Lee Broad's Blog

I believe that not all Muslims are violent. Nor do all Muslims wish to oppress Infidels. Among the reasons that I believe this is that Muslims hold high positions in the IDF and, having been in Israel, I have seen Muslim Arabs living and working peacefully with their Jewish fellow citizens. There, I’ve said it. But, there is more.

Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah and other terrorist Islamist groups spring in all their evil directly from the Quran, with much help from their leaders who have the usual thirst for power and domination, attributes no doubt shared by Mohammed. I have read the Quran, Sira, and Hadith (in English—see “Reliance on the Traveller” written in the 1300’s and translated in the 1990’s by Nuh Ha Mim Keller).

The Quran is a violent book and prescribes all manner of violence, subjugation and deception against non-Muslims. Literally, no sin can be committed when dealing with Infidels as long as the act is in the name of Allah; lying to an Infidel to advance the cause of Islam is encouraged. Conversely, all followers of Mohammed are called to Jihad or holy war against Infidels. Failure to join Jihad is a sin.

Terrorist groups are not “radical”; they are “orthodox” Muslims. Islam is the poster child of a misogynist, oppressive, and closed society. Acts of genital mutilation are common, as is the denial of basic human rights for women. Its intolerance can be seen in every Muslim-dominated country. No open worship of any religion other than Islam; no bringing Bibles into the country; proselytizing is forbidden (and punished); and no building of churches. If one leaves Islam, the prospective punishment is death. There are no “Unalienable rights endowed by our Creator . . .”, only those bestowed upon the Faithful by Mohammed, who claims to have written the Quran as dictated to him by Allah. 

If one wishes to observe the baseness of Islam as practiced by true followers of Mohammed, merely watch the videos coming out of Israel following Hamas’ surprise attacks on Yom Kippur. The true character of Islam is on display for the world to see. 

Here is a 13-year old video that sums the violent history of Islam: 

My strategy for Israel would be to treat Gaza as Scipio Aemilianus treated Carthage. A good beginning, in my view.

The post My Perspective on Islam appeared first on Lee Broad.

Recent news reports cite the discovery of the remains of children on or near the property of residential schools established to educate children born of Canada’s First Nation in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society. Canada had about 150 residential schools and an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children passed through the schools between their opening, around 1883, and their closing in 1996.

Rightly, there are demands to examine how this wholesale deprivation of basic human rights could have occurred in one of the world’s leading democratic countries. Surely, the Catholic Church and protestant denominations will bear severe media lashings for the horrific mistreatment and murder of these children. But these institutions and their staff are only the proximate causes of the tragedy. 

What of the root causes? What about the arrogance and incompetence of the elitist government and subsidiary agency leadership? It was these people, who, in an insufferable display of hubris, ordered the children to attend these schools. These people set themselves up as primus inter paresto render the children into a forced homogeneity with the rest of Canada. These self-absorbed, oh-so-important people remain with us today, not in fact, but in kind. Regrettably, they have increased in number and power.

It is possible, however, that even this horrendous indifference to individual rights might not have born such bitter fruit as the thousands of graves now being plotted and marked by machines. Unfortunately, these children were the further victims of the generic incompetence that infects such government-bred programs. Where was the oversight and control of these schools to ensure that the children were living under humane conditions and learning that which would enable them to better succeed in the Canadian society? Answer: nowhere to be found. Neither then, nor today. 

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

We delude ourselves as we celebrate America’s Independence Day. This is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. In fact, we live increasingly under the egregiously corrupt care such moral tyrants. First Nation children were early victims. The rest of us will shortly follow.

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Eighteen years ago today, a group of Wahhabi Sunnis, a strictly orthodox Muslim sect that advocates a return to the early Islam of the Quran and Sunna, planned methodically and meticulously to fly four large commercial aircraft filled with people into iconic buildings in New York City and Washington, DC. Their plans succeeded, in the main, to the eternal shock and eventual anger of America.

I, like many others, accept that a large proportion of Muslims seek only to live in peace. So, how do we explain—understand—the gap between these peace-loving Muslims and the religious terrorists who attacked our country and all the good for which it stands?

Our first task is to understand that Islam has several sects and groups. The two largest groups are the Sunni and the Shi`ite. Yet, there are several other sects that have split off from these two large groups. 

The Baha’is and Ahmadiyyas are 19th-century offshoots of Shi`ite and Sunni Islam, respectively. Bahai’s consider themselves to be a distinct religion, but admit to an historical root in Shi`ite Islam. Ahmadiyyas consider themselves Muslims. The vast majority of other Muslims hold that neither group is a legitimate form of Islam and regard them as heretics. Under Sharia, heretics are blasphemers— people who have corrupted and abandoned Islamic belief and practice—and, as such, are subject to a sentence of death. These sects have suffered great violence at the hands of more orthodox Muslims.

Another sect is the Sufis. Although they are generally considered Muslims, many conservative Sunni Muslims regard Sufism as a corruption of Islam.

Three other small groups, Druze, Alevis, and `Alawis split off from Islam and hold unorthodox beliefs and practices. Druze and Alevis do not regard themselves as Muslims and are not considered Muslims by other Muslims. `Alawis have various non-Islamic practices, and debate continues as to whether they should be considered Muslims.

So, Muslims come in variety of forms, some peaceful and others, not. Therein lies the rub. The question then becomes how closely does a Muslim or Muslim sect adhere to Islamic religious texts, as presented by Mohammed and as lived by the Wahhabis.

The literal writings of the Quran and Sunna[1]clearly demonstrate that Islam is a religion of both intolerance and subjugation of non-Muslims. There is no alternative conclusion that admits to the literal content of the Quran and Sunna, and it follows that Muslims wishing to live true to these texts, such as the Wahhabis, are called to violence against, and oppression of, non-Muslims. 

Many violent groups operating in the Middle East, such as ISIS, are not composed of radicalMuslims, as the media often calls them. Quite the contrary, members of these groups practice Sharia Law to the letter as true followers of Mohammed, and, consequently the religious texts that he authored, are called to do. It is no coincidence that Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims have been the continual brunt of discrimination under Dhimmi laws[2]and the victims of repeated and sustained violence against person and property[3]in Muslim-dominated countries, particularly those governed by Sunni and Shi`ite leaders. 

One seeming solution would be for those Muslims who reject the wealth of prejudice and violence toward Kafirs (i.e., infidels) that can be found in the Quran and Sunna—the true radicalMuslims—to revise those religious texts and resultant practices to reflect what they believe Allah’s true intent and disposition toward non-Muslims to be.

In a paper “Historical Methodology and the Believer”delivered at the June in 2010 Symposium of the New English Reviewin Nashville, Ibn Warraq, a leading apostate from Islam, said:

“Without criticism of Islam, Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. It will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality, originality and truth. Western intellectual Islamologists have totally failed in their duties as intellectuals. They have betrayed their calling by abandoning their critical faculties when it comes to Islam.”

As outlined by Mr. Warraq, reforming Islam is not an easy task and sure to be opposed, violently, by those who cling to jihad and subjugation of non-Muslims, as one sect, the Sufis understand. William Dalrymple, in an August 16, 2010 op-ed piece in the “New York Times” wrote:

“Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative is one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists. His videos and sermons preach love, the remembrance of God (or “zikr”) and reconciliation. His slightly New Agey [sic] rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a MuslimDeepak Chopra. But in the eyes ofOsama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination.

For such moderate, pluralistic Sufi imams are the front line against the most violent forms of Islam. In the most radical parts of the Muslim world, Sufi leaders risk their lives for their tolerant beliefs, every bit as bravely as American troops on the ground in Baghdad andKabuldo. Sufism is the most pluralistic incarnation of Islam — accessible to the learned and the ignorant, the faithful and nonbelievers — and is thus a uniquely valuable bridge between East and West.

The great Sufi saints like the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi held that all existence and all religions were one, all manifestations of the same divine reality. What was important was not the empty ritual of the mosque, church, synagogue or temple, but the striving to understand that divinity can best be reached through the gateway of the human heart: that we all can find paradise within us, if we know where to look. In some ways Sufism, with its emphasis on love rather than judgment, represents the New Testament of Islam.”

Where do we go from here? In accepting the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said:

“The spirit of Munich[4]has by no means retreated into the past; it was not merely a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich prevails in the 20th century. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people; it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people—and there are many in today’s world—elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today—and tomorrow, you’ll see, it will all be all right. But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.”

Many non-Muslims are well past the point of indifferent diffidence as reflected in Solzhenitsyn’s comments. Ultimately, the world will not exempt Islam, Mohammed, and Muslims violently adhering to the Quran and Sunna from the slightest criticism while Christianity and all other religions receive no such protection from public or private offense. Nor will we non-Muslims hold our tongues and cap our pens because Muslims, such as the Wahhabis, require us to do so if we are to escape their wrath. Non-Muslims are not welcome mats for the rabid followers of Mohammed and we will not accept Dhimmi status. The stage is set for a confrontation between Islam and the rest of the world. Will Muslims travel a path like that of the Sufis and enter a peaceful contest for the spiritual hearts and minds of men and women or that of the Wahhabis and engage in a catastrophic prelude to the Armageddon? 

[1]Among the most respected works regarding Sharia Law is the book Reliance of the Traveller, written by Nuh Ha Mim Kellerin the fourteenth century.

[2]These laws offer specified protections and limited rights to non-Muslims who pay a special tax and abide by a set of restrictions discussed later in this paper.

[3]See inter aliaPeters, Joan, From Time Immemorial. Chicago: JKAP Publications, 2002.

[4]In using the phrase “spirit of Munich”, Solzhenitsyn refers to the foreign policy of nations (e.g., Great Britain during the years leading up to WWII) to refuse to confront a threat, and, instead seek peace and security through appeasement. The phrase refers to Neville Chamberlain’s claim to have secured “peace for our time” as a result of the 1938 Munich Agreement with Hitler.

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While reading “Mornings on Horseback” a biography of Theodore Roosevelt by David McCullough, I came across a statement attributed to Mr. Roosevelt: “It may be that the ‘voice of the people is the voice of God’ in fifty-one cases out of a hundred; but in the remaining forty-nine it is quite as likely to be the voice of the devil, or, what is still worse, the voice of a fool.” Roosevelt was talking about his revulsion at the nomination of James G. Blaine as the Republican candidate for President in 1884. Roosevelt, a New York State Delegate to the Convention, told many that he would quit the party, but, later, decided that, in the words of Mr. McCullough, “But voice of God, devil, fool, whatever it was, he must abide by it . . . .”

If such a person as Theodore Roosevelt can abide by the nomination of a man whom Roosevelt loathed out of respect for the voice of the majority, how petty, how pusillanimous, how demeaning of our democracy the “resisters” of the Trump presidency seem.

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In reflecting on the controversy about statues and flags, I was reminded of Shakespeare’s insightful lines, spoken by Marc Antony in “Julius Caesar”, Act 3, Scene 2: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

All of us are imperfect creatures. We err in judgment and in deed. Yet, most of us would admit that all humans have redeeming qualities, which in most instances are sufficient to overcome damnation by our friends, acquaintances, and loved ones. We forgive, perhaps, because we know that we need forgiveness. All of us live in glass houses.

None of us would care to be judged for eternity by one bad deed or act of malice. We might even take offense that someone would do so without knowing why we might have been driven or lured to commit such an offense or series of offenses. We might take further offense by someone judging us by cultural standards and norms that did not exist during our lifetime, but which evolved over the following decades. Indeed, what are considered offenses now, might not have been such in other times.

George Washington owned slaves, as did many of the nation’s founders. Slavery was originally an economically driven means of production rather than a doctrine of white supremacy. It has been practiced in many countries and over many centuries by a host of races, principally the result of suppressing enemy populations and harvesting the spoils of war. And still is. The concept of equality and “unalienable” rights took thousands of years to evolve to a point that they would become the fundamental principles of the United States of America.

Robert E. Lee chose to defend his native State of Virginia, a concept perhaps foreign to Americans of today, but a common sentiment a scant 60 years after 13 fiercely, and legally, independent colonies joined forces to oust the British. In fact, the establishment of the United States under the Constitution was a fortuitous, and mainly accidental, event and heavily opposed by many politicians of the day. There had only been 16 presidents by the Civil War. There have been 11 in my lifetime.

Today, the cries to tear down statues and ban the confederate flag in all forms come from imperfect people who chose to judge others on very narrow criteria and are all too happy to inter every personal good with their bones. Those that condemn engage in judgment, the likes of which would cause them to bristle and complain of every kind of prejudice if applied to their own lives and circumstances.

We haven’t disowned John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton for their immoral and unfaithful behaviors. There are no calls to destroy their statues. Rather, we continue to remember the days of Camelot with fondness and acknowledge the legislative accomplishments of the Clinton administration, overlooking their human failings. Why, then, do we judge men who lived a century ago very narrowly for acts and beliefs that were natural and accepted in their own time?

The answer seems to be sheer, mean spirited retribution. Yet, those who seek to visit dishonor and condemnation on others should be cautioned that their actions can and will ultimately be judged in similar fashion, rightfully devoid of any mercy toward them. Perhaps, like the Merchant of Venice, these people will rue the day they chose to prosecute the dead without compassion.

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Fascists on the political Left have once again invaded The State University of New York at Buffalo (“UB”). The school’s own independent student publication The Spectrum, said it all in the headline of a May 2 article (http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/2017/05/a-campus-divided): “A Campus Divided: Robert Spencer’s visit met with chaos and opposition”. All kinds of folks, draped dramatically in their own vacuous definitions of supposed rights and alleged abuses, bristled at the prospect of Mr. Spencer’s even being on campus. Yet, notwithstanding an official invitation to speak, his First Amendment rights were rudely dismissed and abused by trolls living in droves under the bridges of modern day academia. As The Spectrum article described it, the “ . . . constant heckling from the crowd made it near impossible for him to complete a full sentence.” The vaunted values of inclusion, tolerance, fairness, and free speech clearly do not exist on this hate-filled campus. Let these fascists and their obsequious faculty supporters reap the whirlwind they have sown and dwell in the place for which they clamor. So long as Americans vigorously defend their Constitution, however, such pernicious vermin will not find it here. Caveat civis!

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The plight of blacks in America as the result of over 200 years of slavery, followed by another 100 years of pseudo-slavery inherent in Jim Crow laws has been well documented. Racism, too, has dogged black people in America. Blacks have truly suffered greatly. The purpose of this document is certainly not to deny that blot on American history, but rather to ask the question: why, after three generations of intervention by the American government and the encouragement of the vast majority of Americans of all races, do Afro-Americans still lag in almost every socio-economic measure when compared to another ethnic minority, Jews, who have endured their own seemingly endless history of slavery and oppression?

The turning point in America for black justice may be the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that followed a decade or so of sit-ins, protest marches, beatings, assassinations, and the emergence of great leaders such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall. Congress and, especially, President Lyndon B. Johnson had spoken: blacks have the same unalienable rights under our Constitution that had been enjoyed by others from the founding of the United States.

Since that time, America has amassed a complex of affirmative action programs, minority business set-asides, mass protests, and EEOC lawsuits all for the benefit of helping blacks enjoy a more prosperous and “just” future. We have Black History Month in February to remind us of the contribution of blacks to American progress. When it comes to a black being shot, especially by law enforcement agents, the immediate response is for activists to remind all Americans that “black lives matter” in the streets and on city hall steps. Congressman John Conyers (D, MI) has introduced a bill every year since 1989 to examine the legacy of slavery and make recommendations to Congress regarding “appropriate remedies.” Further, when an occasion takes place without significant black involvement, such as the 2016 Oscars, racism is the presumed cause.

The response to black enslavement and discrimination in America has been the imposition of laws and regulations on all others in an effort, presumably, to correct past iniquities with the assumption that blacks are victims, and therefore all others must, prima facie, be guilty of their subjugation. “We Shall Overcome” has long been sung by equal rights activists for decades. Perhaps, however, “You Raise Me Up” would be more appropriate.

Any continued economic deprivation of all blacks continues to be placed at the feet of racists of all stripes. If only the playing field were made level, it is surmised, then blacks would then naturally ascend to their rightful place, pari passu with all other peoples.

This is the uniquely American response to one ethnic group’s enslavement and prejudicial treatment. There has been another.

No ethnic group in history has suffered to the extent of the Jewish people: enslavement under the Egyptian pharaohs, 40-years’ wandering in the Sinai Desert, the Babylonian captivity, Roman occupation and the destruction of the center of Jewish culture and worship—the Temple in Jerusalem. Following the destruction of the Temple, Jews entered an 1800-year diaspora during which they were continually subjected to persecution, frequent massacres, and habitual discrimination. After the conquests of Mohammed, Jews were systematically victimized for hundreds of years under Muslim dhimmi laws. Czarist Russia pogroms killed millions of Jews during the 19th and early 20th centuries. And, then, there was the Holocaust.

While Jews have enjoyed relative safety and security in mainly Christian countries in recent years, violence against their person and property persists to this day. Islam’s religious texts call for the killing of all Jews and, today, several Muslim-dominated countries maintain official policies calling for the annihilation of Jews and the total destruction of Israel. Jews are unequivocally the most demonized and persecuted people of all time.

What has been the response of Jews to all this suffering? Amazingly, Jews, acknowledge their history of abuse and persecution, but don’t wear it on their sleeve. They seek only to be allowed to live in peace and worship as they please. Although they are the world’s greatest victims of racism and bigotry, they wear no mantle of victimhood, and, instead, work diligently to improve their lot and that of others. To wit, any list of Nobel Prize winners will demonstrate their contribution. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 850 individuals, and, although Jews represent less than 0.2% of the world’s population, they have been awarded over 20% of all Nobel Prizes. Their contribution to literature, music, and the visual arts is primus inter pares.

There are no affirmative action plans on American college and university campuses established for the benefit of easing Jewish entry. There is no Jewish History Month. There is no media hysteria upon report of a crime against a Jew, no sound bites from Rabbi Al Sharpstein, and no looting of liquor stores.

Jews believe in the family, education, work, self-reliance, achievement, and serving God. Jews simply overcome and outperform. It is a response to oppression that demonstrates faith and grace. The contrast is stunning. Would that all embraced life’s unfairness with equal fervor and aplomb.

How is it, then, that one ethnic group relies on the full power and purse of the American federal government to upend sustained oppression when another, which has suffered unimaginably and endured continual, targeted slaughter, has successfully bootstrapped itself to prominence throughout the centuries by the power of its own resilient life force? It might be that the good intentions of American policy have convinced blacks that equality of outcome can be legislated rather than earned. They need, instead, to embrace overcoming adversity through contesting their circumstances, accepting personal responsibility, and celebrating and sharing success. The Jews have sustained themselves this way for millennia.

The post Differing Responses to Slavery and Oppression appeared first on Lee Broad.

Well, it looks like police officers in Paris, France dispatched another Sword of Allah to his eternal resting place this past Friday as he attempted to attack a police station with a meat cleaver. While I still have questions about his apparently diminished mental capacity, I know I will miss his pleasant toothless smile and matted tufted face. In light of the sexual carnage being meted out in Europe by males of Middle Eastern, and statistically Muslim, ethnicity, our fallen Sword will find it hard to claim his 72 virgins, let alone find that number anywhere in his Martyr’s Paradise. In a related matter, the Association of Heavenly Islamic Virgins-in-Waiting has announced that because of greatly increased martyr arrivals and a continuing paucity of female virgins (or virgins of any sex) it will be accepting new members from Capra aegagrus, Camelus bactrianus, and the ever-popular Camelus dromedarius. Dr. Doolittle could not be reached for comment, although a spokesman expressed condolences to the named species.

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According to a web posting by The Guardian in the United Kingdom, FBI Crime Statistics show that in 2011, 8,583 murders were committed with firearms in the United States. That is down slightly from 8,874 in 2010. Politicians, following recent highly publicized mass shootings in the US, are taking these gun-related deaths seriously with a surfeit of state and federal legislation aimed at tightening gun controls. Implied in gun control logic is that it benefits law-abiding citizens. This logic is greatly flawed. Gun control has the potential to harm many.

The basis of that flaw lies in the nature of law enforcement, which is essentially conducted after-the-fact. This circumstance does not lessen the contribution of the professional men and women who serve and protect the public every day, but reflects the inherent inability of law enforcement to determine whether a crime is to be committed so that action can be taken to prevent it. True, some arrests have been made of those who, for example, intended to launch terrorist attacks, but they are the exception to the rule. Being able to make those arrests, moreover, requires the dedication of a level of resources that is available only for the highest national law enforcement priorities.

So we are left with the reality that most crimes will not be prevented. To be sure, after the crime is reported, ideally the police will investigate, identify suspects, and make arrests. The person charged will face trial, and the jury will decide guilt or innocence. While this process is necessary for our society to feel secure and justice to be served, it would be of absolutely no value to me as I lay face down, my last breath forming small bubbles in a spreading pool of blood.

There are gun control advocates who would deny me the handgun that might enable me to defend against the commission of a violent crime. (Unfortunately, as has been substantiated time and again, bad guys don’t give one whit about gun control laws other than their possibly making acquiring weapons a little more difficult and costly.) Their reasoning seems to be that because others use handguns to commit heinous acts, I must forfeit the ability to protect myself. They offer no one any assurance of protection from violent crime because they can’t. In the hope that some crimes might not be committed, every law-abiding citizen is to be rendered defenseless with the only legal remedy being the potential posthumous prosecution of the criminal. In this way, gun control truly has the potential to harm many innocent people by denying them the right to self-protection.

In the face of the reality that no one can protect me but me, I will keep my handguns. If people wish to disarm themselves, so be it. Let them deal with the violent, well-armed criminal as best they can without a handgun, in which pursuit I wish them luck. They will need it. I, however, will not willingly allow myself to be a helpless victim by disarming.

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Most Americans consider ISIS and what is termed “radical” Islam to be a menace. They are correct insofar as their being a physical threat to America. A more subtle and existential threat to the United States is the growing appeal of progressive politics and their attendant social policies. America’s decline as the unparalleled land of opportunity now approaches the “tipping point” described by Malcolm Gladwell. As a nation, we have forsaken the Founders’ precepts of being a moral, religious, and educated people. At stake is no less than our liberty and freedom. As Hosea prophesied to Israel between 750-725 B.C., we have sown the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.

Progressivism denies the existence of “unalienable rights” as proclaimed in the US Constitution. Rather, adherents to this political philosophy claim that rights are created only by societies for its members. It follows, then, that what societies have given, they can take away. This includes Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, the latter of which to the writers of our Constitution meant acquiring and protecting property.

Early Progressives, among them John Dewey, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt, essentially disagreed with the Founders’ views regarding the rights of men and argued that the Constitution was conceptually and fundamentally flawed. Progressives, broadly representing the liberal and leftist viewpoints, have not bothered to amend the Constitution, but rather have ignored it in promulgating socialist policies and enabling legislation. Sadly, our Supreme Court has been complicit in gutting the Constitutional assertion of unalienable rights. In the view of many, no longer are we endowed with certain unalienable rights conferred upon us by the Creator of the Universe, as the Founding Fathers wrote. Instead, we only have those rights that are vested in us by society, to whom, Progressives hold, we owe all and at whose pleasure we serve.

Much of America along with the liberal left has abandoned the virtue of self-reliance, preferring the siren call of Progressivism. We are rapidly becoming a society in which one claims the wealth of another with impunity and, often, the force of law. Our country is no longer the land of equal opportunity, but of equal outcome regardless of effort or merit.

In “Destiny of the Republic,” author Candice Millard offers a glimpse of America the way it used to be. The book is about James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, his grand character, and his horrific and untimely death. He was the epitome of the self-made man.

President Garfield was not yet two years old when his father died after saving the family’s log cabin from a wildfire. James, his mother, Eliza, and three older siblings carried on in their Cuyahoga County, Ohio farm, although, as the author explains, debts forced the sale of much of their land. Eliza, with the help of James’ eleven-year-old brother Thomas, avoided giving the younger children to more prosperous families by farming what land they had left. Eliza “ . . . was fiercely proud that she and her children had ‘received no aid, worked and won their living and could look any man in the face.’”

Eliza Garfield and people like her built this magnificent country. Hers were the values captured by the Founders of our union in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.

Our country’s Founders were clear: maintaining liberty required a people that embraced morality, religion, and education. They were God-fearing men and any inference that they eschewed religion or belief in a Creator is woefully incorrect. The Declaration of Independence makes several references to Nature’s God and Creator. Including such references to God only as a matter of form, as some suggest, would not have been easily suffered by the likes of John Adams and James Madison. The latter stated, “Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe . . . .”

Our country’s Founders were also adamant about the role of the Creator of the Universe and that the rights of man are derived from God, not man or societies of men. The Declaration of Independence states, “ . . . all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . .” [emphasis added].

The effort over the last fifty years to drive God out of the institution of government is the work of those who would put their faith in government rather than God. We are reaping the bitter harvest of that evil effort.

Recently, I was standing in a checkout line and overheard a conversation between the cashier and a customer, with whom the cashier was evidently friendly. The cashier gleefully told the customer that he had successfully convinced his employer to reduce his workdays from three per week to two. This way, he explained, he would qualify for an additional 26-week extension of his unemployment benefits. Knowing he was gaming the system was not much of a moral or ethical barrier to this person. He is not the only one.

The Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”) reported on February 11, 2013 that millions of people have improperly claimed subsidies under a US program called Lifeline, which is funded by adding a tax to the phone bills of rate-paying Americans. According to the article, the U.S. government of spent about $2.2 billion of these taxes last year to provide telephones, both landlines and cellular telephones, to low income Americans. The Wall Street Journal asked the FCC to review the five top recipients of Lifeline support. These recipients are the phone companies or remarketers that provide the telephone and services under the Lifeline program. That analysis showed that 41% of more than six million subscribers either could not demonstrate their eligibility or did not respond to requests for certification.

What this is telling me is that America is in the midst of a moral and ethical crisis.

The growing role of government in welfare and other “entitlement” programs is undermining the Judeo-Christian ethic so clearly embraced by our country’s Founders. Faced with increasing share of the income tax burden and the frustration with government ineptitude in managing waste and fraud, many taxpayers are giving up, to some extent, on caring for their fellow human beings. The temptation to say, “it’s the government’s job” is just what Progressives and atheists espouse. They have abandoned the Creator of the Universe and the unalienable rights bestowed on all of us by Nature.

Paul Harvey had it right when he wrote in 1964 that if he were the devil he would take over the United States. He would convince the young that man created god and that work is debasing. He would infiltrate unions, peddle narcotics to whom he could, and encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions. He would designate an atheist to front for him before the highest courts and get the courts to vote against God. He would evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from Congress. Sounds like someone has stolen Harvey’s playbook.

Our country is under attack by those who, through ignorance or malice, seek to replace America’s Constitution with Progressive political and social concepts aided by disavowing our Founders insistence that liberty requires a moral, religious, and educated populace. Such an outcome will devastate any hope for our future as an independent and self-reliant people, and we, as a nation, will wither and die. The effects are already being felt across the United States. If we let this happen, this magnificent “land of the free and home of the brave” will become neither.

Millard, Candice Destiny of the Republic. New York: Random House, 2011.

“Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments”, James Madison, 1785.

See US Supreme Court cases Engel v. Vitale, Abington v. Schempp, Wallace v. Jaffree, Allegheny County v. ACLU, and Lee v. Weisman.

Two of the Lifeline subsidy recipients, TracFone Wireless Inc. and Nexus Communications Inc., asked the FCC to keep their counts confidential, so their results were not included in the study.

“If I Were the Devil I Would Pray, Our Father Who Art in Washington”, Paul Harvey, Gadsden Times, October 13, 1964, as referenced in www.Snopes.com.

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