Family, family, family….it is profoundly bewildering to hear that word constantly bandied about by businesses, doctors, and liberals. Any set of under eighteen individuals with any number of adults under a roof does not make a family, no matter how hard we try to project that image. I know too many children living with a mother and her third boyfriend or second husband while the actual father of the children has voluntarily moved out of their lives or been cruelly forced out by our decidedly anti-family judges. Then you hear the nonsense of having ‘my second family’ (or even a third one)….read I just decided to have multiple litters with multiple partners. Ok, sometimes such hedonism is not the reason, but often it is. Would someone please give people a good dictionary with the proper definition of family in it?

One finds it hardly surprising that the most recent spate of bombings and terror attacks have targeted Israel and India....two widely different countries with amazingly deep common faith in representative democracy. Perhaps it is in our interest, long term visionary interest, to forge a pact of freedom-a common NATO like alliance-with those two nations and others like them. Let us face it, most of the 'old' democracies in Europe are weak and unsure of themselves and take their democratic institutions for granted. It is the likes of Israel, India, Turkey, Botswana, and Lithuania that take the business of democracy seriously enough to defend it vigorously. A sad but remarkable analogy to the state of the Christian faith in the world: except the United States, the rest of the Western world is largely indifferent to Chrsitianity while the most robust examples of shining faith are found amongst Asians and Africans. Will we be looking for the strongest pillars of Western Civilization in Asia and Africa one day? Someone from New York City, the abortion capital of the United States, has hardly any right to preach Judeao-Christian values to a Nigerian Catholic after all. Just wondering.

 

Finally we may have the hidden weapon to beat the Japanese competitive juggernaut. Under heavy influence from the American Bar Association, the Japanese have agreed to drastically increase the number of lawyers who are allowed to practice in that country. Well, for once it seems, the ABA has done a yeoman’s job on behalf of the United States! How better to squelch the competitive spirit of a foe than letting loose on it armies of gladiators who thrive on dubious litigation and aggressively stop any idea of reform in its tracks! Just wait a few years and the Japanese will also have judges who consider themselves gods (until now only the Emperors did!).

Cool. That’s one way to bring down the trade deficit. I am recommending the ABA for a Medal of Freedom.

The networks had a big story this week about how clueless most parents were about the ready availability of drugs at parties their children frequent. As usual, the media got it wrong. Parents are not unaware of that phenomena.....procreators are. Real parents who are involved in the lives of their children love their offsrpring enough to set good examples, make sacrifices, and establish readily enforced boundaries of conduct. It is the sperm and egg donors whose highest values are hedonism and keeping up with Joneses that have kids who end up doing horrible things to themselves and the rest of society.

I have known kids and families of all kinds. Yet, I rarely  find a kid who comes from a two-parent  family where a parent stays at home to raise the children, to have indulged in illicit drugs. Illicit drugs, sexual promiscuity, and failing academics go hand in hand.....no matter how loud the do-anything-you-please chorus sings otherwise. Send the signal that a parent is permissive on one of those three things, and see how the other two follow in quick succession. Real parents don't send those kind of idiotic signals implicitly or explicitly.

Procreators do.

Let us be real. Teens are impressionable. You preach 'tolerance' for deviant behavior, cheat on your spouse, and expect your kids to believe in absolutes of 'right' and 'wrong'? Pleaaaseee!

Teenagers are not my favorite kinda people. Most are boisterous, often disrespectful, and largely clueless about the realities of the world. But most of the blame for this sorry state of affairs falls on men and women who brought them to the world and left them to fend for themselves without an ethical compass. Talk about child endangerment.

 

On my way back from Denver, I stopped at my old college hangout and was thrilled to see a few friends I hadn’t seen in a while. One of them is now a teacher, a card carrying member of the NEA at that. She is the stuff that good teachers are made of, caring, articulate, and concerned about what her kids learn. Nonetheless, she took exception to my using ‘liberal’ as an adjective before ‘Democrat’ everytime I mentioned it. My friend has a valid point: not all Democrats are liberals and indeed there are many good moderates (and even good liberals) amongst them.

But the question so many good moderates fail to answer is that where are the moderates? Where is the moderation? In the case of official NEA policy (which I am sure my friend does not endorse in totality), there is not a shred of moderation or even liberalism for that matter. The NEA’s attitude towards the rest of society smacks of intolerance and superiority complex. It doesn’t want parents to guide the education of their own kids; it believes that the First Amendment stops at the school gate; it wants to retain its monopoly on education no matter how horribly the students do; the list of NEA’s intransigence is endless. And get this: the superintendent of the public school district sends his kids to private school!

The NEA is a lot of things..moderate it is not. And I doubt it is liberal either. Probably the word ‘spoiled’ and ‘totalitarian’ is best used to describe this organization.

So, KsReaganite had to go through the royal mess that Denver Airport was in the aftermath of the London revelations. But he is glad to be back home in Dorothy and Toto's land. On reflection, there is one tiny silver lining for us in the unfolding drama in England: much of the public that had simply become oblivious to the enemy's threat has been shocked back into reality. And the reality is that for most parents, the safety of their offspring is far, far more important than the dubious pronouncements of Nancy Pelosi, the Dixie Chicks, and Chucky Schumer. Hence the concept of "security moms". Security is back on the front stage again.

Can the security of this country, its families, and its allies be entrusted to the 'cut and run' crowd like Jack Murtha? Should it be placed in the hands of the mentally myopic like Albert Gore who can easily panic and push a few nuke buttons? No, we need to keep the faith, stay the course, and hold the line. It is not a coincidence that since 9/11, no other attach has taken place on American soil. Guess who has been in charge of the intelligence, security, and national defense structure during that time? Yep, it's the Bush-Rumsfield-Cheney crowd with strong support from the pro-America part of Congress.

Speaker Pelosi---the sweetest title in the ears of our enemies.

Heavy PAC money, a brevy of top name campaigners including the President, Vice President, and Congressional leadership, and yet....sometimes that is not enough. I am sitting in the Colorado Rockies as results trickle in from two key primary races: next door in CO-05 and further north in MI-07. Heavily favored candidates, including the incumbent in Michigan, lost to insurgents.  The entire Republican establishment was brought to bear to help moderates Jeff Crank and Congressman Schwarz. It didn't work. Republicans should take heed: the profligate spending, the arrogance of incumbency, and cavorting with sleazy Washington lobbyists is taking its toll. If rank and file Republicans are so unhappy, can you imagine what the general electorate is thinking?

There is time. Congressional Republicans have about 90 days to prove to the country that they are different, not just in rhetoric but also in style and policy, from the corrupt Foley-Wright-Rostenkowski gang they had replaced in 1994 on the platform of reform and responsibility.

Or else, we better get ready to live under the Pelosi-Kennedy bi-coastal politburo whose disdain for regular Middle America values is legendary. Remember, these are the people who send their kids to good private schools but want YOU to send your progeny to failing public schools. These are the leaders who want provide 'understand' the terrorists and the criminals rather than fight them. These are the protectors of children who think your 14 year old daughter needs your permission to get a tattoo but only her boyfriend's nod to get an abortion.

 

I was reading the latest updates on the gubernatorial campaign in Florida. The two leading GOP candidates are, well, quite contemporary. One, the anointed darling of the social conservatives is an admitted drug-user and adulterer. The other, preferred by the Sunshine establishment, is a divorced, tanned, slick, lawyer who is willing to be whatever he needs to be to appear center-right establishment material. As for the Democrats, well…they are Democrats, enough said.

One has to wonder that for all the hype about protecting marriage, why cannot most of these public role models stay married?

The greatest gift my parents gave us three siblings was the example of their own marriage…about to celebrate its thirty seventh anniversary this month. Both of them are ordinary people who have demanding careers, demanding children (okay, I admit!), and demanding schedules. They have their ups and downs..heck, they are from different countries and even spoke different languages growing up. They don’t go around with license tags that proclaim ‘I Love My Husband’ or ‘I Love My Wife’. Rather, they are quiet, unassuming, normal people who have always believed that if their children were happy, they were happy (as opposed to the therapist line that as long as YOU are happy, your children will become happy too). The other thing they have always passionately believed in is that a person’s word is his/her bond: when you pledge love, honor, and fidelity to your spouse for life, well, for life it is. Breaking that promise is unethical, pure and simple.

Those who break that promise are selfish, unethical, and woefully weak. Not exactly the kind of people I want to trust with the Constitution. Do you?

An old man I once knew gave this piece of advice to his grandchildren: don't become policemen, railway officers, or customs inspectors. Having lived his life in the Indian subcontinent, the gentleman knew that those three professions were the pitholes of bribery, corruption, and sheer malfeasance. An honest civil servant to a fault, he did not want his progeny to be tempted or tainted by colleagues who made a living by doing wrong under the guise of public service.

Different time, different place.

Were I in the shoes of that old Indian civil servant, my advice to my progeny here in the good 'ole USA would have been to avoid being lawyers and therapists. Not necessarily because of monetary corruption in those professions but largely because those occupations are built around the concept of short-circuiting the truth. To make a living by encouraging others to repress the truth is not a livelihood I would wish upon those I care about. Most lawyers and almost all therapists do that. The few good ones who want to be true to their conscience and values are faced with tremendous peer pressure to become members of the proverbial club.

 

Facts rarely get in the way of the mind-numbing, make believe piety for America’s mainline Protestant churches or many of their congregants. Their bishops make thunderous pronouncement about how they represent ‘millions’ of Christians; their sermons are filled with venom for capitalism and war; their newsletters proclaim lobbying days for defending ‘reproductive choice’. All in the name of a God whose very name is often referred to in hushed tones lest a neighbor think one belongs to the Christian ‘Right’.

Who are these ‘mainline’ churches?

Well, for starters, there is nothing mainline about them. These are diminishing denominations, ELCA Lutherans, United Methodists, UCC, Episcopalians, USA Presbyterians, with a proud past and a largely inconsequential future. For all the majestic trappings of the installation of the new Episcopal presiding bishop earlier this year, for example, the fact remains that Episcopal churches are largely empty and graying today. The same accelerating trend is seen, with minor exceptions in individual congregations, across all of the mainline denominations. No amount of ‘outreach’, ‘mission’, and ‘openness’ seems to change that.

At the same time, in the same communities, there are many churches which are struggling to find room for exponentially increasing congregations. These are the evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, Southern Baptist, Eastern Orthodox, and conservative Catholic churches. More than one in three Americans worships at a church like these….and many of these Americans are businesswomen, lawyers, accountants, dentists, and MBAs. They are not the unwashed, ignorant, pitiful people that they are often portrayed by the snooty denizens of the mainline clergy.

Let us face it. Most mainline Protestant churches (and many Roman Catholic ones) are little more than Sunday morning coffee clubs with a feel good sermon thrown in for good measure where people go to feel good about themselves. There are no absolutes to live by, no commandments to follow, no preachers to distinguish between right and wrong and fear offending the polite sensibilities of the ‘believe nothing’ class.

No wonder that people who want to go to church, go to a church, not to a coffee klatch housed in a church building with pretentious vestments, dopey relativism, and illusions of non-existent grandeur.

And then they wonder why their ‘churches’ are going the route of dinosaurs.

 

So the other evening I am at a wedding reception, and my date and I end up sitting next to some local judge and his wife. Real nice people. Seems we have some mutual friends and even similar political outlooks. To relieve the boredom usually triggered by ludicrous post-nuptial monotonies of the bride’s- and groom’s friends, the judge and I strike up a conversation. A middle aged man with wits and wisdom, he certainly has kind words for my personal and professional achievements. With a wink towards his wife and then my date, he asks the obvious, “So why isn’t a good young man like you hitched up yet?”

Oh boy, poor judge…he let the wedding aura get to him. My answer, provided below, left him embarrassed, silent, and then stammering semi-legible banalities:

“Why would I do that, Your Honor? So that someone like you can take away my home, my children, half my income, and give it to a woman who stabbed me in the back with dishonesty, cheating, and lies? How stupid do I look to you? Sorry, but I don’t believe in rewarding wrongdoing or punishing the victim.”

So, the primaries are over in this great state of mine. We won a few, lost a few..and life goes on. The biggest prize of all, the Republican nomination for Governor, we did win hands down. With almost 35 % of the vote in a seven way race, Dr. Jim Barnett won convincingly. Now, the pro-life, pro-fiscal responsiblity, pro-commonsense physician takes on the ultra-liberal darling of the Democrat party, our incumbent Governor Kathleen Sebelius. It is an uphill proposition for the physician from Emporia (hometown of the pioneering Republican journalist William Allen White).

Sebelius is a good looking Ohioan who is married into a well respected Republican family. She has the slickness of Bill Clinton in appearing 'moderate' and tons of money from those faint hearted Kansas City country club Republicans whose greatest concern is their manicured lawns and acceptability of their martini-sipping liberal friends.

She is the archetype of the 'look moderate' candidate that red-state Democrats use as a Trojan horse. She is the type of Democrat that so many RINOs vote for to appear 'polite' to their friends.  In a state with a 2-1 GOP registration advantage, she sure is hoping for a lot of turncoats like her running mate, ex GOP chairman Matt Parkinson, to help her secure the next stepping stone to the Vice Presidency of the United States.

In the past, Democrats have won the Kansas governorship with bipartisan help. But most, like the elder Docking and Joan Finney, were commonsense, real moderates with deep roots in the soil and the values of this great state. Sebelius, on the other hand, is an extreme liberal, pro-abortion, pro-tax anti-gun Ohioan.

Yep....I am for the only Kansan in the race. The good doctor from Emporia, Jim Barnett!

At a prominent university on Canada’s Pacific coast, the radical rabble rousers got together with a ‘special meeting’ of the subsidiary teaching/research staff union and demanded an immediate show of solidarity with the ‘suffering’ Lebanese and Palestinian people. The university and the province must divest from Israel and Israeli companies, these pro-Hezbollah folks demanded. And the union leadership was almost ready to cave in; you see Canadians generally do not have much of a backbone about standing up for matters of principle. But lo and behold….KsReaganite’s younger brother, one of the sharpest leaders of the union, was right there. With deft parliamentary maneuvering which left his audience at a loss for words, he quickly dispatched the motion with a substitute motion to study the issue by a special committee headed by himself that was to report in about two months. Now who would oppose the fine Canadian tradition of deliberation till death?

Divestment??? They don’t know how solidly and intellectually pro-Israel my brother is. Wait till his report comes out..heck, knowing him, he will probably recommend more investment in Israel!

Hezbollah and its Canadian allies lost the day to my brother and I am drinking a toast to him. Join me!

On one fundamental issue KsReaganite wholeheartedly agrees with the gay/lesbian lobby: it is the height of hypocrisy for so many Republican politicians to claim to ‘protect’ heterosexual marriage by various kinds of amendments. The idea of ‘marriage’ between two men or two women is beyond my imagination and beneath the dignity of a comment. But that preposterous idea is an extremely miniscule risk to traditional marriage compared to much bigger threats like adultery, spousal abuse, and no-fault divorce. And who are the loudest champions of prohibiting gay ‘marriage’? Here is a small sampling, federal and state:

1. Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio, the adulterer who filed to divorce his wife and mother of his five children so that he could openly shack up with his young paramour
2. Newt Gingrich…enough said
3. Congressman Tom Davis III of Virginia, who left his wife of 30 years, and mother of his three children, to marry the protégé he was having an affair with
4. State Senator Jeannemarie Devolitte of Virginia, who cheated on her husband of 24 years, and father of her four children, with Congressman Tom Davis
5. Former U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who left his wife of 30 plus years, to shack up with a tobacco lobbyist fifteen years his junior
6. State Representative Mike O’Neal of Kansas, Chairman of the Kansas House Judiciary Committee, who left his wife of 15 odd years to put finishing touches on his affair
7. United States Senate candidate John Spence of New York, who left his wife and mother of two children without even the formality of a divorce, shacked up with his secretary by whom he had three kids…polygamy at its best!

If these Republicans were as serious about protecting marriage, they would act more ethically in their own marriages and set good examples for others. And, if they must do something legislatively to protect marriage, such an effort should be directed towards reforming the divorce laws so that children’s homes are not broken up just because a parent has a seven-year itch. Unlikely that this would happen since any common-sense, equitable reform of divorce laws will bring instant bombastic opposition from three most powerful segments of our society that make their living on the backs of broken homes: sleazy male politicians, the American Bar Association, and the National Organization of Women.

Having Tim Hutchinson and Jeannemarie Devolitte protect hetrosexual marriages is like having Sarah Brady protect the Second Amendment.

 

Old guard feminists are so fully stuck in the 1970s, it is almost laughable. That the world has changed and moved on is beyond the fading wits of the Gloria Steinems and Faye Wattletons and their sister hags. Their principal article of faith, that being pro-abortion rights is being pro-woman, has long lost its demographic validity: more American women are pro-life than pro-choice, women are substantially more pro-life than men, and the strongest support for abortion on demand comes from men between 18 and 35. Yet, these feminist dinosaurs cannot let it go…abortion on demand is their litmus test for everything and everyone. So much is their obsession with it that they will gladly label people like Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy “champions of women rights”. Tells you how much feminists are out of touch with real women when their heroes are misogynist men who have gotten away proudly with sexual harassment, workplace sexism, attempted rape, repeated cheating on their wives, and murder. Even now, as more and more neutrally culled data challenges feminism to its face, the middle aged feminists and their journalist buddies are calmly living in their cocoon world of three decades ago. A sample of the current facts that have passed the NOW dinosaurs (and their emasculated male Democrat and RINO allies) completely by:

1. Fifty four percent of Americans, men and women, consider the Bible to be literally true.
2. More women than the previous generation, most of them highly educated, are staying home to raise kids.
3. Only half of the college going women, supposedly the most socially liberal of all women, support abortion on demand
4. Close to a third of America’s women agree with the Southern Baptists that the husband is the head of the household
5. A large majority of American women do not consider themselves to be victims of gender oppression
6. Women are far more likely to go to church than men; the churches they go to in ever increasing numbers are the evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, and conservative Catholic congregations, not the anything goes mainline Protestant ones.
7. A majority of America’s women think that the most important job for a woman is to be a good mother
8. Many Democratic women are solidly pro-life. The strong sanctity of life laws enacted recently in South Dakota and Louisiana were spearheaded by liberal Democratic women.

KsReaganite does not necessarily agree with all the points raised above. But the question that begs an answer is this:

What Feminist Majority are these NOW cows representing? There isn't a feminist majority!

KsReaganite’s tentative answer is this: These NOW cows really represent that small sliver of Prozac prescribed well-to-do women who have been educated beyond their intelligence, have hyphenated names, sip martinis while the daycare raises the kids, cheat once in a while to feel liberated, and show up Sunday mornings at mainline churches that tell them whatever they want to hear to feel good about their sorry lives.