Monthly Archives: September 2022

Democrat figures have frequently compared Republicans to Nazis KEN BURNS JOINS THIS GROUP OF FINGER POINTERS!!!

September 18, 2022 – 8:20 pm

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Ken Burns documentary explores America’s response to the Holocaust

The U.S. and the Holocaust | Official Trailer | PBS

LA Times op-ed claims America ‘fueled the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust’

Democrat figures have frequently compared Republicans to Nazis

The Los Angeles Times spotlighted a piece that chastised America for fueling the rise of Nazis and the Holocaust several decades prior.

In the Sunday op-ed titled “Americans fueled the rise of Nazis and the Holocaust. Will we learn from that shameful chapter?” filmmakers Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein described their research while producing a documentary about the U.S. and the Holocaust. Their findings, they claimed, provided “parallels” to “dark moments in our history,” including the lead up to World War II.

“Today, in America, we stand at a peculiar and frightening crossroads,” they began. “We are witnessing the rising appeal of authoritarianism abroad and at home, we are bombarded by social media outlets that spread divisive falsehoods and hatred, and, a mere two months before midterm elections, we find our democracy itself under attack.”

DEMOCRATIC ADVISER ON MSNBC MAKES ‘NAZI GERMANY’ COMPARISON FOR REPUBLICANS

“Despite our ultimate victory on the battlefield, our response to Nazism was hindered by our own fears and prejudices, an indictment that points blame at no single group or individual but should give all of us reason to reflect on our collective responsibility and what we might do differently in the future,” they wrote.

June 16, 2016: This image shows weapons and Nazi paraphernalia seized from a home in Mount Sinai, N.Y. (Suffolk County Police Department)

Liberal media pundits have attempted to compare the Holocaust to modern political issues despite criticism from survivor groups. In January, an MSNBC historian compared the Jan. 6 Capitol riotsto the Holocaust or World War II, likening that January 6, 2021 date to December 7, 1941.

Mimi Reinhardt, woman who typed up Schindler’s list, dead at 107 | New Y…

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Schindler’s List: I could have saved one more (ending scene) Full HD

Schindler’s list – John Williams – NL orchestra

Mimi Reinhard, Oskar Schindler’s secretary who typed up the list of Jews he saved from Nazi extermination, dies at age 107

Mimi Reinhard, a secretary in Oskar Schindler’s office who typed up the list of Jews he saved from extermination by Nazi Germany, has died in Israel at the age of 107.

Reinhard died early Friday and was laid to rest Sunday in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, her son Sasha Weitman confirmed.

She was one of 1,200 Jews saved by German businessman Schindler after he bribed Nazi authorities to let him keep them as workers in his factories. The account was made into the acclaimed 1993 film “Schindler’s List” by director Steven Spielberg.

Israel Obit Schindler Secretary — Sasha Weitman, son of Mimi Reinhard, a secretary in Oskar Schindler’s office who typed up the list of Jews he saved from extermination by Nazi Germany, holds an old photograph of his mother in Herzliya, Israel, Monday, April 11, 2022. ARIEL SCHALIT / AP

Reinhard was born Carmen Koppel in Vienna, Austria, in 1915, and moved to Krakow, Poland, before the outbreak of World War II. After Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, she was confined to the Krakow ghetto before being sent to the nearby Plaszow concentration camp in 1942.

Reinhard’s knowledge of shorthand got her work in the camp’s administrative office, where, two years later, she was ordered to type up the handwritten list of Jews that were to be transferred to Schindler’s ammunition factory.

“I didn’t know it was such an important thing, that list,” she told an interviewer with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in 2008. “First of all, I got the list of those who were with Schindler already in Krakow, in his factory. I had to put them on the list.” Later she put her own name, and the names of two friends.

At the Brünnlitz labor camp, where Schindler’s ammunition factory was housed, she was put to work in Schindler’s office.

She said that although she worked in Schindler’s office toward the end of the war, she had little personal contact with him.

“He was a very charming man, very outgoing,” she recalled, decades after the war. “He didn’t treat us like scum.”

After the war, she made her way to the United States, where she lived until immigrating to Israel in 2007 at the age of 92.

Weitman, Reinhard’s son, said that after coming to Israel she “became a kind of a celebrity” because of the Schindler’s List film’s popularity, something he said “pumped another 15 years into her life.”

«Schindlers-Liste» auf Speicher gefunden — The written legacy of the German manufacturer Oskar Schindler (photo), who saved around 1,200 forced laborers from death during the Nazi era, is seen in the editorial offices of the Stuttgarter Zeitung on October 16, 1999.BERND WEISSBROD/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Ricky Gervais act outs atheist bewilderment and frustration in the face of nice Christian nonsense

Carl Sagan – Parents

Carl Sagan said that he missed his parents terribly and he wished he could believe in the afterlife but he was not convinced because of the lack of proof. I had the opportunity to correspond back and forth with Carl Sagan. I presented him evidence that the Bible was true and there was an afterlife, but he would not accept the evidence.

Today I want to take another approach to the issue of the afterlife and that is the pure and simple fact that without an enforcement factor people can do what they want in this life and get away with it. This is a big glaring weakness in the Humanist Manifestos that have been published so far. All three of them do not recognize the existence of God who is our final judge. (I am not claiming that this is evidence that points to an afterlife, but this post will demonstrate that atheists many times have not thought through the full ramifications of their philosophy of life.)

I had the unique opportunity to discuss this very issue with Robert Lester Mondale and his wife Rosemary on April 14, 1996 at his cabin in Fredricktown, Missouri , and my visit was very enjoyable and informative. Mr. Mondale had the distinction of being the only person to sign all three of the Humanist Manifestos in 1933, 1973 and 2003. I asked him which signers of Humanist Manifesto Number One did he know well and he said that Raymond B. Bragg, and Edwin H. Wilson and him were known as “the three young radicals of the group.” Harold P. Marley used to have a cabin near his and they used to take long walks together, but Marley’s wife got a job in Hot Springs, Arkansas and they moved down there.

Roy Wood Sellars was a popular professor of philosophy that he knew. I asked if he knew John Dewey and he said he did not, but Dewey did contact him one time to ask him some questions about an article he had written, but Mondale could not recall anything else about that.

Mondale told me some stories about his neighbors and we got to talking about some of his church members when he was an Unitarian pastor. Once during the 1930’s he was told by one of his wealthier Jewish members that he shouldn’t continue to be critical of the Nazis. This member had just come back from Germany and according to him Hitler had done a great job of getting the economy moving and things were good.

Of course, just a few years later after World War II was over Mondale discovered on a second hand basis what exactly had happened over there when he visited with a Lutheran pastor friend who had just returned from Germany. This Lutheran preacher was one of the first to be allowed in after the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945, and he told Mondale what level of devastation and destruction of innocent lives went on inside these camps. As Mondale listened to his friend he could feel his own face turning pale.

I asked, “If those Nazis escaped to Brazil or Argentina and lived out their lives in peace would they face judgment after they died?”

Mondale responded, “I don’t think there is anything after death.”

I told Mr. Mondale that there is sense in me that says justice will be given eventually and God will judge those Nazis even if they evade punishment here on earth. I did point out that in Ecclesiastes 4:1 Solomon did note that without God in the picture the scales may not be balanced in this life and power could reign, but at the same time the Bible teaches that all must face the ultimate Judge.

Then I asked him if he got to watch the O.J. Simpson trial and he said that he did and he thought that the prosecution had plenty of evidence too. Again I asked Mr. Mondale the same question concerning O.J. and he responded, “I don’t think there is a God that will intervene and I don’t believe in the afterlife.”

Dan Guinn posted on his blog at http://www.francisschaefferstudies.org concerning the Nazis and evolution: As Schaeffer points out, “…these ideas helped produce an even more far-reaching yet logical conclusion: the Nazi movement in Germany. Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), leader of the Gestapo, stated that the law of nature must take its course in the survival of the fittest. The result was the gas chambers. Hitler stated numerous times that Christianity and its notion of charity should be “replaced by the ethic of strength over weakness.” Surely many factors were involved in the rise of National Socialism in Germany. For example, the Christian consensus had largely been lost by the undermining from a rationalistic philosophy and a romantic pantheism on the secular side, and a liberal theology (which was an adoption of rationalism in theological terminology) in the universities and many of the churches. Thus biblical Christianity was no longer giving the consensus for German society. After World War I came political and economic chaos and a flood of moral permissiveness in Germany. Thus, many factors created the situation. But in that setting the theory of the survival of the fittest sanctioned what occurred. ”

Francis Schaeffer notes that this idea ties into today when we are actually talking about making infanticide legal in some academic settings. Look at what these three humanist scholars have written:

Peter Singer, who recently was seated in an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
In January 1978, Francis Crick, also a Nobel laureate, was quoted in the Pacific News Service as saying “… no newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment and that if it fails these tests it forfeits the right to live.”

Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , was on this very subject of the Nazis that Lester Mondale and I discussed on that day in 1996 at Mondale’s cabin in Missouri. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, “The eyes of God are always upon you.” However, Judah later concludes that God doesn’t exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah’s respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie and continues to be haunted by his father’s words: “The eyes of God are always upon you.” This is a very scary phrase to a young boy, Judah observes. He often wondered how penetrating God’s eyes are.

Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah ‘s unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:

“Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May

Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”

Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”

Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”

Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”

Judah ‘s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”

Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah ‘s advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life. CAN A MATERIALIST OR A HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN AN AFTERLIFE GIVE JUDAH ONE REASON WHY HE SHOULDN’T HAVE HIS MISTRESS KILLED?

The Bible tells us, “{God} has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV). The secularist calls this an illusion, but the Bible tells us that the idea that we will survive the grave was planted in everyone’s heart by God Himself. Romans 1:19-21 tells us that God has instilled a conscience in everyone that points each of them to Him and tells them what is right and wrong (also Romans 2:14 -15).

It’s no wonder, then, that one of Allen’s fellow humanists would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” THE HUMANIST, May/June 1997, pp. 38-39)

Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. It wasn’t long before she received criticism. Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (THE HUMANIST, September/October 1997, p. 2)

On the April 13, 2014 episode of THE GOOD WIFE called “The Materialist,” Alicia in a custody case asks the father Professor Mercer some questions about his own academic publications. She reads from his book that he is a “materialist and he believes that “free-will is just an illusion,” and we are all just products of the physical world and that includes our thoughts and emotions and there is no basis for calling anything right or wrong. Sounds like to me the good professor would agree wholeheartedly with the humanist Abigail Ann Martin’s assertion concerning Hitler’s morality too! Jean-Paul Sartre noted, “No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.”

Christians agree with Judah ‘s father that “The eyes of God are always upon us.” Proverbs 5:21 asserts, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.” Revelation 20:12 states, “…And the dead were judged (sentenced) by what they had done (their whole way of feeling and acting, their aims and endeavors) in accordance with what was recorded in the books” (Amplified Version). The Bible is revealed truth from God. It is the basis for our morality. Judah inherited the Jewish ethical values of the Ten Commandments from his father, but, through years of life as a skeptic, his standards had been lowered. Finally, we discover that Judah ‘s secular version of morality does not resemble his father’s biblically-based morality.

Woody Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS forces unbelievers to grapple with the logical conclusions of a purely secular morality, and the secularist has no basis for asserting that Judah is wrong.

Larry King actually mentioned on his show, LARRY KING LIVE, that Chuck Colson had discussed the movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS with him. Colson asked King if life was just a Darwinian struggle where the ruthless come out on top. Colson continued, “When we do wrong, is that our only choice? Either live tormented by guilt, or else kill our conscience and live like beasts?” (BREAKPOINT COMMENTARY, “Finding Common Ground,” September 14, 1993)

Josef Mengele tortured and murdered many Jews and then lived the rest of his long life out in South America in peace. Will he ever face judgment for his actions?

The ironic thing is that at the end of our visit I that pointed out to Mr. Mondale that Paul Kurtz had said in light of the horrible events in World War II that Kurtz witnessed himself in the death camps (Kurtz entered a death camp as an U.S. Soldier to liberate it) that it was obvious that Humanist Manifesto I was way too optimistic and it was necessary to come up with another one. I thought that might encourage Mr. Mondale to comment further on our earlier conversion concerning evil deeds, but he just said, “That doesn’t surprise me that Kurtz would say something like that.”

I noticed in Wikipedia:

The second Humanist Manifesto was written in 1973 by Paul Kurtz and Edwin H. Wilson, and was intended to update the previous one. It begins with a statement that the excesses of Nazism and world war had made the first seem “far too optimistic”, and indicated a more hardheaded and realistic approach in its seventeen-point statement, which was much longer and more elaborate than the previous version. Nevertheless, much of the unbridled optimism of the first remained, with hopes stated that war would become obsolete and poverty would be eliminated.

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This is Lester Mondale’s obituary from the American Humanist Association:

R. Lester Mondale of Fredricktown, Missouri died on August 19, 2003, he was ninety-nine years old. Mondale was the last living signer of Humanist Manifesto I (he was the youngest to sign in 1933). He was also the only person to sign all three manifestos.

An AHA member perhaps since the organization’s founding, he received the AHA’s Humanist Pioneer award in 1973 and the Humanist Founder award in 2001. Mondale became a Unitarian minister after being raised a Methodist.

He was very active with the American Humanist Association, the American Ethical Union and served as president of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists in the 60’s and 70’s. Humanists Vice President Sarah Oelberg says that Mondale’s death marks “truly the end of an era” and AHA Director of Planned Giving Bette Chambers calls him “a great man, a great Humanist.”

Lester is survived by his wife, Rosemary, and four daughters: Karen Mondale of St. Louis, Missouri; Julia Jensen of St. Cloud, Minnesota; Tarrie Swenstad of Odin, Minnesota; and Ellen Mondale of Bethesda, Maryland. Also surviving him are his three brothers: Walter Mondale, former vice president of the United States, Pete Mondale, and Morton Mondale. Lester Mondale was also a proud grandparent of seven and a great-grandparent.

The Mondale siblings: Lester, Walter, Mort, Pete, and Clifford and Eleanor Archer (adopted sister); credit: University of Minnesota Law Library Archives

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Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1

Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007

Part 1 of 3: ‘What Does Judah Believe?’
A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest.
By Anton Scamvougeras.

http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/
antons@mail.ubc.ca

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Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 2

Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 3

Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject: 1. The Babylonian Chronicle, of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription. 3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism), 4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically. 5. The Discovery of the Hittites, 6.Shishak Smiting His Captives, 7. Moabite Stone, 8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts., 9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. 10. Cyrus Cylinder, 11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E., 12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription, 13. The Pilate Inscription, 14. Caiaphas Ossuary, 14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2, 14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology.,

The Bible and Archaeology (2/5)

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Former atheist Antony Flew pointed out that natural selection can’t explain the origin of first life and in every other case, information necessarily points to an intelligent source!

April 14, 2014 – 1:26 am

______________ Does God Exist? Thomas Warren vs. Antony Flew Published on Jan 2, 2014 Date: September 20-23, 1976 Location: North Texas State University Christian debater: Thomas B. Warren Atheist debater: Antony G.N. Flew For Thomas Warren: http://www.warrenapologeticscenter.org/ ______________________ Antony Flew and his conversion to theism Uploaded on Aug 12, 2011 Antony Flew, a well known spokesperson […]

DARWINISM RECONSIDERED article from 2005 quotes Antony Flew, Richard Dawkins, Jonathan Miller, and Phillip Johnson

April 11, 2014 – 1:10 am

______________ William Lane Craig versus Eddie Tabash Debate Uploaded on Feb 6, 2012 Secular Humanism versus Christianity, Lawyer versus Theologian. Evangelical Christian apologist William Lane Craig debates humanist atheist lawyer Eddie Tabash at Pepperdine University, February 8, 1999. Visithttp://www.Infidels.org and http://www.WilliamLaneCraig.com ________________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

Antony Flew interviewed by Benjamin Wiker and the two reasons Flew left atheism!!!

April 10, 2014 – 1:57 am

_______________________ Discussion (1 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas Uploaded on Sep 22, 2010 A discussion with Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas. This was held at Westminster Chapel March, 2008 Debate – William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens – Does God Exist? Uploaded on Jan 27, 2011 April 4, 2009 – Craig […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Antony Flew, Ben Wiker | Edit |Comments (0)

Kyle Butt notes that Antony Flew left Atheism but fell short of making a profession of faith during his lifetime

April 9, 2014 – 1:59 am

_________________ Antony Flew – World’s Most Famous Atheist Accepts Existence of God Uploaded on Nov 28, 2008 Has Science Discovered God? A half-century ago, in 1955, Professor Antony Flew set the agenda for modern atheism with his Theology and Falsification, a paper presented in a debate with C.S. Lewis. This work became the most widely […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Antony Flew, Kyle Butt, Roy Varghese, Warren-Flew Debate | Edit | Comments (0)

Gary Habermas explains the reasons for Antony Flew’s change of mind

April 8, 2014 – 1:42 am

_____________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Tagged A. J. Ayer, Albert Camus, Antony Flew, Bertrand Russell, george wald, J.L. Mackie, Jacques Derrida, jean paul sartre, Martin Heidegger, Michael Martin, paul kurtz, Richard Rorty | Edit | Comments (0)

The finest article on Antony Flew’s long path from Atheism to Theism!!

April 7, 2014 – 1:32 am

___________________ This is the finest article yet I have read that traces Antony Flew’s long path from atheism to theism. How Anthony Flew – Flew to God Among the world’s atheists there was hardly any with the intellectual stature of Anthony Flew. He was a contemporary with C.S. Lewis and has been a thorn in […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Antony Flew, Bertrand Russell,C.S.Lewis, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, george wald, Katharine Tai, Lewis Wolpert,Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Terry Miethe, Victor Stenger | Edit | Comments (0)

Antony Flew incorrectly wrote that George Wald later abandoned atheism!!!

April 4, 2014 – 12:26 am

Making Sense of Faith and Science Uploaded on May 16, 2008 Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He explains that the theistic world view of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science itself. Presented […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Tagged Antony Flew, george wald | Edit |Comments (0)

Antony Flew opened himself up to the possibility of accepting Christian teachings although never making a public profession of faith

April 3, 2014 – 12:19 am

Discussion (2 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas ______________ Atheist Lawrence Krauss loses debate to wiser Christian Published on Sep 13, 2013 http://www.reasonablefaith.org More of this here The Bible and Science (Part 02) The Kalam Cosmological Argument (Scientific Evidence) (Henry Schaefer, PhD) Published on Jun 11, 2012 Scientist Dr. Henry “Fritz” Schaefer gives a lecture […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Antony Flew | Edit | Comments (0)

Part of the reason Antony Flew left atheism can be found in this Paul Davies’ quote “Science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview!”

April 2, 2014 – 10:20 am

Conversation with John Barrow Published on Jun 16, 2012 Templeton Prize 2006, Gifford Lectures 1988 British Academy, 1 June 2012 _______ Many Christians are involved in science and John D. Barrow is one of the leaders of science today. Here is his bio: John D Barrow John D. Barrow was born in London in […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Antony Flew, John Barrow, Paul Davies | Edit | Comments (0)

Antony Flew, “I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder’s point-by-point refutation of what I call the MONKEY THEOREM” or the “the possibility of life arising by chance using the analogy of a multitude of monkeys banging away on computer keyboards and eventually ending up writing a Shakespearean sonnet!”

April 2, 2014 – 7:11 am

____________ Discussion (1 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas Uploaded on Sep 22, 2010 A discussion with Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas. This was held at Westminster Chapel March, 2008 ___________ __________ Antony Flew, “I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder’s point-by-point refutation of what I call the MONKEY […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Antony Flew, Gerry Schroeder,Richard Dawkins | Edit | Comments (0)

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged Dan Guinn, Heinrich Himmler | Comments (0)

DAN MITCHELL “If people drive while drunk or stoned, focus on penalizing the people who make those bad choices so that they will have an incentive for more responsible behavior!”

September 18, 2022 – 1:19 pm

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Taxes, Incentives, Booze, and Liberty

I celebrate when my friends on the left stumble into economic insights.

For instance, many of them sound like Milton Friedman when they pontificate in favor of higher tobacco taxes because they want people to smoke fewer cigarettes.

As a libertarian, I don’t think it’s government’s job to control our private lives, but I applaud when people understand that higher taxes on something will lead to less of that thing.

I get frustrated, of course, that they don’t apply that insight in other areas.

After all, if higher taxes on tobacco leads to less smoking, surely it is true that higher taxes on employment leads to less work.

Or less investment, less innovation, less entrepreneurship, etc, etc.

Let’s consider a new example of how this works in the case of sin taxes.

The New York Times has an article by Ted Alcorn about whether higher taxes on alcohol are an appropriate way of dealing with the damage caused by excessive drinking.

Here are some excerpts.

Oregon also has among the highest prevalence of problem drinking in the country. Last year, 2,153 residents died of causes attributed to alcohol, according to the Oregon Health Authority — more than twice the number of people killed by methamphetamines, heroin and fentanyl combined. …policies that experts consider most effective at curbing excessive drinking have been ignored.For example, even as alcohol-related deaths soared to record highs in the last few years, alcohol taxes have fallen to the lowest rates in a generation. …The U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force, an independent group of experts, has endorsed measures to deter excess drinking, including raising the price of alcohol. …One way that governments can influence the price of alcohol is by taxing its producers or sellers, who pass the cost on to consumers. This is comparable to taxes on tobacco, which scores of studies show to be a powerful tool for reducing smoking. A large body of evidence shows that higher alcohol taxes are associated with less excessive drinking and lower rates of disease and injury deaths.

This all sounds reasonable.

Raise taxes and you save lives.

But it’s not that simple, as J.D. Tuccille explained in Reason a few years ago.

…you don’t need an outright ban on alcohol to fuel the production of bathtub gin and its equivalents. A new report shows that the same result has been achieved in many countries through the imposition of excessively high taxes… World Health Organization (WHO) research, published in 2014 (PDF), …”illicit and informally produced alcohol accounts for nearly a quarter of the alcohol consumed globally.” …What’s the attraction of drinking the local equivalent of bathtub gin when commercially produced products are widely available? “Unrecorded alcoholic beverages are generally less costly than recorded alcohol,” WHO dryly acknowledged in 2014. The IARD report goes into a bit more detail as to why that might be, noting that “these beverages are untaxed and outside of regulated production that can increase cost,” which means there “is often a significant price difference between illicit and legitimate products, driving demand.”

In other words, governments can impose lots of taxes on alcohol, but one consequence is to encourage the black market.

My two cents on this issues is that all taxes should be low, including so-called sin taxes. That is not because I’m oblivious to the damage of drinking, smoking, drugs, or sugar.

My opposition is driven by three factors.

I don’t want politicians having more money to waste.
Sin taxes will encourage problematic black markets..
People should have the freedom to make dumb choices.

I’ll close by addressing a common counter-argument, which is that people who make dumb choices can impose costs on the rest of society.

But if people drive while drunk or stoned, focus on penalizing the people who make those bad choices so that they will have an incentive for more responsible behavior.

And if smokers and gluttons impose high costs on government health programs, maybe that’s yet another reason for restoring free markets in health care.

Simply stated, the answer almost always is less government rather than more government.

Texas vs. California, Part VII

To begin the seventh edition of our series comparing policy in Texas and California (previous entries in March 2010, February 2013, April 2013, October 2018, June 2019, and December 2020), here’s a video from Prager University.

There will be a lot of information in today’s column, so if you’re pressed for time, here are three sentences that tell you what you need to know.

California has all sorts of natural advantages over Texas, especially endless sunshine and beautiful topography.

Texas has better government policy than California, most notably in areas such as taxation and regulation.

Since people are moving from the Golden State to the Lone Star State, public policy seems to matter more than natural beauty.

Now let’s look at a bunch of evidence to support those three sentences.

We’ll start with an article by Joel Kotkin of Chapman University.

If one were to explore the most blessed places on earth, California, my home for a half century, would surely be up there. …its salubrious climate, spectacular scenery, vast natural resources… President Biden recently suggested that he wants to “make America California again”. Yet…he should consider whether the California model may be better seen as a cautionary tale than a roadmap to a better future… California now suffers the highest cost-adjusted poverty rate in the country, and the widest gap between middle and upper-middle income earners. …the state has slowly morphed into a low wage economy. Over the past decade, 80% of the state’s jobs have paid under the median wage — half of which are paid less than $40,000…minorities do better today outside of California, enjoying far higher adjusted incomes and rates of homeownership in places like Atlanta and Dallas than in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Almost one-third of Hispanics, the state’s largest ethnic group, subsist below the poverty line, compared with 21% outside the state. …progressive…policies have not brought about greater racial harmony, enhanced upward mobility and widely based economic growth.

Next we have some business news from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Business leaders fear tech giant Oracle’s recent announcement that it is leaving the Bay Area for Austin, Texas, will lead to more exits unless some fundamental political and economic changes are made to keep the region attractive and competitive. “This is something that we have been warning people about for several years. California is not business friendly, we should be honest about it,” said Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the UC Berkeley Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics.Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman said… “From consulting companies to tax lawyers to bankers and commercial real estate firms, every person I talk with who provides services to big Bay Area corporations are telling me that their clients are strategizing about leaving…” Charles Schwab, McKesson and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have all exited the high-cost, high-tax, high-regulation Bay Area for a less-expensive, less-regulated and business-friendlier political climate. All of them rode off to Texas. …the pace of the departures appears to be increasing. …A recent online survey of 2,325 California residents, taken between Nov. 4 and Nov. 23 by the Public Policy Institute of California, found 26% of residents have seriously considered moving out of state and that 58% say that the American Dream is harder to achieve in California than elsewhere.

Are California politicians trying to make things better, in hopes of stopping out-migration to places such as Texas?

Not according to this column by Hank Adler in the Wall Street Journal.

California’s Legislature is considering a wealth tax on residents, part-year residents, and any person who spends more than 60 days inside the state’s borders in a single year. Even those who move out of state would continue to be subject to the tax for a decade… Assembly Bill 2088 proposes calculating the wealth tax based on current world-wide net worth each Dec. 31. For part-year and temporary residents, the tax would be proportionate based on their number of days in California. The annual tax would be on current net worth and therefore would include wealth earned, inherited or obtained through gifts or estates long before and long after leaving the state. …The authors of the bill estimate the wealth tax will provide Sacramento $7.5 billion in additional revenue every year. Another proposal—to increase the top state income-tax rate to 16.8%—would annually raise another $6.8 billion. Today, California’s wealthiest 1% pay approximately 46% of total state income taxes. …the Legislature looks to the wealthiest Californians to fill funding gaps without considering the constitutionality of the proposals and the ability of people and companies to pick up and leave the state, which news reports suggest they are doing in large numbers. …As of this moment, there are no police roadblocks on the freeways trying to keep moving trucks from leaving California. If A.B. 2088 becomes law, the state may need to consider placing some.

The late (and great) Walter Williams actually joked back in 2012that California might set up East German-style border checkpoints. Let’s hope satire doesn’t become reality.

But what isn’t satire is that people are fleeing the state (along with other poorly governed jurisdictions).

Simply state, the blue state model of high taxes and big government is not working (just as it isn’t working in countries with high taxes and big government).

Interestingly, even the New York Times recognizes that there is a problem in the state that used to be a role model for folks on the left.

Opining for that outlet at the start of the month, Brett Stephens raised concerns about the Golden State.

…today’s Democratic leaders might look to the very Democratic state of California as a model for America’s future. You remember California: People used to want to move there, start businesses, raise families, live their American dream. These days, not so much. Between July 2019 and July 2020, more people — 135,400 to be precise — left the state than moved in… No. 1 destination: Texas, followed by Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Three of those states have no state income tax.

California, by contrast, has very high taxes. Not just an onerous income tax, but high taxes across the board.

Californians also pay some of the nation’s highest sales tax rates (8.66 percent) and corporate tax rates (8.84 percent), as well as the highest taxes on gasoline (63 cents on a gallon as of January, as compared with 20 cents in Texas).

Sadly, these high taxes don’t translate into good services from government.

The state ranks 21st in the country in terms of spending per public school pupil, but 27th in its K-12 educational outcomes. It ties Oregon for third place among states in terms of its per capita homeless rate. Infrastructure? As of 2019, the state had an estimated $70 billion in deferred maintenance backlog. Debt? The state’s unfunded pension liabilities in 2019 ran north of $1.1 trillion, …or $81,300 per household.

Makes you wonder whether the rest of the nation should copy that model?

Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats, 42 of its 53 seats in the House, have lopsided majorities in the State Assembly and Senate, run nearly every big city and have controlled the governor’s mansion for a decade. If ever there was a perfect laboratory for liberal governance, this is it. So how do you explain these results? …If California is a vision of the sort of future the Biden administration wants for Americans, expect Americans to demur.

Some might be tempted to dismiss Stephens’ column because he is considered the token conservative at the New York Times.

But Ezra Klein also acknowledges that California has a problem, and nobody will accuse him of being on the right side of the spectrum.

Here’s some of what he wrote in his column earlier this month for the New York Times.

I love California. I was born and raised in Orange County. I was educated in the state’s public schools and graduated from the University of California system… But for that very reason, our failures of governance worry me. California has the highest poverty rate in the nation,when you factor in housing costs, and vies for the top spot in income inequality, too. …but there’s a reason 130,000 more people leave than enter each year. California is dominated by Democrats, but many of the people Democrats claim to care about most can’t afford to live there. …California, as the biggest state in the nation, and one where Democrats hold total control of the government, carries a special burden. If progressivism cannot work here, why should the country believe it can work anywhere else?

Kudos to Klein for admitting problems on his side (just like I praise the few GOPers who criticized Trump’s big-government policies).

But his column definitely had some quirky parts, such as when he wrote that, “There are bright spots in recent years…a deeply progressive plan to tax the wealthy.”

That’s actually a big reason for the state’s decline, not a “bright spot.”

I’m not the only one to recognize the limitations of his column.

Kevin Williamson wrote an entire rebuttal for National Review.

Who but Ezra Klein could survey the wreck left-wing Democrats have made of California and conclude that the state’s problem is its excessive conservatism? …Klein the rhetorician anticipates objections on this front and writes that he is not speaking of “the political conservatism that privatizes Medicare, but the temperamental conservatism that” — see if this formulation sounds at all familiar — “stands athwart change and yells ‘Stop!’”…California progressives have progressive policies and progressive power, and they like it that way. That is the substance of their conservatism. …Klein and others of his ilk like to present themselves as dispassionate pragmatists, enlightened empiricists who only want to do “what works.” …Klein mocks San Francisco for renaming schools (Begone, Abraham Lincoln!) while it has no plan to reopen them, but he cannot quite see that these are two aspects of a single phenomenon. …Klein…must eventually understand that the troubles he identifies in California are baked into the progressive cake. …That has real-world consequences, currently on display in California to such a spectacular degree that even Ezra Klein is able dimly to perceive them. Maybe he’ll learn something.

I especially appreciate this passage since it excoriates rich leftists for putting teacher unions ahead of disadvantaged children.

Intentions do not matter very much, and mere stated intentions matter even less. Klein is blind to that, which is why he is able to write, as though there were something unusual on display: “For all the city’s vaunted progressivism, [San Francisco] has some of the highest private school enrollment numbers in the country.” Rich progressives have always been in favor of school choice and private schools — for themselves. They only oppose choice for poor people, whose interests must for political reasons be subordinated to those of the public-sector unions from which Democrats in cities such as San Francisco derive their power.

Let’s conclude with some levity.

Here’s a meme that contemplates whether California emigrants bring bad voting habits with them.

Though that’s apparently more of a problem in Colorado rather than in Texas.

And here’s some clever humor from Genesius Times.

P.S. My favorite California-themed humor (not counting the state’s elected officials) can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

High-tax states are languishing but zero-income-tax states such as Texas are growing rapidly!!!!

Texas Is Booming…but CNN Doesn’t Want You to Know Why

September 30, 2014 by Dan Mitchell

Much of my writing is focused on the real-world impact of government policy, and this is why I repeatedly look at the relative economic performance of big government jurisdictions and small government jurisdictions.

But I don’t just highlight differences between nations. Yes, it’s educational to look at North Korea vs. South Korea or Chile vs. Venezuela vs. Argentina, but I also think you can learn a lot by looking at what’s happening with different states in America.

So we’ve looked at high-tax states that are languishing, such as California and Illinois, and compared them to zero-income-tax states such as Texas.

With this in mind, you can understand that I was intrigued to see that even the establishment media is noticing that Texas is out-pacing the rest of the nation.

Here are some excerpts from a report by CNN Money on rapid population growth in Texas.

More Americans moved to Texas in recent years than any other state: A net gain of more than 387,000 in the latest Census for 2013. …Five Texas cities — Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth — were among the top 20 fastest growing large metro areas. Some smaller Texas metro areas grew even faster. In oil-rich Odessa, the population grew 3.3% and nearby Midland recorded a 3% gain.

But why is the population growing?

Well, CNN Money points out that low housing prices and jobs are big reasons.

And on the issue of housing, the article does acknowledge the role of “easy regulations” that enable new home construction.

But on the topic of jobs, the piece contains some good data on employment growth, but no mention of policy.

Jobs is the No. 1 reason for population moves, with affordable housing a close second. …Jobs are plentiful in Austin, where the unemployment rate is just 4.6%. Moody’s Analytics projects job growth to average 4% a year through 2015. Just as important, many jobs there are well paid: The median income of more than $75,000 is nearly 20% higher than the national median.

That’s it. Read the entire article if you don’t believe me, but the reporter was able to write a complete article about the booming economy in Texas without mentioning – not even once – that there’s no state income tax.

But that wasn’t the only omission.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas is the 4th-best state in the Tax Foundation’s ranking of state and local tax burdens.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas was the least oppressive state in the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Soft Tyranny Index.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas was ranked #20 in a study of the overall fiscal condition of the 50 states.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas is in 4th place in a combined ranking of economic freedom in U.S. state and Canadian provinces.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas was ranked #11 in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas is in 14th place in the Mercatus ranking of overall freedom for the 50 states (and in 10th place for fiscal freedom).

By the way, I’m not trying to argue that Texas is the best state.

Indeed, it only got the top ranking in one of the measures cited above.

My point, instead, is simply to note that it takes willful blindness to write about the strong population growth and job performance of Texas without making at least a passing reference to the fact that it is a low-tax, pro-market state.

At least compared to other states. And especially compared to the high-tax states that are stagnating.

Such as California, as illustrated by this data and this data, as well as this Lisa Benson cartoon.

Such as Illinois, as illustrated by this data and this Eric Allie cartoon.

And I can’t resist adding this Steve Breen cartoon, if for no other reason that it reminds me of another one of his cartoons that I shared last year.

Speaking of humor, this Chuck Asay cartoon speculates on how future archaeologists will view California. And this joke about Texas, California, and a coyote is among my most-viewed blog posts.

All jokes aside, I want to reiterate what I wrote above. Texas is far from perfect. There’s too much government in the Lone Star state. It’s only a success story when compared to California.

P.S. Paul Krugman has tried to defend California, which has made him an easy target. I debunked him earlier this year, and I also linked to a superb Kevin Williamson takedown of Krugman at the bottom of this post.

P.P.S. Once again, I repeat the two-part challenge I’ve issued to the left. I’ll be happy if any statists can successfully respond to just one of the two questions I posed.

California is the Greece of the USA, but Texas is not perfect either!!!

July 9, 2013 – 12:00 pm

California is the Greece of the USA, but Texas is not perfect either!!! Just Because California Is Terrible, that Doesn’t Mean Texas Is Perfect January 21, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Texas is in much better shape than California. Taxes are lower, in part because Texas has no state income tax. No wonder the Lone Star State […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Economist Dan Mitchell | Edit | Comments (0)

Dan Mitchell on Texas v. California (includes editorial cartoon)

April 3, 2013 – 4:35 pm

We should lower federal taxes because jobs are going to states like Texas that have low taxes. (We should lower state taxes too!!) What Can We Learn by Comparing the Employment Situation in Texas vs. California? April 3, 2013 by Dan Mitchell One of the great things about federalism, above and beyond the fact that it […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)

Ark Times blogger claims California is better than Texas but facts don’t bear that out (3 great political cartoons)

February 16, 2013 – 7:42 am

I got on the Arkansas Times Blog and noticed that a person on there was bragging about the high minimum wage law in San Francisco and how everything was going so well there. On 2-15-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog I posted: Couldn’t be better (the person using the username “Couldn’t be better) is bragging […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Cato Institute, Current Events, Economist Dan Mitchell, President Obama, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)

California burdensome government causing some of business community to leave for Texas

December 24, 2012 – 1:54 am

Does Government Have a Revenue or Spending Problem? People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)

Arkansas Times blogger picks California business environment over Texas, proves liberals don’t live in real world(Part 2)

May 6, 2011 – 9:33 am

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with his family I posted a portion of an article by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal that pointed out that many businesses are leaving California because of all of their government red tape and moving to Texas. My username is SalineRepublican and this is […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times | Edit | Comments (1)

John Fund’s talk in Little Rock 4-27-11(Part 4):Responding to liberals who criticize states like Texas that don’t have the red tape that California has

May 4, 2011 – 9:20 am

John Fund at Chamber Day, Part 1 Last week I got to attend the first ever “Conservative Lunch Series” presented by KARN and Americans for Prosperity Foundation at the Little Rock Hilton on University Avenue. This monthly luncheon will be held the fourth Wednesday of every month. The speaker for today’s luncheon was John Fund. John […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)

California and France have raised taxes so much that it has hurt economic growth!!!

September 29, 2014 – 8:02 am

___________ California and France have raised taxes so much that it has hurt economic growth!!! Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, which Nation and State Punish Success Most of All? September 25, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I’ve shared some interested rankings on tax policy, including a map from the Tax Foundation showing which states have the earliest […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)

Jerry Brown raised taxes in California and a rise in the minimum wage, but it won’t work like Krugman thinks!!!

July 26, 2014 – 3:22 pm

___________ Jerry Brown raised taxes in California and a rise in the minimum wage, but it won’t work like Krugman thinks!!!! This cartoon below shows what will eventually happen to California and any other state that keeps raising taxes higher and higher. Krugman’s “Gotcha” Moment Leaves Something to Be Desired July 25, 2014 by […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell | Edit | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 573) Are the states of Illinois and California going to join Detroit in Bankruptcy one day?

May 1, 2014 – 12:37 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 573) (Emailed to White House on 7-29-13.) 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 […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell, President Obama | Edit| Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 561) We should lower federal taxes because jobs are going to states like Texas that have low taxes

April 15, 2014 – 2:17 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 561) (Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.) 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 […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Edit | Comments (1)

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Taxes | Comments (0)

LAWRENCE JONES: Liberals suddenly ‘sounding the alarm’ on illegal immigration

September 18, 2022 – 4:55 am

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LAWRENCE JONES: Liberals suddenly ‘sounding the alarm’ on illegal immigration

Lawrence Jones claims Democrats are playing politics with human lives

By Fox News Staff | Fox News

Fox News host Lawrence Jones weighed in on Democrats “sounding the alarm” over the United States’ border crisis on “Cross Country with Lawrence Jones.”

LAWRENCE JONES: Democrats are now sounding the alarm about our country’s growing border crisis. But we’re asking ourselves the question: What changed with the situation that finally made the left speak up? Well, nothing, actually, except now the border crisis isn’t some faraway problem they can play off for cheap political points.

RON DESANTIS SENDS TWO PLANES OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO MARTHA’S VINEYARD

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER 2017: Well, I can’t say it any more clearly of what it means to for Washington, D.C., to be a sanctuary city.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO 2019: We have your back in New York City. We will protect you. We will not ask your documentation status.

MAYOR LONDON BREED 2019: San Francisco stands behind our sanctuary city policy.

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI 2016: Los Angeles and other big cities have always been a place that are welcomed to refugees, to asylum seekers and to immigrants.

MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT 2019: This is a city that for 150 years has been a city of welcome for immigrants from people all over the world.

Illegal immigrants arrive at Martha’s Vineyard Airport on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. (Video obtained by Fox News)

So passionate. So as you can see, liberals spent years bragging about their cities being open for illegals, and now they’re begging the federal government for aid and reinforcement. That’s the same kind of help that the border towns, hell the entire state of Texas have been asking for, for years. But when Republicans ask for help at the border, they were labeled as racist, xenophobic — they didn’t send a cavalry for the Republicans. Now, this is just the latest example of Democrats ignoring the issue until it finally lands in their own backyard. Heck, just last week, Kamala Harris insisted that the border was secure. But what’s the Biden administration have to say now that they can’t ignore this crisis?

PRESIDENT BIDEN: We’re committed to fixing the immigration system instead of working with us on solutions. Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props. What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless.

So the Democrats are playing politics with human lives. I mean, this is really cruel what they’re doing, ignoring the daily crisis at the southern border and pretending that innocent Americans haven’t been suffering from this for years, writing off their concerns just because they don’t vote for Democrats.

I have been in Boston Massachusetts the last few days and I saw a story on the local news saying how the inhabitants of Martha Vineyard have been so welcoming to the immigrants, but now I see they had them removed!!!!

Martha’s Vineyard welcomes migrants flown in unexpectedly

“You can’t simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state” MILTON FRIEDMAN

Power of the Market – Immigration

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Martha’s Vineyard merchant says there’s a ‘process’ for coming to America, ‘follow that’

Rhode Island resident Paul Sinclair who does business in Martha’s Vineyard said the island could have done more in response to the migrants’ arrival from Florida

By Kerry J. Byrne | Fox News

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. – At least one person on this oasis of leftist elites blames federal officials for the illegal immigration crisis thathrust Martha’s Vineyard into the national spotlight.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent 50 migrants by plane Wednesday to the Massachusetts island, which boasts one of the wealthiest and most hard-left voting blocs in the nation.

“I think it was a political stunt,” Paul Sinclair of Rhode Island told Fox News Digital on Saturday, as he sold t-shirts and surf gear during a street festival on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs, one of the commercial hubs of Martha’s Vineyard.

MARTHA’S VINEYARD ‘RALLIES RELIEF EFFORT’ FOR MIGRANTS BY SHIPPING THEM TO CAPE COD MILITARY BASE

“But like any problem if you want to fix a problem make it visible. And I think (the problem) was made visible.”

The phrase “political stunt” has been used on the island and elsewhere in leftist political circles to criticize DeSantis.

Paul Sinclair, a Martha Vineyard vendor from Rhode Island, told Fox News Digital he hopes the arrival of 50 migrants on the resort island on Wednesday, Sept. 14, brings attention to the need to follow the legal immigration process. (Fox News)

Sinclair saw the “stunt” as a way to make voters in the northeast pay attention to the burden faced daily by small border communities in the American southwest.

“In terms of coming (to America), I have no issue with that,” said Sinclair. “But there is a process. There is a path you should follow. Follow that. Document it, the process and procedure for coming over.”

MIGRANTS BUSSED FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD TO US MILITARY BASE, US ATTORNEY SEEKS DOJ ‘INPUT’ ON RESPONSE

Martha’s Vineyard is located just south of Cape Cod, about 2,200 miles northeast of the closest border crossing with Mexico.

The island, comprised of six different wealthy coastal towns, is about as far removed from the border physically and politically from any location in the lower 48 states.

Edgartown is a former whaling port that’s become an exclusive enclave of rustic old New England homes and inns, including the Chappaquiddick House, overlooking the ocean. Chappaquiddick is a part of Edgartown. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

The migrants, mostly from Venezuela, were taken to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in exclusive Edgartown, where church members rallied to find shelter and food for the unexpected newcomers for two nights.

FACING HISTORIC BIDEN-ERA BORDER CRISIS, GOP GOVERNORS GO ON THE OFFENSIVE

Voters in Martha’s Vineyard’s six communities chose Biden and his policies nearly 4 to 1 over Trump in the 2020 election.

Martha’s Vineyard, MA – September 15: Students from the Marthas Vineyard Regional High School AP Spanish class help deliver food to St Andrews Episcopal Church. Two planes of migrants from Venezuela arrived suddenly Wednesday night on Martha’s Vineyard. The students served as translators for the migrants. (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Image)

But when migrants arrived on their island this week they were quickly shipped by bus and ferry to a military base on Cape Cod, on the Massachusetts mainland, about 44 hours after arriving.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called up National Guard forces to help relocate the migrants to the mainland, while islanders cited a lack of resources on the island.

Many lamented the “housing crisis” on Martha’s Vineyard, even though more than half the homes on the island are secondary or vacation homes and most of their owners have left for the season.

“The (islanders) could have done a little more,” said Sinclair, who later revealed he was originally from Texas.

“But just like most things, it’s dump it over the fence I guess and make it somebody else’s problem.”

Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.

The ‘Secure Border’ of Kamala Harris

Terence Jeffrey / @TerryJeffrey / September 14, 2022

“The border is secure,” Vice President Kamala Harris told NBC’s Chuck Todd last weekend. Pictured: Harris speaks Aug. 12 during a visit to a science center in Oakland, California. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Terence Jeffrey @TerryJeffrey

Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSNews.com.

When Donald Trump was president, the Border Patrol in fiscal year 2019 did not encounter a single individual on the terrorist watchlist trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border between legal ports of entry.

In the first 10 months of this fiscal year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol encountered 66 of them.

These include individuals, as Customs and Border Protection explains on its website, who are “known or suspected terrorists” or “individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals.”

Did CBP fail to encounter any individuals on the watchlist in 2019 because the Trump administration was less aggressive about securing that border?

Or have 66 been caught this year because the Biden administration has sent a signal to the world that the border is not as secure now as it was three years ago and, thus, has inspired watchlisted individuals to try to sneak in?

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that the U.S.-Mexico border has indeed been secured and argued that illegal aliens already inside the United States should be rewarded with U.S. citizenship.

“Would you call the border secure?” host Chuck Todd asked Harris.

“I think that there is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do—the first request we made, pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship,” Harris responded.

“The border is secure,” she continued.

“But we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed,” Harris added.

“We’re going to have 2 million people cross this border for the first time ever,” Todd said. “You’re confident this border is secure?”

“We have a secure border,” Harris repeated, “in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration. But there are still a lot of problems that we are trying to fix, given the deterioration that happened over the last four years.”

“We also have to put in place a law and a plan for a pathway to citizenship for the millions of people who are here and are prepared to do what is legally required to gain citizenship,” she said.

This is nonsense.

People who were “prepared to do what is legally required to gain citizenship” legally applied for immigrant visas before they came to the United States, came here legally, and now are living here legally on a legal path to citizenship.

Harris is talking about people who have violated the law, either by overstaying a visa or by illegally sneaking across our southern border.

America has the most generous legal immigration policies of any nation on Earth.

In 2019, the same year that the Border Patrol did not encounter a single person on the terrorist watchlist at the U.S.-Mexico border, the United States naturalized 843,593 foreign-born citizens.

These new Americans came from all across the globe, according to data published by the Department of Homeland Security.

The total included 5% from Central America, 8.1% from South America, 9.6% from Europe, 10.1% from Africa, 12% from the Caribbean, 15.8% from other regions in North America, and 38.8% from Asia.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic started, the number of naturalized U.S. citizens dropped to 628,254. In 2021, however, it climbed back up to 813,861.

The 813,861 people who became naturalized U.S. citizens in 2021 almost equaled the entire population of San Francisco, which the Census Bureau says was 815,201 that year.

Indeed, the number of people who became naturalized U.S. citizens in 2021 exceeded the populations of many major U.S. cities, including Seattle (733,919), Denver (711,463), Washington, D.C. (670,050), Boston (654,776), Detroit (632,464), and Baltimore (576,498).

Clearly, the United States has not closed its doors to law-abiding people who immigrate here in keeping with our laws.

What has happened along our border in the past three years? In fiscal 2020, Trump’s last full year in office, Customs and Border Protection reported that it encountered 458,088 people trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border into the United States.

In fiscal 2021, the year Joe Biden succeeded Trump, the number of people CBP encountered trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border jumped to 1,734,686.

“Migrants were encountered 1.7 million times in the last 12 months, the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960,” The New York Times said Oct. 22, 2021.

“It was the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960, when the government first began tracking such entries,” the Times said.

The Washington Post reported on April 2, 2021—more than two months after Biden took office—that the number of illegal border crossers who successfully evaded the Border Patrol was surging. The Post reported:

Nearly 1,000 people per day are sneaking into the United States without being identified or taken into custody because U.S. border agents are busy attending to migrant families and unaccompanied children while also trying to stop soaring numbers of male adults, according to three U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials familiar with the data.

While CBP has never claimed to interdict every border-crosser, the number of ‘gotaways’ recorded in recent weeks is the highest in recent memory, said two of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the data.

In just the first 10 months of this fiscal year (October 2021 through July 2022), CBP has encountered 1,946,780 illegal border crossers.

The Biden administration is setting another record for the number of illegal border crossers encountered by Customs and Border Protection.

This is what Harris calls a “secure border.”

Immigration, Part II: Turning America into a Welfare Magnet

In Part I of this series, I explained why it’s absurd to think illegal immigration can be stopped by sending foreign aid to less-developed countries, such as many of those in Central America.

Simply stated, government-to-government handouts have never been a successful strategy for turning poor nations into rich nations. Indeed, aid actually discourages countries from following the recipe that does deliver prosperity.

In today’s column, let’s address Milton Friedman’s famous dilemma about the incompatibility of open borders and welfare.

Like most libertarians, I want to solve the problem by getting rid of the welfare state.

Immigrants are a big net plus so long as they are coming to work and be productive.

Indeed, because of their entrepreneurial skills and work ethic, immigrants from many nations wind up earning more than native-born Americans.

That’s something to celebrate. The American Dream in action!

But will that story of success continue if the welfare state is expanded?

Two advocates of increased immigration are worried. First, Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal recently explained that Biden’s agenda is a recipe for immigrant dependency.

…it is a growing belief on the political left that people should be allowed to enter the U.S. on their terms rather than ours, and that it is our collective responsibility to take care of them if they can’t take care of themselves. Milton Friedman said that open immigration and large welfare states are incompatible, and today’s progressives in Congress and the White House are eager to test that proposition.…Another concern is the left’s determination to sever any connection between work and benefits, something all the more worrisome since it is occurring while destitute foreign nationals with little education are being lured here en masse. …Earlier this month, the Biden administration quietly announced that it would no longer enforce a policy that limited the admission of immigrants who were deemed likely to become overly dependent on government benefits. What could go wrong? …In countries like Italy and France, generous aid programs have attracted poor migrants who are more likely than natives to be heavy users of welfare and less likely to be working. It’s a mistake to think it can’t happen here.

In a column last year for Reason, Shikha Dalmia warned that welfare programs undermine support for immigration.

…economists Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano, and Stefanie Stantcheva…administered online questionnaires to 24,000 respondents in six countries: U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. The explicit aim was to study attitudes toward legal, not illegal, immigration. …restrictionists have succeeded most spectacularly is in depicting immigrants as welfare queens. …In America, over 25 percent of respondents said the person with the ..immigrant-sounding name would pay less in taxes than he collected in welfare… The study’s findings pose a particular dilemma for Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), who wants to combine grandiose welfare schemes like free health care, pre-K, and college for everyone with generous immigration policies, because the mere mention of immigration reduces support for such schemes. Respondents who were asked about immigration became less concerned about inequality and less supportive of soak-the-rich schemes. …as long as immigrants are seen as succeeding through their own grit, natives may have no real objection to them. What is most likely to sour the public on immigration are the grandiose universal freebies… Immigrants should be wary of Democrats bearing gifts.

Both Riley and Dalmia raise good points.

My modest contribution to this discussion is to provide a practical example.

In his so-called American Rescue Plan, Joe Biden included a huge giveaway program that will shower $3,000-$3,600 to non-rich households for every kid they have.

This is a one-year, one-time handout, but many Democrats (and some Republicans!) want to make these enormous per-child payments a permanent part of America’s welfare state.

If that happens, the incentive to move to the United States almost surely will skyrocket.

Here’s a map I made, showing the annual handout for two children in the United States and the average per-capita incomein some nearby nations.

At the risk of stating the obvious, there will be a huge incentive to migrate to America – but not for the right reasons. And my little example doesn’t include the value of any of the dozens of other redistribution programs in Washington.

The bottom line is that we shouldn’t have a welfare system that rewards dependency, whether for people in the country legally or illegally.

And if you like immigration in theory, you should be especially opposed to handouts that will undermine public support for newcomers in practice.

P.S. It’s much better to have immigration policies such as the ones proposed by former Congressman Jared Polis and current George Mason University Professor Tyler Cowen.

Milton Friedman in 2004

Power of the Market – Immigration

MILTON FRIEDMAN ON IMMIGRATION

MILTON FRIEDMAN ON IMMIGRATION PART 2

March 18, 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:

WHEN IT CAME to immigration, everyone agreed that the system was broken. The process of immigrating legally to the United States could take a decade or longer, often depending on what country you were coming from and how much money you had.Meanwhile, the economic gulf between us and our southern neighbors drove hundreds of thousands of people to illegally cross the 1,933-mile U.S.-Mexico border each year, searching for work and a better life. Congress had spent billions to harden the border, with fencing, cameras, drones, and an expanded and increasingly militarized border patrol. But rather than stop the flow of immigrants, these steps had spurred an industry of smugglers—coyotes—who made big money transporting human cargo in barbaric and sometimes deadly fashion. And although border crossings by poor Mexican and Central American migrants received most of the attention from politicians and the press, about 40 percent of America’s unauthorized immigrants arrived through airports or other legal ports of entry and then overstayed their visas.
By 2010, an estimated eleven million undocumented persons were living in the United States, in large part thoroughly woven into the fabric of American life.Many were longtime residents, with children who either were U.S. citizens by virtue of having been born on American soil or had been brought to the United States at such an early age that they were American in every respect except for a piece of paper. Entire sectors of the U.S. economy relied on their labor, as undocumented immigrants were often willing to do the toughest, dirtiest work for meager pay—picking the fruits and vegetables that stocked our grocery stores, mopping the floors of offices, washing dishes at restaurants, and providing care to the elderly. But although American consumers benefited from this invisible workforce, many feared that immigrants were taking jobs from citizens, burdening social services programs, and changing the nation’s racial and cultural makeup, which led to demands for the government to crack down on illegal immigration. This sentiment was strongest among Republican constituencies, egged on by an increasingly nativist right-wing press. However, the politics didn’t fall neatly along partisan lines: The traditionally Democratic trade union rank and file, for example, saw the growing presence of undocumented workers on co
nstruction sites as threatening their livelihoods, while Republican-leaning business groups interested in maintaining a steady supply of cheap labor (or, in the case of Silicon Valley, foreign-born computer programmers and engineers) often took pro-immigration positions.
Back in 2007, the maverick version of John McCain, along with his sidekick Lindsey Graham, had actually joined Ted Kennedy to put together a comprehensive reform bill that offered citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants while more tightly securing our borders. Despite strong support from President Bush, it had failed to clear the Senate. The bill did, however, receive twelve Republican votes, indicating the real possibility of a future bipartisan accord. I’d pledged during the campaign to resurrect similar legislation once elected, and I’d appointed former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security—the agency that oversaw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection—partly because of her knowledge of border issues and her reputation for having previously managed immigration in a way that was both compassionate and tough.
My hopes for a bill had thus far been dashed. With the economy in crisis and Americans losing jobs,few in Congress had any appetite to take on a hot-button issue like immigration. Kennedy was gone. McCain, having been criticized by the right flank for his relatively moderate immigration stance, showed little interest in taking up the banner again. Worse yet, my administration was deporting undocumented workers at an accelerating rate. This wasn’t a result of any directive from me, but rather it stemmed from a 2008 congressional mandate that both expanded ICE’s budget and increased collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement departments in an effort to deport more undocumented immigrants with criminal records. My team and I had made a strategic choice not to immediately try to reverse the policies we’d inherited in large part because we didn’t want to provide ammunition to critics who claimed that Democrats weren’t willing to enforce existing immigration laws—a perception that we thought could torpedo our chances of passing a future reform bill. But by 2010, immigrant-rights and Latino advocacy groups were criticizing our lack of progress..And although I continued to urge Congress to pass immigration reform, I had no realistic path for delivering a new comprehensive law before the midterms.

Milton Friedman wisely noted, “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,”
Is it prudent to allow illegal immigrants (60 percent of whom are high-school dropouts) access to Social Security, Medicare, and, over time, to 60 federal means-tested welfare programs? I don’t think so either!

FREE TO CHOOSE “Who protects the worker?” Video and Transcript Part

In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount. I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?” and “Created Equal” and From Cradle to Grave, and – Power of the Market. Milton Friedman shows in this episode how the worker is best protected and it is not by the government!!!!!!!

The essence of what Milton Friedman is saying in this episode is found in this statement:

“The situation of immigration restrictions really has to do with the question of a welfare state. As I say in the film, I would favor completely free immigration in a society which does not have a welfare system. With a welfare system of the kind we have, you have the problem that people immigrate in order to get welfare, not in order to get employment. You know, it’s a very interesting thing, if you would ask anybody before 1914 the U.S. had no immigration restrictions whatsoever, I’m exaggerating a little bit, there were some immigration restrictions on orientals, but it was essentially, mainly free. If you ask anybody, any American economic historian was that a good thing for America, everybody will say yes it was a wonderful thing for America that we had free immigration. If you ask anybody today, should we have free immigration today, everybody will __ almost everybody will say no. What’s the difference? I think there’s only one difference and that is that when we had free immigration it was immigration of jobs in which everybody benefited. The people who were already here benefited because they got complementary workers, workers who could work with them, make their productivity better, enable them to develop and use the resources of the country better, but today, if you have a system under which you have essentially a governmental guarantee of relief in case of distress, you have a very, very real problem.”

L. WILLIAMS: Dr. Friedman and Walter Williams go back in history and they take a look at a situation where America was empty, where we didn’t have anything like the sophisticated industrial economy we have today, but had a much more agricultural and rural kind of economy and of course when the __ when the impoverished peasants of Europe, my ancestors and most of our ancestors, except for the slaves, which is another situation, but when these people came from Europe and came to a wide open continent with the most fertile soil then available to anyone in the world, naturally there was progress; and I or any of us would be mad to deny progress. But as that developed and as population increased and as we moved into a much more sophisticated industrial economy, we moved then into the situation in the 1930s, or earlier than that , at the end of the century. As some of the more skilled jobs came along, the labor movement didn’t happen by accident. Didn’t happen because there wasn’t a need there. The results of this development, even with all the wealth available in America, the results of this development was that many working people were not having anything like, by standards of civilization or whatever, anything like their fair share in this progress.

MCKENZIE: Now you’re arguing that in a free market, for labor, everyone benefits. Does that mean that you would favor abolition of all immigration restrictions?

FRIEDMAN: The situation of immigration restrictions really has to do with the question of a welfare state. As I say in the film, I would favor completely free immigration in a society which does not have a welfare system. With a welfare system of the kind we have, you have the problem that people immigrate in order to get welfare, not in order to get employment. You know, it’s a very interesting thing, if you would ask anybody before 1914 the U.S. had no immigration restrictions whatsoever, I’m exaggerating a little bit, there were some immigration restrictions on orientals, but it was essentially, mainly free. If you ask anybody, any American economic historian was that a good thing for America, everybody will say yes it was a wonderful thing for America that we had free immigration. If you ask anybody today, should we have free immigration today, everybody will __ almost everybody will say no. What’s the difference? I think there’s only one difference and that is that when we had free immigration it was immigration of jobs in which everybody benefited. The people who were already here benefited because they got complementary workers, workers who could work with them, make their productivity better, enable them to develop and use the resources of the country better, but today, if you have a system under which you have essentially a governmental guarantee of relief in case of distress, you have a very, very real problem.

MCKENZIE: But this is true of every western industrialized country.

FRIEDMAN: That’s right and that’s why today __

MCKENZIE: Yeah.

FRIEDMAN: __ under current circumstances you cannot, unfortunately have free immigration. Not because there’s anything wrong with free immigration, but because we have other policies which make it impossible to adopt free immigration.

MCKENZIE: Well I’d like other reactions. Is it at all feasible to open the door of the labor market internationally now? Bill Brady?

BRADY: I would __ I would say yes providing they open the door to us. I think that the door to not only the labor market, the door to all markets should be __ should be open. That is the product markets.

W. WILLIAMS: My feelings about the undocumented workers of Mexican-Americans are inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. I think that the people should have the right to come to this country. Now, those who would say, you know, I hear a number of people saying that, well the immigrants are contributing to our unemployment problem. And I point this out to some people, I said, “look, you know, this is the same rhetoric that the Irish used when the blacks were coming up from the north, ” you know, they’re using blacks as scapegoats. They’re saying, “get those people back where they came from so that our members can get jobs, ” you know. Unions were as well doing this, you know, they called them scabs, strikebreakers, etcetera, etcetera. So I do not wish for Mexican-Americans to become the new scapegoats of our particular national problems. They are not the problem, and our nation benefits to the extent that these people come here and work. And to that extent __ to that extent__ so it’s kind of good for them to remain illegal aliens as opposed to being legal aliens where they’re subject to our welfare programs, so that we don’t want them to come here to __

(Several people talking at once.)

GREEN: I think that this country cannot have a group of workers to remain outside the framework of our laws and our protection. And as long as we have workers who are attracted to the United States because of the standards of living; and I think minimum wages play a part in that as part of that attraction. But it seems to me to have undocumented workers without providing either a means of protection for them and it seems to me that we’ve got to go to the question of providing the amnesty for those generations of workers who have come here over a period of time, now two, three, maybe four generations. We have to see that they have the same rights and protection of all other workers. And as it stands now, large numbers of them live outside the framework of the laws and statutes that we have on the __ on our books.

MCKENZIE: Comment Milton.

FRIEDMAN: They do and the tragedy of the situation, as what Walter Williams point out, that as long as they are undocumented and illegal they are a clear net gain, the nation benefits and they benefit. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. The tragedy is that we’ve adopted all these other policies so that if we convert them into legal residents it’s no longer clear that we benefit. They may benefit, but it’s no longer clear that we do. What Lynn Williams said before is again a travesty on what was actually going on. The real boost to the trade union movement came after the Great Depression of the 1930s; that Great Depression was not a failure of capitalism; it was not a failure of the private market system as we pointed out in another one of the programs in this series; it was a failure of government. It was not the case that somehow or other there was a decline in the conditions of the working class that produced a great surge of unionism. On the contrary __ unions have never accounted for more than one out of four or one out of five of American workers. The American worker benefited not out of unions, he benefited in spite of unions. He benefited because there was greater opportunity because there were people who were willing to invest their money because there was an opportunity for people to work, to save, to invest. That’s still the case today. You say, we have to provide them with something or other Ernest. Who are the “we”?

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com

Open letter to President Obama (Part 293) (Founding Fathers’ view on Christianity, Elbridge Gerry of MA)

April 10, 2013 – 7:02 am

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)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 5, John Hancock)

May 8, 2012 – 1:48 am

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)

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 4, Elbridge Gerry)

May 7, 2012 – 1:46 am

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 3, Samuel Adams)

May 4, 2012 – 1:45 am

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 2, John Quincy Adams)

May 3, 2012 – 1:42 am

The Founding Fathers views concerning Jesus, Christianity and the Bible (Part 1, John Adams)

May 2, 2012 – 1:13 am

President Obama and the Founding Fathers

May 8, 2013 – 9:20 am

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)

Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the founding fathers and their belief in inalienable rights

December 5, 2012 – 12:38 am

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)

David Barton: In their words, did the Founding Fathers put their faith in Christ? (Part 4)

May 30, 2012 – 1:35 am

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)

Were the founding fathers christian?

May 23, 2012 – 7:04 am

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)

John Quincy Adams a founding father?

June 29, 2011 – 3:58 pm

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)

“Sanctity of Life Saturday” Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

July 6, 2013 – 1:26 am

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)

Article from Adrian Rogers, “Bring back the glory”

June 11, 2013 – 12:34 am

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)

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s own words concerning the possibility that minorities may be mistreated under 51% rule

June 9, 2013 – 1:21 am

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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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

September 18, 2022 READING A PROVERB A DAY (PROVERBS 18) Bill Elliff on Proverbs 18

September 18, 2022 – 1:58 am

We have to listen to our kids chapter 18 tells us in verse 13:

¹³Spouting off before listening to the facts
is both shameful and foolish.

Proverbs 18 New Living Translation

18 Unfriendly people care only about themselves;
they lash out at common sense.

²Fools have no interest in understanding;
they only want to air their own opinions.

³Doing wrong leads to disgrace,
and scandalous behavior brings contempt.

⁴Wise words are like deep waters;
wisdom flows from the wise like a bubbling brook.

⁵It is not right to acquit the guilty
or deny justice to the innocent.

⁶Fools’ words get them into constant quarrels;
they are asking for a beating.

⁷The mouths of fools are their ruin;
they trap themselves with their lips.

⁸Rumors are dainty morsels
that sink deep into one’s heart.

⁹A lazy person is as bad as
someone who destroys things.

¹⁰The name of the Lord is a strong fortress;
the godly run to him and are safe.

¹¹The rich think of their wealth as a strong defense;
they imagine it to be a high wall of safety.

¹²Haughtiness goes before destruction;
humility precedes honor.

¹³Spouting off before listening to the facts
is both shameful and foolish.

¹⁴The human spirit can endure a sick body,
but who can bear a crushed spirit?

¹⁵Intelligent people are always ready to learn.
Their ears are open for knowledge.

¹⁶Giving a gift can open doors;
it gives access to important people!

¹⁷The first to speak in court sounds right—
until the cross-examination begins.

¹⁸Flipping a coin^[a] can end arguments;
it settles disputes between powerful opponents.

¹⁹An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city.
Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.

²⁰Wise words satisfy like a good meal;
the right words bring satisfaction.

²¹The tongue can bring death or life;
those who love to talk will reap the consequences.

²²The man who finds a wife finds a treasure,
and he receives favor from the Lord.

²³The poor plead for mercy;
the rich answer with insults.

²⁴There are “friends” who destroy each other,
but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Adrian Rogers: Raising Kids That Count [#2331] proverbs 18

https://youtu.be/aItFmrCQsyg

Great sermon outline below by Adrian Rogers:

Raising Kids That Count

Proverbs (Program 2331DVD, Airing on 2/13 & 2/20)

INTRODUCTION
1. Our chief desire for our children is not that they be wealthy or famous, but that they love the Lord Jesus Christ and count for His cause.
  1. Psalm 112:2
2. We find in the book of Proverbs seven gifts that we can give to our children.
GIVE THEM AN EXAMPLE
1. Proverbs 1:7-9
2. Proverbs 20:7
3. We need to give our children a godly example.
  1. Do not pretend perfection.
  2. Be real; be genuine.
4. There are character traits which we must demonstrate to our children:
  1. Contentment
  2. Courage
  3. Courtesy
  4. Discernment
  5. Fairness
  6. Friendliness
  7. Generosity
  8. Gentleness
  9. Helpfulness
  10. Honesty
  11. Humility
  12. Kindness
  13. Obedience
  14. Orderliness
  15. Patience
  16. Persistence
  17. Self-control
  18. Tact
  19. Thankfulness
  20. Tidiness
  21. Wisdom
GIVE THEM UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
1. Proverbs 4:1-4
2. Luke 15:20
3. True love is not giving someone what they want; it is giving them what they need.
4. There must be unconditional acceptance of the child regardless of his or her behavior.
GIVE THEM CONSTANT ENCOURAGEMENT
1. Proverbs 3:21-26
2. There is a difference between praise and encouragement:
  1. Praise says that I am proud of you for what you do.
  2. Encouragement says that I am proud of you for who you are.
GIVE THEM WISE INSTRUCTION
1. Proverbs 2:1-7
2. We need to teach our children the Word of God.
3. Let the instruction be joined with training.
  1. Proverbs 22:6
GIVE THEM REASONABLE RESTRICTIONS
1. Proverbs 6:20-23
GIVE THEM A LISTENING EAR
1. Proverbs 18:13-15
2. We need to be willing to listen when they want to talk.
GIVE THEM A HAPPY ENVIRONMENT
1. Proverbs 15:13-17
2. Let your home be filled with laughter and love.
  1. Ephesians 5:4
  2. Genesis 21:6
CONCLUSION
1. God ideally wants everyone to have three homes:
  1. A family home
  2. A church home
  3. A heavenly home
2. Jesus is the greatest home builder.

Easter weekend 2013, List of posts on series: Is the Bible historically accurate? (Updated 1 through 14C)

March 30, 2013 – 4:36 pm

“In Christ Alone” music video featuring scenes from “The Passion of the Christ”. It is sung by Lou Fellingham of Phatfish and the writer of the hymn is Stuart Townend. On this Easter weekend 2013 there is no other better time to take a look at the truth and accuracy of the Bible. Is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Atheists Confronted, Biblical Archaeology | Edit | Comments (0)

Evidence for the Bible

March 27, 2013 – 9:43 pm

Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit | Comments (0)

John MacArthur on Larry King Live Part 4 The Bible on War

February 28, 2013 – 6:30 am

Larry King – Dr. John MacArthur vs. “father” Manning Uploaded on Sep 26, 2011 GotoThisSite.org ___________ I have seen John MacArthur on Larry King Show many times and I thought you would like to see some of these episodes. I have posted several of John MacArthur’s sermons in the past and my favorite is his […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

Evidence can be found in Archaeology that supports the historical accuracy of the Bible and here are some links posted here at www.thedailyhatch.org

February 5, 2013 – 6:53 am

The Bible and Archaeology (1/5) The Bible maintains several characteristics that prove it is from God. One of those is the fact that the Bible is accurate in every one of its details. The field of archaeology brings to light this amazing accuracy. _________________________- Many people have questioned the accuracy of the Bible, but I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit | Comments (0)

Part 2 Adrian Rogers on Proverbs “How To Be The Father Of A Wise Child” (video too)

March 28, 2013 – 6:02 am

I have been reading Proverbs almost every day for many years with my family in the evening and there is lots of wisdom in it. Take a look at the second part of this message from Adrian Rogers. How to Be the Father of a Wise Child Another great sermon outline from Adrian Rogers. Adrian Rogers […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Edit | Comments (0)

Part 1 Adrian Rogers on Proverbs “How To Be The Father Of A Wise Child” (video too)

March 26, 2013 – 5:56 am

Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s while pastor of Bellevue Baptist of Memphis, and president of Southern Baptist Convention. (Little known fact, Rogers was the starting quarterback his senior year of the Palm Beach High School football team that won the state title and a hero to a 7th grader at the same school named […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Edit | Comments (0)

What Adrian Rogers said to pro-abortion activist at the U.S. Senate in the 1990′s

January 29, 2013 – 8:45 am

Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s while pastor of Bellevue Baptist of Memphis, and president of Southern Baptist Convention. (Little known fact, Rogers was the starting quarterback his senior year of the Palm Beach High School football team that won the state title and a hero […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)

John McArthur and Adrian Rogers on Proverbs and Alcohol (Eddie Sutton and Ryan Dunn used as examples)

January 17, 2013 – 7:59 am

Same old story it seems. Kentucky pulls out another close victory over the Vols. This is not the only story I am talking about today. Kentucky’s Alex Poythress (22) shoots between Tennessee’s Josh Richardson, left, and Yemi Makanjuola during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky., Tuesday, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

The Life and Ministry of Adrian Rogers (Part 3)

November 16, 2012 – 1:17 am

7 years ago on November 15, 2005 Adrian Rogers passed away. This is a series of posts about the life and ministry of Adrian Rogers. Adrian Rogers Memorial – Come To Jesus Uploaded by jonwhisner on Jan 20, 2011 This video is from Adrian Roger’s Memorial Service held at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN in […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Edit | Comments (0)

Adrian Rogers and John MacArthur on wisdom from Proverbs on alcohol

November 15, 2012 – 7:50 am

(My pastor growing up was Adrian Rogers and he died 7 years ago today. He would have been 82 if he was still living. ) I love the Book of Proverbs and every day I read one chapter of Proverbs. Since there are 31 chapters, I start the 1st of ever month and read chapter […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

Adrian Rogers on evolution

November 15, 2012 – 6:27 am

Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s while pastor of Bellevue Baptist of Memphis, and president of Southern Baptist Convention. (Little known fact, Rogers was the starting quarterback his senior year of the Palm Beach High School football team that won the state title and a hero to a 7th grader at the same school […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

The Life and Ministry of Adrian Rogers (Part 2)

November 15, 2012 – 1:16 am

The Life and Ministry of Adrian Rogers (Part 1)

November 14, 2012 – 7:38 am

Terri Blackstock’s husband led to Christ while listening to Adrian Rogers on AFR

November 14, 2012 – 1:32 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Comments (0)

I have been in Boston Massachusetts the last few days and I saw a story on the local news saying how the inhabitants of Martha Vineyard have been so welcoming to the immigrants, but now I see they had them removed!!!!

September 17, 2022 – 10:53 pm

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Martha’s Vineyard welcomes migrants flown in unexpectedly

“You can’t simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state” MILTON FRIEDMAN

Power of the Market – Immigration

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Martha’s Vineyard merchant says there’s a ‘process’ for coming to America, ‘follow that’

Rhode Island resident Paul Sinclair who does business in Martha’s Vineyard said the island could have done more in response to the migrants’ arrival from Florida

By Kerry J. Byrne | Fox News

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. – At least one person on this oasis of leftist elites blames federal officials for the illegal immigration crisis thathrust Martha’s Vineyard into the national spotlight.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent 50 migrants by plane Wednesday to the Massachusetts island, which boasts one of the wealthiest and most hard-left voting blocs in the nation.

MARTHA’S VINEYARD ‘RALLIES RELIEF EFFORT’ FOR MIGRANTS BY SHIPPING THEM TO CAPE COD MILITARY BASE

“But like any problem if you want to fix a problem make it visible. And I think (the problem) was made visible.”

The phrase “political stunt” has been used on the island and elsewhere in leftist political circles to criticize DeSantis.

Sinclair saw the “stunt” as a way to make voters in the northeast pay attention to the burden faced daily by small border communities in the American southwest.

MIGRANTS BUSSED FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD TO US MILITARY BASE, US ATTORNEY SEEKS DOJ ‘INPUT’ ON RESPONSE

Martha’s Vineyard is located just south of Cape Cod, about 2,200 miles northeast of the closest border crossing with Mexico.

The island, comprised of six different wealthy coastal towns, is about as far removed from the border physically and politically from any location in the lower 48 states.

FACING HISTORIC BIDEN-ERA BORDER CRISIS, GOP GOVERNORS GO ON THE OFFENSIVE

Voters in Martha’s Vineyard’s six communities chose Biden and his policies nearly 4 to 1 over Trump in the 2020 election.

But when migrants arrived on their island this week they were quickly shipped by bus and ferry to a military base on Cape Cod, on the Massachusetts mainland, about 44 hours after arriving.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called up National Guard forces to help relocate the migrants to the mainland, while islanders cited a lack of resources on the island.

Many lamented the “housing crisis” on Martha’s Vineyard, even though more than half the homes on the island are secondary or vacation homes and most of their owners have left for the season.

“The (islanders) could have done a little more,” said Sinclair, who later revealed he was originally from Texas.

“But just like most things, it’s dump it over the fence I guess and make it somebody else’s problem.”

Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.

The ‘Secure Border’ of Kamala Harris

Terence Jeffrey / @TerryJeffrey / September 14, 2022