‘Climate arson’ and other wildfire nonsense
The Weekly Sam: Why the Federal Government Should Get Out of Education
Why the Federal Government Should Get Out of Education By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
The real issue is Limited Government versus Unlimited Government
Most Americans want less government, smaller government and lower taxes. The only
way to accomplish this is by abolishing federal departments and bureaucracies. As far
back as the Reagan administration, Republicans promised to abolish the Department of
Education. They couldn’t do it then because they lacked a majority in Congress. But
whatever happened to the plan to abolish the Department of Education when Republicans
became the majority? Not only did they forget their promise, but in September 1996 they
passed the single largest increase in federal education funding: $3.5 billion. Who were
the Republicans trying to impress? The National Education Association?
The basic question is: Can good education be provided in the U.S. without the help or
intrusion of the federal government? The answer is clearly yes. In fact, there is ample
evidence indicating that the present decline in educational quality is a direct result of
federal funding which has been used by the educators to fund more and more expensive
educational malpractice.
A little historical background will help us understand why the federal role in education in
America is more of an aberration than a natural development. There is no mention of
education in the U.S. Constitution. However, in 1785 and 1787, while the United States
were still under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress passed the
Northwest Ordinance Acts which provided for the orderly settlement of the Northwest
Territory and encouraged the establishment of schools in the territory by stating:
“Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be encouraged.” The
new states were required to set aside the 16th section of each township to be used for
educational purposes. But there was no requirement that the schools be government
owned and operated.
Seventy-five years later, in 1862, Congress passed and President Lincoln signed the
Morrill Land Grant Act providing each loyal state with 30,000 acres of land for each
Senator and Representative, the land to be used for agricultural and mechanical schools
under a measure proposed by Senator Justin S. Morrill of Vermont. Five years later, in
1867, a federal Office of Education was established. Its purpose was:
“To collect such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the
several States and Territories, and to diffuse such information respecting the organization and
management of schools and school systems, and methods of teaching as shall aid the People of
the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and
otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country.”
It should be noted that the National Education Association had been founded ten years
earlier in 1857 and that its members called for the establishment of a federal department
of education at the founding convention. And it is obvious that in that statement of
purpose was an expansionist view of the government’s future role in education.
After World War I, the NEA began a long range campaign to get federal aid for public
education. From 1867 to 1940–a period of 73 years–the Congress passed about 11 minor
pieces of legislation related to education. The fear of federal control of schools kept most
legislators from voting for federal aid to public education. But resistance was gradually
broken down by such acts as the National School Lunch Act of 1946, the School Milk
Program Act of 1954.
But it was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 passed during the
Johnson administration which opened the floodgates of the U.S. Treasury for the benefit
of the education establishment. From 1965 to 1983–18 years–there were 43 education
acts passed by the Congress, including the establishment in 1979 of a U.S. Department of
Education with cabinet status. In the year 1994 alone, there were about 180 educational
restructuring bills before Congress! The three most important bills enacted were the
Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, and the Improving America’s
Schools Act, a reauthorization of the ESEA of 1965. All of this legislation was passed
with much Republican help. In short, the Congress launched an avalanche of bills which
virtually amounted to a cultural revolution.
It seemed as if all restraints had been removed on government expansion and intrusion
into education, and the Republican Congress did nothing to reverse the trend. That is
why the federal government has become a government of unlimited power.
We must return to the principle of limited government if we wish to reduce the cost of
government and its unwarranted intrusion in the education of our children. A limited
federal government does only those things that cannot be done by the states or the private
sector. The purpose of taxes is to pay for government not change society.
There is no doubt that the federal intrusion in education has harmed education and
produced the dumbing down effect. Test scores attest to this bizarre phenomenon. Since
1962, SAT verbal scores have declined despite billions of federal dollars pumped into
public education. In September 1993, the U.S. Department of Education revealed that
some 90 million adult Americans have grossly inadequate reading and writing skills,
despite compulsory school attendance. The more federal money Congress pumps into
education the worse it gets. Why? Because educational malpractice is very expensive,
and without federal funding we’d have much less of it.
The simple truth is that federal education programs cost the taxpayers billions of dollars,
and not one: of these programs has actually improved education. Claims have been made
that Headstart is a successful program. But research indicates that whatever gains
children make in Headstart are lost by the third grade. Federal education grants subsidize a liberal academic elite with its secular humanist, socialist agenda, thus violating the Constitutional prohibition against establishing a state
religion: Humanism. The Data Collection System of the National Center for Education Statistics threatens
family privacy and freedom. Children are not a “national resource” to be monitored and
controlled for use by the state or industry. They are individuals whose lives belong to
themselves, not to “the economy.”
The federal government has institutionalized educational malpractice by supporting
unsound educational theories and practices which have found their way into the public schools via the federally funded National Diffusion Network. Federal aid to public education simply reinforces a socialist, government owned and operated education system which distorts market values and encourages monopoly union practices.
Meanwhile, the education establishment continues to grow and prosper. In 1982, the
average public school teacher’s salary was $19,274. In 1995 it was up to $37,643., and in
2008 it us up to $47,602. In 1982, per pupil expenditure was $2,726. In 1995-96 the
national average was up to $6,213, and in 2009 it was up to $9,963. In 1984, total
expenditure for public education was $134.5 billion. In 2002 it had risen to $420 billion.
In short, never has public education been more generously supported by the taxpayer and
never have our schools seen more violence, academic disarray, and parental
dissatisfaction than the present.
What is even more shocking is that over four million
students must be drugged daily with Ritalin in order to be able to attend class.
Today, well-connected change agents like Mark Tucker are busy imposing on America
the new Human Resources Development System, exuberantly described by Tucker in an
18-page letter to Hillary Clinton when her husband was elected President. Tucker
described his system as “a seamless web of opportunities to develop one’s skills that
literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone–young and old,
poor and rich, worker and full-time student.”
And so, in place of academic excellence, we have Outcome Based Education, Whole
Language, Multiculturalism, Skinnerian Mastery Learning, National Teaching Standards
and Certification, School-Based Clinics, Attitude Assessments, Global Citizenship, and
Socialized Medicine for every student.
What is actually taking place is a cultural revolution engineered by behavioral
psychologists, humanist educators, and socialist change agents using a whole galaxy of
education programs to implement their agenda, financed by the federal government.
And much of this has taken place when Republicans were in control of Congress. And
that accounts for the extreme frustration of conservatives who vote Republican but get
liberal results. When will this change?
The takeover of the White House and the federal government by radical leftists has finally
awakened the American people to what has happened to this country since we started
allowing the federal government to exceed all limits placed on it by the Constitution. But
in order to succeed in restoring the principles of government held by our founding fathers,
we must return to limited government. This can only be done if the American people
realize the potential for tyranny inherent in a government education system.
The most important institution in a socialist state is a government owned and controlled
school system wherein children can be indoctrinated to accept a socialist way of life. And
the best way to prevent this from occurring is to return to the concept of educational
freedom in which the federal government has no role in education.
Local public schools can easily become private institutions governed by local trustees and
supported by tuition fees. This would greatly reduce the tax burden on home owners and
provide more than enough resources to pay for the tuitions of poor families. The costs of
education would decrease dramatically since education would once more become reality
based wherein the fundamental academic subjects would be taught without the added
costs of educational malpractice. Individual intelligence would be enhanced, while
collectivist group-think would be discarded.
Can this be done? Only if America’s conservative leaders demand that it should be done.
The home-school movement has already proven that parents can actually teach better
than our high-priced professionals, that children progress better academically when taught
at home, and that the cost of educating a child at home is less than $1,000 a year.
If Americans want to once more experience what it means to be free, they must burst out
of the high-priced straitjacket imposed on them by the socialist education tyrants. If they
want better education at lower cost, then the prescription for success is simple: get the
government out of education.
This article is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archive: https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
What is the antidote to ‘Wokeness’? by Douglas Flanakin of CFACT
What is the antidote to ‘Wokeness’?
Evan Sayet’s The Woke Supremacy provides answers we cannot afford to ignore
Duggan Flanakin
Political comedian Evan Sayet says he has long dedicated himself to conserving and promoting the American values that have given him freedom and allowed him to pursue his life of liberty and happiness. His new book, The Woke Supremacy, lays out the history and characteristics of “Wokeness.”
However, in failing to examine the origins of this totalitarian intolerance, he misses the critical difference between old-style Marxism, so-called “Democratic socialism,” and “cultural Marxism” as first delineated by the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci and employed by Chinese dictator Mao Zedong.
That’s okay, though, because Sayet masterfully describes how these subversives operate and lays out the tactical principles (and lack of moral principles) that drive them. Their goal, he says, is to replace Western civilization with a nihilist premise that everything about Western culture is evil.
One fruit of this evil, poisonous tree is that Western society is so racist, Woke activists assert, and so fraught with multiple other evils that it cannot be repaired. Instead, it must be eradicated and replaced.
Philosopher, historian and self-defense advocate Sam Jacobs summarizes the origins of Wokeness by reviewing Gramsci, who spent a decade in Mussolini’s prisons and rejected the twin ideas of a dictatorship of the proletariat and direct ownership of the means of production as losing propositions.
Instead, this son of a low-level Italian bureaucrat argued that for socialism to “take America without firing a shot” (as Khrushchev would later boast) would require a “long march through the institutions” of Western culture in order to penetrate, infiltrate and eventually control them. In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan summed up Gramsci’s argument in his book, The Medium Is the Message.
Both Chairman Mao, beginning in 1966, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot a decade later saw existing cultural institutions as impediments to their quest for absolute power to reshape their societies according to their Marxist ideals. But both revolutions failed, perhaps because they had missed Gramsci’s point. Success comes from slowly subverting the culture rather than destroying it.
Mao’s vision was to rid China of “the four Olds” – Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits and Old Ideas. In other words, everything that pre-dated communism. As Christopher Holton writes in The Hayride, Mao’s Red Guards started out renaming streets, quickly escalated to destroying old buildings, old books, and old art, and ransacking homes of the disloyal. They even desecrated cemeteries, dug up corpses and tore down monuments. Only later did they start killing.
Pol Pot witnessed China’s “Cultural Revolution” and wanted to outdo his mentor via a “Super Great Leap Forward,” instead of a “long march.” He expelled foreigners, closed embassies, shuttered newspapers and TV stations, confiscated radios and bicycles, outlawed mail and telephones, and put those still alive in agrarian camps. People began starving to death.
In his 2012 book, The Kindergarten of Eden, Sayet posited four laws of “modern liberalism,” beginning with “indiscriminateness,” total rejection of the intellectual process. This, he said, leads to a topsy-turvy worldview that always sides with the lesser and against the better, the wrong over the right, and the evil over the good. That is what happened in China and Cambodia.
Promoting the lesser is always paired with denigrating the better. The negative qualities of the Woke (socialists) are ascribed to the un-Woke (nationalists) – and vice versa. Hillary Clinton thus framed President Trump for “collusion with Russia,” which evidence now shows she herself engaged in.
The primary goal of the modern liberal, Sayet contends, is the total regression of man back to his first days on earth. Or as Joni Mitchell wrote, “We’ve go to get ourselves back to the Garden.” The blueprint for cultural Marxism in America, Sayet argues in both books, is John Lennon’s popular song, “Imagine.” The perfect, peace-filled world has no heaven or hell and people live just for the moment, with no countries, no religion, no possessions, and nothing worth dying for.
This Woodstock hippies’ quest for an imaginary simpler time provided the New Left with a ready-made tool for organizing to effectuate institutional control. Their rejection of Western civilization – their search for the innocence of “the Garden” – enabled them to create new curricula that lured “useful idiots” into the halls of academe, the arts and the political arena, where hard-core Woke nihilists could redefine “truth.”
Sayet opens The Woke Supremacy by stating that, while Hitler’s National Socialism was ideologically the polar opposite of Democratic Socialism, ideology has little influence over behavior once any socialist system gains power.
Both rejected nationalism built on a foundation of local leadership (hence our Tenth Amendment) that implements policies which make sense locally even if not nationwide. Socialism, Sayet affirms, requires top-down governance where “one size fits all” (except for governing elites).
Enforcement of top-down government requires tyrannical control, and tremendous energy, to impose a Woke supremacy from which there can be no dissent or even debate. Wokeness thus requires the use of hate and fear. There is no redemption for the apostasy of believing facts when they conflict with “Woke truth.” The “Cancel Culture” can be just as vicious against a prior ally as against longtime opponents.
Conversely, there is no “Woke morality” by which infidelity, theft, property crimes or even murder disqualify a person who is useful in promoting Wokeness. The Woke proudly spotlight even criminals who shot first as “victims” of a “racist” police force that oppresses the entire society. Deconstructing sexual norms is also a powerful tool that confuses what is a “right.” Environmentalism turns science into a Woke morality play, regardless of real-world evidence to the contrary.
The Woke also use modifiers to confuse, divide and conquer. Adding “politically” to “correct” changes objective truth or outright fiction into narratives of “my truth.”
Similarly, the modifier “social” transforms the concept of “justice” notions that “the oppressed” are morally right to steal or commit voter fraud if their “intent” is couched in victimhood that can spark “peaceful protests.” The goal is victory, “by any means necessary,” whether packing the Supreme Court or turning a murderer into a victim to generate hatred of the law.
Not only must evil become good to the Woke; actual good deeds must be deconstructed. A major tool is the “dog whistle,” a tactic that asserts the Woke “know” the “real meaning” behind seemingly innocent or even positive words or actions.
Sayet recognizes that even a Trump/Republican political victory this fall will not defeat the Woke Supremacy’s culture war on America. They are too entrenched in schools and universities, in newsrooms and entertainment fields, and across social communications industries, to be easily vanquished.
Jacobs helpfully suggests that the first step in defusing cultural Marxism is to learn what it is and how it operates – and call it out for what it is. Sayet provides an excellent primer for this.
Step 2, says Jacobs, is to learn from the history of society and ideas the many benefits that Western Civilization has brought, including its self-correction of prior evils – and teach them to others.
Step 3 is to reject political guilt and instead recognize that Western civilization is a constant work in progress, a continuing effort to improve society, not a static conspiracy to rob everyone but “old, rich, white men” of their just rewards.
Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
The Weekly Sam: The Meaning and Mystery of Numbers By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
On New Year’s Eve, I, like so many other countless Americans, was glued to my TV set
watching ABC and PBS take us to celebrations across the globe, beginning at some
remote island in the South Pacific where the year 2000 started, then to New Zealand,
Australia, Japan, China, Moscow, Bethlehem, Rome, Paris, London, Newfoundland, Rio
de Janeiro, New York, Montreal, Toronto, and Chicago. I did not stay up long enough to
see the new year arrive in Los Angeles, or Honolulu, which was probably the last major
city on earth to finally come into the year 2000.
It was amazing to see the delirium in Times Square as more than a million folk turned out
to see the famous ball atop the Times building lowered so that the sign 2000 could light
up. The only thing that changed after that momentous countdown was a number: from
1999 to 2000. Yet that immaterial, spiritual change of one number forced nations across
the globe to spend billions of dollars for fireworks displays, parades, concerts, dances,
celebrations, and feasts, all of which took years of preparation. My favorite display were
the fireworks on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It lived up to all its hype. That tower, a
culminating display of 19th century technology, has a grace, dignity, and solidity
reflecting the inventive genius of that century.
Why is one number so important? Why is it capable of creating delirium among millions
of celebrants? We are the only species who believe in the power of numbers. The Bible
is full of numbers. There is even a Book of Numbers. There are Ten Commandments,
Seven Seals, Twelve Tribes, Seven Angels. God gave man not only the ability to count,
but the absolute necessity to count.
What are numbers? They are merely the names and written symbols we give to
quantities. The need to count is what makes numbers necessary. We count everything.
We count days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millenia. We count the miles
we travel and the number of hours and minutes it takes us to get from here to there. We
count a hundredth of a second in Olympic races. We count our birthdays. The
countdown of life begins at conception, nine months of gestation. Some lives are cut
short before birth, before that developing human being has learned the meaning of
numbers.
We register the day, month and year of birth and then count each completed year of life
as a blessing. Last May, I completed 73 full years of life. My brain, life a computer, has
a storehouse of memory which is now so full that sometimes it is slow in bringing up a
name or a particular event. But memory is extremely useful in being able to recall what
life was like fifty or sixty years ago. It gives one a view of a changing world that the
young simply do not have. Reading about it is not like having been there. And most
young people do not bother to read if indeed they can read.
And many young people have difficulty with numbers because of the way they are now
taught in our public schools. Math test scores have been dismal. Why? Because the
schools cannot deal with the mystery of numbers, which is really part of religion. For
example, the delirium over the beginning of a new millenium is fraught with religious
significance. The counting in our calendar is based on the birth of Jesus Christ, who was
sent to this earth to save men from their sinful natures, to offer them forgiveness of sin
and salvation, and offer them eternal life after death.
But humanists, who do not believe in biblical religion, prefer to celebrate the New Year
as the time in the calendar when the days begin getting longer. They simply see mankind
as a species of animal living on a planet that revolves around the sun every 365 days or
so, and rotates on an axis which gives us days and nights. They see no religious
significance in any of this. They see no mystery in numbers.
But it is religion that has created meaning in numbers. The Lord created the universe in
six days and rested on the seventh, which is why we have a week and a weekend. We
celebrate festivals that conform to biblical commandments, requirements, and events.
God gave us a rudimentary calculator in our ten fingers. That is why we use a ten-base
system of counting.
We also know that the marvelous technology that permitted us to place satellites in outer
space so that we could view the New Year celebrations around the globe depended on the
development of mathematics. All of computer technology is based on the ability of the
human brain to translate numbers and letters into zeros and ones by way of electrical
impUlses. Even the concept of zero is one of the great inventions of the human brain,
without which all of our modem technology would not have been possible.
Another important use of numbers is in the forming of chronological memory, on which
all of our knowledge of history is based. In fact, the Bible itself is the standard of
chronological narration, which begins with day one of Creation and extends beyond the
written word of Scripture to our present day calendar of events. History can only be
understood in chronological terms, for it permits us to analyze cause and effect. And that
is why American children are deprived of a chronological study of American history-so
that they will be unable to understand cause and effect. They are taught that
remembering dates is not important. It’s no longer necessary to know what happened in
1492, 1776, 1789, 1860, 1917,1939, 1941, or 1945.
I became acutely aware of the importance of chronology when I was researching my
book, “Is Public Education Necessary?” I wanted to find out why the American people
gave up educational freedom for government owned and operated schools so early in our
nation’s history when the advantages of educational freedom were so obvious in view of
the fact that that is what our Founding Fathers enjoyed. I had to do a year-by-year
investigation to finally understand how and why that change took place. It had nothing to
do with economics or literacy. It was all philosophical, and that was a true revelation to
me. That philosophical revolution was engineered by a small Unitarian elite that had
captured Harvard University and began its work of secularizing education through
government ownership of schools.
We need to know numbers in order to survive. We must count money. We must count
taxes. We must count commodities. We must count billions and trillions in government
spending. We must count people. In the Book of Numbers we find much counting of
people of different ages for social, military and religious reasons. Civilized nations count
themselves. Counting always answers the questions of how many, how long, how short,
how high, how low.
And now we must start dating our checks, and letters, and diaries with the year 2000, or if
we prefer to use Roman numerals, MM. The human race has reached an incredible
milestone when we think of what life was like in the year 1000. And most of the material
advance that has profoundly changed human life took place in the last 150 years. The
young have so much to look forward to, provided they don’t forget that what they enjoy
today is the result of what human beings did and invented before them. The past is,
indeed, prelude.
(This article was written by Sam Blumenfeld in 2000. For PDF versions to this and his other work, please sign up for the Blumenfeld Archives https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE COLUMBUS STATUE IN BOSTON AND MAYOR MARTY WALSH
THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE COLUMBUS STATUE IN BOSTON
AND MAYOR MARTY WALSH
The Italian American ALLIANCE is not fooled by Mayor Walsh’s recent actions concerning the Columbus statue,
For starters, the Mayor broke his word to the ALLIANCE.
In a private ZOOM meeting between Mayor Walsh, and the ALLIANCE — which took place shortly after the Columbus statue was vandalized –the ALLIANCE gathered residents of the North End and Donors of the statue to participate in the meeting. During that meeting, Mayor Walsh was very emphatic about several points.
1. The statue’s head had been smashed into 7 pieces and would take time to repair. However, he pledged to have it repaired.
2. He asked for time He said that in the present climate, it was not the right time to make a decision. He said he would listen to a variety of opinions before making a final decision – AND THAT HE WOULD HAVE A SECOND MEETING WITH THE ALLIANCE BEFORE ANNOUNCING IT.
3. He asked us to keep the meeting confidential and out of the press – which we did with some misgiving and reluctance.
WE ARE DISAPPOINED AT THE OVERALL PROCESS AND ARE CONSIDERING LEGAL OPTIONS.
While some cautioned us not to trust Walsh, we did. It now appears that our trust was a mistake. However, there’s no other way of saying it. The Mayor did not keep his word.
There are significant questions as to whether all the donors of the statue were ever consulted about Walsh’s decision. There’s a need to review the terms of the gift to the city. There’s a need to know WHERE THE STATUE WILL BE PLACED. There’s also a need to know where the North End Council will pledge to develop substantial security around the statue and whether it INTENDS to meet the costs of carrying sufficient insurance for costs of repair should the statue be vandalized again.
In the end, there are serious questions concerning the overall process taken by Walsh which the ALLIANCE intends to pursue.
We are now creating a BOSTON COLUMBUS STATUE COMMISSION. Please let us know if you would like to get personally involved. Email us at Frankwrote@aol.com
MAYOR WALSH MAY THINK SO – BUT THIS IS NOT OVER !
Dr. Frank Mazzaglia,
Italian American Alliance
A Report on Camp Constitution’s 1st Annual Ladies Retreat by Kathleen LaBonte LoFaro
Camp Constitution’s 1st Annual Women’s Retreat was held October 2-4, 2020, in the beautiful and quiet 135-acre woodland setting of the Singing Hills Christian Camp in Plainfield, N.H. It was a weekend full of glorious fall foliage delight for the eyes, and sunshine to warm 15 women’s hearts, but nothing lifted the spirits and bonded our souls in friendship more than the fellowship and prayer sessions, artistic and life skill preservation activities, and breaking bread together where we closed the distance of acquaintance, close friends, and honored guests, and became family…sisters. Deuteronomy 12:7 “And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”
We all felt blessed to have found our way to this extraordinary event, and we were completely joyful and delighted in all that had been so carefully planned for us by four talented active Christian patriotic “friends” of Camp Constitution: Edith Craft, who led us in devotionals; Kathy Mickle and Roberta Stewart, who organized delightful arts and crafts activities, with a vision that we continue the “no-sew” small blanket as a community service project; and Maura Shurtleff for teaching her secrets in creating a beautiful holiday wreath. From those four main organizers, Keiko Bernardi jumped in with morning exercises before breakfast; Catherine White took us out on the shooting range to try our skills with a rifle and Nancy Copeland with the air gun, with everyone successful under their tutelage. Catherine also lend her artistic side leading us in stories and songs around the nightly campfire; and Bonnie Manchester, a public education teacher, gave an hour presentation on her life journey from a car accident that almost took her life, to current state of public education, and why many parents are making the decision to homeschool.
All in attendance were gifted one way or another, and shared their giftedness without hesitation, but the cherry on the top of this most delightful weekend, was keynote speaker Barbara from Harlem, a Minister and Author of “Escaping the Racism of Low Expectations,” and her daughter Bebe Diamond. Together they have launched a radio show called “Our Urban Story” where they discuss political issues and concerns about the state of America. We look forward to continue annually what we were calling the “Christian warrior ladies” retreat – Children of God, Women of Faith, Warriors for Christ, and growing in many more friendships and memories together. Next year’s Ladies Retreat will take place October 1-3 at Singing Hills.
The Importance of Monuments by Dr. Peter Hammond
The IMPORTANCE of MONUMENTS
To view this presentation as a video, click here.
To view this presentation as a PowerPoint, click here.
To listen to the audio of this message, click here.
The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World
In the 5th century, Greek Historian, Herodotus, described the seven wonders of the ancient world. These were known for their size, material, engineering, beauty and symbolic power. The seven Wonders of the Ancient World included: The Great Pyramid of Chephren at Giza; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the Colossus of Rhodes; the Pharos (Lighthouse) of Alexandria; the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.
Potent Symbols
From ancient times, temples, statues, towers, markers, tombs and other structures have defined public places, extoled ideals, characterized societies and symbolized who we are. Monuments can express the collective goals, joys and sorrows of a society.
Monuments Reflect Identity
The word monument comes from the Latin word moneo, which means to remind. A monument is anything that reminds us of a person, an event, or an idea from the past. A monument is a way in which society remembers its past and formulates its identity and future hopes.
Communication, Education and Inspiration
Monuments communicate, much like books do. Everything in a monument is significant. The scale, setting, gestures and expressions of human figures, all convey meaning. Monuments can narrate a tale, or evoke a significant historic event. Battle sites are often monuments. Monuments elicit nostalgia, pride, empathy, sorrow, compassion and respect. Even more powerfully than the written word can.
Permanent Reminders
Because monuments are generally intended to be permanent, to educate and remind future generations of values, personalities and events deemed significant, many monuments have been made of lasting material such as stone, marble, bronze, iron and steel.
Traditions and Calendars
However, monuments can also be traditions:
The fact that we have a seven-day week is a monument to the fact that God created the World in six days and rested on the seventh.
The institution of Sunday, as a day of rest, is a monument to the fact the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the First Day of the week.
The Lord’s Supper is also a memorial.
The term holiday comes from the term holy day.
The holidays a nation chooses have great cultural significance.
The farewell greeting: Goodbye, comes from the old English prayer, God be with ye.
In Austria, the greeting is Gruessgott, or Greetings in God.
Books Can Be Monuments
However, monuments are not only buildings and sculptures but also books and manuscripts. What we call Foxes Book of Martyrs, was first published in English in 1563 under the title: Acts and Monuments of these Latter and Perilous Days.
When the Temporary Becomes Permanent
However, some monuments were originally meant to be temporary. For example, the Eiffel Tower in Paris was erected for the 1889 International Exposition and meant to be dismantled shortly afterwards. However, over the years, the Eiffel Tower became synonymous with the City of Paris and so has remained a permanent structure in the physical and emotional landscape of France.
The Eiffel Tower
When Gustave Eiffel built the mammoth tower on the left bank of the Seine River, for the 1889 International Exposition, his goal was to display the potential of new industrial metals for architecture. At the time, the tower was highly controversial. Many 19th century Parisians criticized it as being “un-French” in its design. However, the Eiffel Tower survives because of its practical use as a radio tower.
Symbolism in Monuments
There is much in monuments which is symbolic:
The 49 steps up to Rhodes Memorial, symbolizes the 49 years he lived.
The 36 Doric columns of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. symbolized the number of states in the Union at the time of the president’s death.
The Statue of Liberty in New York city is personified as a robed woman standing on broken chains, representing tyranny.
Community and Nationhood
Monuments help people feel connected to their collective past, common tradition and shared experience.
Virtue
Many monuments embody the virtues that a society wants to hold dear, such as: Liberty; Justice; Freedom and Courage.
Civic Identity
Some monuments become synonymous with the cities they occupy. To many, the Eiffel Tower symbolises Paris; the Colosseum is Rome. In many cities, their public monuments define their civic identity. Many town governments depict their monuments on banners, city seals, number plates and other official objects.
The Tower of Pisa
In Renaissance Italy, bell towers were erected as symbols of the city’s wealth and prominence. When its construction began in 1174, the Tower of Pisa was intended to be just such a prestigious symbol. However, the ill-fated monument began to list to one side, even before its completion and all subsequent efforts to stabilise its weak foundations have failed. But today, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is the most famous of all the Tuscan Bell Towers, precisely because of its curious angle.
Big Ben
The famous Bell Tower, Big Ben, is dear to the hearts of Londoners and a symbol of that city. The name refers not to the tower itself, but to its largest bell which was cast by Sir Benjamin Hall and weighs over 13.5 tonnes.
Colossal Statues
The Statue of Liberty is the most famous colossal statue since the Colossus of Rhodes. The statue of Colossus was destroyed in an earthquake in the 3rd century B.C.
Mysterious Monuments
Some ancient monuments are a mystery. The Moai Statues on Easter Island were carved out of soft volcanic lava and stand over 9m. No one knows how each 16-tonne stone was moved, or erected. The local people have long forgotten the purpose of these giant stones. The significance of these imposing, compelling images remains unexplained.
Stonehenge
Stonehenge, consisting of giant megaliths in a circle, or cromlech, is orientated towards the Summer solstice. It is not clear how these ancient giant sandstones and bluestones were transported from the quarry site, which is over 200 km away.
The Sphinx
The Sphinx, erected about 2,500 B.C., stands majestically alongside the great Pyramids of Gisa in Egypt. The Sphinx is apparently the oldest colossal structure to survive from the ancient world and depicts a giant hybrid beast with the body of a lion and the face of a man.
Triumphal Arches
The Romans erected triumphal arches throughout their territories to celebrate military victories. Napoleon Bonaparte sought to emulate his ancient predecessors by erecting the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, to stir patriotism at home by symbolising military victories abroad.
Nelson’s Column
Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in London, stands 44 metres high. It commemorates the great Naval victory of the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China and Hadrian’s Wall are monuments to attempts by civilisation to protect its people and possessions from foreign attack. Built in the 5th century B.C., the Great Wall of China spans 2,414 km across the Asian continent.
Hadrian’s Wall
Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Romans, stretches 129 km, separating England from Scotland.
The Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate was originally erected in Berlin in 1791, as a symbol of peace. For years, it symbolised the Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, separating Communist enslaved Eastern Europe from the West, flashpoint of the conflict between totalitarianism and freedom. Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it has again become a symbol of freedom and resistance to oppression.
Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, depicts American presidents: George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The granite Mount Rushmore monument depicts 60-foot high faces, some 500-feet above the ground.
Stone Mountain
Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, Georgia, is the largest relief sculpture in the world, commemorating Southern Leaders, General Stonewall Jackson; Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis. Stone Mountain, completed in 1972, sits 400-feet above the ground and measures 90 by 190-feet.
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
In Berlin, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche remains as a reminder of the destruction of the bombing of Berlin by the remaining bomb-scarred bell tower standing next to the new cathedral.
Hiroshima’s Peace Park
The Peace Park in Hiroshima, in Japan, commemorates the victims of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city, 6 August 1945. The shattered Dome of the Hospital which was the epicentre of the A-bomb explosion remains as it was at the time of detonation.
Bethel
In Genesis 28, we read that after Jacob’s encounter with the Lord, he declared: “…How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven!” Genesis 28:17. Then Jacob arose early that morning and took the stone that he had used to rest his head on and set it up as a pillar and anointed it with oil, declaring: “…If God will be with me and keep me in this way that I am going and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my Father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house and of all that You give me, I will surely give a tenth to You.” Genesis 28:20-22
God Commanded Joshua to Build a Monument
In Joshua 4, we read that, after the people of Israel had crossed the Jordan River, the Lord commanded Joshua to select 12 men, one from every Tribe of Israel, to take up a stone from the midst of the Jordan and to use them to erect a monument close to the River. “that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’…And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” Joshua 4:6-7
Jacob’s Well
In John 4, we read of our Lord coming to Sychar, in Samaria, where He witnessed to the woman at Jacob’s Well. It is recorded that: “…our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” John 4:12. That is an acknowledgement that well over 1,800 years later, the people still remembered and acknowledged it as Jacob’s well.
The Voortrekker Monument
The Voortrekker Monument outside Pretoria, 40-metres high, with a base of 40m by 40m. It contains the largest marble frieze in the world. This frieze consists of 27 marble relief panels depicting the history of the Great Trek, the life, struggles and fervent Christian Faith of the Voortrekkers. In many ways the massive marble frieze depicts the vision, journeys, sufferings and achievements of the Voortrekkers, paralleling the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.
The Centrality of God’s Word
The Greek Cross floor plan reflects the fact that the New Testament was revealed in Greek. The centrality of the Word of God is emphasized. The monument’s huge upper dome was designed to draw the visitors’ eye upwards, towards God, who is our Creator, Sovereign Lord and Eternal Judge.
Nature and History
As God communicates in General Revelation through nature and Special Revelation through Scripture, the architect determined to focus on the Word of God and the works of God, both in history and in nature.
The Creation Mandate
The beautiful garden of indigenous flowers, plants and trees surrounding the monument, reflects our duty to fulfil the Cultural Mandate. The 3,4 km² area around the monument was declared a Nature Reserve in 1992. Zebra, Blesbuck, Mountain Reedbuck, Springbuck and Impala flourish in this Nature Reserve.
Duty and Destiny
The Bible presented by the English-speaking 1820 Settlers, to the departing Voortrekkers is prominent in the marble historic frieze, emphasising the importance of the Great Commission. God has placed us at the foot of Africa to take the light of the Gospel of Christ throughout Africa.
Consecration for the Great Commission
From a distance, the Voortrekker Monument resembles an altar, symbolising the Afrikaans peoples’ determination to be consecrated to God, for the fulfilment of the cultural mandate, to care for God’s creation and to develop civilisation in the wilderness and a commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission throughout Africa.
It Is Not the Critic That Counts
Theodore Roosevelt observed: “It is not the critic that counts – nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled; nor whether the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause. Who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and; who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly. So that his place shall never be where those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
“Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted… Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition…” 1 Corinthians 10:6,11
Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
mission@frontline.org.za
www.FrontlineMissionSA.org
www.HMSchoolofChristianJournalism.org
Wind Turbines Generate Mountains of Waste by Duggan Flanakin
Blade waste, other factors prove wind is no more green than solar
Duggan Flanakin
Environmentalists and wind energy opportunists (entrepreneurs who take advantage of overly generous tax credits and multiple other subsidies) want you to believe wind energy is as pure “green” as newly driven snow is white, and as cheap as Taco Bell.
They never tell you about the costs – or the environmental destruction – that they have hidden from you for decades. But neither do most governments, news media or social media.
Ars Technica science editor John Timmer says wind hardware prices are dropping, even as new turbine designs are increasing the typical power generated by each turbine. Timmer did admit that “wind is even cheaper at the moment because of a tax credit given to renewable energy generation” [emphasis added]. He cautioned that phasing out the many existing incentives could surely create uncertainties regarding wind’s future cost and dominance. But that’s about it.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2018 Wind Technologies Market Report glowingly stated: “With the support of federal tax incentives, both wind and solar power purchase agreement (PPA) prices are now below the projected cost of burning natural gas in existing gas-fired combined cycle units.”
This is despite the fact that the DOE’s own data show wind’s “capacity factor” (percent of time actually generating electricity at full capability) is only 35%, compared to 57% for natural gas plants and 92% for nuclear. In many locations, huge industrial wind facilities actually generate power well below 30% of the year. On the hottest and coldest days, it’s often close to zero. That’s why nuclear power plants actually produced 20% of U.S. electricity in 2019, despite having only 9% of the nation’s generation capacity.
In addition to being weather-dependent, intermittent and unreliable, wind turbines cover vast areas of land; affect scenic views and local wind flow, temperature and moisture; kill bats and birds of prey, with no penalties under migratory bird or endangered species laws; have relatively short life spans and require massive amounts of raw materials, especially for ocean turbines, compared to coal, gas, hydroelectric or nuclear plants; involve enormous air and water pollution in faraway countries where a lot of the mining, processing and manufacturing are done, before turbine parts are shipped to America; and more.
All this is just ignored. Similarly, you might also be surprised to learn that not a single page of that massive DOE report mentions the term “wind turbine waste.” Nor does the DOE’s Fact Sheet, “Advancing the Growth of the U.S. Wind Industry: Federal Incentives, Funding and Partnership Opportunities.” It’s as if wind turbines never die and never leave anything behind.
Typically, when turbines reach end-of-life, the project owner replaces the old turbines and blades with newer models; only a few companies have chosen total decommissioning and removal. Some states (most recently Texas and North Carolina) and localities have their own standards. But the only federal standards (overseen by the Bureau of Land Management) are for facilities on federal lands.
The DOE fact sheet provides information on four tax credit programs, three loan and grant programs, four sources for R&D grants and cooperative agreements, and five sources for technology deployment grants – plus a number of partnership opportunities with DOE national laboratories.
But it is silent on wind turbine waste, including huge concrete and rebar foundations, and blades that are up to 107 meters (351 feet) long. So are most politicians, wind advocates and wind energy publications. In fact, turbine foundations and blades are generally not recyclable, economically or otherwise.
The volume of wind turbine waste is projected to soar in years to come, with mining and manufacturing waste, service waste, and end-of-life waste the major sources. It is estimate there will be 43 million metric tons just of blade waste worldwide by 2050. China is projected to be responsible for generating 40% of the waste, followed by Europe (25%) and the USA (19%).
London-based Principia Scientific International calls turbine blades “a toxic amalgam of unique composites, fiberglass, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride foam, polyethylene terephthalate foam, balsa wood, and polyurethane coatings. Basically, there is just too much plastic-composite-epoxy crapola that isn’t worth recycling.” Until better methods are found, about landfills are one of the few options.
In the European Union, used blades are cut up and burned in kilns or power plants. But not in the USA.
A separate tractor-trailer is needed to haul each blade to a landfill, and cutting them up requires powerful specialized equipment. With some 8,000 blades a year already being removed from service just in the United States, that’s 32,000 truckloads over the next four years; in a few years, the numbers will be five times higher.
Some wind energy companies cut the huge blades into short sections before sending them to landfills, because most landfills lack cutting tools. Today’s turbine blades are 20% longer and their towers up to 200 feet taller than most of those currently being landfilled.
Turbine disposal costs are upwards of $400,000 apiece. That means $24 billion to dispose of the 60,000 turbines currently in use in the U.S. The cost and the toll on existing landfills will rise as more, longer, heavier blades reach their end of life.
Over the next 20 years, the U.S. alone could have to dispose of 720,000 tons of waste blade material. Yet a 2018 report predicted a 15% drop in U.S. landfill capacity by 2021, with only some 15 years’ capacity remaining. We will have to permit entirely new landfills simply to handle wind turbine waste – on top of mountains of solar and battery waste.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The Locke Foundation cites University of Kansas studies confirming that wind farms create unsafe flying conditions. The rotational force of wind turbines can create extreme turbulence that makes flying dangerous and landing close by nearly impossible. Indeed, a Michigan county bars air ambulances from rescuing citizens living near wind farms, due to safety concerns.
Moreover, generating just today’s U.S. electricity output with wind power could warm continental USA surface temperatures by 0.24o C (0.43o F), with the warming effect strongest at night. This is only a tenth of the warming generated by solar photovoltaic systems, but not insignificant – and the larger the wind farm, the greater the localized warming.
Back in 2013, when turbines were smaller than today, Lafarge North America said it took about 750 cubic yards (2,500,000 pounds) of concrete (plus rebar) to anchor just one wind turbine; Nextera wind admitted to using over 800 metric tons of concrete per smaller turbine. (These figures do not include the significant concrete and asphalt needed to upgrade rural roads to handle heavy turbine components.)
Furthermore, manufacturing concrete is already the third largest emitter of (shudder!) carbon dioxide – after burning coal, oil and natural gas. It also requires nearly a tenth of the world’s industrial water use.
To sum up, wind farms require a lot of carbon dioxide-emitting concrete, steel, aluminum, plastics, rare earths and other materials. They disturb natural air flows. They decimate bird and bat populations, and cause infrasound and light-flicker that impair human health, while generating relatively little electricity at low capacity and high cost. Dead turbine blades overwhelm landfills.
Yet, advocates would have you believe wind is cheap, clean, green, renewable and sustainable. The Green New Deal joke would be funny, if it weren’t so economically and ecologically expensive.
Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
‘Climate Arson’ and Other Wildfire Nonsense by Paul Driessen
Real goal is to avoid responsibility for policies, and increase control over energy, lives, property
by Paul Driessen
In what has become an annual summer tragedy, wildfires are again destroying western US forests. Millions of acres and millions of animals have been incinerated, hundreds of homes reduced to ash and rubble, dozens of parents and children killed, and many more people left missing, injured or burned.
Air quality across wide regions and entire states is so bad people are told to stay indoors, where many have hibernated for months because of the coronavirus, but indoor air is also contaminated. Acrid smoke and soot have been carried to Chicago and beyond. Firefighters are profiles in courage, as they battle the blazes for days on end, while all too many politicians are displaying profiles in opportunism.
“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if more of America is ablaze?” Joe Biden thundered. “Mother Earth is angry,” Nancy Pelosi pontificated. “She’s telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the West, that the climate crisis is real.”
Despite finally starting to thin out overgrown forests, California Governor Gavin Newsome resorted to the longstanding party line about his state’s wildfires: Manmade “climate change is real. If you don’t believe in science, come to California and observe it with your own eyes.” Washington Governor Jay Inslee agreed. “These are climate fires,” he said. “And we cannot, and we will not, surrender our state and expose people to have their homes burned down and their lives lost because of climate fires,”
It’s ideological nonsense, intended to deflect blame and avoid responsibility for decades of public policy errors and forest mismanagement – and to justify new laws that would multiply government control over energy, industries, jobs, living standards, lives, property, and freedom to choose where and how we live.
One could argue that people shouldn’t have built homes in and near these forests. That they should have been persuaded or compelled to live in crowded urban areas, where crime, riots and Covid run rampant. But they do live in rural areas – and our politicians, land managers and judges have a duty to implement policies and practices that protect their homes, communities and lives, as well indigenous wildlife.
Perhaps slightly warmer or drier summers have made the wildfires slightly more likely or frequent. But decades of laws, lawsuits, fire suppression policies and forest mismanagement practices have guaranteed the buildup of massive amounts of dead and diseased trees, dry brush and grass, and decaying leaves, needles and debris. With every wet spring spurring plant growth that dries up every dry summer, just one lightning strike, careless camper, gender-revealing pyrotechnic or angry arsonist can ignite an inferno.
Because timber harvesting and thinning have been banned for decades, thousands of scrawny trees grow on acreage that should have just a few hundred full-sized mature trees. As of 2017, tens of billions of scrawny trees mix with 6.3 billion dead trees in 11 Western states; state and federal forests in California alone had over 129 million dead trees. Those numbers have most assuredly skyrocketed since 2017, while steadily increasing dry brush and debris now provide even more tinder for super-heated conflagrations.
Flames in average fires along the ground in managed forests might reach several feet in height and temperatures of 1,472° F (800° C), says Wildfire Today. But under conditions now found in western tinderboxes, flame heights can reach 165 feet (50 meters) or more, and crown fires can generate critter-roasting, soil-baking temperatures that exceed 2192 degrees F (1200 C). Wood bursts into flame at 572 F. Aluminum melts at 1220, silver at 1762, and gold at 1943 degrees F (1064 C)! 2192 degrees is hellish.
Most of this heat goes upward, but super-high temperatures incinerate endangered wildlife – as well as organisms and organic matter in thin western soils that for decades afterward can support only weeds, grass and stunted, spindly trees. Western conflagrations jump fire breaks because these ferocious fires are fueled by the unprecedented increase in combustibles that radical environmentalist policies have created.
These monstrous fires generate their own high winds and even mini tornados that carry burning branches high into the air, to be deposited hundreds of feet away, igniting new fires.
None of this has a thing to do with climate change. To say a 0.1, 0.5 or even 1.0 degree change in average global temperatures would alter these forest fire dynamics defies credibility. To say the monumental fuel buildups in our forests are irrelevant is like claiming a minimally furnished home will burn as easily and ferociously as one filled to the brim with furniture, books, old newspapers and cans of gasoline.
The solution is simple, though expensive and time-consuming at this point. Cut the red tape. Remove some of that fuel, so that fires don’t get so big, hot, powerful, and destructive. Clear wider areas around buildings, homes and communities. Create more, wider fire breaks. Build more roads that let people escape the flames. Send the timber to sawmills, to create jobs and tax revenues, and American lumber for affordable homes. Clear out brush and grass under transmission lines – and upgrade the transmission lines. Bolster rapid-response airborne and ground-based firefighting capabilities.
Up to now, all this has been prohibited, litigated and shut down in states that now have horrific fires. Radical Greens have even blocked cattle grazing that would control grass and brush in national forests.
Still not convinced? Look at recent major fires that petered out when they reached managed forests.
For years, San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation foresters chain-sawed overgrown trees, harvested better timber, improved timber stands, and used controlled, prescribed burns, weed killer and other measures to keep their forests healthy, protect sacred sites, and preserve jobs and wildlife. They even turn scrubby trash trees into particle board and sell it for furniture, as part the tribe’s timber business.
In 2017, the Wallow Fire, the most destructive wildfire in Arizona history, burned 538,000 acres – but fizzled out when it reached the reservation’s well-managed forest. A year later, the Rattlesnake Fire torched more than 20,000 acres in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest – but likewise faded out when it reached the neighboring White Mountain Apache timberlands, which had also been managed responsibly and proactively, using the same management practices that guide San Carlos Apache foresters.
Similar success stories can be found in the most unlikely place: California. For decades, the Southern California Edison electric utility employed selective logging, prescribed burns and other management strategies in its Shaver Lake Forest. This year’s Creek Fire raged through treetops and several hundred thousand acres in the Sierra National Forest. But when it reached the SoCalEd timberlands, it dwindled into a low-intensity surface or ground fire – which doesn’t incinerate big trees and wildlife.
Back in August 2013, the monstrous high-intensity Rim Fire immolated 180,000 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest. Thankfully the National Park Service (NPS) had been employing prescribed burning and other proactive management practices for years in Yosemite National Park next door. When the wildfire reached the park, it turned into a far less destructive surface fire.
The ferocious Rough Fire of 2015 roared through California’s Sequoia and Sierra National Forests, totally torching 150,000 acres. But it too became a ground fire when it reached Sequoia National Park, where the NPS had also used prescribed burns and other good management practices for decades.
A final point. The raging fires in our long mismanaged forests are not natural. They are not what used to burn with regularity through America’s forests. A century of fire suppression and fuel accumulation means they turn into superheated infernos. Manage them properly first. Then let nature work again.
The lesson? Regardless of what Earth’s climate may do – regardless of who or what may be responsible for any fluctuations – we must take responsible, appropriate, effective measures now. Doing so will save habitats, wildlife, homes and human lives today, and tomorrow.
We cannot and must let more megafires incinerate forests and people for decades to come, under an hubristic, misguided, ideological belief that we can eventually end global fossil fuel use and control planetary climate and weather conditions, thereby somehow making monster wildfires a dim memory.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.
The Weekly Sam: Should Christians Support Education Without God? by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Back in 1849, when the organized Protestants of Massachusetts
debated whether or not to support the public school movement, which was
then being heavily promoted by the Unitarians, they decided in favor of
support, but with well-expressed conditions. They wrote:
” The benefits of this system, in offering instruction to all, are so many and so great
that its religious deficiencies,–especially since they can be otherwise supplied, do not
seem to be a sufficient reason for abandoning it, and adopting in place of it, a system
of denominational parochial schools ….It is however a great evil to withdraw from the established system of common schools, the interest and influence of the religious part of the community. On the whole, it seems to be the wisest course, at least for the present, to do all in our power to perfect as far as it can be done, not only its intellectual, but also its moral and religious character.
If after a full and faithful experiment, it should at last be seen that fidelity to the
religious interests of our children forbids a further patronage of the system, we can
unite with the Evangelical Christians in the establishment of private schools, in which
more full doctrinal religious instruction may be possible. But, until we are forced to this result, it seems to us desirable that the religious community do all in their power to give an opportunity for a full and fair experiment of the existing system, including not only the common schools, but also the Normal Schools and the Board of Education.”
I don’t believe that any Christian can doubt that there has been a “full
and fair experiment” of public education for the last 150 years and that its
fidelity to the religious interests of Christian children has been proven to be
decidedly negative. In fact, thousands of Christian parents, without
knowledge of what was written in 1849, have already taken their children
out of the public schools and either decided to homeschool them or place
them in Christian schools. Their responsibilities as Christian parents have
led them to make the necessary decision for the sake of their children’s
spiritual wellbeing.
But what is disturbing is that most Christians still patronize a system
that is undermining the religious beliefs of their children. One wonders what
must happen before these parents realize the harm they are doing to their
children by keeping them in the public schools. The simple fact is that the present government education system has as its foundation an anti-Christian philosophy known as secular humanism. All one has to do is read the Humanist Manifestos I and II to confi rm the truth of this assertion. Humanist Manifesto I was written in 1933 by young
Unitarian ministers who believed that the spiritual power of orthodox
religion was in decline and should be replaced by a rational, man-centered,
nontheistic religion. They wrote:
“Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science
makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values ….
Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the
end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. .. .
Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the
fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and
direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of
human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions,
their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be
reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the
modern world.”
Humanism is the only religion in America that has as its purpose and
program the reconstitution of the institutions, rituals, and ecclesiastical
methods of other religions. This is an overt declaration of war against
Biblical religion. Forty years later, Humanist Manifesto II states:
“As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. [W]e can
discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species …. No deity will save
us; we must save ourselves.”
In the January/February 1983 issue of The Humanist magazine, a
young scholar by the name of John J. Dunphy expressed exactly what the
aim of humanists is in education:
“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in
the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the
proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the
spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must
embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for
they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey
humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of educational level-
preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an
arena of conflict between the old and the new–the rotting corpse of Christianity,
together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent
in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of ‘love thy
neighbor’ will finally be achieved.”
The humanist war against Christianity is going on everyday in the
classrooms of America. But the real battle is being fought in the courtrooms
of the nation. In March 1987, U.S. District Judge W. Brevard Hand ruled in
Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County. Alabama that
the public school curriculum was based on the tenets of secular humanism,
and he thereby ordered that humanist textbooks to be removed from the
schools. Five months later this ruling was overturned by the Eleventh
Circuit Court which stated that “none of these books convey a message of
government approval of secular humanism.”
In other words, humanists are free to teach their dogma in the public
schools as long as the government does not convey a message of
approval. But that is the argument used to keep Christianity out. It is said
that the mere inclusion of anything Christian in a public school curriculum
automatically implies government approval. The notion that public schools are neutral when it comes to religion is belied by the strong prejudice against Christianity as openly expressed by such humanists as John Dunphy. What we have is not neutrality but
warfare. Until Christians recognize that the government schools are
establishments of religion, and that education is fundamentally a religious
activity, we shall not be able to deal realistically with our educational crisis.
The message for Christian parents must be loud and clear: putting a
child in a public school violates God’s commandment as given in
Deuteronomy 6 to educate a child in the love and admonition of the Lord.
There is no substitute for a godly education. In place of God, the public
schools offer evolution, sex education, death education, multiculturalism,
transcendental meditation, situational ethics, drug education, and other
forms of humanist teachings. These are the programs that are creating the
new nihilist, amoral barbarians that are devastating the lives of thousands
of parents. There is hardly a Christian family that has not lost a child to the
satanic culture that grows in the public school environment.
If Christians wish to restore America as a nation under God, they shall
have to educate their children in schools that revere Him .•
This article is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archive: https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
The Weekly Sam: Its Not About Race, Stupid, It’s About Ideology by Sam Blumenfeld
(Sam wrote this article before the election of Obama in 2008.)
Considering the fact that millions of white folks in thirty states voted for Barack Obama
instead of Hillary Clinton ought to be proof enough that the American people are no
longer negatively influenced by race when it comes to choosing political leadership.
This is true, regardless of what has come out of the mouth of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He
represents the racist past, while Obama represents the non-racist future.
But what Republicans and conservatives don’t like about Obama is not his race but his
ideology. After all, if Thomas Sowell were running for President, conservatives would
back him to the hilt. The problem with Obama is that he represents the far left ideology
of the Democratic Party, otherwise known as Socialism, the philosophy of government
that advocates bureaucratic control over all aspects of life.
When Obama advocates “unity,” he surely must be aware of the great divide that
separates the two political parties. The Democratic Party is the party of the advanced
Nanny State. The Republican Party is theoretically still the party of limited government,
low taxes, individual freedom, less government regulation of the economy, and
traditional moral principles. Thus, there is no way that the great divide between the two major political parties can be cemented over by talk of “unity.” The existence of the two political parties with
opposing philosophies of government guarantee that we shall be living in an ideologically
divided society for the foreseeable future. Liberals will continue to control the education
of most American children, thus spreading the ideas of Socialism among younger
generations, and conservatives will assert traditional spiritual and moral values by
adherence to the teachings of the Bible and the original intent of the Framers of the U. S.
Constitution.
Homeschoolers, although small in numbers, will have a disproportionate influence on
conservative politics. The astonishing success of Patrick Henry College in getting its
graduates into key positions in Congress, the media, and the judiciary, bodes well for the
future of Christian political purpose
Recent elections have shown that the see-sawing between left and right indicate that
neither political party is going to be able to overwhelmingly impose its philosophy on the
American people. This is all to the good, because it means that no one President, who is
the leader of his party, can become a dictator in a nation as divided as we are. Not even
Bill Clinton could ignore the great divide, and much as she may try, Hillary will not be
able to deliver the kind of “unity” Obama prattles about.
If leftist Obama is elected, we shall see a conservative reaction that will stymie many of
his programs. But, if his victory also brings in full Democratic control of Congress, then
he may, like LBJ in 1965, be able to push through some of his ultra-liberal programs. But
in the next election, we would, no doubt, see a strong resurgence of conservatism.
Just as we have seen that there cannot be a permanent Republican majority in Congress
and the White House as Karl Rove would have liked to achieve, so it is unlikely that we
shall see a permanent Democratic majority controlling Congress. Regardless of what
happens in November 2008, our divided politics will provide a kind of equilibrium
between our warring factions. Our cultural civil war will continue but not become
physical.
Yet, each President is confronted with daunting challenges. All was peace and light for
George Bush until Osama bin Ladin gave us 9/11. We then found ourselves at war with
radical Islam. This was a new kind of war that had to be fought in a new kind of way.
Whether or not you believe that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, we are now there
and whoever is President will have to deal with that problem. And whatever solution is
adopted, the American people will have to deal with its consequences.
The President of the United States is still considered the most powerful political figure in
the world and the leader of the free world. He projects America’s abiding ideals of
individual freedom, human rights, and benign government. He is also
Commander-in-Chief of the world’s largest and most powerful military force. And all of
that is supported by the largest, richest, and most dynamic economy on the globe.
We may already be in a serious recession. But that’s nothing new. Our economy
expands and contracts according to a whole battery of economic factors. We have a
consumer driven economy dependent on easy consumer credit. Only paper money
churned out by the Federal Reserve’s printing presses can sustain such an economy.
Inherent in such a system is the continued devaluation of the currency.
Who would have ever thought that one day the Canadian dollar would be worth more
than the American buck? These are just some of the things the next President will be
confronted with. We wish him or her good luck!.