The Weekly Sam: An Open Letter to American Jews by Sam Blumenfeld

 

(The following is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives.  It was written in 1960 during the Kennedy-Nixon Campaign, but if he were alive today, he could have written a letter warning Jews and Americans of the anti-Semitic polices of Kamala Harris.  Sam was the founder of American Friends of Algeria.)

Recently. three prominent Jewish leaders protested to Vice President Nixon because his press secretary had brought to their attention an editorial in an Israeli newspaper urging American Jews to vote for Nixon. The Jewish leaders were somewhat shocked because they were appealed to as Jews and not simply as Americans, and in their protest, they termed the press secretary’s action as Han insult to our faith.” This protest, the Jewish leaders asserted. was a personal action on their part and did not represent the opinions of the membership of their organizations. However, the protest as carried and reported in the press gave readers the impression that these leaders were speaking for the entire Jewish community. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to address this letter to ~ coreligionists who are somewhat dismayed and confused by this whole incident and who suspect that in all of this smoke there may be some fire.

As an American Jew I do not consider it an insult to my faith to be informed of opinion in security-sensitive Israel concerning our Presidential candidates and their policies. The Israeli newspaper, in its awkward way, was trying to say what a great many Americans of all faiths firmly believe that Kennedy’s foreign policy does represent a line of appeasement which could ultimately lead to the destruction of Israel and the West. Do I speak as a biased Republican? No, for I am a registered Democrat who this November will be voting Republican for the first time.  Am I making groundless assertions or distorting Senator Kennedy’s words? Again, no. for the record is there for everyone who wants to see it in a. collection of the Senator’s ‘speeches entitled Strategy for Peace, and the Senator has not repudiated one word of it. Take, for example, the matter of Algeria–whose fate in a geopolitical sense has a very direct bearing on the future security of Israeli

The Senator has made his views quite clear on Algeria. In a startling Senate speech in 1957 strongly echoing the line of the. American Friends of the Middle East–an organization dedicated to the advancement of Arab nationalism and the. destruction of Israel–Senator Kennedy urged the United States to betray its major ally France in favor of the FLN terrorists who seek to establish their dictatorship over all of Algeria. Now, Algeria is not a purely Moslem country. It is, in fact. a multi-religious community which has been for the last 100 years a legal part of the French Republic and whose inhabitants are French citizens. The Moslem terrorists who seek to separate Algeria from France do not have the popular. support of their own people. They are a minority faction using terror. extortion and assassination as the means to achieve domination. Until now they have murdered and injured over 30.0000! their fellow Moslem civilians. This has made their cause anything but popular with the inhabitants of Algeria. Yet, this is the· group to which Senator Kennedy urged the United States to lend its support jeopardizing our military alliance with France as well as a close association and friendship which goes back to the days of Washington and Jefferson.

Now. you may ask, what bearing does this have on Israel or American Jews? The answer is this: Should Senator Kennedy’s policy be adopted after his election and should it succeed~ it would mean the expulsion of France from Algeria, the consolidation of Nasser’s Pan-Arab empire in North Africa, the inevitable destruction of French Algerian Jewry, and the enlistment of Algeria in the economic blockade against Israel. It should be noted that the Algerian rebels have taken part in all of the Arab League conferences dealing with Israel and are in full accord with general Arab aim of destroying Israel. Now, in what way would an independent” Algeria hasten the destruction. of Israel.  One, it would add Algeria and its vast resources to the strength of the Arab block. Two, it would free Arab energies .to concentrate on the ultimate goal of destroying Israel; three, it would deprive Israel of France~ a military ally.  Algerian France would no longer find it necessary to come to the aid of Israel in case of an attack from Nasser.  France, it should be remembered, supplied. Israel with the Jets and tanks which made a victory in Sinai possible; four, it would add Algeria to the Arab bloc in the United Nations and enlist her in the general Arab campaign to spread anti-Semitism throughout Africa and the rest .of the world.

These are only the more direct effects which Kennedy’s policy, if successful, would have on the security of Israel. But what would this policy mean in the greater world picture to betray France would not only serve to aggravate and weaken our ally, but also to cause a serious rift in the Western alliance, which is exactly what the communists have been trying to achieve since the formation of NATO. As for anti-Semitism, there is no doubt that it would increase dangerously in France where, for some strange self-destructive reasons, such distinguished Jews as Mendes-France and Servan-Schreiber have openly espoused the cause of the Algerian nationalists, despite the glaring fact that the vast majority of Algerians of all religious communities have in two massive referendums expressed their determination to  remain French.

This is just a brief outline of the effects which only one of Senator Kennedy’s future actions might have in the realm of foreign policy. Several indications. however, become very clear in the various remarks and speeches the Senator has made in his first  decade for example, he has an almost obsessive hostility toward France, which does not augur well for the Western alliance. This hostility has manifested itself in the many anti-French statements the Senator has made concerning Indochina. Algeria and NATO.  In one speech Sen. Kennedy made the amazing remark that the French atomic bomb was aimed at Washington and not Moscow. This would lead one to conclude that the Senator considers France a greater menace then Russia.

Now, what does this mean for Americans, particularly those who area1~o Jews1 Jews should be reminded that France is Israel’s only military friend and should therefore be given as much support as possible by them. Kennedy’s anti-French policy is, indirectly. an anti-Israel policy, for in effect it accomplishes the same thing: it strengthens Arab nationalism and weakens Israel’s defense position. Kennedy’s anti-French policy also weakens the West in general and strengthens the communist hand in Western Europe and North Africa.

It is no secret that the communists have been supporting the Algerian nationalists since the beginning of the rebellion and hope to reap the benefits of an FLN victory. As the reader will notice I have not had to mention Quemoy or Matsu in criticizing Senator Kennedy’s policy of appeasement. The Israelis, on the other hand, have found reason to be wary of the Senator. They see their security position from a world view, and it is quite understandable for them to want to influence their fellow Jews in voting for a President whose policies will have a very direct bearing on their future security. Now, of course, Jews as Americans are free to vote for whomever they please and for whatever reasons they see fit. However, if history has taught the Jews any lesson, it is that they cannot afford the luxury of a homegrown isolationism which, in a national election, shuts off everything from view but local party loyalty. It is clear to anyone who follows international developments that the security of Israel will not be strengthened by a Kennedy victory. In fact, the opposite will be the result.

It is incumbent upon the Jews of America that they be properly informed before they vote on November 8th. I have written this letter because I have felt it a duty to bring these views to the attention of my coreligionists who, through a coalition of deceitful forces, are being prevented from seeing the true facts of the world situation.

October 26,1960 SAMUEL L BLUMENFELD

The Blumenfeld Archives

UN, EU, ICJ, Climate Cabal want to keep world’s poor impoverished

 

They proclaim a ‘human right’ to ‘clean environment’ but not to reliable energy or better health

Paul Driessen

On the evening of September 30, 1882, Henry Rogers turned a switch and the Hearthstone Historic House living room in Appleton, Wisconsin (my mother’s hometown) was bathed in a soft amber glow. Hearthstone became the first home in the world lit by electricity.

Today, few can imagine our lives without plentiful, reliable, affordable electricity – for lights, computers, washers, driers, dishwashers, heating, air conditioning, television, vehicles, hospitals, schools, factories, data centers, artificial intelligence and more, to light, improve and sustain our lives.

And yet nearly 750 million people still have no access to electricity. Billions more have minimal, sporadic access. The vast majority live in Sub-Saharan Africa: 600 million with no electricity; hundreds of millions more with minimal or sporadic power. Many Asians and Latin Americans are similarly deprived. Often, electrification rates are high in cities but extremely low in the countrysides.

Incredibly, across much of Europe, millions of poor and middle-class families are also deprived. Many simply cannot afford electricity prices that have skyrocketed in the wake of coal, gas and nuclear power plant closures, in favor of wind and solar installations.

Other Europeans no longer have jobs, because factories and entire industries cannot afford those prices, closed down and sent their jobs to China and other coal-based-electricity nations. Still others are being told by climate-obsessed pressure group, media and political elites to light, heat and cool only one room, wear more sweaters, and appreciate electricity when it’s available, not gripe about its cost or absence.

Europe refuses to frack for oil and gas … but imports Russian fuels, thereby sustaining Putin’s war on Ukraine’s citizens and civilian infrastructure.

Several US states have also imposed Euro-style electricity rates, rolling or recurring blackouts, and economic disruption in the name of saving the planet from climate calamities.

Leading, applauding and demanding this insanity are the United Nations, European Union, International Court of Justice (ICJ), multilateral anti-development banks, non-governmental organizations and even the now-defunct USAID. They harp about climate emergencies, demand that countries switch to “clean” energy, and refuse to approve or finance fossil fuel projects even for Africa.

The ICJ recently asserted that people have a “human right” to a “clean, healthy, sustainable environment” – which to the court means no impacts from fossil-fuel-driven climate change. It said nothing about rights to reliable and affordable energy, modern healthcare or decent living standards.

These proclamations and policies carry serious and often lethal consequences, especially for the world’s poorest people. They excuse and justify policies that effectively keep families and nations mired in poverty, squalor, joblessness, disease and malnutrition.

President Trump has excoriated the UN for its “brutal” climate and Net Zero policies. The rest of the world should do likewise.

The ICJ-defined right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment also ignores the reality that “clean energy” requires extensive mining and minerals processing, using fossil fuels and resulting in extensive toxic land, air and water pollution. Much of this dirty work is done in the poor families’ own backyards (because the elites want no mining or processing in their fiefdoms), and much of it involves child and slave labor, no or substandard workplace safety rules, and rampant land and habitat desecration.

The subsequent wind, solar and transmission installations impact hundreds of times more crop, habitat and scenic lands than coal or gas power plants that generate electricity in far greater quantities, far more reliably, far less expensively.

In India’s Thar Desert, next to Pakistan, native species are being sacrificed on the climate crisis and clean energy altar. Solar panels already blanket over 200 square miles; more than 2.5 million trees have been cut down to install them; and another 14,000 square miles of habitat (almost equal to Switzerland or half of South Carolina) could be clear cut for more panels, Vijay Jayaraj reports.

Even ponds that once attracted pelicans and a dozen other species are covered with solar panels. Numerous other wild species are also struggling to survive as their habitats are destroyed. Cleaning and cooling the panels already requires the equivalent of 300,000 people’s drinking water needs every week.

This destruction is happening all over the world. The ICJ still insists wind and solar power foster “clean, healthy, sustainable, climate friendly” economies – and ignores the privation it perpetuates.

The limited, intermittent, unpredictable electricity from Climate Cabal-approved generators guarantees that the world’s still-impoverished people will never have the appliances we take for granted. They may eventually have cell phones and laptops, a few lights, dorm-room refrigerators, and jobs maintaining “renewable” power systems.

However, they will never enjoy the modern healthcare, homes and living standards that require 24/7/365 coal, gas, nuclear or hydroelectric power.

So before we let Net Zero fanatics in the Climate Industrial Complex inflict their lies, ideologies and policies on people who’ve never had an opportunity to enjoy – much less reject – the marvels of modern civilization, let’s ask those prospective victims if they’re okay with that version of a “clean, sustainable” future. With giving up their aspirations for the lives and wonders they see in movies and magazines.

Let’s find out whether they’ve had a chance to speak with their European counterparts, and inquire about how Europe’s automotive, glass, pharmaceutical and other industries are faring. How many workers still have jobs. How many companies have moved their operations to China, India or other faraway locales. How much they enjoy living under the costs and restrictions imposed by EU politicians and bureaucrats.

Eastern Europeans weren’t overjoyed to exchange six years under the Nazis for 50 years under the benevolent people’s republics of the Soviet Union. Poor families in Africa, Asia and Latin America might not equally unexcited about the prospect of swapping their current daily grinds for the minimally better lives envisioned for them by would-be global ruling elites.

Perhaps they will no longer have to live in mud-and-thatch huts, carry water from distant wells, cook over wood and dung fires that infect women and babies with lung diseases, get intestinal diseases from parasite-infected water and spoiled food, suffer from malaria and other insect-borne diseases, be treated in antiquated hospitals that don’t even have window screens, and die decades before they should.

But how much better will their lives be under policies imposed by elites who decide their fates after flying private jets from one of their mansions to the next 5-star UN-sanctioned climate or economic conference?

The world’s poor don’t just have a human right to truly clean, healthy, sustainable environments. They have a right to enjoy the benefits of affordable 24/7 electricity, well-paid jobs, and all the modern appliances, healthcare, homes, prosperity and 6,000+ products made from petrochemicals that most people in industrialized nations already enjoy.

And do so without being guilted and conned by phony claims that aspiring to such energy and lives will bring worsening storms and inundations from rising seas, more forest fires, stressed blood supplies and other catastrophes conjured up by climate grifters and their political, academic and media allies.

Poor and developing nations need to band together, finance their own energy infrastructure, development, health and prosperity – and tell the carbon colonialists to take a hike.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death, and other books and articles on energy, climate change, economic development and human rights.

Contact me: pkdriessen@gmail.com

The Weekly Sam: Darwin Versus Intelligent Design By Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Back in 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1981 Louisiana law which
mandated a balanced treatment in teaching evolution and creation in the public schools.
The Court decided that the intent of the law “was clearly to advance the religious
viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind,” and therefore violated the First
Amendment’s prohibition on a government establishment of religion. In other words, the
Court adopted the atheist position that creation is a religious myth.

In speaking for the majority, Justice William J. Brennan wrote: “The legislative history
documents that the act’s primary purpose was to change the science curriculum of public
schools in order to provide an advantage to a particular religious doctrine that rejects the
factual basis of evolution in its entirety.”

The learned Justice seemed unaware that some of the world’s greatest scientists were and
are devout Christians and, that dogmatic atheism, not religion, is destroying true science.
Also, though his job requires him to uphold the Constitution, Justice Brennan willfully
ignored the historical fact that, to the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution, an
“establishment of religion” meant a state church, such as they have in England with the
Anglican Church, which is the official church of England.  Belief in God is not the same thing as establishing an official government-sponsored
religious denomination. Belief in a supernatural being who created mankind is not an
establishment of religion.

What exactly is the Theory of Evolution? For the answer, we must go to the source:
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859. In his book,
whose racist subtitle has been suppressed in modern editions for obvious reasons, Darwin
claimed that the thousands of different species of animals, insects, and plants that exist on
earth were not the works of a Divine Creator who made each of the “kinds” in its present
immutable form, as described in Genesis (e.g., frogs produce frogs, not princes), but are
the products of a very long natural process of development from simpler organic forms to
more complex organisms.

Thus, according to Darwin, species continue to change or “evolve,” through a process of
natural selection in which nature’s harsh conditions permit only the fittest to survive in
more adaptable forms. However, while controlled breeding can produce varieties inside
the dog species, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes, dogs are still dogs. “Survival of the
fittest” is incapable of turning one species into another. Whatever external conditions we
may provide for a dog, these will not change its basic dog DNA.
Darwin also believed that all life originated from a single source – a kind of primeval
slime in which the first living organisms formed spontaneously out of non-living matter
through a random process – by accident.

The first false idea in Darwin’s hypothesis is that non-organic matter can transform itself
into organic matter. Although this belief in “spontaneous generation” was common at the
time, Pasteur and others have conclusively disproved it. Life does not arise from non-life
at the macro level, and at the micro level all the laboratory experiments that claim to
produce “building blocks” of life have failed to do so, in spite of all the hype to the
contrary. See the book Icons of Evolution by Dr. Jonathan Wells for some eye-opening
debunking of this and other myths still taught in your local school’s textbooks.
Justice Brennan called evolution “factual,” which simply indicates the depth of his
ignorance. There is no factual basis to evolution. The fossil record shows no intermediary
forms of species development. We’ve never seen it happen, either. No scientist has been
able to mate a cat with a donkey and get something in between. And modern genetics has
shown us that we need complex “programs” to grow from a single cell into a human
being. But mutations, which destroy information, can’t add more complexity to
succeeding generations. So neither Darwin’s simplistic belief in the inheritance of
acquired characteristics nor our newer knowledge of genetics provides any way
species-to-species evolution could ever happen.
The enormous complexity of organic matter precludes accidental creation. There had to
be a designer.

There is now a whole scientific school devoted to the design theory. William A.
Dembski’s book, Intelligent Design, published in 1999, is the pioneering work that
bridges science with theology. Dembski writes:

“Intelligent design is three things: a scientific research program that investigates the
effects of intelligent causes; an intellectual movement that challenges Darwinism and its
naturalistic legacy; and a way of understanding divine action. It was Darwin’s expulsion
of design from biology that made possible the triumph of naturalism in Western culture.
So, too, it will be intelligent design’s restatement of design within biology that will be the
undoing of naturalism in Western culture.”

Dembski proves that design is “empirically detectable,” because we can observe it all
around us. The birth of a child is a miracle of design. The habits of your household cat
are a miracle of design. All cats do the same things. These are the inherited
characteristics of the species. The idea that accident could create such complex behavior
passed on to successive generations simply doesn’t make sense. The complexity of design
proves the existence of God. Dembski writes:

Indeed within theism divine action is the most basic mode of causation since any other
mode of causation involves creatures which themselves were created in a divine act.
Intelligent design thus becomes a unifying framework for understanding both divine and
human agency and illuminates several long-standing philosophical problems about the
nature of reality and our knowledge of it.”

So why are the courts and the schools so fanatically opposed to even allowing children to
know there are arguments against evolution? Because evolution provides the perfect
“scientific” excuse for keeping the God of the Bible out of public education. It’s not the
idea of design per se that worries them; it’s Who the Designer is. That’s why the media
are showing increasing support for the “life came from outer space” theory and even the
“life came from intelligent aliens who seeded our planet” theory. Evolution is tottering,
and the search is on for any Designer except the real one.
So, while what the Intelligent Design movement has to say can be helpful, let’s just
remember that the real issue is not whether there was a Designer or just a bunch of
Random Accidents.

(The above article is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives:

The Blumenfeld Archives

Happy Birthday U.S. Constitution

Today, Wednesday September 17 marks the 238th anniversary of the end of the Constitutional Convention which created what Daniel Webster said was the “works of the purest patriots and wisest statemen that ever existed.”  He, of course, was referring to the U.S. Constitution.  Sadly, far too many Americans know little to nothing about the Constitution.

Here is a condensed version of a recent encounter I had to reenforce my statement:

On Saturday August 16, we-Camp Constitution-had an information table at Londonderry’s Old Town Day celebration.   A woman in her mid-sixties came by the table expressing her initial approval of our presence.  She was critical of Trump’s tariffs and told me that his tariffs “were not constitutional.”    I agreed saying that under Section 1, Article 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to impose tariffs.  The specific wording:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts…”   Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 1.”

I told her that while I approved of tariffs in general, Trump should have received the approval of Congress.  At this point she was still an ally.  I then explained that the New Deal Democrats in Congress unconstitutionally gave some power to levy tariffs to Franklin Roosevelt.  It was called the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.  Congress passed two more bills in 1962 and 1974 granting even more power to the President.  All three bills were passed in Democrat controlled Congresses.

The lady didn’t like to hear that Democrats were the ones that enabled Trump.  Her pleasant countenance changed from friendly to confrontational.    She asked me who I thought were Constitutionalist in Congress.  “There are not very many” I replied, “Thomas Massie in the House, and Rand Paul in the Senate are two that come to mind”  They both score 90% and above on the Freedom Index while Chris Pappas is a dismal 5%.   https://thenewamerican.com/freedom-index/

 

`

 

She told me that she supports Chris Pappas. “You denounce Trump for his unconstitutional tariffs but support Pappas who almost always violates his oath of office,” I responded.  “I am very angry,” was her reply and she left in a huff.  She is typical of far too many voters in New Hampshire, and the U.S.  They know nothing about the U.S. Constitution.  They only regurgitate talking points from the Democrat Party and their allies in the corporate media.   At least Trump used laws passed by Democrats to justify his tariffs with the intent of it protecting the American worker-something that both major parties failed to do over the past fifty years.

A week earlier, we had a float in Alton’s Old Home Week Parade as we have for the past five years where we pass out pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution to spectators.    The local Democrat Party also had a float and, to our surprise, also passed out pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution. What was even more surprising was that they were passing out copies obtained from the National Center for Constitution Studies (NCCS)-the same ones that we use.

While I doubt that anyone will be denouncing the local Democrats as Christian Nationalists, and members of a far-right fringe group, the Democrats should have consulted with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) before passing them out.  The SPLC considers the NCCS as far right.   By the way, the SPLC has us listed on their Hate Map as an anti-government organization but in the wrong state:    https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map/?hm_year=2024&hm_state=NC

Here are some quotes contained in that version that we and the  Democrats  passed out:

“[The adoption of the Constitution] will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Province as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it.”

George Washington

“I regard it [the Constitution] as the work of the purest patriots and wisest statesmen that ever existed aided by the smiles of a benignant Providence…; it almost appears a Divine interposition in our behalf.”

Daniel Webster

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

John Adams

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have  more need of master.”

Benjamin Franklin

Let’s honor the memory of those 38 delegates who signed the U.S. Constitution not by paying lip service  to them, but by learning about the document they blessed us with and then ensuring that we hold our elected officials at all levels accountable to their oath that they took to defend it.

Today, there are many organizations that offer instruction on the Constitution which include:

The National Center for Constitutional Studies https://nccs.net/

The Institute on the Constitution Institute on the Constitution | Online Constitution Classes

Hillsdale College https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses

And Camp Constitution  https://campconstitution.net

Readers who would like a free pocket copy of the Constitution can E-mail me at campconstitution1@gmail.com

Happy Birthday U.S. Constitution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Constitution Chaplain: Charlie Kirk A True Martyr

 

To all those “Who have Ears to Hear”
Our Brother Charlie Kirk has gone to his Heavenly Home to be with his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
 He was a Christian Brother in the Battle for Truth. He never wavered in speaking the truth no matter the cost.
Charlie was a man who saw the times in which we live, who loved truth enough to say the hard thing and who believed that boldness and courage must rise in the pulpit and in the public square!
 I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:7, ” I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. This is Charlie’s testimony, and now it is our call. !!!
 Satan will not quit, his lies will not stop, the war for truth, faith, and family must go forward. We must rise up and take up the “blood-stained banner” that Charlie left us and carry the vision forward!!
 So, we must not show fear, we must not shrink back, we must not compromise, but we must run our own race in Christ Jesus with the same boldness that our brother Charlie Kirk has been faithful to complete!
Charlie has now received his Martyr’s  Crown! May we all do likewise!
Sincerely in Christ Jesus
Reverend Steven Louis Craft, Chaplain Camp Constitution.

Remembering Charlie Kirk by Sarah Krutov

 

In 2019, I attended my very first  Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event in Washington, D.C. That’s where I bumped into
Charlie Kirk in the exhibit hall and met him for the first time. I remember asking if it was possible
to pursue both music and a career in politics. He gave me an honest answer: “Choose one or
the other.” I chose the latter, but that moment planted something in me that changed my life.
During that conference, I realized I had a genuine passion for politics and for my generation.
From then on, I worked with TPUSA to help countless students find their voices on campus, and
eventually had the honor of serving on the team to help 47 win.

If it hadn’t been for attending TSAS in 2019 and meeting Charlie, I wouldn’t have met some of
my closest friends, experienced the incredible opportunities that shaped my path, or discovered
the conviction to stand firm in my beliefs and use them as a force for good.
Charlie was truly a man of God who loved his family, his country, and the next generation with
everything he had. His mission wasn’t just about politics—it was about people. He wanted to
build a stronger America not only for his children, but for my generation and those to come. He
cared deeply about helping students on hostile campuses find their voices, and about pointing
everyone he encountered closer to Jesus.

Charlie Kirk had a tremendous impact on the lives of millions of young people. He gave Gen Z
the courage to stand up for what they believed in within a system that too often tried to silence
them. He valued conversation and connection, once saying: “When you stop having a human
connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence
against that group.”

Charlie Kirk will forever be remembered as a man of strong faith who loved his country and
worked tirelessly to make America a better place. The Christian conservative movement will feel
his absence deeply, but his legacy will continue in all of us who keep fighting for the values he
lived for.

Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk.

(The author was a camper and then served as  a counselor at Camp Constitution.)

 

RIP, Charlie Kirk: “It’s All About Jesus” by Alex Newman

 

Charlie Kirk was an American hero. He was a giant among men. And his legacy as a martyr for Christ and liberty will live on long after we’re all gone.

We need more MEN like Charlie—men who love Jesus, love their wives, lead their families, stand for truth, and are willing to put their own lives on the line for the sake of God and what’s right. I hope this horrific act will inspire millions of American men to do better.

It was an incredible privilege to spend a little bit of time with him on several occasions over the last few years. He asked me to be a keynote speaker at two of his conferences, and I was astounded by how genuine, kind, and down-to-earth he was—not just to me, but with everybody, even those who disagreed with and hated him.

I’ll never forget the first TPUSA Education Summit he hosted in 2023. I spoke right after him on a subject they requested: “Thinking like a theologian.” Not being a theologian, it was intimidating—especially with Charlie and other legends sitting right there.

Trying to break the ice, I opened nervously with: “You know you’ve made it when Charlie Kirk is your warm-up band.” I wasn’t sure how Charlie would take my joke. But I was incredibly relieved that he laughed with everyone else, and even invited me back to give a keynote talk at the summit in 2024 too.

There is no doubt in my mind that Charlie is in a better place right now, in the loving arms of our Lord and Savior. God numbers our days, and He will take each of us home someday. But even understanding in my mind the sovereignty of God and the fact that His plan is better than ours, I must admit that this hit me hard. I literally just sent Charlie an email last night and was hoping to receive a reply today when I learned he had been shot…

Let’s all join together in prayer for Charlie’s loving wife and his precious children—children who will now have to grow up without their father. Let’s pray for our nation. And let’s pray that God’s will be done on Earth and in America, as it is in Heaven.

America was blessed to have somebody like Charlie to speak the truth boldly and courageously. Obviously, he knew this day could come at any time. Let us honor his legacy by redoubling our efforts in the fight for truth, righteousness, and liberty.

Here’s an interview we did with Charlie last year:

https://rumble.com/v593vr1-charlie-kirk-shares-how-to-defeat-wokeism-we-must-act-out-of-obedience-not-.html

 

The Weekly Sam: The Whole-Language Fraud by Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Back in 1955, Rudolf Flesch wrote Why Johnny Can’t Read, which has become a
classic in educational literature. In that book American parents found out for the first
time why their children were having such a difficult time learning to read. Most of the
parents had been taught to read by way of the centuries-old alphabetic phonics
method, and they assumed that the schools were still using the same methods. Thus it
came as somewhat of a shock when they found out that their children were being
taught to read by a new and very different method.

Flesch explained that in the early 1930s, the professors of education changed the
way reading was taught in American schools. They threw out the alphabetic phonics
method, which is the proper way to teach anyone to read an alphabetic writing system,
and they put in a new whole-word, look-say, or sight method that taught children to
read English as if it were Chinese, an ideographic writing system. Flesch explained
that when you impose an ideographic teaching method on an alphabetic writing
system, you get reading disability.

Actually, Flesch was not the first to make this observation. The first man to do so
was Dr. Samuel T. Orton, a neuropathologist who had studied cases of reading
disability in Iowa in the late 1920s. He came to the conclusion that the cause of the
childlren’s problems was the new sight method of teaching reading, and he wrote an
article on the subject which appeared in the Feburary 1929 issue of the Journal of
Educational Psychology, entitled “The ‘Sight Reading ‘ Method of Teaching Reading as
a Source of Reading Disability.” Dr. Orton wrote:

“I wish to emphasize at the beginning that the strictures which I have to offer here do
not apply to the use of the sight method of teaching reading as a whole but only to its
effects on a restricted group of children for whom, as I think we can show, this
technique is not only not adapted but often proves an actual obstacle to reading
progress, and moreover I believe that this group is one of considerable size and
because here faulty teaching methods may not only prevent the acquisition of
academic education by children of average capacity but may also give rise to far
reaching damage to their emotional life.”

Unfortunately. Dr. Orton’s warning fell on deaf ears, and the professors of education
launched their new textbooks on the education market, the most famous of which were
the Dick and Jane basal readers. It didn’t take long for the reading problems to begin
showing up. Parents began to hear of a new reading disorder called dyslexia, which
many children were coming down with. In April of 1944, Life magazine ran a major
article on the subject, reporting :

“Millions of children in the U.S. suffer from dyslexia which is the medical term for
reading difficulties, It is responsible for about 70% of the school failures in 6- to 12
year-age group, and handicaps about 15% of all grade-school children. Dyslexia may
stem from a variety of physical ailments or combination of them — glandular imbalance,
heart disease, eye or ear trouble — or from a deep-seated psychological disturbance
that ‘blocks’ a child’s ability to learn. It has little or nothing to do with intelligence and
is usually curable. ”

The article went on to describe the case of a little girl with an I. Q . of 118 who was
being examined at the Dyslexia Institute of Northwestern University. After her tests, the
doctors concluded that the little girl needed “thyroid treatments, removal of tonsils and
adenoids, exercises to strengthen her eye muscles.” The article concluded:

“Other patients may need dental work, nose, throat or ear treatment, or thorough
airing out of troublesome home situations that throw a sensitive child off the track of
normality. In the experience of the institute these range from alcoholic fathers to
ambitious mothers who try to force their children too fast in schooL”
Strange as it seems, no one at Life seemed to know that Dr. Orton existed or that in
1929 he had identified the cause of dyslexia: the ideographic way of teaching reading.
In fact, Dr. Orton had popularized the term dyslexia.

In any case, by 1954 it was clear to a lot of intelligent people what was causing the
reading problem. Collier’s magazine of Nov. 26, 1954 explained it all in an article
entitled “Why Don’t They Teach My Child to Read?” by Howard Whitman.
He wrote:
“The man next to me in the airport bus entering Pasco, Washington , said “My six-year-old reads words
at school and can ‘t read the same words when I point them out at home in the newspaper. In school today
the children aren’t taught to read — they’re taught to memorize.”
A man in the seat ahead chimed in, “Everything is pictures. My youngest is in the sixth grade. He’ll still
come across a word like pasture and he remembers a picture in his early reader and calls it meadow ”
Neither passenger knew I was making a national study of modern education; they volunteered their
remarks, sharing something they were concerned — and troubled — about. Like them, thousands of other
American parents with first-grade children who are not catching on to reading as taught by the modernists,
and those with upper-grade children handicapped by lack of a solid reading foundation, are concerned
and troubled.

But most of all they are puzzled. Why is reading taught this way? A thousand times one hears the
question, “Why don ‘t they teach my child to read?” How can schools tolerate a method which turns out
many children of eight, nine and older who stare helplessly at a word (not on their memory list) and cannot
make a stab at reading it? What has happened to the method of teaching reading sound by sound ,
syllable by syllable, so that a child can at least make a reasonable attempt at reading any word?
Two basic teaching methods are in conflict here. One is the phonetic approach (known as phonics), the
old-fashioned way in the view of modern educators. They are likely to call it the “spit and spatter” or “grunt
and groan” method, satirizing the way youngsters try to sound out letters and syllables.
The other method, which the modernists have put into vogue, is the word-memory plan — also known as
“sight reading,” “total word configuration” or “word recognition.” It has the more friendly nickname of “look
and say,” since the youngster is supposed simply to look at a word and say it right out. He memorizes the
“shape” of the word, the configuration, and identifies it with pictures in his workbook Often he is taught to
recognize phrases or whole sentences in his picture book, or on flash (poster) cards, before he can
independently sound out and pronounce such simple words as cat or ball.
The fundamental difference in approach in the two methods reaches deep into philosophy and
scientific theory. Thinkers have wrangled for centuriesover which comes first, the whole or its parts (an
argument perhaps as endless as that over the priority of the “chicken or the egg”). The phonics
advocates say the parts come first; the word-memory people say we start with the whole and the parts fall
into place in due course.

The article explained it all quite clearly. The cause of the reading problems crlildren
were having was the teaching method. And what happened to that method after so
much criticism and parental concern? Did the educators change anything? Did they
admit that they had been wrong? On the contrary. They stuck to their guns and
insisted that their new way of teaching was the better way. And if parents didn’t like it
they could lump it. In fact, in 1956, the professors of reading organized the
International Reading Association, which has become the most powerful professional
lobby for the advocacy of the look-say method. In the main, its presidents have been
the authors of the leading reading textbooks used in the schools.

Does that indicate some sort of conflict of interest between professors of reading
who train their students to teach by their methods, who train the directors of reading
who then recommend the books to the school boards, who receive royalties from the
publishers who sell the books to the school districts? These same professors also
control the professional publications that show a distinct bias and hostility toward
phonics. If that isn’t a conflict of interest, then what is?

There is also the issue of deception. Have the educators been deceiving the
parents all these years? They never asked the parents whether or not they wanted
their children to be taught to read English as if it were Chinese. Have they deliberately
foisted on the American people a defective teaching method which has caused
enormous harm to millions of children, many of whom are now adults? Are they not
responsible for our nation’s precipitous decline in literacy?

In the early ’60s, Dr. Jeanne Chall obtained a grant from the Carnegie Corporation
to do an in-depth study of the two reading instruction methods to find out which method
was the more effective. The study was finally published in 1967 under the title,
Learning to Read: The Great Debate. Dr. Chall’s conclusion was that a phonics
approach, that is, decoding, was the more effective teaching method for beginning
reading.

You would have thought that Dr. Chall had settled the issue and that phonics had
won the great debate. But no such thing happened. True, for a time more phonics
was included in whole-word basal reading programs, but the basic ideographic
approach remained unchanged. The professors of reading remained totally
committed to their methodology. In fact, they invented a new term to describe it,
“psycholinguistics. ”

Indeed, it was Professor Kenneth Goodman who formulated the new definition of
reading which he articulated in the May 1967 Journal of the Reading Specialist as
follows :
“Reading is a selective process. It involves partial use of available language cues
selected from perceptual input on the basis of the reader’s expectation. As this partial
information is processed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or
refined as reading progresses.

“More simply stated, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game.”
That said it all. Moreover, it indicated that the professor made no distinction
between an alphabetic writing system and an ideographic one. And that was the key
to the deception. Some years later Goodman told a reporter from The New York
Times (July 9, 1975) that it was perfectly all right if a child read “pony” for “horse”
because the child had gotten the meaning.

A professor of reading who does not understand the difference between an
alphabetic writing system and an ideographic one is like a mechanic who doesn’t
understand the difference between a horse-and-buggy and an automobile. The
alphabet did for the ancient world what the computer is doing for the modern world. It
made learning to read easy and speeded up the reading process enormously. It was a
far more accurate and precise form of writing. It permitted a tremendous growth in
vocabulary, thereby expanding the use of language and the ability to think. It
enhanced the exchange of information and knowledge. It helped produce better
speech because now language was visible in the form of symbols representing
speech sounds.

And because it permitted man to do so much more with so much less,
It is probably the single most significant invention of man.
To require children to give up all of the advantages of alphabetic writing in favor of
an ideographic theory of reading makes no sense at all. What have we gained by it?
Nothing. What have we lost by it? The literacy of a nation. It is time for the American
people to decide that enough is enough. The experiment has gone on far too long.
The great debate should have been settled a long time ago.
But now, in the ’90s, we are in a new phase of the debate — open warfare. This is
what we were told by Education Week of March 21, 1990 in an article entitled, “From a
‘Great Debate’ to a Full-Scale War: Dispute Over Teaching Reading Heats Up.” The
article states :

In 1967, one of the most prominent researchers in reading instruction, Jeanne S. Chall, analyzed the
controversy that was then raging in the field in an influential book called The Great Oebate.
Today, nearly a quarter of a century later, the Harvard University scholar says the “debate” not only
persists, but has, in fact, escalated to a full-scale war.
The battle lines are drawn between advocates of phonics, who stress the importance of teaching the
relationships betlween letters and sounds, and those of whole-language methodology, who believe
children should be taught reading by reading whole texts.
And so fierce have their arguments become that two recent attempts to find a common ground — a
federally funded study and a proposal for the 1992 national assessment — have not only failed to quell the
debate but may have exacerbated it.

“It’s always been, in reading, that there was restraint with all our fighting,” Ms. Chail says. “Now it’s as if all
restraints are gone.”
And so, we are now in an educational war, dealing with the very same issues
described by Collier’s magazine in 1954 and Rudolf Flesch in 1955. In all this time,
alphabetic phonics has remained alphabetic phoniCS, but look-say has evolved into
psycholinguistics, which has further eVOlved into whole language. Quite an interesting
metamorphosis. What exactly is whole language?

Whole language is an even more extreme form of look-say. It not only does not
recognize any distinction between an alphabetic writing system and an ideographic
one, it doesn’t even recognize that alphabetic writing is a representation of speech. In
a recently published book, Whole Language: What’s the Difference?, the authors write:
“Oral language, written language, sign language — each of these is a system of
linguistic convention for creating meanings. That means none is ‘the basis’ for the
other; none is a secondary representation of the other.” (page 9)

Those statements not only indicate a lack of understanding of what alphabetic
writing is, but a lack of understanding of its benefits.
Whole language is the latest educational fraud being perpetrated on the American
people. In fact, the whole language fraud is nothing less than the usurpation of
primary education by a group of radical, politicized educators whose goal is not the
improvement of reading but the inculcation of children with collectivist, left-wing ideas.

“Proof of the Illuminati” written by New Hampshire Minister Rev. Seth Payson of Rindge

Over ten years ago, 
we
took
a
field
trip
to
the
Rindge
Historical
Society.

The
museum’s
collection
includes
a
military
discharge
signed
by
General
George
Washington,
a
musket
from
a
veteran
of
the
French
and
Indian
War,
and
the
carriage
owned
by
Dr.
William
Dean
of
nearly
Jaffrey,
NH,
whose
murder
in
1918
remains
an
unresolved
mystery.

Before
leaving
this
historic
gem,
we
visited
the
museum’s
bookstore
and
found
reprinted
copies
of
Proof
of
the
Illuminati
by
Rev.
Seth
Payson.
I
asked
the
museum’s
director
why
this
book
would
be
offered
by
the
museum.
She
told
me
that
the
author
was
pastor
of
the
Rindge
Congregational
Church
from
1782
until
his
death
in
1820.

I
bought
a
copy
and
read
this
fascinating
account
of
the
Illuminati.
Camp
Constitution
Press
is
pleased
to
reprint
this
timeless
but
little
known
classic.

From the Foreword:
This work, Proof of the Illuminati, was first published in 1802 under the longer title Proofs of
the Real Existence, and Dangerous Tendency, of Illuminism. It was printed in Charlestown,
Massachusetts by Samuel Etheridge for the author, Seth Payson. Reverend Seth Payson, D. D.
was born in 1758 and died in 1820. He, like his father, Rev. Phillips Payson, and several of his
brothers, became a Congregational preacher. After graduating from Harvard, he was appointed
as the minister of the Congregational church in Rindge, New Hampshire in 1782, and held this
post for the rest of his life. At least one of his sons also followed him into the ministry. Payson
was very active in establishing new churches for communities in northern New England,
including the church in Coventry, Vermont. He was the author of numerous sermons, several of
which were published and had a modest distribution. Additionally, Payson helped educate and
provide for Sophia Sawyer, a woman who would later become famous for establishing the
Fayetteville Female Academy. Rev. Payson served in the New Hampshire State senate from
1802-1805. He was a staunch Federalist supporter. Along with its alarming message regarding
both religion and state, Proof of the Illuminati was also a part of Payson’s campaign platform

A link to a free PDF version of the book:

https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Proof-of-the-Illuminati-by-Rev-Seth-Payson.pdf

And, a link to purchase the book from our on-line shop:

https://campconstitution.net/product/59283/

Back in 2012, we took a role in helping to defeat Agenda 21 in the Town of Rindge.  Some Leftists in town were not happy with us.  One such person was a direct descendent of Rev. Payson.  This person was a town official.  We pointed out to her that we were simply picking up where her worthy ancestor left off.  She had no clue that her ancestor authored a book like this.