The Founding Fathers

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

adagio4639— Do myself a favor and publish another Hub? I have published 103 Hubs since this one. I have published 22 Hubs since you first commented on this one—exactly twice as many as you have ever published. One day next month I will celebrate one million Page Views.

Your state-by-state statistics conveniently overlook the fact that in the states with the highest percentage of out-of-wedlock births and the resultant fatherlessness; and the resultant poverty, violent crime, and low educational attainment—the most common denominator is its percentage of African-Americans; and lesser so its percentage of people of Hispanic origin. This only make sense when one considers that 77 of black babies are born out-of-wedlock; 53 percent of Latinos; and 29 percent of whites.

It should be noted that the white percentage was 2 percent before people like you began teaching children that all cultures were equal; even cultures that at the time had illegitimacy rates ten times higher. Instead of teaching the black children that a 20 percent rate for out-of-wedlock births was bad, you taught them that since it was part of their culture to have bastard children it cannot be bad. Had the right approach been taken, the black rate might have been reduced to 2 percent. The message should have been: emulate the white people—don't have out-of-wedlock babies. Instead you taught the white girls that all cultures are equal including one where out-of-wedlock births were 10 times more frequent. The blacks, with your blessing, zoomed from 20% to 77%; the whites from 2% to 29%, after you kicked God out of schools and taught multiculturalism.

For the first time in history, more than half of births to mothers under age 30 are illegitimate, thanks to the ideology of people like you. Of course, people like you see nothing wrong with it since it creates more dependents for your dreamed of future Socialist State. You see it as progress. But there is a problem Houston. Virtually every major social pathology has been linked to fatherlessness: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, teen pregnancy, suicide—all correlate more strongly to fatherlessness than to any other single factor. The majority of prisoners, juvenile detention inmates, high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, adolescent murderers, and rapists all come from fatherless homes.

Children without their fathers living with them are more likely to go to prison by twenty times, to commit suicide by five times, to commit murder by eight times, to have behavioral problems by twenty times, to become rapists by fourteen times, to run away by thirty-two times, to abuse chemical substances by ten times, to drop out of high school by nine times, to be seriously abused by thirty-three times, to be fatally abused by seventy-three times, to be one tenth as likely to get A's in school, and to have a seventy-two percent lower standard of living. And you call this progress.

Not even transfers of wealth from men who earn it to women who don't, through massive social spending programs like welfare, AFDC, HUD, food stamps, WIC, CAPTA, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Department of Education,"child support", family law courts, the ten fold increase in prison spending, and $1.5 trillion in federal taxation, was able to reduce the social pathology surrounding single mother households.

In America today, the 30% of children who live apart from their fathers will account for 63% of teen suicides, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 71% of high-school dropouts, 75% of children in chemical-abuse centers, 80% of rapists, 85% of youths in prison, 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, and 90% of homeless and runaway children. And thanks to people of your ilk, we have progressed to the point where the next generation won't be 30%—it will be 50%.

A counselor at a juvenile-detention facility in California, which has the nation’s highest juvenile-incarceration rate, said recently, “If you find a gang member who comes from a complete nuclear family, I’d like to meet him. … I don’t think that kid exists.”

The vast majority of those from homes without fathers externalize responsibility for problems and solutions, holding others to blame for their ills, and bestowing upon the state the duty of providing basic needs and, ultimately, of arbitrating proper conduct. And you encourage this attitude. You think it a mark of progress.

Illegitimate children strongly tends to result in mental rigidity, fear, anger, aggression and insecurity, the result of low self-esteem and arrested emotional development associated, predominantly, with fatherless households in which children were not adequately affirmed. Such individuals harbor contempt for those who are self-sufficient for much the same reason. They believe that conforming to a code of non-conformity is a sign of individualism, when it is nothing more than an extreme form of conformism for those who are truly insecure. Though people like you feign concern for the less fortunate and the primacy of individual liberty, people like you are ardent statists.

The fate of the fatherless is, at best, a broken heart. At worst, it is the root cause of the social entropy we observe in contemporary American culture, because the fate of the fatherless is directly linked to the faith of the fatherless, their relationship with God the Father. Broken trust with earthly fathers often results in a lack of trust in the Heavenly Father.

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

Adagio4639- You wrote: "I've spent a lot of time arguing with you, but in order for any debate to continue in the real world, you have to live in the real world and not invoke your faith as if it is going to carry some kind of weight to your argument. It won't. Faith is not representative of a reasoned argument."

I am sorry that you cannot see it, but Faith is a part of every human being's life, even yours. It is simply that you have faith in different things than I do. Every person exhibits faith every day. You have faith that your ideas are right and mine are wrong. You have faith that scientists are right- no matter how often they change their minds, excuse me, their theories. You might have faith that what you know about Julius Caesar, or Plato, or Karl Popper, or Barack Obama, is true, though you denigrate my faith that what I know about Jesus Christ is true-as if your sources were more reliable. When you get on an airplane you exhibit faith; when you drive a car you exhibit faith; when you vote for Progressive politicians you exhibit faith. The fact is that you simply do not want to-out of free will-have faith in Christ. When you deny God exists, or that heaven and hell exist, you are exhibiting supreme faith-knowing what will happen if you are wrong in your beliefs.

By the way, a recent Gallup Poll found Ronald Reagan voted the best American President ever. Another poll the other day found that more Americans think reducing the deficit America's most pressing task-61 percent. The Misery Index since World War Two shows the worst results under President Obama of any President except for Jimmy Carter. The best? Under President Reagan.

You quoted me as saying: "But it isn't my analysis or anyone's analysis. It is plain fact that the number one predictor of poverty in the United States is the broken homes that progressive ideas encouraged."

To which you rebut: "This statement is so filled with errors that it's enough to make a sane person scream. You site a "plain fact that the number one "predictor"...As if any "predictor of any sort is in itself...a fact. All "predictors" are the result of inductive reasoning which NEVER prove a theory. There is no such thing as a factual predictor because all predictions are a result of inductive reasoning. You don't understand this at all do you? I've told you this before, but it's obviously outside your ability to grasp. You need to study logic."

Well sir, 80 percent of people living in poverty are from broken homes, and this has not changed in forty years. As a man who lives and dies on empirical evidence I am surprised this is what you have no faith in. It is entirely logical. A real family has been the foundation of human civilization at all times and in all places. To wantonly tear that down must have serious ramifications.

You write: "Secondly you offer the absurd notion that progressive ideas encourage broken homes. Do you have any idea of how completely stupid that remark is?"

In spite of ongoing personal insults, no, I do not have any idea how "completely stupid" that remark is. Progressive ideas launched all the ideas meant from the onset by Cultural Marxism to destroy the family; by the sexual revolution, the propagation of the birth control pill for every teenage girl, the uttermost bounds of hedonism-shall we say, the Playboy Philosophy in place of Christian morality, and thus the resultant filth, pornography, promiscuity and inevitable pandemic of sexually transmitted disease, the promulgation of killing babies for convenience, thus cheapening life itself in the minds of our young, the replacement of Christian ethics and in fact a Christian worldview with Secular Humanism, kicking God out of public schools, making children think there must something wrong with God and the Bible since the all -powerful state, that they look for increasingly for guidance, disapproves of him, the worship of the creature rather than the creator, the welfare state, the Leviathan bureaucracy, solving the problems of the human soul (spirituality) with social science, teaching that any combination of people under a roof is just as good as a real family, the teaching that all sexual deviancies are just as normal as a man and woman united in Holy Matrimony as one, teaching people that everybody except white heterosexual males are groups of victims that deserve reparations, thus producing chips on many shoulders the size of boulders, the teaching that people are entitled to what should, be earned, the teaching of "self-esteem" for accomplishing nothing, the denigration of human achievement, the teaching to children that they are not the Image of God but mere monkeys, the elimination of the concept that human life has meaning and purpose with the concept that we are random accidents: or shall I quote Clarence Darrow; “The purpose of man is like the purpose of a pollywog - to wiggle along as far as he can without dying."

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

I didn't say "Satan makes them do it." Satan cannot MAKE anyone do anything. But Satan and demons are not as you say "some imaginary thing." By this you call Jesus a liar. So, I believe Jesus Christ more than adagio4639. Crucify me.

I am not the least bit "repressed and uptight," Sigmund. You can spray that crap someplace else.

Belief in God is not at all irrational. Hating God is sickness of the soul, a blackness of the heart, a condition of those headed to hell.

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

adagio4639— If the problem with the public schools was money, then we wouldn't see the historical reality that spending on public schools per student has tripled in forty years in constant dollars but results have been dismal.

Private schools spend 43 percent less per student and the results are far better.

In fact, if every American student went to a private school total costs for K-12 education would drop by approximately $150B, which could be used for something else such as job training or food.

Private school students scored on NAEP reading test and mathematics test at 1.5 times the rate of public schools students.

A reasonable person might ask, why don't we shift to all private schools then? The answer, to protect the teacher's unions and keep in place the indoctrination of the young in godlessness, socialism, and sexual permissiveness.

Using the OECD data, Figure 1 compares K–12 education expenditures per pupil in each of the world’s major industrial powers. As you can see, with the exception of Switzerland, the U.S. spends the most in the world on education, an average of $91,700 per student in the nine years between the ages of 6 and 15. But the results do not correlate: For instance, we spend one-third more per student than Finland, which consistently ranks near the top in science, reading, and math.

Government at all levels spent an average of $149,000 on the 13-year education of a high school senior who graduated in 2009, compared to $50,000 (in 2009 dollars) for a 1970 graduate.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/22/losing-the-b

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

adagio4639— You try to justify half of all income in the United States being confiscated by various taxes by saying:

"In other words that you may understand...if it's good enough for each of us to accept that teaching, how can it not be good enough for a government of the people?? How can you possibly lay claim to this country being a Christian nation or holding Christian values, and deny that most basic teaching?? The fact is that you can't, without being a total hypocrite. If the words are true, they are no less true when it comes to our government. Jesus made no such distinction."

Jesus instructed us as individuals that we had a duty to God to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the shelterless, visit the sick and the prisoner, AND most importantly to TELL THEM THE GOOD NEWS—THE GOSPEL.

Your progressive ideas have already one the day by prohibiting the government from telling people the Gospel. Without that most important part of Jesus' message, the rest should not be done by the government either. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's."

If you don't mind the Gospel being preached by the government, I suggest we rework all of our social services programs to include that Good News. If the good news is prohibited, then private charity should provide social services to the needy.

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

adagio4639— I wrote: ""U.S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time shows that in terms of real people those in the bottom quintile in 1996 saw their income rise by 91 percent by 2005. Incomes of those in the top 5 percent saw their income go down."

To which you responded: "Your statement is such a ridiculous lie...or maybe it's just pure ignorance."

I got those statistics from page 101 in the section on "economics" in the Thomas Sowell Reader. His footnotes show his source as the article "Movin' On Up" from the November 13, 2007 Wall Street Journal, and WSJ's source was the United States Treasury Department.

I tried to find the WSJ article for you but you have to pay for it. I did find many articles that reference it, included one that says:

"What about claims of a disappearing middle class? Let's do some detective work. Controlling for inflation, in 1967, 8 percent of households had an annual income of $75,000 and up; in 2003, more than 26 percent did. In 1967, 17 percent of households had a $50,000 to $75,000 income; in 2003, it was 18 percent. In 1967, 22 percent of households were in the $35,000 to $50,000 income group; by 2003, it had fallen to 15 percent. During the same period, the $15,000 to $35,000 category fell from 31 percent to 25 percent, and the under $15,000 category fell from 21 percent to 16 percent. The only reasonable conclusion from this evidence is that if the middle class is disappearing, it's doing so by swelling the ranks of the upper classes.

What about the concentration of wealth? In 1918, John D. Rockefeller's fortune accounted for more than half of one percent of total private wealth. To compile the same half of one percent of the private wealth in the United States today, you'd have to combine the fortunes of Microsoft's Bill Gates ($53 billion) and Paul Allen ($16 billion), Oracle's Larry Ellison ($19 billion), and a third of Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett's $46 billion. In 1920, America's richest one percent held about 40 percent of private wealth; by 1980, the private wealth held by the richest one percent fell to about 20 percent."

And I found this one that says:

"The Treasury study found that those tax filers who were in the poorest income quintile in 1996 saw a near doubling of their incomes (90.5%) over the subsequent decade.

Only one income group experienced an absolute decline in real income--the richest 1% in 1996. Those households lost 25.8% of their income. Moreover, more than half (57.4%) of the richest 1% in 1996 had dropped to a lower income group by 2005. Some of these people might have been "rich" merely for one year."

I thought I explained to you clearly that you were presenting groups of people as if they were stagnant groups, which is not the case. Flesh and blood human beings steadily move from one statistical category to another.

I did read all of the links you sent me. All of them point out how artifically constructed groups of people have done with no recognition that there are very few people IN any group for very long—maybe 5 percent.

James A Watkins Hub Author 3 months ago

adagio4639— You are right that to be a conservative in the mid-18th century would mean to defend a different worldview than a conservative would defend today. A conservative today defends what made America the greatest nation in the history of the earth: the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, Traditional American Values, Objective Truth, Liberty, Freedom, Tradition, Custom, Virtue, Marriage, Free Enterprise, Christian Faith, and Life.

I was trying to explain to you that the Founding Fathers, the men this Hub is about, would believe as I do about these things. Who, with a modicum of understand of American history, does not know the Founding Fathers were radical at the time they lived? That is not the same thing as being a radical today, which generally means being an Atheist and a Marxist and an immoral hedonist caught up in nihilism and narcissism—none of which describe our Founding Fathers.

If you want to argue about the ACLU, I have written an article about them and what they do and why I do not like that organization.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/ACLU

It was not "my definition" of Freedom that "falls flat," "isn't true," "is lacking and simply false," is the "basic flaw in my thinking," because I "live in a vacuum," and defines "very selfish." The definition came directly, word for word, from a standard dictionary.

As I said, "The largest obstacle to overcoming poverty is not having a stable family with Mom and Dad both in the home." To which you replied, "I disagree with your analysis."

But it isn't my anaylsis or anyone's analysis. It is plain fact that the number one predictor of poverty in the United States is the broken homes that progressive ideas encouraged.

I knew you were a musician but I did not realize you have some of your music on HubPages. I will search for that and I look forward to hearing you play.

I applaud your work as a single father. I am grateful for your son's service to our country.

I do not have the least bit of "homophobia." I do not care what people do in their bedrooms. I am not against any individual because of what kind of sexual practices they have. I am against the homosexual socio-political movement because it is based on falsehoods and it is destructive and it is evil.

I do not in the least bit "feel threatened and hostility toward those that aren't white or straight."

If you have "never met a racist that wasn't a conservative," then you've never met many black progressives because many of them are quite racist.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— Washington D.C. public schools spend twice as much as public schools in Idaho, and three times as much as public schools in Utah, and yet the D.C public schools have far poorer outcomes.

So much for your New Trier thesis.

And as far as some sins being of higher rates where people are also more likely to be professed Christians, if you had any true knowledge of the Bible you would understand why this might be so. Demonic forces, such as those which control your mind, always attack where the Believers are. If you live in a town with few Christians why would Satan focus on you? He's already got you in his hip pocket. His enemies are the Believers and that is who he targets. No one waging war targets his friends.

And all that crap you spew out about Christians being against education is utter nonsense. Christian schools and even homeschooled Christians far outshine public school students so it is not education any Christian is against, numbskull. Christians founded most of the great universities in the world, including in America. Where do you think Yale and Harvard came from? John Dewey? What Christians are against is the indoctrination of evil ideas, one of which is socialism, another of which is atheism, another of which is teaching children that they are NOT created by God but that they ARE cosmic accidents descended at random from apes. You give kids conflicted ideas: "You are nothing but an animal" and "Don't act like an animal."

I know you are in rebellion against God. I do feel for you and I pray for you that you will come to your senses and love God again—love the Creator rather than the creature. It is one thing to rebel against God but far worse is to spend as much time as you do encouraging others to rebel and trying to tear down those who love Christ. That, sir, is the road to perdition.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— I wrote: "Americans now trail far behind Europe and Asia by every measure of scholastic achievement—especially in math and science—despite spending far more than any other country [except Norway] on education for our public schools."

You responded with, "This of course is a lie. Or possibly simply ignorance on your part. Hard to tell with you where the lies end and the ignorance begins."

It is not a lie nor it is ignorant. When it comes to education spending per capita, Norway leads with an estimated $2,850 per capita spent on education, and the United States ranks second in the world at approximately $1,780.

The United States spends the second most in the world per student for education, trailing only Switzerland.

The point of this is that to simply say we don't spend enough is horse manure. Oh, our kids aren't learning much. But not because of a lack of money. Because of Leftist ideologies that half the day is spent indoctrinating when they should be learning.

http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-stud

"Although public schools are usually the

biggest item in state and local budgets, spending

figures provided by public school officials and

reported in the media often leave out major costs

of education and thus understate what is actually

spent.

To document the phenomenon, this paper

reviews district budgets and state records for the

nation’s five largest metro areas and the District of

Columbia. It reveals that, on average, per-pupil

spending in these areas is 44 percent higher than

officially reported.

Real spending per pupil ranges from a low of

nearly $12,000 in the Phoenix area schools to a

high of nearly $27,000 in the New York metro

area. The gap between real and reported per-pupil

spending ranges from a low of 23 percent in the

Chicago area to a high of 90 percent in the Los

Angeles metro region.

To put public school spending in perspective,

we compare it to estimated total expenditures

in local private schools. We find that, in

the areas studied, public schools are spending

93 percent more than the estimated median

private school."

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa662.pdf

The entire public school system needs to be scuttled. It should have been scuttles in the 1960s after God was kicked out of school by the anti-Christ—public morality has gone to hell ever since; and after teacher's unions took over the schools with their anti-American, Marxist worldview.

You write: " Clearly the people of Wisconsin have had it with Walker."

Well, the commies and the fools and the godless hedonists have. But I just saw a poll that says the people of Wisconsin are against the recall by 50-42 percent.

You write: " A sound education is essential to our kids succeeding in life. It's also vital to the interests of this country if our young people are going to compete in the world. You and your group would deny that to people."

Excuse me? Your group of evil assholes has been in charge of the schools for forty years. This is YOUR mess not mine.

And you have the gall to write: "It appears that you prefer a dumbing down of society. The dumber they are, the more they may vote against their own interests and become Republicans. Your Hub is a clear example of that."

My Hub is about the Founding Fathers. Other than quibbling about which accomplish Jefferson listed # 1 among his you haven't disputed this Hub that I can tell. Progressives want a dumbed down populace so that no one stands out above others and so dumb people will accept socialism—the most heinous ideology ever spawned by Satan.

Who has dumbed down society? You and your ilk, that's who. Progressive education is all about lowering standards so everybody is "included," meaning everybody has to sit through the same class no matter who bright or dumb, everybody must graduate even if they can't read, everybody should to go to college based on victim groups instead of intelligence—which can only be accomplished by a tremendous lowering of the bar, everybody should get a participation trophy just for showing up.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— adagio4639— You write: " What you want is a system that is stacked against the 99% of the country and tilted toward the 1%. Are you this greedy?"

This is horsecrap and you know it. I have not a greedy bone in my body. My total net worth is less than zero. I eked out a tiny living playing in a Rock Band for twenty years. "Stacked against the 99%" is a completely asinine phrase. There is nothing stacked against anybody in America except themselves. Unless you mean white heterosexual men who are the losers of all your programs.

U.S. Treasury Department data, following specific individuals over time shows that in terms of real people those in the bottom quintile in 1996 saw their income rise by 91 percent by 2005. Incomes of those in the top 5 percent saw their income go down. Flesh and blood human beings are constantly moving from one group to others. The top .1% of all taxpayers in 1996 saw their income drop by 50 percent by 2005. 75 percent of Americans in the bottom quintile in 1975 rose to one of the top two quintiles by 1991. Only 5 percent of people stay in the bottom quintile over the time span of any of these studies.

29 percent of the people in the bottom quintile were in the top quintile 16 years later. Only by focusing on brackets can you create a "problem" that needs your socialist "solution." AND statistics about earnings do not include welfare benefits, which represent three-quarters of economic resources for those in the bottom quintile; meaning that the bottom quintile has three times the resources than their earnings would indicate.

People who do work receive income for what they produce that other people want. The point that might escape you with your fancy education is that wealth does not just exist somehow—it is produced. Those who do work are paid according to how much what they produce is valued by millions of other individuals—who pay for goods and services according to the value that recipient puts on what is received. One person's output might be worth a thousand times as much as the output by someone else. Would not 1000 times more people pay to hear Beyonce sing as they would you?

It is interesting to see the Devil quote the Bible. As you say:

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Amen!

But the Devil wants to claim that Jesus Christ meant to abdicate that responsibility to some far-off government. Is that what Jesus said? Is that what the Good Samaritan did?

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— I wrote: " "Virtually everybody in America we call poor has food, clothes and shelter—the lack of those three being the classic definition of poverty."

To which you ask: "Really? According to who's definition?"

You have been to college. I am sure you know full well this has been the classical definition of poverty for most of human history, at least until FDR made major additions to the list. Don't act dumb when you claim to be so smugly smart.

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

• Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

• Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

• Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

You rant about "the obstacles placed in front of them [the impoverished] by people like you that prevent them from getting out of their condition."

I have never placed any obstacle in front of anyone. The largest obstacle to overcoming poverty is not having a stable family with Mom and Dad both in the home. And who caused this obstacle to exist? Progressive idiots like you who espouse policies that ignore thousands of years of real human experience.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— I wrote: "Government benefits have to be created by somebody and even the poor get to use many things we would not have without the wealth created by free enterprise—roads, parks, libraries, schools, beaches, et al."

You responded: 'The last time I checked our roads, parks, libraries, schools were all built by the government through taxpayer money. They aren't private enterprises.'

Please stop being so elementary. The enormous and incredible wealth of America was made possible by Free Enterprise. Anything built by the government was built with assets taken from those who earned it. The poor benefit from this wealth by the things I listed above and then some, even besides from their welfare checks. (As a side note: Countless libraries were built with private funds such as by Andrew Carnegie.)

You claim, "your ideology is contrary to our founding principles," but I think you know you are telling a lie here. My ideology falls perfectly in line with the Founding Fathers. It is you and your kind who want to denigrate them and overthrow the country for which they laid the foundation.

As the founder of the organization you love so much, the ACLU, says, "We are for Socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself. We seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal." Roger Baldwin

And Baldwin taught you how to dupe the American Public: "We want also to look like patriots in everything we do. We want to get a good lot of flags, talk a good deal about the Constitution and what our forefathers wanted to make of this country."

You erroneously conclude, "You seem to measure freedom in terms of material goods or property."

Not so. Freedom is "The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint."

The Progressive Left is anti-Freedom, quite obviously. It is they who seek to regulate every waking moment of every life from coast to coast, certainly not Conservative people. It is you who wants social engineering, which is anti-Freedom. It is the Left that seeks to restrain speech with Political Correctness, Campus Speech Codes, et al.; and "correct" thoughts with "reeducation camps" (you might call it "sensitivity training"). The Left has been attacking Freedom for at least fifty years non-stop.

You declare America has "a tax code that is unfair." 10 percent of Americans pay 70% of all Federal Income Tax. 5 percent pay 60%. 1 percent pays 46%. What would be fair to you? The gallows for the successful people as your idols Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot believed?

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— The unionization of public employees has undermined America:

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Public-Emp

The vast majority of liberals who can afford private schools send their children to them, while voicing the greatness of the public school system for everybody else. Since 1971, public schools have increased their spending per student by more than double—in constant dollars. But the public schools have not only shown no improvement, results have gotten worse. Among 8th graders, only 21 percent are proficient at grade level in math; only 27.5 percent proficient in reading. 2,000 high schools in the nation—8 percent of all of them—are described as nothing more than dropout factories.

The worst schools in the United States? In our nation's capital, of course. Washington, D.C. is also the place where we find the nation's the most progressive city government. Grade point averages in DC drop two whole points between 5th and 7th grade. The Washington, D.C. schools were spending the 3rd most of any schools in the nation but only 8 percent of 8th graders could do math at grade level. The school district also had twice the national average of classroom space.

Catholic Schools and other Christian Schools far outperform unionized public schools for half the money. Consider that 68 percent of prison inmates are high school dropouts. And it costs society (taxpayers) $33,000 a year to house, guard, and feed them. For that same amount of money—based on an average prison term of four years—each of them could have attended private schools for 13 years (@$8300 per year). Why don't we do that? The teachers unions—and their lackeys, progressive legislators— won't allow it.

The teachers unions are the largest political campaign contributors in the United States. They donated 55 million dollars in the last election, over 90 percent of it to candidates of the Democratic Party. In other words, all Americans of all political persuasions pay the teacher salaries, out of which are deducted union dues that only support one political party. It must be great to have your campaigns financed by your political enemies.

One study mentioned shows that if the worst 10 percent of teachers were fired tomorrow, America would have public schools second to none in the world the next day—but teachers unions won't allow it. In Illinois, out of 876 school districts only 61 have ever tried to fire a teacher. 38 were successful. One out of 57 doctors in America lost their license last year. One out of every 97 lawyers was disbarred last year. Only one out of 2500 teachers lost their jobs. Imagine if every job in America was guaranteed for life and no one could be fired. That is the Marxist dream. Professional baseball hitters could hit .100 year after year and still be guaranteed a spot on the team.

America had the best Public Schools in the world, and the brightest children, until the 1970s. What changed in the 1970s? Having attended public schools, and having had three children graduate from public school decades after me, I can tell you the answer to that question. When I went to public schools, the focus was on English, Math, Science, History, Vocational Classes, and Physical Fitness. The focus today is on Multiculturalism, Tolerance, Social Justice, Inclusiveness, and Political Correctness. It is on implanting "right-thoughts" as perceived by Radical Progressives who run the teachers unions and the schools—not on learning.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Waiting-fo

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You wrote: "Let me know when you have empirical evidence to support your claims, rather than one mans opinion of the demise of society and its causes."

Out of wedlock births to white women in the United States before the Sexual Revolution were 2%. Today that number is 26%. 70% of all black babies are born to unmarried mothers—up from 23% before the Sexual Revolution.

Whereas at one time in America 80% of all households were comprised of married couples, today that number is down to 51%. The marriage rate today is lower than at any time in history.

Radical Feminism (hostile to men and religion) taught us that all of this was simply freeing women from their chains of slavery to their families. Exorbitant rates of child support had to be confiscated from men, at the point of a gun, to make divorce an attractive choice for women. The feminization of men was required to implement this agenda. Welfare was required to promote illegitimacy (taxpayer support of illegitimacy).

Rampant promiscuity has caused unprecedented levels of Sexual Transmitted Diseases. 95% of all cervical cancers in women are the result of STDs. 19 million persons are infected with a STD each year in America—4 million of them teenagers. 65 million Americans have a contagious Sexually Transmitted Disease right now. 25% of all American adults have a lifelong incurable STD.

In the grocery line Americans of all ages are exposed to magazines touting sexually themed headlines and scantily clad women. Our culture sexualizes even teenagers via magazine ads and music videos. One look at high school cheerleading routines, or nightclub dancing, shows us how the human female has been degraded to a gyrating animal.

Social Liberalism contends that fathers are superfluous to the rearing of children. But do fathers matter in the lives of children? ALL sociological surveys EVER conducted say resoundingly, YES! Children reared without their natural fathers show incredibly higher rates of criminal behavior, drug use, dropping out of high school and unemployment as adults. Boys in particular, show extremely higher rates of cognitive problems, hyperactivity, hostility, and suicide.

The response of Social Liberals? Give them Ritalin. Children of divorced parents are less happy, less healthy, and more dangerous to others and themselves.

The removal of fathers from the home by Social Liberals has led to an epidemic of spousal abuse and child abuse in the last 40 years.

A serious byproduct of the Sexual Revolution is a massive decline in the birth rate of native born Americans. American women had an average of 3.8 children before the Pill and Abortion. Today 1.4 is the average number of children allowed to live. Since the death rate is 2.1, at least that many children per woman is required to replace those who die—or an entire society is committing slow suicide. This creates an economic crisis for us. The 55 million aborted children would have become payers of Income Tax; and Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. It shouldn't take a mathematical genius to calculate how this vanquished generation has caused our current shortfalls in funding of entitlement programs.

This is a Moral and Spiritual Battle for the soul of America. Our misguided generation came to see God's Rule of Sexual Conduct as somehow for His benefit. No. His Command is for our benefit. Some of you may not even know what it is. It is that no sex is permissible outside of marriage (and no divorce). This means each person would have only one sexual partner in their lifetime. Sounds boring and restrictive, doesn't it? Imagine for one moment if all people obeyed God's rule for Sexual Conduct. There would be no such thing as sexually transmitted disease, would there? No broken homes, no fatherless children (except by death), no illegitimate births, no adultery, and none of the attendant social problems that plague our nation. Would this not be a better world?

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Sexual-Rev

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You wrote: "Let me know when you have empirical evidence to support your claims, rather than one mans opinion of the demise of society and its causes."

It is unequivocally proven—empiraclly—that no arrangement of the rearing of human children produces healthy, productive citizens as does living one's life with your natural mother and father into adulthood. Even though it is the accepted fact that children who grow up without both of their parents are far more prone to crime, imprisonment, depression, drug use, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide and the perpetuation of more generations of the same—the destruction of the American family by progressive ideologies is not lamented by the Left. In fact, destroying everything that is good is what Leftist true believers desire above all else:

"Destroy the family, destroy the country." Vladimir Lenin

Beginning in the 1920s, a group of Marxist Atheists calling themselves The Frankfurt School began plotting the corruption and overthrow of Capitalist countries by systematically undermining their cultures. Their strategy is called Cultural Marxism. Its goal is the use of art, music, education, and media to condition people to accept the essential elements of Marxism without identifying them as such. After a few generations of this conditioning, Marxism becomes the new reality without a violent revolution and even without awareness that a revolution has occurred.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Multicultu

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You wrote: "Let me know when you have empirical evidence to support your claims, rather than one mans opinion of the demise of society and its causes."

The home mortgage business was once the exclusive domain of the banking industry. As with nearly every aspect of our lives that were once private affairs between citizens in America, the government under President Franklin Roosevelt decided to get involved in 1933 as a part of FDR's New Deal.

President Franklin Roosevelt established the Home Owners Loan Corporation, one of the many of FDR's New Deal bailout programs, to buy troubled mortgages from banks. Within a few years this government program of President Franklin Roosevelt had a payroll of over $26,000,000 in 1936 dollars—$388,000,000 today.

20% of the loans FDR's New Deal issued ended up in default (with taxpayers' money) compared with the accepted standard rate of 3% in the home mortgage industry. Within a dozen years 40% of all mortgages were guaranteed by the United States government with taxpayers money.

In the 1960s, The Great Society of President Lyndon Johnson included laws to grant poor people home loans guaranteed by the government—meaning the taxpayers.

One out of five of these loans in some major cities under the Great Society of President Lyndon Johnson went to welfare mothers.

The losses to the taxpayers of this policy of the Great Society was $1,400,000,000 in 1971 dollars as they were foreclosed at an astonishing rate of 1100% higher than ever before.

President Carter signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. The Community Reinvestment Act of President Carter was designed to force banks to issue home mortgages in poor, primarily black neighborhoods. The loans were guaranteed by the government—meaning the taxpayers—through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. When loans given to people who were not creditworthy were not paid back Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would cover them with funds confiscated from taxpayers.

In the late 1980s ACORN exerted pressure that resulted in the government passing a law that guaranteed 30% of all Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans would go to low-income people backed by money confiscated from taxpayers.

These and other stupid progressive ideas caused the worldwide financial meltdown.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Mortgage-C

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— Your ideas have been tried again and again with nothing but utter failure, human misery and suffering, and death. The 20th century is littered with the corpses of failed utopias.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Experiment

You wrote: "Let me know when you have empirical evidence to support your claims, rather than one mans opinion of the demise of society and its causes."

The country that was bequeathed to the Baby Boomers had the highest standard of living ever seen on Earth. The traditional family was the foundation of American society. The women of the time lavished love on their children; they focused on creating the best possible home environment for their families.

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth were seriously discouraged until the 1970s, when both became celebrated as casting off the shackles of old-fashioned, out dated values. Since then both have increased by 800%.

The effect of this has been the creation of the most troubled, confused, unknowledgeable citizenry America has ever had; an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases; fractured families; and millions of children with no idea who their daddy is.

The policies of Social Liberals have directly led to a concentration of power in Washington, D.C. States, counties, and local governments have less and less control over their own communities as the federal government usurps their jurisdiction. This has led to the powerful lobbyists who last year spent $3B to influence 536 people.

The Social Liberals have created mountains of regulations—and the bureaucracies to enforce them—that have stifled American business. The largest corporations have welcomed this movement because it squashes all of the smaller, innovative players who cannot comply, or even understand, the regulatory requirements.

The United States is now over $15T in debt—with 2/3 of that owed to foreigners. Our entire national wealth is $50T and about that amount is owed in future payments for Social Security and other entitlements to the Baby Boomers.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Generation

You don't think our people are mentally ill? 20 percent of all American adults rely on psychiatric drugs to "make it through the day."

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— It is acceptable to capitalize "Atheism" if I want to for emphasis.

You wrote: "Let me know when you have empirical evidence to support your claims, rather than one mans opinion of the demise of society and its causes."

Well let's see. 55 million unborn human beings have been slaughtered in the womb since 1973.

In the 1960s Playboy had to struggle and pay well to persuade good looking girls to pose showing only their breasts and buttocks. Today forty million American men regularly view videos of people having sex. 89% of all internet pornography is produced in the United States. 8% of all emails sent contain pornography—perhaps five billion of them every day. 72% of hits on internet pornography web sites occur between 9 am and 5 pm—while people are at work. The loss of productivity from employees watching pornography at work is in the tens of billions of dollars. 10% of American adults admit to being addicted to watching people having sex on the internet.

Americans now trail far behind Europe and Asia by every measure of scholastic achievement—especially in math and science—despite spending far more than any other country on education for our public schools. The top 5% of our students are matched academically by 50% of those in Japan. In algebra and calculus, the Japanese and the Chinese double our academic success.

25% of our high school graduates can barely read their diplomas. Nationally, 40 percent of fourth graders cannot read a simple children's book; among blacks and Hispanics, that proportion is as high as 65 percent. America has seen a 50 percent drop in the number of students who score over 700 on the SAT verbal test in the last 45 years—back to exactly when the teachers' unions rose to power through changes in state laws regarding collective bargaining.

But at least all that "self esteem" training works. Despite trailing the rest of the civilized world in academic achievement, studies show that American kids THINK they are smarter than the rest of the civilized world. They lead the world in only one category: self-esteem. They vastly overestimate themselves.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Education-

To quote Thomas Sowell: "In this latest round of international tests, American students led the world in one department: "self-esteem." As in previous international tests, American students had the highest perception of how well they had done. Seventy percent said that they thought they had done well. This would be comic if it were not so tragic."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell022698

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You wrote: "The ONLY thing that matters to you James, is your own self interest."

You are 180 degrees off base here. None of my political views have in mind my own self-interest. If your group succeeds in turning America into North Korea I will not be around to see it. My interest is that something that should be loved and treasured—America—is being denigrated and demolished to the detriment of Americans and the world. I care about my children and grandchildren and "1984" future you want to see.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "You're writing a Hub on history and you don't know about Edmund Burke?"

This Hub is about the Founding Fathers of the United States. I do not find much reference to Burke in my research about them, other than he supported their ideas. I have of course read about Burke in passing, here and there, and read some marvelous solitary quotes by him. I only meant that I have not read any of his writings and I probably should.

You write: "you have this absurd notion that "envy" is the issue. You actually think that others "envy" somebody like you??"

I never said anybody envied me. But envy and covetousness are the dark emotions plied upon by progressive levelers. I once read a psychological study that found 90 percent of people would be happy with $50,000 a year if their neighbors made $25,000. Only 10 percent would be happy with $50,000 a year if their neighbors made $100,000.

Virtually everybody in America we call poor has food, clothes and shelter—the lack of those three being the classic definition of poverty. Not only that, but they have electricity, refrigeration, heat in winter, television, DVD players, furniture, cell phones, free transportation, free education, free health care, and $200 sneakers—while billions in this world live on $1 a day outside America. So what are the poor up in arms about? That other Americans have more than they do, plain and simple.

You write: "What people care about is having the opportunity to develop their talents so they too can excel and achieve their dreams. They want the opportunity that is the promise of America."

This opportunity is readily available. Having the federal government pick the winners and losers outside the Rule of Law (in its proper sense) is not the answer. It only leads to political access being the key to success instead of your own efforts in a free marketplace.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— If Hayek said that money and possessions are the most important things in life, then I disagree with him about that. This does not mean I must disagree with his love of free enterprise. Free enterprise makes life far better for everybody, even freeloaders. Government benefits have to be created by somebody and even the poor get to use many things we would not have without the wealth created by free enterprise—roads, parks, libraries, schools, beaches, et al.

You ask: "But which is more important to you James? Freedom or economic prosperity?"

Freedom and economic prosperity go hand in hand. It is the opposite of an either or proposition. The more freedom the more prosperity. As the government leviathan has steadily curbed our freedoms our national prosperity has gone down.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

The first great challenge to the definition of marriage came from people who have demanded the right to marry those of the same sex. As these people have been granted some legal privileges by the state that are similar to those who are married, yet another cry has arisen from cohabiting couples that they too should have the same privileges without having to be married. In addition, there are even more voices being raised by those who believe that the laws against polygamy should be overturned. Others, they want marital law opened up to include various combinations of people (polyamory). In the background, there are lurking those who desire the lifting of age restrictions, the right to marry their siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and perhaps even their own parent or child.

Douglas Farrow writes: 'What harm does same-sex marriage do to your marriage, or to your family?' The truthful answer is: Same-sex marriage makes us all chattels of the state, because the state, in presuming to define the substance rather than the accidents of marriage, has made marriage itself a state artifact.. . . [and] has left both parents and children without a lawful institution that respects and guarantees their natural rights to each other. Opening up marriage in principle to non-generative unions really means closing it in principle to the inter-generational interests on which it has always been based. From now on, the handling of those interests will be entirely dependent, legally speaking, upon the good graces of the state. Every citizen will stand naked before the state, unclothed by his most fundamental community, unbuffered by any mediating institution with its own inherent rights. Nor should it be overlooked that, what the state has the power to define, it has the power to define again and again, and even to dispense with."

Proponents of polyamory demand freedom from any sexual restraints believing that the pleasure of the individual is the ultimate goal of human beings. The polyamory lifestyle requires the existence of an awesome welfare state to care for the results of its irresponsible citizenry. The entertainment industry promotes polyamory as a great joy. The results in the real world are tens of millions of aborted babies and even more out-of-wedlock births. Illegitimate births are up 900% in the past 50 years. The results of polyamory in the real world are an inordinate amount of broken homes, and what has become a pandemic of sexually transmitted diseases.

Children who are reared without an intact family that includes both their natural fathers and mothers are vastly more prone to promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, depression, drug usage, suicide, crime and imprisonment. It is unequivocally proven that no arrangement of the rearing of human children produces healthy, productive citizens as does living one's life with your natural mother and father into adulthood.

Robert George writes, "The bodily unity of spouses is possible because human males and females, like other mammals, unite organically when they mate—they form a single reproductive principle. Although reproduction is a single act, in humans (and other mammals) the reproductive act is performed not by individual members of the species but by a mated pair as an organic unit. What is unique about marriage is that it truly is a comprehensive sharing of life, a sharing founded on the bodily union made uniquely possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman—a complementarity that makes it possible for two human beings to become, in the language of the Bible, one flesh—and thus possible for this one-flesh union to be the foundation of a relationship in which it is ¬intelligible for two persons to bind themselves to each other in pledges of permanence, monogamy, and fidelity."

The Catholic Theologian Germain Grisez: "Though a male and a female are complete individuals with respect to other functions—for example, nutrition, sensation, and locomotion—with respect to reproduction they are only potential parts of a mated pair, which is the complete organism capable of reproducing sexually. Even if the mated pair is sterile, intercourse, provided it is the reproductive behavior characteristic of the species, makes the copulating male and female one organism."

Hadley Arkes, a political scientist at Amherst, writes: "There is finally no getting around the fact that marriage cannot be detached from what we might call the "natural teleology of the body": namely, the inescapable fact that only two people, not three, only a man and a woman, can beget a child. The hard, obdurate fact here is that if marriage is detached from this natural teleology of the body, it loses the defining features, in principle, that cabin its meaning and establish its coherence.

"Children must come into being through the only kind of family that nature knows. A "natural teleology" is at work there -- that something in the nature of sex, in the strictest sense, must be at the core of marriage, or the understandings that have sprung up around marriage, and that these understandings are likely to be largely the same in all places, quite regardless of the local culture, because the intrinsic meaning of sex -- and the moral understandings surrounding sex -- are likely to be in all places the same. Why that point should be so obscure to us today is indeed one of the mysteries of our age, or it is a measure of how the inventiveness of political argument may obscure the plainest facts of our nature."

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— In 2001 the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom stated its aim to reform sexual laws in the United States by bringing the full weight of the government down on those who hold to Biblical standards of sexuality regarding sodomy, adultery, pornography, sadomasochism, and sex in public. By increasing exposure and acceptance of homosexuality this group hoped to bring about the “normalization” of other sexual deviancies. If you are going to tolerate one you must tolerate them all. They called for an end to all government statutes and regulations regarding marriage. This agenda required an attack on the traditional family and religious freedom.

“Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western Civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.” Who do you think made this statement? Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? No. Liberal Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1986 (Bowers v. Hardwick).

86% of pedophiles identify themselves as homosexuals. 46% of adult male homosexuals report they had been victims of homosexual molestation as children.

The media downplays the link between homosexuality and pedophilia, but many homosexual activists proudly proclaim their support for sex with children. The San Francisco Sentinel, a gay newspaper, wrote, “The love between men and boys is the foundation of homosexuality.” The Journal of Homosexuality wrote, “Parents should view pedophiles not as a rival or competitor, not as a theft of their property, but as a partner in their boy’s upbringing, someone to welcome into their home.” Guide magazine stated: “We can be proud that the gay movement has had the courage to say out loud that children are naturally sexual and deserve the right to sexual expression with whoever they choose. Instead of fearing being labeled pedophiles we must proudly proclaim that sex is good, including sex with children. We must do it for the children’s sake.”

John Money, professor emeritus of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University wrote, “Those who oppose pedophilia do so because of self-imposed moralistic ignorance.” At Penn State, Patrick Califia-Rice stated, “Boy lovers and lesbians who have young lovers are not child abusers. The child abusers are preachers, teachers, therapists, cops, and parents who force their stale morality on to young people in their custody. Instead of condemning pedophiles for their involvement with youth, they should be commending them.”Professor Harris Mirkin of the University of Missouri wrote, “Moral panic about pedophilia can be compared to previous panics about feminism and homosexuality. Today’s heresy often becomes tomorrow’s orthodoxy.”

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— Homosexual activists and authors Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen set forth the strategy of the homosexual movement over 20 years ago. In “The Overhauling of Straight America” they wrote:

“Almost all behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances. In the early stages of the campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible. The average American watches seven hours of television daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan Horse might be passed.

"We can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times, and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the mighty pull of institutional religion, one must set the mightier pull of science and public opinion. Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches before, on topics such as divorce and abortion. We intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to distance themselves from such types. We are talking about propaganda.”

Eric Pollard, founder of the militant homosexual group ACT-UP openly admitted that lying was part of the strategy of homosexual activists. He even went as far as to say that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf was the model used for their strategy.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— A lot of this stuff seems outside the subject at hand. However, I do have a Hub that addresses the larger themes on which we seem to disagree:

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Who-Are-Hu

Also, for the full text from which I drew the quotes above by Dr Samuel Johnson, go here:

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Dr-Johnson

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— "All cannot live in the perpetual dissipation of successive diversions, nor will enslave their understandings to their senses, and seek felicity in the gross gratifications of appetite.

"There is no action, how unreasonable or wicked soever it may be, which those, who are guilty of it, will not attempt to vindicate.

"Such is the state of a man abandoned to the indulgence of vicious inclinations. He justifies one crime by another; invents wicked principles to support wicked practices; endeavors rather to corrupt others, than own himself corrupted, and to avoid that shame which a profession of his crimes would bring upon him, calls evil good, and good evil, puts darkness for light, and light for darkness.

"There is danger lest in time we come to approve what we do, though for no other reason but that we do it. A man is always desirous of being at peace with himself; and when he cannot reconcile his passions to his conscience, he will attempt to reconcile his conscience to his passions.

"For this conduct they admire themselves . . . loudly boasting their superiority to the advocates of religion.

"Thus he soon grows indifferent to truth or falsehood, and almost incapable of discerning one from the other.

"Let it be remembered, that the nature of things is not alterable by our conduct. We cannot make truth; it is our business only to find it."

DR SAMUEL JOHNSON

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "why should your world view dictate the structure of an entire country for everyone else? That is what is in question here. When you are establishing a nation like this one, it's absolutely necessary since the country is far too diverse for any one belief system to be promoted without establishing religious tyranny. Oh and btw, an atheist world view has no religious doctrine to follow. So it only deals with facts."

Here is the fundamental flaw in your thinking. Only Atheism deals with facts? Why should your worldview of Atheism rule the day? There is nothing factual about Atheism. And this Hub is about the Founding Fathers. They were not Atheists.

Do you believe the United States from 1789 to 1963 was a nation living under "religious tyranny?"

Atheism is a world view that there is no God, there is no purpose or meaning to life, people are accidental animals, there is no objective truth, everything is merely a social construct, morality is relative, rights come from the State.

A Christian has worldview that God exists, that He created the world, that human beings are created in His image, that life has meaning and purpose, that there is objective truth, that moral laws are similar to the laws of physics (they are real, actions have reactions [or consequences]), and our rights come from our Creator.

Now you are free to disagree with my world view and I am free to disagree with yours. But when you claim that yours should rule the world while mine should be silenced then you are exhibiting the worst attribute of Progressives.

These are different—opposite really—ways of seeing the world. These opposite worldviews affect the way you feel about everything, from culture to economics to government to law to life and death. To say that only your Atheistic worldview should have a say in the affairs of men is a truly awful stance and one that reflects poorly on your character.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

Lone Ranger— Welcome to my HubPages on The Founding Fathers. I appreciate the visit and your comments.

You write: "A high percentage of our founding fathers were Free Masons"

Yes, that is true.

You write: "The New World Order is being launched from the shores of the United States. The New World Order may not be an American invention, but the U.S.A. is being used as the catalyst to bring the world under the thumb of the New World Order . . ."

That might be true as well.

Thank you for your remarks, L.R. And it was good of you to extend your compliments, too.

JAW

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— I agree with you totally that the right to vote is far more important than cashing a check, driving an automobile, or boarding an airplane. So if I need identification to do the things of lesser importance, all the more why I should need identification for the most important.

The very idea that "minorities" don't carry identification is racist.

Democrats are famous for systematic voter fraud. If you don't know that you don't know squat. LBJ sure fixed some elections. Anybody with a lick of sense knows that JFK was made president by voter fraud. In Chicago "vote early and vote often" was the Democrats slogan. You don't think ACORN was engaged in voter fraud? You lose credibility when you deny the most basic facts.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— One writer I am enamored with is Jacques Barzun. He writes: 'our age, despite its extraordinary technological capabilities, is . . . a time of cultural sunset, depleted energies and moral confusion.' He does not regard decadence as a neutral historical fact but as a cultural, moral, and political disaster of the first order. Decadence has triumphed in various facets of modern life.

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent." But futility and absurdity only seem normal to a damaged sensibility.

One result is what Mr. Barzun refers to as the "Great Switch," "the reversal of Liberalism into its opposite." If Liberalism originally "triumphed on the principle that the best government is that which governs least," today "for all the western nations political wisdom has recast the ideal of liberty into liberality."

"the very notion of rights in Western society has devolved into farce, with everyone demanding his voice be heard. All this takes place under the rousing rebel yell of democracy, when the fundamental principle of democracy is majority rule. . . . it is the lamentable rise of the "demotic," not "democratic," in fashion, music, and the arts--a decline expedited by the Lowest Common Denominator strategies propagated by the monolithic advertising and television industries."

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/historian/J

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You wrote: "The competition for getting into Harvard then is not quite the same thing as getting into it today."

That is true. Once you had to be smart. Today you need to have dark skin.

You wrote: "You're an economic reductionist. . . . And you practice what is called economism."

You are completely off base here. I do not think economics the most important thing in the world by any means. The most important part of life is spiritual, not money or things.

You wrote: "I contend that Freedom is an end in itself. You think that it's a means to an end, which is economic prosperity."

You have misinterpreted what I think. I agree that Freedom is an end to itself. I also think that Free Enterprise is the means to economic prosperity.

You write: "Why would you use Biblical reference to support your anti-gay attitude?"

Why not? If God thinks homosexual behavior is an abomination, why shouldn't I?

I do not care a whit what kind of perversions people do behind closed doors. I think it is nobody's business. I am the last to pry into someone's bedroom. If people want somebody to poop in their mouth, or get into sado-masochisism, or have orgies, or wife-swap, or be fisted, or enjoy golden showers, or stick their penis into the exit hole for feces, I say let them have at it. But don't demand that I approve of such things. I have the right not to approve. Don't force such things on children in the first grade as just as wonderful as the marriage bed. Don't pass laws making perverts a special category of citizen or victim.

You say: "You're probably enamored with the likes of Edmund Burke, perhaps Russell Kirk, Ayn Rand, Ron Paul."

I am not as up on Edmund Burke as I should be. I can't say I am "enamored" with him. I do like the political philosophy of Russell Kirk. I think Ayn Rand is right that if the talented people of the world disappeared the world would be in dire straights and therefore to hate them out of envy is a certain kind of sickness. Rand is too extreme for me in the end, and of course I am not "enamored" by her atheism. I do admire Ron Paul. I agree with much of what he says but not all.

You seem to lambast the idea that "this social contract is multi-generational between the dead, the living, and those who are yet to be born."

I think that is a very important concept and one that I agree with. I understand that to a narcissist and a nihilist it doesn't make sense.

I am a big fan of Ronald Reagan and Bill Buckley. There you are correct. I think these may have been the greatest two men of the 20th Century.

But you go far too far when you make the outrageous claim that: "It's an ideology that was in complete opposition to the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy. This is why conservatives hate democracy so much. . . . Except they take it even farther right into a totalitarianism that is more in line with Fascism and bears no resemblance to the philosophy of Jefferson or Madison. They despise Democracy. They hate the idea of allowing people to vote."

I don't know what sort of diabolical mind can come up with such crazy thoughts. Modern conservative thought is perfectly in line with Liberal Democracy. Progressives are dead set against Liberal Democracy. It is Progressives not Conservatives who disdain the Founding Fathers and void Democracy by seeking to implement their wants through nine unelected judges over the wishes of We the People. How can you claim I am against the right to vote? That is ludicrous. And it is insane to claim Conservatives are for totalitarianism when they are at the opposite end of the political scale. Totalitarianism is the extreme Left; next to it is Fascism or Authoritarianism; then comes Progressives. On the far right would be Anarchists; next to them would be Libertarians; then comes Conservatives. For you to say that Conservatives favor totalitarianism is asinine. The former is small government and the latter total government—total as in totalitarian. Over 40 percent of Americans self-identify as Conservatives but the born liars on the Left call them extremists. Lunacy.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— In 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America—the head of the federal government, which according to the anti-Christ must be non-religious, spoke to America with a radio address in which he said: "My fellow Americans . . . I ask you to join with me in prayer." [To whom you might ask?] To "Almighty God" FDR said. What!! How dare he!? A schoolteacher would be imprisoned for such a violation of the Constitution.

President Roosevelt asked the nation to pray with him to God. But to pray for what? "Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization . . . Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings." Now wait a minute—is he addressing Buddha or Allah or some Hindu deity or some plant or mysterious unidentifiable spiritual force here? When he says "to preserve our Republic, our religion, our civilization" I wonder to what he refers?

He goes on: "Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. . . . And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice." FATHER!? He can't say that! It must be a violation of the Wall of Separation of Church and State.

FDR adds: "Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. . . . And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee"

By now the anti-Christ is apoplectic. "O Lord give us Faith in Thee!?" He should have been shot on the spot. President Barack Obama recently had one of his officials, Robert Abbey, deliver an opinion to a Congressional committee last week that adding Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day prayer to the nation's World War II Memorial would "TARNISH THE ELEGANCE OF THE MEMORIAL AND HAMPER VISITORS FROM BEING MOVED, EDUCATED, AND INSPIRED BY THE MEMORIAL." [caps mine]

The secularist left, which Mr. Obama belongs, finds any prayer repugnant, but Roosevelt's D-Day prayer must be particularly galling. A public prayer by the nation's chief executive that so clearly calls for a military victory over an enemy... that just doesn't fit with the left's indoctrination of today's Americans. A high school football coach praying out loud over the radio even just that nobody on his team gets hurt tonight would get him fired and fined. He has a much smaller set of rights to freely exercise his religion apparently.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— The core principle of America is that individual rights come from God. The idea of the Founding Fathers was that Church and State were separate entities but working toward the same goal: virtuous citizens, a moral people, civic virtue, an orderly and peaceful society. The Progressive take on this is the opposite. The Progressives are so anti-Christ that they see the State and the Church working at cross-purposes to each other.

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"

I find it ironic that Thomas Jefferson wrote these words but you would have us believe that he would approve of a school teacher being thrown in jail for saying them to students.

I find it odd that the Ten Commandments are on the wall of the Supreme Court and on the floor of the National Archives but any new display of them anywhere in America on public land brings a lawsuit from the ACLU. Doesn't it seem that since the federal Congress could not establish a federal religion that perhaps the federal government should have been the entity prohibited from displaying the Ten Commandments, not some little municipality in Iowa?

At the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, " I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men." I find it strange that if a school principle said these same words he could be arrested.

George Washington said: "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." Would you protest a school teacher repeating these words?

"Laus Deo"—Praise be to God—is inscribed on the Washington Monument, which was built with public funds and sits on public land. If a small town in Idaho wanted to replicate it tomorrow with public money on public land, would you object?

At the inauguration of our first American President, he requested to say his oath on a Bible that he later kissed in front of the audience. He wanted to say his oath with his hand placed on a specific verse, Deuteronomy 28: “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth." Do you think it should be against the law to repeat these words in a classroom? Do you think George Washington would think it was illegal according to the Constitution he swore to uphold?

On Dec. 3, 1803, the U.S. Congress, following the request of President Jefferson, ratified a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians. This treaty was significant because Congress voted to provide federal funds for the support of a priest during a seven-year period. That priest, as the Congress noted, was to perform "the duties of his office, and ... instruct as many ... children as possible." The treaty, signed by President Jefferson, stated: "The United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist ... in the erection of a church." So, the U.S. Congress of 1803, at the request of President Thomas Jefferson, allocated federal funds for the salary of a minister and for the construction of a church. The Congress of 1803 was not hostile to Christianity. The members understood the value of imparting Judeo-Christian values. This makes me wonder how any intelligent person could think that Thomas Jefferson would favor anti-Christ undertakings in America. It is Jefferson whom the godless generally cite as their hero among the Founding Fathers.

Thomas Jefferson would not approve of being used by Atheists. On the Christian Faith, he said his views " are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions."

The forces of the anti-Christ would have us believe that the Danbury Baptist Church was plotting a takeover of the federal government and therefore Thomas Jefferson had to warn them off. These forces take their cue from one of their prophets, Saul Alinsky. And who was his hero? "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history, the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer." How will Lucifer work his magic to destroy the United States? Alinsky says, "Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future." But what is it Alinsky was against? "Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class."

Thomas Jefferson wrote: " God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?" I think you guys need a different hero.

George Washington said: "The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude toward the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf." BAD INDEED. I agree with George, the Father of our country.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "the point at which it made that clear is that the United States is NOT a Christian Nation."

This is simply not so. It made clear that the United States is not officially a Christian State, meaning its government, as were most European States. Everyone at the time knew America was a Christian Nation (in the true meaning of the word "nation").

You write: "they were smart enough to realize that if the new nation were to have religious freedom, they had to leave their religious convictions at the door. They couldn't legislate them without removing the very religious freedom they sought. What you seek is religious tyranny."

Nobody leaves their world view "at the door" when they vote are take public office. It goes with them wherever they go. Does an Atheist have to leave his world view "at the door" or only Christians?

I do not seek religious tyranny, unless you consider the history of the United States from 1774 to 1964 to be a State of Religious Tyranny. I am not saying religious belief should be legislated, nor do I know anybody that does. When Christmas was named a Federal Holiday, was that "legislating religion?"

You write: "There's even a voting bloc that calls itself Christian Conservatives. The Religious Right. It's because their religious views and their political views have merged into one."

But this is true of all groups if you replace your words "religious views" with "world view." Everybody has a world view that frames how they see life and the world, and therefore how they see political issues. To claim that only the world view devoid of God is legitimate when it comes to politics is ridiculous. Though that was the view of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "You might find it enlightening to know that there are a whole lot of liberals that happen to be Christians. And they detest what you're doing to their religion. You aren't a Christian. You're a Christianist.

[A member of the Christian faith who seeks to use a religion of peace and tolerance for political and personal gain.]"

The most common definition of a Christian is: A person who believes Jesus is Christ.

This means a person who believes that Jesus was God Incarnate; that He performed supernatural miracles (no surprise since He Himself was a supernatural person); that He was born of a Virgin; that He is the example that human beings should emulate as best they can; that He sacrificed Himself on the cross as an Atonement; that He was resurrected from the Dead; that by believing Jesus is the Christ, along with repentance for our sins (meaning contrition and changing our ways), we are forgiven by God and will live eternally. Those who reject this free gift (Grace) will be burned up after Judgment Day and be no more.

Of all the thousands of people I have met who believe in this orthodox definition of what a Christian is, only a handful are Liberals. How could they be when the Liberal agenda is to subvert the teachings of the Bible, banish Christians from the public square, kill babies, promote sin and rebellion, and eventually vanquish the Christian Faith to replace it with a religion of man—Secular Humanism?

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— "The Middle Class consistently supports Republicans" is a true statement.

You respond with: "LMAO....no they don't you moron. They hate Repukes. They know that the Repugs are all about the 1%. The Dems stand with the 99%. The middle class. Labor. Unions. . . . Labor is what makes up the middle class."

If 99 percent of the people are represented by Democrats then it is obvious every election everywhere at all times would be won by Democrats. 1 percent cannot vote anybody into office.

Only 11 percent of all Americans belong to labor unions. That is not representative of the "middle class." Is not the Middle Class considered, in general terms, to be the 60 percent of Americans that are neither in the top nor bottom quintile?

You write, laughingly: "It's all those rich liberals that sent Obama to the White House. lmao"

The 6 percent of Americans who earn more than $200,000 voted for Obama 52-46. Of those worth more than $30 million, two-thirds supported Sen. Obama in his run for the presidency. Not only that, but Wall Street and Corporate America gave far more money to Obama's campaign. Yet the Left continues its propaganda that rich folks, Corporate America, and Wall Street are Republicans.

The most dependable voters for Democrats are: Marxists; Atheists; "spiritual" people who reject the Creator God of the Holy Bible; people addicted to licentiousness and hedonism; sexual deviants; people who are nihilists; people who are anti-Christ; people who hate America; people who favor "Central Planning" and "Collectivism;" people who never intend to work for a living; people who believe other people owe them a comfortable life out of the fruit of their labors simply because they are breathing; people who have no intention of contributing anything to the world.

I am not saying these are your only voters. I am saying these are your most dependable voters—your core constituency. I doubt that more than 1 percent of any of these groups of people will ever vote for a Conservative candidate for public office.

Unions are a Marxist idea. Marx said, "Workers of the world unite!" Unite to do what? To overthrow democracy, capitalism, and Christianity. Marx said, "Unions are the first step to Communism."

Closed Shop states are not growing jobs. Right to Work states are. What should be more basic than a "right to Work"? Companies that are newly unionized show zero job growth. A Closed Shop Union is a monopoly on labor that primarily protects the worst workers. A solid, productive worker never has need of a labor union.

Being from Michigan, I have personal experience with labor unions:

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Unions-kil

James A Watkins Hub Author 4 months ago

adagio4639— I took the time to reread this article that I published. I think the article itself is great, if I do say so myself. I believe every word of it rings true.

You claim that: "If we could survive attempts by people like you to limit voting rights, and destroy democracy, we can probably survive anything. BTW..the Justice Dept just revoked South Carolina's voter ID law on discrimination grounds. As expected it discriminates against minorities."

I disagree with this entire premise. If you have to show identification to cash a check or board an airplane or legally drive an autumobile; why on earth shouldn't you have to prove who you are to exercise a far more important right: to vote? Having to show ID destroys democracy? Preposterous. I fail to see how this discriminates against minorities. Why would a "minority" be less apt to carry identification? Does having to have ID to cash a check, drive a car, or board an airplane discriminate against minorities?

What is really happening here is that the Left wants to continue its habitual voter fraud. Whenever you hear of voter fraud it is from the Left. ACORN registering Mickey Mouse to vote; the Democratic Machine having dead voters on the rolls and people voting multiple times; giving out crack to the homeless for their votes; busing in severely mentally handicapped people and pressing the levers for them.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

You make the false claim that I am "dictatorial" when I am totally for individual freedom and liberty. The Left is dictatorial, authoritarian, and totalitarian.

You also make the absurd claim the conservatives have no "guts" when most heroic deeds are done by conservative people and the vast majority of military men are conservative who put their very lives on the line as an accepted duty. Progressives are pussies—everybody knows that. You got your Alan Alda and Barney Frank; we've got our John Wayne and Charlton Heston. Boy you refuse to speak the truth no matter what.

You wrote: "the fact that one out of two people live at or under the poverty line." And you a damn liar too, imbecile.

You write: "the middle class trusts him and despises the Republicans." You ignoramus! The Middle Class consistently supports Republicans. The support for Democrats comes from rich liberals who suffer from White Guilt Syndrome and poor folks who are government-dependent for their crack money. And of course the homos, the felons, illegal aliens, and other assorted people who hate America and hate Jesus.

You dreamed that "By next November the TeaBaggers will be gone and the Dems will have retaken the House and added to the Senate and Obama will be re-elected. Also the Governor of Wisconsin will be recalled, and South Carolina has just been told their voting laws are under challenge from the justice department."

You are the only tea-bagger in this room. But your predictions are wrong. If you are right, America will be gone within a decade to be replaced by a totalitarian atheist Marxist state that hunts down and kills Christians. I think there are still enough Americans who love their country and see the Truth and love what is good, right, true, and virtuous to stop your evil juggernaught.

Jesus Christ said, " the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth." To which adagio sneered, "Truth! What is truth?"

Adagio "exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator."

Adagio and his fellow sodomites refused to see "all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute."

You write: "But do you know what's worse and far more dangerous? Identity Philosophers such as yourself. For them and you, it isn't that truth isn't a value, it's simply not the most important value. Solidarity to the group has a higher value. When that becomes more important than truth, you're willing to lie if necessary as long as it keeps the group together."

More horseshit. man you are full of it. Who plays Identity politics? Conservatives?! Give me a break. Leftist political philosophy is full of separating people into groups—groups of the oppressers (heterosexual white men)—and groups of victims of oppression (everybody except heterosexual white men). Truth is the most important value not to moral relativists who sneer like Pilate, "Truth! No such thing!" but to people who believe objective truth exists—not you and your ilk, in other words. The "Collective" is what your Atheist Marxism is all about—solidarity to your little group of America-haters and God-haters and your world of envy and covetousness toward people who make it in life through their own efforts.

You write: "You're not a Critical thinker James. Critical thinkers do not justify their beliefs; they criticize them. You would never think of putting your own beliefs up to your own criticism. They question and test the beliefs that others take for granted."

I already explained Critical Theory to you. No, I am not interested in destroying my country, my culture, my society, my neighbors, and all that is good, true, right, and virtuous. Of course, you claim that virtue does not exist. No wonder you are so confused and have so many open portals to demonic influences. I will pray for you. Merry Christmas.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "They tell people exactly how they must judge the truth, so that they need *not* judge the truth. For you it's your religion. It tells you how to judge truth. Therefore you don't need to judge it for yourself. The heavy lifting has already been done for you. It's the same thing with Conservative ideology. They tell you what is conservative, and if you're a conservative..then you accept it."

No this is false. I have studied world religions and the ideas of Atheists and Agnostics; I have spent a lifetime studying political systems and world history. I read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica when I was a teenager—from A to Z. You don't know shit from shinola. I do not believe what anybody tells me. I have sought the Truth for myself. I grew up in the sixties too; I know all about hippies and Eastern religions; I lived in a Commune; I have read thousands of books of all persuasions. Through much study, conversation, thought, and reflection, I have gradually come to the conclusion that I believe the Christian Message—the Good News—the Gospel. Not because I am blind but because I see.

I suppose I am Conservative politically—or even Libertarian. Not because somebody someone told me I ought to be. You presume to know me. I had no parents who took any interest in my rearing. I raised myself. I learned for myself. If there ever was a Tabula rasa I am it. I have witnessed the destruction of my country during my lifetime caused by "progressive" ideas—mostly deconstruction. I know where these ideas came from and what the aims are of them. Actually walking in lockstep is a Leftist concept anyway. Conservative philosophy believes in individual freedom. The reason that perhaps only 250,000 Progressive ideologues have been able to turn this country upside down is that they are highly organized—collectively. Conservatives are individualistic than collective so they have a harder time with collective action. Collectivism and central planning—these are natural domains of the godless Marxist.

Of course I am my brother's keeper. That is why conservative people give far more time and money to charities. Nobody outgives or outvolunteers Christians. The difference is that progressives want to give up their personal responsibility to their brothers by having the government take the task from them. Jesus never said to implement huge government programs. He told US to help the poor both physically and spiritually. We are to teach them to "Seek first the Kingdom of God" and your physical needs will be met. Only Atheist Marxists want the government to be all powerful and all responsible—totalitarianism runs deep in the blood of folks such as you.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— Most reasonable steps to restrain public-sector employment costs are smothered by the unions. Study after study has shown that states and cities could shave 20% to 40% off the cost of many services—fire fighting, public transportation, garbage collection, administrative functions, even prison operations—through competitive contracting to private providers. But unions have blocked many of those efforts.

The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.

Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things.

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487040

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— Like a true Marxist you continue to spout nonsense despite hard evidence. You follow Marx in claiming a few people hold all the power in the United States and all the wealth.

There are over 27 million commercial businesses in the United States. That is a commercial enterprise for every 11 people, including babies. That at the least implies the possibility of a wide distribution of wealth but to make it in business you first have to be a good business person. It is ludicrous to think a bureaucrat can central plan business activities better than an entreprenuer or qualified business manager—who has a stake in the outcome.

There are 20 million businesses staffed only by the owner and their family members. 31 percent of all Americans have owned their own businesses.

Half of all Americans own stock in corporations.

There are over 500,000 Americans who hold elective public office.

22 million Americans work for government.

That hardly sounds like power in the hands of the few to me.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "Then explain to me how the conservative Governor of Michigan can take the authoritarian position to dismiss elected officials at his discretion in towns in Michigan and install a "manager" of his choosing to run everything thereby nullifying democratically elected officials."

This is about my hometown, Benton Harbor, Michigan! I have fond memories of growing up there. It was once a booming town with a packed commercial district where it was difficult to find a parking space. Blacks and whites got along very well when I was a boy.

Severe race riots happened in Benton Harbor in the 1960s—after the enactment of the Civil Rights Laws. White-owned businesses were burnt down, whites were beaten and raped, whites had bricks thrown through their car windows and rocks thrown through their home windows. My grandmother had stained-glass windows that had stood in place over 100 years that black thugs shattered.

Blacks wanted the whites to go away. "This is our town now!" The white people simply left the town.

The first black administration that was elected stole millions of federal dollars given to Benton Harbor to repair its infrastructure. Thus started a legacy of corruption you had to see to believe. There is probably no town in America that has received so much federal money per capita. Most of the money simply disappeared.

The "dictator" now running the town was appointed not by Governor Snyder as your carpet-munching source for the news might have you believe. Joseph Harris, the former chief financial officer of Detroit, is one of four emergency managers appointed by the former governor, Jennifer Granholm, under a 20-year-old law. And she is an ultra-liberal Democrat.

At some point it is incumbent on states to ensure financial stability at the local level. I believe the governor really cares about helping Michigan (by not taking a salary, for example) and I also believe he's applying what he believes are sound business practices to get the job done. Snyder sized up a failing enterprise — the state — and worked to create a plan to quickly return Michigan to profitability.

The changes are designed to get the state turned around in the least amount of time.

A survey by the local Newspaper of the citizens of Benton Harbor shows that 51.6 percent of Benton Harbor respondents support the nullification of Benton Harbor’s labor agreements if it would help decrease the city’s deficit, while 27.4 percent don’t support it.

The people of Benton Harbor by a 2 to 1 margin support the Emergency Financial Manager. Apparently, they care more about whether a fire truck will show up at their house, or a cop will respond to an armed robbery than whether the city council’s feathers are ruffled—or whether the city’s garbage collectors will continue to make about 4 times the average income (plus benefits) of the people who pay their wages.

"Most people believe that a bankruptcy petition would initiate a cascade of events that would result in all local units of government in the state having more difficulty selling bonds, more difficulty accessing the credit markets and having to pay higher rates for debt. So it would have repercussions statewide," Bettie Buss, a senior research analyst at the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council, told me last year. "Most people believe municipal bankruptcy is a horrible, horrible idea."

"It all boils down to this: granting an emergency financial manager the ability to break union contracts - whether you love it or hate it - seems to be the only way to avoid municipal (or school district) bankruptcies, which would have cataclysmic effects for the whole state. Just one Chapter 9 filing would downgrade the credit rating of every neighboring local government (just ask Oakland County Executive Brooks Patterson why he's so anxious to see Detroit succeed) and possibly the state itself. Plummeting credit ratings could effectively bar Michigan from the credit market by making the cost of borrowing money astronomical."

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110425/STAF

A state review found the city's pension system was underfunded by $4 million, its cash reserves dwindled from $1.7 million to $300,000 in three years and the city was spending between $80,000 to $100,000 annually in overdraft fees. The same week that Benton Harbor officials forcefully told state officials at a hearing that they didn't need an emergency financial manager, they had to ask the state treasury for an advance on funds to make their payroll. Benton Harbor's public safety expenses were more than its tax revenue. The city hadn't filed audit reports on time in eight years.

For more on this matter:

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011

I am sure you will come back with some wild claim that you know the truth about Benton Harbor even though you have never been there and all I offer is mere opinion—even though I lived there over 20 years, still have a mother, four childen, and a large extended family that lives there, and I visit the town maybe four times each year and read its newspaper on line every day.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— You wrote: " Because everything you offered is nothing but opinion based on somebody's religious views which can never be demonstrated as true. This isn't hubris. This is only about establishing truth from opinion."

I quoted two of the first Supreme Court Justices, four of the most important Founding Fathers, and 14 American Presidents. I quoted the U.S. Congress and the U.S Supreme Court. You come back with the preposterous idea that these men offer "mere opinions" while you, the great "adagio4639," offer Truth. Wow! You are really something.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— I am well aware that John Quincy Adams was a mere boy when the Declaration of Independence was penned. I said he was there when America was founded and you weren't so just maybe he knew more about those years than you do.

In 1779, Adams began a diary that he kept until just before he died in 1848. The massive fifty volumes are one of the most extensive collections of first-hand information from the period of the early republic, and are widely cited by modern historians.

Much of Adams' youth was spent accompanying his father overseas. Before the Constitution was ratified, Adams had spent years overseas as part of diplomatic missions. By the time the Constitution was ratified, Adams had graduated from Harvard Phi beta Kappa. He is, as I said, an eyewitness to these events.

The Treaty of Tripoli hardly stands equal to the Treaty of Paris in significance. The Treaty of Paris established America as a nation. The Treaty of Tripoli is a special case as it was a treaty with Muslims who had made war against Christians for 1200 years non-stop because they were Christians. Muslims were taught that they had a right and a duty to kill or enslave Christian "infidels." Every European country had had an official State Church of the Christian Faith. The Muslims viewed themselves as in a holy war against Christian States.

As you say, Article 11 does say: "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion as it has in itself no character of enmity [hatred] against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] and as the said States [America] have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

What this clause of the treaty did was make it clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers.

As for the James Madison quote, see Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, & James Madison, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), p. 194, James Madison, Federalist #37; see also Federalist #2 (p. 12) and Federalist #20 (p. 105) for other acknowledgments of the blessings of Providence upon America.

You claim that "the religious clause of the 1st Amendment separates church and state," but that is merely your erroneous opinion. It does no such thing. It prohibits the Federal Government from interfering with the Free Exercise of Religion, such as the right for States to have State religions, which they did with no interference from the central government. It prohibits Congress—if you know what that is—from establishing a federal religion.

You write: "There could never be freedom without the freedom of ones own conscience. That of course is the most basic logical position to understand, which you clearly can't figure out, and you cannot present a logical argument against it."

Here you are arguing with yourself. I never said you do not or should not have Freedom of Conscience.

You further claim that I "want so much to legislate your beliefs." I want no such thing.

You then tie yourself in knots by disputing that ""America's first Presidential Inauguration incorporated 7 specific religious activities," which it did. You add "This of course is Bullshit of the highest order. You obviously don't know the constitution at all." Apparently you do not know the difference between a "Constitution" and a "Presidential Inauguration."

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

CMerritt— Chris, you can depend on the fact that I do not delete any comments. I strongly believe in Free Speech. I am glad you came back to voice your opinion here.

"If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."—Ronald Reagan

That is surely the Truth, my friend.

No need for any apology. I appreciate your affirmation and encouragement, brother. I am well pleased you list this among your favorite Hubs. Thank you for saying so.

Merry Christmas!

And God Bless You.

James

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

SirDent— Thank you for both of your comments, Brother.

You wrote: 'The Bible states, "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." This means also that if the spirit of the Lord is not here, there is no liberty.'

The history of the world shows this to be true clearly. Excellent point! The officially Atheistic countries have undoubtedly been massive oppressors of human liberty. And why should this surprise anyone? If there is no God and people are mere animals why not treat them as animals?

There is still hope for the United States. We can regain our spot as "The City on the Hill." But godlessness will plunge us into moral anarchy—already has. If this trend is not reversed, America will go onto the ash heap of history. And the world will be far worse because of it.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

Abraham Lincoln warned that the greatest threat to the future of America was not foreign enemies but certain people from within who, being unable to build anything worthwhile in the world, will not be satisfied with maintaining an edifice built by others, no matter how wonderful. No, they will seek to tear down what was built by others to build up their own egos.

Your revolution has devoured its children. A society with no hope for the future is marked by a lack of reproduction. Our birth rate does not come close to our death rate. Thus, the West is committing demographic suicide. The levels of abortion, divorce, single-parent homes, suicides. school shootings, drug abuse, child abuse, spousal abuse, violent crime, incarceration rates, sexually transmitted disease, falling scholastic achievement, mental illness, obesity, dependence on government handouts, dependence on psychotropic drugs shows a decaying and decomposing society. Or what you would call: Progress.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— The New Left came to fruition in the late 1960s, full of bizarre, extreme social theories. By transference, they call anyone who believes in traditional Americans values they seek to destroy—as believed by hundreds of millions of real people for centuries—an extremist.

The Progressive Left is a movement for nihilistic narcissists determined to tear down—"deconstruct" is their word for it—American society along with all of its treasured institutions, customs and values. Any value that helped make America great must be destroyed and the opposite value put in its place.

For just one example—I could give you twenty pages worth—if America valued self-reliance and independence, let's make its people dependent on the government trough and eventually unable and unwilling to fend for themselves. If marriage is a social good, let's make it bad—some sort of slavery, man. If becoming a successful businessman is seen as good, let's call them capitalist pigs. And so on and so forth. Let us make up down and down up.

The Progressive Left plays word games to make "up" seem "down" and "right" to mean "wrong." Perhaps it started when "bad" came to mean "good" in the counterculture.

As American cities went up in flames in the late 1960s, the New Left did not blame the destroyers of the cities—they blamed the people who escaped the cities as "racists" for leaving.

The Progressive Left made heroes out of predatory criminals. Psychopaths were the new heroes since they rebelled against the "conformist society." Much better to make heroes out of sociopathic murderers with rap sheets a mile long and demonize "squares" who run a successful business or are captains of industry.

R.D. Laing came along to teach us that there was no such thing as "insanity" or "evil" but just mistreated people who need our understanding. Anybody who misbehaves is a just a victim of an oppressive society. uh huh.

B.F. Skinner gave the New Left the ideas of moulding citizens like rats—the complete opposition of what you falsely claim is the mission of the public schools today.

Leading Humanist John Dunphy went public in 1983 with the plan of the godless Left:

"The battle for humankind's future must be fought and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as prosyltizers of a new faith, a religion of humanity. . . . These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey Humanist values in whatever subject they teach. . . . The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of Humanism."

This new faith of Secular Humanism has as its first order of business to kick Christianity completely out of not only the schools but the entire public square.

But this new gospel has its own dogmas: There is no God; and there are no absolute values in the universe. EXCEPT: All life began completely by accident. Human Beings have ape ancestors. Life has no meaning or purpose for random forms of life such as people. All "lifestyles" are equal. All forms of sexual behaviors are equal. Abortion is great. Homosexual behaviors must be glorified. Public schools must indoctrinate children into Progressive ideologies. Holy Days such as Christmas and Easter must be replaced by "Winter Break" and "Spring Break." The new Holy Day is Earth Day.

Western History must be taught as nothing but a catalogue of wicked, shameful crimes—slavery, genocide, imperialism, colonialism, atrocities, and massacres. All its heroes from Columbus to Custer must be remade into villains. The West attained wealth only by exploiting the Third World—People of Color. As Susan Sontag, darling of the New left said: "The white race is the cancer of human history."

America became the greatest and most beneficient civilization in the history of this planet. But that must be covered up. Where it is so glaringly obvious that it is hard to cover up, claim America was built by "crimes against humanity."

All nations and all cultures are equal. So how could one get so far ahead of the others? "Through evil means—hatred and bigotry" is the only answer that will hold the false logic of multiculturalism together.

But the new faith is tolerant of anything that does not contradict the tenets above. It teaches non-judgmentalism but go outside the lines one time and you will see the most intolerant reaction since Chairman Mao.

What the new faith is tolerant of is blasphemy, vulgarity, obscenity, pornography, promiscuity, filthy language, bad manners, slovenly attire, and sacriligious art. But it is intolerant of anything that is virtuous. We cannot have any of that.

There are two spiritual forces in the world, whether you recognize them or not. One is good , one is evil. One fosters virtue, the other vice. Even if you disavow these spiritual forces altogether, YOU are still doing the bidding of one or the other.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— You write: "So you are going to be the person that defines the proper sense of success and failure?? Why would I accept your definition?"

You can confuse yourself all you want, bud. If you present a plan to me, a committee, a Congress, or company board meeting, or bank for a loan, that costs a lot of money and you say "Here is what my plan will achieve" and it fails to achieve what you said it would that is failure. Gee whiz—no wonder you Leftists can't make it in the real world. The people you demand the right to live off know the difference between a plan that succeeds and a plan that fails. You should thank your lucky stars that they do or you would have no one to be envious of and no one's possessions to covet.

Your stupidity exemplifies the Left's ignorance in general. You actually said: "Nobody can predict the outcome of any program. "

That's odd, because every program introduced in government HAS a stated goal. Every marketing campaign or new product launch in business has projections, goals, stated aims. I have written many business plans pal. If you fail to achieve the results you predicted you failed. That's it.

If you say "Sex Education will reduce venereal disease" and it goes up 900 percent, you failed! Only an imbecile would say "But you can't define success!"

Programs are introduced for a specific purpose. If they weren't NOBODY would vote for them. What do you think, if somebody said "Give me a trillion dollars for my latest program." And you asked "What do you intend to accomplish with the trillion dollars?' And they answered "Oh nothing" or "I don't know" or "I will decide what it was for after I spend it" You would appropriate the trillion dollars? That is not how life works. I'd get my head out of that bong if I were you.

James A Watkins Hub Author 5 months ago

adagio4639— you write: "Sorry. Never heard of the Communists Reinvestment Act. The CRA is an acronym for the Civil Rights Act."

That must have been a freudian slip on my part. The CRA is the COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT.

You write: "you are by all observation, an authoritarian. "

That is ridiculous. Were the men I quoted in my previous comment box authoritarians? An authoritarian is defined as: "Characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against individual freedom.

No persons are more authoritarian than Leftists. Hell, everybody knows that. Leftists want a rule and regulation for every step a person might take in life from the cradle to the grave. An enormous government such as we have—which you think too small—contravenes individual freedom.

The people in Detour, Michigan don't give a hoot what the crazies in NY or LA do. But those in NY and LA demand to dictate what the people in Detour do even though they will never set foot there themselves. That is authoritarian. And when you claim to only care about truth, you are lying! You know that the larger the government the more authoritarian and the smaller the government the more individual freedom. That is Government 101. You care nothing about Truth.

I must confess, you had me laughing out loud with this assertion:

"So you forsake freedom for the safety of the corral. Freedom takes a bit more guts I guess."

Here we have a Leftist lecturing about how scary freedom is. Of all things. Will your deceptions never end, son?

Let me explain the basics to you: more government=less freedom; less government=more freedom. You clearly want less freedom.

I am for self-reliance, you are for dependence on the government titty. YOU are afraid of freedom, or you wouldn't want your whole life and the lives of everybody ruled and regulated down to minutiae. If you were for freedom you wouldn't be afraid to decide for yourself whether to wear a helmut or seatbelt; and you wouldn't be demanding the right to live off the achievements of other people either. Those who do not think they can make their own way in the world are those who are afraid. You need the big government to take care of you and watch out for you and decide things for you because you are incapable of living with freedom. Because you are thus so insecure, your response is to deny everybody else their freedom too. Shameful and weak.

An "open-mind" lets in a ton of garbage. You have no spine, therefore you cannot acknowledge any right or wrong. Moral relativists are chickens, weaklings. Our Founding Fathers would be more ashamed of you than you are of them.