"Merry Christmas Bill" the Right Road to Take

Perry Signs the Merry Christmas Bill
Standing second from the left is one of
my favorite Texas Senators - Robert Nichols (R)
who helped sponsor the bill

In Texas, Governor Perry recently signed a bill that prohibits schools from banning holiday recognition by schools, especially Christmas and Easter, but encompassing most traditional holidays.  I agree with the Governor on this one.

We are guaranteed freedom of religion in the Constitution, not freedom FROM religion. The government has no power either to establish a state church or forbid a private one.  Forbidding the expression of one's religious beliefs in the public square does not protect the free exercise of religion.  Such prohibitions, rather, establish a state religion - atheism and demands obedience to its precepts by all.

Atheism is based on faith as surely as Christianity.  In the case of atheism it is faith in a theory supported by science which changes its "facts" every half century or so in response to the latest theory.  Faith is protected whatever it is.  When we start enforcing faith by law, whether it's faith in a deity or faith in the absence of one, we start down a dangerous road.

And I do not care if Muslim kids pray to Mecca three times a day.  Give them a place to perform their religious duties.  There's nothing wrong with that so long as you allow Christian kids a place to pray or even Buddhist kids a place to meditate so long as it doesn't interfere with the school day. Expressing one's faith in prayer or meditation or even a moment of silence should not be a problem, so long as you aren't dancing naked in the lunch room, singing hymns out loud while people are studying or sacrificing a goat in gym class.

If the football team wants to pray, why not?  Nobody is required to join the huddle.  If a child feels intimidated by this, let him or her learn to buck up and serve their God with courage. Our teachers ought to encourage their students in that instead of trying to make schools a place where only atheism is encouraged and courage is, well, discouraged.  It's just wrong!

(c) 2013 by Tom King

Shooting Ourselves..............Why we're losing the ideological war.

Conservatism is the antithesis of the kind of ideological fanaticism that has brought so much horror and destruction to the world. The common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women, working out their own lives in their own way-this is the heart of American conservatism today. Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from a willingness to learn --not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. Ideologues fit the world to their minds; conservatives fit their minds to the world. Ideologues believe politics is only a part of life. Ideologues believe they possess an abstract, absolute truth that can compel an imperfect humanity to attain a terrestrial paradise; conservatives believe in self-- evident truths and traditional rights and duties.                                                                                                      - Rep. Thad Cotter

Conservatism's greatest enemy at this time is lodged firmly within our ranks. Today's conservatism has degenerated to a guerrilla campaign, increasingly dominated by ideological hard-liners who responds to any attack from the left by shooting a handful of our own guys first before firing back in any meaningful way.  The person next to you is always easier to hit and these guys seem to be more about shooting someone than winning the war, no matter if it's someone on their own side that they shoot.  If these guys detect any hint of ideological impurity, they're going to open fire on you.  No one is safe; not Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or even Ronald Reagan. The holier-than-thou right is, as far as I'm concerned, like having Al-Qaeda in our ranks. I rather wish they would form a third party. It might save the country yet.

We want to remember in our zeal for defending our liberties, that we NOT lose sight of who our enemies are. It's always much easier to shoot your own side first. Our friends and fellow travelers are focused on the obvious enemy to our rights and liberties.  We always are surprised by the bullet that comes from behind.  These self-proclaimed pure conservatives have a lamentable tendency to aim at the closest target when seeking blame for why they are losing the war. That's why liberals are steadily overwhelming us. They defend their own. The holier-than-thou conservative attacks his own - FIRST!. 

Which kind of army would YOU rather be in if it came to war? The conservative side has collected an element with every bit as rock hard an ideology as radical leftists. They even share many beliefs with the leftist militants like drug legalization and political isolationism. They're ready to create a modern day "Trail of Tears" in order to meet the letter of the law on immigration - marching 15 million illegal immigrants, men, women and children back across the border into poverty, drug wars and bloodshed. Many Americans would have a hard time with that on humanitarian grounds.  If we set aside our humanity, our willingness to listen to a different side of the story other than the one we think we hear at our first knee-jerk reaction, then we set aside the best principles of conservatism that Thad Cotter is talking about. I'm here to tell you that it isn't always as black and white as we suppose.  The principles of Reagan conservatism - the kind that the American people embrace - call for us to look at how things are and not how we think they ought to be.  

We've been treated to a century of progressive socialists, in the name of ideological purity, trying experiment after experiment in Marxism and failing miserably time after time. We do not need the spectacle of the radical right trying to force it's square peg ideology into a world that doesn't work that way either.

I watch us carry on bloody debates among ourselves and I can see exactly why we are losing elections despite the fact that our cause is just. We claim to hate the Islamist culture where strong men bully their way to lead a divided and bullied rabble that is constantly divided and fighting among themselves for preeminence, but when it comes right down to it, too many who wear the conservative mantle spend most of their time trying to bully their way to the top among our conservative brethren.

It's little wonder we get compared to Facism. It's not a fair comparison in general, but the special brand of heartless, iron-willed, nobody's-opinion-but-mine conservatism does bear a striking resemblance to Nazi and Islamic ideology as it turns out to be in actual practice. It's hard tor Golden Rule conservatives to get behind that sort of thing.

I recently suggested caution after a story came out about the school district in Texas that pulled the plug on a student who deviated from his graduation speech.  All I did was suggest that we might not want to tear into the Joshua School district based on hysterical stories in a conservative blog. I know that school district and they are not intolerant of religious speech.  Quite the contrary.  But by piling on them, we may make it impossible for them to allow any leeway at all in the future.  School districts have a tough enough time allowing freedom of religious expression without someone making a huge issue of it and attracting lawyers.  I'm pretty sure the only thing that will come out of this young man's "attempt to exercise his right of free speech" is that lawyers will force the district to ban all public expressions of religion including prayer at ball games and saying "under God" when pledging allegiance to the flag. 

Sometimes I think we are our own worst enemies.  We certainly know how to demoralize our own supporters.  I think the same one who is behind the progressive socialist movement is also supporting the radical right's remorseless and demoralizing attacks upon its own side.

This has been described as the "devil did it" theory of human history. I don't find that at all funny, nor will I be bullied into believing it's not true. 

You know, I really dislike bullies!

Tom King (c) 2013 

The Intolerance of the Collective

The key difference between a constitutional republic - one in which individuals have rights and the government has privileges granted by those individuals - and a progressive/socialist/Marxist/communist state - one in which human beings are but cells sublimated to the will of the state - is that the republic can tolerate the existence of the collectivist (Marxist) state but the Marxist state can NEVER tolerate the existence of a free constitutional republic anywhere on the same planet.  It is why Nikita Kruschev pounded on the table at the UN with his shoe and promised to "bury" us all.



It is for the same reason that sinners cannot tolerate saints, that the stupid and brutish cannot tolerate the intelligent and peaceful or that Democrats cannot tolerate Republicans.  I am only half-kidding on that last one.

It is also the fundamental difference between a Christian nation and an Islamic one.  It is no accident that wherever Christian nations spring up, inevitably the idea of the value of the individual over the nation-state becomes the law of the land.  In the early stages the nation accepts that the rights of the individual are granted him by the state or the sovereign.  But soon, it becomes apparent to all that if God so loved us that He gave His son for our salvation, then the individual must be important. If God Himself gives us the right to choose for good or ill and does not lift his hand to force us to do otherwise, then the right of the individual to choose his own destiny must, therefore, be the fundamental principle of the universe.

And before you complain about the ten commandments and all those laws in the Old Testament, let me point out that God tolerates disobedience to His law.  He could well squelch all sin and turn us into obedient robots which have no choice but to obey. He does not. Instead God offers to scrub our souls and help free us of all the negative habits, passions and lusts that hijack our free will and to deliver back to us ourselves - as we choose to be and free from all our demons. We are people of the law because we choose to be, not because we live in terror of the state.  That is an enormous difference.


Heaven will be heaven because it is the land of ultimate liberty, peopled entirely by those who believe utterly in the idea that one should treat his fellows as he himself would want to be treated.  I do not believe God will have to destroy evil men.  I believe that God need only withdraw the good from the Earth and leave them to their own devices.  Evil will destroy itself I believe and needs no help from anyone to do so.    

The progressive/socialist/Marxist/communist believe that man can be perfected by the law and punishment and that there are certain men who are destined to wield great power and to direct the collectivist state because of their talent and ability.  Those who believe in the Golden Rule also believe that no man can be trusted with absolute power or even permanent power of any sort.  Kings and princes, dukes and barons are not trust-worthy because they hold hereditary power and power tends to corrupt.  While I don't believe that power inevitably corrupts, I do believe that power inevitably attracts the corruptible. 

There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings at the edge of the volcano Mt. Doom where Frodo is supposed to complete his mission and throw the "One Ring to Rule Them All" back into the fires.  At the moment of truth, Frodo falters.  The temptation to power is overwhelming. It takes an act of God (in the form of Gollum's attack) to enable Frodo to complete his task. The temptation to power is terrible. Gandalf articulates that when early he says No to the ring when Frodo offers it to him. "Don't... tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine."

It is why, inevitably, Christianity, despite its emphasis on obedience to God's laws (or more likely because of it), tends to produce the societies with the most personal liberty. The true Children of God do not believe any man can be trusted with power, especially absolute power over his fellows. It follows inevitably from the Golden Rule. Tolkien's life's work was retelling that to a post-modernist world that doesn't believe anything really matters so you might as well grab what you can get. Tolkien says, "Yes. There is something that matters."

Again as throughout history the great battle lines are drawn between Good and Evil.  That doesn't mean evil guys don't fight among themselves. They do.  They constantly vie for power and most wars are ambiguous to that extent.  But the great over-arching conflict in this world turns out to be between those who believe that Might is right and those who believe that Might must only used for the right.  You can always tell the good guys.  They are the ones that didn't choose to fight, but were drawn into it against their will and who do not keep their conquests when the war is over. Sometimes, however, both good and evil are represented within the same army. 

It makes the battle lines a bit muddy sometimes.

Tom King