ME-CENTERED CHILDREN

There are two things I think of when I see a child, big or little, consistently being a brat and/or very me-centered: The parents and public education.

I have noticed the kids today think they should have no responsibility and get everything they want and that life is just to have fun, fun, fun. And, actually, I see a lot of adults with the same characteristics.

Now, we all get caught up in this type of thinking to some degree.

But I’m talking about those that this type of thinking controls their whole being.

Some of these kids don’t have any sense of right or wrong. There’s seems to be no conscience.

I believe the whole public educational system sets kids up for this. The atmosphere is thick with me-ism.

But it is the parents who are ultimately responsible for this attitude.

It starts when they are small. We just can’t bear to discipline little Johnny or Susie. They are so little and well……so cute.

We in the Christian home-education movement are sometimes good (or should I say bad) at pointing the finger at these “undisciplined” public-schooled children. But I see some of us falling into the same trap. The trap of not correcting our children, not letting them know that the world does not revolve around them.

We are blinded by the sheer fact that since they are at home with us 24 hours a day, we think they will automatically grow into good kids.

There is the example factor that we are to be setting in the home, but kids need to be corrected and trained.

Since mankind is born with a sin nature, that means little ones are going to be acting out of that sin nature. Which means they are thinking of themselves and themselves only.

A parent can train this out of a child. It will take a while but it’s worth it.

Even when they are babies, or toddlers or 3, 4, 5, on and on.

A child must suffer consequences when they do wrong.

I think that parents can be blind to their children’s discipline problems.

Sometimes we don’t see the child acting wrongly or we ignore it.

I also think that a parent may not know that he/she can discipline and train very little children.

When we let our little ones have their own way, we are not doing them a favor. We are encouraging them to be selfish, immature, adults.

A child may develop such a me-centered attitude that they will justify hurting another child or lying about that other child to get what they want.

I have watched little ones trying to get their way by lying to a parent about the other child, or hitting that child, or whining that he/she is being mistreated, when all the while it is him/her that is in the wrong.

And the parent has no clue, and to be honest I didn’t have the courage to say anything because it is a continuing problem and the parent refuses to see it or refuses to do anything about it.

I have also witnessed older siblings of a child cover for his/her wrong doing, which is just pitiful.

That says to me that the older child has a deceit and lying problem that never got detected by the parents.

When a little one puts his/her hands on his/her hips and has an attitude about what you told them to do or hits a parent or an older sibling for not getting what they want, it’s time for discipline.

We have to be vigilant in our child rearing. We have to be constantly on the look out for these problems that can develop in our children and we have to watch our own attitude toward our children:

Do we want to hide their problems or do we want to root them out.

We don’t do the child, ourselves, or society any favor by letting a child consistently get away with his/her self-centered wrong behavior.

The Bible strongly stresses the importance of discipline; it is something we must all have in order to be productive people, and it is much more easily learned when we are young. Children who are not disciplined often grow up rebellious, have no respect for authority, and as a result find it difficult to willingly obey and follow God. God Himself uses discipline to correct us and lead us down the right path and to encourage repentance for our wrong actions (Psalm 94:12, Proverbs 1:7, 6:23, 12:1, 13:1, 15:5, Isaiah 38:16, Hebrews 12:9)

“The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother”( Proverbs 29:15 )

“Correct thy son and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto they soul” (Proverbs 29:17)

"He who withholds correction hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly." (Proverbs 13:24

Dad's Birthday

Last Thursday was dad's birthday, so Elise and Gabriel surprised him and came up wednesday night. They got here after everyone had gone to bed and Johanna let them in. Mom and dad didn't know they were here until the next morning.

Thursday night we had T.J. and Rachel and the Stokes over.

Elise and Gabriel.
Allen waiting for his ice cream.

Feeding Natasha ice cream.

Sorry, we didn't get very many pictures while they were here.

DO NOT BLAME BARACK

I probably judge Barack Obama more harshly than most reading this. I don’t think he is just a misguided ideologue or merely a creature of expediency. I believe, practically speaking, that he is an evil man. That is to say, while he is largely ignorant like so many others, he has developed an affinity for evil. He mistakes it for good.

Yet, to be blunt, Obama doesn’t alarm me as much as the average American. To explain why, I’ll present something Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero said 2000 years ago when lamenting Julius Caesar’s rise to dictator:

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions . . . . Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.' Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man.

Barack Obama is only one man. A bad man, yes, but he is a symptom more than a cause. Without millions of fawning Americans, he would just be a community agitator, vainly preaching Alinsky principles from a soapbox. Of course, he is a symptom that exacerbates the underlying problem, and symptomatic treatment ­ to ease immediate pain and hardship ­ is certainly in order. But it is only the worst of physicians who focuses only on symptoms while ignoring the cancer eating away at the patient’s midst.

Some of us lament the presence of self-professed communists such as Van Jones ­ and other assorted intellectual mutants, such as Cass Sunstein and John Holdren ­ in government, and how we elected a man who broke bread with self-professed communists such as Bill Ayers. But why complain now? We’ve had self-professed communists such as Bill Ayers ­ and other assorted intellectual mutants, such as Ward Churchill, Cass Sunstein and John Holdren ­ in academia for many decades.

And good Americans still donated money to universities and still sent their most precious possessions, their children, to them.

So, should it be any surprise that millions of these children would, knowing nothing and feeling all the wrongs things, flock to the polls and cast votes for people just like their teachers and professors? You may say that their parents knew nothing of these universities’ true nature. But it was their place to find out. And Obama did not create the modern academy. He is more a creation of it.

We also criticize Obama for saying “We no longer are [just] a Christian nation” and while speaking in Turkey that “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.” But can we really say he’s wrong? Has Christmas not become completely commercialized? How many of us say grace with our families before meals? How many of us pray every day? How many Americans subscribe to the modern perversion of the “separation of church and state” idea? How many of us say “God Bless” upon parting? Have the majority of American “Christians” not descended into moral relativism? It is here that some will call me a religious nut. All right, but I simply note that a Christian nation would actually practice Christianity and that if we are satisfied to be only nominally Christian, it lends weight to the argument that we’re not actually Christian. Of course, we certainly can condemn Obama for attending a pseudo-Christian church and being part of the problem, but he didn’t create our secular age. He is more a creation of it.

One thing Obama certainly did help create is the tea-party phenomenon. It is the largest, most impressive grassroots movement I can remember and I truly hope it grows beyond what even the most zealous reader would prefer. Yet, when I hear the protesters complain about the violation of the Constitution, I have to wonder where they’ve been. Did they miss the activist 1947 “separation of church and state ruling”? Have they learned about FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society? Don’t they realize that the federal government long ago exceeded its constitutional bounds? Where is the constitutional mandate for Uncle Scam to involve itself in and/or fund housing, food stamps, farm subsidies, Medicaid, global-warming research, mass transit, and school sports programs? The fact is that most things the federal government has its claws into are none of its affair. Thus, to only now complain about constitutional trespasses is like having finally noted the invasion of Poland when the Nazis started bombing Great Britain.

We also have to ask how serious most Americans really are about respecting the Constitution. Here’s a little test for them: Are you willing to give up your Social Security in the name of constitutional adherence?

Got ya didn’t I

I thought so.

Wouldn’t think of giving up your Social Security in the name of what is right and constitutional.

The average American has his version of acceptable constitutional violation, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg has hers, and Obama has his. And Obama didn’t create the “living document” mentality. He is more a creation of it.

Then there is our putrid popular culture. Effete Hollywood types ­ such as the Obama sycophants in this bizarre Harpo Productions video ­ thuggish rappers, MTV stoner types and the rest of our decadence czars helped galvanize the youth and propel the empty vessel to victory. Yet, while entertainment is a bastion of the left, it’s not entirely a creation of it. The reality is that we, the people, empowered them. We watched their movies; laughed at their salacious jokes; were titillated by their prurience; and tolerated their mainstreaming obscenity, homosexuality and gratuitous violence. We allowed our children to dress in their ghetto styles and imbibe pure and utter filth. Like with so many other things, we helped create our entertainment ­ a major symptom of spiritual malaise ­ and then it helped induce many secondary symptoms. And one of them is Obama. "by the way, Oprah spelled backward is Harpo"

Of course, nothing is more associated with that symptom than the Shill Media, but I think you know what’s coming. Who bought the mainstream papers for all those decades, watched the nightly news and bought all the lies? “How could people know?” you ask? Well, some certainly knew ­ and some of those knew better than others.

Like Cicero, I’m sure I sound quite condemnatory, but I’m not here to lay a curse or consign anyone to Hell. I don’t want to be found guilty of the George Bernard Shaw mistake G.K. Chesterton criticized most colorfully when he wrote:

"It is not seeing things as they are to think first of a Briareus with a hundred hands, and then call every man a cripple for only having two. It is not seeing things as they are to start with a vision of Argus with his hundred eyes, and then jeer at every man with two eyes as if he had only one. And it is not seeing things as they are to imagine a demigod of infinite mental clarity, who may or may not appear in the latter days of the earth, and then to see all men as idiots."

In reality, for us to have avoided that ever-repeated pattern of civilizational decline, the common man would have to be a very uncommon man, something, in the least, like a sublime moral philosopher. And, certainly, no person will have, metaphorically speaking, a hundred industrious hands, a hundred all-seeing eyes or even come close to enjoying demigod-like mental clarity. Yet a nation doesn’t have to resign itself to being blind and crippled, either. We can usually manage one more hand and eye.

Truth be known, when we elected Obama, the nation said “Look, ma, no hands!” with its eyes closed. It required corrupted judgment to be blind to what Obama was. Note that “corrupted” is different than “corrupt.” When saying a computer file is corrupted, there is no implication that it’s evil; rather, it simply means it no longer functions as it should.

This partially explains why facts often don’t matter today. Just as correct input may not yield correct output if fed into a malfunctioning computer, all the necessary facts may not yield a correct conclusion when processed by a corrupted mind. And anyone with a properly functioning virtue file would have sensed the lack of same in Obama. After all, there were so many indications, from his radical associations to his tolerance for infanticide (that’s what you call a clue) to the fact that he once allowed his then two-year-old daughter to listen to rap to his empty sloganeering. Yes, we could’ve . . . known.

Yet my point here is not about the average person, who isn’t reading substantive commentary anyway. It’s that even most of us who oppose Obama and are political are just political, content to fight the battle with one hand and one eye. So many of us ­ this includes readers and commentators ­ are satisfied with boilerplate; it’s Alinsky this and Alinsky that, San Fran Nan, Afghanistan and the Taliban, this bill and that political shill.

This isn’t to say there’s not a place for such things, as many do need a course in politics 101. But if we want to have any chance of winning the war, we must move on to graduate work and fight it on the deepest levels, the spiritual and cultural. We must scrutinize ourselves and evaluate how we have been complicit in empowering the culture that spawns Barack Obamas. We must remember that those of us who are engaged are a minority weighed against an apathetic majority. A few stones however, can be substantial enough to tip the scales against a million pebbles. But this can only happen if we so greatly increase the weight of our virtue that it outweighs the vice that is everywhere.

“Everyone is in a different stage of their life.” Every thought we contemplate, word we utter and action we take move us closer to or further away from perfection. And it’s always time for another hand and another eye.

And now I ask you the real question. Are you willing to look your Grandchildren in the eye after history is written, and say “I sat by and did nothing”?

Masculine Leadership Needed

Masculine Leadership Needed Now More Than Ever
By Chuck Baldwin
June 18, 2010


This column is archived at
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=1760


As we approach Father's Day this Sunday, I think it is necessary to once
again draw attention to what has become one of America's greatest problems:
the dearth of masculine leadership in the home.

As everyone universally acknowledges, there are more children being raised
by single mothers today than at any time in our nation's history. Obviously,
divorce is far and away the biggest contributor to this unfortunate
phenomenon. But another factor is that many women are choosing to have
children out of wedlock. And, of course, a small percentage of single
mothers became this way due to the premature deaths of their husbands. But
it is safe to say that the vast majority of fatherless families are the
result of choice, not circumstance.

The ramifications of raising children without a father are taking a toll,
not only on children, but also on society itself. According to published
reports, 63% of teen suicides come from fatherless homes, 90% of all
runaways and homeless children come from fatherless homes, 80% of rapists
come from fatherless homes, 85% of children with behavioral problems come
from fatherless homes, 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless
homes, 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from
fatherless homes, and 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless
homes. See the following sources for these (and related) stats:

http://www.fathermag.com/news/1780-stats.shtml

http://fathersforlife.org/divorce/chldrndiv.htm

Before militant feminists assail me as a sexist and male chauvinist, I most
certainly understand that there are many examples of women who have overcome
the most adverse circumstances in order to raise fine, upstanding children.
I not only understand it theoretically, but I also understand it
practically, as a single mother raised my wife, and she turned out
marvelously (as did her older sister and younger brother). My mother-in-law
is among the outstanding success stories of single women who have overcome
some of the most adverse circumstances possible to successfully raise three
young children. All three children are living prosperous, productive lives,
and not one of them is dysfunctional or criminal. So, to all the Betty
Friedans out there, please spare me your jaded knee-jerk reactions and
mindless accusations!

That there are wonderful exceptions to the rule doesn't change the fact that
the overwhelming majority of evidence conclusively proves that a family is
much better off when Dad is in it. Boys, especially, require the firm hand
of masculine leadership. And that is a fact! And this brings to mind another
problem: many fathers are either chronically away from home due to work
schedules or are deliberately taking a passive, non-leadership role in the
home. Either way, the result is the same: too many families are experiencing
a dearth of masculine leadership. Let's say it another way: masculine
leadership is needed now more than ever!

Black families have been hit especially hard. According to the Pew Research
Center (PRC), 72% of all black babies born in 2008 were out of wedlock. For
all intents and purposes, the black community is now overwhelmingly a
matriarchal society. Is it any wonder that the crime rate is so high among
young black males?

PRC also reported that 53% of all Hispanic babies born in 2008 were out of
wedlock, 29% of white babies born in 2008 were out of wedlock, and 17% of
Asian babies born in 2008 were out of wedlock. Nationwide, 41% of all babies
born in 2008 were out of wedlock.

The lack of masculine discipline and leadership in America's homes is easily
visible everywhere you go. Stroll down the aisle of most any shopping
center, eat out at just about any restaurant, and attend practically any
movie theater or church service and one is inundated with unruly,
disrespectful, disobedient, bratty kids. And in almost every instance, there
is either no father anywhere to be found, or if he is present, he is
completely unattached and devoid of leadership skills.

I recently witnessed one of these out-of-control brats take almost total
control of a restaurant with his incessant temper tantrums, while the mother
hid her face in her hands (literally) and the father buried his head in a
newspaper. Meanwhile, the entire restaurant (customers and staff) was forced
to endure an hour of non-stop belligerence and blood-curdling screaming. In
the meantime, I am still anxiously waiting for the first restaurant that
provides a "brat-free" section, similar to the way they often provide a
"smoke-free" section: I want to be its first customer! (Commercial airplanes
need such a section, too.)

There are many contributing factors to the decline of masculine leadership,
of course. Society, itself, has mostly feminized our entire culture by
ridiculing and lampooning manhood. Note the television commercials and
programs that denigrate fatherhood. In most of these commercials and shows,
the dad is caricatured as being the resident nincompoop, a bungling buffoon
who barely has enough sense to walk and chew gum at the same time. Hollywood
is no better. Think about it: when was the last movie you saw that extolled
genuine masculinity? I'm not talking about bulging muscles, either. I'm
talking about moral strength along with the inner character of virtue and
integrity. As far as the social acceptance of masculinity is concerned, it
seems that manhood died out with the black and white westerns.

Think, too, about how our children are being raised. The vast majority of
them are being raised in a home devoid of strong, masculine leadership. In
our schools (public, private, parochial, or Christian) the vast majority of
teachers are women. The same is true for most churches. Think about it:
unless a young man plays sports, he may grow from childhood to adulthood
without hardly ever being exposed to real masculine leadership. No wonder
more and more boys seem to be confused about their sexuality.

In addition, our laws increasingly discriminate against fatherhood. Let a
father discipline his children according to Biblical instruction and there
is a very good chance that he will be charged with some sort of criminal
abuse, and have his children taken from his home by the authorities. Even an
unfounded or unsubstantiated accusation against a father can result in State
agencies removing his children from his home. Furthermore, the father may be
subjected to a lifetime of government harassment by being permanently
declared some sort of child abuser; he may also be forced to forfeit his
freedom to purchase a firearm or to live where he chooses.

I can tell you this: if a bruised butt is evidence of child abuse, I was
abused BIG TIME! My dad took seriously that maxim, "Spare the rod; spoil the
child." I can say this, however: I never got a spanking that I did not
deserve; and looking back on it, I thank God for every spanking I got,
because Dad's correction gave me the sense of security, love, and direction
that I desperately needed to make the right choices in life. I shudder to
think where (or what) I would be today had my father not disciplined me. I
also thank God that I was raised in a better time, when the culture had not
ditched the laws of God and Nature in favor of this stupid, senseless,
asinine political correctness that is rampant today!

I tell you the truth: there are not too many problems that could not be
solved today with an old-fashioned, honest, morally upright, courageous
disciplinarian-father who would lovingly bring up his children in the fear
and admonition of the Lord. And let's all remember that it is extremely
difficult for a man to be this kind of father without the love and support
of his wife. In this regard, the feminist movement is largely responsible
for destroying both the femininity of our women and the masculinity of our
men.

So, while we are rightly concerned and focused on the myriad problems facing
us today, let's remember that America has no greater need than the need of
families to be led and strengthened by good, Godly fathers. Furthermore,
that is something each of us men should aspire to do beyond anything else.
To paraphrase the words of our Lord, "What shall it profit a father if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own children?"

Therefore, to all of America's outstanding fathers out there who quietly go
about the business of being an example to their children; who consistently
and humbly discipline their children; who instill the time-tested principles
of honor, integrity, and devotion in the hearts of their children; who
bravely accept the responsibility of fatherhood without grumbling and
complaining; and who are willing to put the security and well-being of their
families above their own personal pursuits: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

KEEPING THE BP OIL SPILL IN PERSPECTIVE

CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION

The best description of the tenets of Christian Reconstruction, as espoused by Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, is found in his "Christian Manifesto"¹:

1. Sovereignty is an attribute of God alone, not of man nor the state. God alone is Lord or Sovereign over all things; over state, school, family, vocations, society and all things else.
2. The Bible is given as the common law of men and nations and was for most of U. S. History the common law, as Justice Story declared.
3. Salvation is not by politics, education, the church, or any agency or person other than Jesus Christ our Lord.
4. The myth of Machiavelli, that, by state control at the top, bad men can make a good society is at the root of our cultural crisis and growing collapse. A good omelet cannot be made with bad eggs. Truly redeemed men are necessary for a good society.²
5. Civil rulers who rule without the Lord and His law word are, as Augustine said, no different than a mafia, only more powerful.
6. The state is not the government, but one form of government among many, others being the self-government of the Christian man, the family, the school, the church, vocations and society. The state is civil government, a ministry of justice.
7. For the state to equate itself with government is tyranny and evil.
8. The Christian man is the only true free man in all the world, and he is called to exercise dominion over all the earth.
9. Humanism is the way of death and is the essence of original sin, or man trying to be his own god.
10. All men, things, and institutions must serve God, or be judged by Him.

"It is urgently important that we think now of Christian reconstruction, but our thinking cannot be idle talk: it must be both Biblical and also practically applied in our daily life. There are many people ready to eliminate statism, but they have nothing but wishing to replace it. How then will independent schools, private welfare, and individual initiative deal with the vast complex of our social problems? Already most of our Christian conservative causes, and Christian schools, are continually short of funds. What is the answer?

"In any advanced social order, social financing is a major public necessity. The social order cannot exist without a vast network of social institutions which require financing and support. If a Christian concept of social financing is lacking, then the state moves in quickly to supply the lack and gain the social control which results. Social financing means social power."³

1. R. J. Rushdoony, Chalcedon Report No. 225, “A Christian Manifesto,” April 1984 (c.f., Roots of Reconstruction, p. 1114f).
2. This is not to suggest that Rushdoony endorsed simply replacing “bad men” with “godly men” at the top of a state-run society. Rushdoony’s concept of theocracy was not a centralized form of power in the hands of clerical leaders. He wrote, “Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had” (Roots of Reconstruction, p. 63).
3. R. J. Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 605.

TRUE FREEDOM COMES FROM THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

PSALM 24:1-3
The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend inot the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?

PSALM 33:8-22
Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of non effect.
The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
The LORD looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men.
From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
He fashioneth their hearts alike; he considereth all their works.
Their is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.
An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.
Behold, he eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;
To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.
For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.
Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.

PSALM 34:19
Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.

PROVERBS 28:13
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

JOHN 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

EPHESIANS 2:8,9
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
No of works, lest any man should boast.

ACTS 3:19
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out....

ACTS 16:31
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved...
........................................................................................................................................

Freedom's Real Enemies
By Chuck Baldwin
June 11, 2010
This column is archived at
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=1708


Politicians in Washington, D.C., love to manufacture a crisis. The crisis
generates fear within the citizenry, thereby allowing the federal government
to centralize more and more power. During a crisis, the citizenry becomes
much more forgiving of federal abuses and accommodating of federal
encroachments than it otherwise would be without a crisis. Hence, we have a
federal "war on drugs," and a "war on poverty," and a "war on terror," and
an "oil crisis," and an "energy crisis," and a "domestic terrorism crisis,"
and an "education crisis," and a "border crisis," and an "economic
crisis"--Blah! Blah! Blah!

You can mark it down: every major crisis that America has faced over the
last several decades has been either manufactured or facilitated by policies
and activities originating in Washington, D.C. But at the same time that DC
is creating these crises, it categorizes any ideological group it finds
distasteful as a convenient scapegoat. These convenient scapegoats can
include "angry white guys," "tea party extremists," "a vast right-wing
conspiracy," Constitution Party or Libertarian Party "extremists," "Second
Amendment extremists" (gun owners), "pro-life extremists," ad infinitum, ad
nauseam.

Yet, while DC's elitists are plotting America's next crisis and figuring out
whom to categorize as America's next "extremist," some real enemies are
waging war against the freedoms and liberties of our once-great republic.
And, ladies and gentlemen, these enemies are much more subtle, a lot closer,
and much more dangerous than almost anything you are being told about.

Here are some of freedom's real enemies:

Big Cities

When the United States was a much smaller--much more agricultural--nation,
our freedoms were mostly intact. The mass exodus out of rural America into
urban America has been a bane of freedom--and it will continue to be so.

Thomas Jefferson addressed this issue astutely when he wrote in a letter to
James Madison, "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in
Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe." (Source: The Jeffersonian
Cyclopedia, A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson)

Jefferson spoke again of this danger in a letter to Benjamin Rush. He wrote,
"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the
liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the
useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with
more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice." (Source: Ibid.)

Big cities are most always more liberal, more socialistic, more utopian, and
more centralist. Citizens living in big cities readily submit to the
machinations and designs of Big Government with much greater regularity than
do their rural counterparts. In states where a handful of big cities
dominate State politics, Big-Government policies almost always take over the
politics of the entire State. If you doubt that, just speak with
freedom-loving citizens in New York, Illinois, or Maryland.

Consider, specifically, the freedom most necessary to preserve our
liberties: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. People in states
that are less populated enjoy much greater liberty than do people in heavily
populated states. For example, Boston's Gun Bible (BGB) ranks the states
according to the degree of gun ownership (and possession) protection in each
State. It is no coincidence that the states with sparser populations are
much freer than states with denser populations.

Here is BGB's breakdown of the most and least free gun ownership states:

Most Free States:

1. Vermont
2. Idaho and Kentucky (tie)
3. Louisiana and Alaska (tie)
4. Wyoming
5. Montana

Least Free States:

1. New Jersey
2. Illinois
3. Hawaii
4. Massachusetts
5. New York

Population density in the "most free" states is less than 50 persons per
square mile, while in the "least free" states it is more than 460 persons
per square mile. Case closed!

While big cities will typically tolerate much more in the way of
licentiousness and sexual perversion, they are also the first to tolerate
Big-Government socialism. Without a doubt, Thomas Jefferson was right: big
cities are "pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of
man."

If you want to live free in the future, you will probably need to leave the
big city--and perhaps the states that are dominated by big cities.

The National News Media

For the most part, the national news media is no friend of freedom. About
all most of them know of the US Constitution is the part about the "freedom
of the press" (from the First Amendment, of course). Watch any of the Big
Three television network newscasts on any weekday evening, and what will you
see? You will see the exact same stories regurgitated over and over
again--even with the exact same spin! And that spin is most always tilted
toward bigger and bigger government. This goes on night after night, week
after week, month after month, and year after year. But this is all just
coincidental, right? Get real!

The cable news networks are not much better. About the only difference
between cable networks is that CNN will provide cover for Big Government
Democrats while viciously attacking all things Republican, and FOX NEWS will
provide cover for Big Government Republicans while viciously attacking all
things Democrat.

Face it: the national news media is intoxicated with Two Party Politics.
They really don't care nearly as much about the fundamental tenets and
principles of liberty as they do about whether a Democrat or Republican wins
office. Washington's media elite are wined and dined by the same party
politicians that they cover on television or in the newspaper. (What a
racket!) Do you really think any major media news personality is going to
risk losing his or her job (which is exactly what would happen) by asking
too many questions, or boring too deeply, or straying too far off the
reservation? Once again, get real! All of these guys and gals know exactly
where the line--and the "third rail"--is located. And they all will stay
clear of both! It's not about reporting the news, or defending liberty, or
anything of the sort. It is about pleasing their big corporate
sponsors--corporate sponsors who are in bed with the elites from both major
political parties, by the way!

As long as the American people continue to allow the national news media to
manipulate and spin the news, our liberties will continue to erode.

Big Business

In fact, Big Anything can be freedom's enemy: Big Business, Big Labor, Big
Media, Big Cities, and Big Religion. Big Anything!

However, the rate and degree to which Big Business has been able to advance
during the last half of the twentieth century--and now into the twenty-first
century--is especially problematic for the survival of liberty. Dear friend,
it is a mistake to equate Big Business with freedom. Big Business has little
to do with capitalism and free enterprise and much to do with monopolism and
globalism. Big Business does not want to compete with private enterprise; it
wants to crush it! Big Business sees Big Government as a friend and partner.
In fact, Big Business and Big Government are conjoined twins. They grow and
live as one.

Accordingly, it is no accident that when the Bilderbergers got together a
few days ago at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges, Spain, for their super-secret
meeting, the list of attendees included the cabal of super-elites from Big
Government, Big Business, Big Academia, and Big Media. People such as Bill
Gates (Microsoft), Roger Altman (former Deputy Secretary of the US
Treasury), Martin Feldstein (Harvard University), Niall Ferguson (Harvard
University), Philip Gordon (Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs), Donald Graham (The Washington Post), Richard Holbrooke
(Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan), Robert Hormats (Under
Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs), Henry Kissinger
(former Secretary of State), Klaus Kleinfeld (Chairman and CEO, Alcoa),
Craig Mundie (Microsoft), Peter Orszag (Director, Office of Management and
Budget), Charlie Rose (Producer, Rose Communications), Robert Rubin
(Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; former Secretary of the
Treasury), Eric Schmidt (CEO and Chairman of the Board, Google), James
Steinberg (Deputy Secretary of State), Lawrence Summers (Director, National
Economic Council), Christine Varney (Assistant Attorney General for
Antitrust), and Paul Volcker (Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board).
And please remember that these are only the names of those that were
published. The complete list of attendees is top secret and never released.
For example, was Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner there? He is a
Bilderberg (and CFR) member.

But of course, this meeting--complete with the tightest security and secrecy
possible--is only for the purpose of social fellowship and clubmanship,
right? That the world's most interconnected business, governmental, and
media elites would meet outside the viewing and listening of everyone is
supposed to be dismissed as irrelevant and insignificant, right? Well, if
you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or FOX NEWS, that is exactly what
you are being led to believe.

Yet, Big Business has been conspiring with Big Government for the purpose of
personal aggrandizement (at the cost of liberty, of course) for
decades--probably centuries. Remember, it took an act of Congress to stop
old Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush's father and G.W. Bush's grandfather)
from sending financial assistance to Nazi Germany. Know, too, that
international bankers today are supporting governments (some that are openly
hostile to the United States) in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Again,
Big Business and Big Government are conjoined twins--an interconnected body
that grows in unison at the expense of our liberties.

Freedom has many more real enemies that could be added to this list, of
course; and maybe in the future we can talk more about them. For now,
recognize that our liberties are hanging by a thread in this country. And
the next time you hear someone in Washington, D.C., or the national news
media railing against the latest "crisis" that requires Big Government to
fix, please remember who the real enemy is.

Random

These are just a bunch of random pictures.

Three little chicks. Jordon put four eggs under a hen and only three of them hatched. He only put four because the type of chickens we have aren't suppose to sit. But this one did and there is another one sitting.


Boaz goofing off.

Boaz on the riding mower. Everyone wants to mow when there is a riding mower involved.

The first three Zucchini from our garden.

America's Bread And Circus Society by Chuck Baldwin

America's Bread And Circus Society
By Chuck Baldwin
June 8, 2010


This column is archived at
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=1678


The Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 A.D.) wrote regarding the way latter-day
Roman emperors retained power and control over the masses that were
seemingly more than happy to obsess themselves with trivialities and
self-indulgences while their once-great-and-powerful empire collapsed before
their very eyes. He wrote:

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have
abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out
military command, high civil office, legions--everything, now restrains
itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

I submit that a good many in America are, like Rome of old, carelessly
frittering away their God-given liberties, foolishly clamoring for nothing
more than government handouts and never-ending entertainment. Millions and
millions of Americans (especially males) are literally intoxicated with
sports. Sports are no longer a great American pastime; they are now a great
American obsession.

Mind you, this writer has been a sports fan all of his life. I began playing
organized basketball in the fifth grade; I was on the high school wrestling
team; I played football in high school and college; and I ran track. Still
today, I enjoy watching a good NFL game (yes, I'm still a Green Bay Packers
fan), a good college game when the Gators are playing, a good NCAA men's
basketball game (especially during the tournament--even more so when the
Hoosiers are in it), and any NBA championship series between the Celtics and
Lakers (I root for Boston). And I even like to watch a round of professional
golf once in a while (it helps me go to sleep when I'm trying to take a
nap). But none of the above will interfere with anything that is important,
and I am not going to plan my whole universe around any of it. If it is
convenient, I will watch. If it's not, I will read about it in the sports
section of the newspaper. And I'm certainly not going to spend my
hard-earned money following any sports team (even those I like) all over the
country like some rock band groupie.

I am not talking about sports in general; I am talking about the way many
American men have allowed sports to control and dominate their lives. With
many, sports are not just a hobby; they are a religion. I cannot count the
number of conversations between men that I overhear in restaurants,
airplanes, boardrooms, and, yes, even church houses, in which every man in
the circle is literally consumed with all sorts of sports facts,
information, and opinions. In many such discussions, these men will talk
about nothing else. To these men, there is absolutely nothing in the world
more important than the latest sports score, announcement, or trade.
NOTHING!

And there is also a very real psychological pitfall associated with a man's
intoxication with sports. I submit that an obsession with sports gives men a
false sense of masculinity and actually serves to steal true manhood from
them.

For example, it used to be when men stripped their shirts off and painted
their faces, they were heading to the battlefield to kill the tyrant's
troops. Now they are headed off to the sports coliseum to watch a football
game. A man's ego and machismo was once used to protect his family and
freedom; now it's used to tout batting averages and box scores. The fact is,
if we could get the average American male to get as exercised and energized
about defending the historic principles upon which liberty and Western
Civilization are built as he is in defending his favorite quarterback or
NASCAR driver, our country would not be in the shape it is in today.

The sad reality is that much of today's masculinity is experienced only
vicariously through a variety of sports teams and personalities. Instead of
personally flexing our muscles for God and country, freedom and liberty, or
home and hearth, we punch the air and beat our chests over touchdowns and
home runs (even though we had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with them
ourselves). Instead of getting in the face of these would-be tyrants in
Washington, D.C., who are doing everything they can to steal the American
dream, we get in the face of the poor umpire who makes a bad call or the
Little League coach who doesn't play my son enough. Our happiness,
well-being, and mood are not determined by anything personally achieved (or
lost), but by what others accomplished (or didn't accomplish) at the ball
park. Whether our children inherit a land of liberty and freedom does not
seem nearly as important as whether they make the starting lineup on the
football team.

Add to an epidemic obsession with sports the demand for more and more
handouts from Big Brother and the outlook for liberty is not good.
Everywhere we turn, we seem to hear people clamoring for government to give
them more and more. They expect government to supply their every need and
meet their every demand. They then have the gall to turn around and say,
"God bless America: land of the free"?

Ladies and gentlemen, one cannot have it both ways. If we expect government
to be our supplier, we cannot expect that it will not become our master.
Always remember this: government has nothing to give except that it first
takes it from someone else. Every dollar and every job that government gives
is first taken from someone else. Furthermore, every job given to government
is another freedom--and another dollar--taken from the citizenry. Every
government job brings with it a restriction, a prohibition, a regulation, an
inspection, a fee, a tax, an assessment, etc. As government grows, freedom
shrinks. As government spends, wealth shrinks. And as government hires,
opportunity shrinks.

Most historians agree with Juvenal that the mighty Roman Empire collapsed
from within due to a morally reckless, selfish, pleasure-crazed,
sports-obsessed, bread and circus society that willingly surrendered the
principles of self-government to an insatiable central government that,
through perpetual wars and incessant handouts, destroyed a once-great
republic.

By all appearances, the bread and circus society has reared its ugly head in
America. And make no mistake about it: if the people of the United States do
not quickly repent of this madness, the consequences will be just as
destructive for our once-great republic as it was for Rome.

Television induced labotamy

Television Induced Labotamy: A Startling Report From Scientist Samuel Phillips on Damage Caused By Exposure to the Babylon Box from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo.

Allen and Natasha

Here are several pictures of Natasha and Allen. We have been able to see them a lot recently.

This was when Johanna, Jordon, and I went over there a couple of days ago. We had chocolate pudding and Natasha loved it. It was very good for making messes.
Miss Mess.



Monday, they came over for supper.

And she loves homemade ice cream.
Time to milk. Allen likes milking our cow, Ellie Sue. Every time he is here he asks if it's time to milk.
Milking.
Watching the chickens.


This is when Levi and Johanna went over there yesterday.
I think she just woke up.





Yesterday, Allen came home with Johanna and spent the night.
This is him and Boaz "boxing."