by La Shawn on November 19, 2004
in General
I’ve been remiss in not sharing with you a great resource: the Republican Party of Texas. The web site contains a few links to publications about the history of the GOP and other research.
A friend e-mailed the link to a new publication: Civil Rights Platform Comparision (PDF)
This booklet lays out the platforms of both parties from 1840 to 1964, immediately preceding major civil rights legislation. I suspect this won’t be new information to most of you, but I thought I’d share it with those who believe the Republicans opposed civil rights. To the contrary. They led the way in the face of Democratic resistance. The report also clears up misconceptions about the late Strom Thurmond, who changed his racist ways before joining the Republican Party in 1964. Interesting stuff. Examples:
1856
Democrats — “The Democratic Party…will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts…settle by the Congress of 1850: “the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor”…[We support] non-interference by Congress with slavery in state and territory, or in the District of Columbia [i.e., we oppose all congressional attempts to abolish slavery in any area of the nation].
Republicans — “As our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purposes of establishing slavery in the territories of the United States…”
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by La Shawn on November 18, 2004
in Faith
Great Caesar’s ghost! How they “dislike” the name of Christ…
I noticed several years ago that B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini — “In the year of our Lord”) had been silently replaced by C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) in historical writings penned by non-Christians. At first, I pretended not to notice. Now it’s all too common. This article by Selwyn Duke brought it all back. He writes:
The idea is that B.C. and A.D. are reflective of Christianity, and since not everyone is Christian, it’s insensitive and religio-centric to use them. Well, mercy me! We’ll just have to relegate our culture to the dustbin of history lest we offend someone with our existence. After all, it’s obviously better to perish as a civilization than to meet our maker with the burden of having offended someone weighing on our souls.
All joking aside, their reasoning is the epitome of specious logic. B.C. and A.D. certainly are reflective of Christianity, but everything is reflective of something. For instance, since we’re talking about our calendar, it’s instructive to note that every single month’s name is of Roman origin. A few examples: July and August were named after Julius and Augustus Caesar. January and March were named after Janus and Mars, the Roman pagan gods of war, and of gates and doors and entrances and exits, respectively. September, November and December are named after the Latin [which was the language the Romans spoke] words for seven, nine and ten, respectively. Should we rename our months? After all, relatively few people are of Roman descent…
Methinks much offense can be taken, so some remedial action is in order. Here are my suggestions: our months should be renamed and referred to as “Common Month One,” “Common Month Two,” etc. Then, our alphabet can be called “the Common Alphabet,” our numbers “the Common Numerals” and English “the Common Language.” Then we must resolve to rename our states “Common State One,” “Common State two,” all the way up to fifty, assigning them the Common Numbers based on the order in which they entered our Common Union. The end of this good start — but only the beginning of a journey toward total sensitivity — will be to take the lead among nations and rename America “Common Nation 192.” Why Common Number 192? Well, that’s how many nations exist at present, and we wouldn’t want to be so insensitive as to take Common Number One for ourselves simply because we were so privileged as to be sensitive first. Now, I don’t expect other nations to follow suit immediately, but I reckon that when our common-sense extends across the Common Oceans and to the common folk, Common Continents one through six will become sensitized to sensitivity.
“Common Nation 192″ cracked me up. 
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From Joe Carter over at Evangelical Outpost:
Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking, “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” “Five,” his audience would invariably answer. “No,” he would politely respond, “the correct answer is four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”
Like Lincoln’s associates, many of our fellow citizens appear to fall for the notion that a change of name causes a change in essence. A prime example is the attempt to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions. Simply calling such relationships “gay marriages”, they believe, will actually make them “marriages.” Such reasoning, however, is as flawed as thinking that changing “tail” to “leg” changes the function of the appendage.
In order to understand whether marriage can be legitimately redefined by the government we must first understand its relation to the state. Fortunately, we only have two options to choose from. Marriage is either an institution that has an existence and autonomy apart from the state or it’s a construct that only comes into being after being created by positive law.
If marriage is autonomous and separate from the state, the common view for the past 5,000 years, then the government cannot simply define the term in any way it chooses. Because the two institutions stand apart, they can decide whether to recognize the legitimacy of the other but they cannot delineate each others boundaries. In this way, the relationship is similar to nation-states. The U.S. government, for example, can decide to “recognize” the state of Israel but it cannot redefine the country in a way that contracts its border to exclude the Gaza Strip. The U.S. either recognizes Israel as it defines itself or it rejects its legitimacy altogether.
Whether they would articulate it this way, I suspect this is what most Americans mean when they claim that the government does not have the right to redefine marriage. The fact that such an argument even needs to be made shows how degraded and confused both language and law have become.
Update: I encourage you to visit Joe’s blog and participate in the discussion. One plus: He doesn’t moderate comments.
by La Shawn on November 18, 2004
in Faith
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. — Genesis 2:7
The unbelieving man (and not open to other explanations) says:
Humans were born to run and evolved from ape-like creatures into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances and compete for food, scientists said on Wednesday….
They suspect modern humans evolved from their ape-like ancestors about 2 million years ago so they could hunt and scavenge for food over large distances. (Source)
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In an effort to maintain even more queen-like control over this blog, comment moderation will be in effect 24-7 until further notice. There will be a brief (hopefully) delay before your comment is posted.
While today’s commenters have been fairly civil, a few trolls have tried to post (a daily occurrence). For your edification, please read my Comment Policy.
by La Shawn on November 17, 2004
in Liberals
I am confident that Democrats will not select a black person to head the Democratic National Committee. In fact, if they select former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb or any other “person of color” I will allow the trolls I’ve banned to return and comment on this blog for one whole day. One catch: You will not be permitted to personally attack me.
According to the Denver Post:
Jesse Jackson, Sen.-elect Barack Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus urged him to throw in his hat, said former Webb aide Mike Dino.
Dino said it helps that Webb isn’t a Northeasterner and noted that Webb has long criticized the party for giving up on the West and ignoring its issues.
“In light of the election results, I think people should be looking to the West for some leadership,” he said.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Udall said Webb, an African-American, is “the face of the party in many ways.”
“He’s a Westerner; he’s a minority. Those two, in tandem, are powerful symbols,” he said. “I’d be proud to support him. I don’t think we could do much better.”
Others say Webb doesn’t have the energy his ailing party needs after being trounced earlier this month.
“He’s not current. He’s not fresh. He’s not particularly media savvy. His vernacular is not a values language. He doesn’t have a national audience or following,” said Denver political consultant Eric Sondermann. “I would assume that the Democratic Party has higher profile and far more promising possibilities.”
Can I throw a name into the hat? How about Jesse Jackson? Who’s more high profile than he is? I’d love to see him running things at the DNC. Democrats would remain the minority party for years to come.
Update: If there is anyone left who believes all that liberal jive about how much they like black folks, lay your eyes upon this, but don’t weep. Just get your heads out of the sand. Don’t expect any high profile liberal — black, white or otherwise — to speak out against this. If they did, just one, I’d probably have a coronary. (There are some nasty folks hanging out on discussion boards, but welcome to my blog anyway!)
Interesting take on black liberals and conservatives. Michelle Malkin weighs in.
Update II: Wow. I’m seeing the residual effects of the Democracy Project’s links from Instapundit and Michelle Malkin.
Update III: I’m the subject of some interesting conversation over at Democracy Project:
Are you for real? You know exactly what those cartoons represent — A bunch of racist Republicans taking advantage of Black People, period. I feel very sorry for LaShawn Barber, she is a good person. How she got wrapped up with you fools is, well is something that is almost satanic in nature.
She will wise up one day, I predict she will see the light by 2005 and her blog will change completely.
You all are a bunch of haters — Coulter, Malkin, and you all have the absoulute nerve to call yourselves Christians? Forget about it, you all are going to hell in a handbasket.
The blogosphere is something else, isnt’ it?
Attention: Comment moderation is in effect. Your comment will not appear right away.
by La Shawn on November 17, 2004
in Liberals
Attention: Comment moderation is in effect. Your comment will not appear right away.
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“Some Democrats Believe the Party Should Get Religion,” reads a headline in the New York Times. Clever Democrats are trying to come up with a plan to frame their agenda in “moral and religious language.” Don’t laugh. They’re serious. According to the Times (reg. req.):
Bested by a Republican campaign emphasizing Christian faith, some Democrats are scrambling to shake off their secular image, stepping up efforts to organize the “religious left” and debating changes to how they approach the cultural flashpoints of same-sex marriage and abortion.
I don’t know if it’s a true assessment of what Democratic leadership is planning or just the newspaper’s way of looking for a story where none exists.
To win elections in this country, Democrats have to change who they are. That’s why many seem to hate the label “liberal.” Hate it. Although it aptly describes who they are and how they think, they prefer euphemistic variations on the theme (”progressive” comes to mind). It doesn’t fool anybody. What you call yourself isn’t as important as what you do and what you stand for. For instance, how is a party that believes two men should be allowed to marry going to make “inroads” into the socially conservative (not to mention Christian) electorate? It’s senseless.
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by La Shawn on November 16, 2004
in Faith
Welcome to my blog, American Thinker readers!
The first stop for Worlds Collide on the Moral Divide is The American Thinker. I’ll send it to a few mainstream newspapers, though I’m not confident any will publish such an op-ed. The Washington Times may publish it.
Update: From a reader:
Many of my friends are in gay marriages. I am proud to honor the sanctity of their relationships — but I recognize that many others, for religious reasons, simply cannot. This does not make them bigots; it means that reasonable people of good conscience, like yourself, may take a different view based on their religious beliefs.
I believe it is precisely the sacred nature of marriage that places it outside of the Government’s purview. The State should recognize the rights of people to form legal contracts with one another — including marriages and domestic partnerships — but should not undertake to determine whose union is “blessed” and whose is not.
Update (6:30 p.m.): Condoleezza Rice is the new Secretary of State. Does she really want to do this? Congratulations, Ms. Rice!
You may be interested in All Condi All The Time and Open Letter To A Liberal Columnist.
Update II (11/16): Waking up to an Instalanche is a good thing.
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George Bush is cleaning house. With four years left to make an impact, he needs to seize upon every remaining minute. I hope he implements true and consistent conservative policies and appoints true conservatives. Those who will be packing (not to say they aren’t “true conservatives” — except for Powell, maybe):
— Attorney General John Ashcroft
— Secretary of State Colin Powell
— Secretary of Education Rod Paige
— Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham
— Secretary of Commerce Don Evans
— Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman
After we get the new people set, let’s get on with things. I’ll rerun my list of priorities:
— Privatizing social security
— Putting pro-life judges on the bench
— Banning homosexual “marriage”
— Banning race preferences in public (government) hiring and college admissions
— Tightening the southern border and enforcing immigration law
— Balancing the budget
— Lowering taxes even more and cutting spending on wasteful programs
— Protecting the free speech rights of all Americans, including Americans who profess Christ
— Getting more aggressive in Iraq, finishing this war and bringing our troops home
This is the kind of good, positive reporting we need:
Suddenly, the West Wing is buzzing with a new sense of possibility. Reports on the assault in Fallujah (story, Page 16) have been cautiously positive. The president’s first call to Harry Reid, the new Senate Democratic leader, raised hopes that he might get more cooperation from his congressional adversaries. And the death of Yasser Arafat may provide a “new opportunity” for Middle East peace, Bush said late last week in a joint appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The president is moving briskly to seize the moment. He is consolidating power at the White House, channeling ever more influence to Vice President Dick Cheney, his closest confidant, and counselor Karl Rove, architect of his November 2 victory. Senior White House officials tell U.S. News that Bush plans to replace at least half his cabinet over the next few months. His aim is to remove officials who have become lightning rods for controversy or who seem to have lost their desire to serve in Washington.
Good for you, Mr. Bush. Carpe diem!
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by La Shawn on November 15, 2004
in Education
They may not be able to pass certification exams, but government teachers aren’t stupid. They know government schools stink, at least urban ones, so they send their kids to private schools. But they don’t want you to have similar choices. If you want an abortion, however, that’s a different story.
Here’s an interesting article in the Arizona Republic that’s supposed to be “news”, but I think it’s common knowledge:
Teachers in urban public schools send their own children to private schools at nearly double the national rate of private-school attendance, according to a new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C.
Nationwide, 12.2 percent of all families in urban, rural and suburban settings send their children to private schools. But 21.5 percent of urban public-school teachers send their children to private schools.
Now who didn’t know that? Raise your hands. I’ll bet if I conducted a study of teachers’ unions, I’d find a greater percentage of teachers who wouldn’t let their children be caught dead in government schools.
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Right after the election, a few irate liberals expressed shock at the insinuation that they have no values. They do have values. But it was funny to read about Nancy Pelosi, a pro-infanticide Catholic, asserting that Democrats need to be more open about their faith.
I’ve been criticized for implying that liberals aren’t Christians. Where does my perception come from? Did I pull it out of thin air? Perhaps I think that way because the loudest liberals, the ones in the spotlight, don’t demonstrate how God is working in their lives. If they claim to believe in the God of the Bible yet think “doctors” should be shielded from criminal liability when they plunge a pair of scissors into an unborn child’s head, they follow a god, alright.
Maybe this is something such “Christians” can work on and square with their conscience. Just a suggestion.
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by La Shawn on November 14, 2004
in Faith
This is a draft of an op-ed I plan to submit. Your feedback is welcome:
Worlds Collide on the Moral Divide
Election exit polls showed that twenty-two percent of voters ranked “moral values” as the most important issue, above terrorism and the economy. Nearly 80 percent of that group voted for George Bush. As the dust settles in the aftermath of his decisive victory, people are still talking about the so-called moral divide in America. But does it really exist?
Those who don’t believe in God have moral values, too. They just differ from what Christians believe. For example, they may claim that the moral law derives from man’s best efforts through trial-and-error evolutionary processes. Christians believe that it comes from the God of the Bible.
[Correction]: One of Christian columnist David Limbaugh’s readers summarizes it this way: “[L]iberals cannot conceive of morals in the sense conservatives do, because this would require acknowledging a God who has set standards for thought and behavior, and then striving to meet those standards (which, of course, we can’t, thus our need for a Savior).”
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Did you know that liberals and secularists have values, too? They just differ greatly from our own. Christians believe the moral law comes from God; secularists believe it derives from man’s best efforts through trial and error evolutionary processes. In that sense, “moral values” have become relative.
We all value what we believe is right, but is what we believe true? That’s the question.
Scott Johnson of Power Line writes:
Alone in the world, the United States is founded on the “self-evident truths” that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that government is instituted among men to secure these rights. These rights exist under what the Declaration of Indepence — the first of the founding laws of the United States — refers to as the laws of nature and Nature’s God.
The founders of the United States never spoke of “values”; the concept was foreign to their political discourse. The concept of “values” derives from the thought of the German intellectual Max Weber. Weber maintained that the fundamental distinction of social science was that between “facts” and “values.” Regarding “values” — the deeply held beliefs that shaped the lives of citizens — social science could render no judgment.
“Values” are by definition relative. They have no objective status or connection to a commonly shared nature. The supplanting of nature and self-evident truths by “values” is more or less the great project of modern liberalism, whose home is in the Democratic Party. It is but a short distance from the orthodoxy of “values” to the related dogmas of “multiculturalism” and “diversity” that permeate liberal thought. In this sense the Democratic Party is the party of “values.”
Read the whole post.
Update (11/14): Democrats try to draw “mainstream” voters.
This Canadian tells Americans to stay right where they are. We don’t want you!
From My Way News:
Scott Peterson was convicted Friday of murdering his pregnant wife and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay in what prosecutors in the made-for-cable-TV case portrayed as a cold-blooded attempt to escape marriage and fatherhood for the bachelor life.
Peterson, 32, could get could get the death penalty. He was convicted of one count of first-degree murder for killing his wife, Laci, and one count of second-degree murder in the death of the son she was carrying.
Family members intensely waited in the courtroom and hundreds of onlookers gathered outside to hear word of the verdict.
The verdict came after a five-month trial that was an endless source of fascination to the tabloids, People magazine and the cable networks with its story of an attractive, radiant young couple awaiting the birth of their first child, a cheating husband, and a slaying for which prosecutors had no eyewitnesses, no weapon, not even a cause of death.
The verdict followed a tumultuous seven days of deliberations in which two jurors were removed for unspecified reasons and the judge twice told the panel to start over.
The jury of six men and six women will now decide whether he should die by lethal injection or get life in prison without parole.
This brings up another controversial topic. Supporting capital punishment is not “un-Christian” or anti-biblical. Man. Like I don’t have enough to do…
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Links: President Bush signs Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, Wizbang
I’m sorry, but this is not a blog.
Update (11/13): Michelle Malkin blogs about the “Laci and Connor” law.
Columnist Rochelle Riley, who was unknown to me before today, may not be a conservative, but she’s certainly cognizant of what ordinary Americans value, unlike liberals:
The Democratic Party better get some religion.
Not just because the Republican Party strategy to place gay marriage bans on the ballot in 11 states got President George W. Bush re-elected.
Not just because Protestant voters preferred Bush to Kerry 54 percent to 45 percent.
No, the party needs religion because as America embraces its spirit, its moral values and its love of God, the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency — African Americans — are, too, making decisions based on moral values…
“It appears that nationally the 4 million Christians that didn’t come out for the president in 2000 did,” said Bishop Keith Butler, pastor of Michigan’s largest black church, the 21,000-member Word of Faith International Christian Center in Southfield.
Butler, a Bush supporter, was among dozens of southeast Michigan black pastors who either support the president or his policies or both — and then urged their congregations to separate the man from the issues.
While many black Christians find voting for Republicans repugnant, if President Bush is advocating bans on homosexual “marriage” and promoting a pro-life agenda and Democrats are not, perhaps separating the man from his policies will make the medicine easier to swallow.
Bishop Butler adds: “We just re-emphasize what the Scripture teaches about marriage, that it is between a man and a woman.”
What Scripture teaches? Hmmm. He just might be on to something! 
Update: Election update:
Bush — 60,366,889
Kerry — 56,938,627
Bush is still breaking records. B4B says: “President George W. Bush not only won re-election in resounding fashion, he has become the first person ever to have garnered over 60,000,000 votes for President of the United States of America.”
Update II (11/14): Liberal bloggers are talking about me again. I’m getting a few hits from their sites, and the visitors are staying for a long time. For whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here and hope you visit again.
A New York Story via Thomas Galvin: “Bush dramatically increased his vote total in the New York metropolitan area. John Kerry did not even garner as many votes that Al Gore did despite the diminished presence of Ralph Nader. Bush increased his vote total in all 8 counties. Kerry suffered a net loss from 2000 in all 8 counties except for Manhattan…”
I think James Carville really is on crack.
Some Democrats just can’t get over themselves. Really. Stop parsing the “red and blue” and move on, please.
