TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

Obama: More Taxes, Rights for bin Laden
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:12 AM
Ronald Kessler

Two events made Condoleezza Rice switch from being a registered Democrat to a Republican.

The first was when she watched the 1984 Democratic National Convention that nominated Walter Mondale for president. Rice, who grew up during segregation, was turned off by an endless refrain of appeals to “women, minorities, and the poor, which basically means helpless people and the poor,” she has said. Rice decided she would “rather be ignored than patronized.”

The second event was Jimmy Carter’s professed shock at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, demonstrating naivete and spotlighting his feeble approach to national security. The spectacle sickened her.

Substitute the name Barack Obama for Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter and you have a good summation of this presidential candidate’s approach.

To be sure, Obama is a master at seeming to appeal to all sides. But his voting record makes it clear he is a doctrinaire liberal who sees minorities as victims and the government as the solution to all problems – except when it comes to protecting us from terrorist attacks.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, Obama has proposed at least $287 billion a year in new government spending. That does not include his more recent $150 billion “green energy plan.” He also co-sponsored a Senate bill to spend at least $845 billion a year to fight global poverty.

Obama would pay for these increases with much higher taxes, including by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010.

Americans for Tax Reform gives him a lifetime rating of 7.5, compared with 82.7 for John McCain. Indeed, the National Journal has ranked Obama the most liberal senator for 2007.

“He’s a bleeding heart liberal, but he’s smart enough not to put it in people’s face right now,” says Republican Illinois State Sen. Bill Brady, who worked with Obama in the Illinois State Senate and calls him that body’s most liberal member.

When speaking out against tax cuts, Obama has likened the Ownership Society, which includes such measures as personal Social Security accounts, health savings accounts, incentives to expand home ownership, and tax cuts to encourage growth of small businesses, to “social Darwinism.”

Speaking to the National Women’s Law Center in November 2005, Obama said, “The idea here is to give everyone one big refund on their government – divvy it up into some tax breaks, hand them out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own healthcare, their own retirement plan, their own unemployment insurance, education, and so forth.”

In Washington, he said, “They call this the Ownership Society. But in our past, there has been another term for it – social Darwinism, every man and woman for him or herself.”

In other words, instead of helping people to help themselves and grow the economy at the same time, Obama’s approach would keep them dependent on government handouts, encouraging them to think of themselves as victims. When it comes to keeping America strong against terrorist threats, it’s quite a different story.

Like a 6-year-old kid who wants to be friends with everyone on the block, Obama has said he would offer prompt negotiations with anti-American despots. More frightening, Obama voted last August to give Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the same rights as Americans when it comes to intercepting their overseas calls in order to pick up clues needed to stop another attack.

Obama recently avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required.

Obama would withdraw immediately from Iraq, leaving that country to morph into a haven for al-Qaida and a staging ground for attacks on America.

While Obama has portrayed himself as a candidate for all Americans, his closeness to his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, tells a different story. For more than two decades, Wright has been Obama’s friend and sounding board, a man he consults before making important decisions like whether to run for president.

In December, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan as a man who epitomizes greatness. Farrakhan has blamed blacks’ troubles on Jews, America, and whites, whom he calls “blue-eyed devils.”

Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago espouses what it calls the Black Value System. While the Black Value System encourages commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to “our racist competitive society” and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness” and a pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.”

The Black Value System defines “middle-classness” as a way for American society to “snare” blacks rather than “killing them off directly” or “placing them in concentration camps,” just as the country structures “an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.”

Contrary to Obama’s portrayal of himself as a unifier, on every bipartisan effort in the Senate to forge compromises on tough issues, Obama has been missing in action.

In sum, Barack Obama’s voting record, the comments of his close friend and sounding board, and his own statements suggest that the dazzling orator from Illinois represents everything that Condoleezza Rice rejected about the Democratic Party.

If Obama is his party’s nominee, we will all applaud the symbolism of a black man achieving so much. But if they are aware of his radical agenda, it’s doubtful most Americans will buy entrusting the country’s future to him.

Faced with a press that adores Obama, the question will be whether Republicans can portray the stark difference between the man and the myth.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.

Spitzer Spits in the Eye of Life

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (D) is pushing a bill in his state’s legislature that seeks to declare abortion a fundamental right for all women. The bill would make abortions virtually immune to state regulation, end conscience protections, and most likely force the numerous Christian-run hospitals in the state to close rather than be forced to violate their faith by carrying out abortions or referring women to abortuaries. The bill also would expand the field of people who can perform abortions while eliminating the possibility of passing restrictions that have wide public support, such as parental notification, informed consent laws, and waiting periods. Governor Spitzer rose to power in New York State with tremendous support from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, mainly due to his adamant support of abortion and his unbridled hostility towards pregnancy care centers. Coincidentally the two leading Democratic nominees for President, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barak Obama (R-Ill.) are cosponsors of a similar bill in the U.S. Senate introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calf.) that, if enacted, would effectively overturn most state laws on abortion. States, like Georgia, that are currently trying to reflect the pro-life majority among their population would be left with little choice but to subsidize abortions with taxpayer dollars if this legislation is passed and signed into national law.

Planned Parenthood Plans Six-Story Clinic In Houston

An entire floor will be dedicated to late-term abortions.

In October, Planned Parenthood opened the nation’s largest abortion clinic – 22,000 square feet – in Aurora, Ill.

But that’s last year’s news.

Its Denver clinic, at 50,000 square feet, is under construction. And its new, six-story Houston clinic, which will dwarf the others at 78,000 square feet, will have an entire floor for late-term abortions.

Despite complaints from Planned Parenthood officials around the country about the closing of clinics, their strategy of opening larger, mega-clinics shows they are still well-invested in the killing of preborn life,” said Dawn Vargo, associate bioethics analyst for Focus on the Family Action. “While their tactics may be changing, the number of abortions they do each year continues to increase.”

In 2005, Planned Parenthood ended the lives of 264,943 preborn babies nationwide, according to its annual report. That was up almost 15 percent from 2002.

Planned Parenthood of Houston & Southeast Texas will open the abortion center in the fall, just outside the gates of the University of Houston’s main campus.

Christine Melchor, director of Houston’s Coalition for Life, said: “They like to be situated in some of the poorer, minority neighborhoods – that’s exactly where this building is – and close to college campuses; there are several colleges in that area.”

Wheaton College is once again featuring a pro-homosexual activist as a featured speaker at its Center for Applied Christian Ethics.

Wheaton first came under fire for inviting self-proclaimed “gay Christian” (oxymoronical by grammatical definition and sinner by biblical definition) activist Harry Knox to participate in a panel discussion during which he repeated the claim that his sexual preference is a “gift from God.” While there are gifts from God – this is not one of them. God does not give a gift of something He condemns in His own book, the Bible.

On this evening Wheaton will feature Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine and author of the new book The Great Awakening, in which Wallis claims the effort to legitimize homosexual relationships in the law is “a justice issue.” No matter what type of issue you may want to categorize something in … if it is sin it is still sin! … categorization is irrelevant and doesn’t change that fact!

Peter LaBarbera, with Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says the college is failing both its Bible-centered charter and its obligations to academic integrity. “We find it hard to believe that somebody who believes in the Bible – and the Bible teaches that homosexuality is an abomination,” states LaBarbera, “… could call support for so-called ‘civil rights’ based on egregiously sinful behavior – how you can call that ‘a justice issue’?”

LaBarbera is calling for the college to invite a speaker with an opposing view to speak along with Wallis. But LaBarbera understands why the college would view Wallis as being a good draw for the event. “He seems to be one of the secular media’s favorite evangelicals because he’s basically saying that the Religious Right is wrong with all their focus on abortion and being against homosexuality,” he points out.

While LaBarbera agrees with Wallis that Christians should do a better job of caring for the poor and opposing no-fault divorce, he says those failings in no way justify support for clearly immoral choices like homosexuality or abortion. Wallis also is in favor of civil unions, another reason why LaBarbera feels Wallis is not a good role model or speaker for this event.

Wallis is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

When will these “Christian” colleges stop doing this nonsense and listen? …when the contributors stop giving so they have to terminate these liberal presidents and hire real Christians. Homosexuality proponents do not belong on a Christian campus.

Christians who ignore the clear teachings of the Scriptures are no Christians at all.

Tragic, another Christian college being taken over by liberal thought. That can be expected though when people choose to override what God’s Word says in light of trying to legitimize sin instead of calling it what it is … SIN!

What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America … remember this is not about racism – it is about breaking the law and the consequences of the law not being enforced. If you want to come to America then do it the RIGHT WAY !

Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, ‘Mexican Visitor’s Lament’ — 10/25/07.

She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, ‘They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes…What Happens to your country’s economy if 20 million people go away?’ That’s a good question – it deserves an answer. Over 80% of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America? These answers may surprise you!

In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again.

In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grand-kids – would move back ‘home’, mostly to Mexico. That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.

Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.

Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67% drop-out/flunk-out rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in Colorado.

Denver’s four% unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.

In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law, and English.

In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free living experience.

If 20 million illegal aliens returned ‘home’ …

If 20 million illegal aliens returned ‘home’, the U.S. Economy would return to the rule of law Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn’t be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 Billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers.

No more push ‘1’ for Spanish or ‘2’ for English. No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.

We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country.

In cities like LA., 20,000 members of the ’18th Street Gang’ would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!

Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens!

America’s economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn’t return to the aliens’ home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America’s economy – which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.

At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act.

Americans wouldn’t suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.

Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the ‘progressives’ on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11% of our greenhouse gases.

We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico. We already invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation. It’s time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life.

Interesting Statistics. Here are 14 reasons illegal aliens should vacate America:

1. $11 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens.
http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 billion dollars are spent each year on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

5. $17 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars PER DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times (250%) that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year 2005, there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine, and marijuana crossed into the U.S. from the southern border.
http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/publications.php?b=deportation

13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in the United States!’
http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html

The total cost of illegals is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!!

If the illegals were legal and they, and their employers, were paying taxes then $401 billion in IRS income taxes would be collected annually that would stay in America’s economy.

NOTE: Illegal aliens please remember you are welcome to come back to America … but do it the right way and assimilate into America as an American. If you left your own country because you didn’t like what was going on and life was difficult, why try to recreate that atmosphere here? … give you heart to America as your new country. Please learn English as it is the working language of American. If Spanish or another language is your heritage that is fine just speak it at home.

Many people think that a universal health insurance sounds great … and it does in principle. But what if it means having your wages garnished, paying an extra tax in April, paying a fine, or facing some other financial mandate?

It’s a question that continues to follow Democrat senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as they make their last minute pitches for Super Tuesday voters.

On the TV program “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Clinton yesterday left open the possibility that her health care program would garnish the wages of people who didn’t comply. (Doesn’t surprise me … isn’t that what all “good” socialists do – take more from the backs of the soon-to-be working poor.)

“We will have an enforcement mechanism, whether it’s that [garnishing wages] or it’s some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments,” Clinton said.

She did take the idea of fines off the table, however. Fines are a feature of the Massachusetts Health Plan.

Clinton says a mandate is necessary in order to create universal coverage. (A coverage that would cover all the illegal immigrants, and continue to cover those on welfare that are able to but not willing to work, while again the middle class continues to work not taking time for their health due to their work schedules.) Obama’s plan does not cover all Americans, but he argues a mandate could force economic burdens on those who can’t afford to buy insurance. (Can you say increased taxes!)

This dispute raises a difficult question. Some surveys show that a modest majority of Americans believe the U.S. should have universal healthcare. But most of them think reforms should be built around private insurance, not a government program that will increases taxes.

Socialists liberals are taxers. They always have been … this won’t change because their basic belief is that they can handle the citizen’s money (yours and mine) better. They believe they are more intelligent than you or I, and a little thing called equity … the leveling out of economic disparity … the spreading out of the money from those work to those who don’t – and in most cases don’t plan to. When we go along with them we are allowing them to think they are smarter than we are … and maybe they are if we don’t stand against these dangerous ideologies.

The question is still there though: How can health care be improved? A good start is to take the CEO’s and others in the top echelons of the insurance companies and reduce their million dollar and six figure salaries. Many pose as non-profit organizations … really! Not for profit organizations are suppose to be build on serving people not serving the board of directors, the share-holders (how can that be?), or the CEO and management. Maybe some IRS pressure if they don’t comply?

The next great problem in the cost of health insurance is how the government passes the buck – literally. They impose the cost of welfare health care, including 20 plus million illegal aliens, onto the states and the hospitals through black-mail and coercion. The states and the hospitals have no choice but to treat everyone as it is mandated by the federal government or they won’t get their federal monies and subsidies. The catch 22 is the federal monies are not enough to cover the costs so the hospitals and providers charge extortionist prices for tests, surgeries, and procedures to the insurance companies, of those who have insurance, to try to recoup some of the money they have lost giving so much welfare treatment. This causes the price of insurance coverage to climb sky-high and still doesn’t cover the cost of the freebies … thus causing many hospitals to shut down in high welfare areas.

Once the federal government and the insurance providers change their practices then people will be able to obtain health coverage at a reasonable rate. Going to universal healthcare will not be cheaper it will be a great deal more, and then to put it into the hands of government with no accountability and the mismanagement that is already vivid … no thank you Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama!

I am originally from north of the border and socialized medicine looked great there once upon a time … try to get a doctor and prompt health care now!

DARK SIDE OF HILLARYCARE
Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:01 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

The public face of Hillary Clinton’s new health care plan is sunny, filled with choices for consumers and bright with promises for better health care for all. But a close examination of the proposal alongside other initiatives of Sen. Clinton in the past few years reveals a dark side she wants to hide from public view until after the election is over.

In her program, she speaks of how health care is the right of every “American” ? but she has a rather expansive definition of “American.” In 2005, Hillary co-sponsored legislation in the United States Senate to offer free health insurance, under the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to the children of illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for five years. So, those who have dodged the immigration cops for five years successfully would be rewarded not only with legal status and a path to citizenship, but with immediate free health care for their children.

Indeed, when Democrats and liberals speak of the 50,000,000 uninsured Americans, more than one fifth of those are illegal immigrants. Thus, about one in five of the beneficiaries of her program for universal health insurance are illegal aliens. (Illegal immigrants are a disproportionately large segment of the uninsured population because legal immigrants and citizens who live in poverty are eligible for Medicaid, but illegal immigrants are not.)

Would Americans like to reward those whose only connection to our country is that they flouted our laws to come here with free health insurance for themselves and their children? Doubtless Hillary knows the answer is no, so she is determined to hide that aspect of her plan from the public.

Hillary speaks of the importance of stopping health insurance companies from raising premiums on those who are sick. But she does not mention the inevitable flip side of her proposal ? to raise premiums on those who are well. On the one hand, she would cover all those with chronic conditions with low cost health insurance and, on the other, would stop insurance companies from “cherry picking” healthy and young people for their insurance plans. The net effect would be a major increase in health insurance premiums for the vast majority of Americans.

In effect, her plan would turn “insurance” into “subsidy.” The concept of insurance is that one pays a relatively low premium to guard against catastrophic expenses that are outside of our ability to meet financially. But Hillary’s program would really be nothing more than a cash transfer from the healthy to the sick, not an insurance program at all.

Hillary says that her program would provide “universal” coverage for all. In order to achieve universality, one must make the program compulsory. The bulk of the uninsured do not want to have to pay for insurance. They are healthy and don’t want the added burden of health insurance. That is why about half of those who are eligible for free or low cost insurance under the State Child Health Insurance Program have not signed up. Their parents don’t want to.

So Hillary’s program, as she freely admits, would require health insurance as a pre-condition of employment. Not having health insurance would be a violation just as driving a car without automobile insurance is illegal. The resulting coercion would force millions to pay for coverage they do not want and feel they don’t need. But to pay for her national program, Hillary needs everyone to be covered so she can use their revenues to subsidize the coverage of those who are ill.

But the main defect of Hillary’s program is that it leaves out any attempt at cost control. With health care absorbing 16 percent of our economy, Bill Clinton’s warnings of economic disaster if its share of our national income passed 12 percent back in 1993 sound almost quaint today. Cost control is a vital part of any plan for universal coverage. Indeed, without it, extending coverage just offers a blank check to patients and providers which would drive even higher the share of our economy that goes to health care.

It was Hillary herself who explained this concept to Dick in 1993. The reality has not changed. Hillary will be forced to control costs as the implicit and vital element of any health care reform. This control of costs belies her contention that she would leave the health care system untouched except to extend coverage to those who now lack it. Because she would need to limit utilization and lower costs, she would be forced to ration health care and to impose government mandated and controlled managed care on all Americans.

For the first time, the word “no” would come into our system. Do you need open heart surgery? Are you a poor risk because of smoking or diabetes or age? No longer would the bureaucrat at the other end of the phone say “we won’t pay for it” or “you don’t need it” or “we can’t fit you in at our facility.” The answer would simply be no ? even if you pay for it yourself, you may not have one. It is this type of coercion that drives Canadians over the border to the U.S. in search of medical options denied them at home under their socialized medical structure. Now it would operate on both sides of the border.

Finally, Hillary seeks to finance the system by ending tax breaks for the wealthy, by which she means any household with $250,000 or more in income. Never mind that she has spent that money several times over. But why use income taxes to finance her system? Why not do what Democrats and Republicans are now pushing in Congress ? to finance it by raising cigarette taxes? That way we get a double impact: higher tobacco prices cut smoking, particularly among teenagers, and reduce health costs and the revenues pay for her expansion of the system. The current Congress is passing legislation to raise cigarette taxes 61 cents per pack to pay for a $35 billion expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program. Why not raise them $2 per pack to raise the $110 billion Hillary says her health care proposal will need?

In selling her program, Hillary seems to imply that she was under the hypnotic control of her advisers (presumably Ira Magaziner) in 1993 when she designed her previous health care reform. Now she says she is in charge. “I’m the decision maker now,” she told The New York Times. “I have a plan that is 100 percent my plan.” But what was the 1993 initiative but her plan, concocted in secret and foisted in toto on a Congress which wouldn’t pass it?

Now she says she would not “have approached [health care reform] in the same way” as she did in 1993. Now she will be informed by “a greater dose of humility and empathy and understanding of what it takes to get things done in our political system.”

That and a determination to conceal the true implications of her proposal until after she is elected.

Christian researcher George Barna says the recent massacre at Virginia Tech should alert parents to take a hard look at how a culture that glamorizes sex and violence is impacting young adults.

In an article on his website, Barna said he is sympathetic toward the parents of Seung-Hui Cho, the 23-year-old Virginia Tech student who murdered 32 people at the Blacksburg campus on April 16 before killing himself. However, he says it is important to look at trends in child development and parenting to see how culture influences children.

Barna’s studies on parenting and child development led him to offer a series of facts and observations related to the Virginia Tech situation …

1. By the time an American child is 23 years old, as was the killer in Virginia, he will have seen countless murders among the more than 30,000 acts of violence to which he is exposed through television, movies and video games.

2. By the age of 23, the average American will have viewed thousands of hours of pornographic images, which diminish the dignity and value of human life.

3. After nearly a quarter century on earth, the typical American will have listened to hundreds of hours of music that fosters anger, hatred, disrespect for authority, selfishness, and radical independence.

4. The typical worldview of a person in their early twenties promotes self-centeredness, the right to happiness and fulfillment, the importance of personal expression in all forms, the necessity of tolerating aberrant or immoral points of views, allows for disrespect of other people and use of profanity, and advances forms of generic spirituality that dismiss the validity of the Judeo-Christian faith. Largely propelled by postmodern thought, the typical worldview of young people does not facilitate respect for life, acceptance of the rule of law, or the necessity of hard work, personal sacrifice, paying the dues or contributing to the common good. Barna noted that only about 2% of today’s teenagers possess a biblical worldview that acknowledges the existence of God, Satan and sin, the availability of forgiveness and grace through Jesus Christ, and the existence of absolute moral principles provided in the Bible.

5. The average adolescent spends more than 40 hours each week digesting media, and the typical teenager in America absorbs almost 60 hours of media content each week. For better or worse, the messages received from the media represent a series of unfiltered, unchaperoned worldview lessons.

6. It appears that as many as one out of every five young people is or has been under the influence of mood-altering medications, some of whose long-term side effects are not fully understood by the medical community. Drugging children has become one of the ways in which we have coped with other issues.

7. Stress levels have been steadily rising among young children over the past couple of decades. A variety of factors have contributed to such stress, including parental acrimony and divorce, household financial troubles, media-fed expectations regarding materialism, overscheduling of children, bullying, physical abuse within the home, and excessive peer pressure.

8. One-third of the nation’s teenagers report having been in a physical fight at least once in the last year. Nearly one out of every five 9th through 12th grade students has carried a gun, knife or club in the past month.

9. Education, both in the home and outside of it, provides diminishing emphasis upon the development of character, and increasing emphasis upon meeting academic performance standards, especially through standardized testing.

10. Growing numbers of children seek to make their way through an increasingly complex life without the traditional safety net comprised of a loving and supportive family, a stable circle of supportive peers, teachers who know and help nurture the child, and a community of faith that assists in giving meaning to life and a sense of belonging.

11. Most young people admit that they feel as if they do not receive sufficient attention from their parents; do not have enough good friends whom they can count on; are unsettled about their own future; have personal spiritual perspectives but not much of a sense of spiritual community; lack role models; and do not feel that they have intrinsic value.

In his article, Barna says the Virginia Tech shooting should spur society to look beyond issues such as gun control and see how such incidents can be avoided. It is easy, he says, to examine that tragedy and suggest such solutions as “Ah, there was a gun — let’s have gun control. Ah, he was having some mental health issues — let’s talk about drug medication regulation and so forth.”

But such a response is “superficial,” he continues. “Now in some ways [such reactions are] not surprising, because we also know that most parents think they’re doing a good job parenting,” Barna offers. “You know, other parents aren’t as good as they are, their own kids are doing just fine, there are no issues here.”

But the Christian researcher says his group’s work has made it clear that parents who are concerned about the culture’s influence must monitor their children’s use of various media.

“When we study parents who are really effective at raising great kids, we [have] found that one of the things that those parents had in common is that they did manage the media intake of their children very carefully,” he shares. “They would refuse to let them watch certain programs; [and] they allowed them to watch others, but they would talk about the content.”

Barna encourages parents to set high standards and expectations for their children. He also makes it clear that he is not implying that Cho’s parents neglected their responsibilities.

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=269

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs – in other words, redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”

She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That’s a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I’ve worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the Republican party.”

For the past couple of weeks now the national media talking heads and print journalists have been obsessing as to who must shoulder the blame for what virtually everyone agrees was a slow response to Hurricane Katrina after the massive storm ravaged sections of the Gulf Coast and left the historic city of New Orleans immersed in a sea of toxic, deadly flood water.

Having said that, it seemed impossible to imagine how anyone – regardless of ideology or party – could affix blame based on charges of racism, insensitivity or any other irrational claim. But this is modern day America and goodness knows we cannot expect anyone to take responsibility for themselves or their personal situation. We must always scapegoat someone else, we must never admit our own failures or shortcomings, and above all else we have to be free of any kind of accountability. Just ask New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin or Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco about their lack of taking responsibility for what they were suppose to do and instead passing the buck to the federal government – they were suppose to be the first line of defense.

The finger pointing started in the first couple of days after Katrina slammed into the coast, with bitterness directed at President Bush and the Republican Party for being cold-hearted and numb to the thousands of people stranded in New Orleans – the vast majority of them poor and black. It was the perfect recipe for one of Jesse Jackson’s lectures on racism and poverty, never mind that in all his years of ranting about the subject and claiming to be the voice of the voiceless, hardly anyone has benefited from his tirades other than himself. It seemed only a matter of time before someone decided this was a matter of race and economics, rather than about a natural disaster of epic proportions. How sad!

The wails and cries of racism started flowing from the mouths of those who never intend to make America a color blind society because they, in fact, are the chief beneficiaries of the very tensions they supposedly want to quell – but instead, knowingly, do whatever they can to increase the tension. The Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons, Sheila Jackson Lees and any number of “intellectual” rappers and hip-hop artists have literally made millions trumpeting race as the only factor in people’s lives. They should be ashamed of themselves but then that would require taking responsibility for their OWN actions?

Millions and millions of hard working, tax paying, church going people from across the U.S. have opened their checkbooks, homes, church buildings and communities to give those hit hardest by Katrina a fighting chance to start over.

Does any of it matter to those who profit from stirring up racial tensions when they do not actually exist? Of course not, because they are not interested in making things better, except for themselves. Who is selfish and who is giving something back? Hmmm.