#1461 (1/7) "Obama’s Executive Actions on Guns Are All Politics"

"OBAMA'S EXECUTIVE ACTIONS ON GUNS ARE ALL POLITICS" - Genevieve Wood / @genevievewood / January 05, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/01/05/obamas-executive-actions-on-guns-is-all-politics/
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Once again, President Obama is back to the “look, look, we’re doing something” strategy as opposed to going back to the drawing board and working with Congress. The controversial measures President Barack Obama announced will likely face constitutional challenges in the courts, but it’s already clear they won’t be effective.

The main executive action Obama announced that raises legal questions is about defining who must register as a licensed gun dealer and who does not have to register. The president has some, but not a lot of, leeway in how and to whom he applies the law. But will the president’s desired goal of “closing gun show loopholes,” by requiring more of those selling guns at such venues to become licensed, do what he claims—namely, decrease the number of crimes committed with guns?

We don’t need a legal debate to answer that last question.There is little evidence that simply expanding background checks will do anything to stop mass shootings or other criminal activities involving guns. Such action would not prevent tragedies like San Bernardino. The problem there was Islamic terrorism, not gun laws.

But the president’s unwillingness to take that issue head-on aside, how exactly would more background checks prevent people intent on doing evil from doing evil things? Since 1998, background checks for firearms have been run by the FBI through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Two observations:

     One: Criminals don’t obey the law—that’s why they are criminals—and they will not be deterred by more background checks from obtaining a gun off the black market, or stealing one, or paying someone with a clean record to purchase the gun for them. They may be criminals, but most aren’t as stupid as proponents of gun control seem to think they are.
     Two: Even when the federal government through the background system identifies felons trying to purchase guns, it has a less than stellar record in doing anything about it. And that is under both Republican and Democrat administrations.

According to government reports tabulated in an article by the Washington Post, in 2010, NICS denied the applications of 72,659 people seeking to purchase a firearm. Of those, 48,321 were felons and fugitives. What happened to those folks? Most walked away—only 44 of those denials ended up being prosecuted. And a look at 2006, under the Bush administration, doesn’t look much better. Of the 69,930 denials that year, 29,494 of which were felons and fugitives, only 112 were prosecuted.

What gives? Who better to answer that than Vice President Joe Biden, who said in 2013, “[W]e simply don’t have the time or the manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.”

Perhaps Obama thinks adding an additional 200 ATF agents will solve the enforcement problem? This is unlikely, considering that he also wants to add a whole host of new folks to run checks on and investigate. It would seem, then, that this is more show than a tried and true answer.

In his weekly radio address last Friday, the president said he has received “too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids, to sit around and do nothing” about the issue.He says he tried three years ago to work with Congress on this issue, but because they wouldn’t act, he must go it alone. For the record, at the time the proposed legislation couldn’t get through the Senate, Democrats controlled that body. 

And the legislation failed not just because the National Rifle Association opposed it. It also failed because it wouldn’t be effective: Had the legislation passed, it would have done nothing to stop what happened in Newtown, Conn., the impetus for the action, and the public apparently wasn’t interested in more laws just for the sake of more laws.

But once again, Obama is back to the “look, look, we’re doing something” strategy as opposed to going back to the drawing board and working with Congress on measures that actually would be effective, such as a real analysis of how our country treats those suffering from mental health issues. But we’re supposed to feel better because he’s “doing something.”

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Genevieve Wood advances policy priorities of The Heritage Foundation as senior contributor to The Daily Signal. Send an email to Genevieve.

#1460 (1/6) "... NOT MAHATMA GANDHI’S INDIA"

"Anti-Conversion Laws - NOT MAHATMA GANDHI’S INDIA" - By: Eric Metaxas|Breakpoint.org:Jan.4, 2016;
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/28654?utm_source=Colson+Center+Master+List&utm_campaign=2d96f3aad7-BP_Daily_1_04_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_84bd2dc76d-2d96f3aad7-6541173

When we think of religious persecution, the Middle East comes to mind. But the world’s largest democracy?

At this time last year, I urged BreakPoint listeners to pay close attention to the state of religious freedom around the world in 2015.  I said that this most important of freedoms was in peril at home as well as abroad. Little has changed in the past twelve months. If anything, the state of religious freedom is even more precarious, as events in India amply demonstrate.

Normally, when we think about the persecuted Church, what comes to mind are places like the Middle East and China. But as I told you two years ago, “the country that has witnessed the single greatest outburst of anti-Christian violence in recent years” is India. I quoted from “The Global War on Christians” by John L. Allen, which told readers that in 2008, “a series of riots [in the state of Orissa] ended with as many as five hundred Christians killed,” many of them “hacked to death by machete-wielding Hindu radicals.”

Thankfully, there hasn’t been a repeat of violence in India – a least on that scale – in the past seven years. But in some ways, religious freedom in India is in worse shape today than it was back then. In the past few years, six Indian states, including Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai (or Bombay, as it's better known), have enacted laws that effectively ban conversions from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam.

I say “effectively,” because while the laws, at least as written, “only” ban conversions that are the result of “force, allurement or fraudulent means,” these terms are extremely vague. So much so that something like providing free medical care – a moral obligation given the sorry state of India’s health care system – could be seen as “allurement.” Likewise, the term “force” includes the “threat of divine displeasure.” Thus, talking about hell could be interpreted as a use of force, or at least coercion. What’s more, many of the laws require people to inform authorities prior to conversion or even, in some instances, to seek permission before converting.

The Hindu nationalist proponents of these laws claim that they're protecting vulnerable populations from being exploited by what they see as “political tools” being wielded by “foreign powers.” The bad faith of this argument can be seen in the fact that the states that have adopted these measures have large populations of “untouchables,” more properly known as Dalits, and Adivasi, also known as “tribals.” These groups occupy the lowest rung of Hindu society and have been treated accordingly by their higher caste neighbors. Not surprisingly, they are the people most likely to convert, sometimes to Islam, more often to Christianity. Thus, the violence in places like Orissa was, in part, an effort to preserve Hindu caste hierarchies.

If the concern was for the well-being of these people, the far better and more decent approach would be to end caste discrimination instead of trampling on their religious freedom.

But of course, that wasn’t the concern. Tarun Vijay, a prominent Hindu nationalist, justified these measures by saying that “for the first time [in India], the population of Hindus has been reported to be less than 80 per cent. We have to take measures to arrest the decline. It is very important to keep the Hindus in majority in the country.” “Measures” include a proposed national anti-conversion law, with the Orwellian title “The Religious Freedom Bill.”

While the State Department’s 2014 Religious Freedom Report mentioned these anti-conversion laws, there’s no evidence to suggest that President Obama brought up this gross violation of religious freedom when he visited with India’s Prime Minister Modi last year.

This is a shame. Our government may not want to talk about it, but that shouldn’t stop us.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION - Religious freedom is under attack in many countries, but as Eric has pointed out, that is especially the case in India. Contact your elected officials and let them know your concern about the recently enacted anti-conversion laws in India. Your voice can make a difference. [See contact info in the right-hand column of this post.]
RESOURCES
"Violence against Christians Spreading" - International Christian Response | February 11, 2013;http://christianresponse.ca/violence-against-christians-spreading/
AVAILABLE IN THE ONLINE BOOKSTORE
The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution
- John Allen | Image Publishers | October 2013;http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780770437350
Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians- Nina Shea, Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert | Thomas Nelson Publishers | March 2013;http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781400204410

#1459 (1/5) "... Einstein’s Theory of Insanity"

"... EINSTEIN'S THEORY OF INSANITY" - (cartoon:Glenn Foden; commentary: Mike Gonzalez) / Dec.11,2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/12/11/cartoon-einsteins-theory-of-insanity/

Glenn Foden is an editorial cartoonist for The Daily Signal. 
Mike Gonzalez wrote ... on the president’s national address:
     "At his national address [several weeks ago], President Barack Obama lectured Americans at length on the evils of Islamophobia. That is a lofty sentiment, no doubt, but the harangue did strike many as disproportionate. After all, on this score Americans can already be rightly proud."

"Despite 9/11; two long and grinding wars against two Muslim countries; terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino; and the threat from ISIS, a murderous cult that has beheaded compatriots, Americans have by and large been paragons of equanimity and tolerance. Candidates may say many things in the midst of an electoral year, but the FBI statistics show that Jews, not Muslims, are the greatest victims of what is designated as religiously targeted hate crimes in America."

"To be sure, there have been isolated incidents of bigotry, such as windows broken at an Islamic center in Palm Beach Friday night, and they are reprehensible. But the real story here is that these are isolated events, and thankfully not part of some national furor. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., even took to the airwaves to challenge Obama to show proof. “The cynicism tonight, to spend a significant amount of time talking about discrimination against Muslims. Where is the widespread evidence that we have a problem in America with discrimination against Muslims?” Rubio asked Fox’s Bret Baier."

"And therein lies the problem. Obama may actually make Islamophobia more likely by A, not reassessing his failed strategy against ISIS, and B, appearing to cynically raise fears of Islamophobia to promote his multicultural agenda.
     On the first score, we have the words of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who [recently] visited Washington and had this to say in a speech at the Library of Congress: "A continued failure to recognize the scale of the challenge and to construct the means necessary to meet it, will result in terrorist attacks potentially worse than those in Paris, producing a backlash which then stigmatizes the majority of decent, law-abiding Muslims." Continued failure to recognize the scale of the challenge or to construct the means to combat it describes precisely the Obama approach, from calling ISIS the “JV team” to obtuse statements about how the way to rebuke ISIS is to lower carbon emissions.
     On Point B, the president’s incessant cynicism about his opponents’ motives has never helped the case he is trying to make. Take the issue of refugees.
     As with rejection of Islamophobia, taking legitimate refugees is a virtue in which Americans have every right to take pride. The United States, in fact, has taken in 748,000 refugees since Sept. 11, 2001. Over the past few years, despite the ever-present threat of terrorism on the homeland, the United States has responded generously to the plight of refugees worldwide by accepting them at a rate around 70,000 per year."

"Americans also have every right to demand that their government keep them safe. The tension between these two positions should have been handled in a debate that could have proceeded diligently had Obama but sought to understand and unite the nation he purports to lead."

"Alas, that’s not what happened. Instead, Obama—clearly peeved that Congress and state governors were moving because they mistrusted him—poured hot oil on a sensitive situation. His petulant performance only gave the congressmen and governors more reason to question his actions and instincts. Obama’s first instinct was to pour invective on those seeking stricter safeguards on refugees. They were not simply leaders with whom he disagreed; they were 'un-American' and 'shameful.' "

     "When the House of Representatives, with the support of 47 Democrats, voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 19 to pass a bill that blocks Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering unless they pass strict background checks, the president reproached them for being 'scared of widows and orphans.'
     It was all done from overseas, too, in the midst of a presidential tour of Turkey and the Far East. And Obama showed far more emotion when berating his American opponents than in condemning the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that left 130 dead and led to the refugee discussion here."

"Instead of pillorying those with concerns after a tragedy, the administration, from the president on down, should have sought to make its case on the vetting process to legislators, governors, and regular Americans. Policymakers deserve to see what the intelligence is on the refugee process and how the process mitigates any risk. The administration should have kept Congress regularly informed to any changes in the process and why such changes were made."

We should seek to further all of the U.S.’s national interests by keeping the U.S. homeland secure, helping those who are persecuted, and advancing American leadership around the world.  This starts by engaging with each other and the facts here at home. The president’s churlish approach has served to divide America. We’re all now reaping the whirlwind.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is a widely experienced international correspondent, commentator and editor who has reported from Asia, Europe and Latin America. He served in the George W. Bush Administration first at the Securities and Exchange Commission and then at the State Department. His book, "A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans," was published in September.

# 1458 (1/4) "A Prescription for a Truly Happy New Year"

"A PRESCRIPTION FOR A TRULY HAPPY NEW YEAR" - Jerry Newcombe | Dec 30, 2015; http://townhall.com/columnists/jerrynewcombe/2015/12/30/a-prescription-for-a-truly-happy-new-year-n2098311/page/full

Do you want this next year to be happier than the last? A first century letter written in prison by the Apostle Paul to the Philippian Christians has much advice on how to know true joy, and much of it was confirmed in May, 2015 by a major study released by the Mayo Clinic.

The study said that happier people are healthier people. That’s why the Mayo Clinic studied the issue of happiness in the first place. After its release, CBSNewYork reported on this study: “After decades of studying and working with tens of thousands of patients, researchers at the Mayo Clinic say they’ve cracked the code to being happy.” And the answer is what? More money? Bigger car? More stuff? Fame? Long before he was a presidential candidate, Donald Trump once quipped, “Whoever says money can’t buy happiness doesn’t know where to shop.”

The article reported: “Psychiatrist John Tamerin says for many people the root of everything we’re chasing, a better job, more money or true love, is happiness. But this endless pursuit often backfires. If you lead your life always waiting for a great thing to happen, you probably will be unhappy.”
The Mayo Clinic summarizes their findings, thusly: “People who are happy seem to intuitively know that their happiness is the sum of their life choices, and their lives are built on the following pillars:

• Devoting time to family and friends
• Appreciating what they have
• Maintaining an optimistic outlook
• Feeling a sense of purpose
• Living in the moment.”

Paul’s letter to the Philippians directly or indirectly addresses all these things. Relationships. An attitude of gratitude. A positive outlook. A sense of purpose. Living now and not letting the past cripple your present or future.

The Mayo study tells us to “Invest in relationships.” Yet, as I write these words, I see there’s a new report that some will be seeking companionship---from robots. Human beings are made in the image of God. That is not true of man-made machines. The study reports that self-focus is one of the great obstacles to human happiness. Paul told the Philippians, “in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…”. I have had the privilege of regularly participating in a food distribution ministry. No matter how blue I may possibly be going into it, my feelings are uplifted after helping others in need in the name of Jesus Christ.

The study found that complaining will not make you happy. Paul said, “do everything without grumbling.” He also said that he had learned to be content in all circumstances. He added, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” How is that for a positive outlook?

As to purpose for living, Paul says, “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

The Mayo Clinic study on happiness said we need to forget negative things and “liv[e] in the moment.” Paul said as much in Philippians 3: “…this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Forgetting the things behind us---the past that we cannot undo, but for which we can be forgiven if we would ask God for forgiveness---makes us more resilient and more positive in our outlook.

The Mayo Clinic study also recommended focusing on positive things. That’s just like Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think on these things.”

In the same chapter, Paul also talks about choosing to give thanks to the Lord. He says, “Rejoice in the Lord, always. Again, I say, rejoice.”

In a sense, we could say Philippians is the answer as to how to be happy. Isn’t it interesting that the Mayo Clinic study and all the thousands of dollars spent in research, dealing with thousands of clients, finds that if you want to be happy, focus on others, and put their interest before your own---just what Paul told the Philippians.

When Jesus said that it is more blessed to give than to receive, who would have thought that that is literally true? Forgetting what is behind, cultivating a thankful heart, living on purpose, thinking on good things, and caring about others are key precepts to a truly happy new year.

Happy New Year.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

 Dr. Jerry Newcombe is a key archivist of the D. James Kennedy Legacy Library and a Christian TV producer.

#1457 (1/3) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Be Not Afraid! - FAREWELL 2015, HELLO 2016"

"Be Not Afraid! - FAREWELL 2015, HELLO 2016" - By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: December 31, 2015; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/28638?utm_source=Colson+Center+Master+List&utm_campaign=d4054754e8-BP_Daily_12_31_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_84bd2dc76d-d4054754e8-6541173

Well, ... we've bid “farewell” to 2015. ... most of us have one thing in common: we'll be glad to see 2015 in the rear-view mirror. It was a year that gave many Americans a great deal to be concerned about both at home and abroad. That being the case, here’s a phrase that I think should be our watchword in 2016: Fear Not.

Notice that I said “concerned” not “frightened.” It would be absurd to deny that, in many respects, 2015 had more than its share of distressing news. It was the year in which same-sex marriage, with all that it implies for the future of the traditional family, was imposed on us as the law of the land. Along with this legal change, came an equally-precipitous deterioration in the state of religious freedom both here in the U.S. and especially abroad. Holding convictions about marriage and family that were mainstream just a few years ago, among liberals as well as conservatives, became impermissible bigotry when acted on outside the home.

Then of course there was the persecution of Christians, especially, but not only, by ISIS, including the beheading of twenty-one Christians in Libya. Closer to home, Islamist terrorism in Lebanon, Paris, and most recently, San Bernardino, has left Americans feeling that nowhere is safe, at least not as safe as it once was. All of this is enough to make us want to, as the late writer Brennan Manning once put it, crawl up into a ball and hide inside our shoes. But that’s exactly what we cannot do.

As Eric and I have said before on “BreakPoint,” “fear not” and variations such as “be not afraid” are, by some estimates the most often-repeated commands in all of Scripture. God and His angelic messengers are quoted as saying these words at least 80 times in the Bible. And yet, this command may be the most transgressed-against command in modern life. And make no mistake, it's a command, not a suggestion. Those who obey the command, especially in our cultural moment, greatly advance Christian witness.

So much of our culture is driven by two different but related things that are antithetical to a Christian worldview: fear and hype. Both derive their power from the underlying assumption that life is fully based in the here-and-now, that there's no larger story we're part of that secures our hope or significance. This practical atheism, as one writer has called it, leaves us vulnerable to pitches based in fear, whether from advertisers or politicians, and we fall for hype out of fear of being “left out” or seeming “out of step.”

But Christians are to remind themselves, and each other, that none of this is true. We are part of a grand story whose end is known to us: the restoration of all things through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, as Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh has put it, we should insist on living as if we were acting in a comedy – in the original sense of that word which was a story with a happy ending – while the world insists on staging a tragedy.

We should stand out precisely because we're not afraid, and instead, rejoice in the Lord always. Remember, the original author of those words wasn’t a stranger to trouble. Paul saw past circumstances and the first century equivalent of the news, and told the Philippians “the Lord is near.”  And, He still is. So let us live as if this were true. Let us live out our God-assigned parts in the grandest comedy of them all.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION - Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9
"Fear Not: He Has Overcome the World, and the News" - John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | October 27, 2014;http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/26286

#1456 (1/2) PRO-LIFE SAT: "...SAVING CHRISTOPHER DUNN"

"Who Decides to End a Life? - SAVING CHRISTOPHER DUNN" - By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: Dec. 22, 2015; 
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/28631?utm_source=Colson+Center+Master+List&utm_campaign=4400440916-BP_Daily_12_22_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_84bd2dc76d-4400440916-6541173

Remember when those who worried about “death panels” were mocked? Well, it’s no joking matter now.

Imagine you’re the mom or dad of a 46-year-old former sheriff’s deputy who’s been in the hospital for two months after a non-cancerous mass was found on his pancreas. Imagine further that your son is on a ventilator but can still interact with you and make his wishes known via movements of his hands or head. Imagine that in these interactions your son has clearly said he wants to live. Then consider your son had no health insurance when he went to the hospital, and now, a hospital “ethics committee” has decided it’s time to pull the plug, because further treatment is not “in the best interest of the patient.”

Unfortunately, this is not a bad dream for Evelyn Kelly, who’s fighting desperately to save the life of her son, Christopher Dunn.

Dunn is at Houston Methodist Hospital. Under the Texas Advanced Directives Act, Houston Methodist has decided to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. His mother is taking the hospital to court, saying the law is unconstitutional. “They want to kill my son,” Mrs. Kelly says. They say there is nothing else they can do for him, but I don’t believe that. When they found out that Chris did not have insurance, they said they were done.”

The Act, which was signed into law in 1999 by then-Governor George W. Bush, allows hospitals to withdraw life-sustaining treatments if an ethics committee agrees that further treatment is futile. Their only responsibility to the family is a written ten-day notice. The ethics committee for Houston Methodist gave its imprimatur earlier this fall, and the hospital defended itself by saying, “Houston Methodist is a faith-based, values-centered organization that strives to make the best choices for all our patients. End-of-life decisions are never easy, but Texas law is clear about our hospital’s responsibility in these cases.”

It’s hard to see how euthanizing Christopher Dunn is the best choice for Christopher Dunn! In fact, in a video distributed by Texas Right to Life, Christopher Dunn clearly indicates he wants to live. The organization is also circulating an online petition that in part says, “We demand that this secret and unaccountable decision-making by a bureaucratic committee—obviously motivated by its own financial interest—be reversed immediately so that Christopher Dunn can continue to live.” [Sign the petition at: "Texas 'Death Panel' Rules Conscious Patient Must Die" -  Petition | ActRight - https://actright.com/petition/182]

And there are others shocked by the hospital’s violation of the Hippocratic Oath who have also joined the fight. Prominent disability rights activist Mark Pickup, who is chronically ill with degenerative multiple sclerosis, is asking Texas Governor Greg Abbott to intervene so Christopher can be placed in another facility. As Pickup notes, “The Governor can commute death sentences of murderers on death row. Surely he must be able to commute the death sentence imposed on a helpless man by the terrible Texas Advanced Directives Act!” Well, you’d think so.

But we must ask ourselves, how did it even come to this point, where people have to appeal to governors and so-called “hospital ethics committees” to keep hospitals from killing their patients? You know, Chuck Colson saw all this coming. He knew that turning over healthcare choices to the government would mean a bureaucratic panel—potentially more interested in cutting costs than saving lives—would be given the power over life and death. As Chuck once said, “the only medical choices I’m interested in are the ones I make in consultation with my doctor and my family. Not with a government commissioner with tight budgets.’”

While U. S. citizens differ on the best way forward on providing healthcare for the nation, the fact is we should all agree that a hospital forcing a patient in its care to die is very, very wrong.

Please come to our website for details on how to stand for Christopher Dunn’s life, and against a kind of death panel that, if unchecked, threatens all of us. And please, do it today.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
"'They're playing God': Texas mom sues hospital for deciding to end life-sustaining treatment for her son" - Jonah Hicap | Christianity Today | December 12, 2015;
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/theyre.playing.god.texas.mom.sues.hospital.for.deciding.to.end.life.sustaining.treatment.for.her.son/73244.htm
"Houston, Texas Hospital Trying to Euthanize Disabled Patient Against His Will" - Mark Pickup | lifenews.com | December 9, 2015; http://www.lifenews.com/2015/12/09/houston-texas-hospital-trying-to-euthanize-disabled-patient-against-his-will/
"Family fights Texas law allowing providers to end life-sustaining care" - Lisa Schencker | modernhealthcare.com | November 29, 2015; http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20151129/NEWS/151129929
"Apply Heat" - Chuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | August 10, 2009; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/13777

!#1455 (1/1) HAPPY NEW YEAR! : "The Sum of All Fears"

"THE SUM OF ALL FEARS" - Cal Thomas | Dec 29, 2015;
http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2015/12/29/the-sum-of-all-fears-n2097619/page/full

President Obama and members of his administration assure us we have nothing to fear when it comes to terrorism. Whether you accept this, or not -- and opinion polls show a majority do not -- there is another fear that in large part is behind the phenomenon known as Donald Trump. It is the fear we are in danger of losing America.

Speaking as a member of a group that will in this century become a minority in America -- that would be white people -- I don't fear minority status. I fear that those who will soon make up the majority will not embrace the values and traditions that have built and sustained America through wars, economic downturns and other challenges to our way of life. Yes, yes, I know about slavery and discrimination, but the principles laid down by the Founders, which allowed America's flaws to be addressed and corrected by their posterity, seem to be disappearing.

Many Americans are angry that politicians of both parties seem to have placed their careers ahead of their responsibility to take care of the nation. As Ronald Reagan said, we are just one generation away from losing it all. That's because democracy and equal rights are not the norm in the world. They must be fought for and maintained if we wish to pass them on to our descendants.

Yes, we want immigrants to come to America, but we want them to come respecting our laws (otherwise what are laws for?), to learn English, our history and values and to become -- as earlier immigrants did -- fully American without hyphens.

Many who are native-born want today's immigrants to leave behind ideologies and agendas that do not promote the general welfare. Earlier immigrants and the native-born have invested in America through taxes, blood and sacrificed lives. New immigrants will benefit from those investments and sacrifices and should respect them enough to make investments of their own to preserve what they admire and what has drawn them here.

Two forces are at work, undermining our foundations. One is apathy and the other is a determined assault on the beliefs, traditions, practices and faith that once characterized America. Either one causes harm enough, but when both are in play, we become like a boxer who is pummeled unconscious by a relentless opponent.

Fear can be a factor that motivates to action, or it can cause one to retreat. It seems the people who embrace and practice our historic beliefs and traditions are in retreat, fearful of being called names by the forces of political correctness. "Racist," "bigot" and "intolerant" are three words that cause many to cower, in part because of their inability to disprove a negative.

The most effective response to people operating this cultural and political wrecking ball is to turn the tables. Whose values and beliefs have worked in the past to improve the lot of the people, and whose have failed? Traditionalists don't have to play defense. They have only to remind Americans of the mess the secular progressives have made. Having been handed by the "greatest generation" a nation with numerous opportunities and a bright future, the baby boomers and their progeny set about destroying it on the altar of self-indulgence.

There is barely enough time to begin repairing the damage. The 2016 election is only part of the process. "We the people" remains the most powerful force among us. If our citizens don't pay attention to what is happening, future generations will rightly condemn us.

Fear of losing what we have should motivate traditionalists to begin fighting back against an anti-American tide that is undermining truths once considered self-evident. But they must first win the argument before winning the next election.


[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the book, "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America".