The Libertarian Dilemma

Libertarianism is the fashionable political system du jour. Here’s a definition of Libertarianism taken from the Preamble to the Libertarian Party Platform: “Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their [...]

Al Gore Blows a Gasket and Loses His Memory

Former vice-president Al Gore attacked Christian activists in a speech sponsored by the liberal group MoveOn’s political action committee. “This aggressive new strain of right-wing religious zealotry,” Gore bellowed, “is actually a throwback to the intolerance that led to the creation of America in the first place.” Actually, attacks on “religious zealotry” are actually a throwback to the rhetoric [...]

Only Liberals Can Use Religion and Other Lies of the Left

If there was ever an event to drive liberals mad, it was the “Justice Sunday” event. The political Left just can’t believe that Christians are using churches to get their message out about what’s happening in the Senate over the choice of judges and what’s taking place in the courts in general. If the fashionably outraged were consistent, they would have voiced simila [...]

Religion and "Justice Sunday"

The Family Research Council sponsored “Justice Sunday—Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith” (April 24, 2005) as a wake-up call to Christians that judicial nominees are being filibustered because some of the nominees consider religious beliefs to be important in judicial decision making. The claim is being made by liberal Democrats that these nominees are “radical”—outside the political [...]

The Destructive Generation - Why the Nation is a Mess

Those nurtured on the radicalism of the 1960s have been described as the “destructive generation.” The advance of drugs into middle-class culture made its entry through the doorway of the progressive 1960s. Doses of “free love” and “free sex” were passed around as easily as a shared marijuana cigarette. “If you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with”[1] is a line from a 1960 [...]

An Editorial Writer Without a Clue

Editorial writers have an advantage over journalists. Journalists, at least in the days when fact checking was an honored part of the profession, had to get their stories straight. Writing an opinion column that reads like a news story has become fashionable. Opinion trumps facts. The latest entry into fantasy land is an article by Leonard Pitts who writes for the Miami Herald. He takes on the so- [...]

Judges Have Lost Their Minds - But We Knew This

In March 2000, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the death sentence in a murder case because an assistant district attorney urged jurors to follow certain biblical mandates related to the death penalty. “During closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial, D. Brandon Hornsby, the assistant district attorney, cited passages from the books of Romans, Genesis, and Matthew, telling jur [...]

Does God Care About Nations Today?

Question: The other day, in a discussion about God’s covenant promises and their application to the United States, a guy told me that 2 Chronicles 7:14 had no application. This didn’t sound right to me and I was wondering what your thoughts were. Answer: How could this verse not apply today? Are not Christians God’s people? The Bible also says “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LO [...]

Is Terri Schiavo Jeb Bush's Mary Jo Kopechne?

In case you’ve forgotten or you’ve never heard the story, Mary Jo Kopechne was a “friend” of Senator Ted Kennedy. Coming back from a cook-out for campaign workers on Chappaquiddick Island, Kennedy was accompanied by Mary Jo Kopechne who had worked for Robert Kennedy. Things went terribly wrong as they crossed a narrow bridge close to midnight. The car left the bridge and plunged into the deep pond [...]

If I were King (Solomon) for a Day

I can remember when there were only three television networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC and their local affiliates. Reception was so bad in our area that we had a tough time pulling in the NBC signal at night. This meant that I never saw an episode of Bonanza or Star Trek until I went off to college. But during the day, the NBC signal (channel 11 in Pittsburgh) came in as clearly as the other two. [...]

A Flexible Document in the Hands of Flexible Moralists

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on March 15, 2005, weighed in on the latest Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty. If you recall, a majority of the justices (5–4) ruled that the death penalty could not be applied to anyone under the age of 18. The March 1 ruling was based on “evolving notions of decency.” The logic of the r [...]

The Good Old Days Weren't

The libertarian humorist P. J. O’Rourke says, “When you think of the good old days, think ‘dentistry.’” The greatest invention of the modern world is anesthetics. Prior to 1844, in preparation for an operation, you drank booze until you passed out–hopefully. Then the physician – “sawbones,” he was called –got started hacking away.[1] Michael Crichton, best known for The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Th [...]

Free Speech Doesn't Mean I Have to Pay for It

I received the following email from someone who came across American Vision’s website: “I don’t trust any site that doesn’t allow comments on articles.” I responded by stating that I try to answer every email that comes across my computer. It may take me some time to get to all of them, but I try. He wrote back, not satisfied with my answer: “I believe people have the right to know how [...]

A Little Bible Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

A number of letter writers have weighed in on the Ten Commandments controversy. Ed Buckner, secretary of the Georgia chapter of Americans united for Separation of Church and State, writes that “nowhere in or on the [Supreme Court] building is to be found any version of the text of the Ten Commandments.” This is true. Let’s suppose that there were crosses on government buildings o [...]

The Ten Commandments Go To Trial

The Supreme Court is going to rule whether copies of the Ten Commandments can hang in government buildings. This is the same court that’s ruled it’s OK for a girl under the age of 18 to murder a preborn baby, but it’s not OK to execute a murderer if he or she is under 18. The Court has just made anyone under 18 the most dangerous group in America. So don’t get your hopes up on this Ten Commandment [...]

Million Dollar Baby -- A Missed Opportunity

I wanted to like Million Dollar Baby. If you haven’t seen the movie, and you have plans to see it, you might not want to read any further. I love movies with twists and turns. Being fooled plot-wise is a great artistic vehicle. My first encounter with the motif was with Charles Eric Maine’s science fiction novel The Man Who Owned the World,[1] a book I read when I was 13. [...]

Modern-Day Ahabs

Susette Kelo owns a house that she doesn’t want to sell. You would think that if she doesn’t want to sell something, she shouldn’t have to. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment gives the power of “eminent domain” to governments. This allows governments to seize property as long as “just compensation” is given and the property will be put to “public use.” Historically, public use has meant railroads, [...]

Is it my Civic Duty to pay for Other People's Stuff?

John Harrison, who is a senior at Druid Hills High School in DeKalb County, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, was miffed when he was rebuffed by parents at a private school when they refused to purchase a discount coupon for Domino’s Pizza. The money was to go to his public school’s art program. They told him, “We already contribute through taxes, and we pay for our children to go to school, so why do [...]

Homosexual Penguins and Human Sexuality

A German zoo was planning to introduce male penguins into a group of female penguins because the female penguins seem to be attracted to one another. Homosexual rights groups are angry with the plan because theybelieve the zoo’s actions are trying to turn the penguins straight. Here’s the premise: Whatever animals do in nature is natural. What’s natural is normal. What’s normal is moral. So if pen [...]

Did George Bush Lie About America Being Founded on Christian Principles?

“The lesson the President has learned best—and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him—is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the pic [...]