By Selwyn Duke

Below is a very short video on the link between healthy representative government and religion. My friend Thomas Lifson, publisher of American Thinker, made me aware of it via a blog post he penned today. Lifson provides a short bio on the man in the video, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, who, it appears, has had a very interesting and eventful life. Among other things, he recently had to completely relearn how to speak after suffering a stroke some years ago that robbed him of the ability. Yet he still remains what Lifson characterizes as "one of the most important thinkers of our era." Enjoy his commentary, and then please see my remarks below.

While I agree with the spirit of Christensen's comments, I must reiterate a point I've made in the past: Saying we need "religion" as a remedy is much like saying we need "ideology" to solve a problem. Just any ideology will do? 

Like ideology, "religion" is a category, not a creed; it includes the good, the bad and the ugly. In point of fact, most religions that have existed (I'm including the various pre-Christian-era pagan ones here) have been relatively destructive. This is not to impugn "religion," mind you, as the same can be said of "belief systems" (I really dislike that term) no matter what we call them. As to this, the terms "secular" and "religious" didn't even exist in English until relatively recently, and the distinction between the two is, in the most significant sense, a false one. This is because the only distinction that really matters is "true and untrue." 

And for most of Christendom's history, that was precisely how people viewed matters. Call it orthodoxy and heterodoxy (or heresy), but it all amounted to not a relativistic world view but one recognizing Truth's existence and that we can choose only one of two paths: embracement of it — or denial of it.

By Selwyn Duke

Long before Hillary Clinton became aWhitewater girl she was a Goldwater girl. She even read the 1964 Republican nominee’s book Conscience of a Conservative before becoming what critics would say is a conscienceless leftist. But while Rodham (her maiden name) had to content herself with being a school Young Republican, today politically precocious kids can get something else: 15 minutes of national conservative fame facilitated by fawning adults. And one commentator has a very definite opinion about this.

“The Right Needs To Stop Idolizing Wunderkinds,” says Bethany Mandel.

Writing at the Federalist, Mandel points to other “conservative” kids who underwent the Rodham-Clinton transformation — only, it happened after adults childishly hailed them as the next Ronald Reagan. 

One is C.J. Pearson. The 13-year-old black Georgia resident denounced Barack Obama earlier this year in a few videos, which went viral, and he became a conservative YouTube star. That was before he apparently lied about the White House blocking him on Twitter.

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

Does Hillary Clinton accept the idea of profiling Muslims? Apparently the answer is yes — at least insofar as the 2001 Hillary goes. Because while being interviewed by This Week’s Sam Donaldson the Sunday after 9/11, then-Senator Clinton was quite amenable to the idea. Perhaps we can say, she was for it before she was against it.

Fast-forward to today and we have the 2015 Hillary. She made the claim at the last Democrat debate that Donald Trump is sending “discriminatory messages” and that Da’esh (ISIS) is “showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.” This has been proven false, and Trump, showing his usual circumspection, responded by saying that Clinton “lies like crazy about everything.” Yet one could wonder: Was Clinton lying in 2001 when she sent her discriminatory message in profiling’s favor? Or was it a moment of clarity?

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

Recent times have seen the revocation of six trademarks owned by the Washington Redskins. But now bureaucrats at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) may be red-faced — as a federal court just ruled that the government may not deny trademark protection based on the notion that a mark is “disparaging.”

While the ruling will have a bearing on a host of marks, it was not the Redskins’ case, per se, that was before the court when it issued its ruling.

Read the rest here.

A very merry and blessed Christmas to you and yours.

And keep Christ in Christmas!

Selwyn Duke

By Selwyn Duke

Here's a great Christmas video that, especially in this secular age, may bring tears to your eyes. It's from 2010 but is, as you'll see, timeless. It's well worth the five minutes it takes to watch.

(Hat tip: faith-filled, wise, longtime reader Philip Franzino, who sent me the video.)

By Selwyn Duke

It wasn’t seven years ago. Barack Obama, once hailed as the “post-racial president,” didn’t exactly say (this time) “They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” And he didn’t specifically mention that “they” referred to “mostly white voters,” though even the reliably left-wing Washington Post wrote that such people are precisely about whom Obama was talking. But when the president said in a Monday National Public Radio interview (see video below; remarks in question begin around 26:20) that Donald Trump was exploiting “blue collar” fears, he was, as the Post’s headline informed, reviving his “‘cling to guns or religion’ analysis.”

The Gateway Pundit was even more blunt, writing “Obama Plays Race Card Against Trump,” while radio host Michael Savage echoed this with the recent observation that “blue collar” is a code term for “white men.”

Here is the relevant portion of Obama’s remarks…

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

They used to call it “cultural imperialism.” Now they call it tolerance. The Barack Obama administration has spent $700 million since 2012 promoting the homosexuality agenda overseas — with more than half of that sum being spent in sub-Saharan Africa — and has nothing to show for it except more anti-homosexuality laws and ill will. Ah, tax money at work.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

We’ve been told they’re fleeing war. But some Muslim migrants entering Europe are apparently bringing war — a war for the hearts and minds of Westerners. And one Syrian migrant has admitted as much, telling an Arabic television station that he wasn’t driven to the Old World mainly by fear of death or Da’esh (ISIS), but by a desire to Islamize Europeans.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” said Barack Obama at a 2008 fund-raiser. No one troubled over that comment, but the same cannot be said of an utterance by another president, who, according to some, shot his mouth off.

University of Iowa’s new president, Bruce Harreld (shown, in sport jacket), is in hot water for using a time-honored metaphor. In fact, some agitators want his scalp.

Read the rest here.