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A Gallup Poll Reveals A Stark Reality – America’s Moral Decline Continues Unabated.
Gallup has just released the astonishing results of a survey designed to measure how American’s ideas about immorality have changed over the past dozen years. Not surprisingly, the poll revealed that the moral standard has declined significantly as evidenced by the acceptance in the media of once questionable moral standards such as same-sex marriage and extra marital affairs.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin and Rick Green of Wall Builders Live discuss the slide of America morals and the importance of the Judeo-Christian culture in preserving the country in a Wall Builders Live Interview regarding the Moral Absolutes, secularism and socialism.
Rabbi Lapin makes three interesting observations regarding the decline of America’s moral’s and it’s culture decline in his Wall Builders Live interview. First, when a decent people abandon faith they don’t become murder’s and robbers they become secularist and socialist. Secondly, when you take faith in Judeo-Christian away, secularism becomes the default belief position. And thirdly, a society does not stop with secularism. It moves on to decadence, depravity and finally oblivion. If you don’t believe that simply take a look back in history at the Romans, the British, the French or the Russians. Politics is nothing other than the practical application of your most deeply held moral values.
Regarding the family and moral values Missouri State Representative Rick Stream of Kirkwood, Missouri makes a very interesting observation regarding Missouri’s Unaccredited School District’s and the children it effects at the 7:18 mark of this interview with Charles Jaco today on Saint Louis’ Fox 2 Now and The Jaco Report.
And finally this via the Gateway Pundit, RedState and the Agenda Documentary: Grinding America Down. Filmmaker and former Idaho state rep Curtis Bowers describes what he discovered after infiltrating the communist party in the 90s and how it’s connected to what’s happening in America today. In a interview with the TheDailyCaller, Curtis had these chilling words… “I think the evil that is capable of happening in the next four years is not a pretty picture… It’s very sad to think that our country voted, after what he had already done ahead of time, to have another four years of that, but it shows how far we’ve really gone.”
She’s ‘Armed & Fabulous’: Meet Thirteen Year Old Shooting Star Katelyn Francis.
This story comes via Wall Builders Live and The Blaze. Like most 13-yr-old girls, Katelyn (Katie) Francis has a Facebook page. However, unlike most 13-yr old girls, the young Miss Francis describes herself like this: “Katelyn is a 13 year old who enjoys competing in Multi Gun matches around the country.”
It was on Facebook that we first spotted Katelyn in this video titled, “Fight Like A Girl. Watch This Little Girl Shoot Like A BOSS.”
That short video showed Katie competing in a three-gun event. The first weapon used, also known as a “stage gun,” is provided by the match and used by all of the competitors, was an Adaptive Combat Rifle or ACR. Katelyn then continues through the course using her Benelli 12 gauge shotgun and her Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol.
Shooting is in the young lady’s DNA. Her father, Sgt. First Class Chad Francis, happens to be the state marksmanship coordinator for the Missouri Army National Guard. Dad Chad has been teaching his daughter about guns and gun safety since she was five years old. Katie told the NRA, “Dad taught there’s 10 gun safety rules. He made me say them over and over again. My dad’s a real stickler about making me always be safe.”
When she was 9-yrs-old, Katie started pestering her dad to take her hunting and shooting. Her mom was not exactly supportive of this request, but eventually relented and dad gave the young girl a .22. The next year, when she turned 10, Katie graduated to a 9mm pistol.
Father and daughter have both been shooting competitively since 2010.
Congratulations on a job well done, young lady!
‘Religion, Morality and Knowledge’: Michelle Malkin and David Barton Reveal the Darker Side of Education Reform.
This story comes Via The Blaze and Wall Builder’s Live… Michelle Malkin tackled education reform and the ever-contentious Common Core standards during Glenn Beck’s Man in the Moon event. Covering a different side of the coin, historian David Barton later delved into the historical roots of religion in education and how the system has profoundly changed over the past few decades.
Both made their remarks during the Independence Through Education conference — an education panel covering a plethora of associated education issues.
In order to understand education in America and the government’s Common Core initiative, Malkin said that the first step is to be informed. The second objective, she said, is to be engaged, telling the crowd that they should use social media to ensure that their voices are heard.
“We need a critical mass and what Twitter and Facebook allow you to do is have a diffusion of knowledge and a knowledge base,” she said, calling for people to insert themselves in the discussion in an effort to save the nation’s schools.
As for Common Core and the current reforms, Malkin noted that the federal government used stimulus money to force states into compliance. To drive home the dangers of education reform proposals, she compared the initiatives to Obamacare.
“If you think Obamacare is bad, wait until you get a load of Obamacore. … it may as well be Bushcore — Jeb Bush, George W. Bush, George Walker Bush and the entire wing of the Republican party that has forsaken the [small government] role that the federal government is supposed to play,” Malkin said.
Teachers, rather than bureaucrats, she argued, are supposed to discern how to “deliver and impart” lessons.
“The collectivist mission of these educators is completely explicit and we cannot collaborate with people who are trying to bring this country down,” she added.
Malkin said that the battle never ends. While the key players change, the “unholy alliance” unfolds again and again. Conservatives, she argued, must get involved in the battle to stop Common Core.
More and More Americans Are Becoming CCW Permit Holders. And Then There Was Illinois.
And this via Hot Air… Firearms sales have been on the up and up since President Obama was elected in 2008, and the federal government’s attempt to pass more national gun-control measures did nothing to quell the firearms industry’s personal economic boom. It isn’t merely gun sales, however, that have lately been experiencing a major surge; the WSJ has the numbers indicating an encouraging trend of more and more Americans taking the responsibility of carrying a concealed weapon upon their person. We’re only halfway through 2013, and it already looks like plenty of states are on track for their biggest permitting years on record.
The tragic murders in Newton, Connecticut and Aurora, Colorado spurred a gun debate at not only the national but the state level, and much of the media focus was on states that undertook efforts to tighten their gun laws (Connecticut, New York, Maryland, California, and Colorado figuring prominently).
Plenty of states, however, actually went about easing up on gun laws; the WSJ mentions that at least 20 states have loosened laws on concealed-carry, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Individual states’ measures have included making permits cheaper and easier to gets, doing away with permits altogether, allowing concealed carry in more places, and/or generally streamlining the process through which their law-abiding residents can exercise their Second-Amendment freedoms and protect themselves and their families, neighbors, and communities.
Cardinals’ GM Orders End to Cross Display on the Pitcher’s Mound.
This via the Daily Caller and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. – Christian crosses are not welcome symbols for mound decoration at Busch Stadium.
Late last week, St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak ordered the Busch Stadium grounds crew to stop carving a cross on backside of the pitching mound, according to news reports.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that recently the grounds crew had carved a cross and the number 6 on the mound during home games in honor of Cardinals great Stan Musial.
Stan Musial died this past January at the age of 92.
“Once we learned of it,” Mozeliak told the Post-Dispatch, “I did contact the grounds crew and just asked that they don’t.”
Mozeliak said that he found out about the cross carvings in a Post-Dispatch article, which first reported about the mound carvings in late June.
“They’ve been there every time for me,” Cardinals right-hander Adam Wainwright told the paper at the time.
At least one fan, Michael Vines wrote to the Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Riverfront Times to complain about the “inappropriate” religious display.
However, the practice however ended Friday.
“It’s just not club policy to be putting religious symbols on the playing field or throughout the ballpark,” Mozeliak said. “I didn’t ask for the reason behind it. I just asked for it to stop.”
“If you want to stencil, ‘Stl,’ or something like that, that’s fine,” Mozeliak added to the Post-Dispatch, “but that’s not something we’ve asked anyone to do.”
According to the Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals are one of the few teams in baseball to not etch their logo on the back of the mound.
Does Sarah Palin Have A Point? Teddy Roosevelt Had One And Wilson Ended Up President.
This via RedState… Does Sarah Palin have a point? She’s Point Guard; she’s got to have a point! Joking aside, yes, she does. And furthermore, she’s also reached a point – a point of total and complete frustration. “If the GOP is a Conservative Party, why in the Sam Heck doesn’t it actually act like Conservatives want it to?” She probably demands in anger. I can’t blame the lady. I’ve felt like asking the same thing myself.
I’ll concede Sarah’s anger has a valid gravamen. I don’t identify as a Republican so that it can get me hooked up at the club. I expect that real patriots will speak hard truths to stupid voters. The republic demands better than extend and pretend. It’s not just going to be OK in ten years. The Valley Forge Patriot won’t go along with fiascoes like the Gang of Eight Comprehensive Amnesty Reform so that Barack Obama will very publically pat him on his ofay, finely-coiffed head. So the correct question to ask here would be. “Is she doing anything constructive with said emotions when she talks about founding a 3rd Party to challenge both The Democrats and The GOP?”
To get a sense of that, it helps to draw historical analogies to past situations that were similar. Up until 1912, Theodore Roosevelt considered himself a good Republican. Then William Howard Taft defeated him for the 1912 Presidential nomination. Roosevelt then went 3rd Party, forming The Progressive Party*.
TR felt that he had a moral justification to separate himself from the GOP at that point. He believed he was the reformer and that Taft, dare I say it, was a RINO. American History Dot Com describes Roosevelt’s platform… True to Roosevelt’s progressive beliefs, the platform of the party called for major reforms including women’s suffrage, social welfare assistance for women and children, farm relief, revisions in banking, health insurance in industries, and worker’s compensation. The party also wanted an easier method to amend the constitution.
So if you think The Income Tax (16th Amendment), Prohibition (18th Amendment), and The League of Nations, were all good ideas, than so was the Bull Moose Party. It sure made a point. It made a point of Teddy Roosevelt handing the Democrats an election in which their candidate only received 43% of the vote. Amazing how that reminds me of H. Ross Perot’s impact on the Election of 1992.
So Sarah Palin should be mad. She just shouldn’t go away mad. And she certainly shouldn’t be teaming up with Mark Levin. Mark Levin articulates Conservative principles well, but like George Will or Rush Limbaugh, he still gets paid (and perhaps paid more) if Nancy Pelosi is lobbing more idiocy bombs against traditionalism as The Speaker of The House. I’m reminded of a chapter from Rush Limbaugh’s old book The Way Things Ought To Be. He stated “my success is not determined by who wins elections.” America’s, on the other hand, directly is.
So if Governor Palin wants to use her popularity to move the GOP in a more rightward direction, I say “Give ‘em hell!” But please do so from within the party, using the grassroots and the primary process as a fulcrum. Being a point guard is more than just having a point. It also involves orchestrating scoring plays that win the game. Those, she can capably do from within the party. Remember, Senator Ted Cruz does more for Conservatives on his days off than Mark Levin does when he yells invectives over the airwaves. Sarah Palin should try and give us more like Senator Ted Cruz.
Oh, and one more thing…
Third Parties Elect Real Conservatives. Oh, wait…
Delay of Employer Mandate Only the Latest Snag in Implementing ObamaCare.
And this via Fox News… The Obama administration delaying the start of the employer mandate part of ObamaCare this week is not the first snag in implementing the president’s signature health care law.
Other parts of the 2010 law have already been delayed or discarded, including a requirement that businesses fill out an IRS form for any purchases over a year exceeding $600. Congress repealed that in June 2011.
“It was extremely onerous (and) raised very little revenue,” says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and chief economic policy adviser to Arizona Republican Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign.
Amanda Austin, a public policy director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, compared the IRS 1099 requirement to the employer mandate, which required many small and medium-sized businesses to provide employee health insurance or face paying penalties.
She argued both came with “tons” of “extremely complicated” paperwork and that the changes were in large part the result of business uproar.
“I think you heard a lot from businesses, really an outcry of why are we doing this,” she said about the IRS requirement. “And down the road obviously we got the provision repealed.”
The administration acknowledged as much in the surprise announcement Tuesday that the start of the employee mandate would be delayed from 2014, when much of the law is scheduled to take effect, to 2015.
“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively,” said Mark J. Mazur, a Treasury Department assistant secretary.
Holtz-Eakin and others also point out the administration also had to scrap the so-called CLASS Act section of ObamaCare that offered federally-subsidized insurance for long-term health care because the legislation stated the premiums had to cover the cost.
Holtz-Eakin called the plan “unworkable.”
Two other parts of the law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, also have either been delayed or scuttled.
Earlier this year, the administration delayed until 2015 the start of a managed-care option inserted into ObamaCare by Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, who then accused officials of dragging their feet to avoid lower cost competition.
“Our read of the statute is that you’re supposed to do it in 2014 and not spend your time luring people into the exchange,” Cantwell said in April on Capitol Hill. “Is there a bias somewhere in the administration against lower-cost, managed-care delivery systems?”
The administration has also delayed the start of an ObamaCare provision known as SHOP – an insurance exchange that gives small business a range of choices.
Now those businesses have only one plan, contrary to Obama’s vow that the law would provide a range of options.
“I think the bottom line is that the law is very convoluted, very complicated and is bad policy,” said Katie Mahoney, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s executive director of health care policy.
Neil Trauntwein, an employee-benefits lawyer for the National Retail Federation, says the delays have at least allowed business leaders to return to Capitol Hill to discuss such issues as whether the cutoff for the employer mandate should less than 50 full-time employees and if a 30-hour week is the best definition of a full-time worker.