Category Archives: Commentary

MUST-READ: WORLD magazine puts Paul Ryan on the front cover

Rep. Paul Ryan

This is the best evangelical news magazine out there. The same one that profiled Michele Bachmann a while back.

Here’s the cover story. (H/T Muddling Toward Maturity)

Excerpt:

While a student at Miami University in Ohio, Ryan thought he’d become an economist. He read the likes of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand and envisioned a life of theories. But he eventually learned that public policy is the arena where ideas really live or die. “That is what built this country—good ideas,” he says.Post-graduation stints as a speechwriter for Jack Kemp, at a conservative think tank, and as legislative director for Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas led to Ryan’s successful run for an open House seat in 1998. He was just 28.

After almost a decade of near anonymity in Congress, Ryan’s 2007 ascension as the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee gave him the staff resources and the clout to let out his inner economist. He now also is senior member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. From those perches he has crafted a roadmap to privatize Medicare and Medicaid, provide vouchers for many federal programs, replace employee-sponsored health insurance plans with individual tax credits, and impose tough controls on federal spending.

The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan number crunchers, determined that Ryan’s roadmap delivered on its promises of balanced budgets and smaller deficits (unlike its projections for Obamacare). Under current policies, the CBO concludes that the nation in 2080 will devote 34 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to government spending; under Ryan’s plan, the CBO predicts that federal spending in 2080 would fall to less than 14 percent of the GDP while the government would enjoy a 5 percent annual surplus. And all without raising taxes. In fact, Ryan proposes a flat tax of two rates: 10 percent and 25 percent.

Better read it quick, before it goes behind the pay firewall.

Lately, I have been busy working my way through the Indivisible e-book that the Heritage Foundation published. The e-book is about 85 pages long, and features leading fiscal and social conservatives, writing from the point of view that they do not normally adopt! In the e-book, Paul Ryan, a huge fiscal conservative, writes about the right to life. Check it out. I just ordered 5 more copies of Indivisible from the Heritage Foundation along with some of their new booklet on Regulations.

Obama’s pick to replace Justice Stevens is pro-abortion

Story here from Life Site News.

Excerpt:

Top White House aides expect President Obama to select Solicitor General Elena Kagan on Monday as the Supreme Court justice to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, reports Mike Allen of Politico Friday.

[…]Kagan is known for strongly favoring taxpayer funded abortion, and is a critic of the 1991 Supreme Court decision Rust v. Sullivan, which upheld federal regulations prohibiting Title X family planning fund recipients from counseling on or referring for abortion.

Americans United for Life also reports that Kagan once suggested that faith-based groups operating pregnancy care centers should not counsel pregnant youths, for fear that they would include their religious beliefs in the counseling process.

In April, the White House reacted with fury when Ben Domenech, writing in a blog post for CBS News, declared that Kagan would be the “first openly gay justice” on the U.S. Supreme Court. Under increasing pressure from the Obama administration, CBS eventually pulled the post and Domenech apologized for “a Harvard rumor” – but not before posting an addendum stating: “I have to correct my text here to say that Kagan is apparently still closeted – odd, because her female partner is rather well known in Harvard circles.”

UPDATE: CNS News has more here.

Excerpt:

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan will face two major stumbling blocks as a Supreme Court nominee – her anti-military views and her ties to Goldman Sachs, a conservative group says.

“Conservatives know Kagan as the Harvard Law School Dean who tried to bar the military from college campuses, an issue she fought all the way to the Supreme Court,” the Family Research Council said on Friday in an email to supporters.

“At the time, even Ruth Bader Ginsberg, one of the court’s most liberal justices, couldn’t find a way to justify Kagan’s position.” The FRC described Kagan’s “incredibly hostile view of the military” as “well outside the American mainstream.”

The group also criticized Kagan’s strong support for “hate crimes” laws. And it notes that she has no judicial experience, never having litigated a case to verdict or trial.

Kagan served on a Goldman Sachs advisory council several years ago, receiving a $10,000 stipend for her work.

[…]Americans United for Life describes Kagan as an “ardent abortion supporter.”

“Elena Kagan has strong ties to abortion-advocacy organizations and expressed admiration for activist judges who have worked to advance social policy rather than to impartially interpret the law,” said AUL CEO and President Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

[…]The Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group, said it is confident that Kagan has “a demonstrated understanding and commitment to protecting the liberty and equality of all Americans, including LGBT Americans.”

She is a radical, radical leftist.

Who would the Wintery Knight nominate to the Supreme Court?

If we had elected McCain instead, then he might have appointed my favorite judge, Edith H. Jones or my other favorite judge, Janice Rogers Brown.

Read about them:

Janice Rogers Brown

Judge Janice Rogers Brown is the first black woman to serve on California’s Supreme Court. Her nomination to a federal appeals court has been blocked by Senate Democrats.

In 1997, she issued a well-researched dissent in a case where the California Supreme Court overturned a pro-life law requiring abortion facilities to obtain parental consent before performing an abortion on a teenage girl.

Brown accused the court’s plurality of abrogating the constitutional rights of parents, described the court’s thinking as circular, and called the case “an excellent example of the folly of courts in the role of philosopher kings.”

“When fundamentally moral and philosophical issues are involved and the questions are fairly debatable,” Brown wrote, “the judgment call belongs to the Legislature. They represent the will of the people.”

She also dissented in a decision requiring Catholic Charities to pay for contraception coverage in employee health insurance plans. The decision concerns pro-life groups because it could lead to a requirement that abortion be covered as well.

Brown has also garnered the support of the California voters. In 1998, 76% of voters decided to keep Brown on the bench in their state, the highest percentage of supporting votes in that election.

Edith Jones

Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is frequently mentioned as a contender for the high court. She was considered for the Supreme Court seat that eventually went to Clarence Thomas.

If pro-life advocates are looking for a justice who strongly opposes Roe v. Wade, Jones should be a favorite.

When the 5th Circuit denied a request in October by Norma McCorvey to approve her motion to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling, Judge Jones issued an opinion blasting the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe and saying it needs to be re-examined.

She called Roe an “exercise of raw judicial power,” and cited evidence McCorvey presented showing abortions hurt women.

Jones, a Reagan nominee, wrote that the “[Supreme] Court’s rulings have rendered basic abortion policy beyond the power of our legislative bodies.”

“The perverse result of the Court’s having determined through constitutional adjudication this fundamental social policy, which affects over a million women and unborn babies each year, is that the facts no longer matter,” Jones added.

Jones chided the nation’s high court for being “so committed to ‘life’ that it struggles with the particular facts of dozens of death penalty cases each year,” but failing to grasp the fact that abortions destroys the lives of unborn children.

“One may fervently hope that the court will someday acknowledge such developments and re-evaluate Roe and Casey accordingly,” Jones said of the 5000 pages of evidence with affidavits from over 1000 woman who have been harmed by abortion.

These are the two best picks for supreme court, if we are going for raw talent. And it’s a tragedy that they are both not on the Supreme Court right now. A tragedy!

C. Michael Patton explains why women cannot teach in the church

He explains why he thinks that the Bible teaches that women cannot teach in the church.

His point:

Now, let me give my short and sweet answer as to why Paul did not allow women to teach:

Paul did not let women teach due to the often aggressive and combative nature that teaching must entail concerning the confrontation of false doctrine. Men must be the teachers when combating false teaching. However, because the role of a teacher in the church is so often to combat false doctrine, and because false doctrine is always a problem, generally speaking, the principles are always applicable. The “exercising of authority” is inherently tied to teaching and its necessary condemnation of false doctrine.

The combative nature of teaching is particularly relevant to a broader understanding of the characteristics of men and women.

I agree with Patton on this one. I think in practice most women are more interested in relationships and community than they are in truth and polemics. Christianity is a propositional faith, though. It’s not meant to be a set of arbitrary preferences that give our lives hope and meaning without any evidential foundation. And it needs to be defended using rational arguments and evidence against lies.

I would make an exception for women who want to teach on an area of knowledge not related to the Bible but related to apologetics or Christian living, like astrophysics, economics, ancient history, bio-ethics, etc. In that case I would allow a woman to teach. I would also be willing to make exceptions for women who are truth-focused and who do not mind making exclusive claims if it makes them unpopular, e.g. – Jennifer Roback Morse.

Apologetics advocacy

Related posts