January 16, 2006

The Future of Freedom
By Lady Liberty

The New Year seems to be the one time of year when almost all of us simultaneously decide to take stock of our lives. We look at the year gone past; we make all of the best intentioned plans for the future. We consider our successes of the last twelve months and hope to build on them; we (hopefully) dissect our mistakes and determine to learn from them. I'm no exception to that annual personal review.

A few years ago, just a few months after 9/11, I resolved to become more politically active. That's a resolution I (obviously!) kept when I first established Lady Liberty's Constitution Clearing House web site. Shortly thereafter, I wrote my first editorial commentary. In those early days, I often held something back though I didn't really realize it. But one day, as I was preparing some news headlines, I was having a problem writing a sentence or two offering my own take on a particular news story. (Read the rest here)

Politically Incorrect Movie Reviews
King Kong
By RadioFree Rocky D

Okay, okay, I succumbed to the super-simian hype and I went to see King Kong; or as I like to call it, “the B.A.M.M.” – Big-Ass Monkey Movie. Kong stands 25 feet tall, weighs in at a burly 2000 pounds and has more body hair than all the NOW members combined. He opens up a can of massive monkey whoop on three tyrannosaurus rex’s at once – all the while keeping a blonde bimbo under his foot. Monkey my eye; this ape is a man’s man if ever there was one. At least I think so, but then again Kong stomped around with no pants on the whole time and it looked to me like Kong was not exactly anatomically correct. No wonder he was such an angry ape; you would be, too.

Here’s the plot of King Kong in a banana basket: big ape grabs girl and wrecks Manhattan (no, this is NOT the Donald Trump story). Yeah yeah I know; limp-wristed feelm crit-teeks whimper that there’s supposed to be a love story in here somewhere and there’s supposed to be a message about real jungles versus concrete jungles, but there’s supposed to be real meat in a can of Spam and I don’t believe that either. (Read the rest here)

It Takes Government to Create a Reading Crisis
By Sheldon Richman

When Horace Mann and his colleagues launched the public-school movement some 175 years ago, they made extravagant promises. Turn the education of children over to enlightened altruistic experts working under government auspices, they said, and literacy, vice, and crime will become things of the past.

I'm not kidding.

Most people don't know about these promises, so they don't know how badly the government's schools have failed by their own standards. Apologists for state schooling often defend their abysmal record by saying that no one should expect the government's teachers and administrators to efficiently educate children who bring all of society's problems with them to the classroom. But that's what the founders of what used to be called the "common school" pledged. (Read the rest here)

Snow Thinks Citizens Are Stupid
By Ed Henry

Can you believe it? The Secretary of the Treasury, the one man in Washington who should know better, is claiming that unless the national debt limit is raised quickly there will be dire consequences for many discretionary budget programs including Social Security. The implication is that the retired and disabled will not get checks after mid-March unless the debt ceiling is raised soon.

This is the same man who allowed the debt to be run up $238 billion in the first three months of the new fiscal year and last year funneled $86.5 billion of Social Security’s money to Congress to be wasted. (Read the rest here)

Role of the Supreme Court
By SARTRE

This is a country of laws! Or so it is said. If that really was the case, judges would be rightly held in esteem. But what we have is a judiciary hell bent on changing society, in spite of what the law says and means. In order to understand the plight we live under, read carefully the Inherent Autonomy essay - Why Supreme Court Selections are a False Choice. Chief Justice John Marshall relegated individual States to second class municipalities, now Judge Samuel Alito will carry on the ignominious tradition that will elevate the Federal Government to even a higher dominance of legalized tyranny. The selection of Alito will satisfy most of America. Certainly the Democrats have resigned themselves to his ultimate confirmation. The Senate confirmation hearings are hardly the ideological battle blood sport some expected. (Read the rest here)

As Usual, Conservative Christians Don't Get It
By Chuck Baldwin

With confirmation hearings underway for Judge Samuel Alito, many conservative Christians are focusing on the abortion issue. In fact, many pro-life activists are hailing Alito as the man who would overturn legalized abortion in America.

However, as is usually the case, most conservative Christians cannot see beyond the abortion debate to look at the bigger picture. Then again, myopia seems to be a permanent disorder affecting a majority of conservative Christians today, so why should things suddenly change now?

For the record, Judge Alito probably finds abortion personally repugnant. It is certainly safe to say that Alito's opinions on abortion seem to reflect greater respect for life than anything we saw from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. However, that reality alone will not make much difference. There is a greater reality at work here that most conservative Christians deliberately choose to ignore: the Republican Party has no intentions of ending legalized abortion! Absolutely none! (Read the rest here)

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