In the comment section of a recent post, I drew some fire for making the following, apparently shocking claim:

We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation.

It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very nuanced and sometimes cynical views about organized religion, the United States was somehow conceived to be a secular nation. This belief is not only untrue, but detrimental to an adequate understanding of the underlying political philosophy of the founding, not least of all because it envisions the government as the nation instead of merely the organization through which the nation conducts its civil affairs, and more importantly because it betrays the singular belief that undergirds the entire American experiment: That the rights of man come not from government but from God.

When the Founders crafted the Constitution of the United States, they were not setting about to create a nation; they were setting about to create a system of government. The people of the United States had successfully waged war against Great Britain, formed alliances with foreign powers, brokered trade, and secured national debt before the current system of government was ever established. The Constitution merely created a system of administrative and judicial structures meant to represent the nation and to conduct the affairs of the people of that nation. This is perhaps best evidenced by the opening words to the document itself: “We the people of the United States… establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The United States already existed. Its people created the Constitution to “form a more perfect Union… and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

Read the entire article at Big Hollywood

Sweet!

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A 10-year-old homeschool girl described as “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level” has been told by a New Hampshire court official to attend a government school because she was too “vigorous” in defense of her Christian faith.

The decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”

The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was “a step too far” for any court.

The ADF confirmed today it has filed motions with the court seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H.

The dispute arose as part of a modification of a parenting plan for the girl. The parents divorced in 1999 when she was a newborn, and the mother has homeschooled her daughter since first grade with texts that meet all state standards. 

In addition to homeschooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities, the ADF reported.

But during the process of negotiating the terms of the plan, a guardian ad litem appointed to participate concluded the girl “appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith” and that the girl’s interests “would be best served by exposure to a public school setting” and “different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief … in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.”

According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, “If I want her in public school, she’ll be in public school.”

The marital master hearing the case proposed the Christian girl be ordered into public school after considering “the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others.”

“Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. In this case specifically, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working,” said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons of Hampton.

“The court is essentially saying that the evidence shows that, socially and academically, this girl is doing great, but her religious beliefs are a bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews. This is a step too far for any court to take.”

“The New Hampshire Supreme Court itself has specifically declared, ‘Home education is an enduring American tradition and right,’” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. “There is clearly and without question no legitimate legal basis for the court’s decision, and we trust it will reconsider its conclusions.”

The case, handled in the Family Division of the Judicial Court for Belknap County in Laconia, involves Martin Kurowski and Brenda Kurowski (Voydatch), and their daughter.

The ADF also argued that the issue already was raised in 2006 and rejected by the court.

“Most urgent … is the issue of Amanda’s schooling as the school year has begun and Amanda is being impacted by the court’s decision daily,” the court filing requesting a stay said. “Serious state statutory and federal constitutional concerns are implicated by the court’s ruling and which need to be remedied without delay.

“It is not the proper role of the court to insist that Amanda be ‘exposed to different points of view’ if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda’s best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine Amanda’s faith, schooling, social development, etc. The court is not permitted to demonstrate hostility toward religion, and particularly the faith of Amanda and Mother, by removing Amanda from the home and thrusting her into an environment that the custodial parent deems detrimental to Amanda.”

“The order assumes that because Amanda has sincerely held Christian beliefs, there must be a problem that needs solving. It is a parent’s constitutionally protected right to train up their children in the religious beliefs that they hold. It is not up to the court to suggest that a 10-year-old should be ‘exposed’ to other religious views contrary to the faith traditions of her parents. Could it not be that this sharp 10-year-old ‘vigorously’ believes what she does because she knows it to be true? The court’s narrative suggests that 10-year-olds are too young to form opinions and that they are not yet allowed to have sincerely held Christian beliefs,” the ADF said.

“Absent any other clear and convincing evidence justifying the court’s decision, it would appear that the court has indeed taken sides with regard to the issue of religion and has preferred one religious view over another (or the absence of religion). This is impermissible,” the documents said.

The guardian ad litem had an anti-Christian bias, the documents said, telling the mother at one point she wouldn’t even look at homeschool curriculum.

“I don’t want to hear it. It’s all Christian based,” she said.

Tonight (08/27/09) Channel 4 announced a Town Hall this coming Thursday at their Harlingen studio with Congressmen Ortiz, Hinojosa and Cuellar. You must go to valleycentral.com to register for the event. Rules are posted and you are asked to submit your question. This will be broadcast live from 6-7 pm. There will also be a live chat and a phone bank. It is unclear if/how questions will be taken from the chat or phone banks. It is unclear if the Congressmen will have the opportunity to screen submitted questions and answer only those they care to and if the same will be done with the phone and live chats. Nevertheless I did register and urge as many TTTP members to do the same. Can you believe it fellow Patriots? You have to be a lottery winner for the privilige of seeing your elected representative in the flesh.

Action 4 News Schedules Town Hall Meeting

By Miriam Marentes

Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 11:01 p.m.HARLINGEN, TEXAS — Action 4 News will be hosting a Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting in the Action 4 News Studio.

U.S. Congressman Solomon Ortiz, Ruben Hinojosa and Henry Cuellar have all agreed to attend the forum.

The event will include a live chat and phone bank to answer questions from the public.

It will air from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. next Thursday, September 3.

To reserve a seat in the live audience and to read the rules of the town hall meeting, click here.

KGBT TOWN HALL MEETING TICKETS

U.S. Congressmen Solomon Ortiz, Ruben Hinojosa and Henry Cuellar are coming to the KGBT-TV studios for a unique event on Thursday, September 3rd.

The Rio Grande Valley congressmen are holding a unique Hall Meeting about Health Care Reform inside our television studio.

The event will include a LIVE chat room and phone bank to answer questions from the public.

The Town Hall Meeting will be aired on LIVE television from 6 to 7 p.m.

Action 4 News viewers have the chance to win tickets to be in the studio audience and ask their own question to the congressmen.

Participants must be 18 years & older and will have to submit to the following rules:

• arrive early
• Submit to a security screening
• No disruptions
• No profanity
• No signs
• No buttons

Registration ends at Noon on Wednesday, September 2nd.

Click here for a complete set of rules

Posted By Bobby Eberle On August 18, 2009 at 7:26 am

Ever since the Democrats took control of Congress, they have sought to take control of talk radio… or to be more precise, conservative talk radio. You see… on radio, the market place (yes, left-wingers hate the “market place”) has spoken, and people love conservative talk radio. Not only that, but they hate liberal talk radio.

There have been multiple attempts to revive the so-called “fairness doctrine” by the Democrats which would force radio stations to carry left-wing talk shows whether the listening audience wanted them or not. These attempts were met with enough resistance, that the Democrats stopped trying to overtly bring back the “fairness doctrine.” However, that simply means they are trying covert methods instead… thus, the creation of America’s new “diversity czar” at the FCC… and this guy is a real doozy. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter yesterday to Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In it, Grassley expressed his concerns over the appointment of Mark Lloyd as the commission’s associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. The senator “is concerned with the appointment due to Lloyd’s writings on political talk radio and the Fairness Doctrine.”

“The appointment of Mark Lloyd to be the Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer is at odds with assurances that the FCC would not reinstate the Fairness Doctrine that Mr. Genachowski made prior to his U.S. Senate confirmation,” Grassley said.  “I hope Mr. Genachowski stands by his word and reaffirms his commitment to me that the FCC won’t be considering anything that accomplishes the goals of the Fairness Doctrine.”

So, what is Mark Lloyd all about? As Grassley notes in his letter to the FCC chairman, Lloyd served as a Senior Fellow at the left-wing Center for American Progress. During his tenure, he helped author a paper titled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.

Lloyd and co-authors note, “Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.” Progressive? Give me a break. Even they are too afraid to use the word “liberal.” Here are a few more notes by Lloyd and company:

* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

* A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

Liberal (or progressive) talk radio has tried to gain an audience time and time again. People don’t like it. They won’t listen to it. And these radio stations can’t make money during those time slots. So, the shows get canceled. Seems like a pretty simple formula, right?

Just look at the “remedy” for fixing the ills of conservative talk radio as proposed by Lloyd:

* Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.

* Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

* Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

Pay a fee to support public broadcasting? This is absolutely crazy, but it shows the liberal mind in action. If the American public won’t support left-wing ideas through the market place, then the American public will “support” them through government radio. Forcing radio owners to pay fines to support public radio if they don’t abide by “public interest obligations” is scary. Doesn’t the public decide what’s in the public interest?

Lloyd wants to tax radio stations to the point of airing left-wing programs. This is the ultimate in government coercion! The liberals don’t like the fact that the public prefers conservative talk radio, so they will force radio stations to change.

Grassley and others have a right to be concerned, and they should demand that Lloyd be replaced. (I recommend that the whole “diversity czar” position be eliminated.) The government needs to keep out, and let the public decide what the public wants to listen to on the radio.

David Horowitz

For the conservative, the Constitution is not a convenient discourse, but a repository of pragmatic and durable truths about liberty and prosperity in a social order.   No one reading the argument of the Federalist Papers, which is an argument about the lessons of history can fail to understand this.   The truths embodied in the principles of the Constitution were validated for the founders by the experience of previously existing states.   They have been confirmed in our lifetimes by the end-results of the two-hundred year war of the Left against the philosophical and political framework of “bourgeois” freedoms—against the idea of negative liberties and the practice of limited government; and by the Left’s establishment of societies based on its own radical principles of positive freedoms, which include affirmative “rights” to food, shelter, clothing, employment, and equality; and by the catastrophes they created.

In a famous afterword to The Constitution of Liberty, Hayek explained why he was not a conservative in the European sense.   “Conservatism, proper,” he wrote, “is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change.”   It therefore can not “offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving.” And that is a problem, given the dynamism of capitalist society, the openness of the American polity, and the ascendance of radical ideology over the last half century.

– “A Conservative Hope” from The Politics of Bad Faith

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Is a federal government takeover of the health care system constitutional?

Some argue that under the Constitution, Congress is not authorized to regulate or subsidize health care.

Michael Boldin, founder of The Tenth Amendment Center, told WND that if citizens want to understand whether health care is constitutional, they must first understand the function of the Constitution.

“The best way to look at it is that it doesn’t apply to you,” he said. “It doesn’t apply to me. It doesn’t apply to any person at all. It applies to the government, and it sets the boundaries of what government is supposed to do.”

Click here to read the entire article.

For many members of Congress, this August recess will be unlike any they’ve experienced in a long time. As elected officials get shouted down at town hall meetings across America, the sheer mistrust toward all-things Washington is palpable.

It’s because the American people are being asked to believe the unbelievable. We’re being told that a $1 trillion health care bill will not add to the deficit, that a $1 trillion national energy tax affecting every business in America will not kill jobs, and that a $787 billion unread spending bill is actually saving our economy.

It is this mind-set and denial of reality that gave us the subprime lending disaster, an IOU-issuing Sacramento, and a dysfunctional Detroit. Simply put, people are fed up. To get America back on the right track, we must re-establish a simple premise: 2+2=4.

In its fight to defeat the Communist Party in 1989, the Polish Solidarity Movement adopted the slogan “for Poland to be Poland, 2 + 2 must always = 4.” For 44 years of communist rule, the Poles had been lied to, in effect told that 2+2=5. To challenge the authority of the communists and prosper as a free society, Solidarity chose this slogan because they knew they had to be grounded in truth and reality.

Read the entire article here.

TOWN HALL MEETING

A Town Hall Meeting/Public Forum will be held at   7:00 PM in the Auditorium of the Harlingen Library on Tuesday, August 18th. Seating begins at 6:30. Representative Solomon Ortiz has declined participation and Hinojosa has not replied.  Their challengers will be present.

Your attendance is strongly encouraged!

Contact Your Representatives and Join the Rally! 

Please Handwrite letters to your representatives urging them to vote No on Health Care Reform.  Addresses are available via our website.
 
Letters can be hand delivered to Ortiz’s office on Saturday, August 22nd, during our rally from Noon to 1:00 PM.
 
We will have someone deliver your handwritten letter for you if you cannot attend!
 
Suggestions:

• Have a letter writing session at your home with your aquaintances.
• Take a letter around your neighborhood and get signatures.
   
  We must act now!

Meet or Rally in Austin on Sept. 5th!  

Our Next General Meeting will be on Saturday, Sept. 5th at Word of God Church 1944 E. Alton Gloor Blvd.  (next to Burns Elem. School in Brownsville). 
 
This is also the day some of us will be going to Austin to participate in the State TEA Party from 1:00 – 4:00.  If you would like to join those going to Austin, respond to ttteaparty@gmail.com.
 
Those not traveling to Austin, please make every effort to attend our meeting. We will have a meet and greet session at 9:00 AM and The meeting will begin at 9:30 AM.
 
Thanks to all who attended today. Your input and participation are invaluable to me and America!   It was great to see new faces.  Everyone, bring a friend on Sept. 5th!

-Sue