A Question that Needs Answering

How many people reading this know what it is that is inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty? Indeed, how many of us know any young person today who is learning it in school? Or learning about other points of our national heritage?

How about that the French people, the regular people, donated the money it cost for the statue to be built? While I am at odds with their leadership today which should have stood with America and the rest of the coalition to oust Saddam Hussein, all that is political, the people's admiration and love for we the people here in the USA was not political in nature, not at all.

I homeschool and one of my primary reasons for doing so was in my realizing the complete and utter secularzation of the public school system. There is an agenda put forth by the NEA, who, working together with homosexual activists groups, have fixed their eyes and their influence on the impressionable young, realizing that to get the minds and hearts of a generation, that is the place to go. The agendas are bold and boldly put forth by the leadership of many, many in the National Education Association.

Of course this by no means implies that I don't like teachers, etc., but I am treated as if that is the case. I have a couple close friends who are excellent teachers, as well as I know other teachers who I have met over the years and have greatly admired. Yet, they tend to be quite touchy on the subject at hand.

For instance, more money than ever before is being spent on public school education, but we still have entire school districts completely failing to teach youth to read and write. They are handing them out condoms and directing the girls to Planned Parenthood as well as trying to accomodate their sexual preferences! One of my friends actually uses the word homophobic to describe another close friend of our's aversion to the homosexual lifestyle!

When faced with the truth my friends would be the first to tell me I should be willing to admit this or that, but their unwillingness to recognize what is going on in so many schools, or worse, to not disturb the status quo is as much denial as my unwillingness to face truth in my own life and about my own person.

We live in one of the greatest nations on the face of this earth yet we are failing to impart this truth as well as the many reasons behind how we got to be so great. One of those failures has to do with our own lack of involvment in the legislative process as well as our own failure to study and understand the history and uniqueness of our own great nation. We can begin to change this by first, looking in that mirror and admitting the truth about our own apathy to our country's heritage and stop supporting the right of others to criticize us when we don't even bother getting involved in what US is supposed to be about!!

Here is the road we should take first on our journey into the United States of America. Let us remember the words of the sonnet inscribed in bronze at the base of the statue, placed there in 1903, a sonnet written by an American poet, Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land:
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
-Emma Lazarus

Quotables

"Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as aschoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples arecaptivating and noble."-- Massachusetts Congressman Fisher Ames (1758-1808)
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not forthemselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."-- President Abraham Lincoln, from a letter, 1859,
“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with thegovernment of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with thegovernment of others? Or have we found angels in the formsof kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”-- President Thomas Jefferson
"All must admit that the reception to the teachings ofChrist results in the purest patriotism, in the mostscrupulous fidelity to public trust, and in the best typeof citizenship."President Grover Cleveland
"It is now true that this is God's Country, if equalrights -- a fair start and an equal chance in the race oflife -- are everywhere secured to all."-- President Rutherford B. Hayes

Southeast Asia and Their Quake and Tsunami Afternath Troubles

As if it wasn't bad enough with the stench of decomposing bodies all around them, the loss of their homes, livelihood, children and spouses, and no food or shelter of their own, the people in Southeast Asia, most notably Indonesia and Sri Lanka are experiencing the loss of their children who survived to sex trafficking.
The exploitation of dazed and traumatized children is reprehensible! Mothers in Sri Lanka who lost most or all of their children and survived themselves are dealing with terrible guilt and the added nightmare of having previously had surgical procedures to prevent further children. (thank you PP and UN) In countries like these, so underdeveloped, especially by US and Europe's standards, it is amazing what the United Nations (and Planned Parenthood) considers aid to the Third World countries of the world to be; sticking their noses into the sexual lives of the women of said countries. Indeed the UN, via the United Nations Population Fund is there right now, in the midst of all these, giving out their version of care packages which include condoms and portable abortion devices!
With one-third of the lives lost being children, and women crying over the loss of their babies to the quake and tsunamis, and then the kidnapping of numbers of surviving children by the dregs of humanity; With the combined needs of food, shelter, trauma and grief counseling, and protection for the children, the UN considers the aid to the people of this region to be their population control kit?? DIsgusting is what it is! This they do while pointing the finger of criticism at the aid pledges of other countries for the victims of this mega disaster! If ever an organization needed dismanlting, it is this one.

Rethinking Tolerance

I wonder how many would agree with me that it is time to rethink the meaning of tolerance in our world today; or, at the very least, rethink how it is being redefined in today's world.
We all know that the first dictionary entry for the meaning of the word tolerance is: acceptance of different views: the acceptance of the differing views of other people, for example, in religious or political matters, and fairness toward the people who hold these different views.
I think many, if they are honest with themselves, would agree that this is not the case today, especially towards those who believe in the God of the Bible.
The trouble is exacerbated by the media, both cable and network television, college leadership across our nation, and many (too many) members of our Congress and Judiciary.
One of the ways this is done is by promoting a view of Christians as hateful and narrowminded, in addition to the labeling of their protests against those things they disagree with as offensive. Further, the media (and Hollywood) shews forth a blatant bias themselves as they portray people of faith as the ignorant masses.
With the recent election setting voting records in the popular vote, it is clear that people in the nation are sick and tired of representatives that kowtow to the special interests groups that promote a culture of death as well as a perverting of the one thing that is the very glue that holds an enduring society together, i.e. marriage and family.
Here are just a few of the examples taken from a recent article appearing in the AFA Journal of the intolerance towards these people and those who share their views:
From the universities:
Sean Wilentz of Princeton: "religious fanaticism" has "seized control of the federal government."
From newspaper columnists:
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times says President Bush "ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq".
Sheryl McCarthy of Newsday says that President Bush is "pandering to the people's fear, petty interests and prejudices against homosexuals".
My favorite is by a columnist named Thomas Friedman who accuses the values voters who won the day (by a very wide margin I might add), of promoting 'intolerance'.
There is far more than that being said these days, but the bottom line remains that those who are teeth-gnashingly angry at the win wrought for President Bush by the values voters (and their views) seem mighty intolerant of said views.
Furthermore, it was quite obvious that those who supported President Bush (in record numbers), for the most part, ran a get out the vote campaign that did not dishonor anothers views or seek to get votes by deception. I am sure that those exceptions to that statement were a drop in the bucket by comparison to the campaign of the Democrats who, desperate for the votes of large blocks of voters (i.e. minorities) deceived their way all the way to just short of the ballot box. Of course if you seek for the truth in this you will find few willing newsreporters in the mainstream, that is for sure. It is not what they are about, reporting the truth of issues important to the people, anymore.
But tolerance for others views is a staple of the values voters, we just don't happen to agree with your view. Big picture, we also believe such a valueless view as is held by the liberals in Congress today and their supporters who push it every chance they get (right over the American people, who in larger and larger numbers don't agree with it), is not conducive to our way of life enduring in the world today.
More on the intolerant tolerant another time.
http://www.afajournal.org/

Respect

Over the years I have learned to respect other people separate from whether I agree with them or not, or sometimes, even like them or not. I was doing that since before I came to know Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, and trying to walk with Him helped to cement that way of being towards other people. It is extremely hard for a wordy person as myself to put the brakes on my responses, in other words, to let someone else have the last word rather than myself, but I have gotten to the point where I can usually do it with a minimal of effort. I thank God for that.
Because I choose to hold my tongue on many occasions, I do believe that people form opinions of me (judging) and this I deduce by their snide, sarcastic and sometimes downright hostile attack of words towards me personally. Rarely do people that respond in this manner to something they disagree with show respect for the person, indeed they show they have very little respect for themselves as well when they aggressively attack someone personally, rather than disagree with the other person's views or opinions and state theirs in a rational manner. These would be the people I would not bother defending myself to because they are the ones that don't really care what you think, all they know is that they don't like what you are saying and therefore they don't like you. These are the people that don't mind spreading lies and rumors and other inaccuracies about other people, sometimes ruining a person's reputation, because they cannot accept the other person's right to disagree with them.
They display not only a lack of respect for other people's opinion's or other people, but they reveal their own ignorance as well, not to mention lack of self-control, which is very telling on the character of themselves.
The scary part about ignorant and disrespectful people like that is they vote. I thank God for my right to vote, but there are a slew of people like that who get their opinions from rock stars, Hollywood celebrities and shameful and biased news reports rather than investigate issues for themselves.
I would even go so far as to say that this type of person is the one who will step on you, shove you out of the way, or trample you in their haste to escape a disaster of any kind. Some call them the mindless masses and other such names. I, because of the Lord, like to think that these are people who simply do not use their minds in a beneficial way to themselves, society or another individual. But I also use my mind as well and stay away from them; up to and including refusing to respond to their personal attacks when they don't agree with my opinion and stand on the issues of today.