Category Archives: politics

Low Crawl at an NCR Artifact

Posted on September 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By John Mitchel

RE: Redistricting could pit Turner against Austria in the 2012 primary, DDN, August 23, 2011. It’s appropriate that the status quo apologists made their appeal to keep both Austria and Turner at the “overtaken-by-events” NCR facility on S. Patterson, now the property of the University of Dayton . There’s not a more fitting monument to the failure of local, state and federal governments in southwest Ohio than NCR’s exodus to Atlanta.

Career politicians like Turner, Austria, DeWine, Voinovich, Hobson, Taft and Boehner have failed the Miami Valley for decades and yet the Chamber of Commerce, Dayton Development Coalition and other “public-private partnerships” continue to mount the horse that dragged us to the abyss. This has nothing to do with protecting Wright Patterson or Miami Valley jobs. No, it’s got everything to do with protecting career politicians and their special interest friends that provide the campaign cash to keep them in office.

Wright-Patt is the only success story our politicians can hang their hat on, and the simple truth is, they had little or nothing to do with it as this national treasure would be fine with or without the politicians’ meddling. Actually, Wright-Patt has had three touching congressional districts since the 2000 redistricting, including Austria (7), Turner (3) and Boehner (8). You would think House Speaker Boehner, one of the three most powerful politicians in Washington, and one other Congressman would be sufficient to represent Wright-Patt, but that’s not enough political cover for those getting six-figure salaries at the Chamber, the Coalition and elsewhere. In their search for a mission to justify their existence, these 21st Century feather merchants have revealed their true colors, and no where in that mosaic is there genuine concern for the citizens, only self-interest stacked atop arrogance.

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The Tragedy of 9/11 and American Exceptionalism

Posted on September 11, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By Paul Eidelberg

What may we learn from 9/11, the Islamic attack on the United States on September 11, 2001? Osama bin Laden had already declared war against the U.S. on August 23, 1996. Al Qaeda forces had already attacked two American embassies in Africa on August 7, 1998 and a U.S. naval vessel on October 12, 2000. So what is so significant about 9/11 when hijacked commercial airliners struck the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon? (Read More)

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Ten Years After 9/11: Have We Become the Enemy of Freedom?

Posted on September 10, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By John W. Whitehead

When the World Trade Center crumbled to the ground on September 11, 2001, it took with it any illusions Americans might have harbored about the nation’s invincibility, leaving many feeling vulnerable, scared and angry. Yet in that moment of weakness, while most of us were still reeling from the terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of some 3,000 Americans, we managed to draw strength from and comfort each other.

Suddenly, the news was full of stories of strangers helping strangers and communities pulling together. Even the politicians put aside their partisan pride and bickering and held hands on the steps of the Capitol, singing “God Bless America.” The rest of the world was not immune to our suffering. United against a common enemy, we seemed determined to work toward a better world.

Sadly, that hope was short-lived.

Long before the bodies buried under the rubble were recovered, the Bush administration was hard at work hatching plans that would push America down a path of destruction marked by ill-fated foreign policies, corporate primacy, a draconian security regime and an emerging surveillance state. With no clear plan except to oust the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda affiliates, Bush haphazardly invaded Afghanistan. The rush to invade Afghanistan, a country that most Americans knew nothing about, would signify the beginning of the longest war in American history.

It would not be long before the Bush administration turned its sights on Iraq. Despite the fact that Saddam Hussein had no connection to the 9/11 attacks and Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, the American war machine went into overdrive in an effort to incite American allies and the United Nations to wage war against Iraq.

Meanwhile, just a month after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the nefarious USA Patriot Act, which gutted the Bill of Rights. The Patriot Act gave the President unprecedented and unconstitutional powers to spy on, monitor and police American citizens. A clever title, public fear, and congressional ineptitude made the Patriot Act a shoo-in. And it was passed without debate and without our so-called representatives even having read the legislation. In this way, through so-called democratic measures, America began a terrible antidemocratic decade.

A new but dangerous era was dawning in America, bringing with it death and destruction for American soldiers and Iraqi and Afghani civilians. It would be an era of corporate domination at the expense of social services and working class citizens. It would be an era of pat-downs, SWAT team raids, unlawful imprisonment and torture. Yet blinded by hatred, choked with fear and grief, Americans closed their eyes to the emerging threat posed by their own government.

Desperate for certainty in a world that was anything but, most Americans fell in line with the president’s leadership, leaving those who questioned the president’s authority to be subdued and labeled unpatriotic. The media, having long since abdicated its role as a watchdog, quickly became the mouthpiece of the war machine.

Under cover of its “war on terrorism” and in blatant violation of constitutional and international law, the Bush Administration opened the door to a host of shadowy dealings involving extraordinary renditions, unlawful imprisonment and torture. Meanwhile, the U.S. established penal colonies in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq where prisoners not charged with any crime nor brought before any court could be kept in isolation, save for the attentions of certain depraved and sociopathic members of the intelligence agencies and armed forces who delighted in subjecting their detainees to all manner of torture. These atrocities further damaged America’s already tarnished reputation and deepened anti-American sentiment worldwide. Moreover, by eschewing international law and the core values contained within the Bill of Rights, America has, in many regards, become the enemy of freedom.

Indeed, whatever success America has had in routing out terrorists over the past decade has been overshadowed by the new society in which we live. Suspicion, fear and ignorance are the new norms. We have made enemies of one another, turning the people we don’t agree with or understand–be they Muslim or Christian, Republican or Democrat–into fictitious boogeymen who want to destroy our livelihood.

Today, we find ourselves charting hostile territory. While we were distracted by military carnage overseas and color-coded terror alert systems here at home, the economy has crumbled at the hands of corporate oligarchs, reckless bankers and an escalating national debt. Corporations continue to rake in profits and benefit from taxpayer-funded bailouts, while middle- and working-class Americans struggle to make ends meet. Our government leaders, gridlocked by partisan politics and the endless quest to get re-elected, have altogether failed in their duty to represent us and our vital interests. Our military, tasked with policing America’s global military empire, has been stretched to the breaking point. The police presence in America has exploded, with unconstitutional and brutal police tactics increasingly condoned by the courts. The right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects in a surveillance state. And the right to travel has been subjected to draconian security measures that fail to make us safer.

I highly doubt this is the America that the victims of 9/11 would have wanted to live in.

Thus, as we approach this anniversary, we owe it to those who lost their lives on 9/11 and in the war-filled years since to do more than offer up amorphous patriotic tributes to their courage. Rather, let this anniversary be a wake-up call to a sleeping nation to rouse ourselves from a spirit of complacency and take our government leaders to task. The politicians will not act unless they are pushed. Thus, it will be up to us to confront the abuses of our government. Let us dismantle our military empire. Let us take care of our poor, our downtrodden. Let us push back against the surveillance state. Let us put human dignity above corporate profits. If not now, then when?

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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Legal Implications of Palestinian Statehood

Posted on September 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By David Parsons

Israeli officials from the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister’s bureau have outlined in recent weeks their concerns over the legal and diplomatic implications of the Palestinian Authority’s planned unilateral moves at the United Nations Opening Assembly in September.

At its Algiers summit in 1988, the PLO already issued a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood without specifying its borders, a move that was recognized by more than 100 nations from the Soviet and Non-Aligned blocs.

When the UN gathers for its annual Opening Assembly in New York this month, the PA is now determined to seek a UN vote to recognize a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem as its capital. The PA will also demand that this state be accepted as a full UN member. In addition, the PA may press for a UN condemnation of Israeli “settlements” in the disputed territories and a declaration that they are illegal under international law.

Among the legal and diplomatic options available to the PA are:

a) A demand for recognition and admittance as a member state in the United Nations. Membership first requires the recommendation of the UN Security Council before the General Assembly may vote to admit a new member. The PA claims it has the necessary nine votes in the Security Council to pass such a resolution, but it could still be blocked by a veto from a permanent member state, such as the US.

b) A UN General Assembly resolution recognizing Palestine as a “non-member” state along the pre-1967 lines and/or declaring Israeli settlements illegal. Such a decision is non-binding, but it would bolster the legitimacy of Palestinian territorial claims against Israel, and allow the Palestinians to become full members of numerous UN forums, among other effects. This is considered the most likely outcome of the looming diplomatic showdown.

c) A UN General Assembly referral to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for an advisory opinion regarding Palestinian rights and claims to statehood and/or the legality of Israeli settlements. Again, such an opinion would be non-binding, but it would further bolster the legitimacy of Palestinian territorial claims against Israel.

Israeli officials contend that any such measures would be blatant violations of all the signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, while also contravening UN Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), among other UN decisions.

Thus, Israel opposes these unilateral actions for the following reasons:

1. UN Security Council resolution 242 (1967) called upon Israel and the Arab parties to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and specifically stressed the need to negotiate directly in order to achieve “secure and recognized boundaries.” This resolution provided a suggested negotiating framework for resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict and has been reaffirmed in numerous UN decisions ever since. Israel argues that the Palestinians are now refusing to engage in any such negotiations and must not be rewarded for obstructing the peace process.

2. The Palestinian proposal, in attempting to unilaterally change the status of the territory and determine the “1967 borders” as its recognized borders, would be a fundamental breach of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending a final peace accord. In that interim agreement, the parties undertook to negotiate the issue of borders and not to act unilaterally to change the status of the territories pending a permanent agreement.

3. The Palestinians entered into the various “Oslo Accords” with full knowledge and consent that Israel’s settlements existed in those areas, and that settlements would be one of the issues to be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations. Furthermore, the Oslo Accords impose no limitation on Israel’s settlement activity in those areas, which the Palestinians agreed would continue to be under Israel’s jurisdiction and control pending the outcome of the final status negotiations.

4. The Oslo agreements signed by Israel and the PLO were all witnessed by the United Nations together with the European Union, the Russian Federation, the United States, Egypt and Norway. These witnesses must demand that the Palestinians fully honor their signed agreements or risk undermining their own integrity as reliable intermediaries.

5. The pre-1967 lines never constituted a border. The 1949 armistice agreements entered into by Israel and its Arab neighbors established only the armistice demarcation lines where the respective armies stood when the conflict ended in 1948, and expressly stated that these lines did not constitute an international border.

David Parsons is senior producer of FrontPage, a media program of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

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Governor John Kaisch’s Labor Day Proclamation

Posted on September 5, 2011 by | Leave a comment

The first Monday of September has been dedicated to honoring the social and economic achievements of the American worker and stands as a tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our state and country.

Labor Day is a time for all Ohioans to reflect upon the skill, leadership, initiative and ingenuity that our state’s workers display every day to support their families, improve their communities and help cultivate an economic climate in which all Ohioans can thrive and prosper.

Ohioans should pause and remember all of the dedicated workers who have been killed or injured in the line of duty and constantly strive to foster safe, healthy and productive work environments for employees and employers.

Ohio workers, in partnership with their employers, strive to remain competitive in an increasingly global economy that requires a well-educated and highly trained workforce that understands the value of life-long learning as a way to constantly upgrade skills.

Ohio owes a debt of gratitude to the previous generations of Ohioans who worked with an unwavering commitment to create prosperity and stability, and whose hard work sustained our state in times of uncertainty and hardship. We, in turn, owe it to future generations of Ohio workers to create a state in which their hard work can be rewarded and in which they and their families can succeed.

Now, therefore, I, John R. Kasich, Governor of the State of Ohio, do hereby recognize September 5, 2011 as Labor Day throughout Ohio and encourage all Ohioans to enjoy their holiday while reflecting upon the achievements that Ohio’s working men and women contribute to our states workforce and economy throughout the year.

The above is not the official proclamation. It was edited and reformatted version to make the proclamation easier to read. To see the official version, go to the Governor of Ohio website (http://governor.ohio.gov).

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The Southern Poverty Law Center Infiltrates Public Education

Posted on September 1, 2011 by | Leave a comment

by Laurie Higgins, Director of IFI’s DSA -Illinois Family Institute

Decades ago, summer was the time that necessitated increased parental vigilance. School was the safe place. But the times they have a’changed. Self-righteous “agents of change” stand ready at the schoolhouse door to mold other people’s children into ideological replicas of themselves. So now the school year has become the time that necessitates increased parental vigilance.

One organization that warrants particular attention is “Teaching Tolerance,” which is laughingly called an “educational project,” but is, in reality, the pernicious propaganda project of the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is the organization that has listed the Illinois Family Institute, Family Research Council, and the American Family Association as “hate groups.”

The propagandists — I mean educators — at Teaching Tolerance are taking full advantage of the propensity of parents to remain blissfully unaware of what their children are being taught. These “tolerance teachers” count on parents remaining ignorant of their goal to undermine conservative moral and political beliefs.

Here is the newest resource spawned by the manipulators of children at the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance of which parents should be aware:

Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers 2011-2012

This handbook for teachers begins with a quote from the Brazilian Marxist, Paulo Freire, who is the guru for “social justice teachers” and wrote their bible, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The introduction makes clear that liberation from oppression supersedes sound, apolitical education:

Planning to Change the World is a plan book for teachers who believe their students can create meaningful social change. It is the product of a collaboration between two education networks — the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Education for Liberation Network — and is published in partnership with Rethinking Schools. The information and ideas featured on its pages come from teachers, college students and activists who, like you, struggle daily to put their values into practice. As educators, our vision of teaching for liberation often gets buried under the everyday realities of teaching. Bombarded with paperwork, tests, curriculum mandates, we feel frustrated, overwhelmed, alone.

…Planning to Change the World is packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events, words of wisdom from visionary leaders, lesson plans, resources, social justice education happenings and more. [Emphases added]

The planning book includes quotes from radical historical revisionist Howard Zinn, homosexual activist Staceyann Chinn, and controversial labor leader Cesar Chavez. It also includes dozens of resources for teachers, most of which are extreme leftwing resources, including resources that promote far leftist assumptions about homosexuality, economics, religion, and American “imperialism”.

Here are some of the historical events honored just in November by the SPLC’s “educators” from Teaching Tolerance:

Transgender Day of Remembrance
The 50th anniversary of the first openly gay person to run for public office
Eid al-Adha: an Islamic holiday
Muharram, the first day of the Islamic calendar
The 170th anniversary of the Creole revolt
First day of Native American Heritage Month
80th anniversary of the beginning of the removal of the Choctaw Indians from their lands
Thanksgiving: Teaching Tolerance recommends that teachers use resources from the anti-American organization, Oyate, about which I have previously written.

Teaching Tolerance also recommends an activity they created called Thanksgiving Mourning:

[S]tudents will review two written works by Native American authors. The first — a speech written by Wamsutta James in 1970 — gave birth to the National Day of Mourning, which is observed on Thanksgiving by some indigenous people. To them, Thanksgiving is ‘a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture.’ The Day of Mourning, on the other hand, is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest of the racism and oppression that Native Americans continue to experience.”

I wonder if Teaching Tolerance would revise their list of important “social justice” historical events to include mention of Joseph Scheidler, father of the pro-life movement. He is the indefatigable pursuer of social justice for the most vulnerable in America: babies in utero, whose developmental immaturity or imperfections put them at risk of legalized extermination.

As I’ve written before, “teaching for social justice” is, in a nutshell:

repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Its other dominant features pertain to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation/ identity/ expression. Social justice theory as I’m describing it encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which group constitutes the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The problem with social justice theory is that it promotes the idea that “institutional racism,” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice theorists cultivate the racist, sexist, heterophobic stereotype that whites, males, and heterosexuals are oppressors. This is an offensive, prejudiced stereotype that robs minorities of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives, telling them that their lots in life cannot improve through their own efforts but only through an appropriate degree of self-flagellation on the parts of the purported oppressors. It cultivates a sense of perpetual victimization and powerlessness on the parts of minorities and an irrational and illegitimate sense of guilt on the parts of whites, or men, or heterosexuals.

Finally, social justice theory is distinctly anti-American and hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings. Social justice theory diminishes or ignores the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world, and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

To learn more about the ethically and intellectually bankrupt Southern Poverty Law Center’s deeply troubling ideology, goals, and tactics, click HERE (this is a very recent and important article from an immigration reform organization on the SPLC’s “phony claims”), HERE, and HERE.

When you’re done, email your children’s teachers, some of whom likely subscribe to Teaching Tolerance’s free online newsletter for educators, asking whether they will be using any resources or activities from Teaching Tolerance. Then make it clear that should they decide to use any resources created or recommended by Teaching Tolerance, you want to be notified so you can opt your child out.

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Research Shows US and UN Diplomats Promoted Abortion as Population Control

Posted on August 31, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By Lauren Funk

(C-FAM) The new book by journalist Mara Hvistendahl on sex selected abortion shows how American diplomats and politicians were active in promoting abortion, often through UN channels, as a means of population control in the developing world.

A body of historical evidence connects the advocates of abortion and population control with US development aid policy, organizations such as Planned Parenthood, and the United Nations secretariat.

General William Draper Jr., a World War II general turned US diplomat, was a “staunch proponent of abortion,” Hvistendahl writes in her controversial new book “Unnatural Selection.” General Draper directed the government’s interest in population control to coincide with issues of security and international development in the post World War II world by connecting high fertility rates with poverty, and poverty with the possible rise of communism in Asia. Draper promoted abortion as a viable method of birth control, and encouraged it for the sake of decreased fertility, which was expected to have positive economic effects in the targeted nations, thus avoiding conditions favorable to popular revolutions.

General Draper continued to advise numerous presidential administrations in the 1950’s and 1960’s on the threat to US national security posed by explosive populations in the developing world, suggesting abortion and “family planning” as the solution. General Draper was “responsible for the first official recommendations that the U.S. government help other nations, on request, to deal with population issues,” wrote Planned Parenthood when they honored him with the Margaret Sanger Award in 1966.

General Draper also advocated for the creation of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in 1969. International observers have criticized UNFPA for promoting “family planning” and access to abortion as a solution to the issue of poverty in countries with large populations and/or high fertility rates.

General Draper’s son, William H. Draper III, became one of the most significant figures at the United Nations during the following decade. Draper III was made head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 1986. Under Draper’s tenure, UNDP expanded its fundraising to new levels and began a “Women in Development” division, a division which now focuses on achieving universal access to contraception, sex rights and HIV, and gender mainstreaming.

Draper III is also a member emeritus of Population Action International (PAI) board of directors. PAI was originally founded as the “The Population Crisis Committee” by General Draper, and continues to play an active role in supporting population-related programs, including activism at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994.

Research from Hvistendahl and others also revealed that prominent politicians like Henry Kissinger also promoted abortion abroad as a tool to reduce fertility around the world. Kissinger claimed in a 1974 government memo that abortion is vital to the solution of world population growth. “No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion,” stated the memo, which was signed by Kissinger.

US presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and George H.W. Bush, similarly supported the promotion of population control in poorer countries, for the sake of American security and international stability

By Lauren Funk writes for C-FAM. This article first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (http://www.c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.

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Chicago Elementary School Teacher Accused of Weapons Possession for Demonstrating Use of Tools in Classroom

Posted on August 30, 2011 by | Leave a comment

(CHICAGO) In yet another instance of zero tolerance run amok, The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a Chicago public school teacher who is being charged with possessing, carrying, storing or using a weapon after he displayed such garden-variety tools as wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers in his classroom as part of his second grade teaching curriculum that required a “tool discussion”.

Despite the fact that all potentially hazardous items were kept out of the students’ reach, school officials at Washington Irving Elementary School informed Doug Bartlett, a 17-year veteran in the classroom, that his use of the tools as visual aids endangered his students. Bartlett now faces disciplinary action and possible termination. Warning the school that disciplinary action under these circumstances could constitute a violation of Bartlett’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, Rutherford Institute attorneys are demanding that the school halt the disciplinary proceedings against Bartlett.

The Rutherford Institute’s letter to Washington Irving Elementary School officials in defense of Doug Bartlett is available at www.rutherford.org.

“The charges against Doug Bartlett are absurd—a gross overreaction to a simple teaching demonstration—and underscore exactly what is wrong with zero tolerance policies in the schools,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “School officials should know better than to impose such draconian punishments for innocent actions. Commonplace, basic tools such as wrenches and pliers used as part of a classroom exercise are clearly not weapons. Education truly suffers when school administrators exhibit such poor judgment and common sense.”

Doug Bartlett teaches second graders at Washington Irving Elementary School in Chicago. On August 8, 2011, Bartlett used several garden-variety tools he uses around the classroom, including wrenches, screwdrivers, a box cutter, a 2.25″ pocketknife, and pliers, as visual aids for a “tool discussion” which is required by the teaching curriculum. It is common for teachers to use such visual aids to help students retain their lessons. As he displayed the box cutter and pocketknife in particular, Bartlett specifically described the proper uses of these tools. None of the tools were made accessible to the students. When not in use, the tools are secured in a toolbox on a high shelf out of reach of the students. However, on August 19, Bartlett received notice that he was under investigation for, among other things, “possessing, carrying, storing, or using a weapon,” and for negligently supervising children. If found at fault, Bartlett faces punishments ranging from a simple written reprimand to termination. Bartlett then turned to The Rutherford Institute for help.

In coming to Bartlett’s defense, Institute attorneys point out Bartlett had no intent to use the tools as weapons. In fact, he has used some of the same tools for years without incident. Institute attorneys are urging Valeria Newell Bryant, the principal of Washington Irving Elementary School, to immediately dismiss any and all disciplinary actions against Bartlett. “In an age where public schools face an unprecedented number of real challenges in maintaining student discipline, and addressing threats of real violence, surely no one benefits from trumped up charges where no actual ‘weapons’ violation has occurred and there is no threat whatsoever posed to any member of the school community,” stated the Institute in its letter.

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When Martin Luther King Reached the Point of No Return

Posted on August 29, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By John W. Whitehead

“I have begun the struggle and I can’t turn back. I have reached the point of no return.”—Martin Luther King Jr.

The official dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial took place on Sunday, August 28th, the 48th anniversary of King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. If anyone deserves a national monument in his honor, it would certainly be Martin Luther King Jr., a man who inspired countless Americans, including myself, to take a stand against injustice.

King was an amazing individual: courageous, passionate about freedom, willing to tackle large-scale issues (such as materialism, militarism and the Vietnam War), and relentless in his pursuit of justice—he stood his ground, even in the face of death threats and opposition from friends and associates. A warrior and a visionary, King saw first-hand what tyranny looked like and worked tirelessly to oppose it. As King observed, “The universe is on the side of justice.”

King’s journey to the “mountaintop,” as he put it, began with a boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. City officials had done everything possible to stem the boycott of their segregated bus system by the black citizens of Montgomery. Inevitably, the city resorted to what had always worked in the past: the use of police power.

The date was January 26, 1956. It was in the afternoon, and the young minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was on his way home with two fellow church members. The acknowledged leader of the highly controversial boycott, he was put on notice to follow the traffic laws meticulously. There was no reason to make himself an easy target for arrest. But, as fate would have it, the police targeted the young minister, and he was arrested: “Get out King; you are under arrest for speeding thirty miles an hour in a twenty-five mile zone.”

Thus began Martin Luther King Jr.’s journey toward jail. The moment of truth, however, had arrived for the young minister. Warned that he could be made to disappear by the authorities, fear began to grip King. As he writes:

As we drove off, presumably to the city jail, a feeling of panic began to come over me. I had always had the impression that the jail was in the downtown section of Montgomery. Yet after riding for a while I noticed that we were going in a different direction. The more we rode the farther we were from the center of town. In a few minutes we turned into a dark and dingy street that I had never seen and headed under a desolate old bridge. By this time I was convinced that these men were carrying me to some faraway spot to dump me off. “But this couldn’t be,” I said to myself. “These men are officers of the law.” Then I began to wonder whether they were driving me out to some waiting mob, planning to use the excuse later on that they had been overpowered. I found myself trembling within and without. Silently, I asked God to give me the strength to endure whatever came.

This was at the height of segregation in the American system. It was a time where, when blacks got out of line, at a minimum they faced jail time. Only a month earlier, Rosa Parks, a seamstress, had refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man. This violation of the segregation law brought a swift arrest.

But King by now was the troublemaker. Cut off the head and the movement dies. This King knew. That is why he began to panic as his ride with the police continued:

By this time we were passing under the bridge. I was sure now that I was going to meet my fateful hour on the other side. But as I looked up I noticed a glaring light in the distance, and soon I saw the words “Montgomery City Jail.” I was so relieved that it was some time before I realized the irony of my position: going to jail at that moment seemed like going to some safe haven!

As the jail doors slammed shut behind King, he felt a strong inner peace: “For the moment strange gusts of emotion swept through me like cold winds on an open prairie. For the first time in my life I had been thrown behind bars.”

Soon King’s bail was posted and King was free to leave. But King’s rendezvous with jail cells was just beginning. More importantly, the movement that began in Montgomery was moving beyond state borders. A nationwide movement with a capital M was in process. This made King even more of a target.

Several weeks later, King happened to be in Nashville giving a lecture when he learned that he, with others, had been indicted by a grand jury for violating Montgomery’s segregation laws. He immediately booked a flight home, stopping over to see his father in Atlanta. Martin Luther King Sr. recognized that a new scenario had developed. The threat was no longer jail time. It was death. “My father, so unafraid for himself,” writes King, “had fallen into a constant state of terror for me and my family.”

Earlier, King’s home in Montgomery had been bombed and the police were watching his every move. After the bombing, King’s mother had taken to bed under doctor’s orders. King’s father brought some of Atlanta’s leading citizens into his home to speak with his son about the dangers of returning to Montgomery. But King knew that often courage in the face of tyranny is all that the oppressed have at their disposal. It was time, as King said, to take a stand. As he told those assembled:

My friends and associates are being arrested. It would be the height of cowardice for me to stay away. I would rather be in jail ten years than desert my people now. I have begun the struggle, and I can’t turn back. I have reached the point of no return.

Upon arrival in Montgomery, King headed for jail to discover that the others indicted with King had the day before surrendered for arrest. “A once fear-ridden people had been transformed. Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom.”

Against incredible odds, the blacks of Montgomery won the right to be treated equally on the city’s buses. Soon, the movement took on amazing proportions which would compel a government that refused to hear their pleas to listen and heed their demands. But not a shot was fired by the blacks of Montgomery. Led by a man who believed in nonviolent resistance to government oppression—a man who believed that governments must listen to and heed our demands, these brave people would soon transform the face of America.

Few suspected that King’s voice would be prematurely silenced, but King knew his days were numbered. He knew there was a larger force at work in his life. And that’s how he concluded his sermon—the last words he spoke in public:

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Forty-three years after King’s assassination, our nation is still plagued with wars, government surveillance and a military-industrial complex that feeds a national diet of warmongering. And King, once a charismatic leader and voice of authority, has been memorialized in death to such an extent that younger generations recognize his face but miss out on his message. Yet he still speaks volumes to us today.

“Speaking truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act,” George Orwell once said. Such was Martin Luther King. They may have killed the man, but his spirit of truth lives on. We would do well to learn from him how to speak truth to power.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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Endowed, Not Evolved: Why Man’s Origin Matters to Our Rights

Posted on August 29, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By Gary Palmer

The recent attack against Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s belief that mankind was created by God raises deeper questions than the usual “evolution” questions.

It appears that there is more to these protests than concerns for science or the typical hypersensitivity that many liberals have any time a high-profile leader says anything that disputes their orthodoxy concerning the origin of man. Skepticism about the belief that man is the product of random chance or evolved in the same way as other species strikes at the core of what some people believe about man and government.

In America, the rights of man are inseparably linked to the origin of man. If mankind evolved from the slime of the earth as the result of a completely random mixture of chemicals and elements, then he obviously has no Creator. If there is no Creator, then there is no endowment of rights and the Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” is meaningless. If man has no rights that pre-date government, then any rights we may have are not unalienable and we are simply at the mercy of government.

Moreover, the whole scope and purpose of government is changed. If there are no endowed rights that precede government, the Declaration’s assertion that the legitimate purpose of government is “to secure these rights” is also meaningless. Rather than deriving its power from the consent of the people for the purpose of protecting the people’s God-given rights, government becomes the originator of all rights and the grantor of all benefits and entitlements.

It is clear that the Founding Fathers agreed wholeheartedly with the Declaration’s assertion that we have a Creator whose law of human rights precedes and supersedes all laws of man and government. To believe anything else would deprive them of the firm basis for the form of government they designed: a government whose purpose was to protect their God-given rights and whose power is derived from the consent of the people. Sam Adams and James Otis wrote, “the right of freedom being the gift of God almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift.” They added, “There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature, and the grant of God almighty, who has given all men a natural right to be free ….”

Alexander Hamilton wrote, “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among parchments and musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” And Thomas Jefferson, the principle author of the Declaration, wrote that the sole basis for American freedom was the conviction among the people “that these liberties are the gift of God.”

Consequently, attacking those who believe that God created man extends well beyond an argument about the origins of life; it is also includes the origins of our government and the relationship between the people and the government as understood and intended by our Founding Fathers. The entire blueprint of the United States is based on a belief that God made man and that He endowed all men, regardless of their race or religion-or absence of religion-with unalienable rights. If man is nothing more than the result of millions of years of random processes, then there is no basis for our rights other than the dictates of whatever government happens to be in power.

If we are not God’s creation, then it is logical to conclude that every supposition for the purpose and scope of government as understood by our Founding Fathers is irrelevant and subject to repeal. If we, as a nation, no longer believe that our rights are endowed by our Creator, then those rights are not unalienable and we have no basis for complaint when federal bureaucrats or activist judges take them away.

In that regard, a politician’s belief about the origin of man could well be an insight into what they believe about our unalienable rights and the power of government over us. A recent Rasmussen poll indicated that 69 percent of Americans no longer believe our current government has the consent of the people to govern.

Consequently, the debate over the origin of man has a deep importance to our nation.

Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

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