Tag: Reagan

The Left Going Crazy, Trump Being Trump

  

Watching the cultural/political Left go crazy the past few weeks should be instructive to many Americans. Although there’s nothing really surprising about the “progressive” reaction to Trump’s presidency, their out-of-control rage, whining, and actual destruction of property offers a valuable lesson about the dangers of Totalitarian Leftism. The University of California Berkeley retains an iconic status in the minds of those on the Left. They believe it is the place where free speech was born in the 1960s. That image… Read more »

The Confirmation Circus

  

Confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominees have become quite a circus. It was to be expected, unfortunately. I remember when Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was putting forth his agenda a few years ago. Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature ran away to Illinois so there wouldn’t be a quorum to conduct business. Senate Democrats seem to be copying that strategy, refusing to show up to vote on whether to send nominees to the full Senate. It’s a tried and true method… Read more »

Obama’s Self-Congratulatory Farewell

  

Two more days and Barack Obama will no longer be president. On his way out, he’s doing his best to make sure he’s not forgotten. He just commuted the sentence of Bradley/Chelsea (take your pick) Manning, the former army intelligence officer who leaked sensitive intel back in 2010. Obama also shortened the sentences of 209 other convicts and fully pardoned another 64. No president has ever overturned as many sentences as Obama has done in his eight years. Some of… Read more »

Fake News Is Not New News

  

Everyone is now decrying “fake news.” As if it’s a new phenomenon. I’m a historian; I can testify that fake news is nothing new. Three decades ago, while working on my doctorate, I was immersed in fake news—from the 1790s. Newspapers of the era were sponsored by either Federalists or the Democrat-Republicans. The “news” in some of those papers was sometimes pure speculation, often made up just to undermine the political opposition. My subject of study was Noah Webster, who… Read more »

Debating My Conservatism

  

I’m going to begin this blog today with what some might consider an audacious comparison, but I hope you won’t misunderstand. In the current political climate, I find myself feeling kind of like how the apostle Paul must have felt when his apostleship was questioned. He had to provide a list of his bona fides to the Corinthians to show that he was the genuine article. That is strange to Christians today because we take Paul’s word as authoritative. Yet… Read more »

Integrity

  

I talk a lot about principles. After all, look at the title of this blog. The word means a lot to me. It’s the same with a related word: integrity. How is integrity defined? I like this definition: Adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. I like that it incorporates principle in the definition and that honesty, morality, and ethical conduct are all included. This is what God looks for in men and women, especially those… Read more »

Chambers, McCarthy, & Trump

  

An interesting question was posed to me yesterday by a former student, wanting to know what Whittaker Chambers might think of Donald Trump. I gave him my short answer but then decided it would be perhaps insightful to provide a fuller one here today. For those of you unfamiliar with Chambers, here’s a short synopsis of his life. Whittaker Chambers, in the 1920s, became a member of the Communist party because he saw it as the hope of a world… Read more »