Redstate

Posted at 1:24pm on Nov. 15, 2007 Must Read Michael Yon Interview

By PhoenixFire

Here is the transcript of Michael Yon's interview with Hugh Hewitt which was full of details, very optimistic, and the clearest, most comprehensive analysis I've read recently regarding Iraq.

Some select quotes:

HH: Characterize Baghdad today compared with your first trip there, I guess two years ago now.

MY: It was unbelievable. I mean, there was a lot of steady stream of explosions, car bombs constantly. When I say constantly, I mean numerous per day. Even in 2005, and even earlier this year, actually, in January, February, March...I haven’t heard one in a good six weeks or so.

Posted in War — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:03am on Nov. 12, 2007 Romney's Unique Attribute

By PhoenixFire

Romney's Unique Attribute

Disclaimer: I am undecided at this point between Romney and Huckabee

I just read this article in the WSJ which highlights what is, in my mind, a major and distinct advantage Romney has over all the other candidates.

We all (at least everyone who doesn't rely on the MSM) know that Romney is a Harvard MBA and a successful businessman. But his best attribute is not his experience as an executive and a businessman (though that is important), rather it is his approach to decision-making that sets him apart.

Posted in 2008 — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:23pm on Jul. 10, 2007 Young Gay Leader Becomes Straight: UPDATED

By PhoenixFire

Michael Glatze, founding editor of Young Gay America magazine, has written a column about leaving homosexuality.

At age 22, I became an editor of the first magazine aimed at a young, gay male audience...YGA Magazine sold out of its first issue in several North American cities. There was extreme support, by all sides, for YGA Magazine; schools, parent groups, libraries, governmental associations, everyone seemed to want it. It tapped right into the zeitgeist of "accepting and promoting" homosexuality, and I was considered a leader. I was asked to speak on the prestigious JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2005.

Posted in Culture — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:48pm on Mar. 28, 2007 How Britain is Turning Christianity into a Crime

By PhoenixFire

I just read a disturbing article by Melanie Phillips, How Britain is turning Christianity into a crime, that I suggest everyone read and consider in light of the culture war going on in the US.

Some quotes:

An evangelical Christian campaigner, Stephen Green, was arrested and charged last weekend with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour...[for] Merely trying to hand out leaflets at a gay rally in Cardiff...[that] urged homosexuals to ‘turn from your sins and you will be saved’. But to the secular priests of the human rights culture, the only sin is to say that homosexuality is a sin...our society is now so upside-down that, by doing nothing more than upholding a fundamental tenet of Christianity, he was treated like a criminal. And yet at the same time, the police are still studiously refusing to act against Islamic zealots abusing British freedom to preach hatred and incitement against the West.

Posted in Culture — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:55pm on Jan. 25, 2007 Homosexuality and our Cultural Pond

By PhoenixFire

Here is a new article today highlighting the fact that the UK is forcing Catholic adoption agencies to give children to gay couples instead of just referring applications from gay couples to non-Catholic agencies (which is the current practice). The UK education secretary says that while the Catholic agencies ``do a wonderful job,'' allowing them an exemption would be ``just plain and simple discrimination.''

Comments (49) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:28pm on Jan. 14, 2007 Insurgents already leaving Baghdad; Iraqis support new plan

By PhoenixFire

My source is Here, which is the best Iraqi blog I have been able to find.

Some quotes:

Insurgents and terrorists are already abandoning some of their positions in Baghdad and moving to Diyala...This came after dozens of foreign Arab militants ran away from Baghdad to areas across Diyala in order to avoid raids by the Iraqi and American forces during the incoming security plan to secure Baghdad.

Comments (10) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:12pm on Nov. 25, 2006 Analysis of Pew Research on Political Views

By PhoenixFire

I spent some time analyzing the data from the site that offers the typology test (Here), and found it to be very interesting.

Some observations:

1. A clear majority of Americans are socially conservative and pro-government. Even among Republicans, a significant number are generally pro-govt. It seems that this is the path to winning a sustainable governing majority (though I don't really want to admit it)

Comments (34) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:51pm on Jun. 6, 2006 The Legacy of Gay Marriage, part 2

By PhoenixFire

In the first part of this post I drew from the research of a Harvard Ph.D. in Social Anthropology to show that the legalization of same-sex partnerships in several European countries caused a decrease in marriages among heterosexuals and an increase in the number of children born out of wedlock. This has resulted in more broken homes, more messed up children, and an increased role for the government in the raising of children.

This article does an even better job of showing a causal link between gay marriage and marital decline by looking at the Netherlands instead of Scandanavia. A response to critics of the analysis is Here.

Gay marriage had more effect on Norway and the Netherlands because there was "more marriage" left to undermine when gay marriage came around than in either Sweden or Denmark. There's no way Eskridge can even claim to refute me without looking at Norway and the Netherlands. Yet he spends all his time on the two countries where marriage had declined the furthest even before gay marriage was introduced (while pretending I don't understand that point)...By connecting the world's first same-sex partnerships with a radical equalization of heterosexual marriage and cohabitation in 1987, Sweden introduced same-sex unions as a new factor reinforcing an already existing pattern of marital decline. But if you want to see the causal force of same-sex partnerships disentangled from other factors, look to the Netherlands. In Holland, unlike Scandinavia, there was little or no pre-existing practice of parental cohabitation when same-sex partnerships were introduced. So the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate accelerated at double-speed under the impact of the change.

The left has cleverly positioned the issue of gay marriage so that conservatives have to 'prove' that gay partnerships will be harmful. But if some group (especially a minority) wants to make major changes to our economic (Kyoto) or social systems, then the burden of proof lies on them to show that the changes will not be harmful. That is especially true when there is strong evidence to show that their proposed changes are harmful, and when they go against the combined wisdom of thousands of years of human history.  

But there are even more problems that will be caused by the legalization and acceptance of gay marriage/partnerships. Public schools will become an accomplice to the promotion of homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. This is already happening in Massachusetts

and California. In the words of Mitt Romney

we are beginning to see the effects of the new legal logic in Massachusetts just two years into our state's social experiment...In our schools, children are being instructed that there is no difference between same-sex marriage and traditional marriage. Recently, parents of a second grader in one public school complained when they were not notified that their son's teacher would read a fairy tale about same-sex marriage to the class. In the story, a prince chooses to marry another prince, instead of a princess. The parents asked for the opportunity to opt their child out of hearing such stories. In response, the school superintendent insisted on "teaching children about the world they live in, and in Massachusetts same sex marriage is legal." Once a society establishes that it is legally indifferent between traditional marriage and same-sex marriage, how can one preserve any practice which favors the union of a man and a woman?

Legalization of same-sex marriage will also mean that adoption agencies will not be able to give preference to traditional couples over other types of equally

legal marriages. Polygamous and same-sex couples can't be 'discriminated' against even though it is completely clear that children do best in mom/dad homes.

social science research is almost never conclusive, yet in three decades of work as a social scientist, I know of few other bodies of data in which the weight of evidence is so decisively on one side of the issue...Children navigate developmental stages more easily, are more solid in their gender identity, perform better in academic tasks at school, have fewer emotional disorders and become better functioning adults when they are reared by dual-gender parents.

The above article also reviews some of the pro-gay research on gay parenting:

The claim has been made that homosexual parents raise children as effectively as married biological parents. A detailed analysis of the methodologies of the 49 studies, which are put forward to support this claim, shows that they suffer from severe methodological flaws. In addition to their methodological flaws, none of the studies deals adequately with the problem of affirming the null hypothesis, of adequate sample size, and of spurious non-correlation...Williams noted that the follow-up study found that children of lesbian parents were significantly more likely to have both considered and actually engaged in homosexual relationships. This finding did not seem particularly interesting to the researchers. Williams found that other omissions were made by researchers who conducted research in these areas as well. Huggins found a difference in the variability of self-esteem between children of homosexual and heterosexual parents. Huggins did not test for significance, but Williams reanalyzed the data and found the differences to be significant. Williams noted that Patterson found, and left unreported, similar differences. Likewise, Williams noted that Lewis found social and emotional difficulties in the lives of children of homosexual parents, but such data did not seem to find its way into her conclusions.

The adoption problem recently came up in MA when Catholic Charities of Boston announced that they were being forced to shut down their adoption services as they would not comply with the government's demand to place children for adoption with homosexual couples.

This leads into the next point which is that gay marriage is going to erode our religious liberty. A couple years ago a Swedish pastor was sentenced to prison for preaching a sermon against homosexuality. His conviction was eventually overturned, but given another 20 years of continued cultural acceptance or the change of a few judges it is very likely people WILL be thrown in prison for their religious views on homosexuality. Similar things are happening up North:

"In another case, a British Columbia court upheld the one-month suspension, without pay, of a high school teacher who wrote letters to a local paper arguing that homosexuality is not a fixed orientation but a condition that can and should be treated. The teacher, Chris Kempling, was not accused of discrimination, merely of expressing thoughts that the state defines as improper...In 1998, lesbian lawyer Barbara Finlay of British Columbia said 'the legal struggle for queer rights will one day be a struggle between freedom of religion versus sexual orientation.'"

This is well understood by most people, but is worth pointing out, that allowing legal arrangements between couples other than a man and woman opens the door to polygamy and any other kind of arrangement. There have already been lawsuits filed in Utah arguing that polygamy should be legal, and a push for polyamory has been made in Scandanavia.

The years 2004 and 2005 saw the growth, collapse, and apparent rebirth of a campaign to abolish Swedish marriage and replace it with a gender-neutral partnership system that allows for multi-partner relationships...Once again, Sweden is showing us a possible future. The idea that we can and should abolish marriage and recognize multi-partner unions has its advocates in America, though they may seem too few to be bothered with. We ought not, however, mistake their chances for long-term success. Those radical advocates recognize something that even the moderate proponents of gay marriage overlook or deny: gay marriage changes the way that young people see and understand their social world. The slope from gay marriage to polyamory and ultimately to no marriage is not slippery by accident, but by design.

Among conservatives, the main objection to the FMA is that it is a federalism issue. Shouldn't the states be able to decide for themselves how they want to deal with this? Disregarding the issue of judges, why should any law be made on the federal level instead of a state by state basis? Some things (currency, language, business laws) need to be done on a national scale to ensure a certain amount of compatibility between states. Other laws are enforced across states because we believe some things are wrong and shouldn't be allowed.  We wouldn't allow any state to enslave a certain minority, deny women voting rights, deny freedom of religion, or commit genocide. Allowing gender-neutral multi-party partnerships on a state by state basis would cause all sorts of legal chaos when people move state to state. And assuming marriage is critical to the proper rearing of healthy children and thus a healthy society, then isn't it important enough to be enforced on the federal level?

I actually think Mitt Romney says it best in a recent letter to Congress:

Some argue that our principles of federalism and local control require us to leave the issue of same sex marriage to the states--which means, as a practical matter, to state courts. Such an argument denies the realities of modern life and would create a chaotic patchwork of inconsistent laws throughout the country. Marriage is not just an activity or practice which is confined to the border of any one state. It is a status that is carried from state to state.  Because of this, and because Americans conduct their financial and legal lives in a united country bound by interstate institutions, a national definition of marriage is necessary.

Another common objection is that we shouldn't 'force our values on others'. Ironically, it is the liberals who usually make this argument even though they are the ones using judges to change the laws to reflect their minority values. Regardless, there is no such thing as a value-neutral law. Every law, or even the absence of a law, is a reflection of someone's idea of what is good and bad. We have laws against abusing children because we think it's wrong. The lack of laws against murder or stealing that would mean we don't place a high value on life or personal property. We have laws against speeding because we think it is 'good' to be able to limit how fast people can drive. In a democracy the majority has the power to make the law reflect their values, and more sweeping changes require larger majorities. Minorities are given 'rights' to protect them from possible abuse by the majority. Politics is all about whose values will be reflected in the law. There is nothing wrong with 70% of Americans making a law that reflects their values as long as they do so through the proper process and within the limitations of the Constitution.

Obviously, passing FMA won't ensure everyone is going to have a great marriage; more work still needs to be done to lower our divorce rate and help people to have better marriages. But the FMA will help to shape our cultural values and encourage a certain type of behavior while protecting children and helping to preserve religious liberty.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:59am on Jun. 2, 2006 The Legacy of Gay Marriage, part 1

By PhoenixFire

The Senate will be voting on the Federal Marriage Amendment June 6th. This is a critical issue, and I am disheartened by the lack of attention this issue has received. If there is not more of an outcry, the amendment will not be passed as the senators are afraid of the media and a very vocal minority. If the amendment isn't enacted, we all know what will happen eventually. Regardless of the fact that many states have passed amendments on marriage, all it takes is for judges in a state to throw out the amendment (already happened in Nebraska) or for the Supreme Court to rule that gay marriages in one state have to be recognized everywhere. Putting another conservative on the court would help with that, but would only be a temporary solution until the liberals gain control of the court at some point in the future.

People often make the argument that gay marriage won't affect them. That may be true to some extent, but it is going to affect their

children and grandchildren. Redefining marriage is going to change how our whole culture views and values marriage and family. Instead of being a sacred institution for the proper raising of children, marriage will become just a legal convenience for adults. This will cause fewer people to marry, and co-habiting parents break up at 2-3 times the rate of married couples. This means more children grow up in broken homes and end up with multiple mommies and daddies and 8 grandparents and multiple half-siblings. The overwhelming amount of social research show that these broken homes are bad for kids. Children are more likely to be abused by 'parents' who they are not biologically related to, and the effects of fatherlessness on children (criminal behavior, drug use, etc.) are well-documented.

The legalization of same-sex partnerships (not even same-sex marriage) on Scandanavian families has been profound as this article from a Harvard Ph.D. in Social Anthropology details. Portions of the article are quoted below.  

"In short, since the adoption of same-sex registered partnerships-and of full, formal same sex

marriage-marriage has declined substantially in both Scandinavia and the Netherlands. In

the districts of Scandinavia most accepting of same-sex marriage, marriage itself has almost

entirely disappeared. I have shown that same sex marriage contributed significantly to this

pattern of martial decline. Recall that the social harm in all this is the damage to children.

Children will suffer if the Scandinavian pattern takes hold, because the concomitant of the

Scandinavian pattern is a rising rate of family dissolution."

More than half of the children in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are now born out-of-wedlock. The number of out-of-wedlock births started to rise in the 70s, but really took off after the debate and legalization of same-sex partnerships in late 80s and early 90s. The socially conservative areas were affected also, although the effect

was delayed.

"At the beginning of the nineties, for example, traditionally religious and

socially conservative districts of Norway had relatively low out-of-wedlock birthrates. Now

those rates have risen substantially, for both first and second-and-above births. In socially liberal

districts of Norway, where it was already common to have the first child outside of marriage by

the early nineties, a majority of even second-and-above born children are now born out-ofwedlock."

The acceptance of alternative family arrangements has contibuted significantly to the disintegration of the concept

of the nuclear family in these countries. Sex, marriage, and children should all be connected in the cultural consiousness. When

they're not, the social fabric slowly tears apart. Americans no longer associate sex with marriage, but we do still associate children with marriage. In

the middle and upper classes especially, couples feel like they are supposed to marry when they conceive.

When the ideal of family dissipates, society becomes a collection or autonomous individuals seeking self-fulfillment. There's no obligation

to care for those who are biologically related to us, so the government has to take over that responsibility.

"In Scandinavia, a massive welfare state largely substitutes for the family. Most

Scandinavian children over one year of age, for example, spend much of the day in public day

care facilities. Should the Scandinavian cultural pattern take root in the United States, with its

accompanying effects on the underclass, we shall be forced to choose between significant social

disruption and a substantial increase in our own welfare state. The fate of marriage therefore

impacts the broadest questions of governance."

The legalization of gay marriage will effect us all by changing the way our entire culture views and values marriage and family, which will

change how we act. And the effects of those actions will be more noticeable and harder to reverse with each new generation. One only has to look at

the African-American sub-culture to see the problems caused by the dissolution of the family. Children have a right

to be raised in a proper family and shouldn't be lab rats for social experimentation.

So I urge you to pressure Congress and the Bush Administration to pass the FMA for the protection of our families and our country. And you can sign a petition Here

There are of course several other problems with gay marriage, and I will detail those in my next post.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (85) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:46pm on Mar. 27, 2006 Abortion and the Threat to Democracy

By PhoenixFire

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that to sustain a democracy like the kind we live in (or want to live in) requires:

A. a strict declaration that all 'persons' are of equal value and share in a basic set of rights.

B. a strict definition of what constitutes a person

C. a strict definition of what the basic rights are that each person has.

We have never really had B (a definition of a person) in this country, and if we did we might have avoided a lot of the turmoil we went through regarding slavery and civil rights.

Rights are all nice and good, but what use do they provide if it is not clear who they apply to? Do you really want to live in a society where you are protected by the law only until the majority decides on some new arbitrary definition of what a person is (or what a valuable person is) that excludes you?

History is peppered with examples of one group dehumanizing another as a precursor to extermination, torture, and exploitation. The most obvious recent examples are of course the Holocaust and the enslavement of blacks. Dehumanization numbs society's conscience and blocks any empathy that would otherwise be felt for the suffering of the oppressed. Mass genocide becomes no different than the routine extermination of a pesky colony of ants.

The only way to prevent these situations from occurring is to have a strict and unambiguous definition describing who qualifies for the rights we have has Americans.

So how should we define a person? The following criteria are often used, but are clearly invalid:

• Skin Color, Race - Form and appearance are not what makes someone human.
  
• Size - Obviously a fully grown adult is not more human, or more of a 'person' than a 10 year old.
  
• Level of Development - Rights are not dependent on skills and abilities. The strong and intelligent do not have more rights than anyone else.
  
• Environment - Location is trivial and has nothing to do with who we are.
  
• Dependency - All of us are dependent on others to some degree, and that is especially true of the very young and old.
  

Personhood is obviously dependent on the essence of the being and has nothing to do with external factors.

Objectively, the essence of a being is determined by its DNA. So the definition of a person, which ends up the same as that of a human, should be: A person is any life form (characterized by one or more cells and the ability to grow, respond to stimuli, metabolize, and reproduce) with human DNA.

This of course speaks directly to the issue of abortion as unborn babies are clearly human life forms. They are therefore entitled to the basic rights all Americans have, including the right to life as it is the basis for all other rights. This was clearly understood by the founding fathers: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The right to life is also clearly enumerated in the 5th and 14th amendments.

The right to life is preeminent among all other rights which is why a mother cannot choose to kill her nine year old son for causing her stress; his right to life supercedes any of her rights to pursue happiness. The exact same logic applies to unborn children whose right to life supercedes anyone else's right to happiness or 'privacy'.

No criteria can be used to exclude fetuses from personhood that would not also exclude some other group that the vast majority of Americans would agree deserves the protection of the law. The only possible criteria that would produce the outcome desired by the pro-abortionists is, "A person is someone outside a mother's womb." But location is completely trivial and has no bearing on the essence of a being. In no other circumstance would anyone argue someone is not human because of their location. Anyone with even a hint of honesty has to concede that there is no meaningful difference between a fully delivered baby and the same child one second earlier who is still partly in the mother's womb.

As previously stated, dependency is not a logical criteria either. Babies don't suddenly become independent as soon as they are born. Some have argued that being dependent solely on the mother somehow makes a baby not human. But does that mean that something becomes human as soon as it is viable outside the womb? Or do all fetuses suddenly become human and worthy of protection once doctors are able to grow them entirely in a test tube with no help from a woman?

So Americans are happy to hold logically inconsistent views and live in a world of square circles. We can think of ourselves as progressive and morally superior because we have overcome the small mindedness of past eras, but still have all the sex we want and not deal with the consequences.

Any attempt to create a status of 'personhood' separate from that of being human is logically flawed, and the motivation and eventual result of doing so can only be the exploitation and abuse of an individual or group.

Defining personhood is critical for the long-term health of our republic and must be enshrined in the Constitution. Doing so will resolve the abortion debate and a host of other bioethics issues (cloning, embryonic stem cells, etc.), and it will prevent any future renditions of the holocaust.

Otherwise, our grandchildren will be living in a society where they are protected by the law only until the majority decides on some new arbitrary definition of personhood that excludes them.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:48pm on Jan. 29, 2006 Iraqi General reveals what happened to WMDs

By PhoenixFire

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone post about this.

Last week there was an Iraqi General on Hannity and Colmes (he was #2 in the air force) who said Saddam had WMDs until Summer 2002. At that time Saddam moved them to Syria because he realized we were coming. He also said Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program and that Saddam did intend to attack Israel with biological and chemical weapons.

This general also wrote a book, 'Saddam's Secrets', which I expect would be an interesting read.

Video and transcript here:

Video

Transcript

SADA: Well, up to the year 2002, 2002, in summer, they were in Iraq. And after that, when Saddam realized that the inspectors are coming on the first of November and the Americans are coming, so he took the advantage of a natural disaster happened in Syria, a dam was broken. So he -- he announced to the world that he is going to make an air bridge...

HANNITY: You know for a fact he moved these weapons to Syria?

SADA: Yes.

HANNITY: How do you know that?

SADA: I know it because I have got the captains of the Iraqi airway that were my friends, and they told me these weapons of mass destruction had been moved to Syria.

BECKEL: How did he move them, general? How were they moved?

SADA: They were moved by air and by ground, 56 sorties by jumbo, 747, and 27 were moved, after they were converted to cargo aircraft, they were moved to Syria.

BECKEL: So I assume this would not have happened without the permission of Damascus. Is that correct?

SADA: Well, of course, you know, when the aircraft would land in Syria, they must have some sort of agreement between the two.

BECKEL: So the Syrian government knows exactly where these weapons are today?

SADA: I think so. Because I am sure that these weapons have landed in Damascus. Where could they have gone?

More...

SADA: Yes, actually, I had many times-- I have disagreed with Saddam Hussein on many things. And for some reason, he used to believe me and he used to listen to me.

And thank God that in the last war, we were so supposed to attack Israel by like eight aircraft, all equipped with nuclear -- chemical weapons in two waves, one wave through Jordan and the other wave through Syria, without telling Syrians and Jordan about that.

But I mentioned to the president, "Sir, this is going to be a disaster, because Israelis have got plans to destroy these airplanes before they go to Israel. Although whatever air defenses are good, but still some aircraft can penetrate."

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:30pm on Jan. 15, 2006 20/20 segment on school choice

By PhoenixFire

20/20's John Stossel ran an interesting segment on education in America. Here's the link to a text version of it and some video clips. I think the show speaks for itself, and it is really amazing there is not more of a public outcry about the issue of school choice, especially from the black community.

Here are some excerpts:

Charter School in Oakland

Even though he spends less money per student than the public schools do, Chavis pays his teachers more than what public school teachers earn. His school also thrives because the principal gets involved. Chavis shows up at every classroom and uses gimmicks like small cash payments for perfect attendance.

Since he took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst in Oakland to being the best. His middle school has the highest test scores in the city.

Impossible to Fire Teachers

Here's just one example from New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."

Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000. Klein said he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them.

100k can't teach one child to read

I talked with 18-year-old Dorian Cain in South Carolina, who was still struggling to read a single sentence in a first-grade level book when I met him. Although his public schools had spent nearly $100,000 on him over 12 years, he still couldn't read.

So "20/20" sent Dorian to a private learning center, Sylvan, to see if teachers there could teach Dorian to read when the South Carolina public schools failed to.

Using computers and workbooks, Dorian's reading went up two grade levels -- after just 72 hours of instruction.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:09pm on Dec. 11, 2005 Al-Jazeera: Saddam loyalists urge Sunnis to vote

By PhoenixFire

I try to read Al-Jazeera every once in awhile just to help me understand what people in the Middle-East are reading and thinking.

There is an interesting article today titled Saddam loyalists urge Sunnis to vote

This paragraph was especially interesting:

But Saddam loyalists have turned against al-Zarqawi, originally from Jordan, whose fighters travel to Iraq from across the Arab world.

"Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation," said a Baathist leader who would give his name only as Abu Abd Allah.

It's not much to go on, but it would be great news if the Sunni insurgents were turning against Zarqawi.

I also thought it was a rather funny comment. Zarqawi is an American agent?

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:43pm on Nov. 3, 2005 How Can We Take Back Our Country?

By PhoenixFire

Can conservatives really take back America from the clutches of the left? In all honesty, I worry the political advantage we now hold is merely a temporary pullback against the downward slide America has been having the last 40 years. Regardless of what is happening in Washington, wider cultural values continue to be more secular. Every Christmas there are more and more 'holiday' parties, movies continue to be more violent and sexual, and traditional morality is more outdated every year

These changs are the result of the liberal's near monopolistic control of Hollywood, the news media, and the educational establishments. Over 90% of those in the elite news media voted for John Kerry. And among the faculty at many of our best universities, democrats outnumber republicans by more than 25 to 1.

These institutions have a major impact on American values, and the government is merely a reflection of the values of American citizens. Out of the four, the government is possibly the smallest prize; but it seems the conservative movement has been directing most of its resources toward gaining political power, and very little progress has been made in the other areas.

If we really want our children to be able to worship freely and live in a prosperous society we are going to have to take back the cultural institutions. (As an aside, how did liberals

gain such complete control of the entertainment industry, higher education, and the news media?)

How do we take back those cultural institutions? Here are a few ideas:

• As a first step we should leverage any political power we have to get school voucher reform passed. Privatizing education would not only do wonders in improving education (especially among the poor), but it would also diminish the power of liberals to brainwash our children about 'diversity', 'tolerance', 'sex education', etc.

  Having more children in private schools would also dampen the left's ability to enforce their policies through the courts. A recent reminder of this danger was showcased yesterday as the 9th circuit made a ruling that explicitly attacked the rights of parents to control their children's education.

  School Vouchers would also be a great issue politically because it makes so much sense. I have even gotten liberal friends and co-workers to admit that voucher reform is a good idea. It would be especially advantageous to the poor, and therefore an issue democrats would have a hard time being against. Also, giving our kids a good education when they're young will help immunize them to the things they will be exposed to in college.

• We have to establish a strong conservative presence on the internet while the medium is still in its formative stages. More and more people will be using the internet to get their information, so this will be increasingly important every year from now on.
• I'm not sure how to make inroads into Hollywood or the education establishment so I'd like to hear some ideas. On an individual level we should not buy the trash Hollywood puts out, and we should use our cash to support quality entertainment whenever we find it.

Please post reactions and thoughts.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:52pm on Oct. 30, 2005 How will Blogging and the Internet Affect Politics?

By PhoenixFire

I recently attended a talk on blogging and politics that included Joe Trippi as a guest speaker. Joe Trippi was the campaign manager for Howard Dean and the one responsible for the campaign's pioneering use of the Internet to raise money. He actually had a lot of interesting things to say, and he motivated me to start thinking more about this issue as I hadn't given it much thought before.

To prevent liberals from gaining any advantage, conservatives need to be talking about this issue and strategizing about how to best apply the power of the Internet to politics.

The television era of politics was about image, snappy talking points, the power of advertising, spin doctors, and the influence of the elites. In contrast, the Internet era is going to be about authenticity, in depth discussion, and grassroots involvement.

Television is not conducive to real discussion or debate because everything is staged, segments are too short, and everything is controlled by media elites. Real life is complex and no TV segment has time for an in-depth discussion of the causes and possible solutions to poverty or all the economic effects of lower taxes and less regulation. Condoleeza Rice and Barbara Boxer appear just long enough to spout off the party talking points. Producers only bring on guests that have a particular viewpoint. And do the American people ever get substantive discussion from the presidential debates?

Blogs and message boards allow the views of normal people to be heard. False claims and weak arguments can refuted and all the facts can be brought out and analyzed. Websites can make long posts advocating policy positions with links to supporting charts and documents.

Hopefully, the Internet is going to diminish the power advertising and the mainstream media have in shaping opinion. Bloggers can publicize things that the media isn't reporting on, like schools being built in Iraq and lists of senators that send home the most pork. When Americans know what is really going on they are going to be better able to hold the government accountable, and they are not going to be as easily fooled by negative campaign ads and rhetoric from James Carville.

Joe Trippi and others seem to think this revolution is going to help the democrats. The Dean campaign raised most of their money from donations of $100 or less, even though democrats are generally better at getting money from big donors. But if the Internet increases grassroots participation then the Republicans should stand to benefit as they are already better at raising money from small donors.

The greatest enemy of the left is truth, and if the free flow of information helps voters to better understand the truth then conservative ideas will gain more support. People are going to realize that government programs just make things worse, that their kids would get a better education in voucher-funded private schools, and that a person's right to life obviously trumps anyone else's right to 'choice'.

So I think conservatives may have a lot to gain from the societal shift that is taking place, but only if we take advantage of the opportunity. I haven't seen hard data to prove this, but my sense is that the liberals are currently more tech-savvy and are being more innovative in using technology to promote their agenda. We don't want to be left behind.

Comments encouraged.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »