A skilled rhetorician, President Barack Obama sent a strong message on Saturday evening, when he spoke at a banquet of the Human Rights Campaign, the leading homosexual activist organization this nation has seen. His message? That he will work for the defeat of the Defense of Marriage Act, and to promote the “rights" of gay couples.


Obama proudly billed himself as the opening act for Lady GaGa — a bisexual with a penchant for wearing tops or bottoms, but not simultaneously — who was part of the featured entertainment for the evening at the dinner, which black-tie attendees paid $250 a plate to experience, saying he was privileged to do so.

But he quickly moved on to mentioning celebrities in attendance like Tipper Gore, after which his affirming comment was duly noted: “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.”

Malissa Durkee holds a photo of her brother Michael Brewer on October 14. Five teens have been charged with aggravated battery for dousing Brewer with rubbing alcohol and setting him on fire.

If you don't think there is something wrong in America today, you haven't seen the story of fifteen-year-old Michael Brewer.

According to Broward County, Florida, police, Michael was set on fire by five of his peers, all aged 13 to 15. He now struggles to stay alive with burns over 65 percent of his body. Dr. Nicholas Namias, Michael's doctor and the director of the Burn Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, emphasized that the road ahead for the young victim will not be easy. Michael is "doing as well as we could hope someone could do with this condition," Dr. Namias said according to CBS News. "But don't mistake that for good," he continued. "This is obviously a very bad thing, a serious thing. People said yesterday he was out of the woods, but that's only half the sentence…. Burn patients only really start to get sick four, five, six days into it."

The attack on Michael came four days ago. According to police, Michael owed suspect Matthew Bent $40 for a video game. When Bent didn't get the money, he attempted to steal a custom bicycle, valued at $500, from Michael's father. When the attempted theft was reported to police, Bent allegedly wanted revenge.

That led to five boys, including Bent, attacking Michael, dousing him with rubbing alcohol, and setting him ablaze. The Miami Herald describes what happened:

According to witnesses and [suspect Jesus] Mendez's confession, Bent ordered them to pour rubbing alcohol over Brewer after surrounding him at an apartment complex in the 400 block of SE 13th Court. Denver Colorado Jarvis, 15, then doused him with the fluid. Shortly thereafter, Mendez took a lighter to him and Brewer went up in flames.

Two other boys, Jarvis' brother, Jeremy, and Steven Shelton, 15, stood by saying nothing, according to BSO.

Brewer ran to a swimming pool and jumped in -- a move that doctors said may have saved his life.

This atrocity committed by kids against another kid is one of a line of such atrocities stretching back to the massacre at Columbine. Every time one of these horrible crimes occurs, the question is asked why they continue to happen.

There is no single answer, but there are a constellation of related changes that have occurred in American culture and society over the last several decades, since at least the 1960s, that working in concert create conditions that are not only conducive to these crimes, but also explain the substantial problems in our political system.

The first is the culture of relativism that has become one of the major philosophical tenet's underlying the professional education establishment. Up and coming teachers, for instance, are strongly indoctrinated with one species of relativism in the form of multiculturalism. All cultures, teacher education programs at universities around the nation emphasize, are equal and valuable. There isn't any one that is better than the other. Specifically, Western civilization is not superior to any other civilization and, ergo, the United States and its heritage of limited government under a written constitution based on the natural law, is not any better than other nations lacking that heritage.

Similarly, the idea that morality is relative has even more strongly influenced culture in the last several decades. We now hear about "personal" morality as opposed to mere morality in general. The first is determined by and limited to each individual while the latter is applicable to all regardless of time or place. Personal morality is relative to person and circumstance, while general morality is grounded in self-evident, natural truth.

But, because relativism holds sway, especially in academia and our schools, the basic moral truths, and the natural law from which they stem, have been banished to the dust bin of history.

This puts the ailments of our nation into focus. Summarizing the natural law, Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that certain truths about the rights of the people were self-evident. The rights to life, liberty, and property, or happiness as the Declaration terms it, are not created by personal whim of man or government, but stem from the Creator, or from ultimate Truth.

What Jefferson summarized of the natural law is nothing but the central tenet of basic morality. "Thou shalt not steal," is a moral precept applicable in all times and places, because to commit the crime of theft is to infringe on the natural right of property and happiness. "Thou shalt not kill," similarly is a moral precept always and everywhere because to kill is to infringe on the natural right to life.

We are beset by children committing unspeakable crimes because they have no understanding of general morality. It is no longer taught, either to our teachers or to children in our schools. If it is taught, that teaching is accompanied all to often with the admonition that the concept of natural law, self-evident truth, and general morality was developed by a patriarchal society as a means of oppressing women and minorities.

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. It was an understanding of the natural law that animated America's founders and that informed the construction and operation of a free society with a limited government applicable to all people regardless of race, ethnicity or gender that is unique in all human history.

One of those Founding Fathers, John Adams, warned: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Unless we heed that warning, it seems likely that we will continue to witness unspeakable crimes, including those committed by children, as well as the further erosion of limited government.
 

Those opposed to abortion have often called the practice of killing unborn babies evil. That may be a self-evident truth, but in Rockford, Illlinois, the Northern Illinois Women’s Center seems determined to illustrate the fact for all to see. As we have reported in the past, the abortion facility engages in truly bizarre expressions of mockery and contempt for Christians and their beliefs, but equally disturbing is the apparent willingness of Rockford police to act on the center's behalf against law abiding protestors.

For a taste of the bizarre, consider that recently, according to witnesses, the owner of the facility, dressed in a devil suit, mockingly "blessed" Catholic priests praying nearby with a pitchfork he was carrying. All the while, a very obscene picture of Jesus Christ was displayed in the window of the facility. Other windows have collected so many signs, they are more like derisive billboards. In June an agent from the Department of Health and Human Services Civil Rights Division was sent to investigate the “medical facility,” but nothing has come of it so far, except her name on a window poster with vulgar expletives.

Now, in another turn to the strange and surreal, police seem to have "arrested" an image of Christ. On Wednesday October 8, when the prayer warriors had assembled out front of the killing center, armed with their placards and some devotional pictures, the police were already out front, as they usually are. Some of the devotional pictures were placed between the sidewalk and the street while those praying paced the sidewalk near them. In the video you can see the center’s owner approach the squad car, have a few words, and immediately the squad car is driven over to one of the protestors.

According to the protestor with whom we spoke, the police officer said he must “tend” his devotional picture, but the man answered in reply that he was, as it was only resting a few feet away from him. The police officer then reportedly ordered the man to turn off his video camera before calling his supervisor. and shortly thereafter, two more squad cars arrived. The police supervisor then on the scene said the sign was "unattended" and thereupon confiscated the picture of Christ and placed it in the back of his squad car. At last report, the picture remained in the possession of the police department. This can all be seen plainly in the video, linked below.

While the protestor's picture of Jesus was confiscated, the obscene picture of Jesus in the abortion facility's window remains in place. About 100 pro-lifers have sent a letter to their city aldermen and attended city council meetings in order to get the city to enforce its own ordinance of “Offensive Use of Property,” so far to no avail. 

Video Warning: Some scenes in the video are disturbing and obscene in the depiction of Jesus Christ, but none the less show the real face of abortion in Rockford, Illinois, and the actions of the police. We leave it up to our readers whether they want to view it or not. Click here to view the video.

I was visiting the theater of the absurd called the “blogosphere” the other day when I came across a site called ProudConservative.com. One of its offerings was a YouTube presentation of Letterman-style list of the “Top Ten Reasons Liberals Are Friggin’ Idiots.”

The list began with Howard Dean being at Number 10 and descending to Number One: “Liberals believe you can actually negotiate with terrorists.” In between were silly things like “Liberals believe Al Gore invented the Internet” and liberals are against the U.S. Border Patrol. And of course, “They keep electing Ted Kennedy.” (Number 3). One with which I would have to concur is Number 5: “Liberals (most I would say) think killing babies in abortions is okay, but are against the death penalty for convicted murderers.”

So I thought I would compile a comparable Top Ten list about “conservative” Republicans. Then I added three more for a “Top Thirteen” or a baker’s dozen. But it was hard to stop, so I added a few more and found I had a “Top 20.”

The list is far from exhaustive. I invite readers to add some of their own top reasons for not believing the Grand Old Propaganda. Here, then, are my…

Top 20 Reasons "Conservative" Republicans Can't Talk (or Shoot) Straight    

               

      20. When the going gets tough, Republicans read the War Street Urinal.
      19. When a war turns sour, they blame “the liberal media.”
      18. Democrat wars turn out badly. Republican wars are true and righteous altogether.
      17. The world is a safer place, they believe, in O'Reilly's “No-Spin Zone.”
      16. Republicans will "Deliver Us From Evil." (And hawk Sean Hannity's book)
      15. Democracy failed: Bring Back the Peacock Throne in Iran!
      14. Michael Moore's movies are propaganda; Bush's wars reflect "core values."                                                  13. The entire world is the property of the U.S. government. (That’s “Core Value Number One:      Patriotism or supporting "Uncle Sammy." 
      12. War is good for the economy.
      11. The next war will be quick, easy and cheap. 
      10. One name: George W. Bush
        9. Another name: Dick Cheney
        8. One wrong-way political movement: "neo-conservatism"
        7. Two wars in the Middle East
        6. The demand for a third war in the Middle East (with Iran)
        5. The claim of unlimited power for the (Republican) chief executive
        4. The claims of primogeniture (or another old guy in 2012; Palin in 2036)
        3. The War of the Month Club
        2. The belief that every tyrant in every country the size of a postage stamp is another Hitler.
        1. "We have it in our power to begin the world again.” A Thomas Paine heresy, frequently quoted with approval by Ronald Reagan and endorsed implicitly by virtually every "neo-con."