Liberal Lessons on the Redskins (and the Like)

Well, what do you know? Again ignoring long-standing history, scientific data, and plain common sense, American liberals got a federal judge to help them further their totalitarian agenda.

Yesterday, a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia upheld the ruling of an administrative appeal board and ordered the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the registration of the trademark of “the NFL team located in Washington, D.C.” (Get used to such a phrase, as liberals will now be even more emboldened to ignore what has been for nearly a century. Of course, as we saw on marriage, liberals are quite adept at ignoring what has existed for centuries.) Until the appeals are exhausted, the Redskins can continue to use and protect their decades-old trademark.

Conservatives across America could learn something from liberals in this battle. First of all, many liberals, especially those in the media and politics (All 50 U.S. Senators who signed the letter sent to The New York Times—which, of course, got it first—and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, urging a change in the team’s name, were democrats.), continue to oppose fervently the “Redskins” name in spite of its overwhelming popularity.

There’s almost nothing in America as popular as the name “Redskins.” Hillary would probably rename her first grandchild “Monica” if she could only poll as popular as “Redskins.” As I noted on this same nonsense last year, when it comes to public opinion on this issue, virtually every poll ever taken shows overwhelming support for the Redskins name. Even in the most liberal place in the country, Washington D.C.—which happens to be the home city for the team—two-thirds polled say the team’s name should not change.

What’s more, a huge majority of Native Americans also supports the name. In late 2013, CBS Sports in D.C. reported on a poll that revealed 90% support for the Redskins name among Native Americans. In addition, dozens of American high schools use “Redskins” as their mascot. Most telling is the fact that, in almost all of these high schools, the majority of the students are Native American.

Nevertheless, the media and liberal politicians are undeterred and continue with the “change the Redskins” meme. We see the same thing on global warming. As a political issue, global warming—or climate change, or whatever the latest liberal spin is—has long been at or near the bottom of nearly any list of political issues put before Americans. This year’s Pew Public Policy Priorities Poll (say that five times fast!) has global warming second from the bottom.

In spite of this, liberals continue to wage war on fossil fuels and attempt to make (and sometimes succeed at making) public policy and pass legislation rooted in the myth that mankind is warming the planet. They make movies, documentaries, and television commercials that paint myth as fact. Billions and billions of dollars are spent, and billions more remain on the line.

You have to hand it to liberals. Whatever perverse morality seems to guide them at the moment (it often changes), as long as there’s not much of a political price to pay (which the media almost always helps in that way), they stick to their guns—well, they stick to their pet political issues.

If only republicans in Washington would show the same kind of fight on immigration, marriage, and the like. If the judge had ruled in favor of the Redskins, do you think liberals would have ceased their campaign in the matter? What did the marriage debate teach us? For years the conservative position was the popular one, and it showed in the polling and at the ballot box. Did this stop liberals?

As I’ve also noted before, because their moral demands are few, and because for decades now they’ve had a media and an education system that supports them at nearly every turn, politics is much easier for liberals. Thus, conservatives must always out-work liberals in the political realm. Whether we seem to be working with the lead, or from behind, conservatives must stick to our principles and fight. Whether at home, at school, at church, in the media, in the boardroom, in the courtroom, in the legislature, and so on, uncompromising (hear me, Chris Christy) conservatives are needed.

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Another Mass Murderer From a Broken Home

Here we go again. It's not guns. It's not racism. It's not psychotic drugs. Easily the most common elements among American mass murderers are broken homes and sexual deviancy. Although there is not yet evidence that Dylann Roof was sexually troubled, his parents divorced several years prior to his birth.

Additionally, from the time he was about four, Roof and his sister were raised by Roof's father, Bennett Roof, and their stepmother, Paige Hastings. In 2008, when Roof was 14, Bennett and Paige went through a bitter divorce. According to the Washington Post, "Hastings, accused her husband of being controlling and physically abusing her, according to court records." Around the same time, young Dylann dropped out of school.

According to the UK Daily Mail, "Dylann, who was then 15, began to skip classes, did not finish high school and became unemployed - living ‘on and off’ with his father while he spent his days taking drugs and playing video games." Of course, as usual, in spite of this, the left insists that Roof killing nine Christian worshipers inside their church is the fault of conservatives.

The former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Democrat James Clyburn, told NBC's Chuck Todd, "I have been saying for some time now that my friends in the Congressional Black Caucus will tell you, I've been saying to them that there's this rightward drift in the country that I think is going too far. And people get emboldened by all of this."

As I've said recently and more than once,

How ironic and backwards is it that the politics of those who tell us that children in the womb aren't really human, humans with a penis and the Y-chromosome aren't really men, white is black, the criminals are the good guys and the police the bad guys, marriage is not the union of one man and one woman, student loans don't have to be repaid, blizzards are evidence for global warming, and who has given us funding for blasphemous art, the removal of school prayer, the removal of the Ten Commandments, and constitutional rights for pornography, now tells us it's the right’s fault when a deranged young man goes on a killing spree? I submit to you that the evil deeds of Mr. Roof are much more a product of progressive values and influences than conservative ones.

And instead of guns, the most common elements of the worst among us are broken homes and sexual deviancy. One reason liberals can’t stand to hear such information is that it defies a government solution. The left would much rather rant against firearms and seek legislation to restrict them. 

Additionally, liberals in the United States have been complicit in the breakdown of the family and the spread of sexual immorality. Whether divorce, fornication, marriage, prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and so on, for decades now, in the name of “sexual freedom,” liberals have called what is evil good, and what is good evil. They have preached, promoted, and even passed legislation in defense of these "values."

What's more, as noted by a few in the conservative media, the ten most violent cities in the U.S. are all led by democrats. As most would deduce by the use of common sense, (but I’ll provide you with the data anyway) large U.S. cities in general are significantly more violent that rural areas. According to CDC data, nearly 60% of gun homicides in the U.S. occur in the 62 cities of the country’s 50 largest metro areas. 

Of course, the political machine in most every large U.S. city is dominated by democrats and each of the 12 largest U.S. cities are led by democrats.

It is really uncanny. Never allowing a crisis to go to waste, virtually every time one of these sin-sick killers goes on a spree, liberals just can't seem to help themselves when it comes to blaming conservatives and holding themselves up as having the political answers that the country needs. Yet almost always the murderers are the product of liberal "values."

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Answering the Evolution Question

I tried to warn them. In addition, back in 2012, after Marco Rubio was asked about the age of the earth, I provided conservative politicians (and others interested) a primer for answering some of the “gotcha” questions that most every conservative running for political office in the U.S. will inevitably face. It seems that Scott Walker or his staff need to spend more time on my website, or on American Thinker (one of the top conservative websites in America).

Byron York hopes Walker learned a valuable lesson. Silvio Canto at American Thinker doesn’t care what Scott Walker (or Hillary Clinton) thinks about evolution and wants to “pound on the guy asking these stupid questions.” Jonah Goldberg, like I did, correctly points out that, “the evolution question really isn’t about evolution at all,” and concludes that this incessant question “deserves to be cessant.”

As Goldberg puts it, on the surface, questions about evolution are really questions about the culture war (or, as I have alluded, the moral wars), and, beneath the surface, such questions are ultimately about the nature of man. And for liberalism to prosper, any notion of God or absolute truth to which man is ultimately accountable must at least be compromised, if not completely rejected.

This is why evolution—or, better put, Darwinian evolution (D.E.)—is deeply embedded in the foundation of liberalism. D.E. teaches that all life—plant, animal, human—billions of years ago sprang from the same single-celled source, strictly as a product of nature and natural processes (billions of years of death and struggle). Thus, as a liberal at Salon recently put it, “Darwin…explained the evolution of life in a way that doesn’t require the hand of God.” (His piece is gleefully entitled “God is on the Ropes,” and writes about the “brilliant new science”—isn’t it always—that expands on Darwin’s work and will finally liberate us from any idea that God was involved in creating life.)

Many, including those who call themselves Christians and/or conservatives, would like to ignore this tenet of D.E. Thus we now have the nonsense that is “theistic evolution.” This is nothing more than the sad attempt to reconcile God’s Word with what is perceived as the “settled science”—isn’t it always—on the beginning of life (that has misled the likes of even the Pope).

Even the rabid atheist and Darwinist Richard Dawkins understands the fallacy here. When asked recently what was the particular point at which he was able to conclude that God doesn’t exist, Dawkins replied that “by far” the most significant event for him was “understanding evolution.” He went on to say that he thought the evangelical Christians have it “sort-of” right when they see (Darwinian) evolution as “the enemy,” adding that there “really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity.” The “sophisticated theologians” who are “quite happy to live with evolution” are, as Dawkins puts it, “deluded.” How sad that it takes an atheist to point out the truth in this debate!

Nevertheless, well-meaning Christians, especially those aspiring to win elections, will continue to seek compromise here. Scott Walker himself demonstrated this when, after his perceived attempt at “weaseling on evolution,” he later benignly tweeted, “I believe faith & science are compatible, & go hand in hand.”

Politically speaking, I have no problem with Scott Walker “punting” on the question. (Right now, he’s my favorite potential GOP presidential candidate.) It’s no different than then presidential candidate Barack Obama’s “above my pay grade” response when he was asked about the beginning of human life. However, such a response by a conservative candidate is only likely to draw further such questions (whether on evolution, abortion, marriage, global warming, and the like). As I noted in 2012, it would have been better to turn the tables in such a way that would give left-wing reporters significant pause before again venturing down this path of questioning.

What’s more, again, as I noted in 2012, and as others have similarly pointed out in the last few days, Walker, or any other candidate, can use the approach taken by Jesus Christ Himself. Often, when doubters were attempting to trap Jesus with their “gotcha” questions, to reveal their ignorance and hypocrisy, Christ responded with a wise question of His own.

For example, first of all, when asked about evolution (i.e., as Walker was asked, “Do you believe in evolution?”), I would ask the reporter to clarify what she means by evolution (it’s highly unlikely that she will be able to do this articulately). If the reporter stumbles around and is unable to explain what she means by evolution, the candidate can reply: “If by evolution you mean the idea that all living things, such as humans, monkeys, elephants, antelopes, lions, lizards, apples, apricots, roses, and rhododendrons all have a common ancestor and are nothing more than the result of natural processes, and leave no role for a Creator, then no.”

Additionally, one could respond with (as James Taranto alluded to), “Why must one ‘believe in’ evolution?” I suppose it’s for the same reason that one must “believe in” man-made global warming: the science doesn’t really reveal what liberals want it to reveal.

If the reporter gives some silly response that, by evolution, he means that “things change over long periods of time” (i.e. “natural selection”), then the proper reply would be: “Of course I ‘believe in’ natural selection. But if by natural selection you mean the idea that all living things, such as humans, monkeys, elephants, antelopes, lions, lizards, apples, apricots, roses, and rhododendrons all have a common ancestor and are nothing more than the result of natural processes, and leave no role for a Creator, then no.” (What’s more, the VAST majority of Americans allow God at least some special role in creation.) In other words, natural selection is not synonymous with Darwinian evolution.

One could also do as Marco Rubio hinted at in 2012 and ask, “What does D.E. have to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States?” If a candidate really wanted to get cute, he could ask, “Why is it possible to reject completely D.E. and millions/billions of years (as did Newton and Kepler, who both actually took the time to calculate the age of the earth and found it to be only a few thousand years old), and still operate perfectly well in any scientific field including medicine (i.e. Pasteur)?”

Conservative candidates are never going to get the slack that liberals do when it comes to anything related to the moral issues. The liberals in the media are too personally invested in having those that share their (mostly) godless worldview win elections. Thus, any serious conservative candidate for higher office better spend some time thinking about how to answer such questions.

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

When Voting, Remember the Federal Judiciary (updated)

Near the top of the page on Drudge this evening is a link to the New York Times lead tomorrow (Sunday). The title of the piece is Building Legacy, Obama Reshapes Appellate Bench. The article notes the recent changes that have occurred within the federal judiciary. It begins:

"Democrats have reversed the partisan imbalance on the federal appeals courts that long favored conservatives, a little-noticed shift with far-reaching consequences for the law and President Obama’s legacy.

"For the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents considerably outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. The Democrats’ advantage has only grown since late last year when they stripped Republicans of their ability to filibuster the president’s nominees."

The piece notes that, of the 13 United States Courts of Appeals, Democratic appointees to these powerful federal benches now hold majorities in nine of them. The article further declares that, 

"The shift, one of the most significant but unheralded accomplishments of the Obama era, is likely to have ramifications for how the courts decide the legality of some of the president’s most controversial actions on health care, immigration and clean air. Since today’s Congress has been a graveyard for legislative accomplishment, these judicial confirmations are likely to be among its most enduring acts."

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer is quoted noting that "This will affect America for a generation, long after the internecine battles on legislative issues are forgotten." Schumer is exactly, and tragically, correct. This was one of my biggest fears of an Obama presidency--especially a presidency that was accompanied by a Democratic majority in the Senate. 

As I noted in early 2008 when making my Case for McCain, "Whatever a conservative’s concerns with John McCain, and there are legitimate ones, the dual roles of Commander In Chief, and appointer of Federal Judges, should be enough to cause any reasonable conservative to give him some benefit of the doubt." 

Additionally, as I added a few months later (June) of 2008, "On judicial nominees the choice for conservatives in November is clear." If only more Americans had listened! Packing the federal judiciary with liberals is a disastrous consequence of electing liberals such as Obama and Schumer.

Of course such disastrous consequences are easily seen with the many federal rulings that seek to redefine marriage and legally force the legitimization of homosexual behavior upon the American people. Along with their homosexual agenda, liberals are using the courts to push their calamitous climate agenda along with their hideous healthcare agenda. Unlike legislation, as Roe v. Wade teaches us, such efforts by the courts are not so easily undone, Again, as Schumer points out, it could take generations before we see a reversal of these efforts by liberals, as one of the most enduring accomplishments of any presidency is his impact on the judiciary. 

Conservatives need to do more to educate our fellow Americans on this matter. This needs to be happening now as one-third of the U.S. Senate, which must confirm the president's judicial nominees, is up for reelection this November--less than two months from today.  

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com