A Return to Pagan Antiquity by Maria Perez
We are living in a time that’s ushering in a Dark Age. When the restraining influence of Christianity is removed from a country or culture, unmitigated disaster will naturally follow. This has been a repeated pattern of the last century.
In this century, many Christians seem clueless about God’s first command, the cultural mandate. We are to take all the potentialities of this world, all of its spheres and institutions, and bring them all to the glory of God. We are to use this world to the glory of God. In every aspect of the world, we are to bring glory to God, which means in all the world’s institutions.
Unfortunately, in the last 75 to 100 years, the church has often ignored the cultural mandate, and we wonder why we have so little impact on the world. The recent COVID-19 closing of the churches demonstrates that the church is irrelevant to modern society. The culture even deemed it non-essential. We have allowed ourselves to be irrelevant, and we’re reaping the consequences. We have been in retreat and have yet to seek to fulfill the cultural mandate.
In the physical realm, there is the second Law of Thermodynamics. This law says everything is running down, running out, and going from order to chaos. In the spiritual realm, there is also that tendency downward, away from God, in response to the work of Satan, who is continually trying to pull us down and is fighting against us.
We are seeing in our society a return to Pagan antiquity. Nietzsche said that history is the battle between Rome (the pagans) and Israel (the Jews and the Christians). Many of the ideas of Nietzsche were put into practice by his philosophy disciple, Hitler, and about 16 million died as a result.
The Christian Church seems to be in retreat. But we can be rest assured that truth and history are on our side. Let’s examine the positive contributions that Christianity has made through the centuries. These include hospitals, which essentially began during the Middle Ages, and universities, which also began during the Middle Ages. In addition, most of the world’s most outstanding universities were started by Christians for Christian purposes. Further examples include, literacy and education for the masses, capitalism and free enterprise, representative government, mainly as it has been seen in the American experiment, the separation of political powers, civil liberties, and the abolition of slavery, both in antiquity and in more modern times, modern science, the discovery of the new world by Columbus, the elevation of women, benevolence, and charity; the Good Samaritan ethic, higher standards of justice, the elevation of the common man, the condemnation of sexual perversions, high regard for human life, the civilizing of many barbarian and primitive cultures, the codifying and the setting of the writing of many of the world’s languages, greater development of art and music, the countless change lives transformed from liabilities into assets to society, and the eternal salvation of innumerable souls.
The Value of Human Life.
In Pagan antiquity, the pagans attributed little value to human life. Now in the post-Christian West, we have abandoned our Judeo-Christian heritage, and life is becoming cheap once again.
According to the centuries-old tradition of paterfamilias, the birth of a Roman was not a biological fact. Infants were received into the world only as the family willed. A Roman did not have a child; he took a child. Immediately after birth, if the family decided not to raise the child literally, lifting him above the earth, he was simply abandoned. There were special high places or walls where the newborn was taken and exposed to die. Before the explosive and penetrating growth of medieval Christian influence, the premortal evils of abortion, infanticide, abandonment, and exposure were a normal part of everyday life in Europe; afterward, they were regarded as the grotesque perversions that they are. Abortion disappeared in the early church. Infanticide and abandonment disappeared. The Justinian Code was explicit in declaring infanticide and abortion illegal.
The Value of Women
Before Christian influence, a woman’s life was also very cheap. In ancient cultures, the wife was the property of her husband. In Pagans and Christians, Robin Lane Fox points out that the killing of infant girls was so widespread it affected marriage customs. Adult girls were in shorter supply due to the habitual exposure of baby girls, which was a further break in the size of the family and the balance of the sexes.
In China, infanticide of little girls was a common practice. If a couple had more than one or two girls, they would be disposed of immediately. It was done in different ways. She could be put out as food for the wild dogs and wolves. The father would sometimes take her to a baby tower where she would die of exposure and starvation and be discovered by birds of prey. Others again would bury the little ones under the dirt floor in the room where they were born. If there is a river flowing by, the children would drown or be thrown in it. Adam Smith, writing in 1776, confirms this in his book The Wealth of Nations. He states, “In all great towns of China, several babies are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. ”
In India, prior to Christian influences, widows were voluntarily or involuntarily burned on their husband’s funeral. Pyrus, a grizzly practice known as settee, Charles Spurgeon, told of a Hindu woman who said to a missionary, “Surely your Bible was written by a woman.” “Why” he asked, “because it says so many kind things for women.”
Polygamy has disappeared in numerous places around the world because of the impact of Christianity. This is significant because polygamy is inherently unfair to women.
The Elderly
Throughout history, many tribes and peoples killed off their elderly, much as they killed off their unwanted babies. The Eskimos used to kill their elderly by setting them adrift in ice floes, floating out to the sea.
As we move away from God and his principles in this country, we are reverting to a more Pagan view of life. We see the move afoot to kill off the elderly, whether it’s called mercy killing or euthanasia. Some today are advocating that those elderly persons who lack a certain quality of life should die and get out of the way for the younger population Today, there is a hideous way of abandoning the elderly that is common enough to warrant a name: “Granny dumping.” This refers to bringing an older adult to a hospital, racetrack, or someplace crowded with people and abandoning them there.
The Beauty of Sexuality
In the historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii, One character says of another, “Ione has but one vice, she is chased.” From a Christian perspective, sex is holy in the context of marriage. Any deviation from that is wrong. Christianity has helped to preserve the family as a basic unit of society. It has prevented millions of people from getting sexually transmitted diseases. It has prevented much unhappiness on the part of those who obey the biblical teaching.
One author, at the time of the collapse of the Old Kingdom of Egypt 4500 years ago, wrote that “sexual anarchy assumed extreme forms and spread through a large part of the population Side by side with an increase of sexual perversions, a shameless sexual promiscuity also greatly increased They seduce members of the same family, relations between father and daughter, son and mother, remained not unknown.” The authors especially stressed the cases “where a man lived sexually with two sisters, or with a mother and her daughter Adultery, rape, and prostitution greatly increased Homosexual love entered the mores of the population.”
The ancient pre-Christian world was rife with sexual immorality and perversion. A large picture book entitled Eros and Antiquity includes pictures of ancient paintings, marble, statuary of every kind, and vases adorned with ancient pictures. They are pretty obscene, and the male sexual organ is a constant theme. It was expected to find a phallic symbol adorning the outside of houses in the remains of Pompeii.
In AD 125, The Christian Aristides, an Athenian Philosopher, wrote a defense of the Christian faith to Emperor Hadrian. Here is what he said related to sexual matters: “They do not commit adultery or immorality. Their wives, Oh king, are as pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest. Their men abstain from all unlawful sexual contact and impurity in the hopes of recompense that is to come in another world.”
In general, Christianity continued and exaggerated the moral sternness of the Jews. Celibacy and virginity were recommended as ideal.
The Civilizing of the Uncivilized
Nothing in the annuals of history compares to what Christianity has done and can still do to civilize barbaric people. Much of the civilized attitudes we have in society ultimately come from our Judeo-Christian heritage. The moral code of Christianity is based on Judaism and the 10 Commandments, which have given us the standard of right and wrong for centuries. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The Bible is the greatest gift God gave to man. Apart from it, we would not know right from wrong.”
Judaism gave the world a much higher view of morality than it had known before Jesus Christ took the Jewish base, expanded it, and sent it out into the whole world. Throughout history, many barbaric and cruel tribes and cultures have been civilized by the positive influence of Jesus Christ. Had Christ never come, we might well be drinking out of human skulls, as many of our ancestors did.
Anath, one of the goddesses of the Canaanites, was described “as the patron of war, in pursuing bloody orgies of destruction. She fiendishly butchers mankind young and old, in a most horrible and wholesale fashion, wading delightedly in human gore up to her knees, yes, up to her throat, all the while exalting sadistically.”
What happens when Christian restraints are removed?
Today, as the Christian influence, particularly in the West, is pushed back, we see more and more of what it was like before Christ. “Ours is a cut-flower civilization, said Dr. Elton Trueblood many years ago. A cut-flower civilization may, for the moment, have some beauty. Its technological advances are stirring, but it has been cut off from the source of its life and is inevitably decaying. Already we see the welting petals And the drooping of the leaves. Our nation is already in a state of advanced degeneration.”
General Weigand said, “When the Battle of France is over, I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.” The great statesman recognized the link between Christianity and civility, contrasting with neo-paganism and tyranny.
For the most part, the atrocities of the 20th century happened because modern man rejected God, as one wag put it:
- In the 18th century, the Bible was killed.
- In the 19th century, God was killed.
- In the 20th century, man was killed.
The humanist state inevitably leads to tyranny and despotism. As Dostoevsky said, “If God is dead, then all things are permissible.”
William Lynn, the first US House chaplain, stated on May 1st, 1789, “Let my neighbor persuade himself that there is no God and he will pick my pocket and break not only my leg but my neck. If there be no God, there is no future account.”
In 1799, Alexander Hamilton condemned the French Revolution’s attack on Christianity as “depriving mankind of its best consolations and most animating hopes, and to make a gloomy desert of the universe. He went on to affirm a civilized world is justly due to Christianity. He posited that the French, in renouncing Christianity, relapsed into barbarism. War resumes the same hideous, savage form which it wore in the ages of Gothic and Roman violence.”
Conclusion
Only the God of the Bible states that all men and women are equal, made in the image of the Creator, and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Christianity has reference to the principles of right and wrong. It is the foundation of those morals and manners upon which our society is formed. Remove this, and they will fall.
Let me end with the words of Dwight Eisenhower, who addressed the American Legion Back-to-God program on February 20th, 1955, in which he said, “Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus, the Founding Fathers saw it. And thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.”
America’s founders planted the seed in soil rich in Judeo-Christian beliefs, and the harvest was the most accessible, prosperous nation with more individual liberty than any nation the world had seen (Federer, 2017).
Happy Birthday George Washington
Presidents’ Day is actually Washington’s birthday, recognized by an Act of Congress for government offices in Washington, D.C., in 1879, and for all federal offices in 1885.
In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to create more three day weekends moved the observance of Washington’s birthday to the third Monday in February.
As Abraham Lincoln was also born in February, so many States include him in the observance, and still other States include all the Presidents.
George Washington was born FEBRUARY 22, 1732.
He was:
- unanimously chosen as the Army’s Commander-in-Chief;
- unanimously chosen as President of the Constitutional Convention;
- unanimously chosen as the first U.S. President;
- unanimously re-elected to a second term.
George Washington was an Anglican, and, after the Revolution, an Episcopalian.
George’s great-great-grandfather, Rev. Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican minister who taught at Oxford.
Lawrence and his wife, Amphyllis Twigen, had a son named John.
When the the Puritans won the English Civil War in 1651, Anglican ministers were demoted. Lawrence was reduced to being an assistant minister – a vicar – at an impoverished parish in Essex, England.
It was during this time that John Washington, George Washington’s great-grandfather, apprenticed as a merchant in London.
He sailed as second officer on a ship to the Colony of Virginia to purchase tobacco.
In 1657, when a storm partially sank their vessel in the Potomac River, John swam ashore.
While the ship was being repaired, John stayed at the home of a planter Colonel Nathaniel Pope, and fell in love with his daughter, Anne. John never returned to England.
John and Anne married, and her father gave them 700 acres in Westmoreland County.
John Washington became a successful planter and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses.
He was a militia leader during Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion against Governor William Berkeley in 1676.
A local Anglican church was renamed “Washington” in honor of John Washington.
When John died, he left to the church a tablet of the Ten Commandments. His Will stated:
“In the Name of God, Amen. I, John Washington, of Washington Parish, in the County of Westmoreland, in Virginia, gentleman, being of good and perfect memory, thanks be unto Almighty God for it,
and calling to remembrance the uncertain state of this transitory life, that all flesh must yield unto death, do make, constitute, and ordain this my last will and testament …
… First, being heartily sorry, from the bottom of my heart, for my sins past, most humbly desiring forgiveness of the same from the Almighty God, my Savior and Redeemer, in whom and by the merits of Jesus Christ, I trust and believe assuredly to be saved, and to have full remission and forgiveness of all my sins,
and that my soul with my body at the general resurrection shall rise again with joy.”
The oldest of John Washington’s sons was Lawrence, the grandfather of George Washington.
Lawrence married Mildred Warner, the daughter of Col. Augustine Warner, Jr., an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II.
Lawrence and Mildred had three children, the second being Augustine, who would become George Washington’s father.
When Lawrence died in 1698, Mildred married George Gale and moved back to England with her children.
When Mildred died, a relative in America petitioned to get custody of her children, including Augustine, and they were returned to Virginia in 1704.
Augustine Washington served as a vestryman in the Anglican Truro Parish.
He and his wife Jane Butler had two sons live to adulthood, Lawrence and Augustine Jr.
Both Lawrence and Augustine, Jr., went back to England to study at the prestigious Appleby Grammar School.
Jane died in 1729.
Augustine married Mary Ball in 1731, and together they had 6 children, with the oldest, George Washington, being born February 22, 1732.
Augustine died in 1743 when George was only 11-years-old.
George hand copied the Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, 1744, which included Rule #110:
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
George’s older half-brother Lawrence fought in the British navy under Admiral Edward Vernon, who had captured Porto Bello, Panama, from Spain in 1739.
When Lawrence returned to Virginia in 1742, he named his farm after his navy Admiral — Mount Vernon.
Lawrence married Anne Fairfax.
Her father, Col. William Fairfax, had been Collector of Customs in Barbados, and Chief Justice and Governor of the Bahamas, as well as a first cousin of Thomas Fairfax, who was the largest landowner in America with five million acres.
Lawrence arranged for George, at age 15, to begin a career in the British navy as a cabin boy, but his mother, Mary Ball Washington, refused.
George complied with his mother’s wishes and returned home.
In 1748, the 16-year-old George Washington was employed by Thomas Fairfax to survey the western area of his vast estate.
In 1751, Lawrence Washington contracted tuberculosis.
In hopes that a change of climate would help him recover, doctors recommended he travel to Barbados, where his father-in-law had been Collector of Customs.
He brought along his 17-year-old half-brother George.
This was the only time that George left the American continent.
In Barbados, George contracted smallpox, but recovered. This providentially inoculated George so that he was immune during the Revolutionary War, where it is estimated that more soldiers died of smallpox than in battle.
Lawrence died in 1752 and his Mount Vernon estate eventually was inherited by George, making him one of the youngest and largest landowners in Virginia.
George became vestryman in Truro Parish, and was godfather in baptism to several nephews and a niece.
From 1753-1758, George served in the French and Indian War.
He was a colonel under General Edward Braddock, Commander of the British forces in America.
George miraculously survived the Battle of Monongehela in 1755.Braddock was killed, leaving George in command.
On July 18, 1755, Washington wrote from Fort Cumberland to his brother, John A. Washington:
“By the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!”
Colonel Washington wrote to Fort Loudoun, April 17, 1758:
“The last Assembly … provided for a chaplain to our regiment. On this subject I had often without any success applied to Governor Dinwiddie. I now flatter myself, that your honor will be pleased to appoint a sober, serious man for this duty. Common decency, Sir, in a camp calls for the services of a divine.”
In 1759, George fell in love Martha “Patsy” Dandridge Custis, a 26-year-old widow and mother with two children, John “Jacky” Parke Custis and Martha “Patsy” Parke Custis.
Martha had inherited five plantations totaling 17,500 acres.
Martha’s daughter Patsy died at age 16 of an epileptic seizure in 1773, while George held her in his arms. He wrote:
“The sweet, innocent girl entered into a more happy and peaceful abode than she had met in the afflicted path she had hitherto trod.”
In 1775, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, George Washington was commissioned as the General of the Continental Army.
He wrote to Martha, June 18, 1775:
“My Dearest … It has been determined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the defense of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take up command of it.
You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it …
But as it has been a kind of Destiny, that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose …
I shall rely, therefore, confidently on that Providence which has heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return safely to you in the fall.”
On July 4, 1775, General Washington ordered:
“The General … requires … observance of those articles of war … which forbid profane cursing, swearing and drunkenness; And … requires … punctual attendance of Divine Services.”
On October 2, 1775, General George Washington issued the order:
“Any … soldier who shall hereafter be detected playing at toss-up, pitch, and hustle, or any other games of chance … shall without delay be confined and punished …
The General does not mean by the above to discourage sports of exercise or recreation, he only means to discountenance and punish gaming.”
On February 26, 1776, General Washington issued the orders:
“All … soldiers are positively forbid playing at cards and other games of chance. At this time of public distress men may find enough to do in the service of their God and their country, without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.”
Washington acknowledged God throughout the Revolution, as he wrote on May 15, 1776:
“The Continental Congress having ordered Friday the 17th instant to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, humbly to supplicate the mercy of Almighty God,
that it would please Him to pardon all our manifold sins and transgressions, and to prosper the arms of the United Colonies, and finally establish the peace and freedom of America upon a solid and lasting foundation;
the General commands all officers and soldiers to pay strict obedience to the orders of the Continental Congress;
that, by their unfeigned and pious observance of their religious duties, they may incline the Lord and Giver of victory to prosper our arms.”
On July 2, 1776, from his Head Quarters in New York, General Washington issued his General Orders:
“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own;
whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them.
The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.
Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die …”
He continued:
“Our own country’s honor calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.
Let us rely upon the goodness of the cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions.”
When the Declaration of Independence was written, a copy was rushed out to Washington, who was fortifying New York City.
He had it read to his troops, then ordered chaplains placed in each regiment, stating July 9, 1776:
“The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”
As recorded in The Writings of George Washington (March 10, 1778, 11:83-84, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), George Washington ordered:
“At a General Court Marshall … Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier…and do sentence him to be dismiss’d the service with Infamy.
His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Liett. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return.”
General Washington wrote at Valley Forge, May 2, 1778:
“To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.”
To the Delaware Indian Chiefs who brought three youths to be trained in American schools, General Washington stated, May 12, 1779:
“You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ.”
The tremendous victory at the Battle of Yorktown, October 19, 1781, securing America’s independence, was personally bittersweet for Washington, as his wife’s son, John Parke Custis, who had been an aide-de-camp, died there of camp fever, November 5, 1781.
Though never having children of his own, George agreed to adopt John Parke Custis’ two young children as his own: Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis, whose daughter, Mary Anna, married Robert E. Lee.
When the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate for the new nation George Washington agreed to preside over the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
He opened the Constitutional Convention with the line:
“The event is in the hand of God.”
In 1789, he was sworn in as the first President of the United States.
President Washington thanked God for the Constitution, October 3, 1789:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God …
I do recommend … rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks, for … the favorable interpositions of His Providence … we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war … for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government.”
On August 15, 1787, in a letter from Philadelphia to the Marquis de Lafayette, Washington wrote:
“I am not less ardent in my wish that you may succeed in your plan of toleration in religious matters.
Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church with that road to Heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest and easiest, and the least liable to exception.”
Washington sent a letters to the Jewish Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, and in Savannah, Georgia, stating:
“May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven.”
In 1794, during the Whiskey Rebellion, Washington became the only sitting President, as Commander-in-Chief, to lead the United States Army into the field.
Washington chose only to served two terms as President, leaving an example which every succeeding President follow till Franklin Roosevelt, necessitating the 22nd Amendment.
Washington continually had toothaches. By the time of his Inauguration, he had only one tooth.
Several dentists made make-shift dentures for him.
Washington had slaves from inheritance, marriage, and purchase, as did almost half of the founders.
As the influence of Baptists, Methodists and Quakers spread, many founders abandoned slavery — similar to today, how more and more pro-abortion supporters are becoming pro-life.
Washington freed his mulatto man William:
“And to my Mulatto man William (calling himself William Lee) I give immediate freedom … I allow him an annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life…& this I give him as a testimony of my sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War.”
In his Will, Washington freed the rest of his slaves upon his wife Martha’s death. Martha freed them the year after Washington died.
In his Will, George also made provision that elderly and sick slaves were to be supported by his estate in perpetuity.
On May 10, 1786, George Washington wrote from to Marquis de Lafayette:
“Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity …
Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country.”
As the early country took shape, partisan politics became increasingly vicious, with Washington even being the victim of ungracious attacks.
He warned how ambitious politicians would be tempted to use crises as opportunities to usurp power.
In his Farewell Address, 1796, Washington warned of those who would usurp power and rule through executive orders:
“Disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an Individual … (who) turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty …
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism …
Let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
The precedent (of usurpation) must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.”
Earlier, in 1783, the American-born painter Benjamin West was in England painting the portrait of King George III.
When the King asked what General Washington planned to do now that he had won the war.
West replied:
“They say he will return to his farm.”
King George exclaimed:
“If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
Poet Robert Frost once wrote:
“I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few men in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.”
Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Adams, wrote:
“More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.”
George Washington added a warning in his Farewell Address, 1796:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.
In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness.”
—
(This article was reposted with permission from American Minute, a registered trademark of William J. Federer. His website https://americanminute.com/
The Weekly Sam: Sam’s Offer to Mayor Cory Booker: Give me your worst school and I will turn it around in a year.
The following are a letter and a follow up letter to then Mayor of Newark Cory Booker offering to take the school with the worse scores and turn it around in a year using “Alpha-Phonics.” Sam had a solid plan with a team willing to relocate to Newark:
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460 781-354-2040
January 7, 2011
Hon. Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall
920 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mayor Booker:
I recently became aware of your efforts to improve education in the city of Newark and
of Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to help you in that endeavor. As a writer of over ten
books on education, I’ve been aware of the problems that beset American public schools
for over forty years and have worked strenuously to find ways to improve the
performance of our children. But the greatest obstacle I have found is the educational
establishment that refuses to make the necessary changes that would guarantee academic
success for all students.
I first became aware of the reading problem back in the 1960s when I was an editor at
Grosset & Dunlap in New York. I was invited to become a member of the Reading
Reform Foundation’s National Advisory Council. It was then that I became aware of the
war among educators between advocates of phonics and advocates of look-say, the
whole-world or sight method that teaches children to read English as if it were Chinese.
I did an investigation of the reading problem and came to the conclusion that the sight
method could cause reading disability and dyslexia among many children. I put all of
this in my book, The New Illiterates, published in 1973. The Establishment response to
my findings was zero.
Determined to provide parents with a way of saving their children from such educational
malpractice, I created a simple, inexpensive, easy-to-use intensive phonics reading
program–Alpha-Phonics–that any parent could use to teach their children to read at
home. It has now been used very successfully by thousands of homeschooling parents
for over twenty years and has produced wonderfully literate children.
In your press release about Newark’s Education Opportunity, it states that “In 2008-2009,
only 40 percent of students could read and write at grade level by the end of the third
grade, only 54 percent of high school students graduated and just 38 percent enrolled in
college.”
I can show you how to get all of the children in Newark’s schools to become proficient
readers, dramatically increase the rate of graduation, and increase the percentage of
students enrolling in college. I recently received a testimonial from a teacher in Florida who has been using
Alpha-Phonics for the last ten years, and he has literally performed miracles with some of
the worst readers in his classes. I can state without any equivocation, that I can produce
a miracle in Newark if permitted by you to do so. I am enclosing this teacher’s
remarkable testimony of the power of this program.
The “miracle” that Alpha-Phonics performs is really no miracle at all. It is simply the
sensible and proper use of a primary program that puts the emphasis on the development
of the right side of the brain, the language faculty. Today’s schools force children to use
their right brains to perform the functions of the left brain, thereby actually deforming the
children’s brains. This phenomenon can be seen by extensive brain scans conducted by
neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, author of Reading in the Brain. In other words,
common teaching practices in our schools are actually deforming the brains of our
children. And that is why the children act out, knowing that something harmful, which
they can’t understand, is being done to them.
All children are born with a dominant language faculty in their left brains. When the
continued natural development of this faculty is thwarted by faulty teaching methods, you
get educational problems. You get ADD and ADHD. I would like to show you how it is
possible to reverse this process and get kids back into a positive learning mode. I propose
a pilot project whereby I am given the worst elementary school in Newark and allowed to
demonstrate how it can become the best school in the city in about eight months.
Although I have lived in New England since 1965, I know Newark well. My sister lived
there with her husband and children, and as a teenager I spent many pleasant summer
weeks on leafy Elwood Place. I know that Newark today is not what it once was: the
safest, most pleasant place to live in America. But I am more than willing to do
whatever I can to assist you in making Newark’s schools the best in the nation.
I hope you will take me up on my offer. This is an opportunity that Newark can’t afford
to miss.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Cc: Governor Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg: Startup Education
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460
February 12, 2011
Hon. Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall
920 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mayor Booker:
I hope you have had a chance to consider my proposal of January 7th to take the worst
elementary school in Newark and transform it into the best school in the city. Here is an
outline of the plan to accomplish that academic miracle..
But first, I want to convince you why it should be done. Each year over a million black
children enter our public education system eager to learn, yet at the end of the process at
least half are functionally illiterate. You and your administration can stop that process of
failure, provided the will is there to do so.
Second, this country will not be able to compete with the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese,
and Indians who are all learning to read and speak English by methods greatly superior to
the ones being used in our schools to teach American children to read, write, and speak
their own language.
Forty years of experience as a writer and educator have gone into the plan I am
proposing. I hope you will be willing to give the “Newark Experiment,” as I call it, the
backing it will need from the Mayor’s office, the highest level of Newark’s government.
This is how the plan will be implemented:
1. Preliminary Conference: As Plan Designer I would like to confer with you and Dr.
Clifford B. Janey, the Superintendent of Schools, and others in your administration on the
need to implement the Newark Experiment. Agreement is needed so that the plan can be
implemented willingly by all concerned.
2. Selection of School: The selection of the elementary school for this pilot project
should be made on the basis of test scores. This should not be difficult to do since each
school has published its test scores. Let us select that school with the lowest test scores.
3. School Visit: I would like to visit that school and become acquainted with the
Principal and faculty, as well as the students. I would want to examine the materials
presently being used to teach the children their basics. It would be essential to bring on
board the faculty of the school and for me to explain why they should be willing to take
part in this historic experiment which will have its ramifications throughout the country.
Their enthusiastic cooperation would guarantee success.
4. Teacher Training: The summer would be used to train the faculty in the essentials of
the plan. A team of trainers would be brought to Newark to share their experiences and
practices in using Alpha-Phonics. Obviously, the faculty will have many questions
which the training team will be able to answer.
5. Budget Authorization: The Superintendent of Schools should authorize the purchase
of the necessary books for the experiment: Alpha-Phonics, the Little Readers, Flash
Cards, lined notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, etc. A budget can be provided outlining
the necessary expenditures. Compensation for Dr. Blumenfeld and the trainers, who will
be coming from Texas and Florida, should be included in the budget.
6. Parental Input: In September 2011, parents will be informed of the experiment in
their children’s school. Their cooperation is needed to make sure that their children do
their homework, which will help their children succeed.
7. School Testing: At the beginning of the school year, all third- to sixth-grade
students in the school should be tested with the Oral Reading Assessment Test in order to
create a Literacy Profile of the school. In that way, those students in need of strong
remedial programs will be identified. For example, in the third grade you will find some
students reading at a sixth grade level and others reading at a first grade level. In the
sixth grade you will find students reading at a second grade level and others reading
above their grade level. Testing the students will give the faculty the information they
need about each student’s reading level.
8. The Curriculum: All first and second graders will be taught to read and write with
Alpha-Phonics. We expect 100% success. Everyone in the rest of the school will be
brought up to grade level in reading and writing. Basic arithmetic will also be taught to
all students. We expect 100% success, with extra tutoring for those who are having a
more difficult time reaching the desired goal. Other subjects should include Local
Geography and History, Elementary Science, English Grammar, and other subjects
determined by the Superintendent of Schools. These students will be able to thrive in
high school and go on to college.
9. Final Testing: By June 2012, the entire school should be tested to see the results of
the experiment. By then the school will be the best in the city and able to celebrate its
achievement. Care should be taken to make sure that the school does not revert to its
past practices that made it the worst school in the city. The new curriculum should
become a permanent part of the school.
10, Final Report: The success of the program should be made public by way of a press
release and a news conference and the issuance of a Final Report. The city of Newark
should proudly proclaim its success in transforming its worst school into its best school
through a unique program that can be duplicated in any city in the country. The Report
should be sent to the nation’s leading media and the Mayor and Superintendent should be
available for interviews.
As you can see, Mayor Booker, this is an exciting plan that will bring credit to Newark
and your administration. Your willingness to try something that has not been tried
anywhere before will be seen as proof that the public schools can be reformed to do what
they were created to do: produce a literate, intelligent population. The plan is eminently
doable. All it requires is the will to carry it out. The Newark Experiment can become a
model for the entire country to emulate. It will prove that educational success is possible
in core-city environments.
But what it really requires is thinking out of the box. That is the real key to success.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Cc: Governor Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg
Sam would write letters to numerous mayors, and school supernatants with this proposal. He seldom got a reply and when he did, it was a politely worded “Thank you but no thank you.” Sam never got a reply from Mayor Booker who is now a member of the U.S. Senate.
Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Christie were sent copies and never responded to Sam. In 2010, Zuckerberg donated $100 million to the Newark School Department.
The Blumenfeld Archives http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
Origin of Saint Valentine’s Day – American Minute with Bill Federer
Origin of Saint Valentine’s Day
The origin of Saint Valentine’s Day goes back to early Christian history.
Today, at a time when governments are increasing their persecution of Christians, it is important to remember that the Church was born into a one-world anti-Christian government – the Roman Empire.
In the Book of Acts 1:8, Jesus told His disciples: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, the word for “witness” in Greek is “martus,” which is the root word for “martyr.”
Eleven of the twelve apostles were martyred, with John boiled in a pot of oil but miraculously surviving and banished to the Island of Patmos.
During the first three centuries of Christianity, there were ten major persecutions, along with innumerable smaller ones. Initially, Romans persecuted Jews and Christians together.
Government agents threw believers to the lions in the Colosseum, boiled them alive, had their tongues cut out, or worse:
64-68 A.D.: Emperor Nero blamed fire in Rome on Christians and began first persecution;
69-79 A.D.: Emperors Vespasian and Titus persecuted Christians, in addition to destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem;
89-96 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Domitian included boiling the Apostle John in oil then banishing him to Patmos, in addition to hunting down and killing descendants of David;
108-117 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Trajan;
117-138 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Hadrian crushed the Jewish Bar Kokbah Revolt and renamed the Roman province of Judea to Syria Palaestina;
161-180 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Marcus Aurelius killed Polycarp, the disciple of John;
192-211 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Septimius Severus;
235-238 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Maximinus the Thracian;
249-251 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Decius;
253-260 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Valerian;
268-270 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Claudius the Second, during which Saint Valentine was reportedly martyred;
274-285 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Aurelian;
285-305 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Diocletian, considered the worst of them all, decimating the entire Roman Theban Legion, which had become Christian, in addition to imprisoning Saint Nicholas;
305-313 A.D.: Finally, the persecution under Emperor Galerius.
Christians met in catacombs, which were caves carved underground, for their church meetings, and risked their lives every time they gathered together. A pietist movement began of withdrawal from the corrupt society, with some believers living in caves as hermits or joining monasteries.
Roman soldiers raided meetings and arrested believers, dragging them before corrupt judges, and also confiscated and destroyed Christian writings, scriptures and church records. As a result of this, records of the life of Saint Valentine are scant.
What little is known is from the works of Eusebius of Caesarea, and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum – Martyrology of Jerome, compiled around 460-544 A.D.
Passio Marii et Marthae, published in the 5th or 6th century includes a story of the martyrdom of Saint Valentine of Rome.
Venerable Bede’s Martyrology, compiled in the 8th century, described St. Valentine being arrested and interrogated by Emperor Claudius the Second. Claudius was impressed with Valentine and tried to convert him to paganism to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed.
The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14.
St. Valentine is mentioned in the Legenda Sanctorum by Jacobus de Voragine in 1260 and in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.
Though several individuals may have had that name, it appears Saint Valentine was either a priest in Rome or a bishop in Terni, central Italy.
In the third century after Christ, the Roman Empire was being invaded by Goths.
At the same time, the Plague of Cyprian, probably smallpox, broke out killing at its height 5,000 people a day. So many died that the Roman army was depleted of soldiers.
Roman Emperor Claudius the Second needed more soldiers to fight the invading Goths. He believed that men fought better if they were not married, so he banned traditional marriage in the military.
Valentine risked the Emperor’s wrath by standing up for traditional marriage, secretly marrying soldiers to their brides.
Rome was also being torn from internal rivalries which continued since the assassination of the previous Emperor Gallienus.
Emperor Claudius the Second quelled political tensions by requesting the Roman Senate deify Emperor Gallienus, so he would be worshiped along with the other Roman gods.
Government mandates were issued forcing citizens to worship them by placing a pinch of incense on a fire before their statues.
It was a simple act, and some Christians caved, but since it clearly “an act of worship,” others chose rather to die in the Colosseum before they would worship anything other than the one true God.
Those who refused worship of the Roman gods were considered “politically incorrect” or “unpatriotic” enemies of the state. They were cancelled and killed.
Emperor Deccan’s persecution intentionally targeted Christians by issuing government mandates and executive orders forcing them to deny their consciences or die.
When Emperor Claudius demanded that Christians worship pagan idols and statues of deified Emperors, Saint Valentine refused.
The name Valentine is derived from the word “valor,” which means, strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness and personal bravery.
Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to die.
While awaiting execution, he preached to guards and other prisoners. His jailer, Asterius, asked Saint Valentine to pray for his blind daughter. When she miraculously regained her sight, the jailer converted and was baptized, along with his entire family.
Right before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote a note to the jailer’s daughter, encouraging her in the faith, signing it, “from your Valentine.”
Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs and stones, and when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate on FEBRUARY 14, 269 A.D.
I John 4:18 “Perfect love casteth out fear.”
I Timothy 4:8: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
In 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius is credited with designating FEBRUARY 14th as “Saint Valentine’s Day.”
How did St. Valentine’s Day get associated with love?
In the High Middle Ages, circa 1393, Geoffrey Chaucer, called the father of English literature, wrote a poem called Parliament of Foules – Assembly of Fowls, or Birds. “Fowl” is an old word for “bird.”
It it he described how many bird species birds, chose their mates in mid-February:
“For this was Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird of every kind that men can imagine comes to this place to choose his mate.”
He made another mention in the final chapter of The Cantebury Tales:
“The book of the Duchesse; the book of Seint Valentynes day of the Parlement of Briddes – Birds.”
The association of birds with fidelity in marital love came about because a large percent of bird species are monogamous.
Many bird species mate for life, such as varieties of:
Swans,
Geese,
Ravens,
Cranes,
Blue Jays,
Owls,
Hawks,
Woodpeckers,
Ospreys,
Raptors,
Puffins,
Pigeons,
Dove,
Penquins, and
Bald Eagles.
After elaborate courtships, depending on the species, these birds remain together until one partner dies.
Birds that mate for life often take turns sitting on the eggs, females at night and males during the day. They have offspring that require more extensive care and instruction from parents.
These species mate earlier in the season which allows their young more time to develop before the fall and winter seasons of long migrations or harsh winter weather.
After Chaucer’s poems, more references appeared in literature associating Saint Valentine’s Day with courtly love, such as John Donne’s Marriage Song; and William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
This eventually developed into the 18th-century English traditions of presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending St. Valentine’s Day greeting cards.
People often sign Valentine cards with X’s and O’s. Where did this come from?
To answer this, we must go back to Rome. Remember Emperor Diocletian’s terrible persecution?
Believers prayed and Diocletian was struck with an intestinal disease so painful he abdicated the throne on May 1, 305 A.D.
The next Emperor, Gallerius, continued the persecution and was also struck with an intestinal disease, dying in 311 A.D.
Four Roman generals fought it out as to who would be the next emperor.
Two were defeated and it came down to Constantine and Maxentius and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD.
Reportedly, the day before the battle, Constantine saw the sign of Christ in the sky, put it on his shields and banners, and won the battle. Afterwards he stopped the persecution of Christians.
What was the sign of Christ?
It is said to be the first two letters of the Greek name for Christ. Just like we often abbreviate states with the first two letters, Greek abbreviated names with the first two letters.
The Greek name for Christ is Xριστό.
The first letter which makes the “kha” sound is written as an “X” and is called “Chi.” The second letter, that makes the “rrr” sound is written as a “P” and is called “rho.” These two letters were called the “Chi-Rho.”
Over the centuries, it got shortened just to the Chi or X. “X” became a common abbreviation for the name Christ.
This is why Christ-mas is abbreviated as X-mas.
In Medieval times, the “X” was called the Christ’s Cross, or “Criss-Cross.”
In colonial America, young students were taught the alphabet, but before it was an “X.” Children would begin their recitation of the alphabet with the saying, May Christ’s cross grant me speed – or success. It reminded students that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
One of the colonial school books had the rhyme: “Mortals ne’er shall know —
More than contained of old the Chris’-cross row.”
The Christ’s Cross was a form of a written oath. This came down to us as, “put your X here”; or “sign at the X,” or saying, “I swear, cross my heart.”
Similar to the ancient practice of swearing upon a Bible, saying “so help me God,” then kissing the Bible, people would sign a document with or next to the Christ’s Cross to swear before God they would keep the agreement, then kiss it to show sincerity.
This is the origin of signing a Valentine’s card with an “X” to express a pledge before God to be faithful, and an “O” to seal the pledge with a kiss of sincerity.
History is intertwined with Valentine’s references:
On February 14, 1688, William and Mary were placed by Parliament on the English throne.
On February 14, 1778, John Paul Jones, sailing the USS Ranger, was given a nine-gun salute by French Admiral Lamotte-Picquet. This was the first time the Stars and Stripes flag was formally recognized by a foreign nation.
On February 14, 1779, British Captain James Cook is killed in Hawaii.
On February 14, 1817, Frederick Douglass, the Republican advisor to President Lincoln, was born a slave on a southern Democrat plantation. He was separated from his mother as a child and only remembers that his mother would call him, “my little valentine,” leading him to assume he was born on Valentine’s Day.
On February 14, 1844, John C. Fremont was the first explorer to discover Lake Tahoe. He later became the first Republican candidate for President.
On February 14, 1859, Oregon became a state.
On February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone.
On February 14, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother died on Valentine’s Day. Depressed, he dropped out of New York politics, left his infant daughter with his sister, and went off to ranch in the Dakotas. He later came back to New York, took his daughter back, remarried and had five more children, then ran for President.
On February 14, 1912, Arizona became a state.
On February 14, 1929, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place during the Prohibition era. Al Capone’s Chicago mob murdered seven members of Bugs Moran’s Irish gang.
Al Capone’s hitman Frank Nitti was accompanied by the young Saul Alinsky, who later incorporated gang tactics into his political technique of “community organizing.” Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals, 1971: “The organizer must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community … fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression.”
On February 14, 1949, the first Jewish Knesset meeting was held, with Israel’s first President Chaim Weizmann.
Since the Roman persecutions, Christianity has become the most persecuted faith in the world, with over 300 being martyred each day, or one every five minutes, mostly in communist and fundamentalist Islamic countries.
The Center for Studies on New Religions reported that in 2016, 90,000 Christians killed, 30 percent by sharia Islamic terrorists. Several organizations keep track of this, such as Voice of the Martyrs, and SavethePersecutedChristians.
Saint Valentine’s willingness to be a martyr for Christ and his loving example of heroic valor still inspires believers to follow the scriptures:
Matthew 5:44: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”
John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
I John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
I John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”
–
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
The Racist Roots of Planned Parenthood and Its Legacy of Death
For years people have urged me, including my wife, to write a book. I would usually respond with “Why write a book when I can promote books already in publication and better than anything I can do.” Back in 2011, we started Camp Constitution Press and reprinted a chapter of a book titled “From Farm Boy to Financier” by Frank Vanderlip. The chapter concerned the secret meeting at Jekyll Island Georgia where the plot to create the Federal Reserve was hatched. Mr. Vanderlip was one of the attendees. Since then, we have reprinted and published a number or books including Color, Communism and Common Sense, On the Supposed Change of Temperature in Winter by Noah Webster. (That’s right, Noah Webster refuted global warning back in 1810.) and First Scout for General Patton written by my late friend from Laconia Bob Kingsbury. But since my visit the Harvard Medical School library in January of 2020, I need to publish what I discovered and uncovered.
It isn’t a massive tome-only 98 pages- and it consists mainly of transcribed letters between Margaret Sanger and Dr. Clarence Gamble with pictures of the originals. It also contains a little-known speech by Martin Luther King titled “Family Planning: A Special and Urgent Concern” which was read by his wife Coretta in 1966 at Planned Parenthood’s First Annual Margaret Sanger Award Ceremony. King was the first recipient of the award. The Corporate media will not make any mention of how King and many other black leaders collaborated with avowed racist Sanger to promote birth control and later abortion in the black community.
Background to the book:
I had learned about Margaret Sanger’s “Negro Project” in the book Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood by George Grant back in the late 1980s. Some years later, while doing some research for an article on Planned Parenthood, I found a copy of the letter written by Sanger to Dr. Gamble dated December 10, 1939, which Sanger writes about the ‘Negro Project” and the need to elicit the support of black doctors and clergy. She wrote:
“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighter out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
(Page 2 of the three page “Negro Project” letter)
Her supporters, which are legion in the United States. tell us that this has been taken out of context. But in her book The Pivot of Civilization Sanger advocated for “the elimination of human weeds” and for “the sterilization of genetically inferior races.” The fact that she had white supremacist and KKK member Lothrop Stoddard and Dr Ernst Rudin, the Nazi in charge of Germany’s forced sterilization collaborating with her belies the claims of her apologists-one of which is Hillary Clinton.
In 2018, I noticed that the letter address of the letter to Gamble was Adams St in Milton, a mile or so from Lower Mills, in Boston’s Dorchester section. In November of 2018, we sponsored some speaking engagements for Rev. Steve Craft, our camp chaplain in the Boston area. I asked Rev Craft if he would like to be in a video across the street from Gamble’s former home read the letter with commentary from the both of us. And, on Friday November 30, we did so. While recording the video it dawned on me that George H. W. Bush was born a short distance from the Gamble residence. Prescott Bush-H.W.’s father- was Planned Parenthood’s first treasurer. Interestingly enough, we got word that H.W. died that same day. The video is available on Camp Constitution’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/N3Hak6fw8CM?si=WR-dgmkQnPpdhi4D
I subsequently learned that Dr. Gamble’s papers were housed at the- Countway Library-Harvard University’s School of Medicine’s Library, the largest medical school library in the world located in Boston. I visited the library in January of 2020, and while I wasn’t able to find any letters between Bush and Gamble, I did find a batch of letters between Sanger and Gamble.
Who is Dr. Clarence Gamble?
Dr. Gamble was an heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune. His grandfather was a co-founder of the company. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1920 He, like most of Sanger’s associates, was a supporter of eugenics and force sterilizations. He was an integral part of both the Negro Project and the Puerto Rican Project-a program that used Puerto Rican women as guinea pigs to test the birth control pill. In 1946, Gamble founded the North Carolina Human Betterment League. In 1957 he founded what is now known as Pathfinder International which gives “reproductive health” and services in Africa and Asia.
(Rev. Steve Craft with the former home of Dr. Gamble in the background.)
The book also has short biographies of people mentioned in the correspondence including Albert Lasker, the man who was the primary funder of the Negro Project. Lasker was known as “The Father of Modern Advertising.” Lasker was a Republican and his wife Mary, a close colleague of Sanger, was a Democrat. They both lobbied for socialized medicine and federal funding of medical research. They created the Lasker Foundation. If you go to the Lasker Foundation’s website, you will find glowing praise of its founders. I contacted the foundation asking for a statement on its racist roots, but I never heard back.
We were pleased and honored to get many endorsements for the book including actress Stacy Dash who starred in the move “Roe v Wade,” former abortion nurse Julie Wilkinson who played the abortion nurse in the movie ‘UnPlanned: The Abby Johnson Story, and Ed Martin of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles.
I dedicated the book to my late friend Dr Mildren Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. In the wake of the infamous but now repealed “Roe v Wade,” Dr. Jefferson said: I am not willing to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to life.”
Sanger has been successful beyond her wildest dreams. The black population in the United States is at a steady thirteen percent. In New York City almost half of black pregnancies end in abortion, and every single black Democrat in Congress supports abortion. While the founders of the modern Pro-Life Movement were primarily Catholic Democrats, as of this writing, there is only one Pro-Life Democrat in Congress-Henry Cuellar. There are many pro-abortion Republicans as well including Chris Sununu. The first two states to decriminalize abortion were NY and CA-both led by Republican governors. We hope that our book helps to shed some much-needed light on this dark chapter in our history.
Call to action: Get involved with a local or national Right to Life group, and volunteer and/or support a local crisis pregnancy center. And pray that God will change the hearts and minds of both those in the abortion industry and those who support it.
Dr. Jefferson with the author 1995
The book is available on Camp Constitution’s website https://campconstitution.net/product/the-racist-roots-of-planned-parenthood-and-its-legacy-of-death/ on Amazon.
Not Yours To Give: A Timeless Lesson on the U.S. Constitution
While this story may be historic fiction, it is nevertheless a timeless lesson on the U.S. Constitution, and one that more Americans need to learn. Congressman Davy Crockett is on his reelection campaign trial and meets a farmer who took Crockett to task for voting for a bill that was unconstitutional. Crockett publicly acknowledges the error of his ways, gets reelected, and returns to Washington to teach his colleagues the same lesson he learned.
One of Camp Constitution Press’ first reprints is available from our on-line shop: https://campconstitution.net/product/sockdolager-book/
The Weekly Sam: Our Radio Spot For the Blumenfeld Archive
Camp Constitution will be running a radio spot to promote the Sam Blumenfeld Archives-the work of the late homeschool pioneer Samuel L, Blumenfeld. They will start running on WRKO 6800 AM and WXKS FM from February 12 to February 25. When Sam passed away in 2015, he left most of his library, papers, and recording to Camp Constitution. We made a pledge to Sam on his deathbed that we will make sure that his rich legacy will influence future generations. The archive was created by Mark Affleck, who serves as our camp newspaper editor and our webmaster Eric Conover. Since its inception, hundreds of thousands of people around the world but mainly in the United States have visited the site and made us of the archived material including his Alpha-Phonics
A link to an audio version of the spot: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2024-02-06T14_02_45-08_00
Camp Constitution’s 4th Annual Ladies Spring Fling April 12-14 at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center
Camp Constitution Ladies’ Fourth Annual “Spring Fling” will be held at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center, Alton Bay, NH https://altonbay.org/ from Friday April 12 to Sunday April 14, 2024
Our guest speaker will be Dr. Felecia Nace. Dr. Nace is the author of several books including book: Top Down Confusion: Is Gray the New Pink in Education? Her presentation explores mixed messages in education that filters down from the government which leaves educators Dr. Nace is a former language arts teacher of the Montclair Public School District, NJ. She was also employed as an Education Specialist for 13 years at the New Jersey Department of Education, worked for five years as an adjunct professor at Mercer County Community College, English Department and is currently the Executive Director of Partners 4 Educational Change, an education consulting firm.
Activities include arts and crafts, Bible studies, optional marksmanship training, and an evening campfire. The cost for the weekend which includes two nights of lodging, five meals and materials will be $200. per person. Payments can be made via our PayPal account accessed from our website’s homepage https://www.campconstitution.net or by check payable to Camp Constitution and mailed C/O Hal Shurtleff146 Powder Mill Rd. Alton, NH 03809. To get an application, bring list, or have any questions, please E-mail or call Hal Shurtleff at campconstitution1@gmail.com Tel (857) 498-1309
The Weekly Sam: Is Humanism a Religion by Sam Blumenfeld
The question we ask is important. For humanism is the world view of our educational
leaders, of the textbooks they write, of the psychologists who counsel our youngsters on
values, sex and death. In short, it is the world view of the curricula used in the public
schools. In fact, humanism forms the philosophical basis of what passes for teacher
education in our state colleges and universities.
Establishments of Religion
Thus, if humanism is indeed a religion, then what we have in our public schools and state
colleges and universities are government-supported establishments of religion, which are
patently unconstitutional and therefore illegal.
In fact, it should be pointed out that on March 4, 1987, U.S. District Judge W. Brevard
Hand, in Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, Ala., ruled that
secular humanism is a religion. The 172-page ruling defines religion and concludes,
after reviewing the relevant aspects of humanism, that “For purposes of the First
Amendment, secular humanism is a religious belief system, entitled to the protections of,
and subject to the prohibitions of, the religious clauses.”
Three Key Documents
Judge Hand wrote:
“The entire body of thought has three key documents that furnish the text upon which the
belief system rests as a platform: Humanist Manifesto I, Humanist Manifesto II, and the
Secular Humanist Declaration.
“These factors … demonstrate the institutional character of secular humanism. They are
evidence that this belief system is similar to groups traditionally afforded protection by
the First Amendment religion clauses.”
The judge then went on to demonstrate that 44 textbooks being used in the public schools
of Alabama were written from the humanist point of view and thereby constituted an
illegal establishment of religion. The judge ordered the books removed from the
schools.
Judge Hand’s Order Reversed
On August 26, 1987, the 11th Circuit Court reversed Judge Hand’s order banning the 44
textbooks. The higher court did not address the question of whether secular humanism is
a religion for First Amendment purposes, but asserted that it was not being promoted in
the textbooks that were banned. Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. wrote:
“Use of the challenged textbooks has the primary effect of conveying information that is
essentially neutral in its religious content to the school children who utilize the books;
none of these books convey a message of government approval of secular humanism. …
“There simply is nothing in the record to indicate that omission of certain facts regarding
religion from these textbooks of itself constituted an advancement of secular humanism
or an active hostility towards theistic religion.”
And so the books were put back in the schools.
The Wrong Question
But the question is not whether the textbooks were humanistic or not, but whether the
entire government education system is an establishment of the humanist religion. All of
the rationales used to remove Bibles and other manifestations of the Judeo-Christian
theistic world view from classrooms are based on the First Amendment’s prohibition
against government establishments of religion.
But if it can be shown that the entire government system of education — from elementary
schools to the state colleges and universities — are establishments of the humanist
religion, the courts would have no choice but to order the closing down of these
institutions.
There can be no government establishment of religion in the United States, whether it be
in the form of a house of worship or of a school system embracing a religious dogma.
From Non sectarianism to Secularism
When the public schools were first established, the courts ruled that the schools had to be
nonsectarian, that is, not favoring any particular Protestant denomination. That they
were essentially Protestant in character was generally acknowledged. In fact, the reason
why Catholics established their own private parochial school system was because they
recognized the Protestant character of the government schools.
After the turn of the 19th century, however, as humanist progressives took control of the
government schools, no sectarianism gradually gave way to secularism. Secularists hold
that any government institution that promotes or supports belief in the existence of a
supernatural being is an establishment of religion.
As more and more judges adopted the secularist point of view, order after order was
handed down stripping the public schools of the last vestiges of nonsectarian Christianity.
Curricula were revised, new textbooks written, new programs instituted so that today’s
public schools not only no longer reflect the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage but now
constitute the most powerful educational machine for the propagation of humanism
among the American people.
Filling the Vacuum
The secularists had no intention of creating a neutral, nontheistic vacuum in our schools.
Their plan always was to get rid of Judeo-Christian values and replace them with their
own. In this way, the government schools have become, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
establishments of the humanist religion.
Today, humanist beliefs are inculcated through such programs and concepts as values
clarification, sensitivity training, situational ethics, evolution, multiculturalism,
globalism, transcendental meditation, sex education, death education, humanistic and
behavioral psychology, etc. All of these programs are marbleized throughout the
curriculum — in reading, language arts, math, social studies, health education,
psychology, art, biology, and other subjects. It is impossible for a student in a
government school to avoid or escape the all-pervasive influence of humanist ideas and
beliefs which confront and accost him daily every which way he turns.
That the plan of the humanists was to supplant traditional theistic religion with a new
secular man-centered religion of their own can be proven by simply quoting the
humanists themselves. The best source of these quotes is The Humanist magazine.
The Humanists Organize
The forerunner of The Humanist was The New Humanist which first appeared in 1928 as
a monthly bulletin of the Humanist Fellowship, an organization formed by Unitarian
students from the University of Chicago and its related theological schools. Its early
editors — Harold Buschman, Edwin H. Wilson, and Raymond B. Bragg — were young
Unitarian ministers. It was on the initiatives of Bragg that the drafting of A Humanist
Manifesto (1933) was begun. Professor Roy Wood Sellars wrote the first draft. The
Manifesto appeared in the April 1933 issue of The New Humanist.
The Manifesto was more than just an affirmation of the humanist world view, it was also
a declaration of war against orthodox, traditional religion. The Manifesto’s views
toward religion can be summed up as follows:
1. The purpose of man’s life is “the complete realization of human personality.”
“[T]he quest for the good life is … the central task for man.”
2. The humanist’s religious emotions are expressed in “social passion,” in a “heightened
sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.”
3. Humanists believe that “all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of
human life.” Therefore, “the intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and
direction of such associations and institutions … is the purpose and program of
humanism.”
In other words, the humanist must take over society’s associations and institutions in
order to transform them into instruments of humanist purpose. This includes the
institutions of traditional religion.
The Manifesto states: “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.”
A Messianic Mission
In other words, the messianic mission of the humanists is not to build new institutions of
their own, but to subvert and appropriate the institutions of others. This is not a new
idea among humanists. The Unitarians subverted Harvard and took it from the orthodox
followers of its Calvinist founders. Religious liberals have appropriated Yale, Princeton,
Dartmouth and other institutions founded by the orthodox.
The loss of these institutions, incidentally, has forced conservative Christians to create
new institutions of their own: Liberty University, Regent University, Bob Jones
University, Pensacola Christian College, Patrick Henry College, and others. The rise of
these new institutions has dismayed the humanists who believed that once the major
institutions of traditional religion were subverted and taken over, the influence of theistic
religion would fade forever. The hopeful demise of traditional theistic religion is a
theme frequently expressed by humanist writers.
Humanism as Religion
Roy Wood Sellars, who drafted Humanist Manifesto I, wrote in The Humanist (Vol. I,
1941, p. 5), an article “Humanism as a Religion,” in which he stated:
“Undeniably there is something imaginative and daring in bringing together in one phrase
two such profoundly symbolic words as humanism and religion. An intimate union is
foreshadowed in which religion will become humanistic and humanism religious. And I
believe that such a synthesis is imperative if humanity is ever to achieve a firm and
adequate understanding of itself and its cosmic situation….
“Religious humanism rests upon the bedrock of a decision that it is, in the long run, saner
and wiser to face facts than to live in a world of fable.”
The Worship of Humanity
Oliver L. Reiser, a signer of the Manifesto, writing in the same issue of The Humanist,
states:
“The one great hope for democracy lies in the development of a non-supernaturalistic
religion which, unlike other intellectual movements, will be non-academic in its appeal to
all civilized individuals. This new foundation for a coming world-order must be the
emergent outcome of the thought-content of a universalized culture….
“The god of this coming world-religion, that is, the object of reverence of scientific
humanism, is the spirit of humanity in its upward striving.”
Another signer of the Manifesto, William Floyd, wrote in The Humanist (Vol. 2, 1942, p.
2):
“The religious philosophy of humanism as a substitute for metaphysical theology will
enable men to realize the highest value in life without surrendering their minds to any
final dogma or any alleged revelation of the supernatural….
“To fill the need for a modern conception of religious foundations the Humanist
Manifesto was issued in 1933.”
Another signer, E. Burdette Backus, wrote in Vol. VI, p. 6 of The Humanist:
“[Humanism] is indeed a religion, and the extent to which it is capable of eliciting the
emotions of men is limited only by a degree in which those who have made it their own
shall succeed in embodying its full riches.”
Natural vs. Supernatural Religion
In an article, “Religion Without God, (The Humanist, Vol. VII, 1947, p. 9), Kenneth L.
Patton wrote:
“A naturalistic religion is just as inclusive of all that is within the world we know as is the
supernaturalistic or theistic religion.
“Whereas the theist pins his faith and hope in his God, the humanist and naturalist pins
his faith in the natural world, and in man as a creature within it, and his faith is no less
magnificent, courageous and hopeful than that of the believer in God.”
The Fourth Faith
In June 1951 The Humanist published an article by Manifesto signer Edwin H. Wilson,
“Humanism: The Fourth Faith.” He wrote:
“Today, I am suggesting that there is in the world as a present and potent faith, embraced
by vast numbers, yet seldom mentioned — a fourth faith — namely Humanism. This
fourth faith — with rare exceptions such as some Universalist or Unitarian churches, a
few independent Humanist Fellowships and the Ethical Societies — has no church to
embody it…. Theirs is a secular faith.”
According to Wilson, the other three faiths are Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism.
Since many of the signers of the Manifesto were Unitarians, it is not surprising that
Wilson identifies the Unitarian church as belonging to the fourth faith.
In 1952, The Humanist (Sept.-Oct.) published an article by Julian Huxley, “Evolutionary
Humanism: The World’s Next Great Religion.” Mr. Huxley wrote:
“Out of the needs of our time, through the evolutionary process, a new religion is rising.
By religion . . . I mean an organized system of ideas and emotions which relates man to
his destiny, over and above the practical affairs of every day, transcending the present
and the existing systems of law and social structure. . . . I believe we have nothing to lose
by using the word ‘religion’ in the broadest sense to include nontheistic formulations and
systems as well.”
In the next issue of The Humanist, Huxley wrote:
“The next phase of history could, and should, be a Humanist phase. Let us help toward
its emergence.”
The Glorification of man
In an article, “The Humanist Faith Today” (The Humanist, Vol. 15, No. 4, 1954, p. 180),
we read:
“Since humanism appears as a genuinely living option for many people, especially
among students, teachers, and intellectuals generally, it may be appropriately studied as a
religion. Indeed, it is not unfair to call it the fourth main religious option, along with
Judaism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism, for thoughtful men in the contemporary
Western world….
“What remains of religion when the Humanist criticism has completed its work? The
Humanist replies that devotion to human and social values emerges as the essence of
religion. As [Corliss] Lamont has written, the Humanist postulates that ‘the chief end of
thought and action is to further earthly human interests in behalf of the greater happiness
and glory of man.’”
In 1959, George E. Axtelle, newly elected president of the American Humanist
Association, said:
“Ours is no revealed religion. It is a religion, an intellectual and moral outlook shaped
by the more sensitive and sympathetic souls of our time….Ours is a task, not a
doctrine….Our fundamental goal must be to make the Humanist Way of Life a reality in
our communities, our state and our nation.”
The New Religion
In the January-February 1962 issue of The Humanist, Sir Julian Huxley wrote an article,
“The Coming New Religion of Humanism.” He said:
“The beliefs of this religion of evolutionary humanism are not based on revelation in the
supernatural sense, but on the revelations that science and learning have given us about
man and the universe. A humanist believes with full assurance that man is not alien to
nature, but a part of nature, albeit a unique one…. His true destiny is to guide the future
course of evolution on earth towards greater fulfilment, so as to realize more and higher
potentialities….
“A humanist religion will have the task of redefining the categories of good and evil in
terms of fulfilment and of desirable or undesirable realizations of potentiality, and setting
up new targets for its morality to aim at….
“Humanism also differs from all supernaturalist religions in centering its long-term aims
not on the next world but on this….The humanist goal must therefore be … The
Fulfilment Society.”
Secularists Object
Not all humanists agreed with Huxley. Harry Elmer Barnes and Herbert T. Rosenfeld
responded with an article of their own in the July-August 1962 issue. They wrote:
“In our opinion, Sir Julian has set forth not the Humanist ideology of today, but a truly
noble and eloquent Unitarian sermon. It is Unitarian doctrine, pure if not simple….
“It was, of course, frequently argued in earlier decades of our century that Humanism is a
secular religion, but in the light of the history of thought and culture, the terms ‘religion’
and ‘secular’ are, in our view, mutually exclusive….If there is any one thing which
characterizes and justifies Humanism it is complete and undeviating secularism….
“If Humanism is identical with the latter [Unitarianism] in its ideology, we see little basis
for a separate Humanist movement or organization.”
Unitarian minister Edwin H. Wilson, one of the founders of the humanist movement,
responded to the Barnes-Rosenfeld article in the Nov.-Dec. 1962 issue. He told of how
the magazine was founded by Unitarian theological students. He went on:
“The American Humanist Association itself was organized soon thereafter by a group
composed primarily of liberal ministers and professors who were predominantly
Unitarians and considered themselves as religious humanists. At the time of its
incorporation in 1941, the decision was made not to try to establish humanist churches
but to function as an educational movement among humanists wherever they were found.
“The early literature of the movement was devoted chiefly to the development of
Humanism as a distinctly religious position….
“Of the 34 persons who signed the Humanist Manifesto in 1933, all but four can be
readily identified as ’religious humanists’ who considered Humanism as the development
of a better and truer religion and as the next step ahead for those who sought it….
“My conviction is that a probe into what is actually believed would show that the ‘liberal
Unitarian position’ and what is generally presented as Humanism — whether as a religion
or as a philosophy — differ very little….
“One minister who belongs to the A.H.A. said: ‘We Unitarians in my church have no
ideological conflict with the American Humanist Association. Naturalistic Humanism is
our position.’
“Barnes and Rosenfeld question whether a secular religion is possible. Not to make any
one word too important, one could argue that today’s Unitarian Universalism is a secular
religion….
“Now for expediency. In the Torcaso case the court recognized Buddhism, Taoism,
Ethical Culture and Secular Humanism as religions existing in the United States which do
not teach what is traditionally considered belief in God. We should at least ask
ourselves whether there are not practical advantages to be had by accepting this
decision.”
And so, to Wilson, and many other humanists, “secular religion” was not a contradiction
in terms. The words defined a nontheistic faith. Comments by readers of the articles
appeared in the January-February 1963 issue. Opinion was divided. The hard-core
atheists objected to the use of the word “religion,” while the Unitarians agreed with
Wilson.
Humanist Manifesto II
In 1973 the humanists produced Humanist Manifesto II, an affirmation of the earlier
document with updated views on the world’s social problems. The new Manifesto was
as hostile to traditional theistic religion as the earlier one. It said:
“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the
prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their
prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.
Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with
false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival….
“We believe…that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation,
God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human
species….We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of the supernatural; it
is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the
human race. As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity….
“[We] can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there
is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No
deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”
Ethics and Sexuality
Manifesto II also spelled out the social and political agendas for humanists:
“We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is
autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction….We strive
for the good life, here and now….
“In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox
religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth
control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized….Short of harming others or
compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual
proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire.”
World Government
The humanists again committed themselves to the goal of World Government.
Manifesto II states:
“We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a
turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national
sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors
of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of
world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government.”
Anyone who bothers to study the curriculum of American public education will find in
virtually every course and program the tremendous influence of humanist philosophy. It
almost seems as if the public schools have become the parochial schools of humanism
wherein American youngsters are aggressively indoctrinated in humanist values and
ideas.
In fact, humanist editor Joe R. Burnett suggested as much in the Nov.-Dec. 1961 issue of
The Humanist (p. 347) when arguing in favor of federal aid to education. He said:
“Humanists obviously have a vital interest in the passage of a strong bill for federal aid to
public education. Without wanting to push the analogy too far, one might say that public
education is the parochial education for scientific humanism.”
If that was the case in 1961, it is even moreso today. In short: Public education today is
a government-supported establishment of the humanist religion.
(This article was written by the late Sam Blumenfeld in the early 1990s, and is part of the Sam Blumenfeld Archives-a free on-line resource: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
The Blumenfeld Archives
Camp Constitution Director On A New Hampshire Left-Wing Hate List
Recently, The Granite Grok published a list of over 500 conservative activists from around New Hampshire created by former New Hampshire State Senator Jeanne Dietsch: https://granitegrok.com/blog/2024/01/are-you-on-the-list-of-right-wing-extremists-in-new-hampshire-i-am Dietsch labeled those on her list an “anti-Democratic extremists.” She also has a link on her website where people can request additions to her “anti-Democrat extremists” list.
Among the names on this hate list is your truly. Dietsch has me listed as a “Christian Nationalist” who directs “a far right Evangelical camp.” It appears that Ms. Dietch is following the lead of Congresswoman Maxine Waters who urged people to confront Trump supporters. Her goal is to have those on the list, silenced, intimidated, canceled, fired, boycotted or worse. While I can’t speak on behalf of the other people on her hate list, many of whom I know personally and consider then friends, I think this list will only motivate those on the list to work harder to promote liberty and freedom. While I am not concerned about my personal safety, and my son’s, I am worried about the safety of wife and daughters who may be targeted as a result of this list. If, so, I will hold her legally responsible,
Ms. Dietsch is certainly no moderate. She supports open borders, opposed to fossil fuels, and thinks the Koch Brothers control New Hampshire. In June of 2020, her elitism and anti-Democratic worldview was on display when she was quoted at a House Education Committe meeting: “this idea of parental choice, that’s great if the parent is well-educated. There are some families that’s perfect for. But to make it available to everyone? No. I think you’re asking for a huge amount of trouble.”