Peter Orszag, now director of the Office of Management and Budget, predicted as director of the Congressional Budget Office in August 2008 that no one needed to worry about Social Security. “CBO projects that outlays will first exceed revenues in 2019 and that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2049,” we were told.
And then in 2009, Obama began his massive government spending plan:
You know, in public schools the young people are taught by unionized teachers that Social Security is a brilliant economic initiative. So they’ll keep voting for more socialism because that’s all they know. They’ll only find out much later that they’ve been fleeced by a massive government-run Ponzi scheme. (This is assuming they are even able to get jobs to pay payroll taxes – the unemployment rate among young people is 52%)
A study found that youngsters smacked up to the age of six did better at school and were more optimistic about their lives than those never hit by their parents.
They were also more likely to undertake voluntary work and keener to attend university, experts discovered.
The research, conducted in the United States, is likely to anger children’s rights campaigners who have unsuccessfully fought to ban smacking in Britain.
[…]Those who had been smacked up to the age of six performed better in almost all the positive categories and no worse in the negatives than those never punished physically.
Teenagers who had been hit by their parents from age seven to 11 were also found to be more successful at school than those not smacked but fared less well on some negative measures, such as getting involved in more fights.
However, youngsters who claimed they were still being smacked scored worse than every other group across all the categories.
Prof Gunnoe found little difference in the results between sexes and different racial groups.
I find it interesting that the recent anti-smacking law in New Zealand was championed by Labor Party prime minister Helen Clark and Green Party MP Sue Bradford. These two are members of the secular left in New Zealand.
Spanking is opposed by the secular left because they oppose all moral judgments, personal responsibility, and accountability. They seem to have a hostility to any objective moral standard that defines good and evil, but instead embrace moral relativism. They want to be allowed to do anything they feel like doing, regardless of the harm and costs incurred, and to get off Scot-free in the end.
The following video explains the worldview of the secular left better than anything I’ve seen. They think that wars are caused by disagreements, so the best way to prevent wars is to support what is traditionally regarded as evil, and to denigrate what is traditionally regarded as good. When all distinctions between good and evil have been abolished, they think that the world will be a better place.
That is why they do not want parents teaching their children any standard of conduct. They view this as a setback to their goal of destroying all moral distinctions.
I do agree with the thrust of the article that spanking should cease as soon as the child is able to make connections between behaviors and rewards rationally.
Do you think your experience becoming a Christian after your son’s death has led you to be emboldened to talk about your faith publicly?
I ought to be willing to do that. I don’t want to practice a faith that I’m afraid to proclaim. I don’t want to be a closet Christian. I’m not going to stand on the street with a megaphone. My principal responsibility at Fox News isn’t to proselytize. But occasionally a mention of faith seems to me to be appropriate. When those occasions come, I’ll do it.
And:
What were you hoping people would take away from what you said?
Well, I was kind of hoping that in some way word of it might reach Tiger. I was hoping that people who were of faith might receive some encouragement from the message. You never know. I also thought it was interesting. I didn’t really sit down and make some kind of calculations on a sheet of lined paper about what were going to be the consequences. We were expressing our views and those were my views on that point.
Now watch this video of Brit Hume explaining why he did it, on the O’Reilly Factor.
My thoughts
First, I am appalled by the reactions of the hard secular left,. They seem to think that it is a horrible crime to recognize one religion over another. Obviously these people are thinking that religion is like a cultural thing you inherit, or a personal preference. I really have trouble understanding how people could be so stupid as to not realize that religions make conflicting claims about an objective reality – claims that can be tested using history, science, the laws of logic, etc.
Second, I think that we Christians need to seriously consider whether we can try to be more like Brit Hume in the places we are. Let me explain.
First, consider this passage, which is, I think, the scariest verse in the New Testament, and has caused me to act bravely more than any other verse, because I just cannot stand being a coward when someone has put their trust in me, in the context of a relationship.
1So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.
2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.
3I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.
4My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
Now there are two kinds of people in the world. The kind of people that don’t mind obligations that are placed on them by someone who loves them, and the kind of people who do mind. And Brit Hume is the first kind – he has the desire to be faithful in his obligation to tell the truth about Christianity in public, regardless of the flak he catches from the secular left. It reminds me of the motto of the Order of the Garter: “Honi Soit qui Mal y Pense” – “Shame on him who thinks ill of it.” Shame on him who thinks ill of it. Shame on the people who defend Roman Polanski but denigrate Brit Hume.
By the way, I also think that we Christians should be striving for excellence so that when we do witness, a lot of people who are already impressed by our credentials will give our message the respect it deserves! So work hard in school and at work! And encourage other Christians to do well in school and at work, too. We need to be thinking about the most effective ways to have an influence. And I think that studying apologetics helps us to believe the things we say we believe, and to explain those things intelligently and confidently to others.
My favorite lecture
Now may be a good time to point you all to the lecture that changed my life: Dr. Walter Bradley’s “Giants in the Land”. You can listen to THREE VERSIONS of it. It will probably make you cry, or at least you will get a lump in your throat.
Dr. Walter L. Bradley
Ph.D. in Materials Science, University of Texas at Austin, 1968
B.S. in Engineering Science, University of Texas at Austin, 1965
WINTERY KNIGHT 