelance writer who was recording me. To her mind, my answer risked reinforcing negative stereotypes some Californians already had about working-class white voters and was therefore worth blogging about on Huffington Post. (It’s a decision I respect, by the way, though I wish she had talked to me about it before writing the story. This is what separates even the most liberal writers from their conservative counterparts—the willingness to flay politicians on their own side.) Even today, I want to take that sentence back and make a few simple edits. “So it’s not surprising then that they get frustrated,” I would say in my revised version, “and they look to the traditions and way of life that have been constants in their lives, whether it’s their faith, or hunting, or blue-collar work, or more traditional notions of family and community. And when Republicans tell them we Democrats despise these things—or when we give these folks reason to believe that we do—then the best policies in the world don’t matter to them.
It seems your policies are inspired by secular humanism and those are the worst policies such as free abortions!
LifeNews.com Note: Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. This article previously appeared in Public Discourse:
A man who made a career of death and lies became a hero for life and truth.
This morning in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop Timothy Dolan will celebrate a Mass of Christian Burial for a giant of the pro-life movement: Dr. Bernard Nathanson.
Few people, if any, did more than Bernard Nathanson to undermine the right to life of unborn children by turning abortion from an unspeakable crime into a constitutionally protected liberty. Someday, when our law is reformed to honor the dignity and protect the right to life of every member of the human family, including children in the womb, historians will observe that few people did more than Bernard Nathanson to achieve that reversal.
Dr. Nathanson, the son of a distinguished medical practitioner and professor who specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, had his first involvement with abortion as a medical student at McGill University in Montreal. Having impregnated a girlfriend, he arranged and paid for her illegal abortion. Many years later, he would mark this episode as his “introductory excursion into the satanic world of abortion.”
In the meantime, however, Nathanson would become a nearly monomaniacal crusader for abortion and campaigner for its legalization. And he would himself become an abortionist.
By his own estimate, he presided over more than 60,000 abortions as Director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, personally instructed medical students and practitioners in the performance of about 15,000 more, and performed 5,000 abortions himself. In one of those abortions, he took the life of his own son or daughter–a child conceived with a girlfriend after he had established his medical practice. Writing with deep regret in his moving autobiography The Hand of God (1996), Nathanson confessed his own heartlessness in performing that abortion: “I swear to you, I had no feelings aside from the sense of accomplishment, the pride of expertise.”
_________________________________Nathanson later in his life became a pro-life advocate.In 1985, Nathanson employed the new fetal imaging technology to produce a documentary film, “The Silent Scream,” which energized the pro-life movement and threw the pro-choice side onto the defensive by showing in graphic detail the killing of a twelve-week-old fetus in a suction abortion. Nathanson used the footage to describe the facts of fetal development and to make the case for the humanity and dignity of the child in the womb. At one point, viewers see the child draw back from the surgical instrument and open his mouth: “This,” Nathanson says in the narration, “is the silent scream of a child threatened imminently with extinction.” Publicity for “The Silent Scream” was provided by no less a figure than President Ronald Reagan, who showed the film in the White House and touted it in speeches.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s classic video that shocked the world. He explains the procedure of a suction abortion, followed by an actual first trimester abortion as seen through ultrasound. The viewer can see the child’s pathetic attempts to escape the suction curette as her heart rate doubles, and a “silent scream” as her body is torn apart. A great tool to help people see why abortion is murder. The most important video on abortion ever made. This video changed opinion on abortion to many people. Introduction by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, host. Describes the technology of ultrasound and how, for the first time ever, we can actually see inside the womb. Dr. Nathanson further describes the ultrasound technique and shows examples of babies in the womb. Three-dimensional depiction of the developing fetus, from 4 weeks through 28 weeks. Display and usage of the abortionists’ tools, plus video of an abortionist performing a suction abortion. Dr. Nathanson discusses the abortionist who agreed to allow this abortion to be filmed with ultrasound. The abortionist was quite skilled, having performed more than 10,000 abortions. We discover that the resulting ultrasound of his abortion so appalled him that he never again performed another abortion. The clip begins with an ultrasound of the fetus (girl) who is about to be aborted. The girl is moving in the womb; displays a heartbeat of 140 per minute; and is at times sucking her thumb. As the abortionist’s suction tip begins to invade the womb, the child rears and moves violently in an attempt to avoid the instrument. Her mouth is visibly open in a “silent scream.” The child’s heart rate speeds up dramatically (to 200 beats per minute) as she senses aggression. She moves violently away in a pathetic attempt to escape the instrument. The abortionist’s suction tip begins to rip the baby’s limbs from its body, ultimately leaving only her head in the uterus (too large to be pulled from the uterus in one piece). The abortionist attempts to crush her head with his forceps, allowing it to be removed. In an effort to “dehumanize” the procedure, the abortionist and anesthesiologist refer to the baby’s head as “number 1.” The abortionist crushes “number 1” with the forceps and removes it from the uterus. Abortion statistics are revealed, as well as who benefits from the enormously lucrative industry that has developed. Clinics are now franchised, and there is ample evidence that many are controlled by organized crime. Women are victims, too. They haven’t been told about the true nature of the unborn child or the facts about abortion procedures. Their wombs have been perforated, infected, destroyed, and sterilized. All as a result of an operation about which they they have had no true knowledge. Films like this must be made part of “informed consent.” NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) and Planned Parenthood are accused of a conspiracy of silence, of keeping women in the dark about the reality of abortion. Finally, Dr. Nathanson discusses his credentials. He is a former abortionist, having been the director of the largest clinic in the Western world.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Oh my! I’ve been working on visual adaptation as cortical gain control since the beginning of my PhD and Horace Barlow wrote the seminal papers in this area in the 60’s – he’s one of my science heroes.
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August 2, 2019
August 2, 2019
Dr. Horace Barlow, Cambridge CB3 9AX, England
Dear Dr. Barlow,
The previous time I visited Harvard I got to go to the Museum of Comparative Zoology that was founded by Louis Agassiz, and headed today by Edward O. Wilson who have had the privilege of corresponding with in the past. In fact, I have read many of Dr. Wilson’s books.
Wikipedia noted concerning Agassiz:
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (/ˈæɡəsi/; French: [aɡasi]; May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-American biologist and geologist recognized as an innovative and prodigious scholar of Earth’s natural history. Agassiz grew up in Switzerland. He received doctor of philosophy and medical degrees at Erlangen and Munich, respectively. After studying with Cuvier and Humboldt in Paris, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel. He emigrated to the United States in 1847 after visiting Harvard University. He went on to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, to head its Lawrence Scientific School, and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology.
I have enclosed an article from Dr. Jerry Bergman that I thought you would find thought provoking since it talks about Charles Darwin’s interaction with Agassiz in the 19th century.
Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. A founding father of the modern American scientific establishment, Agassiz was also a lifelong opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Agassiz “ruled in professorial majesty at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
[He] was a brilliant….man, an essentialist who detested evolutionism—Darwin’s brand in particular—and clung to a vision of well-ordered nature assembled by special creations. The zoology of Agassiz was consonant with the natural theology of William Paley.1
Agassiz wrote that “evidence of the existence of a Creator, constantly and thoughtfully working among the complicated structures that He has made” is found throughout the natural world.2 He concluded that in the living world “is clearly seen the intervention of an intelligent Creator” and that when we evaluate the living world we can see “the mental operations of the Creator at every step.”3
Education
Agassiz was born in the village of Montier in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Like many naturalists of the time, Agassiz was educated as a physician. He studied with several prominent German biologists, including zoologist Lorenz Oken and embryologist Ignatius Döllinger. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Erlangen in 1830, he traveled to Paris to study comparative anatomy under the most renowned comparative anatomist in all Europe, Baron Georges Cuvier.4
Cuvier, the founder of the field of paleontology, was so impressed with Agassiz’s work on fossil fish that he turned his own notes and drawings, gathered in the course of years of study, over to Agassiz to complete his opus on fossil fish. This research documented that no evidence existed for the evolution of fish from non-fish worm-like creatures as hypothesized by Darwin. When published, Agassiz’s work was “hailed for its accuracy and originality in describing…fishes in the ancient fossiliferous bed of red sandstone.”5
Agassiz concluded from his lifelong study of nature that purpose and design were manifested everywhere in nature.6 He noted that if it required an intelligent mind just to study the facts of biology, “it must have required an intelligent mind to establish them.”7 Following his famous teacher Cuvier, he asserted that the major groups of animals do not represent ancestral branches of a hypothetical evolutionary tree but, instead, document a great plan that was used by the Creator to design the many different species in existence today.
Already an eminent scientist while still a young man, Agassiz came to the United States in 1848 to accept a professorship at Harvard. In 1860, Agassiz founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, later to be headed byStephen Jay Gould. His studies of “fishes, both living and fossil, were definitive, and have never been equaled.”8 Agassiz and his colleagues also founded The National Academy of Sciences in 1863.
His many students influenced science for decades after his death. Stanford professor-scientist David Starr Jordan noted that “of the older teachers in America—the men who were born between 1830 and 1850—nearly all who have reached eminence have been at one time or another pupils of Agassiz.”9
Henry Morris wrote that Agassiz was “also a great teacher, in both Europe and America, where his Harvard classes in natural history were said to have produced all the notable teachers of that subject in America during the last half of the 19th century.”10 Noted author-naturalist Donald Peattie asserted that “no American scientist ever had as much influence on scientific education as Agassiz.”11 A man of erudition, Agassiz’s close friends included not only famous scientists such as Darwin, but also Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson,and other literary notables.12
A Scientific Creationist
Agassiz saw the divine plan of God omnipresent in nature, and could not accept a theory that denied the intelligent design he saw everywhere in the natural world. Agassiz even once defined a species as “a thought of God.” As Agassiz wrote in his Essay on Classification, his lifelong study of the natural world eloquently documented the “premeditation, power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence” of God. He declared that “all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History must in good time become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe.”13
Henry Morris called Agassiz not only “a great Christian paleontologist” but “the father of glacial geology and the science of glaciology.” Morris added:
He profoundly believed in God and His special creation of every kind of organism. Probably no man was more intimately acquainted with a greater variety of kinds of animals, living and extinct, and it is significant that he was an inveterate opponent of evolutionism to the very end of his life.14
Furthermore, Agassiz believed that science can lead to “recognition of the existence of God…from the study of His works” and “the importance of the study of the animal kingdom with reference to its manifestation of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, is very great.”15
Macroevolution Falsified by Science
Long before the mutational theory of evolution was popularized, Agassiz foresaw the overwhelmingly harmful nature of mutations and the inability of “selection” to produce new life forms.16 He recognized that the problem with Darwinism was not the survival of the fittest, but rather the arrival of the fittest. Agassiz knew, as did most all animal and plant breeders both then and today, that clear limits exist to variation and no known way exists to go beyond these limits in spite of 4,000 years of trying. Creationists today refer to this fact as variation in life limited to that existing within the Genesis kinds. The fact is, all mutations known to us cannot even begin to produce the variety required for molecules to mankind evolution, but rather they create
monstrosities, and the occurrence of these, under disturbing influences, are…only additional evidence of the fixity of species. The extreme deviations obtained in domesticity are secured…at the expense of the typical characters and end usually in the production of sterile individuals. All such facts seem to show that the so-called varieties or breeds, far from indicating the beginning of new types, or the initiating of incipient species, only point out the range of flexibility in types which in their essence are invariable.17
Darwin sent Agassiz a copy of his now-famous Origin of Species published in 1859. Although very “familiar with the factual evidence advanced by Darwin,” Agassiz carefully examined his ideas and the evidence on which they were based. As Agassiz studied the Origin, “mounting annoyance” resulted as he continued to read because he recognized that the “ideas it contained were plainly no different from the notions…he had long since rejected.”18
Two years after Origin was published, Agassiz wrote that Darwin’s theory was scientifically wrong and was “propounded by some very learned but…rather fanciful scientific men” who taught that the forms of life presently inhabiting our earth “had grown out of a comparative simple and small beginning.”19Agassiz concluded that a great variety of evidence discovered in times past has refuted evolutionary theory. He considered this fact based on his paleontological research “a most powerful blow at that theory which would make us believe that all the animals have been derived from a few original beings, which have become diversified and varied in [the] course of time.”20
The man whom Professor Vander Weyde called an “eminent savant”21 excelled in several science fields. Agassiz also correctly recognized that in his writings on evolution “Darwin had departed from the methods of scientific inquiry so well exemplified in his earlier studies.” Furthermore, his famous 1859 Origin of Speciesbook “had contributed nothing new to the understanding of nature.”22 Bolton Davidheiser added:
Louis Agassiz not only did not accept Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he actively opposed it. He attacked it at a vital point, namely, its inability to show evidence of the transformation of one kind of living or fossil animal or plant into another. This is still a basic problem.23
A main reason he rejected evolution was based on paleontology, the area of Agassiz’s expertise. Agassiz knew that the fossil record did not support Darwin’s theory and strongly argued against it. He also concluded, in contrast to Darwinism, that “the crowning act of the Creator, man, was placed on the earth at the head of creation.”24
Agassiz was also active in debating and defending his anti-Darwin views. Among those he debated included Harvard professor Asa Gray, considered the leading American botanist of the 19th century, and Professor William Barton Rogers, President of MIT.25 Unfortunately, in one area Agassiz made a major mistake—he accepted the racist conclusion in that certain groups of men were inferior to others in contradiction to the clear teaching of both biblical and historic Christianity that all humans descended from one couple, Adam and Eve. Instead, Agassiz accepted the then-popular unbiblical preAdamite theory that taught only Caucasians were descended from Adam and that other, supposedly inferior, races of men, such as Negroes, were created before Adam.26 Unfortunately, this idea still has many adherents today as part of a futile attempt to harmonize biblical teachings with Darwinism.
Conclusions
Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, one of the 19th century’s leading paleontologists, was able to effectively articulate the many major scientific objections to Darwinism that remain unanswered. After a lifetime of scientific work and numerous science awards and honors, Agassiz never could accept Darwinism—he concluded, from his study of paleontology, that the scientific evidence was strongly against it—and never swerved from his creationist worldview.27
Agassiz also concluded, in contrast to Darwinism, that “there is order in nature; that the animal kingdom especially has been constructed upon a plan which presupposes the existence of an intelligent being as its Author.”28 Most of his arguments against Darwin have not been refuted even today but, instead, the research, especially in cell biology, has eloquently supported the many lethal problems with macroevolution that Agassiz recognized over a century ago.29
References
Quammen, D. 2007. The Kiwi’s Egg: Charles Darwin & Natural Selection. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 218.
Agassiz, L. 1874. The Structure of Animal Life, 3rd ed. New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Co., 122.
Ibid, 111, 118.
Lurie, E. 1988. Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science. Baltimore, MD: John’s Hopkins University Press.
Forsee, A. 1958. Louis Agassiz: Pied Piper of Science. New York: Viking Press, 109.
Mackie, G. O. 1989. Louis Agassiz and the discovery of the coelenterate nervous system. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 11 (1): 71-81.
Agassiz, L. 1866. Geological Sketches, vol. 1. Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 22.
Morris, H. M. 1988. Men of Science Men of God: Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 56.
Kasper, J. 1973. Gists from Agassiz. Hawthorne, CA: Omni Publications, 117.
Morris, Men of Science Men of God, 56.
Kasper, Gists from Agassiz, 117.
Lurie, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science, 252-253.
Agassiz, L. 1962. Essay on Classification. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 205.
Morris, Men of Science Men of God, 55-56.
Agassiz, The Structure of Animal Life, 2-3.
Dexter, R. W. 1979. The impact of Evolutionary Theories on the Salem Group of Agassiz zoologists (Morse, Hyatt, Packard, Putnam). Essex Institute historical collections. 115 (3): 144-171; Winsor, M. P. 1979. Louis Agassiz and the Species Question. Studies in History of Biology. 3: 89-138.
Agassiz, L. 1896. A Journey in Brazil. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 42.
Lurie, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science, 254-255.
Agassiz, The Structure of Animal Life, 92.
Ibid, 95.
Weyde, V. Personal Reminiscences of Eminent Men. Scientific American, September 10, 1892, 168.
Lurie, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science, 255.
Davidheiser, B. 1977. Louis Agassiz. In A Symposium on Creation, vol. VI. Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Co., 131.
Agassiz, The Structure of Animal Life, 6.
Dupree, A. H. 1959. The First Darwinian Debate in America: Gray versus Agassiz. Daedalus. 88 (3):560-569; Smallwood, W. M. 1941. The Agassiz-Rogers Debate on Evolution. The Quarterly Review of Biology. 16 (1):1-12.
Lurie, E. 1954. Louis Agassiz and the Races of Man. Isis. 45 (141): 227-242.
Lurie, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science, 255.
Agassiz, The Structure of Animal Life, 90.
Peare, C. O. 1958. A Scientist of Two Worlds: Louis Agassiz. Philidelphia: J. B. Lippincott; Tharp, L. H. 1959. Adventurous Alliance, The Story of the Agassiz Family of Boston. Boston: Little Brown & Co.
* Dr. Bergman is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Toledo Medical School in Ohio.
Cite this article: Bergman, J. 2011. Louis Agassiz: Anti-Darwinist Harvard Paleontology Professor. Acts & Facts. 40 (3): 12-14.
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I found Dr. Barlow to be a true gentleman and he was very kind to take the time to answer the questions that I submitted to him. In the upcoming months I will take time once a week to pay tribute to his life and reveal our correspondence. In the first week I noted:
Today I am posting my first letter to him in February of 2015 which discussed Charles Darwin lamenting his loss of aesthetic tastes which he blamed on Darwin’s own dedication to the study of evolution. In a later return letter, Dr. Barlow agreed that Darwin did in fact lose his aesthetic tastes at the end of his life.
In the third week, I look at the life of Brandon Burlsworth in the November 28, 2016 letter and the movie GREATER and the problem of evil which Charles Darwin definitely had a problem with once his daughter died.
On the 4th letter to Dr. Barlow looks at Darwin’s admission that he at times thinks that creation appears to look like the expression of a mind. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words in 1968 sermon at this link.
My Fifth Letter concerning Charles Darwin’s views on MORAL MOTIONS Which was mailed on March 1, 2017. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning moral motions in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
6th letter on May 1, 2017 in which Charles Darwin’s hopes are that someone would find in Pompeii an old manuscript by a distinguished Roman that would show that Christ existed! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning the possible manuscript finds in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link
7th letter on Darwin discussing DETERMINISM dated 7-1-17 . Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning determinism in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
8th letter responds to Dr. Barlow’s letter to me concerning Francis Schaeffer discussing Darwin’s own words concerning chance in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
9th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 1-2-18 and included Charles Darwin’s comments on William Paley. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning William Paley in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
10th letter in response to 11-22-17 letter I received from Professor Horace Barlow was mailed on 2-2-18 and includes Darwin’s comments asking for archaeological evidence for the Bible! Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning His desire to see archaeological evidence supporting the Bible’s accuracy in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
11th letterI mailed on 3-2-18 in response to 11-22-17 letter from Barlow that asserted: It is also sometimes asked whether chance, even together with selection, can define a “MORAL CODE,” which the religiously inclined say is defined by their God. I think the answer is “Yes, it certainly can…” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning A MORAL CODE in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
12th letter on March 26, 2018 breaks down song DUST IN THE WIND “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
In 13th letter I respond to Barlow’s November 22, 2017 letter and assertion “He {Darwin} clearly did not lose his sense of the VALUE of TRUTH, and of the importance of FOREVER SEARCHING it out.”
In 14th letter to Dr. Barlow on 10-2-18, I assert: “Let me demonstrate how the Bible’s view of the origin of life fits better with the evidence we have from archaeology than that of gradual evolution.”
In 15th letter in November 2, 2018 to Dr. Barlow I quote his relative Randal Keynes Who in the Richard Dawkins special “The Genius of Darwin” makes this point concerning Darwin, “he was, at different times, enormously confident in it,
and at other times, he was utterly uncertain.”
In 16th Letter on 12-2-18 to Dr. Barlow I respond to his letter that stated, If I am pressed to say whether I think belief in God helps people to make wise and beneficial decisions I am bound to say (and I fear this will cause you pain) “No, it is often very disastrous, leading to violence, death and vile behaviour…Muslim terrorists…violence within the Christian church itself”
17th letter sent on January 2, 2019 shows the great advantage we have over Charles Darwin when examining the archaeological record concerning the accuracy of the Bible
In the 18th letter I respond to the comment by Charles Darwin: “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive….The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words on his loss of aesthetic tastes in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 19th letter on 2-2-19 I discuss Steven Weinberg’s words, But if language is to be of any use to us, we ought to try to preserve the meanings of words, and “God” historically has not meant the laws of nature. It has meant an interested personality.
In the 20th letter on 3-2-19 I respond to Charles Darwin’s comment, “At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words concerning his former belief in God in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 21st letter on May 15, 2019 to Dr Barlow I discuss the writings of Francis Schaeffer who passed away the 35 years earlier on May 15, 1985. Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words at length in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In the 22nd letter I respond to Charles Darwin’s words, “I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe…will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” Francis Schaeffer discusses Darwin’s own words about hell in Schaeffer’s 1968 sermon at this link.
In 23rd postcard sent on 7-2-19 I asked Dr Barlow if he was a humanist. Sir Julian Huxley, founder of the American Humanist Association noted, “I use the word ‘humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or plant; that his body, mind and soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being.”
In my 24th letter on 8-2-19 I quote Jerry Bergman who noted Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. A founding father of the modern American scientific establishment, Agassiz was also a lifelong opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Agassiz “ruled in professorial majesty at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
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There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Horace Basil BarlowFRS was a British visual neuroscientist.
In 1953 Barlow discovered that the frog brain has neurons which fire in response to specific visual stimuli. This was a precursor to the work of Hubel and Wiesel on visual receptive fields in the visual cortex. He has made a long study of visual inhibition, the process whereby a neuron firing in response to one group of retinal cells can inhibit the firing of another neuron; this allows perception of relative contrast.
In 1961 Barlow wrote a seminal article where he asked what the computational aims of the visual system are. He concluded that one of the main aims of visual processing is the reduction of redundancy. While the brightnesses of neighbouring points in images are usually very similar, the retina reduces this redundancy. His work thus was central to the field of statistics of natural scenes that relates the statistics of images of real world scenes to the properties of the nervous system.
Barlow and his co-workers also did substantial work in the field of factorial codes. The goal was to encode images with statistically redundant components or pixels such that the code components are statistically independent. Such codes are hard to find but highly useful for purposes of image classification etc.
His comments can be found on the 3rd video and the 128th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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Interview of Horace Barlow – part 1
Published on Jun 18, 2014
Interviewed and filmed by Alan Macfarlane on 5 March 2012
______________________
Interview of Horace Barlow – part 2
Horace Barlow’s quote taken from interview with Alan Macfarlane:
HAS RELIGION EVER BEEN IMPORTANT TO YOU? IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU? No, it is not important to me. Saying you don’t believe in God is a very foolish thing to say as it doesn’t explain why so many people talk about it, there has got to be more to it than that; also I think one has to respect what some godly people say and some of the things they do; I wish one could make more sense of it but I don’t think the godly people have done a very good job; I was never baptized or confirmed so have never been a practitioner, and I don’t miss it; DO YOU THINK THAT SCIENCE HAS DIS-PROVEN RELIGION AS DAWKINS ARGUES? I think it [science] provides some hope of acting rationally to handle the social and political problems we have to deal with on a personal level and one a worldwide level. Religion is a way of perpetuating a way of thought that might have otherwise been lost, and I imagine that is fine.
Dr. Barlow’s only three solid claims in this response to Alan Macfarlane is that science is #1 the best help today with our social problems,(which is in the original clip), #2 Saying you don’t believe in God (position of atheism) is foolish, and #3 we need an explanation for why so many people talk about [God.]
My response to #1 is to look at how the secular humanists have messed up so many things in the past and I include Barlow’s personal family friend Margaret Mead in that. My responses to #2 and #3 were both covered in my earlier response to Roald Hoffmann.
(Roald Hoffmann is a Nobel Prize winner who I have had the honor of corresponding with in the past. Pictured below)
(This July 1933 photo shows [left to right] anthropologist Gregory Bateson with Margaret Mead)
Horace Barlow’s words from interview conducted by Alan Macfarlane:
I don’t ever remember going to Bateson’s house in Granchester as a child; William Bateson’s wife was a friend of my mother’s; when Gregory Bateson was out in Bali he met Margaret Mead; Beatrice Bateson, his mother, felt she was too old to go out and inspect her so she sent my mother instead; she flew off in an Imperial Airlines plane and we saw her off from Hendon; that must have been 1937-8; my mother got on very well with Margaret Mead – she was not altogether convinced by her, but very impressed by her breadth of knowledge and energy; she came and stayed with us many times; I was even more sceptical than my mother and thought she was a very impressive person; Gregory was born 1904 and my mother, in 1886, so there was quite a big age difference between them; I never got on close intellectual terms with Gregory even though we were to some extent interested in the same sort of thing, both in cybernetics and psychology, and his ideas were always interesting; however, my model of a scientist was taken from my mother and not from Gregory; my mother was interested in genetics and the paper for which she was famous was on the reproductive system in plants like cowslips; my mother reasoned like a scientist whereas Gregory was a guru – he liked to think things out for himself; he obviously influenced many others too; I saw him once or twice when I went to Berkeley
Postscript:
I was sad to see that Jon Stewart is stepping down from the DAILY SHOW so I wanted to include one of the best clips I have ever seen on his show and it is a short debate between the brilliant scientists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and then he threw in a nutball in for laughs, Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist). Dembski gives several great examples of design and it reminded me of many of the words of Darwin show above in my letter to Horace Barlow.
William Dembski on The Jon Stewart Show
Uploaded on Nov 15, 2010
Wednesday September 14, 2005 – Jon Stewart’s “Evolution, Schmevolution” segment with panelists Edward J. Larson (an evolutionist), William A. Dembski (an Intelligent Design Proponent), and Ellie Crystal (a metaphysical theorist).
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., takes part in a group photo Jan. 4 with fellow House freshmen on the steps of the Capitol. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., a former wrestler, defeated a first-term incumbent Republican on his way to becoming a freshman member of Congress.
After winning a primary against incumbent Denver Riggleman, Good defeated Democrat Cameron Webb in the general election to represent Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. Good joins the podcast to discuss not only his unusual background but his thoughts on immigration and what he saw on a recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border.
We also cover these stories:
The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>
Senate Republicans propose a $618 billion COVID-19 relief bill as an alternative to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion bill.
Biden speaks disapprovingly of a military coup in Myanmar, formerly Burma.
A group of House Republicans demands that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., apologize to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for essentially accusing him of trying to murder her.
Rachel del Guidice: I’m joined today on “The Daily Signal Podcast” by Congressman Bob Good of Virginia. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Rep. Bob Good: Great to be with you, Rachel. Thank you for having me.
Rachel del Guidice:Well, it’s great to have you with us. You’re a freshman member of Congress. Can you start off just by telling us about why you decided to run for Congress?
Good: I really answered the call. My home district, I was recruited to challenge an incumbent Republican who folks in the district did not feel that he, as a first-term congressman, was reflecting the majority conservative values in the district.
And I was among those who believed that the Republican Party principles are best for America, our vision of low spending, low taxes, economic opportunity, standing on our Judeo-Christian principles, standing up for the family, standing up for faith, the importance of faith, and the importance of the sanctity of life, and frankly, reforming immigration in a way that puts Americans first was critically important to me as well.
Del Guidice:Before Congress, you had a career in wrestling that spanned four decades. You were a competitor, a coach, an administrator, and a mentor, too. Can you tell us a little bit about all of that?
Good: Yeah. Wrestling, I began to do that when I was in elementary school, continued through middle school and high school, went on to wrestle at Liberty University and earned a partial scholarship there.
Wrestling is a very demanding sport. It’s a grueling sport that really teaches discipline, sacrifice, perseverance, toughness in a way that few sports do.
And my boys would go on to become all-state wrestlers as well. We’re a wrestling family. And so [I] had a chance to coach along the way and invest in young men’s lives and the sport, and it really helped shape me in many ways into the individual that I am today.
Del Guidice: Well, going back to Congress, you’re coming in at a time where tensions are really high, in a political landscape where Republicans are in the minority, with a Democrat in the White House, in the House, and majorities in the White House and the Senate.
How do you think conservatives should respond to this unique sort of situation we find ourselves in? And it happens every so many years, but how do you think, in general, conservatives should respond at a time when they’re in the minority?
Good: Yeah, I think we’ve got to fight hard on principle and do one of two things. Either be able to stop the Democrats by gumming up the works or peeling off a few, maybe reasonable, more moderate, if any of those exist in the Democrat Party, to try to stop the radical, leftist, socialist agenda of [President Joe] Biden and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer, and do our best to stay united on true Republican, conservative principles that offer the best opportunity for our country, for economic opportunity, for energy independence, for a strong national defense, for a strong border, and for jobs for Americans.
And so we stand united in stopping the radical Democrat agenda. Or if we lose, if we lose on the votes, we lose on principle by standing united but exposing the Democrats for who they are, and then, hopefully, the American people will rebel against that or reject that at the ballot box come 2022.
Del Guidice: Some of the things Democrats have talked about, they’ve talked [about] ending the filibuster. We know … of those in the House and Senate [who] want to pass things like the Equality Act and the Green New Deal.
First of all, I guess, what are the dangers to those pieces of legislation that you see in particular? And then how do you think conservatives, even though they’re in the minority, should respond to that?
Good: It’s really clear to me that the Democrat Party has declared a war on the American people.
After Joe Biden ran, at times claiming to be more of a moderate, claiming to want to bring people together, claiming to be a uniter and a healer, he has really declared war on the people of America in terms of declaring war on their jobs; canceling the Keystone pipeline, which would cost 11,000 jobs, it’s estimated; canceling the border wall, which will cost tens of thousands of jobs also; declaring war on American energy, which will eliminate American energy independence. It’ll radically increase utility, gas, oil prices. It’ll cost, again, thousands and thousands of jobs.
Clearly on his immigration policies, he’s putting illegal immigrants ahead of American citizens. He’s putting illegal immigrants ahead of the safety of Americans.
And just one issue after another, with executive orders, Joe Biden, with his allies and the Democrat Party cheering him on, are really just declaring war on the American worker, on the American family, on the American citizen, and the safety and security of our country.
Del Guidice: We’ve talked a lot about what Democrats want to do. What are some things, some policy areas, that you’re really passionate about that you want to work on in these first days and weeks and months in Congress?
Good: Well, I’m a born-again Christian, so my most important issues would be issues related to the sanctity of life. I have signed onto, I think it’s 16 pro-life bills, and the capstone of that, my friend, Alex Mooney from West Virginia, has a bill, the Life at Conception Act, which would recognize and protect all life.
There is no more greater responsibility of government to protect life and to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and that begins with innocent, precious life.
I also believe very strongly in the founding Judeo-Christian principles our nation was established upon, the importance of faith and family as cornerstones to who we are as a country and also just recognizing the importance of the Constitution.
The Democrat Party does not believe in the sacredness of the Constitution or the rule of law, and so fighting to protect that.
And I think the most pressing issues beyond life would be attacking the national debt and the deficit and the spending, which we will be the first generation to leave a legacy of debt to your generation and those who come behind us, and for Republicans to return to true fiscal conservatives.
Secondly, attacking the federal government’s overly oppressive influence on education across our country, as our kids are being indoctrinated, K through 12, continuing through college, with a humanistic, frankly, atheistic worldview that’s anti-American, that’s anti-family, that’s really changing how our young people think.
Things like rejecting the 1776 initiative and replacing it with the 1619 initiative—really dangerous to our families, dangerous to our young people.
But I would like to see the Department of Education abolished. But short of that, to reduce the federal government’s control of our education system, to return control and power to the family, to the parents, and to have local control of our schools.
Education, fiscal responsibility, and then finally, immigration reform. Immigration reform is critical to our country’s future, especially eliminating illegal immigration.
You would think that we could come together and be unified, that would be a place where we could reach across the aisle and work together with Democrats on protecting our nation from an illegal immigration standpoint. But we don’t even have unity on that issue.
Del Guidice:On that issue, we actually just got back from a trip to the border. A couple of your different Republican colleagues, I was able to join you all, and we visited different spots. And I want to talk a little bit about what we saw.
But just top line, what’s on your heart and mind coming away from this trip? What did you see and learn, and what’s most on your heart after thinking about this trip a little bit?
Good: Comprehensive immigration reform from a conservative standpoint of putting the Americans first, American workers first, and protecting America first has been a critical issue to me since I launched my campaign a year and a half ago and challenged an incumbent Republican. However, illegal immigration being the cornerstone of that or the chief part of that.
And so to have an opportunity, though, to for the first time to go and visit the border myself, to be there right up close and personal as we looked at just miles and miles of the border here in Arizona, when we were there just recently, and to see what the Border Patrol deals with, to see what those folks who live along the border deal with.
And to really learn that all immigration, especially all illegal immigration, that comes from our southern border comes through the organized crime in Mexico, comes through the cartels, comes through the smugglers and through the coyotes, and just the danger that it puts these poor immigrants through, what they go through to try to reach our borders, and the danger that they encounter as they travel.
The women who are being raped, the children who are being abused—just the physical toll that it takes upon those immigrants that are coming.
And then how we are rewarding, with President Biden’s lax immigration policy, we’re rewarding the revenue that’s coming in through these cartels. We’re enriching them by allowing them to cross our border in the manner that they are. And what a danger that is, how dangerous it is to our folks trying to patrol the border, and how necessary it is to complete the wall.
Folks can disagree, and I could not disagree with them more strongly, but folks can disagree and say, “Hey, we shouldn’t have a wall because I think it’s mean,” or they just think we ought to be more welcoming or more open or what have you.
But it is totally dishonest to say the wall doesn’t work. It absolutely does work. It’s a 99% success rate when you have that wall in place, that 30-foot-tall wall.
We’ve completed nearly 500 miles under President [Donald] Trump. We’ve got 300 more miles funded already. … It’s a travesty that we wouldn’t go ahead and finish that last 300 miles that are already funded to secure our borders, to give the Border Patrol the support they need.
They’ve told us that with the new wall in place, they need one Border Patrol agent for every 2 miles. Without the wall, they need five agents for every mile. So really it’s one-tenth of the manpower needed to secure the border when the wall is in place. So it really, to see how dangerous it is, to see the control of the organized crime, and it just really illustrates how important it is that we secure the border and complete the wall.
Del Guidice:As you had mentioned, President Biden did stop construction on the border wall. And I know that with a Democrat majority in the House and Senate, there’s not a lot that can be done. But how would you say a response from conservatives should be to that?
Good: I think, like it is on many other issues, what we’ve got to do is our best to inform the American people of what’s really happening, how high the stakes are, what the consequence is of stopping the border wall, not completing it, and do our best to expose what the Democrats are doing and what the consequence of that is to the American people.
Securing the border is a national security issue. It’s an economic issue. As our schools, our social services systems, as they are already taxed to the limit to take care of our own citizens, and the flood of immigrants that are coming across illegally, so it’s a national security issue. It’s an economic issue.
But it’s also a health care issue. Here we are in the midst of a serious virus, and here we are allowing more and more immigrants to come across.
And Joe Biden has said, “Hey, a 100-day freeze on deportation of anyone, including criminals.” And he stopped building the wall, and he’s promised amnesty and citizenship to the 10 to 20 million illegal aliens who are here currently. What a danger to the American people. We’ve just got to expose that and do our best to fight against the Democrats’ agenda in that area.
Del Guidice:Well, as we wrap up, you mention the pandemic. We’ve also had an election that had very high tensions over that. As a man of faith, what would you like to tell constituents back in Virginia, as well as across the country, of what they should keep in mind during these times?
Good: I think that what we’ve got to keep in mind is that we are blessed to live in the greatest country the world has ever known. Only 5% of the world’s population gets to live in these United States, this wonderful, first-ever, self-rule government of the people, by the people, for the people. And we the people truly do have the power.
I get asked about term limits often. We have the power to term limit our representatives, our congressmen, our senators, our state representatives. We have the power to term-limit a president.
The power is with us to make our voices known, to make our voices heard, to fight and advocate for what we believe, to not allow the left to cancel us, to shout us down, to intimidate us, but to be bold and strong about what we believe our country is worth fighting for, and the future of our country is truly in the balance. And we must not give up. We must continue to fight as those before us did.
Del Guidice:Congressman Good, it’s been great having you on “The Daily Signal Podcast.” Thank you so much for being with us.
Good: Thank you so much, Rachel. Appreciate it.
DEBT LIMIT – A GUIDE TO AMERICAN FEDERAL DEBT MADE EASY.
President Clinton Signing the Balanced Budget Bill (1997)
Newt Gingich Explains How He Balanced the Budget as Speaker of the House
Ronald Reagan Talks About Balancing the Budget on Johnny Carson’s Tonigh…
President Reagan’s Remarks on Balanced Budget Amendment on July 12, 1982
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January 29, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
Page 607
As it so happened, the same mid-December week we announced the deal with McConnell, Bill Clinton joined me in the Oval Office dining room for a visit. Whatever tensions had existed between us during the campaign had largely dissipated by then, and I found it useful to hear the lessons he’d learned after suffering a similar midterm shellacking at the hands of Newt Gingrich in 1994. At some point, we got into the nitty-gritty of the tax agreement I’d just made, and Clinton couldn’t have been more enthusiastic. “You need to tell that to some of our friends,” I said, noting the blowback we were getting from certain Democratic circles. “If I have the chance, I will,” Clinton said. That gave me an idea. “How about you get the chance right now?” Before he could answer, I walked over to Katie’s desk and asked her to have the press team rustle up any correspondents who were in the building. Fifteen minutes later, Bill Clinton and I stepped into the White House briefing room. Explaining to the startled reporters that they might like to get some perspective on our tax deal from the person who’d overseen just about the best U.S. economy we’d experienced in recent history, I turned the podium over to Clinton. It didn’t take long for the former president to own the room, mustering all of his raspy-voiced, lip-biting Arkansas charm to make the case for our deal with McConnell. In fact, shortly after the impromptu press conference began, I realized I had another commitment to get to, but Clinton was clearly enjoying himself so much that I didn’t want to cut him off. Instead, I leaned into the microphone to say that I had to leave but that President Clinton could stick around. Later, I asked Gibbs how the whole thing had played. “The coverage was great,” Gibbs said. “Though a few of the talking heads said that you diminished yourself by giving Clinton the platform.” I wasn’t too worried about that. I knew that Clinton’s poll numbers were a whole lot higher than mine at the time, partly because the conservative press that had once vilified him now found it useful to offer him up as a contrast to me, the kind of reasonable, centrist Democrat, they said, that Republicans could work with. His endorsement would help us sell the deal to the broader public and tamp down any potential rebellion among congressional Democrats. It was an irony that I—like many modern leaders—eventually learned to live with: You never looked as smart as the ex-president did on the sidelines.
There are two main things that Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton teamed up on and accomplished and they were a balanced budget and welfare reform!
I have posted articles on my blog (www.thedailyhatch.org) about the balanced budget efforts of very prudent people like Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan.
Below notice these words in the article below:
President Clinton (and Senator Daschle) agreed with Leader Lott and Speaker Gingrich to a deal that cut spending, reduced the deficit enough to balance the budget, and cut taxes.
Wish You had followed President Clinton’s example on this!
In 1993 President Bill Clinton worked with Speaker Tom Foley (D) and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D) to enact a law that reduced the deficit by cutting entitlement spending and raising taxes. At the time Democrats labeled this a “deficit reduction law,” while Republicans labeled it a “tax increase law.” The law passed Congress with only Democratic votes – all Republicans voted no.
A little more than a year later, Republicans won the 1994 elections and took the majorities in the House and Senate. In 1995 Republicans passed a spending cut bill that would have balanced the budget, and another bill that cut taxes. President Clinton vetoed both.
On May 15, 1997, after months of intense negotiations, President Clinton reached a bipartisan budget agreement with Speaker Newt Gingrich (R), Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R), and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D).House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D) did not sign on.
I was Senator Lott’s budget staffer at the time. In addition to aiding him in those negotiations, I assembled the 1997 agreement document. While it was widely circulated then, that was 14 years ago, and I haven’t seen the 24-page document or that agreement discussed anywhere recently.
Of particular relevance to the current negotiation is the table on page 4, titled “SUMMARY OF DEFICIT REDUCTION IN BUDGET RESOLUTION MARK.” From this table you can see that President Clinton (and Senator Daschle) agreed with Leader Lott and Speaker Gingrich to a deal that cut spending, reduced the deficit enough to balance the budget, and cut taxes.
That’s right. The 1997 Clinton-Gingrich-Lott bipartisan budget agreement cut spending enough to balance the budget and cut taxes.
You can see from this table that over a five year period (1998-2002) the agreement:
cut defense discretionary spending by $77 billion and cut nondefense discretionary spending by $61 billion;
“cut” (reduced the growth rate of) Medicare spending by $115 billion;
“cut” Medicaid spending by $14 billion;
cut other mandatory spending by $40 billion;
contained new “Presidential [spending] initiatives” that increased spending by $31 billion; and
cut taxes by a net $85 billion (and a gross $135 billion, $50 billion of which was offset by other tax increases).
The net result of this agreement was $204 billion of net deficit reduction over five years, and a projected balanced budget in 2002. That $204 billion accounts for the deficit-increasing effects of both the President’s new spending and the Republicans’ net tax cuts. The gross deficit reduction was about $320 billion over five years.
Not mentioned in this document is that the deal also included an agreed-upon downward adjustment, made by the Clinton Administration administratively, to the Consumer Price Index.
At the time:
President Clinton’s negotiators were his budget director, Leon Panetta, and his White House Chief of Staff, Erskine Bowles.
Jack Lew was #3 in President Clinton’s OMB and ran OMB legislative affairs.
Gene Sperling was Deputy Director of President Clinton’s National Economic Council.
Tim Geithner was a Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Clinton’s Treasury Department.
A “grand bargain” between President Obama and Republican Leaders has now broken down, apparently both because the President wouldn’t agree to deep enough long-term entitlement spending cuts, and because Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell wouldn’t agree to net tax increases.
For the past week the Obama White House and their allies have been setting up the argument that a Republican refusal to raise net taxes as part of a deficit reduction deal is “extreme.” But if we compare President Obama’s position to both the 1993 Democrat-only reconciliation law and to the 1997 bipartisan budget agreement, we should not be surprised.
President Obama is insisting Republicans sign onto a deal like that which Democrats passed by themselves in 1993, and which Republicans unanimously opposed.
As you try to understand why a grand bargain is not happening in 2011, please consider the successful bipartisan grand bargain of 1997. Republican Leaders are now insisting only that taxes not go up, while President Obama is to the left of where President Clinton was when he successfully negotiated a bipartisan agreement.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
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President Reagan’s Remarks on a Constitutional Amendment for a Balanced …
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PAY IT BACKWARDS: The Federal Budget Surplus with Milton Friedman
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 48) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 47) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 46) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. TEMIN: We don’t think the big capital arose before the government did? VON HOFFMAN: Listen, what are we doing here? I mean __ defending big government is like defending death and taxes. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen 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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 5 of 7 MCKENZIE: Ah, well, that’s not on our agenda actually. (Laughter) VOICE OFF SCREEN: Why not? MCKENZIE: I boldly repeat the question, though, the expectation having been __ having […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 4 of 7 The massive growth of central government that started after the depression has continued ever since. If anything, it has even speeded up in recent years. Each year there […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act […]
Michael Harrington: If you don’t have the expertise, the knowledge technology today, you’re out of the debate. And I think that we have to democratize information and government as well as the economy and society. FRIEDMAN: I am sorry to say Michael Harrington’s solution is not a solution to it. He wants minority rule, I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
PETERSON: Well, let me ask you how you would cope with this problem, Dr. Friedman. The people decided that they wanted cool air, and there was tremendous need, and so we built a huge industry, the air conditioning industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous earnings opportunities and nearly all of us now have air […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Part 5 Milton Friedman: I do not believe it’s proper to put the situation in terms of industrialist versus government. On the contrary, one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
The fundamental principal of the free society is voluntary cooperation. The economic market, buying and selling, is one example. But it’s only one example. Voluntary cooperation is far broader than that. To take an example that at first sight seems about as far away as you can get __ the language we speak; the words […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did. Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Uploaded by investbligurucom on Jun 16, 2010 While many people have a fairly […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Edit | Comments (1)
What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
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I’m sure I deserved it.
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