Presidents, Polls, Professors, & the Public

  

Young America’s Foundation is an organization devoted to conservative principles in culture and government. While it doesn’t claim to be openly Christian—other conservatives are welcome—the concepts it promotes are consistent with Biblical principles. In the last few years, it has established the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, where it holds a number of significant seminars and conferences. The organization also bought the Reagan Ranch in the mountains outside Santa Barbara, and is keeping it as Ronald Reagan had it… Read more »

Death of a Vision? Or a Rebirth?

  

About seven years ago, a vision took shape in my heart and mind. Yesterday that vision may have died, but I am hopeful that it’s merely a prelude to a resurrection. Let me explain. I’ll start first with the basic facts, then go on to what I think the Lord may be teaching me through this episode. I’ve always admired Ronald Reagan: his character, his principles, and how he attempted to convert them into action. I’ve equally admired Whittaker Chambers,… Read more »

Crossing a Line

  

The latest report on the upcoming Democrat convention is that the committee working to draft the policy platform for the party has included a plank putting the Democrats squarely on the side of same-sex marriage. Apparently, there was no real disagreement from anyone on the committee; it was the unanimous opinion that same-sex marriage should be enshrined as the law of the land. This was inevitable for a progressivism that has left Biblical morality on what it considers the ash… Read more »

Shining in the Midst of Evil

  

What can I say about the awful tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, that hasn’t already been said over the last three days? Some have used it as a political football to call for more gun control, ignoring the fact that Aurora already had strict gun control laws. Others have pointed out that if private citizens had the right to carry guns, someone in that theater would have stopped the carnage before it got out of hand. Both presidential campaigns did the… Read more »

The Diversionary President

  

Presidential campaigns are rarely things of beauty. In my course that covers the second half of American history, I show some videos of campaign ads. Some of the worst come from the LBJ campaign against Barry Goldwater in 1964. When I say “worst,” I mean in the sense of misleading. The message communicated by the Johnson team that year was that if we elected Goldwater, he would blow up the world. Literally. The most famous/infamous ad was of a little… Read more »

Let’s Count the Scapegoats

  

We’re now in the fourth year of the Obama recovery. At least that’s what we’re told. Yet recovery seems to be a little hard to locate. Obama famously said in 2009 that if the economy hasn’t rebounded by the end of his term, he would be a one-term president. For some reason, he’s backpedaling on that comment. What stands out above all else is his penchant for blaming everyone and everything—besides himself, of course—for the moribund state of things. A… Read more »

Educating a New Generation

  

The Fourth of July used to be one of the premier American holidays. People celebrated it because they understood the principles behind the resistance to taxation without representation and the potential for government overreach. Those were lessons we used to know. Things have changed. But if you were to take a survey of our current knowledge of America’s founding and the principles upon which it was based, you might get a variety of responses, few of them heartening: If some… Read more »