Tag: Political correctness

A sensible Washington

Editor’s note: In this era of Trump Derangement Syndrome in which no anti-American policy idea is too radical, and during which there is a relentless movement to erase symbols of our history, the fundamental principles behind America’s founding remain entrenched. But we are left to wonder for how much longer.

By Norman Zanetti

A treasure trove of exemplary governance is found in President George Washington’s farewell address to Americans. In his letter to the American people in The American Daily Advertiser in 1796, he wrote that he hoped citizens would support a strong federal government, though Americans at the time were local in their thinking and allegiances.

He cautioned that extreme partisanship among political parties would be “divisive and disruptive”, urging voters casting future ballots to do so for candidates favoring the common good instead of supporting strict party affiliation.

Washington forewarned extreme partisanship would result in “a spirit of revenge” to maintain one’s grip on power. His greatest concern, and rightly so, was intervention of external invasion, advocating a policy favoring neutrality and friendly commerce with other nations.

For years, this farewell address was read in congress on July 4th. For some reason the practice ended years ago. I recently recommended to our U.S. Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-8) that he champion a revival of this tradition in the House of Representatives, especially as newly elected representatives begin their tenure. We need a groundswell of bipartisan cooperation to assuage the polarization that has afflicted both chambers and hindered addressing our country’s vital needs.

Washington’s words, a foundry for exemplary governing, should be on the minds of all of those who represent us, as well as among media members who cover them. His message should resonate when legislation is proposed and voted on.

 

Socialism justice

By Steve Woodward

We hear the phrase “social justice” tossed around, specifically by a radical left which believes the world at large, but especially the United States of America, is inherently unjust. And they’re going to do something about it.

If not so very symptomatic of our declining culture, revelations that dozens of wealthy (capitalist) citizens, mainly from liberal hotbeds in California and New York, paid enormous sums to ensure open (back) doors into prestigious universities for their children would be hilarious. At last, “socialism justice”!

Wildly successful people, pillars of their communities and professions, paid six- and even seven-figure bribes to make sure their kids would experience the finest anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, anti-free speech indoctrinations money can buy. They cast them out of the free markets trappings of wealth and privilege, and into the petri dishes of left wing radicalism, on campuses escalating hatred toward America as never before. An Army of foot soldiers to back Generalissimo Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The money flowed into willing hands at Georgetown University, and the universities of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Southern California (USC) and Texas, plus Stanford, Wake Forest and Yale. These are schools already bloated by funding from donors who orchestrate capitalist ventures to perfection only to willfully underwrite generations of snowflakes who long to shred the U.S. Constitution, airbrush American history, shut down speech they do not agree with, and shut down companies in pursuit of climate change retribution.

The hands which handed over half-a-million dollars and more to falsely credential these future “leaders” as worthy enrollees soon will be cut off or, at least, separated from their finger nails, but they don’t care (and apparently neither do their criminal parents). Mommy and Daddy might end up on the streets. So be it. Socialism justice delivers tough sentences.

“(In all) 33 parents named in federal indictments (March 12) allegedly funneled at least $25 million through a fraudulent college-counseling service to get their children (into prestigious schools),” reported The Wall Street Journal.

That represents a staggering investment, and for what? Once inside the gates, one might presume the rich kids would be all-in on setting their own paths to success in between Kardashian-themed parties, and embracing the heritage and traditions of these fine universities.

Nothing could be further from the truth. They hate heritage. They want a lot of administrators and faculty members fired. And they want statues torn down and buildings renamed (to sanitize any and all recognition of white people who came before them). Overlooked, is that many of the coddled campus protestors are products of so-called white privilege. But they prefer a status as permanently outraged over privileged.

Look no further than scandalized Wake Forest, where the head volleyball coach was placed on administrative leave after the feds linked him to receipt of a $100,000 bribe. It was paid by the ringleader of the fraudulent counseling operation to help one of his client’s children become identified as a “recruit” sought by the Wake volleyball program. Whether the recruit ever has played volleyball is unclear.

What is exceedingly clear is that bucolic Wake Forest University is quaking as students swarm it grounds, shouting demand upon demand. They have embraced a recent trend of scouring old yearbooks to search for photos that disqualify people for jobs currently held due to activity in which they engaged decades earlier. Two members of the Wake admissions office, ironically, have been ravaged by students who discovered them in yearbook photos posing in front of a Confederate flag.

One such target was Dean of Admissions Martha Allman, who in February was forced to issue a heartfelt apology because she was photographed in front of a Confederate flag as a Wake Forest student in 1982.

A self-proclaimed Anti-Racism Coalition was not satisfied with Allman’s apology, calling on the school’s president to voice “vehement condemnation” of the dean. And that’s not all the coalition is demanding. It will not rest until forcing removal of “all monuments, plaques, busts, portraits, buildings, and other things on campus dedicated to Confederates, white supremacists and eugenicists.” When the dust settles after the mass dismantling, the group seeks renaming of Wingate Hall, Taylor Residence Hall and Poteat Residence Hall.

Washington Wingate, a Baptist minister, was president of Wake Forest College before and after the Civil War. His crime? Wake Forest’s campus was closed during the War but it’s buildings were used to store Confederate States bonds. Sorry, Pastor, you’re outta here.

Wake Forest’s web site notes the campus has a racial and ethnic diversity rate of 29.3% (as of Fall 2017), which represents a 49% increase in diversity since 2010. You might think this would be acknowledged as a positive trend. Think again.

The Anti-Racism Coalition warns the administration that “higher admission rates of black students does not at all compensate for the anti-black racism that is consistently experienced here. We do not need temporary solutions for a deeply rooted institutional problem.”

But their parents will pay $70,000 a year to cover tuition, plus room and board — or pay a volleyball coach even more — to safely deliver them to these hallowed places where discontent is deeply rooted, where every human emotion bubbling up in opposition to widespread social injustice is deeply rooted, where everything is deeply rooted except rampant hypocrisy. Hypocrisy has no roots but remains buried under elite soil, never to be exposed. Until, thanks to the feds, it so readily is.

 

 

 

Pittsburgh steel

Unless you have retreated to a rural cabin to focus on pottery, it is impossible in every day life not to feel bombarded by the unrelenting foot soldiers of the extreme Left, aka, the mainstream media. But something incredible happened recently in Pittsburgh, in a state President Donald Trump won against all odds by picking up 20 electoral votes on an historic evening in November 2016.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hired a new editor. He observed that the newspaper’s political cartoonist, Rob Rogers, was obsessed with anti-Trump cartoons, including several that simply ignored reality. Rogers was fired in June. The Left’s collective head exploded. He’s a Pulitzer Prize winner! This is a travesty!

Post-Gazette cartoon.Trump

Naturally, the extreme Left was outraged by the rejection of cartoons such as this one (above), that grossly mis-portrayed the Trump administration’s enforcement of existing immigration laws at the southern U.S. border. In short order, a George Washington University apparatchik arranged an exhibit of Rogers’ never-published cartoons in the Corcoran School of Arts and Design beginning July 18.

Post-Gazette editorial page editor Keith Burris, who fired Rogers, should be saluted for carrying out what used to be known as “doing your job.” He demonstrated a steely will to honor his profession, dying though it may be. Newspapers that are agenda-driven are not delivering news and when their opinion pages are entirely invested in Trump-hating vitriol, that’s a departure from journalistic standards, too. (Go back and review the work of Washington Post legendary cartoonist Herb Block).

Those who choose to visit the Corcoran exhibit will have the advantage of finding a D.C. tourist destination with no line, no waiting.

Meanwhile, there are other political cartoonists who are paying close attention to what actually is happening during the countdown to the November mid-terms.

Red Wave Rising.png

 

Independence 365

There is absolutely nothing most Americans do not love about the early summer activities surrounding “the Fourth of July”, or, more popularly,  “the Fourth”. It is for many families a turn-key day, or series of days. Parade. Cookout. Golf. Boating. Hiking. Hanging out at the beach house.

May it ever be thus. Purists insist on always referring to it as Independence Day because, well, that’s the actual name of the holiday. It is a day to observe, reflect and celebrate the independence from British rule that led to the formation of a new nation that would change the course of human history. Those on the front line fighting for this independence sacrificed everything, most significantly their lives. They were not trained soldiers. They were lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, clergy and otherwise “regular” folk.

Americans through the generations have coveted and celebrated our “independence”. But the passage of time has seen Independence Day transformed from a solemn observance to a period of ritual frivolity. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. But there are another 364 days when life goes on and plays out, and those who are engaged in 21st Century America sense that our independence is under siege as never before. Our independence is not a “given”, not a slogan, and certainly not acceptable to many, both within our borders and beyond our borders.

In 1963, Congress was exposed to a document entitled, “Communist Goals for Taking Over America”. We can only imagine that our elected leaders reviewed the document, took it seriously, but could not comprehend how the so-called goals ever could be achieved on U.S. soil. Newsmax.com 15 years ago drew attention to the list of goals. Even then, many would have scoffed at the notion that our society would tolerate them.

“On Jan. 10, 1963, Congressman Albert S. Herlong Jr. of Florida read a list of 45 Communist goals into the Congressional Record. The list was derived from researcher Cleon Skousen’s book “The Naked Communist.” These principles are well worth revisiting today in order to gain insights into the thinking and strategies of much of our so-called liberal elite.”

These are the Communist goals within America that were read into the Congressional Record 55 years ago. Many we now accept as part of American life, and others are gaining traction:

  • Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
  • Promote the UN as the only hope for mankind.
  • Do away with all loyalty oaths.
  • Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
  • Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
  • Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
  • Gain control of all student newspapers.
  • Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
  • Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
  • Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
  • Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
  • Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
  • Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
  • Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
  • Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
  • Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”
  • Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
  • Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
  • Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
  • Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
  • Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
  • Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
  • Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
  • Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
  • Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
  • Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
  • Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.

One day each year we celebrate our independence. There are 364 other days when we must fiercely defend it, lest it slip away. It is under attack as never before. Let’s get to work on “the Fifth”.

Media high on Hogg

By Dalton Clodfelter

I grieve with the students of Santa Fe, Texas, and Parkland, Florida. These tragedies are becoming all too familiar across America because municipalities and school boards have insisted school campuses remain gun-free zones and, thus, vulnerable to mentally ill attackers.

David Hogg, a Parkland student and anti-gun activist, has become the “face” of this tragedy, particularly at his new home away from home, CNN. And the liberal media has jumped on his bandwagon — supporting his profanity-laced tirades with countless articles and appearances on news/talk shows. The media has given Hogg a voice to support its own liberal narrative. 

Hogg is not my voice or that of hundreds of other young people who aren’t given a media platform. And, he is certainly not the voice of my generation. 

I am a proud member of the NRA; a young Christian Conservative who supports our Constitution, and isn’t afraid of the mob mentality that is the liberal culture on many high school campuses today. I’m David Hogg’s worst nightmare. 

Hogg has been praised by the left as a virtuous advocate for peace. He has now entered into a contract along with his sister to publish a book titled, “#NeverAgain”, which will pursue a theme that if you are pro-gun then you must be pro-killing children. Expect to find this book a short time from now on the discount tables at Costco and Walmart. 

Here, Mr. Hogg, are some facts. Statistics maintained by data.cityofchicago.org show that, in 2017, more than 600 people were killed by illegal use of a firearm even though Chicago is among many large cities with stringent gun laws. 

The mainstream media crow about declines in urban murder rates, overlooking that outlaws are still randomly killing innocents on the streets. Are the families of the 5,738 victims of homicide in the nation’s 50 biggest cities in 2017 consoled by the fact that 2.3% more were killed in 2016? Where is the outrage centered on the slaughter of 26 law enforcement officials so far in 2018?

Remember when the “Black Lives Matter” movement was emerging and a Maryland lawmaker was roundly shouted down for retorting that “all lives matter”. That same illogic seems to to pervade the “gun control” crowd. The deaths of high school kids gunned down by mentally unstable fellow students are unthinkable, but the drug lords and gang members in cities killing kids are just statistical anomalies.

Washington, D.C., also was known for its climbing homicide rate and strict gun ban policy enacted in 1976, with the annual homicide rate rising from 188 to 364. Of course, after politicians eliminated the gun ban, there was a decrease in homicides. 

According to the University of Chicago’s gun crime stats, from 1977 to 1999, the right-to-carry laws drastically decreased the frequency and devastation of mass public shootings, and where shootings did occur they were in areas of the state that still did not permit concealed handguns.

The liberal media and its Hogg puppets focus much of their venom on the National Rifle Association. Some have labeled the NRA a “terrorist organization”. Yet, the NRA, more than any other organization, has labored to address the core issue tied to school shootings — preparing and protecting schools from massacres. Parents and school administrators are doing the kids in their communities a disservice if they are not visiting the the NRA’s web site and learning about the National School Shield program.

Hogg’s book will be nothing more than another attack on our 2nd Amendment rights, just like his speeches, interviews and Twitter posts. David Hogg is the epitome of today’s social justice warrior the liberal media loves and promotes. Unfortunately, his 15 minutes will not soon be up.

Dalton Clodfelter is a high school senior and founder of the web site rightwingworld.com, which strives to enable young people to break free from the mob mentality and collectivist movement on school campuses today.