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Category Archives: Culture War
Erin Morgart’s Washington Examiner Interview
This writer s very fortunate to be friends with three of the most successful and beautiful fitness trainers in the world, Lori Hendry (pic), Christine Lakatos (pic), and Erin Morgart (pic). They are all brilliant, traditional in their point of view and influential in political circles.
Our pal Erin Morgart was interviewed at The Washington Examiner by Steve Contorno and we are happy to bring that to you:
Morgart is a model and the reigning Ms. United Nations USA, as well as Mrs. Galaxy Virginia International 2012. She is also a certified trainer who was voted one of the top 10 fitness trainers by FitTV.
It’s the time of the year when people have made New Year’s resolutions to get in shape. What can people do to stick to their goals?
For people not to get discouraged, having an accountability workout partner is key. That way you can stay on track and keep each other in check. I have several clients who meet with me once a week, and that’s just to do vitals, blood pressure, weight and body fat. You have to look at it as a lifestyle change. It’s not the next four months or six months, but a new way of living. It’s eating to live and not living to eat. Find a group and find that support system that will help them in check.
Is there a trick for people who want to know what kind of workout can help them achieve their goals?
It helps to find someone that you want to look like, you ask them what they’re doing and where they’re doing it. … You find that out and you emulate what they do.
How important is it for people to have a healthy lifestyle from a young age?
When I was in Hawaii, I also worked with a lot of young people and pediatricians. They had kids that had been prescreneed for diabetes, and the biggest thing I heard from parents was “I don’t have time for this.” It starts with the parents and the families. They need to break bad behaviors and join the YMCA, and then it becomes a family thing.
Must See: Colion Noir first radio interview (video)
Mike Adams’ UNC-Wilmington First Amendment Lawsuit Heads to Trial
It is about time!
Via William Creeley at FIRE:
In April 2007, Professor Mike Adams of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington filed a federal lawsuit against his institution, alleging that he had been denied promotion in part due to political viewpoints he had expressed in columns written for non-university publications. Nearly six years and one successful appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit later, a federal district court has ruled that Adams’ First Amendment claim may proceed to trial.
Adams’ April 2007 complaint, filed with the cooperation of the Alliance Defense Fund (now the Alliance Defending Freedom), accused UNC-Wilmington officials of violating his First Amendment rights by denying his promotion on account of his expression as a conservative columnist. Adams also alleged that he had suffered religious discrimination and an equal protection violation.
Three years later, in a March 2010 ruling, a federal district court rejected Adams’ claim of First Amendment retaliation, finding that the columns constituted speech “made pursuant to his official duties” as a professor and were thus not protected by the First Amendment. The court reached its decision by relying on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). In Garcetti, the Court ruled that public employees do not enjoy First Amendment protections when engaging in speech pursuant to their official duties. Applying Garcetti‘s holding to Adams’ case, the district court determined that the columns could not be cited as grounds for retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.
From a faculty speech standpoint, the district court’s ruling was very problematic, as I explained here on The Torch a few years back:
We here at FIRE found the district court’s ruling against Adams deeply worrying. For one, we felt the facts provided significant support for Adams’ First Amendment claim. But even more ominously, the district court’s reliance on Garcetti made the ruling against Adams just the latest in a quickly–growing string of Garcetti-based defeats for public university faculty members. The problem with Garcetti is that in lessening First Amendment protections for public employees generally, it particularly impacts faculty members, whose speech in fulfilling teaching and research duties differs greatly from the speech of, say, district attorneys, police officers, or public administrators. Because while the government as employer may reasonably expect a significant amount of control over the public speech of district attorneys, that same amount of control over the scholarly research and teaching of public university faculty members is inappropriate and amounts to an infringement on academic freedom.
To address this exact concern, Justice Anthony Kennedy inserted a crucial caveat into the majority opinion he penned in Garcetti, writing:
There is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court’s customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching.
Justice Kennedy thus specifically and explicitly declined to extend Garcetti‘s analysis to bear on cases involving the speech of public university faculty, reserving the question. Unfortunately, in application, Justice Kennedy’s careful carve-out has been largely disregarded by courts, and Garcetti‘s impact on faculty speech has been so significant in recent years that the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) mounted a campaign to push back against Garcetti and what it has deemed “judicial hostility or indifference” to academic freedom.
Adams appealed the district court’s ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In support of Adams’ appeal, FIRE joined an amici curiae brief with the AAUP and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, asking the Fourth Circuit to recognize Garcetti‘s inapplicability to Adams’ situation.
Thankfully, the Fourth Circuit did just that. Reversing the district court’s dismissal of Adams’ claims, the court wrote that “the district court applied Garcetti without acknowledging, let alone addressing, the clear language in that opinion that casts doubt on whether the Garcetti analysis applies in the academic context of a public university.” Continuing, the Fourth Circuit observed:
Put simply, Adams’ speech was not tied to any more specific or direct employee duty than the general concept that professors will engage in writing, public appearances, and service within their respective fields. For all the reasons discussed above, that thin thread is insufficient to render Adams’ speech “pursuant to [his] official duties” as intended by Garcetti.
[…]
Applying Garcetti to the academic work of a public university faculty member under the facts of this case could place beyond the reach of First Amendment protection many forms of public speech or service a professor engaged in during his employment. That would not appear to be what Garcetti intended, nor is it consistent with our long-standing recognition that no individual loses his ability to speak as a private citizen by virtue of public employment.
The case was remanded back to the district court for further proceedings.
Last Friday, March 22, Senior United States District Judge Malcolm J. Howard issued an order denying the UNC-Wilmington defendants’ motion to dismiss, finding that Adams “has brought forth evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that his speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the decision to deny tenure to plaintiff.”
Salt Lake School Willingly Breaks Law To Ban Boy Scouts
Here we go again, school administrators willingly breaking the law to engage in Frankfurt School cultural marxism. This is not unusual, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) see just such law breaking every day as they fight to get radicalized school administrators and faculty to simply obey the law.
The school administrators don’t care if they break the law because when they lose in court it is the taxpayer who pays, not them. This is why FIRE is working to change that so that those in our schools who break the law under “color of law” pay the price personally.
Just as overt communist propaganda managed to get entrenched into the the curriculum of 875 Texas school districts before the state legislature and the elected Texas board of education became aware of it, we have this going on in ultra-conservative Salt Lake City.
At Missouri State the university ordered a Christian student to engage in a homosexual sex act and engage in far left political advocacy…or else:
This is how entrenched the radical left has dug itself into our public schools. Survey: Liberal profs admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, advancement…
See our Academic Misconduct category.
Todd Starnes at Fox News:
A federal civil rights complaint has been filed against the Salt Lake City School Board after a principal booted a Cub Scout pack from an elementary school.
About 30 eight to 11 year-olds were told they could no longer meet at Mountain View Elementary School because the Boy Scout’s ban on gay members in leaders conflicted with the school district’s anti-bias policy.
The ban drew the ire of Michael Clara, a school board member and lifetime Boy Scout. Clara filed the federal complaint on behalf of two Latino parents.
“I believe it is an assault on the founding principles of our country for school officials to attempt to exclude a voice no less legitimate than its own from public school participation,” Clara told Fox News. “A marketplace of ideas devoid of competitive viewpoints engenders an insidious society of conformity, contrary to the fundamental precepts of our Constitution.”
He claims the school district is violating the Boy Scout Act – a law that requires schools to allow access to the Boy Scouts if they allow access to outside groups.
“It’s unfortunate this principal has the backing of the district to implement their own form of discrimination and racism,” Clara told Fox News. “They are using the resources of the school system to punish students who don’t agree with us.
The scout troop is made up of mostly Latino boys, he said – and the parents who complained are Catholics.
A district spokesperson told local media they had not seen a copy of the complaint.
On March 16 two Latino parents contacted Clara after the principal informed them the Cub Scout pack would no longer be allowed to meet at the school.
Three days later the school board member received a telephone call from the principal confirming that directive.
“(He) confirmed that the Cub Scouts were prohibited from meeting in the building because they will not allow gay scout leaders,” he said.
Clara, who describes himself as a Christian conservative Republican who supports gay rights, said he was very concerned by the ban.
“Why on Earth would we want to remove something positive from the school,” he asked. “Where does this end? It’s a form of discrimination in the name of intolerance.”
A warning to America from a Chinese immigrant: You can only make this mistake once… (video)
God bless this good man.
70% of Texas school districts adopt curriculum pushing communist indoctrination (video)
And the legislature did not become aware of it until 875 school districts had already adopted the program.
The curriculum, called CSCOPE, includes a list that shows capitalism on the bottom of the list of “just economic systems” along with nazism; with socialism and communism at the top of the most just. Of course those who have taken most any serious political history classes well knows that nazism and communism, in application, are virtually identical.
[Note While the propaganda used to sell communism and nazism/facism is very different, in application, as Professor of Russian and European history Dr. Dmitry Shlapentokh put it, “One is a great white shark and the other is a killer whale, sure one is a fish and the other is a mammal, but as far as their prey are concerned they are one in the same”.]
The curriculum also includes lessons having students design a new communist/socialist flag, pledging allegiance to Mexico, capitalism is “selfish”, the Founders were terrorists, etc. Sen. Larry Taylor (Friendswood) said he found the lesson plan “very egregious as a Texan and an American.”
We, here at Political Arena, have been following this story. When parents first became alarmed went to school boards for answers they were denied access or review of the curriculum. In some school districts students were even told to not tell parents what they were reviewing in class.
In fact, Texas State Board of Education member David Bradley issued the following statement:
…the ten-page CSCOPE contract that teachers are required to sign prior to using the curriculum. It prohibits educators from showing CSCOPE content to parents. This directly conflicts with the state law assuring parents the right to review any and all curriculum used in public schools to instruct their children.
In this same vein, it took the Chairman of our Education Board six months to obtain an access password from CSCOPE developers known as the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC). The TESCCC board is comprised of the 20 executive directors of the 20 publicly funded Regional Education Service Centers in Texas. Access to their meetings and minutes was repeatedly denied until the Texas Attorney General insisted that their meetings be posted and open to the public in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act.
This behavior indicates that the school administrators know very well what they are pushing on the kids and their efforts to keep it secret have been significant.
Defenders of CSCOPE have come up with a list of talking points to defend the curriculum with talking points that are a pack of lies.
We have reported here at Political Arena that the radicalization of our public education is widespread and not a week goes by where we do not see several heinous examples of this.
Imagine the ideological wolf pack mentality among teachers and school administrators to get this implemented in 875 Texas school districts before parents and the state legislature started to become aware, there was not one teacher or administrator who blew the whistle, not one.
LINKS:
http://eagnews.org/texas-6th-graders-design-flags-for-a-new-socialist-nation/
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/01/31/4591624/senators-question-creators-of.html
http://www.txcscopereview.com/2013/cscope-myths/
http://www.txcscopereview.com/2012/cscope-rotten-apple-award/
Propaganda Techniques: Allen Keyes destroys a key fallacy for gay marriage (video)
By Chuck Norton
[Editor’s Note – This post is about the propaganda technique described, we are not interested in having a “gay marriage” thread and any comments trying to make it so may be deleted at the Editor’s discretion.]
The left uses the tactic seen in this video endlessly. They try to redefine and/or justify something based on a rare exception and not the pattern, the ideal or the principle. Such as, 80 million gun owners should have their guns taken away because of the actions of a few untreated schizophrenics.
How about a 60,000 page tax code to allow the government to pick winners and losers in the economy, enabling massive corruption and job killing regulations, all because “a few people are too rich”?
In the case of the video below, marriage has no ideal and cannot be about procreation or a contract to raise children well because an elderly couple who marries is unlikely to have children.
Truth is in fact a long series of sub-truths that create a narrative or “paint an accurate picture”. When many of those sub-truths are omitted the crumbs of truth that are left are manipulated to paint the desired false picture. When your child throws a ball in the house and knocks over a lamp, breaking it, and the child tells you that the lamp fell over – sure the lamp did fall over, but he is still lying by omission and deception. This is the type of lie President Obama and the the elite media use constantly to manipulate the public. Consequently, anyone who engages in such a dishonest tactic has torn up the “civility card”.
The tax code is a poor argument for gay marriage
I ask you, why are two sisters who group up and decide to live together not entitled to inheritance rights and such the same as married people? So married couples and perhaps lesbians should get this but not sisters? This is not an argument for gay marriage, it is an argument for fixing the tax law, abolishing estate taxes altogether because they are so unfair, and a simple tax code that works for people no matter if they are married, straight, gay, or even just sisters.
The tax code argument for gay marriage is an argument about a crappy tax code, not for gay marriage. I say keep our eye on the ball, the tax code is a behemoth disaster and a tool for the corrupt. Toss it out and replace it.
Editor
Documentary: Tax dollars used to push racist ideology on teachers and students (video)
The ideology is Marxism disguised as racism and/or “multi-culturalism”.
The nonsense exposed in this video is crammed down student and teacher’s throats at almost very public school and university, and if you think it isn’t being done at your local public school, you are wrong.
What is seen in this video is exactly the cultural Marxism taught by the Frankfurt School of Marxism (communism)….and, in the case of Wisconsin, they used money that was earmarked for special needs children to pay for it.
Dr. Ben Carson speaks out on leftists in the elite media trying to silence him (video)
Dr. Ben Carson
Alabama school bans Easter
Another example of how idiots, Marxists and radicalized zealots have entrenched themselves into public education and are out to “teach” your kids. A week doesn’t go by where we don’t see this kind of idiocy from public school administrators.
School bans the word “Easter”:
Boys and girls at an Alabama elementary school will still get to hunt for eggs – but they can’t call them ‘Easter Eggs’ have the principal banished the word for the sake of religious diversity.
“We had in the past a parent to question us about some of the things we do here at school,” said Heritage Elementary School principal Lydia Davenport. “So we’re just trying to make sure we respect and honor everybody’s differences.”
Television station WHNT reported that teachers were informed that no activities related to or centered around any religious holiday would be allowed – in the interest of religious diversity.
“Kids love the bunny and we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter Bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion,” she told the television station. “ A bunny is a bunny and a rabbit is a rabbit.”
Teachers had planned to have an Easter egg-themed quiz bowl where boys and girls would ring in with egg buzzers and search for answers hidden in Easter eggs.
“I don’t get upset about too many things, but this upsets me,” one parent wrote to the television station. “Even non-believers enjoy a good egg hunt. Kids need to enjoy being kids.”
Davenport reconsidered the ban after meeting with district leaders – but she still won’t allow teachers to use the word ‘Easter.’
“We compromised by allowing teachers to use other different kinds of shapes besides eggs in the classroom,” she told the television station.
But the good news, according to Madison City School Board member Phil Schmidt is that students are going to be allowed to have eggs.
Chicago Will Require Kindergarteners to Take Sex Ed
Yet another installment of how radicalized and out of touch public education has become.
A new policy that was created in part with the consultation of Planned Parenthood of Illinois will require Chicago Public School students from kindergarteners and up to receive sexual health education instruction beginning in 2015.
According to the Chicago Public Schools website, the new policy passed last week requires “minimum instructional minutes” for students, and instructional material is tailored around age-appropriateness and “medically accurate information.”
“It is important that we provide students of all ages with accurate and appropriate information so they can make healthy choices in regards to their social interactions, behaviors, and relationships,” said Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in a statement.
“By implementing a new sexual health education policy, we will be helping them to build a foundation of knowledge that can guide them not just in the pre-adolescent and adolescent years, but throughout their lives,” she continued.
According to the Chicago Public Schools website, the new policy was developed by the Chicago Public School Office of Student Health and Wellness (OSHW). The Chicago Public Schools website said that since June 2012, OSHW has been in consultation with various stakeholder groups for feedback and recommendations in developing the policy.
“Among the participants were Mikva Challenge, Chicago Department of Public Health, Planned Parenthood of Illinois, University of Illinois Chicago, Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health and CPS high school students,” the website said.
NRA: Obama & DC Elites Believe You are Peons to be Ruled Over (video)
Newt Gingrich Scolds NBC for Making Limbaugh ‘The Great National Crisis’ (video)
This video is from a few months ago, but it is revealing in demonstration the way the leftist elite media tries to frame the debate falsely, quite frankly, with assumptions that are just lies.
Notice how David Gregory never wants to talk about truly important topics or be critical of President Obama in any way.
Sowell: Public Education Creating a Mindset that Undermines American Society
Dr. Sowell is our greatest living philosopher and he is black, which means of course, that if you disagree with him it automatically makes you a racist.
UPDATE – And here is a small example of what Dr. Sowell is talking about: Fort Collins students read Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic
Many years ago, as a young man, I read a very interesting book about the rise of the Communists to power in China. In the last chapter, the author tried to explain why and how this had happened.
Among the factors he cited were the country’s educators. That struck me as odd, and not very plausible, at the time. But the passing years have made that seem less and less odd, and more and more plausible. Today, I see our own educators playing a similar role in creating a mindset that undermines American society.
Schools were once thought of as places where a society’s knowledge and experience were passed on to the younger generation. But, about a hundred years ago, Professor John Dewey of Columbia University came up with a very different conception of education — one that has spread through American schools of education, and even influenced education in countries overseas.
John Dewey saw the role of the teacher, not as a transmitter of a society’s culture to the young, but as an agent of change — someone strategically placed, with an opportunity to condition students to want a different kind of society.
A century later, we are seeing schools across America indoctrinating students to believe in all sorts of politically correct notions. The history that is taught in too many of our schools is a history that emphasizes everything that has gone bad, or can be made to look bad, in America — and that gives little, if any, attention to the great achievements of this country.
If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers’ attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn’s book.
That book has sold millions of copies, poisoning the minds of millions of students in schools and colleges against their own country. But this book is one of many things that enable teachers to think of themselves as “agents of change,” without having the slightest accountability for whether that change turns out to be for the better or for the worse — or, indeed, utterly catastrophic.
This misuse of schools to undermine one’s own society is not something confined to the United States or even to our own time. It is common in Western countries for educators, the media and the intelligentsia in general, to single out Western civilization for special condemnation for sins that have been common to the human race, in all parts of the world, for thousands of years.
Meanwhile, all sorts of fictitious virtues are attributed to non-Western societies, and their worst crimes are often passed over in silence, or at least shrugged off by saying some such thing as “Who are we to judge?”
Bill Whittle: The Battle of Big Ideas (video)
Women prefer the AR-15 for defense (video)
Why? They are light, medium powered, low recoil and easy to shoot accurately, especially for those who are small in physical stature.
Firearms Industry Fights Back: Three New Commercials from Glock (video)
Featuring R Lee Ermey!
Nolte: New York Times announces more layoffs…
John Nolte at Big Government speaks truth at the New York Times’ expense. The NYT, along with much of the elite media, has become so much of a joke, that they cannot see why their circulation shrinks and shrinks while the Wall Street Journal, talk radio and Fox News are cleaning up, people no longer trust the elite media because they are so flamboyantly dishonest.
Big Government:
One of the first stories I came across this morning was the news that the New York Times is once again in financial turmoil. By 5PM today, thirty senior staffers must agree to voluntarily resign. If not, terminations will ensue. This is the fourth time this has happened to the Times in just five years.
Yeah, that is a shame.
It’s no coincidence, either, that this day of downsizing occurs just a few days after a NYT editor, Andrew Rosenthal, not only slobbered all over Obama like a teenage groupie, but publicly accused the GOP of racism for daring to try to stop Lightbringer’s socialist agenda:
Mr. Obama took over a country gravely damaged by his predecessor. (In fact I was convinced in 2008 that whoever succeeded President George W. Bush could only last one term). He got a raw deal, and then he helped prevent the Great Recession from turning into the Second Great Depression. Wall Street doesn’t like Mr. Obama, but corporate profits have soared in the last four years. He ended the war in Iraq, and he’s on his way to getting us out of Afghanistan. He passed health care reform. Along the way, he faced a Republican Party that was not only implacable in its opposition to his agenda but also hostile toward him personally (no doubt in part because of his race.).
If the NYT wants to know why it’s in the middle of its fourth personnel massacre in only five years, this is why.
The paper is completely off the rails, unable to engage in any kind of intellectually honest discussion, and so determined to see Obama have his way that its editors are reduced to slander and ad hominem.
The NYT has always been biased, but it’s now an increasingly cheap and alienating publication unable to distinguish itself from the fever swamps of the Daily Kos and Salon. And since those outlets are available online for free, why squander money few can afford during Obama’s “recovery” for the Times?
Democrats exempt themselves from new gun laws in proposed legislation
A gun for me and not for thee….so typical of the left.
Weekly Standard:
Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt.
“Mrs. Feinstein’s measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel,” the Washington Times reports.
The Huffington Post confirms these exemptions, and adds that guns owned prior to the legislation becoming law will be permissible, too. “[T]he bill includes a number of exemptions: It exempts more than 2,200 hunting and sporting weapons; any gun manually operated by a bolt, pump, lever or slide action; any weapons used by government officials and law enforcement; and any weapons legally owned as of the date of the bill’s enactment.”
The bill’s measures include stopping “the sale, manufacture and importation of 158 specifically named military-style firearms and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. It would also ban an additional group of assault weapons that accept detachable ammunition magazines and have at least one military characteristic,” according to the Huffington Post.
The left-leaning website adds: “Other new provisions include requiring background checks on all future transfers of assault weapons covered under the bill and eliminating the 10-year sunset that allowed the original ban to expire.”
Homeland Security buys 7,000 “Assault Rifles” and calls them “Personal Defense Weapons”…
But they told us that such firearms have no self defense purpose…
The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to acquire 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” (PDW) — also known as “assault weapons” when owned by civilians. The solicitation, originally posted on June 7, 2012, comes to light as the Obama administration is calling for a ban on semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines.
Citing a General Service Administration (GSA) request for proposal (RFP), Steve McGough of RadioViceOnline.com reports that DHS is asking for the 7,000 “select-fire” firearms because they are “suitable for personal defense use in close quarters.” The term select-fire means the weapon can be both semi-automatic and automatic. Civilians are prohibited from obtaining these kinds of weapons.
The RFP describes the firearm as “Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) – 5.56x45mm NATO, select-fire firearm suitable for personal defense use in close quarters and/or when maximum concealment is required.” Additionally, DHS is asking for 30 round magazines that “have a capacity to hold thirty (30) 5.56x45mm NATO rounds.”
Republican New York state Sen. Greg Ball also issued a press release this week bringing attention to the weapons purchase request.
Calls made to DHS seeking information regarding whether or not the RFP was accepted and fulfilled were not immediately returned on Saturday.
Dinesh D’Souza vs Michael Shermer: The Moral Case for Capitalism (video)
Props to progressive liberal Prof. Michael Shermer, who got (figuratively) his butt kicked in debates with Dinesh D’Souza and well knew it. Shermer was well humored about it and was a real good sport. Most liberals would have simply snapped.
Parents to child: You didn’t build that! (awesome video)
A short video speaks a thousands words. Do not miss this.
TRIFECTA – $180 Billion Wasted: Head Start Education Program Has No Lasting Impact (video)
This is far from the first study and review to conclude that head start is actually no such thing.
Norfolk Virginia newspaper and police cover up racial gang attack…but…(video)
But wait, there’s more! The victims were two reporters for that very same newspaper. Watch the newspaper editor lie to help cover up the crime.
This is also a clear example of how radical ideology in news rooms trumps even the safety of the reporters.
Note: Did these people need a gun that held more than ten rounds?
Editor’s Response to Obama’s Orwellian Inauguration Speech
It was amazing.
How so?
Even though I have made it my specialty to study liars and the propaganda that is used to market evil to those who are not vigilant, it amazes me when I watch President Obama because, unlike most politicians who lie to get themselves out of trouble or do it off the cuff in the heat of the moment, this new crew of Saul Alinsky inspired Democrats use lies and the most advanced propaganda and deception techniques as a tool for calculated aggression. This writer has no doubt that Obama’s staff has “think tank” sessions where they come up with such lies, distortions, and dishonest associations and even take the time to focus group the lies so as to tweak them for believability.
What I found most offensive was when he perverted the message of America’s Founders as an affirmation of Marxist collectivist propaganda:
… fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people [government must do it]
Individualism of course does not mean always acting alone. Did George Washington with the revolution by himself? Can people not cooperate to make things as complex as a pencil do so without government controlling it all? By using false definitions and associative propaganda techniques this line is designed to undermine and twist the idea of rugged individualism and the idea that in our form of government is the citizen that is the sovereign, not the state.
What we saw in Obama’s speech are the kinds of self serving twists, distortions, and straw-man arguments that tyrants have used for centuries. What makes this different is that , it is being used by an American president, and the quality of such lies is the best I have ever seen since Goebbels.
I was in the process of going through the entire speech so I could deconstruct the lies, but Mytheos Holt at The Blaze has done a nice job of doing this that.
The Blaze:
Unfortunately, another characteristic was also in evidence in Obama’s speech: namely, his tendency to argue against positions that nobody holds (and by extension, to mischaracterize his opponents’ views so as to make them easier to argue against). In logic, this unfortunate tendency is referred to as a “straw man fallacy” and it was well-worn in President Obama’s speech today – so well-worn that at times, he seemed to cough up a new straw man fallacy with every sentence. How many of these arguments in bad faith did the President use? Read on as we list each one and explain their fallacious nature.
Straw Man #1:
“For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.”
The President’s line about muskets and militias is a rhetorical flourish more than an argument, but the first part of this line is an obvious straw man. No one in the current political climate is arguing for a complete dissolution of government power such that only the American people as a collective would be responsible for defending the country or performing any other task. Rather, the question is how much responsibility should be left to private citizens. Saying “private citizens cannot handle all responsibilities” is not the same as saying “private citizens cannot handle any responsibility at all.”
Straw Man #2:
“No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.”
Like the first straw man, this one argues against something which is obviously false, and which no one believes. A single, individual person obviously cannot do all of this alone, but again, that does not imply that if someone cannot do something alone, the government must step in and do it for them. For instance, an architect cannot build a skyscraper alone. He needs laborers, engineers, and other people. But saying he can’t do this alone is not the same thing as saying that private citizens cannot cooperatively agree to do this without help from the government.
Straw Man #3:
“We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.”
No one is proposing completely giving up caring for older generations, nor is anyone proposing completely ignoring young people’s needs. The question is how much government can afford to spend on each. More to the point, no one on either side is proposing complete abolition of programs that help the elderly or the disabled.
Straw Man #4:
“We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.”
This particular straw man presumably is meant to apply to income inequality. At least, that’s the only public policy issue that this author can see it relating to. However, as with the others, it is a misreading of people who argue against greater income equality. For one thing, freedom and happiness are not necessarily the same as money, and luck is not the only thing that makes a person wealthy. Moreover, people who argue that income inequality is not necessarily a problem are not defending the idea that only a few can be wealthy, which is a question of income mobility, not equality.
Straw Man #5:
“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.”
This straw man, which deals with global warming, is actually two fallacies in one. It is a straw man because no one believes they can avoid the impact of natural disasters completely, and it also begs the question by assuming that solving global warming will solve the problem of fires, drought and storms, while simultaneously trying to prove that by solving global warming, natural disasters will be lessened.
Straw Man #6:
“We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.”
The President’s critics on national security do not believe in perpetual war. They may believe in seeing some wars through to their conclusion, or starting other wars out of necessity, but none of them believes in perpetual war for its own sake.
Straw Man #7:
“For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.”
People arguing against bills such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which claim to be devoted to ensuring equal pay for women, often do so because they are concerned that these laws give trial lawyers too much of an excuse to sue, not because they believe women should be underpaid.
Straw Man #8:
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
Again, there are no mainstream political figures who believe that gays should be unequal before the law. In fact, gays enjoy all the same constitutional protections as straight people. The question of whether the right to marriage is one of those constitutional protections, however, is an unresolved question, though the Supreme Court may resolve it later this year. This straw man also assumes that the only function of marriage is to facilitate love. That is certainly one view, but it is not one that all critics of gay marriage subscribe to, and thus assuming that they oppose gay marriage out of opposition to love is a straw man.
Straw Man #9:
“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity.”
Shutting off immigration completely is not a policy proposal being offered. What is being argued about is the question of what to do with people who immigrated to the US in contradiction to its laws.
Straw Man #10:
“Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.”
This is obviously true, but is also a straw man because no one believes that following a blueprint for governance requires the people following that blueprint to make all the same lifestyle choices. This is not even an argument that constitutional originalists on the Supreme Court advance. The President is arguing against a position that is not held by his critics.
Editor’s thought of the day
So let me get this straight. When a policeman pulls over a car with possible illegal aliens in it, he cannot ask certain questions because liberals say it’s racism. But liberals want gun owners to be registered, fingerprinted, and data-based up and down, as well as having our names and addresses printed in the paper.
Who is preferred and who is treated as the non-citizen?
Far left academics pushing “junk science” at military colleges to indoctrinate students
And junk science it is. This “study” (see below) is filled with very bogus cliché in the book. This “study” , like all too many writings from radicalized academics, is filled with opinion presented as fact, including but not limited too: small government activists are racists, leftists are “future oriented” modern and “progressive” while conservatives are backwards and “in the past”.
The “study” also paints traditional Americans as THE domestic terror threat, but the FBI has listed far left groups such as ALF, ELF and other left-wing groups as the most active and deadly domestic terror groups and have for many years.
The left is future oriented? As if centralized government control of society and the economy is somehow a new concept? On the contrary that idea is as old as the idea of government itself. The vast majority of man throughout history has lived under such rule.
The idea that rights come from God and cannot be usurped by government, government should be limited by rules and separation of powers, and where the minority is protected from the whims of the majority by law are new concepts and the United States was the first country in the history of the world to be founded upon those ideas; so if anything it is American conservatism that is modern, and those who favor a leviathan state, whatever the spin used to sell it, the dinosaur form of government.
The “study” also says that the left values separation of powers. Anyone skilled in politics is already laughing at this one. It is the Democratic Leader in the Senate who is asking President Obama to violate separation of powers by legislating via executive order and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling illegally. It is the left that ignores the limits placed in Article I, Section 8, as well as the 9th and 10th Amendments as well as the 5th Amendment clause about not taking property without just compensation and that is just for starters.
This is far from the first time an “academic study” ended up being nothing more than a vehicle for politically motivated slander. The IU School of Journalism published this study comparing Bill O’Reilly to the Nazi’s using laughable “fast and loose” terms and tactics. These attacks from radicalized academia are used to justify the kind of hate that we saw when far left groups attacked a charity that helps rape victims for the terrible crime of letting Bill O’Reilly raise money for them.
Rowan Scarborough at The Washington Times:
The report issued this week by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.”
The center — part of the institution where men and women are molded into Army officers — posted the report Tuesday. It lumps limited government activists with three movements it identifies as “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”
The West Point center typically focuses reports on al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists attempting to gain power in Asia, the Middle East and Africa through violence.
But its latest study turns inward and paints a broad brush of people it considers “far right.”
It says anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.”
The report also draws a link between the mainstream conservative movement and the violent “far right,” and describes liberals as “future oriented” and conservatives as living in the past.
“While liberal worldviews are future- or progressive -oriented, conservative perspectives are more past-oriented, and in general, are interested in preserving the status quo.” the report says. “The far right represents a more extreme version of conservatism, as its political vision is usually justified by the aspiration to restore or preserve values and practices that are part of the idealized historical heritage of the nation or ethnic community.”
The report adds: “While far-right groups’ ideology is designed to exclude minorities and foreigners, the liberal-democratic system is designed to emphasize civil rights, minority rights and the balance of power.”
The report says there were 350 “attacks initiated by far-right groups/individuals” in 2011.
Details about what makes an attack a “far right” action are not clear in the report, which was written by Arie Perliger, who directs the center’s terrorism studies and teaches social sciences at West Point.
A Republican congressional staffer who served in the military told The Washington Times: “If [the Defense Department] is looking for places to cut spending, this junk study is ground zero.
“Shouldn’t the Combating Terrorism Center be combating radical Islam around the globe instead of perpetuating the left’s myth that right-wingers are terrorists?” the staffer said. “The $64,000 dollar question is when will the Combating Terrorism Center publish their study on real left-wing terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground?”
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Political Arena 
