Labryinth
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Posted:Feb 19, 2008 10:52 pm
Last Updated:Feb 20, 2008 4:05 am 1036 Views
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Labyrinth:
Upon Walking to the Centre of the circle (1), she immediately
sensed a dark spiritual vortex sucking her down.
The Occult has truly gone mainstream.
A-maze-ing Prayer - The labyrinth offers ancient meditation for today's hurried souls.Coming in from the brilliant San Diego sunshine, my wife and I entered a darkened hall lit only by candles and a dimmed chandelier. The room was silent. As our eyes adjusted, we saw several people kneeled in prayer. The setting, spirit, and solemn stillness of the hall told us that we had found something meditative there, something spiritual.
Today's evangelicals are accustomed to well-choreographed worship services with every minute carefully filled with music, video, and preaching. Postmodern generations are hungering for something more-an unhurried, mystery-filled, meditative experience that doesn't have to fit into a preplanned time schedule.
The prayer labyrinth offers a feast to fill that hunger. Meeting God in the middle The labyrinth is a maze-like path similar to those designed into the floors of European cathedrals during the Middle Ages. Christians of that time would walk the labyrinth to aid their contemplative prayer and reflection. The labyrinths fell into disuse, and most were eventually forgotten or destroyed.
At the National Pastors Conference in San Diego, however, we found the labyrinth was back and given an update. The path was formed by black lines on a 35-foot square piece of canvas laid on the floor. We each were given a CD player with headphones to guide our journey through the 11 stations on the path. As we began the inward journey-toward the center of the canvas-a gentle female voice with a British accent read a portion of John 1. She told us not to rush through the labyrinth, but to slow down, breathe deeply, and fully focus on God.
At the first stop, we looked at a television screen covered with complex, moving electronic wave forms. We were instructed to pray about and eliminate the noise within that interferes with God's voice. At another station we dropped small stones into water, each stone representing a worry we were giving over to God. Later we drew on paper symbols of our hurts, prayed about each of them, and put them in a trash can.
After thirty minutes we found ourselves at the labyrinth's center, where, seated on cushions, we were offered the elements of Communion. The narrator read more Scripture and reminded us how near Jesus Christ is to us. There was a Bible if we desired to linger, reading and praying.
The journey outward focused on how we can be used by God in other people's lives. At one station we made impressions of our hands and feet in a box of sand, reminding us that we leave impressions on the people we touch.
My wife and I spent an hour in the labyrinth and found ourselves calmed and refreshed, our perspective uniquely restored. We made our own prayer path After the convention we knew we couldn't keep this experience to ourselves.
A few months later we featured a labyrinth as part of Graceland's annual art event at Santa Cruz Bible Church. Graceland artists recreated the labyrinth with a kit we purchased (The Prayer Path, Group Publishing), transforming one of the church's multipurpose rooms into a medieval prayer sanctuary. The team hung art on the walls, draped fabric, and lit candles all around the room to create a visual sense of sacred space. Over two nights we saw more than 100 people go through the labyrinth. It was a joy to see so many people on their knees communing with God through the experiential prayer elements.
Meditative prayer like that we experienced in the labyrinth resonates with hearts of emerging generations. If we had the room, we would set up a permanent labyrinth to promote deeper prayer. Until then, however, Graceland will continue to incorporate experiential prayer and encourage our people to stop, quiet themselves, and pray.
Dan Kimball pastors Graceland, the ministry and worship services for the emerging culture at Santa Cruz Bible Church in Santa Cruz, California.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today,..
Fall 2001, Vol. 23, No. 4, Page 38 Labyrinths
Labyrinth meditation is a fairly recent phenomena. The foremost proponents of it are Jean Houston and Grace Episcopal Cathedral in Los Angeles. In Chartres Cathedral in France there is an elaborate 40 foot diameter labyrinth of tile imbedded in the floor of the nave. The theory is that by walking the labyrinth one partakes of a spritual journey of self examination and enlightenment. As with all rituals, this only has the meaning to which the participant ascribes to it. Send a New Age Postcard with a Labyrinth on it! Dr Jean Houston & the Labyrinth Fad
-an article for the May 2,000 AFR Canada magazine A ex-new-ager who attends our congregation participated a year ago in the Labyrinth. Upon walking to the centre of the circle (1), she immediately sensed a dark spiritual vortex sucking her down. Fortunately, being a Spirit-filled Christian, she later renounced her involvement in the Labyrinth and through prayer was cut free from the bondage that she was sensing. Being westerners, we often fail to realize that seemingly harmless 'physical' techniques can have significant questionable spiritual impact on our lives.(2) One of the patterns with the dozens of new-age fads sweeping North America and the West Coast in particular is that they all pop up out of the blue but claim to have rediscovered an ancient secret technique that we all need. Many of them, including the fast-growing Labyrinth fad (3), even reconstruct a plausible but misleading Christian history used to persuade well-meaning Christians.
The Labyrinth, as currently practiced, has very little to do with the Chartres Cathedral (4), and very much to do with Dr. Jean Houston's impact on the new-age-friendly Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Dr. Jean Houston is listed on the Internet as one of the 10 top New Age speakers in North America (5) The inside cover of Jean Houston's 1997 book A Passion for the Possible describes herself as 'considered by many to be one of the world's greatest teachers' Of concern to renewal-oriented Christians is that Houston teaches her students on the 'Mystery School' how to speak in occult glossolalia. She encourages her participants to 'begin describing your impressions in glossolalia' and even to 'write a poem in glossolalia.' (6) This counterfeit phenomenon, of course, does not discredit the genuine Christian gift of tongues/glossolalia that is available after renouncing the occult, receiving Jesus as Lord, and asking for the filling of the Holy Spirit.
As past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, Jean makes use of her doctorate in 'Philosophy of Religion'(7) to gain access to areas where most new-agers and occultists can't go. For example, as noted widely in media a few years ago ( , she became a consultant to Hillary Clinton, helping her to 'channel' the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt. The Labyrinth, also called the Dromenon (9), is the official symbol of Dr. Jean Houston's new-age 'Mystery School' which one pays $3,775 to be initiated into over a series of 9 weekends.(10) Over 5,000 people so far have attended the Mystery School over the past 15 years. Houston describes her Mystery School students as 'the dancers of the Dromenon'.(11) In Houston's 1996 book
The Mythic Life, she credits H.F. Heard's novel Dromenon with its 'psychophysical state of ecstasy and spiritual awakening' as the inspiration to adopting the image of the Dromenon/Labyrinth as the symbol of her work. (12) Canon Lauren Artress from Grace Cathedral (13) brought the Labyrinth back to her Cathedral after experiencing the Labyrinth at Jean Houston's Mystery School.(14) Jean Houston wrote in her 1982 book The Possible Human about 'the growth of Dromenon (Labyrinth) communities. (15) As acknowledged in Labyrinth WEBsites, the Labyrinth is a mandala (16), which is actually a Hindu occult (17) meditation process (1brought to the Western world by the grandfather of the New Age, Dr. Carl Jung. (19) The Labyrinth has since spread to over 200 cities, and is making a measurable impact in Canada. Artress claims that "over a million people have walked the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral alone" (20) Even the infamous Starhawk, the self-declared practicing witch and colleague of Matthew Fox, is walking the labyrinth nowadays (21). One of the stated purposes of the Labyrinth is to connect us to the mother goddess, of which the labyrinth is a symbol.
In her 1995 book 'Walking A Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool', Canon Artress states that "The labyrinth is a large, complex spiral circle which is an ancient symbol for the divine mother, the God within, the goddess, the holy in all creation." (22) Artress says that "You walk to the center of the labyrinth and there at the center, you meet the Divine." (23) Jean Houston claims that "As we encounter the archetypal world within us, a partnership is formed whereby we grow as do the gods and goddesses within us." (24) To Jean Houston, it seems that all of life is made up of polytheistic labyrinths. In her 1992 book The Hero & the Goddess, she recommended: 'Now, taking a favorite god or goddess by the hand, a Greek one this time, explore the labyrinthian winding of your left hemisphere. Take the deity by the hand and begin to explore the labyrinth winding of your right hemisphere, the place of intuition.' (25)
My prayer, as Jean Houston's new-age Labyrinth fad impacts the Church, is that we may be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The Rev. Ed Hird+ Rector, St. Simon's Anglican Church, North Vancouver, BC Missioner, Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada
One Grace Cathedral Labyrinth advocate said that "Labyrinths predate Christianity by over a millennium. The most famous labyrinth from ancient times was the Cretan one, the supposed lair of the mythological Minotaur, which Theseus slew with the aid of Ariadne and her spool of thread. rituals" Peter Corbett, "Pathfinders: Walking medieval labyrinths in a modern world," It was at the centre of the Labyrinth that the Minotaur did his devouring of unsuspecting humans. (2) An example of this might be how many people innocently get hooked into hatha yoga through the guise of a community centre yoga course.
Because hatha yoga appears to westerners to be merely physical in nature, we fail to see the religious syncretism that we are involving ourselves in. Nothing from a Hindu perspective is merely physical, because for Hinduism, the physical is merely an illusion. So-called physical yoga exercises are designed to open the psychic door to the Hindu deities. Community-Centre Yoga is in reality the 'marijuana' entry-level drug of the occult/new age world. (3) Lee Penn, Fall 1999 issue of the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits ProjectThe Chartres labyrinth dates from sometime between 1194 and 1220. These dates are determined by the great fire of 1194, which destroyed most of the cathedral and the city of Chartres. By 1220 the section of the nave housing the labyrinth had been rebuilt by Bishop Fulbert.
Lee Penn has done careful research showing that the Labyrinth-based relationship between Chartres Cathedral to Grace Cathedral, San Francisco is a clear example of 'the tail wagging the dog', of 'life imitating art'. Grace Cathedral have been giving strong leadership in Chartres' 'reintroduction' of the Labyrinth, even to the point of making Chartres' Dean Legaux an honorary Grace Cathedral Canon. (5) Voices of a New Age Video (1999), Penny Price Productions, E! Online Fact Sheet, "Ten different New Age luminaries voice their view about the possibilities of the human spirit for healing the body, the mind, and the earth.";
Jean Houston, GodSeed: the Journey of Christ, Quest Books, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, USA, 1992, p. 50, p. 51. " 1998 Robert Todd Carroll ( Bob Woodward in 'The Choice'; The Providence Journal Bulletin, Tuesday, 6/25/96, P. A3 Ancient Gk: a ritual pattern of dynamic expression, a therapeutic dance rhythm in which participants experience second birth into a higher order of consciousness and community"
Jean Houston, The Possible Human, Torcher: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1982, p. ix (12) Jean Houston, The Mythic Life, Harper San Francisco, 1996, p. 186. (13) /cathedral/nca/spiritualperspectives/sacred.html (National Episcopal Cathedral Website) "Keynote speaker, the Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress, Canon for Special Ministries at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, first encountered a labyrinth in a workshop at psychologist Jean Houston's Mystery School." (14) Kristen Fairchild, "A Passion for the Possible: An Interview with Jean Houston," The Spire, Textures 11/04/97
"Jean Houston, Ph.D. is the best-selling author of many books. She has been mentor and teacher of Dr. Lauren Artress, Founder of Veriditas, at Grace Cathedral." (15) Jean Houston, The Possible Human, 1982, p. 51 (16) "True meditation occurs when the physical brain has been pacified, kept busy with a mantra or a mandala, so the spiritual mind is then free to wander on its own, and discover new truths. "The walking back and forth seems very pendulous," states Squires. "It's a very slow frequency, a very long wavelength from one turn to the next. You slowly walk along and slowly walk back, then slowly walk on again. It's hard to have your mind in a fretful kind of pace when you're doing such a slow, pendulous, rhythmic walking like that." Peter Corbett, "Pathfinders: Walking medieval labyrinths in a modern world,"
Occult, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, means 'kept secret, esotericâ from the Latin culere: hide' It is not a synonym for Satanism. (1 "the labyrinth, a sacred tool that has been used as a mandala in many spiritual traditions for thousands of years" Spiritual Perspectives Program 1996 Sacred Circles Conference
"Jung was also a strong promoter of the occultic mandala, a circular picture with a sun or star usually at the centre. Sun worship, as personified in the mandala, is perhaps the key to fully understanding Jung.(ft.103) Jung taught that the mandala [Sanskrit for 'circle'] was 'the simplest model of a concept of wholeness, and one which spontaneously arises in the mind as a representation of the struggle and reconciliation of opposites.'(ft. 104)"
Starhawk, as a Wiccan/Witch leader of two covens, celebrated New Year 2,000 by walking the Labyrinth on her San Francisco area Ranch. (22) Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Sacred Tool, Riverhead Books/G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995; sentence quoted by Pamela Sullivan, "Book Review," Pacific Church News, June/July 1995, p. 8 (23) Lauren Artress, "Q and A with Lauren," Veriditas, Vol. 1, no. 2, Summer 1996, p. 18 ((25) Jean Houston, The Hero & the Goddess, Aquarian/Thorsons (Harper Collins Publisher), 1992, p. 134
The Labyrinth Building made up of intricate, mazelike chambers or passages so designed that a person entering one would find it difficult to find a way out. Among the many labyrinths in the ancient world, perhaps the most celebrated was a funeral temple built by Amenemhet III in Egypt, near Lake Moeris, which contained 3000 chambers. Equally famous was the labyrinth on Crete, which may have existed only in myth. Its conception was possibly derived from the elaborate floor plan of the palace at Knossos.
In Greek mythology, the Cretan labyrinth was constructed by the Athenian craftsman Daedalus as a prison for the Minotaur, a part-bull, part-man monster. Other ancient labyrinths were on the island of Lemnos (Lemnian) and at Clusium (now Chiusi), Italy. The term labyrinth is also applied to mazelike patterns on the floors of some medieval churches, intended perhaps to symbolize the tortuous journey of Christian pilgrims toward salvation. Garden mazes walled by clipped hedges are also called labyrinths, as, for example, that at Hampton Court, London, planted in the 17th century and still existent. Another British turf maze deserving note is the one at Alkborough in Lincolnshire.
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A little secret regarding the campus killer/suicide
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Posted:Feb 17, 2008 12:22 am
Last Updated:Mar 16, 2008 12:14 pm 1859 Views
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When I first heard about the back ground of the Killer, it was obvious to me what was going on. His background was in the studies of social treatments.
But he also had been institutionalized and been placed on mind prescribed altering drugs. Do you realize that 99% of the shootings that happen have people that have been on anti-depressants? This is a big issue as many people have actually committed suicide because of irrational behavior because of them?
This is just another tragic case where a person has done something they probably would not have done, had they not been on these horrible drugs.
The at columbine was on them. His acquaintances noticed differences in his actions. The Va Tech Killer was too. His friends noted a huge change in his countenance and actions following being medicated on them.
Think what you want. These drugs when taken over extended periods of time cause permanent brain damage. Thats a scientific fact. I personally have witnessed a friends die from them.
Wake up world. Seriously. They have lied about brain scans being able to diagnose depression. They say now that it is impossible to diagnose through a brain scan.
Same way with serotonin levels and the myth of chemical imbalances. These drugs do not balance the brain. They medicate a person with a drug that causes permanent brain damage and also irrational thinking.
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Why Clinton an Obama are not fit to be President
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Posted:Feb 16, 2008 4:45 am
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 8:16 pm 933 Views
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Andrew McCarthy
2/15/08
On Tuesday, we got a double-winner. First, the Senate voted to approve an overhaul of intelligence law which, though flawed, provides authority for American intelligence agencies to continue monitoring the savages trying to kill us. Second, we got inescapable confirmation that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the two contenders to be the Democrats’ nominee, are not fit to be president of the United States.
Understand: this was the most important vote on national security in years.
In 2007, a ruling of the court created by the ill-conceived 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required the intelligence community to seek court permission before monitoring terrorists operating outside our country -- that is, outside the jurisdiction of United States courts.Let’s say al Qaeda operatives in Iraq captured a U.S. marine. In effect, our military and intelligence services, while desperately trying to rescue one of their own, would now have to seek court permission in order to eavesdrop on the foreign terrorists who carried out the capture -- alien enemies who have no conceivable privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. Such was the conclusion of an unidentified federal judge, in a ruling that radically altered three decades of FISA theory and practice, a ruling the American people have not been permitted to read. (Just imagine the hue and cry if George W. Bush had secretly reversed the foundations of surveillance law. Here, where the sea-change benefits al Qaeda rather than the American people, the silence is deafening.)
Democrats, of course, have fought every sensible national-security improvement since 9/11. Yet, so preposterous was the notion that the NSA should need a warrant from a judge in Washington in order to listen as, say, a terrorist in Pakistan gives directions to a terrorist in Afghanistan that even Democrats relented -- or at least enough of them to enact last August’s “Protect Act.” This stopgap measure (the Left would not agree to more than six months of common sense) enabled our spies to continue spying outside the U.S. without court interference, just as FISA intended.
Nevertheless, conspicuously absent from the lopsided 60-28 majority were Senators Clinton and Obama. So deep were they in the thrall of the anti-war, anti-security Left that they dared not vote in favor of preserving the intelligence-gathering powers necessary to protect -- even for just six months -- the nation they are vying to lead.
It is worth pausing to recall why we have FISA. Very simply, its point was to provide a modicum of due process before Americans inside the United States could be subjected to national-security monitoring. It was a reaction (in truth, an overreaction) to Watergate era domestic-spying on the Nixon administration’s political opponents. But even the reckless Congress of the 1970s did not seek to protect foreign spies and terrorists operating beyond our borders. FISA was never intended to bring tens of thousands of foreign communications under judicial supervision. Such a process would compel the Justice Department to file applications for all such surveillance, a burden that could not be met. The consequence would be a breakdown of our capacity to acquire the information most essential to safeguarding Americans against attack -- to say nothing of the 200,000 American men and women putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The reprieve granted by the Protect Act expires at midnight tonight.. Hence, the intense pressure this week to get a FISA overhaul enacted. In the Senate, the Intelligence Committee proposed a bill which accomplishes three major improvements. It streamlines the arduous FISA application requirements (though not as much as it should). It provides immunity from suit for telecommunications providers which cooperated in the NSA’s warrantless surveillance following the 9/11 attacks. (Though I am a longtime FISA critic, I note in the interest of full disclosure that my wife works for Verizon.) And most importantly, it solidifies the Protect Act’s reaffirmation that the American intelligence community’s foreign operations are beyond court supervision -- that is, Osama bin Laden is not protected by FISA or the Fourth Amendment.
It’s difficult to imagine more vital legislation. To be sure, the proposal has many flaws -- as any bipartisan legislation is apt to have given a Senate in the grip of the same Democrats who’ve fought intelligence reform for years and tried just as long to derail the Patriot Act. The Intelligence Committee would, for example, expand the role of the FISA court; create a new warrant requirement for overseas monitoring of American citizens working with the enemy; effectively nullify the president’s power, long-recognized by the federal courts, to order national-security surveillance without warrants; and sunset the intelligence overhaul after six years despite the patent need for a permanent fix. Still, with jihadists striving toward more 9/11-style attacks and our forces in urgent need of battlefield intelligence, these tradeoffs are unavoidable. It would be the height of irresponsibility to halt the intelligence flow.
Well, welcome to the height of irresponsibility.
By a quirk of fate, this week’s action in the Senate happened to occur on the same day as the so-called “Potomac Primary” -- the presidential nomination contests in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Which is to say: right in the shadow of Capitol Hill. The geographical demands of campaigning would be no excuse: Our three principal contenders for the Oval Office, Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, all happen to be United States Senators and all happened, on Tuesday, to have business right in the neighborhood. There was no reason they couldn’t do their day jobs.
Senators McCain and Obama did theirs, and in starkly different ways. For McCain, it was an opportunity to show national security conservatives that his preening on coercive interrogation methods does not mean he fails to grasp the primacy of intelligence collection in our current threat environment. He strongly supported the bill.
By contrast, Senator Obama opposed the provision across the board, backing each (unsuccessful) amendment to weaken or scrap it. Exhibiting a Carteresque insouciance about national-security, he would not only vest our enemies with privacy protection while exposing our citizens to heightened peril; he would deny protection to the very telecoms whose cooperation he would sorely need if elected president.
Understand how limited is the immunity we are talking about here: the telecoms would be protected from suit only if they either did not help the government’s warrantless surveillance program at all or helped it only in good faith reliance written assurance from the government of its legality. Denying immunity would not just be counterproductive -- creating disincentives for cooperation from the industry whose expertise provides us with a technology edge over the people trying to kill us. It would be grossly unfair and eventually prompt the industry to question all government directives -- even court orders -- for fear that compliance would lead to ruinous litigation costs. In essence, Obama was laying the groundwork for a catastrophic breakdown in intelligence and law-enforcement that would wound his own presidency.
You have to hand it to Obama, though. Dangerous as his convictions are, he was willing to be accountable for them. The same cannot be said for the junior senator from New York, who proved herself a profile in no courage.
Less than a month ago, at their slugfest of a debate in South Carolina, Senator Clinton pointedly rebuked her rival, snarking, “Senator Obama, it’s hard to have a straight up debate with you because you never take responsibility for any vote.” Homing in on Obama’s record as a state lawmaker in Illinois, Clinton singed him for failing to stand up and be counted on core Democrat issues, such as abortion rights. “On issue after issue,” she inveighed, “you voted ‘present’” -- refusing to take an accountable position.
Well, at least he was present. On Tuesday, for the most important national-security vote of her eight-year senate career, Clinton was a no-show. With the eyes of the country watching to see whether she would opt to continue pandering to the hard Left or protect the lives of the American voters at whose presidency she is clawing, Hillary made a calculated decision to sit it out.
So what are we to make of Mrs. Clinton? She is running on the strength of her purported vast experience. In essence, she relies on two things: her eight years as a very active First Lady in her husband’s administration, the supporting records for which Clinton officials refuse to release so we can study them; and her eight years as a U.S. senator, during which, when not repudiating her old positions, she now avoids taking new ones.
Tuesday was a good day. The Senate voted to give the next commander-in-chief the tools necessary to protect our nation, and our nation learned who is fit, and who is not, to be the next commander-in-chief.
Today is a bad day: the House is scheduled to recess without passing the Senate bill. If the Protect Act is allowed to expire, and our intelligence gathering is reduced or stopped, every Democrat responsible should be called to account. It would be an unfathomable dereliction, a lesson we'd inevitably learn with the next attack against Americans.
Mr.Anrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, directs the Center for Law & Counterterrorism at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
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Why Socialism Fails
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Posted:Feb 16, 2008 4:36 am
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 8:16 pm 1113 Views
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Why Socialism Failed
By Mark J. Perry
Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.
In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.
A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.
In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter!
Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don't matter!
In a radio debate several months ago with a Marxist professor from the University of Minnesota, I pointed out the obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and China. At the time of our debate, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it, I asked him, that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the "evil capitalist empire" when they were only 50 miles from the "workers' paradise" of Cuba?
The Marxist admitted that many "socialist" countries around the world were failing. However, according to him, the reason for failure is not that socialism is deficient, but that the socialist economies are not practicing "pure" socialism. The perfect version of socialism would work; it is just the imperfect socialism that doesn't work. Marxists like to compare a theoretically perfect version of socialism with practical, imperfect capitalism which allows them to claim that socialism is superior to capitalism.
If perfection really were an available option, the choice of economic and political systems would be irrelevant. In a world with perfect beings and infinite abundance, any economic or political system--socialism, capitalism, fascism, or communism--would work perfectly.
However, the choice of economic and political institutions is crucial in an imperfect universe with imperfect beings and limited resources. In a world of scarcity it is essential for an economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism. Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system available.
The strength of capitalism can be attributed to an incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3) private property rights. The failure of socialism can be traced to its neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components.
Prices
The price system in a market economy guides economic activity so flawlessly that most people don't appreciate its importance. Market prices transmit information about relative scarcity and then efficiently coordinate economic activity. The economic content of prices provides incentives that promote economic efficiency.
For example, when the OPEC cartel restricted the supply of oil in the 1970s, oil prices rose dramatically. The higher prices for oil and gasoline transmitted valuable information to both buyers and sellers. Consumers received a strong, clear message about the scarcity of oil by the higher prices at the pump and were forced to change their behavior dramatically. People reacted to the scarcity by driving less, carpooling more, taking public transportation, and buying smaller cars. Producers reacted to the higher price by increasing their efforts at exploration for more oil. In addition, higher oil prices gave producers an incentive to explore and develop alternative fuel and energy sources.
The information transmitted by higher oil prices provided the appropriate incentive structure to both buyers and sellers. Buyers increased their effort to conserve a now more precious resource and sellers increased their effort to find more of this now scarcer resource.
The only alternative to a market price is a controlled or fixed price which always transmits misleading information about relative scarcity. Inappropriate behavior results from a controlled price because false information has been transmitted by an artificial, non-market price.
Look at what happened during the 1970s when U.S. gas prices were controlled. Long lines developed at service stations all over the country because the price for gasoline was kept artificially low by government fiat. The full impact of scarcity was not accurately conveyed. As Milton Friedman pointed out at the time, we could have eliminated the lines at the pump in one day by allowing the price to rise to clear the market.
From our experience with price controls on gasoline and the long lines at the pump and general inconvenience, we get an insight into what happens under socialism where every price in the economy is controlled. The collapse of socialism is due in part to the chaos and inefficiency that result from artificial prices. The information content of a controlled price is always distorted. This in turn distorts the incentives mechanism of prices under socialism. Administered prices are always either too high or too low, which then creates constant shortages and surpluses. Market prices are the only way to transmit information that will create the incentives to ensure economic efficiency.
Profits and Losses
Socialism also collapsed because of its failure to operate under a competitive, profit-and-loss system of accounting. A profit system is an effective monitoring mechanism which continually evaluates the economic performance of every business enterprise. The firms that are the most efficient and most successful at serving the public interest are rewarded with profits. Firms that operate inefficiently and fail to serve the public interest are penalized with losses.
By rewarding success and penalizing failure, the profit system provides a strong disciplinary mechanism which continually redirects resources away from weak, failing, and inefficient firms toward those firms which are the most efficient and successful at serving the public. A competitive profit system ensures a constant reoptimization of resources and moves the economy toward greater levels of efficiency. Unsuccessful firms cannot escape the strong discipline of the marketplace under a profit/loss system. Competition forces companies to serve the public interest or suffer the consequences.
Under central planning, there is no profit-and-loss system of accounting to accurately measure the success or failure of various programs. Without profits, there is no way to discipline firms that fail to serve the public interest and no way to reward firms that do. There is no efficient way to determine which programs should be expanded and which ones should be contracted or terminated.
Without competition, centrally planned economies do not have an effective incentive structure to coordinate economic activity. Without incentives the results are a spiraling cycle of poverty and misery. Instead of continually reallocating resources towards greater efficiency, socialism falls into a vortex of inefficiency and failure.
Private Property Rights
A third fatal defect of socialism is its blatant disregard for the role of private property rights in creating incentives that foster economic growth and development. The failure of socialism around the world is a "tragedy of commons" on a global scale.
The "tragedy of the commons" refers to the British experience of the sixteenth century when certain grazing lands were communally owned by villages and were made available for public use. The land was quickly overgrazed and eventually became worthless as villagers exploited the communally owned resource.
When assets are publicly owned, there are no incentives in place to encourage wise stewardship. While private property creates incentives for conservation and the responsible use of property, public property encourages irresponsibility and waste. If everyone owns an asset, people act as if no one owns it. And when no one owns it, no one really takes care of it. Public ownership encourages neglect and mismanagement.
Since socialism, by definition, is a system marked by the "common ownership of the means of production," the failure of socialism is a "tragedy of the commons" on a national scale. Much of the economic stagnation of socialism can be traced to the failure to establish and promote private property rights.
As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto remarked, you can travel in rural communities around the world and you will hear dogs barking, because even dogs understand property rights. It is only statist governments that have failed to understand property rights. Socialist countries are just now starting to recognize the importance of private property as they privatize assets and property in Eastern Europe.
Incentives Matter
Without the incentives of market prices, profit-and-loss accounting, and well-defined property rights, socialist economies stagnate and wither. The economic atrophy that occurs under socialism is a direct consequence of its neglect of economic incentives.
No bounty of natural resources can ever compensate a country for its lack of an efficient system of incentives. Russia, for example, is one of the world's wealthiest countries in terms of natural resources; it has some of the world's largest reserves of oil, natural gas, diamonds, and gold. Its valuable farm land, lakes, rivers, and streams stretch across a land area that encompasses 11 time zones. Yet Russia remains poor. Natural resources are helpful, but the ultimate resources of any country are the unlimited resources of its people--human resources.
By their failure to foster, promote, and nurture the potential of their people through incentive-enhancing institutions, centrally planned economies deprive the human spirit of full development. Socialism fails because it kills and destroys the human spirit--just ask the people leaving Cuba in homemade rafts and boats.
As the former centrally planned economies move toward free markets, capitalism, and democracy, they look to the United States for guidance and support during the transition. With an unparalleled 250-year tradition of open markets and limited government, the United States is uniquely qualified to be the guiding light in the worldwide transition to freedom and liberty.
We have an obligation to continue to provide a framework of free markets and democracy for the global transition to freedom. Our responsibility to the rest of the world is to continue to fight the seductiveness of statism around the world and here at home. The seductive nature of statism continues to tempt and lure us into the Barmecidal illusion that the government can create wealth.
The temptress of socialism is constantly luring us with the offer: "give up a little of your freedom and I will give you a little more security." As the experience of this century has demonstrated, the bargain is tempting but never pays off. We end up losing both our freedom and our security.
Programs like socialized medicine, welfare, social security, and minimum wage laws will continue to entice us because on the surface they appear to be expedient and beneficial. Those programs, like all socialist programs, will fail in the long run regardless of initial appearances. These programs are part of the Big Lie of socialism because they ignore the important role of incentives.
Socialism will remain a constant temptation. We must be vigilant in our fight against socialism not only around the globe but also here in the United States.
The failure of socialism inspired a worldwide renaissance of freedom and liberty. For the first time in the history of the world, the day is coming very soon when a majority of the people in the world will live in free societies or societies rapidly moving towards freedom.
Capitalism will play a major role in the global revival of liberty and prosperity because it nurtures the human spirit, inspires human creativity, and promotes the spirit of enterprise. By providing a powerful system of incentives that promote thrift, hard work, and efficiency, capitalism creates wealth.
The main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: Capitalism works.
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We need a revision course on why capitalism is a good thing
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Posted:Feb 15, 2008 3:36 am
Last Updated:Feb 19, 2008 1:07 am 1347 Views
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How did "capitalism" become a dirty word? Hostility has slipped by, unopposed, and become pervasive.
It has even reached sport. Yesterday, a correspondent on Radio 4's Today programme described a proposal coming from the European Union to put a cap on the salaries of footballers. He treated this as though it were probably a good thing. Not the merest hint was there that this was interference with a market and therefore likely - like most interferences in markets - to have unintended, damaging effects.
The Church of England on Monday joined in the anti-capitalist zeitgeist with particular enthusiasm. It issued a report called Faithful Cities in which it questioned "our reliance on market-driven capitalism". The report referred to how capitalism "promotes inequality".
The authors felt no need to provide evidence for it. They just took it as read. The report went on to say that the gap between the rich and those "in poverty" should be reduced. So in the Church's eyes, capitalism produces inequality and this inequality is bad. It is hard to conclude anything other than that the Church of England now regards capitalism generally as bad.
We need a culture check here. A society that widely regards capitalism as bad will, in due course, destroy it. Incredibly, it seems necessary to assert afresh that capitalism is the goose that lays the golden eggs - the foundation of the extraordinary wealth we now enjoy, compared with all previous eras of world history.
I was going to say, "Let's take a revision course in why capitalism is good." But few of us had an initial lesson. I don't suggest that every school should have been teaching the virtues of capitalism, but right now they do precisely the opposite.
They teach that capitalists destroy rainforests, insidiously control American foreign policy and spread the human vices of greed and selfishness. Anti-capitalism is now the subtext of history and geography lessons, as well as politics, economics and sociology. Capitalism is said to have given rise to slavery. The state is depicted as a hero that has tempered the cruelty of the beast with laws, regulations and interventions.
If you have at school - state or private - he or she will be getting another little dose of anti-capitalist propaganda today. It is absurdly lopsided, of course, and it puts our society on a self-destructive path.
What is the biggest benefit that the relatively poor have experienced over the past two centuries? It is surely the terrific reduction in the cost of food. Two centuries ago, food was the biggest part in a family's budget. It was hard for a poor family to get enough to eat. If there was a shortage, there could be a famine, resulting in thousands of deaths. Even in the 1920s, people on average spent a third of their income on food.
Now they spend only a tenth. Look at any chart of the price of the basic foodstuffs, such as wheat, barley and milk, and you will see almost continuous and deep falls. What has caused this massive benefit to the poor? A series of government regulations? A good-looking politician with an easy smile and a "vision"? No. Capitalism.
No single individual did it. Thousands, or millions, did it. They were not directed by any central agency. They just operated in a capitalist system. They invented farm machinery that replaced many men and therefore made food much cheaper. Farmers deployed these machines. Others created ships that could carry grain cheaply, quickly from faraway lands where food was grown more cheaply. Others still distributed the food in ever more cost-efficient ways, by rail and by road on newly created and deployed trains and lorries.
They did this, each of them living his own separate life in his own undirected way. They transformed the situation. The poor were given food in abundance. They were given it at a price they could easily afford. Shortages, hunger and famine became history. That is what capitalism did. To sneer at it is to sneer at the abolition of hunger in this country.
This has been, perhaps, capitalism's greatest achievement. But that is just the beginning. Capitalism achieved a similar feat in clothing. Two centuries ago, many people had clogs on their feet. Clothing was another major expense for the poor. Nye Bevan, as a , threw an inkwell at his teacher because the man made fun of a boy whose family could afford only one pair of shoes between the boy and his brother.
That is a measure of the poverty that we have come from. That is the poverty from which capitalism has elevated this country. Again, new and much cheaper methods of production have been put in place by individuals importing cotton, improving textile production techniques, deploying new kinds of transport and distributing the raw material and final products more cheaply. No longer do share shoes.
Capitalism has made us richer and given us the opportunity of vastly more diverse experiences. Even in my own lifetime, I have seen the normal length of holidays rise from one or two weeks to four or five weeks. Foreign travel that was unknown for most working people two centuries ago is now commonplace. Did government direction make this possible? Of course not.
Most families now have cars. Read Thomas Hardy's novels and you find that people are always walking. Walking can be healthy and pleasant, but the average family of Hardy's time did not have a choice.
Who invented cars? Who refined their design and manufacture to the point where they are affordable by millions of people? Not governments. The diverse, resourceful, determined power of capitalism.
Why does the system work? Because it provides incentives and motivation. If you invent something, you may get fame and fortune. If you supply food or cars cheaper, you get more customers. Simple enough. Provide a good product or service at a low price and you have a business. That simple logic means capitalism tends to produce good products and services at better prices.
What about the argument that capitalism promotes inequality? Let's remember, before even starting to answer, just how disastrous were the attempts in the 20th century to impose equality. Farmers in Leninist Russia were prosecuted and in many cases killed.
Tens of millions died under communist rule in China. And after all the oppression and suffering, there was still no equality. There was the privileged ruling class with, in Russia's case, special dachas in the country and road lanes in town. Imposing equality is not an easy ride. It is oppressive and doomed to failure.
Capitalism, meanwhile, has claims, at the least, to reducing inequality over time. The inequality was enormous when George III was sitting on his gilded throne in 1806, with thousands of servants and farm workers and other underlings at his beck and call, while elsewhere in the country were those who could barely find enough to eat and, in some cases, died of hunger.
Nowadays, more than nine out of 10 young people have mobile phones, 99 per cent of households have colour televisions, most households have cars. Yes, the rich are still with us. But the contrast in financial wealth has been greatly reduced over the long term. That was not due to any government, let alone a deliberate attempt to promote equality. It was achieved by capitalism.
Why is the system now taken for granted and despised? Perhaps it is because the collapse of the communist states has removed from our sight useful reminders of how vastly superior capitalism is to state control. We should be careful.
James Bartholomew is the author of 'The Welfare State We're In', which has recently been published in paperback
By James Bartholomew
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The 2nd Amendment's Day in Court
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Posted:Feb 14, 2008 10:35 pm
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 8:16 pm 873 Views
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WASHINGTON -- When the Council of the District of Columbia enacted the toughest gun control law in the nation in 1976, the city fathers -- according to what they said at the time -- believed they were making our nation's capital a safer place. The measure failed miserably. Since passage, the murder rate in the District has skyrocketed by more than 200 percent. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has a chance both to make our capital safer and to ensure that the Second Amendment to our Constitution is enshrined as an individual right for every law-abiding American.
No matter how well-intentioned, the D.C. firearms statute has been unfathomable from the start. On its face, the law bans handguns and requires rifles and shotguns to be registered. They also must be stored unloaded and either locked or disassembled. While it allows business owners to use firearms to protect their cash registers at their stores, they cannot use those same firearms to protect themselves and their families in their homes. Individuals who protect federal officials and property in the District with firearms are not permitted to provide similar protection for themselves and their families in their own domiciles.
Court Hears Death Penalty Case
In fact, the case that the Supreme Court will hear, District of Columbia v. Heller, was brought by Dick Heller, a security guard. In carrying out his duties, Heller carries a handgun on federal property. However, when he sought to register the same weapon to safeguard his home, he was denied. Heller says the D.C. law has it backward: "I can protect (federal workers), but at the end of the day, they say, 'Turn in your gun; you can't protect your home.'" Heller maintains that disassembled rifles and shotguns are no substitute for handguns "any more than the government could prohibit books because it permits newspapers and considers them an 'adequate substitute.'"
Last March, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, 2-1, that the District's prohibition was not only unreasonable but also clearly unconstitutional. Attorneys for the District of Columbia promptly appealed the decision. That is why on March 18, for the first time since 1939, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether such a gun ban for law-abiding citizens is constitutional. Their verdict, expected later this year, will have profound implications for all Americans.
The case has generated a flurry of unprecedented action in both the executive and legislative branches of government. On Jan. 11, the Department of Justice filed an egregiously weak amicus -- friend of the court -- brief in the case. The argument, submitted by U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, essentially urges the Supremes to waffle on the issue and send the case back to the lower courts.
The DOJ softball didn't sit well with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. On Feb. 8, she filed an amicus brief on behalf of Heller and the exercise of his individual rights under the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
In her lucid and detailed exposition, Hutchison accurately points out that the Framers never intended that the word "Militia" meant that the right to keep and bear arms was some kind of "collective" right that applied only to a particular group. If that had been their purpose, they would have been satisfied with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution that gives Congress the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
To ensure that firearms possession was recognized by posterity as an "individual right," the Framers included it as part of the Bill of Rights -- an enumeration of every citizen's personal entitlements: free speech, freedom of religion, and a fair trial. The precise location of those famous words -- "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" -- provides strong evidence for the Founders' vision.
To foreclose any doubt where Congress comes down on the issue, Hutchison has introduced a bill to repeal the District of Columbia's ban on handguns; repeal registration requirements; and restore the ability of law-abiding citizens to keep a loaded, operable firearm in their homes. Doing less denies the meaning of the words "shall not be infringed."
Her argument was so persuasive that 54 additional senators and 250 members of the House of Representatives -- including 68 Democrats -- signed on. Vice President Dick Cheney -- apparently at odds with the administration's Department of Justice -- did so, as well. Let's hope the Supreme Court will agree with these enlightened members of Congress -- and Abraham Lincoln, who said, "Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties."
Oliver North is the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance and author of The Assassins
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Liberal Fascism
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Posted:Feb 14, 2008 4:15 am
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 8:16 pm 892 Views
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Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg's new book, "Liberal Fascism." As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss -- and a major loss.
Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this book a wealth of challenging insights, backed up by thorough research and brilliant analysis.
This is the sort of book that challenges the fundamental assumptions of its time -- and which, for that reason, is likely to be shunned rather than criticized.
Because the word "fascist" is often thrown around loosely these days, as a general term of abuse, it is good that "Liberal Fascism" begins by discussing the real Fascism, introduced into Italy after the First World War by Benito Mussolini.
The Fascists were completely against individualism in general and especially against individualism in a free market economy. Their agenda included minimum wage laws, government restrictions on profit-making, progressive taxation of capital, and "rigidly secular" schools.
Unlike the Communists, the Fascists did not seek government ownership of the means of production. They just wanted the government to call the shots as to how businesses would be run.
They were for "industrial policy," long before liberals coined that phrase in the United States.
Indeed, the whole Fascist economic agenda bears a remarkable resemblance to what liberals would later advocate.
Moreover, during the 1920s "progressives" in the United States and Britain recognized the kinship of their ideas with those of Mussolini, who was widely lionized by the left.
Famed British novelist and prominent Fabian socialist H.G. Wells called for "Liberal Fascism," saying "the world is sick of parliamentary politics."
Another literary giant and Fabian socialist, George Bernard Shaw, also expressed his admiration for Mussolini -- as well as for Hitler and Stalin, because they "did things," instead of just talk. In Germany, the Nazis followed in the wake of the Italian Fascists, adding racism in general and anti-semitism in particular, neither of which was part of Fascism in Italy or in Franco's Spain.
Even the Nazi variant of Fascism found favor on the left when it was only a movement seeking power in the 1920s
W.E.B. DuBois was so taken with the Nazi movement that he put swastikas on the cover of a magazine he edited, despite complaints from Jewish readers.
Even after Hitler achieved dictatorial power in Germany in 1933, DuBois declared that the Nazi dictatorship was "absolutely necessary in order to get the state in order."
Well, She Promised Change
As late as 1937 he said in a speech in Harlem that "there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past."
In short, during the 1920s and the early 1930s, Fascism was not only looked on favorably by the left but recognized as having kindred ideas, agendas and assumptions.
Only after Hitler and Mussolini disgraced themselves, mainly by their brutal military aggressions in the 1930s, did the left distance themselves from these international pariahs.
Fascism, initially recognized as a kindred ideology of the left, has since come down to us defined as being on "the right" -- indeed, as representing the farthest right, supposedly further extensions of conservatism.
If by conservatism you mean belief in free markets, limited government, and traditional morality, including religious influences, then these are all things that the Fascists opposed just as much as the left does today.
The left may say that they are not racists or anti-semites, like Hitler, but neither was Mussolini or Franco. Hitler, incidentally, got some of his racist ideology from the writings of American "progressives" in the eugenics movement.
Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" is too rich a book to be summarized in a newspaper column. Get a copy and start re-thinking the received notions about who is on "the left" and who is on "the right." It is a book for people who want to think, rather than repeat rhetoric.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics
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as it stands now...Obama will be the next President.
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Posted:Feb 14, 2008 3:32 am
Last Updated:Sep 28, 2010 2:01 am 1044 Views
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The Democrats are showing up at the polls almost 2-1. Obama will win the nod and he will become the next President. Very sad.
Jimmy Carter was a huge dissaster and he was more qualified than this man Obama. Obama has a good presentation in speeches. He speaks change, but his changes he wants to implement are a plan similar to those of FDR. FDR was not a good President. He starved his people during a war in order to keep food prices up.
His social plans are the problems that burden this country today with over sized government which was never the intention of the founding fathers to begin with. It was the exact opposite.
If you look at his plans, you will see they have no way to be paid for except by much much higher taxes that will destroy the economy.
How will he pay for that? Besides the taxes he will steal alot from Social Security. Why Not? Clinton did in huge portions to try and balance the national debt. The consequences of this action in the 90's will kill SS sooner than anticipated.
Taxation has always killed an economy.
Recession. Do you know what that is? It is 2 quarters in a row, or half of a year showing nationally a loss or negative in economic growth.
America has not had that. The economy is weaker in housing, but overall it has gained for 24 straight quarters under President Bush Thats six years folks. He inheirited a recession. He had 911 to overcome and he turned it all around.
And yet people want Change despite the facts comming out that Saddam had WMD's, the fact that he said he would go back to trying to accumulate them in a year if he were released from Prison.
Change....???? This President was right on the War. This President set a record of 52 months in a row in jobs gained here in the United States. Thats an alltime record.
We have had unemployment in the mid 4% range for the past 6 years. The Clinton years best point was 5.7%. It was 6.3% when he left and usually over 6%.
There were record number of homeowners in this century. Many people stupidly accepted balloon mortgages. They knew what they were4 getting into.
This President tried to redo social security in a way that was proven to work previously. A way that the elected officials can use it and yet they dont let us.
This President is the only one to allow money used for Stem Cell Research
He also has put in place years of study for alternative fuel... hydrogen.
He has tried to get us to build more refineries on old useless Military bases, that was voted down. Our consumption is up 12.5% since 1996 and our production is up onl;y half of one percent.
He has tried to change the laws to drill in the USA, where we have much more oil than the mideast.
He has given more money to other countries to help than any President.
He gave more money to New Orleans than any other President, and that was before Katrina.
So, despite all of these good things. We buy into Change???? We really need more of the same. Not a man being voted for because he is articulate. Not because he is black.
Whatever happened to the best man for the Job? Obama and Clinton and McCain would not even be considered.
Obama will make Jimmy Carter look good. If you dont remember double digit inflation and unemployment, you will by 2012.
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Big News break regarding Saddam Hussein!
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Posted:Feb 13, 2008 1:29 pm
Last Updated:Feb 14, 2008 3:03 am 1059 Views
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it is found at Newsmax
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 9:33 AM
By: Ronald Kessler
{Google Newsmax/Ronald Kessler}
When FBI agent George Piro recently described debriefing Saddam Hussein for seven months after his capture, he disclosed that the Iraqi dictator admitted his intention to re-start his weapons of mass destruction program within a year.
That plan included developing nuclear weapons capability, according to Saddam.
The revelation should have hit Page One of every newspaper.
It would have further justified President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, a key issue in the coming presidential election. But many in the mainstream media could not bear to hear that Bush may have done something right.
When Piro’s interview came out in my book, "The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack," NBC Nightly News, Fox News, and Newsmax ran the news of Saddam’s admission, but few newspapers published a story.
CNN ran a story on the debriefing of Saddam but made no mention of Saddam’s plans to resume his weapons of mass destruction program, including developing nuclear capability. Instead, CNN said that what Saddam told Piro “throws more cold water on the justification for war” because Saddam admitted he was bluffing about having weapons of mass destruction.
Two and a half months later, "60 Minutes" ran the first television interview with Piro. The interview buried the reference to Saddam’s WMD and nuclear plans, as did the press release on the CBS Web site. Likewise, an AP story on the interview mentioned Saddam’s plans in the 11th paragraph. Only four U.S. newspapers ran a story referring to Saddam’s WMD and nuclear plans.
The Washington Post ran a 542-word story on the interview leaving out any mention of Saddam’s avowed intentions. The New York Times ran no story at all.
Today, we have press censorship similar to what existed in the old Soviet Union, except the censors are journalists themselves, and it’s in reverse: News favorable to the government is suppressed.
Bush Supporters Hold Fast
According to the media spin, just about everyone in the White House has left President Bush except his wife Laura, Vice President Dick Cheney, and his two dogs. But one recent Sunday evening, Bush held a dinner for more than 30 White House staffers who have been with him since the beginning of the administration.
Those who attended, along with their spouses or guests, included Josh Bolten, the White House chief of staff; Joel Kaplan, the deputy chief of staff; Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser; Clay Johnson III, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget; David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff; Elizabeth Denny, Cheney’s social secretary; Tim Goeglein, deputy director of public liaison; and Joe Hagin, deputy chief of staff.
During the Clinton administration, anything that might make the president look good was quickly leaked to the press. But Bush considers making use of such private moments to be pandering, so nothing appeared in the media.
Bush’s Golf Game on Hold
A longtime golfer, President Bush has given up the game temporarily because he thinks it would be unseemly to be seen playing golf while soldiers are dying in Iraq.
When he did play, Bush’s golf game reflected his personality.
“He plays very fast,” Michael M. Wood, his friend from Andover and Yale who is U.S. ambassador to Sweden, told me. “Usually, it takes four hours to play a game, but it usually takes him three. If you ask him how he did, instead of giving you his score, he’ll say, ‘Three hours and 10 minutes.’ He doesn’t agonize over shots, waiting until the wind is blowing the right way or until a particular blade of grass is standing up straight.”
To determine wind velocity and direction before hitting a golf shot, serious players will pinch some grass from the ground and throw it into the air.
“He considers tossing grass and multiple practice swings a waste of time, and he doesn’t tolerate such behavior by his playing partners,” Wood said. “He’ll yell, ‘Hit it, Woody!’”
Gingrich’s Book Party
An all-star cast of Republicans attended the book party for Newt Gingrich’s "Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works." Those at Morton’s in downtown Washington included Mary Matalin, Ken Mehlman, Bob Novak, Grover Norquist, and Al Regnery.
Never at a loss for words, Gingrich not only gave a talk about The New York Times best seller but took questions.
It was the night before Super Tuesday, and when asked whether Mitt Romney had any chance of winning the presidential nomination, Gingrich presciently said no.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax dot com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.
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Can a Muslim be a good American?
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Posted:Feb 12, 2008 5:25 am
Last Updated:Feb 14, 2008 3:05 am 1241 Views
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Can A Muslim Be A Good American?
Food for thought. Interesting questions for the Muslim Community to discuss.
Research for the rest of us.
Can a good Muslim be a good American?
I forwarded that question to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years.
The following is his forwarded reply:
Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon God of Arabia.
Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)
Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).
Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca , to which he turns in prayer five times a day.
Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.
Politically - no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America, the great Satan.
Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).
Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.
Philosophically - no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot coexist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.
Spiritually - no. Because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99 excellent names.
Therefore after much study and deliberation....perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both "good" Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish....it's still the truth.
You had better believe it.
If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above statements, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.
The religious war is bigger than we know or understand.
So, do you feel lucky today? Vote for a Muslim or Muslim sympathizer for Congress or President, where they will have access to issues of our national security and intelligence which they can then pass on to their Imam who will then funnel it to Islamic terrorists. What good will a wall across our entire border with Mexico do when we vote them into office
8. He is a destroyer of the brethren and countries and then lies about it
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