Removing Statues of Violent Bigots? Start with Ché by Federico N. Fernández

Rosario is Argentina’s second oldest city. Located by the Paraná river, it is the home of hard-working people, a busy port, the national flag memorial, and the country’s bitterest football rivalry between Rosario Central and Newell’s Old Boys.

It is also the birthplace of Ernesto “Ché” Guevara.

In the last fifteen years or so, coincidentally with the rise of leftist populism in Argentina and the rest of South America, there have been plenty of tributes to the figure of “Ché.” All of these tributes are state-financed, one way or another. The most prominent is a 13-foot high statue placed in a public square.

Fundación Bases has its main headquarters in Rosario. Teaming up with the Naumann Foundation, we decided to launch a campaign to remove all the state tributes to “Ché” Guevara. We knew this would generate controversy but, honestly, we didn’t expect the level of reaction that has occurred.

About the Man

So, who was this “Ché” Guevara? Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, globally known as “Ché”, came from an aristocratic, though impoverished, family. He studied medicine and when he was about to finish university he took an initiatory trip across Latin America. In some of the places he visited he saw harsh realities and even exploitation. This part of his life made it to the big screen, starred by then Latin sensation Gael García Bernal.

Nonetheless, he wasn’t a communist yet. As Juan José Sebreli explains, he was more of the adventurous type, looking for a cause, whatever cause this might be. In fact, he was planning to go to Europe when he met the Castro brothers in Mexico in 1955. He joined them and become a revolutionary for the “liberation” of Cuba.

Under the command of Fidel Castro, “Ché” achieved his only military victory. All his other revolutionary adventures were disastrous and eventually got him killed. However, during the Cuban struggle, he quickly became known for his ruthlessness and violence. He executed many, both during the conflict and after the revolutionaries got into power. He not only precisely described how he blew some poor bastard’s brains out but also acknowledged at the United Nations General Assembly that his government executed many and would continue executing as long as it was “necessary.”

He was also responsible for the opening of the first Cuban concentration camp – where homosexuals and Christians were tortured and re-educated.

What is more, he believed hate was the most powerful force and was an admirer of Joseph Stalin.

As a public official, he was president of Cuba’s central bank and minister of industry. In both roles, he failed miserably. As central banker, he basically destroyed the Cuban peso – which for many decades had been at parity with the US dollar. As industry planner, his administration was so chaotic that they even bought snow removal machines for a Caribbean country like Cuba.

The regime “Ché” helped established in Cuba is one of the most authoritarian in the world. Since the triumph of the revolution in 1959, more than 10,000 have been killed, 80,000 have died at sea trying to escape the island, and 1.5 million have had to forcefully migrate.

Remove All Tributes to ‘Ché’

With all this in mind, Fundación Bases launched the campaign “Remove all tributes to ‘Ché’ Guevara.” We are asking the city government to eliminate the plethora of state tributes that have mushroomed in the last fifteen years.

We know it will be difficult to achieve this because the same politicians who started this “Ché” industry are still in power. But we also know we are starting a conversation and a necessary debate.

We want kids who wear “Ché” T-Shirts to know that he’s not an article of fashion but a cold killing machine. Wearing a T-Shirt with his face is the same as wearing one with Stalin, Mao or Hitler.

Moreover, we want to explain to the people in our city that this “Ché” cult is a falsification of history. The local authorities who have raised him to the level of pagan saint neglect to mention his well-documented crimes but also that he has done nothing for Argentina. In fact, he only lived in Rosario until the age of one.

What Fundación Bases stands for is classical liberalism. And classical liberalism is the anti-Ché. We believe in cooperation between individuals and nations, free trade, and peace. As our Executive Director Franco López put it in an interview with Colombian media, “we are for human rights for everybody, regardless of their political ideology.”

Many Friends and Some Foes

Immediately after being launched, the campaign picked up the attention of local media. And in July Jack Aldwinckle wrote a half-page article in The Economist.

After the article, media attention skyrocketed. From then on, basically, all major newspapers, radios shows, and TV channels in the country have covered the campaign. For example, in “La Nación” – the most traditional nation-wide newspaper in Argentina – our article was the most read of the day.

And that’s not all. We also caught the attention of international media like “La Razón”(Spain), “El Mercurio” (Chile), “El Comercio” (Perú), “Radio Marti” (Miami), just to name a few.

Definitely, one the campaign’s highlights is the help we have received by like-minded institutions and people. Great guys like Bob Murphy, Gustavo Lazzari, Javier Milei, Steve Horwitz, Roberto Cachanosky, Marcelo Duclos. And also think tanks like Libertad y Progreso, Atlas NetworkAustrian Economics Center, Independent Institute, Relial, Mises Hispano, Instituto Juan de Mariana, and so on.

The general public reaction towards our campaign has been spectacular. Our posts on social media are highly retweeted and shared. Roughly 65 percent of the social media comments have been in favor of our view. What’s more, our online petition has received thousands of signatures.

Of course, it would have been impossible to escape some leftist hysterical reactions. We have been called all names you can imagine, from “neoliberals” to “neonazis.”

We have received death threats and some very sick wishes. For instance, a commenter on Facebook called for the arrival of a communist dictatorship to make us all disappear.

“Ché” Guevara could not have said it better.

Federico N. Fernández

Federico N. Fernández is the Senior Research Fellow of Austrian Economics Center and Vice president of Fundación Bases

I Spy in the Great Big Sky

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

— Economics Teacher, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

There once was a young graduate assistant who had the honor of teaching a biology class at a highly prestigious university. This revered university also happened to have an extremely renowned athletics program.

After a few days of teaching the first class, the assistant was approached by the head coach of the football team who sternly instructed her that ALL of his players were to receive “B” grades. Forced to override the grade each student had actually earned, the teacher had no other choice but to comply at the end of the semester. She awarded all students a grade of B, even the ones that had earned an A. The players who had earned As had done so by their God-given ability and their own merit, but the puppeteering coach had downgraded them and forfeited that right.

In much the same way, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Sarah Power did the exact thing when on December 23, 2016 she failed to stand with Israel and exercise America’s veto power for UN Security Council Resolution 2334. In an effort to explain her actions, she then downgraded their God-given birthright by playing the racist card on the Zionist movement, calling it out for preventing Israel to simply blend in and and have equal rights as everyone else.

Spaniard Román Oyarzun Marchesi, President of UN Security Council at the time might as well have been saying, “Bueller? Bueller?” as he awaited any indication whatsoever that the United States of America would even participate in the vote.

If accepted, the proposed measure would strip Israel’s rights to occupy territories in certain parts of the country, guaranteeing the insidious return of Israel to its pre-1967 map structure. The atmosphere in the room stopped the world on its axis during what had been a rushed vote when an ominous silence fell as the American ambassador raised her right hand in an abstention that was heard across the world, though I double-dog dare you to find video footage of it.

The passing of this resolution to prevent Israeli settlements in areas such as East Jerusalem will forever go down in history as the day America ceremoniously turned her back on Israel, effectively agreeing with the rest of the world about a two-state solution, dividing God’s chosen land.

There was one tiny problem. Israel is now and forever more will be the apple of God’s eye according to the ancient prophecies.

This is where the ancient prophet Joel comes in. Prophecy tells us when this happens that a judgement of the nations is coming. They have divided my land. (Joel 3:2)

This is where the Gog & Magog war of Ezekiel 38 and 39 comes in. Enter Russia and America goes on Putin patrol.

This is where the war of Psalm 83 comes in—a war of extermination that attempts to wipe Israel off the map with Israel being declared a decisive winner.

And this is where, on the heels of the great American eclipse, the next astronomical phenomenon has end times gurus buzzing yet again.

On September 23, 2017, exactly 1260 days following the first Blood Moon of a tetrad that began on April 15, 2014, there will be no special eye wear required. Scientific nerds everywhere anticipate the constellations of Revelation 12:6 forming the prophetic laboring woman and they are convinced the mystique of the 1260 days is no numerical coincidence.

A nation obsessed with signs and wonders in the sky will be looking upward yet again when the stars line up with the ancient prophetic words, leading everyone from highly-educated astronomers to household philosophers to take note.

The Revelation 12 sign, according to scholars worldwide, is another blaring announcement of the coming of Christ and possibly the rapture of the church prior to the great tribulation. The ancient Words tell us that those who have accepted Jesus Christ in their hearts as Savior and Lord will be taken up to Heaven, while the rest will be left behind to face the end of history in those dreadful and terrible days. Will you be among those left behind?

While no one knows the day nor the hour, the signs of the times epitomize a loving father playing I spy with a beloved child as he allows the child to win. “Gimme a hint, daddy”.

The overly generous hints are all around us. Why not choose the victory?

The vote on UNSC Resolution 2334, while underexposed to mainstream America, may be located at the 13 minute mark of C-SPAN video 420678-101.

My take on H.R. McMaster ‘muscling in’ on Middle East Peace

This Politco article got an immediate rise out of Breitbart News Jerusalem Bureau Chief Aaron Klein. Klein wrote:

JERUSALEM — Embattled White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has been given a larger partnership role in efforts being overseen by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, according to a report in Politico.

The media outlet reported that McMaster brokered a new arrangement giving the National Security Council (NSC) more input over policy matters pertaining to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to Politico, Victoria Coates, an NSC official, will work full-time under Jason Greenblatt, who has been helping Kushner lead Israel-Palestinian peace efforts as the Trump administration’s envoy for international negotiations.

McMaster has faced controversy over his views on Israel, Iran and radical Islamic terrorism and for his ties to think tanks and financing that raise questions about his national security policies.

My problem is that McMaster is like a lot of former CENTCOM commanders, they are the military equivalent of State Department Arabists.

Also recall that Robert Malley, Soros supporter and Middle East eminence leftover from the Obama White House, still prowls the NSC hallways. Malley had done reach-out to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhoods, Hamas and Hezbollah during his days at the International Crisis Group.

Here is the Politico report.

Jared Kushner has spent eight months as his father-in-law’s point person in the Middle East, relying primarily on one envoy, former Trump Organization lawyer Jason Greenblatt, to do the diplomatic heavy lifting in the region.

But just over a month ago, national security adviser H.R. McMaster held a meeting in his West Wing office with Greenblatt to discuss some changes to how the administration would conduct its Israel strategy going forward — including more input from the National Security Council.

In the meeting — also attended by National Security Council officials Ricky Waddell, Michael Anton and Victoria Coates — the group discussed moving Coates, a former policy adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz, to work full-time under Greenblatt.

Greenblatt and David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, had already pitched the idea privately to Coates. By bringing on Coates, Greenblatt would get a senior point of contact on the NSC who would be fully devoted to his project. McMaster, too, was pleased with the arrangement: It helped integrate what Greenblatt and Kushner had been doing with his NSC desk.

The group saw it as a win-win-win, and the move was quickly finalized. Coates, an art historian and a longtime Republican foreign policy adviser, was promoted to senior director of international negotiations and moved offices to sit with Greenblatt’s team in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House.

The move, White House officials and outside advisers said, underscored the administration’s commitment to brokering a Middle East peace deal, even amid recent setbacks in the region. And it showed the unorthodox administration giving a bigger partnership role in the region to the NSC — the traditional forum where foreign policy decisions are brokered.
The most reliable politics newsletter.

“Renewed U.S. engagement with our Middle East allies is welcome and badly needed,” said Josh Block, president and CEO of The Israel Project, a nonpartisan educational organization. “The task requires someone in the White House who can manage the many diverse levels of the bilateral relationship, and the decision to move Victoria Coates to the center of the portfolio is a signal that these issues will get the attention and seriousness they need.”

Kushner, along with Greenblatt and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, left Washington on Sunday night for a trip to the region, including meetings with leaders from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia before their expected arrival in Israel on Wednesday night. Coates remained home, offering support to the traveling team and managing the information flow.

But even with President Donald Trump’s administration devoting more foreign policy firepower to the region, Middle East experts said they harbored low expectations for what deliverable the latest trip might yield — or what the Trump administration will be able to accomplish in the long run. (Read More)

McMaster adds muscle to Kushner’s Middle East peace effort

NSC staffer Victoria Coates’ move to Kushner’s office has tied Trump’s Middle East strategy more closely to the traditional White House foreign policy apparatus.
POLITI.CO

RELATED ARTICLE: National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster: A legend or a lie?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of the European Foundation for Freedom.

My talk at Google on the Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had spoken at Google on the moral case for fossil fuels. My talk just went up on their YouTube​ page! You can watch it here.

If you watch it and like it I hope you click thumbs up and make a comment. It would be really cool to get this video to ascend the ranks of the Google Author talks

Thanks again to Dan Hackney for getting me the invite.

Two Great Videos from Kansas Strong

Recently, I received the following note from Warren Martin, Executive Director of Kansas Strong, “a nonprofit organization voluntarily funded by oil and natural gas producers in Kansas” that “works to educate and inform people about the important role our industry plays in their live.”:

“As a philosophy graduate myself, I found Alex Epstein’s book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels very compelling and informative. His book and additional resources have played a major role in my efforts with Kansas Strong to promote the Kansas oil & gas industry. Alex’s perspective, initiatives and data have been a tremendous asset in our efforts to reframe the issue and emphasize the importance oil and natural gas have on our day to day lives. We have developed videos, articles, print campaigns and keynote presentations that delve into the everyday lives of everyday people to show how vital oil and natural gas is to how they live. It is far more than the price at the pump. It enables people to maximize their lives. Whether you look at life expectancy, infant birth rates, quality of life or numerous other data points, oil and natural gas have played a major role in improving our lives and enabling, as Alex says, ‘human flourishing.’ Alex’s work has proven to be an extraordinary resource for our efforts to engage the public in creative ways to begin conversations, facilitate education and challenge misconceptions about the industry!” -Warren Martin

Kansas Strong has done an outstanding job of putting these ideas into practice in two of their recent videos.

In this video, they take the moral high ground on environmental issues, pointing out that “the issue is not a choice between the environment and the industry. Nor is it about protecting the environment from the industry. The real issue we should be discussion is how is the oil and gas industry working to create the best environment for humanity?”

One of the tactics I use to get people to appreciate the vital importance of fossil fuels is I take them on an “oil walk,” where I go step-by-step through their day, pointing to all of the things in their lives made from petroleum. This video does a great job of visualizing the omnipresence of oil products, ending with the tagline “Petroleum. It’s Part of Everything We Do.”

I hope you watch both videos. This is the sort of impactful content that’s possible when you learn how to reframe the debate in pro-human, whole-picture terms. I’m excited to see much more of this kind of messaging from the industry in the future.

ALSO: Whenever you’re ready,here are 3 ways I can help your organization turn non-supporters into supporters and turn supporters into champions.

1. Hire me to speak at your next event.

If you have an upcoming board meeting, employee town hall, or association meeting, I have some new and updated speeches about the moral case for fossil fuels, winning hearts and minds, and communications strategy in the new political climate.

If you’d like to consider me for your event, just reply to this message and put “Event” in the subject line.

2. Hold a free Lunch-and-Learn (inside or outside the industry).

This program contains one of my favorite debates along with some “cheat sheets” to help you make the moral case for fossil fuels in your professional and personal life more easily than you thought possible. You can have access to the entire program right now. By the end of the session you and your team will:

  • gain a deeper sense of meaning from their work
  • be able to turn fossil fuel skeptics into fossil fuel supporters
  • learn the secrets to having constructive conversations about energy instead of frustrating fights

Click here to sign up for the free program.

3. Fill out the free Constructive Conversation Scorecard to assess where you are and where you want to be in your one-on-one communications.

Email it back to me and I’ll send you my step-by-step Constructive Conversation System that will enable you to talk to anyone about energy.

How Two Men Fundamentally Transformed the Catholic Church

Pope Francis

Shortly after a papal conclave elected Pope Francis as the 266th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the ex officio Bishop of Rome and sovereign of Vatican City, a Rabbi asked me what I thought about Pope Francis. I said to him, “As a Catholic I want a Church that changes the world, not one that changes with the world.”

I did not realize, until now, how prophetic that statement has become. It is also prophetic that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit priest from Argentina, took the name of Francis replacing Pope Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned.

Why prophetic? Let me count the ways.

A cross, Christ’s arm and Saint Francis’ arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans.

Pope Francis named himself after Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint Francis of Assisi created the Franciscan Order. Why is this important? Because it was William of Ockham, a 14th Century Franciscan, who fundamentally transformed the Catholic Church by replacing “scholasticism” with “nominalism.” William of Ockham is best known today for his espousal of metaphysical nominalism known as “Ockham’s Razor,” which is named after him.

In his book “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation”, Rod Dreher wrote:

 In his final book The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis, who was a professional medievalist, explained that Plato believed that two things could relate to each other only through a third thing. In what Lewis called the medieval “Model,” everything that existed was related to every other thing that existed, through their shared relationship to God. Our relationship to the world is mediated through God, and our relationship to God is mediated through the world.

This medieval “Model” is known as “scholasticism.” Dreher goes on to state:

The core teachings of Scholasticism include the principle that all things exist and have a God-given essential nature independent of human thought. This position is called “metaphysical realism.” From this principle comes what Charles Taylor identifies as the three basic bulwarks upholding the medieval Christian “imaginary” – that is, the vision of reality accepted by all orthodox Christians from the early church through the High Middle Ages:

  • The world and everything in it is part of a harmonious whole ordered by God and filled with meaning – and all things are signs pointing to God.
  • Society is grounded in that higher reality.
  • The world is charged with spiritual force.

These three pillars had to crumble before the modern world, today’s secular world, could arise.

William of Ockham

And crumble they did starting with Ockham’s Razor. As Dreher noted:

The theologian who did the most to topple the might oak of the medieval model – that is, Christian metaphysical realism – was a Franciscan from the British Isles, William of Ockham (1285-1347). The ax he and his theological allies created to do the job was a big idea that came to be called nominalism.

Realism holds that the essence of a thing is built into its existence by God, and its ultimate meaning is guaranteed by this connection to the transcendent order. This implies that Creation is comprehensible because it is rationally ordered by God and a revelation of Him.

[ … ]

Medieval metaphysicians believed nature pointed to God. Nominalists did not. They believed that there is no inner meaning existing objectively within nature and discoverable by reason. Meaning is extrinsic – that is, imposed from the outside, by God – and accessible to humans by faith in Him and His revelation alone.

If this sounds like plain good sense to you, then you begin to grasp how revolutionary nominalism was. What was once a radical theory would, in time, become the basis for the way most people understood the relationship between God and Creation. It made the modern world possible – but as we will see, it also set the stage for man enthroning himself in the place of God. [Emphasis added]

Ockham’s Razor set the stage for the ideal of “individualism,” government as God and relativism in Western culture. It lead inextricably to what we are seeing in the Catholic Church and Western culture with the election of Pope Francis.

The Catholic church has embraced the modern world and wants to attract those who believe in it to the Church. This is a fools errand and will only lead to the second fundamental transformation of the Catholic Church. A church addicted to Ockham’s opioid named nominalism. You can get your fix the next time you attend mass.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer penned the words, “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Today we are reaping what these two men have sown – cheap grace.

FLORIDA: Define ‘Free Public Schools’ and Limit School Board ‘Home Rule’ Authority

Every 20 years, Florida convenes a Constitutional Review Commission to consider possible changes to Florida’s Constitution, and to then place those proposed revisions on the ballot.  The Constitutional Review Commission convened this year, in anticipation of the November 2018 ballot.

Preamble to the Florida Constitution of 1865.

Many of us have observed first-hand the overreach of our local school boards beyond classroom “reading, writing and arithmetic” into collectivist “collaborative partnerships” with various non-government community organizations. This is classic “mission drift” that surely goes beyond our state’s constitutional framers when they drafted Art. IX, Section 4(b) which provides that the School Boards shall operate the “free public schools.”

The problem is, “free public schools” has never been defined, and to this day the Florida Attorney General and Florida courts struggle to understand the outer limits of that term.

Adding to this problem, in 1983 the Florida Legislature gave school boards “home rule power,” telling them in essence that they can do whatever they want — without any check from other branches of government — unless the Legislature has “expressly prohibited” the school board from acting on that subject.  Here is an excerpt from an  Florida Attorney General advisory opinion drafted shortly after the 1983 legislative change:

Section 230.03(2), F.S. [now 1001.32(2), F.S.], currently provides: “SCHOOL BOARD.–In accordance with the provisions of s. 4(b) of Art. IX of the State Constitution, district school boards shall operate, control, and supervise all free public schools in their respective districts and may exercise any power except as expressly prohibited by the State Constitution or general law.” (e.s.) Section 7 of Ch. 83-324, Laws of Florida, deleted the language contained in s. 230.03(2), F.S. 1981, which stated that district school boards may exercise any power “for educational purposes except as otherwise provided by the State Constitution or law” and added the language “except as expressly prohibited by the State Constitution or general law.” (e.s.) Since the issuance of AGO 83-72, it has been the position of this office that the 1983 amendment conferred on school boards a variant of “home-rule power,” and that a district school board may exercise any power for school purposes in the operation, control, and supervision of the free public schools in its district except as expressly prohibited by the State Constitution or general lawSee also AGO’s 84-95, 84-58.

Most people will agree that local control of schools is a good thing, and thus the concept of “home rule power” is also a good thing.  But most people would also agree that our public school system should focus on education in the classroom, plus traditional extracurricular activities such as athletics, music, academic clubs, etc.  Schools go beyond their mission when they delve into (i) instructing parents on how to be better parents; (ii) providing welfare to students; (iii) providing affordable housing; and (iv) “collectively collaborating” with local non-profits on pet projects such as “Future Ready Collier” and NCH’s self-serving special interest “Blue Zones Project.”  These all take the eye off of the ball of teaching in the classroom; they are expensive; and they create a bloated school district administration that becomes an out-of-control behemoth.

As Joe Whitehead analogized on his 8/19/2017 radio show, the behemoth bureaucratic administration becomes like “Hal 9000,” the computer in 2001: a Space Odyssey, which takes on a life of its own and serves itself rather than the people it was originally designed to serve.

So here’s a simple proposed solution to this mission drift:

1. Constitutionally define “free public schools” under Art. IX, Section 4(b) of the Florida Constitution.  Limit it to teaching students within the four corners of the school district campus, with focus on reading, writing, arithmetic, science, fact-based American history, and traditional extracurriculars.

2. Legislatively amend Fla. Stat. Section 1001.32(2) to allow school board home rule authority only within the constitutional definition of “free public schools.”  The amended statute might read as:

(2) DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD.—In accordance with the provisions of s. 4(b) of Art. IX of the State Constitution, district school boards shall operate, control, and supervise all free public schools, as constitutionally defined, in their respective districts and may exercise any power except as expressly prohibited by the State Constitution or general law.  For actions or matters beyond the scope of free public schools, district school boards may not exercise any power except as expressly authorized by the Legislature.

(changes in bold).

3.  Legislatively define the statutory terms “educational purposes” and “school purposes” in alignment with the new definition of “free public schools.”

4.  Constitutionally (or at least legislatively) prohibit school boards from engaging in “for profit” activities such as after-school child care, or affordable housing.  All school board programs should be “revenue neutral,” with the school board required to provide studies containing sufficient data to demonstrate fiscal neutrality.

ADDITIONAL ITEMS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION BASED ON THE PREMISE THAT SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAVE BECOME TOO BIG, BUDGETS TOO LARGE AND DIFFICULT TO TRACK, AND SUPERINTENDENTS HAVE TOO MUCH ABILITY TO CONSOLIDATE POWER, NOT JUST WITHIN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM, BUT IN THE COMMUNITY:

5.  Amend Fla. Const. Art. IX, Sect. 4(a) to define a “school district” as something smaller than the region of each county.  That may have been appropriate a century ago when Florida’s population was smaller and more spread out, but it now consolidates too much power in a centralized school district administration.  (Take, for instance Collier’s  annual budget which now for the first time exceeds $1 billion).  Alternatively, keep the “county” geographical limits for a school district, but break it into elementary, middle and high school subdistricts, each with a separate superintendent and budget.  Some may counter that this will lead to fiscal inefficiencies in areas such as busing, athletic fields, etc., but this can be resolved legislatively by allowing inter-district sharing of such resources and services.

6.  Change F.S. 1010.33 to state that each School Board “shall” (not just “are authorized to”) have its own independent certified public accountant to perform its own annual financial and performance audit.  In other words, take this out of the control of the superintendents, who may otherwise too easily control these audits. 

6.  Provide term limits for superintendents.  They have too much ability to “roll up” individual power by their connections within the community, serving themselves more than the students.  Also provide a prohibition on superintendents lobbying school boards once they depart.

7.  Recognize that individual school board members were elected by the people as their policy-making representatives.  Enact legislation authorizing any school board member to add a policy item to the school board agenda, so that the rights of the “minority” board group may be heard and not subverted by all-powerful superintendents and the “majority” board members they all-too-often control.

Constitutional Review Commission member / Collier School Board member Erika Donalds.

We in Collier County are fortunate to have one of our school board members, Erika Donalds, serving on the Constitutional Review Commission.  In fact, Ms. Donalds chairs the “local government” panel and serves on the “education” panel , which includes Article IX of the Constitution which needs amending as mentioned herein.  Ms. Donalds would do well to consider the foregoing constitutional proposals, with local state representatives Byron Donalds and Bob Rommel leading on the legislative issues.**

** (Particularly Mr. Donalds, who now serves on various k-12 legislative subcommittees.)

Education vs. Indoctrination

We can no longer trust our most fundamental institutions.

David Wojick, a brilliant mathematician and CFACT contributor, has posted an important series of articles at CFACT.org focusing on the shocking way government and educational institutions are indoctrinating students with unsound global warming talking points.

Dr. Wojick’s latest piece focuses on lesson plans from the National Academy of Sciences that reveal “NAS has clearly lost sight of its role as the trusted science advisor to the US Government.”

NAS has created a “webquest” for children that takes them on a journey into the realm of junk science.  As Dr. Wojick points out, the “quest” gives children no chance of encountering sound science.  It is all about indoctrination, not education.

In is column “The National Academy of Sciences teaches climate advocacy, not science” Dr. Wojick writes:

The prestigious US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is off the rails when it comes to teaching kids about climate change. They have an exhaustive lesson plan for middle and high school kids that teaches a great deal of alarmist advocacy and very little science. NAS has clearly lost sight of its role as the trusted science advisor to the US Government. Al Gore could have written this lesson.

The lesson plan is called Climate Change Webquest. As the name “Webquest” suggests, it is basically a framework that ties together a lot of alarmist websites, which the students go to, to find answers for specific questions. (Some of these sites are not suitable for middle schoolers, but then neither is the framework.)

The structure of the framework gives away the game. The Webquest is supposed to be undertaken by a group of five students, each of which plays a specific role. Here are the roles:

1. Climate Scientist
2. Policy Analyst (!)
3. Economist
4. Energy Expert
5. Urban Planner

Clearly this is about policy, not science. In fact the scientist’s primary role is merely to saythat CO2 emissions are creating dangerous climate change. Then the other four players try to redesign society in order to solve this bogus problem. Their product is a “strategy portfolio,” including proposed new laws.

Here’s the problem.

While those who value freedom master the ins and outs of science and policy, the Left masters procedure and institutional control.

To compete we need to become procedural experts ourselves and return our institutions to their genuine missions.

The Death of the American Woman

I have been thinking a lot about Bill O’Reilly and his departure from Fox News. This is the first time that I have commented on it because I wanted to thoroughly think it through first, and this is the conclusion that I have arrived at;

I am not a big fan of Bill O’Reilly, and never have been, but that isn’t because of any allegations of womanizing. I just find him to be an obnoxious bore, but Mr. Bill has become the latest victim of liberalism, that’s all. Nothing to do with sex, or harassment, or anything of the sort….just liberalism and here’s why.

Woman have gone the way of every other minority in this country, namely blacks, in the respect that they have become abusers of the very system that has given them equality and justice. At one time, that pendulum of justice swung far to one side and treated women unfairly…..same as it did for blacks, but then things changed and there was a correction, rightfully so, and that pendulum swung the other way, but instead of stopping it in the middle where truth and fairness for all is found, they, like blacks, kept on pushing it far to the opposite side to where now they are able to manipulate and abuse the very system that sought to correct the uneven balance.

Women have become like political and social IED’s. The slightest provocation, and even no provocation, could cause them to explode, and if you are in their path…..you are going to get hurt.

One word from a woman, and without one iota or scintilla of evidence or proof, and a man is immediately under the microscope by the social and legal communities and his entire life is at risk. Let’s take a couple of scenarios that are going on right now and that I am personally familiar with:

The first, a young couple living together. He bought the house, and she is the “live in” girlfriend with three kids. They get into a fight, she calls the cops and accuses him of hitting her. He is arrested and cannot return to his house. This has become an old story. It is now almost commonplace for a woman to file a “protection from abuse” when couples seek divorce, just to get him out of the house, and if she files it, she automatically gets it. No proof of abuse, she just gets the order.

Next, did you know that it is a sad fact that many young fathers will not bathe their daughters? It’s a fact. Why? Because of the ever increasing accusations of sexual abuse if the couple becomes estranged. One accusation from a woman immediately puts a man under the microscope of the legal authorities. Yes, I know of such a case right now……and it never happened. The playwright, William Congreve said it best, “….Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

These are not isolated cases or situations. This has become the norm across the Nation. The American Woman has proudly taken her place alongside Black Lives Matter. Unless you have your head buried in the sand, you’ll have noticed that there is a war against whites, there is a war against boys and there is a war against men.

So if you’re a white boy who has grown to be a man? Well, you’re pretty much screwed.

U.S. Has 3.5 Million More Registered Voters Than Live Adults

On May 11, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order establishing the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Vice President Mike Pence chairs the Commission, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach serves as the vice chair.

On June 28, 2017 a press release from the office of Vice President Pence stated:

This morning, Vice President Mike Pence held an organizational call with members of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The Vice President reiterated President Trump’s charge to the commission with producing a set of recommendations to increase the American people’s confidence in the integrity of our election systems.

“The integrity of the vote is a foundation of our democracy; this bipartisan commission will review ways to strengthen that integrity in order to protect and preserve the principle of one person, one vote,” the Vice President told commission members today.

The commission set July 19 as its first meeting, which will take place in Washington, D.C.

Vice Chair of the Commission and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told members a letter will be sent today to the 50 states and District of Columbia on behalf of the Commission requesting publicly-available data from state voter rolls and feedback on how to improve election integrity.

On August 18, 2017 Tyler Durden wrote a column on Zero Hedge titled “U.S. Has 3.5 Million More Registered Voters Than Live Adults – A Red Flag For Electoral Fraud.” Durden reported:

According to a new study of U.S. Census data, America has more registered voters than actual live voters. It’s a troubling fact that puts our nation’s future in peril.

As reported by the National Review’s Deroy Murdock, who did some numbers-crunching of his own, “some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud.”

Murdock counted Judicial Watch’s state-by-state tally and found that 462 U.S. counties had a registration rate exceeding 100% of all eligible voters. That’s 3.552 million people, who Murdock calls “ghost voters.” And how many people is that? There are 21 states that don’t have that many people.

Nor are these tiny, rural counties or places that don’t have the wherewithal to police their voter rolls.

California, for instance, has 11 counties with more registered voters than actual voters. Perhaps not surprisingly — it is deep-Blue State California, after all — 10 of those counties voted heavily for Hillary Clinton.

Los Angeles County, whose more than 10 million people make it the nation’s most populous county, had 12% more registered voters than live ones, some 707,475 votes. That’s a huge number of possible votes in an election.

But, Murdock notes, “California’s San Diego County earns the enchilada grande. Its 138% registration translates into 810,966 ghost voters.”

State by state, this is an enormous problem that needs to be dealt with seriously. Having so many bogus voters out there is a temptation to voter fraud. In California, where Hillary Clinton racked up a massive majority over Trump, it would have made little difference.

Read more.

Voter fraud is real. Every illegal vote takes away the voting rights of a legal voter.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Ghost Voters – National Review

Democrats Caught In Massive New Election-Rigging Scandal

EDITORS NOTE: Any member of the public wishing to submit written comments for the Commission’s consideration may do so via email at ElectionIntegrityStaff@ovp.eop.gov. Please note that the Commission may post such written comments publicly on their website, including names and contact information that are submitted.

In the shadow of Joshua Chamberlain

What are you mad at? What is it about these marble monuments that have you so worked up.

I live in Maine so I am a Northern Yankee. That is about as “Northern” as you can get, and trust me, it’s as Yankee as you can get. In fact, I live just a few miles from where the great Brigadier General, Joshua Chamberlain was born. Now, you do know who he was, don’t you? NO? Well, I’ll tell you….

Joshua Chamberlain was born in 1828 in Brewer, Maine, just across the river from where I live. He served four terms as the Governor of Maine and he was the President of the Prestigious Bowdon College in Brunswick, Maine. Before all that, however, he commanded a Regiment of Union soldiers at the battle of Gettysburg known as the 20th Maine. Chamberlain and the boys of the 20th Maine were positioned at a place called, “Little Round Top.” That position was the back side of the Union line. Should the Confederate soldiers break through Chamberlain’s line, they would be able to attack from the rear, winning the battle and then advancing to Washington with ease and winning the war.

Confederate Infantry repeatedly marched up the hill and advanced on the 20th Maine, killing many of those good Maine boys, and wounding much more. Those Confederate soldiers advanced so many times that Chamberlain’s forces began to run low on ammunition. It was at this point that Chamberlain ordered the left side of his line to join the right and his men to fix bayonets. He then ordered a “Right Wheel Forward” which was to swing down like a wheel, screaming bloody murder, charging at the enemy. His maneuver was a successful one, the Confederate soldiers were pushed back, and many killed. Many historians have credited Chamberlain for saving the Union with his stand at Little Round Top, but that’s for historians to debate.

So what does all this have to do with you? Let’s look at that now.

Just shy of two years later, on April 9, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant met with Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia to accept the unconditional surrender of the Southern Army. The war was over. The North had won. A new era was about to begin. With tensions still high, General Grant placed Joshua Chamberlain in charge of the Union Troops at Appomattox.

Now here’s the thing…..In spite of the terrible battle waged at Little Round Top and the Maine boys who lost their lives there, Brigadier Joshua Chamberlain ordered the Union Troops to form a column on both sides of the stairs of the Courthouse where Lee was surrendering and when Lee emerged, every Union soldier was at attention and saluting the General and affording him the respect and courtesy that his rank and position demanded. After Lee’s surrender, they also stood at attention as Lee’s conquered army passed by.

The average age of the Civil War soldier was 25 years old. More than 625,000 of them were laid in their graves before their lives ever began and still, a Brigadier General from Maine along with hundreds of of other young boys in blue who marched until their feet bled, froze in the cold winter night, and went hungry for days when rations were scarce, stood at attention and in solemn respect to their Confederate counterparts at wars end. So I ask you; What gives you the right of righteous indignation. What dues have you paid that usurped those who showed respect to these boys in grey.

What is this self aggrandizement that you would place yourselves above the likes of Joshua Chamberlain and his charitable gesture of respect to Robert E. Lee.

Finally, will it be your greatest moment in life when you someday sit with your grandchildren on your knee and point to a faded photo of a coward, their face covered with a handkerchief, and proudly exclaim, “That was me!” Which one of you will defiantly tear the mask from your face as you pull the statue of Robert E. Lee to the ground and proudly proclaim, “Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain, you now stand in my great shadow.”

RELATED ARTICLE: President Trump Praises Veterans for Keeping ‘History and Culture’

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Union soldiers drawing up their weapons in salute as the surrendered Confederates march past. Image courtesy Don Troiani, Historical Art Prints.

Child Abuse in Indiana: Pray or Prey?

It’s not a pretty picture, as they say. No, I retract that. It’s a hideous, odious picture of a Midwestern capital that shuts its eyes to child abuse and trafficking, shuts its eyes, closes its doors to victims, and slams its doors against mandatory reporters like teachers.

Years ago, CPS, in an Indianapolis suburb, would repeatedly receive reports of a prolific child molester, a prominent elected official, and routinely shred them, according to its staff. Long ago, the official left Indianapolis, but his trail of tears stayed.

Now, City headlines tout such good news as “Indianapolis man won’t go to prison for molesting daughter with cancer.” Even if you believe in climate change, the climate for kids in Indy is not changing, except for the worse.

If your heart breaks to know that this tiny victim of predation gets no justice, move. I am quite serious. Show your intolerance for hate against children with your feet and the seat of your pants. Do not let your children and grandchildren grow up in a climate of hate against the child, hate against the sanctity of the child.

Can we envisage a more vulnerable victim than a 6-year-old girl with brain cancer, spending several months in the hospital, a year in chemotherapy, and being abused nightly by her father? Marion Superior Court Magistrate Steven Rubick ruled that this Super Dad deserved a chance to financially support his wife and children, although he had failed to do so for the year after being prosecuted when he was living in the family home and they could not move back in until he left.

Twelve years of probation for crushing a deathly-ill child’s life … Indy should be proud of its continuing record of protecting predators like the Park Tudor hero basketball coach who preyed upon his student for months and two other students before her.

In exclusive Park Tudor school, where tuition exceeds $20,000 per child per year, a combination basketball coach and chemistry teacher was finally sentenced to 14 years in prison for his repeated crimes against one of his Park students, after the school’s attorney, Michael Blickman, partner in Ice Miller law firm, refused to provide law enforcement with child pornography evidence that he had obtained directly from the victim’s family until three weeks after receiving said graphic images and written messages between the predator and the victim … three weeks during which a predator was being effectively protected from prosecution by withholding of evidence.

Where is Blickman’s prosecution 1 ½ years after he illegally obtained child pornography, transferred it to his own thumb drive, took it to the Ice Miller offices, and withheld the evidence from law enforcement for three weeks? U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler, per reports in the Indianapolis Star, when asked about Park Tudor’s handling of the evidence, merely said, “We’ll save that for another day.” Does anyone believe that Michael Blickman would have been allowed to possess and transfer child pornography and to withhold the explicit evidence of crimes against a child if he were not in a protected class of people, as was the prominent Indianapolis public official who was a prolific child molester?

Looking at the facts of the Park Tudor case is a disgusting revelation of how precious children are sacrificed for political considerations. The timeline shows that Park’s coach not only repeatedly exchanged pornographic pictures and videos with his victim for months and Michael Blickman withheld the evidence of said crimes for three weeks from law enforcement, but it took the Indiana Department of Child Services multiple reports of the crimes and 20 days from the initial report to DCS for a DCS case manager to speak to the family for the first time. Thirty-seven days after the initial report, detectives interviewed the head of Park Tudor, who allegedly hanged himself in his garage at his home adjacent to the Park Tudor campus two days later on a Saturday morning, which suicide has been widely reported as being “unrelated to investigation” going on at his school. The proximity in time between the Headmaster’s interview and his reported suicide was certainly a mere coincidence.

In a case that involves the questionable death of a brilliant man, husband, father of two children, exceedingly handsome, Headmaster of one of Indiana’s most exclusive private schools, living in a home valued at over $800,000, who would possibly believe that his reported suicide, two days after being interviewed by law enforcement on a child pornography case in which the evidence was withheld from detectives for three weeks by the attorney advising him, was for reasons “unrelated to” the crimes being investigated?

Indianapolis attorney Jack Crawford, according to Indianapolis Star reports, is quoted, “That’s child pornography,” commenting on Blickman’s making of copies of explicit messages and images and keeping them at his office. Blickman also allowed the predator to take his school computer home with him to remove “personal” content after Blickman had control of the evidence of the coach’s crimes against the child; yet, Blickman remains unprosecuted.

In the Park Tudor Deferred Prosecution Agreement between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the school, only the Headmaster, now dead, is subject “to prosecution for the offense of Misprision of a Felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 4,” meaning failure to promptly report a felony to appropriate authorities; although it is irrefutable that Blickman was actually the owner of the child pornography for three weeks and was the legal counsel for the Headmaster, advising him on handling the crimes at hand committed by Park Tudor’s coach. Nowhere in the Deferred Prosecution Agreement is the name of Michael Blickman ever printed or the offense of Misprision of a Felony attributed to Blickman, only to a dead Headmaster.

Taking a look at the predator and the evidence placed before Magistrate Judge Debra McVicker Lynch, it is astonishing to note that she ruled against the prosecutors’ recommendation that the coach remain jailed at a federal prison until his trial, commenting, “I am troubled by the gross immaturity,” referring to the coach’s communications with a minor Park Tudor student who knocked the victim to the ground after she had reported the coach’s crimes, saying, “It was fun knocking her to the ground.” The coach’s reply was, “It would have been pretty epic if you would have caused a concussion lol,” and “I would turn my head if you messed her up.”

Is this “gross immaturity,” or is it violent, dangerous, vicious rhetoric from a teacher and coach after he has been caught in his crimes against a child, encouraging another child to attack her, which attack did indeed occur at Park Tudor, further traumatizing the victim and her friend, who was also attacked by their fellow classmate.

Judge Lynch and the coach’s attorney in this abysmal case have served together in the Senior Counsel division of the Indy Bar Association.

Unbelievably, with all of the irrefutable evidence in hand of repeated crimes against a child, the coach was not arrested until seven weeks after his resignation from Park, with his protective father proclaiming, “I don’t believe my son is a criminal.” The predator’s attorney, James Voyles, who has repeatedly served as the President and Vice President of the Indy Bar, boasted that 47 people had written letters to the court on behalf of the predator, which letters described the predatory coach as “paint[ing] a picture of a wonderful young man.” This “wonderful young man,” after he had been exposed as a remorseless serial predator, repeatedly tried to persuade his victim to take the blame herself for the crimes he had committed and texted the male Park student, who had violently attacked the victim and her friend on the Park campus, “The nice thing is that I can get any job in the state.”

In the face of all of the written and visual evidence indisputably proving that a Park Tudor teacher had repeatedly committed crimes against a student and additionally against two other students beginning in 2010, prior to said series of crimes, U.S. District Judge Larry J. McKinney ordered a sentence of only 14 years, for which crimes the law permits life in prison.

At this point in time, Magistrate Judge Lynch had refused to incarcerate the predator before his trial; law enforcement did not arrest the predator until seven weeks after his forced resignation and confidentiality agreement with Park Tudor had been signed; DCS did not investigate the case until 20 days after the initial report had been received; detectives did not interview the headmaster of Park Tudor until 37 days after the initial report; Michael Blickman, law partner at Ice Miller, who possessed child pornography and brought it to his office for three weeks, has never been prosecuted; two Park Tudor girls, the victim and her friend, were assaulted at school because the coach had been exposed for his crimes against one of the girls; and children’s lives were needlessly and irreparably harmed either as victims of the crimes or potential victims who know of the crimes and were left unprotected by the entire system from top to bottom.

To be certain, the persons who did not commit Misprision of a Felony were the family members of the victim; yet, they have suffered and will continue to suffer immeasurably for blowing the whistle on the Park Tudor coach who had affairs with at least three students beginning in 2010, according to reports. What really happens to the reporter of child abuse? As we have learned through generations of children and families reporting child abuse in the Catholic Church, the children themselves commonly become the victims of betrayal and abandonment by society, namely their community, neighbors, clergy, educators, and others they should be able to trust implicitly for solace and support during their times of intense crisis, after reporting crimes committed against them.

Let me direct you to my case of reporting child abuse to the Boone County court involving a convicted predator who had committed three separate counts of Child Molesting Class B Felony when committed by an adult. When I served the mother of the convicted molester a subpoena for her to testify under oath about her son’s six-year close relationship with minor children whom I sought to protect, Boone Judge Steven David immediately quashed my subpoena and thereafter ordered me to pay the child molester’s family $60,000. The Indiana Supreme Court subsequently refused to hear my appeal, and later, Steven David was appointed to become Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court.

In his order to me, issued just before Mother’s Day, Judge David described the predator as a young boy who tugged at the pants of a child (in addition to his first victim for whom he had been incarcerated). Because the second molestation was never prosecuted, the victim had no recourse to obtain justice. Judge David, now Justice David, fined me $60,000. for serving a subpoena on the predator’s family, despite the fact that the Marion Superior Court judge actually hearing the criminal case against the predator specifically acknowledged his danger to society, noting specifically “the seriousness/repetitiveness of the delinquent act … endangering the safety and welfare of the community ….”

Like the family that reported the crimes of the Park Tudor coach, my family suffered immeasurably for reporting the crimes of the grandson of a prominent developer in Indianapolis.

In his Affidavit for Probable Cause, the detective noted that the predator had molested a child much younger than he in multiple ways, and additionally had destroyed the little girl’s doll by cutting out the private area, stuffing the doll with things to make it look like his victim, and then setting fire to the victim’s dolls “to release his anger.” Later, while on probation, the predator was found with “eight drawings of people performing and receiving deviant sexual acts,” for which the probation department requested a revocation of probation. At the present time, the predator, now much older, spews dark foreboding poetry on the Internet about “blood blood blood” and brags that he does online videos and work in lingerie specializing in fetish.

At the time that Judge David described the predator’s molestation of a second victim as a young boy tugging at the pants of a child, he was President of the Indiana Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and has been currently appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to serve on the Judicial Conference Court Improvement Program Executive Committee, the Judicial Conference Juvenile Justice Improvement Committee, the Judicial Conference Strategic Planning Committee, and the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, amongst other programs and committees.

During the time that convicted child trafficker, Jared Fogel, was being investigated by the FBI for sexually abusing children in the United States and other countries of the world, I personally witnessed a serious child abuse incident by an afterschool counselor, weighing approximately 350 pounds, lying on top of a child, who was moaning and groaning while being pinned down by the counselor on a bare floor against a concrete wall, which abuse I immediately reported. A home base for Jared Fogel, the afterschool counselor, and the predator I reported to Steven David was the same facility, where all of these men frequented and where I was targeted as a whistleblower.

Enter my husband’s boss, Robert W. York, a hearing officer for the Indiana Supreme Court in attorney disciplinary cases, whose law firm had employed my husband for years prior to my reports of serious child abuse at the popular facility frequented by predators. York also served with the coach’s attorney and 13 other lawyers and judges in the Indy Bar Senior Counsel Division, including the supervising judge of the Marion County courts. Upon learning of my reports, York pulled my husband into his office with an ultimatum, that being, paraphrased, “either your wife does not further expose the popular facility [where predators frequent] through litigation, or you’re fired.” Indeed, my husband was fired by York, whose visceral hostility against our family has never abated in a dozen years.

Enter Robert W. York again, when a few years later, York represented one of my husband’s former clients, resulting in the suspension by the Indiana Supreme Court, where Judge Steven David serves, of my husband’s law license on minimal grounds, in order to further punish and silence our family for reporting crimes against children.

Enter Robert W. York again, ten years after he fired my husband, when York is appointed by a judge, who himself was appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court, to serve as the administrator of my Dad’s estate. As administrator, York took actions to ensure that my husband’s administrative expenses could not be collected from my Dad’s estate – over $50,000.00 in funds that my husband had advanced to pay the estate’s bills.

Enter York again, now seeking contempt of court citations for fines and imprisonment against both my husband and me by making allegations, documented as false, against us. The judge, the long-time colleague of York in close-knit Lawrence Township, was appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to supervise the Estate of Holocaust Survivor Al Katz, my Dad. The day of our intended arrests is September 6, 2017, at 1:00 PM, in the courtroom of Judge James Joven on the 14th floor of the City-County Building in Indianapolis, and the media have been banned by the court from taking photographs or making any recordings of our arrests.

In this case, our efforts to report to the Marion County court, as required by the federal Misprision of Felony law, the documented crimes committed by Robert York were met swiftly by orders from Judge Joven that we are forbidden to disrespect York; and our motion for the court to refer Robert York to law enforcement under the Misprision of Felony statute was immediately denied.

What do all of these cases emanating from Indiana have in common? Abusers are protected in Indiana; reporters of abuse are marked; and victims are marred for life. Those who commit child abuse, even heinous serial molestations of young children, are given light sentences, only probation, or remain unprosecuted; but those who report such child abuse can face decades of retribution for their exposure of protected predators who end up in our children’s classrooms or on the Internet making on-line videos laced with fetish lingerie and pornography to lure children into a dark web world from which many will enter innocently and never escape.

Our goal is to get hundreds of letters/emails in support of us sent to:

Vice President Mike Pence, the former Gov. of Indiana
vice.president@whitehouse.gov

Richard Payne Attorney for Indiana Supreme Court
Richard.payne@courts.in.gov

Judge Timothy Oakes Presiding Judge of the Marion Superior Court
toakes@indy.gov

Surely, we should get hundreds of emails in support of us when the predator at Park Tudor school got 47 letters sent to the court in support of him. Please blind copy me with your letters/emails, and urge others to speak out against these grotesque injustices in Indiana to children and elders.

For your information, Robert York and the court are fully informed by expert medical opinions filed with the court that travelling to Indianapolis from Florida is dangerous to my health, medically impermissible, and possibly lethal; but both demand for me to risk my life and health to personally appear before Judge Joven on York’s fraudulent claims that I did not file a second accounting in Dad’s probate case (which second accounting was filed in 2015 and so appears on the court’s own docket) and that I interfered with the sale of Dad’s home by objecting to its sale without any court hearing on administrative expenses owed to my husband for over four years. For these fraudulent claims, I am to risk my life in violation of my religious convictions that I can never risk my life but in extreme emergencies. Since I cannot travel without risking my life, I am to be arrested and shipped to Indianapolis on September 6, 2017.

Please act now, urge others to speak now, and contact the media to cover this story. For further information and documentation, you can reach me at helpelders@hotmail.com.

The Benedict Option: Relative versus Revelatory Truth

“God moves in a mysterious way.” – Isaiah 55:8-9.

I am a member of a weekly men’s prayer fellowship. Each member is required to give a Biblical lesson for a month. It turns out that I will be giving the lesson next month.

I began thinking what should I speak about that hasn’t already been covered? I thought about discussing the Book of Revelations because many Christians are seeing signs of the end of times and the second coming of Jesus. While thinking about my topic God revealed to me a book titled “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher.” After reading Dreher’s book I asked members of the prayer fellowship to read the book and discuss the ideas contained in it during our weekly Friday meetings during the month of September.

Why did God, who moves in a mysterious way, reveal this book to me?

Because I and many others, Christian and non-Christian alike, feel something is wrong, very wrong, in America and it’s getting worse.

Dreher in his book bears his soul and his concerns for the future of his family, community and the nation. Dreher writes in the preface to his book:

In my 2006 book Crunchy Cons, which explored a countercultural, traditionalist conservative sensibility, I brought up the work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who declared that Western civilization has lost its moorings. The time was coming, said MacIntyre, when men and women of virtue would understand that continued full participation in mainstream society was not possible for those who wanted to live a life of traditional virtue. These people would find new ways to live in community, he said, just as Saint Benedict, the sixth-century father of Western monasticism, responded to the collapse of Roman civilization by founding a monastic order.

Dreher explains how, over the past 7 centuries, Western civilization has come to embrace relative truth and abandon revelatory truth.

Relative truth is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths. Revelatory truth is the knowledge that there are absolute truths. Truths that transcend culture, civilization and mankind itself. These absolute truths have been revealed to us thus the term I use in the title “Revelatory Truth.”

William “Bill” Hild, Pastor of First Sarasota Baptist Church, gave a sermon on “Revelatory Truth.” You may wish to listen to what Pastor Bill has to say by clicking here.

Lindy Keffer in her column “Absolute Truth” wrote:

In a society where ultimate truth is treated like a fairy tale, an outdated idea or even an insult to human intelligence, the motto of the day becomes, “WHATEVER!” Believe whatever you want. Do whatever seems best to you. Live for whatever brings you pleasure, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. And of course, be tolerant. Don’t try to tell anyone that their whatever is wrong.

But where does that leave us? If we have ultimate truth, it gives us both a way to explain the world around us and a basis for making decisions. Without it, we’re alone.

Dreher notes:

Unprecedented numbers of young adult Americans say they have no religious affiliation at all. According to the Pew Research Center, one in three 18-to-29-year-olds have put religion aside, if they ever picked it up in the first place.

[ … ]

In 2005, sociologist Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton examined a wide variety of backgrounds. What they found was that in most cases, teenagers adhered to a mush pseudoreligion the researchers deemed Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD).

MTD has five basic tenets:

  • A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
  • God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible, and by most world religions.
  • The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
  • God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
  • Good people go to heaven when they die.

This creed, they found, is especially prominent among Catholic and Mainline Protestant teenagers.

MTD reeks of relative truth, not Revelatory or Absolute Truth.

Dreher writes:

MTD, in both its progressive and its conservative versions, is that it’s mostly about improving one’s self-esteem and subjective happiness and getting along well with others. It has little to do with the Christianity of Scripture and tradition, which teaches repentance, self-sacrificial love, and purity of heart, and commends suffering-the Way of the Cross- as the pathway to God. Though superficially Christian, MTD is the natural religion of a culture that worships the Self and material comfort.

Dreher warns, “Nobody but the most deluded of the old-school Religious Right believes that this cultural revolution can be turned back. The wave cannot be stopped, only ridden.”

What Dreher presents is another way forward for those who embrace revelatory/absolute truth.

He asks,

“Could it be that the best way to fight the flood is to . . . stop fighting the flood?”

That is to quit piling up sandbags [to fight the flood] and to build an ark in which to shelter until the water recedes and we can put our feet on dry land again? Rather than wasting energy and resources fighting unwinnable political battles, we should instead work of building communities, institutions, and networks of resistance that can outwit, outlast, and eventually overcome the occupation.

Dreher unequivocally states, “We have been in a place like this before. In the first centuries of Christianity, the early church survived and grew under Roman persecution and later after the collapse of the empire in the West. We latter-day Christians must learn from their example-and particularly from the example of Saint Benedict.”

Dreher is on to something. Christians must go back in time, and back to the basics, in order to regain a virtuous Christian future.

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It’s the Ideology Stupid!

Frank Thiboutot sent this as a letter-to-the-editor to the Portland Press Herald in Maine. Needless to say, it went unpublished.

We are publishing it here for all to reflect upon.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR BY FRANK THIBOUTOT

To: The smartest people in the room who believe that tolerance at the expense of the truth isn’t total stupidity.

What ideology turned beautiful, innocent German newborns into Nazis who were responsible for up to 85 million deaths during WWII?

What ideology turned beautiful, innocent Russian or Chinese newborns into communists which lead to 94 million deaths in the 20th century?

What ideology turned beautiful, innocent Middle Eastern, No. African or Arabian newborns into Islamic jihadists responsible for 270 million deaths for 1400 years? (Hint: It wasn’t Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism or even wiccanism)

*Combating these attacks from a counter-terrorism or counter insurgency position is helping but not working.

*Candlelight vigils, turning out the lights on the Eiffel Tower and teddy bears are not working.

*Telling us that Islam is a religion of peace is not working.

*Qualifying Islam as radical, extremist, hijacked, militant or fundamentalist is not working.

*Appealing to “moderate” Muslims is not working.

*Insisting mosques are places of worship just like churches & synagogues rather than seditious jihadist factories is not working.

*Insisting that “No-Go Zones” or Sharia courts do not exist is not working

*Allowing CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front group access to the highest levels in our institutions is not working.

*Talking tough AFTER a jihadist attack is not working.

*Blaming the only democratic country in the Middle East and legitimizing the Palestinian cause is not working.

*Throwing out the welcome mat by Europe and the U.S. to Muslim refugees is not working.

*Using the excuse that all religions have had violence in their history is not working.

*Claiming that there is a moral equivalence among all the major religions is not working.

*Not wanting to offend the perpetually offended Ummah (Muslim community) is not working.

*Believing the ACLU that FGM is not taking place in the U.S. is not working.

*Continuing to purchase OPEC oil to finance the purchase of weapons is not working.

*Regurgitating the “Lone Wolf” mantra that terrorists are being radicalized on the internet as a deflection is not working.

*Vilifying those who are trying to warn the West from committing cultural suicide is not working.

*Destroying ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hamas, al-Shabab, Hezbollah, Boko Haram and so on will not work in the long term to solve this problem.

So, what is the answer?

It’s simple. Drilling down to the root causes and motivations behind Islamic jihad are what’s necessary. 2500+ years ago, Sun Tzu believed in knowing the enemy which means understanding in detail his political philosophy.

Why aren’t there nationally televised public forums on Sharia law vs. our U.S. Constitution? Why do politicians, academicians and the media continue to apologize and enable Islamic jihad? What are they hiding? Are they being bought off?

We must unravel Islamic doctrine (the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith), expose it and it would implode on itself if our pathetic “leaders” actually had the backbone to do it. If you think that we’re going to accept these attacks as the new normal or that “terrorism is part and parcel of living in a big city”, then you’re totally misjudging the American people. Peeling back the onion on this threat is long overdue.

Frank Thiboutot
Portland, ME Chapter Leader
Act for America

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The Four Corners of Life

Anthony Esolen reflects on what happens when we tear down the solid foundations of Christian life. We need builders now. We must have slow, patient building, the building up of human souls.

One day when I was a boy I was riding in the car with my father, in the countryside north of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, when we came to an open crossroads at the top of a high hill.

They call this intersection The Four Corners of Life,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “Can you guess why?”

I looked out of the windows left and right and back, and saw a church and a cemetery on two of the corners, and a couple of buildings which I couldn’t identify on the others.

Well, I can guess, but you’d better tell me.”

That building over here,” he said, “used to be a small hospital, and this over here is a beer garden.” That’s what we called bars in that part of the world. “So you’re born in the hospital, you get married in church, and you get buried in the cemetery.”

What about the beer garden?”

That,” said my father, with his humorous understatement, “is where some guys go after they get married and before they get put in the ground. The Four Corners of Life!”

Eclipse in America, 08/21/17

My father was a good man and a devout Catholic, not above visiting the Pine Cafe on a Sunday afternoon, owned and operated by his old friend Joe with the Italian accent. He took me with him sometimes, as you could do then without fear of anything indecent, and I’d play shuffleboard or skee-ball, snacking on red-dyed pistachio nuts which Joe provided free of charge.

My father has been gone these twenty-six years, the Pine Cafe is no more, and the Four Corners of Life might be remembered by a few old-timers; I think I can still find the intersection. But that place came to my mind this evening when I went to Mass in a rural village in Nova Scotia.

I like the people in that old place of fishing boats and lobster traps; they’re a lot like the coal miners of my youth. They bear no resentment against the Church, and have little use for modern ideologies.

But they have been ravaged by modernity all the same. The church was filled with people who really wanted to be there; almost all of them older than I am, and I’m not young. The priest is newly ordained: his hair is white and he breathes heavily and he clearly has seen the other side of seventy.

He preached a fine sermon, and before Mass he addressed the people directly, telling them that the diocese of Antigonish has no ordinands this year, and not one young man in the seminary. It will be at least seven years before a man from the diocese will minister as priest to his people.

No children, no priests. No healthy habits of manhood, no priests; no vocations to the married life, no priests. But my mind returned to the jest my father told.

Click here to read the rest of Tony Esolen’s column . . .

Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen is a lecturer, translator, and writer. His latest books are Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child and Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture. He directs the Center for the Restoration of Catholic Culture at Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts.

President Trump Addresses The Nation 8/21/17 [FULL SPEECH]

Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, he directed Secretary of Defense Mattis and his national security team to undertake a comprehensive review of all strategic options in Afghanistan and South Asia. Last night, the President outlined his strategy for the region.

Watch President Donald Trump addresses the nation on U.S. Policy in Afghanistan.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of President Trump is an official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.

FULL TEXT OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP SPEECH ON AFGHANISTAN AND SOUTH EAST ASIA POLICY

Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Tillerson, members of the Cabinet, General Dunford, Deputy Secretary Shanahan, and Colonel Duggin. Most especially, thank you to the men and women of Fort Myer, and every member of the United States military at home and abroad. We send our thoughts and prayers to the families of our brave sailors who were injured and lost after a tragic collision at sea, as well as to those conducting the search-and-recovery efforts.I am here tonight to lay out our path forward in Afghanistan and South Asia. But before I provide the details of our new strategy, I want to say a few words to the service members here with us tonight, to those watching from their posts, and to all Americans listening at home.Since the founding of our republic, our country has produced a special class of heroes whose selflessness, courage, and resolve is unmatched in human history. American patriots from every generation have given their last breath on the battlefield for our nation and for our freedom. Through their lives, and though their lives were cut short, in their deeds they achieved total immortality. By following the heroic example of those who fought to preserve our republic, we can find the inspiration our country needs to unify, to heal, and to remain one nation, under God. The men and women of our military operate as one team, with one shared mission and one shared sense of purpose. They transcend every line of race, ethnicity, creed, and color to serve together and sacrifice together in absolutely perfect cohesion.

That is because all service members are brothers and sisters. They’re all part of the same family. It’s called the American family. They take the same oath, fight for the same flag, and live according to the same law. They’re bound together by common purpose, mutual trust, and selfless devotion to our nation and to each other. The soldier understands what we as a nation too often forget: that a wound inflicted upon a single member of our community is a wound inflicted upon us all. When one part of America hurts, we all hurt. And when one citizen suffers an injustice, we all suffer together. Loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another. Love for America requires love for all of its people. When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry, and no tolerance for hate. The young men and women we send to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other.As we send our bravest to defeat our enemies overseas—and we will always win—let us find the courage to heal our divisions within. Let us make a simple promise to the men and women we ask to fight in our name: that when they return home from battle, they will find a country that has renewed the sacred bonds of love and loyalty that unite us together as one.Thanks to the vigilance and skill of the American military, and of our many allies throughout the world, horrors on the scale of September 11th—nobody can ever forget that—have not been repeated on our shores. But we must acknowledge the reality I’m here to talk about tonight: that nearly 16 years after the September 11th attacks, after the extraordinary sacrifice of blood and treasure, the American people are weary of war without victory. Nowhere is this more evident than with the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history, 17 years. I share the American people’s frustration. I also share their frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money, and most importantly lives, trying to rebuild countries in our own image instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations.

That is why shortly after my inauguration, I directed Secretary of Defense Mattis, and my national-security team, to undertake a comprehensive review of all strategic options in Afghanistan and South Asia. My original instinct was to pull out, and historically, I like following my instincts. But all my life I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. In other words, when you’re president of the United States. So I studied Afghanistan in great detail, and from every conceivable angle. After many meetings, over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David with my Cabinet and generals to complete our strategy. I arrived at three fundamental conclusions about America’s core interests in Afghanistan.First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives. The men and women who serve our nation in combat deserve a plan for victory. They deserve the tools they need and the trust they have earned to fight and win.Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan, because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda, would instantly fill just as happened before September 11th. And as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq. As a result, our hard-won gains slipped back into the hands of terrorist enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for, and bled to liberate, and won, were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS. The vacuum we created by leaving too soon gave safe haven for ISIS to spread, to grow, recruit, and launch attacks.

We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq. Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan, and the broader region, are immense. Today 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The highest concentration in any region, anywhere in the world. For its part, Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror. The threat is worse because Pakistan and India are two nuclear-armed states whose tense relations threaten to spiral into conflict. And that could happen. No one denies that we have inherited a challenging and troubling situation in Afghanistan, and South Asia. But we do not have the luxury of going back in time and making different or better decisions. When I became president, I was given a bad and very complex hand. But I fully knew what I was getting into: big and intricate problems. But one way or another, these problems will be solved. I’m a problem solver, and in the end, we will win.We must address the reality of the world as it exists right now, the threats we face, and the confronting of all of the problems of today, and extremely predictable consequences of a hasty withdrawal. We need look no further than last week’s vile, vicious attack in Barcelona to understand that terror groups will stop at nothing to commit the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children. You saw it for yourself, horrible. As I outlined in my speech in Saudi Arabia, three months ago, America and our partners are committed to stripping terrorists of their territory, cutting off their funding, and exposing the false allure of their evil ideology. Terrorists who slaughter innocent people will find no glory in this life or the next. They are nothing but thugs and criminals and predators, and that’s right—losers. Working alongside our allies, we will break their will, dry up their recruitment, keep them from crossing our borders, and yes, we will defeat them, and we will defeat them handily. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, America’s interests are clear. We must stop the resurgence of safe havens that enable terrorists to threaten America. And we must prevent nuclear weapons and materials from coming into the hands of terrorists, and being used against us, or anywhere in the world for that matter. But to prosecute this war, we will learn from history.

As a result of our comprehensive review, American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically in the following ways. A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin or end military options. We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans, or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.

Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power—diplomatic, economic, and military—toward a successful outcome. Some day, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen. America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field. Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an ever-lasting peace. We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live or how to govern their own complex society. We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists.

The next pillar of our new strategy is to change the approach in how to deal with Pakistan. We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe-havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.

Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists. In the past, Pakistan has been a valued partner. Our militaries have worked to together against common enemies. The Pakistani people have suffered greatly from terrorism and extremism. We recognize those contributions and those sacrifices. But Pakistan has also sheltered the same organizations that try every single day to kill our people. We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars. At the same time, they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change. And that will change immediately. No partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target U.S. service members and officials. It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order, and to peace. Another critical part of the South-Asia strategy for America is to further develop its strategic partnership with India; the world’s largest democracy, and a key security and economic partner of the United States. We appreciate India’s important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States—and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.

We are committed to pursuing our shared objectives for peace and security in South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Finally, my administration will ensure that you, the brave defenders of the American people will have the necessary tools and rules of engagement to make this strategy work, and work effectively, and work quickly.

I’ve already lifted restrictions the previous administration placed on our warfighters that prevented the secretary of Defense and our commanders in the field from fully and swiftly waging battle against the enemy. Micromangement from Washington, D.C., does not win battles. They’re won in the field, drawing upon the judgment and expertise of war-time commanders and front-line soldiers acting in real time with real authority and with a clear mission to defeat the enemy. That’s why we will also expand authority for American armed forces to target the terrorists and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos through Afghanistan. These killers need to know they have nowhere to hide, that no place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms. Retribution will be fast and powerful as we lift restrictions and expand authorities.

We’re already seeing dramatic results in the campaign to defeat ISIS, including the liberation of Mosul in Iraq. Since my inauguration we have achieved record-breaking success in that regard. We will also maximize sanctions and other financial and law-enforcement actions against these networks to eliminate their ability to export terror. When America commits its warriors to battle, we must ensure they have every weapon to apply swift, decisive, and overwhelming force. Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win. From now on victory will have a clear definition: Attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing Al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terrorist attacks against America before they emerge.

We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will. Since taking office I have made clear that our allies and partners must contribute much more money to our collective defense. And they have done so. In this struggle, the heaviest burden will continue to be borne by the good people of Afghanistan and their courageous armed forces. As the prime minister of Afghanistan has promised, we are going to participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war to us. Afghanistan is fighting to defend and secure their country against the same enemies who threaten us. The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do.

Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future. We want them to succeed, but we will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands, or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interest. We are not asking others to change their way of life, but to pursue common goals that allow our children to live better and safer lives. This principled realism will guide our decisions moving forward. Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country, but strategically applied force aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace. America will work with the Afghan government as long as we see determination and progress. However, our commitment is not unlimited and our support is not a blank check. The government of Afghanistan must carry their share of the military, political, and economic burden. The American people expect to see real reforms, real progress, and real results. Our patience is not unlimited. We will keep our eyes wide open in abiding by the oath I took on January 20. I will remain steadfast in protecting American lives and American interests. In this effort, we will make common cause with any nation that chooses to stand and fight alongside us against this global threat. Terrorists, take heed: America will never let up until you are dealt a lasting defeat. Under my administration, many billions of dollars more is being spent on our military and this includes vast amounts being spent on our nuclear arsenal and missile defense. In every generation, we have faced down evil and we have always prevailed. We have prevailed because we know who we are and what we are fighting for.

Not far from where we are gathered tonight, hundreds of thousands of America’s greatest patriots lay in eternal rest at Arlington National Cemetery. There is more courage, sacrifice, and love in those hallowed grounds than in any other spot on the face of the Earth. Many of those who have fought and died in Afghanistan enlisted in the months after Sept. 11, 2001. They volunteered for a simple reason: They loved America and they were determined to protect her. Now we must secure the cause for which they gave their lives.

We must unite to defend America from its enemies abroad. We must restore the bonds of loyalty among our citizens at home. And we must achieve an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the enormous price that so many have paid. Our actions, and in months to come, all of them will honor the sacrifice of every fallen hero, every family who lost a loved one, and every wounded warrior who shed their blood in defense of our great nation. With our resolve, we will ensure that your service, and that your families, will bring about the defeat of our enemies, and the arrival of peace. We will push onward to victory with power in our hearts, courage in our souls, and everlasting pride in each and every one of you. Thank you. May God bless our military, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you.