Ironically, in the Scopes trial, Clarence Darrow argued that it would be sheer bigotry to teach only one view of origins—ironic in light of the fact that Darwinists today demand we only teach one view of origins: theirs.
A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and His Cultic Teachings, by Don and Joy Veinot and Ron Henzel, p. 38
When you have a child, you decide to have your heart living a lifetime outside your body.
Unknown
Each generation must pass on the appreciation for the wisdom of the U.S. Constitution and the liberties it protects. Today, while too many seek to cancel out Founding Fathers, we celebrate them.
Senator Tim Scott
College, the public knew, has certainly eroded from our cherished idea of a four-year idealized respite from adult employment. It once was intended to be a place where youth learned to be open-minded, tolerant, skilled, and eager to learn the nature and traditions of Western civilization, art, literature, languages, philosophy, and history.
Instead, all too often “college” has now descended into a six-to-seven-year misadventure that nationwide often results in only half those enrolled ever receiving degrees. Nearly all sink deeply in student debt. And yet for all the borrowed tuition money, few prove capable of writing analytically, speaking articulately, or knowing the general referents, past and present, of their very civilization.
Students, especially at the elite campuses, learn to mouth monotonously accusations of “genocide.” “apartheid,” “colonialism,” or “imperialism.” But they lack the ability to define these nouns. As a result, they so often name drop empty slogans in the context of supposed Western sins.
Victor Davis Hanson, Can We Save our Universities?
In 1853, there was an anti-God group who sought to have God removed from government much like we see being pushed today. They wanted references to God removed from government documents, sought to remove chaplains from the military, etc. Their vision was a religiously neutral Government. But the problem with their vision, and with those who espouse similar views today, is that neutrality is a myth, a point which will be addressed below.
The anti-God proposal was submitted in the U.S. Congress to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for deliberation. They deliberated for several months and, in 1854, came back with the following report:
"Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, but not any one sect … In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity … That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”
Brad Sherman, Iowa State Representative for District 91, The Sherman Liberty Letter 12/19/23
If crime is a product of poverty and discrimination as they say endlessly, why was there so much less of it when poverty and discrimination were much worse than today? If massive programs are the only hope to reduce violence in the ghetto, why was there so much less violence long before anyone ever thought of these programs?
Thomas Sowell
A person of average intelligence can have a great deal of wisdom; many do. A person of high intelligence can be a fool; many are. Given how much more important wisdom is than intelligence in leading both a moral and happy life, wisdom is far more important than intelligence. Yet precisely because people so value intelligence, wisdom has become less valued.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.81
At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.
P.J. O'Rourke
Anyone who studies the history of ideas should notice how much more often people on the political left denigrate and demonize those who disagree with them—instead of answering their arguments.
Thomas Sowell
[M]any people act as if intelligence is the most important quality in a human being. With regard to children, for example, middle- and upper-middle-class parents usually boast most about their intelligence: how “bright” they are, how well they do in school, and what university they attended. Few parents say to their child, “I care more about your character than about your grades.” Nor do most parents teach their children that clear thinking and common sense are more important than brains.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.80.
Unfairly promoting a less talented person over a more talented person because of his respective skin colors is celebrated as a victory for “diversity” — a reminder that in the twenty-first century, racists are still obsessed with how a person looks at the expense of what thoughts occupy his mind. Without any public debates or votes, governments have replaced “equal treatment under the law” with “equitable” redistribution — or, in layman’s terms, “special treatment under the law” — so that certain classes of people can benefit at the expense of others.
In an amazing instance of Orwellian “doublespeak,” the State categorizes those classes that are unfairly rewarded as “underprivileged” and the people against whom it discriminates as “privileged.” Never in human history have people with “privilege” felt so marginalized. All this cheating is done for the stated purpose of “including” many different kinds of people, but it depends entirely on “excluding” people to obtain fraudulently manufactured and prejudiced results.
None of this is fair. Stealing the earned successes of some, so that others may benefit without sacrifice, has a tendency to permanently scar both the victim of the theft and the supposed beneficiary. When hard work and dedication are spurned, a seed of dejection is planted that can spoil an otherwise promising life. When unearned rewards become expected entitlements, the enriching pursuit of human excellence withers and often dies.
J.B. Shurk, The Catastrophic Death of Fairness
No matter how advanced trans pharmaceuticals and surgeries become, the biological reality of man and woman cannot be abolished; the natural limitations of God’s Creation cannot be transcended. The attempt to do so will elicit the same heartbreak and alienation captured in the final scene of Mary Shelley’s novel: the hulking monster, shunned by society and betrayed by his father, filled with despair and drifting off into the ice floes—a symbol of the consequence of Promethean hubris.
Christopher F. Rufo, Inside the Transgender Empire
According to survey data, up to 80 percent of trans individuals suffer from serious psychopathologies and one-quarter of black trans youth attempt suicide each year. “Gender-affirming care” largely fails to solve these problems, yet the doctors use these failures to justify even more extreme interventions up to the final one: genital reconstruction.
Christopher F. Rufo, Inside the Transgender Empire
This is the great project of the transgender movement: to abolish the distinctions of man and woman, to transcend the limitations established by God and nature, and to connect the personal struggle of trans individuals to the political struggle to transform society in a radical way.
Christopher F. Rufo, Inside the Transgender Empire
There is…a level of cruelty and evil that transcends the word “sin.” All evil is sin, but not all sin merits the word “evil.” Where exactly that line is crossed cannot be defined. But to deny it exists is to declare all sins equal and all sinners evil, which empties the word “evil” of its horror and renders it superfluous.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, p.78
A healthy and happy marriage is not about the self. At the heart of the happiest marriages is the principle of selflessness. This means denying yourself for the purpose of serving the other person. It means giving when you’ve already “given.” According to a study in 2006, the most happily married couples are ones who express altruistic love for one another. Altruism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.” It is the truest form of love — giving without expecting anything in return.
Abi Dills, The Wonderful Thing About Marriage That ‘Love Is Blind’s’ Stacy Snyder Gets Wrong.
There appears to be little correlation between people’s well-being and how much they complain. Many people who live in the freest and most affluent countries—and who themselves are particularly affluent—complain more than their less affluent fellow citizens and more than people living in poor countries. Similarly, it is impossible to gauge from people’s levels of complaint how much they have actually suffered. Many individuals who have suffered terribly almost never complain, and many who have had it comparatively easy constantly complain.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.25
It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him.
Thomas Jefferson (1785)
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Cesare Beccaria, The Patriot Post email news, 10/27/23.
The combination of secularism, higher education, and affluence seems to produce more people who are afraid of emotional pain, and even of marrying and having children.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg. 14
Do you want to live under the rule of law or under mob rule? Virtually everyone will say that they want to live under the rule of law. But what people say is not nearly as important as what they do. And what far too many people are doing is moving us closer to mob rule.
Thomas Sowell
Universities…aim to dismantle the status of luminaries who works celebrate traditional values. For example, in 2016, the English department of the University of Pennsylvania removed its long-standing portrait of William Shakespeare, the greatest English-language writer. The reason was that Shakespeare was white, European, male, and presumably heterosexual. The portrait was replaced by that of a black lesbian poet (Audre Lorde), who replaced Shakespeare because she was not white, not male, and not heterosexual. In the secular university, considerations of race, gender, and class have replaced considerations of artistic and intellectual excellence.
Education uncoupled from God becomes a false—and therefore dangerous—god. Western universities were founded to pursue truth and excellence. American universities were founded almost exclusively by Christians rooted in the Bible, especially the Torah.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.73-74
In the academic world, diversity means black leftists, white leftists, female leftists, and Hispanic leftists. Demographic diversity conceals ideological conformity.
Thomas Sowell, copied from a “Patriot Post” meme
One of the painfully sobering realizations that come from reading history is the utter incompetence that is possible among leaders of whole nations and empires—and the blind faith that such leaders can nevertheless inspire among the people who are enthralled by their words or their posturing.
Thomas Sowell, copied from a “Patriot Post” meme.
One does not have to believe in God to recognize that as America has become increasingly secular—that is, as God has become smaller and smaller—the state has become bigger and bigger. In order to prevent moral chaos society must inculcate moral accountability in its citizens. And as people hold themselves less accountable for their behavior to God (specifically, the God of the Bible), the more they will be accountable for their behavior to the state. In order to create a free country—and America did become the freest country in world history—America was designed to have people morally accountable to God. This is the reason John Adams, the “father of the Constitution” and the second president of the United States, wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral an religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.67
In public schools, where character formation should be a paramount concern, children are instead indoctrinated with agendas that extol relativism over absolute truths. This soil of moral ambiguity has proven fertile ground for the growth of attitudes and behaviors that, even a generation ago, would have been universally recognized as disastrous. The elevation of subjectivity over objectivity has left young people unable to differentiate between enduring principles and transient whims, undermining the foundation of democracy itself—educated and morally sound citizens.
The Dissenter, The De-Education of America and the Resulting Judgment of God
The ultimate manliness is to get married, protect your family, provide for your kids and family, provide a space for them to grow in safety and security, and provide them roles and responsibilities. This is the role of a man; this is what a man does.
Ben Shapiro
The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. … In vain are Schools, Academies, and Universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years.
John Adams (1778)
Blacks vote overwhelmingly for liberal Democrats and yet no group has suffered more from the way liberal Democrats among politicians and judges have let violent criminals walk the streets. No group has lost more from the dumbing down of public schools than blacks, as liberal propaganda has replaced academic study.
Thomas Sowell
[N]o good society would want to ascribe to human authority—whether king or a state—the power one ascribes to God. That is why America, the freest country ever founded, was the only country founded on the principle of limited government, which was understood to be possible only if the country’s citizens felt morally obligated to God (specifically, the God of the Ten Commandments). Thus, one of the iconic symbols of the United States of America has always been the Liberty Bell, upon which is inscribed one sentence, a verse from the Torah (Leviticus 25:20): “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.” The American Founders identified God with liberty.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.66-67
As Western civilization races to remove any reminder of God as the foundation for morality and ethics, they pave the way to erase the Imago Dei from the image bearers themselves. To kill, rape, or subjugate women by displacing them with men who masquerade as women is just a meaningless personal choice. Likewise, to execute infants in the womb is neither right nor wrong but is just a personal preference. If someone believes it is wrong to subjugate others or to kill, they can personally decide not to do it, can they not? But they must never impose their personal preferences on those who disagree because THAT would be WRONG – small-minded and bigoted. We best not wander into the question of WHY bigotry and small-mindedness are WRONG and not just another personal choice. What is true for me is true, period. But what is true for you may just get you “canceled.” And it’s also true for me that canceling you is perfectly warranted. So shut up!
Don and Joy Veinot, The Dilemma of Morals
It is the job of parents, teachers, and society at large to connect each generation with its nation’s past. Just as a person ceases to exist as that person if he loses his memory, a nation ceases to exist if it loses its memory. This is happening to many Western countries at this time—without their people even going into exile as the Jews did.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pgs. 48-49
Any person who subjects himself to puberty blockers and chemical castration—in a vain attempt to deny his authentic self—is living an inauthentic life, strewn with psychological and physiological problems. They need our help, not our condolences.
Bill Donohue, BIDEN’S LGBT LOVE FEST
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.
John Adams, in letter to his wife Abigail on 7 July 1775
This is among the most important and relevant commandments in the Torah: “Do not forget…. Make them [the events you saw] known to your children and to your children’s children.”
If there is one overriding reason Jews have survived for more than three thousand years—the great majority of those years spent exiled from their national homeland—it is that they preserved their national memories.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, Pg. 48
It is a common misconception that the Bill of Rights grants certain rights to citizens. It does no such thing. The Bill of Rights recognizes God-given, inalienable rights. What, then, is an inalienable right? An inalienable right is an intrinsic liberty, granted to you by God that creates no countervailing obligation on another. Inalienable rights are symmetrical: I recognize them in you, and you recognize them in me.
The Second Amendment is clearly one such right, as the right to self-defense is absolute. Make no mistake: the Second Amendment is not about hunting, or plinking. It's about repelling intruders and tyrants with deadly force. The origins of the Second Amendment can be traced specifically to April 19, 1775, when the British Crown took its tyranny one step too far; it marched on Lexington and Concord, seeking to confiscate the arms and ammunition of the colonists.
The Bill of Rights, by simply serving to articulate some of our God-given rights, puts the government on notice that none of these rights may be truncated in any way, irrespective of any government's incessant desires to do so — be it on guns, protest, or speech. The government has exactly zero standing on any of these issues.
Colin McWay, Brace yourself: You're about to become a felon
But exactly who is supposed to be proud during Pride Month? What are we supposed to be proud of? As the late, great Norm MacDonald once said, it’s not an achievement. You haven’t accomplished anything by being gay. Can boring heterosexuals be proud of being heterosexual? How about sadists, or masochists, or exhibitionists? Voyeurs? I don’t know, stare into a window, even from a distance, and if you’re common riff-raff, you might go to jail. Be listed as a sex offender. I would advise any prospective voyeurs to dress in drag and see what happens. My guess is it will no longer be considered a crime.
Do bisexuals get to have “pride?” Like half-Blacks, maybe only half-pride? What about the impotent, who can’t afford Viagra? Can they be “proud” of their erectile dysfunction? Aren’t they very tangible victims, like so many others? How about the nuns and monks who actually honor their vows of chastity? Shouldn’t that be a source of pride? Isn’t celibacy some kind of virtue? Do the dwindling number of parents with very large families get to be proud of their broods during Pride Month? That used to be the case- parents being proud of having lots of children and all. It seems the definition of “pride” has changed quite a bit. Now, a parent can only be proud of their child if they come out of the closet.
Donald Jeffries, Our Titanic Juneteenth Pride
Leftism is the attempt to destroy the past — every value and every institution, the good as well as what it regards as the bad.
That is why leftists, by definition, hate conservatism. Conservatism seeks to conserve the best from the past. The Left seeks to destroy the past, including the best.
The first of the modern left-wing revolutions, the French Revolution, quite consciously sought to destroy every major institution and value of French society — not just the monarchy but God, religion, the legal system, traditional notions of good and evil, the calendar, the old way of telling time, the old weights and measures, and even the names of the days of the week. In other words, the past. Just like the Left in contemporary America, the leftists of the French Revolution toppled statues — in their case, the statues of every king of France.
The next major left-wing revolution, the Russian, did the same. As the Soviet dissident joke went, “In the Soviet Union the future is known; it’s the past which is always changing.”
Now you can begin to understand leftism.
Dennis Prager, Can You Define Leftism?
Today's military and its academies have been thoroughly corrupted by wokeness; anti-Americanism; and, yes, homegrown communism. Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE); Critical Race Theory; mandatory white self-criticism sessions; and transgender indoctrination are front and center in the services. These abominations now rule in what was formerly a meritocracy. Soviet-style political commissars ("respect officers") keep tabs on cadet companies and combat units alike; step out of line politically, and your career is ruined. Flag officers (generals and admirals) who, like me, took a solemn oath to defend the U.S. Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" now salute smartly and carry out illegal orders from Washington so that they might retire with highly lucrative positions in the Military-Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. The academies and active-duty units defy federal law at will, ignoring Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiries, restrictions on federal funding of abortion, and other legislation with impunity.
Tony Lentini, Our racist military
A good start, a willingness—even eagerness—to work beyond the call of duty, a sense of fair play, and a recognition of opportunities before and when they arrive. In other words, it is important to find a course and steer it.
James Rorimer, when asked what his formula for success was. The Monuments Men, pg.418.
We now live in a society where pornography is expected to be public and religion is expected to be private. No society can survive this.
Ben Shapiro
Without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world are likely to be worthless. Many of the horrors of the twentieth century were supported by people with good intentions who lacked wisdom.
Therefore, because they have so much wisdom, the Torah and the rest of the Bible are indispensable. We live in an age, however, that has little wisdom; many people do not even value it. People value knowledge and intelligence, but not wisdom. This lack of wisdom—certainly in America and the rest of the West—is directly related to the decline in biblical literacy. In the American past, virtually every home, no matter how poor, owned a Bible, which was the primary vehicle by which parents passed on wisdom to their children.
In the modern period, however, people have increasingly replaced Bible-based homes and Bible-based schools with homes and schools in which the Bible plays no role. As a result, we are less wise and more morally confused.
Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.xviii
Socialism turned good citizens into bad ones; it turned strong nations into weak ones; it promoted vice and discouraged virtue ... transformed formerly hardworking and self-reliant men and women into whining, weak and flabby loafers.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.
Xunzi, ancient Chinese philosopher
As Western civilization races to remove any reminder of God as the foundation for morality and ethics, they pave the way to erase the Imago Dei from the image bearers themselves. To kill, rape, or subjugate women by displacing them with men who masquerade as women is just a meaningless personal choice. Likewise, to execute infants in the womb is neither right nor wrong but is just a personal preference. If someone believes it is wrong to subjugate others or to kill, they can personally decide not to do it, can they not? But they must never impose their personal preferences on those who disagree because THAT would be WRONG – small-minded and bigoted. We best not wander into the question of WHY bigotry and small-mindedness are WRONG and not just another personal choice. What is true for me is true, period. But what is true for you may just get you “canceled.” And it’s also true for me that canceling you is perfectly warranted. So shut up!
Don and Joy Veinot, The Dilemma of Morals
With the exception of the mass murder of the Armenians (which was committed by Muslim Turks), the genocides and the other horrors of the 20th century were committed by secular regimes. Given the centrality of secularism to leftism, this fact has been kept from young people. Likewise, the fact that all these genocides were committed by big governments is not taught to young people because big government is also central to left-wing ideology. In other words, a true depiction of the evils of the 20th century would mean the end of the two pillars of left-wing ideology: secularism and big government.
Dennis Prager, Why Young Americans are Not Taught About Evil
If anyone ever doubts the truth of the adage “the pen is mightier than the sword,” think of all the times in history that absolute rulers and governments have tried to stifle writers. Those who write well are dangerous to those who try to stifle freedom.
Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland, pages 171-172
We are, as a culture, opposed to slavery, but is slavery intrinsically wrong? If morals are simply pragmatic social constructs, without reference to an all-powerful God, on what basis can anyone today claim that the former enslavement of Africans, for example, was immoral? Why all the judgmentalism? After all, the scientific consensus of evolutionists at the time of the Civil War was that blacks were lesser evolved beings. The people just “followed the science,” and science said the evolutionary gap between blacks and whites was far greater than the evolutionary gap between blacks and apes. Under that school of thought, owning a black person was not any different than owning a canary, cat, or cow. For that matter, evolution never did and still does not care whether we own a man or a canary as long as the conquering species improves its chances for survival.
Don and Joy Veinot, The Dilemma of Morals
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.
John Adams, in letter to his wife Abigail on 7 July 1775
It is a common misconception that the Bill of Rights grants certain rights to citizens. It does no such thing. The Bill of Rights recognizes God-given, inalienable rights. What, then, is an inalienable right? An inalienable right is an intrinsic liberty, granted to you by God that creates no countervailing obligation on another. Inalienable rights are symmetrical: I recognize them in you, and you recognize them in me.
The Second Amendment is clearly one such right, as the right to self-defense is absolute. Make no mistake: the Second Amendment is not about hunting, or plinking. It's about repelling intruders and tyrants with deadly force. The origins of the Second Amendment can be traced specifically to April 19, 1775, when the British Crown took its tyranny one step too far; it marched on Lexington and Concord, seeking to confiscate the arms and ammunition of the colonists.
The Bill of Rights, by simply serving to articulate some of our God-given rights, puts the government on notice that none of these rights may be truncated in any way, irrespective of any government's incessant desires to do so — be it on guns, protest, or speech. The government has exactly zero standing on any of these issues.
Colin McWay, Brace yourself: You're about to become a felon
Most of our schools teach almost nothing of importance, and nothing is more important than the study of good and evil. In the United States today, nearly all schools, from elementary through graduate, concentrate on teaching about racism, sexism, preferred pronouns, homophobia, transphobia, LGBTQIA+, climate change, diversity, equity, inclusiveness and white guilt. In other words, most of our educational institutions, including the most prestigious, do not educate.
Dennis Prager, Why Young Americans are Not Taught About Evil
Marriage is, quite simply, a beautiful and inspiring devotion of a man and a woman to one another and to their dreams of raising a family, achieving success, a living together forever in love. The State is the enemy of all these dreams, and marriage, along with other forms of faith grounded in human nature, is part of what stands in the way of the totalitarianism we are facing. We must honor marriage and celebrate the freedom and happiness it makes possible.
Jeffrey Folks, Marriage Stands in the Way of the State
