Fresh Attack on Parental Rights

From parentalrights.org

We are very excited about the progress we are seeing in Washington as a result of your calls. Just yesterday, Rep. LoBiondo contacted Congressman Hoekstra to become the 119th cosponsor (including Hoekstra) of H.J. Res. 42 (the Parental Rights Amendment in the House), the first from the state of New Jersey. Last week, we added Congressman Young of Alaska as well.

Relative to that, it appears that the CRC’s bid for ratification is stalled in the executive and legislative branches (at least for the moment) – so its proponents are trying to legislate it through the judicial branch instead.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases this term which challenge the authority of the state of Florida to sentence minors to life without parole for extremely violent crimes. Amnesty International (AI) has filed briefs in both cases arguing that the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is binding on the United States as a matter of Customary International Law. While these cases do not involve parental rights, adoption of the CRC as Customary International Law would certainly be a blow to parental rights in America.

ParentalRights.org president Michael Farris has written an opposing brief, submitted to the Supreme Court by 16 members of the House of Representatives, explaining why the AI brief’s assertions are false, and why the CRC should not be applied to American law without full ratification. You can read our press release here. Not surprisingly, 15 of the 16 Congressmen who submitted this brief are also cosponsors of H.J. Res. 42 (the Parental Rights Amendment), and the 16th has vowed to vote “Yes.”

The fact is, despite all our hard work, the threat has not gone away. Should the Supreme Court find the CRC binding on U.S. states as Customary International Law, our job will get a whole lot tougher. As John Adams once wrote, “Liberty once lost is lost forever.” That’s why we need to keep pushing to pass the Parental Rights Amendment before those rights can be taken away.
Please, although you’ve already called before, we urge you to call Congress again today. The race is on to preserve parental rights in America. Let’s get your Congressman and Senators on board before this week is out!

Find your Congressman’s and Senators’ contact info by clicking on your state at our States Watch page.

Samuel Adams is more than just a beer

Samuel Adams (1722-1803) was known as the "Father of the American Revolution." Here's a few great quotes.

"Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble
and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!"
Source: writing as "Candidus," February 3, 1776

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor canany be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue ispreserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant,and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under." Source: letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775.

"The liberties of our country,the freedom of our civil Constitution,are worth defending at all hazards;and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors:they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasureand blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation,enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from usby violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of themby the artifices of false and designing men."

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrantpervert the plain Meaning of Words!"
letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776

"A general dissolutionof the principles and mannerswill more surely overthrow the liberties of Americathan the whole force of the common enemy...While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued;but once they lose their virtue,they will be ready to surrender their libertiesto the first external or internal invader...If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people,they will never be enslaved.This will be their great security." The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed., Harry Alonzo Cushing (G. P. Putman's Sons, 1908), Vol. 4, p. 124.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate,tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these:first, a right to life;secondly, to liberty;thirdly to property;together with the right to support and defend themin the best manner they can."

"If ye love wealth better than liberty,the tranquility of servitudebetter than the animating contest of freedom,go home from us in peace.We ask not your counsels or your arms.Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.May your chains set lightly upon you,and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." 1776

"If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring menshall possess the highest seats in Government,our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." 1780

Cartoon and quote

According to a UNESCO statement from some years ago, "It is often the family that infects the children with extreme nationalism."
A love for one's country is to be treated like some kind of disease, lest it hinder the goal of "peace at all costs."

Cartoon and quote from parentalrights.org

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect libertywhen the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom arenaturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-mindedrulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachmentby men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
US Supreme Court Judge
Source: Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States,277 US 479 (1928)http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Louis.Brandeis.Quote.CDBD

The Obama's--A Cartoon

Click on the cartoon to see it!

Conservative Chick: Psychopolitics?!

Conservative Chick: Psychopolitics?!

Tim Hawkins--The Government Can

Tim Hawkins has another winner with this one!

The Politics of Soda Pop

http://iowadefensealliance.com/2009/09/07/guest-commentary-the-politics-of-soda-pop/

The Politics of Soda Pop
By Tom Shaw
Independent Candidate for Iowa House District 8

While a guest on WHO Radio’s “Deace in the Afternoon” program, I was challenged by a caller who disagreed with my decision to leave the Republican Party and to run as an Independent. The caller believed that I should remain as a Republican and try to change the party from within. His thought was “What if workers at Pepsi drank Coca Cola?” This very question solidified my belief that an organization’s brand name was less important than its product.

A few years back, Coca Cola decided that it wanted to increase its market share by enticing Pepsi drinkers with a product named “New Coke.” Now mind you, Coca Cola had been successful for many years with its recipe and had established a loyal customer base. But for some reason the company’s leadership chose to follow the advice of their business advisors and change the recipe. I believe that everyone recalls what happened … the “New Coke” was a colossal failure. It did not attract new customers, but it sure created an outrage from their customer base and the company lost market share. But give Coca Cola credit as they realized that it was not their brand name which sold the product but rather its recipe. Hence they returned to “Classic Coke.”

So it goes with the politics of the Republican Party and its “Big Tent” strategy. At both the national and state levels, the party’s leadership has abandoned the very principles that made the party successful in the past. The party’s state platform is created through a series of committee’s which start at the precinct level. The platform truly is the voice of “We the People.” During the last election, rather than listen to their loyal customers (We the People) and promote a successful product (platform), the party believed that the way to victory was to promote candidates who did not adhere to the platform. The net effect was that many grassroots republicans did not actively or enthusiastically promote Republican candidates, and even worse, stayed home on election day.

As I campaign throughout Iowa House District 8, I am told “I’ll never vote Republican again because I’m too conservative” or “It’s great to have conservative Independent to vote for because the Republicans are not conservative anymore.” I truly believe that there is a major shift in how “We the People” view their party affiliation. As I talk to more and more voters, I am reaffirmed in my belief that folks are looking for principled candidates and not whether there is an “R” or “D” behind their name. Speaking on behalf of the conservatives that I have met, the Republican party “brand name” will no longer be enough to garner conservative votes and, to be successful again, they must revert back to the “Classic” Republican party.

Rise of the Czars

Interesting how this czar thing has grown. Hmmm...what a way to get things done without the checks and balances originally built into the system AND have a scapegoat if something goes wrong....win win situation.

http://glennbeck.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/06/09/rise-of-the-czars/
FOX News Blogs » The Glenn Beck Blog
June 9th, 2009 12:11 PM Eastern
Rise of the Czars
by Web Producer
Supporters of presidential czars say the positions are helpful by focusing attention on a big issue and making someone responsible for it. Critics claim they can lead to turf fights and add another cumbersome bureaucratic layer to government.

A look at how recent presidents have expanded the number of czars:


President Reagan: 1 Czar

Drug Czar
Carlton Turner: 3/12/1985

President George H. W. Bush: 1 Czar

Drug Czar
William Bennett: 3/10/1989
Robert Martinez: 3/21/1991

President Clinton: 3 Czars

Health Czar
Ira Magaziner: 1993

Drug Czar
Lee Brown: 6/21/1993
Barry McCaffrey: 3/1/1996

AIDS Czar
Kristine M. Gebbie: 6/25/1993
Patricia S. Fleming: 11/10/1994
Sandy Thurman: 4/7/1997

President George W. Bush: 4 Czars

National Intelligence Czar
John D. Negroponte: 4/21/2005
Mike McConnell: 2/13/2007

Cybersecurity Czar
Rod Beckstram: 3/7/2008

AIDS Czar
Scott Evertz: 4/9/2001
Dr. Joseph O'Neill: 7/19/2002

Drug Czar
John Walters: 12/7/2001

President Obama: 16 Czars (and counting)

Drug Czar
Gil Kerlikowske, former Seattle police chief

Energy and Environment Czar
Carol Browner

Homeland Security Czar
John Brennan

Health Czar
Nancy-Ann DeParle

Urban Affairs Czar
Adolfo Carrion, Jr.

Economic Czar
Paul A. Volcker

Regulatory Czar
Cass R. Sunstein

Technology Czar
Vivek Kundra

Government Performance Czar
Jeffrey Zients

Border Czar
Alan Bersin

WMD Policy Czar
Gary Samore

Intelligence Czar (Director of National Intelligence)
Dennis Blair

Car Czar
Steven Rattner

Pay Czar
Kenneth R. Feinberg

Great Lakes Czar
Cameron Davis

Cyber Czar
TBA

The Parent's Responsibility

It has been rare lately for me to take the time to put my own thoughts into words. There are so many other bright, intelligent people putting into words similar thoughts as mine that frequently I hear myself saying, “Let’s not reinvent the wheel.” This time however, I don’t seem to find many people, if any, communicating these thoughts, so I felt led to make this point myself.

During one of our recent Summits [www.AIPNews.com], I heard some interesting discussion about how to impart the importance and worth of restoring our republic. As a former classroom teacher, I understand the desire to impart the Truth to my students and plant seeds that would hopefully grow with more cultivating.

I realized the problem with this belief after God gave us a child to parent. After studying the Word, I realized that the responsibility of educating our daughter was laid directly on the shoulders of my husband and me. And regardless of how much I search, no where do I see that mantle of responsibility removed in Scripture. Even if I didn’t believe “Sola Scriptura,” the fact that the socialist agenda has been encroaching on this right and responsibility for years should prove the point. Years? Actually more like over a century.

“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” Didn’t we hear Obama say this? Probably. But this quote is actually from Karl Marx himself. And slowly (or not so slowly) the Christians in the United States have been poisoned with this belief. So, off the women go into the workforce and men resign their responsibility of father to a “step” or to no one at all; both treating the “blessings” of God as curses. They turn their children over to government storage facilities. Parents are told that they are not capable of training their children. After all, “The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.... In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God” or so says a famous father of modern education, John Dewey.

“But wait,” say many unsuspecting parents, “we send them to school for an education.” That may be your goal but don’t assume it’s the educational system’s goal. The public education system’s goal is not individual education but communal indoctrination. As John Dewey stated, “Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”

While I know that many individual teachers have a wonderful heart for children, what teachers are being taught and given to teach does not provide the worldview some of us hold. Even as I sat in my Science Methods class at a Catholic college, I was instructed to teach evolution. But while there are some teachers who attempt to swim against the tide, most do not or have been too corrupted by the system already themselves to realize they are part of the tide. For instance, as I sat in my Philosophy and History of Education class at the same college, I was the only person in the room who believed in absolutes. Not even our instructor believed in absolutes. If this is the mindset of the majority of those teaching, how can much good come out of it?

Correction. How much good could come out of it for those of us who hold to our conservative, Christian beliefs? There is a lot of good to come out of it for those following and fostering a socialist agenda. If not, why else would Lenin boldly state, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” If he knew that could happen after only four years, what about our American posterity that has been abandoned to the enemy for twelve or more years? Is it any wonder then Saul Alinsky taught in his book Rules for Radicals the need for “community organizers” to reach out and train the youth? Is it surprising to find that the well-known “community organizer” not only was praised by Alinsky’s son after the Democratic National Convention for how well Obama had used his father’s model, but he also made sure to teach those principles to students and such groups as ACORN.

It should be no surprise, then, when we learn that Obama is planning to speak to the nation’s students this coming Tuesday. Not only is he speaking, but providing teachers with the correct propaganda material otherwise called “classroom activities.” After all, as Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute noted, “In his letter, Duncan [Secretary of Education] asserts that the work of educators is ‘critical to…our social progress.’” Sound familiar?

And it is no coincidence that not only will Obama speak, but follow-up materials are provided because after all, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” or so believed Lenin.
Many may feel that my thoughts concerning the weight of education lying on the shoulders of the parents is outmoded or even wrong. That is fine. But if you are a Constitutional conservative, you may want to reconsider. After all, nowhere within the explicit powers given to the federal government is education mentioned. We cannot pick and choose which powers usurped by the federal government should be extinguished making sure to leave only the ones that are convenient for us to keep.

So in the end, it is the family who should reclaim our right and responsibility to teach our children in all things including the very important role as citizens of a republic. I agree with the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, who stated, “The best education is education in the best things.”

Thanks for the Wakeup Call, Mr. President

http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey

Thanks for The Wakeup Call, Mr. President
Posted by Neal McCluskey

It’s one thing for a president to encourage kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and presidency, and prod schools to drive social change. Yet as Andrew Coulson has already begun to discuss, the latter is what President Obama, audaciously, has done.

This is, of course, a very troubling turn of events, giving rise to very legitimate fears of political and social indoctrination even if it turns out that those aren’t at all the President’s motives. Perhaps, though, this is also a blessing in disguise. As many liberals and conservatives push for national academic standards and other centralizing education reforms, this situation brilliantly illustrates why government schooling is totally antithetical to a free society, and why the more centralized the power, the greater the danger.

Some background: In anticipation of the president’s planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed “classroom activities” with all sorts of alarming buzzwords and guidance to schools across the country. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is “critical to…our social progress.” It’s a statement that suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students. Fear that this might be the case is reinforced by suggested classroom activities in the department’s guidance for pre-K-6 students that encourage children to make posters setting out “community and country” goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson being pushed that it is important to listen to “the President and other elected officials.” Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech “by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.” Finally, schools are told to ask students how president Obama will “inspire” them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.

This is very disturbing, making crystal clear the huge dangers that attend government-controlled education. Ultimately, politicians will use power over education for their own ends, something fully at odds with a free society. And this is just the most stark manifestation of the inherent incompatibility of freedom and government education. As I have emphasized constantly since publication of my paper Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict, every day free people are pitted against one another, forced to defend their freedom and basic values because they all have to support a single system of government schools. Evolution vs. creationism. Prayer in – or not in – schools. Books with offensive material in libraries. Decisions over whose history will be taught, and whose won’t. The curtailment of freedom goes on and on when government takes everyone’s money and provides schools with it. And the more we centralize education – the more diverse people we force to support one system of schools – the greater the cost to liberty.

All of which makes one thing obvious: The only system of learning compatible with a truly free society is not one of government domination, but one rooted in educational choice – public education, not schooling – in which the public assures that all people can access education, but parents are free to choose their children’s schools and educators are free to educate how they wish.

For too long we have ignored freedom when it’s come to education, sacrificing liberty for “test scores” or “efficiency.” As a result, we’ve gotten neither good test scores nor efficiency while fomenting constant social conflict and building increasingly dangerous government control over our children and our lives. But hopefully some good will come of this troubling Obama administration initiative, issuing a desperately needed wakeup call to all Americans about the great damage government education can inflict on otherwise free people.

Neal McCluskey • September 2, 2009 @ 1:39 pm