Tuesday, February 22, 2011
#78 - Apocalypse Now: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor
(In case I do not do a posting on Friday, be sure, as always to watch today’s “Coral Ridge Hour.” (in Orlando, non-cable station 55.1, 5-5:30 pm.) They are in the midst of a 4-part series on the major threats to our nation today. Great perspective as always on seeing our world from a biblical worldview.)
by Michelle Malkin (HumanEvents.com)
02/18/2011
Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union.
The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor's collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.
As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate "would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee-area employers."
This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama lamented the "assault on unions." AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union bosses dubbed Walker the "Mubarak of the Midwest" while their minions toted posters of Walker's face superimposed on Hitler's. Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to "shut down" the "new Cairo" while the state's Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being "sick" and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them). Instead, Duncan defended teachers for "doing probably the most important work in society." Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for NOT doing their jobs.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the workforce is tantamount to dictatorship. Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their jobs and out of their classrooms, they are "putting children first."
If ever there were proof that public unions no longer work in the public interest, this is it. Big Labor dragoons workers into exclusive representation agreements, forces them to pay compulsory dues that fatten Democratic political coffers and then has the chutzpah to cast itself as an Egyptian-style "freedom" and "human rights" movement.
Meanwhile, union leaders elsewhere are quietly forcing their low-wage members to share the sacrifice in order to preserve teetering health funds. In New York state, Skidmore College campus janitors, dining service workers and other maintenance employees received late notice from the SEIU that 4.15 percent of their gross earnings will now be deducted from their paychecks to cover the cost of the health plan provided through the behemoth 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund. (If the name sounds familiar, it's because this is one of several privileged SEIU affiliates that has received an Obamacare waiver.)
These workers are forced to join the union in order to preserve their jobs, and unlike non-union workers, they are locked into a single health plan. The SEIU has now decreed that they must pay new fees to include spouses on their plans and has hiked employee co-pays for doctor visits and prescription drugs.
What's necessary for New York union workers is necessary for Wisconsin union workers -- and for the rest of the protected union worker class in bankrupt and near-bankrupt states across America. The "persuasion of power" so ruthlessly and recklessly exercised by the SEIU and its thuggish allies must be broken by the moral courage of fiscal discipline. It's now or never.
Mrs. Malkin is author of Unhinged (Regnery) and "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2009).
Sunday, February 6, 2011
#77 - Sunday Special - Less Than Super
1. (see blog posting #76) Needless to say, please keep the current unrest in Egypt in your daily prayers. PLEASE PRAY THAT, WHILE HUNGERING FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMS, THE PEOPLE THERE (AND THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST), THE PEOPLE WILL ALLOW FOR A SMOOTH TRANSITION AND NOT, IN THEIR IMPATIENCE, CAUSE THERE TO BE A POLITICAL VACCUM THAT WOULD BE FILLED BY RADICAL ISLAMIC ELEMENTS.
2. Again, be sure to watch today’s “Coral Ridge Hour.” (in Orlando, non-cable station 55.1, 5-5:30 pm.) Learn why our nation’s unsustainable deficit is fundamentally not an economic problem as it is a moral/spiritual problem. This is the first of a 4-part series on the major threats to our nation today. Great perspective as always on seeing our world from a biblical worldview.
3. Just before the kick-off of today's Superbowl game, they will show a special video celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of our 40th President, Ronald Reagan. Try to tune in at least 15 minutes before the kick-off. I trust it will be good.
TV Ads and the State of Our CultureBy: Chuck Colson|February 3, 2011
Super Bowl ads on television can be hazardous to your spiritual health.
Ah, yes! We’ve waited a whole year. It’s time to put down that snow shovel, gather ’round the television, and participate in the annual national bonding event known as the Super Bowl. Now, I’m not talking about the game itself, but about something far more important to most Americans: the commercials!
While many of us are still in the icy grip of this recession, pro football’s championship game hardly seems to have noticed. Thirty-second spots—selling everything from corn chips to luxury cars--are going for a cool three million dollars each. That doesn’t even include all the money needed to produce these big-budget sales pitches.
Every year, however, some proposed ads don’t make the cut because they are too “controversial.” You’ll recall that one starring Tim Tebow and his mother last year was almost pulled because of its pro-life message. Thank heavens it aired! But this year, there’s one ad I’m very glad to say you won’t see. It’s an ad that promotes the website of a company called Ashley Madison. This site isn’t offering career help or a new line of women’s clothes. No, Ashley Madison promotes good, old-fashioned adultery. In the ad, a scantily clad woman, played by a porn star, apparently is getting excited by the fact that her husband is cheating on her. The Fox network, rightly, rejected the ad. Ashley Madison responded by claiming that it is evidence of—I kid you not—an unfair bias against porn stars. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up! I hope there is still some kind of bias against porn stars on prime time television.
The fact is, though, that in this morally confused culture, we face constant pressure in our media, in our institutions, and in our daily interactions to do the wrong thing, to cut corners, to indulge in self-gratification, to cheat. For example, a new movie, called No Strings Attached, starts off with the increasingly popular notion that some of us are just too busy to work on relationships, and so having sex with no commitment—no strings attached—is a perfectly acceptable “lifestyle choice.”
And we wonder why the rates of divorce and broken families are soaring, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases. Rightly did the existential philosopher Albert Camus warn, “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon the world.”
Of course, our “ethically challenged” problems go far beyond our sexual misbehavior. As I’ve said many times, one of the biggest reasons for the economic crisis is that we—Main Street, Wall Street, and Capitol Hill and the people—refused to live within our means.
We need to get back to ethical fundamentals in this country—and fast. That’s why I’m very excited about a new, six-part video series we’ve put together called “Doing the Right Thing.” It focuses on restoring ethical decision-making in a society that has been, from the bedroom to the board room, less than ethical.“Doing the Right Thing” features Robert George, Brit Hume, and many other key thinkers on this vital topic, and you’ll want to get a copy for your church or group. It’s going to be released in March. But you can to Colson Center.org today for more information, or to pre-order “Doing the Right Thing.”
When you watch the Super Bowl, count how many ads promote doing the wrong thing, and how many promote doing the right thing. I’m guessing when you do that, you’ll agree with me that we need a re-birth of ethics in this country.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Ad-Wize, All the Buzz Over Super Bowl/ Tony Fitzgerald | Media Life | January 28, 2011
Fox rejects Super Bowl ad that encourages cheating on your spouse NewsNet5.com| Janurary 25, 2011
Doing the Right Thing: A Six-Part Series on Ethics / The Colson Center for Christian Worldview | www.colsoncenter.org/ethics
2. Again, be sure to watch today’s “Coral Ridge Hour.” (in Orlando, non-cable station 55.1, 5-5:30 pm.) Learn why our nation’s unsustainable deficit is fundamentally not an economic problem as it is a moral/spiritual problem. This is the first of a 4-part series on the major threats to our nation today. Great perspective as always on seeing our world from a biblical worldview.
3. Just before the kick-off of today's Superbowl game, they will show a special video celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of our 40th President, Ronald Reagan. Try to tune in at least 15 minutes before the kick-off. I trust it will be good.
TV Ads and the State of Our CultureBy: Chuck Colson|February 3, 2011
Super Bowl ads on television can be hazardous to your spiritual health.
Ah, yes! We’ve waited a whole year. It’s time to put down that snow shovel, gather ’round the television, and participate in the annual national bonding event known as the Super Bowl. Now, I’m not talking about the game itself, but about something far more important to most Americans: the commercials!
While many of us are still in the icy grip of this recession, pro football’s championship game hardly seems to have noticed. Thirty-second spots—selling everything from corn chips to luxury cars--are going for a cool three million dollars each. That doesn’t even include all the money needed to produce these big-budget sales pitches.
Every year, however, some proposed ads don’t make the cut because they are too “controversial.” You’ll recall that one starring Tim Tebow and his mother last year was almost pulled because of its pro-life message. Thank heavens it aired! But this year, there’s one ad I’m very glad to say you won’t see. It’s an ad that promotes the website of a company called Ashley Madison. This site isn’t offering career help or a new line of women’s clothes. No, Ashley Madison promotes good, old-fashioned adultery. In the ad, a scantily clad woman, played by a porn star, apparently is getting excited by the fact that her husband is cheating on her. The Fox network, rightly, rejected the ad. Ashley Madison responded by claiming that it is evidence of—I kid you not—an unfair bias against porn stars. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up! I hope there is still some kind of bias against porn stars on prime time television.
The fact is, though, that in this morally confused culture, we face constant pressure in our media, in our institutions, and in our daily interactions to do the wrong thing, to cut corners, to indulge in self-gratification, to cheat. For example, a new movie, called No Strings Attached, starts off with the increasingly popular notion that some of us are just too busy to work on relationships, and so having sex with no commitment—no strings attached—is a perfectly acceptable “lifestyle choice.”
And we wonder why the rates of divorce and broken families are soaring, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases. Rightly did the existential philosopher Albert Camus warn, “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon the world.”
Of course, our “ethically challenged” problems go far beyond our sexual misbehavior. As I’ve said many times, one of the biggest reasons for the economic crisis is that we—Main Street, Wall Street, and Capitol Hill and the people—refused to live within our means.
We need to get back to ethical fundamentals in this country—and fast. That’s why I’m very excited about a new, six-part video series we’ve put together called “Doing the Right Thing.” It focuses on restoring ethical decision-making in a society that has been, from the bedroom to the board room, less than ethical.“Doing the Right Thing” features Robert George, Brit Hume, and many other key thinkers on this vital topic, and you’ll want to get a copy for your church or group. It’s going to be released in March. But you can to Colson Center.org today for more information, or to pre-order “Doing the Right Thing.”
When you watch the Super Bowl, count how many ads promote doing the wrong thing, and how many promote doing the right thing. I’m guessing when you do that, you’ll agree with me that we need a re-birth of ethics in this country.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Ad-Wize, All the Buzz Over Super Bowl/ Tony Fitzgerald | Media Life | January 28, 2011
Fox rejects Super Bowl ad that encourages cheating on your spouse NewsNet5.com| Janurary 25, 2011
Doing the Right Thing: A Six-Part Series on Ethics / The Colson Center for Christian Worldview | www.colsoncenter.org/ethics
Friday, February 4, 2011
#76 - The Desire for Freedom
1. Thanks to the half dozen or so who emailed me about Sancity of Human Life Sunday being recognized at their church. It was encouraging to hear though I suspect the vast majority of churhes did not have any mention of it.
2. Don't forget to catch "The Coral Ridge (half) Hour" this Sunday (and every Sunday). Always a great message and an Christian update on an issue facing our country.
3. And be sure to check out the articles and especially the editorial cartoons posted at World.com for a Christian perspective on the news each week.
4. Be sure to check for a special posting this Super Bowl SundayIt's Written on Our Hearts By: Chuck Colson|: February 1, 2011 12:00
What’s going on in Egypt may be the most significant event on the world stage since 9/11.Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past week, you’ve seen video of the massive protests rocking Egypt and shaking the foundations of the Middle East. The stakes could not be higher for the Middle East or the rest of the world.
One authoritarian regime—that of Tunisia—has already been overthrown. Another, Saudi Arabia’s, is decrying the protests. Israel is nervously watching events, concerned that Hosni Mubarak, the most reliable Arab leaderin their eyes, may be toppled. Islamic hardliners in Iran and Palestine are cheering on the protesters, hoping that a moderate Islamicgovernment will be replaced by a fanatical Islamist one. Meanwhile, global financial markets have their eyes on the vital Suez Canal, throughwhich two million barrels of oil flow each day. What’s happening in the Middle East is one of the most volatile international situations since 9/11. Will the government win? Will radical Islamists highjack what might be a nascent democratic movement? Nobody knows.
But one thing should be very clear to anybody who is paying close attention—especially to Christians: People everywhere, we see it in the streets, are yearning to be free. And they yearn to be free precisely because every man, woman, and child, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or otherwise, is made in the image of God. We know, as Augustine taught, that God, who has a free will, bestowed upon us the gift of free will. The desire for freedom—the freedom to choose right from wrong, the freedom to order our lives—is imprinted in our very DNA. This is what the biblical worldview teaches us. And that is why tyrannical governments can put a lid on freedom for only so long. Inevitably that human desire for freedo mwill boil over—just like it is doing in the streets of Cairo today. Just like it did in Iran last year, where protesters tried—but failed—to overthrowAhmadinejad and his theocracy of the mullahs.
As Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries teeter on the brink, we can see so clearly that the biblical worldview is the only worldview that is rationally sustainable. The only one on which to order our lives as individuals and nations and prosper. Yet another worldview may soon be on display in Egypt for all to see. That’s the worldview of radical Islam. A worldview that denies that humans are born free or that humans are made in God’s image (that would be akin to idolatry according to Islamic teachings). It’s a worldview that preaches ultimately one goal: submission to Allah.
Already, a democratic opposition leader, Mohammed ElBaradei, is talking with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood about participating in a coalition government. Could an Islamist foot in the door lead to an Islamist Egypt? If so, the clash of civilizations, which historian Samuel Huntington predicted nearly two decades ago, may be unavoidable—particularly a clash between the West and a more radicalized, expansionist Islam.The ramifications of such a clash would be hard to imagine. But they will be real, significant, and will affect the world for generations to come.
At the same time this can be a teaching moment. As the world’s eyes are focused on the earth-shaking events in the Middle East, we need to be able to explain why the biblical worldview gives humans the only basis for dignity, peace, and freedom We need to explain this winsomely to our neighbors.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Egypt News - The ProtestsThe New York Times
NEW FROM CHUCK: The Events in Egypt: A Worldview PerspectiveChuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | February 01, 2011
Egypt Protests Show George W. Bush Was Right About Freedom in the Arab World, Elliot Abrams | The Washington Post | January 29, 2011
ALSO: Information and Freedom: The Two Go Hand in Hand Breakpoint.com, Feb. 2, 2011( http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/16328)(excerpt: “…If there’s an object lesson about what we’re seeing in the Middle East, it is that every Christian should be working diligently to preserve the right to free speech, to preserve the free flow of information. Aquinas noted eloquently that civilization advances on well-reasoned discourse—on conversation, which is the heart of democracy.”)
2. Don't forget to catch "The Coral Ridge (half) Hour" this Sunday (and every Sunday). Always a great message and an Christian update on an issue facing our country.
3. And be sure to check out the articles and especially the editorial cartoons posted at World.com for a Christian perspective on the news each week.
4. Be sure to check for a special posting this Super Bowl SundayIt's Written on Our Hearts By: Chuck Colson|: February 1, 2011 12:00
What’s going on in Egypt may be the most significant event on the world stage since 9/11.Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past week, you’ve seen video of the massive protests rocking Egypt and shaking the foundations of the Middle East. The stakes could not be higher for the Middle East or the rest of the world.
One authoritarian regime—that of Tunisia—has already been overthrown. Another, Saudi Arabia’s, is decrying the protests. Israel is nervously watching events, concerned that Hosni Mubarak, the most reliable Arab leaderin their eyes, may be toppled. Islamic hardliners in Iran and Palestine are cheering on the protesters, hoping that a moderate Islamicgovernment will be replaced by a fanatical Islamist one. Meanwhile, global financial markets have their eyes on the vital Suez Canal, throughwhich two million barrels of oil flow each day. What’s happening in the Middle East is one of the most volatile international situations since 9/11. Will the government win? Will radical Islamists highjack what might be a nascent democratic movement? Nobody knows.
But one thing should be very clear to anybody who is paying close attention—especially to Christians: People everywhere, we see it in the streets, are yearning to be free. And they yearn to be free precisely because every man, woman, and child, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or otherwise, is made in the image of God. We know, as Augustine taught, that God, who has a free will, bestowed upon us the gift of free will. The desire for freedom—the freedom to choose right from wrong, the freedom to order our lives—is imprinted in our very DNA. This is what the biblical worldview teaches us. And that is why tyrannical governments can put a lid on freedom for only so long. Inevitably that human desire for freedo mwill boil over—just like it is doing in the streets of Cairo today. Just like it did in Iran last year, where protesters tried—but failed—to overthrowAhmadinejad and his theocracy of the mullahs.
As Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries teeter on the brink, we can see so clearly that the biblical worldview is the only worldview that is rationally sustainable. The only one on which to order our lives as individuals and nations and prosper. Yet another worldview may soon be on display in Egypt for all to see. That’s the worldview of radical Islam. A worldview that denies that humans are born free or that humans are made in God’s image (that would be akin to idolatry according to Islamic teachings). It’s a worldview that preaches ultimately one goal: submission to Allah.
Already, a democratic opposition leader, Mohammed ElBaradei, is talking with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood about participating in a coalition government. Could an Islamist foot in the door lead to an Islamist Egypt? If so, the clash of civilizations, which historian Samuel Huntington predicted nearly two decades ago, may be unavoidable—particularly a clash between the West and a more radicalized, expansionist Islam.The ramifications of such a clash would be hard to imagine. But they will be real, significant, and will affect the world for generations to come.
At the same time this can be a teaching moment. As the world’s eyes are focused on the earth-shaking events in the Middle East, we need to be able to explain why the biblical worldview gives humans the only basis for dignity, peace, and freedom We need to explain this winsomely to our neighbors.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Egypt News - The ProtestsThe New York Times
NEW FROM CHUCK: The Events in Egypt: A Worldview PerspectiveChuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | February 01, 2011
Egypt Protests Show George W. Bush Was Right About Freedom in the Arab World, Elliot Abrams | The Washington Post | January 29, 2011
ALSO: Information and Freedom: The Two Go Hand in Hand Breakpoint.com, Feb. 2, 2011( http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/16328)(excerpt: “…If there’s an object lesson about what we’re seeing in the Middle East, it is that every Christian should be working diligently to preserve the right to free speech, to preserve the free flow of information. Aquinas noted eloquently that civilization advances on well-reasoned discourse—on conversation, which is the heart of democracy.”)
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