For some reason that site is now down. It may have been because the national sex offender registry has been making it harder for others to compile their information. Some people think that registry poses a danger to sex offenders, especially after some nutcase killed two several years ago, after locating them via the public registry. But quite a number of parents feel the registry helps protect their children from those who would exploit them.

Unfortunately, it appears that those who manage these registries aren't very efficient, because while addresses are supplied, they are often wrong and very hard to locate. Based on the current addresses of 5 of the sex offenders listed as living in the same town I live in, they all live within 500 feet of a school. According to state law, they're not supposed to live within 5,000 feet of a school. But another site shows their location (same exact address) at another part of town. The geocode locators provided for addresses don't seem to be very efficient, and ironically enough, one sex offender in the registry had a comment by city police that the address was bad, but that seems to be as far as anyone's actually done anything.

One problem I see is that the sex offender registry has been abused by tossing people into it who do not belong. One person listed locally was convicted of "allowing abuse", which usually means her child was abused by someone else, but she didn't do enough to stop or prevent the abuse, based on some DA's standard. Should that be someone listed on a sex offender registry? Men who are accused of abuse by bitter ex-wives would also find themselves on the registry, along side people whose parenting style don't match the whims of whatever social worker wanted to make an example of them.

But, there are dangerous people on that list as well. People parents need to know about. According to the national registry there are ten sex offenders that live within the same zip code as my family, but based on the addresses provided, it's almost impossible to know where exactly they live. Many of the addresses don't match local streets. Presumably there's someone that supposed to make sure the data the taxpayers are paying for to be in that registry is actually usable, but it seems that presumption is wrong.

Why have a national registry if it can't be used?

The answer is because having the registry offers the illusion that something's being done, which is the real goal of many bureaucrats, the appearance, not the reality.

Why waste taxpayers' money on programs that fail to provide what's needed?

Because to those bureaucrats and politicians, the appearance is all that matters. We have entire generations of Americans well trained in situation ethics, which means they determine right or wrong based on their own rules, their own needs. They want to appear to care, but really don't, so they make a system that, on the surface, perpetuates that illusion, but in reality is a sham.

But isn't making up your own rules based on your own needs and perceptions pretty much what make sex offenders, sex offenders?

The societal impact of moral relativism creates abusers, then prevents us from responding to them correctly, because those we trust to do so, think it's okay to "fake it".

How hard would it be to actually locate these sex offenders and monitor their whereabouts? Not very. A simple latitude and longitude to accompany the address would allow parents to quickly see what locations to avoid. It would also help determine of the locations the sex offenders chose, fit the law. Why is that so hard?

We took morality out of schools, we took the foundation out of the nation. Let's start rebuilding it by electing leaders who won't compromise on the need for moral absolutes in government,  rather than leaders who hide from any stand that may demonstrate they understand right from wrong.

We reached this point in our nation's growth because we provided freedom and opportunity for America's citizens. We know that while so many of the world may criticize us for various reasons, few wouldn't give their right arm for the opportunity to live and work here. We stand at the pinnacles of what every nation wishes they could become, and we beckon to them to emulate our own path, in making their nation free and prosperous as well.

Meanwhile we are throwing our achievements away with wild abandon.

America is free because the Founding Fathers recognize a set of core principles that any free nation must posses. America is prosperous because the Founding Fathers also recognized a set of core principles that individuals in a free society must posses. Those core principles have been under attack for quite some time.

While the Constitution outlines the form and function of the US Government, the Bill of Rights was added as a leash on that same government, limiting it's scope and power.

The First Amendment was supposed to provide for freedom of speech and religion. Yet we now face "hate crime" laws which will make speech which a minority of the population find "offensive", criminal. Freedom of religion has been so curtailed that the moral influence our nation's pastors, priests, rabbis and other religious leaders once had, has now been declared illegal, and a political speech by religious leaders is punished, unless it conforms to a specific political agenda—then it is allowed as is exampled by the practice of Democrat candidates making political speeches from the pulpits of Liberal churches.

The Second Amendment was supposed to protect the right to bear arms, yet in many parts of the nation it is impossible to legally own a gun.

The Fourth Amendment was supposed to guarantee the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, but the court have conveniently allowed the local governments to seize private property for public use, which can be defined as nothing more than what the local government determines is a more "profitable" business. The courts have also allowed the ridiculous farce of the "arrest" of property, which allows law enforcement to "detain" the property, while then placing the burden of proof of "innocence" on the property. A measure supposed to allow for more control fighting drug distributors, but has been used repeatedly on people with no evidence of involvement in any crime.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees a speedy trial, as well as protection against double-jeopardy and forced self-incrimination. Admittedly the lack of speedy trial comes more from the use of delay tactics on the part of some defense lawyers than the government, but it is disturbing when some guilty verdicts result in prison sentences shorter than the time already served waiting for the trial to end. But what about double-jeopardy? I was amazed when the four police officers accused of beating Rodney King were tried twice, once in local court, then again in Federal court, for the same crime. The hypocrisy of self-incrimination really bugs me. What the Founding Father's wanted was to eliminate torture, yet many police tactics regularly used, seem unusually harsh, especially when they can and do result in false confessions.

What do each and every one of these aberrations stem from? A lack of moral foundation. These core principles that a free nation must posses, we see cannot be maintained unless those core principles that the citizens of that nation, also posses, maintain and pass on to the next generation. What are those core, individual principles?

1. There is a God, and He is in control
2. God makes rules.
3. We cannot change those rules.

Moral relativism allows any rule to become a suggestion. That's why we see our Bill of Rights stripped of it's meaning and relevance as courts and politicians redefine them for their own convenience.

Two approaches to freedom

Two men tried to explain the value of the Democratic process.

One was a Deist, who passionately believed in God, but stopped short of acknowledging any personal relationship with God. Hardly someone in step with most modern religions.

The other was an Atheist. Intelligent, articulate, passionate in his own ideas and philosophies, but firmly believing there was no God.

Both men wrote famous treaties on the value of Democracy—literature still available and widely read today.

The Deist was Thomas Paine, who provided valuable philosophical support for the newly formed United States as they wrestled with what type of government to form. Thomas Paine argued in "Common Sense"...

But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law OUGHT to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony, be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

The Atheist was a man named Sun Yat Sen, a Chinese politician. In his book "Principles of Democracy" he admitted that democracy ran contrary to nature, but because he and others believed it was best, it should be adopted. His arguments were ultimately unpersuasive as history has shown. China rejected democracy and embraced Communism, leaving Sun Yat Sen and his followers to relocate to the Island of Taiwan.

Without those core principles outlined above, embraced by a significant part of the population, especially the leaders, a nation cannot long maintain freedom—it can't even begin to accept it. It is only by acknowledging a moral foundation outside our own right and ability to alter, that the strong can submit their ambitions to the protection and betterment of the weak. That is the essence of what has made America strong, free and prosperous.

It is only by electing leaders who unashamedly embrace and support traditional values that we can hope to avoid the trap of moral relativism, and the devastation it would wreak on our nation.

Before you grab a pencil and paper and try to figure it out, it's a trick question. The boat rises with the water, so the water level on the ladder hung from the boat will always be exactly the same no matter how much higher it gets.

Question. If the purchasing power of the poorest people in the nation is currently at $5,000 per year in 1980 dollars, by raising the minimum wage 70 cents a year how long until their purchasing power is increased to $6,000 in 1980 dollars?

Wait, put down that pencil and paper. This is the same trick question. Our economy adjusts to supply, demanding and most importantly, purchasing power. The more money people have to buy things, the more expensive things get. Also, the more money employers are forced to pay their employees, the more expensive those goods and services that employers provides, will be to the rest of us.

Raising the minimum wage is nothing more than political snake oil. It makes some politicians look good, but hurts business, raises prices, reduces the number of minimum wage jobs and does nothing to improve those who slick politicians are pretending to help.

Proponents of the Minimum wage/snake oil scam claim that raising the minimum wage helps poor families. Dab that tear, then let's look beyond the scam.

The Heritage Foundation reports that 53% of minimum wage employees are teenagers or young adults under the age of 23. The other 47% have an average family income of $38,100 per year.

Less than 21 percent of minimum wage workers are the sole breadwinners of their families and less than 5 percent are sole breadwinners that work full-time year-round.

The average family income for all minimum wage workers is $45,200 and their wages account for 35 percent of their total family income.

The US Department of Health and Human Services places the 2007 poverty line for a family of four (close to the average family size) at $20,650. So how exactly are these poor families when they make well above the poverty line?

As John Cox said, "Raising the Federal minimum wage is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but is in fact very destructive, and could cripple our economy by forcing wages upward and creating higher prices for nearly everything we buy."

Several decades ago Japan was rocked with an epidemic of a condition known as Subacute Myelo-Optico-Neuropathy (SMON). Two drugs had been quickly developed when the condition first surfaced, Emaform and Entero-vioform, both brand names for a drug known as clioquinol. But the epidemic raged on. By 1966 over 2,000 people were suffering from the painful and as yet incurable stomach malady. It took the government of Japan almost two decades, untold millions of dollars and intense research by numerous health experts to finally conclude that SMON was caused by...clioquinol the very medicine they had been prescribing patients who were suspected of being in danger of the disease. The source of the disease was the supposed cure.*

Raising the minimum wage hurts America's poor by focusing the government's efforts in the wrong place as well as crippling those who are best suited to helping the poor, small businesses looking for employees. Making it harder to hire people is not the way to ensure people get jobs. It is, however, an easy way to get votes from people too naive to understand the real economic impact of an artificially inflated minimum wage.

While notably the worst, China is not our only problem when it comes to unfair trade. Much of Asia and Latin America have substandard living for most of their population therefore wages are extremely low, making production costs low, giving them an advantage against American produced goods. The problem is not just that we can't sell the stuff we make, but the imbalance gives an incentive to unscrupulous governments to maintain poverty levels in order to compete. That causes the people of those nations to suffer.

But trade is an awkward thing. If we raise tariffs too high, then many nations will retaliate with their own tariffs, reducing the markets for our goods. To a point, we can ignore some, as we have with habitual human right abusers like Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. But those nations don't export much of anything that we consider all that important (Cuban cigars aside). On the other hand we have grown dependant on the exports from oil-producing middle-eastern nations as well as cheap, communist-Chinese produced garbage.

So the "Fair" part of Fair Trade is interpreted differently depending on who's doing the interpreting.

Wide-open trade with third world nations supposedly gives them an economic advantage, but after years of such attempts, we see that it only marginally and very much slowly affects the bulk of the people in those nations. Hugo Chavez is a perfect example of why too much trade can seriously hurt a nation.

At the same time we have our own economy to worry about. We've developed a standard of living far above what the vast majority of the world's population enjoys. But we earned it honestly, and rather than a mark of shame it should be a badge of honor noting our ingenuity and hard work. But, no, rather than something to emulate, we are treated as if we've done something wrong.

So there's the conundrum. We have a high standard of living, which much of the world doesn't. Rather than working at solving their problem the same way we did it, they want us to sacrifice our standard of living so they can improve theirs, except that's not what they'll do. No, a handful in power will get the giant's share and dole out spoonfuls to the hard working, impoverished masses while socialists in our own country whine that it's all our fault.

There are three approaches to a solution.

One, design our trade policies to optimize our own economy. This isn't actually as heartless as it seems. This was more or less Reagan's approach and it did produce positive results. For one thing it allows foreign nations to be treated as equals, something they do respect, even if they rarely voice it. Second, it places corrupt leaders in a very untenable position, because they cannot maintain their own oppressive control and maintain economic stability. Something has to give. During Reagan's administration the Soviet Union fell, precisely because they couldn't maintain economic viability (Okay, Reagan gave them a swift kick in the pants by escalating the arms race, but their weak economy was their Achilles Heel, and that was Reagan target). The Sandinistas in Nicaragua also fell from power in part because their Marxist ideologies could not maintain any sort of stable economy. The biggest problem with this approach is that while it helps our economy, the benefit it gives foreign economies is much like pulling a tooth with no pain-killer. It will stop the pain, but not before causing a tremendous amount of more pain in the process. But sometimes, that's the only option.

The second approach is to design our trade policies in order to assist impoverished nations. This sounds very compassionate, but in practice is anything but. This was both Jimmy Carter as well as Bill Clinton's approach, and resulted in empowered despots, who ruled suffering people—as well as fostering a growing hatred for America for contributing to the problems of third-world nations. It also required our diplomats to treat foreign nations like children we needed to parent. No adult likes that, least of all foreign diplomats.

The third option is one that hasn't been tried, because it takes too much cooperation, something Democrats with their infatuation for cruel despots refuse to give. Design our trade polices to primarily optimize our own economy, but with leeway for the encouragement of freedom and industry in impoverished nations. If Mexicans would apply the same effort to improving their own economy and politics that they do in trying to sneak into this country, Mexico would be competing with us as a world leader. They have the people, they have the resources, they just lack the ambition because they seem to think it's easier to simply swim across the Rio Grande and mow someone's lawn than take a risk on starting a business back in Jaurez. The same is true for most nations with struggling economies. The reason they come here is because of the opportunities, opportunities that don't exist in their countries because of the lack of freedom that they won't bother to fight for. Freedom make people less malleable, and despots don't like that, but freedom is attainable if you simply fight for it.

While truly fair trade will definitely help us, in the long term it also helps third-world nations by forcing corrupt leaders to offer freedom in order to maintain economic stability. The alternative simply makes the problem worse.

If this were just one kid who has gotten too big for his britches, then it would only be a small part of the passing parade of human foibles. But school children all across the country are being encouraged or assigned to engage in letter-writing campaigns, taking up the time of people ranging from journalists to congressmen and presidents. Worse, these pupils are led to believe that having opinions is more important than knowing what you are talking about.

Few things are more dangerous than articulate superficiality. Glib demagogues have been the curse of the 20th century and tens of millions of human beings have paid with their lives for the heady visions and clever talk of political egotists. Yet the danger is not that a particular child will follow in the footsteps of Lenin, Hitler or Mao. The danger is that great numbers of people will never know what it is to know, as distinguished from sounding off....

If our so-called educators cannot be bothered to teach our children knowledge and logic, they can at least refrain from undermining the importance of knowledge and logic by leading students to believe that how you feel and express yourself are what matter.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Bush's infamous No Child Left Behind attempts to crossbreed the Conservative principles of local control, basic education and fair accommodation with Liberal/Socialist concepts of so-called "outcome-based education", standardized testing (for students, not teachers) and substituting glossy sounding words for actual substance. It initially had support on both sides of the isle, but everyone except the Whitehouse soon realized it failed to provide much of anything other than red-tape and lots and lots of cheating.

President Bush's strong suit is supposed to be compromise. It's been said he can get differing parties to come together better than anyone else. But in this case there really was never any common ground. While Conservatives see education as a tool to empower the individual, Liberals see it as a method of maintaining control of the individual by the state—the opposite of empowerment. It's been said that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. But Liberals have discovered that if you convince him that all fish are poisonous that don't come from you, then you make him a slave forever. That, in a nutshell, is how Liberals use education.

At one point in our history it was recognized by communities that educated citizens made for more productive and honest citizens. It was decided that land-owners benefited the most from an educated community, because they would be the first to suffer from theft by those unable to earn a living otherwise. Thus was born the property tax to fund education. Eventually the states started taking control of the schools until by the middle of the 20th century all of the states controlled school districts, consolidating many smaller districts into larger ones. It was inevitable that the Federal government got involved and wrestled as much control as they could. After all whoever controls the education of today's children controls the attitude of tomorrow's political leaders.

The problem is that we forgot one of the most important lessons we had learned when we'd won our independence from Britain—the strength of decentralization. While the British troops were organized polished and "professional". American soldiers in the 18th century utilized what the French called "Little War" or Guerilla warfare. Keeping troops in small groups, attacking quickly, giving the enemy few targets to hit and minimizing damage by never having too many troops in one spot. It worked as a handful of "peasants" whooped the snot out of what was thought of as the most formidable army on the planet.

By centralizing our education system, we make the same mistake the British did in the late 1700s. If one department controls education, then that one department can be manipulated and controlled. The Department of Education itself is the single biggest liability to our education system. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, himself argued for the dissolution of the Department in order to minimize the deleterious affect the nation's teachers' unions had on education. While most unions have a clear distinction between labor and management, the NEA and the AFT both allow teachers and administrators to join, thus declaring rather than helping labor fight management, they are helping labor and management fight parents, and the children those parents want educated. And their efforts are only made possible by the existence of the US Department of Education and the centralized control of America's schools.

That's why schools fight the ideas of vouchers, merit pay, homeshooling, teacher testing or any other measure that would actually improve education. Our schools are controlled by members of  power-mad unions that fights for what benefits the teachers (and their own Liberal/socialist agenda) at the expense of the education of the children.

In 1993 we were expecting our second child, and also had no insurance. We managed to save up some money and contacted the hospital regarding paying the bill ourselves. They said prepaying meant we could spend only $2,000, only if there were no complications and it included only 3 days in the hospital. But this was the hospital, and the doctors, both the OBGYN and the Pediatrician. The whole shebang.

Last year I had my gall bladder removed. Because my liver was also affected I had to stay in the hospital a week. The hospital billed our insurance company over $25,000 dollars, of which the insurance company paid $10,000. The hospital then billed us a bit over $1,100 and wrote the rest off. Then followed an army of specialists, anesthesiologists, and other varied and assorted -ists—each also billing both the insurance company and us. I was actually expecting to get a bill from the janitor, but that never came (Maybe they need to change their title to "Janitorists").

What in the world happened between 1958 and 2007?!?

In 1958 few people had insurance, so hospital bills were scrutinized carefully by the people paying them. Today patients are so far removed form the eventual billing process that they rarely see the actual bill. And while insurance makes us feel better about those occasional needs for medical care, we ultimately pay for all of it and more. It may be skimmed off your paycheck before you ever see it, but it's still your money—you earned it.

I used to work as an optician, so have seen the "game" played from a health provider's perspective. I also, obviously, understand it from a patient's perspective. But it's still a game, a silly one at that. The provider charges more than they expect to get. The insurance company pays less than what's billed, but doesn't look too carefully at the bill, and the insured eventually pays for everything—$10 aspirins and all.

But the question that still bothers me: If a health care provider intentionally overcharges knowing the insurance company will underpay—how is that not insurance fraud?  Is it because the patient, who ultimately pays the bill, is the only one that doesn't understand the "rules"? If the insurance company is not monitoring the bills all that carefully, how do they know they only over-charged, 20%, 40%, or 60%? And why has this system been allowed to continue so long? Could it be the $265 million plus in political donations made by the insurance industry over the past 9 years? Maybe the almost $350 million in political contributions made by health care providers over the past 9 years has also had a "tiny" affect. Both industries profit heavily from the current confusion which leaves the average Joe paying out the nose for outrageously-priced, health care.

Oh, the Democrats have a solution, identical to Karl Marx's solution to the imagined evils of Capitalism—cement the problem into the bureaucracy so everyone suffers equally. In other words—socialized medicine. Except there's always a group that somehow manages to escape the suffering everyone else is expected to endure: Those who make and enforce the rules. Isn't that convenient.

Another disastrous idea Democrats have pushed is tax deduction for employee health insurance. The problem with that is it endorses an additional layer into the already confusing mix. If you thought having three players in the game was confusing, adding a fourth would make it almost incomprehensible. The problem isn't that employers aren't offering health coverage, but that health care itself is too expensive as both the provider and the insurance industry milk the public of money that all too often never needed to be spent in the first place. Individual health tax credits would keep a fourth player (the employer), possibly even a third (the insurance company) out and encourage the individual to do more to minimize their own medical expenses.

The status quo isn't working, and socialized medicine simply puts a government label on the status quo, which solves nothing. Pushing more people under the umbrella of corporate health plans masks the problem and allows it to grow and fester.

Ultimately, the bottom line, is the bottom line. Would you knowingly pay $10 for an aspirin? Then why tolerate a system that allows someone to do it for you, while pretending to be helping you and hiding their dishonesty? Why elect leaders who won't address the problem?

In 1974 Democrats were once again outraged at such egregious campaign finance abuses as W. Clement Stone's donation of $2 million to Richard Nixon, which helped defeat Democrat challenger, George McGovern. It was Stone's money, and perfectly legal, but since it helped defeat a Democrat, the Democrat controlled Congress saw it as an obvious example of "corruption" and "financial abuse". Being Democrats, though, they weren't all that bright and made the mistake of believing their own hype. Assuming their contributor base was actually "the people" rather that "the rich" they amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to cap individual donations at $5,000. By the time they realize that Republicans actually had more grassroots contributions, it was too late. They'd promoted donation caps to the point that they couldn't take it back. But like all good Democrats, they knew that rules were for suckers who couldn't find the loopholes.

First the Supreme Court ruled that the caps couldn't be applied to what the candidate himself could donate, so the rich politicians breathed a sigh of relief, and the average Joes aspiring for political office were cut off at the knees. The world was once again safe from all those average Joes.

Democrats quickly found other loopholes. Funding political parties and other organizations was left fairly open, especially if the money was used specifically for "voter registration". So an organization that worked to register voters only in heavily Democrat parts of the city was declared "non-partisan" and could receive unlimited funding. Also, every time ordinary people found a way of reaching other voters, political insiders led by Democrats would slam the doors on their efforts. The 90s found people pooling their money to run commercials addressing issues they were concerned about. In 2002 McCain-Feingold stopped that "horrible abuse". Can you imagine the gall of some people thinking they can just simply tell other people what they think. I mean where do they think this is, America?

In 2004 we saw billionaire George Soros flood the campaign season with $15 million, while the Democrat party smiled on approvingly. (By the way, W. Clement Stone's $2 million in 1972 would have been $9 million in 2004 dollars, but somehow "corrupt" while Soros's $15 million wasn't.) The FEC eventually, grudgingly fined Soros funded MoveOn.org a paltry $150,000 while fining the [gasp] Average Joe funded Swift Vets for Truth almost twice as much for allegedly doing the exact same thing. What exactly it was they did was never really explained all that clearly, mainly because it's doubtful the FEC itself actually understands McCain-Feingold. It's doubtful McCain or Feingold even understand McCain-Feingold. But any government agency worth its salt has to do something to appear to justify its budget. So MoveOn.org was fined $150,000 for an alleged $5 million campaign violation. I bet their wrists are still stinging.

This Presidential election promises yet another exciting "race for the loophole" competition between any of a crowd of well financed organizations wearing their "I'm pretending to be non-partisan" buttons. Soros still hasn't squandered his $8.5 billion estimated net worth, so there's plenty to pay off token FEC fines as he attempts again to buy a presidency.

Ultimately every attempt at campaign finance reform ever enacted in the US turned out to be an embarrassing Maginot Line that caused more problems than it solved. In fact, since our ineffective efforts at campaign finance reform predate the actual Maginot Line, it should have been made fun of by calling it a "US Campaign Finance Reform."

Jacob Sullum of Reason.com
"I'm not quite as old-fashioned as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), which hews to the early-marriage customs of the 19th century and the polygamous practices of biblical times. But I'm old-fashioned enough to believe the government needs a good reason to pull a crying, clinging child away from her mother and hand her over to the care of strangers."

more...

From the LA Times...

African American ministers in Los Angeles expressed angst and concern Tuesday that a fresh round of comments by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor was hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign and skewing public understanding of the black church....

"This didn't have anything to do with the black church -- it was basically an attack on the individual message he proclaimed, which hurt some individuals," said the Rev. K.W. Tulloss of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Boyle Heights. "My own members were offended by Rev. Wright's words. His views have cast a wedge between people, and that's the exact opposite of the unity Jesus represented."...

Kerman Maddox, a member of First AME church in Los Angeles, said that he had listened to hundreds of sermons in black churches nationwide as part of his political and community work, and that Wright's messages did "not represent mainstream black thought on Sunday morning."...

"I am hurt and disgusted that one of the most historic political campaigns in the nation's history could be derailed by this pastor who has been needlessly callous, careless and insensitive in his remarks," said the Rev. John J. Hunter of First AME.

Others commenting...

Rev. Jesse Lee Patterson
"Black men were deceived into leaving their homes in order for the women and children to receive welfare. As a result, the moral fiber of the man who left and the abandoned family were weakened.

Meanwhile, welfare gave the black woman a false sense of empowerment and independence. She felt as though she no longer needed a husband to provide....

...Absent the leadership of God-fearing, upstanding men, the congregation was weak and susceptible to the corrupt preacher. The weaker they became, the more they looked for scapegoats (i.e., the "evil white man") to explain away their failures.

One need only look at Rev. Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ and many other black churches to see this lie being played out."

Larry Elder
"While most Americans feel sympathy for the "black plight," they do not feel responsible for slavery, Jim Crow or legalized segregation. They resent those who continue to blame past injustices for current problems and inconveniences. And they recoil at the apparent widespread victicrat mentality that forms the psyche of so many blacks, including, but not limited to, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al. This includes much of the Democratic Party, which tacitly and explicitly endorses this mindset in order to get the monolithic black vote, without which the party cannot prevail."

...now check out these responses from Chicago sun-Times (Obama and Wright's hometown) columnists...

Mary Michell  [Black rationalization. Apparently a Black Segregationist]
"There is no institution in the black community more respected than the black church. And the notion that white pundits can dictate what constitutes unacceptable speech in the black church is repulsive to most black people....

So, when Obama says America was 'offended' by Wright's harsh language, he isn't speaking for or to Black America. He is speaking to White America."

Richard Roeper  [Pragmatic, but I don't get the "motor home" reference. Did he mean RV?]
"Just when you figure Obama would love to see Wright shopping for motor homes for his retirement, Wright is soaking up the spotlight with more enthusiasm than Spencer Pratt on a red carpet.

Meanwhile, Obama called Wright's most recent appearance a "spectacle," said their relationship had been altered and added, "What Rev. Wright said [Monday] directly contradicts everything I have ever done or said in my life."

Politically, it's a risky move. The skeptics will say Obama waited too long before truly distancing himself from Wright. Others will say Obama sold out his friend to save his presidential ambitions."

Mark Brown [Liberal White Guilt. Wright's a lunatic, but it's somehow White people's fault.]
"The Wright affair has such resonance in this campaign because Wright has shown himself to be the kind of black person that white people don't like. He brings out our prejudices. Yes, I said "our" prejudices."

Carol Marin [Mostly even-handed, but still goes easy on Obama]
"What the presidential candidate from Chicago had to say was strongly worded, solemn and angry. It was powerful and personal. But it still raises the question of his response time. In political terms, this was a 3 a.m. phone call that went into voice mail."

Neil Steinberg [Good, but still sees it as a Black/White thing, which it isn't]
"'You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you,' he said.

That might be lapped up Sundays on West 95th Street. But it's political poison in much of the country. Self-justification is a drug, and Wright, high on the attention, doesn't realize that the historic wrongs that push a certain segment of the black community into a permanent loop of grievance, bitterness and complaint are of little interest to other Americans, who, believe it or not, face troubles of their own, despite being white, and have no desire to be stuck for the next four years with a minister preaching delusion and near-treason (a strong but apt term -- if the attacks against America are indeed the work of a just God repaying us for our evil acts, then we thwart his will by defending ourselves at all, and every airport checkpoint should be shut down as we await our divine punishment).

Obama courageously stood by his pastor, at first, and when the issue was sound bites of Wright's past rhetorical excesses, he was correct to do so. Now that Wright has changed the equation, restated his views in present tense and performed his giddy self-immolation, Obama is doing his best to spit his poison out. He'll have to spit harder, because every percentage of the vote counts, and Wright's loopy swan song need only hurt Obama a little to hurt him a lot."

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright would be happy to see Barack Obama's presidential campaign derailed because the pastor is fuming that his former congregant has "betrayed" their 20-year relationship,

The Post has learned. "After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn't know about Jeremiah's views during those years, that he wasn't familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn't hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal," said the source, who has deep roots in Wright's Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter....

"Jeremiah doesn't care if he derails Obama's candidacy or not . . . He knows what he's doing. Obviously, he's not a dumb man. He knows he's not helping."...

The source noted that the roots of Wright's disillusionment with Obama began last year after the Illinois senator unexpectedly yanked him from participating in the public announcement of his presidential campaign.

Another thing that seems to be missed is that Obama's "evidence" of his faith is his membership in Wright's questionable church, yet Obama now wants to minimalize that membership, while retaining the charade that he's a Christian.

I recently read that a new church in Chicago has been reaching out to disillusioned former members of Wright's "church", who are finding that what they were taught was not at all the Christianity of the Bible. It seems there's a ripe mission field in need of the real Gospel, sitting in the pews of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." — Patrick Henry

But Religious Liberty has gone through a semantics assault recently, as many insist the true Religious Freedom means the freedom from religion. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the actions of those same people have demonstrated their opposition to the very concept of Liberty itself.

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." — John Adams

A student in Citrus Heights, California was suspended from school for wearing a t-shirt that said "Don't touch God's rainbow." The student found the use of the rainbow to represent homosexuality, offensive, and wished to express that view. But the school decided that the offense of other students at that particular student's viewpoint outweighed the concept of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and overall fairness. The idea that certain religious ideas can and should be censored because someone might find them offensive is directly contrary to both clauses of the First Amendment, but most importantly against the Freedom of Religion clause. The idea that one must exercise a bit of open-mindedness when it comes to the tolerance for the religious beliefs of others have been soundly rejected by those who push the "Freedom from Religion" mantra. In essence, they wish to turn Freedom of Religion into the exact opposed, and silence religious speech, expression and practices.

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that His justice cannot sleep forever." — Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can be as contentious as religion. If a society can live with people practicing diverse faiths, peacefully, then they can overcome many other obstacles as well. Our attitude toward allowing diverse faith, practices and even the expression of those beliefs goes far in how we accept other diverse ideas. Liberty comes from the idea that others deserve what we want. When we lose focus on that concept, we lose liberties. More than any other liberty, Religious Liberties test the limits of our acceptance of the very concept of liberty. So what are we teaching our children when we tell than that religious concepts that some might find offensive should be forcefully silenced? What kind of future are we creating?

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hears, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!" — Abraham Lincoln, from a proclamation appointing a National Fast Day, March 30, 1863

In Germany, recently, a fifteen year-old girl was forcibly removed from her family, because they wanted to homeschool her, and the government refused to allow it. The families appealed all the way to the European Union courts, but were told that the "state" had a right to prevent philosophies and ideas it felt was contrary to their own. When Religious Liberties are not cherished, oppressive laws follow quickly. America needs to avoid the oppressiveness being demonstrated by the European Union, and maintain the respect for Religious Liberties that has been one of our badges of honor.

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens." — George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the United States in 1796

One of America's greatest tools has been our economic attitude. Capitalism thrives in the US, making us the most prosperous nation on the planet. But we are seeing an alarming trend among large companies to abandon ethics in pursuit of profits. Historically what has tempered the blind pursuit of profits has been the respect for morality and ethics present in society. But our morality and ethics are derived directly from religion. When society restricts religion it removed the dampening rods on the nuclear reactor of raw Capitalism. Without those boundaries, Capitalism become an evil thing, rather than a positive tool. We, literally, cannot afford to lose Religious Liberties. Our churches, synagogues, temples and even many mosques maintain a critical balance in this societal equation.

According to Election Day exit polls, white religious conservatives, who comprised 17% of the electorate in 1996 but fell to only 14% in 2000, surged to 23% of all voters — and 78% of them voted for Bush. Catholic voters supported Bush over the first Catholic nominee in 44 years by a margin of 52% to 47%, a net gain of 8 points for the president over 2000.

(Note that in spite of Black religious conservatives being a sizable enough voting block that the Left is using Al Sharpton to attempt to silence them, they are conspicuously omitted from the demographic description of "Values Voters", as if for some reason, even though they hold the same values, the MSM sees the color of their skin as a factor that neutralizes all other considerations)

The MSMs token "Conservative" George Will cried, "It is odd that some conservatives are eager to promote the semantic vanity of the phrase 'values voters.' And it is odder still that the media are cooperating with those conservatives." The Liberal and misnamed, "People for the American Way" took two years before finally being able to figure out how to rig a survey enough to "debunk" the exit polling. As late as 2006 Newsweek's Jonathan Alter was still whining, "...the term is loaded and unfair, and was popularized by lazy-minded journalists. It implies that people on the other side—those who, in the smug cliché of the day, 'do not share our values'—aren't just wrong but morally inferior." In other words, attack the term used in order to avoid the truth and implications of the exit polls.

Traditional Values have always been a major factor, but in it's arrogance, the MSM forgot to bash it as much as it usually does, allowing voters to feel more free about their opinions. I'm sure they won't make that mistake again. It is amusing to watch Liberals froth against teaching values in government schools, only to whine when those that supported values, are referred to as having values. They haven't yet figured out that relativism isn't a value, it's the lack of values.

Why are Traditional Values important and why is relativism dangerous?

How many times have you heard someone say that we should leave our religion out of the voting booth; that religion and politics shouldn't be mixed? The Founding Fathers believed just the opposite. They prevented the government from dictating a religion, but saw the faith of the people as a necessary ingredient in good government. Most Americans derive their morals from the faith, so when they are asked to leave their faith outside the voting booth or out of politics, they see that as a demand to divorce ethics and morality from government. That's a recipe for disaster.

What are the Values Issues? Abortion: which pits the relativists saying killing a human is acceptable if enough people decide to pretend they aren't human, against those that say life is sacred and we have no right to end it simply for someone's convenience. Homosexual Marriage: which pits the relativists who say that marriage should be whatever the individual defines it as, against the rest of us who say God defined marriage, and we have no right to redefine it. Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Which pits the relativists that says murdering the individual for the benefit of the group is fine, if the group decides it is, against the rest of us who still see life as sacred. Education: Which pits the relativists who say the state should shape the minds of the young to best suit the needs of the state, against the rest of us that say ach individual deserves the best education possible and the parents are the best arbiters of that choice.

Relativists justify co-opting the terminology and even, occasionally the arguments, of Traditional Values, to rationalized their ends. So it's important that we pay close attention to who is saying what, and what they really mean. Abortion supporters are fond of claiming the "Pro-Choice is Pro-Family" using Orwellian doublespeak to define the murder of unborn children as some how "pro-family". You can't even trust those that will use the phrase Traditional Values. You must look at how they stand on the individual issues that display whether they are relativists or Traditionalists. Do they oppose Abortion? Do they support traditional marriage? Do they oppose Embryonic Stem Cell research? Do they support choice in Education? Do they make their positions solid and clear?

As is often the case, the real lesson from the Tower of Babel was lost on these kids as well as the reporters. The real story is much different than the superficial image most have.

A man named Nimrod grew to become powerful and controlling. He ruled over several cities but as people began to spread out, he realized his control over them would weaken the further away they traveled. His plan was to build one tall building in one of the cities he ruled to set that city as the central part of a worldwide government and by persuasion or force, bring all the people of the earth into that and the surrounding cities to be ruled by him. The tower he built was described in the best way they knew to describe something tall, "...whose top may reach unto heaven...". They weren't actually trying to build a tower that would allow them to reach heaven, but to built a government that would have an iron control on people through a centralized location.

Sound familiar?

The younger generation have coined a new concept "owned" which they sometime spell "PWNED" ( the P symbolizes someone sticking out their tongue). It means to be so badly conquered that your victor now owns you and can even gloat about it.

The lesson of Babel is one we desperately need to learn today.  In almost every issue the division comes down to centralized v. decentralized control. Each issue is define in whether you want to be free or pwned. A centralized government wants to pwn you, a decentralized government doesn't.

Gun Control. The surrender of our personal safety to the government means the surrender of our will to the total control of the government. A centralized government wants that. A decentralized government would depend on the individualism of the governed to cover much of what the centralized government demands to do. Last year people stood by while a 91-year-old veteran was beaten severely. The mindset that "it's not my job" is so ingrained already that we can sit by and watch an act like that and assume the "wise" thing to do is to wait for the police. Where's your gun? Where's your individualism? Are you free or are you pwned?

National Security. It's obvious that the eventual plan by Liberals is for a centralized world government. Under Bill Clinton our troops were put under UN commanders and required to wear UN insignias. One, lone soldier took a stand and was court-martialed. He stands out as a hero who refused to be pwned. Under GWB our troops have not been required to become UN soldiers so the problem has been delayed. But for how long? A strong national defense means that we stand against those that would tear down our national sovereignty. How long until America itself is pwned?

Taxes. Who needs money if the government takes care of everything? Right. A decentralized government needs much less money than a powerful, controlling centralized one. Besides, the less resources the individual has, the less likely he is to fight the control of a centralized government. Also, a tax system that punishes the wealthy means an economy that must be propped up by an increasingly powerful and controlling government. The wealthy create wealth for the middle and lower class. Taxing them forces the middle class to virtually disappear and the now, much-larger, lower class to depend on the government for their survival. The promise of bread and circuses in exchange for our freedom means we are pwned.

Government Spending. The US Government, like the rivers in Missouri, poured outside the boundaries set for it long ago. But the deep pockets of the government have been such a temptation to people more than willing to sell their freedom from what they call pork when spent elsewhere. Another Biblical lesson ignored. Genesis tells of Joseph's advise to Pharaoh preceding the 7 years of plenty and the 7 years of drought. His advice allowed Pharaoh to pwn the Egyptian people who were starving during the famine. Each time we turn a blind eye to another power grab by the Federal Government in exchange for a few favors, we become that much more pwned ourselves. It's possible to pull back on that, but only by electing good leaders, who recognize that problem, and are willing to address it.

Social Security. One of the biggest and most successful scams ever created. For just a "small" fraction of your paycheck, the government will guarantee a meager, substandard income for you once you arrive at whatever retirement age it decides it will allow, as long as you survive that long. Meanwhile they spend what they've amassed on pork projects and use current social security taxes to fund current recipients. But as baby boomers enter retirement age, social security is being paid for by the survivors of the abortion holocaust. The math just doesn't work, but it doesn't matter--you're pwned anyway. Even mentioning social security reform causes Liberals to scream bloody murder.

Education. Control the minds of the children and you pwn the future.

Agriculture. Through the seventies we saw large mega-farms lobby congress for "reform" as small farmers struggled. The plight of the small farms was used to enact legislation that benefited the mega-farms. But why were the small farms struggling? Because of unfair practices utilized by the mega-farms. Subsidies and price caps forced artificial profit margins that only the mega-farms could survive. Remember, lower profits margins work if it means running your competition out of business. America's small farms started disappearing at an alarming rate, while the mega-farms began experimenting with frightening hormones and chemicals, the consumer was powerless to object to. So what does that have to do with a centralized government? The American farmer has always been the core of America's attitude of rugged individualism. The farmer more than any other member of society could live more independent of the hand-outs offered by the government. It's not our dependence of the mega-farm that's the problem, but our lack of an avenue to escape the economic manipulations of a power-hungry government. The farm had been that refuge. It is no longer.

Traditional Values. The Judea-Christian concepts place the government as beneath God. No centralized government can tolerate that long, which is why we see Jews and Christians attacked at the outset of almost every attempt by a dictator to conquer a nation. The Holocaust, the pograms in Russia, the slaughter of Christians in Africa, the continued persecution of Christians in far east regimes. If the people believe anything is above the government, then they won't accept the total rule of the government. In the US the Judeo-Christian mindset is the enemy of the socialist, Liberal, one-world mindset. You can't pwn someone who considers themselves under God's rule. Before the state can declare itself god, God must be eliminated. Thus we see the war on traditional values by the left.

Religious Freedom. No nation offered more religious freedom than American did, up until recently. As a Christian nation, the idea that Christianity could only be accepted voluntarily meant that religious freedom was the most efficient means of offering Christianity to everyone. But today we see religious freedom under attack. the Constitution is being "re-interpreted" to force the concept of "Freedom from Religion" on America, when the Founding Fathers had no such intent. Ultimately the state wants no other god before it, so "Freedom from Religion" is merely a stepping stone to being pwned by the state, setting itself up as god.

Life. Another concept the centralize government wants to eliminate is the value of the individual. The start is to devalue those who society is more inclined to ignore, such as the unborn and the incapacitated. We saw a few years ago, an innocent woman tortured to death by her estranged husband, at the order of the government. If the value of the individual has degraded to the point that others can decide that and individual can be euthenized, how far are we from a complete devaluing of life itself? If your life has that little value, guess what, you're pwned.

Health Care. This one is obvious. The government's has a monopoly on the means of life and death, means we are pwned.

Energy and the Environment. We have an energy problem today, because enviro-wackos hamstrung the nuclear energy industry. I remember debating energy policy as my high school debate topic over 30 years ago, and the arguments then are the exact same arguments today. Not one single real change has been made. Why, when it's such an important topic and influences so many issues not the least of which is the funding of terrorist nations? Thirty years and not one single meaningful change in the problem that was debated then. Here's the political equations. Everyone needs energy. Environmentalists are generally silly, emotional and terribly easy to manipulate. Pwn the left through their blind devotion to whatever the current environmental fad is. Pwn the right (and everyone else) through the need for affordable and available energy. Use the left to make sure no real change occurs. As long as the problem continues to exist, a centralized government can then use it to gain more power and control, carefully making sure it never, ever actually comes close to solving the problem, simply amassing power and pwning the people.

I don't drink, but I see our attitude toward the government as the way one should have toward alcohol. Useful and even enjoyable in moderation, but extremely dangerous in large quantities. But as with alcohol, indulgence in the benefits of government tends to blur the lines between moderation and excess. I watched once as a friend became increasingly drunk as each can of beer made him less able to exercise self-control. (possibly the reason I don't drink) I've watched our nation do the same thing, growing drunk of the bread and circuses thrown to us by an increasingly powerful government. (sorry for the mixed metaphors) We need an intervention, desperately.