Steeling the Mind Bible Conference Pt 2 of 6 David Barton

My sons Hunter and Wilson are in Los Angeles now and they had the opportunity to sit down next to two really interesting people. Wilson wants to be a movie director one day and he met a guy who graduated from USC film school and this guy offered to take him on a tour of the campus. Hunter is interested in comedy and he sat next to Gabriel Iglesias, who is famous comedian. Take a look at some of his work below.

In the next few days I will post portions of the speech (which really was just a newspaper article) but since it is so long I will put an outline of the speech that is provided by David Barton of Wallbuilders.

1. “passionate attachments” produce a variety of evils
2. these attachments will lead you into “quarrels and wars”
3. they will also lead to favoritism, conceding “privileges denied to others.”

Washington’s own words:

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill-will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

Trivia about George Washington:

One of Washington’s most interesting innovations was a nearly round, 16-sided barn for thrashing wheat.

— He established a spy ring in 1780 to reveal that Major General Benedict Arnold was a traitor.

n pictures: Japan earthquake and tsunami

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The worst affected areas are thought to be Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate prefectures. In Iwaki, Fukushima, water swept through the town.

Dr. Pat Robertson reads George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation… The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN

In the next few days I will post portions of the speech (which really was just a newspaper article) and today’s section deals with Washington’s philosophy concerning federal debt. This is  provided by David Barton of Wallbuilders.

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As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in times of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives; but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the Government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

Rand Paul is the senator from Kentucky and I like him a lot. I think his philosophy is much more like our founding fathers on debt. He has proposed eliminated 1/3 of the federal deficit in one year. Below is a story on him and you can see either people love him or hate him.

Paul is also advocating the total elimination of:

Department of Energy

Department of Housing and Urban Development

 Affordable Housing Program

Commission on Fine Arts

Consumer Product Safety Commission

Corporationfor Public Broadcasting 

National Endowment of Arts 

National Endowment for Humanities

Privative the Smithsonian Institution

State Justice Institute

One day after President Obama called for a rewrite of U-S Education policy, Secretary Duncan defended the Department of Education’s role in making American schools globally competitive.

“We all have to work together to give them a better education,” Duncan said, “and if you are decimating that, you’re going the wrong direction.  That does grave harm not just to children but to families, to communities and ultimately to our country.”

Paul argues – however – that educational performance has decreased as U-S education funding has increased.

“When the federal government spends money,” Paul’s overview of the plan explains, “those are resources that are drained from the state, diluted by way of large Washington bureaucracy, and sent back to the school districts with red tape and strings attached.”

“Washington provides at best, eight, nine, ten percent of money,” Duncan countered, “The vast majority of funding comes at the state and the local level, about 90 percent, and that is as it should be.  What we all need to do is not invest in the status quo, but invest in this very different vision.”

Meanwhile – WHAS11 viewers are sounding off about Paul’s spending cuts plan. 

“I want you to know that I think Rand Paul is a nut,” said one caller to a comment line.

“Apparently, he sends his kids to private schools and so forth, and that’s why he wants a tax cut in education,” another caller said.

“I’m strongly in favor of Rand Paul’s decision,” countered one caller, “I think he’s going to get us going in the right direction.”

“I think Rand Paul is spot on,” said another, “We need to cut the waste and eliminate the bull crap in the government and get things back on track.”

Trivia about George Washington:

When Washington inherited Mount Vernon from his brother, the plantation was 2,000 acres. By the time of George’s death in 1799, it was 8,000 acres.

— Charles Willson Peale painted the earliest known portrait of Washington in 1772.

In pictures: Japan earthquake and tsunami

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The 8.9 magnitude quake triggered a huge tsunami which has swept across the sea threatening countries all around the Pacific Ocean.

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George Washington a Christian?

I went to Memphis yesterday and I actually got to walk across a bridge over the Mississippi River. Frankly it was so frightening that I turned around and came back since the bridge was shaking so much.

George Washington wore a lot of hats: JUDGE; MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY; PRESIDENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION; FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; “FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY”

David Barton lists several quotes from Washington concerning Christ:

You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.¹²²

While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.¹²³

The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger. The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.¹²⁴

I now make it my earnest prayer that God would… most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of the mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion.¹²⁵

Trivia about George Washington:

Washington stood six feet, three inches tall.

— He started losing his teeth in his twenties.

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

George Washington’s Farewell Address

I am hoping to go see UCA boys basketball team play this Saturday. I sat with them on a plane from Dallas to Little Rock this morning. I asked how they did in their game and they said not too good. Coach Williamson was wearing sweats and I told him that it may have helped if he got on the floor. He said that would have felt good.

In the next few days I will post portions of the speech (which really was just a newspaper article) but since it is so long I will put an outline of the speech that is provided by David Barton of Wallbuilders.

1. Spirit of Party.
   1. Parties are “potent engines” that men will use to take over the “reins of government.”
   2. Washington warns against parties’ “baneful effects”:
      1. leads to the absolute power of an individual
      2. “discourage and restrain” the spirit of party
      3. leads to “jealousies and false alarms”
      4. “animosity of one part against another”
      5. can lead to “riot and insurrection”
      6. opens “door to foreign influence and corruption”
      7. “it is a spirit not to be encouraged.”
2. Spirit of Encroachment.
   1. Leads to “a real despotism.”
   2. There is a necessity of “reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power.”
   3. If a problem arises, correct it by an amendment, not by “usurpation.”

Little known fact about George Washington:

As a young man, Washington was confronted by death many times. He suffered and survived dreadful diseases like malaria, smallpox, pleurisy and dysentery. He nearly drowned when he accidentally fell of the raft into the icy river while returning from an expedition to the French Fort le Boeuf. In 1775, bullets grazed his coat, but he was unhurt.