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June 11, 2013

The Schools’ Sinister War on Guns

By Selwyn Duke

Call it living in Upside-down Land or the realization of the
Bible’s prediction of a time when bad will be called good and good, bad, but
once again innocent schoolchildren have been persecuted for, well, just being
children. This time the offender was Chase Lake Elementary School (CLES) in
Edmonds, WA, where some kids were suspended for using Nerf guns on school
grounds. And it’s an all-too-common story. A child will be punished for drawing
a gun, shaping his fingers as one and saying “bang!” merely
talking about guns or some other innocuous action. And recently there was a
case of a five-year-old boy who brought a cap gun to school to show a friend
and then was interrogated for two hours until he wet his pants. It’s all
very bizarre and very twisted.

In the Edmonds case, the children were told that they could
bring the toys to school, but I’m not interested in individual details but
deeper matters. And make no mistake, something deeper is afoot here.

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June 7, 2013

Media Put Socialist Spin on Words of Pope Francis

By Selwyn Duke

There’s an old patriotic joke about how the Soviet media spun a
two-auto race in which an American car bested a Russian one. Went the
reportage: “Russian car finishes second in race.

American car comes in next to last.”

But this joke has nothing on the modern Western media’s practices,
which were on full display in the coverage of a recent Vatican speech on
finances given by Pope Francis to visiting new ambassadors. For
instance, The Telegraph ran the headline,
“Pope Francis urges global leaders to end 'tyranny' of money.” Author
Nick Squires then went on to “explain,” “He [the pope] said free-market
capitalism had created a ‘tyranny’…. [That is,][u]nchecked capitalism
had created ‘a new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny’, said the
former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.”

The problem?

The pope never used the term “free-market capitalism.”

For that matter, he never mentioned capitalism or the “free market” at all.

Nor did his speech include the phrase the “tyranny of money.”

Read the rest here.
May 21, 2013

Obama’s Henchmen

By Selwyn Duke

The big questions now surrounding Barack Obama’s triumvirate of
scandals is “How much did he know?” and “When did he know it?” Former
presidential advisor David Axelrod made the point that the government is
“so vast” that the president can’t possibly know all that transpires.
Of course, this is one of the best arguments against big government a
leftist ever put forth, yet the truth is that Axelrod is right. But this
brings us to an important, and usually ignored, point.

Obama knew what his underlings were (or should have known) when he picked them up.

My phraseology references an old American Indian tale about a little
boy who, after doing a rattlesnake a series of good turns, was
nonetheless bitten by the serpent when the charitable endeavors were
complete. When the lad registered shock and asked why the snake would do
such a thing, the rattler replied, “You knew what I was when you picked
me up.”

Read the rest here.
May 6, 2013

Obama’s and Holder’s Selective Constitutional Deafness

By Selwyn Duke

Often a phenomenon of bad marriages, “selective deafness” is
when one hears only what is convenient. The same failing manifests itself in government
when politicians and judges hear the Constitution talk only when it sings their
tune. Worse still, sometimes these people behave as if the document says things
it doesn’t. This is the equivalent of hearing things.

(more…)
May 3, 2013

Boston: Blowing up America

By Selwyn Duke

Sometimes a reaction can be worse than an action, even when that
action is very, very diabolical. Some would argue that this was the case
with 9/11, with the resultant long-term loss of freedom, misguided
military ventures, and no serious effort whatsoever to seal a porous
back door to America.

The
Boston Marathon bombing also may prove to be a case in which reaction
surpasses action in damage. After all, what good is a doctor’s treatment
if his diagnosis and prescription
are wrong, if he claims that what’s healthy is Hell-sent and portrays
poison as palliative? And what good are our diagnoses and prescriptions
relating to terrorism if we demonize the realists and sanitize the
terrorists? When our physicians will not, or cannot, heal themselves, is
the greater danger posed by those who proudly spread the disease in the
name of one evil cause or those who offer a faux cure in the name of
another?

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May 2, 2013

Airline Passenger Detained for Being a Jerk

By Selwyn Duke

The
bigger the government, the greater the opportunity to seek revenge by
state action. This has been demonstrated throughout history, and now
current events are teaching the same lesson.

The
latest example involves 52-year-old California businessman Salvatore
Bevivino, who was detained after a Virgin America flight in April, 2013
for, he reports, refusing to flush a toilet and arguing with a stewardess over a soda. Writes The Smoking Gun:

A
flight attendant told cops that Bevivino argued with her over the
ordering of a soda via a computer touchscreen. "My time is precious, you
are here to serve me," Bevivno [sic] said, according to the flight
attendant.

Following
the soda confrontation, the flight attendant told police, Bevivino
"went to the restroom, came back out with a smile on his face and began
using profanities." When the flight attendant passed by the lavatory, she "saw that Bevivino left the door open and did not flush the toilet."

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April 3, 2013

American Arrested for Anti-homosexual Statements

By Selwyn Duke

What does the Islamic world and Europe have in common? There
are actually many similarities, but one is this: in neither place are Christians
allowed to fully express their beliefs without fear of persecution.

As for Eurasia, its Ministry of Truth’s latest handiwork is
the arrest and punishment of an American street preacher who dared speak of sin
in that land once known as Scotland. The victim is 47-year-old New Yorker Shawn
Holes, who was on a UK tour when he was arrested in Glasgow after running afoul
of UK hate-speech laws. Writes Pink
News:

(more…)
March 30, 2013

Bill O’Reilly vs. the Bible Thumpers

By Selwyn Duke

If an argument falls in a forest of confusion and nobody
hears it, does it make an impact?

In a segment with Megyn Kelly on the Wednesday edition of
the O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly lamented
how traditionalists don’t have a “compelling argument” on the faux-marriage
issue and that all we can do is “thump the Bible.” But if theistic thumping is
all O’Reilly hears, he needs an ear for something other than the mainstream
media.

(more…)
March 29, 2013

The Supreme Court and Faux-marriage Fallacies

By Selwyn
Duke

With cultural
defenders such as some of our conservatives, who needs liberals? One could draw
this conclusion when observing the Proposition 8 case currently before the
Supreme Court.

So far we
have we heard arguments about the “sociological” impact of faux marriage and,
from pro-marriage (conservative) lawyer Charles Cooper, about awaiting
“additional information from the jurisdictions where this experiment is still
maturing,” as if the case is just a matter of whether the Court should be an
agent of social engineering at this time and in this instance. Justice Anthony
Kennedy, who could be the swing vote in the case, weighed
in on both sides of the debate, saying, “There’s substance to the point
that sociological information is new. We have 5 years of information to weigh against
2,000 years of history or more.” But he also claimed that California’s “40,000
children with same-sex parents…want their parents to have full recognition and
full status” and asked Cooper, “The voice of those children is important in
this case, don’t you think?” My answer?

No, it
isn’t.

(more…)
March 28, 2013

If I Were a Governor….

By Selwyn Duke

If I were a governor, the first thing I’d do is scrutinize
the school curriculum in my state. For the teachings in the schools today will
be the ideology of tomorrow, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln.

I’d review as much of the material as I could myself, and if
the volume was too great, I’d appoint like-minded traditionalists to help with
the task. But gone would be the revisionist history, radical environmentalism,
feminism, multiculturalism, politically correct teaching models, and most other
pseudo-intellectual “innovations” of the last century. Tradition would be
resurrected and exalted, the classics would be taught, and the moral supremacy of
the old Western civilization emphasized. I would be mindful of G.K.
Chesterton’s words: “It ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the
youngest children, the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the
baby. But in a school today the baby has to submit to a system that is younger
than himself.”

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